Cups map to water. Water's nature is downward, gathering, and shaped by whatever holds it — so Cups are about feeling, relationship, imagination, and the things you don't so much control as receive. The image is exact: a cup doesn't make water, it holds it.
Where you'll recognise it: when something moves you, when you have feelings for someone, and when you can't say why but something is off. Ace to ten walks the emotional road — overflowing, meeting, celebrating, tiring, losing, remembering, imagining, leaving, being satisfied, being whole.
Running well, Cups are your capacity to connect: to feel, to hold someone, to be moved. Stuck, water's problem is flood or drought — emotion with no banks, soaking in it; or the cup turned upside down, letting nothing in. So when Cups appear, ask first whether the cup is full or empty, moving or stagnant. That's closer to what the card is saying than whether the relationship is going well.
