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mrs-stans · 3 months ago

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How Sebastian Stan Survived Communism and Became Hollywood’s Most Daring Shape-Shifter

So you need somebody who can play the Winter Soldier, Trump, and Tommy Lee? We’ve got the guy.

Sebastian Stan, who can currently be seen in Marvel’s Thunderbolts*, photographed in February in Palmdale, California. Jacket by Prada; vintage T-shirt from Stock Vintage.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

The sun is going down fast, and Sebastian Stan is trying to get inside a locked Romanian church. This windblown Monday in late February would have been his late father’s 70th birthday, and before the day is gone, he is determined to light a candle and say a prayer in the old man’s memory at a place that had meaning for them both. Stan was born and raised in Romania, where faith and superstition became rooted together for him. “Whenever I’m in a church, I have to go like this three times,” he says, making the sign of the cross with his right hand. “I have to do it. And I have to do it three times before I get on a plane.”

Just before we arrived at this Southern California church in pursuit of the sacred, Stan was indulging the profane. Is there another way to describe an encounter with a remote-controlled talking penis? The actor is based in New York, so when he visits LA, as he’s doing now to attend the Academy Awards, he has a full to-do list. Today, that includes a visit to the makeup studio Autonomous FX, which won an Emmy for transforming Stan and Lily James into Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson for the Hulu series Pam & Tommy. The whole day is a microcosm of what has established Stan as one of the more daring and endearing actors working today. He thinks deeply but has a wild side too.

We’ll get back to the robo-penis later.

Jacket by Dior Men; belt by Artemas Quibble; vintage T-shirt from Stock Vintage; vintage pants from Front General Store.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

It’s getting late, and Stan has to hurry through rush-hour traffic to get right with God for his father’s birthday. The Biserica Ortodoxă Română Sfânta Treime (or Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church) that he wants to visit to light the tribute to his father is meaningful to the Romanian immigrants who founded it, but it’s no soaring cathedral. It’s tiny, a single-story white stucco structure with a squat steeple that’s hidden behind much taller trees. Across the street is the headquarters of the Bilt-Well Roofing company, which is a comparatively much bigger operation.

Stan left Romania more than three decades ago, but it’s still a core part of him. So is the uncertainty of growing up in a place where the government dominated and demoralized its own citizens—which makes him especially attuned to authoritarianism in his adopted country of the United States. His old accent is gone, of course. Few who have seen him onscreen as the Winter Soldier in a decade and a half of Marvel movies—including the upcoming outcast team-up adventure Thunderbolts*—could find a trace of it. Stan’s character of Bucky Barnes is as all-American as his closest friend, Captain America. The character was a Brooklyn native, but Stan took on a neighboring Queens inflection for another famous (or infamous) performance, playing young Donald Trump in the scathing true-life drama The Apprentice. The role earned him both a best-actor Oscar nomination this year and the enduring rage of a vengeful, unchecked president.

Suit by Emporio Armani; shirt by Giorgio Armani; necklace and watch by Cartier. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

New faces and new voices were exactly what drew Stan to acting in high school. He moved to the US in the 1990s, and—as an immigrant kid still struggling to adapt to the language and culture—it was a lot more fun to be Bum Number Two in a production of Little Shop of Horrors than it was to be himself. “I just remember how fun it was to try to change everything,” he says. Being onstage turned a shy kid into a scene-stealing extrovert—and he was good at it. His mother sent him to summer theater camp not far from their new home just outside New York City, and by the end of high school, he was being cast as the lead in Cyrano de Bergerac. He was a good-looking kid, but he still loved hiding his face beneath Cyrano’s oversized nose. “You’re dressing up, you’re putting on fake beards, you’re walking differently, you’re changing,” he tells me. “You take big swings. You take bigger swings than you do when you’re a young actor coming to LA to go on pilot season auditions and they try to cast you as yourself—and you’re only allowed to play yourself.”

“SEBASTIAN HAS ALWAYS BEEN REALLY FEARLESS,” SAYS CHRIS EVANS. “YOU CAN SEE THAT IN HIS CHOICES. HE TAKES BIG SWINGS.”

Stan prefers to push himself to the background. He is not an oversharer. He’ll talk about characters or stunts or the meaning he sees in a particular movie or TV show, but while fans know every detail about the lives of other performers they adore, Stan has built a following while keeping the specifics of his own life somewhat obscure. The pilgrimage to light a candle for his dad is something he would ordinarily have done by himself. But Stan agreed to share something of himself for this story, in defiance of the actorly part of his personality that wishes when you looked at him, you’d see someone else.

He pulls on the handle of Holy Trinity’s main doorway. It doesn’t budge. “Doesn’t look very open,” he says. He’s not ready to give up. He walks around the church’s property and finds an older man sweeping up outside the congregation’s neighboring all-purpose hall.

Stan opens his arms and addresses him with a traditional Romanian greeting of respect: “Sărut mâna…”

I kiss your hand.

Coat by Miu Miu; belt by Artemas Quibble; necklace and watch by Cartier; vintage pants by Carhartt from Front General Store.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

A week later, Stan is wearing a Prada tuxedo. It’s the night of the Academy Awards at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, and instead of trying to win over a skeptical church janitor, he’s trying to reassure his fellow actors and filmmakers that he is just fine, despite losing best actor to Adrien Brody earlier in the evening. (The VF Oscar Party is off-the-record, but Stan gave us permission to set the scene.) Most well-wishers now come to him with condolences, but he didn’t expect to win, and in some ways he may have avoided a bigger headache.

Trump has made political retribution a hallmark of his new term in the White House, and he was enraged by the sheer fact of The Apprentice’s existence. The movie, written by veteran journalist and Vanity Fair special correspondent Gabriel Sherman, depicts Trump in the 1970s as a needy wannabe mogul, eager to escape the shadow of his powerful father and being taught by Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) that underhanded tactics are a shortcut to success. When the movie was released last October, a month before the election, the once and future president unloaded on it via Truth Social, calling it “a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job,” and adding: “So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want.”

It’s unlikely that Trump had actually seen the movie at that point, but Stan has little doubt that he’s watched it since. “I would put money down he’s seen it 100 fucking times, of course, because he’s a narcissist,” Stan told me the previous week. “And I bet you there’s certain things he likes about it.” Such as? “How he looked,” Stan replies with a smile.

Pants by Brunello Cucinelli; vintage T-shirt and boots from Stock Vintage. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

He is too modest to say it directly, but he’s more handsome than Trump ever was, even with the prosthetic makeup that thickened the actor’s neck and dental devices called plumpers that pooched out his lips and jowls. Autonomous FX did those makeup effects too, allowing him to look more like the disco-era version of Trump. Capturing him physically, while also surfacing the scared and desperate young man beneath that exterior, is what earned Stan his Oscar nomination. “He loses his humanity. I guess that’s essentially what happens,” Stan said of the movie. “As an actor, all you’re trying to do is just look at these very human things and identify with them.”

