Wait pleaseee elaborate on those history assignments im so facinated (to the point where I'm going to go research them myself just to get in their heads) (also hey new cool thing to learn)
Anon I would absolutely love to elaborate. This is in reference to this post where I assigned some of The Pitt interests (mostly historical) and now I shall break down why and elaborate a little on some of my ideas. I'll give some recommendations if you're interested in more reading for most of them but I'm not super into the history of all of it so apologies if some of them are a bit shallow knowledge-wise. And also for the infodump when I talk about swords.
Robby's was fossil labelling mistakes. I already headcanon Robby as someone who had a thing for dinosaurs and archeology at some point because that just sort of fits with him, but I think that specifically he would find the places that people have messed up on such a wide professional scale interesting. Especially when it comes to things like the mislabelling of remains where they didn't have enough information yet to be calling a fossil that, or where it was disputed enough that it caused relabelling.
The seemingly neverending Archaeopteryx drama with multiple specimen disputes and the misunderstanding of Hallucigenia's internal structure comes to mind.
Abbot's was castle building. I was specifically thinking of the construction of castles in the Middle Ages, but I think it can be extended sideways to finding things like the building of any old structure as fascinating. You cannot make a comment about the aliens building the Pyramids around him or he gives you the most "tell me you're kidding" look.
If you're interested in interesting castle builds throughout history, I'd say that the King Edward Castles in Gwynedd is pretty cool and one I could see him finding cool. I also think a lot of feudal Japan castles would draw his attention for their use of landscape defense, like the Gifu Castle. Also if you just want cool as fuck architecture, I will always recommend looking at Angkor Wat, also the Kazan Kremlin and the Rock Hewn Churches in Ethiopia are worth a gander.
Dana's was crowns and their accompaniment. A lot of crowns or tiaras and some of their associated necklaces and earrings for European royals have been stolen, taken, remade, changed, altered, so on and so forth so many times that it causes real drama when things happen. There's serious drama that goes down if someone wears a broach that feels like getting back at another. I think she'd like both the histories but also the styles and gossip.
No major dramas come to mind right now (naturally), but the drama surrounding Kate Middleton not technically wearing a tiara and instead wearing a fabric floral headpiece to Charles' coronation is one that still makes me giggle. Also the whole thing with the Koh-i-Noor Diamond.
McKay was car racing. I specified Formula 1 because I think she'd enjoy the suspense more than the drama NASCAR has, but I imagine she'd enjoy other car related things like the construction of older vehicles, classics, probably has a dream car that she knows she'll never find but wants so bad. Also street racing seems like something she would've enjoyed in her youth. Deep in my heart, at one point in time, she had an awful VW bug that she restored and adored for years.
After discussion with my partner who's into F1, we've decided she'd probably follow Charles LeClerc, Lewis Hamilton, and George Russell. She'd despise touchscreens in cars. If you wanna get a good laugh, go look up the Subaru 360 and any of the brief three wheeled automobiles, but the Reliant Robin is an infamous one.
Collins was the medical classics of herbal remedies and poisons. I think she'd really like the different ways we've used nature to help heal ourselves, but also the really impressive amounts of things that can kill us. She seems like someone that not necessarily digs the abnormal cases and unique mysteries, but is genuinely into home healing. In my mind, she has a small herb garden in her windowsill.
Wanna read about this? The classic to look up is of course mercury and opium. She seems like someone that has done her research into different teas for their properties, stuff like dandelion for anti-inflammation and mint for digestion. Honestly, tea and general herbal medicine is really interesting, highly recommend looking up your natural plants and the histories of Native people and Black Americans in your area.
Langdon has been assigned armory and weapons by both me and the internet as a whole. I imagine his favorite eras would probably be the mass weapon improvement during the 1900s. As for armor eras, probably a bit basic with the 14th century lower class. He doesn't strike me as a full plate fan. I think he'd like chainmail.
I am a sucker for the history of handheld weaponry so I say go look up the early versions of guns (flint, wheel, and matchlocks). I am personally a big fan of the different sabres and swords throughout Euroasia and how you can see them all influence one another, like how the earliest depiction of Georgian(ish) shaskas, rough 1600s, have no guard like a lot of Chinese dao swords of the same time (before they gained a belly), but also curved like Mongolian and Turkic sabres of the same era. You can then see a greater influence of the continent in the dragoon sabres of the 1800s, featuring a knuckle cage.
