TAROT-O-METER

[tarot-o-meter]

GIMMICK BLOG, BABY!!

I relate posts with cards from the Major Arcana/Triumphs of Tarot. (Submissions welcomed!)

Deck: BRuT Tarot, by UUSI

[tarot-o-meter]

So you got Tarot-ed... What does this card mean?

The Fool: Represents madness and liberty. Stupidity, poverty, impulsivity, out of place scenarios, anything that strays away from the status quo. Clowns, beggars, backpackers, idiots, free-spirits, inmigrats, stranger in an unfamiliar land. The Juggler (Magician): Represents cunning and ability. The card of artists, street performers, minimum wage workers, tricksters, conmen, smooth-talking politicians. Clever salesman. For when you can (or have no other choice but) cheat you way in life. The Popess (Hight Priestess): Represents knowledge, secrecy, mystery, science, the occult, silence, mysticism. If the Pope is the pulpit, she's the library. From psychology to shyness, everything that hides behind veils waiting to be revealed. The Pope (Hierophant): Represents morality, codes, teachings and lessons, instruction, spirituality. If the Popess is the library, he's the pulpit. From the institution of religion, dogma, and faith to cooking tutorials. Shepherd of the flock. Love (Lovers): Represents love, commitment, devotion and passion. Blind is the angel Cupid, shooting his arrows as he flies. Not only romantic love, but everything the heart elevates and decided to follow above reason. The Chariot: Represents success and triumph, usually in battle or competition. Fame, recognition, grandiose parades and medals. Here are the conquerors, pride, progress and momuments. Sometimes travel, as well. Justice: Cardinal virtue of discernment and pure reason. Decisions and choices made using critical thinking and rigorous analysis. No bullshit attitude. From the legal system to cold head solving. Fortitude (Strenght): Cardinal virtue of courage and perseverance against difficulties. For those who never give up and keep going. Overcoming fear, unwavering constancy, willpower. From cancer survivors to dandelions in concrete. Temperance: Cardinal virtue of moderation and equilibrium. Tempering wine with water, knowing when enough is enough, selfcontrol, patience, just the right measure. From medicine to diluted alcohol and responsible consumption. Time (Hermit): Mistakenly identified as a Franciscan monk. Represents the slow but unstoppable pass of time. Aging, oblivion, decay. Wisdom that comes with age, prudence, slowness, the past. From wrinkles to ruined temples and forgotten monuments, maturity and eld. Wheel of Fortune: Represents changes, cycles and the unstable movement of luck. Sometimes up, sometimes down, all what triumphs its predecessor just to be triumphed itself. Revolutions, chance and risk. Repetition, fate. The pursuit and naive trust of earthly power. The Traitor (Hanged Man): Represents treason, crime, punishment, shame, guilt and torture. Allegory of Judas Iscariot. From betrayal and cancel culture to paralysis, vulnerability and imprisonment. It was a common form of public humiliation during the Renaissance. Death: To continue...

[patrickbatemanamericanpsycho]

[aflo]

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: Justice

[have-you-been-here]

A building that has since been torn down, Anywhere, Earth

Have you been here?

I have been here

I have not been here

Voting ended onJun 24, 2025

[wingedtyger]

The first elementary school I went to is GONE. It's just a field now. It was shocking to see, not gonna lie

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: Death

[thememedaddy]

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Chariot

[mrsterlingeverything]

Um actually scrub daddy is my comfort character and it physically and psychically hurts me to see you chop him up and eat him after freezing and cracking him up with liquid nitrogen while naked with big boobs?

[mousemilf]

dont worry abt it, you just keep reading your lines and well take care of the rest. you'll be a star.

