#Pendulum Answer

[blueeyeswhitegarden]

Long time no see. Hope you've been doing alright, and that the new year is going well for you. There's something that's I've been thinking about, and that's the fandom's opinion on Leo Akaba. As you already know, he ain't a popular figure, even for the villains. The main issues people have with him are his motives, his actions that led to Z-arc getting revived, and he was easily forgiven. Now, all of these are understandable, but I think people might be getting bias with this one, and not the

-reasonable kind. Although I'm not properly educated on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Franchise as I would like to be yet, from what I've seen in other posts, is that yeah ARC-V might've dropped the ball with Leo, but he's still a good villain and that other YGO enemies had much more stupid "redemption" arcs than he did. It's not just with Leo and the villains. I'm starting to notice that whatever problems the fandom has with ARC-V, they're present in the other shows and are either just as bad or way worse.

Hi there. I'm doing fine. I hope that you've had a good start to the new year too. I knew that Leo Akaba wasn't one of the more popular villains and I was aware of some of the issues people had with him, but I'm a bit surprised that there were issues with his motives. Leo's motivations were perfectly fine. For most of the series, he was kept in the shadows. He, and by extension Academia, were a looming threat to the four dimensions, so you could still feel his presence even if he wasn't on screen that often. Finding out that he wasn't after power like I had assumed he was doing for years, but instead was trying to restore his daughter and the original world changed everything. He was a father lashing out in grief for his lost child. He wanted to restore what was lost by any means necessary. His desire to reunite with Ray arguably made him sympathetic, but the show never justified his actions. Reiji called him out multiple times during their duel that he was a bigger threat to the peace among the four dimensions than Zarc was, which was true. His actions were what led to Zarc's revival in the first place since without the Dimensional War, I don't think that the Dragon Boys would have been able to merge together. It was also extremely satisfying to see Reiji call Leo out, especially when some fans still thought that he was secretly evil or that he would team up with his father to fight against Yuya. That was one of Reiji's best moments in the series.

This motivation made Leo far more interesting than I thought he would be. It also explained why he had no problem attacking other Dimensions or brainwashing children for his personal army. He didn't see any of these dimensions or any of the people, including his own wife and son, as being real because they weren't from the original world. But from the audience's perspective, we couldn't agree with him since by this point, we had seen multiple characters from different dimensions. We had seen their different personalities and connections form to where we couldn't just dismiss them like he could just because they weren't from the original world. It also made sense in-universe for this reveal to happen this late in the series when Leo was the only survivor of the original world and would be the only one with memories of it.

I remember people being annoyed with how he basically had Yuri become a mini-Zarc, but I thought that was kind of the point. Leo was so focused on reviving Ray that nothing else mattered. He was too busy chasing after the ghost of his daughter that he didn't see the Bracelet girls as anything more than pieces of Ray. He didn't realize that Ray needed a vessel much like Zarc did to revive despite creating such advanced technology.

Now I didn't get the impression that he was easily forgiven exactly. Even Reiji letting go of his anger was less about forgiving his father and more like not being consumed by anger. He saved him after losing to Zarc, but I didn't think that meant he was forgiven either. Shun choosing to not punch Leo after he explained how wrong he was to take the Bracelet Girls away didn't mean that he was forgiven either. It would have been satisfying to see as the audience, but from Shun's perspective, he didn't do it because he didn't think that there would be a point to it if Yuto and Ruri were gone forever, which they weren't. Despite being with the cast in the finale, I don't see everyone, especially Reiji and Yuzu, happily interacting with Leo post canon is what I'm saying here. While Leo may not have gotten as much punishment for his actions as fans wanted, he still ultimately didn't really get anything either. Despite all of his efforts to revive Ray, he didn't get any semblance of closure or reunion with her. Ray was revived and helped to save the world again alongside Yuzu and Reira, but she was gone again afterwards. Abandoning his new family, carding countless innocent people and creating an army in Academia gave him exactly nothing in the end. All it did was make him nearly cause another universe destruction event and I think that was the wake up call he needed to finally understand that he was in the wrong. Honestly, Leo my second favorite Arc V villain next to Zarc himself.

