#well. i guess thats not absurdly cheap

[todayisafridaynight]

where the FUCK is ichiban

link if youre a dweeb and want one (both even)

[sneakydraws]

Well, here it is - a lengthy explanation of each card in my mdzs major arcana deck and what I meant to convey/what i would have changed in retrospect/what alternatives i considered! It’s a bit messy and my typing style is lazy but hopefully it will be an interesting read to some of you :)

And so you don’t say I didn’t warn you - jiang cheng’s section (11 justice) is absurdly long lmao

0 the fool  I elaborated on this in the post itself but yeah basically jin ling is kind of representative of all the damage and trauma caused by the past, and there’s a kind of danger there of him falling victim to the same vices as the older characters and repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating the cycle of war and misery (the cycle that we already see with how the jin sect became the new wen sect, and later with how jgy became the new wwx) and he has a lot of room to grow! He grows so much over the course of the novel, comes to realise the complexities of the past and gets a harsh life lesson in how nothing is as black and white as it seems. But ill save talking about his progress for the end, for now whats important is that he has room to grow and also a dog. I don’t really have a justification for the sun, i mostly just thought it looked sick? It made its way to the next card as well, where it makes a bit more sense, but then i realised it was a dumb motif to include 1 the magician I still very much like wwx for the role, and that illustration would have probably had him raising a corpse on his left and pointing threateningly to the sun on his right. I considered including the table as well, with some mdzs relevant items replacing the card suits. Anyway, like i said wwx got a few cards to himself already so i went with the alternative wq design, since i think she fits the card as well. Both she and wwx are highly skilled people, extremely driven once they set their mind to something. The card to me symbolises the creative mind as well as a general drive for action, which fits them both - wwx was famously a prolific inventor, and wq came up with a previously unheard of surgery, after all. This card strays pretty far from the rider-waite deck design, largely because i was still figuring out how i wanted to approach this series, but you can still see the influence. 2 the high priestess I was actually going to skip this card at first because I couldn’t think of a fitting character, but once i considered a qings character post death, it all fit pretty well. She was already a highly intuitive person in life, and in sharing her memories with wwx she is, in a way, relaying a kind of secret knowledge. Anyway she’s one of my fav characters so im glad i got a chance to include her. The coffins could be interpreted to be xxc and sl or xxc and xy 3 the empress Theres other mother figures in mdzs who got to be mothers for a longer time, but jyl definitely embodies the positive aspects of this card the best. She’s nurturing, kind, emotionally supportive, she already mothered wwx and jc quite a bit when she was young. Plus i liked that the rw card had both water and flowers, making an easy lotus connection. In retrospect the stars look kind of out of place and i should have replaced them with something more relevant... Also, i should have had her hold a lotus seed pod instead of a flower, haha 4 the emperor Like i said I considered jc for the role but hoching bullied me into admitting that nmj was better… they’re both more of an inverted emperor than an upright one but then again theres hardly any character in mdzs who would fit upright emperor so. Jgs was also considered but he’s even uglier than nmj so i couldn’t bear to draw him 5 the hierophant It was pointed out to me that lqr would have fit this card better and the truth if that statement haunts me to this day. Unfortunately I have no space in my brain for lqr so lxc got the role instead. My main reason was his role during the wen destruction of gusu lan, when he ran away with the contents of the library - this is why there’s bookshelves behind him. The keys, take, from the rider-waite deck, are meant to represent the gusu pendants that allow you to enter 6 the lovers Im sure many people would have chosen wangxian here but I uhh don’t really care abt wangxian personally? And also their love story is so convoluted that jyl and jzx seem idyllic by comparison lol. Also i didnt really have an idea for who to put in the angel’s place for wangxian… mme jin certainly did not get these two together in the end but undeniably she and mme yu did initially give them a chance to fall for each other so. Thats something i guess. Anyway the trees became their sects’ flowers and the mountain became the burial grounds - an omen of their tragic fate, basically 7 the chariot There might have been other characters who fit this card better but i couldn’t really think of another card for lwj and i thought it would be weird to not include him… anyway i don’t really care for