Tale of a Game Magus

 What can be said about The Fool? Numbered zero in the deck, it stands for new beginnings. The young chimney sweep in this card denotes childlike awe and inspiration. Not bogged down by society and not aware of society's true expectations of him. He stands on the roof, in unsullied clothes, above the toil that others deal with and is prepared to begin his journey of life. The sunrise in the background adds to this new beginning. The original card is often depicted similarly: a young character carrying a rucksack on a stick, standing on the precipice, about to leap down into the world below, accompanied by a white dog as their guiding light. Often showing clean or pure imagery such as the white flower and clean clothes, the card pushes the idea of "new." This was my card for March. I will note it was reversed, however my deck doesn't want to be read as such, luckily. This month already begins a new class of illustration. One week in and it's already proving more in...

  It is with a heavy heart I announce that Harper has passed away suddenly. She was acting lethargic in a way she had before. A quick nap was a usual fix. We went out on a walk to give her some quiet. She was found by my fiancé's sister in an odd position, breathing heavily. We hurried home and rushed her off to the hospital. I held her as her breaths grew more sporadic. The vets did what they could, but ultimately she passed away on the table as they were putting in the iv. According to the vet, she was not conscious through her spiraling, and thus didn't suffer like she looked like she was. The vet said it was either a brain disease or undiagnosed diabetes. A brain disease would explain all her quirks. I'm just glad we were by her side when she passed. I hope she knew how loved she was. Bless my fiancé, she held it together significantly better than myself. She was a sweet polydactyl cat. We adopted her from a cat rescue. She was about three years old and was found with a...

 As my current class comes to an end, I need to look ahead a bit to see what I will need in the upcoming months. I move on from this into Illustration. I'm a little terrified, to be honest. It builds on the knowledge one would have gained in a regular 100 level drawing class. Apparently one of the credits from college that carried over for me was my drawing class. It seems this one will also use pencils and large paper. I might need to make a trip to the craft store later this week for a few things. I have the constant feeling that I will be sub par at this course; believing my classmates would have been drawing consistently their whole lives, making this class another introductory coding class for me where everyone already knows everything and are just taking the course because they have to. I could prepare by watching through the udemy class on drawing I purchased years ago but never finished.  In other news, however, I finally purchased a new computer. Significantly more po...

 It being February now and my birthday, I thought it would be a good time for another post. I know I didn't post much this past month but I had nothing really to say. Same stuff each week with the dying computer, anxiety about by inability to do things, ect.  The February card I drew was The Emperor. Number four in the Major Arcana. I always viewed my birthday as my true New Year. Interestingly, my birthday comes around the Chinese New Year. I think that, in part, is why New Years Resolutions fail, at least for me. It's not my real new year. The Emperor card represents stability and balance. The figure in the chair is regal, composed and almost tired looking. Around him are the wiccan triangles symbolizing the four elements. The 5th element: Spirit can be symbolized by the gear directly above his head. This card indicates a need to create structure in my life. A push to be an authority I need to be, or find one that can help me be that authority. Like the figure here, I am tir...

 I did a pull of tarot cards for the year. One card for each month. If read with the reverse, It's terrible. Probably one of the worst readings I ever had. If reverses are not read, then it's one of the best. For those that don't know, in Tarot, if a card if flipped upside down then, depending on the deck and the reader, the card can be read as the opposite of what it normally means. There is debate among readers if the cards should be read as such or if reverse is just human error. I often ignore the reverse but that puts me into feeling I stretched or changed the true meaning of the reading to fit a more positive narrative that isn't there.  Either way, the first card I pulled was the right side up Eight of Swords. That in itself is a precarious card. The deck I used is Steam Punk themed. In the card, a woman is on her knees, tied and has binding around her eyes. Around her in an arc are eight swords attached to gears. The swords are implied to be ticking or moving ar...

 Happy New Year They say how you spend New Years day is how you spend the rest of the year. If that's so, I will spend all year hung over and spacy; craving burgers.  Even so, I hope to be productive this year. Tarot readings say I will be, so hopefully they're right. I start my next class tomorrow. Color Theory. I honestly have no idea what the class will entail aside from discussing things like complimentary colors, blending and stuff like that. I had to get Adobe Creative software which is terrifying because of the lack of space on my computer and it being another program that refuses to be on anything but my main hard drive. It opens in the background on my computer on start up and slows so much down and takes forever to quit out of with task manager. I'm hoping I could do most of this class from my tablet. At least I have space on that.  Speaking of my computer, it is still steadily dying. I got money from Christmas. I mean, that's all I asked for. Not having a job...

  The Tiniest Goblin By Connor (wizoko) Williams A cool breeze cut through the trees, causing Dengi to stir and open his eyes. Through the underbrush, he watched the canopy of the forest lazily sway against the warm morning light. The trees were younger, only a few decades old, allowing smaller bushes and shrubs to grow. He took a deep breath and stretched out. He could smell the freshly blooming flowers nearby accompanied by the mellow scent of morning dew. Reddish, almost black petals surrounded his face. He didn’t know what they were but he enjoyed the look of them.  The ground was surprisingly comfortable and the dense undergrowth did well to hide him from anything that might do him harm. “Maybe I could make this forest home.” He contemplated, trying not to dwell on the thoughts that caused him to cry himself to sleep the night before.  He considered going back to sleep when his calm was halted by the heavy crunch of footsteps nearby.  He shot up, swiveling...