Now forgiveness/redemption can be a difficult topic within fandom space in general, not just for Yu-Gi-Oh!, but I do think that the franchise have forgiven other villains for worse behavior. Marik attempted to murder Yugi and his friends multiple times before he was possessed. Yubel was a possessive and dangerous spirit even before the Light of Destruction affected them and despite being at least partly responsible for everything bad that happened during season three, they still effectively got what they wanted by merging with Judai. As a side note, I still think that Yubel is one of the most overrated villains of the franchise. Not one of the worst by any means, but I think that they're put on a bit too high of a pedestal. In term of father figures, I think both Dr. Faker and Revolver's father were much worse since their actions were glossed over, if not retconed entirely. At least Arc V didn't justify Leo's actions or try to downplay his actions like they did for those two. Not every Yu-Gi-Oh! series have the same problems, but plenty of issues some fans have with Arc V can be found in other series too.

[mosscreektarot]

hiii i'm here for ur pendulum y/n game!

thank you for ur time & energy

1. will i get a gf in 2023

2. will either E/Y be mine?

Yes.

Maybe/No

[knifearo]

ultimately when it comes to shipping and fandom space treatment of aspec characters i just don't accept "aro/ace people can still date/have sex" as an answer from nonaspecs. like yeah. mhm. okay. now i think we both know that you're not saying that out of real interest in the diversity of aspec experiences. so you can turn in your seventeen-page essay on why and how you plan to examine this character's aspec identity within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship complete with evidence from canon and peer reviews from multiple aspec people within the next week or i'm putting you in the pit from the edgar allen poe story

[silverwhittlingknife]

the reason why nu52 Dick is so simultaneously messy and yet boring is because they don't let him be bitchy enough whilst simultaneously making him a little bitch

sdfsdfdsfs I don't totally understand what this means and yet I feel like I agree with the spirit, anon <3

Outsiders 21 - preboot Dick yelling at Bruce my beloved

Yeah, caveat that there's plenty of nu52 Dick stuff that I haven't read and I don't think it's all bad, but also... man, he is not for me. As far I'm concerned, the main good thing that came out of n52/Rebirth is some setups for sad!Dick fanfic. And yeah, "Dick is not bitchy enough" is actually a pretty good summary of my complaints sdfdsfs

The thing is, nu52 Dick has some similarities to preboot Tim, in that he'll sometimes be insincerely fake-cheerful even when actually upset, plus he periodically seems uncomfortable with direct confrontation so instead he lies to avoid confrontation. And mmm I mean, I like these qualities in preboot Tim, so it's not like I think these are terrible traits to have!!

BUT :

1) Preboot Tim has no authority. But preboot Dick does, and it's frustrating to take it away from him in nu52.

There's some post-2011 panel where Dick lies to Batman and is cheery about it, a la Tim bragging to his friends about lying to Batman in Teen Titans, and I had to stare at it for ages trying to figure out why it felt like such a record scratch moment to me.

But it's because there is a huge difference between a presumably independent superhero lying to another superhero vs. a sidekick and his sidekick friends secretly joyriding in Batman's car.

Like, Tim lies to authority figures more-or-less constantly, because he doesn't want to be told what to do, but also because - importantly!! - those authority figures reasonably assume they have authority over him that he has to evade. Of course he tries to avoid direct confrontation with the JLA / Batman / Red Tornado / Starfire - they're not his equals and a direct confrontation would end badly!

Whereas Nightwing lying to Batman feels like putting him in a subordinate position in a way that preboot Dick never is. Preboot Dick always tells Batman off to his face, because preboot Dick cares about being equals and refuses to accept being subordinate. He doesn't sneak around behind Bruce's back - he fights back! If he doesn't agree with Bruce's position, he tries to argue Bruce into his own. He'll do stuff without asking Bruce's permission, but he won't conceal it; he'll make a point of making sure Bruce knows what he did and also that he isn't sorry.

