#Weird things about American schooling

[madlymaxine]

Not only did we have to do this when I was in high school, it was used as the jumping off point for a multidisciplinary introduction to modern family life.

We had to learn how to care for our egg-taped-to-flour-bag-babies from basics like clothing and faux feeding them (demonstrated in log books) to learning how to correctly install car seats and setting up home budgets with varying monthly incomes and different family makeups. We later had to do presentations to each other to demonstrate how much easier or difficult the task was based on the random hand we were dealt (a great primer to the perils of capitalism.)

Even the engineering classes we all had to take had us budget and model nurseries in whichever drafting and design programs we were using that semester. We also got certified in infant CPR at this time and I still remember the surreal scene of all our dressed up flour sack babies looking down from their tables behind us as we practised on the creepy CPR mannequins.

This was all over the course of 2 or 3 weeks and as weird as it sounds it was probably the best and most useful period of learning I experienced in the entire time I was in school.

okay americans i gotta ask because as an European i grew up with lots of american shows and cartoons and in a lot of them there was an episode where they give the protags a doll or an egg or a bag of flour or whatever and told them pretend to be its parents or something

[neurotic-sinkhole]

the blonde, hollister ad, district 1 tribute, upper middle class lookin dudes from american high shorts are BROTHERS?????

[ratatatastic]

no im still on maffhew calling the forsymaffhew lovechild a missile

[cidnangarlond]

wanting to write a story out of a dream I had but it's really just american "battle royale"

[butchlifeguard]

i wish my family members would stop having a complex about my size and physical strength because i have the same one in the opposite direction and i legitimately do not know what my body looks like

[dontmindme2600]

Every time a good anime/manga with a really unique and stylized look comes out, everyone tries to hype it up by being like “yeah the art style is really weird and ugly, but the plot and action are top notch!!” And it’s like. My god you guys are so boring. Like it would be one thing if all the shows people said this stuff abt actually looked super ugly but like. Most of the time it’s a very nice looking and not even that weird?? Some of them can even look pretty generic. And I feel like these people aren’t appreciating how well thought out a lot of the art direction in the stylized stuff is. They just see something that’s different from what they’re used to and go “oh my god! It’s ugly.”

[summerhighlandfalls]

Oh but actually while we’re talking about what happened at my school today if you make fun of people from the USA for school shootings please take time to step back and consider if what you’re doing is at all helpful or ethical. There’s a preschool in the same building as my school and they had to evacuate 2-5 year olds and explain to them that there might be someone in the building who had a gun and could hurt them today. I don’t think jokes about the American school shootings are appropriate to make if you’ll never have to fear being a victim of one. There are thousands of things to criticize the US government for, and I encourage doing so, but aiming ‘jokes’ about school shootings and the state of gun control in the US at the people who could very plausibly be victims of these crimes is needlessly cruel and not genuine criticism of the government here

[icharchivist]

i understand the point people are making with those posts but it's always a bit funny to me when i see those posts about like "god people are so weird with how they talk about Japanese/Korean culture, imagine we do the same thing with Germany and suddenly start to drop German words into our sentences like that that'd be so weird" and it's like, yeah, i can imagine that, very well, that's what living in Europe in the late 2000s during the Tokio Hotel mania was like.

Like, unironically exactly like that.

I get the original point, i really do, but this might be the wrong example.

[atopvisenyashill]

(with no expectations or pressure intended) i hope you do post something about how the fandom is weird about dorne, bc even as segmented into little mini standoms as the fandom is, all the corners have their own brand of Being Weird About Dorne. sometimes even posts that discuss racist aspects of grrm's worldbuilding and lopsided povs will be weird and act like anti-dorne racism just doesn't exist within the narrative and so has no place in meta and theories

i’ve thought about it tbh because yes, basically every mini standom has their own specific weird opinion about dorne, like to the point that i will see the weirdest opinions On My Dash, just like a single line in otherwise fine meta and it makes me insane!!!! i get we all have our blind spots and hang ups and biases but it does feel like sometimes people will just go “george doesn’t characterize dorne well enough” and then that’s it. that’s all the reflection they do which is Crazyyyy because we get think pieces about every other ethnic group in westeros, every other house, but every time someone digs into dorne they get like 50 weirdos yelling at them. i definitely think i’d want more knowledge of the moors and the maghreb before i do something more in depth beyond bitching and specific character and scene analysis because it’s like - idk if you’ve seen that movie a thousand years of solitude but it’s really similar racism where it’s a one two punch of old school “the exotic and free east” with a very american “but don’t worry we all know middle easterners are white!!” that turns into this hellish pit of discourse lmao.

