Current mood:	happy
Entry tags:	geekery, photo post, shopping, tarot, vanity

World, meet Tarot cards. Tarot cards, World.
I would like to take this opportunity to announce that after eight long years of searching and waiting, I've finally found a deck of tarot cards for myself, and I am very, very happy.

I first learned about tarot in elementary school, in an episode of Candy Candy. I still remember it very clealy: Candy decided to sneak out of the mansion for a day out with her aristocratic love interest, and of all the places they could have gone to, she took him to the circus where they had cotton candy, candied apples, hotdogs (I remember the guy being bewildered at having to eat food with your hands. I still find it funny until now...), and... a trip to the fortune teller.

My fascination grew in high school when I started watching paranormal shows on TV, and I also started hanging around some college students who liked to show off their tarot cards. I spent hours upon hours at the humanities section of the UST main library, as well as the UST Ecclessiastical library, just devouring any book on the topic I could get my hands on. I also did a lot of reading on astrology and ancient mythology during this time, which is to blame for the online username which I have been using all these years.

And then came college, when I met certain people from AEGIS and the UP Hill People, who were familiar with the art, as well as magiqa who always brought her Vertigo deck around, and the rest of the UST co-op gang. It was the first time that I got to regularly see different types of decks in action, each with different personalities, and I got to watch as their respective owners gave their own unique interpretations. This taught me a lot of things about the tarot that I don't think any book can sufficiently explain, and I was very impressed and it looked like so much fun, so my fascination only grew.

So, since then, I've set my mind on getting myself a tarot deck of my own. Ive often been disappointed because of either the utter scarcity of the item at local specialty shops and bookstores, its tag price, or the few decks that I did fancy just simply didn't like me very much (a throbbing headache after walking around the shop for a few minutes with a certain deck in hand was just SO not worth it...), or ALL OF THE ABOVE. Haha! XD

So, last September 13 (yes, after attending Animania), and after dinner, we headed for the bookstore because of the huge banner at the front that announced that a sale was underway. I didn't expect to find any cards there, but Elea pointed me to the stack of cards behind the counter (it now seems rather apt that it was her who pointed me to my new cards, ne? Haha!)

There was a whole bunch to choose from at that time, but when I saw the Universal Fantasy deck from Lo Scarabeo, with the face of the Queen of Swords on the side of the box (I didn't even know which card it was at the time, since it was a close-up of her face), I fell in love. The bonus? It was on sale, and I didn't find out until I checked the receipt. Hehehehe...

She's pretty, ne? ^_^ Elea claims that the deck is rather emo, but it's actually not emo at all. The illustrations do remind me so much of either Magic Knight Rayearth (which will always be close to my heart, no matter what people say), and the feel of Final Fantasy XII (which is one of my all-time favorite games), which probably adds to it's LURVE factor for me.

The deck box, which features Five of Cups, already reminded me so much of either Balthier, or one of the Judges from FFXII. XD


Card 0, The Fool, looks like Lem when he hasn't shaved his wannabe-goatee. XD


The High Priestess


The Empress. Can we get any more organic than THAT??


TEH LUVERS. Ong sweet, sweet niloh, noh??? XD


Strength. Yep, she ain't taming some pansy little lion...


Death. Reminds me so much of... ZAGATO~~!! AHAAAAY~!! <3


The Sun.


The World.


Page of Cups. Notice his pet fishy.


Knight of Pentacles... and his RIDE! XD


Four of Pentacles


Seven of Swords and his cool-ass sword-buckler-shield... thing.


Eight of Swords


Knight of Swords. My very own Valkyrie. XD


I love the artwork because I find it to be particularly lively and vivid, plus all those... um... swirlies all hearken back to my CLAMP fangirl days, which I don't think I've quite grown out of anyway. ^_^;;

I suppose another thing that I love about the deck is that it bases its illustrations on classic Rider-Waite symbolism and then some. This makes it easy for beginners like me who are only familiar with R-W, but find the original deck too boring, or just simply not fitting. On the other hand, despite the obvious reference, the illustrations also offer a bit more flexibility with the additions or rearrangements of some of the standard elements on some of the cards.

Long story short, I LOVE IT! ^_______^