That doesn’t mean he wants Trump to put him at the top of his enemies list. Before the Academy Awards, Stan said he was trying not to worry about potential retribution and didn’t think it would happen, unless…“I don’t know, maybe if I win the Oscar, which is like 0.0000 percent.”

“HE’S WILLING TO PLAY UNLIKABLE CHARACTERS,” SAYS JESSICA CHASTAIN. “HE’S NOT HAPPY TO JUST BE A CONVENTIONAL MOVIE STAR.”

So yes, he’s feeling fine at the party. He took with him other honors from the backslapping season, like when Jane Fonda name-dropped him while accepting a lifetime achievement award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. “While you may hate the behavior of your character, you have to understand and empathize with the traumatized person you’re playing. Thinking of Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice,” she said.

Stan said her shout-out was “maybe better than winning an Oscar.” “I wasn’t at the SAG Awards,” he continued. “I wasn’t nominated. I didn’t go. But somebody told me to turn on the TV because Jane Fonda mentioned my name. I would never have thought in my life that she would know who I am.”

Jacket by Prada; vintage T-shirt and boots from Stock Vintage; pants by Prada; belt by Artemas Quibble; necklace and watch by Cartier. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

Then there was the actual trophy he won, a Golden Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy, bestowed on him not for The Apprentice but for A Different Man, in which he plays a man with a disfiguring genetic condition who undergoes a radical medical procedure to look more “normal.” The back-to-back recognition caught the attention of Hollywood’s power brokers, including Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who has been working with him for nearly 15 years now. “To see him winning a Golden Globe for one movie and then being nominated for an Academy Award for another movie in the same year is pretty darn impressive,” Feige says.

The Golden Globe win stirred unexpected emotions in Stan. “You never really think that you’re going to be up there,” he’s told me. “I realized from that Golden Globe moment that when it happens, it’s massive. You can’t help but reflect on everything and everyone that contributed to you getting there.”

One of them is Annabelle Wallis, Stan’s partner of several years. The couple had kept their relationship private before the Globes, when she accompanied him and got an “I love you” callout from him on the stage. Wallis joined Stan at the Oscars as well, wearing a forget-me-not blue Grecian-style gown, and he introduces her happily to me at the Oscar party. (She has heard all about our adventure trying to get into the Romanian church.) Wallis is an actor herself, best known for The Tudors and Peaky Blinders, but their relationship is not something either of them discusses. “I feel like it’s really difficult nowadays to be able to have any privacy whatsoever,” he said. “It’s the one part of my life that I try to keep somewhat for myself, even though it sort of ends up being out there.”

Stan gets that protective streak from another person who helped him get where he is—his mother, Georgeta Orlovschi, who also accompanied him to the Oscars. She raised him for many years as a single mom after she split from his father when Stan was young. “They were both very strong individuals with very strong personalities,” he says. “Neither wanted to be justified by the other. I think they both had a rebellious spirit.”

Hat by Nick Fouquet; necklace by Cartier.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

His father later disappeared completely, going into exile in the States. Constantin Stan was a cargo-ship worker who helped fellow countrymen evade government persecution that pervaded Romania in the decades after World War II. “He was a bit of a hero in my town,” Stan says. “My parents were part of the youth that were standing up to Communism. My father was helping people escape the country illegally, to the point where he was a wanted man. And he himself had to flee.”

Stan grew up not really knowing the man everyone else knew by the nickname “Tino,” apart from occasional telephone calls. But if his dad could vanish, it seemed plausible that his mother might too. Then one day she did.

Stan was about eight years old when his mother fled Romania to set up a new life for them abroad. Throughout his childhood, government mismanagement and corruption had led to food scarcity, fuel shortages, and electricity blackouts. The eventual revolution culminated in the downfall and execution of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1989. “I watched him get shot on television,” Stan says. “I remember that.”

The aftermath wasn’t necessarily better. “It was chaos,” Stan says, noting “how many orphaned kids were in Bucharest after the revolution because everybody didn’t have money. Nobody knew how to live. They’d been so suppressed.” He spent a year with his grandparents before joining his mother in Austria. “She came and got me when she finally had a job and established herself enough there in Vienna,” he says.

Sweater by Loro Piana; pants by Schott NYC; necklace and watch by Cartier; vintage tank top from Stock Vintage.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

The anxiety he felt about losing her continued even after they were reunited. “She was working. She was playing piano at night when she could, and then she was teaching piano all day long. So at 9 or 10 years old, I was taking the trolley to school myself. I was taking the subway back myself,” Stan recalls. “Then I was coming home and I was alone, and I would have to make myself food and I’d do my homework and I’d wait for her to come home. That was a lot of alone time for a kid in a foreign country.”

He learned independence, but it scarred him too. “I remember waiting for her to get home and worrying: What if she doesn’t come home? I can see how that’s worked against me in certain ways and how it’s totally benefited me in other ways. You have a lot of time with your imagination when you’re a kid like that alone. So I feel I’m very good at using my imagination to believe certain things, which helps me in a way. But then there are times where I’m feeling a degree of uncertainty and lack of control over my life that can be paralyzing.”

“MY PARENTS WERE PART OF THE YOUTH STANDING UP TO COMMUNISM,” HE SAYS OF HIS ROMANIAN CHILDHOOD. “MY FATHER WAS HELPING PEOPLE ESCAPE THE COUNTRY ILLEGALLY—TO THE POINT HE HIMSELF HAD TO FLEE.”

Stan was around 12 when his mother began dating a man named Anthony Fruhauf, who was the headmaster of a small private high school in central New York. When they got married, Stan’s mother made plans to move with her son once again, this time to the United States. “He was really kind. My stepdad was a real influence in a good way,” Stan says. “In those early years in America, speaking English with him at home I think probably led to how I lost my accent.” He was all right seeing it go. He wanted to belong.

All this surfaced when Stan was onstage accepting his Golden Globe. “This is for my mom who left Romania in search of a better life, and for my stepfather, Tony, who took on a single mom and a grown-up kid,” he said, hoisting his award as his voice broke. Pointing heavenward, he added: “Thank you for being a real man.”

Coat by Bottega Veneta; belt by Artemas Quibble; necklace and watch by Cartier; vintage T-shirt from Stock Vintage; vintage pants from Front General Store. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

Despite craving stability, Stan learned the value of taking chances, which has earned him a daredevil reputation among his actor friends. “Sebastian has always been really fearless,” says Chris Evans, who first appeared opposite Stan in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger and costarred with him repeatedly as the Marvel Cinematic Universe expanded. “You can see that in his choices. He takes big swings. When that Trump movie was kicking around, I remember thinking, I wonder who is going to take this job? It’s just got so many strings attached to it. And I was so unsurprised when I heard it was Sebastian.”

