#or are USians not taught about it in school

[the-lark-ascending69]

Isn't "imperial core" the academic term though? The Core and the Perisphery, Centro y Perisferia, idk how anglos are taught about it or what they call it but I'm pretty sure that's the concept we're talking about.

👀

[smokeys-house]

ummm... 4 quarters is a dollar, and that is quite a lot actually...

[fenis-monja]

Hey americans did you know that education everywhere is also bad. Like it's not just bad- horrible- worse than can you can probably even fanthom.

It kinda pisses me off to see usians go "but our school isn't funded!!! It depends by state and county!!!" and then "My education was so bad, my teacher taught me misinfo!!!"

Like. Yes. It's bad. But have you seen South America? Africa? Asia?

When we speak of bad education, we're not just talking about misinfo or propaganda. Do you know how it is in countries where schools countrywise are barely doing the minimum?

Have you ever seen places where the nearest school is like an hour away? Places where teachers miss out class half of the week? Places where there's not resources at all? Destroyed classrooms? Having to give up on HS because of work? Schools that frequently have off days because criminal activity is happening in the area? Places that flood when it rains? No electricity at times?

Even if you were one of the unlucky Americans, in your country, only 10% of people don't get to finish high school.

Meanwhile, here's in comparison my country, Brazil: about ~50% of people don't get to finish high school.

And here's the thing: Brazil is one of the better off countries in Latin America economy-wise.

If a person from a global south country can't name things on a map, is bad at math or other disciplines, I can't blame them at all. I know what the reality is.

But someone from the US? Sorry but... even if you got done dirty, you most likely still have a phone. Internet. And enough literacy to be able to use tumblr.

Your 5th grade teacher telling you "blood is actually blue underneath your skin" or that "weed kills" doesn't even compare.

When people from the global south complain about Americans being racist online and passing the blame onto something else or making it quirky: quiet down and listen, and for once, go learn what you didn't.

[dianight]

I've seen it mentioned many times over the years so I always assumed it was one of these usian weird things kids get taught in school and moved on.

But today I decided to check what "cursive" means and it's like, regular handwriting? What do you need to "teach" about it? Isn't that how literally everyone learns to write in the first place?

When I was a kid (I assume it still happens) teachers would recommend these types of notebooks to practice handwriting like.

There's nothing difficult/tedious/special about it. I use something similar for learning japanese.

I'm looking at all these cursive posts in a new light now. So many people complaining about it and it's like, girl that's how I wrote in university because it's fast, how can people dislike it even. I don't get it.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

I find it really hard to word this properly but does anyone else feel some kind of sense of dread or loss over the parts of our tradition and culture that we lost to westernisation?

Where are the καράβια for christmas? Why are traditional clothes so incredibly hard to find? Why do we barely get taught the easier dances at school (πχ συρτό στα τρία) and that's it (unless of course you decide to pay to take lessons or your family teaches you)? Why has our cuisine changed so much? There are so many more examples, I've lost track at this point

I absolutely understand why many people, especially younger people, don't care since anyone that feels rejected by the culture will reject the culture back (especially if you grew up feeling abandoned by the state and ESPECIALLY if you are gay or any other type of minority in greece). I still hate it though

I know what you mean. We are basically a second little US compared to how our country would be if it were free of that heavy outside influence.

Modernization is good, buuut it's not without cons. I've heard a young Greek call the color combinations of traditional clothing "tacky" and I sense that's how many Greeks think given how our nationality aesthetic has been reshaped. The fact that we have to get used to the aesthetic our ancestors appreciated for generations....

That's just one example of how we have embraced modernity on the condition we completely reject everything traditional. Even when we "modernize the traditional" is 99% (mostly) USian standards and environment and 1% of Greek culture just to add enough palatable uniqueness. I wish we could have both.

On top of that, religion doesn't appeal to a growing number of Greeks for various reasons (which I don't condemn). Unfortunately, religion used to be the glue between any Greek community and now we can't bond over that. We have nothing to replace it with so far, leading us to further isolation.

(That's partly why I occasionally reblog things such normally more religious people would be interested in. The history of the Greek Orthodox church is also Greek history. It concerned the people of this land for thousands of years, and we cannot separate our past from the church completely.)

And, on another note, why the fuck do we have to get to specific events and lessons to dance our traditional dances? Why don't we wear traditional jewelry, for example? Why most of us don't know how our traditional clothing looks like? Many Greeks admire traditional dances and clothing from other cultures (Indian, Korean, Native American tribes, and more) but when you ask their opinion about traditional Greek clothing and dances they are suddenly disgusted. Their appreciation for culture stops in their own culture 🤦

[anendoandfriendo]

We were taught about it in school as a USian and we were lucky.

If you consider university, higher-level undergraduate courses to still be school the way other education levels are school.

