#wood can just have a nice grain and color and be very shape that makes me go 👁👁

[wealthypioneers]

BLACK WALNUT TREE, Shade Tree, Nut Tree, Valuable Lumber Tree Rooted Large Size Bareroot Live Plant 12"+ , Organic, non-Gmo Black Walnut Strong Rooted Large Size Plant THE PLANT WILL BE DUG UP AFTER PAYMENT TO GET YOU THE FRESHEST PLANT AND GIVE THE PLANT A BETTER CHANCE. The plant may trim short during the shipping due to being very tall for the full growing season and better survive The bare root may trim the leave to better survive during shipping, please put it in a pot or ground immediately. Water throughout and avoid direct sunlight covering with paper or cloth in the first month. if the plant is very stressed during the shipping, remove the plastic wrap and put it in water overnight Whether for Taste or Timber, Black Walnut Trees have it all Can't decide between a tree known for its fine wood and a fruit-bearing tree with a healthy harvest? The Black Walnut will give you all that and more. A wide-branched tree reaching heights between 70 and 150 feet, the Black Walnut does well in open fields, on sloped land, and a diversity of planting sites so long as the soil is well-drained and nutrient-dense. The beautiful dark brown color of its bark makes black walnut wood the most sought-after wood in the world. The tree's nickname, 'American Walnut' is no fluke. Our forefathers adorned their homes, crafted barns and built fences with wood made from the black walnut. The leaflets, as large as some tree's leaves, are dwarfed by the leaves themselves, which can grow up to a mammoth two feet long. And let's not forget the nut. The thick, black husk that gives the tree its name serves as ample protection for a round, savory fruit packed with flavor. The tree yields a nut so rich and delicious, it can be enjoyed right out of the shell, baked in desserts or crushed and topped on your favorite ice cream. With an abundant autumn harvest, a single tree can produce hundreds of nuts in just one season. Black Walnut Trees are self-fertile. You will get fruit with only one plant. However, adding an additional Black Walnut Tree will drastically increase the size of your crop. Count: 1 Name: Black Walnut tree or American Walnut Botanicl Name: Juglans nigra Tree: 3 + years plant with a strong root, bareroot Disease resistant Self-pollinating. Zones 5-10 100% Open Pollinated 100% Heirloom 100% Non-Hybrid 100% Non-GMO Name: Black Walnut Other Names: walnut tree, Juglans nigra Grow Zone: 4 to 9 Growth Speed: Medium Light Requirements: Full Sun To Partial Shade Average Full Grown Height: 50’ to 75’ Average Full Grown Width: 50’ to 75’ Deciduous (loses Leaves) Or Evergreen (Holds Foilage All Year): Deciduous Yields a ripened nut crop in early to mid-autumn. The fruit consists of three layers: a green, fleshy husk; a black inner shell that is hard, thick and corrugated; and the kernel, which is oily and sweet. Begins to bear nuts in 12–15 years. Is prized in the woodworking world for its handsome grain. Features pinnately compound, alternate leaves that are 12–24" in length and consist of 15–23 dark green leaflets that are 2–5" long. The leaflets are finely toothed. Is self-fertile but requires wind for pollination. Plant more than one tree to ensure a better crop. Grows in a rounded shape. Develops a deep taproot, making it difficult to transplant. Can be toxic to certain trees and plants--such as serviceberries, chestnuts, pines, arborvitae, apples, cherries, tomatoes, potatoes, peas, peppers, cabbages, alfalfa, blueberries, blackberries, azaleas, rhododendron, lilacs, hydrangeas, privets and plants in the heath family--if planted too close. Very well known for the delicious black walnuts. Some think of these trees as gold when they know their true value of them. Black walnuts are not exactly common and these trees can provide loads of black walnuts. Then in a few decades, they become nice size harvestable logs that can be worth big money. Win-win situation! These can also make nice shade trees. From October to March, We ship these plants in their dormant state. This means they will have no leaves. The stem will be strewn with buds for this coming spring's growth. If you live in a southern state, these will push new growth upon planting them as dormancy is dependent on hours of daylight and temperature. We are located in IL State and temperatures can differ drastically around the country. Handling and Planting "Bare-Root" Plants Roots, rhizomes, and other parts should feel heavy. If they feel light and dried out then the plant probably will not grow. The plant should sprout leaves in the same year it is planted. If you plant a bare root plant in the spring then it should have leaves by the summer. A plant that sits all season long won't magically sprout next year. Never let the roots dry out, be especially careful with this before you put the plants in the soil. Plant the bare-root plants before you see new growth starting. Trim off any dead or damaged roots and branches. Do not cut healthy roots shorter, even if it would make planting easier. Place the root portion of the plant in water and let it soak before you plant - several hours for woody plants; 10-20 minutes for perennials, asparagus, strawberries, etc. This good soaking will help the plant get a better start. Dig a hole that is wide enough and deep enough to put the plant in without bending or crowding the roots. Place the plant in the hole at the same level it was grown by the nursery. You can find this level where the roots start and the top shoots begin (the crown). Do not plant the plant deeper than this line. Spread the roots out evenly. Fill the hole with good soil while you are supporting the plant and keeping the roots spread (this works really well if you have three hands of your own or if you have someone to help you). Gently work the soil in and around the roots; do not pack the soil. Water the plant thoroughly, making sure that the soil around the roots is moist. Wait at least four weeks before you fertilize the plant! Young roots are easily damaged by too much fertilizer. Mulch the plants with quality bark, straw, or compost. Water the new plants until they get established - never let them dry out. Bare root trees will probably need to be staked for one year. When you put the stakes in, make sure the stakes are in the undisturbed area around the plant (not in the planting hole or the tree may fall over). The Black Walnut tree (Juglans nigra) or “American Walnut” is a moderately growing, cold tolerant nut producing tree that is not only sought for it’s bountiful walnut harvest but also the dark, beautiful brown wood. They are commonly planted in USDA growing zones 4-9 which means they can not only take the cold but a good amount of heat as well. The Black Walnut tree will mature to a gargantuan height of 70-150 feet tall and as much as 30-40 feet wide so make sure there are no obstructions for the tree to grow such as power lines. This full sun loving, moderate grower produces an abundant harvest in the fall around September to October, simply shake the branches and be ready for a showering of delicious walnuts! Seasonal Information: Generally it is best to plant your tree in the early fall, at least six weeks before the first frost in order to give the roots enough time to become established before winter sets in, or in the early spring six weeks after the final frost. However, you can plant your tree at any time of the year as long as your ground isn’t frozen. If you plant during the summer simply make sure that your trees get enough water to balance the heat. Location: When deciding where to plant your walnut trees remember that they will perform best in full sunlight. Although, they can tolerate partial shade as long as they have at least six hours of direct sunlight a day. Avoid planting these nutty trees in an area of your yard that’s prone to flooding, or that collects standing water. Also, account for your tree’s massive size. Give it enough space from structures so it can reach its mature width, and don’t plant them under power lines. Planting directions: 1) Once you have picked the perfect planting location dig a hole that’s just as deep as the root ball on your tree and three times as wide. 2) Take a pitch fork or shovel and scrape it along the sides of the hole to loosen the soil. Check for any debris like rocks, grass, or dirt clumps and remove them from the hole. 3) Next place your tree in the hole and make sure that it’s level with the surrounding ground and standing straight upwards at a 90 degree angle. 4) Slowly back fill the hole and gently tamp the soil down. 5) Once you’ve completed the planting process give your tree a long drink of water and mulch the area to conserve soil moisture. Watering: We often find that plants are harmed more by over watering than under watering. Keep this in mind when it comes to watering your walnut tree. Allow the soil to dry out two inches below the surface before watering your trees. When it’s time to give your trees more water hold a hose to their bases and count to 30 seconds in order to give them a slow, deep watering. Fertilization: In order to give your walnut trees a boost give them some well balanced fertilizer like formula 10-10-10 twice a year. Once in the early spring and again in the early fall. If your soil is lacking in nutrients you can fertilize up to once a month during the growing season. Always remember to wait until your tree has experienced one year of growth before fertilizing. Weed Control: Prevent weeds from growing under the canopy by spreading 3 to 4 inch thick layer of mulch around the base. The mulch won’t allow weeds to grow, and it will also help your soil retain moisture. If you spot some weeds that need removing you can remove them by taking a firm grasp on them and pulling them upwards out of the ground in a twisting motion. Pollination: Most Walnut varieties are self-fertile. They have both male and female flowers on a single tree. The female flowers open and wait for pollen to be spread from the male flowers, relying on natural pollinators like the wind and bees to make sure the pollen is spread from point A to point B. This being said pollination often has better chances if you have two or more trees for pollen to spread from. Pruning: During the early spring is the best time of year to prune your walnut trees. You will want to prune any broken, damaged, or diseased branches. Also, remove any crisscrossing or rubbing branches. Make sure that your tree has sunlight and air flow through the canopy, this will allow the air and sunlight to knock out molds and fungi. Be sure to look at your tree and plan where to make your cuts. Just like with a haircut, you can always remove more hair later, but if you cut too much it may take a while to grow back. Use a sharp and sterile pair of hand pruners or loppers and make your cuts at 45 degree angles facing upwards in order to promote new growth. DUE TO REGULATIONS: WE CAN NOT SHIP THIS PLANT TO ARIZONA & CALIFORNIA. *************** If you have ANY questions at all - Please send us a message and we will be happy to help. The pictures in this listing are not exact images of what your tree will look like, they depict images of full-grown trees, your tree will be in the size pot that is listed and the height of the tree at shipping can vary based on the specific species, please look above in the details to see approx tree/plant height. We do not focus much on height as some do, instead, we are more focused as very strong root systems which is the most important part of your tree/plant. Please keep in mind we are a small family licensed nursery. Our plants are grown outside 365 days a year, we do not use tons of harsh chemicals and our plants are not grown inside like some commercial nurseries. We believe that our plants being outside all year through all weather makes for a much stronger plant long-term! Plants are alive, they are not perfect. Sometimes there might be some holes in the leaves from a hungry caterpillar or a brown leaf from some damage in the mail. You can cut off or remove these leaves if any of it is severe if we have not already done so. We do not mail out any sick trees or trees with insects as that is not legal nor is it the way to do business. Please know there is no perfect tree out there. We do not use big chemicals to protect them from any naturally occurring nature. We are happy you decided to stop by and check out what we have to offer! We are a small family farm on 4 acres, we are a state inspected nursery here in the great state of Missouri! You can be sure any plants/trees you get from us will be healthy and ready for you to plant. We ask when you order from us that you do not mix our tree/plants in the same order as our other items such as our laser engraved signs. Please order these separately as they will have to be shipped separately. Before you order, please make sure that you have a basic understanding of trees/plants and that you will be able to give them the care they need. Many trees are very easy to care for and only will require you to carefully plant and give the tree a good home and give the tree a big drink of water every week in warmer weather. Please also make sure that whatever plant/tree you are ordering from us or any other nursery - that this tree is not blacklisted to come into your state. We only ship to the USA only, some plants are only allowed to enter certain states. If you order one to your state and it is not allowed there, and the shipment gets confiscated, that will be your responsibility so please only order plants that are allowed in your state. REFUND POLICY: We cannot guarantee for any specific amount of time that your plant will live due to these being live plants that rely on your help to thrive. We can guarantee a live plant upon arrival. You can do a scratch test to make sure the tree is indeed alive if you have any doubts. If your plant is for sure dead, but you don’t think the shipping was the cause like a smashed box or super long transit times, we will need you to message us within 24 hours with images of the entire plant, and an up-close image of the tree showing brown under the outer layer of bark. Both pictures need to be very clear, so they can easily be seen. If we can clearly see it was dead on arrival, we will give you a replacement tree at no cost. IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEM with your plant upon getting it in the mail, please let us know ASAP, once it has arrived and is in good shape, it will be your full responsibility to take care of your new live plant. If you did file a mail claim, you will need to keep the box and damaged plant at least until the claim has been closed. WHAT IS A SCRATCH TEST? A scratch test is a simple method that shows you if a plant or tree is dead or alive. You can take your fingernail, or other sharp (clean) item and scratch a tiny area of bark off the outside of your tree, two scratches may be needed to make 100% sure. If the color in the tree under the bark is green, then your plant is alive and well, even if it doesn’t have leaves. If the color is brown, the tree is most likely dead, at least where you scratched it. Sometimes after a rough winter or a lot of stress, some of the branches that are small, and furthest from the roots of the plant can become damaged and die back a little bit. As long as at least the bottom 25% of the tree is green, you have a live tree! Please continue to try and give it care and time. Please make sure to care for the plant/tree you get from us as soon as it arrives, please get it out of the package and place it in a shady area and give it a fresh drink of water. After a plant or tree has been in the mail for a few days, it's usually not a good idea to put it right out in the blistering sun because it will be a shock to the tree or plant, it is best to put that plant in the shade to help acclimate it back to sunlight. We are located in the north, central Missouri so if plants here are currently dormant, that means when you get the plant it will be dormant if it's during our growing season then expect a tree in full leaf. If you are in doubt, you can perform the “scratch test” to tell if the plant is alive/asleep or if it’s dead. Each tree and plant will have its own different specific needs, but something that will cover most all plants and trees is you should dig a hole twice as wide and twice as deep as the root system as the tree and make sure to break up the dirt very well. This will allow the tree to easily grow new roots to establish itself much quicker. There is a simple saying when it comes to how deep the tree should be planted into the ground --- Plant it low - it won't grow, plant it high - it won't die. That statement is almost always true. The way you should do this is to find the highest root on the root ball near the trunk portion of your tree. That very top root should BARELY be under the soil. When you plant a tree too deep not only can this cause the bottom of the tree to rot, but believe it or not your tree can drown because the roots need to be able to take in oxygen and if the tree is planted too low and sits in water, the roots cant breathes and thus your tree will die. Also many ask about the growth speed of a tree, there is another general rule for this (SLEEP, CREEP, LEAP) The first year a tree is planted it will mostly sleep above ground as its works to establish roots, the second year the tree will start to slowly put on more and more growth, the third year the tree will put on the most growth as it should not be fully established and ready to grow, grow, grow! http://springsofeden.myshopify.com/products/black-walnut-tree-shade-tree-nut-tree-valuable-lumber-tree-rooted-large-size-bareroot-live-plant-12-organic-non-gmo

#propation #live plants #organic fruit plants #Bareroot Live Plant #Juglans nigra #Black Walnut tree #American Walnut

[rockshortage]

You know, between what kind of hobbies she already has and what kinds of skills I assume she'd have, sometimes I wonder if maybe the gun Hector took from Darryl's basement wasn't one that she'd personally hand built herself. Like, I'm sure carving some of the parts out of a genuinely high quality wood wouldn't be that difficult for her, plus there's also the chance she could've either made or had someone else make some other custom parts for it

And since I figure she'd try to just make another one from scratch and whatever she can find post war instead of trying to buy or trade for one, that would also make it a little easier to tell that the one Hector has really was hers, since it would basically be a completely unique weapon, and the only thing like it would be the one Darryl built post war

👀👀👀 yes good excellent

Beautiful handmade weapon like that is sure to catch his attention. Because by the time he makes it down to Darryl's basement, he's seen lots and lots of weapons already but never one that looked quite like this one, so he simply must have it... Takes it out for a test run and when it turns out it's not only pretty but also works really good? That baby's his now, thank you definitely-deceased-never-to-emerge-again-pre-war-resident-of-this-particular-house.

Since it's a bit easier to spot the uniqueness of the weapon now, that makes me wonder if Darryl doesn't notice it long before she would have otherwise. If I remember correctly, we said something about them already being at the stage of hanging out together by the time Darryl gets her hands on 'Hector's' rifle and notices that it's actually her old one.

So I'm curious, if she notices before they get to the stage of being friendly with each other, would she confront Hector about it?

#darryl murphey #hector messerli #hng beautiful woodwork..... #like it doesnt even need to be real ornate or anything #unless that's what you had in mind #wood can just have a nice grain and color and be very shape that makes me go 👁👁

[avarkriss]

paradise; (with a nasty bite)

✭・.・✫ 

Obi-Wan Kenobi x Female Reader

Rated: E for Explicit, 18+ Only 

Word Count: 3.589k

Summary: Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Commander Cody, and one very ticked off Jedi Reader get pollened on what should be a very quick and simple mission 

Song/Title Inspo: Control by Unknown Brain ;; a huge thank you to Elisha (@beskars​) for encouraging/proofing these shenanigans

Warnings: Threesome - F/M/M; Sex Pollen and therefore automatic DubCon; Sass; Force Projection; Force Sensitivity and Mind Reading; I Know That’s Not How The Force Works Don’t At Me; Boys Kissing; Oral Sex (M/M, F/M); Masturbation and Mutual Masturbation; Kissing; Shameless Bisexuality and Smut; Vaginal Fingering; Spit as Lube; Spit Kink; Fucking on Obi’s Cloak Kink; Beach Sex; Double Penetration (Vaginal); Very Light D/S tones, Poor Ani

Image credits: unsplash  

Author’s Note: My first pollen fic!! I do apologize if I miss any grammar/spelling/formatting issues, this was primarily written on my phone in the middle of the woods lmao. I love a good threesome, I hope you to too! Plus we’re getting delivered early because I got home early :) Enjoy, share what you can, and be well ~

The heat on Borleias was oppressive.

It was sticky. 

Heavy. 

And you swore to the Force you were inhaling as much water as you were drinking. 

The worst part though? The very worst part was that the beach was so close you could kriffing smell it. 

Cool relief called to you from just a few meters away, the melodic crashing of the waves lulling you into a state of serenity you didn't think was possible in this hellscape - something else to focus on besides the salt crusting on your skin from where your sweat had evaporated.

Until you heard his blasted voice crackling in your comlink, cursing that crisp Coruscanti accent for pulling you out of the only moment of peace you've known since landing in this Force-forsaken jungle. 

The sound was slightly muffled, humidity having crept into the smallest of cracks in the watertight seals on the device. 

"I need you to stay focused," Obi-Wan reprimanded. 

“Of course,” you grumbled, tugging at the neck of your tunic while inwardly groaning at the way the coarseweave stuck to your skin. “Have you placed your beacon yet?” you grumbled, the hilt of your lightsaber slipping in your palm. 

No one saw you fumble it, certainly. No one except for apparently Cody, who you heard choke on a laugh from three meters away. If looks could kill he would have been wounded but he just couldn’t contain himself - you had to be the second clumsiest Jedi in the Order with that thing, the first of course being General Kenobi. 

You waited five more standard minutes before lifting your wrist to your mouth, hissing into your comm. “Well?” 

“You’re so testy in the heat,” Obi-Wan grunted from behind. You startled and nearly dropped your lightsaber again, glowering at him as mirth dared to dance in his eyes. 

“Great. You’re back. I’m going to the beach so I can soak the sweat off,” you snarked, making a concentrated effort to push through the foliage in front of you, desperate for the ocean to cleanse your spirits. 

“Seems that the heat is getting to her, sir,” Cody remarked, watching Obi-Wan gently shake his head before trudging after you. 

When the two men emerged from the forest they found your boots, belt, lightsaber, and pants strewn about the beach in a haphazard line straight to the water where they could see you floating on your back, dimly lit by the moon. 

“Must you leave a mess everywhere you go?" Obi-Wan shouted, bending down to gather your things in a neat pile. 

You rolled your eyes heavily, knowing he couldn't see you in the water. "I'm going to shake Anakin if I don't die here first," you grumbled to yourself, begrudging the day you were assigned to this mission because he had " urgent business on Naboo ." 

Obi-Wan thumped to the ground next to the pile, neatly folding your pants as Cody sat down next to him, removing his helmet. 

"I've read about this planet sir, there's a meteor shower every year," Cody mentioned, hugging his knees to his chest as he looked at the stars along the horizon. 

"I believe you're correct Cody," Obi-Wan mused, taking in the way Cody’s curls seemed to have tightened with the planet’s humidity, basking in his calm while he looked out across the ocean. 

"I can't believe it," Cody gasped, suddenly sitting straight before scrambling to lay on his back. Obi-Wan curiously followed his gaze, tilting his chin skyward to find the shimmering tails of a cluster of shooting stars. 

"It's nice to enjoy this," Cody mumbled, speaking to no one but himself.  

"It is," Obi-Wan agreed, smiling at Cody before calling out to you, beckoning you to the beach before pointing at the stars. 

You slowly removed yourself from the water, coming to stand next to Obi-Wan. You bit back a scoff when you saw the way he had neatly folded and arranged your belongings, crossing your arms as you looked to the sky. 

"As much as I can't stand this planet, being here for the annual meteor shower is pretty amazing," you thought aloud, sand sticking to your toes and ankles. 

Obi-Wan hummed in agreement as he moved to lay down, the top of his head brushing against Cody's. You shrugged and decided to join them, toes towards that cursed jungle as you laid down, your wet hair joining theirs. 

The three of you laid there for a while, relaxing against the warm sand while the planet slowly dropped in temperature, becoming only slightly more bearable. You had no idea how much time had passed when a breeze finally picked up, carrying glittering silver grains in its wake. 

You ran your finger up your arm, examining the sparkles when you realized it was pollen from the jungle. 

"Curious," Obi-Wan said, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, slowly sitting up. 

"Obi-Wan," you warned, sitting up yourself as he began to walk up the beach. Cody scrambled and lightly jogged to catch up with him. 

You watched them at the forest line, Obi-Wan carefully studying a lightly colored flower - the source of the pollen, you were sure. He plucked one and returned with it and Cody, sitting down next to you.

"I've never seen such a thing before," you marveled, reaching out your hand to hold the flower. 

It was palm sized, the petals so thin that if there was just one you could have made out the shape of your finger behind it. The edges of the petals were nearly metallic in their argent color, gently rippled and curled. At the center of the flower was a milky white stamen that seemed to glow in the moonlight, studded with the last remnants of silver pollen that hadn't been taken by the wind. 

"We didn't see any of these on our way in," you mentioned, turning the flower in your hand. 

"No," Cody confirmed, extending his hand so he could study the plant. "But there are many flowers that only bloom at night." 

"I think it may be some type of aestus flower," Obi-Wan mentioned casually, rolling his lower lip between his teeth. 

"You can't be -" you started, stopping before you realized you were being ridiculous. The family of aphrodisiac flowers was so valuable they'd be well documented on this planet, known for being exceptionally poor in natural resources. 

“An aestus flower, sir?” Cody questioned, tilting his head as he lifted the flower to eye level. 

“They’re a… a flower known to produce various aphrodisiac effects,” Obi-Wan explained, quickly continuing when he caught sight of Cody’s furrowed brows. “But they’re known to work very quickly, so this may be a distant cousin of sorts.” 

“Regardless, I’m sitting over there,” you threw your thumb to the side, gesturing to a large smooth rock in the sand, “until we’re sure it’s not what you think it is. I could use a few hours of quiet.” 

Obi-Wan nodded his head as you stood, slowly moving himself closer to the tree line. “Just for precaution,” he smiled. 

Cody nodded too and moved a few meters away himself, your close circle turning into a giant awkward triangle on the beach. 

You settled on the stone, feeling the heat of the planet push against your chest once more. 

But as time started to slow and the weight increased, you began to fear that Obi-Wan was, once again, absolutely correct. 

“Just meditate through it,” you whispered to yourself, crossing your legs underneath you while you rested your wrists on your knees, palms facing the sky. "Just breathe." 

You slowly closed your eyes and took the deepest breath you could manage, reaching out to connect with your surroundings. You were searching, looking for something cool, something calming. 

You needed to ground yourself, build an unshakable foundation to ward off the storm you could feel brewing in the pit of your stomach. 

The stone beneath you was too warm and the ocean always took extra concentration, concentration you couldn't spare as you desperately tried to block out the growing heat between your thighs and the gentle groan you heard from somewhere down the beach. 

"Breathe," you spoke to yourself, reaching for the trees. You found them hot, burning from the aestus flowers and resistant to your touch. You sensed something alluring and cold nearby, creeping towards it until you realized it was Obi-Wan, pulling away before you made the mistake of making him your home. 

"Breathe," you spat from between gritted teeth, eyes scrunching with the involuntary flutter from between your legs. You reached into the sand, desperate, aching. But it fell from your grasp slowly, mocking you. Taunting. There was no stability to be found in sand.

There was another ragged moan from down the beach and you ground your teeth down, placing the tips of your fingers against the flat stone, clinging to the steady vibrations between every molecule. 

Heat grew between your thighs as something cool lapped at your back, calling to you like gentle water. 

Relax, little one. 

You couldn't help the growl growing in the back of your throat, letting it escape briefly before swallowing it back down. His voice was honey thick; sticky and warm and pulling you in. 

The groaning from down the beach intensified, joined by stumbling footsteps that climbed away from you, drawn in by Obi-Wan's cooling aura. 

Cody, you panicked, reaching out for him until you realized Obi-Wan had brought him to the safety of harbor first. 

You felt him pull away from you, keeping a connection at the small of your back. You felt like your skin was going to burn off of your bones, thighs slicking as your arousal began to pool. 

Groans turned to whimpers, threatening to break your concentration as you dove deeper and deeper, fighting the pull that threatened to drag you to the surface. 

It was when things finally turned quiet that you straightened your spine, breathing deeply until you felt a familiar flicker somewhere in the corner of your consciousness. 

The sound was different now - wet and messy and your throat felt like it was starting to close until a strangled moan erupted, pulling you out of the shelter you had forged. 

Your protective walls were down and you were exposed, every nerve ending combusting at once until the projection of pleasure slammed into your chest. 

You felt relief for the briefest of moments until it ebbed away, fleeting glimpses of bliss strangling your heart every few seconds until tears began to fall down your cheeks. It was going to make you lose your sanity, bouncing between the burning heat of desire and the sweet relief of satisfaction being sent through you. 

You pulled yourself up and started to walk towards the tree line, vision blurred and gait unsure. You were ready to scream, ripped open and raw and hurting and alone -

"I hate -" you sobbed, falling to your knees at the sight of Obi-Wan on his, Cody’s cock buried in his mouth while he choked on his own relieved cries. 

Your words died on your tongue and your mouth parted as you studied them, beautiful in the moonlight. Cody was bare and had his head thrown back, his hands tangled in Obi-Wan’s auburn hair as he thrust into his mouth. 

You reached between your thighs as you watched - Cody stuttering in his rhythm while Obi-Wan stroked himself, hand moving under his robes. 

Your fingers danced around your aching clit, craving relief that evaded you at every turn. Obi-Wan's projection was constant now, his pleasure mounting with Cody’s. When Cody came the projection pushed you onto your ass, hitting the sand with a gentle thud. You groaned and thrust your fingers into your aching pussy, watching Cody join Obi-Wan on his knees, pulling him in for a kiss. 

Their tongues danced together and your lips tingled with ache, mouth and throat dry while you panted. 

Please , you pleaded, reaching out to tangle yourself with Obi-Wan as Cody kissed him and took his cock in his hand. When Cody began to pump him up and down Obi-Wan pushed so hard against you that you fell onto your back breathless, rapidly thrusting in and out of your heat. 

You couldn't see it when he came but you heard him moan, feeling the pleasure ripple through your tummy and up your chest. You threw your head back into the sand, screaming out in frustration as hot tears simmered on your cheeks, begging for your own release. 

Someone knelt down next to you, their hand on your forehead sending a jolt down your back. You whimpered as you arched under the gentle touch, chasing the connection as the hand pulled away. 

"General," Cody murmured, slipping it under your neck to help you sit up. You pulled your fingers from within yourself and curled into Cody, crying against his shoulder. 

"I - I -," you stammered, struggling to find your words as you continued to clench around nothing, aching to be filled. 

