#rules explanation

[flufftober]

Question: are we allowed to post a day early, if our personal schedules don't allow to pos on the day of?

Sure thing 😊 we'll just schedule early posts to be reblogged on the correct day.

[eats-a-berry]

can everyone please do me a favor and post this image under anyone talking about this panel from now on or something i am so tired

[northlight14]

Phoenix: do you remember the day you got your lunch money stolen in kindergarten?

Edgeworth, who came into school wearing a bow tie every day, was always reading, went around quoting different law terms saying he was going to grow up to be “just like father”, and canonically cried when he couldn’t do origami: which time?

[nshi-ao3]

I, uh, accidentally deleted the ask, but-- I got asked if I could draw a little Akechi... and I do need to test out my new tablet, so... Here you go??!

(It's... a reference to this. Make of it what you will??)

[thefirstknife]

Besties, I need help. Especially people who have a lot of reach on twitter.

Two of my friends had their Destiny names forcibly changed at the roughly the same time. Their Destiny names were "bisexual mara sov" and "trans king oryx." They just logged in and got a pop-up saying that for some "crossplay" reasons their names were changed to a default Guardian####. None of them are using crossplay. Both are on Steam only, if that's important.

One of them posted to Bungie forums and got this reply:

Both of my friends suspect that they were mass reported. Obviously falsely. Their names are not breaking any rules and are in fact canonical statements about the characters. They always play together so if some homophobe sees them, they would report both, so it would make sense why this happened to them at the same time, possibly (the other option is that there was a wave of forced name changes happening recently that caught them both, but for all intents and purposes, their names should not be subject to change).

This upset both of my friends quite a lot. It means there's enough homophobes out there falsely reporting their names. It's also upsetting to think that these reports were reviewed and then accepted. I genuinely don't think there was a manual review. If there was, I think everyone would like to know which rules this is breaking and why.

Another friend tried raising this issue on the official Destiny 2 reddit, but his thread was not approved by moderators because of "politics":

Thanks reddit! /s My friend also messaged the moderators, but to no avail.

The only thing that remains is trying to raise this issue with the community managers somehow, but clearly this isn't possible on reddit, so we want to try twitter. Unfortunately with the way twitter works, unless you have the reach, nobody will see it. One other friend literally made a twitter account for this to tag the Destiny 2 Team, but as expected her attempt has zero visibility. These are her two tweets. I'm not sure what would be better; to just boost this existing tweet or to make new tweets tagging Destiny 2 Team, but if anyone knows and thinks they could help, feel free to do either!

I don't expect much to happen, but I would like to at least try bringing some awareness to this because it's quite upsetting if homophobes can just mass report a completely innocent name, while absolutely gross names are allowed and visible every day in the game. It's also not a good look if these mass reports are acted on without review, and they are worse if they were acted on WITH review.

A lot of people have usernames that are about in-game characters; I think a lot of us would like to get some information on why these aren't allowed anymore. Both of my friends have had them for years.

Anyway, if anyone knows something they could do or has the ability to get this visible somehow, it would be appreciated!

[pianokantzart]

I knew something was missing from Luigi's Mansion 3 where was the scene where a space theme leads to a disorienting warping of physics and reality?

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

pez dispenser update, yay!

I am Very Interested in the direction you're taking izuku here. He seems to have come out the other side of this breakdown going, "no look! I trust you guys! Here, I trust you guys so much! You can know about the severe injuries I had as a child that never got a police report!"

It's funny to read izuku's pov vs aizawa. Izuku is just like, wow this all needs to end so I can get back to being the Normal And Awesome Deku I have turned myself into, and aizawa is like thirty seconds from having his own panic attack at having a few months to turn this kid into a functional human being.

You can truly tell that with how izuku keeps insisting on that he's got this by himself, with no understanding how crazy it is to expect his friends and teachers to back out and let him take over, that he, still, still, STILL has simply 0 faith or expectation that his teacher is driven to help the little kid in izuku that he's buried so deep down there. That an authority figure who isn't all might wants to save him. I want to eat his unthinking, warped by trauma thought patterns, they are delicious.