I cant believe this tweet is how I find out

[izzasecretredacted]

why is it that when us USians make a statement fully acknowledging the biased and colonial propagandic nature of our school systems the response is always "well you shoulda been smarter then what youre primary form of authoritative education about the world taught you sweaty~" like are yall fucking kidding me?

at this point, it doesnt even feel like shame for not putting in the work to get properly informed anymore (as if working harder to overcome circumstances in place of putting that work in bettering those circumstances is suddenly super progressive now), we're just expected to have just not have been brainwashed somehow... as if we should always have that garfield meme burned into are retinas and constantly in our visions since birth

btw you should call out USians when we show a blind spot that reveals our ignorence to the world, but it should be so that we can fix it, not as yet another way to feel superoir to some stranger on the internet that you could just block very easily...

[pigcatapult]

Could you elaborate more on the school of friendship being a re-education camp?

@cripplepunk-sylveon, let me know if there's anything you want to expand on or that I missed. Okay so, Friendship is presented in the text as an integral and nearly unique part of pony culture. It is only by the grace of Friendship that literal demons don't render all of Equestria a frozen wasteland. The narrative of MLP: FiM gives ponies a cultural monopoly on prosocial behavior, which ends up evolving into ponies having the responsibility to culturally assimilate other species.

The movie in particular emphasizes that the creatures outside Equestria Don't Do Friendship Like We Do, and that it makes the outside world a bleak and dangerous place to hapless prosocial ponies. Our protagonists only gain the allies they need by converting the natives into thinking how they do. If I had to pick a point where FiM began to go off the rails in this sense, it would be the movie.

The following season has the friendship map start sending pairs of ponies on what's essentially missionary work. Two ponies go to see other species, find a foreign culture that's Doing Prosocial Behavior Wrong, and fix it by teaching them to Do Prosocial Behavior Right, Like We Do.

(I will sidestep the Unfortunate Implications of dragons, the Icky Boys gender stereotype species, needing to be taken over by a girl to teach them how to behave. I will sidestep the Unfortunate Implications of dragons, the Icky Boys gender stereotype species, needing to be taken over by a girl to teach them how to behave. I will sidestep the Unfortunate Implications of dragons, the Icky Boys gender stereotype species, needing to be taken over by a girl to teach them how to behave.)

And then, ultimately, the Friendship School gets built. If it were simply a school for ponies, it would simply be poorly thought out (none of the Mane Six have teaching degrees, they hire no real teachers to teach non-Friendship-related subjects or even substitute when the Mane Six needs to go be magical heroes, they let Glimglam be guidance counselor even though she's still working on her own stuff). But no. They bring in nonpony students from other countries to live at the school, fully immersed in pony culture and fully taught by pony missionaries how to think and act like ponies, on the explicit basis that their home cultures are inferior and need to be fixed by Teaching Them Friendship. This has highly uncomfortable historical parallels with USian and Canadian Indian residential schools. The Student Six also have significant historical parallels with political hostages, a favourite assimilation/control tool of the Roman Empire.

(Oh, hey, you remember that episode where one of the Student Six vandalized the Friendship Christmas tree and Twilight threatened to let none of them go back home to their families over break, and instead be forced to undergo more intense Friendship Studies if no-one confessed? Horrifying!)

And Spike caps off the series (Distant Epilogue notwithstanding) with the line "The more creatures learn about friendship, the safer we'll be!", by which point the show has so fully equivocated Friendship with pony culture that it's an explicit endorsement of cultural assimilation as a national security imperative. I have no fucking clue how that line was allowed to be aired.

[snoozy-red-panda]

it would be some mental gymnastics to both:

blame USians for their own ignorance about their history, because we can find the info elsewhere than school (a relatively fair position imo, though it not being taught in schools is still *bad*)

AND

say that lack of teaching in schools is basically equal to censorship of historical information both outside and inside of schools in other countries, in order to "both sides" free speech and authoritarianism.

luckily tumblr is full of mental gymnasts, so I'm sure y'all can pull it off

[zenosanalytic]

Ok: This might sound a bit Loony. I think part of this is a reaction, turned by time and intensity and the generally puritanical cultural climate since 2000 into OVER reaction, against conservative arguments around how history ought to be taught :|

Like, there's allot to talk about on this obvsl, but what it boils down to is that, beginning in the 90s, there started to be a liberal backlash to the conservative backlash against the 60s, which manifested partly in a push to include native and black perspectives in the teaching of US history(in public schools, in the academy, and in popular media like PBS documentaries).

The conservative response to this was(and still IS) to try to roll back these changes, and once again silence those historically marginalized perspectives, through this argument: "including honest discussions of colonial atrocity causes white students to feel "guilty", contemporary white USians shouldn't "feel guilty" for stuff they benefit from but didn't do, so we shouldn't teach colonial atrocity, and should only teach a Morally Uplifting(i.e. Conservative, Pro-colonial, and Triumphalist) version of US history."