"We know what you need darling," Obi-Wan rumbled, spreading his cloak onto the sand. "We're here now." He was attempting to send a calming rush towards you, finding you unresponsive to it as you kissed across Cody's shoulder. 

Cody’s lips fell to your neck, mouthing at your skin as you grew impossibly hotter in his arms. 

"She needs more Cody," Obi-Wan pointed out, helping to roll you onto his cloak as Cody settled between your legs. "Taste her," he suggested, shrugging off the rest of his robes. 

As soon as Cody's tongue made contact with your soaked folds you let out a wrecked moan, twisting against the cloak until Obi-Wan settled next to you, leaning down to pull your soaked tunic off of you before capturing your lips in a searing kiss. 

You succumbed to him immediately, letting his tongue push against yours as he licked into your mouth. He still tasted of Cody and you moaned below him, fisting one hand in Cody's hair as the other searched for Obi-Wan's cock, joining his own in stroking himself to relieve the fire slowly consuming you all from the inside out. 

Obi-Wan spread a hand over your breast, slowly tweaking one of your nipples while Cody lapped at your clit. He was groaning into you as his fingers searched out your entrance, index and middle slipping in with ease. 

Your hips arched off the cloak to meet his eager mouth, moans filling the air as Obi-Wan broke away from your mouth to take your nipple between his teeth, leaving a trail of stars blooming across your skin in his wake. 

Obi-Wan, please - 

Your walls were down and he was starting to crumble. 

"Cody," Obi-Wan whispered, running his hand through his hair. When he lifted his head from between your legs his eyes were shining as much as his mouth, slowing his fingers inside of you. "Sit back a moment my darling." 

Cody sat back on his knees and dragged his fingers slowly out of you. You keened at the loss until you saw Obi-Wan lean over to Cody, taking his fingers into his mouth, groaning at the way you tasted on his salty skin. 

Obi-Wan cast his eyes down to you as he palmed at your breasts, pulling off of Cody's fingers when he was sure that they were clean. He came back to your tips, tapping them open with a gentle finger before spitting into your mouth, tasting of you and Cody and something uniquely him. 

After leaving a parting bite on your lower lip he helped you roll onto your stomach, gesturing for Cody to resume his place between your legs as he stroked himself and came around to your mouth. 

Let him fuck me, please - 

Your thoughts were loud in your head as Obi-Wan moaned, giving voice to the desires you couldn't speak. 

As Cody lined himself up to your entrance Obi-Wan found your mouth, each man pushing into you, synchronous with the other. 

Your groans were muffled around Obi-Wan, eyes fluttering closed as relief settled into you, the fire shrinking with every thrust of their cocks. 

Cody had you stretched in the most delicious of ways, moaning and cursing as he thrust into you, one hand pressed against your pussy and the other resting on Obi-Wan's. 

They both started to say your name louder, your body shaking between them, threatening to break if you didn't find release soon. But as Cody timed his thrusts to oppose the press of his finger on your clit and Obi-Wan pulled your hair while hissing from the way you traced him with your tongue, your vision went white and the world finally stopped spinning. 

Your euphoria was short lived, quickly replaced by deep heat between your legs. Cody and Obi-Wan found their release shortly after, spilling inside of you as they each moaned out your name. 

They parted from you for a moment, pausing to kiss each other before coming to your sides, each man laying next to you. 

"It's not stopping soon is it," you panted, looking to Cody and then to Obi-Wan who both shook their heads. You let out a shaking exhale as the pain grew stronger. You couldn't fight it anymore, leaving yourself wide open, thoughts so obvious that even Cody could gather what was on your mind. 

Obi-Wan shared in your sensation and grabbed at your waist, urging you to straddle him. Once you were comfortably seated Obi-Wan set a punishing pace, snapping his hips up into your while he kneaded the flesh of your ass between his fingers. 

Cody watched for a few moments before taking himself in his palm, stroking in time to Obi-Wan's thrusts. His face began to contort with pain when a thought burst through your fog. 

Self-stimulation is ineffective, isn't it? 

You were interweaving yourself with Obi-Wan, clinging to the cool of his force signature as he slowed just a touch, breathing out a shudder confirmation. 

With that you turned towards Cody, gently calling his name as Obi-Wan slowly rocked into you, expression curious. 

"I'm so wet," you moaned, looking him up and down. 

"You are," he confirmed, putting his hand where your body met Obi-Wan's, the other still wrapped tightly around his cock. He teased you both for a few moments, running his fingers across both of you at once. 

"I can take you both together." 

The words rolled off your tongue before you realized you had said them, both men moaning as Cody began to work a finger and then two into your pussy without hesitation. 

"You’re sure?" he grunted, wrapping your hand around his cock as he pushed his fingers deeper, working in tandem with the subtle roll of Obi-Wan's hips. 

"Yes," you cried, voice strained as he pushed in a third. "Can't stand to see either of you in this pain." 

Cody hummed against your skin as he kissed you, helping you adjust to the stretch before pulling away, coming behind you. 

With a firm hand to your back Cody pushed you forward until your chest was nearly flush with Obi-Wan's. You heard him spit against you, rubbing at you with his thumbs before pressing his head against your entrance, easing himself inside. 

You and Obi-Wan moaned from the pressure, stilling as he worked his way in. You swallowed your cries as Obi-Wan bit into your shoulder, hands firm on your hips as he tried to hang onto the last bit of his mental wall. 

That, however, came crashing down as soon as Cody began to move, the force of his pleasure knocking the wind from your chest. When you opened your eyes you could see your tears mixed with his, leaning down to lick them away before he began to work in tandem with Cody - thrusting in as he pulled out. 

They worked against each other and you were seeing stars, becoming wetter and wetter with every orgasm that rushed through your body. At some point you realized that the wetness was their come leaking out of you, both men showing no signs of easing up anytime soon. 

You couldn't be certain how many times any of you came, riding out high after high, changing positions, coming in and on each other as you lost yourselves in the pleasure, desperate to keep the burning pain away. 

At some point though the effects of the pollen had worn off and the three of you collapsed together, sticky and sweet and warm. Time had returned though sense was still absent. 

You and Cody had each curled around Obi-Wan, legs tangled together and arms entwined. Eventually you each slipped into a heavy slumber, shared murmurs of thanks fading away as your eyelids drooped. 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Slowly you began to rouse, feeling the heat of the sun beginning to sear your skin, quickly coming to your senses when a high pitched shriek jolted you all awake. 

You startled to find Captain Rex doubled over in laughter as Anakin threw his cloak over the pile of limbs you were wrapped in, head turned away and paler than you could ever recall seeing him. 

"Anakin, aren't you supposed to be on Naboo?" Obi-Wan questioned, slowly sitting up. He was blinking in the sun, memories slowly returning as you and Cody unwrapped yourselves from around him.

"I was until the Council told me they never heard your team check in. They sent me here and I find this," he gestured dramatically, pinching the bridge of his nose as he turned away. 

"Like I needed another reason to hate sand." 

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Full Masterlist // Star Wars Masterlist

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Tags - Tumble has a tag limit and we’ve exceeded it (which is so cool I can’t believe that many of you are interesting in reading my work!) so we’ll be switching to comment tags, this should also mean that everyone’s tags will work for once!! 

Tag lists are open: just CLICK HERE and tell me what you want to get tagged in, or send me an ask/DM!

#obi-wan kenobi #obi-wan kenobi x reader #commander cody #commander cody x reader #obi-wan kenobi x reader x commander cody #star wars #star wars smut #obi-wan kenobi smut #clone smut #obi wan kenobi #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan x reader #obi wan kenobi x reader x commander cody #obi wan x reader x commander cody #sex pollen #sex pollen fic #star wars sex pollen #writing this in the middle of the woods was an adventure #but it was so fun #cody and obi and especially together is my weakness #nsft

[bubmyg]

lost - knj

pairing: namjoon x reader

genre/warnings: travel!au, roommate!au, bookstore owner!namjoon, strangers to lovers, ft platonic reader x taehyung, fluff, lots of angst regarding uncertain futures, namjoon has a cat named marie

word count: 16,451

summary: taehyung’s warning was simple: stop and you’ll never want to start again or the one where you’re left alone in a loft apartment above a bookstore owned by a man with the sweetest dimples you’ve ever seen.

a/n: my first fic in three months omg...i hope u enjoy it as much as i did writing it :-(

Tiny succulent leaves spiraled outward from a central lobe rooted somewhere in the limited space provided by it’s miniature clay home. The pot rattled with the dips of open road, contained mostly to the corner of the dash and the dusty van window yet a victim of the unforgiving lack of traction still attached to the tires that had carried you for miles up until this point. 

One thousand, two hundred and thirty-one miles. And counting. 

You tucked your knee into your chest, lounging so the seatbelt started to cut into your neck as your head lulled to the side, eyeing Taehyung’s profile. 

“You’ve kept that one alive,” You commented absently. 

A noise of surprise broke the hard line of Taehyung’s clenched jaw. He glanced at you, genuine innocence shining through his confusion. It mirrored in his blunt, “Huh?”

You nodded toward the bouncing plant, “If you think about it, killing aloe vera would be kind of ironic…”

“Oh,” Taehyung wrinkled his nose, adjusting his wrist where it laid languidly on the top of the steering wheel, “I think succulents are more my speed. Or at least, the speed of traveling. My daisies didn’t appreciate the darkness of the bedroom. The sunflowers protested the living room on day one.”

“At least if a succulent spills it doesn’t immediately shrivel up and disintegrate…”

By bedroom, Taehyung meant the front section of the shades of beige van he’d acquired in high school, the area with a barely functional bed nailed to the floor of the “trunk”, with windows covered by tattered pieces of flannel you’d hand sewn to resemble curtains. By living room, he meant the back half, where a tiny, rainbow rug sat in the center of splintered wood and a few fold out lawn chairs, matching flannel curtains from the bedroom drawn open to allow sunlight to push through the thin layer of grime gathered in each corner of the windows. 

His daisies had spilled fresh potting soil into your clean pillow case, one you’d shaken free of debris by holding it out the open window of the van while Taehyung shrieked with laughter. His sunflowers wouldn’t even balance on the tiny lip between the window and the inside, ceramic pot tumbling through Taehyung’s clumsy fingers and shattering onto the rug. A glittering piece of the white pot still sat lodged between a space in the wooden floorboards. 

You grunted in acknowledgement, unfurling your legs to heave yourself forward, snatching the tiny plant from its place on the dash. You turned it gently in your palm, “This would have been nice to have a few weeks ago.”

The tiny seaside town you’d rumbled into by accident of the lack of fuel in the van’s tank lead to three nights of camping in crab infested sands, gorgeous sunset photographs you’d clipped to the twine string zigzagging through the living room, and a horrible ripple of blisters sun stained into Taehyung’s shoulder blades. 

He gestured to the scarf you’d prematurely yanked from your luggage shoved into a compartment on the bottom of the vehicle, knee directing the steering wheel as he balled the fleece and tossed it at you. “Good thing it’s almost winter. Put my aloe down.”

You unfolded the pleats of the scarf once you settled the pot back against the windshield, curling it around your arms to settle back into the seat. Your eyes drifted to the scenery beyond the plant, coming first in the fashion of a neon highway sign advertising the next town. You glanced at the tiny red tick on the fuel tank meter. 

“Are we stopping tonight?”

Taehyung’s gaze met the places yours rested on. He sighed, palm pressing into the steering wheel first until his fingers gradually curled around the leather. “At least to get gas and dinner, yes. Look and see if there’s any hotels around, please? And then maybe how far we are from our next stop? I don’t want to hang around too long and miss the harvest festival…”

The tiny tag clipped on the digital map of your phone showed a tiny motel with a singular Yelp review from someone named Min Yoongi within walking distance of the gas station Taehyung had turned into. Your legs crossed where you sat on the edge of the blow up mattress in the bedroom, eyes squinted as you twirled around the general vicinity of the tiny town with the tip of your index finger. 

“Status update, copilot,” The van rocked as Taehyung took a running jump into the open back, momentum causing him to crouch in the center of the living room. Your mouth parted to respond in time with a tinkling crash to your left. 

“There’s a motel across the street,” You uttered in an unimpressed monotone, locating the source of the crash as three similar aloe plants to the one on the dash tumbling off your tiny bookshelf to the rug below. Three sad aloe plants a mess between the sprinkle of potting soil in between grains of rainbow. 

A sheepish look crossed the geometric edges of Taehyung’s smile. “I’ll clean it up,” His cupped palm swept over some of the more elevated piles of soil as if to prove his point, “Will you go see if they have anything available?”

“Got it, boss,” You stood, crouched still due to the proximity of the top of the van to your head, and began to edge your way outside. 

Your hesitation came near the very bookshelf, the sign of the crime, sole of your shoe squashing into the center of the limited pile Taehyung had created by scraping his hands across the rippled weaving of the rug. You stayed crouched at the waist, fingers thumbing through the titles, titles a cumulative collection from your own personal belongings and the various shops you’d stowed away in the growing months of your journey. Their dusted and rough covers slowly transitioned into the item you were looking for, a slick yellow folder bursting at the pockets with the mixture of paper clipped, stapled, typed, and handwritten papers curled within. You squeezed it’s outer edge, thumb feeling into the tiny rip that was begging to form on the spine of the folder. 

“I can’t clean if you don’t move,” Taehyung’s hand wrapped around your ankle, startling you to do a hop step into reality. 

The imprint of the ripped folded scratched at the crease in your thumb where you rubbed your palms together, quick strides weaving you down a deserted sidewalk to cross a deserted street where a three story, house shaped structure sat. Your palm flexed into the ends of your scarf still dangling from around your neck, tucking it tighter to you to avoid the stream of words that began to ink across the forefront of your subconscious from the simple touch to the folder. 

The interior of a structure whose exterior gave off the impression of outdated was instead rather modern, like stepping out of a deserted movie from the eighties to step into a fifties diner in the twenty-first century. Sleek tile in patterned squares wrapped around a black, raising desk, one that had a tiny stack of business cards and a credit card reader clipped to either side. A man was hunched over a laptop placed on what appeared to be a second level to the desk, it’s lid plastered in various hand drawn stickers peaking over the countertop as fingers continued to audibly hack away at a keyboard. 

His black curls bounced when the screen door clattering shut behind you, wide eyes either perpetually surprised or simply shocked at the presence of a person in the otherwise desolate area. You assumed it was a little bit of both once his shoulders relaxed into the black polo hugging his toned upper body but the circular innocence to his eyes remained. 

“Hi!” He chirped as you squinted at the gold plated name tag strapped on one side of his shirt. Jeongguk. “...how can I help you?”

“Do you have any rooms available?”

The surprise traveled into the rise of Jeongguk’s eyebrows into his shaggy fringe. It was short lived this time, though, movements instead turning frantic as he lifted the sticker covered laptop to the top layer of the desk, resuming his furious hacking with his tongue poked between his cheeks so that a dimple appeared to the side of his lips. 

“I do,” He said after a moment, glancing up at you as his fingers continued to work, “Plenty, actually. Just trying to, uhm…”

“There!” Jeongguk cheered finally, voice an octave louder than before and there was a twinkle in his crinkling eyes as he directed his full attention to you, “How many nights and how many beds?”

“One and two,” You rested your forearm to the counter, thumbing one of the business cards out of its plastic tray. A fond smile curled onto your lips when you noticed the tiny logo was the same doodled design gracing a sticker pasted to the center of his laptop lid. GCF Motel and Design. “Please…”

“Of course, absolutely. Coming right up…” His index finger tapped hard at the touch pad a few times before a different color illuminated the stars in his eyes. He blinked, nodding once to himself before he cupped the credit card reader and dragged it toward you. “It’ll just be fifty for the night. Card reader is here—it works, I promise—or I can take cash. And make change for you, if...you know.”

“I have a card,” You said gently, plucking the plastic from the tiny holder stuck to your phone case. The chip reader clicked to life after a few passing seconds of your card sitting idle in the slot, taking longer in its processing that left you in a silence with the bouncing man across from you. 

“Have you been busy lately? There’s that harvest festival a few miles from here this weekend, so I wasn’t sure…”

“No. No, uhm,” Jeongguk glanced at you under the shadow of his bangs, “You’re actually my first guest in two weeks.”

“Oh.” Two tiny electronic beeps signaled you to take your card but you were still delayed in doing so. You smiled warmly at the man across from you instead, “Well, then I’m happy we stopped here.”

“We means you’d like two room keys, right?” The tiniest of red dusted the apples of his cheeks, gaze cutting away to the level of the desk you couldn’t see. 

“Please. Tae should be here any minute—”

The screen door clattered harshly when your tall best friend tripped through the threshold, loud in his, “I got the living room clean!” while Jeongguk’s perplexity amplified ten fold. 

“Uhm, here’s your room keys. It’s on the third floor. Stairs and elevator are behind the desk,” Jeongguk passed over two green cards, holding them separately to each of you. You accepted yours with a gentle smile, Taehyung with a sleepier confusion that almost mirrored Jeongguk’s. His movements grew jerky again as he rustled behind the counter, presenting two sheets of paper in your direction now. “...and here’s a sheet of stickers. They’re mine. I hand draw them and sell them...I have my own website, it’s listed on the logo sticker in the center.”

You fondly assessed the page as you drew it closer to your nose, eyeing the etched star shape and the shaded in hues of a tiger flower. “Thank you, Jeongguk,” You said gently, holding the stickers to your chest. 

“Of course!” He chirped while Taehyung continued to squint between the room key and the sticker page. “I hope you enjoy your stay...don’t hesitate to come find me if you need anything. My room is the only one on this floor if I’m not here at the desk.”

You were gentle in turning the door knob to a close while Taehyung flopped dramatically onto the nearest bed corner, still clutching his sticker sheet that he stretched above his face. 

“Motto out the window tonight?”

Taehyung hummed, twisting the sheet to the right and then to the left, “For one night only—” He blinked to the side of the paper at you, “—did you look at these?

The motto hadn’t applied for three nights of your travels, the sleepy town with the sticker making motel owner included, the motto Taehyung’s sentiment that if your head ever touched a real pillow again, you’d want to cease your travels. A just keep going, arbitrary reason for continuing to blow through your college savings to travel the country. The first night had been in a storm when it was simply too dangerous to board up in the back of the van. The second night had been after Taehyung had contracted a cold from sneaking into a resort pool in a downtown tourist center. The third seemed to have no other motive than genuine exhaustion. You blamed the third potted plant spill of the month. 

Mention of the motto made your mind drift to your travels as a general cloud of thought, one that generally evaporated into the back of your conscious so that you were able to focus on the paper map Taehyung had shoved into your grip from the last rest stop or the delayed play by play instructions on your phone due to the limited signal or simply forgotten due to your laughter at whatever ridiculous song Taehyung had decided to blast over your carefully wired auxiliary cord. 

Just like you ignored your dwindling funds in the debit card you’d just mindlessly shoved into the barely functioning card reader, ones that funded the purpose of the sparkly eyed boy perched on a plastic stool in the lobby. Your purpose remained nothing but the ghost feeling of the rip in your yellow folder still digging into the crease of your thumb. 

“You should order some from him. It’d make his week,” You said gently. 

Taehyung laughed, “I don’t think he delivers to a traveling address, kid.”

You tried to manage the panic in your voice. 

“Tae.”

He didn’t answer, just a grunt from outside the van where he was currently pumping air into the front driver’s side tire. Panic could only manage itself for that one call. You tried again, louder and with a slap of your hand against the nearest open door. 

“Taehyung.”

The van rocked again and he answered verbally this time, agitated. A peek of one half of his face became visible, “What?”

“Where’s my folder?”

Taehyung blanched, full features coming into view, “What?” 

Your hand did a dramatic sweep across the bookcase, collecting your tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice in your wake to let it drop unceremoniously to the floor. “Where is my folder?” Another book, a title you didn’t recognize but a cover you connected with the flea market Taehyung had insisted on visiting near the beach, dropped to the floor from your grip. “It’s not in its spot any longer.”

“I had to take everything off the shelf to get all the soil up,” One foot made it inside the van as your stack of discarded books continued to grow. “I swear I put it right back but it may have fallen—”

“Fallen out? Of the van?” Two more books plopping audibly to the pile. You thought about Jeongguk and his stickers and what would happen if someone threw out all his sketches. His sense of purpose suddenly gone due to someone’s recklessness. 

“—behind something,” Taehyung finished, nudging you aside to retch the shelf away from where it was bolted to the wall. It only came a fraction of the way, barely enough for Taehyung to lodge his fingertips down it and effectively rule out any possibility of your folder being there. Instead, every book still clinging to the shelf flopped sadly to the floor. 

The miles you’d traveled up until that point seemed to rush by in your peripheral, every open stretch of rolling road, the glittering nightscape of lively cities, the blackness of the sea current swallowing up ruts in the shore, the decades old gas stations that drained your cash from your wallets into the tank to the freshly renovated rest stops that had patterns pressed into the concrete intentionally and not just because a local raccoon decided to test his luck with some half dry concrete. It propelled you back into the moment, thousands of miles ago, where you’d stood in the same spot in Taehyung’s parents driveway with a cardboard box at your feet filled with things still labeled from when you’d moved out of your college apartment. 

“Why did you keep this?” Taehyung had teased with a wrinkled nose, handing over your tattered textbook from your world literature class freshman year, the second volume in a group of three you’d paid a month's rent for. Highlighter bled into the outer edge, marking the thin off white pages appeared a mirage of rainbow that contrasted a shade more neon than the rug you’d stretched out below your feet. 

“I paid for it,” You defended, settling the paper back between one side of the shelf and a heavy, dolphin shaped paperweight that you’d stuck felt on the bottom of to keep in place on the road. “Besides, it has full, translated classics in here.”

Taehyung pretended to understand the fascination of literature that came with your education with a raise of one eyebrow and a single, gentle nod that shifted his gaze back to the remaining contents in the box. He ruffled for a second before retrieving one of the items draped on the bottom. 

“Okay—” He stretched your manuscript folder up in two hands so as to not let the contents on the inside spill out the sides. “—explain why you keep this.” 

You snatched it from him, holding the yellow protectively to your chest. It looked a bit comical, the whole situation, you hovering over the disorganized stack of papers that you’d written off, figuratively, of course, chin resting on top of the folder as you stared hard at the worn spine of the text book you’d just placed to the shelf. 

“If anything…” You moved slowly with the folder in hand, stretching it toward the felt dolphin and textbook. One hand clutched it while the other brushed aside things to make room for it, tight palm effectively dragging the weeping edges of the folder apart so a tiny rip formed in the yellow near the top of the makeshift spine. Gradual movements turned frantic as you shoved it onto the shelf, pushing the dolphin to hold it in place as your thumb remained on the newfound rip. 

“...I paid a lot of money for the printer and pen ink it took to write all of that. It’s like keeping a twenty dollar bar of gold that can never be converted into usable currency.”

The dolphin was the only thing remaining on the shelf, staring at you while you stared at Taehyung, blank, not moving. Somewhere, up on the dash, the unharmed succulent rattled with the gust of wind that curled against the outside of the van. 

“We’ll find it, it couldn’t have gone too far. There isn’t much space to search anyway—”

“Why did you touch it in the first place?” Your sharp cut in didn’t register in your mind as unreasonable, not at first. Instead, your mind drifted to all the times in which he’d be apprehensive of your unwillingness to throw away the folder, to, as he put it, simply transfer all the handwritten files into digital versions to zip away with the ones that were already locked in a cloud somewhere, all the times you’d caught him staring, perplexed as you pulled out the folder and flipped it open to make sure none of the pages had shifted order. “You know how much it means to me.”

“This would be different if I was intentionally trying to sabotage something of yours. I moved it to clean. It has to be somewhere in this general vicinity,” Taehyung held his hands palm up to you. Penance. Until he ruined it with a sighed, “Besides...don’t you think it’s time we throw it out anyway. I don’t think a constant reminder of rejection is—”

“Go on with your trip,” You said suddenly. 

He paled in front of you, knuckles and all where they grew tighter on the edge of the unhinged bookcase. “Our trip…” He corrected, drawing out the silence at the end as punctuation.

“Your trip,” You shoved yourself off the floor, stepping past him to hurdle to the cracked concrete outside. “Help me get my luggage.”

Taehyung spluttered, lips foaming like a puffer fish out of water, eyes narrowing like you’d just grown a third hand from the tip of your nose. “Dove, we’ll find your folder. We can keep it up front so it never gets lost again. I wasn’t trying to insult your situation, I just care about you and—”

“Tae,” You said his name gently, the calmest you’d managed to spit it out in the entire ordeal, calm like the ghost of a smile that dimpled into your cheeks, “It’s not about the folder.”

“Go on. Go to the harvest festival. Hit the next few cities. I’ll be fine here.”

His eyes bulged now, “You expect me to leave you here? There’s nothing here and I’m no stranger to how our funds have been dwindling.”

“There’s a motel. And a cafe somewhere according to the map. I’ll find a job. Maybe I can rake someone’s leaves when the seasons start to change,” You smiled, “I’ll figure something out.”

“And when I come back? Will you want to go with me?” A bit more forceful, Taehyung set his eyebrows and added, “I will be coming back for you.”

You shrugged, opting for simple, “I don’t know.”

The tension sagged from Taehyung’s person, all the confusion and frustration and bubbling anger, returning him to the default of your best friend complete with a tiny half smile. A loaded inquiry in the way he tilted his cheek into his curled fist.

“Why, dove?”

“The motto,” You stretched out a hand toward him, “I quite liked the bed in the motel.”

“...so I think I’m going to stay around a little longer,” You finished your, shortened albeit, story to the pouty lipped cafe worker, offering a tentative smile. 

The man who’d introduced himself as Yoongi and the owner of the tiny building, removed a hand from where it had been perched on his hip, gently plucking the wad of bills you offered to him. The register opened with what would have been a small puff of dust if the space around it weren’t so meticulously clean, the sleek black counter top and the checkered floor free of any imperfections. Yoongi had swept away the little particles of gravel you’d tracked in after he’d handed over your carefully crafted club sandwich. 

“So, are you planning on staying at Jeongguk’s place?” 

You blinked, a useless piece of collected information about the town in your short twenty-four hours there slipping out. “Are you the Min Yoongi who left a review on his motel?”

A charming smile crossed over the man’s gums, shoulders bouncing silently as he began to pool your change in his cupped palm for you. You took his nonverbal answer, leaning closer on your elbows, “Is Min Holly some of your relation? They left a review, too…”

Yoongi’s nose wrinkled when he laughed a second time, plopping your change down in a small tin next to the register when you motioned him to keep it. “...something like that.”

“It’s a fine place to stay, by the way. Just a dumb joke we have going,” He fished behind the counter for a rag, rubbing it over the places in the counter that had been touched. Dark eyes assessed you playfully from under white fringe, “There’s a review hidden in ours that says we make grilled cheese sandwiches without cheese.”

“Are you...in need of any help making those bread sandwiches?” You panicked when one of his eyebrows disappeared into bangs and a snort racked his shoulders, “Sorry, that was really forward. I just...my travel funds have been running low regardless of me stopping here. I really need a way to make money during my stay.”

“I don’t think Seokjin would appreciate having to split his already limited tips,” Yoongi continued to wipe at the counter, shuffling down the row of bar stools you sat at and back up.

“...you said you have a background with literature, right?” You nodded. “You could check with Namjoon and see if he has any odd jobs for you. He owns the bookstore on the next block over…”

“If anything, he could have you paint the outside,” He meticulously began to fold the rag, shaking his head, “The place looks like it just time traveled from the eighteenth century.”

