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Somebody ping horizon!
I'm not much of a tarotician, so I don't know if there are subtle details in here that I'm not picking up. Also, interesting that you've used a golf reference as your title?
Discord looks okay in this rendition. But if I can only think of one critique for this picture, it's that his incredibly expressive face is kind of MIA. He has a real middle-distance, vacant look about him here. Neither sinister nor elated, just kind of there. He almost looks possessed? The open-mouth isn't helping either.
More pre-reformation Discord please!
I'm not much of a tarotician, so I don't know if there are subtle details in here that I'm not picking up. Also, interesting that you've used a golf reference as your title?
Discord looks okay in this rendition. But if I can only think of one critique for this picture, it's that his incredibly expressive face is kind of MIA. He has a real middle-distance, vacant look about him here. Neither sinister nor elated, just kind of there. He almost looks possessed? The open-mouth isn't helping either.
More pre-reformation Discord please!
>>Miller Minus
As if I would pass up commenting here. ^..^
Fun Tarot fact: in ChocolatePony's MLP Tarot deck, which is my go-to for my drunken divinations, Discord is The Devil. This is extremely relevant because one of my craziest Tarot stories is how, literally five minutes after I bought my MLP Tarot deck, a friend of mine broke my deck by pulling two Discords in a row. [1] [2]
(For the Tarot clueless, this is supposed to be impossible. There's one of each in the deck.)
Some information about what a Tarot reader would see in the card spread here, in case it helps people writing stories:
• The position of the cards is difficult to draw meaning from without more surrounding context, but the fact that they are crossed over each other is significant. The most common reading with two cards in that relative orientation is the Celtic Cross; the two center cards, which are the first two to be drawn, cross over each other like that. (Although in a Celtic Cross, the first/underlying card is upright and the second/overlaying card is sideways, so we're probably looking at the reading from the side relative to the reader rather than sitting across from her in the way that a querent — i.e., the person getting the reading — normally would.) If this is a Celtic Cross spread, the bottom card represents what the querent is bringing to the table, and the top card represents the challenges they face.
• The card in the background, The Sun, is a Major Arcana. Think of Tarot as a deck of playing cards with an extra 22-card suit added in, to represent more significant forces acting up against the more mundane background of the four standard suits. The Sun is one of those, often representing illumination (in the epiphany sense), vitality, or the universe aligning your way.
• In the MLP tarot, The Sun is Celestia — actually, one of three Celestias in the deck, representing Celestia in her divine station as mover of the heavens. (She's also III. The Empress, as Princess Celestia the secular, political leader of ponykind; and the Empress of Horns, as Celestia-the-pony.) However, the imagery used on this card appears to be the symbology of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (the one most people think of as "default Tarot"), without any apparent pony elements. Still, there might be some subtext here of Discord crossing Celestia — or covering her, depending on how shippy you're feeling.
• Discord's card here doesn't actually have any equivalent in a normal Tarot deck; it simply breaks the deck format. There's no symbolism from any of the usual minor suits that stands out to me, and there's no numbering placing it within the Major Arcana (though the "Chaos" in Greek lettering underneath does at least hint that way). Arguably (especially given the circular curve of the dialogue?), this might be "0. The Fool", the first card of the Majors, representing naivete, innocence, exuberance, and the start of new journeys, but it feels like less of a stretch to say that Discord's just chaotically inserting himself somewhere that there's not supposed to be a place for him.
• You have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how deeply it bothers me that Discord is holding the "This Side Up" box/sign the right way up. ("… good job, Artist," horizon said grudgingly.)
--
[1] Anyone who wandered by my drunkwriting Discord the last time I was giving out readings got to hear the full story. If you're curious, search the channel for "deckbreaking".
[2] Art credit for the linked meme: Haze
As if I would pass up commenting here. ^..^
Fun Tarot fact: in ChocolatePony's MLP Tarot deck, which is my go-to for my drunken divinations, Discord is The Devil. This is extremely relevant because one of my craziest Tarot stories is how, literally five minutes after I bought my MLP Tarot deck, a friend of mine broke my deck by pulling two Discords in a row. [1] [2]
(For the Tarot clueless, this is supposed to be impossible. There's one of each in the deck.)
Some information about what a Tarot reader would see in the card spread here, in case it helps people writing stories:
• The position of the cards is difficult to draw meaning from without more surrounding context, but the fact that they are crossed over each other is significant. The most common reading with two cards in that relative orientation is the Celtic Cross; the two center cards, which are the first two to be drawn, cross over each other like that. (Although in a Celtic Cross, the first/underlying card is upright and the second/overlaying card is sideways, so we're probably looking at the reading from the side relative to the reader rather than sitting across from her in the way that a querent — i.e., the person getting the reading — normally would.) If this is a Celtic Cross spread, the bottom card represents what the querent is bringing to the table, and the top card represents the challenges they face.
• The card in the background, The Sun, is a Major Arcana. Think of Tarot as a deck of playing cards with an extra 22-card suit added in, to represent more significant forces acting up against the more mundane background of the four standard suits. The Sun is one of those, often representing illumination (in the epiphany sense), vitality, or the universe aligning your way.
• In the MLP tarot, The Sun is Celestia — actually, one of three Celestias in the deck, representing Celestia in her divine station as mover of the heavens. (She's also III. The Empress, as Princess Celestia the secular, political leader of ponykind; and the Empress of Horns, as Celestia-the-pony.) However, the imagery used on this card appears to be the symbology of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck (the one most people think of as "default Tarot"), without any apparent pony elements. Still, there might be some subtext here of Discord crossing Celestia — or covering her, depending on how shippy you're feeling.