2) Preboot Tim's lying / tendency to be fake with people is a consistent personality trait that's also consistently problematized. nu52 Dick's characterization is wildly all over the map.

In preboot, Tim is a liar and obsessive compartmentalizer, which is both a strength (disguises, sneaking around authority) and a problem (loved ones who are hurt by it). He's self-aware about his lies, periodically resolves to lie less, and generally fails at it.

Tim's consistent enough that you can track this character trait in all his relationships: he lies to his dad. He lies to Batman. He lies to his girlfriends. He refuses to tell Babs his real name for ages for basically no reason. He stalks Dick and then tries to run away from him in his origin story and then tries to avoid telling Dick his name. And this evasiveness consistently causes him problems!! Dick's suspicious of him. Ariana's suspicious of him. His dad is suspicious of him. Young Justice and Steph get annoyed with his secret-keeping. Young Justice want him to take off the mask. Steph wants to know his real name. When she finds out and calls him by his real name, he has a panic attack and literally runs away. When upset, he insists he's fine and fake-smiles at people. In Teen Titans, when Tim's busy being fake-cheerful and Conner is startled to see him there right after his dad died, Tim gets upset and angry at Conner and demands that he not tell anyone about Jack. Fine, Conner says, I guess it's another secret. In AC 3, he's lying to Conner again and Conner accuses him of having an insincere "Starfire voice," which is a hilarious callback to Tim being fake-agreeable-yet-secretly-bitchy at Kory when he first meets her. I feel like I get that the lying is a Tim Character Trait which is sometimes endearing and sometimes less so and which all the people who love him are gonna have different feelings about.

By contrast, nu52 Dick spends a ton of time lying but it's hard for me to model his characterization in the same way? He's sometimes fake and ... sometimes that's totally cool and sometimes people punch him! also, does it say something about him? ehhhhh maybe? no? who can say!! At the end of nu52 Nightwing, he doesn't want to go undercover and Bruce beats him up, but then in Grayson he seems totally on board with his mission and willing to actively lie to everyone, and then in Batman and Robin Eternal he carries out a whole secret mission behind nuTim's back because he thinks nuTim is maybe a spy and is scared (?) of confronting him directly, but also he's so sloppy about it that he gets followed and the bad guys find nuTim's parents. Oopsie! He represents The Heart and is super-caring but also somewhat ditzy with a tendency to leap before he looks, and also he's very very very goodlooking and Grayson would really like you to know that.

You can try to make sense of this character's internal motivations and I have read various enjoyable fanfics that do, but in the comics I don't feel like he's clearly characterized.

3) Dick should be a convincing team leader

I know I kind of talked about this earlier but it bothers me SO MUCH that I have to talk about it again dsfdsfds

Preboot Dick is a natural leader: he seizes control of the feuding personalities in the Fab Five; he does the same thing in the NTT; he stands up to Bruce. He can overrule strong personalities like Pantha and Roy; he can hold his ground against the Outsiders. He doesn't back down and he doesn't quit. He's got instinctive authority, and he's a forceful and aggressive enough leader that he can lead teams even when his teammates are feuding or difficult or arguing with each other. Sometimes he's a little too forceful and it backfires on him, but for the most part, it works!

By contrast, nu52 Dick often comes off as kinda... hapless? He's definitely not a force to be reckoned with.

Like, just to take one small example, in post-Crisis's Red Robin 14, Tim and Damian are fighting and Dick wants them to cut it out, so he throws a batarang at Tim's staff and snaps at him, and the fight stops immediately. By contrast, in nu52's Batman and Robin 10, Tim and Damian are arguing and Dick wants them to cut it out, but nuDick is incapable of confronting anyone over anything so he just sighs about it, passive-aggressive and ineffectual.

