Archive - Icons - Previous 07/29/26 It's been a while since my last update. I've been sick again. Just as I was finally started to get better, I've come down with some kind of stomach bug on top of still recovering from whooping cough and I've somehow ended up anemic too. Thet one rib isn't fully healed yet either. I've spent a lot of the month literally asleep when I wasn't working. Whatever this stomach issue is has been going on for a think about a week now and seems to have made my other symptoms worse again. Most of this month has just been sleep, being awake with a fever and sick to my stomach, and dealing with chest pain from coughing with a broken rib. I've been so nauseous I haven't been eating the way I used to for a while. Probably how I ended up anemic. Fortunately, we still had a bottle of iron supplements. I haven't gotten around to doing too much writing this month either, do to the whole being sick constantly thing. I got a couple more cassettes added to the collection, one I've been meaning to get for a while that I've been putting off. I got some new decks from Llewellyn. They were having a 35% off sale for National Moon Day or whatever when I happened to be looking at the site out of curiousity of what was being sold these days. I got a mini version of a deck I already own I bought years ago, the Loputyn Oracle, and the Anima tarot. I was surprised by the poor quality of the cardstock on the mini deck and the Anima tarot. They feel so cheap and plastic-y and mass print decks had already gotten pretty thin and cheaply printed by the 2010s when pretty much everything shifted printing from Italy and other European countries to China. The Loputyn is alright quality, but it's like, you know, that level of quality kind of used to just be more standard, not "premium". The mini deck was the worst. I've owned minis of mass printed decks before and they were always the same level of quality as the bigger versions. I hope the currently printed version of the standard of that deck isn't that bad...because it was practically just thick plastic cutouts, not proper cards. I have a mini with linen finish from an indie deck maker and the difference in feel between that deck and this one from Llewellyn is just so wild. I guess now that tarot decks are cool enough to not be behind lock and key inside stores hidden away in a corner, they likewise can become even more cheaply made. I haven't actually bought a mass print deck in many years because the few decks I've bought since that last one were all indie decks. I like the art on the Anima, but I really feel like the shiny sides is there to 1) appeal to TikTok brainrotted teens 2) to partially disguise how cheap the cardstock is. They're not super thin like the shitty 2010s era cheap cards. More the opposite, thick and plasticy to the point they feel way too stiff. I'm considering artificially aging them the old Umbrae way. The deck came with a couple of extra ad cards, not proper Happy Squirrels, but that's for the best since I can just fuck with them and not worry about it. I'm kinda also bummed even less decks seem to be coming with proper companion books. They have really pretty LWBs, but they're still very obvious just LWBs. Even the companion books I've had in the 2010s eras were more like just really big LWBs rather than actually going in depth on anything. I don't know how the hell young people are actually learning to read. But maybe they aren't. It's just for photos and videos. I still laugh at the decks I know have algo-unsafe art and when you look online, oh what do you know, most people's readings with it manage to always never have those cards in it! Amazing! Sorry, I like my decks with nudity and blood. I saw someone say the Loputyn was "hypersexual" and I really wish people would stop saying that word. That word comes from psychiatry and is supposed to refer to a form of behavioral self-harm, like in say BD or BPD. And even using it in that context has some heavy baggage to it with how it was applied to female patients far more often than male ones for the exact same behavior. So, YMMV on even in that context. It's not meant to mean "this has sexy stuff in it" or "this person likes lots of sex". In ye olden days, we just called this decks "erotic decks" instead of acting like they were "too sexual" or whatever. (Honestly wouldn't even include the Anima Tarot in the erotic category, but it's definitely "sexy". Loputyn has actual sex in it though, but it's not actual porn either.) It's not for you. Go away. Yeah, two cards in the Loputyn oracle show literal sex. Have you seen the Casanova deck? There's loads far more sexually charged, but yeah, the Loputyn is an +18 deck with lots of boobs and some sex. IDK, it feels younger people call anything vaguely sexual as "hypersexual". Exactly what is the right amount of "sexual" to just be "sexual" then? Does it need to be some weird either/or thing? So Puritanical, and to bring that to a New Age/Pagan space is even baffling. Just don't buy it and move on. Go buy the Whimsical Tarot or something. These people would get the vapors from some of those old threads of people doing readers on their partner's backs post-fucking. IDK, maybe it's the living the South all my life, but I kinda am not interested in hearing anyone tell me mildly engaging with anything that has a bit of sex in it is something being "too sexual". God does that also remind me of this absolutely unhinged thing I saw happen on Tumblr once. But it's such a long story and I think some people might know who I'm talking about, so I don't think I'll tell it here. Absolute ridiculous. (If you want a summary, I will tell it by email. Just, you didn't hear it from me.) But back to the Loputyn, I have been liking the deck. It's very