#setting spread

[windvexer]

Theme and Action: a tarot method for brainstorming plots, setting, and characters

I find a lot of story brainstorming spreads to be clunky and rigid, so I did a little experimenting and came up with a method I like a lot. I haven't done a ton of testing yet but I thought I'd share what I have.

Basically, it's a two card draw from a deck split into majors and minors. Each draw always has one major card (theme) and one minor card (action).

When you have a question, like:

What are some ideas for the next scene?

Why would that character behave that way?

What's the defining characteristic of this vampire clan?

What do the people in this society fear most?

Why is this scene dragging?

What does this character need to feel more real?

You would draw one major card and one minor card!

Themes and Action; what it's about vs how it manifests

We could call these cards a bunch of different things depending on exactly how the question is framed, but Themes and Action are good enough.

Basically, the major arcana card gives subtext or context, and the minor arcana card provides specific incidents. Like this!:

"In my vampire setting, what is the most important thing in vampire culture?"

Theme: Death

Action: 10/Pentacles

Interpretation: (Theme) The most important thing in vampire culture is the process of dying and the equalizer of death itself. (Action) This has resulted in cultural rituals where death is treated as a sacred adoption or initiation into a new family/estate.

(I really drew this test spread and it really was death lol)

We can swap out the Action card to see a different outcome:

Theme: Death

Action: 5/Swords

Interpretation: (Theme) the most important thing in vampire culture is the process of dying and the equalizer of death itself. (Action) the horror of death and loss has never been overcome in this society, and it must be dealt with as an individual - because vampires process the pain of their own deaths by taking it out on each other.

Here's a different example. In an urban fantasy book where a witch solves ghost mysteries, pacing is dragging and we need our next scene to be exciting. But despite a foot chase after a suspected ghost poacher, the scene doesn't feel fast paced or exciting. The question is, "how do we spice this up?"

Theme: Hermit

Action: King of Cups

Interpretation: (Theme) instead of a crowded street, the character will be isolated and without normal support. (Action) she'll be trapped in a closed space with the story's main villain, who most closely connects with the King of Cups

Another swap, this time switching out the theme card:

Theme: Empress

Action: King of Cups

Interpretation: (Theme) the scene feels boring because it's action without development. Show the main character's personal development and give her a 'level up' moment. (Action) have the ghost poacher lead her to a premature showdown with the main villain, whom she faces bravely for the first time.

This is already long so I'm not going to go on and on with examples but so far I've found this method to be pretty versatile.

Try interpreting Theme and Action as literally as you can within the context of the story!

If you're writing a story about a flower princess who sleeps on a dewdrop in the mystical Gnarlwood Forest, the Sun card will mean one thing.

If you're writing a story about vampires, the Sun card probably means something very different.

Major arcanas can be literary themes, like the moon representing deceit within society, but they can also be literal; in a werewolf story, the Moon card might represent the celestial body that controls the lives of certain people.

The most important thing for me is to avoid interpreting the cards in a general self-help sense.

The cheerful villagers of prosperous Splitsky Castle are waiting for you to invent a festival so a mysterious stranger can come to town and get the plot going.

The question is, "what kind of festival gives me the right setup to pull off the plot point I want?"

The theme card is the Magician, so ideas for the festival could be:

A festival honoring magic users (if they exist in your setting)

A festival honoring the resourcefulness of the villagers

A festival of stage magic and trickery

The action card is the 6/Cups.

Probably, the festival is not about healing your inner child with Jungian shadow work. More contextual ideas might include:

A festival where children are chosen to be trained in magic

A festival celebrating teaching the next generation important skills

A festival meant to delight and entertain children with stage magic

Developing related factions or foils

Draw a major arcana card to identify a certain Theme, maybe along the lines of:

What do they hold to be sacred?

What do they not care about, or hate?

What is their most cherished virtue?

What is the defining feature of leadership?

When they sing about home, what is in their songs?

This theme will be the same for both entities.

Draw different minor arcana cards to show how each entity expresses that theme.

Conversely, work in the opposite direction: keep the minor arcana card for both entities, and swap out the theme card.

Finding Action cards when you know the Theme

Holding the deck so that it's facing you, thumb through the cards until you find the major arcana card that describes your theme. The most recent minor arcana card that was on top of it, even if separated by other majors, is the action card.

Reversals

I tend to read both cards as upright and reversed, and just apply whatever meanings are most relevant. In my experiments using reversals ended up being too finicky and specific, and limited my creativity.

Complex Concepts and Plots

For a complex reading, like plotting an entire novel or building an entire character, I have found more utility in doing many pair readings rather than doing one large spread with many pairs.

My tests so far have suggested that the most creative freedom is found in asking specific questions, like "what is this character's driving motivation," and "what is her quirky hobby," and "what makes her put up with her annoying best friend," rather than trying to build a giant spread that includes all of these things at once.

As a caveat, in plot spreads, I will sometimes put pairs down without returning them to the deck, and then connect Theme/Action pairs with single action cards to suggest events that connect the dots.

[sunlit-mess]

randoms

[obsob]

once more around the sun!! :3

[theabyssalsoul]

Yaoi 🗣🗣🗣

I miss KylWhit man

[theghostkingisdead]

Danny Phantom Dark

During Reign Storm, instead of fighting Pariah Dark, Danny tries to reason with him. Pariah, recognizing the potential of having a powerful young halfa on his side offers him a deal: his freedom in exchange for the towns safety.

Danny agrees.

What he didn’t account for is that Pariah would want to continue where he left off and begin conquering the morals realms. Just because one town is off limits doesn’t mean he can’t abuse everyone else.