The devil on Stan’s shoulder urging him forward was Jessica Chastain, who became a close friend after they worked together on 2015’s The Martian and later the 2022 spy thriller The 355. “When we were on set for The 355, that’s when he first told me he had had the offer to play Donald Trump. A thing about Sebastian that people might not realize is he’s very, very thoughtful, almost to a point where he overthinks things. It could cause a little bit of stress. He was like, ‘Well, what do you think? What would you do?’ I said, ‘Do it.’ I was like, ‘What do you have to lose? Take a risk.’ As long as it doesn’t cause you physical danger, if something scares you—do it.”

Chastain saw Stan do that very thing in 2017’s I, Tonya, in which he played Tonya Harding’s then husband, who hatched the scheme to sabotage her rival, Nancy Kerrigan. “When so many people are trying to make you this conventional movie star, it’s a risk to do something that isn’t that,” Chastain says. “He’s willing to play unlikable characters. I find that executives have trouble with characters that may be complex and have dark sides to them. He really embraces that. He’s not happy to just be a conventional movie star.”

Coat by Loewe. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

Marvel Studios was looking for a dark side when they were casting the role of Bucky Barnes in the first Captain America movie in 2010. Stan was a relative unknown, though he’d had a recurring role on Gossip Girl as a pathological liar of a rich kid. “You could see that he has so much inside him and so much behind his eyes. I’ll never forget that,” Feige says. “I said to Stephen Broussard, who was one of the producers on Captain America, ‘He’s going to be a good Bucky, but he’s going to be a great Winter Soldier.’ ”

Bucky evolves into that villainous alter ego in subsequent MCU stories, going from fearless soldier to shell-shocked prisoner of war and, eventually, mind-controlled assassin who struggles to break his programming and redeem himself. Getting the part was beyond game-changing for the actor. “I was actually struggling with work,” Stan says. “I had just gotten off the phone with my business manager, who told me I was saved by $65,000 that came in residuals from Hot Tub Time Machine.” He’d played the smarmy bully in that comedy a year before. Now it was his salvation.

Since then, the Winter Soldier has become one of the most beloved and relatable characters in the MCU, even though his story is far from the traditional everyman narrative. Bucky resonates because he’s damaged goods—the patron saint of fuckups struggling to do right. The arc culminates in his new lead role in Thunderbolts*, with Bucky leading a team of former troublemakers and outcasts. Feige says that, without Stan, the character’s strange journey wouldn’t have been the emotional gut punch it is.

After lunch, Stan goes to his appointment at Autonomous FX. The headquarters is tucked near an ice warehouse and a scrapyard in an industrial neighborhood of Van Nuys. Stan is trying on a pair of fake teeth that slip over his perfect pearly whites. The goal is to give him a more regular-guy look for Fjord, the movie he’s shooting in Norway with filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, a fellow native of Romania.

There’s a story behind these teeth—dating back to before Stan got braces as an adult. “When I got Invisalign, I was so obsessed with them,” he says. “The more you wear them, the faster they work. So I actually wore them at the fucking Captain America: The Winter Soldier premiere. I have them in and I’m smiling with them and people can tell. I was self-conscious because my teeth were always a little….” He splays his fingers into crooked angles.

The prosthetic teeth are modeled on Stan’s own before he fixed them. Stan has another blast from his past waiting for him too. After the fitting, Jason Collins, the founder and lead creative force behind Autonomous FX, takes Stan through the workshops, where sculptors are making limbs, bodies, and demonic babies. On the shelves, busts of other actors like Christian Bale and Annette Bening, used for previous projects, stare down with vacant eyes.

Collins and his company essentially provide the level-up version of the fake beards and noses that Stan first loved about acting in high school—except occasionally X-rated. As part of this nostalgia trip, Collins brings out a plastic tub with the remains of the robotic erection from Pam & Tommy. The latex has dried out and decayed away. This penis “character” was voiced by Jason Mantzoukas and had strong opinions about the Mötley Crüe drummer’s romance with the Baywatch star. It was a risky creative choice by the showrunners but added levity to the series and was inspired by Lee’s own autobiography, in which he banters philosophically with his sex organ.

The makeup team and the actor forged a bond along the way. “It really becomes a partnership,” Collins says. “We stare at him for weeks and months at a time. So we know the physical structure. We know what the span of his legs is and all that other stuff.”

“You get to know the actor very well,” says Stan. Their earliest meeting involved figuring out how to fit a prosthetic over his actual privates and snake cables for the controls down his backside. “When I first came here, they made a replica to work on. So they had to cast this,” Stan says, gesturing to his crotch. “I remember you’re like, ’All right buddy, well, I guess it’s good to meet you.’”

Jacket by Bottega Veneta; vintage T-shirt and boots from Stock Vintage; belt by Artemas Quibble; necklace and watch by Cartier. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

After the makeup shop, Stan heads for the last stop of the day, the Orthodox church. After a persuasive conversation in Romanian, the custodian agrees to unlock the chapel for him. “Vezi ca pana,” Stan says. You’ll see it’s only for a moment.

As the doors swing open, the faces of saints stare down at us from rows of miniature shrines, not unlike the busts of the famous actors in the prosthetics lab. Both places represent things Stan believes in—the ability to transform into something new and a yearning to connect with something beyond yourself.

Stan doesn’t claim to be especially religious, but the Holy Trinity chapel takes him back to that fearful time living under Communist dictatorship, when he put his faith in higher powers and prayed for the best. “We would go to church a lot when I was little,” he says. “It’s still tied into certain things for me, because I felt such a degree of powerlessness over decisions being made early on.”

STAN IS NOT AN OVERSHARER. BUT HE AGREED TO SHARE SOMETHING OF HIMSELF HERE, IN DEFIANCE OF THE ACTORLY PART OF HIM THAT WISHES WHEN YOU LOOKED AT HIM, YOU’D SEE SOMEONE ELSE.

Stan and the man he wants to commemorate with a candle were estranged for years. He and his father finally reconnected when Stan was around 18 and began visiting Los Angeles for auditions. The New York kid would save money by staying with his father, who had settled in the San Fernando Valley (not far from the makeup shop, actually) and worked, once again, in shipping. The periodic visits brought them closer, and the relationship stayed tight until his dad died unexpectedly from COVID on a trip back to Romania in 2021.

Stan sometimes thinks his father’s story might make a good movie. In Romania, Tino was legendary for sneaking contraband Western goods like blue jeans and bananas into the country while smuggling dissidents out aboard the same vessels. “He worked hard and he loved America and he believed in being free,” Stan says. “I have always made the argument that immigrants to some extent are more patriotic than even the people that are born here because they don’t take things for granted. At least that’s what I saw in my father.”

