leon-the-artificer:

remember how barry was in the room when edward and lydia gave their speech on becoming liches?

i’m sure he was disappointed the first time he saw them – evil liches may be the norm, but it’s still sad to see – but that turns into shock when he hears that they did it out of love.

imagine him becoming slowly horrified as he hears about how losing their brother (their family, a person they loved– ) twisted them into this (and he tries not to think about lup, because his family is right there, but it’s not like they know who he is so what does it matter, they’re practically lost– )

barry is terrified, not because he fears edward and lydia, but because he understands them. there were moments when he almost became them. after he first lost his family, after they slipped out of his grasp with the phoenix fire gauntlet, after taako told him that lup was dead with that apathetic look on his face– for days afterwards, it took all that he had to hold himself together.

so he would fight the wonderland liches. he needed to protect his family, to make sure they were safe. but, despite all the damage they had done (with his relic, this was all his fault anyway, this entire adventure was just a solid punch to the gut) he couldn’t hate them. 

and that may have been the worst part.

brawltogethernow:

shapechangersinwinter:

locusimperium:

A few years ago, when I was living in the housing co-op and looking for a quick cookie recipe, I came across a blog post for something called “Norwegian Christmas butter squares.” I’d never found anything like it before: it created rich, buttery and chewy cookies, like a vastly superior version of the holiday sugar cookies I’d eaten growing up. About a year ago I went looking for the recipe again, and failed to find it. The blog had been taken down, and it sent me into momentary panic. 

Luckily, I remembered enough to find it on the Wayback Machine, and quickly copied it into a file that I’ve saved ever since. I probably make these cookies about once a month, and they last about five days around my voracious husband – they’re fantastic with a cup of bitter coffee or tea. I’m skeptical that there is something distinctively Norwegian about these cookies, but they do seem like the perfect thing to eat on a cold day. 

Norwegian Christmas Butter Squares

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 egg
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla
½ tsp salt
Turbinado/ Raw Sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Chill a 9×13″ baking pan in the freezer. Do not grease the pan.

Using a mixer, blend the butter, egg, sugar, and salt together until it is creamy.  Add the flour and vanilla and mix using your hands until the mixture holds together in large clumps. If it seems overly soft, add a little extra flour. 

Using your hands, press the dough out onto the chilled and ungreased baking sheet until it is even and ¼ inch thick.  Dust the top of the cookies evenly with raw sugar.

Bake at 400 degrees until the edges turn a golden brown, about 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven. Let cool for about five minutes before cutting the cooked dough into squares. Remove the squares from the warm pan using a spatula.

So I tried this recipe.

And it is GREAT.

It basically makes the platonic ideal of commercial sugar cookies, only in bar form. When I give them to people (which I do a lot, because this is one of those simple recipes where the results seem very impressive), I just tell them they’re sugar cookie bars.