My theory is that, in reaction against that line of conservative argument(and inline with larger cultural trends encouraging moral absolutism), some liberals and leftists began arguing "this Guilt is Good, actl" and, as the conservative argument has persevered and strengthened, so has the leftist "pro-guilt" pushback against it, spcl among those demos on the frontline of this fight(ie: kids learning this history). That then metastasized across cultural discourses(and again: this isn't the ONLY discourse or cultural development pushing in this direction; it's just the one I feel 1)centers "guilt" as a concept most directly and politically, and 2)gets the most mainstream attention).

Anyway: I could be wrong obvsl it's just an idea that occurred to me reading these posts.

"you become guilty of misdeeds by even involuntarily benefiting from them" is a fucking psycho ass moral principle to see bandied about as freely as i do

"what you are responsible for = what you control" is such an obvious foundational principle i would not even know how to go about arguing for it

[alatismeni-theitsa]

hello, sorry to bother! I was just wondering what is your field of studies? sorry if you've talked about it before but I missed it 😭 you seem to have a good knowledge of the classics, did you study that?

Hello! You are not bothering me, that's why my ask box is open!

I am not in the classics field. The Iliad, the Odyssey, some ancient plays, and our myths, we analyze them thoroughly (and properly) in elementary, middle, and high school in Greece. (In our mandatory for all History or Ancient Greek lessons). If someone is interested and pays attention, and also continues reading and watching documentaries outside of school, they can get pretty decent. Most importantly, Greek students are taught in a way that conveys the context of the era the texts come from. It's not an exotic/foreign concept to us.

My knowledge is not perfect, I don't remember everything and there are times I need to do additional research. I listen to Greek and xenoi friends if they have found something I don't know. But the foundations have been laid for an interest that it's ongoing for me. So I understand the conventions, and why statements like "Zeus is an asshole" and oversimplifications like "the gods are psychopaths" (hello Madeline Miller) are incorrect. (jokes about Zeus are not bad per se, it's when people actually, seriously mean them then it's weird).

Comment on the Greek education system:

I don't imply that only school education makes you an expert but imo the material is pretty good and if one pays attention can get pretty good knowledge. Plus, our middle and high school teachers have a 4year old diploma in their field + Master's degree most of the time. Things changed a bit three years ago but before that, half or more of the students went attend (plus from the above I mentioned) "theoretical"/"humanitarian" mandatory orientation classes.

A large amount of Greek high school students are able to translate and analyze known and unknown (seeing them for the first time out of the blue in the Panhellenic Exams) ancient texts (Greek and Latin) of all subjects. Most Greek students take intensive classes outside of school, and the "humanities" students see hundreds of ancient Greek texts before reaching 18. Ten years ago you needed to do all that to go to a nursing school.

In the last three years, the Humanities field has been narrowed down and fewer kids take these mandatory classes. Of course, students don't remember everything after they leave school but the exposure to so many texts instills in them an understanding of the ancient Greek society and folklore. (my mum can still recite Aristotle's "Definition of Tragedy" she learned in middle school but that's because it gave her ptsd 😂)

For Greeks who may think I overhype the knowledge the system gives us (ειναι γιατι εχουμε συνηθισει το αγγουρι και μας φαινονται ευκολα), you can go ask all the online experts on mythology discourse (who are usually USAmericans) what they knew on ancient greek societies and what analysis they did on the myths when they were 16.

From the discussions with USians I've done over the years, someone in the US needs to attend University in order to start analyzing such texts to the degree we did in middle school. There are always exceptions, but what exposure and context we get in Greece at a young age cannot be underestimated. Trust me, it can be much, much worse outside of Greece 😂

That's been my experience, at least. You can, naturally, add stuff if you've been through the Greek ed. system and saw something different!

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Debunking the Myth of the 3 and 5-Act Conflict Structures Youtube Video series.

I will have it out on November 1st in time for Nanowrimo. The Intro and the First episode. I don’t promise brilliance since this is about the third most? video I’ve ever edited in my life. But it will be there for you to weaponize against people who keep saying Aristotle was the inventor of the 3-act model and was pro-conflict. I worked really hard. I should have Horace and Aelius Donatus for Episode 2. Episode 3 is on Shakespeare who didn’t invent the 5-act structure and the basic conjectures from Historians about his plays. (Clearly not all of them) and then the 16th-19th century. (’cause not a lot happened) Episode 4 will be about Gustav Freytag and what he really argued for, which is not what’s usually taught either. Episode 5 Early 20th century. Still some diversity of thought, but the roots take shape.

Episode 6 After WWI (The first non-cishet person is here.) (Everything gets flattened like Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo again.)

Episode 7 all of the diversity skipped over and the unifying principle. Episode 8 Summary to the subsection and final thoughts. Yeah. If you follow along, you’ll find that what’s being taught in most USian (I also suspect UK, NZ and Australian) schools is wrong. Really wrong. And the internet is wrong with it. I’m very careful to use as many primary sources as possible with the words from the primary sources and more of the text than necessary to show that I didn’t slice it up and have links so people will have a hard time refuting me.