current timeline lwj BUT i do like that he was clearly influenced by wwx to walk his own path in life based on his moral convictions rather than follow his sect’s rules blindly. The chariot is to me a card of self control, self determination and focused action, so it seemed fitting. The composition felt kind of empty without the actual chariot so i padded it out with the guqin, the cloud recess in the bg (it doesn’t look great but i tried to replicate the drama design….) and the bunnies which conveniently fit the colour scheme of the sphinxes in the rider-waite design 8 strength Like i said before, my interpretation of this card is more… morally ambiguous than the quote unquote official meaning, so i thought about manipulative or duplicitous characters more than kind characters whose strength is expressed through gentleness (though i did consider jyl briefly for the latter interpretation). As such, i considered both jgy and nhs, but ended up going with jgy largely because i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put the nie sect’s beast as the lion. 9 the hermit My thoughts immediately went to bssr lol. It may be an overly literal interpretation but whatever, i like it just fine. And i like that i managed to echo the rider-waite silhouette in the mountain and the tree (and even in bssr herself) 10 wheel of fortune God i love the parallels between these 2… this card to me is about how you cant trust your current situation, good or bad, to last forever, and these 2 embody that perfectly imo. Wwx went from son of a well off servant and a powerful cultivator, to street rat orphan, to adopted son of sect leader jiang, to double orphan, to MIA, to terrifying but admired warrior, to terrifying and despised traitor, to dead, to, at the very end, suddenly respected and trusted again. The dishonesty and cheapness of whatever the public’s current opinion of him is is portrayed beautifully as far as im concerned. And jgy of course claws his way up to power only to instantaneously become public enemy number one, to the point that he’s probably blamed for stuff there’s no reason to believe he had a hand in. Wei wuxian’s silent astonishment at how quickly the cultivation world turns against jgy and towards him again is a delicious moment of thematic resonance.  11 justice I settled on this card for jc after he got booted from the emperor seat but i do think it fits, in a somewhat convoluted way. I turned both the sword and the scales into visual representations of the golden core transfer (can you tell im obsessed with it). According to biddy tarot, the justice card is partly about searching for the truth, and the scene where jc finds out about the transfer is of course a big deal. I was also very influenced by the reversed meaning again - which is about being reluctant or unwilling to face or accept the consequences of your actions. I feel on an intuitive level that this fits jc but I’m not sure how well i can explain it - it’s something about how he’s a little too comfortable scapegoating wwx for things that were also, if much less so, influenced by his actions, and also something about the way he keeps wwx at an arm’s length emotionally but still leans on him and accepts his support when he really needs it, and somewhat hypocritically expects wwx to put the needs of him and the jiang sect before the needs of others. And also something about the core exchange is the consequence and proof of wwx’s deep - terrifyingly deep, even - love and care for him, which is something jc doesn’t seem to let himself acknowledge. Maybe even something about how you could argue that the way all of the jiangs acted around wwx - jfm’s favouritism that left him with the feeling of a debt he needs to repay, mme yus insistence that he be a servant more than a brother to jc, prepared to give his life for jc, and jc’s own unwillingness - or inability, he was a child after all - to clearly acknowledge wwx as an equal to himself, enabling wwx’s self sacrificial and protective tendencies - that all of this was what caused wwx’s complete and unquestioning willingness to do whatever it took to protect jc, and therefore paved the way to the golden core transfer. And i don’t mean this to be scapegoating jc - especially considering how young he was when this all went down, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this level of emotional perceptiveness, awareness and maturity of him - but i think adult jc has to grapple with the fact that the chain of cause and effect was not as simple as wwx fucking everyone’s lives up to be a martyr, and that both jc and his parents had a role in that story as well. I don’t even necessarily think this is something that jc only realised in the current timeline - i think it’s something he felt on some level this whole time, and it probably led to a lot of feelings of guilt - but the suibian reveal definitely puts it in sharp focus, and i think he’s now better equipped to handle this introspection than he was as a recently orphaned, traumatised teenager, lol. ANYWAY the window with the fabric is both a nod to the rider-waite design and a reference