#at least im normal abt it

[badlydrawnronpa]

you know youre really easy to clock as a homestuck by artstyle alone anon was right. you have the artstyle of someone that has been at least a little bit abnormal about that comic

[amygdalae]

have never understood why squatting is considered a crime. loitering too. sir you have been arrested for the crime of....chilling. and hanging out. and taking a little nap

[puppyeared]

learning abt friendship decay and "not reaching out to your friends for months at a time unprompted is not neurotypical behaviour" has me feeling a certain way

[skitskatdacat63]

Fernando Alonso & His Relationship With Cards

I'm sure we're all familar with the cards on the back of Fernando's Vegas GP helmet by now, but did you know his relationship with cards goes a lot deeper?

I. Magic Tricks

You've probably seen or heard someone at least mention Fernando's propensity for card tricks. As far as I can tell he was doing them(publically) as far back as 2003 all the way to as recently as 2018. Even once performing a card trick, with a condom and a teddy bear(!??!?!??!!), in front of Valentino Rossi who said "How was that possible?"(x)

But how did this start? According to James Allen, "Fernando admits to having been heavily influenced by his grandfather, a mercurial figure, who taught him magic and card tricks, still one of his passions away from the race track."(x) And I'm not sure the validity of this one, because I couldn't find an actual source, but apparently he once said: "My parents are responsible for the two things I like doing most - driving and magic tricks. They bought me my first go-kart and a magician's kit."

In several interviews he described it as his hobby off track, and that he loved learning new tricks and surprising others in the garage with them! So clearly cards are pretty important to him both as a hobby but also to who he is as a person since they've been with him just as long as racing has.

II. Card Symbolism in His Helmets

This is the reason I originally made this post, but I thought I should also explain the origins of his card fascination first. As I said, we probably all remember the cards on the back of his helmet in Vegas, but did you know that wasn't the first time he had cards on the back of his helmet?

From 2008-2013, he used to have a pair of cards on the back of his helmets. The symbolisms of the cards themselves as well as the evolution of their design is really fascinating to me! Even more so with the recent development of the card choice in 2023.

Fernando said he wanted to reference his two titles in some way on the back of his helmet and after his friend sent him several ideas, he decided on having two cards(an ace of clubs and an ace of hearts, sometimes pictured with 05 and 06 on them as well), saying: "I picked the cloverleaf [the ace of clubs - Ed] to give me luck, but the only pity is that it doesn't have four leaves!"(X)

2008.

Here's the very first appearance of the cards! They're displayed flat, with the 05 and 06 clearly visible

2009.

Very similar to 2008, but with a slightly different design, and they're maybe a bit more straight with less shadow?

2010.

This is the first major change! I was sad they didn't have the years on them anymore, but then I realized they're sparkly to match with his signature lightning bolts on the top of the helmet!!

2011.

Honestly I'm still somewhat unsure if this is the actual 2011 helmet? It's pretty difficult to find clear photos of the back of helmets from older seasons. It's easiest to find them on replica sites or auction sites so I'm not 100%? But anyways, I like that this has the championship years on the underside of the cards

2012.

This is when I started getting weirdly emotional about the helmets. Do you see how they've progressed from being a centerpoint to being curled up and sad at the bottom of the helmet? Not listing the year anymore??

2013.

Same thoughts as 2012. And after this season, they cease to exist (just like his ferrari chair in the garage, WOAH CALLBACK), until cards make a reeappearance in his Vegas helmet, albeit in a different form

2013 Monaco(Honorable Mention):

For some reason 2013 helmets were easier to find proper pictures of, so I happened to witness this absolute beauty. The creativity of this helmet genuinely blows me away??? Wanting to keep the card motif, but making sure to incorporate it into the rest of the puzzle piece design?? Mwah! There was another special 2013 helmet but they didn't change the cards at all so I really applaud this one

2023 Las Vegas(The Return of The King):

The magnificent return! But look! The cards are different cards! Instead of being two aces, it's now an ace of hearts, a four of hearts(his driver number of course!) and, the, now iconic, representation of himself as a Joker. I literally could not believe my eyes when this helmet was released and I saw the Joker card, what a fucking silly old man....I really wonder if he felt nostalgic having cards on his helmet again or if he didn't think about it all and was just like, "ah cards because Vegas!!!"

III. Why Does This Matter?

*The rest of the post was factual, this is moreso my personal thoughts on the symbolism of the cards/designs

This post spawned from me recently watching the 2010 Bahrain gp and noticing "hey wait a minute...are those CARDS ON THE BACK OF HIS HELMET!?" It's a really tiny detail that's unfortunately covered up by the HANS device pretty much whenever he's wearing the helmet, so it's really difficult to spot! But I became fascinated with the fact that he had cards on his helmet before that recent helmet, and now here we are!