introspective. I've been liking the Anima too. I just wish the cardstock wasn't ass. I'd much rather have nice feeling cards than ~shiny~ sides. Feel like both these decks don't need to be this large either and I am convinced this is more part of the Tiktokification of it all. Tarot decks used to be a pretty standard size, with some smaller ones being poker sized. So the average was already bigger than decks big enough for the average dudebro to bet his life away with. And then in the last several years they just kept getting bigger and bigger. The Loputyn would look much nicer smaller. The art would look crisper. The Anime doesn't need to be so large either. My biggest sized deck, the Nameless One, is legit too big to fucking shuffle normally with any size hands. The reason was supposedly because it just "needed" to be that way so you could appreciate the art, but the art on that deck is actually much more simplistic than Xia Hunt's other decks and has far less fine details. But the art also makes it not a very trimmable deck either. A lot of these big decks aren't. Both the Loputyn and the Anima have edges and backs that would make trimming them not a good idea. My main reading deck, which was already not too huge and more standard size, I trimmed that one anyway just to get it closer to poker deck size. Kind of wish that was the standard, for the obvious reason of shuffling being easier. I don't need a giant card to show off on Instagram. I feel like so many things people buy these days have the perfomative element of it already partly backed into the product itself. I kinda miss decks coming with free deck bags too. I know people used to complain about them being kinda low quality, but I love how the solution to that was not better bags coming with them. It was no bags coming with it and you can buy a bag for that deck from its seller that's the same level of shit quality that would've already come for free previous. Nothing ever gets better, does it? I was looking at old threads when refreshing my memory on aging methods. Sad to see even in the late 00s the printing stuff was already happening, with cards becoming "credit card-like" with ridiculous overlaminating over very cheap cardstock. Sad the forum died because the owner refused to just...have some people mod it for her properly and now she's selling a book using the posts from various threads, which I'm not really sure where that actually falls in terms of legality. But no, that was really the reason. I know she owned the place and all, but she was very powertripping at times, probably my only negative memories about the old AT forum was the powertripping. The other forum that some people moved to has never had the same amount of people there. Everyone's on Reddit or TT, ugh. 07/09/26 Made a few more icons and added them to the icon page. It's been a while since I added some to the CSM section. I should make some more. I want to make some WHA ones at some point too, but I haven't gotten around to it. Speaking of WHA, I went on Pixiv to see if I could find some nice fanart and I left the 18+ stuff on, because I wouldn't mind seeing some of that of the adults. Naturally, of course, nearly everything that popped up under that was of the kids. So I guess on XHS no one's into the kids, but on Pixiv, oh no. I had the misfortune of even seeing some Qifrey/Coco stuff. Disgusting. Hey, Pixiv, do you think you could find a way to allow me to see some adult content but only of actual adults? Sigh. I guess that's gonna be one I'll have to browse with +18 stuff off. Had something to say about weird m/m "truther" conspiracy theorists, but I kinda already hashed that stuff out with my wife and I don't want to get too serious here. I will say it's made me dread any post-game streams with David because it always goes into the batshit conspiracy nonsense. Been watching some other fandom's fujoshi crashing out hard over getting baited by obvious bait because no fucking shit you're not going to have your main protagonist in a shonen end up in a gay ship, you absolute dumb fucks. All that other shit was fanservice. I will say this. A lot of people would be best serviced to understand when old dudes write really close male friendships where there's a paper thin barely there female character in the background they end up with, it's not because they were stopped by the ~censors~ from writing their gay ship or whatever. They just hate women, and also still want to fuck them and don't think any other dudes think any differently than they do. It's really that simply. There's a lot of men who don't view women as equal to them and don't think about them beyond "will she sleep with me". Sad and unfortunate, but it is what it is. There is no secret gay ship being stopped. Some of these dudes are also savvy enough (or someone on their team is) to know they can use some fanservice to also get women and af few really delusional gay people to tune in and buy lots of merch without ever delivering anything beyond said fanservice and it works. Stop falling for this shit. It's kinda wild how this shit has like a consistency to it at this point, which always ends in some mass freakout and even more conspiracies (the no wait guys there will be an extra secret episode to fix this or actually they were just "forced" to write it this way) that is the end point of the delusion. Just go read some actually gay shit. (Or BL, since I think the "themes" these people really want to see is far more likely to be there.) The most recent group I saw this with I was just observing distantly and watching. It had vampires in it, and I'm just thinking like, you really need this shit to be gay when it's clearly not going to be? This isn't about representation or having difficulty finding queer