Today’s deck is the Calandra Tarot.
Michael Calandra is apparently a fantasy artist, the deck seems to be original illustrations for it instead of the usual “grab an artist’s body of work and assign it to each card” affair that we’ve seen before.
Today’s reading has an interesting message, warning about keeping in mind how being unrestrained from something can also lead to disconnection, and as such to keep in mind that balance.
It’s a really interesting idea though. It brings to mind, for example, how you might strike it on your own away from your family, but getting lost in that freedom your connection with them weakens, but the alternative is not striking on your own and being chained to them to your detriment.
Interesting stuff…
Apropos of nothing, you know what I hate? People bossing me around.
This is normal for some but the weird thing is that I’m too open for my own good to suggestions… as long as you don’t frame them as an order.
The example that comes to mind was me seeing some video that was like… I forget the name of that one Linux distro that’s making the rounds lately, but a video was like “stop using windows right now!” and I’m sure the video had fair points but also fuck you I won’t do what you tell me.
Another example that comes to mind was a different video I saw that was like “I stopped eating sugar for one year and here’s why you should do it too” and even if I wasn’t an admitted sugar junkie I’d still be like “no, fuck you”.
I unsubscribed both times, not because of me disagreeing with any point… because it’s hard to disagree with the points of videos you don’t watch, I was just like “I don’t let anyone boss me around, I’m sure as hell not going to let you”.
It’s a bit like social media posts that are like “If you’re still [playing]/[using]/[consuming] this thing go fuck yourself”, I honestly might agree with the overall point and even endorse it but the moment it’s framed like that I just shut off completely.
Do people need to be nice all the time? Hell no! If you read this blog you see me use aggressive wording all the time, I’d be a hypocrite to say that. But (at least in my mind, there will always be slip ups) I try to frame it as “I don’t know you, I will not make assumptions about whoever reads this. This is MY strongly worded opinion directed to as narrow a target as possible”.
The thing that gets me is how I’m not against aggressive wording and most of the time I’m not even against the point being presented, I’m just a very defensive person… or a moody bitch, take your pick.
Do I want to push something by saying this? NO! That’s the whole point! The only thing I will assume about whoever reads the things I put out is that they’re adults that can make up their minds about stuff and are open to sensible ideas when not on the defensive.
I do not care if you still like Milkshake Duck after the allegations came out. I will just put out there that that duck has some reprehensible views on race and move on. If you agree, if you dont, my life is already stressful as-is, it’s out of my chest, I’m moving on.
There was one time where someone wondered why I had blocked them on twitter and to be honest 90% of the time it’s just seeing something like that and acting on reflex. It’s rarely ever personal.
So anyways, today I woke up at around midday because, aside from yesterday’s nap pushing things around, I stayed up playing the OTHER game I was looking for this weekend, 牛娘メイドのミルクカフェ.
It’s good! It has this mechanic where you get a “blank” cow girl and raise her stats and personality and if you hit a proper combination you get a special named girl. This mechanic, however, feels in a bit of a crossroad. The idea has the potential to allow for a bunch of different girls, incentivizing experimentation instead of fishing for a specific result… but also the game sets up those special named girls you get as characters so they gotta have scenes and whatnot.
It’s not like what we have is bad, but if it did more generic animations (the game already has animations where the face and hair change) with procedural girls OR gave you other conditions to unlock the roster it would’ve had more design focus.
The game is a simulator with slight management mechanics where exploration outings are automated but run their own stat checks, once you have the full roster the process is even better because there’s so many small scenes between characters as you go to different parts of town, and I gotta emphasize that because that’s this circle’s greatest strength: Character.
From their first offering the art has always been very expressive, giving you a bunch of different flavors to pick from in a single package, and whenever the game allows more dialog and such it’s really fun! I think that’s part of why the unlock method being in a proverbial limbo is slightly frustrating, because I want more of that from the start instead of needing extra resources to hope I get the right combination of stats for another named character.
You see that in the animations that are available for each girl reflecting the character, one of my favorite examples being Pamela, the Yandere of the lot, having two animations that are basically her doing all the work.
Another complain I have is that there’s less titfucking than I’d like. This is more of a me thing; and it’s never been a major focus of the circle to be fair, the ratio of those CGs is about the same in all of its other games… but with so many different characters it feels like there’s even less.
Also making a character like Pamela and NOT being able to put her in that position (in a CG) is making me cry.
I CAN count on the circle providing when it comes to Full Nelson-ing/Mating Pressing a shortstack brat though, less than zero complaints there.
I was also KINDA dissapointed that with a similar cow girl premise there weren’t references to the circle’s second game 内気なミオちゃんと搾乳性活, though that’s because that one was in modern times and this one’s in a fantasy world. Aria (one of the two main characters) looks like a grown up Mio anyways.
Sidenote, a small detail I appreciate is how inside the mansion they all have different variants of cowprint bikinis (my beloved) but outdoors they all have a similar, less skimpy uniform.
Anyways, playing that kept me awake (no regrets) and woke up… not the best, it was like an alcohol-less hangover. But drag myself out of bed I did and I figured I could try a Karaoke place again but this time with, you know, a cable that isn’t tied up.
I decided to go to a Joysound that I frequent since (ironically considering what I just said) I hadn’t been there in a while. On the way I actually noticed a temple I hadn’t seen before. Though it looked familiar, so I assume it’s one of those cases where I saw the temple beforehand but didn’t make the connection with another landmark.
Once in the joysound I go through all the process and I ended up in a fucking huge room, we’re talking “room for 20” big because I guess I pressed a specific button on the check-in thingo.
The excitement died the moment that I realized that the speakers in this room were the same as in every other room both in amount and size… and needless to say, I wasn’t hearing myself.
I thought it might’ve been some dial specific to using a plugged microphone but no, even the music got drowned by the size of the room.
I tried to check every dial in the machine, I pressed all the buttons but no luck so I decided to cut my losses and just return.
At least that’s how I learned that if you leave earlier than booked, at least this joysound only charges you whatever time bracket you were in, I paid for half an hour instead of hour and a half despite being there only for like 20 minutes for example.
By the way, it was hilarious that Joysound is promoting Houshou Marine’s single while Big Echo is going big in promoting Nijisanji singles. The vtuber gang wars will be fought in Karaoke parlors.
It was kinda fortuitous that I decided to head back though since the weather started to get rainy (and I brought an umbrella for a change), and after I got back I was kinda sleepy AND with an upset stomach, the Karaoke time would’ve run short and I would’ve been really uncomfortable regardless.
Trying to take a nap, I woke up suddenly in a very specific agitated way I recognized… long story short I might be a) passing kidney sediment, b) dehydrated, or c) suffering indigestion.
The answer to all three is somehow (because it’s not like I wasn’t doing it to begin with) drink more fluids so hey. That would also explain why I slept like hell today.
I’ll leave things up to here for now, just because I prefer to start packing up for the day (blog-wise) once the wordcount starts hitting near or past 1500 words.
I mean, it’s no problem if I’m travelling or I have something big to say, but today’s not one of those days.