Kinda touching that midoriya foresaw and tried to avert the all might conversation issue. Rip, dude really tried, but baby izuku is like one of those puddles in flooded old buildings you can find videos of people dropping a rock in -- it doesn't look that deep, but if you tried to put your foot in, you would be getting a whole lot more than your shoe wet.

Yeahhhhhh Izuku’s really not handling it the best.

Izuku genuinely didn’t keep everything a secret all these years because he didn’t trust his friends. It wasn’t that he thought they’d react poorly or hurt him with the information or spread it around or anything like that. This was purely due to his own internal issues around it.

But they’re three years deep into being in the fucking trenches together. And Izuku very much is considered a bedrock of the class. You can see it in their internal monologues—everyone trusts him implicitly. It’s Izuku. If one of them was going through something sensitive or painful, he’d be at the top of the list of people to turn to. For like, the entire class.

And while Izuku isn’t per se aware of the fact that the entire class views him as the best of them, he is painfully aware of the fact that they’ve opened up to him over the years. And that this is making it look like he didn’t tell them a single detail about his life before he came to the school. Which is fair, because he sort of didn’t.

So he’s overcompensating. He doesn’t need privacy because he trusts them so so much and this proves it, right?? They can totally know the sordid details of the past he’s in active crisis over.

He’s scared that he’s going to lose the people who have trusted him over the years because he seemingly didn’t trust them back. But they all trust him so much that they’re more beating themselves up than blaming him.

Todoroki and Mirio were in that scene like “uuuuhhhh you look like you’re a second from a panic attack we can totally give you space if it makes you more comfortable” and Izuku’s in a spiral like Why Would I Need Space I Trust You Both Implicitly Please Ignore The Obvious Distress.

Fundamentally, Izuku has never processed what happened to him as a kid. He didn’t tell them because he wasn’t ready to confront how bad it was back then. It wasn’t about trust. Telling them meant saying aloud what happened. He just wasn’t ready for that.

And from the path canon took, I don’t really see Izuku trusting adults. His childhood did absolutely nothing to make him think teachers would protect him. And for all Aizawa did right, I think this is one bag in canon he legitimately dropped.

I want to be clear—Aizawa was working at a severe disadvantage. He didn’t even have a lot to tell him the problem existed, let alone how to address it. But it’s specifically the Hero Killer Stain Arc that makes me think that Izuku only would trust Aizawa to a certain point.

After the Hero Killer Stain Arc, Aizawa canonically calls out Iida, Todoroki, and Izuku in front of the entire class. He doesn’t mention what it's about, but he makes it very clear that he knows what happened and that he disapproves. And his criticism is specific: In instances where you are out matched, it is better to run and get help. Iida, Midoriya, and Todoroki need to understand that

The thing is that Izuku and Todoroki both considered that as their first option and then correctly deduced that they'd be burying Iida if they did that.

I will actually die on the hill that is that Izuku and Todoroki did everything right when it came to the Hero Killer Stain. Iida caused the problem, but the fact that he made mistakes was the point of that arc for him. But Izuku and Todoroki?

They both reacted perfectly. And if they had done a single thing differently, they'd have two dead bodies.

When Izuku realizes that Iida's in danger, the city is on fire, Nomu are attacking the train, and his supervisor has fucked off to fight monsters attacking the city. He does not have an adult hero who is free to bring with him, and we know for a fact that he did not have time to hesitate or try to find other options, because he arrives the second before Iida dies as-is. When he's on scene, his absolute first instinct is to run. Izuku canonically clocked the fact that he was out matched, evaluated whether he could safely retreat, and realized he’d never be able to get out of there with Iida and Native. He’d have to leave one or both of them to die.

So he asked for help the safest way he could: sending out the mass text and stalling for time. And canonically, he wasn’t hoping a classmate would show up to the fight. He was hoping they’d report it to their supervisors and get him help, which is exactly what multiple of his classmates did.

Todoroki, for his part, correctly clocked that something was wrong with Izuku when he got the message. And he didn’t just fuck off without telling anyone where he was going. He evaluated the situation, realized the city was on fucking fire and there wasn’t a single hero free to go with them, and told the heroes with him that they needed to go to this exact location the first second they could. And he didn’t have a moment to hesitate or figure something else out, because he also showed up at the very last second before Iida took a sword to his spine.