• Discord's card here doesn't actually have any equivalent in a normal Tarot deck; it simply breaks the deck format. There's no symbolism from any of the usual minor suits that stands out to me, and there's no numbering placing it within the Major Arcana (though the "Chaos" in Greek lettering underneath does at least hint that way). Arguably (especially given the circular curve of the dialogue?), this might be "0. The Fool", the first card of the Majors, representing naivete, innocence, exuberance, and the start of new journeys, but it feels like less of a stretch to say that Discord's just chaotically inserting himself somewhere that there's not supposed to be a place for him.
• You have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how deeply it bothers me that Discord is holding the "This Side Up" box/sign the right way up. ("… good job, Artist," horizon said grudgingly.)
--
[1] Anyone who wandered by my drunkwriting Discord the last time I was giving out readings got to hear the full story. If you're curious, search the channel for "deckbreaking".
[2] Art credit for the linked meme: Haze
I'll leave the deeper tarot interpretations to the experts. Suffice to say, I love the basic gag, of "This End Up" on a tarot card.
Art wise, it feels mostly cut/paste and not originally drawn (apologies, artist, if I'm wrong on that.) So I'm judging this one by the gag alone.
Art wise, it feels mostly cut/paste and not originally drawn (apologies, artist, if I'm wrong on that.) So I'm judging this one by the gag alone.
Yeah, the "THIS END UP" gag got plenty of mileage out of me. I couldn't quite figure out what was going on with the text at the top of the card at first, thinking it was another tarot symbol or...something. Then I caught onto the Roman numerals arranged into a Discord-appropriate "MMMMMMM..." and I had a good laugh about it.
Artist, this drawing is a fun piece that keeps on delivering jokes to the curious mind. Currently, I'm puzzling over the base texture you're using for the card illustrations, because that's a minute detail which makes them actually look like printed cards—and I'm not certain whether I should find that amazing or incidental. Whatever, I think that's neat.
Making tarot art was an idea I'd toyed with originally, but eventually canned. I'm so glad it ended up being used in this round in some form regardless—and a highly competent form to boot! The images are clean and precise (a tad too much in Discord's case, perhaps). It did proper justice to the concept of Discord invading the fragile world of fortune.
Thank you for your artwork, and I wish you the best!
Artist, this drawing is a fun piece that keeps on delivering jokes to the curious mind. Currently, I'm puzzling over the base texture you're using for the card illustrations, because that's a minute detail which makes them actually look like printed cards—and I'm not certain whether I should find that amazing or incidental. Whatever, I think that's neat.
Making tarot art was an idea I'd toyed with originally, but eventually canned. I'm so glad it ended up being used in this round in some form regardless—and a highly competent form to boot! The images are clean and precise (a tad too much in Discord's case, perhaps). It did proper justice to the concept of Discord invading the fragile world of fortune.
Thank you for your artwork, and I wish you the best!
>>Miller Minus, >>horizon, >>Xepher, >>Rocket Lawn Chair
Played Just as It Came Out
I had a scene in mind of a spread of tarot cards, including Sun and Moon, with a Devil Discord atop them. But what I had in my mind’s eye, I could not draw in time. I had to cheat with bits and pieces of what I had accomplished and make a bare bones version.
Instead of doing a detailed parody of the Devil card with flaming holes in it as my centerpiece, I cheaped out and made a Chaos card instead. I did apply creative effort to this, and I am glad to see it was appreciated.
In keeping with the prompt, I had meant to play on the tarot concept of reversal - that the meaning of a card changes if it’s upside down. Discord is conveying that, no matter what, his card is only ever going to come up Chaos for you, and you’re going to have to deal with it. In retrospect, I should perhaps have inverted Discord instead, leaving the frame right side up. The colored background behind Discord’s head is an Illustrator fill pattern
The Sun card is very sketchy indeed where the Chaos card covers it. I had planned to customize it more for MLP but lacked the time.
None of this is cut and paste. I used the Rider cards as a reference and drew my own versions in Illustrator. I then laid the cards out in Photoshop, where I added a background, drop shadows and texture.
Thanks for the great comments!
Played Just as It Came Out
I had a scene in mind of a spread of tarot cards, including Sun and Moon, with a Devil Discord atop them. But what I had in my mind’s eye, I could not draw in time. I had to cheat with bits and pieces of what I had accomplished and make a bare bones version.
Instead of doing a detailed parody of the Devil card with flaming holes in it as my centerpiece, I cheaped out and made a Chaos card instead. I did apply creative effort to this, and I am glad to see it was appreciated.
In keeping with the prompt, I had meant to play on the tarot concept of reversal - that the meaning of a card changes if it’s upside down. Discord is conveying that, no matter what, his card is only ever going to come up Chaos for you, and you’re going to have to deal with it. In retrospect, I should perhaps have inverted Discord instead, leaving the frame right side up. The colored background behind Discord’s head is an Illustrator fill pattern
The Sun card is very sketchy indeed where the Chaos card covers it. I had planned to customize it more for MLP but lacked the time.
None of this is cut and paste. I used the Rider cards as a reference and drew my own versions in Illustrator. I then laid the cards out in Photoshop, where I added a background, drop shadows and texture.
Thanks for the great comments!