And "ineffectual" is too often the vibe I get from n52 Dick in general. You put that man with Pantha, and he'll probably be bemused, but he won't be able to make Pantha do anything, and he wouldn't be able to make Danny Chase do anything, and he can't or won't stand up to Bruce so he has to lie the way Tim does, and he would never have a fistfight with Roy over the proper way to lead a team.

And in a lot of ways this makes sense, because n52 Dick isn't a team leader, because they've deleted the Titans. He's just a guy. He's nice, I guess.

But even though he gets all kinds of excellent woobie plotlines that I'd normally enjoy (an evil organization is stalking him personally! his dad is beating him up and forcing him into becoming a spy! he's losing his memory!) his personality is usually so far off from the character I like that I struggle to get invested.

Because the thing is, Dick's leadership instincts aren't incidental to what I like about him. They're all wrapped up in his outsized sense of personal responsibility and instinctive belief that if anything is going wrong anywhere near him then it is his obligation to handle it and if anything goes wrong then it's his fault if he was involved and also his fault if he wasn't involved and actually if you have ever gotten within five feet of him and unrelatedly something bad happened to you then it's probably his fault and he FAILED. This belief gives Dick a lot of control issues and makes him bitchy sometimes and is not great for his mental health, but it's also very endearing and an outgrowth of how much Dick cares!

Anyway, re:bitchiness, I have similar feelings about various choices in Batgirls and in Tim Drake: Robin and in current Nightwing; like, I don't think any of these stories are bad ipso facto, I don't begrudge anyone who likes them, and I certainly enjoy fluffy fanfic sometimes - I don't always want the same things in transformative fandom that I want in canon.

But in comics, I often want the characters to have a bit of edge, to be cranky and difficult and just... y'know, clearly the kind of people who would choose to be vigilantes. I want them to care enough to be bitchy about it. And I often feel like I'm missing that, post-2011.

[bogkeep]

clocks have a beating heart , ergo they are creature

[creature-wizard]

hello! i'm very new to spirituality and magic and stuff like that- i'm an ex-christian and former pastor's kid so the furthest i ever got explanations of it growing up was demonic forces or sleight of hand. but i know magic doesn't have to be demonic now, and it sounds neato and i'm definitely interested!

anyway, i'm asking this in good faith, so please forgive me if it sounds rude. if you use a pendulum to communicate with a spirit or a deity, isn't that an unreliable method? there was a science thing i did as a kid where you held a yo-yo or something similar by the string, and if you thought about it moving in a specific way, your wrist would make very tiny movements to make the object move the way you wanted it to. how would you know it was a supernatural force responding to your question and not your wrist moving the pendulum subconsciously?

- 🎵 anon

I'm the sort of person who thinks it doesn't really matter what's moving the pendulum, as long as you're getting some kind of enrichment and value out of it. Like I tend to lean heavily into the psychological model of magic, and see pendulum divination as a means of sorting out your own subconscious mind as much as anything.

[eternitas]

Question for Sergey!

Does your OC make a good patient?  Or are they resistant to being given medical treatment - or even agreeing to rest?

Winter Greenery OC Questions

I almost sat down to draw a really disgrunteled Nono, but decided against bc I should focus the sketching on the life advice asks. Again thank you so much for sending these in!

When it comes to being a patient Sergey can be the best picture book example of how to recover or the worst nightmare of any medic, no inbetween. It entirely depends on his mental state. It's hard to pin point when each hits, but he either takes his time to recover, being very exact and punctual in taking medication and being extremely thorough with watching his own recovery, often even adjusting his daily routine and own behavior, or he will use a stapler to close a fleshwound and use gaffers tape for the rest, because he has places to be and things to do and will only rest if physically forced to! Because of that he is not on the best terms with Nono and to be quite honest? That is very very fair.

[rotschopf-thedrow]

From the WIP meme: Back in the Fold, First Kiss!!!!