Frankly, Todoroki and Izuku couldn’t have possibly handled the situation better, but they got absolutely shit on in the aftermath. I don’t recall a single adult who told them they did the right thing, except maybe Native. They had the fucking chief of police telling them they were no better than the guy who tried to kill their teenage friend with a sword and their teacher publicly calling them out in front of the class without the benefit of context.

If I was Izuku, I would have walked out of that entire thing having my preexisting distrust of adults affirmed. Like. There isn’t a world where Izuku realistically looks back on his actions and thinks “damn I really should have left Iida die.” He’s not going to change a fucking thing in what he did. Every single time, he’s going to go save his friend. The only realistic take away Izuku could have from Aizawa’s call out was “wow, that guy is not going to have my back if I have to make a tough call. So if I have to make one, then I’m just not going to him for help.”

Which is kind of where we're at in pez right now, and Aizawa's starting to realize it. Don't get me wrong, Izuku trusts Aizawa more than any teacher he ever had growing up. He doesn't think Aizawa is going to be actively malicious to him. But he also doesn't necessarily think Aizawa's going to have his back.

The crux of it is in chapter 4. Tiny Izuku says that Mr. Aizawa is already on Izuku's side, and Izuku's immediate reply is, "I promise you that Mr. Aizawa has never once been on my side." He back pedals fast, clarifies that he thinks Mr. Aizawa is fair and not on anyone's side, but his knee-jerk reaction is undeniable.

And to me? It's because Aizawa genuinely has not been on Izuku's side since he came to UA. And I don't mean Aizawa has been malicious to Izuku. Fundamentally, the issue is that he misdiagnosed the problem.

Aizawa has spent his entire time with Izuku mistakenly believing that the source of Izuku's issues was the same as Bakugou's. He is only now realizing that his issues were more like Shinsou's.

Fundamentally, Aizawa correctly recognized that Izuku's problems came from the fact that he was raised in an unjust system. But he misunderstood what Izuku's position in it was.

Here's what Aizawa knows, from the jump: Izuku and Bakugou came from the same school. Both have very powerful Quirks. Both have obvious issues with the other. Izuku specifically moves and looks like he had a professional trainer, meaning someone invested in his training as a hero. Bakugou talks like someone who's been told his entire life that the sun shines out his ass and never got punished for being a little shit. Izuku's more muted, but he came from the same school. Two kids with powerful quirks? Likely were getting away with the exact same shit.

When you have an unjust system, you have the people running it, the people benefitting from it, and the people being victimized by it. If the teachers at Aldera were letting kids with powerful quirks get away with murder, both Izuku and Bakugou were likely benefitting from that. And it is absolutely vital that Aizawa undoes that damage before they debut.

He doesn't even need to think Izuku, specifically, was abusing his position in this power imbalance. The damage is done from how the teachers at aldera were likely treating him. Teachers that produce kids like Bakugou tell talented, powerful kids that they're special, that they're above the rules, that they've got something so fundamentally important about them that they can get away with more. Even if you don't chose to abuse that narrative in the moment, that's a hell of a formative experience.

They're about to have a ridiculous amount of power. They are about to be in charge of enforcing the rules. And people who are in charge of enforcing the rules and think they're above them turn into Endeavor.

Aizawa's approached Izuku from a sort of tough love perspective from the jump. He didn't cut him an ounce of slack, and it's because he genuinely was trying to do right by Izuku. No, he's not going to get to smash up his body and make himself a hazard. Figure it out, or go home.

He's had plenty of time to learn how to manage his quirk, after all.

With Stain? I don't think Aizawa, if he knew the full circumstances, would genuinely say the right call is to have Iida's fucking funeral. I think he'd agree with the decisions Izuku and todoroki made. But he didn't have all the information, and, fatally, he didn't ask. He assumed.

He's got three powerful, bullheaded students who end up in a back alley in the middle of the night, having all separately ditched the heroes they were supposed to be joined at the fucking hip with. He absolutely thinks that they either planned it together or that, when they realized what Iida did, Todoroki and Iida went after him in secret to try to keep Iida from getting in trouble--and almost got them all killed in the process. There is absolutely no way Aizawa knows that they actually tried to run and get help at every turn.

