day 2-ish of liminal

[wholeheaded]

Hey everyone, Ambrose here. Couple of things: I ran an interface on one of the eyeball-cloud things and they're not just decorative, they're looking for folks doing stuff to liminal space they're not supposed to do. Or more like shouldn't be able to do. FY-eye.

[ that probably won't come across but he thinks it's punny. ]

Second: remember before last jaunt when I was thinking we could use a steam-blowing informal dance-club party with like... small-S singing and dancing and having a good time? I still think we could use one of those, just need a venue.

I'll bring the karaoke machine.

Comments

replying to the public portion

[professorwolf]

Technically, Judgment is about forgiveness and renewal, about new starts and redemption. It's an overall positive card in the tarot deck.

[Spoilers, Lyall is Judgment's, and he's a bit upset about all this.]

I really don't know why they're so focused on the actual judging portion of the idiom. I'm going to try and talk with them, hopefully soon, and try and work out just what the problem here is. If they are reversed or... upset about something in particular, or what.

[otomechapilot]

...You're saying he- their actions don't match up to the actual meaning of the card.

I can see it. Since the meaning of their card is close to Fool's. Makes it tricky to figure out what they wanted and what the Don wanted.

[professorwolf]

Well, they match up to a very small portion of the card's overall meanings. "Judgment of the guilty" is in fact part of the idiom. It's just... a very small part. One must find someone guilty before one can forgive them. It's like they have forgotten the "forgiving" part.

Maybe I can ask them what they needed for us to win, as well, if I get the chance.

[amadine]

An older interpretation of the card, maybe. Or a different one - Jeremite judgment rather than Jereshti.

Or the Arcana are an imperfect match for the divination system we use to describe them.

[triggerhappytraitor]

From the few I've encountered, it seems as if they're a single aspect of what should be a complex representation, rather than what the accepted understanding of the cards would imply.

[[Still cranky about Hanged Man being the Living Shrug.]]

[amadine]

Or the complex interpretation grew up around what was originally a single aspect once human society got hold of it. We do love to overcomplicate.

[professorwolf]

Well, they rather specifically listed those virtues to me when I met them the first time. Technically, what they said was "reconciliation, acceptance of past misdeeds, renewal, and hope", and they wanted me to protect the innocent from the guilty. So... unless they were lying to me, which also doesn't seem very in the Judgment idiom, it's their own interpretation, as much as it is mine.

[amadine]

So they want us to suffer for our misdeeds until they decide to be magnanimous and commute our sentence.

That sounds fairly standard to me.

[professorwolf]

As far as I'm aware, "punishment" isn't actually part of Judgment's idiom. At least, it wasn't in any of the classes the people who work with tarot gave, or that they mentioned to me when we met.

I'm going to try and talk to them again, maybe find out what has them stuck in this difficult mode. It bothers me that an Arcana I generally identify with is considered dangerous and judgmental, when the idiom, as far as I can tell and have been told, is one of the better ones.

[amadine]

If you believe that, you're taking a much more generous interpretation of 'acceptance of misdeeds' than any magistrate in existence.

They all want us to believe they're one of the better ones. If we don't, even those of us who've been marked won't lift a finger to help them without very generous bribes. And discovering what to bribe us with seems more effort than many of them care to go to.

[professorwolf]

[She's awfully bitter, isn't she. Lyall feels a little tired just listening to that much negativity.]

Until someone gives me a likely means of us getting out of this without there being a winning Arcana, I am going to have to continue as if one of these Arcana has to win in the end. Anything else seems irresponsible, to me. We only have partial data to work with, true, but we're going to have to make decisions based on that data until we collect more.

Right now, the data I have says Judgment's idiom is a good one, with few obvious downsides, while their personality leaves something to be desired. As far as I'm concerned, that's better than an Arcana with a pleasant personality but an idiom that would cause harm to people out in the universes, though obviously not the best outcome. Thus, why I want to find out if there's a reason they are being unpleasant, and if that can be remedied.

[amadine]

[She comes from a world and time where they hang children as a matter of course, Lyall. Of course she regards concepts like authority, justice, and judgment with intense cynicism.]

Right now, it seems you're ignoring the very obvious downsides in favour of the eldren-tale you'd prefer to paint.

[professorwolf]

[And he's entirely unaware of that, sadly. Or he'd be horrified.]

All right, do please tell me what the downsides to "reconciliation, renewal, and hope" would be. Or are you fixating on the phrase about acceptance of past misdeeds as the obvious downside here? Because that really can be interpreted in multiple ways-- everything I've read and heard, and going by context, it seems to me that Judgment as a tarot card is about accepting that one has done wrong so that one may be forgiven and begin again, not so that one may be punished for that wrongdoing.

[amadine]

That whatever they may claim to stand for, they're rigid, uncompromising, and very, very determined to be certain we know we're being watched and judged.

That reconciliation and renewal require something to be broken first, and there is no indication that it will be a gentle break, or one that benefits the worlds it touches.

That even the most generous interpretation of 'acceptance of wrongdoing' posits that an alien intelligence that believes in capturing and tormenting lesser beings is any sort of moral authority that should be looked to as a guiding light.

[professorwolf]

Much of that is directly related to the current Arcana's personality, like the watching and judging part, which I already told you I am concerned about. I am asking about the idiom, divorced from the person currently standing for the idiom.

Judgment is not a card for traumatic breakings, Sabetha. For that, look to Tower, or Devil, or even Death and Justice-- that's what they exist for, to stand for the trauma of change. Judgment is for when all of that has been done with and you wish to start anew. It's about hope.

[He's starting to think their viewpoints are just... diametrically opposed. He's an optimist, a mentor, and someone who generally thinks good of people. She, obviously, is none of those things.]

So if you dislike Judgment's idiom, what Arcana do you think ought to be the final winner in all this? Since right now, none of us have any way to stop one of them from finally winning.

[amadine]

Hmmm...no. I decline to share that with you.

[professorwolf]

[Sigh.]

All right, that's certainly your prerogative. Then we will have to agree to disagree, as you don't like my ideas about the Arcana, and I don't know yours.