#what were you doing

[capn-twitchery]

hey grace? why did you have that under there??? did you lick it??

[babes-what]

Nah because season three of Bridgerton had me yelling at my screen

[silence-between-seconds]

OK NOW YOUR TURN

pls pls ramble abt any niche interest you have

HELLO THANK YOU

*invokes inner history nerd* so. listen here colonizer and listen good. i will subject you to my random knowledge cuz due to youtube, undiagnosed neurodivergency and most importantly- bad jokes. i have a vari-tea of niche interests but the first thing that came to my mind was my knowledge of the history of how Indians became one of The Top Consumers of Tea.

how did this wonder-drug make its way into our masala covered hearts? what led to the fact that everyday at 4pm the word at the tip of most indians' tongues is "chai"?this is my thesis as a pro desi tea obsessed freak.

This story, like most in our history, starts with the arrival of the British. i would like to insert this picture i found in a video that i laughed at for a solid five minutes:

anyway

technically tea was invented in china, and for a very long time it was exclusively grown there. it was a very high class commodi-tea. it was considered so precious that in 1662 when king charles the second married the Portuguese princess catherine of braganza: her dowry was a chest of tea and THE ENTIRE ISLAND OF MUMBAI (then, bombay) for an annual lease of 10 pounds. let me make that clearer. THE PLACE WHERE A 1BHK HOUSE IS SO EXPENSIVE MOST PPL CANT AFFORD WAS EQUIVALENT TO THIS:

needless to say the brits was so freaking addicted man. they wanted this. so bad.

By the 18th centuary there was a war between the english and the dutch and the brit resources were down the toilet so they couldnt afford to spend all that silver on the trade of tea leaves with china. and china was uninterested in anything the white boys were offering.

UNTIL they discovered something china wanted.

✨Drugs✨

the white boys wanted that tea. and they would do anything. so they started growing opium in india (by that time they had colonized us bruh. they came into our backyard and were like "bro we're such good friends pretty please let me use ur backyard" "ok what do you want to do w it?" "i wanna grow drugs bro" "....ok" "you'll work for me no bro?" "why would i do that" "bro its ur backyard bro" "what-" *england pulls out slavery* "SHUT UP AND DO IT") (dont come at me lmao this is a very rough simplification of what happened)(imma get blocked for this?)

anyway, brits grew opium and smuggled it to china in return for TEA. FOR TEA. 40.

now after the charter act of 1833 (idk what that is exactly but basically brits lost its trade monopoly with china and so now china said we should see other people and it was an open relationship and britian got very pissed but they signed the act anyway i think)

to deal with this they established the Tea Committee (this isnt the first government board specifically for tea. there were plen-tea of others like the Tea Board Of India) which dealt w the extraction of techniques, tea seads and resources from the chinese. this was highly unsuccessful and china was not impressed. this is an example of british desperation they'll do anything at this point. (took everything in me to not insert pictures of how they treated indian farmers. it was *inhales, lets go of anger for my ancestors treatment* bad)

but in the end this qoute i found (undoubtedly by a white man) "fortune favours the white men" came tru and they got their way.

oh you thought i was done? haha babygurl i am not

in 1843 robert fortune, who was a scottish horticulturist, went on a solo trip to china to study (read as: steal) tea plantations. no actually apparently he did study cuz he published a book(i forgot the name).(yes. HIS NAME WAS ROB. FORTUNE. talk about being born for a job)

lemme insert a quick meme here:

(they actually hired him on the spot and gave the amazed man 500 pounds per annum and sent him off to china)

he was to perform what we call The Great British Tea Heist the brits had found their vigilan-tea

my guy was committed to his role and shaved his head and pretended to be a monk and after 3 months wrote a letter to his company saying "bro i got the goodssss"

lmao no this it what the letter said- "l have much pleasure in informing you," he wrote, "that I have procured a large supply of seeds and young plants which l trust will get safely to India."

