cyberpunk tarot locations and their respective achievements
Something I find so interesting and cool about Cyberpunk is how connected the achievements with tarot card names are to their respective tarot card locations in game. I'm definitely not the first person to notice it, but I wanted to make a list of their correlations so that I don't forget them lol.
There will be some spoilers for the game, but all ending related spoilers will be under the read more thingy.
The Fool: achievement for becoming a mercenary (aka starting the game) and is found immediately to the right of V's H10 apartment, which is also the first place the player is able to start to explore the world (not just Watson).
The Lovers: achievement for stealing the Relic and is found at the Silver Pixel Cloud theatre, which is where Johnny and Rogue have their date in the Blistering Love quest. This is the only one where I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, cause it's not at Konpeki Plaza, but at the same time it's very heavily about Johnny so idk.
The Wheel of Fortune: achievement for interrogating Anders Hellman and is found at the Sunset Motel, which is the same place where V interrogates him.
The Hermit: achievement for find Alt. After finding Alt and leaving Batty's Hotel, V will have a relic malfunction and sit at a table across from Johnny. Right behind Johnny's head will be the Hermit tarot card. (also when I started noticing this connection)
The High Priestess: achievement for talking to Hanako and is found in an abandoned building, the same abandoned building that Takemura will bring Hanako to and where V will talk to Hanako for the first time.
The World: achievement for completing the main storyline and is found on the roof of a building between Misty's Esoterica and Viktor's Clinic. That same roof is also the place where you decide how you want to get to Mikoshi, which will (mostly) determine how the game ends.
Spoilers for endings below!!
The Sun: achievement for becoming a legend of the Afterlife and is found by a flight of stairs and entrance to a tunnel in Little China, which is part of the same building as V's penthouse in the Sun ending.
Temperance: achievement for letting Johnny keep V's body and is found at the Columbarium, which is also the place Johnny goes to store V's bullet necklace before leaving NC.
The Star: achievement for leaving NC with the Aldecaldos and is found on the side of a building in the solar farm in the Badlands. This one, I think, is the same place as where you go with Panam to get into the Basilisk before leaving for Arizona, but I'm not fully sure.
The Devil: achievement for helping Takemura avenge Saburo's death. This one you can only find if you go the Devil route, and you find it in a rubix cube during the epilogue. This one isn't part of the Fool on the Hill quest, and you can't find it in-game normally, but the achievement and tarot location are connected in the sense that you only find the card in an Arasaka lab.
imagine being in an alternate reality that has the game changers characters, rwrb characters, and young royals characters cause like there would be a good 7ish months where so much was happening. like just look at this timeline (some spoilers for everything previously mentioned):
september 2020: alex and henry's emails are leaked
december 2020: august takes and leaks a video of simon and wilhelm
december 2020 (a couple days later): wilhelm publicly denies that it is him in the video
february 2021: famously homophobic troy barrett comes out as gay
march 2021: wilhelm publicly says yes that actually was me in that video
march 2021: brad posts the fanmail video with shane and ilya in the background
like look at this and tell me being a random spectator in this universe would not be crazy
🐁Make Websites Think You're Somewhere Else (extensive tips from a russian)
in my country, Shit Simply Won't Work. even the people who don't mind our authorities are getting VPNs because without them, the internet is unusable. whatever the government hasn't yet banned is limited from the outside via blocking russian traffic, not signing up russian phone numbers, and not taking russian payment.
here's some tips on how to bypass next to any online restriction if your government also wants to get up your asshole with a lantern and swab every fold for biometrics. i've given the rundown privately to a UK friend of mine, but this could be relevant to anyone. expenses and complexity may vary, do whatever works for you. mind the laws of your country when considering the possibility of any of these methods.
if there's anything i have omitted or gotten wrong, feel free to add!
