Writes Naughty Stories: Anamnesis of The Chariot

[WritesNaughtyStories]

I went ahead and started this this evening, I confess I had not read anything more than the description at itch.io before I began this play-through, so special thanks go to @IsabellaRose for accepting the challenge and prompting me to get something played.

A word about the seemingly cryptic title of this topic. Anamnesis begins with drawing a Major Arcana as a Shadow that represents who you were before your memory loss. I drew The Chariot: discipline, focus, success, progress. If anyone else post an Anamnesis report, please let us know what your Shadow was.

A couple of notes: the game uses a Tarot deck as a randomizer - common enough in the journaling game space - and I own several (although not a Rider-Waite deck). I chose the Tarot of Dreams by Ciro Marchetti because its art is exceptionally evocative for me without straying too far from the traditional symbolism. However, it has extra minor arcana cards called Palaces. I didn't think too much about how that would interact with the game's prompts beyond: 'We'll burn that bridge when we come to it.' and 'It's unlikely to come up anyway.'

The Palace of Coins was my second prompt.

I was happy with what I'd already written though and decided to keep going. The Palace cards are symbolic of home, the current environment or atmosphere - they are where the Minor Arcana Court live according to Marchetti. There are several prompts about what's around you in the first set of prompts so I opted for a more literal interpretation - 'What do you remember of home?' And of course the Major Arcana card I drew to answer that was Death.

Despite the self-inflicted difficulties, I'm very happy with what I've gotten so far. And, should anyone care, I'm writing long hand rather than typing.

Edited 22 hours ago by WritesNaughtyStories

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Here's what we have so far. The final image shows the current prompt and the answer inspiration.

Earlier I got a prompt for a piece of jewelry and the Magician as the answer. I have a spreadsheet of Tarot cards that includes colors, directions, seasons, herbs, gemstones and the traditional meanings of cards. The Magician represents Moonstone or Pearl - both feminine in aspect for jewelry, so suddenly my amnesiac became female as I looked at my hands and saw this ring.

Swords:

After getting your bearings, you walk around town. You know this town. You know it well, but you cannot remember it. Draw three cards from the Deck of Swords.

First Sword: 9. Someone is having an argument in the street. Does this remind you of an argument you’ve had?

I have not written this response yet.

@IsabellaRose, now I'm going to be weird about my handwriting.

Edited 8 hours ago by WritesNaughtyStories

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Justice points at consequences, law and accountability. The phrase "You need to handle it." is the trigger for her memory. And argument about something she needed to fix, even though the failure wasn't hers.

The next draw is the Queen of Swords and The Fool.

You pause at a building and realize you used to work here. What was your job? Do you still work here?

I had been thinking she might be a cop, but The Fool doesn't seem to indicate a police station. The Fool is spring, beginnings, innocence and spontaneity. Hardly a cop shop. Maybe a school, but I can't shake the echo of Justice and the Chariot that points at her - was she some kind of school cop?

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Next draw: Ace of Swords and The Chariot.

The Ace of Swords: You take in the sights, sounds, and smells of the town around you. How does the town make you feel? Does it feel like home?

The Chariot is, again, about progress through disciplined effort, That doesn't feel like an innate sense of belonging.

It's worth pointing out that at the end of Act 1 I shuffled all the Major Arcana back into the deck. The rules weren't explicit about it and I made the conscious decision to shuffle it in because in a story about someone recovering their memories, they, or the Shadow of who they think they are, might arise.

As I look at the cards and prepare to write I discover two things. One: my choices about cards, despite a deck of 83 cards (the Tarot of Dreams also includes a Tree of Life card - fucked if I know what my plan is if it turns up) have been very impactful, and two: I screwed up on what her ring is made of. Moonstone belongs to the High Priestess, not the Magician. Yet there it is, written in the narrative. I can draw some lines of inspiration from the High Priestess and the fact that The Chariot can also point to Moonstone, so, if I were a man with faith in the mystic, I could say it was fated, but I'm not. The important thing is, it's written, and that memory has built others.

And I think that's oddly appropriate in a game like this - we are subject to the errors of our perception that color the new memories that we build.

[WritesNaughtyStories]

I'll get the next set of pictures up eventually, but they have to be resampled to meet the file size restrictions.

For now, we are on to Act 3.

You manage to find your home. The façade is unfamiliar. You fish the key out of your pocket and open the door.

3 of Cups: You look inside your wastebin. What do you find?

Judgement. (better judgement than to root around in the trash, frankly - but we're trying to solve a mystery here). Judgement points to awakenings, rebirths, true calling and absolution. She's new here, She came for a fresh start, but how does the trash tell us that?