Danny begins bargaining with him, agreeing to fight or give speeches at various events in exchange for bringing more people under his protection. Oftentimes the only way he can stop Pariah from hurting people is by literally claiming them as his property. It breaks Danny’s heart, but while Pariah doesn’t respect friendship, he does understand property rights. (Yes, all of these ghosts count as citizens of Amity, yes that marked them mine, so no you cannot touch them)

Pariah, for his part, does genuinely want Danny on his side. Halfas are incredibly rare and extremely powerful. It’s his intention to groom Danny into the perfect soldier weapon. He isolates Danny from his friends and family, plays into Danny’s fears of becoming a monster, tells him that everyone knows what he is now and will hate him for what he’s done, etc., positioning himself as the only person who can help him.

Giving him his name on a played up like a great honor, but all Danny feels is dread. For the rest of his life, people will associate him with this monster. They’ll think he’s a monster, too. It’s just one more way Pariahs taking control of his life, one more way he’s proving to Danny that his life isn’t his own.

Everyone is told to treat Danny like a prince, and most fear and hate him for it.

But to those who know, Danny becomes a sort of savior. If you beg for mercy, he’s been known to grant it. If you give him a gift, he’ll keep you and your family safe. He’s even able to quench some of Pariahs infinite anger. He’s the only one who can make his father see reason.

Everyone knows that if you plead your case before Prince Phantom Dark, his ruling will be fair and just.

All this lays the groundwork for the revolution.

[bklily]

It's so baffling to me that people will blame marinette for literally anything. At the beginning of the episode we see her talking about Sabrina and how happy she is that she's changed and is now helping people. And then she shifts her focus to her planned date with Adrien for most of the episode.

But GOD FORBID, she asks ONE QUESTION, in a not sweet saccharine princess tone, because she is CONFUSED, and lacking CRITICAL INFORMATION, which is what the ENTIRE EPISODE BUILD TOWARDS, and she's suddenly "mean" and "a bully" and "ruined this season".

Like. Some people make it so blatantly obvious that they just look for reasons to shit on a fictional 14 year old girl due to her simply existing. C'mon.

[demadogs]

The Vale of Shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters. It is right next to you and you don't even see it.

Stranger Things season one (2016)

[youwillfindilluminating]

both deborah and jon are listed for ALL 18 EPISODES of daredevil born again S1 & S2 and I'm really, really hoping that's accurate and we're getting 18 freaking episodes with them together

update: she's in 3 episodes this season 😑 hopefully they'll make the most of it!

[70sscifiart]

Last day to sign up for my free sci-fi art newsletter before the next issue's out, all about floating cities!

Here's the sneak peek, featuring Steinar Lund, Morris Scott Dollens, Ray Feibush, and Robert McCall.

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

Charlie: "Ahh! Another wonderful cozy night in bed! Just me, my girlfriend-"

Vaggie: (asleep) (rolls over to cuddle)

-FWOOMPF-

Charlie: "... and her twelve foot long wingspan~<3"

Charlie: (snuggles under vaggie's feathers)

[outsassing-nero]

moments from my usual journaling session :)

listening to: twin tribes, perdidos

more on my ig: a.rchive98 and YouTube: journalingtapes

[sanji-outfit-polls]

Congratulations to Strong World Outfit 1 for being Sanji's ugliest outfit! 🎉🎉

This mini tournament was filled with close battles, but Strong World indeed proved to be the strongest (of ugliness)! 👏👏

Next up on the scheduled Sanji shenanigans is the full-length Best Colour Spread Outfit tournament! I'm hoping to start this one on Monday (Nov. 18th), buuut I haven't actually started gathering the contestants yet, so we'll see! I'll keep you guys posted on any schedule changes!

A huge thank you to everyone for making these bonus rounds such a success! Stay tuned for more outfit nonsense!

[fisherrprince]

i dont know anymore

[starscream-is-my-wife]

Thunderfire masterpost kinda

I just wanted to gather all of the little things in the tf g1 cartoon production that really made me ship Thundercracker and Skyfire in one place because there were hints that they could have been more-

This was the main thing, you can find this in the show production bible on the tfarchive website, where TC helps Jetfire destroy the crystal of power, we don't know if "turns away" from the Decepticons was permanent but Thundercracker having doubts about the decepticons is mentioned in literally all of his production bios and it would have been a really good way to sell more toys

A little interesting thing here is that this early description for Starscream was changed to be Thundercrackers in later drafts

Here is the dreamwave bio of him, dreamwave had a series of books where it was just bios of all of the characters and many of it seems to take inspiration from the sunbow cartoon notes, they added some extra stuff to his bio where he got personal attention from Megatron

His quote being "the deadliest weapon is terror" and his weakness being his fear of Megatron?? Insane potential for angst here

But yeah its just the hints that maybe there was a possibility that the g1 cartoon series might have had actual character development with Thundercracker and Jetfire, the foundations were there!! Thundercrackers other weakness was harming innocent human lives he could have had redemption

"Jetfire tries to convince Thundercracker"

Thundercracker in his bio with the line "he is persuaded because he wants to be persuaded"

They could have both grown to love the earth together!!! Although not a lot of this was in the show itself, just the possibilities...

[nishihii]

think about how maria's set will conform to the hunter's body type, showing curve if they have breasts.

now think about the fact it's flat on maria

think about it

[phoenixcatch7]

It's always funny to me when in an lu fic the chain is offered bananas and don't accept them. Like, you're offering these high energy adventures free food?? Fruit they'll have never even heard of before??? A ridiculously expensive imported good at best?? AND it boosts your attack?

Not ONE of these idiots would ever turn down something new and interesting to eat at least once. They'd be all over those bananas and immediately get dubbed yiga and I'm honestly surprised no one has used it in a fic yet 🤭