characters. I don't think you could find a gayer genre than fucking vampires. IT STARTS WITH GAY. You're not even trying. Then I got thinking. You know, I've never written a vampire story, at least not since I was a teenager. I've done tons of of types of horror, but I've intentionally avoided vampires. I just felt like everything's been kinda done already and there's nothing I can add to the vampire theme. But you know, I never put any other horror type on a pedestal like that either. There's a lot of trash vampire stories out there. I mean, obviously I'm over here laughing at one of them. Sure, I haven't actually seen it, but I've seen enough to spot obvious dogshit that won't be funny enough to make worth having to wash my shoes after the trek through. But I'm going to do it. I'm going to write a vampire story and it's gonna have gay shit in it, to add to the already stupidly high Mt. Everest sized pile of gay vampire shit. Just for the laughs. Because apparently some people out there really struggle to find gay vampires. This is for you morons. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna write a goddamn vampire story. I was gonna make a Garzey's Wing joke after this, but I feel like anyone reading this right now who isn't old and doesn't also know what I'm vagueposting about wouldn't get it anyway. Moving on. I want to finish up something else first before starting on that, but I do already have an entire plot sorted out in my head. Just need to outline, then get going. Unrelated to all of this, I recently discovered I can paint with my left hand. I'm ambidextrous with a lot of things, though some of that has degraded over time from childhood teachers really trying to force the right-handedness. I'd never actually tried painting with my left hand though, because by the time I learned to paint, every adult around me pretty much forced me to only use my right hand. Anyway, the other day I was painting and half working on something else and at some point I realized I had a mouse in one hand and I was still painting and my brain just errored out with "but how my right hand is already occupied". I had subconsciously, to avoid switching tasks, shifted to just painting with my left hand while I worked with my right hand and I didn't even notice it for a good while. I paint a bit slower with the left, but my hands actually a little steadier than the right. Who knew. I've realized recently I don't need much light to do a lot of craft hobbies either. I can get a pretty good idea of what to do from texture and touch alone and have been relying less on my eyes, as I've been working in really low light sometimes when doing hobby stuff if my wife's already gone to bed. I suppose that makes sense. I remember my old archery coach talking about how it was normal to learn to shoot blindfolded or in the dark, since most of archery is form based. I'm sure a lot of hobbies that involve working with your hands are just repeating the right motions. You probably don't really need to see to do them, if you do them enough. 07/03/26 Finally got around to archiving June's entries. Saw something ridic on XHS. A lot of WHA haters there, specically about the kids. I also can't stand some of the anime!kid behavior, and I want to emphasize that because this always gets into a debate about people hating kids being normal kids. I do not hate real kids at all. However, kids in media, even when played by real children in live action media, often do not actually act like real children at all. They act like exaggerations of what adults who rarely interact with kids think kids are like. (Ditto teen characters.) Kids in anime often are especially unchild-like to me to the point it borders on hitting uncanny valley territory for me. WHA absolutely has those kind of moments, where the kids are too sugary, too twee, too juvenile for their stated ages, and visually far too small for their stated ages and handles by the adults around them likewise as if they are significantly younger than their actual appearance. I feel like pre-teen characters get hit with this the harder, often being super babified and made bizarrely tiny and carried around by grown ass adults liek that kid don't weight at least a hundred fucking pounds. The show fortunately doesn't linger on that too much outside of like 2 episodes, I'd say it's really only Coco and Tetia that have fake!child anime behaviors. All the other kids in the show are just normal, and Coco and Tetia are still normal most of the time. I almost dropped the show myself because of the fake!kid behavior in episode one that was way too "look how sweet and whimsy I am" bullshit that no child on earth has ever acted like. So I do think some criticism of that sort of "overacting" on kid characters is warranted, but damn a lot of people hate all the girls. I've seen a lot of the anime only YT side hate Agott in particular while Coco is the hated one on XHS. It's funny to me because Agott and Richeh I'm like "that is legitimately an actual normal child for once". (Or worse, people thinking Agott was a boy because "girls don't act like that". You're brains are mush. That is a completely ordinary pre-teen girl.) I've worked with kids from kindergarten all the way to 12th grade. Please, stop watching pedo moe blob shit FFS. But what took me out is people saying the plot wasn't "complex", even the defenders, saying it's okay because "it started a long time ago in 2016, plots were very simply in stories back then". That's only a decade ago. I've got to hope these posters are 16 or something because what. Ah yes, we only invented complex story telling in the last couple of years. I swear, if anything is actual kid behavior (or really teen/early 20), it's thinking everythig became amazing at exactly the