1. get a VPN
VPNs are middlemen between you and the website you want to access. they're the first (and for many, only) step to location masking. here, you have two options:
get a commercial VPN. pros: easy, you hit a button and it works; wide selection of countries. cons: more expensive (unless it's a free one, then be aware you're the product); it's easy for governments to block commercial VPNs, as VPN companies are required to make all their IPs public; some VPN companies may be worse at handling your data than others
rent a server in your country of choice and deploy a VPN on it (openvpn is a popular tool for this). pros: server rent is often cheaper than a VPN subscription; it's exceptionally easy using this openvpn script; you can share it with as many people as your traffic capacity will allow; it's more reliable and harder to block because the IP won't be associated with any known VPN service. cons: you have to be a bit more tech-savvy and know how to set up a linux server, or be willing to learn; if you want another country/address, you have to set up another server. going down this route, look up how to keep your personal server secure if you don't already have an idea
‼️caveat 1: VPN traffic looks different from normal traffic. often, websites can tell you're using a VPN. there are tools to mask this fact that may or may not come with your VPN, including DIY solutions like openvpn. look into those tools, try different VPNs as needed
‼️caveat 2: sometimes, websites get your location from the data stored in your browser. VPNs also come in the form of browser add-ons. they have solved this issue for me every time
‼️caveat 3 (99.9% chance you don't need to worry about this, feel free to skip): just having the one openvpn server could come with several issues. if all your devices are connected to it 24/7 and anything you do ever accidentally invites scrutiny (or if there's ever widespread measures to weed out VPN users), it'll be very obvious you're using one. only having a single address also makes it much easier to trace all your activity back to you. your government, if it has the power, could also compel the hosting company to tell them who's paying for the server. if you're the kind of person who'd be concerned about this, you're probably not reading this guide, or you already know how to mitigate.
2. TOR as a VPN alternative
some people i've known have used TOR in lieu of a VPN out of convenience (though personally, it wasn't convenient for me). if for some reason you can't/won't do VPNs, consider using the TOR browser. it also hides your location and encrypts your data, and it's free.
keep in mind that it's easy for a government to combat the use of TOR, as russia has (successfully?) banned it (fellow russians, do tell me if it somehow still works, i haven't been keeping up). can't elaborate any further since i haven't used TOR as a daily driver myself
3. use temporary phone numbers
a lot of platforms decide which country's laws your account needs to follow based on your phone number. signing up for a website, you can use a cheap online service that provides phone numbers from a wide choice of countries.
these are temporary, often single-use, meaning you sign up, you get the code in the SMS, and you can't access the number again. the one i've used has billed per text, with prices varying by target country. i recommend this method for low-stakes stuff that you just need to get working once, or for services where you can immediately switch all verification to email. absolutely do not use this for payment processors or other accounts you can't afford to get compromised or lose.
there's also completely free services like this where the numbers are permanently available to everyone, and anyone can read the text history. those are obviously very insecure so i'd never use them in most cases
4. travel to the nearest cheapest easiest country and get your own sim
...if you don't already have one from travelling or w/e. solves all the issues of the above method. costly but worth it to some. sign up for anything at any point foreva (obviously limited by the country you're buying your sim in) (and by whether you need a payment method, on that below)
5. travel to the nearest cheapest easiest country and get your own sim and a bank account registered to that sim
russians are completely cut off from international banking without credit card tourism, so we've been doing it a lot since the start of the invasion. this may become relevant to our UK friends, as websites can fix your location to that of your bank account, OR throw a hissy fit if the locations of your phone and your bank account don't match.
this is expensive. i've thankfully been able to afford the trip, while many many others can't. the costs are more justifiable to a russian, but if you're english and can travel somewhere they'll let you make a bank account quickly, consider this option. this, combined with a VPN to the country of your new card and phone, can free you from your new restrictions entirely*
research carefully how someone with your citizenship can open a bank account in the country you're planning to visit, how long it will take, how much it will cost, and how to declare your new account to your own tax authorities.
*i haven't been to every single website nor am i english, extrapolating from personal experience
‼️caveat 1: make your billing address an address in the new country if possible. some websites will throw up and die if your billing address is in a country they want to restrict
‼️caveat 2: some websites will throw up and die if you try to change the country of your profile without your traffic also coming from that country. you still need a VPN
‼️caveat 3: some websites will throw up and die if you change the location of your profile too frequently. try to minimise "suspicious" activity, as major region-dependent services like spotify can and will fight you tooth and nail
that's it from me for now. thank you for reading, reblog if you've found this helpful, add if you know more, and happy browsing!
i’m always so amazed at a fanfic authors ability to come up with nicknames that i would have never even thought of like “oh this characters name is one syllable? his name is jack?? no sorry he’s ja now i don’t make the rules”
nov 5th falling on the literal longest day of the year (at least in the us) is so fitting like yes please we’ll take the extra hour so we can go crazy about it for even longer