[eldritchsurveys]

o91.

582. Can you make tonight the night that you do the things you always wanted to do? >> It’s really weird what pieces of this survey end up getting passed around. Like, this fragment doesn’t even start on a logical number. Anyway, no, that’s not even a logical plan.

583. Would you rather watch life on TV or LIVE it? >> Watching TV is part of living life, too.

584. What keeps you chained down? >> I wouldn’t say I was chained down. I have a lot of freedom, I just don’t always use it -- or, I don’t always know how to use it in order to get what I want.

585. What is the nagging feeling in the back of your head? >> I don’t have any.

586. Do you celebrate yourself? >> Not consciously, or anything.

587. Does everyone get the same opportunities in life? >> Of course not.

588. What would you consider to be better than sex? >> I don’t know, I don’t make a habit of comparing things to sex.

589. What evil is necessary? >> I don’t know. 

590. What’s your favorite one hit wonder? >> I’m not sure, really. Sometimes I only know one song by a band, but that doesn’t mean that was their only hit. I just don’t know any other ones.

591. What would you do anything for? >> ---

592. Do you celebrate the full moon? >> Nah. I like looking at it, though.

593. Have you ever gone in the water at the beach at night? >> Not in the water, but I’ve definitely been at the beach at night.

594. Are you ordinary? >> No.

595. What makes people want to hang out with you? >> I have no idea. I haven’t been hung out with in long enough that I’m not sure what my social strengths are anymore.

596. Have you ever felt like you’ve been a little bit too good to someone? >> Yeah, I’ve definitely felt that way. Still, I’d prefer to err on the side of being foolishly kind than being cruel to save my own ass. (Not to say that I’ll never be cruel, because I am cruel sometimes, and there will definitely be times that cruelty comes in handy -- but I’d like to keep that at a “sometimes” and not a “usually”.)

597. What book did you like that you had to read for school? >> The only one I recall actually enjoying was Their Eyes Were Watching God. I read it again recently and I still love it.

598. What book should everyone have to read in school? >> I really don’t care.

599. Do you like the store Old Navy? >> Not particularly, but their jeans can be comfortable.

600. What movie sequels do you like? >> I can’t think of a movie sequel I enjoyed.

601. Do you have a lust for life? >> I suppose. Something like that.

602. Do you want to get more out of life? >> I think I get quite a bit out of life already. I wouldn’t mind getting more, but I’m not lacking or anything.

603. Would you want to learn to:

Convert to Buddhism? >> I mean, not really. I can still use Zen (the branch of Buddhism that I prefer) in my daily life without having to be a Buddhist, per se. I’m kind of... too syncretic and all-over-the-place to really call myself any specific religion.

Cure a hangover? >> I don’t really need to know how to do that, since I don’t recall ever having one.

Lie persuasively? >> I mean, I could probably lie persuasively if I had to.

604. What character from a movie is most like you? >> No character is most like me. They’re generally not written complex enough for that.

605. Are you comfortable with the idea of your own death? >> No.

606. How do you feel about arranged marriages? >> I don’t have an opinion one way or the other. Sometimes things like this have a cultural relevance that I don’t have the understanding of because it isn’t my culture. I don’t think it’s fair of me to say that something like arranged marriages is “wrong” just because we don’t do it where I come from. I don’t have enough of a full picture to make a judgement call like that. --Also, I don’t particularly care, so there’s that.

607. What do you hate that everyone else seems to like? >> Milk chocolate.

608. What do you like that others seem to hate? >> Absinthe.

609. If you had to be named after a month, which month would you pick? >> August.

610. Is time more like a highway or a meadow to you? >> The highway analogy suits me because of Reasons, but really time is morre like an ocean to me.

611. What is your favorite movie? >> The Fountain / Interstellar.

612. Which would you choose to be back in the day: a warrior, an alchemist, a minstrel, a bard, an oracle, a peasant, or a merchant? >> I really don’t know.

613. What is your favorite song lyric? >> I don’t have one and I’m not going to try to think of one off the top of my head.

614. What will you never run out of? >> *shrug*

615. If you could force someone to fall madly in love with you, (anyone you choose) would you do it? >> No.

616. Have you ever seen the Disney movie The Black Cauldron? >> Nope.

617. Have you ever read The Black Cauldron by Alexander Lloyd (or any of his other books in the Prydain Chronicles)? >> Nope.

618. Have you ever written a paper the night before it was due? How about the day it was due? >> I mean, probably.

619. Is there a movie you have watched so many times that you can quote it line for line? >> Labyrinth, probably. Also The Crow, but I may have forgotten a lot of it by now. Event Horizon, maybe.

620. What is your favorite season? >> Autumn.

621. Do you mind being described as cute? >> Not necessarily, but I don’t want to be described that way by just anyone, either.