Mohan got put with animal rights because I think her personality as someone that values listening to individuals and making them feel cared for would extend to other living creatures. She's such a caring person with such an easy frustration of people who don't seem to, I imagine she'd particularly despise those that mistreat animals.
She knows everything about the activism of Temple Grandin, who is someone all of you should look up. She's someone that hates it when people leave their dogs in cars, or when they get a dog unfitting for their life. It's why she doesn't have one. Also I think she'd watch the Puppy Bowl every year.
Mel got dinner etiquette, but I also think she'd like things like Victorian hat code and old fan code. Also flag code. Honestly Mel would like anything that told her how to interact in a social situation that she can read on, she'd love. Need help with a dress code? She knows the difference between a cocktail and garden party length dress, of course she does.
There's not a lot of reading I can recommend in particular besides just straight up looking it up (like the different layouts of utensils and why), but I think a fun fact she'd absolutely tell is that they used to think tomatoes were poisonous because they primarily ate off of pewter plates at the time, which contained lead. Since tomatoes are acidic, they leeched lead, and thus poisoned those that ate it.
Santos I put down as natural fabric dying, and this is mostly because Santos strikes me as someone who's done a dozen DIY projects with her clothes and has tried a bunch of different crafts, and got super into pH testing stuff at one point which just led into her going down a rabbithole of fabric dyes.
Again, something I can't really give you reading, but here's some fun dying stuff. Dandelions produce a really nice yellow-green, onions can actually make some really vibrant oranges, and red cabbage is pH reactive so you can use it to make both pinks and blues. Also I just know she's awesome at stain removal.
Whitaker got put as soil science, which isn't just me making him a farmer stereotype but I genuinely think he's actually really like the different kinds of crop rotations for nitrogen reintroduction and natural bug repellants.
While it's not generally necessary for smaller farms, I think he'd have opinions on the best rotations that've worked for his farm, and also have personal beef with carrot plants and any flower. Carrots are kind of notoriously annoying and needy with their soil and space.
Javadi, I put down as fashion houses and I elaborated a little bit in the tags. I think she'd love not just the artistic part of things, but also the constant drama both between the houses and the broad public. She has opinions on the art, the politics, the trends. I bet you she pays attention to the projected nail trends of the year and wishes she could get hers done.
I imagine one of her favorite houses would probably be McQueen. Their dreamy and sharp style kind of fits her, though I do think she'd also like Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent. I also think she'd like Paris Fashion Week more than New York. If you want some drama to look into, go read into Anna Wintour and the hell that she causes, also Karl Largerfeld. I hate both of them.
Shen got weather patterns mostly because he seems like the weird kind of nerd that really wanted to be a storm chaser as a kid and got really into Twister. He's the guy that goes "oh yeah next week it's supposed to snow" before anyone has seen a weather forecast, and he also reminds everyone full moons don't actually mean people act weirder.
For some cool phenomena to look into, Catatumbo lightning is a really fun one that has some really fascinating reasons behind it's existence. It's an ongoing storm over a lake in Venezuela. Also, in case you didn't know, the World Meteorological Association controls the naming of hurricanes. There are four regions, and the list of names gets cycled to repeat every six years. If a devastating storm happens named something, it gets retired. There'll never be a hurricane named, for instance, Katrina or Sandy ever again.
Ellis was given C-grade action films, but to clarify I meant movies that are just watch people beat each other and blow shit up for two hours. She strikes me as a film nerd (Rumble Fish reference not withstanding) and I think she'd really like kind of bad movies. Ones that you put on, turn off your brain to, and laugh about. She gets nerdier about it, where the origins of tropes come from and what the point of certain things were or underrated movies, but overall, I think she likes to scroll a streaming service and watch something she hasn't before to relax to.
Some action movies that really are just let's see how much blood comes out of a person and not wonder how everything seems fine are The Beekeeper, any Jackie Chan film, The Accountant, the classic Boune, Mission: Impossible, or John Wick series, Dredd (2012), Shoot 'Em Up. Also Streets of Fire.