#set during their high school years

[asexual-juliet]

when will god let me stop caring about keeper of the lost cities

[aryomengrande]

gtfo rn...pazuribe did this for me i js know it

[amphibious-thing]

ok I keep seeing pictures of the Doctor kissing Jonathan Groff while wearing Regency fashion? I'm going to have to get back into Doctor Who just for this aren't I?

[instinctsxbad]

*scratching at the walls thinking about how no one has adapted Peter’s college arcs in a consistent and satisfying way.*

[mezmer]

Dude if you don't get married you can't get a divorce. Lol. Omg. Just pair bond and there's no chance you will ever have to experience a divorce. You marry someone, half of everything you own is theirs without a prenup. Not many people know that and marriage is highly romanticized. Almost half of marriages end in divorce and 60-70% of second marriages end in divorce. The government wants to stick it's fingers into your love life. Study the history of marriage as a legal concept and what common law is all about state to state

[meatsouuuuup]

it is yearning for tap hours

[poetriarchy]

just found my planners from 2020 and 2021 and now on the verge of tears. i was literally a baby

[rainyraisin]

My GCSEs start tomorrow gang wjsihxksjdkd exploding on the spot

I have a performance for PA (which we've BARELY rehearsed btw) and then the lesson after I have a speaking exam for English (that'll be easy though apparently everyone gets distinctions jskxhskfndk)

Then I think Tuesday and Wednesday I'm in art all day doing my final exam so I'm gonna work more on trying to figure out my final piece today

Then from May 9th all the rest of my exams start (I'll probably have another PA exam this Friday though)

Thursday is the only day I'm free JDKSJDKDJ (its also the worst day of school though in terms of lessons so that's just evil/silly)

[foe-of-fate]

I have so many fun facts about myself that aren’t really fun. They’re just like… mediocre. So I’d never bring them up when someone asks me for a fun fact, and they are too short to really be entertaining stories, so I just have a books worth of little events in my life that are only somewhat intriguing but they compose who I am. And I think everyone is like that to a degree. We’re all little stories that we don’t think are worth telling. Not because we don’t want to, but because we don’t think don’t think they’re worthy of being heard.

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

I just went to see this production of mean girls from this amateur theatre group my cousin is part of (she was backstage for this one) and !!! it was so freaking good I forgot these weren't professionals. ESPECIALLY the girl playing cady was phenomenal and the regina and janis and her friend were also fantastic !!

anyways, SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL ARTISTS !!! ALWAYS !!!!

[inmirova]

In an ideal world, it would be a program for Deaf teachers, the government could even put it under vocational rehab if they wanted to! Unfortunately, even some Deaf schools don't employ many Deaf teachers and a lot of teaching jobs end up going to interpreters or just hearing & non-signing people instead. But you're right and I love what you said, we can hope 🩷

idk man. i just think itd be really cool if sign language classes were mandatory throughout primary school. yeah because it would make communication with deaf kids and autistic/nonverbal kids much easier. and those kids would be accessible to the others so they cold make friends and have healthy relationships. yeah. and kids would eat that shit up man. like their own little secret language? they love that.

[erebus-luckycharm]

I can't even begin to imagine being excited for my high school reunion. Am I supposed to feel happy for reuniting with bullies? I already made the conscious decision to keep the high school friends I love in my life soooo who am I going to see at the reunion that I already don't see regularly 🙈

[seat-safety-switch]

When we were kids, we didn't have access to cool power tools. Every summer, when the soapbox derby race was coming, we'd break into my neighbour's garage while he was at work. Then, we'd use his drill press, lathe, table saw, all the fun tools. Over the course of a week, a race car was produced, which is more than the workshop ever made during the rest of the year.

Sure, we could have asked him if we could have borrowed his tools, but no doubt he would want to be there to supervise. And then he'd want to help. We'd never get done while we were busy indulging the suburb-tinged fantasies of someone who didn't take wood shop and chose instead to idly worship at the altar of Television Presents: The Fantasy of Bob Vila in adulthood.

