#still surprising

[yukennico]

the end of an era, daily doodles of xander comes to an end in twitter, but the grind never stop (hes literally my oc now)

[melonisopod]

Those are elephant seals though.

There’s no way..

[churroach]

Full of Desires

[littlemut]

[zytes]

this manatee looks like it’s in a skyrim loading screen

[hedge-rambles]

So "not quite the thing" is a slightly archaic British idiom, which is a feature of the Fifth's speech patterns it seems, and it means that something is not appropriate or socially acceptable, or historically not healthy or normal. Saying Silas and Ianthe were "never quite the thing" can be taken to mean "There's something seriously wrong with those kids" or possibly like "They have bad personalities".

And also yeah actually, thinking about the ghosts that were there and having to deal with the whole Situation. You've got:

Dulcie - a necromancer who's been dreaming of excitement her whole life and wants to get messy.

The Teens - Abigail put a stop to that as fast as she could.

Marta - a seasoned soldier, at least somewhat experienced in dealing with combat, death and high pressure situations.

Pro - former soldier at least, and remarkably stoic.

Silas - had his religious worldview seriously rocked and then found himself trapped in some sort of exotic new heresy, with that murderous little bone nun, and noped out.

Ortus - not exactly prepared for this, but it's realistically only like the fifth worst thing that's ever happened to him.

Abigail - foremost researcher in the study of ghosts and the River, she's having a fucking blast, like, guys! She's in the River! Top notch research opportunity!

And then there's Magnus - a bureaucrat who went to a scientific conference with his wife and got brutally murdered, now in a fucked up replica of said place dealing with an armed and invulnerable maniac on a killing spree.

No one is exactly in their element there (except maybe Abigail) but Magnus is so many levels of Out Of His Comfort Zone it's unreal. And his darling wife, his rock, is probably not helping by being fucking jazzed about the whole thing.

Can we talk about Magnus in Harrow the Ninth? Because there's a tendency to paint him as this constantly cheerful figure and he's not - he's just very Fifth.

He's the only person who seems even slightly upset about the whole gun-toting horror thing:

“Did the Sleeper get them?”

“Only by assumption,” said Harrowhark, while Abigail’s dolt of a husband said, “I bloody hope so.”

“Magnus,” Abigail said, a touch disapprovingly.

“Well, if the Sleeper didn’t, that’s two maniacs with an ancient weapon and a love of blowing off faces, dear,” said Magnus.

And he's got a very low opinion of Silas:

"She won’t tell me what he said to her, just that he ‘was horrid.’”

“Cheeky little so-and-so,” said Magnus. “If he were my son, I’d give him something to think about. I’m not surprised he’s gone to ground.”

“I would hope your son might be of different character,” said his wife, half-smiling.

“Protesilaus should have biffed him.”

“It’s strange,” said Abigail, ignoring her husband’s exhortations to biffing.

Behind the jolly Jeeves and Wooster-esque talk of biffing people, let's remember that this is Magnus - who from Gideon's POV never saw a teenager he didn't want to adopt - earnestly wishing that a grown man had hit a 16 year old kid.

And when Harrow explains that she thinks she saw him jump to his death, Magnus isn't particularly sympathetic:

“We should have made him a greater priority,” said Lady Pent.

Magnus said, “I’m not certain.”

and

“We didn’t need him,” he said bracingly.

Abigail said, “We need everyone.”

“I never thought he was quite the thing.”

This "never quite the thing" line is the same one Abigail uses when she says Ianthe shouldn't have become a Lyctor and you get the sense it has a quite specific meaning on the Fifth. You get the distinct feeling Magnus is saying "good riddance" in response to a teenager's apparent suicide.

And then of course there's Magnus' conversation with Harrow as the River bubble collapses, as Harrow debates whether she should leave her body to Gideon:

She said: “If I go back, it will finally destroy her soul.”

It was Magnus who stepped forward and looked at Harrow face-to-face. And perhaps she felt that more keenly: that he was the man who had, in Gideon’s own words a lifetime ago, been nice to her cavalier. His mouth was hard now, but his eyes were as kind as they had ever been. And kindness was a knife.

He doesn't pull any punches in laying out his understanding of the situation to Harrow:

“This whole thing happened because you wouldn’t face up to Gideon dying,” he said, which was a stab as precise as any Nonius had managed. “I don’t blame you. But where would you be, right now, if you’d said: She is dead? You’re keeping her things like a lover keeping old notes, but with her death, the stuff that made her Gideon was destroyed. That’s how Lyctorhood works, isn’t it? She died. She can’t come back, even if you keep her stuffed away in a drawer you can’t look at. You’re not waiting for her resurrection; you’ve made yourself her mausoleum.”

His wife looked at Harrow’s face and murmured, “Magnus, you’ve made your point,” but he uncharacteristically ignored her.