Ooooh, Back in the Fold is the chapter in The Pendulum where I introduce Daphne:

Daphne? Who the hell was Daphne? Thunderous steps echoed through the cargo hold, and Kaidan had to force himself into parade rest to keep from grabbing a gun when the Geth Prime platform strolled towards him. He had worked with them before in Hackett’s team, but they were still too big for his taste. “Alenko-Major.” “Don’t scare him, Daphne,” Vega said off-handedly, and Kaidan had his answer who Daphne was. “It’s alright, Vega,” Kaidan replied, looking up into the eyes of the Prime. “I didn’t realise a geth unit had joined Shepard’s crew.” “Shepard-Commander offered a possibility of mutual learning and further understanding. He also proposed the possibility of finding viable colonies for the creators and the turians.”

Hehe, and their first kiss after the reconcile:

The fingers touching his moved slightly, caressing his own with halting, staggering but ever so light touches. It drove Kaidan crazy. What was Cameron waiting for? “We were different people back then. I was hellbent on not letting anyone closer than necessary. I didn’t want another Akuze happening to me or anyone on my team.” “You were a hard-ass back then,” Kaidan replied with a grin, finally taking Cameron’s hand in his. “Still, I remember being in love with that hard-ass.” “Well, I hope you’d still be in love with this hard-ass because if not I’ll be making a bleeding eejit out of meself in the next ten seconds,” Cameron croaked, and the only thing Kaidan was left to do was hang on for dear life when Cameron’s lips finally covered his in a gentle and undemanding kiss.

Thanks for the ask! <3

[lacewise]

Something I’ve been watching people comes to terms with is that a lot of people don’t care about propaganda or truth or information because they don’t want to be inconvenienced or challenged—so they simply don’t make room for it and are shocked when it imposes on them anyway

[blueeyeswhitegarden]

1, 7, 25.

This is going to be a bit long so I'll put my answers under the cut here:

1: the character everyone gets wrong:

It's a bit hard to narrow it down to just one character when I think there are a lot of interpretations of characters or developments in Arc V from a lot of fans that I really disagree with. That being said, Yuzu probably gets the worst of it out of the cast. I've seen a lot of people say that she was given the woman in refrigerator treatment or that she exists just to be motivation fuel for Yuya. While I do wish that she got a chance to duel more as much as the next person, I really think people ignore or undermine Yuzu's connections to other characters, most of which still help to advance the plot even as late as the Zarc battle. Without her bound with Sora, Shun would have been carded, Serena probably would have been captured during the Battle Royal and I don't know if Sora would have been able to abandon Academia without their friendship. Yuzu still saved the universe twice, even if she was unaware of it the first time, and I don't think she gets enough credit for that because she wasn't dueling. Yuzu's relationship with Yuya is important. It's arguably the most important relationship in the series, but there's more to Yuzu than just her connection to Yuya and it shown multiple time through different characters and events throughout the series. It never really felt like Yuzu existed just for Yuya's development. They inspired each other throughout the series. Even when Yuya was trying to save Yuzu during the last stretch of the series, she already helped to save him from Zarc, so this felt more like returning the favor as opposed to just being a damsel in distress.

I'll also throw in a mention about Shun since I really don't agree with the notion that he'd be sad and lonely post-finale. I think at least part of this comes down to some fans misinterpreting his duel with Yuya. The episode started with the theory that all of the counterparts were gone forever, which made Shun lash out at everyone there. But through their duel, Shun could feel Yuto's presence in Yuya, making him realize that Leo was wrong. If Yuto still exists in Yuya, which he flat out said was the case, then that meant Ruri still exists too. He didn't accept that they were gone forever like he said he would at the beginning of the duel. He finally had hope that he would see them again, something that Shun never really had despite fighting against Academia all this time. It may not be ideal, but he knows that his best friend and sister are still alive and exist within Yuya and Yuzu. Even putting that aside for a moment, Shun still has other friends like Crow, Kaito, Allen Sayaka and Yuya, so the idea that he'd just be sad and alone forever without Yuto and Ruri physically being next to him always felt too angsty to make sense to me.