622. What is the tackiest object in your home? >> *shrug*

623. What do you think people are most ignorant towards? >> I don’t know what other people are ignorant about. That’s not my call to make.

624. What is it that makes you an interesting person? >> How I engage with my interests, the things I like talking about, how my experiences have shaped me as a person, my philosophies and musings, stuff like that.

625. What makes other people interesting to you? >> The same things, actually.

626. How open to suggestion are you? >> I’m always willing to hear one out, but I’m not always going to internalise it.

627. Is Michael Jackson black or white? >> Black.

628. Are you often lonely? >> Not necessarily often.

629. What’s the most unusual pet you’ve ever had? >> I haven’t had any unusual pets.

630. Have you ever threatened an authority figure? >> I don’t think so.

631. If you had to choose would you rather make all your decisions henceforth with your head only or with your heart only? >> I’d rather continue to make my decisions with a healthy combination of both.

632. How imaginative are you? >> Quite.

633. Do you like the Counting Crows? >> I think I like a couple of songs.

634. If you took this survey from the diary (5000 Q Survey V2.0) did you note me so I could read it? >> ---

635. Are you more tense or laid back? >> I’m generally more laid back than I am tense.

636. Does your happiness depend on anyone else, or are you happy no matter what any one says or does? >> We are a social and community-oriented species. As a member of said species, yes, my happiness is in part dependent on others. If it were otherwise, I wouldn’t even bother dealing with other people, right?

637. What do you think of the idea of putting the bible into the format of a fashion magazine to attract the interest of teenagers? >> A religion that can’t adapt to its congregation ain’t worth shit, in my opinion, so I’m cool with this.

638. How often do you drink to get drunk? >> Rarely. I usually slow down, if not stop completely, when I’ve gotten to buzzed.

639. Would you consider yourself to be diplomatic? >> Sometimes.

640. Do you think that most of the classes you have taken were taught in such a way as to make plain the relevance of the subject matter in your everyday life? >> No, which was a fatal flaw. But I don’t think USian public schooling is meant to teach one life skills, it’s meant to teach one how to be a cog in the capitalist machine. Sometimes you learn other things in the process, of course, but all in all, that’s the main point. (Mind you, that’s just my understanding.)

641. Do you remember Crystal Pepsi? >> I do.

642. When was the last time you spent a night away from home? >> When we were in Chicago for my birthday weekend.

643. Some people say that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Is that true? >> I don’t know or care, bruh.

644. What is the most interesting TV channel? >> I like Science Channel and Investigation Discovery.

645. Name one song you could live without hearing ever again: >> Oh, I don’t know.

646. Do your pets understand you when you talk? >> ---

647. What are three things you HAVE NOT done that might surprise people? >> Been out of the country, had a driver’s license, been sledding in winter.

648. Have you ever had a secret admirer? >> I don’t know. Isn’t that the point of them being secret?

649. Have you been to a museum this year? >> Yep, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

650. Do you ever watch porn? >> Yep.

651. Do you think that it would be a good idea if people served in the army, navy or air force for a while before they were allowed to vote? >> Noooooo.

652. If you were required to do this to vote, would you? >> Absolutely fucking not.

653. Do people often give you weird looks? >> Sure.

654. Do like Japanese cooking? >> I’ve liked what I’ve tried.

655. Do you care for stray animals? >> No.

656. Which animated movies have you seen and what did you think of them:

A Charlie Brown Christmas: >> If I’ve seen it, I don’t remember it.

A Garfield Halloween: >> Haven’t seen it.

The Secret of Nimh: >> Nope.

The Last Unicorn: >> Nope.

The original Lord of the Rings cartoons: >> I didn’t even know these existed.

657. Are you ambidextrous (equally good at using both hands)? >> No.

658. Do you always say; “bless you” after someone sneezes, or do you hesitate? >> I rarely say it at all.

659. If you and your friends could go away for 2 days over Halloween weekend where would you go? >> New Orleans, duh.

660. Which of these animated movies have you seen and what did you think of them:

Watership Down: >> I haven’t seen any of these except...

As the Wind Blows: 

Grave of the Fireflies: 

How the Grinch Stole Christmas: 

Spirited Away: >> ...this one, and I liked it.

661. Do you feel that society is male dominated, female dominated, or neutral? >> I don’t know or fuckin care, by this point. I hear about it all the time and I’m oversaturated to the point of pure apathy.

662. What words offend you? >> I don’t know, the usual ones, I guess.

663. They’re just words. Can you get over it? >> I don’t even have the patience to break down why this is a silly thing to ask.

664. Have you ever looked into different religions? >> Of course.

665. Which ones have you looked into? >> Enough of them that I don’t feel like making a list.

666. What do you think of Satanism as a religion? >> Ha, 666. It’s fine with me.

667. Do you like it better when your classes are taught sitting in rows or sitting in a circle? >> I think the circular configuration is more ideal.