[mrsterlingeverything]

Ill be a star

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Star

[grubgirlfins]

"its a texas chainsaw miracle"

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Tower/Lightning

[cakerybakery]

I want to go home. I don't want to drive in this stupid city anymore

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Star

"Blessing of travelers"

[pjharvey]

my best tip for anyone trying to get back into reading is to remember that you can read books to avoid other responsibilities in ur life and it can become a vice if you play your cards right

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Devil

[mascula-sappho]

really bold of antisemites to come onto jumblr and try to win an argument. like we are professional arguers. get clowned on. we have been arguing about stuff for fun for like 2,500 years. I dare you to win an argument. my family has had arguments about everything from the capabilities of shrimp to categorizing napkin positions. our religious texts are full of ditch digging specifications and property law and how deep one should bow in (x) situation. You cannot talk to a rabbi without getting at least one book recommendation. Come on give us a challenge instead of screaming buzzwords. You have to say we are lying because that is the only way for you to compete. Smh ...

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Popess

[teaboot]

Religious Beliefs

Don’t be a dick

Anything antibacterial works against vampires

Ghosts and Fairies aren’t real but you still have to be polite and respectful if you meet one

Watching videos out loud on your phone on the toilet in a public restroom sends your soul directly to applebees when you die

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Pope

[harpoonsnotspoons]

a puppet, a robot, and the greatest director of the 21st century walk into a bar. theres not any more to this joke because im not a comedian

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: Reversed Juggler/Magician

"I must NOT entertain the masses"

[alisonzai]

[captain-cargoshorts]

that’s Saturn Devouring His Son, by Francisco Goya

[tarot-o-meter]

Cards identified: Star & Time

[dyke-dyke-goose]

does everyone have a teacher that they still have beef with/ hold a grudge against today??

[teaboot]

My least favourite teacher died recently and now everyone is talking about how she was “a beautiful soul whose Legacy Will Be Cherished By Those Whose Lives She Touched” and I’m stuck here like Actually Do Yall Not Remember She Was A Massive Bitch? She Sucked As A Person And Was Bad At Her Job. She Made Children Cry. Are You Fucking Kidding Me. But noooooooo we lose the stage 4 cancer lottery and now we’re the fucking saint of orphaned puppies. “Ohh she was such a generous and caring soul” shut up Debra, she was a cunt and now she’s a dead cunt. Death doesn’t make you special

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: Death

[juicymori]

[severeannoyance]

Yes, this. A stunning number of people will default to "because it's illegal." Teaching an intro-level bioethics course will demonstrate real fucking fast that a lot of the population just lets legality stand in for morality.

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Pope

[deathtokillian]

Ideas are cooking for my pride outfit.

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Traitor

[johnny-depp-is-loved]

this is everything to me 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈💕

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: The Sun

[bemusedlybespectacled]

this might be because I’m a family law lawyer and also an old crone who remembers when marriage equality wasn’t a thing (as in, marriage equality only became nation-wide two months before I went to law school), but I have Strong Feelings about the right to marry and all the legal benefits that come with it

like I’m all for living in sin until someone says they don’t want to get married because it’s ~too permanent~ and in the same breath start talking about having kids or buying a house with their significant other. then I turn into a 90-year-old passive-aggressive church grandma who keeps pointedly asking when the wedding is. “yes, a divorce is very sad and stressful, but so is BEING HOMELESS BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT ENTITLED TO EQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION OF MARITAL PROPERTY, CAROLINE!”

[bemusedlybespectacled]

“oh, he thinks a piece of paper shouldn’t define your relationship? ASK HIM HOW HE FEELS ABOUT BEING ON YOUR BABY’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE, PATRICIA.”

[bemusedlybespectacled]

“oh, sure, it’s all fun and games until your estranged parents are making medical decisions for you and inheriting all your property, TIMOTHY.”