Yoongi wasn’t wrong. All the buildings in the town seemed to be situated in a similar fashion, curled into strips of three or four businesses about three or four blocks long yet, it appeared that the majority of the buildings were abandoned or at the very least, not functioning businesses any longer. You pinpointed the specific building you were in search of on instinct that the one centered in the middle of a strip of buildings that appeared completely out of place had to be the one Yoongi teased about the exterior. Chipped cream and dark brown lined the paneled walls and thick frames around doors and windows, two stories of windows coated in a visible layer of dust and webs on the corners.  As you strolled closer, you could make out the beige pink hue of plastic letters pasted onto the inside of the left display window, Monie’s, with a looping cursive font displaying a phone number and a website. Propped up in the thin stream of dust and crumpled window stickers was a sign, black coated in specks of brown with neon orange advertising help wanted. 

You wrapped your fingers around the door, pulling it open to step inside. 

The first thing you registered was the temperature difference, winter chill just starting to nip into the air outside but the bookstore was coated in something that somehow bordered the favorable side of cozy and unbearable. Minimal lighting added to that ambiance, bulbs caged in thick metal where they were screwed in planned intervals above the bookshelves. Plants littered the empty spaces in between already crowded furniture, bonsai trees to be exact, curling in their awkward shapes out of hand painted pots. Any decorations that maybe could have been placed on walls occupied by floating bookshelves instead littered the displays in each of the front windows, a massive plastic snowman, fake holiday grass plopped on top of fake winter snow, a myriad of specialty figurines ranging in sizes and shapes and colors all centered around a wooden table that appeared as though it had been made directly from a fresh stump. Perhaps, judging by everything else, it had. 

The books were another thing, appearing more like library shelves than those you would see in chain bookstores or in the aisles at various department stores. Titles varied in size, in their positions in how they laid against each other. In fact, there seemed to be no reason to the way they were organized, obscure children’s books tucked in between used biographies of a fourteenth century royal and three new copies of the first book in the latest dystopian young adult series. 

You turned down the last aisle, one that seemed to harbor anything from an entire encyclopedia set to preschool board books, to find a steep staircase at the end of the shelf. The dark wood matched that of the outside of the building, leading upward into a shadow until you could no longer see where it went. Careful footsteps carried you across creaking wood covered in various colors of woven rugs, testing a hand onto the rail of the staircase. One foot on the first stair and it creaked worse that the floor, the second a wail just as bad. 

Nothing, however, could have prepared you for the tiger striped cat that bounded down the stairs past you. 

You yelped, clinging to the staircase as your knees gave out in your brief moment of panic and had you sinking to a crouch. A deep swallow into you cradling the posts between the stair railing and you managed to get your heart rate to calm by pressing the blunt end of your palm against your chest. 

A voice acted like the pull start of a generic lawn mower, kicking the roar of blood in your ears back to life.  

“Where are you going?”

It was spoken kindly, a genuine inquiry in which the tone matched the man who stood within the row of books. Namjoon, your conscious presumed. He was tall, a long navy coat fluttering against his khaki jogger covered ankles. A deep maroon t-shirt showed off the glitter of a pendant necklace dangling between the defined planes of his chest where the terror of a cat was now cradled. Thick rimmed glasses rested on the very tip of his nose, deep set brown eyes magnifying when he nudged the frames up with the tips of his index and middle fingers. A gentle smile indented permanently into his mouth, showing off dimples that became deeper set the more his laughter grew at your prolonged silence. 

“Oh, sorry I...I was just—”

“Unfortunately, my business is not enough to harbor a second floor,” His nose wrinkled with his smile as he dropped his gaze enough to place the cat onto the floor before effectively shoving bracelet covered wrists into his pockets, “Can I help you with something else?”

“I’m looking for a job,” You blurted, still standing firmly on the second stair while the cat, calmer this time, scurried past you once more. It creaked again with the two movements, the cat and the nervous shift of yours, and you allowed yourself to wince this time.

The man tilted his head, dark brown locks sticking behind the glass and frames. “And why would you come here in search of that?”

“Yoongi sent me,” You blinked, “Uh, Min Yoongi. The guy that owns that cafe up the street? I’m going to be staying in town for a little while and I’m in need of something...I have a literature background, if that makes my case any more compelling. At the very least I could reorganize your shelves or something—”

“My shelves stay as they are,” He cut in absently, waving a hand. Go on. 

“—besides,” Your finger pointed dumbly toward the window display behind him, “You have a help wanted sign in your window.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the trajectory of your finger, shaking his head, “No...I don’t think I do.”

You clambered off the staircase, pointed in brushing past the tall man to stalk determinedly for the opposite window display. The sign stuck to the window in some sort of build of debris that you didn’t particularly care to question but instead made it hard for you to pull up when you were straddling a tiny train set and a mountain of fake snow in an attempt not to harm any of his decorations. It came in a cloud of dust, coating your fingers and glittering in the baths of afternoon sun that cut through the window. 

You found that he’d trailed after you, close enough that when you stumbled out of your awkward stretch position you could press the sign just spaces from his chest. 

“See.” 

He took it from you, that trace of a smile still prominent as he squinted at the object in his grasp. His sleeve curled over his fingers, gradual in clearing away the grime build up over the printed words. 

“Oh,” He simply, “I suppose I do.”

More than the confined heat of the sun through the windows warmed your body from his gentle carmel stare, something that curled your toes into your shoes as your hand had the opposite reaction in jutting out towards him. Quietly, you offered your name. 

“Namjoon,” He settled his free hand in yours, giving it a firm shake without pulling away. Instead he tilted his head, “What’s your story?”

You tilted your head in the opposite direction, “Is this my interview?”

His smile grew warmer when his teeth appeared under his lips, “And if it is?”

“I’ve been traveling with my best friend for the past few months. We started after our university graduation and didn’t look back,” A halfhearted laugh followed the slip of your hand out of his, “Truthfully—” kind of, “—I was starting to run out of money. Your town seemed to be about my speed,” You set your shoulders, “...so I told Taehyung to leave me here. Now I’m in your store asking for a job.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The motel, Jeongguk’s right?” You brushed your foot into the floor, “He told me I didn’t have to pay for anything until I left, or at least built up enough to afford his rates, but—”

“That won’t do,” Namjoon dismissed. Curtly, he turned, stalking off between the shelves with the sign tucked to his chest. 

You were sure you looked like a personified exclamation mark wrapped around a question mark but you allowed yourself to stumble after him anyway, trailing him between the awkward route of shelves you’d yet to explore in your short venture through the store. Finally, you arrived at a small desk, one with a clear glass top with flyers and charts and business cards lodged underneath it. A register, the most modern item of the entire store, took up most of the desk space, placed directly next to an illuminated desktop computer that displayed a background of a light blue koala character etched out in a vaguely familiar art style. You noticed the cat from earlier had wandered back into view, now perched on a red leather stool that was placed behind the counter and let out a particularly discontented mrow! when Namjoon shooed it aside to take a seat. 

Ring clad fingers began to clack away at an outdated keyboard for the modern monitor, features scrunched at the center. Namjoon’s glasses slipped down the length of his nose, this time purposely, as he leaned closer to the screen, mouth parted as eyes darted over the contents. His entire expression shifted when he leaned away, soft smile returning as he gestured for you to join him on the opposite side of the counter. 

“Have you ever worked with any type of cataloging software?”

You blinked at the foreign objects on the screen, a whirlwind of passwords and edit options, and ISBN numbers that you didn’t understand other than how to finesse the cheapest textbooks when you were still in university. His whirlwind explanation that hadn’t allowed you any time to answer the initial question ended with a single syllable laugh. 

“I’ll help you,” Namjoon promised, spinning on the stool to face you. His gangly legs crossed, elbow meeting the thickest part of his thigh as he cheek settled into his palm. “And dusting? How are you with a rag?”

A smile broke out of your tense uncertainty, “That I can definitely do.”

He hummed, drumming his fingers against his cheek, “I think I can find plenty for you to help me with here, if you’d like. I can’t promise much pay.”

“But no staying with Guk. You can stay here as part of your payment.”

You subconsciously glanced outward around the store, to the crowded shelving and potted plants and lopsided books, as if maybe a bed would manifest somewhere that you hadn’t seen it before. To that, Namjoon laughed, louder and so that his face scrunched up around his eyes. 

“I live in the apartment above the store. That’s where the staircase leads. I have an extra bedroom…”

“But that’s only if you’d like,” He rushed suddenly, voice growing an octave as his hands flailed, “I know we just met so if you’re not comfortable living with me, you can absolutely continue to stay at the motel. I just thought it might be easier on you financially and travel wise if you were already here, you know. The bedrooms are on opposite ends of the apartment. There’s two bathrooms, too—”

“Thank you, Namjoon,” You placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, waiting until he relaxed under your touch, “That sounds like a wonderful idea. I accept your offer, if you don’t mind having me, of course.”

He started to shake his head only to be interrupted by a strangled meow from below your feet. You watched as the cat curled in between your legs, butting into your shin while an audible purr rumbled into its next meow. 

“You’ll have to bargain with her for use of the bedroom, actually. It’s unofficially hers at the moment,” The tiny cat continued to nuzzle into your jeans, tail curling happily each time she threw her body weight into you, “It seems like you’ve passed the Marie test.”

You crouched, allowing her to inspect the curl of your fingers before she happily began to settle her chin into the crevices of your palm, rubbing back and forth until you began to flex your fingers in her fur. 

“Miss Marie, can we be roommates for a little while?”

She mewled in response, bypassing your hand to jump into the open space on your thighs. You adjusted her in your arms instead, stretching back to a standing position to smile at Namjoon. 

“First task complete.”

Namjoon cocked an eyebrow, “Which was…?”

“Befriend the cat that ratted me out,” You grinned, bouncing her a bit in your arms, “What’s next, boss?”

“Why don’t you two start by cleaning out those window displays while I go to retrieve your things from Jeongguk,” He slipped his glasses off between the pinch of his fingers, allowing them to twirl back and forth for a moment, “Who knows what other hidden treasures are in there.”

You found your things stacked in a neat pyramid on a bed. Your bed. You clutched the ‘treasures’ you’d uncovered in the window displays a bit tighter to your chest. 

It was a modest room, full size mattress squeezed into a vast majority of the room, leaving just enough room for a dresser and closet doors that folded open to one side. Your things looked massive in the center of the bed, particularly with how they’d been stacked in awkward, Jenga like angles. You frowned until you found a slip of paper dangling off the very top piece of your luggage. You cradled Namjoon’s things, a curly haired teddy bear and a miniature pair of leather shoes, into one arm to pluck the note. 

It was another sheet of stickers, different from the first, with a handwritten note in swirling purple marker scrawled to the blank side. 

Come back and visit me! Or maybe I’ll come into the store more now...Here’s some of my newest designs as thanks :)

“Jeongguk insisted I bring you those.” You crinkled the edge of the paper in hand, startled by the soft voice. It was Namjoon, now without his long coat, arms folded across his chest where he leaned against the doorframe. He nodded toward the other contents in your grasp, “What are those?”

“Oh!” You passed aside the paper to grip the bear and shoes in separate hands, stretching the items toward him. “Just some things I found hidden in the displays…”

He pushed himself up off the door, pulling the bear into his grasp first. Long fingers tucked into the wirey fur of the toy, scratching gently as a fond smile slowly worked upwards into his cheeks. Crinkles formed underneath his eyes as he pressed the bear underneath his arm, cradling the two tiny shoes next, raising them up above eye level for inspection. 

“You’re right, I forgot about these,” Namjoon passed the shoes into one palm, closing his fingers to hold them at the center of his chest. “Thank you for doing that, by the way. It looks wonderful.”

You returned his grateful smile, unsure of how to accept a thanks for a task assigned to you as an employee. It was the first time since the morning that you’d allowed yourself to think of the yellow folder, one that symbolized the exact opposite of the gracious, polite expressions Namjoon had yet to fail to provide. 

It’d been less than twelve hours, but you had no reason to assume he would offer anything otherwise. A less than conventional situation with a less than conventional job offer with a less than conventional boss with less than conventional job benefits.

His mouth fished once, twice, gawking at the shoes in his hand before his gaze settled back on you. Lips pressed together, head tilting. 

“...would you like some tea?” 

The disarray, library aura the maze of shelves in the store provided came as a result of the equally disorienting ordering process from Namjoon, so you learned. He avoided section titles, author groupings, or series shelving. Instead, there was some mental list of steps all based around bogus marketing techniques that accounted for the haphazard strew of books to the point where you weren’t quite sure he had meaning to it anymore and was simply doing it to stay to some imaginary regiment he’d convinced himself of. 

Best selling young adult dystopian novels were on the far shelf, the one closest to the desk, and hidden behind the busy leaves of a bonsai in the back left corner. There were three copies of the first and second books but only two of the third book. Children’s books were placed backwards on the shelves, spines facing inwards, the shapes giving them away. Biographies were always placed on the third shelf from the bottom, eye level. 

No romance made the cut to “easy on the eye” locations. 

“I’d be replacing them every day,” Namjoon explained as he gave you the third tour of the store with a third set of instructions for shelving. You weren’t sure how to politely tell him that he wasn’t in the position to assume he had that much patronage daily. 

In the end, he’d left you isolated to cataloging month old shipments, boxes piled high with novels at the top of outdated best seller lists scattered in between obscure titles of obscure genres with obscure authors that you often found yourself squinting at in wonder with their unfinished tab open on the blinking monitor in front of you. Cataloging meant updating the system first so that when your second customer of the eight hour day came in, you could properly run their crossword puzzle booklet or copy of the town newspaper through the bar code scanner without having to employ the help of the tiny red calculator hidden within the contents of the desk. 

Eventually, you convinced Namjoon to let you update the website too, starting with the boxes you still had left to do and moving onto those things already existing on the shelves when a customer appeared for something new on the shelf simply because they had seen it online. Namjoon had eyed the customer like they were leaving with a third arm rather than a newly acquired how-to manual on toothpick crafts and promptly requested you do whatever that was. 

Your reorganization of the window displays had done a number in themselves, cleaning away the cobwebs to make the neatly arranged scenery, now free of any cheap decorative foliage or precipitation, visible from the sidewalk. Three different individuals had appeared with comments about such, one in question of if the newly cleaned window decals had always been there, one asking if that was the current working phone number, and the third asking if the store was under new management due to the “new changes”. 

Aside from updating the website and reorganizing his conglomeration of acquired decorations, you couldn’t get Namjoon to budge on anything else.

Especially not ordering some more romance novels. The best sellers in your short time as an employee. The genre tab you were constantly updating on the website.

You tried to mention it casually over a cup of tea one evening, your feet propped up on a wooden coffee table similar to the one you’d placed fresh flowers on in the shop. 

“Okay, former literature student,” Namjoon swung his feet off where they had been resting across from yours. The patchwork red recliner he sat in creaked as he leaned forward, white mug cupped in two hands with the rim resting on his smiling bottom lip, “...and I can’t believe I didn’t ask you this already. What are some of your favorite authors? Go.”

You hesitated. Of all the classics, the literature tailored for a specific class genre, the novels you’d exhausted class discussion after thesis on, you’d still honestly answer that easy to read, cliche romance were your favorite, especially when written by a select few authors you’d claimed to some sort of unspoken circle you trusted. 

There were things to learn in even the cheesiest of cliches, in generally the most ideal situations that were few and far between the reality you’d seen, love could and would prevail. Love was the start, the middle, and the end to the spines of worn romance novels, ones often criticized for having the same plot hidden under ten different covers plastered in warm pastels and photographs of flowers draping over bicycles and down the sides of beach side houses. 

But just because it’s ideal and not realistic doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist in what you strive for. At least, that’s what you stood by, particularly when your pencil or your fingers moved to creatively express that very mantra in the plot of your own romance story lines. They were romance at the surface, or at least hidden underneath the flaps of your tattered and lost yellow folder. 

The tear itched at the bend of your thumb and you rubbed it as you squinted at Namjoon, pretending to be in thought. “That’s a hard question.”

“Is it?”

He’d garnered enough information about you in the last weeks to understand you were well versed, at least enough to recognize, to understand, and to adapt. Lying could work but would be virtually useless in the face of your almost stranger roommate. The laymen’s, internet speak resting in the deepest recess of your conscious cooed to you quietly. 

It’s not that deep just tell him you enjoy the occasional Nicholas Sparks novel. 

Instead, the cursed part of your conscious blurted, “Have you ever read Twilight?” 

Namjoon didn’t laugh at you but with you. “I have, actually…” His lips puckered to take in enough tea to coat is tongue, another gentle laugh shaking his shoulders, “Is this your way of saying Stephanie Meyers is your favorite author?”

“No! No, I mean...not necessarily,” You shrugged, “I enjoy the occasional cliche. Even in the easiest cliches there can be a lesson to be learned. Just with some padding. Like bumpers on a bowling lane, you know. You still make it to the pins just with some extra help.”

“Right,” He lounged again, taking the natural rock of the recliner with him before releasing his foot so it swayed his relaxed stature, “That makes sense.”

“The artistic value isn’t lost simply because it’s popular or it’s based on something popular, you know,” You glanced behind his head, to one of the various artwork pieces he had nailed throughout the apartment. This one was a canvas coated in navy birds, ones that grew sloppier in shape the smaller they grew towards one corner. “It wouldn’t be popular otherwise…”

“I don’t disagree,” Namjoon narrowed his eyes but they crinkled on the edges, “I also wouldn’t fire you if you told me the Twilight franchise was the peak of literary and cinematic history. I just would...respectfully disagree.”

“Would you fire me if I told you I write romance?”

“Is it about vampires that sparkle?”

“No.”

“Then no,” He grinned this time, “If you can’t answer your favorite author question then who inspires you when you write? Most art is modeled after that of which we’ve already consumed so I can’t imagine you’re any different.”

No thought of the yellow folder burned through the itch on your thumb as you rattled off your extensive list of ever evolving authors, ones you adored in middle school then reread in college to find new light (or some glaring darkness you missed in the naivety of your uneducated youth. See: the glitz and glamour of The Great Gatsby) within, those young adult novels of dystopian future in which you’d always wanted to teach your own university course on all the way down to the grossest cliches that had you and Namjoon wrinkling your noses. 

“They’re still wonderful,” You bargained, “In every sense of the word. Wonderfully awesome, wonderfully terrible. Refreshing to read, refreshing to pick out eyebrow raising and quite frankly glaring issues that high school teachers choose not to point out in their lessons.”

“Have you ever thought about ordering more for the store?” 

“There are plenty of popular titles in the store,” Namjoon resisted immediately. His mug of tea was empty now, nothing to divert his attention from staring directly at you. For a moment, you feared you’d imposed on something like when you’d offered to reorganize the shelves. 

Gently, you tried to express your point and correct him, “Yes, but not that’s currently popular in the last five years, or even the last decade. It would be a good selling point, at least to garner a bit more profit—”

“No.” He wasn’t harsh. Just firm. “I’m content with our current inventory.”

“However, if you would like for me to order you something to read, I would be happy to do so. You know where the catalogs are.”

That’s not the point. You sighed in the defeat of your changed window displays and online catalog update. 

“That’s okay, Namjoon. Thank you anyway, though.”

“So, what do you think?”

There were two expectant pair of eyes blinking at you, one the curator of the dish placed just beneath your nose, the other wholly hoping for your features to be unable to hide the disgust of whatever cheese, tomato, and bread contraption currently resting on the part of your bottom lip, ready for a taste. 

“I haven’t even taken a bite yet, Jin,” You laughed, testing the warmth of the sub bread against. You turned the sandwich in one hand, wincing when some of the cheese spilled out and singed at the skin of your palm. “It’s hot.” 

“It’s delicious,” He argued, dragging the bar stool closer to you. 

“It’s already on the menu,” Yoongi mumbled. 

“It’s not,” Seokjin slapped his palm on the counter, ears growing red as he fumed at his boss, “This stromboli has nacho cheese instead of mozzarella. Instantly better.”

“If it’s good, you can make it for everyone who orders it,” You eyed Yoongi as you gave it another temperature test and he smiled shyly, “The nacho cheese gets too hot...I don’t want to have to handle it.”

Tentatively, you jutted your teeth out to take a nibble off the corner of the steaming sandwich, managing to acquire a mouthful of bread, pepperoni, and of course, the seeping nacho cheese. Yoongi was right, it was scalding, but it burnt your taste buds enough to mask any horrid taste that may exist and you managed to swallow it down with a minimal wince. 

“Amazing right?”

“They can’t even speak—”

“They can’t speak because it’s so amazing,” Seokjin nudged your side while you tried to digest the burning coals currently sliding down your throat, “Right?”

“It’s not too bad,” You croaked finally, making prolonged eye contact with a viscarly annoyed Yoongi as you dragged your ice water closer and downed two, three, five gulps. “Would probably be better if it weren’t the temperature of the sun.”

“That’s not a yes—”

“Maybe, but it’s also not a no,” Seokjin happily clapped in the seat next to you, making a full rotation on the bar stool in victory before he swiped the plate from under your nose and went to take a bite for himself.

His high pitched screams muffled by the way too large bite of yeast and runny cheesy came in time with the ding of the cafe door that had Yoongi straightening and you snorting. 

Namjoon ignored the way Seokjin’s palm began to rapidly slap against the counter top as he waddled directly for you, a large cardboard box cradled to his chest as he happily chirped your name in time with the slap of his sandals against the tile. He deposited the box to the empty bar stool on your opposite side, only then allowing his gaze to deviate to a violently coughing Seokjin. 

“Is he okay?” He asked simply, that same comforting calmness etched deep in his tone. 

“Loaded question,” Yoongi grumbled. 

“He’ll be fine,” You dismissed, waving your hand over your shoulder. Seokjin coughed in outrage. You placed both hands on either side of the taped lid, tilting your head, “What do you have here?—” After a second, you perked up, “—Is it this week's shipment?”

Namjoon’s hands covered yours, soft with the vanilla pine lotion you knew he kept on the bottom shelf behind the counter in the store. Gentle thumbs nudged your appendages aside, instead tucking his nail underneath the tape and flicking across it. 

“You reviewed my final order list, right?”

You nodded, “Yeah, you were going to order some extra crossword books and replace those couple copies of encyclopedia that Marie...had an accident on…”

“Right, but—” He balled the tape when it reached the far end of the box, still holding your eye contact as he began to fold open the flaps on the box, “—I added a few more things before I sent it in.”

“Oh yeah?” You couldn’t help but grin too, “And what did you order?”

“Well, first of all…” Namjoon shuffled around, trying his best to shield the contents inside from you until he retrieved what he was looking for. An exclamation point coated his features when his fingers wrapped around the desired book, drawing it out with a giddy grin.

“Is that Gatsby?” You gaped, reaching for the paperback book in his hand. You took in the horribly refurbished cover, sighing blissfully as you looked at Namjoon. At the same time, you each breathed, “Hate Gatsby.” 

“I bought ten copies I think,” Namjoon took it back from you, flicking it back into the box like a frisbee, “If anything, we can put them to Marie’s litter box. Lead her there.” 

“I like this already. Show me more.”

“The next one I bought for you, if you want it,” He shuffled a bit longer this time, eyebrows meeting his hairline when he finally latched onto the item yet seemed to struggle a bit more with lifting this one. The veins in his arms strained, bottom lip tucking under his teeth as he threw his shoulder into it, letting the heavy hardback hit the top of the counter with an audible thud that silenced Seokjin’s moaning behind you. 

“Twilight?” You laughed, stroking your fingers over the raised text, “I can’t believe you brought yourself to write this on an order.”

“I can’t believe I did either,” Namjoon beamed, glowing in the rays of your praise, “I thought you’d like it and I wasn’t sure if you had a copy of it so…”

“My copy is in the van,” You flattened your palm to ignore the itch on the bend of your thumb, forcing the rush of emotion down past the sudden lodge in your throat, “This is a nicer copy than mine, anyway.”

“Isn’t that the book about vampires?” Yoongi deadpanned. You slid it toward him, letting him turn the heavy text over to read the soft pink cursive that curled a summary across the back cover. He eyed Namjoon, “You...ordered this?”

“I got a few copies for the shop too,” He ignored Yoongi, addressing you as he instead shoved a stapled packet of paper toward you, bits of other paper and an envelope fluttering to the top of the box in the process. “And I...consulted some of the newer best seller lists and ordered the things that sounded interesting from those. I’ll let you shelve them, if you want.”

“You haven’t read this, have you Joon?” Yoongi continued to gape at the cover, flipping it back over to stare open mouthed at the table of contents. 

“I could help you next order too,” You flipped through the list, running your index finger over the highlighted titles, “...if you like.”

“Uhh…” You heard an excessive amount of extra fluttering, peering over the top of the packet in your hand to see him ruffling at the papers and envelopes that had slipped out of his grasp when he passed you the list. You watched as he pried open the singular envelope with crooked index finger on the flap, wincing as he did so. “Yeah...yeah maybe.”

“What?” You asked gently, trying to laugh, “Is that the bill for all this fresh content?”

“Yeah—” Yoongi had stopped where he’d been rubbing at bits of nacho cheese Seokjin had spilled over the counter, watching Namjoon carefully. A smile met his lips, one that never even touched the crinkle around his eyes or the sparkling softness in his irises, “—something like that.”

“Can I tell you something?”

You paused where you’d been mid chopping vegetables, a task you’d handed off to Namjoon only for him to show sizable difficulty with. You tasked him with dishes instead, handing off each new soiled piece for him to dunk in the basin piled high in bubbles. He hesitated with his wrists hidden underneath the suddy mess, fingers holding onto the wire edges of one of the charred racks from within the oven. 

After a second, you started again, allowing the slice of metal through the onion slices under your moist fingers to fill the cramped kitchen once more. “Of course,” You glanced at him once you’d finished the row you were on, absently sweeping the pieces back and forth across the cutting board underneath a cupped palm, “What’s up?”

“I’m not very good at ordering books for the store,” He held up a palm when you tried to suppress your reaction, “I know you know this, but I’m just...acknowledging that it’s always been like this. I don’t like to think of myself as pretentious, but I suppose my ordering and stocking habits are a bit on that side.”

“In the beginning, I had a reason for it, or at least, what I convinced myself was a viable reason. I’d purchased the shop after living in the apartment above a quickly failing bakery for far too long. I wanted it to be something that thrived in this secluded little town.”

“Like a bookstore,” You nodded without any sort of teasing or malice. You were a book person, after all. You craved the homey feel of a locally owned bookstore in any crevice of the Earth, probably contributing to some twisted fate in the universe to how you ended up in one particular place in one particular line of employment after being lost on the road for so long. 

“Right, but not just any bookstore. I wanted to give the place something unique,” White bubbles gathered and slipped down the length of his knuckles when Namjoon drew his hands out of the water, letting them grip on either side of the sink as he leaned into it, “A scavenger hunt of sorts sounds appealing, right? Once you find the book in the store, there’s some sort of satisfaction to it. Especially if you don’t really know what you’re looking for and you end up stumbling upon an extensive history of stuffed animal fur.”

You wrinkled your nose, “We have that?”

“Somewhere,” Namjoon nodded gravely, cracking a smile at your indignation, “I would have no idea where it is.”

“And to an extent, that business plan works. Keep just enough popular titles to appease to the general public. Keep more obscurity to draw the crowd craving originality. Garner revenue from individuals on any spectrum of literature pretentiousness,” He shrugged, letting his shoulders roll up to his ears as his chin dropped, “It worked for maybe five months. Then the newness wore off.”

“I’ve never really been able to recover even with our normal patronage. Now that there’s appeal for business in neighboring towns, all of us have started to suffer. People would rather stay in a Hilton next to a Panera and shop at the three story Barnes and Noble than tour our locally owned amenities that provide damn near the same thing.”

“Jeongguk and Yoongi have been able to adapt, though,” Namjoon’s shoulders relaxed again, letting his hands dip down into the water to grab at the wire rack. He passed the rough edge of the sponge over the edges now exposed out of the water, soft enough that the fibers barely pulled any of the grime from the utensil. “I can’t seem to find my way out of a rut.”