7: what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?:

While I don't think it got to the point where I actually hated him, Sawatari definitely came the closest. I was so annoyed about fans praising him over Yuya for his own Entertainment Dueling style. While I could understand finding him entertaining, the way Sawatari wanted the spotlight on himself made his dueling looked too self-centered for my tastes. There was an element of selfishness with Yuya's dueling too given that was a major development in season two, but it was arguably more subconscious as opposed to something more deliberate compared to Sawatari wanting to get all of the attention for himself initially. There were a lot of comments after his duel with Yugo that especially were annoying to me, calling him a better Entertainment Duelist than Yuya. I think it became less of an issue as the series progressed, but it also probably helped that I eventually avoided most of the online community after the Heartland arc too, a decision I wish I had made much sooner during the series' run.

While I didn't hate him either, the fanbase overhyping Yuto also turned me off on him for awhile. I think fans put him on such a pedestal because he was this cool and mysterious character initially. I remember his early appearances in season one would get a lot of people excited and once we learned about the dimensional war through Yuto, he was effectively gone for a good chuck of the series. I think my issue was that it felt like fans were projecting what personality or story they wanted from Yuto instead of seeing what story the show was actually trying to tell. It was not uncommon to see people wishing that Yuto was the main character instead, going as far as to call Yuya the Standard Yuto. While I still liked Yuto, he felt like the most overhyped counterpart during the series' run. Fortunately, after rewatching Arc V without constantly seeing both characters on pedestals, I find it easier to appreciate both characters, especially Yuto. I'm not a huge Sawatari fan, but it's easier to enjoy him as well.

25: common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing:

Unsurprisingly, I'm sick of hearing people complain about Arc V's ending. To be clear, I'm not saying that people have to like it. People are entitled to dislike the ending as much as I am entitled to like it. I really love the ending in fact. It's one of the few endings I can recall where I appreciate it more over time and I was pretty happy with it when it first aired too. I just get tired of seeing it in the tags after all these years. It certainly doesn't help that the backlash to the ending itself was largely excessive in my opinion. A lot of people were afraid to say that they like Arc V after the finale aired. Plenty of people who make fan fics or fan art, including some of my friends here, would get comments complaining about the ending in their work. So many people were told to not watch it or to stop watching it because of how other people felt about it. There was already a lot of annoying backlash after season one, but the backlash towards the ending made it even worse, especially when it can feel difficult to make a post about the series without people using it as an excuse to hate on the series or complain about the ending even more.

It doesn't really help that the majority of the complaints basically come down to the counterparts not getting their bodies back, which I find kind of boring at this point. I understand this to a degree. The counterparts were fan favorite characters with most of the pairings being fan favorite too. People wanted them to umerge and live together. I just think fans were so set on what they wanted to happen that they didn't realize that the series never made unmerging into a goal or really indicated that it could be possible without the En Cards. That doesn't mean people have to like it. I certainly can't blame for people assuming that it would still happen. I thought it would happen for most of the series too, but I think fans were too set on what they wanted to happen that they didn't recognize that Arc V was going in a different direction until the finale. I wouldn't have been against the counterparts magically getting their bodies back after Yuya defeated Reiji, but I don't think it would have drastically improved the finale either.

This also now includes comments about how Duel Links is fixing the ending or it is leading to the true ending of Arc V or anything along those lines. I've been enjoying the Arc V World events in Duel Links, but I find it kind of annoying people use these events to complain about the ending more, especially when I highly doubt that people do that for any of the other events for other worlds. I don't think that the ending of the Z-One event in Duel Links will suddenly make fans want to negate his actual death in the series proper. I don't think people will say Bruno's death in 5D's doesn't count anymore now that he exists in Duel Links either. To be clear, I'm not saying people are wrong for wanting to get the kind of closure they wanted from the ending in Duel Links. I just get annoyed at people trying to use a mobile game to negate the actual ending to the anime when that seemingly only applies to Arc V's events. If I wasn't already annoyed of the complaints about the ending after all these years, maybe it wouldn't bother me as much. It's also one reason why the concept of the counterparts magically getting their bodies back doesn't really do much for me. Obviously the counterparts will be playable in Duel Links, but with the framing so far in the Yugo event in mind, it feels too much like fan pandering, even if it hopefully has more to do with building up to future events or Zarc's eventual Duel Links appearance instead of using these events to change Arc V's ending. Besides that, Duel Links is its own continuity with its own lore. Considering any of the worlds canon to their respective series just does not make sense to me since it has to ignore a lot of details. It makes more sense to see Duel Links as approved fan fiction than official continuation of any of the series.