One year, Old Man Garrett got a security system. Probably this was because Ted (fucking Ted) didn't clean up the sawdust that one time like we asked him to. The old man must have seen the footprint, and realized that he did not wear size-seven Nikes. Child thieves, casing his precious table saw! Now, our humble breaking-and-entering had become significantly more difficult than "reach a coat hanger under the door and pull the emergency release."

With the help of some of the high-school kids who were taking electronics class, we managed to defeat the security system. We did so using an ancient Japanese technique known as "distract Old Man Garrett while he's setting it, and then cut the wires to the panel." I think it loses something in translation, but you get the gist of it. That year's car was especially sweet.

In adulthood, I got drunk and bragged to some work buddies about our little scam. They responded in abject horror, because I was still occupying the weird hump in the middle of a normal distribution of "acceptable crimes." It was terrifying to them to see one of their own, one of the suburbanites, speak openly about largely-harmless property crimes. What if we had been hurt, they shrieked. Around the water cooler, I would become a pariah, unless I could make amends.

I did hunt down Old Man Garrett after that, still feeling the sting of rejection. He was still on the property, and he still had a beautiful collection of immaculate cabinet-making tools in the garage. I rang his doorbell and, when he answered, I told him the whole story. He laughed.

"I knew it was you dumb shits from the beginning," he bragged. "Fucking Ted -"

"Fucking Ted," I echoed, unconsciously.

"Fucking Ted left his library book on building race cars behind on the workbench that first year. You didn't let him drive, did you?"

I shook my head. "We ran the car into him if the hockey-stick brakes ever failed."

We had a good laugh about the whole thing that evening, and I returned to work with my soul cleansed. It's just a pity Ted didn't know how bad he actually was at crime, before he tried to knock over that liquor store and all.

[dostoyevsky-official]

The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books

Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.

This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.

[...] Twenty years ago, Dames’s classes had no problem engaging in sophisticated discussions of Pride and Prejudice one week and Crime and Punishment the next. Now his students tell him up front that the reading load feels impossible. It’s not just the frenetic pace; they struggle to attend to small details while keeping track of the overall plot.

No comprehensive data exist on this trend, but the majority of the 33 professors I spoke with relayed similar experiences. Many had discussed the change at faculty meetings and in conversations with fellow instructors. [...] Daniel Shore, the chair of Georgetown’s English department, told me that his students have trouble staying focused on even a sonnet.

Failing to complete a 14-line poem without succumbing to distraction suggests one familiar explanation for the decline in reading aptitude: smartphones. Teenagers are constantly tempted by their devices, which inhibits their preparation for the rigors of college coursework—then they get to college, and the distractions keep flowing. “It’s changed expectations about what’s worthy of attention,” Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at UVA, told me. “Being bored has become unnatural.” Reading books, even for pleasure, can’t compete with TikTok, Instagram, YouTube. In 1976, about 40 percent of high-school seniors said they had read at least six books for fun in the previous year, compared with 11.5 percent who hadn’t read any. By 2022, those percentages had flipped.

[...] Mike Szkolka, a teacher and an administrator who has spent almost two decades in Boston and New York schools, told me that excerpts have replaced books across grade levels. “There’s no testing skill that can be related to … Can you sit down and read Tolstoy? ” he said. And if a skill is not easily measured, instructors and district leaders have little incentive to teach it. [...] The pandemic, which scrambled syllabi and moved coursework online, accelerated the shift away from teaching complete works.

[...] But it’s not clear that instructors can foster a love of reading by thinning out the syllabus. Some experts I spoke with attributed the decline of book reading to a shift in values rather than in skill sets. Students can still read books, they argue—they’re just choosing not to. Students today are far more concerned about their job prospects than they were in the past. Every year, they tell Howley that, despite enjoying what they learned in Lit Hum, they plan to instead get a degree in something more useful for their career.

[...] For years, Dames has asked his first-years about their favorite book. In the past, they cited books such as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. Now, he says, almost half of them cite young-adult books. Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series seems to be a particular favorite.

[augustinewrites]

“do you not love me anymore?”

satoru’s (self-proclaimed) adorable pout is rendered ineffective when you refuse to look up from your work, typing away on your computer as his world absolutely crumbles.