NOW they finally had the greens and started planting it in india. over the years indian tea topped the market in britian as the best tea. mostly cuz the white boyz HYPED it up. they even started doing diss tracks for chinese tea. this is something read right out of an advertisment- "indian teas are more wholesome, purer, cheaper and better than chinese teas in every single way". white boyz started saying stuff like they got out of a toxic realtionship with china and a healthy one with india (but they were the toxic ones)

now brits tried to globalize indian tea to get the moneyyy~ from indians.

their first experiment with (another) government body for tea- Indian Tea Association began on the indian railways. these railways were the ancestor of the IRC-tea-C. basically they started making tea on the railway platforms. this started the trend of tea being the signature experience on every indian train journey, from the first class to economy, everyone was having it (cuz trains were introduced and quickly became popular in use). train tea was said to be better than the quality of tea in 5 star hotels. and this converted us from a nation of tea-totalers to teach addcits.

now i just have one thing to say in the end. HOW did the quality decline so badly my desi brothers and sisters? nowadays the tea on trains is basically water but brown. milk is a lie.

anyway. on the end we got it right. we took tea from the chinese and brits and we added milk and we added sugar and we got:

✨chai✨

you have reached the end. congrats.

[neosatsuma]

another thing about fic writers evidently not knowing the difference between a crutch and a cane is like, sure maybe you've never had to use them, but... hasn't someone you know?? Personally I've known at least a dozen people temporarily on crutches throughout my life, most of them kids or teens. hasn't anyone you know broken their leg??? *wistful old man voice* back in my day kids broke their legs....

[lilac-gold]

help i just found this in my drafts hjhgkf

[bookwyrminspiration]

I can behave normally around books

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

girl why the hell WEREN'T you at the devil's sacrament 👀 that's three sacraments in a row you've missed 👀 👀 👀

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[botamich]

待てよ、お前なにしてた！

今夜は騒がしい日になりそうだ。バイク🏍️のエンジン音が近づいてくる、窓の手前に立ち、カーテンを少し開けた。

俺の部屋は2階、東側の下斜めに視線を向ける。

下の路地を左に曲がると、俺には気になるアパートがある。部屋は台所と一部屋の狭いところだ。家主から聞いていた。

不審な男女が入居した。ひょっとすると、家出して流れついたのがこのアパートだ。娘は家出して、親が娘を探しまわっている。

[家主から入居した娘は欲しいか]

そう言っても。俺の家🏠は隣り同士みたいなもの。一緒に住んだらどうなるんだ。親はムキになって怒鳴ってくるんだ。俺は踏んだり蹴ったりだ。

ま、じゃじゃ馬で見に行った。好きじゃないが気になってくる！数日後、娘は親がつれ帰った！

この世は何が起きるか分からなかった。

Wait, what were you doing?

It's going to be a noisy day tonight. The sound of a motorcycle 🏍️ engine is approaching, I stand in front of the window and open the curtains a little.

My room is on the second floor, and I look to the east, downward slanting.

Down the alley, turn left and you'll find the apartment that's on my mind. The room is a small place with a kitchen and one room. The landlord told me.

A suspicious man and woman moved in. Perhaps it is this apartment that she ran away from home and drifted to. My daughter has run away from home and her parents are looking all over for her.

[Do you want the daughter who moved in from the landlord?]

That being said. My house 🏠 is like a neighbor. What happens if I live with them? My parents get mad and yell at me. I was stomping on it.

Well, I went to see it at the Jarama. I don't like it, but it makes me curious! A few days later, my daughter was brought home!

I didn't know what was going to happen in this world.

[symphonyofsilence]

Let the poor man rest.

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

[annabelle--cane]

things jon missed while stalking his colleagues:

the fact that sasha had been half lined up for gertrude's job and how that would be a pretty good murder motive

the discrepancy between elias's hiring in 1991 and how he said he was working as a filing clerk in 1972

tim's brother's mysterious disappearance/death directly preceding his change in careers

martin's real age and literally any of his academic or employment history

conclusion: he's bad at this <3

[paintedcrows]

what if your doppelgänger looked at you with your eyes and said with your voice that it just wanted to be loved. what then

[thatrandomblogsays]

Annabeth: I, a child, had to earn Thalia’s love, that’s how the world works! I have to earn my moms love. Love is transactional, you gotta be worthy of it first silly :)

Percy, listening to this on the train

[jakeperalta]

I'm curious. what job would you do if money was no object (you just automatically had an income you could live comfortably on)? including work like volunteering, studying etc. please share in the tags :)