The Diamond Snake and The Mist Snake

The Diamond Snake sees somewhere to put what they make. The Mist Snake, looking back, sees someone who teaches them something. These are not the same thing, and that gap is the most useful fact on this page: each of you is having a different experience of the same relationship. Most friction between these two charts starts there rather than in anything either of you does.

Standing on the same Snake means recognising each other immediately — and having the same blind spot in the same place. Nothing in this pairing covers what neither of you sees.

The Diamond Snake brings Metal, which The Mist Snake's day pillar carries none of, and The Mist Snake brings Water, which The Diamond Snake's carries none of. The exchange runs both ways, which tends to hold up longer than a one-directional one — neither of you is only the giver.

Neither day pillar carries Wood and Earth. A shared absence is harder to work with than a mismatch, because there is nobody in the pairing to notice it: these are qualities the two of you will consistently underrate in each other and in yourselves.