668. Have you ever read your own tarot cards? >> Yep, many a time.

669. Which ones do you like better, the three old star wars movies or the 3 new ones? >> I like all of them, and the 2 of the newest trilogy that have been released so far. I’m not going to pit them against each other.

670. If you scream in outer space does it make a sound? >> Nope.

671. If you saw The Queen of the Damned did you want to be a vampire/Goth afterwards? >> I mean, I was a vampyre and a Goth when I saw it.

672. If you saw SLC Punk did you want to be punk afterwards? >> Nah.

673. What is your favorite zombie movie? >> Zombieland. Tallahassee is sexy.

674. Best kids birthday party: ceramics, chuck-e-cheese, roller rink, bowling, sleep over, movie theater >> ---

675. What were your parties like when you were a kid? >> I didn’t have any.

676. Best teen (about 15-16) birthday party: ceramics, chuck-e-cheese, roller rink, bowling, sleep over, movie theater, house party, catered in a hall, restaurant, family trip, concert >> ---

677. What are/were your 15-16 year old parties like? >> I had a “Sweet Sixteen” and it was awful because I had no input whatsoever. I didn’t even know any of the kids who were invited. It was like a party thrown for some projection of what my father wanted me to be, not a party thrown for me.

678. Best 18th birthday party: ceramics, chuck-e-cheese, roller rink, bowling, sleep over, movie theater, house party, catered in a hall, restaurant, family trip, concert, club, pool hall, college party >> ---

679. If you are 18 what was your party like? >> I didn’t have a party.

680. Best 21st birthday party? >> Sigh.

681. If you saw The Craft were you interested in wicca/paganism/magic afterwards? >> I’d already been interested in that sort of thing by the time I saw that.

682. What are your top 3 priorities? >> Hm.

683. If you saw fight club did you want to get into a fistfight afterwards? >> Nope, not even a little.

684. What is your favorite smell? >> Dragon’s Blood incense is nice.

685. Give everything below a humor rating (1 = laugh your ass off, 2 = lol, 3 = smile, 4 = lame, 5 = not funny, 6 = offensive):

People falling – >> Don’t want to. Also, humour is largely situational and dependent on delivery, the person making the joke, etc, so it’s not just about the content. NEXT.

Rape jokes – 

Sarcastic comments 

Blonde jokes

Dirty jokes 

God/religion jokes 

Long-ass jokes 

Death jokes 

Pain/sickness jokes 

Animals doing cute stuff 

Bodily functions 

Knock jokes 

Ethnic jokes 

Puns 

Ironic situations 

685. If you saw Cruel Intentions did you want to have lots of meaningless sex afterwards? >> LMAO nope.

686. Do you get at least three hugs per day? >> No. That’d be too many, anyway, unless they were in headspace.

687. What should someone never say to you/call you if they want to remain on your good side? >> I mean, there’s a lot of things. I don’t like to be insulted, even when my feelings aren’t actually hurt by it. It’s just fucking rude and unfriendly.

688. If you saw Trainspotting did you want to do drugs afterwards? >> I don’t remember. Maybe, lmao.

689. Do movies have a great influence on you? >> Sometimes.

690. Do you have a favorite reality TV show? >> I don’t think so. If I do, I can’t think of it. I like a few of them equally.

691. Are there certain roles that people are pressured to play in society or can they basically do whatever they want? >> Yes to both. Or something in the middle -- people can play a role in order to secure the freedom to do what they want when they’re not busy playing that role. That’s basically what gainful employment is, innit?

692. How does the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake compare to the original movie? >> I don’t know, I didn’t see either one.

693. Have you ever held a magnifying glass over an insect to burn it? >> No, but I sure wish I’d done that at least once in my life. (I mean, I stlil can, but I don’t have a spare magnifying glass lying around, or anything. Whereas my dad did, and I just never knew that that was a thing you could do with it.)

694. Have you ever pulled the wings off a fly, butterfly or any other insect? >> No. Never had one in my hands long enough.

695. What would you think of a guy (if you’re into guys) or a girl (if you’re into girls) who wanted to take you to the park to feed the birds and look at the turtles and fish in the water on a date? >> That’s adorable and sure, I’d go.

696. Do you use public pools? >> I avoid them.

697. Do you use public bathrooms? >> If I have to go, I’m gonna go. Like, come on.

698. Do you use public showers? >> If I’m at the gym or something, yeah, but I’ll definitely have shower shoes / flip flops with me.

699. How old will you be in 17 years? >> 48.

700. Would it effect you at all if you knew that a very large meteor was headed towards earth that would impact in 17 years? >> Of course that’d affect me, like... I don’t want to have that kind of dark cloud looming on the proverbial horizon for the rest of my life, fuck that.

[not-poignant]

As an American, US grammer pisses me off to. What in particular is bothering you?

Actually I have no problems with US grammar in general. (I’m sorry anon, but it’s not my grammar, and aside from the habit of removing inoffensive letters like ‘u’ from colour, it’s awesome). I mean if you’re raised a USian, it’s a perfectly fine set of grammar rules to follow and that’s the way it should be?