Aizawa made assumptions. And a big reason why he felt comfortable making those assumptions was because he thought he knew what Izuku's problem was. He thought Izuku, like Bakugou, had been benefitting from teachers turning a blind eye to his misbehavior for years. But the problem was the exact opposite. Teachers had been turning a blind eye to his victimization for years.

He shouldn't have been treating him like Bakugou. He should have been treating him like Shinsou.

Aizawa's trying to correct the damage of past teachers. If they've spent years telling Izuku he's god's gift to mankind and it doesn't matter what he does because he's a hero and that makes up for it, Aizawa needs to hold him to the fucking rules. He needs him to understand that he's not special, he's not the main character, he's not intrinsically better or more important or above the rules in some magically important way. He doesn't want to hear excuses. He doesn't want to know why this time it was different. Izuku needs to understand that he has to live by the rules too, because he's going to be in charge of enforcing them soon.

But if they've spent years telling him he's worthless, that people can hurt him and it's okay, that he can never, ever expect help from them because he's not worth it? Then fuck, Aizawa needed to do the opposite. He needed the same end result, don't get me wrong--an understanding that the system equally applies to everyone--but he needs to make Izuku believe that the system will protect him again. That Aizawa will protect him. And Aizawa's combing over every fucking interaction they've ever had, and realizing that he hasn't done that, because he spent all his time trying to correct a problem that didn't exist.

I think Aizawa's been beating his head against the problem that is Midoriya Izuku for the past three years. Because Izuku's a hard-worker. He is brilliant. He is a natural leader. He is the fucking cornerstone of the class. He is shining so bright that it's going to kill him, because Aizawa knows how to recognize a star that's burning out.

For three years, Aizawa has tried and failed to get Izuku to realize he can and should ask for help. And he has failed because he thought the problem was that Izuku didn't think he needed help, when the problem was actually that he thought no one would give it to him.

In this last chapter, Izuku finally said aloud the reason behind the core issue Aizawa’s had with him his entire time at UA: Growing up, he thought that there was literally one man on the planet who would care enough to save him. He was the most hero-obsessed boy Aizawa’s ever met, and he thought All Might was the only hero alive he could count on to care if he lived or died.

There it is. The exact answer about every scrap of self destructive behavior that Aizawa’s been trying and failing to remedy for years. Why the fuck would he ask for help when he needs it? He’s spent his entire life living in a world where people wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire. Aizawa needed every day of those three years to reverse that kind of damage, and he’s out of fucking time.

Aizawa is legitimately terrified that he fucked up and that it's going to kill Izuku.

Izuku’s Quirklessness is the missing piece of the puzzle that makes everything fall into place—which is why he’s so pissed at All Might for not telling him. Aizawa’s actually kicking himself for not noticing the obvious discrepancies in Izuku’s past. The fact that he grew up with a powerful Quirk was the factor that made him return to the same incorrect conclusion again and again. There were enough hints that he feels guilty for not figuring it out anyway, but if he had known about Izuku’s Quirklessness from the start? He would have figured it out in seconds.

Now that he knows, Aizawa’s changed how he handles Izuku. He doesn’t let there be a single doubt about what he’s doing or why. He makes Izuku explain himself, so that way there’s no more miscommunications around what he means. He makes sure to compliment him whenever he does something right—he’s trying to change courses, but he’s panicking that it’s too little, too late.

And now he’s got this goddamn criminal investigation that Izuku wants to bury, and it’s killing him. Because that’s his student, and he was hurt horribly. And his student just cannot comprehend why Aizawa cannot let it go.

And then there’s All Might.

All Might’s conversation with baby Izuku, for me, forecloses the possibility that explaining OfA is a solution here.

All Might really went in and knocked it out of the park with the best possible attempt at convincing Tiny Izuku that he’s himself. He immediately failed, albeit, but he honestly couldn’t have done better.

There he is, Izuku’s lifelong hero. And he’s there to say the things Izuku’s spent his whole life wanting to hear. All Might met him, and Izuku inspired him. He reminded him of himself when he was young. He thought he could be a hero. He was so impressed he offered to personally mentor Izuku.

And he loved him. Believe you are him, because I loved you too much to ever let anyone take you from me. There is a fundamental flaw in your theory that simply no one cared enough to notice or stop him, because I love you with all of me. I would have noticed. I would have saved you.