i think a really good example of that is oberyn - i have seen (again On My Dash, in the vs tag, we’re not talking show only locals we’re talking people who have read and reread this series) people say he’s white bc dorne is spanish (give me a fucking break), he’s “white coded”, he’s not bisexual, he has no redeeming qualities, he takes his “vendetta” over elia & her children too far, and all of this is said by people who will acknowledge that dorne isn’t fleshed out as much by the narrative bc of george’s biases. it’s a thing i call the raven reyes effect from my cursed the 100 fandom days, where fans will notice and rightly acknowledge a character of color is written in a lopsided way compared to the white characters, but then go out of their way to not engage with that character the way they do white characters. it is. frustrating to say the least.

[giantkillerjack]

Today, I am learning about Malcolm X, and the way he talks about white liberals really struck a chord with me.

I also found this quote from him about John Brown, a white abolitionist who went to war for his beliefs and helped push America towards civil war. I only learned about John Brown from my very racist AP US History teacher, Mr. Green, of Hampton Township, at Hampton High School, in D Hall, who lied to us and said the Civil War wasn't about slavery. And so this'll shock you, but I never learned about Malcolm X in school! Anyway, Malcolm X says:

“We need allies who are going to help us achieve a victory, not allies who are going to tell us to be nonviolent. If a white man wants to be your ally, what does he think of John Brown? You know what John Brown did? He went to war. He was a white man who went to war against white people to help free slaves. He wasn’t nonviolent. White people call John Brown a nut. Go read the history, go read what all of them say about John Brown. They’re trying to make it look like he was a nut, a fanatic. They made a movie on it, I saw a movie on the screen one night. Why, I would be afraid to get near John Brown if I go by what other white folks say about him. But they depict him in this image because he was willing to shed blood to free the slaves. And any white man who is ready and willing to shed blood for your freedom—in the sight of other whites, he’s nuts. As long as he wants to come up with some nonviolent action, they go for that, if he’s liberal, a nonviolent liberal, a love-everybody liberal. But when it comes time for making the same kind of contribution for your and my freedom that was necessary for them to make for their own freedom, they back out of the situation. So, when you want to know good white folks in history where black people are concerned, go read the history of John Brown. That was what I call a white liberal. But those other kind, they are questionable. So if we need white allies in this country, we don’t need those kind who compromise. We don’t need those kind who encourage us to be polite, responsible, you know. We don’t need those kind who give us that kind of advice. We don’t need those kind who tell us how to be patient. No, if we want some white allies, we need the kind that John Brown was, or we don’t need you. And the only way to get those kind is to turn in a new direction.”

[fridayplanet]

other countries know about...DRUGS???? 🤣 Waiter, pour me a fine red

[vivalasthedas]

i hope when veilguard comes out people will like... let people dissect it and be critical and very 'the curtains were blue symbolized xyz' and not get shitty about that way of engaging with things you enjoy and claiming that any negative opinion is 'fandom drama'.

like for sure if you don't like talking about that shit, great, don't engage, leave it alone. But the amount of times you'll be having a perfectly fun talk about biowares Unfortunate Implications because of their constant statement of real world parallels and inspirations and their handling of shit in game and how that unintended outcome effects their intended story or something and someone comes along and like fandom high horses about how it's not that deep let people enjoy things why are you being so negative whine whine bitch bitch about it is wild.

