PENEMUEL'S NEST -- FARSCAPE TAROT
I stumbled across the tarot cards on Zen's Farscape Site and while the ones there are really cool, I didn't agree with some of the choices.
So...
I'm working on my own Farscape Tarot (Major Arcana only)! I'm just a newbie when it comes to Photoshop, but I'm going to try to do the cards I'm seeing in my mind's eye. The ones there are really cool, and I'm hoping desperately that my Photoshop skills can equal my vision...
I've already designed the back of the cards -- this part was a snap! But then, the show was kind enough to provide us with two good, recognizable symbols. Thanks, folks! By the way, if you're wondering why the Farscape I symbol looks like it's upside down, it's so that the card backs don't look too strange when the card is reversed.
Some of them won't require too much collage work -- I'd like to have a uniform kind of design for all of the cards, but I'm not entirely sure that's going to work on all of them. We'll see... I did some of the most complex cards (such as The Devil and The Tower) first because the images were so strong in my mind that I had to get them out so I could contemplate some of the others! Many of the designs are very simple, just joining two images in a collage -- however, I really did a lot of photo manipulation in The Hanged Man, probably the most complex card there's going to be, including creating the Aurora Chair's screen all the way around the image of Gilina...Not something I plan to try too often. I'm down to having only a few cards left, and the main reason those aren't finished yet are I just need to find the perfect shots for each...
I'll be updating this page as cards are finished.
--Penemuel
| CARD | MEANING | REVERSED MEANING | CHARACTER/SITUATION |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 -- The Fool | Beginning; initiation; beginning an adventure without much planning; stepping off into the unknown | Fear of the unknown; unwillingness to try new things | John Crichton at the beginning of the series | I --The Magician | The power and potential inside a person; willpower; skill; magic | Use of power for negative purposes; lack of willpower | Liko, the priest who helped Zhaan defeat Maldis |
| II -- The High Priestess | Female energy; intuition; receptive energy; awareness of the mysteries of the universe | Lack of common sense; trivializing mysteries; pettiness | P'au Zotoh Zhaan |
| III -- The Empress | Maternal nurturing; creative process; fertility; caring | Infertility; difficult labour; technological interference in natural process; starving for love | Moya |
| IV -- The Emperor | A patriarch; a great leader; mature decisions; pursuing and attaining goals; sacrifice for the greater good | Indecision; bad decisions; aggressiveness & violence; corrupt leadership; abuse of power | Peacekeeper Captain Bialar Crais |
| V -- The Hierophant | A spiritual leader or teacher; connection with the sacred; ritual; ceremony; blessing | Dogma; religious tyranny; false prophecy; use of belief as excuse for bad deeds | Tuzak |
| VI -- The Lovers | Choice; sex; balancing male & female energies; choices & responsibilities having to do with love | Failure to make a choice; bad choices; lack of balance; not taking responsibilities in matters of love; exploiter or victim in a relationship | Crichton & Zhaan in Unity |
| VII -- The Chariot | Ability to marshal seemingly opposing forces and direct them; channeling conflict and competition into success; self-confidence | Defeat that should have been victory; insufficient planning or lack of trust causes defeat; lack of confidence; disorganization | Talyn with Crais |
| IX -- The Hermit | Withdrawal from the world in order to learn in solitude; Teacher; wise elder | Held in the past; living in the past; ignoring the lessons of the past | The Ancients |
| X -- The Wheel of Fortune | Random fate; luck; times of change with positive or negative outcomes; chaos; cycles | Bad luck; stagnation; fighting change | Farscape 1 |
| XI -- Strength | Physical and mental strength; ability to overcome adversity; harmony or understanding with nature; health | Weakness; abuse of power or the environment; out of tune with nature or oneself | Ka D'argo |
| XII -- The Hanged Man | Voluntary sacrifice -- for the greater good or for knowledge; a surrender to the inevitable | Stagnation; attempts to force change or events; useless sacrifice; selfishness | Crichton & the hidden memory of Gilina |
| XIII -- Death | Change; an ending in order to have new beginning; renewal | Stagnation; inability to embrace the future; fear of change; lack of renewal | Crichton & D'argo risk death to foil Scorpius |
| XIV -- Temperance | Temperance; moderation; patience | Lack of moderation; short term planning with no concern of the outcome; impatience | Pilot |
| XV -- The Devil | Karmic ties; unpaid debts; loss of self to another's will; slavery; violence; self-destructive tendencies | Throwing off shackles; freeing oneself; overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds; escaping the influence of one who is using you | Crais & Crichton fighting for Maldis' pleasure |
| XVI -- The Tower | Violent, unexpected change; breaking down old beliefs; sudden event that destroys one's foundations or basic beliefs; events one has no control over | Continued oppression; following outmoded ways; blindness to change; once the darkness has settled and the dust lifted, do not make the same mistakes; warning | Crais & Crichton tortured by Scorpius |
| XVII -- The Star | Trust in oneself & the universe; giving of oneself without fear of loss; refreshing quiet; hope; perseverance | Loss of hope; loss of faith; distrust; betrayal | Pilot and Moya |
| XVIII -- The Moon | Realm of dreams and visions; cycles; distinguishing between dreams and reality; seeing through illusions | Confusion; uncertainty; lies; deceit; secrecy; false faces | Chiana |
| XIX -- The Sun | Success at the end of a quest; basking in the warmth and light of accomplishment; joy; happiness; sharing good fortune; success; freedom; growth; splendor | The above but to a lesser degree -- success bought at a higher price; hard fought victory | Stark |
| XX -- Judgment | Self-judgment; forgiveness of the self; time to account for how one has used opportunities; reaping what one has sown | Punishment; avoiding self-knowledge; inability to love or forgive oneself or others | Aeryn and Pilot |
| XXI -- The World | Completion of the cycle; end of the journey; completion of a major task; celebration; global issues; perfection; recognition; achievement; what the Fool has gained at the end of his journey | Lack of global perspective; narrow-mindedness; tunnel-vision; self-serving interests; failure to complete a task; lack of vision; the Fool has become lost during the journey | The Uncharted Territories -- Space |