While this doesn't come up as often as the ending, I also still see people using the DSOD movie as a scapegoat for their problems with Arc V. The issue isn't really that the movie couldn't have had an effect on the series' production. It probably did to a degree if what happened with My Hero Academia's third movie was any indication. My issue is that people still think that multiple people were working on both Arc V and DSOD at the same time. From what I could tell, only one person from Arc V's staff was involved in the movie and that was the same person who has been writing duels since the franchise began. None of the writers from Arc V were involved in the movie. DSOD being written by Kazuki Takahashi was a pretty big selling point. It still could have had an impact on the series' production, but they had two different production teams and I assume two different budgets. I saw people during and after Arc V's run put the blame on the writing problems they had with the series on DSOD. Given that the series had the same head writer for the entire run, I don't think that DSOD affected the writing as much as some people think it did. It always read to me as people putting the blame on DSOD for their issues with the series instead of just admitting that they didn't like the direction the series went to instead.

Thank you for asking. ^_^

[mosscreektarot]

Hey it’s for your pendulum game , my question is did he find me attractiv and he rising sign is leo ?

Yes and no.

[windvexer]

Hey, Chicken! Hope you don't mind this ask, as I'm not sure if you know much about this topic (I don't remember seeing you mention it before), but I was just wondering if you have any advice on using a pendulum for divination? I've been told something about "micro movements" affecting the accuracy of readings, but I'm unsure if this is an actual thing that happens or not, and it makes me nervous that my readings are super inaccurate (I don't have a pendulum stand, unfortunately). If you don't have any advice or opinions or whatnot, no worries! Thank you for taking the time to read through my ask regardless. Take care! 🐔

Hi!

I'm not the biggest pendulum reader. For years I couldn't get any level of accuracy out of them. However, in recent years, I've made decent progress.

Idk about the micromovements thing. I don't worry about them. I'm assuming a micromovement is like... tiny little jiggles?

IME, pendulum readings shouldn't be tiny little jiggles. They should be big, active movements.

When it comes to accuracy, we have some problems and some solutions.

Not all divinatory tools can measure the same things, first of all.

If I asked you, right now, to use tarot to determine the charge level and activity status of an enchanted spell vessel, could you do it?

Perhaps! I have no reason to doubt you.

But, like me, perhaps you would need to create a custom oracle system within tarot before you could do such a thing. Because tarot, in and of itself, is not an excellent system for determining the power levels within magical objects.

Now, if I asked you to do the same thing with a pendulum, could you?

Of course you could. That's, like, pendulum 101. That's what a pendulum does, baby!

You just hover that bad boy over an enchanted spell vessel and if it makes a biggo circle, the thing is charged up; but if it makes a small circle, or only does these micromovements you speak of, it's not charged at all.

Using a pendulum, you can obtain in seconds what you'd have to spend hours doing with a tarot deck.

And vice-versa!

Try using a pendulum to obtain a guidance message from a spirit. So tedious.

What this demonstrates (I hope) is that if you apply a pendulum to the incorrect ends, it will be very difficult to wrangle answers from. You can use a power drill to saw through a board, certainly; but the results will be tedious to obtain and awful to behold.

