the 7th suit

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Early on, this suit wasn’t much more than sort of a joke, but it evolved into more. It took over eight years of work before all of the cards were named, ordered and defined. F. Sickly drew this suit partially because there were still themes, yet unaddressed by the standard deck that didn’t fit into the Sickly Suit. But also because very few tarot decks address vulgarity in any serious way, if at all, in any way. There are some decks whose backbone is vulgarity, even more than it is the backbone of this suit. While these “obscene” words are the mode of this suit, their obscenity and frivolity are not the whole story. Their suppression and censorship, and their pure utility as words in the English language are also key to this suit. There is a time and place for most words, in most peoples’ lives. Words define aspects of our environment and things within it. These words have as much a place in the world as their “more polite” counterparts. The use of these words is not always rude or mean-spirited. In addition to being a cathartic set of expletives, they can also serve as useful superlatives, or convey a whole spectrum of different attitudes toward the subject they are describing, from crassness or playful amusement to mockery or utter disdain. Each of these words have the ability to describe a variety of different things, depending on the context, in ways that not many other sets of words can, and most can take the form of verb, adverb, adjective, or noun, in ways that most words in the English language can’t quite manage. These cards are all meant to cover many, or all, of these meanings, uses, and contexts. As with the Sickly Suit, they are also designed to have counterparts in the Major Arcana as well.

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*** WARNING: These images contain language and imagery that may be offensive to some viewers. ***