The janitor guides us to the back of the church, where there’s a small side room with a votive stand arrayed with unlit candles.

“Can you give me one second? I’ll be right back,” Stan says.

He disappears into the shadowy alcove and strikes a light.

Later, driving away from the chapel, Stan tries to explain why he felt so compelled to go there. “I think it’s just the acknowledgment of how fragile we all are. Sometimes you go somewhere where it’s really not about you. It’s a moment to let go. Turn off for a while,” he says. “You don’t have to be anything in there. You don’t have to think any which way.”

Jacket by Balenciaga; belt by Artemas Quibble; vintage T-shirt from Stock Vintage; vintage pants by Carhartt from Front General Store. Throughout: hair products by Rōz; grooming products by Tom Ford Beauty.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

He says something similar via text two weeks later, when he’s in Norway, starting work on his new role in Fjord—with his new teeth that resemble his old teeth.

“The feeling is always the same. Like it’s the first time,” Stan writes. “It’s always a mix of fear and hope. It’s losing yourself. It’s a free fall. Every time.”

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kwisatzworld · 22 days ago

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MUGELLO 1999: Valentino embraced the spirit of the ‘60s counterculture with a striking hippie-inspired helmet and bike livery. The words “Valentipeace & Love” were boldly lettered in red on both sides of his bike’s fairing, turning the racetrack into a rolling message of harmony. On the back of his helmet, a cartoon version of Valentino is seen firing not bullets, but flowers, a powerful homage to Bernie Boston’s iconic photograph “Flower Power”.

Flower Power is a photograph by American photographer Bernie Boston, taken on October 21, 1967, during the March on the Pentagon against the Vietnam War. It captures protester George Harris placing a carnation into the barrel of an M14 rifle held by a soldier from the 503rd Military Police Battalion.

CATALUNYA TEST 2003: Valentino debuted one of his boldest and most politically charged helmet designs. In the very week that the Iraq War began, he appeared on track wearing a rainbow-colored helmet—a universal symbol of peace. The word PACE (“peace” in Italian) stood out in all caps on the back, accompanied by the iconic phrase “Fate l’amore, non fate la guerra” (“Make love, not war”).

The phrase “Make love, not war” became a defining slogan of the 1960s counterculture and anti-Vietnam War movement. It called for peace and compassion instead of violence and conflict, capturing the spirit of a generation that challenged traditional values through protests, music, and art. Over time, it evolved into a timeless message advocating harmony and understanding worldwide.

MISANO 2020: Franky’s 2020 Misano helmet paid tribute to Spike Lee’s iconic film Do the Right Thing, a powerful exploration of racial tension and social justice. Amid a year marked by global protests and urgent calls for equality, Franky’s design stood as a bold statement against injustice. On the back, the word “Equality” appeared in multiple languages, underscoring a universal demand for fairness and unity across cultures.

Do the Right Thing, directed by Spike Lee in 1989, is a landmark film that explores racial tension, systemic inequality, and community dynamics during a sweltering day in Brooklyn. Known for its vibrant style and unflinching social commentary, the film remains profoundly relevant decades later. After winning the 2020 Misano race wearing the tribute helmet, Franky received a phone call from Spike Lee himself.

VALENCIA 2021: In 2021, as Valentino prepared to retire from full-time racing, each member of the VR46 Riders Academy chose one of his iconic helmet designs to recreate as a tribute. Franky selected the 1999 Mugello Peace & Love helmet. With its colorful design and cartoon Rossi firing flowers instead of bullets, the helmet became a bridge across generations, celebrating not just a racing legend, but a philosophy rooted in joy, rebellion, and peace.

Because each academy member chose their tribute helmet independently, their selections offered a glimpse into their personal taste and values. The designs they picked weren’t just fan favorites, they reflected what each rider connected with most deeply in Valentino’s long and expressive career. Whether it was humor, protest, nostalgia, or creativity, each helmet told a story, not just about Valentino, but about the rider who chose to wear it.

2022: As the Russo-Ukrainian War unfolded, Franky added a powerful message to the back of his regular-season helmet, a sticker that read “Give Peace a Chance.” Quoting John Lennon’s famous anti-war anthem, the gesture was Franky’s way of taking a stand against violence and calling for peace.

MUGELLO 2025: At its center is a massive peace symbol, filled with psychedelic flowers—daisies, sunflowers, wild blooms—reminiscent of the Flower Power era. The helmet’s back features a bright green parrot, Franky’s longtime personal emblem, perched on a pair of throttle handles and flashing a peace sign with its wing, replacing Woodstock’s dove and guitar with symbols of racing. Below it reads, “Mugello… 3 days of Peace and full Throttle.”—A direct nod to the 1969 Woodstock Festival’s call for “3 Days of Peace & Music.” But in 2025, this isn’t just nostalgia. Against the backdrop of global conflict, especially the war in Gaza, the message lands differently, racing becomes a canvas for resistance.

The official poster for the 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair has become one of the most iconic images of the counterculture era. Designed by Arnold Skolnick, it features a simple yet powerful graphic: a white dove perched on the neck of a bright red guitar, set against a calm blue background. The dove—a universal symbol of peace—resting on a musical instrument captured the essence of the festival’s message: “3 Days of Peace & Music.” Held during a time of political unrest and deep division over the Vietnam War, Woodstock stood as a symbol of unity, nonviolence, and collective hope.

#valentino rossi #franco morbidelli #motogp #italian gp 2025

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happilyfeatherafter · 19 days ago

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youtube

"Go behind-the-scenes to learn more about the making of “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore,” the powerful new documentary that follows the life of trailblazing actress Marlee Matlin, the first deaf actor to win an Academy Award. Directed by fellow deaf actress Shoshannah Stern, the film explores Marlee’s journey in her own words — told in American Sign Language — with raw honesty and deep emotional resonance." (x)

#shoshannah stern #marlee matlin #love this behind the scenes info #the bit about the sound engineering capturing the hearing aids perspective. Brilliant.

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steelbluehome · 22 days ago

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Vanity Fair

How Sebastian Stan Survived Communism and Became Hollywood’s Most Daring Shape-Shifter

So you need somebody who can play the Winter Soldier, Trump, and Tommy Lee? We’ve got the guy.

By Anthony Breznican

April 21, 2025

COVER STORY May 2025 Issue

We’ll get back to the robo-penis later.

Stan opens his arms and addresses him with a traditional Romanian greeting of respect: “Sărut mâna…”(I kiss your hand)

The janitor guides us to the back of the church, where there’s a small side room with a votive stand arrayed with unlit candles.

“Can you give me one second? I’ll be right back,” Stan says.

He disappears into the shadowy alcove and strikes a light.

He says something similar via text two weeks later, when he’s in Norway, starting work on his new role in Fjord—with his new teeth that resemble his old teeth.