There's something to me about how the design of the cards evolves over the course of six seasons from the cards being front and center to being smaller, more folded up and closer to the bottom of the helmet. As I said, the 2012-2013 ones genuinely made me depressed because it feels, symbolically, like his hopes for getting another Ace are becoming more and more unlikely and falling away until they eventually fall falt and fade away entirely after 2013 and disappear for basically a decade.

But when they return? They're not the same cards! Instead of representing Fernando's championships, they now represent him as a person, displaying his driver number and his persona of being a Joker!! Though I do think it's interesting he happened to keep the Ace of Hearts, even though he talked more about the Ace of Clubs before. I'm not sure it's actually this deep in reality, but I like to think that it's him not letting his championships(and the lack thereof) define him, but rather letting who he is as a person shine and be the centerpoint instead! But on a sadder note, as @suzuki-ecstar said to me, maybe the Aces aren't there anymore because he's lost all hope for a chance at a third Ace entirely :(

[starofhisheart]

Love...TRIANGLE?

WAKE UP BOYS DAD SAID STEDDYHANDS REAL

[ariinurl]

Happy birthday to em ‼️‼️‼️

[tomorrowillbeyou]

alright, i'm not sure how much of this is already commonly known but i have been investigating the source of these images:

and this video:

a comment on this blog post suggests that they were taken in sydney:

the upload date of the video also dates the events to before january 2008. we know that tucker rule and james dewees were there. the song they're singing is gloves by reggie and the full effect:

for these reasons, i THOUGHT that the photos and video were taken at the sydney entertainment center on november 30th 2011. reggie and the full effect opened for mcr that night and gloves was on their setlist:

this is backed up by this youtube comment on the dancing queen video talking about fluxuation in sydney (i unfortunately can't find the video it mentions but the channel is here):

tucker talks about playing for mcr in australia in 2007 in this podcast clip:

this was what i THOUGHT. and i was going to post this but i thought i should do a little more research just to see if i could find anything more. and i stumbled across this livejournal post:

every single image on the post is broken. but i'm pretty confident that the pictures we all know and love were in there.

^this one especially seems to line up. they were taken at a bar called the lobo plantation in sydney on november 29th 2011.

the captions of the other pictures make me SO mad that they were deleted. im so fucking curious. well thank you to deleted livejournal user theyoungpretend for (probably) being the one to post these historical images. if anyone knows of any way to access the rest pls lmk (tinypic went down and all the images hosted on there were deleted)

also this picture seems to have been taken on the same night??

here are some more (questionably worded unfortunately. like some of these are really insane) posts which mention what happened:

x (i think this may be from one of the people in the picture above?), x, x, x (hidden in. ryan ross/matt cortez fic?), x, x, x, x, x, x (masterpost where almost all the links are broken). ive saved all of these on the wayback machine in case they ever get deleted.

this iconic ray moment was the day after btw:

if anyone has any more info or any pics PLEASE let me know!!!!!!

[technicalknockout]

guess what day it is🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[xenglitch]

it couldve been midra. it couldve been messmer. it couldve been romina. we couldve had a really really cool new unique final boss instead of the actual final boss who is literally a guy we already fought in the base game and bootleg twin princes.

[spaciebabie]

i dont think u realize how hard i am restraining myself from drawing springtrap w/a strap for The Bit

[noahtally-famous]

kinda (very) ironic that the two allegedly "normal guys" in the total drama franchise have some of the most concerning lore/personalities

[meeple-inc]

A small question for the employees running the blog; what's it like to work at Meeple, or even the HQ specifically if you happen to be there? Any cool workplace stories?

We do in fact work at Meeple HQ, at the MeCloud! Unfortunately, Meeple policies prohibit me from discussing anything about what happens within the workplace in detail, but I get plenty of desk space and I enjoy the presence of my coworkers!

[riacte]

how it started:

one ren peeing twaddle conversation later:

[bunnihearted]

regardless of the "learn how to be alone" dravel, being lonely actually is really bad for your mental health and can be very painful :p

[palms-upturned]

Like three of my coworkers in the past month have tested positive for covid, every day I see new ppl on my dash mentioning that they’ve caught covid, every day I see and hear from ppl who have come down w something that looks like covid but the test came back negative but also they can only afford to test once bc tests aren’t free anymore and the more accurate tests are also more expensive so there’s no way to know if it was a false negative, and yet nobody masks anymore. hell world hell world

[givemethedamnflowers]

As a fandom we read aftg and collectively thought "andrew has piercings" like 90% of fanart i see he has at the very minimum 3/4 earrings

And i just love that for us