“are you a worm?” you ask, wholly uninterested in his theatrics.

“no.”

“then of course i still love you.”

“then what the heck is this?!”

sighing, you finally lift your gaze to see your wallet open and laid out in front of you. “that’s what this is about?”

“you took my favourite picture of us out for megumi’s school photo!”

“that was not your favourite picture of us,” you argue. “you keep that in a locked folder on your phone.” 

(it’s your fault that he thinks of that photo now, having to utilise mental skills he’d learned during unnecessarily sexy sparring lessons in high school to will away the beginning of stiffness in his pants) 

“that’s not the point,” he says calmly, tapping a finger over megumi’s glaring face. “the point is that i’m losing top-billing in my girlfriend’s wallet to a snot-nosed brat with a crush.” 

“really? you’re competing with a seven year old?” 

“it’s not competing if i’m losing!”

“it’s puppy love, satoru,” you laugh, closing your wallet before he can see that his card is inside. “i don’t think he’s ever had someone - that wasn’t his sister - fussing over him.”

“no, he definitely has a crush on you,” your boyfriend insist, draping himself over your lap quite dramatically. “can we still disown him if the adoption papers haven’t gone through yet?”

“no one is disowning anyone,” you tell him, gently pushing back his bangs to plant a kiss on his forehead. “you’ll just have to learn to live with the competition.”

_____

you’re halfway through the show you’re watching when the front door swings open and satoru tumbles inside. “honey, i’m home! nanami almost killed me at the gym.”

“hey, there’s lunch in the fridge,” you call, eyes glued to the television. 

satoru, predictably, is unsatisfied with this. he grabs the mug that you’re holding and sets it on the coffee table, wrapping you in a sweaty hug and peppering your face with kisses. 

“let me love you!” he whines, his hair tickling your nose as he nuzzle his face into your neck.

“you can love me after you take a shower, cause you stink.” your tone is stern, but you can’t seem to fight the smile that grows on your face as he hugs you tighter. 

“this is all for your benefit,” he argues, finally releasing you just to pull the hem of his shirt up. you try to smother the heat rising to your face, but satoru notices, a self satisfied smirk on his lips as he pats his abs. “i’m letting nanami kill me at the gym for you.”

“you’re such a slut,” you mutter, wriggling out of his grasp and over to the opposite end of the couch. satoru relents, staying on his end as he recounts his (apparently) near-death experience at the gym.

it’s a few moments later when megumi saunters into the living room.

“megumi! come sit with me!”

the boy’s nose immediately wrinkles. “you stink.”

his full-force pout returns. “i do not!”

“do too.”

“do not—”

“do too,” megumi scoffs, plopping down next to you and resting his head against your arm. 

“so you’re gonna let him snuggle with you but not me? i’m tired and sore and—”

“and sweaty,” you finish. “go take a shower.” 

he glances down at the kid glued to your side, brows raised as he mouths, crush. 

you roll your eyes, thinking it wise to not engage in any banter in front of megumi. 

(but as your attention returns to the tv, what you don’t see is megumi’s own little smirk, directed right at satoru.

like father, like son.)

[odinsblog]

🗣️THIS IS WHAT INCLUSIVE, COMPASSIONATE DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE

Minnesota Dems enacted a raft of laws to make the state a trans refuge, and ensure people receiving trans care here can't be reached by far-right governments in places like Florida and Texas. (link)

Minnesota Dems ensured that everyone, including undocumented immigrants, can get drivers' licenses. (link)

They made public college free for the majority of Minnesota families. (link)

Minnesota Dems dropped a billion dollars into a bevy of affordable housing programs, including by creating a new state housing voucher program. (link)

Minnesota Dems massively increased funding for the state's perpetually-underfunded public defenders, which lets more public defenders be hired and existing public defenders get a salary increase. (link)

Dems raised Minnesota education spending by 10%, or about 2.3 billion. (link)

Minnesota Dems created an energy standard for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040. (link)

