Today’s deck has a few names you might find it with. Swiss Tarot, JJ Tarot, or 1JJ Tarot most commonly. Or in my case ALL OF THE ABOVE.
This deck is derived from a deck called Tarot de Besançon, which is itself derived from the more well-known Tarot de Marseilles.
To explain the permitations of the name: It was made in Switzerland in the 1800s, with the current version (featuring stronger lines) being made in 1965. It was called “JJ” because it replaces The High Priestess and the Hierophant with Juno and Jupiter. And finally it’s also known as 1JJ because it was the first in the product line, if they made any variants down the line it could’ve been called “2JJ”.
Doesn’t the ’65 reissue count as a second product? Eh…
For today’s reading… it’s interesting how this style of deck usually has symmetrical minor arcana because they were also playing cards.
The Ten of Wands is the one that has the guy trying to hold a bunch of sticks together in a way where the moment he lets go they’re all falling. It’s meant to represent duty and responsability as you might expect.
Combine that with the Six of Wands and The World and the message of “If you feel weight and pressure it’s because you Made It” borders on redundant.
Honestly it’s uncanny how the cards seem to shift what they wanna tell me. When I started the blog the Reversed Hierophant showed up a lot, when I was going through my visa-related stress the readings showed a lot of change-related stuff and now I get reminders of success or of responsabilities tied to it.
So for today… I said I had a nap that turned into a 9-10 hours one last time, but that’s not the full picture of it.
I actually woke up at around 1am and I ALMOST went up but I realized that I could either get up and have my sleep be Fucked in one go, or try to sleep some more and hope I sleep more. So hopefully my sleep schedule is a bit more normal for now.
Hopefully.
A random memory that came back to me while sleeping and waking up was that as a kid I was so into Daft Punk’s Interstella 555 that sometimes I would imagine “what if at the end of the One More Time video they transformed like Power Rangers and fought back?”.
Aside from the fact that I just made up Musical Gatchaman (minus a big guy), it made me think that… really, all the weird verses that places like AO3 or Tumblr come up with are just what happens when you take that same impetus and find people to share it with.
Not saying those verses are suddenly more appealing or that I don’t think people get way too worked up about that sort of thing… but they make more sense to me now at least.
I was checking Melonbooks to see if they had playmats up for preorder (since the Comiket cycle started and a bunch of doujinshi went up for preorder) and there were! I also learned in the process that each product has which payment methods it will accept. I tend to order stuff with Cash On Delivery (as the name suggest, you pay for it when the box arrives home) and it kept telling me I could only use Credit Card. It was because of that, because ONE of the items only took Credit Card so the whole order became Credit Card Only unless I removed it.
I didn’t go take pics at Banpakukinen Koen today, but I sat down to work, today was mainly the office kind of work, which is normal for Mondays anyways. But I did get a hotel room to try taking some pictures.
Which brings me to today’s title source.
So for context, I was curious about how more traditional resin dolls worked so I ordered this body aaaaaaaaaall the way back in August and it arrived only two days ago
The big iron on his hip is actually interchangeable, it’s attached with a magnet. The brand is Dikadoll for those curious/interested.
I’ve been thinking about ways to use my photography skills as a complement to drawing and I figured this sort of doll would be helpful eventually.
It’s so big though, if I wanted to use it as a regular travel doll in theory not only is it heavier but even without a head (insert penis joke here) it’s taller than even my biggest luggage.
I mean, if the intent is to use it with other dolls as a posing tool, I DO like height gaps a lot so…
Speaking of, here’s the second part of that equation.
If any of you remember me mentioning a silicon doll I brought with me to Hakone, this is the one. I don’t know if it’s the brand but if you look up Huanchun in Aliexpress it should show you the same one.
This one is about the same size as a Dollfie down to the head mold being suspiciously similar but it’s all silicone with wires for finger joints.
Posing both together was HARD, though as this pic shows not impossible. The problem I face is twofold: a the difference in proportions and a difference in joints.
Believe it or not, posing figures is a skill that requires practice, especially for a camera. The silicon Not-Saint Louis had less movement range than I’m used to and her joints are looser than my other girls. Meanwhile resin dolls are a whole beast of their own with how their whole movement and joints come from a string that runs inside of it tensed up.
I do wanna keep trying if nothing else for fun, but these experiments did at least show me how and why these two kinds aren’t good travel dolls. Especially the silicone one., especially when you take pics in the same fast way I do in the places I do.
By the way, some of you may be aware of silicone dolls that also double as onaholes. This is one of those, in fact, part of why the joints are so loose is for accommodating the space for that.
I did try one once (not this one, a different one) and uh… it’s possible, I do not recommend it personally (in the purely “is it worth it” way) but it IS possible to use them.
The other one is an interesting story but I’ll leave that one for tomorrow.
You know, I thought that me keeping up so easily with this blog for 80 posts (this being the 81st) was weird, but then I realized that I’ve been posting less on social media.
These posts are literally just what I would post elsewhere but in a longform way.
Makes you think.
Oh! Also, speaking of posts, starting from the one yesterday the blog now has previous/next navigation buttons at the bottom so you can go through the posts like the world’s least opinionated webcomic.