“Have you tried?”

Namjoon laughed, “I ordered Twilight, didn’t I?”

“But did you order New Moon too? Or the other two books in the series? What about the DVD adaptations?” You started to dice the onion now, speaking to the tiny pieces you nudged aside with the tip of the knife, “Did you put them in alphabetical order? Or did you at least consider creating a young adult section? Or a vampire romance section? I can offer more recommendations—”

“I can’t afford to pay the bills,” Namjoon said gently. “Not...not anymore. Way before I hired you, even.”

You grew silent, letting yourself sink into the lip of the counter top. 

“I had to start using my monthly order funds to pay rent on the store. And my personal rent. And the light bill. And…” He sighed, dunking the wire rack a few times in silence to rinse it of the bubbles. 

“That’s what those envelopes were today. Notice of eviction.”

Your mouth fished, pursing at the seam of your lips and puffing your cheeks out as you pondered the terrifying thought. Never mind that this was your temporary home and temporary place of employment but this was Namjoon’s livelihood, his greatest accomplishment, his love. 

Behind convoluted marketing strategies and a quietly picky selection in what he read in his personal time, there was a man who absolutely adored the power of literature in its simplest form, tangible, physical books. You’d witnessed the way his eyes lit up when the tiny bell at the front of the store tinkled with the arrival of someone new, his long legs and eager persistence quick to beat you out from behind the counter to assist the customer, whether that be to point out a general area as to where something may be located, to recommend something of his own, or to simply offer a casual conversation over a cup of coffee he offered in a floral paper cup from the tiny room underneath the staircase. 

“So, what do we do?” 

He was puzzled only for a moment, the furrow in his eyebrow traveling upward with the smile that appeared as he dragged his hands out of the water. Massive palms dabbed to his thighs as he backed away from you, bumping into the edge of the counter on his way but he found his target, the massive stack of sliced open mail. Some ruffling with semi damp hands that splattered visible water droplets over the counter later, his pinched fingers appeared triumphant holding a mint colored envelope with a red printed logo stamped on the return address corner. 

“There’s uhm…” Namjoon’s fingers pried inside, drawing a folded piece of paper out. Through the back, you could see the same red logo, bold and in the center of the page this time. “One of the companies I order from sent this not too long ago. I don’t know if it’s a sign but it kind of seemed like a sign.”

You abandoned your chopping to accept the paper, now doused in vague water spots, from his grasp. He voiced the contents your squinted eyes began to scan. 

“Basically, if we can get sales above a certain threshold by the end of the month, I can apply for a grant worth—” He was in front of you now, reaching his index finger over to hover above a bolded monetary amount, “—that. That would give enough time for you to help me implement some of your ideas…”

“And if none of it works,” Namjoon shrugged, folding the paper back into it’s neat little pamphlet, letting it dangle to his side, “then I guess this wasn’t really meant to be.”

A small part of you envied him in that moment. Perhaps there was more than what presented itself outwardly, but Namjoon was frustratingly calm about simply giving up something he worked so hard to achieve simply because of a couple of setbacks. The yellow folder that triggered you to step off the trunk of Taehyung’s rickety travel van certainly could not relate. 

Instead, you blurted, “You want my help?”

His normal composure fractured a bit, longer pauses, hums even, stationed between stumbled words, “If you’d like to, yes, I’d love to have your help. Outside perspective is the only way I’m going to change my ways. I don’t think I could do it, not productively, by myself.”

“And of course, if you’re still around by then,” Cautious brown irises met your own, swimming in something unreadable, a guard almost, “I know you’ve said you aren’t sure when Taehyung will be back. If he does come back—”

“He’ll be back,” The skin behind your neck grew hot with how quickly you assured that, a statement mostly spoken to sate the tiny nagging part of yourself that was left lost with your entire situation as a whole. Namjoon blinked, unwavering, chin twitching just enough to nod. 

“But I’d be happy to help for as long as I’m here,” You allowed yourself to smile even if the line wobbled a bit. You resumed your chopping in silence, only long enough to finish off the vegetable underneath your palm before you were sweeping your work space clean, dusting your fingers off in the process. 

“Where should be start, boss?”

You were tasked with reorganization while Namjoon took to his computer, conjuring up flyers dedicated to those few events you’d agreed upon after exhausting a list of potential, quick ways to garner attention and profit. Aside from making the store more navigable for the average person (as well as setting aside some funds specifically to order the missing books in series), bringing people into the store seemed like an obvious answer to gaining short (or long) term interest in the store. 

An easy way to bring people into the store was to host events. 

Armed with three massive stacks of flyers in the basket on the front of Namjoon’s spare bike, you took off on an advertising run. You stopped at Yoongi’s, watching Namjoon wallpaper flyers to the glass windows outside the cafe while Yoongi looked disgruntled between the spaces in the fluttering paper yet made no attempt to remove any of them and quietly took a stack you handed him to hand out to customers as they came in. Jeongguk barely let you get the question out of your mouth, appearing with a sheet of thick, round, metallic stickers of his own design that he used to plaster the various event flyers over the front of his desk and a promise to photocopy the flyers and post them to every gaming community he knew online. 

The first event advertised was in connection with the local elementary school, parents pouring through the doors one Wednesday after school while their beaming teacher brought up the rear. You settled them in with fresh baked cookies and hot chocolate while Marie made her rounds, resisting gooey chocolate off of chubby fingers and happily deciding upon a small girl in the corner who was completely enamored with a dinosaur themed pop up book she’d discovered with Namjoon’s help. 

You’d watched quietly where he knelt next to her on the shorter shelves, one’s you’d specially arranged for the event and as a way to pinpoint the location of the children's books previously scattered aimlessly about. He’d murmured gently too her, offering books on the shelves she couldn’t quite reach until she made grabby hands at a slightly disgruntled stegosaurus when Namjoon had flipped open the first thick page. 

Hoseok, their teacher, drew you out of your fond trance. His arms were filled with educational books, ones a level between the ages he taught and that of high school, glossy pages filled with just enough text and just enough pictures to appeal to all ages. Wavy red hair parted down the middle, fluttering against shining apple cheeks as he beamed giddily at you, rainbow cartoon smiley faces in a repeated pattern on his shirt almost blinding you all the same. 

“I did some shopping while you two watched over them,” Hoseok admitted bashfully, a slight pink tinting his ears as he glanced at the book on top of his stack, a midnight blue cover with an abundance of jungle animals spilling across the surface. “I hope they weren’t too bad.”

“Not at all,” You softened, pulling your gaze away from Namjoon when the little girl proudly parked herself in his lap and began to chatter absently about the next dinosaur that popped into view, a triceratops by first glance. “I could give you a discount since they’re for the school?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t—” Hoseok’s eyes widened, tossing his fringe as an absent habit, “—I’d like to support anyway. I feel as if I don’t do that enough lately.”

“It would be no problem.”

He brushed past you to place his towering stack on top of the counter, already digging deep in the pocket of his bright purple jeans. A wad of cash was pushed across to you before you could even begin to swipe barcodes through the system. 

“Consider it a donation.”

The dinosaur popup book sold during the event along with a dozen other children’s books that Namjoon assured you were relics, books he’d forgotten were on the shelves at all let alone ones that would sell instantly upon being relocated to an easy to find vicinity (whether that be grouped or closer to the ground where two foot tall humans could scan at eye level). 

Other things started to leave too, filling the space in between scheduled events. You saw a fair amount of hand sized romance novels leave the door, ones you plopped randomly onto a singular turnstyle you assembled from multiples hunks of plastic in a dusty cardboard box in the room underneath the staircase, flowery covers with fraying spines shoved into purses and jacket pockets. Magazines started to go, new and old issues alike after you ordered them in stacks on Namjoon’s wooden table as it sat in the front window display. Series started to go as a whole, limited in quantity but at least as a whole rather than in the first and third book with the second book to be ordered from an online delivery or serviced from a nearby chain. 

You sold out of crossword puzzle books when the second event came, murder mysteries and a fair few of the popular horror authors leaving the store too when the local florist used the space to teach a beginner’s bouqet workshop. The blonde headed man, Park Jimin in all his charming giggles and devastating smile, brought in his self written gardening manual, giving Namjoon a sizable check to be able to sell them while he did his workshop. 

You had every reason to believe it wasn’t the atmosphere of the bookshop that had elderly women kissing red lipstick stains into his blushing cheeks and selling out his small stack of green pamphlets but Namjoon wasn’t one to turn away the check. 

“What do you know about daisies?” 

Jimin’s expression immediately grew amused, glancing at you from under shaggy fringe as he hunched to untie the cat covered apron pressed to his stature. He freed the knot at his spine, straightening once more as he shrugged it over his head and began to meticulously fold it. 

“A lot,” His eyebrow cocked, letting the apron fall to his now empty table, “What are you wanting to know?”

“Let’s say you were trying to grow a plant in a moving van—” You crossed your arms, “—could you do it?”

His nose wrinkled at the bridge, “With a lot of finesse, probably. But if we’re talking about a plant that’s good with traveling...succulents might be a good bet.”

The dip between your thumb and palm itched and you rubbed it at your hip, smiling, “That’s what I figured.”

Locations around the store were progressively growing blurrier each time you glanced up from the harsh lighting off the computer monitor in the shop. There was a soft glow from the moon where it reflected on the floor panels at the front of the room but it didn’t quite reach through the rows of thick shelves (you’d rearranged books, not furniture. Namjoon wouldn’t budget on layout) but otherwise, you worked in the dark, fingers working on muscle memory around the keyboard as you continued to plug in information to the online application. 

The events worked, giving the store a two month boost in sales that granted you, at the very least, a chance to save the store. It was just that, a boost, nothing that could sustain long term even with newfound organization and aggressive attempts at community engagement. Even with all that, you lacked the funds to properly distribute across all things that needed tending to, particularly the ordering that would require you to keep up with the amount of product that went out the door after the first event. 

It was a curve, one with a sharper downfall than the first. 

Creaking on the staircase alerted you to Namjoon’s presence, phone flashlight outlined Marie where she sat cradled in the curve of his elbow. He placed her on the floor when he reached the bottom, allowing him to properly balance the basket curled on his opposite forearm. 

“...alright?” He murmured. The wicker container was slid to the counter top next to you as he slid onto the free stool. 

You hummed, flicking your index finger up and down the scroll to send the typed text whirring by. “Just about done,” You placed your chin on your shoulder, gaze cutting away from his gentle smile to nod at the basket, “What do you have there?”

“Oh!” Namjoon thumbed at the lid, digging inside to present you with two plastic wrapped sandwiches. He placed those aside, returning with a metal thermos next, followed by two paper plates and forks you recognized from the utensil drawer in the apartment. “I packed us a little paperwork picnic.”

You dragged one of the sandwiches closer, careful in picking apart the wrap to discover sliced tomato, floppy lettuce, and careful strips of bacon stuck between two fresh buns. Lemonade was dunked into two plastic cups by the careful hands of Namjoon, his smile growing when you shot him an inquisitive glance. 

“I said packed for a reason,” He teased, nudging you when you pinched at one of the ranch drenched piece of greenery, “Jin insisted I take them when I was picking up lunch earlier.”

“Was the picnic part your idea?” You accepted a glass from him, drawing it to your bottom lip without taking a sip. 

His gaze remained unwavering as his hand dipped back inside the basket, tripping it across the glass counter top a bit but managing to retrieve the checkered strip of fabric at the bottom of the basket in the end. It fluttered from its folded position when he lifted it higher, showing that it wasn’t a full checkered blanket but instead a strip of fabric, sheared at the edges and appearing to be a leftover from something sewn.  It was just big enough for each of your glasses to sit with a comfortable distance from each other, something Namjoon completely by gently drawing your cup out of your grasp and settling it next to his. 

“Maybe,” He watched as you continued to squint at the end of the sandwich, “...that means the food is safe to eat. Promise.”

You let yourself take a sizable bite, chewing thoughtfully through the crunchy bacon. You swallowed, serious into the next nibble you tested, “You have more trust in Seokjin than I do.”

It was quiet as the two of you began to dig into your meals, the first of any sizable food you’d had the entire day as a result of being cooped up in a mountain of tax papers, profit spreadsheets, generic online bell curve generators, and the daunting application that hung on the thread of an accidental click to send its incompleteness spiraling into the cloud of uncertainty for the store. 

Your typing resumed in silence too, scrolling rather as you simply scanned over the answers you’d provided for the longer answers, open ended questions reminiscent of essay portions of school applications. The words by themselves registered but the combination of such into sentences didn’t comprehend in your mind, subconscious elsewhere as the pixels flashed through your blurred peripheral by means of your own flicking fingertip. 

“So what’s your story?”

The screen stalled at your command, shoulders sagging. Softly, you wiggled the mouse to click out of the screen at hand, bringing up the smiling koala cartoon whose name you’d learned was Koya. “Is this another interview?”

Namjoon’s fingers warmed your wrist, pulling your hand toward him until your stool spun on its own accord. He continued to hold onto your wrist, thumb traveling upward to brush across your knuckles. 

“No,” His voice grew warm, quiet for the ambiance created in the quaint shop near the midnight hour, “I only know a fraction of your story, the rising action, maybe? I’m not too sure. I don’t have enough information to even begin to plug it into the imaginary literary equation.”

“You graduated with a literature degree and you have questionable yet defendable taste in books read in your free time,” Namjoon squeezed your skin, “What else am I missing?”

“I write sometimes,” The words came so quick that your conscious had to pause to gather your next thought, trailing your gaze over Namjoon’s head. You squinted, blurring the darkness of the children’s shelves a bit more as you corrected, “I’m a writer.”

“I had a book deal right out of graduation, something I’d worked ages on. Revised three different times to appease to different agents, none of which ended up signing me. Self publishing was an option I just saw the other side. Heard too many pitches that made me a bit too hopeful.”

“And then finally I found someone who wanted to take me on. Who assured me that I could make big waves within their agency. Said they’d never quite seen anything like my writing style, something that didn’t quite fit in my declared genres,” You laughed bitterly, letting your hand drop from Namjoon’s to rub across your lap, “Said they’d never quite heard anyone as headstrong about my particular beliefs either. Said it was a good thing, made me memorable.”

“I got all the way to their corporate office in the city to sign off on the rights. I even went to the effort to type up my notes and my drafts and whatever else I could find—” You offered a smile, “—I prefer handwriting—” sighing, you spread your fingers apart, pressing at the bend in your thumb, “—Had it all stapled and put together in a nice folder.”

“Then they told me they couldn’t sign me. I don’t remember the exact reason. I think I stopped listening to them after my potential agent was called out of the room for a phone meeting with another prospective client.”

A shaky inhale kept the mist of tears that involuntarily gathered in your waterline at bay, gaze darting to your wringing fingers, “Have you ever played that jelly bean game? The one where half the blue ones taste like raspberry and the other taste like disinfectant wipes or something? It kind of felt like that. Going in expecting one thing and leaving with the exact opposite.”

“I didn’t know I could feel that lost,” You admitted out loud, further elaborating, “I had no plan other than that. It seemed like all my other friends were graduating with a perfect bridge into their new lives,” You let yourself smile, “...even Taehyung. He was always planning on traveling after graduation.”

“He never really understood what I was going through. I didn’t expect him to. Like I said, he had his own plans, one that hadn’t included me until a week or two before they were to begin. I don’t blame him for not understanding how to handle me. And in a way...I feel guilty for placing that kind of responsibility on him. He didn’t need to feel obligated to care for me but he did and he always had and for that I’m sorry.”

“I guess I thought doing something impulsive would give me a purpose again. At the very least, maybe it’d renew my purpose. Maybe I’d want to start a whole new book. Maybe I’d want to try self publishing if I forgot about the horrors I endured through the other process,” A tear appeared now, slipping down the bridge of your nose as your lips wrinkled into a shriveled petal and you shook your head, letting your palms lift and fall back into your lap with an audible slap, “Nothing.”

You startled when something scuffed on the floor, gaze focusing on what you could see in front of you once more. Namjoon had shuffled closer, bringing his stool with him until his knees bumped into yours, close enough for the warmth of his palm to cup your cheek this time soft in using the curve of his thumb to collect the stream of tears as they began to fall more freely. 

“Can I tell you something?” You murmured, waiting until his silent gaze met yours. 

“This gave me a purpose again. You gave me a purpose,” You grinned, some of the excess tears spreading over your tongue, “At first it was just wanting to figure out why this strange man with a cat wanted to arrange his bookstore like that.” 

“Old dog new tricks,” Namjoon insisted, voice gentle for the first time since his initial question. 

You let both your hands cup his wrist, holding his hand against your face, “You reminded me of my initial purpose. What I grew so far from...that there’s so much warmth in literature and books and the written word.”

“There’s always worth in spreading that type of love to the community,” Your lips curled in the edge, not quite reaching your teeth, “It’d be a shame if you didn’t get to continue to do so.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” The intimacy expanded outward, encasing your statures in a safety bubble when his forehead touched yours, holding you there by means of his hand on your cheek and your fingers around his forearm. He waited until he no longer felt new splashes of tears underneath his diligent thumb before he spoke again. 

“Have you ever thought about trying again?” 

Namjoon was so close, the warmth bleeding off his dark irises giving your uncertain heart a squeeze. It didn’t cut into your confusion, “Try what?”

“To get another book deal,” He straightened just enough to pick at your opposite cheek with his free hand, placing stray hairs aside in a meticulously soft way, “Just how far have I inspired you, honey?”

You swatted at him, squawking until he held up a hand in surrender. 

“I haven’t, not with...that book anyway. Truthfully, I trashed everything but my handwritten notes that day. I think I even impulsively deleted the files or if they’re still out there I wouldn’t know where to find them.”

“I suppose my next question as to if I can read anything by you is moot now.”

“I’m sure there’s some embarrassing poems out there on my undergraduate literary magazine website…”

Namjoon cocked an eyebrow, “That’s a scavenger hunt I’m willing to have.”

“And it’s one I’m willing to help you with—” You giggled, managing to catch his hands when they went to do grabby hands around your body at the computer mouse, “—after we submit this paperwork.” 

“Ah, right,” Warm hands landed on your hips, spinning you to face the monitor while a heavy chin settled on your shoulder, “The whole save my passion thing. I suppose the poems can wait.”

You wrote a poem in undergraduate about a divorce as told by the family cat, the detached perspective of an animal who has no conscious understanding of anything in the human world, yet is still watching his life crash before his eyes. He’s not getting food as often. Everyone is always yelling. Suddenly, dad isn’t there anymore. His tiny human, the child of the family, comes and goes in a confusing schedule. But he still has to be a cat.

The script on that section of the university page barely functioned any longer, drawing your poem into mismatched fonts with spacing that surely wasn’t what you’d originally intended. The flit of your gaze over the up and down scroll of the page fit the same detached sense that the cat in the story had. 

Life still went on around you as the crippling rejection email for the store grant hovered in the next tab over from your poem. Namjoon’s absent restocking of the shelves at the front of the store proved that. 

You clicked out of your poem, letting the etched red logo at the top of the email cover your vision once more as you sighed. A bitter tap of your index finger later and the image was hidden, just leaving the wall of text that was just several different ways to say you didn’t receive the grant. You’d opened all their resource links, those hovering in the next browser over while Koya watched on behind them. 

None of those would work, either. You didn’t buy from their partner supplier. Your store square footage wasn’t enough. You didn’t specialize in one specific genre. You didn’t offer library-like services alongside the business aspect. 

One tab had the generic question plugged into a search engine, easy ways to make money. You felt like you were applying for school again, scrounging for scholarship opportunities on survey websites that did nothing but implore armies of viruses into your hard drive. Some of those resources still sat in unorganized folders in your email, ones you mindlessly scrolled past with your cheek scrunched into your curled fist, fingernails pressing crescents into your palm the harder you squeezed. 

University emails changed from graduation subject lines to assignment subject lines to personal sprinkled within, exchanges with members of group projects or monthly subscriber updates from clubs you participated in. 

Junk emails continued to pour in on the daily even if your email was virtually untouched since you’d sat out on the road which meant the folder continued to dump an unprecedented amount of data into your deleted file never to be cleaned out where you used to diligently empty it. You did that with a clear conscience, a small victory in your hazy consciousness as your finger misjudged and you found your drafts opening.

There was a singular email, the body text left blank and the subject line half typed. Manuscript...A tiny paper clip indicated that something was attached. 

For a second, you feared you’d overloaded Namjoon’s system with the file size until the PDF materialized across the screen, blank at first until the last of the near eighty pages downloaded and you found yourself face to face with the typed contents of your lost yellow folder. 

Your laughter drew Namjoon from his task, his silhouette shadowing over what was already dark in the store, another late night venture between the two of you when the news of rejection had the both of you searching for something to do that wasn’t nothing. He was smiling at first until he caught a sheen on your cheeks, laughter slowly materializing into sobs before he could properly reach you. 

He uttered your name, hip catching on the edge of the counter as he lunged for you yet reeled back at the glaring title on the screen. The initial hug his instinct wished to provide stalled, hands instead landing on your shoulders as he squeezed. 

“What’s this?”

“I think this thing is haunting me,” You groaned miserably, “Either that or your computer itself is haunted.”

Namjoon kept a firm grip on you as he shook the mouse, minimizing the tab and all the others until Koya’s smiling face spread across the screen. Gentle pressure turned you, hands leaving to spread palm up, fingers wiggling. 

Softly, Namjoon encouraged, “Let’s go to bed.” 

Marie’s meow managed to piece some of the scrambled pieces together once your slow advancements at the lead of Namjoon’s hand paused, leaving you to realize this isn’t your room. 

“This is your room,” You audibly expressed, flinching away from one of the two foot tall character’s he had curled in the doorway. 

He let go of your hand to allow you to make your decision, assuring that his searching gaze ducked to find your own. “Is that okay?”

Your whimper welcomed the stretch of one of his hoodies across your torso, snug to the fresh coffee ground and fresh rain scent that clung to his duvet as long fingers tucked it around your body. He settled in next to you, just close enough to stroke at your cheek with his thumb and the flat of his mouth. 

“Hey Namjoon?” 

He shifted closer, curled knees encasing yours as his fingertips began to stroke down the back of your head. “Yeah, love?”

“Do you want to try again?” You regarded him with just your eyes, mouth and nose hidden underneath the hem of his sheets. “To keep the store?”

His lips lingered on your forehead this time, cradling the back of your head until the shaking of your shoulders subsided. The tip of his nose pulled back to brush where yours would be underneath the blanket, nodding so the skin brushed accidentally a second time. 

“What else is there to do?”

You found a warm bagel and a handwritten note on a napkin in place of Namjoon’s stature when you woke. Raw eyes found it difficult to decipher the shapes he’d quickly scrawled with a blunt tipped marker but somehow you made out store. You abandoned the plated bagel and headed for the staircase.

“If that’s not Marie I don’t want you down here,” A laughing voice ordered your descend when you’d barely made it to the fourth stair. 

“Why?”

“Did you not read my note?”

“It said that you were working in the store.”

“And that you’re not allowed down here yet.”

You continued your descent a few slow stairs at a time, “I won’t look.”

Namjoon snorted, an image you saw when you already broke your promise to find him seated at the counter completely swamped in crafting materials. Strips of construction paper, jagged cardboard, stacks of printer paper still half hanging out of their packages. 

“What are you doing? DIY decorations?”

He looked up where he was furiously spinning a shard of pipe cleaner, “I thought you said you wouldn’t look.”

“Oops,” You shrugged, bare feet chilled all the way up your legs to where your sleep shorts began as you shuffled toward him, squinting at the mass chaos he’d created. Your gaze trailed upward from the browns and purples and metal utensils, starting to offer a generic question once more until you found your manuscript still open on the computer monitor. “What are you…Namjoon what are you doing?”

He grunted into the last spin of his fingers, securing the last, electric blue pipe cleaner in the poorly jabed hole through the top of the object he held in whitening knuckles. An audible breath slipped through his lips, hanging ajar for a second before his lips drew upward into a smile. 

“I, uhm,” Namjoon thrust the object toward you, “I made you something.”

It appeared to be made of three separate pieces of cardboard, a front and back cover with a sizable strip bent to accommodate either, acting as a mock spine. Purple construction paper was glued over the brown substance, dobs of glue staining some of the edges but flat otherwise. A trio of electric blue pipe cleaners sat in neatly spaced, tightly spun balls on the far left side, binding the ball of pages instead that had already begun to bend at the cardboard covers.  The same messy handwriting that covered the napkin now forgotten in Namjoon’s bed graced the front, the title of the novel larger than your name. The back held similar penmanship, the synopsis you’d provided to various companies scrawled just above a tiny, attempted portrait of you. 

“I know you said you got rid of the other one but if you ever wanted to try again, you know, to get it published—” Namjoon smiled, tucking his arms between his legs shyly as he leaned toward you, “—now you have a potential mock up to show them, too.”

You kissed him with your palm pressed into the pair of scissors he’d dropped when he heard you descend down the stairs, body leaned awkwardly over the counter until he stood to intercept you. His palm held onto the side of your neck while you clutched the book to your chest, breathing into the open seam of his lips. 

“Thank you so much.”

“I’d make you ten more copies if you wanted me to.”

Your laughter stopped just a hair short of kissing him again when there was a knocking at the front door, gentle at first and then frantic when you jumped away from Namjoon. Through the spaces in the shelves, you could see Jeongguk, his over exaggerated waving growing smaller as you and Namjoon approached. 

“Was I…” Jeongguk’s gaze flashed to Namjoon’s flushed cheeks when you pulled the door open, “Was I interrupting something?”

Namjoon did an astounding job of holding in his irritation, “What do you need, Guk?”

“Oh!” He perked up again, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. A sheet of paper was thrust against your chest, “Special delivery. You need to look at it now.”

“What—”

“No time to explain,” Jeongguk shot you a thumbs up, taking backward steps that had him stumbling over pieces of gravel on the sidewalk as he went to dash in the opposite direction of the hotel, “See you later!”

Namjoon went for the sheet of stickers while you came to inspect the tiny piece of notebook paper balanced on top of it. 

“Are those tiny aloe plants?” He continued to awe, pointing at the characters on the sheet. 

Hey dove, good news! I found your folder. If you want it uhm...look up. I guess. 

Taehyung stood across the street, hair entirely longer than how’d you’d left him, adorned in a matching baggy grey sweatsuit with your yellow folder clutched against his chest. 

He braced for the impact of your arms throwing themselves around his neck yet still managed to stumble back two or three paces in a fit of laughter as you clung to him. “Hey there,” He greeted, nose in your hair as he managed to properly weave his arms around your waist and squeeze. “How’ve you been?”

The initial joy seized in your heart as you pulled away to look at him, softening, “I’m not going to go back with you.”

Taehyung’s grin grew wider, all geometric edges and bouncing fringe as he nodded. A gentle understanding, leaning in closer to murmur, “I didn’t think you would, kid, not from the second you stepped out of the van—” After a second, he said a bit louder, “—and besides. That’s not what I asked you.”

You hummed thoughtfully, glancing over your shoulder to where Namjoon continued to regard the interaction fondly. You smiled, turning back to Taehyung. 

“Have you had breakfast yet?”

He shook his head, gentle in sliding his hands down your arms before taking your hands, shaking them gently between your bodies, “I’m not going to stay much longer,” One hand left you to take the folder he’d shoved underneath his arm, “Just wanted to bring you this.”

You took it gently, rubbing thoughtfully at the old rip in the spine. A few more had joined it from whatever turmoil it had endured in the last months. “Where did you find it?”

“I’d put it underneath your seat when I cleaned. To keep it safe,” Taehyung’s smile was regretful and amused all the same, “Forgot I put it there…”

“Are your succulents okay?”