Let people engage with fandom however they enjoy. For some that will be Big Think. It will be analyzing shit, no matter their skill level at doing so, and digging into it. If that's not it for you, that's awesome! I'm sure most people like both at different times, different moods, different media properties. Sometimes you want to get in the fandom place and go 'i bet this blorbo would cry if their tamagotchi died' and other times you want to talk about the accidental 'colonialism is good' narrative in the scifi movie you just watched or how xyz thing is part of a larger character motif about 123.

Respect whatever the fuck fandom means to other people, and just don't engage with shit you don't want to. Either direction. Don't go on posts of people being silly goofy and happy and be a jag, don't go on posts being negative or critical about something and get mad about people being negative. Grow up. Move on. None of it matters.

[hpmort]

As much as antis and such are a problem, I have to admit that when I was in elementary school I read Candle Cove and somehow became convinced that I would commit murder as a result of it(????) so when I think about that I start to kind of see where they’re coming from? Especially since when I was in middleschool things got so bad that I wanted to do so.

Of course, I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t be typing this now if I had; the only human I ever got close to killing was myself, and that was at my darkest moments where I was suffering from horrific and untreated chronic pain, the source of which went undiagnosed so long that it is a miracle that I can walk

[no-144444]

hi! i love your blog and i know this is kind of weird but just hear me out. do you remmeber the 'anything but f1' thing they did this year? what if oscar's topic was his girlfriends career and she was like a huge superstar on broadway and on the screen? and he like knew EVERYTHING and answered every question perfectly?

i hope you like this idea, if not, that's totally fine.

thank you ml xxx

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knowing me, knowing you- o.piastri

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a/n: thank you for requesting! sorry it took so long :)

summary: i suggest you look at the ask...

pairing: oscar piastri x reader

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Oscar was too warm and tired for this. He stood in front of a camera, smelling like hairspray and some sort of spray the makeup artist had put on his face, while he was asked all of the ‘Grill the Grid’ questions. 

“That’s it for ‘Grill the Grid’,” she explained. “But this year we have a new segment.”

“Oh yeah?” he questioned, his interest piqued. 

“Yeah, it’s called ‘Anything but F1’,” she smiled. “Your topic is Y/n Y/l/n’s career,” she chuckled. 

Oscar smiled. “This is going to be easy.”

“Will she kill you if you don’t get full marks?” she laughed. 

Oscar pondered. “Probably not?” 

“Alright then. Ready? Pressure is on.”

He nodded. 

“What was Y/l/n’s first role on Broadway?” 

“Matilda,” he nodded. Y/n Y/l/n, his girlfriend, you, also an EGOT winning actor, the youngest there’s ever been. 

“Correct! How old was Y/l/n when she made her Broadway debut?”

“Well, she was 8 in Matilda on the West End and did 2 years of that, so 10?” he answered. 

“Correct! How old was she when she played Sally Bowles, making her the youngest to have ever played her on a Broadway stage?” 

“She was 17.”

“Correct! How old was she when she got her first Tony?” 

“11 years old.”

“Correct!” she smiled. “What Disney princess did she play?” 

“Huh?” he questioned, not knowing that you’d voiced a disney princess. “She’s voiced a Disney princess?” 

She nodded. 

“In a Disney film?”

She nodded again. “Think about it.”

“Does she sing in it?”

“The princess does sing,” she explained. “But Y/l/n did also write a song for it.”

Oscar was stumped. “Can I come back to it?” 

“Sure,” she shrugged, moving on to the next one. “What was her first feature film?”

“Lés Mis,” he answered. “She played Cosette.”

“Correct! What happened at the 2013 oscars?”

Oscar chuckled. “I think Jennifer Lawrence fell over and took Y/n with her?”

“Correct! What is her most streamed song?”

“Does this include recordings she was a part of or just her solo career or the band too?”

“One of those is fine, but if you can give me an answer for all though, we’ll give you an extra point.”

“So,” he started explaining. “Y/n’s most streamed solo single is probably American Teenager, her most streamed band single is probably BABY SAID, and her most streamed cast recording was probably Wicked, or Hadestown.”

“Correct, and it is Wicked.”