to the destruction of lanling - i actually did some basic ass research for this, and it seems that in ancient china fabric would indeed be hanged in a window if the normally used paper was damaged. The design of the window, as well as the very idea to use it to imply the reconstruction of lanling, was taken from this great piece of jc angst by my pal moroll1! Oh yeah also the covered window kind of works as a denial of forgiveness for jc because it’s like a halo but covered up... Also I completely forgot to put a blindfold over his eyes which would be perfectttt because blind justice and the core exchange......... ok moving on 12 the hanged man I always have issues with this card because i cant find a satisfactory summary of what it’s really about. Best i can tell it symbolises a need to hit pause, surrender or let go of something… ive also seen it tied to sacrifice? So mo xuanyu doesn’t fit perfectly, but sacrifice is definitely there in a surface level reading kind of way, and the idea that you have to surrender or let go in order to achieve your goal does fit the whole deal of getting revenge but giving up your life in exchange and not being there to see it 13 death This is probably one of my favourite cards, definitely not because I have huge issues with change or anything…. I see this card as signalling the necessity of change or putting an end to something / leaving something in the past in order to start anew? At first i considered putting past wwx, mxy and current wwx here as a kind of transformation and one cycle flowing into the next... But firstly, I’d already used mxy in the very previous card, so putting him in again would feel like overkill, and secondly, the longer I thought about it the less convinced I was that this would even fit with the card’s meaning? Because coming back from the dead doesn’t like... trigger an internal transformation within wwx or anything? Anyway, fun fact: the design I ended up going with was actually originally intended for judgement! I thought I was being very clever with the whole “figure plays an instrument and the dead rise” parallel, but apparently I’d just completely forgotten that the judgement card had a completely different composition... Truly I was boo boo the fool... But yeah anyway at the end of the day I figured the design would kind of work for death as well, with Wen Ning and the theme of transformation, (since in his case coming back as a fierce corpse does actually mark a certain transformation in behaviour) and Wei Wuxian’s protection of the Wen people essentially signifying an attempt to break the cycle of oppression if that makes any sense? Like, wwx is trying to revolutionise the way the world works a bit, if you catch my drift 14 temperance  The centrist card! Again this is probably going off track from the “official” interpretation, but to me this card has a certain “don’t commit fully; do everything in moderation; don’t take either side” flavour to it that i personally find infuriating irl and that i very much assign to lxc. It’s entirely possible that I’m misinterpreting his character because i didn’t really pay him (and the 3zun in general) much mind while reading, but hell, I’m allowed to pick favourites and choose who i want to interpret deeply vs shallowly. Again, i wish id chosen lqr for hierophant because its so annoying for a character i don’t care about to get two cards…. But oh well 15 the devil My alternative idea for this was jgy as the devil and lxc plus nmj as the figures, but since all three had been featured already (multiple times, even!) i figured I’d go with xy instead, especially since he’s among my faves lol. I think the devil signifies something along the lines of unhealthy attachment, obsession or addiction, which isn’t 100% accurate in the case of xxc and a-qing, but if i stretch it a bit to cover toxic relationships in general, and especially manipulation or negative influence, i don’t think it’s half bad. My main struggle here was to choose who amongst the xxc/sl/aq trio to choose for the human figures. 16 the tower Arguably jin zixuans death and the following massacre of nightless city were the final and most direct reason for the siege of burial mounds, and the tiger seal is good shorthand for wwx’s loss of control over his powers, which led to the deaths of jzx and jyl. When reimagining major arcana i like to feature some kind of building in this card (spoilers for a possible future project but in my rose of versailles major arcana set the tower is bastille) and even if it’s not a tower, the image of wwx looming over the gathered crowd from atop a rooftop is so good i couldn’t resist 17 the star Struggled with this one - considered both jin ling and lsz for it, as symbolising a hope for the future, but that was kind of covered by the world so it wouldn’t make sense to include here as well... As usual when I struggle with interpreting a card (as opposed to understanding it but struggling with matching a character to it, like with death or moon) I went to biddy tarot and read all the details about its meaning. What i got was that this card signifies an