If there is absolutely anything that could have convinced Tiny Izuku, it would be that. This isn’t about quality of the explanation. There’s an internal issue that needs to be fixed before Tiny Izuku will believe any of this.

And I think Izuku recognizes this, on a level. As much as he and Tiny Izuku clash, Izuku gets him. He can typically predict Tiny Izuku’s exact responses to things.

But he’s never approached Tiny Izuku like someone he can explain this to. He’s spent this entire time trying to cheat code his way out of this situation. He wants Mr. Aizawa to erase him or to go find the Quirk user and find away to negate the Quirk. He’s never actually even considered explaining this all to himself as a solution.

Because he knows that there’s some kind of fundamental impossibility about it. Even if he can’t say exactly what it is, he knows that there’s an internal issue that means he’s not going to be able to just tell Tiny Izuku the truth.

Voice of God, he is dead fucking right about Tiny Izuku not buying OfA and being liable to tell everyone out of spite. Tiny Izuku would have that shit on the news.

Fundamentally, Izuku is aware that there is a deeper problem driving Tiny Izuku. He knows that it’s not about the quality of the explanation. There is something deeply, profoundly wrong because of what happened to him that makes him absolutely unable to accept that Izuku is him.

But Izuku has never known how to solve the mental wounds his childhood left him with. He still has them himself. He’s been burying them for years, and he can’t anymore.

When action opens in pez, Izuku himself is not okay. He’s just… bleeding internally. He knows how to hurt in ways people can’t see. But you can see how much his childhood is still bothering him in his defense of Mirio. He has never been able to let go of what happened to him. The wounds never healed.

And he doesn’t know how to go to these people he loves and tell them that what they’re trying fundamentally will fail, because he knows he’s been hiding this fucking shipwreck of his own mental health for the past three years but they don’t have a fucking clue at the scale of the problem.

At the end of the day, All Might went in there because he wanted to save Izuku. And Izuku told him not to because he cannot imagine himself being saved.

[pearsandrust]

did i tell you guys about that one time i had an aventurine thought but i was so tired and emotional i couldnt articulate it so i just drew it in krita

aventurine lovers how do we feel about this one

[rain-after-thunder]

Disabled Aelwyn who uses crutches.

Aelwyn who can’t go back to school to finish her wizzard studies, who starts researching different ways to bend magic to her will.

Aelwyn, who has always had a knack for creating new spells, starting to tinker at her own crutches, weaving wards into the framework.

Aelwyn, for who good is not good enough, caves and asks Gorgug for help. Who finds a way to make her crutches extend, bend and move to support her arms, elbows, shoulders. Makes them connect to her back, her hips, down her legs .

They no longer look much like crutches anymore, it’s a thin, light framework that supports her entire body, that moves her exactly the way she wants, that allows her to stand with her back straight for more than 5 minutes for the first time in two years. The exoskeleton glows with abjurative runes and the outline of a powerfull ward is visible over her body, deflecting blows like steel armor.

New spells rest in her memory, mechanical and precise if nature in a way that the arcane inks in her spelbook can’t articulate. Spare the Dying, Resistance, Cure Wounds, Sanctuary.

Her joints still ache, she tires fast and even after all this time it is still hard to control the venom in her words, still hard to accept help and kindness without it feeling like a wool blanket on freshly flayed skin. But she has found something that is wholly hers, found something to be proud of that isn’t tinged with approval from her parents.

Aelwyn still can’t walk without support, but the frame folding her up is crafted by her own hands. Maybe everything will be allright.

[purplelea]

Those polls "could xyz character survive the Reaper's Game" have people tend to forget that the main reason why anyone would survive the Game isn't because they are smart or talented, because they would be able to solve puzzles or defeat noise, but because... they are able to change.

Shibuya's Reaper Game isn't like any Reaper's Game. They take an entry fee, being what one's value most, and that loss forces people through a difficult situation they can only solve by growing as a person. Shiki would've been erased had she not been able to accept herself as she was. Beat would've been erased had he not been able to accept to ask for help so he could protect what mattered to him. Neku would've been erased had he not been able to learn to expand his world and trust his partners.