Minnesota already has some of the strongest election infrastructure (and highest voter participation) in the country, but the legislature just made it stronger, with automatic registration, preregistration for minors, and easier access to absentee ballots. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded the publicly subsidized health insurance program to undocumented immigrants. This one's interesting because it's the sort of things Dems often balk at. The governor opposed it! The legislature rolled over him and passed it anyway. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded background checks and enacted red-flag laws, passing gun safety measures that the GOP has thwarted for years. (link)

Minnesota Dems gave the state AG the power to block the huge healthcare mergers that have slowly gobbled up the state's medical system. (link)

Minnesota Dems restored voting rights to convicted felons as soon as they leave prison. (link)

Minnesota Dems made prison phone calls free. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed new wage protection rules for the construction industry, against industry resistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new sales tax to fund bus and train lines, an enormous victory for the sustainability and quality of public transit. Transit be more pleasant to ride, more frequent, and have better shelters, along more lines. (link)

They passed strict new regulations on PFAS ("forever chemicals"). (link)

Minnesota Dems passed the largest bonding bill in state history! Funding improvements to parks, colleges, water infrastructure, bridges, etc. etc. etc. (link)

They're going to build a passenger train from the Twin Cities to Duluth. (link)

I can't even find a news story about it but there's tens of millions in funding for new BRT lines, too. (link)

A wonky-but-important change: Minnesota Dems indexed the state gas tax to inflation, effectively increasing the gas tax. (link)

They actually indexed a bunch of stuff to inflation, including the state's education funding formula, which helps ensure that school spending doesn't decline over time. (link)

Minnesota Dems made hourly school workers (e.g., bus drivers and paraprofessionals) eligible for unemployment during summer break, when they're not working or getting paid. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a bunch of labor protections for teachers, including requiring school districts to negotiate class sizes as part of union contracts. (Yet another @SydneyJordanMN special here. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a state board to govern labor standards at nursing homes. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a Prescription Drug Affordability Board, which would set price caps for high-cost pharmaceuticals. (link)

Minnesota Dems created new worker protections for Amazon warehouse workers and refinery workers. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a digital fair repair law, which requires electronics manufacturers to make tools and parts available so that consumers can repair their electronics rather than purchase new items. (link)

Minnesota Dems made Juneteenth a state holiday. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned conversion therapy. (link)

They spent nearly a billion dollars on a variety of environmental programs, from heat pumps to reforestation. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded protections for pregnant and nursing workers - already in place for larger employers - to almost everyone in the state. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new child tax credit that will cut child poverty by about a quarter. (link)

Minnesota Democrats dropped a quick $50 million into homelessness prevention programs. (link)

And because the small stuff didn't get lost in the big stuff, they passed a law to prevent catalytic converter thefts. (link)

Minnesota Dems increased child care assistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned "captive audience meetings," where employers force employees to watch anti-union presentations. (link)

No news story yet, but Minnesota Dems forced signal priority changes to Twin Cities transit. Right now the trains have to wait at intersections for cars, which, I can say from experience, is terrible. Soon that will change.

Minnesota Dems provided the largest increase to nursing home funding in state history. (link)

They also bumped up salaries for home health workers, to help address the shortage of in-home nurses. (link)

Minnesota Dems legalized drug paraphernalia, which allows social service providers to conduct needle exchanges and address substance abuse with reduced fear of incurring legal action. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned white supremacists and extremists from police forces, capped probation at 5 years for most crimes, improved clemency, and mostly banned no-knock warrants. (link)

Minnesota Dems also laid the groundwork for a public health insurance option. (link)

I’m happy for the people of Minnesota, but as a Floridian living under Ron DeSantis & hateful Republicans, I’m also very envious tbh. We know that democracy can work, and this is a shining example of what government could be like in the hands of legislators who actually care about helping people in need, and not pursuing the GOP’s “culture wars” and suppressing the votes of BIPOC, and inflicting maximum harm on those who aren’t cis/het, white, wealthy, Christian males. BRAVO MINNESOTA. This is how you do it! And the Minnesota Dems did it with a one seat majority, so no excuses. Forget about the next election and focus on doing as much good as you can, while you still can. 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

👉🏿 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1660846689450688514.html