He's trying to get through to her in a very fraught situation, but he's certainly not pulling his punches:

“You’re a smart girl, Harrowhark. You might turn some of that brain to the toughest lesson: that of grief.”

Abigail is also trying to talk her out of things, but she's much more discursive and apologetic. Magnus is kind, but it's kindness as a knife, not a cushion.

Magnus is so often written off as just a silly, goofy character, when he's more complicated than that. He's allowed to have a very real frustration with the River bubble and with Harrow, however much he does also care for her and want to help her.

And you know what, he's a CFO stuck in a horrorscape with his delighted ghost nerd wife and a bunch of soldiers. He runs with it - he cracks one of his House ordinal jokes while physically tackling a gun-toting ghost and makes a decent go at it before getting shot. But he's very much out of his comfort zone, angry, and no longer entirely held back by propriety.

[curiositypolling]

pls reblog for sample size etc

[gatorinator]

“Walrus on your doorstop” this “fairy’s more unrealistic” that my professor just uttered the sentence “there was one day I found a real octopus in my backyard” this man hasn’t left Utah his entire life. How was there an octopus in his backyard in Utah. He then said “I do not have time to elaborate we need to cover a lot today in class” GIRL WHAT DO YOU MEEAN

[kimdokjas]

though the movie might be cancelled, yuri on ice will live forever in our hearts. thank you yoi fandom, it's been real ♡

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

woke up and someone spilled vanilla extract all over my dash, so as punishment you strange little beasties are getting all the VANILLA FACTS i know:

vanilla is the 2nd most expensive spice in the world (2nd to saffron)

which is why more than 99% of what we call "vanilla extract" is actually vanillin (vanilla's dominant flavor compound) and is not extracted from real vanilla.

luckily, even professionals struggle to tell the difference when it comes to things like baked goods. but there is a distinct difference in non-heat treated products like vanilla ice cream. real vanilla has a more complex, individualized flavor profile.

why is vanilla so expensive? because it is a ridiculously delicate & demanding crop. complete primadonna.

vanilla beans come from vanilla orchids. these crazy flowers bloom for A SINGLE DAY and have to be HAND-POLLINATED in a process that is exhausting, delicate, and requires specialist knowledge passed down over generations.

then, if you're lucky, you get vanilla beans.

which then require months of further specialized treatment.

the entire process takes about a year and can go wrong at any stage

vanilla has been cultivated for over 800 years (possibly much longer). the first known cultivators are the Totonac, an indigenous people of Mexico.

the Aztecs used it as a sweetener to balance out the bitter taste of cocoa. it was popular in a drink called xocolatl--the precursor to modern hot chocolate!

it is only pollinated by a very specific orchid bee!!!

which is why no fruit could be grown outside of Mexico until the 1800s

Edmond Albius, born into slavery, invented the pollination method we still use today--launching a global industry when he was just 12 years old.

today, the majority of the world's vanilla is grown in Madagascar

if you want real vanilla, read the labels carefully--it's harder to find than you think!

in conclusion, those tiny black specks you see in fancy vanilla ice cream? those are vanilla bean seeds! itty bitty orchid seeds!!! they are delicious and also a PRISSY BITCH!

(src)

[bixels]

“America has no culture” is an inherently racist statement. Especially when talking about California, which has enormous populations (yes, plural) of Hispanic and Asian immigrants.

It’s such a self report that you see the American hegemony, the American monolith, as a singularly white entity that’s worthy of scorn. I want that person to look at the Black American NYC Miku design and tell me with their full chest that that isn’t culture. Especially when modern pop culture owes so much to Black American culture — hip hop, language, streetwear and fashion, pop music, jazz — as is actively erasing their roots, saying all of America has no culture is a dumbass statement.

Also, “all the US Mikus are dressed in generic casual street style for coolish weather.” The original Brazilian Miku is wearing sunglasses, a crop top, short shorts, a bikini, and flip flops you absolute dunce. If you’re gonna be rude at least be consistent.

[wildflowercryptid]

underappreciated marcille bit : her being a gay lil hater and glaring at toshiro whenever he gets flustered over falin

[hansoeii]

It's about who.

[useless-englandfacts]

for those thinking it was all too good to be true: labour deciding to permanently keep the tories' ban on puberty blockers for under 18s

[a-frog-in-a-bog]

that poll going around asking how often you smoke weed and almost a third of ppl saying they’ve never smoked before, and that poll that revealed that over a third of tumblr users have never kissed anyone before, proves to me that stoners who have gay sex are a small but imperative part of the tumblr ecosystem. Keystone species

[starbuck]

reading and watching “classic” books and films is such an interesting experience because, before you get into them, when you only know them by name and maybe the vaguest plot outline, they’re intimidating and stuffy and up on a pedestal, but then you finally take the leap and check them out and realize that almost every story that’s achieved such a legendary level of popularity did so because something in its emotional core reached out and grabbed a lot of people by the throat and you are NOT immune.