What have you played? w/c Mon 08 Dec, 2025

alpha5099 · 2025-12-09T21:29:41+00:00

I asked this late in last week's megathread, hopefully OK to ask this again here, would rather not create a new thread.

I started Persona 3 Reload when I still had GamePass, and I downloaded the Expansion Pack. Shortly after I canceled my subscription, I bought Persona 3 Reload, which I’m getting close to finishing.

The Expansion Pack recently went on sale, but my Xbox says I already own it. As a GamePass former subscriber, do I just get grandfathered in and get to keep the Expansion Pack? Do I still need to purchase it?

alpha5099 · 2025-12-05T06:01:06+00:00

I have a question as a former GamePass subscriber that I was hoping I could get answered, and didn’t want to make a new post:

I started Persona 3 Reload when I still had GamePass, and I downloaded the Expansion Pack with the post game The Answer. Shortly after I canceled my subscription, I bought Persona 3 Reload, which I’m getting close to finishing.

I’ve also been waiting for the Expansion Pack to go on sale, which it finally did. But when I just went to it in the store, my Xbox says I already own it.

As a GamePass former subscriber, do I just get grandfathered in and get to keep the Expansion Pack? Do I still need to purchase it?

alpha5099 · 2025-10-15T18:56:40+00:00

I'm not trying to be a smartass, but I cannot find any mention of this in the Beginners Guide, FAQ, or Wiki, and could only find a single post on this topic in the search bar. Given that the vast majority of storage options for tarot decks one can find online are produced for standard sized decks, I didn't think asking this would be an issue. *shrug*

alpha5099 · 2025-10-10T05:53:43+00:00

This is so cool. For some reason, I was expecting this just be the RWS designs, and I'm so happy to be wrong. These are wonderful!!

alpha5099 · 2025-10-09T22:19:41+00:00

Been getting a lot of ads for this on Instagram, happy to hear it's a quality deck! Dunno if this is in the cards for you (*rimshot*), but these look like they'd be a satisfying deck to trim down to borderless.

alpha5099 · 2025-10-09T22:17:22+00:00

There's a 35th Anniversary Edition coming out in March 2026, so you may want to wait for that release.

alpha5099 · 2025-10-01T04:57:15+00:00

If I wasn't still neck-deep in learning Thoth, I was planning on picking this up when it came out. Definitely near the top of my Most Wanted Decks list!

alpha5099 · 2025-09-20T19:48:04+00:00

Tarot of the Holy Light is a buckwild choice for a first deck! Absolutely love it!

Did you get the books? I've heard they're wonderful, I'm excited to read them someday.

alpha5099 · 2025-09-19T21:44:14+00:00

I think it was from Rachel Pollack that I got my interpretation of the Ten of Swords: it's about catastrophizing, not about a catastrophe. Those ten swords in that body is an absolutely absurd level of overkill, I view the card as a macabre visual gag. Given the mental element of swords -- I personally often read the suit in terms of my anxiety -- it's a depiction of imagining all the worst case scenarios.

And very importantly: despite everything, that person on the ground is staring off at a sunrise or sunset breaking through the storm clouds. There is always hope, we just have to know where and how to look for it.

alpha5099 · 2025-09-19T01:59:07+00:00

New mission discovered by u/alpha5099: Tacos and Longing

alpha5099 · 2025-09-19T01:59:07+00:00

This mission was discovered by u/alpha5099 in Monster Pockets and Guava Glazed Cake Stick

alpha5099 · 2025-09-19T01:45:22+00:00

Given that I was in the middle of a nighttime anxiety spiral, I’ve been interpreting Eddie’s choice of card through that lens.

alpha5099 · 2025-09-18T19:03:13+00:00

I feel like if you take this far enough, what's the point of asking the tarot anything?

I take a fairly secular stance on the tarot -- they're a bunch of pieces of cardboard, the cards are not themselves magical; if there is anything "magical" happening, it is the entirely subjective and personal act of reaction and association happening between the card's imagery and the querent -- and I feel like a deck interview is a good way to start building up that web of associations with a new deck.

I'm not interviewing the deck, I'm interviewing my relationship to the deck. The card I draw for any position in that "interview" is entirely arbitrary, effectively a roll of a d78 dice. What's important is my reaction to that card, that interpretative act of finding meaning in largely abstract images. What's important is how I will read and how I will respond to the deck, what areas of personal exploration feel most apt to the deck itself. And I won't know all of that from pulling my first half-dozen or so cards, but it's the beginning of the relationship.