incoming period of introspection and inner peace following a time of turmoil, as well as a general moving on into a new, better phase of one’s life or finding new meaning and purpose. The figure also suggests someone vulnerable, but possessing a keen sense of intuition as well as a good degree of practicality and common sense. Given all those, I settled for mianmian because IM LOVE HER..... I also kind of see her as a prelude to the “just one person is enough” theme present in tgcf!! And i think her decision to abandon her sect because she saw the toxicity and corruption in it is a very inspiring action - even if it didn’t make a large visible impact, i think the appearance of her and her idyllic family at the very end of the novel - paralleling and mirroring wangxian - implies that at the end of the day, it was a meaningful one 18 the moon Another card i ALWAYS fuxking struggle with - this time less because i can’t grasp its meaning and more because I can never find a character that fits it well. I usually get fixated on the “dreams and subconscious” part, but if i lean more on the “disguise, deceit, anxiety and fear” part, i eventually figured the whole yi city arc wouldn’t be a bad fit. I say the entire arc because it really does encompass all those themes if you include both the past and the present - xue yang’s disguise, his tricks with the villagers, a-qing’s lies and even xxc’s reluctance to talk about his past as well as xue yang pretending to be xxc all fit the disguise and deceit angle, and the general mystery and creepiness of the current timeline yi city work well with the anxiety and fear - the mist, the slow uncovering of the past, even a-qing being revealed to be an ally after scaring the shit out of the protags. I definitely struggled with including all the elements and characters, and even moreso with making them vaguely fit the rider-waite composition, but i think it ended up okay ish. OH and i completely forgot to draw mist swirling around them :( 19 the sun I was considering mianmian’s family for this one, but since I used her for star, I ended up with wwx and his parents instead. Once again I’m reinterpreting the card a bit - normally I think it symbolises incoming times of pure happiness and abundance, as well as a connection with the inner child, but I gave it more of a nostalgic or sentimental twist - wwx looking back at the brief glimpse of his happy childhood. 20 judgement another card that i struggle to interpret a bit... Here i actually used the tgcf tarot zine as a reference! In it judgement is summarised as “rebirth, following duty, absolution” SO i figured that nhs, mxy and wwx all together would fit pretty neatly... wwx achieving (public) absolution through clearing his own name after being reborn, and nhs sort of calling on wwx to expose jgy’s crimes... It’s a bit messy but not bad I think! 21 the world This ties very closely to my read on mdzs as a story - which is that it’s, at the end of the day, largely about cycles, and about how hard it is to break them, but how we gotta keep trying and have hope anyway. Or maybe more precisely, that the people directly involved with and influenced by the trauma of the past might not be able to get over said trauma and that the hope for healing from it will be shouldered by the new generation. Or something like that… Basically what i mean is that jc and wwx and lwj and lxc and nhs and jgy and all these people who were in the thick of the sunshot campaign and the siege are so profoundly affected by it that it genuinely feels by the end of the story like there is little hope for them to ever truly overcome that trauma and build a better future without repeating the same old mistakes - but there is a glimmer of hope in the new generation, specifically in jl and lsz. And it’s a bit paradoxical, because they have also been directly impacted by the past tragedies - lsz having his entire clan wiped out after wwx failed to protect them, jl losing both his parents to wwx’s mistakes - but despite that loss, and despite coming from arguably the two opposing sides of the past conflicts, they are both, in the end, capable of moving past that tragedy, of recognising the complicated nature of those conflicts (jl’s moment of clarity at the end is both heartbreaking and hopeful) and forging friendships between clans in the process. I honestly think that the extra where jl is struggling to assert his authority as sect leader, to treat his subjects well and to cooperate with other sects in a truly amicable way is the single hopeful ending note for the larger themes of the novel - it allows us to imagine that maybe these kids can learn from the mistakes of their elders rather than getting sucked in by resentment at those mistakes, and actually build a brighter future for the cultivation world. And sidenote, this is also why i have a soft spot for jin ling and lan sizhui as a ship... speaking of which their poses were directly referenced from the lovers card ehehe

Looking back, I’d like to add some symbol of jin ling’s trauma so that it mirrors baby wen yuan in the tree stump... maybe his father’s sword?