As he explained his answers, his trainer and others in the room started to laugh. He knew everything about you. He was so down-bad it was almost embarrassing, but they understood it anyway. You’d been together since you were 14, you were 23 now. You get to know a lot about a person in 9 years, especially from teenage years to being a young adult. 

“What record did she break by winning an Oscar in 2018?” 

Oscar smirked and winked at the camera. “She’s the youngest person ever to gain an EGOT.”

“What school did she teach at in her early years?”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “How old was she?”

“Ages 8-12, she taught here on and off, and not many people know about it since she didn’t go into that field of the arts.”

He groaned, trying desperately to think. “The Royal Ballet in London!” He exclaimed, finally remembering. 

“Correct! Next question, how many Tony awards does she have?”

“Oh shit they’re on the mantel at home…” he muttered to himself, trying to count them in his head. “5?”

“Correct. Who has more trophies?”

Oscar chuckled. “I have more trophies, but she has more awards.”

“Alright, how many Emmys does she have?”

“1, which she won this year for her role in the Bear.” 

“Correct, how many Broadway or West End shows has she been a part of? You get a bonus point for naming them all.”

“Oh alright, so Matilda, Annie, Into the Woods, Hamilton, Heathers, Spring Awakening, Mamma Mia!, Moulin Rouge!, Cabaret, Six, Parade, Hadestown, Chicago, Wicked, and right now she’s doing Lés Miserables for the first time on a stage,” he explained. “So that was… 15?”

“Just one more?” she hinted. 

Oscar’s face fell. “What? What else has she done?” he asked out loud. “I said Wicked?”

She nodded. 

“Did I say Mamma Mia!?” 

She nodded. 

“Did I say Phantom of the Opera?”

“No, you didn't! Congratulations, bonus point awarded. What has she said is her dream role?”

He took a deep breath. “It’s going to be really bad if I get this wrong, isn’t it? Alright, so, she has always wanted to play Ms. Honey in Matilda,” he watched as the interviewer shook her head. “Shit, alright. Any hints?”

“She said it would be the only way to get her back into a specific show,” she hinted. 

“Oh! Emcee!” he cheered. “God, how could I forget that?”

“Well done! Alright, one final question, what song did she sing at the 2023 grammy awards, where she debuted her first single after ‘LISTEN’, her band, went on hiatus?”

He smirked. He was there for that performance. He was sitting in the crowd as you sang. He got to take you home and congratulate you. He got to be the proud boyfriend all night. He loved it. It was one of his most fond memories. “She sang ‘That’s So True’. I was there.”

“The infamous kiss picture,” she winked at him. He nodded, a smug smile on his face. “So, going back to the other question, what Disney princess did Y/l/n play?” 

“Oh shit yeah, it was animated, yeah?”  

“Not necessarily,” she hinted. 

“Ariel!” he exclaimed. “Ariel, of course!”

She chuckled. “Congratulations, you know the most about Y/n Y/l/n’s career out of anyone I’ve ever met.”

“One would hope,” he chuckled.

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navigation for my blog :) (masterlist)

[lakes-galore-moved]

"if you grow up in a multicultural society you should learn a bit about the cultures you grow up around" and "you shouldn't judge people who grew up in monocultural societies for having some cultural biases especially if they grow and change from that after learning some more worldly approaches" are two ideas that can and should coexist

[dcxdpdabbles]

Hi I love rereading all your fics and prompts! Like, multiple times throughout the day. I have a schedule. Your works are my literal bed time stories (wow that sounded weird).

Anyways (before I ramble any worse). Any updates for Child support? I just love it so much and wondering if there's more

John throws himself to the side, barely avoiding a grab from a fifth-dimension demon throwing a fit after he rejects its request to marry his son. He rolls across the ground, powering up a spell, as he mentally curses his age.

Maybe Batman was right. He should work on his physical form a little more.

"Wait! Wait! I'm sorry! Can we talk about this-" Whatever the demon was going to say is lost after John's spell slams into its chest, throwing it back out of his dimension and sealing him from his Earth for fifty years. The spell is helpful, but fifty years doesn't mean much to demons, and it will wait decades to come back and bother them.