[bemusedlybespectacled]

so, I’ve gotten this question and similar ones before, and I want to use it to go into what marriage actually is.

so, in law, there are a couple of legal assumptions made when someone is a close family member, like a parent. the assumptions are that this person knows you well enough to make decisions on your behalf in an emergency, supports or is supported by you financially, and, most importantly, that they are emotionally significant to you in a way that makes them different from a total stranger or a good friend. immigration law, for example, prioritizes families over people immigrating for jobs alone, because not getting a job doesn’t have the same emotional weight as never seeing your mom again.

the difference is that you don’t get to choose your family (outside of adoption and, uh, legally that’s not a bilateral decision). you do get to choose your spouse. the fact that you chose them is why they get priority for things like inheritance and immigration, even over your parents or your siblings or your grandma.

how does the government know that this particular person is someone you want to have as part of your family? you fill out a form and you tell them.

what happens if you don’t want them in your family anymore, and don’t want those assumptions made about them? you fill out a different form and you tell the government that.

the thing I think that’s hard for people to wrap their heads around – whether you’re a starry-eyed romantic or a pragmatic bitch like me – is that marriage isn’t an announcement of how much you love someone. that’s what a facebook status update is for. you do not need to be in love, or sexually/romantically monogamous, or be religious, or any of the other things people associate with marriage, in order to be married.

it’s a legal decision. it is choosing to get certain benefits (like taxes, because it’s assumed you’re financially supporting each other) in exchange for certain responsibilities (because it’s assumed you’re supporting each other, it stops mattering exactly who bought what after you got married, so divorce splits the whole pool of stuff even if one person bought like 75% of it).

you don’t get the one without the other, and you don’t get either if you don’t affirmatively say that’s what you want to have happen. it doesn’t happen automatically, or in every romantic relationship no matter how serious, because the choice is the point.

and, to be clear: if you do not want, or do not care about, the legal rights and responsibilities of being married, you should not get married. it’s a fucking legal contract that has serious legal implications! it’s not something you should be doing for funsies!

tl;dr: if you want all the shit that comes with a marriage, good and bad, you need to tell the government that’s what you want. if you don’t want it, then you don’t need to do it, but you need to also be aware of what you’re potentially losing (in exchange for what you’re keeping). that should be an informed decision, not one you make for emotional reasons like “I just want everyone to know I’m only having sex with this person forever” or “our love is so pure it transcends legal boundaries.”

[ida-backwards-intherain]

Is there any option other than marriage for telling the government you want this person to be part of your family? Like, can you draw up some kind of homebrew contract?

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Short answer: No. If there was, queer people would have done it already.

Long answer: That’s a little like asking “can you become a citizen via contract rather than going through the immigration and naturalization process?” Marriage is a legal status: you either are or you aren’t. Can you cobble together very specific stuff, like advanced healthcare directives and wills and whatnot? Yes, absolutely. But anything that requires you to be legally married as a status cannot be contracted away: you can’t file taxes jointly or sponsor someone for a green card or get someone’s Social Security benefits if they die if you’re not married to that person.

Now, to be clear: some things that often require marriage do not always require marriage. For example, usually you need to be married to have someone unrelated to you be on your health insurance, but my job’s specific health insurance plan allows coverage for domestic partners, which they define as a single person who has cohabitated with you for six months or more and is in a committed relationship with you. So even though my fiancé and I are not married yet, he’s been on my health insurance for the past year and a half, because we hit the six month mark of living together right around when I had to re-enroll in my health insurance for the year.

But if we’d gotten married sooner, he’d have been able to get on my health insurance right away (getting married is a qualifying event that lets someone get on a health insurance plan outside of the enrollment period), but since he’s just a cohabitating partner, we had to wait six months for him to get on my insurance. And if he’d moved in with me a month later, we’d have to wait a whole year before he could enroll with me on my health insurance. Even though it’s allowed, it still doesn’t have the same standing as a marriage.

I guess technically adult adoption is an option, in that it is what queer people did for a while in lieu of marriage, but it’s a bad idea for a lot of reasons (not least of which being that you can divorce a spouse but you can’t undo an adoption).