“The feeling is always the same. Like it’s the first time,” Stan writes. “It’s always a mix of fear and hope. It’s losing yourself. It’s a free fall. Every time.”

#sebastian stan #vanity fair #sebastian stan vanity fair cover story #sebastian stan interviews

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moongirlwidow · 1 year ago

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File: Volkov, Vespera Anetka

Alias: Winter Widow

Status: classified

File Last updated: July 4, 2023 AD

———

Age: 15

Class: 16ABX

Graduation Year: 2023

Origin: Romania

Birthday: August 11, 2008

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Handlers: Krista Udova(62431), Milunka Dulovna(90218), Melina Vostokov(Iron Maiden)

Trainers: Winter Soldier(Barnes, James B.), Taskmaster(Dreykov, Antonia)

Track: Field Agent(undercover; weapons specialist)

Appearance

Eye color: gray

Hair color: black

Skin: white; pale

Build: tall, lean, bony

Height: 5’9.79”

Weight: 101.235lbs

Notable markings:

birthmark;right thigh back, oblong Burn scar; left ankle, inside, 4”x 3”x 9”

Specialty Training

- Figure Skating

Began: 2 years

Training time: 6hrs every other day, 17hrs every Thursday and Monday

On track to the Winter Olympic Games. Reliably lands quads, possible pairing with Hydra 20180 for pair skating.

- Deadlift

Began: 6 years

Training time: 1hr daily

Will reach national record by 2028

Current capacity: 480lbs

- Combat Mimicry

Began: 7 years

Can mimic opponent’s fighting style closely. Taught by Taskmaster

- Biochemistry

- Codebreaking

- linguistics

Languages

Spoken: Russian, English, Norwegian, Welsh, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Qubecois, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Greek, Old English, Cantonese, Japanese, German, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Korean, Swedish, Hindi, Punjabi, Pennsylvania Dutch and Scots Gaelic

Written: braille, Russian, English, Norwegian, Welsh, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Qubecois, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Greek, Old English, Cantonese, Japanese, German, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Korean, Swedish, Hindi, Punjabi, Pennsylvania Dutch and Scots Gaelic

Read: braille, Russian, English, Norwegian, Welsh, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Qubecois, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, Greek, Old English, Cantonese, Japanese, German, Hebrew, Sanskrit, Korean, Swedish, Hindi, Punjabi, Pennsylvania Dutch and Scots Gaelic

Other: American Sign Language, Russian Sign Language, International Sign, Morse code

Status

[section redacted]

Role

- replace the Iron Maiden following graduation

- should Taskmaster Program default, replace Winter Soldier and Taskmaster

- restore Red Academy-HYDRA control over XXXXXXXXX

Miscellaneous

— favored by Lt.Borisov

- Untouchable Status — RE; Grad Mission

- Enforced Separations — not allowed with peers without supervision, initiated 2015

- extremely exemplary when undercover in Queer Rebellion Groups, Lesbian Covers reccomended

Graduation Mission Assign.

Seduce XXXX XXXXXXX as debutant Gabrielle La Aubrey(CF61789), knock out with C19JL1990 formula(oral component), identify and procure XXXXXX XXXXX through whirlwind romance focusing on subject’s romantic beliefs. XXXXXXX has taste for young virgin women, will have just inherited full title/shares; foolish party persona crafted. Deep Cover in France; 6 weeks, fake family emergency and return with items. (Summary)

Part II

#files from the past #the winter widow #vera volkov #marvel rp #mcu #marvel #mcu rp #marvel mcu #marvel ask blog #marvel cinimatic universe #lore drop

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max1461 · 1 year ago

Note

"Most children do not learn to read until 1st or 2nd grade. They are not taught to read by their parents, but taught to read in school"

Do you.....have a source on that? If true, that's absolutely wild. I was expected to read (simple picture books )before I started kindergarten. In second grade we where reading simple chapter books. Am I in a bubble?

And are there studies about acquiring written language like spoken language? IIRC there are studies showing that sign languages can be acquired naturally. That's always how I assumed I learned to read.

I don't know what specific data this is based on, but the American Academy of Pediatrics give out various milestones for childhood development, and they say that kids can be expected to learn to read around 6-7 years old, which correspond to roughly 1st-2nd grade, depending on when you start school.

Anecdotally, no one I knew went in to 1st grade already knowing how to read. We learned the alphabet in 1st grade and started reading simple picture books. I suspect you are in a bubble.

Signed and spoken languages are similar to each other and dissimilar to written language. Both sign language and spoken language can be acquired automatically via exposure during childhood, and they have both probably existed since the beginning of human anatomical modernity or earlier (on the order of 100,000 years ago). The capacity for speaking and the capacity for signing are of like type, in that they are both in essence parts of human biology. A hearing person raised by deaf parents who use a sign language would grow up to be a native speaker of that sign language, in precisely the same way that a baby whose parents use a spoken language would grow up to be a native speaker of that spoken language. Writing is not like this; writing is a technology used to represent language in visual form. It did not evolve naturally, but was invented on the order of 5,000 years ago, and like any other technical skill is not the innate province of anyone.

#linguistics #anon

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gojossotoru · 6 months ago

Text

Introducing the second Bullworth transfer student alongside Jimmy Hopkins...

Full name: Francesca Juliet Marino

Nicknames: Frankie (general, only the people who knows her calls her this), the new girl (general at school), the Princess of the Nerds (she's called this at Bullworth Academy due to her having 'princess' type face, but not everyone calls her this)

Preferred name: Frankie or Francesca, she doesn't mind

Age: 17

Birthdate: January 5th

Sexuality: straight

Height: 5'5"

Race: white

Ethnicity: Italian, English

Appearance: pale skin, dark brown doe eyes, dark brown curly long hair

Clique: Nerds

Likes: studying, having a chat with Beatrice Trudeau, helping others, cats, autumn, music, books/novels, Jane Austen's novels, romance movies, being herself, standing up for others, equality, sleeping, late night driving, moon, sunsets, baking with her mother, pastries, carbonara, pepperoni pizzas, chocolate milks, cleanliness

Dislikes: bullying, discrimination, horrible people, loud thunderstorms, dogs, cigarettes, smoking, Gary Smith, Mandy Wiles, Mr. Burton, Lola Lombardi, metal music, very loud noises, rivalries, sudden interruption, overthinking about everything, people being rude towards her mother, dirtiness, Ted Thompson

Hobbies: studying, reading books/novels, listening to music, baking

Nerds reputation + status: 100%

Preps reputation + status: 20%

Greasers reputation + status: 60%

Jocks reputation + status: 15%

Bullies reputation + status: 10%

Non-cliques reputation + status: 40%

Townies reputation + status: 53%

Best friend(s): Beatrice Trudeau, Angie Ng, Dan Wilson

Friends/Acquaintances: Earnest Jones, Algernon Papadopoulos, Thad Carlson, Cornelius Thompson, Melvin O'Connor, Jimmy Hopkins, Pete Kowalski, Christy Martin