“Mhm…” His hand cupped yours where you held the folder, “You still haven’t answered me. Are you okay?”

Another involuntary glance behind you to Namjoon who offered you a thumbs up this time. “Yeah,” You nodded, “Yeah. Yeah, Taehyung, I’m great.”

Taehyung’s smile was equally as fond, nodding once to your rapid ones, “I’m glad…” He trailed off, patting the folder in your grasp, “Well I, uhm, just came to return that to you so—”

“Can you keep it?”

“What?” 

“Can you keep it safe for me?” You pressed the folder back against his chest, “I don’t think I need it anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah I can…” Taehyung gradually pulled it closer until it was hugged against his chest, taking a step backward, “Yeah. I’ll keep it safe.” He made prolonged eye contact with you, smiling, “I’ll see you?”

“Of course,” You touched his chest, “And hey, Tae?”

“Hmm?”

You patted him and then your folder. 

“Don’t get lost out there.”

#bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts x reader #namjoon imagines #bts fluff #namjoon fluff #namjoon x reader #fic: lost

[sootbird]

Hey Rox, random question. How can one learn to draw? I mean, I got the whole take a pencil and a paper and practice everyday but I mean, after doing that you understand proportions, light, perspective? Naturally? Just by practicing everyday?

Artists telling people just to practice art and not giving them any solid starting place is a bullshit cop-out and something I’ve probably said at some point, but I’m going to rectify it now by giving you a comprehensive guide to starting art.

Some people may disagree with me (and honestly I recommend asking other artists this same question to see what they say and what you yourself agree with), but I think no matter what kind of 2D art you want to make, you should start with traditional, realistic drawing or painting. The reason for this (aside from anecdotal evidence of it working for me) is that learning to draw things that occur in real life gives you a foundation for branching out into different styles or media down the line. Even if you want to draw cartoons or anime, learning realistic drawing will help you, because it will familiarize you with the complicated shapes that more cartoony drawings simplify or exaggerate. For example, if you learn to draw a realistic nose, then you can see different ways to turn that realistic shape into a simplified version of itself. Practicing realistic art can also help train your eye and get you accustomed to different techniques such as line quality, shading, color theory, composition, and various types of art materials, or media, as I will probably begin referring to it as.

So, the next step is to figure out how the hell to start learning to draw realistic stuff. I will help, using written descriptions, tips, and videos I have found online to help you.

First off is Materials/Media.

You can make art with practically anything. Anything from the humble paper and pencil to the most expensive and high-end art supplies. You can burn a piece of wood in a fire for a bit and then use the charred end to make marks with. You can use mud to paint with. You can dip your toe in ink and use that as a paintbrush. My point is that you can really get creative with it and I think creating art should be a joyful experience, not a painful one.

Art supplies can be very expensive, so for beginners I really do recommend a paper and pencil. Not a mechanical pencil either, but one of those wooden ones. They work well for drawing because you can use both the point and the side of the lead to make marks with. I also recommend getting a good eraser. My favorite kind are the grey kneadable ones, because you can squish them into any shape you need for any particular area that needs erasing. I’ll link to some on Amazon later on.

You can practice pencil drawings on lined paper (I have a whole lot of sketches I did in high school that are just on lined paper), printer paper, cardboard, etc, or you could invest in a sketchbook. Cheap sketchbooks are pretty easy to find, like they have them at my local grocery store, but you can also find them online for fairly cheap. Sketchbooks are made of different paper depending on the media (drawing materials) that you’re using. Paper intended for pencil drawings tends to have quite a fine grain for smooth blending, whereas paper in watercolor sketchbooks is rough and absorbent to suit the wet medium. You can get a sketchbook with any paper you want, really. I’ve done pencil drawings on pastel paper before, because it was the only paper around, and it still looked nice, just different than it would on finer grain paper. What materials you choose to use depends on the look you’re going for, and you’ll figure that out more with experience.

To start with, just grab some paper and a pencil and start making marks on it. See how many different looking marks you can make on the paper. I’m not really talking about shapes persay, but literal marks with the pencil. Thin lines, thick lines, scribbles with lots of pressure or just a little bit of pressure. Scrape the side of the pencil along the paper and see what it does. Try blending the lines with your finger. Just take some time to play with the material without getting hung up on creating anything. Do this sort of experimenting with any new art material you’re introduced to. The first thing you should do with a new tool is acquaint yourself with it, and that’s what this is doing. Get used to how the pencil feels in your hand and what motions feel comfortable with it. Keep in mind that you don’t have to hold the pencil the same way as if you were writing. Often if I’m shading with a pencil, I will hold it with all of my fingers around it and use my thumb to put pressure on it.

Now, shading.

Shading and mark making go together, because shading is basically using the marks you’re making with your pencil or pen to indicate lightness vs. darkness. To practice mark making and the techniques that are used for shading, I recommend watching this video and drawing along with the exercise. The artist uses pens in it but you can do it with pencil too! 

When you’re ready, you can start trying to shade basic forms (shapes). Shading gives a two dimensional shape a three-dimensional look. It turns a flat circle into a sphere. Once you learn how to shade basic shapes, you can pretty much figure out how to shade just about anything. For example, once you learn how to shade a sphere, you know how to roughly shade a head! And what is an arm if not a cylinder? A nose if not a pyramid?

There are lots of videos online for practicing this. Here’s one that’s pretty good.

This is where I recommend starting. Once you are more comfortable with that, here is a list of things that you can look up and try to get a handle on, in what I think is a pretty alright order.

Perspective (one-point, two-point, three-point)

Value, Tint, Shade

Drawing negative space

Foreshortening

Composition

Drawing from life

Color theory

It would take me a very long time to outline all of this stuff, which is why I’ve given you that list of stuff to look for online. There are a lot of great resources out there and I recommend searching for them and comparing them. I can’t go into depth on everything right now because there’s a LOT of stuff, but I hope the little outline I gave you will help give you a foundation and know where to look and what to look for! If you have any questions about specific stuff, feel free to come and ask me about it and I’ll try to help.

Here are links to some cheap art materials on Amazon:

Grey kneadable eraser

Sketchbook for pencil

Pen set

There are lots of other listings for stuff like this online, so do check around for what you want! The ones I linked are just options.

I hope this helped! Thank you for the ask anon, and good luck!

#ask box #anon #art tips #art instruction #long post #beginning art #sorry i petered out at the end it's just i'm so fuckin hungry rn #i'm about to lose my mind i haven't eaten all day like an idiot #Anonymous

[resinatingbeauty]

Making A Rune Set : My Process

One of the most popular items I create for my shop are rune sets, which are actually quite simple and inexpensive to create as they do not use many materials (depending on what you decide to make yours out of) There are also many advantages to creating resin runes over using wood / stones which can break, fracture, or lose their engraving / painting over time. If you’re the creative type or have been wanting to make your own resin runes, this is a tutorial/ guide made just for you and also a way to show off my creative process :) NOTE: I am NOT affiliated with these products or companies in any way other than what I use to create my own- what you are reading is an unsponsored opinion.

What I Use:

I have made rune sets I have in the shop for sale out of either Epoxy resin (FanAut brand shown in photos can be purchased on Amazon cheaply) or UV Resin (Puduo UV resin includes stirrers and silicone cups for beginners!), both of which have their advantages and disadvantages. If you’re a true beginner, I recommend sticking with epoxy resin as UV resin is far less forgiving (and expensive). You can use any product you wish- even polymer clay or paper mache- to form your own runes, these are just tried and true for me.

While you can create your own mold by casting dominoes or whatever shape you want to use for your runes in mold material, you can also purchase these flexible silicone molds on Amazon or Etsy fairly cheaply. They allow for the engraving effect, so you do not have to engrave them by hand or rely solely on paint. (I had just demolded some runes- excuse my mess)

I like to use the thermogenic pigments you see in the first two photos (my secret ingredients) combined with glow in the dark powder to create special FX rune sets that are magical unto themselves. As you can see, the pigment reacts to my body heat to change from purple to blue as I press on it. (idk where that gold leaf came from- you should really see my work space lol), but you may use whatever materials you wish for additives- mica pigments, alcohol inks, papers / photos (sealed of course)- whatever inspires you! I often incorporate Selenite crystal shards into my own runes as well, as Selenite will NOT react to the resin by reverting to Gypsum and will retain its lustrous crystals and appearance when cast. I have used other crystals as well, allowing their metaphysical properties to coalesce with the inorganic matter, creating an Orgone energy flow effect.

You will also need stir sticks (popsicle sticks will do), gloves or finger cots, silicone or disposable plastic measuring cups (3 for your epoxy mixture and one for each pigment you wish to use), wax paper or silicone mat for your work area, and a torch / toothpick to attack bubbles with. You may also wish to grab a large box to cover your runes while they cure to prevent dust from getting sealed within them. You’ll want to grab some sandpaper or fine grain files (nail files work) to use once your runes have fully cured to smooth the edges.

Tips:

Lay your molds out flat. Store bought molds will have all 25 tiles. Pour a thin layer of clear resin in each reservoir before pouring in pigments or embedding objects.

To get bubbles to come to the surface, use a blow dryer or heat gun to heat the resin and pop them with your torch or toothpick. Bubbles are the most likely to occur around the edges of each engraved glyph, the corners of each tile, and approximately 35 mins into your work as the resin begins to cure and harden. Pay attention to your work time and how long you have to work with your brand of epoxy.

For complex or intricate designs, pour each in layers, allowing 2-4 hours in between for your resin to cure enough so the colors do not mix.

It isn’t necessary to fill each tile’s reservoir to the brim. Try filling them 3/4 of the way each, allowing some room at the top so the resin doesn’t expand and overflow while curing (think pouring muffin mix / batter into muffin cups)

Once your runes have cured (12-24 hours or whatever your product states) you’ll want to gently pop each one out of the mold. If your runes still feel flexible, tacky, or gelatinous, they need to sit longer to cure. Silicone molds are easy to demold, but plastic and other materials can be tricky. If you have trouble removing your project from your mold, there is an abundance of tips / guides on the Resin Obsession blog.

Above you see I have Mod Podge Gloss sealant and some acrylic paint markers. These are for outlining / painting the glyph’s engravings so they stand out against the color of each tile, with the Mod Podge to seal the paint so it doesn’t smudge after drying, adding a nice glossy finish. You can even use metallic Sharpies or other permanent markers to outline, which ironically will stay without a sealant. Should you choose to paint each glyph like I do and end up with a mess, grab some alcohol pads or swabs to touch up any mistakes before applying your sealant. This step is entirely optional- you don’t have to apply a sealant on the paint to benefit from outlining each glyph nor do you even have to paint them - do whatever you think looks amazing! Note: you only need a thin layer of gloss / sealant for this and it can be diluted.

You may wonder why I begin hand filing each rune after I paint and seal them. This is because sometimes the sealant runs off the tile and creates its own cluster of sad hardened material extending off the bottom. I use a regular old nail file on the back of each tile, filing until the back is level, or damn near close to it, and smooth. Depending on the texture of the rune and what resin I chose, I may switch to a very fine grain sandpaper or nail buffing block to smooth and polish.

After filing, I run each rune under warm water and add some mild soap, putting them all into a bowl and swirling / allowing them to soak to remove all residue and debris leftover from filing. More filing may take place after the initial soak if I feel it is needed. I then drain the bowl and dump the tiles on a towel to allow them to air dry.

That’s about it- congratulations! You have made your first rune set! All of this takes place before your runes arrive to you, with each set being spiritually cleansed and charged before packaging. The products mentioned in this guide may be purchased at your local Dollar Store (disposable crafting supplies), craft or hobby store, or online at Amazon / Etsy fairly cheaply.

I hope you enjoyed this guide and thank you for taking a look at my personal creative process! You can find my custom, handmade rune sets in my Etsy shop if you are not as creatively inclined as well!

Happy crafting & blessed be !

Xo Samantha

#epoxy resin for beginners #handmade #one of a kind #rune sets #handmade runes #etsy seller #crafting #arts & crafts #resin tutorial #epoxy resin tutorial #rune casting #creating your own runes #custom runes #witchblr #witchy things #wiccan #witchcraft #witch #resin jewelry #crystals #magick #crafty things #diy #diy tutorial #color change #ecletic pagan #crystaljewelry #wicca

[flowercoasts]

Hey I saw from your beaujes ao3 fic (which was incredible I already left a comment there but) that you're taking requests and uhhhh I have one: ANYTHING darrow x fjord literally anything. Beaujes is welcome as well. Maybe comphet discovery like the beaujes fic? That would be nice. Just anything fjarrow and fluffy and no content warnings and a happy ending haha

“Hey, mind if I get you a coffee?” 

Fjord blinks at Darrow’s proffered hand. “Uh.”

When Darrow smiles, it’s wide and bright, his eyes sparkling in the midmorning sun, glinting off of his shiny armor. It’s almost a little blinding, to be honest, and Fjord has to squint a little to see past the glare. 

“Hm… You know -“ Beau elbows him. Fjord whips around to see her raising her eyebrows very pointedly as if to say do it. Behind her, Jester and Nott nod enthusiastically along with matching smiles, while Yasha very unsubtly slides a gold coin over the table. 

What? He mouths to her. 

Beau points at Darrow. Then sighs at Fjord confused look and points again, gesturing from Fjord to Darrow and back, like that’ll help clear up any confusion. 

It doesn’t really, but if they want Fjord to hang out with him there’s no real reason to not go. So, why not? 

“Sure,” Fjord replies, side-eyeing Beau for a second more before turning back to Darrow, who’s grinning even wider now, all shiny teeth and bright eyes. Fjord grins back, albeit a little more hesitant as he places his hand in Darrow’s outstretched palm. 

With a gentle but strong tug, Darrow pulls Fjord up to standing. “Perfect! I know just the place.” 

“Lead the way,” Fjord says, ignoring the snickering of his friends behind him as his ears suddenly warm. 

Darrow’s eyes are sparkling as he pulls Fjord through the door of the bakery and out into the open street, their hands still palm to palm, even when Darrow stops pulling and just starts ambling along the road. His hand is warm, the weight of it easing something in Fjord that he can’t quite explain. Probably just the sun feeling so nice on his skin after a while spent in the sun-less Xhorhas. Or maybe it’s a paladin thing. Maybe. Probably. 

“How’ve you been, Fjord? Haven’t seen you much since the fight down in Rexxentrum - what brings you to the coast?” Darrow swings their hands lightly between them. 

Fjord runs a hand through his hair, averts his gaze from Darrow’s intense eyes. “Oh, you know. Been great, actually, adventuring with my friends and slaying monsters and all that.” When he looks back, Darrow is still staring at him, which is kind of a lot to take in and a bit confusing, if Fjord’s being perfectly honest. He clears his throat. “I’m actually from the coast. Port Damali. We wanted to come back to Nicodranis though, for a little vacation. It gets tiring after a while - we wanted to see something beautiful for once, you know?”

“I do know.” Darrow smiles, and there’s a certain lilt to his mouth as he regards Fjord with a heavy gaze. Briefly, Fjord wonders if all paladins are like this, or if it’s just Darrow. Maybe he should try being more intense like him? “Ah, we’re here.”

‘Here’ is a large wooden building, a small little boutique on the wharf that’s a little worn with age. There’s two large windows that take up practically the whole front of the shop, and flowers grow brightly from the windowsill. It’s a nice place, probably somewhere Cad or Yasha would go, just because of the aesthetic. 

Darrow lets go of Fjord’s hand to hold open the door, and Fjord doesn’t examine why his hand feels so empty afterwards. “After you.” 

How is his smile so charming? Is that a paladin thing too? “Thanks.” 

The inside of the shop is just as quaint and flowery as the outside. Streaming rays of sunlight hit beautiful potted plants sitting on the tables and countertops, which are all a nice birch wood and treated with some sort of shiny blue wax. It’s a nice place - aromatic too, with coffee and light menagerie coast specialty spices in the air. It reminds Fjord a lot of the little places by the beach in Port Damali, the ones he’d go to when they were docked after weeks on the open sea. 

A man with long red hair peeks up from under the bar counter, his face lighting up with a grin as soon as he sees Darrow walking in. 

“Hey, long time no see!” 

Darrow spreads his arms wide, his ever-present grin glowing as he hugs the man from across the long countertop. “Fenriel! It’s been awhile man, how’s everything going?”

“Pretty good, pretty good! Been missing my favorite customer, though.” The man, Fenriel, begins to make a drink, pouring liquids and syrups into a decently sized mug - even though neither of them gave their order yet. “Hey, who’s your friend?”

“This is Fjord.” Darrow turns, and his wide grin softens a bit around the edges. Fjord tries to mimic it. 

“Hello. Nice to meet you.” 

Fenriel takes one good long look at Fjord, not bothering to hide the way his eyes sweep up and down his body. He turns to Darrow with a smirk. “Handsome.” Then, almost like it never happened, he turns back to Fjord and sticks his hand out. “Nice to meet you Fjord. I’m Fenriel, keeper of the Coffeebean Corner.” 

Reaching over the counter to shake Fenriel’s hand, Fjord glances over at Darrow to find his cheeks somewhat red and splotchy. Before he can ask why, Fenriel breaks their handshake to sweep both arms over the countertop grandly. 

“Welcome to Coffebean Corner!” He smiles, rapping his knuckles against the grain of the wooden countertop. “What can I get ya?” 

“Uh.” Fjord looks to Darrow, who nods encouragingly. “You know what? Surprise me.” 

A cheshire cat grin crawls across Fenriel’s face. “That’s what we like to hear. You two can take a table and I’ll bring it over.” 

“Thank you. How much -“

Darrow places his hand over Fjord’s, stopping him from reaching into his bag. Fjord looks up and Darrow is smiling kindly at him, eyes still sparkling in that weird charming way of his. “I got it.” With his other hand, Darrow reaches into his pocket and takes out two silver and slides them over the countertop. 

Fenriel’s eyes have a glint in them that Fjord can’t parse out, but he takes the coin with a smile and waves over to a table near the window. 

Still holding Fjord’s hand, Darrow leads them to the white and blue wood table. He drops Fjord’s hand to pull out their chairs with a flourish and a kind smile. Seriously, is this a paladin thing? The kind smile and nice eyes and handsome face and chivalrous attitude? Fjord should ask sometime. Maybe later, after the blush is down from his cheeks. If it’s a paladin thing, then Darrow’s seriously mastered the art of it. 

Fjord clears his throat, rubs the back of his neck to avoid looking at Darrow straight in the eye across the table. “So. This is your favorite coffee place?”

“Mhm. Only place I know that sells Spiced Ginger Coffee.” 

“… Spiced Ginger Coffee.” 

“Trust me,” Darrow says, smiling at Fjord’s dubious expression. Fenriel walks over then, carrying two large mugs - including the mug he filled earlier when they were talking at the bar. 

“Your usual and today’s special for Fjord.” With a wink, Fenriel slides a coffee and a plate full of steaming something in front of Fjord. “Enjoy.”

“Thanks.” Fjord squints down at the plate, which is a cookie shaped like a heart. “I didn’t order this…?”

“On the house.” Taking one long last look at Darrow, Fenriel steps away, back behind the counter to leave the two of them alone with their food and drinks. 

The drink in his mug is steaming, and the liquid inside is a pale cream. It’s topped with what looks like shredded nutmeg and… cinnamon? Some other spice that smells nutty and cozy. Very Nicodranis. Fjord takes a cautious sip. Then instantly takes another. 

“Good?” Darrow laughs a bit at Fjord’s enthusiasm. 

A thumbs up in response as Fjord swallows another big gulp. “Amazing.”

“Wanna try mine?” 

Fjord eyes his mug - it certainly looks like a light coffee, but the smell of spices is so present that it’s nearly overpowering. “Hm.” He looks up at Darrow, whose eyes are so soft and open in the sun. “Ah, sure.”

Their fingers brush lightly as Darrow passes his mug over, and Fjord coughs away the blush that rises high on his cheeks. It’s probably just a side effect of the whole paladin thing that he really should ask Darrow about. With one last dubious glance at the drink, Fjord takes a sip. 

“What do you think?”

It’s surprisingly rich, creamy, and light all at the same time. The ginger is present enough to taste but not overpowering the drink - it’s honestly amazing. Maybe even better than the other drink. Fjord blinks. “Best drink I’ve ever had.” 

“Next time we come here, we can both buy.” Darrow’s smile is nearly as blinding as the sun streaming in through the window. Fjord stares at it, wonders why gold looks so good on him, the soft colors painting his strong jaw so nicely. It’s a warm feeling coming through his chest as he looks at Darrow, who’s still waiting for some sort of response - 

Wait. 

“Next time?” 

Darrow blushes, a beautiful red on his handsome face. “I mean, if you’d like to go on another date.” He rubs at the back of his neck and glances away. 

Oh.

Not a paladin thing. 

Just a Darrow thing. Which, surprisingly, makes it better. Or maybe not surprisingly. Because Darrow’s handsome, kind, and very charming, and Fjord’s hand is still tingling from where Darrow pressed his palm to it. Warmth fills Fjord’s chest tenfold as he fondly looks at Darrow’s bashful face, who’s looking at the floor. 

