an american in eastern europe (sees graffiti and one abandoned building during their one day stay in the city): wow you can truly see how the country haven’t yet recovered from the cold war, the differences between democratic and post-communist society is astounding ☹
okay, this is out of my normal tumblr behavior, but i’ve been high-key obsessed with this book series since the beginning of the year. i can’t shut up about it, so now you all have to hear about it.
did you like Black Panther? did you wish it was a bit more … rom-com-y? are you a fan of trashy romance novels? then please allow me to introduce you to the Reluctant Royals series, by Alyssa Cole. specifically, the first book in the series A Princess in Theory.
so, in this book our girl naledi smith keeps getting spammy emails stating she is the long-lost fiancé to the young and handsome prince of thesolo. ledi — who’s grown up in foster care and doesn’t have time for bullshit — trashes them without a second thought.
except, WHOOPS! the emails aren’t spam and she’s actually betrothed to a handsome African prince. his name’s thabiso and he’s come to america to find his missing fiancé.
i don’t want to give away more but i need ya’ll to read this book. it’s got:
a heroine who works in STEM
women bffs who both feel that their platonic relationship is just as important as their romantic relationships
fleshed out world building of the nation of thesolo, including pop culture, religion and memes!!!!
an inclusive supporting cast, including an out lesbian who is basically bffs with the prince and a smart, geeky blogger who uses a wheelchair
fake engagement trope
science … like a bunch of science. ledi’s passionate about public health and epidemiology
humorous and super-cute writing
cave sex
a mysterious illness
royal intrigue
a prince in disguise!
and lines like this:
the series has twomore full-length novels (one which will be released in april of 2019 … i’m so thirsty for that one you don’t even know. the heroine is ledi’s shy cousin and the hero is described as — and i quote — “a fuckboi with a heart of gold” … GIMME!) and two future novellas, including a wlw story featuring likotsi, thabiso’s bff/assistant.
that’s it. if you’ve read this book, are curious about it, want to read it/planning to read it, PLEASE DO SO AND MESSAGE ME ABOUT IT! i don’t have a lot of friends who read romance and i need someone to talk about this book with.
experiment goal: to determine whether smarties are an effective tea sweetener
hypothesis: smarties will sweeten the tea, but also introduce unwelcome flavor profiles due to their flavoring
procedure: procured one cup (≈12 fl oz) of Barry’s Tea Gold Blend black tea, hot. added 2/3 of a single roll of smarties candy (10 candies). wait for candies to dissolve, then stir well. tea will be sampled after stirring concludes.
addendum: control group was used. control sample consisted of one cup of the same type of tea, sweetened with white sugar. results will depend on the relative tastes of the control and smarties tea
results: smarties tea was significantly more bitter and less sweet than sugar tea. additionally, the smarties failed to dissolve in the expected manner, and when stirred, ended up breaking down into particulates that refused to dissolve.
conclusions: because of the chemical/structural makeup of smarties, they do not function well as an ad hoc tea sweetener because of their reluctance to break down. it may be the case that crushed smarties would work better, but this experiment was intended to study how normal, uncrushed smarties would work as a sweetener
This post is REALLY DAMN WEIRD to read if you’re Australian, because what we call ‘Smarties’ is a candy-shell-covered chocolate disk like an M&M but about three times bigger.
How candy-coated chocolate could make tea bitter really puzzled me for a while. Not to mention the question of the particulates.
Ah. Well you see Australian friends, when Americans hear ‘Smarties’ we think of these
They taste like an infusion of fruit, chalk, and the devil’s own sploodge and were the only candy I ever got in party favors from the ages of three to ten.
Don0303 