Thankfully, John will likely be long-dead before then. It's always been his solution for most of his problems. Pushing a problem to a later date where it can become someone else's problem.

But what about his son?

Danny, who was half of Time itself, would likely be around in fifty years. If there was one thing he didn't want, it was to leave Danny with all his messes. He'll have to learn a new banishing spell and find some instructors who could teach him an entirely new magic dueling technique.

It was the responsible thing to do. Ugh, fatherhood was making him an accountable bore.

John heaves himself off the floor, sweat pouring from his forehead, and grimaces. On the stove, the eggs he was cooking for Danny's breakfast are smoking, burnt into a dark black smudge. The House of Mystery's old wood groans, displeased with all the smoke, and a second later, the stove and counter vanish as the house creates a hole to drop them out of.

"Now that's just plain rude," John tells the house, dusting his knees. "It's not like I asked to be attacked first thing in the morning. What am I going to feed Danny now?"

The house's floor tiles shift in what John has come to learn was meant to be a shrug. The blasted thing has started copying Danny's teenage behavior, including that of his son's friends, and now seemed to enjoy rebelling against John whenever possible.

Thankfully, the house also seemed to really like Danny because one of the drawers opens, and a local Gotham breakfast dinner menu is flung at him. John catches the sheet with a sigh. He won't have to go too far when dropping Danny off at school.

"Morning, Dad," Danny greets, walking into the room wearing his Gotham Academy uniform. The dark night blue blazer, black tie, and dress trousers make his son look like the heir of the second most powerful being. It only took one glance to see that Danny came from nobility.

John knows he's a handsome bloke, but he had nothing on Clockwork's human form. That man was a temptation itself, and it looks like Danny has inherited his beauty.

John will never know how the brats in Danny's other schools could not see that. His son was perfect. John fights the urge to summon a camera. He always thought the fools always showing off the children's pictures were idiotic. Now that he's a father, he understands.

He smiles, "Morning, love. How about we go out to eat for breakfast?"

__________________________________________________________

They arrived at the dinner just as it was opening. John told Danny to order some black tea and went to the bathroom. He was only gone for a few minutes, but when he returned, he found his boy surrounded by a group of teenagers wearing the same uniform.

There was a splash of angry red on Danny's face as a girl gestured to him, obviously mocking him, and the rest of the teenagers laughed. Danny's hands were clenched in his lap, shoulders hunched, and head lowered as another teenager reached out and flickered his ear.

This one was wearing those ridiculous American leather jackets for some sport. He was also the biggest teenager there, a boy who thought himself too important for his own good.

John's jaw clenched.

Bullies.

Danny had bullies at Gotham Academy. Why can't his son just be left alone?!

John was just about to march across the room, ready and willing to fight a group of children, when Danny suddenly raised his head to yell in the face of the leather jacket git.

Alarmingly, the teenagers don't have the reaction that John expects. The large boy blushes, and the teenagers all seem to grow flustered.

No, John realizes with horror. No, they fancy him. The little rats bothering Danny are into him. Were all the other bullies just dumb kids who were terrible at flirting, too?

He is so stunned by the realization that he misses the way Danny attempts to push past the boy and somehow ends up tripping over his own two feet. He tries to catch himself on the table but the thing tilts over and their drinks fly.

Danny ends up half on the ground covered in drinks and looking bloody misaberle as the rest of the children snicker. John draws to his full height, deciding that it didn't matter what these kids felt for Danny.

His son thought they were bullying him because they made him feel terrible. So they were all going to feel the wrath of the one human who bullshits his way to being one of the mightiest spell casters in history.

"What the bloody hell are you urchins think you're doing!?" He yells. The kids all take one look at him before they scatter, rushing towards their posh cars outside.

"You alright, love?" He helps the boy to his feet, wiping some liquid with a napkin.

Danny looks small as he wipes away at his eyes. There weren't any tears; he was just taking the tea that had run down his face off. "I'm okay. Thanks, Dad."

"Do they bother you a lot?" He asks, anger growing in his chest. "We can go to your headmaster."