Fjord smiles and places his hand over Darrow’s, fingers gently intertwining. “I’d like that very much.” 

~~~

☕️ also on AO3! kofi link in bio and prompts are open ☕️

#elena talks #prompt #prompt fill #fjarrow #fjord x darrow #critical role #cr fic #cr fanfiction #critical role fanfiction #there will be a part 2!! #this was super fun thanks for the prompt :) #my writing #mine #djarrow

[cuttingboardreviews-blog]

The best cuttinGboard

Let's face it: a cutting board is not the sexiest utensil in your kitchen. It's not shiny, it doesn't turn, flash, or beep. In fact, it doesn't perform any high-tech hijinks at all. It just sits there. Still, a high-quality cutting board is an essential culinary tool. The preparation of many foods and meals requires that you use one. In addition, a high-quality cutting board can help keep you and your family healthy by preventing foodborne illness. Some of them are even beautiful to display on your kitchen counter.

Most experts agree that you should have a minimum of two cutting boards: one for cutting raw meats and one for chopping raw vegetables and everything else. There are cutting boards made from a variety of materials, but according to experts, including those at  and  plastic and wood are best for most kitchens. You can also get glass ones, but they are prone to shattering and they dull your knives quickly.

Pros and cons: Plastic cutting boards

One of the main benefits of using a plastic cutting board is that it is easier to clean. In most cases, it can be run through the dishwasher. That said, all plastic boards scar over time and deep knife gouges can eventually become home to dangerous bacteria that is difficult to remove.

A study from the , found that plastic cutting boards actually had more bacteria than their wooden counterparts. In addition, wooden cutting boards fared better than plastic ones when exposed to toxic bacteria strains like Salmonella, E.coli, and Listeria.

Plastic also tends to be rougher on your knives than wood. Still, plastic is very durable, affordable, requires almost no maintenance, and if you throw out your plastic boards after two years of use, plastic can be an excellent option.

Most plastic cutting boards are made of polyethylene or polypropylene. Cutting mats are also a popular option. They are made of flexible silicone or other softer plastics and they typically come in sets of three or four in a variety of bright colors. The idea is that you use one color for meat, one for veggies, and so on.

Pros and cons: Wooden cutting boards

Wooden cutting boards look gorgeous and you can get them in tons of different styles, shapes, and wood grains. Cutting boards are made from pecan, walnut, teak, and cherry, but by far the most popular type of wood is maple. Why? Maple is a beautiful light wood, it is strong, sustainable, and abundant in North America.Wood boards are also heavier and feel good to use. They also won't dull your knives much, either. Still, wooden cutting boards require much more maintenance than plastic ones. They must be washed and dried carefully after each use and oiled regularly.

Wooden cutting boards come in two versions: end grain boards and edge grain boards. End grain boards are the more expensive option of the two. They're made of several board ends glued together. They tend to be more gentle on knives, but more susceptible to drying out, staining, and cracking. Meanwhile, edge grain boards are easier to clean, but they tend to be harder on knife edges than end grain boards. However, they withstand moisture-based cracking and splitting better.

Pros and cons: Bamboo and composite cutting boards

Bamboo cutting boards are another popular option. Many people think bamboo is a wood, but it's actually a grass. Like wood, it has a porous surface, but it's even harder than wood. Bamboo cutting boards are attractive, lightweight, and affordable. This good-looking material is also an excellent choice for eco-conscious consumers because bamboo is a highly renewable resource - a typical bamboo shoot can become fully mature within three to six years - and is often raised organically due to the ease of farming it. Bamboo cutting boards also need to be oiled on a regular basis, according to 

You can also opt for a composite cutting board, which is made from a combination of wood fibers and phenolic resins. Epicurean is the most popular brand name in composite cutting boards. Food-safe, long-lasting, and incredibly durable, composite cutting boards, unfortunately, do a number on your knives.

Other things to look for in a cutting board

According to , you should also consider the size of cutting board you need, how you're going to use it, and whether you need more than one to do the job.

Some cutting boards have features that make it easier to cut and serve meat. For instance, some models have raised pyramid points that puncture that meat to hold it securely, while others have an indentation in the center of the board where the meat can sit securely. A board with handles can also make it easier to transport the meat to the table.

If you'll be using the board for cutting meat, you may opt for a model with a generous juice trench around the board's perimeter. The trench should be deep and wide enough to catch the juice without having it drain onto the countertop. Some juice trenches feature a notch on the rim that serves as a pouring spout.

 Many cutting boards are reversible, allowing you to use both sides and to prevent cross contamination. Some experts claim this is the best reason to select a board without feet, although others like the extra stability that feet provide. But there's an easy way to ensure that your board doesn't slip around the counter: simply wet a paper towel and insert it under the board.

With all that in mind, here are our picks for the best cutting boards. We've included a plastic option, a high-end solid wood one, a pack of cutting mats, a bamboo board set, and a stunning teak wood cutting board.

Here are the best cutting boards you can buy:

Find all the best offers at Disclosure: This post is brought to you by the  team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners. We frequently receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising sales team. We welcome your 

The best cutting board overall

The  plastic board is the darling of kitchen appliance and utensil reviewers everywhere. The 14.5 x 21-inch double-sided cutting board helps prevent cross contamination. Use the side with a juice groove for carving meat, and then simply flip it over to chop vegetables on the other side. Soft, tapered handles make the board easy to maneuver, and non-slip edges keep the board from shifting during use.

Made of durable polypropylene, the non-porous surface is odor-resistant and doesn't scratch as easily as other plastic materials. It won't dull sharp knives quickly, either. To top it all off, this cutting board is dishwasher safe.

The OXO cutting board gets consistent praise on Amazon for being durable and not absorbing odors or colors from pungent foods like onions and garlic.

"I love this cutting board. It doesn't slide around or bounce during use. It's very durable, gentle on my knives, and easy to clean. It's nicely weighted — heavy enough to stay in place, but light enough to lift and maneuver easily (when tipping ingredients into a bowl or hand washing in small sinks)" wrote one verified Amazon buyer on February 12, 2017.

Some Amazon users complain that the board warps in the dishwasher. Other users say they want to avoid this fate so they happily hand-wash the board with warm, soapy water. Other negative reviewers remark that the surface gets gouged too easily by any kind of knife, but that is a common occurrence for plastic cutting boards.

 Across the web, professional reviewers, including thos, and many more name the OXO Good Grips Cutting and Carving Board as one of the best cutting boards on the market.

Pros: Great value, double-sided board prevents cross-contamination, juice groove, easy to clean, durable plastic, lightweight and easy to maneuver, doesn't dull knives

Cons: Users note that it sometimes warps in the dishwasher

 The best high-end wood cutting board

The  is a work of art made out of solid wood. The name John Boos is synonymous with high-quaity wood cutting boards and butcher blocks. In fact, by the 1940s, John Boos butcher blocks were found in almost every restaurant and butcher shop in the country. Rumor has it that  are the standard in the White House.

This reversible cutting board is part of the esteemed Boos RA collection, which is known for its beautiful edge grain construction. The John Boos board is much thicker than many other cutting boards on the market, coming in at 2.25-inches thick. This heavy board weighs in at 27.5 pounds, so it won't slip or slide around the kitchen counter as you chop away. It's so gorgeous that you can even leave it on your kitchen counter permanently.

The RA03 features a hard maple edge grain construction with a cream finish, two flat sides, and slightly rounded edges. In addition, inset handles make it easy to move and rotate the board or to flip it to the reverse side. The cutting board comes with a one year warranty.

After using, this cutting board should be washed by hand in warm soapy water and dried immediately. It requires oil treatment as frequently as once a week.

There are more than 380 user reviews on Amazon with an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars. "One of the best purchases I have ever made," wrote Tonya N. Phillips on July 23, 2016. "Love my cutting board. I use it pretty much every day."

"I have waited months to buy my first John Boos board and I am not disappointed … This is very well constructed and it came to me smooth as silk. No rough spots, very clean edges, and the hand slots are perfect for flipping the board over for a clean, sanitized spot … I love that it is made right here in the U.S.A.," wrote Donna S in February 2015.

Some Amazon users complain that the board started to crack very shortly after receiving it. Other reviewers jump in and remind everyone that you really do have to oil it on a weekly basis.

[asfeedin]

Mother’s Day Gift Guide | Serious Eats

Mother’s Day Gift Guide | Serious Eats

Gift Types

Batch Cocktails: Make-Ahead Pitcher Drinks for Every Occasion

Serious Eats’ former drinks editor Maggie Hoffman has packed this book with 65 terrific make-ahead cocktail recipes. Entertaining guests while serving them libations should be stress-free, and this book makes it so.

Sorghum Syrup

Sorghum syrup is made from the pressed juice of sorghum grass, which grows prominently throughout the American South. This amber-colored syrup has a unique, nutty flavor that’s both sweet and savory. And since the 1960s, the Guenther family of Muddy Pond, Tennessee, has been making some of the best.

KitchenAid Pasta Attachment

This is hands down the KitchenAid attachment I use most often. It takes all of the frustration and fussiness out of making fresh pasta, and, unlike the manual alternatives out there, it’s incredibly easy and efficient to operate on your own. Hello, homemade ravioli!

Cacao Barry Extra Brute Cocoa Powder

It’s almost impossible to find good-quality Dutch cocoa in supermarkets, so make it easy for your favorite baker to whip up the best possible chocolate treats. This cocoa powder is unusually dark, with an earthy chocolate flavor for out-of-control brownies, devil’s food cake, and ice cream.

Pineapple Tumbler

Your mom might already be the ultimate entertainer, but this gift will make her parties even more fun. Sure, you can serve crushed-ice cocktails in a regular old glass, but these shiny pineapple-shaped tumblers really up the ante and make a tiki-themed evening feel special.

Sorghum’s Savor

Kentucky-based writer Ronni Lundy is an expert on the foods and foodways of the Mountain South. In her book Sorghum’s Savor, she explores the history and folklore, and the many uses, of the region’s staple sweetener. Recipes range from fried chicken to sorbet.

Durable 3-Quart Saucier

How do you make perfect caramels, ice cream, gravies, and reductions? A nifty pot called a saucier. The durable stainless steel is cladded with aluminum for even heating, essential for temperamental ingredients like caramel and egg custards. A curved bottom makes whisking a snap (no more lumpy gravy!), and the wide top encourages evaporation for fast sauce reductions. You can buy cheaper versions than this All-Clad saucier, but this is one piece of equipment in which quality really makes a difference.

Le Creuset Wooden Scraping Spoon

I have a problem with wooden spoons. I collect them like nobody’s business. But there are a few I always turn back to, and this one, from Le Creuset, is one of them. It’s gorgeous to look at; it has a flat front, which makes it great for scraping up fond or stirring vegetables; and it’s got a smooth, ergonomic grip that makes using it a joy.

OXO Pop Containers

Not all containers are built the same. OXO’s Pop Containers stack neatly in the cabinet, make it easy to see exactly what’s inside, and have a neat push-button top that forms a perfectly airtight seal, keeping your dry pantry goods fresher for longer.

Colorful Tea Towels

Heavy-duty kitchen towels have a tendency to accrue big, ugly stains. That’s why it’s nice to keep a separate set of more attractive towels for gentle drying, transporting too-hot-to-handle serving dishes, and lining bread baskets. These colorful, summery tea towels instantly brighten any kitchen or tabletop, while still doing a stand-up job at the tasks they were made for.

Terra Cotta Cazuela

Daniel’s owned these terra cotta dishes in several sizes for many years now. They’re attractive enough to go straight from the oven to the table, and versatile enough to be used as baking dishes for cooked foods or as serving dishes for snacks when you’re hosting guests.

Hawker Fare: Stories & Recipes from a Refugee Chef’s Isan Thai & Lao Roots

Hawker Fare is a wonderful introduction to some of the flavors that make Isan and Lao cuisines unique. The recipes are excellent, but what we find so compelling about the book is Syhabout’s story: a refugee who arrived with his family in the United States at the age of two, Syhabout went on to pursue a career in fine-dining. Only after establishing himself did he embark on a personal journey of discovery to find out more about the food of his forebears.

Bangkok: Recipes and Stories from the Heart of Thailand

Bangkok is a great gift for anyone who loves cooking Thai food at home and wants to expand their culinary repertoire. It’s a steal for the noodle soups alone, but we particularly enjoy Punyaratabandhu’s seafood recipes, like the pan-fried salted king mackerel steak.

Unicorn Magnum Pepper Mill

I’ll admit it: I’m a pepper mill snob. I need my mill to produce a shower of evenly crushed peppercorns. I want to be able to control the size of those grains, from a rough crush to a fine powder. Not only that, I want my pepper mill to last. With a solid metal burr and a unique easy-to-load design, this is my favorite pepper mill of all time.

The Noma Guide to Fermentation

The hottest new nerdy book of kitchen geekery has to be The Noma Guide to Fermentation by Rene Redzepi and David Zilber. If you know someone who’s mixed koji up with dried fish to make a kind of fish sauce, this is the book for them. Also a good gift for anyone who’s into drying meats or pickling—it details methods and processes that take those hobbies a step further.

Pretty Pinch Bowls

These colorful bowls make setting up your mise en place a little more fun, but they’re also great for bringing extra seasonings to the table, like fennel seeds and pepper flakes for pizza.

OXO Stainless Steel Scraper

A good bench scraper is one of those tools people don’t think they need until they start using it. I use it for everything from transferring chopped vegetables or herbs from one place to another, to portioning dough, to giving my cutting board a quick clean. Next to my chef’s knife, the bench scraper is the tool you’ll see in my hand most often.

Smuggler’s Cove

This remarkable book, from Martin and Rebecca Cate of San Francisco’s Smuggler’s Cove, traces the birth and evolution of exotic drinks and tiki bars—bars that embodied an American escapist fantasy. A lively exploration of our country’s drinking history (and the current tiki scene), it’s essential reading for rum lovers, offering the best categorization we’ve encountered of the head-spinningly diverse spirit. The mai tai recipe is great, too.

Digital Electric Gooseneck Kettle

This is the electric kettle of my coffee-delayed dreams. It has an elegant gooseneck spout that makes pouring a thin, controlled stream easy (very helpful for Chemex and other pourover coffee methods), and a base with controls that allow you to set a specific temperature and hold it there.

Citrus Press

For years, I thought citrus presses were overhyped, absurdly specific, rarely useful, space-consuming, money-wasting gadgets. But it took only one use to see just how wrong I’d been—not only does a citrus press guarantee that you’ll get way more juice out of every lemon and lime you squeeze, but you can say good-bye to stinging papercuts and all those infuriating attempts at pinching slippery stray seeds from your salad dressings and cocktails.

Zingerman’s Gift Certificate

It’s hard to find a better-curated food catalog than Zingerman’s. They are righteous folks, they know seriously delicious food when they come across it, and they sell it at a fair price. Nothing in the catalog is cheap, but then again, good food rarely is. So whether you order cheese or olive oil or bread from Zingerman’s, you can be confident you’re going to be very happy when it arrives at your house.

Dish Towel and Apron in One

Kitchen towels are always welcome in any cook’s kitchen, but these can also double up as a half-apron in a pinch. Plus, they’re of a nice enough quality to show Mom that she didn’t just raise a practical child; she also raised one with an eye for flair.

Cast Iron Skillet

Old cast iron has a perfectly smooth nonstick surface that’s surprisingly easy to maintain. You can sear, bake, roast, braise, stew, and deep-fry in it, and there’s nothing more thoughtful than a gift that you have to expend a bit of effort to find (check out eBay, yard sales, and flea markets). Of course, these modern Lodge pans will do in a pinch if vintage isn’t in the cards.

Tajine

I’ve been lusting after one of these hand-painted ceramic tajines since seeing one in a cookware store a couple years ago. They require some special care, and possibly a heat diffuser to prevent cracking from intense direct heat, but I think they’re worth it just to look at, even if you never cook in them. If you do, a future of flavorful North African stews, presented beautifully at the table, awaits. They also come in a variety of designs and colors, meaning there’s the perfect pick for any home.

Uuni 2S Pizza Oven

There are a lot of custom-designed pizza ovens out there in various price ranges. I haven’t tested all of them, but my favorite so far is the Uuni 2S. It consists of a small stainless steel box with a pizza stone set inside it. You load up a hopper on the rear of the unit with wood pellets, light it up with a torch or lighter fluid, and let it preheat. About 15 minutes later, you’re ready to cook. This little powerhouse hits temperatures in excess of 900°F and bakes up Neapolitan-sized pizzas in just 60 to 90 seconds.

Elizabeth David on Vegetables

Published on what would have been the late British author’s 100th birthday, Elizabeth David’s On Vegetables will teach you how a bag of grocery store onions can be transformed into an unforgettable roasted side dish, and how some fresh shelled peas can yield the most vibrant soup you’ve ever tasted. Filled with recipes that are simple, straightforward, yet often revelatory, this book also features a few of David’s best essays, as well as gorgeous photography.

Paring Knife

Paring knives don’t need to cost a lot to do their job—questions of balance and build quality matter less in a knife that fits almost entirely in the palm of your hand. Of all the ones I tested, this inexpensive blade from Wüsthof came out on top, with a razor-sharp edge and comfortable grip. This is my new go-to paring knife, and I already have several of them at work and home.

Chinese Tea Set With Gaiwan

Do you know someone who’s getting into tea? Like, really into tea? This is the tea set to get for that person. It comes with a traditional Chinese brewing vessel (a gaiwan), a decanter, four tasting cups, and a beautiful wood tea tray with a rack to store all the pieces. At $120, it’s not cheap, but it’s a bargain compared to other well-made tea sets, especially when you consider the high-quality, paper-thin porcelain. For tea lovers looking to dig into tea ceremonies, this set has everything you need.

Presto Tilt-N-Fold Griddle

Presto’s Tilt-n-Fold model is very simple to set up and operate, and it has a compact design that makes it easy to store in kitchen cabinets when not in use. It has a large, smooth, nonstick cooking surface that heats mostly evenly, can be set at an angle to drain grease, and is easy to clean. We love the price, too.

Awesome Chef’s Knife

High-quality Swedish steel and Japanese design, along with great features like a perfectly balanced handle and blade and an ergonomic bolster, make the Misono UX10 Santoku the most-used knife in my arsenal.

Black Matte Dinner Plates

Get these if you want to up your Instagram game! These are the plates we use the most in our photo shoots—the matte texture makes a great surface on which to make any food pop.

Redbreast 15-Year Irish Whiskey

For those who find Scotch too smoky, bourbon too sweet, and rye too spicy, Irish whiskey is the ideal gift. Redbreast emerges from the barrels complex and substantial; some of the whiskey is aged in sherry casks, lending it a weight and dark hue, while some is aged in bourbon casks, imparting characteristic vanilla flavors. There’s a hint of fruit up front and spice on the finish.

Mandoline Slicer

Does your mom love to make fancy salads, crowned with delicate ribbons of carrots? Is she obsessed with serving the perfect potato gratin at holidays meals? There are some kitchen tools that make the difference between amateur-looking food and pro-level stuff. A small mandoline is one of them. This one, from Oxo, is compact, easy to use, and very sharp. It only has three thickness settings, but in my experience, that more than covers most home slicing needs.

Otherland Candle

This handpoured soy-wax candle will look beautiful on your kitchen table— and the scent of Champagne, saffron, and leather, is just fragrant enough to offset any accidental burnt foods that no one needs to know about. Plus, the packaging, which comes with a customizable matchbox makes the candle an impressive (and affordable) gift.

Embossed Rolling Pin

For the baker who has it all, embossed rolling pins can make even the most traditional shortbread seem exciting again. I love this large, open paisley pattern so much, I used it for the cookies on the cover of my book! Its design works well with many styles of dough, so it’s a great starting point before you experiment with pins that have a more intricate pattern.

Recipe Journal

Trying to get your mom to finally write down all those family recipes? This sleek Moleskin journal will get her organized and become a precious family heirloom in the process.

Salt Cellar

Proper seasoning is one of the most important parts of cooking, and if you’re still using plain table salt from (heaven forbid!) a saltshaker, you’re shooting yourself in the food. Using kosher salt from a salt cellar lets you feel exactly how much salt is getting into your food, whether it’s a tiny pinch or a big ol’ wallop.

Liquid Intelligence

Dave Arnold (you might know of his bar, Booker and Dax in NYC) won’t just accept the common assumptions about cocktail technique—his mission in this excellent book is to dig into the science of how the very best drinks are made. This is a must-read for inquisitive types who like to host cocktail hour at home.

Round Griddle

My mom’s signature dish is her homemade lefse, a Norwegian potato flatbread, rolled gauze-thin and cooked on a round griddle at a blazing hot heat. Her old one has finally crapped out after many years of service, and I want to treat her to the best model on the market. If you’re not into the Scandi thing, you can use this griddle to make crepes, injera, or regular old pancakes.

Electric Countertop Pressure Cooker

A pressure cooker is a cooking vessel that just keeps on giving: Once you discover the time-saving feats it’s capable of, you’ll never look back. The good ones aren’t cheap, but man, is it ever worth having one. A countertop electric model gives you set-it-and-forget-it convenience. With the Breville Fast Slow Pro Cooker, not only do you have complete control over your pressure cooking (including any pressure level from 1.5 to 12 psi), you also have a slow cooker and a rice cooker built right in. It’ll even sear meat for stews.

The Apprentice

Insightful (and very well-written) memoir by the elder statesman of food and cooking in the United States. From his early memories of picking salad for his mother to his recollection of eating raw clams on a Connecticut pier, the book shows how food is not just a passion or a career; food, for Jacques Pépin, is life.

Rose and Orange Flower Water

Forget flowers, they’ll be dead by the end of the week, but these flower waters will last a lifetime. Mostly. Both rose and orange flower water will last just about forever on the shelf, and just a drop or two is all that’s needed to give any recipe an aromatic boost. Try a splash of rose water with a strawberry or rhubarb dessert, or orange flower water in a classic New York cheesecake, where their gentle perfume can work wonders.

Louie Mueller’s Beef and Jalapeño Sausages

When I had these Texas beef sausages delivered to Serious Eats World Headquarters, people were skeptical. The moment they took their first bite of these supremely juicy links, though, the office became totally silent. Louie Mueller’s beef and jalapeño sausages reduced the entire office to stunned, rapturous silence. And these suckers are so affordable, even with the shipping, that they’re perfect for serving at parties. You just might want to hand out bibs to protect everyone’s shirts. Phone orders only: 512-352-6206.

Meat Cleaver

This meat cleaver has a well-balanced weight, sharp edge, and solid construction—a boon since a lot of more-affordable cleavers like this one feel very cheap and after repeat use get wobbly around the handle.

Marble and Acacia Wood Cake Stand

Like a pretty Bundt pan, a beautiful cake stand has an aesthetic value of its own, even without a cake—but present it with Mom’s favorite cake on top, and it will also be a nice reminder of the day.

Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling

In this book, Meathead Goldwyn, the founder of AmazingRibs.com, distills decades of research on the art and science of barbecue and grilling into a single volume that shows not just the best ways to take food to live fire, but why the techniques work. Far more than a recipe book alone (though there are tons of bulletproof recipes), this text will teach your favorite barbecue lover the hard-tested fundamentals of outdoor cooking, giving them the confidence to cook anything, even without a recipe. The myth-busting and equipment tips alone were enough to get me hooked.

Lewis Bag

If you’re following my advice to buy your Mom some julep cups, you might as well go all the way and grab a canvas Lewis bag as well: It’s used to smash ice into a fine powder with a mallet. Unless, of course, she already owns an ice crusher.

Preserving the Japanese Way

If her first two books are any indication, Nancy Singleton Hachisu is poised to become the Julia Child of traditional Japanese home cooking. In this, her second book, she tackles the deeply fascinating—and even more delicious—world of Japanese preserving. From easy pickles made by packing foods in miso (kabocha squash! eggs! apple pears!) to homemade miso, salt-rubbed vegetables, and air-dried fish, this should be the next frontier in all your home preservation undertakings. I’m getting excited just thinking about it.

Fixed-Cup Spice Grinder

The sleek and minimalist design of the Krups means it’s easy to hold, handle, and store—perfect for anyone tight on space. Even without a removable bowl, cleanup is a cinch because spices never get trapped beneath the blade, and there are no unnecessary ridges or notches to clog with spices. The one-touch operation makes it easy to use, and it quickly yields a fine and consistent grind in both large, tough spices and smaller seeds.

Taketsuru Pure Malt Japanese Whisky

Anyone who appreciates Scotch (or good spirits in general) will embrace Nikka’s exquisite whiskies. The Taketsuru Pure Malt is named for the company’s founder, who studied in Scotland before bringing whisky distilling back to Japan. This bottling has a slight fruity character, with lingering sherry on the finish.

ThermoWorks Thermapen

The Cadillac of kitchen thermometers is indispensable when you’re roasting meat, cooking steaks, making candy, deep-frying, or carrying out any other task where precise temperature control is needed. It’s got a big display and a blazing-fast measuring time of under two seconds—you won’t find a better, easier-to-use thermometer out there.

Simple Coffee Maker

The Bonavita is one of the faster models we tested, and it earned high scores in nearly all of our tastings. A single switch governs all of its operations, making the brewing process incredibly simple.

Fancy Cheese Knives

Spending $50 on cheese knives feels a little silly, especially when a regular knife does the trick just fine. But that’s why they’re the perfect gift—arguably unnecessary, but nonetheless useful, they feel like a real luxury. I’m pretty sure they also raise your “real adult” status by at least 10 points. Especially when they’re these beautifully crafted Dubost Laguiole knives. I like the simplicity of the olivewood handles, but they do come in other colors and styles, with the same high-quality blades.

Be Your Own Bartender

This is a fun, interactive book featuring over a dozen flowcharts to guide you to the perfect drink for every mood and occasion.

BraveTart: Iconic American Desserts

Where pastry wizard Stella Parks goes deep on science for Serious Eats, her book BraveTart explores the secret history of iconic American desserts, along with updated recipes for all the classics you know and love. The perfect cookbook for any mom with a sweet tooth.

Wooden Pizza Peel for Launching Pizzas

Wooden peels absorb excess moisture and have a rougher surface than metal, which means that your stretched and topped pizza dough will remain loose and easy to launch far longer, saving you from potential pizza-spilled-all-over-the-oven accidents. Though there are cheaper options around, I love my Perfect Peel Baker’s Board, handcrafted to last a lifetime from gorgeous solid cherrywood. They’ll even put initials or a logo on it if you’d like!

Breville Espresso Machine

If you want to start making legit espresso at home, this machine from Breville is a great investment. We like that it has a built-in burr grinder that will stay set at whatever dosage you’ve decided is best for your shot, as well as an adjustable pre-infusion time. Getting the hang of it—and dialing in—takes a while, but ultimately, the results are impressive.

ThermoWorks ThermoPop

In the inexpensive-thermometer department, the ThermoPop comes in an impressive package. An easy-to-read display rotates at the touch of a button, so you don’t have to twist your head to read it. It takes a few seconds longer to read temperatures than its big brother, the Thermapen, but it’s every bit as accurate.

Korean Fermenter Crock

These fermentation crocks come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but they all have the same smart design: An inner lid can be pressed down against the surface of the brine, ensuring the vegetables remain submerged (and thus don’t rot), while the lids lock into place to keep bugs out.

Carbon Steel Omelette Pan

A good carbon steel has many of the qualities that make cast iron great—it’s durable, it forms a completely nonstick surface if cared for properly, and it’s inexpensive—but it’s lighter and easier to maneuver, making it great for sautéing and searing everyday foods.

GelPro Floor Mat

If you love to cook and host parties, you’ll know that a lot of prep time is spent on your feet. Why not make at least the cooking part a bit more comfortable with one of these gel mats? It’ll provide some nice cushion under your feet, so when it’s time to put on your party shoes, you’ll be ready.

Snowe Flatware

Functional, but with an elegant twist: The width of the forks and spoons is just slightly smaller than that of your standard set, and they feel slightly longer in the hand. This set is a good and long-lasting upgrade to those starter Ikea sets.

Anova Precision Cooker

Sous vide cooking—cooking foods in vacuum-sealed pouches in precisely controlled water baths—is no longer the exclusive preserve of fancy restaurant kitchens. The Anova Precision Cooker is the best home water bath controller on the market, with an easy-to-use interface, Bluetooth support, rock-solid construction, a sleek look, and an affordable price tag to boot.

Recchiuti’s Chocolate Mendiants

These thin chocolate disks have a creamy, melt-in-your-mouth texture and a complex, pleasantly fruity bitterness. But it’s the scattered cacao nibs on top that take them from memorable to exceptional. The crunchy bits of bean are toasty and flavorful in their own right, but Recchiuti goes the extra mile, tossing them in caramel and fleur de sel for a brightly salty-sweet finish that electrifies each bite.

All-Clad Two-Quart Saucepan

This small 2-quart saucepan is perfect for making and warming sauces, cooking small portions of grain, and heating liquids.

Brooklyn Bartender

If you know someone who has a taste for a well-made cocktail, but lives far from the heart of the Brooklyn drinking scene, this book is the perfect gift. It features 300 innovative and classic drink recipes from the best bars of the borough; every cocktail we’ve tried from it so far has been killer. The drinks Carey Jones has selected aren’t dumbed down at all, but, for the most part, you’re not looking at mile-long ingredient lists, either.

Charcuterie

Ruhlman and Polcyn do a great job of demystifying one of the more abstruse cooking arts, and, while charcuterie may seem daunting, it can be gratifyingly easy. Start simple, with the pancetta, confit, rillettes, and duck prosciutto, and you’ll find yourself with a mold-inoculated curing chamber in no time.

Bourbon-Soaked Cherries

An ideal gift for any Manhattan, cherry, or all-around whiskey lover. These cherries trade the cloying sweetness of maraschinos for the boozy bass notes of great whiskey. Use them in your go-to whiskey cocktail, or to top a favorite dessert.