So there’s my short answer :D US grammar gets a thumbs up.

The longer answer is more complex. So that’s being shoved under a cut.

What bothers me is the culturally imperialistic attitudes that US grammar should be applied to english-speaking authors from the UK, Canada, Australia and other english-speaking countries. We all have our own grammar rules, they are also each perfectly fine sets of grammar rules to follow, and each have a lengthy history behind them. Not only that, but it‘s what we see in our published books (US folk may not know this, but books written by US authors are often re-’translated’ into Australian grammar (or UK grammar and so on) before being reprinted here under whichever publisher or imprint handles it - this, the job of localisation, is almost always the job of the in-house editors that a publisher hires), it’s what we see in our newspapers, in our dictionaries and thesaurses, and so on.

The internet clouded that a little, with globalisation you get the callous hammer of cultural imperialism. Suddenly most of the blog posts you’re seeing on the internet are in American English, for example. But that’s cool too, that happens - you’ll get marked down though, if you dare to let that slip into your essays or fictional writing at university or highschool or even primary school; so our localised grammar is very much taught strongly to us. It means that the inherent spellcheck for my browser flags words that I know are correct, like colour, globalisation and localised. I have to jump through some hoops to change that, but as long as it stays away from my word processor, I’m okay with it, lol.

So you have this thing called localisation editing. It is a process of editing something to fit local grammar - because if you open up to global english-language submissions (and most publishers do), you also open up to getting a whole bunch of texts following different (but perfectly sound) grammar rules. Usually you can stipulate a couple of rules yourself - times new font in pt 12, margins of whatever width, paragraph indents and not tabbing. Etc. Simple things that authors just about anywhere can generally follow fairly easily.

Localisation is not an easy process. Think about how long you spend learning the grammar of your country, and then think about how jarring it is sometimes to come across obvious differences. Then think about all the things that are invisible to you because you take them for granted. Think that there are huge, encyclopedic compendiums of grammar rules, that people can go to university and study for three years - just that one set of grammar rules, not for any other country - to become an editor, and still be considered a ‘newbie editor’ because there’s so much to learn and so many ways to apply it to texts.

What bothers me is when US publishers forego paying their editors by asking for authors to do this form of localisation editing labour for them for free. It takes money from people who have trained as editors to know how to do this. It forces authors into an uncomfortable position of trying to apply what they know of another country’s grammar rules to their own grammar - sometimes this is easy, a search replace for colour to color? Sure. But for punctuation, sentence structure, or even word differences, or the commonality of some cursewords over others for example, no. Is it an em-dash here or an en-dash? Is it a quote or a quotation or something else? Is this italics or underlined? 

That level of localisation is a job for the professionals. Professional authors are professional authors, but they are not professional editors.

So it bothers me when US publishers in the m/m industry in particular, offload this burden so they don’t need to hire as many editors, and foist it upon authors outside of their country.

Also, generally speaking, I just like writing in the grammar rules I was taught. I enjoy Australian grammar. I’m glad that I know our spoken dialogue in fiction is enclosed in these: ‘ ‘ instead of these “ “ and that the latter will get you marked down for ‘Americanisation.’ (The former will get 15 year old Americans coming into your AO3 comment box to explain how you’re ‘doing it wrong’ because of the ubiquity of US grammar rules lol). As far as I’m concerned, outside of arguments over the Oxford comma (for the record, I’m against, lol, even though I think the memes in favour of it are hilarious), I think they are a logical set of rules that help improve the readability of what I write, and they aren’t impenetrable to people who don’t live in Australia. This is proven by y’know, all the people who read my fics who aren’t in Australia. Which is pretty much almost all of you.

(Hi folks you’re all awesome).

So it’s not really US grammar on its own that’s the problem, on its own it’s just an innocuous set of grammar rules. There’s a great book on the subject of American language by the way, by Bill Bryson, called Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States which is awesome and very entertaining.

Also, there’s places where I do actually Americanise my writing a little. I use pants instead of trousers - that doesn’t come naturally to me and it jars me every time I do it. I tend to use yard instead of garden, I often use sweater instead of jumper, and I occasionally use trash instead of bin. These things - if I had used them as a kid - would have earned a disapproving glower from any adult nearby along with a sharp ‘you’re not an American, don’t use that language!’ Lol. There’s a few others that are probably so invisible to me now I don’t know what they are anymore. Needless to say were I submit that work to an Australian publisher all that stuff would get corrected back to appropriate Australian grammar.

Anyway, mostly, I find it frustrating that there are publishers in the insular m/m publishing bubble that place the burden of localisation editing on authors (which is inappropriate, and also a very incomplete process, and it shows - it’s why m/m editing often comes under fire; probably because they expect authors who haven’t been trained in formal editing to do so much of it for no compensation, while asking editors to do too much for little pay.) It’s also why a lot of m/m authors are turning to self-publishing. It’s not just me that finds this infuriating; I’m not alone. There’s editors and authors aplenty out there who hate it, and are often outraged to find that this is the way it’s done in this particular genre.