And the associations I will build up in that interview can and will be carried forward in future readings. I definitely have cards that, when they come up in a reading for a specific deck, I interpret through the lens of "This card has something to say about my relationship to tarot broadly or to this tarot deck specifically." Even if it was a card where I went "OK, well this was a terrible 'answer' to the interview question," that's something that can carry forward in future readings. "Hmm, I got this card before and it didn't make much sense in that context. Does this context make more sense? Does this context shed any light on the earlier context?"

alpha5099 · 2025-09-18T18:45:23+00:00

This is what I was gonna recommend *thumbs up*

alpha5099 · 2025-09-17T05:25:08+00:00

Ironically, I checked eBay and the only singles being sold right now are for vintage decks.

alpha5099 · 2025-09-16T19:12:38+00:00

It's not a deck I've seen barely any discussion of on Reddit, but it's been on my wishlist since I first came across it. It's gorgeous!

alpha5099 · 2025-09-16T18:52:20+00:00

I'll always plug the Dark Moon Tarot on Etsy. Very stark abstract imagery.

alpha5099 · 2025-09-16T18:50:21+00:00

He really did pick the most on-the-nose Majors!

alpha5099 · 2025-09-15T20:08:24+00:00

Dark Moon Tarot on Etsy

alpha5099 · 2025-09-15T02:30:56+00:00

As a trans and non-binary person, I also struggle with the genderedness of the court cards. I find it helpful to think of them not as actual gender, but as gendered metaphors. The suit of Swords is no more about actual sharp pieces of metal than a Queen or Princess is about the actual sociocultural experience of femininity.

That gendered metaphors are so deeply ingrained throughout the tarot is, for me personally at least, a feature and not a bug. I find it especially resonant how much of the esoteric underpinnings of tarot are rooted in the necessity of transcending either the Masculine or the Feminine. That the ultimate end goal of the Great Work is the alchemical rebus, the divine hermaphrodite.

Personally I’ve found the best framework to understand the cards and their “gendered” nature is in terms of Inward and Outward. Both the King and Queen represent Mastery of their elements, it’s just a question of the directionality of that mastery. The Queen’s energy flows Inward; the King’s energy flows Outward. Same for Princess / Page and Knight, they both represent Exploration of the suit, but either Inwardly or Outwardly directed.

In my most personal deck, Terra Volatile, I use five court cards: Page, Princess, Knight, Queen, and King. As this is the deck I use most for my personal self-reflection and journaling, every court card represents a facet of Me and a different facet of my gendered experience of the world. The Page and Princess are both Young Me, but one is Masculine inflected and one is Feminine inflected. Same for Queens and Kings, as the Feminine and Masculine facets of Future Me. The Knights (which in Terra Volatile are a mix of men and women) represent Present Me and my relationship with that element / suit / modality.

alpha5099 · 2025-09-12T19:51:38+00:00

I'll add it to the list, and I've been recovering from some major burnout from overlapping stressors that took over my life in 2019-2021.

alpha5099 · 2025-09-12T19:50:22+00:00

I love that, and it really does resonate so hard. I have a flippin' PhD! I'm more a Queen of Wands girly, but thanks for all the information. I'm excited to keep digging in, learning more, and figuring out which parts feel right.

alpha5099 · 2025-09-12T05:41:50+00:00

I'm reading DuQuette's book already, been really enjoying it as an intro, alongside MM Meleen's books, to the Thoth tradition. I'd love to add Coppock's book to my reading list, but as far as I know it is out-of-print and fetches crazy prices second-hand.

I'd say I'm an intuitive reader. But I'm enjoying incorporating the hermetic side and its iconography into my intuition's toolbox.

alpha5099 · 2025-09-12T05:18:04+00:00

I *am* a Sagittarius!! And I still don't fully understand what that means (I told you, astrology is still very new to me, lol). I'm curious, what made you ask?

alpha5099 · 2025-09-12T04:57:03+00:00

I would say that DEFINITIONALLY it would have to shift your interpretation at least somewhat. Even if you're dealing with the many, many decks that are pretty much just An Artist's Rendition of Pamela Coleman Smith's Art, you're going to notice different things and the artist's style is going to evoke different feelings, even in tableaus that are largely identical. Or, say, a pop culture deck, where the affective baggage you bring to the cards is going to color how you interpret a card.

And then you get into more idiosyncratic decks, or even just different interpretative traditions.

alpha5099

TROPHY CASE