An Everlasting Meal

We don’t know if there’s a book about cooking that we’ve thought about more than this one by Tamar Adler, a former Chez Panisse cook who was once an editor at Harper’s Magazine. It’s about cooking simply, and enjoying the simple meals that naturally follow from thinking about your ingredients in cycles. We forget, sometimes, that the leftover stems from blanched broccoli are wonderful cooked with olive oil and piled on toast; that their cooking liquid could be the base of a soup; that the stems of greens like Swiss chard and kale make a lovely pesto. She reminds us that stale bread can make something delicious and that yesterday’s bean broth could be the start of a pasta dish today. This book sends the valuable message that dinner doesn’t always need to be a big deal.

Paleta Iberico de Bellota

The best ham on earth doesn’t come cheap, but this is the caviar of pork: jamón ibérico puro de bellota, from purebred Ibérico pigs raised on acorns for a ham that’s nutty and sweet, with meltingly soft fat.

Dansk Kobenstyle 2-Quart Casserole

A few months back, Kristina’s mom stopped dead in her tracks when she spotted a pair of Dansk Kobenstyle pots in the window of a cookware store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “Can you imagine doing a fondue party out of one of those?” she squealed. If there’s one thing Kristina’s mom loves, it’s a themed party, especially one with cheese involved. And Kristina has to agree that these little guys are perfect for all your entertaining needs—they look great on a table, and the lid doubles as a trivet to protect surfaces while you’re serving.

Metal Pizza Peel for Retrieving Pizzas

Wooden pizza peels are too thick to easily slide under a pie once it’s hit the oven. For that, you’ll want a thin-bladed metal peel. Basic models made of thin-gauge aluminum, like this Kitchen Supply peel, are just fine for the occasional baker, but they’ll bend and warp eventually. If you’re going to be making pizza multiple times a year for many years to come, you might want to spring for something a little more heavy-duty. I use the KettlePizza Pro Peel, which has a thick-gauge aluminum body that extends fully past the solid teakwood handle.

Pistachio Spread

Since first getting his hands on a jar of this pistachio spread, Sasha hasn’t shut up about it. Made from Sicilian pistachios, olive oil, sugar, and sea salt, it’s sweet, slightly salty, incredibly creamy, and just flat-out delicious. While it’s not cheap, this is one of those specialty products that are actually worth the price tag, and it makes a great gift. Spread it on bread, drizzle it over ice cream, or just eat it by the spoonful straight from the jar.

Smeg Toaster

After years of putting up with a cheap toaster that I picked up at the supermarket, I recently upgraded to this super fancy Italian job in cool mint. It’s sleek design and soothing pastel color transform the kitchen’s most boring appliance into a statement piece, and it really does a good job with the toast itself. Plus, I mean, it’s really dang pretty. If nothing else, you owe it to yourself to read this toaster’s priceless reviews.

Frankies 457 Olive Oil

Fancy olive oil always makes a good gift, but there’s a difference between fancy olive oil and good fancy olive oil. The house oil from Frankies 457 Sputino in Brooklyn is delicious (i.e. great on fresh bread and in dishes), is DOC cerified, and comes in a chic tin that prevents the light from spoiling the product.

Vietnamese Food Any Day

An eloquent ambassador for Vietnamese cuisine whose recipes are always reliable, Andrea Nguyen is one of our favorite cookbook authors. Vietnamese Food Any Day educates the reader about a variety of Vietnamese techniques and provides recipes that are eminently cookable—part of Nguyen’s goal with this book was to avoid calling for any esoteric or hard-to-find ingredients, so each and every recipe can be made with items that are easily found at a large grocery store.

Pretty Carving Board

What’s the point of perfectly roasting that turkey or prime rib if you don’t have a pretty surface to carve it on? I love this teak cutting board because it’s large enough for major projects, but lighter than thicker boards, making it easy to move from the kitchen to the dining room. It’s made from scraps of larger teak products, making this cutting board a good environmental choice as well.

Marble Pastry Slab

With their smooth surface and cool temperature, marble pastry slabs are a baker’s best friend. They’re great for rolling out pie crusts, laminating doughs, and tempering chocolate—plus, this one’s pretty enough (albeit heavy) to use as a serving platter.

Mortar and Pestle

A large mortar and pestle is one of the most underutilized kitchen tools. Not only is it faster than a spice grinder for small amounts of dry spices (particularly when it comes to cleaning), it draws out more flavor by crushing rather than shearing. It’s also the perfect tool for making pastes out of moist ingredients, like herbs, garlic, and shallots.

Stovetop Pressure Cooker

I tested dozens of stovetop pressure cookers before settling on Kuhn Rikon’s Duromatic. It has a heavy sandwiched-aluminum-and-steel base that gives you even heat, and a pressure gauge that makes telling exactly how much pressure has built up inside visual and intuitive.

Collapsible Freezer Lunch Bags

I don’t really consider myself a lunch-bag person, but when I have something cold to transport, there’s only one carrying case I reach for. These PackIt cooler bags come in a variety of sizes and styles, and all of them can be collapsed and chilled in the freezer overnight to provide refrigerator-level temperatures for a 12-hour period. I use mine most for bringing beers to the park or beach, or transporting raw meat to barbecues and campsites.

Ceramic Utensil Crock

To store tools like spatulas and whisks, a good old-fashioned crock will do the trick. We like this ceramic one, which looks extra pretty on the counter. Keep it right next to your stove so your most-used tools will be at an arm’s length whenever you need them.

Now & Again: Go-To Recipes, Inspired Menus + Endless Ideas for Reinventing Leftovers

This cookbook by Julia Turshen, author of Small Victories and Feed the Resistance, is full of simple, delicious meals for everyday eating, parties, and holidays. Better yet, each one includes a bunch of suggestions for how to remake it as leftovers. It’s a trove of great, creative ideas, and a must for any bookworm.

Wine Tote

This customizable (and monogrammable!) tote plus a bottle of Sancerre will make any wine drinker’s day.

Donabe Cookbook

This cookbook has been my guide to learning how to use my donabe cooker, and thus far it hasn’t let me down. It offers a wide range of recipes to help give you an idea of just how many one-pot dishes can be made using a donabe, plus background on the history and variety of donabe cookers.

Miracle-Gro Twelve Indoor Growing System

After previously lauding Aerogardens for how easy they make it to grow herbs at home (and how having a constant supply of fresh herbs has changed her cooking), Ariel’s upgraded to this larger system from Miracle-Gro. The increased size—it’s about as big as a side table—and bright lights allow you to grow a bounty of lettuces, herbs, and other greens, and you can program the app to turn the lights off and on according to your schedule. An expensive but excellent gift for anyone who loves fresh produce and fears their own black thumbs.

Granite Mortar and Pestle

With both parts made of rock-solid granite, the Thai mortar and pestle is (literally) a heavy hitter, and arguably the most versatile type of large mortar and pestle you can own. Its heft and weight, especially when combined with the stone-on-stone action that the all-granite build provides, make it ideal for one of its intended uses: making a Thai curry paste.

Baratza Virtuoso Coffee Grinder

Baratza’s Virtuoso coffee grinder is routinely picked by pros as the home grinder to beat and for good reason: Its well-made conical burrs produce a wide range of grind sizes, the results are consistent, the machine is solidly built from both metal and plastic, and it’s all backed up by good customer service.

Le Creuset Stoneware Rectangular Dish

When fall and winter roll around, I start thinking about rich, comforting casseroles, which means that these stoneware baking dishes get pulled out, filled, and popped into the oven at least once a week. They’re great-looking on the table and provide gentle, even cooking all around for really nice, crisp edges on your lasagna.

Acaia Pearl Coffee Scale

Coffee geeks will have a lot of fun with this coffee scale. It pairs with a smartphone through Bluetooth, and an accompanying app helps walk you through the brewing processes, like pourover and French press, calculating bean-to-water ratios and brew times. It can handle customization, so with each successive batch, you can really dial in on the variables to make the cup that tastes best to you. It can also be used as a basic kitchen scale with a maximum weight of two kilograms (about four and a half pounds), so it’s versatile beyond its primary purpose.

Messermeister Knife Case

Most professional cooks own a knife bag so they can tote their knives around from one job to another. But knife bags can be really useful storage options, as well. They’re compact, they can hold many knives, and they can be moved around as needed, which means you don’t necessarily need to have a dedicated knife drawer as long as you can find somewhere safe to stash your knives.

World’s Fair Barbecue Rub

Ariel discovered this spice mix 11 years ago, and it’s still one of her favorite things to give as a gift. It’s a perfect blend of everyday ingredients (shallots, garlic, paprika, and sea salt), but with unusual flavor notes from grains of paradise. She buys it by the pound to dump on meat, seafood, and even eggs, but you can start by picking it up a reasonably sized jar or bag.

The One-Bottle Cocktail

Organized by spirit—vodka, gin, agave, rum, brandy, and whiskey—with an additional section devoted to specific seasons and occasions, The One-Bottle Cocktail makes it easy to figure out how to polish off that lingering liter of rum and is guaranteed to expand your cocktail repertoire for your go-to bottle. It does so by forging surprising, nuanced, eminently sippable flavors from commonplace liquors and fresh fruits, herbs, and other seasonal ingredients, as well as vinegars, spices, and sodas. This is the kind of book that every home cocktail-maker should keep on their shelf.

Big Ice Cube Tray

If you like your whiskey with a giant ice cube, then you’ll really be into Mammoth Cubes—unlike ice cube trays from current competitor brands, these make eight cubes (not six) and are actually stackable, so they don’t require a section unto themselves in your freezer.

Joe Beef: Surviving the Apocalypse

This is a book for people who like to live extra large, and by that we mean people who are intrigued enough by the microwaved foie gras recipe to consider trying it some day. It’s a text that espouses an eating- and cooking-philosophy as much as it is a collection of recipes.

Small Baking Steel Griddle

These days, I keep this solid slab of steel permanently atop one of the burners of my stove. One side has a pebbled surface—ideal for getting extra-crisp, better-than-a-baking-stone crust on homemade pizzas. And, unlike a baking stone, this thing is going to last forever. The griddle arrives as shiny steel, but with just a few uses, it seasons up into a dark, slick nonstick surface that can be used for everything from pancakes to eggs to hamburgers to grilled cheese.

Joule Sous Vide Circulator

The ChefSteps Joule is the smallest circulator on the market. It’s sleek, compact design fits in a drawer and it heats quickly and accurately. It has the advantage of the ChefSteps community and legacy content built into its app, though its one downside is that it requires a smartphone or tablet along with a registered account to operate.

Buvette

Manhattan chef Jody Williams’s Buvette: The Pleasure of Good Food is as charming and inviting as the restaurant that inspired it. This is a book to get greasy and damp as you cook through its pages, and it’s a nightstand read, dreamy and warm, to flip through as you wind down. Channeling a traditional French bistro, with a bit of Italy and a touch of New York thrown in, the recipes are classics, both inspirational and totally doable. Some are so simple that they hardly count as recipes at all—they’re more like suggestions for how to better your day with a plate of food, from breakfast through dessert after a lingering, late-night supper. Perfect for your impossibly, effortlessly stylish friend.

Culinary Coloring Book

I’ve long been a fan of Jessie Kanelos Weiner’s vivid and imaginative watercolors—she’s done the art for several of our stories. But when Weiner released Edible Paradise: An Adult Coloring Book of Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables, I discovered a new affinity for her work. See, like many children, I grew up with coloring books. But, unlike most adults, I continue to buy them—and fill them—to this day. For that I can thank my mother, a licensed art therapist who has long promoted the pastime as a therapeutic outlet. Far from pushing a think-inside-the-box mentality, coloring provides a healthy space for self-expression and experimentation. And, for those who enjoy it, coloring can leave you with a profound sense of zen-like relaxation and accomplishment. Weiner’s fanciful landscapes are organized by season; they’re a riot of vegetation, edible plant life, and tantalizing market scenes. They’ll encourage your mom to paint (or pencil) the town red—in any colors she likes.

Anchovy Colatura

If you want to give the gift of umami, you owe it to your intended recipient to check out this aged Italian fish sauce. Hailing from the town of Cetara on the Amalfi Coast, colatura is made by aging anchovies and sea salt in chestnut barrels for roughly three years, producing a rich, deeply savory fish sauce that can be used as a flavor enhancer for meats, fish, or vegetables. Or, try it as the star of the show in spaghetti con la colatura.

Noodle Basket

If you make a fair amount of noodle soups at home, particularly for multiple people, you should pick up a couple of these baskets. (They’re also great for blanching small quantities of vegetables.) The baskets are cheap yet sturdy, and they’re smaller than a lot of the fancier ones out there, so they’ll fit in pots that are more home kitchen–sized.

Misono UX10 Chef’s Knife

A deft and nimble blade, Misono’s UX10 is one of the lightest-weight knives we tested. It’s razor-sharp right out of the box and handled every task we threw at it with ease, dicing an onion as if it were as soft as a blob of Jell-O and making paper-thin slices of smoked salmon as if the knife were a true slicer.

R. Murphy Duxbury Oyster Knife

I’ve used many, many oyster knives in my life, and the R. Murphy Duxbury knife is my hands-down favorite. It has a fat, grippy handle that’s easy to wield, and a short blade that tapers to a point and always manages to find the sweet spot on an oyster’s hinge. Pop! The slightly sharpened blade edges make slicing through the muscle and removing the top shell as smooth as butter.

Mercer Serving Bowl

With a neutral color and simple silhouette, this serving bowl is versatile enough to complement any table setting. It’s also big enough to accommodate a big salad or crowd-sized portion of stew.

Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking

I’ve never been to Zahav, the Philadelphia restaurant where Michael Solomonov serves his Israeli cuisine, but its namesake book has nevertheless changed the way I cook. His recipe for tahini sauce, which includes a novel technique for incorporating garlic and lemon, is alone worth the price of admission. I’ve loved the Yemenite beef soup (and the accompanying hot sauce), his wide focus on vegetarian-friendly dishes, and a host of homemade condiments that will elevate almost any meal, even if you don’t follow full recipes from the book.

Diaspora Co. Turmeric

This turmeric is as bright as a bar of gold, with a lovely, sleek label to match. Apart from the high-quality turmeric and nice packaging, the spice comes with a feel-good story: Diaspora Co. is run by queer women of color, and each jar purchased puts a much-higher-than-average amount of money back into the turmeric farmer’s hands.

Provisions: The Roots of Caribbean Cooking

Hoping to familiarize yourself with Jamaican food beyond jerk chicken and curried goat? Want to learn more about the evolution of Caribbean cuisine? Provisions: The Roots of Caribbean Cooking is the book for you. Suzanne and Michelle Rousseau share 150 bright and exciting vegetarian recipes inspired by the women who first taught the two sisters to cook. The recipes are accompanied by gorgeous photos, and a thorough history of Caribbean foodways. It’s an inspiring—and delicious—ode to the women who make Caribbean food great.

Fancy Glass Pitcher

I actually received this classic Waterford pitcher as a wedding gift, and my mom’s been eyeing it enviously ever since. I can’t say I blame her—it’s become a workhorse in my home. When I’m not using it to decant wine, it’s hard at work serving cocktails, ice water, and juices. And in between any special occasion, you can drop in some fresh flowers and use it as a vase.

D’Artagnan Porcelet Shoulder

It can be hard to find skin-on, bone-in pork shoulders for roasting, but luckily D’Artagnan has got us all covered with their fantastic porcelet shoulder. We think everyone should ditch the tired holiday spiral ham this year, and slow-roast a milk-fed piglet shoulder instead. We promise it won’t disappoint.

Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food

Beautiful photos accompany Nik Sharma’s impressive recipes. The best of the bunch embody the kind of inventive cuisine that draws from multiple cultures to produce dishes that can only be described as emphatically, joyously American, like the roasted carrots with sesame, caraway, chili, and nori. Great for cooks looking for inspiration yet still hopelessly devoted to classic, comforting dishes.

Staub Heritage Baking Dish

It can be easy to brush off appearances as unimportant, but tableside presentation is a big part of a baking dish’s appeal. If you want excellent performance combined with a handsome and classic design that will look great on your holiday table (or on your Instagram account), Staub is your best bet. This heavyweight dish heats evenly in the oven at temperatures up to 575°F (300°C) and has great heat retention, keeping food hotter longer when you’re serving. The generous four-quart capacity is ideal for large roasts and extra-deep casseroles.

Pedra Artisan Oval Platter

A large platter is a must-have for any household, especially during the holiday season. This oval platter has high enough sides to accommodate saucier dishes, while the gray-and-white hand-glazed finish gives it a one-of-a-kind feel.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread

Marco Colzani is a great Italian bean-to-bar chocolate maker, with a number of excellent products under his brand, Amaro. But it’s his spreads that have Ed addicted, particularly the Cacao Nocciole, or hazelnut-and-chocolate variety. Imagine a Nutella-like substance, but made with the freshest roasted hazelnuts and extra-chocolaty high-quality cocoa powder. It’s a lot to pay for a small jar, but my guess is that your mom is worth it, and more.

Wusthof Classic Chef’s Knife

If you’re dead set on a traditional German knife profile—characterized by a more curved blade that’s bigger and heavier than the Japanese options—the Wüsthof Classic continues to be a stalwart. It weighs more than most of the other knives tested, giving it a solid and sturdy feel, but it still handles well and has a sharp edge.

Wine Fridge

Take it from us: Living in hot urban apartments makes storing age-worthy wines nearly impossible, unless you don’t mind risking the life of a pricey Burgundy by putting it through years of extreme temperature swings. Anyone with an interest in building even a modest collection of special-occasion bottles should get a wine fridge. It’s a small investment that protects your real investment.

The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South

A wonderful gift for anyone who is interested in history, food, the history of food, and this terribly flawed but nonetheless beautiful thing we call America.

Plenty More

Plenty More highlights the versatility of vegetables with 120 inventive plant-based recipes. It takes a degree of commitment to cook through this book—many, though not all, of Ottolenghi’s recipes require extra time spent sourcing unusual ingredients or toiling in the kitchen—but the reward is food that is enigmatic and downright dazzling. The ideal gift for anyone who thinks vegetables are boring, and for those who know they’re not.

Chetna’s Healthy Indian

Chetna’s Healthy Indian is a bright, colorful ode to Indian home cooking. Written by Chetna Makan, an avid home cook and semifinalist on The Great British Baking Show, it offers an array of quick, wonderfully flavorful recipes. From a simple green bean, coconut, and tamarind salad to fish wrapped in floral banana leaf, this cookbook has something for everyone.

Jerusalem

One of the best cookbook gateways into Middle Eastern cuisine—an obsessive and personalized exploration of the many cultures and traditions that make up Jerusalem’s culinary world. What will you find here? A recipe for the best hummus of your life, for starters; messy-beautiful dips and salads; and the delicately spiced soups, grains, and vegetables Yotam Ottolenghi has become famous for.

Julep Cups

I don’t often recommend single-function items, but for the cocktail enthusiast, a couple of julep cups really are fun to have. There’s nothing like holding that metal cup frosted with ice on a blisteringly hot summer day—glass just doesn’t pull the effect off in the same way. If your Mom doesn’t have an ice crusher, check out my Lewis bag suggestion as well.

Serving bowl

There’s no such thing as too many serving bowls, and this simple two-tone piece goes with virtually everything. At 11.5 inches across, it’s the perfect size for mom’s favorite side dishes; in my house, it’s go-to for salads, roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes, and pasta.

Nordic Ware Platinum Collection Heritage Bundt Pan

A Bundt pan is essentially a functional sculpture that can spruce up an open kitchen shelf quite nicely, even if it never gets any use. Give one to the baker (or bakeware admirer) in your life, and, as long as you promise shared cake, I’m sure you’ll be allowed to borrow it any time.

Fish Scaler

A hefty weight and a narrow head design make this an extremely efficient fish scaler. I’ve used it on smallish porgies, bigger black sea bass and fluke, and just about everything in between. It’s a significant improvement over the clamshell I used to use, and something about its design reduces the spray of scales.

Donabe Cooker

I got one of these traditional Japanese clay pots for my birthday this year, and it’s quickly become an obsession. Not only can you cook perfect plain rice in it every time, it doubles as a vessel for flavorful one-pot stews and hot pots, and an infinite variety of noodle and rice dishes. Anyone interested in Japanese home cooking should have one.

All-Clad Immersion Blender

A high-speed hand blender is great for whipping up silky soups and purées, making emulsions like mayonnaise and Hollandaise, or smoothing out sauces, all right in the pot. No need to dirty up an extra blender jar!

Vacuum Sealer

Know someone who’s interested in sous vide cooking? They’re gonna want this. And it’s handy for way more than just sous vide cooking. A vacuum sealer makes it really easy to save meats or other foods in the freezer, and it keeps air (read: freezer burn) off it all. The Oliso sealer uses a unique resealable-bag system, which means far less wasted plastic than a conventional cut-and-seal vacuum sealer.

An Amazing Bottle of Rum

Drinking Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva Rum—with its dark caramel and vanilla on first whiff, and its rich and velvety-smooth feel as you sip—is like drinking a crème brûlée, but with a long, dry finish. Add an ice cube if you must, but it’s really worth it to give it a try without first.

All About Braising

Winter is all about slow-cooked braised dishes, and Molly Stevens’s text is the bible on the subject. Stevens first devotes dozens of pages to discussing the equipment and technique behind braising in incredible detail. Then she provides unfussy but impressive-sounding recipes to make the most of your newfound braising skills. A little hint: The vegetable recipes are some of the best.

Flavor King Pluot Jam

There are a lot of artisanal jams out there, some good and some grossly overpriced. Though I’ve tasted hundreds of them, I still haven’t had any as good as those made by Oakland’s June Taylor, who has been making what she calls “conserves” out of superb Northern California produce for more than 25 years now. The Dapple Dandy pluot conserve tastes like you’re taking a bite out of the juiciest pluot in the world, with just enough acidity to offset the sweetness.

Baratza Encore Coffee Grinder

There’s a lot to be said for Baratza’s entry-level Encore grinder, which comes in a lighter-weight, all-plastic housing. It packs the same motor as the more expensive Virtuoso, and it includes a slightly less effective burr set that grinds nearly as well as—and slightly more slowly than—the Virtuoso. Also worth knowing is you can upgrade the burr set in the Encore to the one made for the Virtuoso, if you do ever end up feeling like the Encore isn’t quite cutting it.

The Dumpling Galaxy Cookbook

While you certainly can make dumplings on your own, it’s always better (and more fun) with company. Give your mom the gift of this amazing compendium of dumpling recipes, along with a promise to join her in the kitchen for a good old-fashioned dumpling party.

Espresso Cups

Pretty espresso cups make a nice hostess gift and stocking stuffer on their own for coffee fiends. But when they’re Le Creuset, they’re even better—mostly because everything from the French heritage brand is aesthetically pleasing and built to last. Oh, and these cups might be the most affordable Le Creuset pieces on the market. So, if you want in on the trend for a moderate price, they make a good starter item.

Ultra-Deep Cake Pans

Whether you’re baking cakes from scratch or from a mix, giving the batter more room to grow will minimize doming, for thicker, more level layers. Light, reflective metal also minimizes browning to keep the cake crust delicate and pale. Because the pans are nonreactive, they can also be used with poke cakes that involve acidic liquids, like lemon juice.

Louie Mueller’s Brisket

Brisket is Texas’s best-known contribution to barbecue culture, and, though you can now get slow-smoked brisket in just about every major American city, you still need to go to the source to get brisket so good it will make you cry. But if you can’t make it to Texas, ordering Louie Mueller’s brisket is the next best thing. The Muellers have been smoking brisket since 1949. The key here? They ship the whole brisket, which means you get plenty of the critically important fatty half. Why is it critically important? Because we all know that fat is flavor. Phone orders only: 512-352-6206.

Elegant (But Dishwasher-Safe) Wine Glasses

These wine glasses feel fancy enough for an elegant dinner party—and you can throw them in the dishwasher after, which is a pretty rare attribute. Their sturdy construction means you (or your giftee) can expect to hang on to these for several years.

MAC Professional Santoku Knife

This santoku from MAC’s professional line is an absolute pleasure to use, no matter the task. It’s lightweight, well balanced, sharp as can be, and comfortable to hold. It made perfect carrot cuts, broke down a chicken with ease, and filleted a whole fish as if it were a fish-shaped block of butter.

Good Kitchen Shears

A good pair of kitchen shears is one of those things that are hard to appreciate until you have them. Sure, there are all the obvious uses, like opening food packages with a snip and cutting up poultry, but that’s just the start. Take another look at those things. Yes, that’s right, they’re also a nutcracker. Aha, yup, and a bottle opener. Did you see the flathead screwdriver built into them? Handy, right? Oh, they can also be used to unscrew stubborn jar tops. They’re way more than just a pair of scissors. Plus, the two blades come fully apart, so you can wash them really well—no icky chicken juice hiding in the recesses. Isn’t avoiding salmonella poisoning a gift worth giving?

The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

A New York Times best-seller! The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, by J. Kenji López-Alt, is his column by the same name on this very website, blown up to 900-plus pages (and seven-plus pounds) of concentrated culinary science. Gorgeous color photos, detailed how-tos, and elaborate explainers cover ingredients, technique, gear, and the secrets of the universe underneath it all. May include puns.

Chef’s Press

If you love beautifully seared steaks, golden-brown grilled cheese sandwiches, and crispy-skinned fish and poultry, this is a great thing to have in your kitchen. Chef’s presses help you get even contact between ingredients and your skillet. They’re vented, so you won’t accidentally steam your food, and they’re stackable, so you can get a couple for weighing down heftier items.

Extra-Large Silicone Ice Cube Tray

Souper Cubes is the brainchild of two Serious Eaters, Michelle and Jake, who wanted to develop a better way to portion and freeze soups, stocks, and stews. The food-grade silicone mold features four one-cup cube molds, perfect for meal-prepping and stocking up on winter warmers for the long, cold months ahead.

Effie’s Oatcakes

They may not come in the most festive or glamorous packaging, but you can’t go wrong with Effie’s Oatcakes. Buttery, crumbly, nutty, and salty-sweet, they’re insanely addictive. Case in point: I’ve eaten three in the last 10 minutes. My advice? Purchase them in bulk so you can gift a few backages and hoard the rest for yourself.

Egg Cups

Any mom who loves soft-boiled eggs deserves the perfect cup to eat them from. These sturdy stoneware Le Creuset cups come in a range of beautiful colors. They’re totally classic, which is a good thing because they’ll also last for generations to come.

Modified Martini Glasses

Ah, martini glasses: so angular and sexy, so prone to making me look like a drunk as I struggle to keep a generously poured beverage within their confines. The traditional wide bowl, delicate stem, and sharply sloping sides are meant to enhance the botanical aromas of the gin, keep the drink frosty-cold, and provide a comfortable wall for a cocktail pick to lean against, respectively—but in practice, all those features feel like bugs for clumsy-fingered folk like me. So I sought out a design that wrapped up those attributes in a more user-friendly package, and discovered this lovely set of glasses. The broad mouth remains, but the conical shape has been softened and the stem fattened (which, if I’m being honest, will make me all the more inclined to actually use that stem instead of clutching the bowl for dear life). Got no space for uni-tasking glassware? These double nicely as pretty dessert dishes.

Portable Kitchen Timer

I can’t tell you how many times I burn bread crumbs or forget about the nuts I’m toasting in the oven. At least, I used to. That was all before I got myself a couple of these easy-to-use, loud kitchen timers that I can hang around my neck, so I never forget about something in the kitchen, even if I leave the room.

Vitamix Blender

Oh, man, do I love my Vitamix. Whether I’m making super-quick smoothies or the creamiest, smoothest purées and soups imaginable, the Vitamix is unparalleled in its power. Best gift I’ve ever received (thanks, dear!).

Tacos: Recipes and Provocations

My good friend Jordana Rothman cowrote this thoughtful ode to tacos with Chef Alex Stupak, and it’s a must-have for any Mom ready to take a deep dive into corn, masa, tortillas, and everything—modern and traditional—you can stuff into them.

Heilala Vanilla Extract

This is one of the more complex vanillas Stella’s come across. It has the same grassy, vegetal aroma of a freshly split vanilla bean with a flavor that’s both earthy and deep. It’s a double fold vanilla, which means you can get away with using half as much in your favorite recipes—something worth remembering when you consider the cost.

Stainless Steel Food Scale With Pull-Out Display

A good digital scale is an essential tool for bakers or home charcuterie makers. The OXO Food Scale comes with an easy-to-clean, removable stainless steel weighing surface; great accuracy and precision; and a backlit pull-out display to make measuring easy, even for large or unwieldy items.

Ice Cream Maker

Homemade ice cream tastes better than almost anything you can buy in a store, and it’s a snap to make. This ice cream maker, from Cuisinart, is all the gear you need: an easy-to-use workhorse that makes delicious ice cream every time. The simple construction means that there are few moving parts to break, and the wide mouth at the top makes it easy to add mix-ins and scoop out your ice cream when it’s at its fresh, creamy best.

6-Quart Instant Pot

The Instant Pot Duo60 is a fantastic value and performed almost as well as the top pick among countertop pressure cookers we tested. It’s easy to use, the company has a reputation for great customer service, and there’s an avid and helpful community of users online to boot.

Mixing Glass

This hand-blown and -etched mixing glass from Japan looks stunning on a bar cart and even better in action, whether you’re stirring a Negroni, a Martini, or a Manhattan. Mixing glasses made from two parts joined together sometimes split at the seam, but this version, made in one piece with a beaker-like spout, can stand up to heavy use.

Bread Knife

When I tested bread knives earlier this year, I was absolutely blown away by the cutting quality of Tojiro’s bread knife. It surpassed every other serrated knife I tested, cutting beautifully clean slices of even the most tender bread, and making quick, neat work of ripe tomatoes. It’s a must-have as far as I’m concerned.

Pasta by Hand: A Collection of Italy’s Regional Hand-Shaped Pasta

No pasta machine? No problem. This book is devoted to the art of handcrafted Italian dumplings, from yeasty spindle-shaped cecamariti to classic gnocchi to golden-brown parallelograms of deep-fried crescentine. If the adage “practice makes perfect” fills your mom with excitement rather than dread, this is the kind of book that will make her utterly determined to prevail.