Enemies: Lola Lombardi, Mandy Wilkes, Ted Thompson, Gary Smith

Love interest: Johnny Vincent

Tropes: strangers to lovers, opposites attract, she fell first but he fell harder, different cliques, nerd x greaser

______________________________

Background:

she was born in Little Italy, New York to an Italian-American couple, Marco and Daniella Marino. Her life was, as you can say 'perfect', her parents are very loving and her other family members are also loving towards her... Until her father's death when Frankie was 17 (two weeks before moving to Bullworth). Her father died of lung cancer which isn't surprising to Frankie because she saw him smoking all of the time. After the death of her father, Marco's side of his family started to hate on Frankie's mother and blaming her for the cause of his death. You see, Marco's family hated Daniella because... She's mute, they'll whisper bad things about her behind her back and even as bold as glaring at her directly sometimes. Frankie and her mother can't stand them anymore and both of them moved to Bullworth, New England. The reason why they moved there is because Daniella and Marco used to attend Bullworth before moving to Little Italy after their marriage at the age of 23 and Daniella missed her hometown. Daniella opens up a bakery shop and the shop is quite successful, 16+ customers will come and buy the pastries and sometimes more. Frankie sometimes helps her mother due to a lot of customers. Although Daniella is mute, a lot of customers aren't ableist (well... SOME of them are) unlike Marco's family. Daniella would write words on her notebook just to interact with them, which makes the customers feel easier to interact with her because most of them don't know sign languages (except for a few). She's a new student at Bullworth Academy alongside Jimmy Hopkins

______________________________

Personality:

she's the nicest person in Bullworth, always helping people out. If a person asks her to do something, she'll do it right away and she would do almost anything if a person asks her. The reason why she doesn't reject almost every one of their requests is because she thinks rejecting will make them hate her and she feels... kinda guilty when doing so. But if people ask her to harm or hurt someone. She's not gonna do it and reject it kindly (and she doesn't feel guilty when doing so because she knows that it's wrong). She believes that almost every bad person has at least some good deep inside them, and it's just that they're covering up with their bad attitude/personality but there are few people she knows who she thinks that they don't have any good in them are Gary Smith and Lola Lombardi (and probably others...). She actually loves when a person rants to her (talking about their own issues or something else), whether they ask if they can rant or not, she still loves it because she can know them more than meets the eye and believes them more than the people who are only portraying him as who they are on the outside without knowing the inside of them, the people who are only judging about what they do without knowing any reason why. She's like a therapist/sisterly figure to those who are ranting to her, her giving them advice after listening to them and when she comforts a person who are few younger than her, she's like a motherly figure to them. Besides that, she's sometimes not really honest about anything (including when she got a crush on Johnny) and it's because she doesn't want to make them mad or feel annoyed or telling people about it because it makes her feel really embarrassed. She overthinks pretty much everything, including her life decision if she did something or something embarrassed that she'll not forget for the rest of her life. It became a bad habit for her and she tries to stop it by saying "it's going to be fine" to herself and calming herself down. She's awkward, she doesn't have the best social skills and always makes references to nerd things (such as science, math, Albert Einstein, etc.) and sometimes makes references to Jane Austen's novels. She's also very sensitive and not embarrassed if she cries in front of others. And she does have a short temper and will snap if the person (or a group of people) annoyed her to no end, she would say swear words at them with no hesitation. She gets frightened easily by someone who looks or acts aggressive to her, she'll be all stuttering and stumbling her words, and sometimes she would cover her face with her hands if they begin to be a little bit more aggressive to her eyes. Frankie is a hopeless romantic, watching romance movies all of them time and daydreaming that she got the boyfriend of her dreams (this is before she's with Johnny) and even reading Jane Austen novels because she's the best romance author ever (in her opinion). She even looked at some couples in school after recently transferring to Bullworth Academy and smiled at herself while thinking 'oh, how I wish I was them...'

Overall, Frankie is literally the nicest girl in Bullworth Academy that anyone can possibly know and few people are jealous of her but she's considered to be a 'weirdo' due to her awkward social skills to some people's eyes :/

______________________________

Infos about Frankie:

--- Frankie knows sign language and she communicates with her mother with that

--- she helps her mother at the bakery on Saturdays and Sundays

--- her mother put up a poster in front of the door of the bakery about wanting to hire people because she's getting tired to do it all by herself

--- she has a thick New Yorker accent

--- she wears glasses!!! (Just like in the photo)

--- some people make fun of her hair at Bullworth but she doesn't mind them because it's not the first time that she got made fun of because of her hair. Speaking of her hair, she does not want to straighten it because she loves her hair so much and she'll be damned if someone asks her to straighten it

--- she's a mix of Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls and Mia Thermopolis from The Princess Diaries

--- she's allergic to dogs and peanuts

--- she doesn't understand the rivalries between each cliques

--- she LOVES to sing. Before moving to Bullworth, she used to participate in a singing competition back in her old school at the age of 16 and she won third place (she performed Kiss Me by Sixpence None the R)

--- her favorite season is autumn

--- her favorite movie is Grease

--- her two favorite Jane Austen's novels are Pride and Prejudice, and Emma

--- her other favorite novel is The Outsiders by S.E Hinton

--- although she listens to recent songs (and songs from the 90s), she also listens to old songs. Her favorites and the most repeating ones are Hopelessly Devoted To You by Olivia John-Newton, It's My Party by Lesley Gore, Stupid Cupid by Connie Francis, Be My Baby by The Ronettes and Hey Lover by The Daughters of Eve

--- she helped Tom Gurney with his black eye problem (two days after transferring to Bullworth) because it disturbed her a lot and she thinks it's outrageous that nobody seems to care or concern about it

--- Pedro De La Hoya looks up to her as a motherly figure

--- Pinky Gauthier is slightly jealous of her because Frankie is called 'the Princess of the Nerds' and Pinky thinks that Frankie is NOT a princess, only her (aka Pinky herself)

______________________________

(notes from the maker of the oc):

HAIII!!! >.<

I just want it to share my oc since I saw a lot of people doing it and also I'm using faceclaim for my oc instead of a drawing because I'm BAD at drawing!!! 😭 The faceclaim is young!Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries pre-makeover Mia Thermopolis

Lastly, I have another oc. I'll post her later :3

Anyways, you can do interactions between your oc's and her (please make sure to tag me hehe) and you can also draw her as well <333 (again, tag me so that I can see it)

Lastly, the filter of the moodboard is from lovelogs on Polarr and Pinterest (I think that's the name... I don't remember, sorry!!! 😭😭😭)

Bye!!! 💖

#bully #bully canis canem edit #bully scholarship edition #bully ocs #bully oc #video games #bully rockstar #bully game #oc #my oc character #original character info #original character #oc info #oc intro #original character introduction #francesca 'frankie' marino

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lemurzsquad · 1 year ago

Text

Music to Owl Ears

After suddenly moving from America to Japan with only passable knowledge of the local language, you begin to attend Fukurodani Academy for their music program. And within the first five minutes of being there, you're accidentally knocked right into the shenanigans of the volleyball team, especially their famous owl ace.