But hey, it’s no skin off my nose, self-publishing is a new and incredible frontier, and I know plenty of Australian editors who can look over my work before I publish it (and US betas who can go ‘um what’s a ute?’ - utility vehicle btw and help out on that side of things).

[lairofsentinel]

As an American, that was spot on. My history teachers were specifically told they couldn't teach about a certain subject multiple times. We actually had a teacher get suspended when a parent complained that their son was being taught "blatant lies."

My Gods…. 

The “Land of freedom” according to all the films that reach these lands here. It’s sad that laws have been so twisted that being a hater is now an “opinion” that needs to be taken into account because “free speech”, or the fairy tales of creationists are considered now “knowledge” worth teaching. And there you get those people know shit about history, laws or mere sense for being unable to understand the meaning of “free speech”.

I mean, it’s not surprising about what you say, anon. Interaction with average Usians in my life (outside tumblr) gave me the idea that they truly know nothing about most things (especially in social areas). [I’m not even talking about creationists… like… WHAT? , man! read about fucking science for the Love of GOD!. they are the same people that keep calling any muslin as “fanatic” which is hilariously ironic]And even though it’s true schools are to blame for this spread ignorance, it’s also true that these institutions, according to Foucault, are places where people are indoctrinated to repeat patterns useful for maintaining the system the way it is. If you don’t have free teachers, children are doomed to be just tools for the powerful, pretty close to zombies.

However, Freire also said that schools are the most efficient institution in our modern society to produce REAL sustained change. When school teaches you critical thought, self-taught techniques, empathy (which can be learnt), and stimulates your mind to think over our current world, changes happen. And you can totally see that by giving a glimpse to the school system of USA system and Finnish one. Schools may be the key for mental slavery or freedom of mind.

I personally went to public schools and I found every kind of teacher you could find. Since a fucker misogynist as hell who kept telling girls to just worry about dishes and kitchens, to a lot of teachers who, through Literature, History and Culture taught me to learn every point of view of a situation before having an opinion. I had even a lesbian teacher who risked herself and her job just to be open to us in order to show us that lgbt community is everywhere.

And that’s the key for everything: expose yourself to all the viewpoints, learn all the sides before getting your own opinion, doubt about the only one thing teachers taught you (unless it’s math, man…. Math has only one truth and it’s always exact lol -jk).

Learning to say “I don’t know on the subject, so I have no opinion on it”. Or “I thought I was right, but I was wrong”. Those behaviours, sadly, are not taught neither in school nor in…. any other place of our society. People are always indoctrinated to turn into machines of correct answers. What society expects from us is that: being good and exact in our exams, all the time, the less you mistake, the more successful you will be. Mistakes are punished harder than bad behaviour against fellows (you failed the stupid multiple-choice? repeat the whole year. You assaulted a girl? nah, just give a note to the parents.). We are not taught that mistakes are part of life and it’s ok to fail, to learn, to change behaviours. To simply unlearn.You realise about that once you are out of the school if you kept in an environment critical enough to make you doubt about things, to make the indoctrination fail in the end.

So, I see, and many natives I met in my life told me so, USA system is the extreme of that concept of indoctrination. And it’s not by chance. Freire was right there: culture, knowledge, and critical thoughts (and empathy I would add) are the keys for changes. In a society of information we live in, being unable to process information, to make sense of it, to question it, to put it in context!, is the new way of being illiterate. A functional illiterate, who will vote to those who speak the easiest/simple/straightforward way.The other thing that USA schools stimulate a lot is competition. And knowledge is never made though competition but cooperation. Holy shit if Science does know about that. Via sharing your thoughts and opinions with others, you shape and polish them, you give them nuances, you learn a side you didn’t take into account before, you may realise you were wrong. Community and sharing change us A LOT. But hey, that’s commies bullshit, get out of here!

It always worries me that people cannot have high quality education, no matter the level (I’m not elitist and I acknowledge the several problems that academy itself has, that’s another topic, though). Especially those who live in first world countries, whose foreign policy always fucks us all. If their citizen are functional illiterates… well we are the first one in being fucked up. Not by chance many political analysts say these days that “now” first world countries are living the “third-world-count-rization” (sorry, in Spanish sounds much better: la tercermundalización de los países desarrollados), because they are going through processes that our countries lived around the 80′s and 90′s.

Anyway. When you start to learn about the History of another country, you start to understand the resentment that they may have for your own country. That gives people a bit of empathy, make them understand why this hate exists, and if they are worried about it because the injustice it represents, they may start to change things in order to generate change towards a fairer society. But the process will never start without education. High quality education. Education that Freire wanted for us all. The liberating one.

When I think about this topic, Malala comes to my mind all the time.