time you suddenly began paying attention to shit. LOL. There were also a lot of people shitting on Americans for liking it, with "white people will like anything if it looks pretty". Why is everything around WHA in fandom spaces so fucking weird? The Reddit is weirdly homophobic, XHS is just child-hating and weirdly using it to hate on the West for some reason. I don't think the plot is "simplistic" either. I've been also seeing a lot of complaints that it's full of plot holes in the East and West, and I'm just like...guys, you can't know if something is a plot hole until a story is actually complete. Sure, sometimes it's obvious with some works. (JKR and Chris Carter are great examples of having fucked their own canons up in ways no patching could fix long before completing their works). But if you're doing some long story with a lot of mysteries to be uncovered, something not being answered is not a plot hole. It's just not answered yet. Have some god damn patients. Truly the reading comprehension demon has taken over the whole globe at this point. It's kinda funny how certain types of fandumb are just truly universal. Amazing. Anyway, when I backed out of that my feed just kept feeing me a bunch of fujobait of what I assumed where 12-14 y/o boys, but in true anime fashion they were actually 16! I guess that's the kind of kids people actually like watching. Maybe that's the problem. The 10-12 y/0s in WHA were too similar to normal children, so they're not fun for making porn of. Also, I have no idea why the fuck it keeps pushing this anime series at me. I tried looking up the plot, and it looks like the anime was from a decade ago or some shit and didn't even cover most of the manga and the manga is shit. I tried looking through it a bit, but the panel work was some of the worst I've seen in a lot time. So I skipped to look at a recent chapter to see if it looked any better, and the art was different, but somehow the storytelling skills and panel work was the same level of awful. I have no words. Also, it's a shonen I think, but it's clearly one of those "we're really just relying on fujoshi to fund us" kind. You know what I'm talking about. When I looked at a summary of what was going on later in the post-anime plot, which I already didn't fucking understand most of it, I learned later at some point I think dinosaurs and angels show up. So, I guess a typical Devilman kind of experience. The fandom itself seems split between two types, the obvious fujoshi who are obsessed with one of the (underage) boys and dudes who seem obsessed with a loli character and they all collectively, East and West, think the plot is stupid and the manga is awful but they can't stop reading it for some reason. I have no idea why this obviously bad anime with an obviously bad manga has these people so obsessed. The characters look pretty generic too. I am at a loss, but am slightly amused now when I see it. Tempted to watch it to see how much of a shitshow it is, but see, if it's just regular bad it's gonna be boring. But if it's absolutely fucking awful and a total trainwreck, that could be funny. There's also some in the West, the loli lovers, who deny the show has fujobait shit in it. And like...bro. I've only see some official art, the OP, and some snippets. Shit is baiting hard. I think they seem to be lost on the idea a show can have more than one target audience. But I have an entire section of my site dedicated to K Project. Anime with shit clearly meant for weird horny otaku guys also having tons of guys touching to get fujoshi to open up their wallets is nothing new. Unrelated to that, I had another little anime adventure. Because of Jimmy Neutron (not explaining), DNAngel got brought up between me and my wife and she asked me what the anime was about. And I honestly could barely recall the plot, even though I've seen the whole thing (like probably everything who watched anime in the time period it was dubbed in). Cause I don't remember it being good. It was one of those anime with "a few interesting characters and a nice OP but the show is boring as fuck" kind of shows. Like GetBackers (UGH, no that's worse). But it was weirdly really popular for a bit online. Anyway, I was curious if it had an ending and found it went on for a long ass time after that time period and finally ended relatively recently with a pretty rushed ending (that's basically the anime ending, but less well done). And I found all these people who were still absolutely gribbed by DNAngel after all this fucking time. Wrote fics and shit, obsessively thought about it in their youth and all that. And it's like that? That of all things? I think I was too old for it when it came out. The characters are in middle school and IIRC I watched it around midway through HS. Though I guess to be fair, in MS I was obsessed with Zoids and YGO. Reading all those Kaiba fics. (I didn't even care who Kaiba was shipped with. Except Yami, wasn't into. Just couldn't see it at all. Then I watched DSoD and outside of Tea/Yugi, about the only shit I still think is cute. But I don't read fanfics period.) But man, I stopped being that obsessed with YGO and Zoids by the end of HS to that level. Maybe it's because those things were complete. IDK. I can't see myself still lingering on carrying about something I was obsessed with in MS that long to that level of obsession while also thinking the thing itself isn't even good. That's the most baffling part. If you think it's shit, just...read/watch something else?! This was a lot of anime stuff. As for WHA, maybe I will give it a proper review after reading through the whole manga. All I know is Olruggio has a nice ass and you can tell the mangaka really likes drawing boobs from her previous work. Archive - Icons - Previous