Bohemian Gothic-The Lovers

Surja76

baba-prague said:
I liked the first version too - although right now, I prefer the second (we are just at a different place mentally now and so we needed to re-envision the deck). But the feedback we got was that it was one of the least liked cards in the deck, so I think many people will be happier with the new version. As Thirteen says though, both decks will be around and available (well, the first version is becoming scarce but I think it's still possible to find it) so there will be a choice.

Very nice reversion. I think it is more particular than previous one. There are a lot of very interesting signs.

First of all miracle white almost wedding dress with flowers meant that the girl is still young and alive.

There are some expressive and particular things:

Girl's left hand is collected in a fist, her fist is looked like heart shape and placed near her heart and this fist is bleeding just at the place of the ring finger.

Another sign is a opened girl's ear and red scaf of vampire.

Vampire's scaf is look like a heart too and he is wispers to her ear - in order to make right choice - "listen to your heart". His heart is in passion her heart is bleeding. He is more powerful and she is hadly can make right choice.
Her right hand with 4 well expessed fingers = 4 of wands. She is pleased

But her left collected hand (5 fingers closed - it is not 5 of wands, she was tired of fighting, she does almost not resist) and means that she needs a help. I think she is going to make not right choice.

He hand is just reached the medallion, from one side is the symbol of protection from otherworldly forces, from other side is the symbol of memory.
May be that it choice between this sweetheart vampire and person she promised to be trustful. May be that is why her ring finger is bleeding.
May be making her choice to the side of vampire she is broking someone's heart...
Her bleeding hand reminds me Catholic Icons always made with bleeding Christ's hands.
Difficult to understand either she is victim or may be she sacrifices her lover to new passion.


May be it is choice between order and passion.. She is not able to make a desicion, she is hesitating.

Her weak soul is powerless before the demonic influence, and there really is a phenomenon known as obsession with love.
 

Thirteen

Blood Red Engagement Ring

Surja76 said:
Girl's left hand is collected in a fist, her fist is looked like heart shape and placed near her heart and this fist is bleeding just at the place of the ring finger.
It's not bleeding--the picture just isn't clear enough to see. Karen explained:

"it's the girl who is making the choice. She is reaching for her locket (which of course contains a picture of her fiance) and on her ring finger is a - blood-red - engagement ring."

The impression that her finger is bleeding is a nice touch (intended or not), but I'm sure that in the actual deck it will be easier to see that it's a ring, not a bleeding finger.
 

Thirteen

Blowing up the image that Karen posted, I also note some wonderful details. The dress isn't actually white. The girl is wearing a lacy-white chemise and a satiny, pale-pink corset with embroidered roses on it (both sexy and, as Surja pointed out, girlish and implying life). I would also say that she's in her undergarments. Beautiful as the corset is, it's rather like our version of beautiful underwear; such corsets were worn underneath bodices or blouses or gowns.

So the implication I get is that as she was getting ready to go to bed and her fiance "summoned" her (Darn vampires. Never fails. You try to get ready for bed and that's when they decide they want to chat!). So she came out half-undressed. Like Fiance, this is another emphasis on her "half-way" position (not yet married, but almost. Not yet undressed, but almost). It makes her choice a double-entendre of sorts. Will the girl give up her "virginity" both in being bitten by her fiance and in having sex with him?
 

baba-prague

Oh, interesting. In my mind when we did this card, the implication is that this girl is like Mina in Bram Stoker's Dracula - attracted by the vampire but engaged to someone very different. I think that as she reaches for her locket she is thinking about her fiance (a Jonathan type I feel - steady but just a little boring) and knowing that she has to make a choice between marrying him and living a sensible, safe life or giving in to the much more thrilling, but also ungodly, life of the vampire.

By the way, I agree that she is most likely in her underwear - she is at her most vulnerable and yet she does still have the power, it seems, to make a decision. Or does she? The vampire is almost laughing at her behind her back.
 

Surja76

YEEEESSSSS... We got it.

I thought that there is not everything clear with this girl... :) :) :) Ahaaa..... She is in the process of betrayal.... :) :)


Hmm ... I have not understood that it is underwear...

As to this we can mention that underwear is a symbol of desired relationships, better sexual lover may be in comperison with existing one, more bothering or more traditional... This is "a hint" in intimate context.

He is look like Devil... and Lovers 6th arcanum with its hidden 16 - Tower, looks very logic here.

Thank you, baba-prague, nice card.
 

Thirteen

baba-prague said:
Oh, interesting. In my mind when we did this card, the implication is that this girl is like Mina in Bram Stoker's Dracula - attracted by the vampire but engaged to someone very different.
Ah! Even better! That's very close the traditional "Choice" often seen in the Lover's card, where we see someone trying to decide between one person who seems to be what they want (or thought they wanted) and this other who has appeared and may be what they never knew they wanted/needed till now...however problematic that other is going make their lives. Between the easy way, and the not-so-easy but much more interesting way :D

Surja76 said:
I have not understood that it is underwear...
It's hard to tell unless you magnify the image. Then it becomes clear that she's wearing a very beautiful corset--yet it's still a corset; only poor women wore bodice/corset combos (usually laced up in the front)--as those were cost effective (we see the gypsy types wearing those). A real lady's corset like this is to be worn underneath, a vanity piece as women now might have a pretty bra.Only her husband and maid would get to see it.

I've worn Victorian costumes of the upper classes and had on such corsets. They have hooks at the front and lace up the back. So you put them on over a soft chamise, hooked up in front, and then your maid or mother or sister drags back on those laces a-la Scarlet O'Hara make sure you can't breathe and your waist is nice and wasp-ish :rolleyes: Rather than relying on loosening the laces like a tennis shoe to get out of these corsets, you unhook the front and they break open. Rather like unhooking a bra, but far more dramatic.

Blow up the picture enough and you'll find that her corset seems to overlap rather than meet at the center like most corsets. Thus, it has hooks on one side, and on the other. From the looks of it, our vampire has already, er, started undressing her, as one panel is unhooked.
 

Krystophe

baba-prague said:
Oh, interesting. In my mind when we did this card, the implication is that this girl is like Mina in Bram Stoker's Dracula - attracted by the vampire but engaged to someone very different.

Following along with the Dracula connection, and viewing the image with the sense that it's actually the woman who is the predator here, might I suggest that we could be watching the newly undead Lucy trying to entice Arthur?

Seems to suggest that maybe the advice here could be to see that perhaps you can be perceiving someone as they were in the past, and still wanting them to be that person even though that is simply no longer the case...in that cast, it could relate to the Death card; the past is irretrievably gone, and imagining otherwise can be an invitation to self-destruction.

Just a thought...