you know the thing about The Menu (2022) is that so many people came out of it being like "haha eat the rich" and yeah, sure, but really the chef's issue wasn't with the rich people, I mean he hated them and wanted them dead yes, but his issue was that he had let the world of ambition take him so far from the joy of cooking that he once felt, from the art that he loved to make, because he let himself chase status and exclusivity, when really he could have been making his art for everyone, at a certain point he did not need to be cooking for rich people he could have found people who appreciated his food because they loved food, he could have leaned into the art he loved instead of the art he was expected to make with the set dressing he was expected to make it in, and that is a critique of capitalism, but it's not an "eat the rich" type critique, it's not just rich people who have had their relationship to art changed by capitalism, we all have in one way or another, think about the phrase "consuming content", we are consuming, not savoring, and what does it mean to be an artist when being an artist means being a content creator, being consumed, and what artistic principles can you really afford to have when you need to make money to live, but what principles will you forget to pick back up when you have the money, how far gone from yourself do you have to be to no longer be able to go back? What does it mean when you haven't cooked a burger for yourself, for your friends, for someone who loves a burger, because you're always, only cooking for those who can afford you? What do you cook for yourself? Do you savor it? What art do you make when no one's watching? Can you still make art when no one's watching?
but the other thing about The Menu (2022) is that they literally don't eat the rich people. Look at me. They do not eat the rich people they are all burned alive, guests and staff, and that's Different
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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 :(
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Stobin Different First Meeting AU where they go to prom together. This was meant to be an au post and turned into a mini fic oops (written completely within a tumblr post so sorry for the poor quality)
(edit: realized I should link the fic I was inspired by for those who don't follow me and so didn't see me reblog it earlier)
Steve doesn't necessarily want to go to prom, right? Like yeah, he'd been imagining it for a while, but now that he was very, very single it just didn't have the same shine that it used to. And he really wasn't ready to start dating yet. However, he didn't want to just, not go to prom, and also knew it would seem really weird (and pretty fucking sad) if he didn't go.
Which leaves him in a conundrum.
He thought for a while that maybe he would go with one of the junior cheerleaders. While he didn't have any close friends anymore, he was still friendly with plenty of people. There were girls that wouldn't be going to prom unless they had a senior boyfriend - some he had even gone on dates with in the past who wouldn't think a single prom date meant that he wanted a new girlfriend.
However, he is pretty sure most of those girls would have... other expectations for the night. And honestly? He isn't quite sure that he was ready to get back on that horse either.
... Not that he thought women were horses.
He's pretty sure men are normally the ones called horses in riding metaphors.
Anyway.
That left him stuck. He couldn't just not go to prom, but also didn't want to wind up trapped on an actual date with someone. So who could he ask?
His solution ended up coming from an odd place.
Robin Buckley was... quite honestly, kind of a weirdo.
She was cute, in an alternative sort of way. She never took any of his shit (he wasn't completely sure she even liked him) but also reluctantly laughed at the snarky shit he said under his breath during their Film History class. And not in the fake giggly way girls did when they were flirting, but didn't actually care about what he was saying, just the way he said it. She actually seemed to think he was funny. Even if that revelation seemed to piss her off.
The only reason he was even in Film History that semester - and therefore, knew who she was - was for the easy A. He got to watch movies in class, and watch movies for homework. He was willing to plow through a couple of shitty essays in exchange for a class that he didn't feel like a complete idiot in.
(Well, he was pretty sure Robin thought he was an idiot about movies, but just because he had trouble remembering the names and shit of characters, didn't mean he couldn't analyze the themes, fuck you very much, Buckley.)
They had gotten assigned a project together early on, and it hadn't been completely terrible. She had quickly taken over doing most of the writing portions, but hadn't thought all of his ideas were terrible. By the end of the project he thought they were even sort of having fun together.
He'd always been one to try his luck, take a little more than he was given. So, after that assignment was over, he started sitting next to her in class, not wanting that easy, if sharp, camaraderie to end. Robin rolled her eyes at him and asked him what he thought he was doing the first time he did it, but she never sent him away.
They ended up chatting more and more during down times, passing notes to each other and sharing sly comments under their breaths during the movies. Steve often had trouble paying attention at school, his mind easily wandering away, and it was almost as bad during most movies, but Robin helped keep him on track.
The class turned into one that was done for the easy grade, a last ditch effort to improve his already hopeless GPA, and became one he actually enjoyed.