[littledeconstruction-deactivate]

this, THIS is why QPR make me so fucking nervous. i’m not trying to shit on your beautiful poly aroace love affair, i’m asking you HOW WILL THIS RELATIONSHIP HOLD UP IN COURT. cause, news flash: it won’t.

if you have shared bank accounts and a house and a kid with someone who isn’t married to you, they can wipe you out – legally speaking – and you have no recourse. none. you will never see your kid again, unless you’re lucky and contributed half their DNA.

if they have a car accident and end up in hospital, you don’t have a legal right to see them. if they’re in a coma, their parents can pull the plug and adopt that child and you can do nothing.

queers wanted marriage equality not to Be Like Teh Hets, but because it is the most legal protection you can ever have against that bad stuff that comes (and it comes for everyone).

if you don’t have that stuff, if you’re relying on your partners to do the right thing forever and be perfect people and never have a business collapse or a messy family situation or an accident or even to get sick … you’re being really, really naïve.

[greyhairedgeekgirl]

Pre-legal-gay-marriage, I saw this happen.  I was on a parenting board and one day a woman we’d posted with for years told us her partner and one of their children had died in a car accident.  And because she wasn’t the biological parent of the surviving child – the child she’d been a parent to since conception – her ex’s parents took custody and took the child away and kept her from seeing that child.  Ever.

Because here’s the thing: children are not property.  Specifically, in estate law, children are not, and cannot be “Real Property.”  You cannot bequeath them like furniture, books, and bank accounts.   

“But my will states who I want as guardian!”  You say. Welp.  That statement is, in law, only a (strong) suggestion.  A judge still still have to rule on guardianship of your minor child, and you cannot, from the grave, dictate where they end up.  

Again: Children are not real property. If you are not their biological or legal parent, the state can remove them from your custody and hand them to someone more closely related, or not related at all but merely less gay, less queer, less “inappropriate” by your state’s legal standards.

The woman I knew back then was on good term with her not-quite-in-laws. Or thought she was.  Because as soon as her partner died, their tune changed 100%, they found anti-gay legal support, and they took that woman’s child from her.  Forever. 

That’s not my only “my outlaws are great and fine with us and its okay we’re not legally married” story, but it’s probably the most heartbreaking.  Though the image of a man who has just lost his partner of 25 years watching his ex-outlaws take ½ of his chairs, ½ of his pillows, ½ of his sheets, ½ of his napkins, ½ of his towels, ½ of his dishes, ½ of his books….. is pretty fucking close.  After they made him sit behind “the family” at his partner’s funeral.

[mierac]

My mother was a lifelong Republican, a very conservative Catholic. The thing that pushed her over on legalizing gay marriage was stories about people being in the hospital and their partner of 20 years not being allowed to see them, because they weren’t legally married. She thought that was wrong and unfair. 

Also a reminder “get married” does not mean “have a wedding.” You can file the paperwork and get married in a courthouse or office. There doesn’t even need to be a ceremony, you just have to sign some papers. (Bonus: you get access to the legal privileges of marriage as well as the protections, AND you get to stick it to the billion dollar “wedding industry” that preys on us all.)

[sadhoc]

#this is also why marriage equality for disabled people is super important

[prof-grace-aspen]

Something I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned on this post is civil unions. I know for a while in the queer community (and among people who hated us) there was some sort of hope civil unions could fill the same legal space as a marriage. What happened with that?

[lierdumoa]

States that legalized civil unions could grant people some of the legal benefits of marriage, but only at the state level, in specific states where such unions were recognized. Marriage, and all the legal rights it confers, are defined at the federal level. You can, for example, become an American citizen by marrying an American citizen, but not by having a civil union that’s only recognized at the state level.

At the end of the day, civil unions and marriages are both legal contracts. The reason contracts have different names is because they do different things. Civil unions conferred fewer rights than marriages, granting contract holders a legal status inferior to the legal status of marriage. If two legal contracts confer identical legal consequences, that makes them the same contract. There is no point having two different names for the same contract.

TL&DR separate but equal isn’t equal.

[tarot-o-meter]

Card identified: Love