Of course, people changing (for the better) means their Soul gets more refined and thus their Imagination level rises, but having high levels of Imagination from the start isn't all it takes for someone to win the Reaper's Game! So yeah to me, the only question you might need to answer when replying to these polls is : "Would this character be able to have character growth?" Most often yes. But sometimes... you might be surprised.

[heyclickadee]

So. I’m. Haunted by the lighting and posing on the CX-2 poster, haunted by the fact that no one will straight up say that Tech is dead or that he wasn’t CX-2, wondering if the CX-Tech plot wasn’t dropped after all, and hoping against hope that they’re putting this man through the wringer so they can pull him out and give him the happiest possible ending. CX-2 had BETTER be in the next series and he had better be Tech, because I need this to make sense. I mean, I’ll buy that the spear symbolically killed the CX-2 persona. I’ll buy, “Oh, he had to be Crosshair’s shadow in the last third of this series but we had to foreshadow him being Tech in the next one.” “The damage you sustained on Skako Minor all of your behavioral modifications,” coming back around. I’ll buy someone surviving that in the GFFA because they can in the real world (warning for a picture of a real life injury in the link). I’ll even buy that the electricity didn’t kill him because the boulders and the waterfall definitely should have (and it’s Star Wars). I really do not care about plausible survivability. I just want the story to make sense and for Tech to get back to his family.

Anyway all I’m saying is why release a poster that’s going to fuel speculation about a guy whose face we never see after the series is done and out? If you actually dropped that plot, why not change the poster? Or just not release it? Why do this? What is the purpose of this?? Because if the purpose was to drive me, specifically, insane, then congratulations, Lucasfilm! Mission accomplished.

[lalitjdsc]

The gayer the backcourt the better 🤭

[youregonnabeokay-kid]

SO. i was able to figure out the general structure of the script JLH leaked.

[explanation under the cut]

in order for all this to make sense, the first thing you need to know is that in north america all screenplays (scripts) are written in the same format

knowing this, we can deduce the general structure of the scene and even the length of some of the words

first we need to address the big question everyone's been asking:

are they talking about Bobby or Eddie?

screenplays are always typed in courier font, and in courier the capital letters B and E are identical at their left sides.

so while i enjoy people trying to figure out if the blurry letter in line 24 is a B or an E, the answer is it could honestly be either

where we really need to look is line one. the screengrab is blurry so i've outlined the word "going" and circled the area we should pay attention to

at first, the last letter of the prior word looks like an undistinguishable blob, but there is actually one key thing we can discern from it: the letter can't be y, it doesn't hang low enough

there is a chance that the word is not a name and is "he" which would not rule out Bobby or Eddie. however, that would mean the conversation goes on for at least 14 lines without mentioning "him" by name which is (heavily) frowned against in screenwriting. so chances are they're talking about Eddie

also, with what we know about the characters it's most likely Eddie. can you really see Bobby not talking to Buck because of... well, anything? and we already know that Eddie has a difficult time communicating. so i've decided to go with him for this script but haven't 100 per cent ruled Bobby out

moving on to the actual script itself, anything not highlighted in red is something i'm confident is either the exact wording or something similar. the red sections are the parts that i'm less confident in or know are incorrect somehow

Maddie's first dialogue block is the part i had the most trouble with. with context from the following conversation i figured that she probably asked something along the lines of when [Eddie] will be back at work. the main issue with this section is that the top line is actually six letters shorter than what i have written. this also means that the word that follows "going" has to be at least eight letters long. i tried messing around with the dialogue a bit but couldn't come up with something that would fit the appropriate letter count so for now i just wrote a line similar to what i think the actual line probably is

line six has to be either 12 or 13 spaces long and the first word has to be at least four letters long so i used "really soon" as a place holder, but i'm not completely confident in it

for line eight i initially had "Oh, that's good." but the line was one space short so i changed the "Oh" to "Hey" instead. i don't feel too poorly about this one but it still doesn't feel right to me. if the actual script says "Hey" i wouldn't be surprised if JLH changes it to something else or forgoes the exclamation completely

the final line is just a rough guess of what it could be. i'm not sure how formal the 911 writers are with action lines so i just took a random guess. some writers are extremely formal with action lines while others are more comedic with it (Neil Gaiman is a great example of this). i'm guessing the 911 writers are more the former but i honestly have no clue

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

so the thing is that nhthcth isn’t actually abandoned, it’s just enormously fucking long and i tend to take breaks from stories so i can bounce around on other ones. that being said, im feeling bored and vaguely self destructive so. two minute flash deal where ill confirm if gerry is alive or dead to anyone who dms me.