Prologue

Pairing: Bokuto x musician fem!reader

Summary: The reader is an American who has suddenly moved to Japan, attending Fukurodani Academy for its music program. (Full summary and cw in masterlist)

A/N: This is absolutely a shameless self-insert. I wanted a cute Bokuto x reader fic with a musician, specifically one that plays my main instruments, so this also serves as a love letter to all my fellow musicians out there. I will try to update this when I can, and I can add a taglist if anyone is interested TvT this is my first Haikyuu fic, so hopefully it's alright.

I hope you enjoy!!

Word count: 725

cw: slight emotional rollercoaster for reader

"Bold for English"

"Normal for Japanese"

- Masterlist -

- Prologue | Ch 1: Jogging Laps >

You stood at the entrance, the sign reading “Fukurodani Academy”; although, you’re certain you would not have been able to make out what it said given you didn't already know the name.

It was about to be your first day in a new school year, in a new school, in a new country. Did being a third year with barely passable Japanese and no friends terrify you? Absolutely. But, unfortunately, the only thing to do now was take that step onto campus and start, you supposed.

And so you did. The first step wasn't so bad, it seemed. The next seemed easier, perhaps. The nervous shaking you felt in your hands was becoming ever more apparent as you clutched your bag that in and of itself felt weird, considering you were so used to a heavy backpack.

All that was left was to make it to class and all would be right with the world. You could begin the school year on a positive note with no incidents right off the bat and a fresh start. It was simple, really.

But oh, you knew better than to jinx it, even in your own head.

You took a deep breath and tried your best to put on a smile just for yourself. You thought, I can do this. It'll be fine. What could possibly happen on my way there? And there it was.

You quietly let out the breath you held for a moment as you attempted to push down the nagging anxieties that tried to resurface. In a stroke of bad luck—or good luck, depending on how you looked at it, maybe years from then—you failed to hear the sounds of shoes hitting pavement behind you. In an instant, it all came crashing down; you were slammed in the shoulder, throwing you off balance. You barely managed to stop yourself from falling face first into the concrete, instead landing on your back, braced by your elbows.

As you stared ahead, completely and utterly stunned and staggered, you sat up. It was then that everything hit you like a ton of bricks.

You were completely blindsided when all the emotions you had narrowly kept behind a dam inevitably flooded through you. You didn't know whether to laugh or cry at how ridiculous it was that simply falling over finally broke you and your patchy attempt to bottle everything in, so you did both.

There you sat at the edge of the entrance to Fukurodani Academy, laughing as anguished tears dripped down your cheeks. The fear and emotional distress of moving to Japan was hitting you for, truly, the first time, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. You hiccuped in spurts, disbelief and bewilderment at your own reaction running through your mind while a pained grin sat plastered on your tear-stained, reddened face.

You didn't notice the figure, now standing in front of you, shouting, “BOKUTO!” off to the side and further down the sidewalk. You didn't notice when they exchanged worried glances that you might be hurt and unsure how to react to your state of hysteria.

Eventually you calmed down enough to return the confused looks that peered down at you. You made eye contact with worried blue and guilty gold before stuttering out with an embarrassed chuckle, “Sorry, I must have not been paying attention and– oh, wait—” When you see their eyes widen slightly, you realized you had instinctively started apologizing in English as a default and quickly corrected yourself to a simple, “Sorry…” in Japanese with your still heavy American accent.

You gave them a lopsided smile as you wiped your tears. You could never have imagined at the time, as you were grabbed by the shoulders and hoisted to your feet with such strength you could only let it happen in your dazed state, that it would be the defining pivot in what could have been a prison of loneliness and isolation in a new year, in a new school, in a new country. But, while you were overwhelmed with a torrent of apologies and “sorry”’s and “please, please, please forgive me”’s, the key to your unlocked cell seemed to be snatched and thrown where no one could have possibly found it again.

And, just maybe, you considered tempting fate more often in the future.

Thank you for reading!! <333

- Masterlist -

- Prologue | Ch 1: Jogging Laps >

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tearsinthemist · 1 year ago

Text

Want to learn something new

Want to learn something new in 2022??

Absolute beginner adult ballet series (fabulous beginning teacher)

40 piano lessons for beginners (some of the best explanations for piano I’ve ever seen)

Excellent basic crochet video series

Basic knitting (probably the best how to knit video out there)

Pre-Free Figure Skate Levels A-D guides and practice activities (each video builds up with exercises to the actual moves!)

How to draw character faces video (very funny, surprisingly instructive?)

Another drawing character faces video

Literally my favorite art pose hack

Tutorial of how to make a whole ass Stardew Valley esque farming game in Gamemaker Studios 2??

Introduction to flying small aircrafts

French/Dutch/Fishtail braiding

Playing the guitar for beginners (well paced and excellent instructor)

Playing the violin for beginners (really good practical tips mixed in)

Color theory in digital art (not of the children’s hospital variety)

Retake classes you hated but now there’s zero stakes:

Calculus 1 (full semester class)

Learn basic statistics (free textbook)

Introduction to college physics (free textbook)

Introduction to accounting (free textbook)

Learn a language:

Ancient Greek

Latin

Spanish

German

Japanese (grammar guide) (for dummies)

French

Russian (pretty good cyrillic guide!)

Jan 2, 2023

Want to learn something new in 2023??

Cooking with flavor bootcamp (used what I learned in this a LOT this year)

Beekeeping 101

Learn Interior Design from the British Academy of Interior Design (free to audit course - just choose the free option when you register)

Video on learning to read music that actually helped me??

How to use and sew with a sewing machine

How to ride a bike (listen. some of us never learned, and that's okay.)

How to cornrow-braid hair (I have it on good authority that this video is a godsend for doing your baby niece's black hair)

Making mead at home (I actually did this last summer and it was SO good)

How to garden

Basics of snowboarding (proceed with caution)

How to draw for people who (think they) suck at art (I know this website looks like a 2003 monstrosity, but the tutorials are excellent)

Pixel art for beginners so you can make the next great indie game

Go (back) to school

Introduction to Astronomy (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Principals of Economics (high school course - free textbook w/ practice problems)

Introduction to philosophy (free college course)

Computer science basics (full-semester Harvard course free online)

Learn a language

Japanese for Dummies (link fix from 2022)

Ukrainian

Portuguese (Brazil)

American Sign Language (as somebody who works with Deaf people professionally, I also strongly advise you to read up on Deaf/HoH culture and history!)

Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified)

Quenya (LOTR fantasy elf language)

Dec 26, 2023

Want to learn something new in 2024??

Beginner-oriented video on how to sail

This guy has so many videos on baking different types of bread. SO very many.

Coding in Python - one of the most flexible and adaptable high-level programming languages out there - explained through projects making video games

Learn to swim! (for adult learners. I don’t care if you live in Kansas or Mali or wherever. LEARN TO SWIM.)

Learn how quantum mechanics works. Then read some more about it

[Learn about quantum mechanics again, but in a more advanced engineering/mathematics class. Then read more about the math and physics of it]

Poetry Handbook, by Mary Oliver

Something I learned this year: how to sew a quilt (Here’s a very easy beginning pattern that looks amazing and can be done with pre-cut fabric!)

How to hit the ball in softball

Tutorial video on what is under the hood of most (gas) cars + weird engine sounds and what they mean

Full beginner mechanics technical training, if you want to go more in depth

Playlist on how car engine physics work if you want to go ultra in depth

Lecture series on architecture design through study of buildings

How (American income) taxes & tax law work (choose “audit course” at checkout for free class)

Pickleball for beginners (so you can finally join your neighbor/friend/distant cousin who is always insisting you join their team)

+ Para-Pickleball for beginners (for mobility aid users!)

School is so much more fun when there’s no tests:

American Law - Contracts

Shakespeare’s Life and Plays

Fairy Tales: Meanings, Messages, and Morals

Modern Poetry

World History [Part 1, Part 2]

Learn a language:

Arabic + Resource Guide compiled from Reddit (includes info on different dialects)

Chinese (Cantonese) (audio)

Urdu (frequently recommended course on Reddit) + Resource Guide

Yucatec Maya

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littlescorpiooooo2 · 2 months ago

Text

The Manon-Adela situation.

Gen Z seems to think that anyone who disagrees with a black person is a racist.

But when I pointed out that Manon WAS breaking rules, not showing up to practice, and that not just Adela (the "white girl") called her out, but so did all of Dream Academy AND two POC girls (Sophia and Lara)....

But the black and woke community did not drag Sophia and Lara the way they did and still do Adela.

Now, ngl some Filipino eyekons WERE racist af in the subs when this all went down. So, as a black woman I was feeling like I had to defend Manon a little bit when they started getting into that "...insinuating black people are always like this...lazy and entitled" shit. (First of all, that's a Black American stereotype. And Manon is Ghanian-Swiss-Italian. So, a ADOS stereotype does not apply to her lol. But ofc they do not care bc in that moment all those racist Filipino fans saw is a black girl. Not even a half black girl, like Manon is. But just a black girl that is "lazy" like "most black people".)

I hated the undertones of stereotypes that some Filipino eyekons were using when it came to Sophia calling out Manon.

But if those Filipino eyekons had addressed their concerns w/o racist undertones against Manon simply bc of her West African dna, ofc I would have just agreed with them that Manon needed no protecting from us in this case bc it is valid criticism and not racism. But bc they were using racist language, I DID have to step in and protect her. Bc atp it's not about Manon's personal actions. They are being bigoted and racist.

Thankfully, I WAS able to have a great conversation on a tiktok about the Manon-Adela situation instead. But ofc I had to remind black people that just bc someone speaks out against us does not make them racist. And I was able to have that conversation, bc no one was coming against Manon for being half black and equating her actions to her race. Instead of just her lack of maturity and choice of character at the time (she did eventually change her ways once confronted as shown in the doc and OBVIOUSLY to now in Katseye seeing Manon THRIVE).

Many people warped the whole Manon-Adela story into "Adela didn't think Manon should be in the group bc she is black". Someone literally left that EXACT comment on tiktok. And I know for a fact that this person probably did NOT watch the documentary. Bc Adela did the RIGHT thing by speaking up and telling Manon she needed to show up for practices bc she is affecting the OTHER girls and it is not cool. And she had VALID criticism of Manon coasting on her looks and that not being fair for the other girls who were way more talented/and putting in way more work and effort.

Adela NEVER said anything about not liking Manon bc she is half black or showed any signs of racism.

Not covertly or overtly.

There were also OTHER BLACK GIRLS on the show. And Adela was said to be one of the MOST POPULAR trainees amongst the girls.

Again, Sophia and Lara ALSO stepped up and SPOKE OUT against Manon. But no one calls them racist or uses it to drag them 24/7.

So, to me...The Adela hate is unjustified.

Because the truth is...she is only being hated bc she was a WHITE GIRL who decided to step up and voice the concerns that the other girls were too afraid to say to Manon openly.

Obviously, you have Lara who has leader energy and was not afraid to speak out and tell Manon that she had issues with Manon's behavior and actions. If Sophia was not in the group, Lara would most likely be the leader. Because that takes guts and leaders need to be confident enough to not avoid confrontation or hard conversations. Especially when it affects the group, like how Manon's absences were affecting other girls' performances.

Then you had Sophia, who ended up being the chosen leader of Katseye. Sophia has leader energy, too and was also not afraid to speak out and voice the opinions that all the girls were feeling , but the other girls were too afraid to confront Manon. So, Sophia did so on behalf of them.

And then you had Adela, who ALL THE GIRLS went to for help and when she got eliminated THEY CRIED SO MUCH THAT Iliya felt like the other girls were mad at her bc Iliya got chosen to stay in the program over Adela.

Adela even had so much leader/mom energy that she stepped up to held teach Hinari the choreography and worked overtime with her in a loving/caring way when they were assigned to their first mission/team together. Even Missy called Adela a "mother" type to the other girls.

That signals to me that had Adela stayed in the program, she VERY WELL could have been chosen as the leader, too. And when she SPOKE up, she was doing so as a leader/mama bear figure who wasn't afraid to voice what the other girls were confiding in her and what the group felt.

So, what's the difference between what Lara said, what Sophia said, and what Adela said when they called Manon out?

The only difference is skintone.

One girl lacks melanin and has blonde hair.

That's it.

But here's the thing.

Adela deserves NO HATE.

She is NOT racist.

And she was RIGHT to call out Manon.

And I say this as a Manon bias and black woman who is PROUD to see a half black woman in the group and supports Manon to the ENDS OF THE EARTH. Bc she is representing us black/mixed with black girlies SO WELL and making us PROUD AF.

But please stop the Adela hate train.

And stream Machine Girl (shout out to another mixed race black goddess: Sofia Wiley!! Who killed it as the Manon insert in the Music Video lol 😂💕)!!!