*am now experiencing the extremely valid push-pull of ‘doing your own DIY thing WORKS, actually, trust it’ and ‘no actually I need to know the historical origins of EVERYTHING, including stuff that pretends it has a much longer history than it does’
for someone whose own mother thought “bad” superstitions about ouija boards, I sure do love making jokes where the punchline is needing to use one to talk to her because she’s dead.
I’m only a little bit a snob about tarot fandom decks in that
a) needs to be a fully designed, 78+ card deck, no pip decks (but that goes for most decks for my preference)
b) shows that a lot of thought was put into picking characters for the major arcanas than just “who fits the word as it would appear in a dictionary”. Who fits the meanings behind the card that a word is associated with is important. Undoubtedly your fandom protag(s) are going to be on the Fool card. There’s no questioning that from me. But putting like, say, a character death on Tower or Death simply because “it’s disastrous” or “a death” is snooze for me. Unless x death absolutely symbolizes something Super Big in the series, I just… no? same for someone with dead family or someone who kills. What about a super disastrous big cataclysmic moment? what about the inverse–a small event that tumbles into an unavoidable cataclysmic event? and it shows a scene or puts symbols from the building moment of that event? sooo much more interesting and gives me so much more to work with.
c) preferably not just screenshot decks but that’s personal pref than just “x kind of decks are better”
d) the card is involved. It tells a story. A card by itself has a lot going on within it that you can just write a story about whatever is happening in it. It feels like a candid photo of a moment. the more the foreground becomes involved in the background, the better. You know what I mean? Whereas cards that are designed with static poses, just focused solely on the character the card is paired with…. Kinda bores me. I can search for or associate meaning with the character, sure, but i’d like to find the specific meaning in the symbolism strewn throughout the environment you have them a part of. There is so much more meaning to glean from character a running from something and maybe some things are falling or strewn out behind them, than just say, the same character shown with a static background. It also allows for more meaning from those cards that lack such detailed backgrounds if you’ve got more going on in the others.
there were probably other things but honestly those are some of the things that get me like, “YES, I ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE THIS AWESOME AMAZING FANDOM DECK!!!! TAKE ALL MY MONEY!” over “eh, maybe someday or bc it’s the first/only fandom deck i’ve ever seen for it that i don’t expect to find others for”
it also sucks when there’s elements of aesthetic design that i love in the latter but they lack everything else that make up the former.
but i also own the absolutely boring “official” bonus decks for x series, simply bc “ooo ~official~” even though i know these people are putting in the exact amount of no thought as I dislike in pip fandom decks.
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*Pulls Tarot card from deck for the first time in literal months* Me: Okay Deck, what the fuck is going on *pulls Tower card* Me: Yeah tell me something I don’t know buddy
Here’s things I learned doing tarot over time that I want y'all to know
Reading it more like a story instead of specific and separately can usually make the reading better
You don’t need fancy spreads. sometimes a two card or a classic three works so much better than spreads you see on the internet.
Discerning is key for any spead
Cards falling out does not always mean communication. Sometimes you just shuffled shittily.
Sometimes your cards will be wrong. Sometimes your readings will be wrong. Sometimes both of y'all will be wrong.
Redoing a reading for clarification will not always work. Sometimes the first time was the best way.
Death, The Tower, three of swords and The Devil are not cards to be feared. And they’re not always bad.
Cards together in a reading can mean different things than a card by itself.
Don’t feel bad about not memorizing all the card meanings. It’s 78 fucking cards and they have reverse meanings too. It’s alright.
That being said, reversed cards don’t necessarily have to mean the opposite meaning. In fact, I found a lot of reversed cards mean you’re either lacking or doing too much of what the upright meaning of the card is. Example: Reversed emperor could mean I’m too authoritative at times and that could drive people away.
Hell sometimes it can mean you’re missing the upright meaning all together or that’s what you need.
You don’t need to know zodiac houses and stuff to give a good reading. Not once have I learned that and I do readings just fine.
You do not have to be gifted a freaking deck. I’ve bought all of mine and they work just fine.
You don’t need to have a “relationship” with your deck. If you feel they are more as a tool use them like one. That being said, do take good care of them.
There are bunches of ways to cleanse a deck. Do what works for you.
Decks do have a tone/“voice”. Keep that in mind for certain spreads and for certain clients especially if you have multiple cards.
Imagine being a book witch (or maybe a literature witch would be a better term). Like not the type of book witch that only focuses on witchcraft related books, but regular books instead. Like imagine doing spells based on your favorite novels and poems or just using the book itself as a spell/magical tool. Imagine using charmed bookmarks/pens, or an enchanted library. You could even incorporate tea spells and libromancy.