The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of going to prom with Robin. It made the night seem a little less unbearable.
He thought about making a big deal out of asking her, because he knows that's what girls (and even Nancy) had enjoyed for past dances. He quickly scrapped that idea, however, because not only did he not want to put pressure on her like that, but also she seemed to hate public spectacles like that.
Or at least when aimed at her, they both enjoyed watching drama unfold in the halls a bit too much to say she hated it completely.
So Steve waits until the end of the day, their film class being their last, to pull her into an empty classroom. She follows him without question in a show of trust he didn't realize she had in him. The notion warms him, and for some reason makes it more difficult to get the question out.
"Why do I feel like you're about to try to sell me drugs or something?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow at him. He squints at her in offense.
"Why is that your first assumption?!"
"I don't know! Why else are you pulling me out of the hallway all secretive like, making sure no one followed us, into an abandoned classroom," she asks, throwing her arms into the air.
"The classroom isn't abandoned, it's the end of the day! Also, who does drug deals on campus, that's just stupid?" He asks rhetorically, before waving one hand through the air, as if trying to erase the current thread of conversation. "That doesn't matter, you're distracting me."
"Well then, get on with it! Some of us have practice we need to get to."
"It's like talking to the kids," he mutters to himself, "Whatever. I wanted to ask - will you go to prom with me?"
That stops Robin up short. There's panic in her eyes now, though Steve isn't sure what exactly put it there. Was his reputation that bad that even band geeks are terrified of getting asked out by him?
"You want to go on a date? With me?" she asks slowly, disbelief coloring her voice, though it doesn't hide her unease.
"No, I want to go to prom with you," he scoffs, "Not go on a date with you."
"That is a date, dingus! The person you go to prom with is literally called your date!"
"Okay, sure, maybe, but I don't actually want to date you," he said, rolling his eyes at her.
Like, okay, he understood his reputation for being... what did she call him last week? A 'huge effing rake'? But that didn't mean that he was trying to date any girl that looked in his direction. A lot of girls looked in his direction. That was too many women, even for him.
Robin relaxes a little at that.
"Then why are you asking me to prom instead of someone you actually want to date?"
"Because!" he says, resisting the urge to flail his hands back at her. "I don't want to date anyone right now. Most people I ask are going to expect all these things from me - they're going to want dinner, and at the very least a kiss at the end of the night if not more, or another date the very next day. Because Steve Harrington is supposed to want those things!" He takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his hair to calm himself. "But right now? I really don't."
"Well then, what does Steve the Hair Harrington actually want?" She had relaxed fully at this point, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth.
"I want to go to prom with someone I consider a friend, someone who makes me laugh," he says after a moment of silence. "I want to dance badly to really corny pop music and drink just enough spiked punch that I don't remember how much I hate wearing any sort of tie. Then I want to go get milkshakes or go see a really trashy midnight horror flick, just because I'm having so much fun I don't want the night to end."
That small smile has grown into a reluctant grin on Robin's face. It makes her eyes shine and her freckles pop. Steve thought that if he was in a better place, if they had met at a different time, he could have fallen in love with her.
But they had met now instead, in some shitty public school elective course, and she was the closest thing he had to a friend that wasn't a snotty middle schooler.
"That sounds... like a lot of fun, actually," she says, mischief sparking on her face. "Who would've known the hidden depths hidden behind all that hair."
"Hey!" he protests half-heartedly, unable to keep a grin of his own off his face. "So what do you say? Wanna go to prom with me?"
"I guess," she sighs, acting like it was such a trial to go to prom with him. Him! But her next words make up for it. "Since we're friends, and all. However, I still expect you to buy me dinner, though you can keep the kiss goodnight to yourself."
Steve can't help the giddy laugh from spilling out of him. For the first time in weeks, he is actually looking forward to prom.
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Thoughts on the Alysanne is Maegor's daughter AU? I feel like it has some interesting potential, and it vastly recontextualizes different parts of Jaehaehae (I do not like him sjsjsjs) and Alysanne's relationship (such as Jaehaehae's treatment of their daughters) but I wanna hear what you think about it!
I’ve touched on this a bit before but since you actually want to hear my thoughts, allow me to present to you my Jaehaerys Is The Goddamn Worst, And Alysanne Annoys Me Too: An Essay lmao but my answer is basically “yeah all of what you just said.”
