The Suit of Cups
The Water suit, concerned with feelings, relationships, intuition and the inner life. It is the most fluid and most receptive of the four suits, and its questions are usually "what do I feel, and how is this relationship going?"
For the suit's character and its element in more detail, see The Minor Arcana. For the number framework behind each card, see Numbers in Tarot, and for the double-element logic of the court cards, see The Court Cards.
The suit's overall character
Cups action often happens inside a person, out of view. A crush, or the effort someone puts into a relationship, is often a kind of inner vow or private devotion, and other people may never see from the outside what that person has actually done for it. Wands work the opposite way: an idea shows up in outward action almost as soon as it arrives.
The emotional reactions of the Cups can also be understood through the psychological idea of loss aversion. People feel a loss more sharply than an equal gain, and it takes a gain several times larger to really cancel out the pain of losing something. This is why the Five of Cups, with its view of seeing more cups fallen than standing, rings so true. Cups people are not choosing to be pessimistic; loss simply weighs more in the mind.
Another way to remember the suit's character is to think of the cup as a plain cup. Its job is to hold and keep things, whether it holds water to drink or serves as a sacred vessel. At its core it receives rather than pours out, which matches the suit's tendency to draw feeling inward and its longing for a safe place to rest.
Reading reversals: longing that was not expressed in a healthy way
A reversed Cups card should not be read simply as "the relationship improves" or "there are no feelings." A better framework is this: the same longing to be loved and connected comes out in an unhealthy form. One form is excess. The Two of Cups reversed, for example, often shows unequal emotional investment, where one person feels they give more and runs hot and cold so the other person will "feel" how hurt they are; underneath, they want the other person to notice the wound. The other form is suppression or denial, such as the forced cheerfulness of the Three of Cups reversed, or refusing to admit one is unhappy. This resembles something counselors see: a client who can put pain into words is often not in the worst shape, while the person who keeps insisting "I'm fine, I'm okay" deserves closer attention.
Common situations: from first attraction to belonging, with an ending unlike the Wands
Taken together, the Cups number cards trace an emotional arc from first attraction to finding where one belongs, and on toward a full sense of connection. The way the suit ends makes an interesting contrast with the Wands. Wands carry masculine, outward-spreading energy; even at the Ten they still have a burning urge not to stop, which in some ways wears a person down. Cups carry feminine, inward-gathering energy; they like to be held by the cup and like having a place to settle at the end. So the fulfillment of the Ten of Cups feels more like the calm of finally coming into harbor, while the Wands version is optimism that keeps pushing through the strain.
All 14 cards
Number cards: Ace of Cups · Two of Cups · Three of Cups · Four of Cups · Five of Cups · Six of Cups · Seven of Cups · Eight of Cups · Nine of Cups · Ten of Cups
Court cards: Page of Cups · Knight of Cups · Queen of Cups · King of Cups