The benefits I've found is that the pendulum makes absolute ease of certain magical needs, but you've got to know what it can do and what it can't do; and if you need it to do something it can't do, you need to be prepared to develop your own custom systems of divination to attach to the pendulum, much like one downloads workshop mods to modify a computer game.

Yes, do confirm with the pendulum what direction is "yes" or "no," either through asking or telling.

Confirm whether or not your readings are accurate by reading on verifiable things. If you would like a test, make a pendulum board like this one (same link as before), and have friends send you photos of objects enchanted with the same categories of energy as your board contains. Use your pendulum to determine the types of enchantment contained therein.

If you are anything like me, you'll find that pendulums are excellent at detecting energies, but quite poor at producing sentences and paragraphs like tarot can.

I think of the pendulum as more of a gauge, or meter. It can be activated on a scale of "barely" to "very," and move in either the direction of "this" or "that."

I have never bothered with using a pendulum over a spirit board to slowly spell out answers, when you can draw two tarot cards and get a few sentences at once.

Likewise, why bother with tarot, or casting lots, or energy readings, when you can hold up a pendulum and get a quick, accurate reading of the properties of some object or person, or whatever?

So I'm definitely rambling, but my biggest tip to you, is:

Figure out for yourself what domains are easily read when you and pendulum work together, and strive to discover, modify, or create systems of meaning which make sense for the both of you, and allow the both of you to work as a team to discover certain answers.

Do not see the pendulum as interchangeable with any other system of divination. See it as a skill, in and of itself.

You may find much greater success reading on things which you can interact with, such as objects and photos, as opposed to hypotheticals, such as predicted futures.

[abyssal-werewolf]

I just randomly remembered that "am I XY-kin?" pendulum readings were THE SHIT a few years ago- wtf was that even? xD

[likeadeadbattery]

MY PENDULUM ACTUALLY WORKS WITH ME FOR ONCE??? NOT CLICKBAIT???

[aesethewitch]

can i get a reading please? AEC she/her. Where in my apartment is my missing rosary? (if you don't do missing object readings that's fine, i just really cant find it lol)

Hey! I don't do readings of this type via tarot. However, I do have advice!

If you have a pendulum, grab it. If you don't, that's okay -- you can make one by dangling anything relatively heavy (stone, crystal, pendant, etc.) from a length of string, twine, ribbon, cord, chain, or whatever else you've got on-hand. I suggest something around 16 inches long, but that's personal preference.

You can do this two ways. The first way is:

Stand at your front door. Dangle the pendulum in front of you as still as you can.

Aloud or in your mind, describe the item. Name it (my rosary) and describe what it looks like (shape, color, defining characteristics). If you like, call on whatever spirits you want to help you with finding it.

Allow the pendulum to swing. It may not swing far, and that's okay! Note which direction it swings and move that way.

In the new location, allow the pendulum to settle and ask, "Now where?" Watch it swing again, and move to the next location.

Ideally, begin with large location changes. Then, as you identify room, general space, and then specific areas, move less and less.

The second method is:

Draw a rough map of your apartment's layout. Label the rooms.

Dangle the pendulum over the map.

Describe the item as detailed above: name it (my rosary) and describe its appearance. Request assistance from spirits as appropriate.

Ask, "Where are you?" and allow the pendulum to swing as it will as you hover it over the map.

Depending on how large you draw it, it may swing toward a particular room. If not, hold it over each room. When the pendulum goes in a circle, go check that room.

You can repeat this method by drawing a layout of the specific room as well, or you can mix it with the seek-and-find method listed above.

I use these methods interchangeably! Hopefully this helps you out! (:

[utkinhome]

Hi guys! Mod Alphys here.

My Alleyway Tarot, Oracle of Play, and Oracle of Secrets (all by @publishinggoblin) finally arrived the day before yesterday!

I spent yesterday playing with them and cleansing them and I think I'm finally ready to use them!

So I'll be getting some tarots done today, and if you want me to use any of those decks for a new request please let me know! I've linked the kickstarter for them with their descriptions, so if any jump out at you then you know what to do!