"No! Telling the principle will only make things worse!" Danny shouts, looking up in alarm. "Besides, they don't really bother me that much. Damian can usually scare them off. They should go for me, I can handle it; most other kids don't."

Fuck, where has he heard that phrase before?

It's alright if he hits me. I can handle it better than Mum.

John takes a breath through his nose, willing it to calm him down. This is another change that has come to be ever since he learned about Danny. Before, John would have gone off the handle, started a fight, yelled till he was red, drank, or slept through his issues, and damn the consequences.

He's got to think with a clearer head now. He owes Danny because of what his other father will do and because John wants to be the kind of father he never had.

The waitress rushes over, helping them get things set to right, and Danny apologizes for repeatedly knocking on the table. She waves away his worry, stating she saw the group and that, as someone who's worked near Gotham Acadamy for years, she knows what kind of students go there.

She also mentioned seeing what happened to the scholarship students over the years after nodding her head to Danny's pin. John hated that it was a requirement for Danny's uniform as a "show" of his accomplishments when all it did was single him out as a target.

While his son is distracted, John sends a quick text message to Bruce, informing him of the bullying Danny is going through.

Bruce responds with a single message: "It shall be handled." for once, he doesn't roll his eyes at the theatrics. A small thump on the window makes him glance up from his phone screen.

Pressed up against the glass is a blond teenage boy with wide eyes, breathing heavily and looking like a child staring at a feast of their favorite foods. John makes a face as the teenager's palms' and nose lean more into the glass, disorientating his image, but nothing could top the manic grin on his face.

John follows the boy's eyesight to where they practically devour his son, who is busy looking at the pasty bar. The waitress told him to pick anything he liked in the house to try and cheer him up from his bully.

Danny takes his sweets very seriously and studies his options with hyper-focused determination. He bends at his waist to look at the far-back brownies, and the teenager in the window lets out a cat-like growl of approval.

Alarmed, John steps in front of Danny, blocking him and his bum from view. The teenager, wearing the same uniform as Danny, and John was pretty sure he's seen this kid at Gotham High School when they had been touring the place before deciding to take Burce's offer, locks eyes with him.

John doesn't have to see into the stranger's scowl to confirm what he already knows.

That was not a human in control of the body. A demon likely took the unfortunate human for a joy ride. John raises his hand, spell crackling at his fingertips, and the scowl turns darker as the demon wearing the stolen face seers.

Just as he is about to fire off a spell, Danny's voice cuts through the tension, stepping around John with a happy "Bernard!"

His son walks up to the window before freezing and then looks back at John with the same bone-chilling expression of anger that he has only ever seen on one other being. That one being who could make the very fabrics of the universe fall apart despite not shouting or rampaging.

Danny inherited Clockwork's anger, it seemed.

"That thing is overshadowing my friend Bernard Dowd." Danny's voice is low and echoing. Somewhere behind him, John can hear the waitress gasp for air as the room's pressure increases, to Danny's displeasure. "I'm going to kill it."

John's knees shake as he fights to stay upright. "Alright. Make sure you finish murdering it before your second class. You have a chemistry test today."

Danny nods, walks outside, and grabs Bernard's arm to drag him into a dark alley. The dumb thing looked pleased, spraying something into its mouth. I thought Danny was going to snog it.

Fool.

As soon as Danny left, the pressure disappeared from the dinner, every human inside sighing relief once they could breathe better.

"What in the world was that!?" The waitress demands, her voice strained with fear.

John turns to her with a shrug. "Puberty."

Outside, a loud honk is heard as a certain teenager in a leather jacket slams his head against his steering wheel with a wail. His friends are quick to comfort him to the best of their abilities. They likely saw Danny drag the possessed human into the alleyway.

Good.

"Do you have any alcoholic drinks?" He asks the horror-stricken woman. "I need something strong."

"It's seven in the morning."

"Ah, a coffee then. Black. Strong. Anything to help me raise my boy and get through the day."

There is a long pause before she responds. "Of course, and it's on the house. Not easy being a single parent to....whatever that was."

At least she has a heart.