#intobarbarians

[logicheartsoul]

happy birthday!

Thank you!!! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 it’s been so nice seeing the birthday wishes in my inbox (unlike some of the asks I’ve gotten — from plain weird to just 😔)

[luckthebard]

veth as a secret optimist!! i LOVE that idea so much, especially because the narrative has rewarded her for it. when she was a goblin all by herself, she must have thought getting her body back and going home were impossible tasks. then she meets caleb and she's right to believe that he can help her fix it, because the impossible has been done. why not encourage jester to follow her heart? veth looks in the mirror and sees the proof of miracles every time

Yes! I’ve talked before about how Caleb’s recent success has maybe made him a little bit reckless and a bit arrogant, but surely it’s helped Veth be more optimistic. After all, a good thing did happen for her!

[dangercupcakemurdericing]

I made the chemise, stays, bodiced petticoat and dress. It was a bit of a project.

[boboricha]

B/C @intobarbarians posted that one HC about Kuwabara really being into photography so I had to clutch my heart and draw this shit bc now I have a lot of HCs about Kuwabara’s future career choices and shit

- I have a lotta different ideas for career choices for Kuwabara (ones that have been echoed in people’s hcs already) and honestly all of em are really good but probably in this case I see him starting off something like environmental engineering/earth sciences-y/nature-y (maybe archaelogy/anthropolgy). Ends up in a job that requires a lot of travel to a lot of different places.

- Takes pictures of all the places b/c holy shit, look at that, no, look at that! But also b/c he wants to show his friends, let his friends and family experience even a little sliver of this. 

- Kinda ends up making postcards out of his pics for everyone that he sends back home (he tells Yusuke and Kurama to pass on pics to Hiei). Everyone gets a unique pic for them that he took when he was thinking of them (the ocean at dawn for Yusuke, a forest for Kurama, a blood moon for Hiei). 

- Botan and Kuwabara def have some sort of pic trade/mile long snap streak sending back pics of spirit world and Earth. 

- Meets all kinds of people and learns a lot on his travels 

- Has a blog where he posts his pics. Some people ask for prints/commissions (he posts paintings/sketches/drawings once in a while too). Eventually gets noticed and a magazine or whatever the Japanese equivalent of National Geographic is wants to hire him or something. Which maybe funnels him for a short time as a photographer.

- Eventually though he misses home (hopping back and forth through a dimensional portal isn’t the same) and ends up becoming a teacher (in multiple ways) around mid-age time?

tldr Kuwabara lives a full ass life

and go look at @intobarbarians hcs/fics for kuwabara bc they are gold

[femchef]

can i ask you for your opinion on real vanilla extract vs imitation? just like...whatever your thoughts on that might be.

Sure!

So vanilla has actually been a hot topic the last decade or so!! Right when all-natural ingredients started getting super popular (and when everyone started stamping their products gluten free), the demand for real vanilla extract scyrocketed.

Now, most vanilla in products is Madagascar vanilla, which is a cultivar derived from crossing Bourbon Vanilla and Mexican Vanilla (my personal favorite, good quality Mexican vanilla has a very strong floral aroma). There is a lot of drama tied up in vanilla plantations and cultivars and stuff, and the actual harvesting process is also a bit risky because of the defensive sap on the orchids that vanilla is harvested from (though def not as bad as cashews!) . I would suggest doing some reading on it if you’re curious.

ANYWAY

Most widely used vanilla (at least here in the US) is the Bourbon-Madagascar vanilla cultivar. Vanilla orchids are grown on plantations, and BMV is usually pollinated by hand, rather than by bees (which drives up the cost). Unsurprisingly there are a boatload of human rights issues tied up with the large scale production of vanilla. BUT THAT IS NOT ALL.

Back in 2001, and again in 2017, there were HUGE storms and hurricanes that destroyed the majority of the vanilla crops - prices skyrocketed immediately after each crisis, because it takes several years for an orchid to produce viable pods, and despite the lack of crops after devastating storms, the demand for all-natural vanilla in products didn’t lessen. If you’re wondering what skyrocketing looks like, here is my real world example:

The week after the storms destroyed the crops in 2017, the cost for 8 ounces of dried vanilla bean pods went from 87$ to over 200$. We literally had to stop making vanilla flavored things at work - no vanilla bean poached pears, no more vanilla bean ice creams - it was incredibly cost prohibitive. It’s only been in the last seven months that the price has dropped down to 150$ for 8 ounces. And that’s not even for good quality product - if you want the best stuff, it’s still going to be over 450$ for 8 ounces of the best vanilla beans.

Again, I really recommend doing some reading if you’re interested, because it’s train wreck levels of fascinating. Vanilla plantations all over the place had to up their security - hard nose stuff like electric fences and 24 hour patrols and weaponized mercs for a start - because with massively destroyed crops come thieves and poachers. Vanilla poaching is A Thing.

Also notice I mention gluten-free up at the top - that’s because a lot of imitation vanilla that rely on caramel coloring to give it a more natural brown appearance can’t be guaranteed gluten free because caramel colors in food are usually derived from malt or malt barley syrups. Which may or may not contain wheat by-products.

Now, yes, I’m a baker and yes, I definitely have some opinions about gluten-free products and the people who eat them. Mostly, that people who actually suffer with celiacs disease have my sympathy (and hit me up for a recipe for gluten-free dairy free strawberry cake with dairy-free Italian meringue butter cream or for gluten free rosemary brioche. - yes it’s doable and yes you will love them because they are delicious). That really is a complicated topic on its own, so far as fad dieting goes - but it’s absolutely had an affect on the vanilla industry with regards to the production of imitation over real extracts.

This is all a lot of side tracking though, whoops!! Sorry about that - so. My opinion on imitation vs real.

I like them both! And I use them for different things. When I use real vanilla paste or extract (or the pricey pricey beans), I’m using because I want to ACTUALLY taste vanilla. The flavor itself is important to the thing I’m making - like a vanilla bean meringue for a pavlova, or a vanilla pastry cream. But honestly? For most things imitation really is perfectly fine, because you are using the vanilla to deepen other flavors.

You aren’t going to taste vanilla in a chocolate cake batter - you’ve got other stuff swimming around in there, like buttermilk and brown sugar and coffee or espresso powder - the vanilla flavor is necessary as an agent of deepening the flavor of the chocolate, but not as a stand alone flavor by itself. It’s like adding fish sauce to a noodle dish - it adds depth and complexity, but it’s not immediately identifiable in the finished dish because you’ve used it as a building block rather than a stand alone flavor.

So there you go - eleven paragraphs that all wind up at the same place:

EDIT: THIS IS ALSO WHY ANTHROPOGENIC CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL AND HAS REAL WORLD CONSEQUENCES TOO!!!!

[weatheredlaw]

"tender minded and non compliant" should be the name of your poetry collection

damn you are on some next level shit i hadn’t even thought about that thank you

[jjustwantobehere]

infinity wars spoiler: there's a scene where the guardians think that thor is going to hurt gamora after he hears she's thanos's daughter but instead he's reaching out to her in sympathy and understanding and i was incredibly touched by that moment. i love thor

That scene was one of my many faves thank you for reminding me, Chris Hemsworth and Zoe Saldana really gave their all in their scenes. Hemsworth’s Thor is so lovely and nuanced, I really appreciate all that brings to the character, I want Marvel to love him like we do instead of Tony.

[femchef]

@intobarbarians