[choices-binglebonkus]

Eleanor: *returns to life without any explanation or effort on her part*

Clarissa, Thomas, and Simon:

[lokilysolbitch]

:0 can you tell me about your earl grey cookies?

y e s a b s o l u t e l y

tbh you could also probably just take any chocolate chip recipe you like and add like a tablespoon of finely ground earl grey in with the flour, but heres my obnoxiously personalized way of making them.

okay so its a variant of this one lavender earl grey cookie recipe mixed with my preference in chocolate chip cookies. i also bake like those grandma's who tell you to add "jus enough" of certain ingredients🧍and i havent made this in a while and ive never made a gf/egg free/dairy free version yet so ill do my best to describe all the changes i made. im gonna copy and paste the unchanged ingredient list and then describe what i do differently

2 ¼ cups (9.5 ounces or 270 grams) all-purpose flour

▢ 1 Tablespoon finely ground Earl Grey tea (from 3 tea bags or 4 teaspoons loose leaf tea)

▢ ½ teaspoon culinary-grade lavender, finely ground

▢ ½ teaspoon baking powder

▢ ¼ teaspoon baking soda

▢ ½ teaspoon kosher salt

▢ 1 ¼ cup (8.80 ounces or 250 grams) granulated sugar

▢ 1 cup (8 ounces or 227 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature

▢ 1 large egg

▢ 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For Garnish

▢ 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar

▢ blue cornflower petals

Flour: sometimes i have to adjust the amount of flour in cookie recipes especially bc people measure flour differently when it comes to cup measurements, so i might have changed this? if youre picky about cookie textures like me, i recommend adding about a cup at a time and mixing it in a bit enough to where theres not giant pockets/piles of flour but not fully mixed, and if its still sticky or soft, definitely add more flour, but if its the texture of like, a scoop ice cream you just got from baskin robbins, where it can generally hold its shape without crumbling apart, its good. if its crumbly and wont hold together theres too much flour, and you can add ~a bit (like a teaspoon-a tablespoon but it varies) of butter/oil to fix this but just know if you use flour w gluten, over mixing cookie dough makes the dough stretchier and the end texture slightly bready? it still tastes good to me that way, but be aware. it might take a few times baking it to know how much flour to add. every recipe measures flour differently and they dont tell you that (also i swear some recipes just set people up to fail with the amount of flour they say to add) but if you know the texture you want from chocolate chip cookies, go for that.

the earl grey: i keep this measurement the same

the lavender: i take this out just because i usually dont want it in my cookie, but its optional

baking powder: i keep this measurement the same

baking soda: i keep this measurement the same

the salt: i eyeball this based off of if i used salted or unsalted butter

the granulated sugar: i switch all of this to brown sugar, this is what turns it from a sugar cookie to more of a chocolate chip cookie taste. tbh with every choc. chip cookie recipe instead of the white and brown sugar mix i make it all brown sugar. the darker the brown sugar the more choc. chippier it tastes. also, the darker the brown sugar the longer the cookies stay soft. but i just used a like, a medium brown sugar they had in bulk at my grocery store

the butter: if i ever didnt feel like letting it get to room temperature, i stuck it in the microwave for ~30 seconds or to where half of it melted and half of it didnt, and then i mixed it until the two temperatures of butter combined to make it soft and slightly warm/room temperature. this might have changed the texture in some sort of way idk. like i said i bake like someomes grandma, not a trained chef

the egg: i used an egg for this one

the vanilla extract: i eyeballed this but you dont have to

the garnishes: i dont use the cornflower petals, i think i used to sprinkle a bit on white sugar on top though? maybe

Extra Ingredient- The Chocolate Chips: i also eyeballed this. i actually dont like too many chocolate chips in my cookies (im talking like i want ~5 choc. chips in each cookie. probably less. ive added them in by hand before) so i cant give a good general measurement . you really gotts follow your heart when it comes to chocolate chips, but you can also look at a choc. chip recipe, and if the amount of butter is similar in both that recipe and this earl grey one, then the amount of choc. chips may match well with these. i also mix in chocolate chips right before i add the flour but thats just a me thing bc i hate mixing them in when the dough is play dough-y texture

so the revised ingredients are:

2 ¼ cups (9.5 ounces or 270 grams) (or jus enough) all-purpose flour

▢ 1 Tablespoon finely ground Earl Grey tea (from 3 tea bags or 4 teaspoons loose leaf tea)

▢ ½ teaspoon baking powder

▢ ¼ teaspoon baking soda

▢ ½ teaspoon kosher salt (or jus enough)

▢ 1 ¼ cup (8.80 ounces or 250 grams) brown sugar

▢ 1 cup (8 ounces or 227 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature

▢ 1 large egg

▢ 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

enough chocolate chips

white sugar to garnish

Instructions based off how i personally do it, bc i usually ignore recipe instructions for cookies:

preheat to 350 degrees F

i start with the earl grey, by getting them out of the teabags/measuring them if its loose leaf, and i try to break them down using a mortar and pestle. if u have something to grind them really fine without that much effort, thats better to use lol. i just only have the mortar n pestle rn 🧍

cream the butter and sugar. uhhh. im usually using a spatula for this. i just hate using mixers bc thats somehow more tedious for me

add the egg and vanilla to the butter-sugar mixture, im also mixing this with a spatula. everything im mixing is with a spatula or a fork if i really couldnt find a spatula

this is where i would add the chocolate chips, but you can add them at the end

okay, heres the fucky flour part. so. i add the first cup of flour, (or all the flour if i know how much to add), and then before i mix that in, i pour the earl grey, salt, baking soda, and baking powder on top of the flour pile, mix it in the flour a bit, and then i mix that pile of flour in. and i add more flour as needed, about 3/4ths of the next cup if its still super sticky (which it will likely be after just one cup), and when it looks like its getting close to the right texture i add 1/4th cup at a time until its right. when youre at what you expect to be the last bit of flour, mix until just combined

Okay this part involves another of my personal habits. i roll the dough into balls as one does. and then i smoosh them down so theyre more hocky puck shaped (maybe about a centimeter tall?). i just like how they bake more evenly this way.

this is where i would add a bit of white sugar on top to garnish. or you could roll the dough balls in a plate of white sugar before smooshing them. for a little pizzazz

Bake for ~12-14 minutes. when the edges are starting to turn a bit gold/light brown/a little darker than the rest of the cookie (it depends on how dark the dough was initially), theyre done to my personal standards, but some people like undercooked cookies and some like them crispier. i like them fully cooked and soft. one of my tricks is when i take them out, i immediately push at the edge of a cookie with my nail or a knife or something, and if it gives then it undercooked, but if its stiff its probably done. my other thing i do is after letting it cool for 20 minutes (bc theyre still cooking after youve taken them out), i take one and break it in half. (not cutting it in half.) if it looks like cookie dough texture in the middle still (like dense and smushy, especially if i press my finger on the inside of it and it looks exxactly like cookie dough that way) its underdone but if its fluffy and i can see crumbs, its done. tbh its hard to see when its somewhere in the middle. also if when you take a cookie out the oven and you see a wet looking spot in the center, its definitely underdone. i do one cookie for the first batch just to get the bake time right. ALSO. if u have to do a lot of batches, like ~4-5 or more, you might need to lower time by a minute by around that fourth or fifth batch. I just find that my cookies get a little more overdone when i use the same time for too many batches? this has happened w like three or four different ovens for me. tbh it really doesnt matter that much, im just very particular about cookie done-ness

sometimes, every now and then, and this can happen regardless of how experienced you are, you will check the cookies, add a minute to the timer, and sit back down. and some force within you will have you taking the cookies out before the timer goes off. you will barely realise it happened. in the back of your head you will simply think "alright, time to take the cookies out" and youll just take them out. and theyll be perfectly done. the timer will go off a little later and youll think "????? oh right the cookie timer. wait. but i already-- why did i--??????"

honestly at this point i think its the same ancestors who tell me when ive added enough seasoning to something bc it has never failed. if you feel in your bones that theyre done, theyre done

the end !! very simple dimple process we got here :D i used to eat these with tea sometimes