I think it makes Alysanne much more palatable (to me) as a character because as she stands, she just fixates on forcing her daughters through these fucked up marriages at too young an age bc it traumatized her to be married and pregnant at 15 too but she’d never admit that being a willing participant in her own kidnapping by her brother-husband was the single worst thing that ever happened to her, and because Alysanne doesn’t want to admit it (and Jaehaerys would never see it as wrong or a mistake) F&B really shies away from delving into the fact that Alysanne is as deranged of a mother as Cersei is. So as she stands, she’s very flat to me because she’s presented very flatly and inconsistently. She’s so in love with Jaehaerys, she’s maritally raped by Jaehaerys, she’s a loving and doting mother, she forces her daughters into marriages when they’re the same too young age she was, she accuses her teenage girls of being scheming whores then gets angry when her husband accuses their teenage girls of being scheming whores, and worst of all we are just told “Maegelle tells them to make up so they do” so we don’t know why Alysanne gets over all of this. What is the point of riding a dragon when you never use that dragon to protect your daughters from unwanted teen marriages? We’re just not given a good enough justification for why her behavior is so weird and frustrating towards her daughters.
Make her Maegor’s daughter though…most of her behavior as an adult makes more sense. Like a worse version of Rhaenyra’s childhood almost - a father desperate for a son, but lowkey obsessed with his daughter, who makes all his hang ups about his parents the problems of every woman around him, except Maegor is out here blood sacrificing and torturing and starting wars and forcing babies on wives he discards quickly and brutally. Then here comes Jaehaerys on a white horse green dragon to save her from the horror her life has become, and he loves her so much he runs away with her even though Alyssa says they shouldn’t marry because people won’t like it. And they have beautiful children, and a beautiful marriage, and build a beautiful kingdom.
Then her pregnancies start getting dangerous. Gaemon, then Valerion, die. Alysanne thinks of the shriveled up mutants she called brothers, if Maegor’s taint has passed to her. Her perfect husband ignores her no, and forces Gael on her. Alysanne remembers that he said nothing to Rogar when Alyssa died, merely wept. Then her daughters start to die. Daella, Alyssa, Viserra, all within a few years. Then Jaehaerys makes Saera watch as he murders her boyfriend, calls her a whore, and says Alysanne cannot follow Saera to Lys. Alysanne thinks of Maegor torturing the Harroways over Alys’ presumed infidelity. Jaehaerys says he’s sorry, and her daughter badgers her into forgiving him, and she remembers how she helped Jaehaerys badger Alyssa into forgiving Rogar. Not two years later, Jaehaerys passes over Rhaenys. Alysanne thinks of how she was never enough for her father, how she felt so superior to Rhaena banished to Dragonstone and resented by Aerea, yet there she is dragging Gael away from court because she can’t stand to be with Jaehaerys. How her father was surrounded by dead women and dead babies and how Jaehaerys is surrounded by his own dead daughters, but surely she did the right thing, surely Maegor was worse, surely the realm is better off? Is he right to pass over Rhaenys? Is she enabling a man just as monstrous as her father? She will never decide, because Maegelle will guilt her about keeping Gael isolated at Dragonstone, and Alysanne will do as she’s told, just like Rhaena, and Alyssa, and Jeyne, Elinor, Ceryse, Alys, and Tyanna, just like every one of her daughters.
I do get why Alysanne is Alyssa & Aenys’ and not Maegor’s. The weird Targ babies, the line not descending from Visenya, Jaehaerys and Alysanne being held up as the perfect Targaryen couple specifically because they are brother and sister and dragon riders. I do even think canon Alysanne is likely traumatized by her time as a hostage on Dragonstone, and the ensuing war, and the trauma bond that caused with Jaehaerys, and it makes her idolize Jaehaerys, and then he isolates her at Dragonstone so he can swiftly and safely marry, groom, and knock her up. It’s not like,,,, a fun time, and it’s enough to make anyone crazy and weird about their daughters, but I think having her father be Maegor makes Alysanne herself much deeper because it gives her, as the most beloved Targaryen queen, a blood tie to the most hated Targaryen king, and a marriage to the most beloved Targaryen king. It fits better with a lot of the themes of the main series (again, imo) - forcing the spotlight on the outsiders to see how the affect the story from behind the scenes. The fall of Aegon’s sons, and The Long Reign, not told from the PoV or to serve the PoV of any of the kings or princes, but of the queen that tied them all together.
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