Pastry Tips for Decorating

This epic set of stainless steel pastry tips is perfect for the home baker with professional-grade aspirations…or the food-enthused, arts-and-craftsy Mom in your life. With this kit in hand, nothing but practice stands between her and gorgeous piped flowers, leaves, stars, and beyond.

Mastering Pasta: The Art and Practice of Handmade Pasta, Gnocchi, and Risotto

If you’re looking to give your mom the one definitive primer on pasta-making in its myriad forms, this is it: Superlative step-by-step photographs take the guesswork out of potentially intimidating fundamentals like mixing and kneading dough, as well as more intricate tasks, like pleating teardrops of corn- and cheese-stuffed culurgiònes. Better yet, Vetri arms you with the tools and knowledge that allow for controlled, intelligent experimentation and exploration before sending you into the fray.

Blade Protectors

At a certain point, you need to give up on proper knife storage and just think safety: How can I toss this knife into a drawer and not cut myself on it later when fishing around for matches? The answer is blade guards. It’s smart to put them on knives in a knife bag, but they’re also essential if you’re keeping any knives in a place where they’re free to bang around—they’ll protect the blade edges and you.

AeroGarden Harvest

Cooking with fresh herbs makes every recipe better. Cooking with fresh herbs that you grew all by yourself makes life better. The AeroGarden takes the guesswork out of growing herbs inside, with an automated light to keep your parsley and thyme thriving and weekly reminders for water and nutrients. Just prepare yourself for epic amounts of basil.

Baking Steel

I’ve cracked my way through quite a few baking stones. With the Baking Steel—a solid sheet of steel designed to replace a baking stone—that’s a thing of the past. Not only will it last forever, but, with superior thermal properties, it produces the best pizza crusts I’ve ever seen in a home oven.

Pizza Wheel

When it comes to portioning pizza, a knife simply won’t cut it. At least, not if you don’t want to drag cheese and toppings all over the place. For my money, nothing beats a traditional pizza wheel.

Best All-Around Pepper Mill

On more than one occasion, I’ve been tempted to try out the cool new pepper mill on the block, but none of the ones I’ve used have held up over time. That’s why I’ve settled on a good old classic, a wooden Peugeot pepper mill. The steel burrs last and deliver whatever grind I want, from fine-as-silt to chunky and coarse.

Straight-Sided Sauté Pan

When my little sister first moved out and started cooking on her own, this straight-sided sauté pan from All-Clad was the first gift I sent to her. It has a wide, flat base for searing off big batches of meat, and high sides so you can braise, stew, or simmer several meals’ worth of food directly in it. It’s the ideal vessel for stove-to-oven dishes like this Braised Chicken With White Beans, or a one-pot pasta dish like our Macaroni and Beef. Versatile and robust, it makes comfort food all the more comforting.

The Chili Cookbook

This isn’t just a chili cookbook. Robb Walsh digs deep into the beloved dish’s ancestry, tracing threads through Mexico City, San Antonio, and Santa Fe—as you might expect—but also Hungary, Greece, and the Canary Islands (off the coast of North Africa). Walsh is one of food writing’s best storytellers, so the book is satisfying even if you never whip out your Dutch oven and get cooking. You should, though: The fascinating tale is best enjoyed with a big bowl of chile con carne. (Walsh’s recipe from El Real in Houston is killer.)

Espro Press P5

Thanks to a few simple innovations in the filter and beaker design, this French press fixes some of the brewing device’s biggest drawbacks. The result is a cleaner batch of coffee that won’t accidentally over-steep.

The One True Barbecue

Race relations, religion, the New South versus the Old: These are just a smattering of the heavy issues Rien Fertel writes about through the lens of—well—smoked meat, in this new book. And, while you might be thinking, “Oh, man, another book about barbecue?”, this one stands out from the crowd thanks to Fertel’s superb writing and storytelling skills. In a book that’s part culinary history, part personal narrative, and part tale of an American road trip, Fertel travels throughout the South, documenting the men who have long stood behind the fires practicing the time-consuming pursuit of whole hog barbecue—the ones who have been keeping alive the embers of what once seemed like a dying art, and the ones who are inspiring a new generation of pitmasters today.

Countertop Seltzer Maker

Make your own seltzer water at home with this easy-to-use unit. It comes equipped with LED indicators displaying three levels of carbonation and a BPA-free bottle that locks into the unit with no twisting, and it requires no batteries or electricity to operate. This model fits 14.5-ounce and three-ounce CO2 cylinders, which can be traded in for just the cost of the gas at your local hardware or home-goods store.

Estela

We usually aren’t the biggest fans of the big and beautiful cookbooks put out by super fancy restaurants, in part because they have limited appeal to most home cooks, even if they are fascinating windows into the processes and methods of some of the best chefs in the world. We’ll make an exception for Estela by Ignacio Mattos, though, since it’s as inspiring as it is informative.

Ceramic Sangria Pitcher

If there is sangria on the menu, Kristina’s mom is ordering it. It’s an endeavor she’s tackled at home only a few times, but with this pitcher on hand, she might be more inclined to make it regularly. The pinched spout is a genius detail that keeps all the fruit and ice from splashing into your glass, and when it’s not filled with sangria, it can be used as a vase. We love a two-fer!

Mediterranean Mortar and Pestle

In the south of France, Italy, and other Mediterranean regions, marble mortars with wooden pestles (often made of olivewood) are quite common. It’s next to impossible to find this variety in US stores, unless you get lucky and find one at an antiques shop or estate sale. They can, however, be ordered online. We got ours through an Italian vendor on Etsy, and it’s an object of pure beauty. More importantly, it excels at making pesto and similar sauces, as well as emulsified sauces like mayonnaise and aioli.

Island Creek Oysters by Mail

Few things get me as excited as a good raw bar, but most of the time, I eat far less than I want because, after the first couple dozen oysters or so, it just gets to be too expensive. That’s even truer when the oysters are top-notch, like the briny little suckers from Island Creek up in Massachusetts. But here’s the good news: You can order Island Creek’s oysters online by the 50- or 100-count for much less than they cost at most restaurants, and have them in your hands the next day for an at-home shucking extravaganza. (Obviously, it helps to learn how to shuck first.)

Wine Carafe with Oak Stopper

I spent most of 2018 getting into wine, and one of my biggest takeaways was that most wines could benefit from a decant. Does a wine feel closed—like it has only one note on the nose or the tongue? Then it definitely needs to aerate in a decanter. This one is an inexpensive glass model with a chic wooden topper, from the Scandinavian brand Sagaform. It looks just as good on your bar cart or shelf as it does on the dinner table, and will give your Bordeaux a little room to breathe.

The Cocktail Chronicles

Having The Cocktail Chronicles at your side is like having a friend who always knows a good drink recipe for whatever you’ve got on hand. It doesn’t talk your ear off or suggest something with a dozen ingredients. Instead, it shares classics, recent spins on classics, and drinks you’ve never heard of but can easily mix up and enjoy, and the introductions are never preachy or boring. This book will appeal to full-on cocktail fanatics and newbies alike; there’s something delicious on every page.

Cast Iron Revolving Cake Stand

I can’t fathom decorating a birthday cake without this sturdy, heavy-bottomed stand. It speeds the process of crumb coating and decoration, while allowing for a whole new array of finishing techniques. It can also double as a lazy susan, so it’s often on my dinner table, piled with condiments and toppings, even when there’s no cake in sight.

Beyond Curry Indian Cookbook: A Culinary Journey Through India

Indian food has a reputation for being difficult and time-consuming, with hard-to-find ingredients and new techniques. I get it. It’s intimidating. But in this book, Serious Eater Denise D’silva Sankhé breaks Indian cooking down into simple techniques that any home cook can master to produce amazingly flavorful dishes with minimal effort. Over the course of more than 100 recipes, Denise introduces us to simple cooking from every region of India, focusing on home-style dishes that move well beyond the world of curries. I’m also super stoked that she’s included notes with every recipe on whether it’s vegan, vegetarian, and/or allergy-friendly.

Microplane

Another essential kitchen tool, the Microplane grater does fine grating work way better than those tiny, raspy holes on a box grater. Whether you’re quickly grating fresh nutmeg or cinnamon, taking the zest off a lemon, or turning a clove of garlic into a fine purée, the Microplane is the tool to reach for. It’ll make a great gift for the budding cooking enthusiast.

Intense Drinking Chocolate

This isn’t your standard hot cocoa. It’s a rich drinking-chocolate mix, made from organic, 74% cacao single-plantation chocolate from the Dominican Republic and 68% cacao wild-harvested chocolate from Bolivia. Whisk the ground chocolate with warm milk for an intense cocoa experience: It’s silky and deep, with hints of orange zest, cinnamon, and juicy berries, tempered by a subtly bitter edge.

Hero Dinners: Complete One-Pan Meals That Save the Day

Marge Perry and David Bonom’s cookbook is perfect for the giftee who loves to cook but hates a mess. Each recipe requires just one pan (or sheet pan), allowing the cook to enjoy precious downtime with family—and spend less time at the sink.

Tsukemono Round Pickle Press

The quick pickles common in Japanese cuisine that go by the name asazuke, or “morning pickles,” are typically made in a contraption similar to this one. The screwable tamper is spring-loaded, which exerts consistent pressure on sliced, salted vegetables, which presses out excess water and creates a highly seasoned brine, which then flavors the vegetables. The small size is perfect for anyone who wants to experiment with the technique.

Cuisinart Blender

The Cuisinart is an easy-to-use, powerful blender that aced many of our tests. This model’s dashboard is intuitive, and it features a built-in timer that counts down for you or can be programmed to stop after a certain number of seconds.

12-Inch All-Clad Stainless Steel Pan

The slope-sided skillet, like this one from All-Clad, is a chef’s best friend and one of the most versatile pans in the kitchen, whether you’re sautéing vegetables, searing meat, or cooking one of our dozens of one-pan meals. The best have solid stainless steel construction, with an aluminum core for even heat distribution.

Punch Bowl Set

We have this 10-piece punch bowl set in our office, and it’s been put to very good use. It’s big and impressive while still being affordable, which are the best qualities you can hope for in holiday-party decor.

Zojirushi Rice Cooker

A couple years ago, I managed to convince my wife of the necessity of buying a rice cooker. Not just any rice cooker: a Zojirushi. The only concession I was willing to make had to do with the size, since she wisely noted that we didn’t have the counter space for any rice cooker at all, let alone the kind of rice cooker that I had in mind. So I bought a little guy that fits, max, three cups of rice, but really is only usable for about two and a half. She’s since come around to the indisputable excellence of the cooker, and she loves everything about it, from the wonderful rice it makes to the “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” it plays when you turn it on. But since we’re moving to a bigger apartment with counter space enough for a small rice cooker, I think it’s high time we got an upgrade, so Mother’s Day seems like a perfect opportunity to get the 5.5-cup model.

All-Clad One-Quart Saucier

The low, sloping walls of this small 1-quart saucepan make whisking easy, perfect for making and finishing delicate sauces, and reducing small volumes of liquids. It’s also small enough to double as a butter-melter.

Le Creuset Cake Stand

If you’ve ever been given a homemade birthday cake, return the favor by buying your favorite baker this iconic cake stand. Its heavy base keeps cakes secure and makes all types of decorating techniques a breeze.

Rice, Noodle, Fish

Warning: Reading this book might lead to the purchase of some very expensive plane tickets. The Roads & Kingdoms crew will get you hungry for a journey to Japan, for onigiri basted with chicken fat, juicy one-bite gyoza, milky-white tonkotsu ramen broth, and briny sea urchin. Is Japan the best place on earth to eat? This book will convince you that it is.

[Header photograph: Shutterstock]

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[boymeetsweevil]

sleeping bags (and other unconventional cures for insomnia)

Grouping: Reader x Hoseok

Word Count: ~2.5k

Warnings: i think it makes the cut for PG-13, idk... Sort of enemies to lovers if you squint, cuddling!!! BUT also talk about money troubles and insomnia. Sorry for the weird title

Summary: This is my contribution for the @bangtan-bookclub holiday fic swap. This is based off the prompt “snowed in with your enemy at a ski resort” and this is for @hoseokiehopie. Hey Megan! Sorry for the wait, I hope you’re having a good holiday season! 

A/N: also thank you to @b-angst-tan for reading my first 3 drafts and getting me to redirect my frustrations

“Get in the bed, please.”

“N-no.”

The sound of teeth chattering from the cold is just barely audible above the sound of the fire that Hoseok started earlier in the evening.

“Please get in the bed. They said the temperature’s gonna drop another 10 degrees before midnight.” “I’ll focus better if I’m at the table. Stop trying to sabotage me.”

“Who’s trying to sabotage you?” 

Hoseok’s voice booms over the small space of the cabin, but you ignore him in favor of scanning through your 15th court case and scribbling on a notepad. The cold is starting to get to you, but you fight through it as best you can. Your fingers seem to have other plans, though. The pencil you were holding drops for the millionth time because the cold has made your fingers rigid. You bend down to grab the pencil and hear Hoseok sigh, followed by the sound of his approaching footsteps. He swipes up the pencil just before you can grab it. “Get in the bed or I’m shutting your computer down.”

“Stop! I’m on a strict schedule.”

He examines you further for a second before throwing his hands up. “Your lips are turning blue. That’s it, I’m taking your computer.” “If you so much as touch my computer, I’ll—” In that moment, your computer screen turns black and shuts off. You’d ignored the low battery warnings for too long, apparently. Hoseok laughs and shakes his head at the irony while you look on in horror. At this rate, you’d have no time for a power sleep if you wanted to finish all the cases before daybreak. “Serves you right.” The shock of your computer dying makes you pliant enough to allow Hoseok to maneuver you away from the table. He brings you to the side of the bed before getting in on his own side and quickly shimmying back into his sleeping bag. It seems to be professional grade from the logo emblazoned on the body of the bag. Not that it matters to you at all. Stubborn, you sit stiffly at the side of the bed, back ramrod straight and lap facing away from Hoseok. “Are you really going to just sit there all night? You might as well try and get some sleep since you can’t work.” “I can’t not work, Hoseok. If I don’t, I can’t prove to Professor Kim that I should be going with him to visit the client to gather testimonies.”

“Why can’t you just go with the flow,” he asks as you run to your bag to see if the printed copies of the cases are there. “Not all of us live a life where good things just fall into our laps. Some of us have to work for it.” He watches as you rifle through your bag several times. There are no printouts to be found and you walk back to the bed with a defeated slump in your shoulders. “I don’t understand why you work so hard, though. You’d probably do fine even if you weren’t first in line for everything. And you’d probably still get into a good firm even if you didn’t participate in all the law extracurriculars available on campus.” You flop down onto your back because there’s nothing else you can do. The wood grain on the ceiling makes an interesting pattern from this vantage point. Too bad it won't get you un-screwed. “I can’t do the bare minimum. I’m a scholarship student. Everyone already thinks I don’t belong at the school because I’m a freeloader.” You make air quotes to the ceiling. “I can’t not be rich and then not get good grades.” “That…makes sense, but does it have to be number one?” You nod. “Why?” You shrug, hopeless. “No one can say anything bad about you if you’re number one.” Hoseok tilts his head and looks at you. Really looks at you. You look a little more frazzled than usual after having the week that you’ve had. First, the toughest professor on campus tasked you to work with Hoseok for the rest of the school year as partners in his student research team. Only one person is ever ahead of you in terms of test scores, GPA, or being fast-tracked to the best internship positions and its Hoseok. Hoseok is, for all intents and purposes, your competition and he doesn’t even see it because he doesn’t ever have to try to earn his number one position. He’s rich and brilliant and chill and you hate it. Everything got slightly worse when the first task of the year was for the two of you to go spend 3 days in isolation at a ski resort. The original intent was so you could survey the suite your professor booked before he went there with an important potential client of his firm. But the peak of suckiness then came when you realized you were given the keys to the wrong lodging: an economy cabin for 1 instead of the luxury suite that could comfortably house 8. Things went further downhill when you couldn’t duck out of the resort to go do outside work at home because a sudden blizzard struck. And since you didn’t think you were staying, you didn’t even pack for the weather.

Now you are trying to meditate away the chill that was seeping into your bones. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you knew when you were getting dressed this morning that just a sweat-suit and a windbreaker wouldn’t be enough for the weather at a ski resort, regardless of how long you were staying.

There’s nothing you can do now, as you wait for morning to come and hope the constant chattering doesn’t make your teeth fall out. “You didn’t pack a blanket or anything?” “No,” you sigh. Another large shiver wracks your body and Hoseok can’t help but feel something inside him reaching out to you. “I thought I would just stop by and get the inspection over with in a few hours and leave.” “And you don’t want try going to sleep?”

You lock eyes with him and immediately tense up. “I can’t,” you whisper. Your voice is muffled through your hands while you breathe onto them to warm them up.

Everything about the moment is oddly conflicting. You’re so frustrated and so cold, but Hoseok’s gaze is so sympathetic that it feels like its burning holes through your lame knitted beanie. Combined with the dull yellow firelight cast on his already bronzed skin and his coppery hair, he seems like warmth itself. No, he feels like the sun because you can’t bear to look at him. Briefly, you wonder if it’s possible to cry when your tears are frozen.

None of these feelings make any sense.

His brows raise slightly and he turns to you in his sleeping bag. You turn subconsciously towards him as well. “What do you mean ‘you can’t’?” “Oh, come on,” you snort. “You’ve never heard those rumors that people spread about me? Or heard the jokes about me never sleeping and being addicted to coffee?” “Those are true?” His mouth drops open at the prospect of you actually popping pills before zooming around the library at night like a sped-up ghost. “Well...no. I just can’t ever really sleep. I think it's insomnia, but I never got it officially checked out.” “Why not?” “Couldn’t pay the consultation fees even at Campus Health because I had to waive my health insurance. And I can’t get a job right now, otherwise I’ll jeopardize my scholarship.” You play with a loose thread on the bare mattress underneath you. The shame makes your hands itchy and restless. “Oh.” The sounds of the logs Hoseok put into the fireplace earlier getting eaten by the flames takes over for a while. It’s almost nice, but it doesn’t do much for you. For Hoseok, though, the sound is lulling him to sleep. He’s a natural early-riser and sleeps early as a result. Knowing that you’ll be up all night with nothing to do, trying not to freeze makes him feel awful. He unzips the side zipper on his sleeping back and scoots closer to you on the bed. “Get in.” “What? Hoseok, I can’t.”

“I’m not asking if you can. You’ll freeze if you don’t. You don’t have any other options, and the guilt will probably kill me faster than the cold will kill you.” When you don’t budge, he tries one more time. “Get. In.” “I won’t fit.” “Yes, you will. This is an extra-large. Get in.” “This is so inappropriate.”

Hoseok snorts in reply before tugging on the loose fabric of your shirt as a silent ‘hurry up’. Even still, you wait until he’s opened the bag up more and then wriggle your way in so there’s still enough room between you to be respectable. Given that he’s had some time in the bag by himself, it’s already significantly warmer than the air outside it. As soon as you’re fully in you realize the tapered shape of the bag means your feet have to touch Hoseok’s. Somehow that’s more intimate than the fact that your faces are less than a foot apart. You’re still shivering, though. Hoseok takes note and moves closer to you.

“What are you doing?”

His cheeks color. “I’m just—you seem like you’re still cold.” “R-right.” He presses closer and you instinctively look up to gauge his features. With the fire slowly dying, the light has changed. This soft red light still suits him and lends a subtle softness to his otherwise sharp bone structure. His hair also matches the flames crackling in the background.  The sound of his breathing is deep and steady, but slow. His arm brushes yours as he shifts onto his side. Everything is very...cozy. You’re struck by a strange feeling. It’s a familiar one, but you can’t remember where you’ve felt it before. While you contemplate, Hoseok takes a moment to look you over as well. In all truth, he’s sad he hasn’t gotten to know this much about you until now. He didn’t want to believe the rumors that he had admittedly heard floating around since his first year in the law program. Part of it was because he knew what it was like to be the subject of jealous rumors. He knew what people said about him and his parents’ wealth and his accidental success both in school and outside of it. But he also just didn’t believe some of the stuff he’d heard about you. They called you the girl that never sleeps. He supposes that’s because, like him, you’re always in the top 1% of class. But he’d also heard people say that you’re the girl who breezes through the stacks late at night like the ghosts rumored to haunt the ancient school halls. The girl who allegedly has 4 different fake prescriptions for Adderall and extra-strength caffeine pills. The girl who is always the first one to show up for classes, for exams, for office hours, for the legal colloquium meetings. Perhaps the name is the only accurate thing attributed to you. He knows your pride wouldn’t let you take the easy way out and that, as a result, you could be found at any hour outside of class in the stacks, studying. But he can’t imagine you being as conniving as everyone makes you out to be. Just a little insecure and a little sleep-deprived. The dark circles under your eyes that are always there are a clear sign of the price you pay to keep your high spot in class among your cohorts. It’s a little sad.

Hoseok finds himself wondering what you look like when you’re carefree and smiling. He wants to know what you look like when you’re just lying in a patch of sunlight because you can and there’s nothing you want more. He wants to see what you look like when your eyes are drooping with contentedness. “You’re staring. Is there something on my face?” He snaps out of his musings and realizes he’s been spacing out while staring directly at your forehead for some time now. When he shakes his head, you only give him a suspicious look before you turn your back to him. “Let’s give the sleep thing a try, okay? If it works, tomorrow I’ll let you read all your cases unbothered.”

He sets his phone on airplane mode to conserve battery since the storm killed the power. He sets the phone alarm next and then gets up as carefully as he can without letting too much cold air in so he can extinguish the fire. By the time he comes back to the bed, you’re already missing his heat. You’re tempted to turn to face him again so you can seek the warmth out at the source, but the potential misunderstandings would be too much for you to deal with right now. So you settle for scooting back an inch or two until his body heat radiates more strongly against your back.

“I’m just cold. Don’t read into this too much.” You’re glad that he can’t see the mortified way your face heats up in embarrassment.

“I won’t,” he says to you before slinging an arm around your middle and bringing you closer. “As long as you don’t misinterpret this either.”

“You’re still cold?”

“Nope,” he says, popping the syllable.

Then, for the first time in months, you feel the cottony weight of sleep taking over your body. Suddenly you can’t seem to care that you haven’t finished reading the 30 court cases you brought with you to be prepared for the meeting next week. All you care about is letting the feeling wash over you until you end up somewhere else. The last thing you see before your eyes shut is Hoseok’s hand pulling the hood of the sleeping bag over both of your heads.

When you wake up, you’re cuddling Jung Hoseok like your life depends on it. Somehow you’ve migrated completely on top of him, with his chest pillowing your head and your leg thrown across his. His arm is still wrapped around your middle, though it’s more tightly holding you than before. You hold your breath and wait for the embarrassment to come rushing in, but it never does. Instead all you can focus on is the fact that your head feels clearer than it has in a long while. In fact, your whole body feels more refreshed. 

Reluctantly, you try to pull away, but the arm Hoseok had thrown over you squeezes you lightly. You freeze up in his grip and he relaxes his hold a bit. “Sorry for, uh, getting in your space,” you mumble into the fabric of his thick sleep shirt. “Are you uncomfortable?” “Actually? No.” He shifts so he can roll over and rest his cheek on the top of your head. “Let’s sleep in, then.”

“But shouldn’t we talk about—”

“Do you wanna get dinner with me as soon as we’re not stranded here?”

You stammer for a second and Hoseok takes the moment to adjust the sleeping bag around the two of you once more. Under the cover of darkness, he probes again.

“So, dinner?”

#bbcexchange18 #bangtan bookclub #networkbangtan #hyunglinenetwork #JHOPENETWORK #bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts fanfction #bangtan fanfic #bangtan scenarios #bangtan imagines #hoseok scenarios #hoseok imagines #hoseok fanfic

[morrak]

Hammer Restoration, Part 2 (of 2, thank goodness)

Finally. This is probably going to be very long. Kind of flew off the handle, eh?

This, roughly, is the last picture I posted and explained:

This is wood. Specifically, it’s part of a Maclura pomifera carcass. You may know the tree as hedge apple, horse apple, bois d'arc, monkey ball, bow-wood, yellow-wood and mock orange, or orange mulberry; around here people sometimes call it bodark because that is how French works in Texas. I am deeply sorry.

I could talk for hours about the properties of the species in general, but the highlights follow: hard as a coffin nail, twisty, knotty as pocketed earbuds, shrubby, practically immune to pests. It is impossible to find blanks of sufficient length and grain structure for long tool handles, but before all the old trees were cut down for bows, it was highly prized for bows. Hence the name. Funny, that.

Anyway, that bottom blank in the picture is 1.5x1.5x18 inches (if you’re sane and use metric, that’s 3.8x3.8x45.7 centimeters). It is old, it is straight, and it is Argentinian. I cannot fucking believe I found it so cheap; the combo only set me back 35 USD. The grain, unfortunately, runs diagonal to the milling, which will cost me some headache and roughing time. Forging ahead.

That draw knife is going on 100 years old, so I had to bring it up to snuff. I don’t have many pictures of the roughing process, mostly because it was pretty dull.

The process, I mean. Also the blade. Very much both.

When making striking tools — this does not carry over to baseball bats or handles for files, for example — the grain must be parallel to the swing axis. This dampens any serious flex the wood might allow, but more importantly it prevents longitudinal delamination. You don’t want the handle peeling like a banana-cum-Elmer Fudd blunderbuss.

I sliced off the corners to make an octagon using a table saw, allowing me to clamp and shape it with the grain in mind. For now, I’m just concerned with removing material and keeping it oriented.

You’ll note the color change; the wood was dried and then shipped with some kind of heavy wax on. From now until I oil it, it’ll be a boring green-yellow-orange.

Those shavings might look nice, but I had to fight like an animal to keep the blade sharp. This stuff hates being cut, and it loves tearing out in great scads if you read the grain wrong.

The draw knife’s handles were matte when I started. It got a lot of use. Behind it is a spoke shave, which actually did most of the work on the shank. At the moment it’s kind of halfway small enough for the hammer head, but there’s a ton of very tedious shaving and checking to go.

See all that bouncy gouging on the shaft? Buy better tools and sharpen often. Also use softer woods. Basically, be smarter than me.

The octagon shape is more obvious here. I’m relieved to say those horizontal lines are from the mill, not me. At this point, it’s more or less safe to start shaping the underside of the taper with some plunging scoops of the draw knife...

...until you realize you’re not skilled enough to do that quickly. At that point, you cave and use a belt sander modified to expose the bullnose formed by the front roller. There’s a lot of very meticulously checked work going on from here on, so we’ll skip to the wood being more or less finished.

Sneaking up on the right dimensions for the shank is very risky, so that’s actually most of the process.

I was going to cut it down a bit, but that was dumb for two reasons. First, the proportions are actually perfect. Second, the grain loops around in nice ovals just at the butt (and on both sides!), and I’d hate to lose that.

And here I am, the same person that said ‘tools, not art’ last week. Ah, to be at the heel of fickle whims.

Cut a kerf for the wedge using a rusty backsaw. Can you tell? I’ll tidy up that burr with a dull chisel, because I will not be able to find a sharp cutter. You know how it is. IMPORTANT: The kerf cannot extent below about 2/3 the extent of the head. Any farther and it will snap, end of story.

Note the sway in the grain, which doesn’t compromise the alignment I mention. It’s not technically ideal, but won’t really matter. It’s most dramatic there near the flare and calms down along the shaft.

The wedge is white poplar. I should have known it was too soft — crackled like dejected bacon. I lubricated/secured it using wood glue with a long open time. It’s going to need at least one layer of backup, seeing as it’s not at full depth.

A hacksaw, the Swedish(/Scandinavian/Euro/tubular) wedge, and a rotary tool bring it here. At this point I need to swell the shank and poplar wedge in a way that won’t shrink over time.

Ideally I’d be doing this in winter; the wood is actually at its largest right around now, so I’ll try and compensate by soaking it in boiled linseed oil (henceforth BLO) upside down.

Image limits being a thing, it seems we’re taking an intermission. One moment while I slap the rest together.

#images

[sarcastic-pasta-games]

Any motivation or advice for one man team developers? Sorry if this has been asked already

Hey! I’ve been working on a solo fangame project for too long almost 3 years, while working on The BOSS & Glitch In The System. I have no clue if this’ll help or if this is the type of advice you wanted, but here you go. The things written here can apply to non-fangame projects, too! 

(Warning: lots of text ahead - and take this with a grain of salt; I’m not an expert.)

General: 

You are going to have to plan in advance and organize absolutely every single thing about your project. Don’t just make an outline for your story. Create concept art for your characters, figure out what makes your game story unique, figure out the mapping and game mechanics early.

Make sure you know your options. If you’re really good at one thing (writing,art,music,code) and everything else is a bit new to you, there are free and paid resources out there. Don’t feel bad for using them. 

If you’re a perfectionist, make sure the tools you use are quick. Do not spend a week on one room design, or a month on one song. You will never finish your game, even if it’s super short. 

Kinda joykill advice, but I don’t recommend making your dream project first unless you fully KNOW how to start making your project on your own (which even then, you’ll need to organize everything for it to work). Make something silly, or try joining game jams. 

External feedback is even more important when working on your game. Get playtesters or people willing to help give feedback to you early on, or midway through development. 

Figure out how much energy you can devote to your project. If you want to be ambitious, that’s great! But overworking yourself is a horrible idea. 

If you want to change something fairly major about your game, you should probably only do it if you’re below the 30-40% mark. Otherwise you’ll forever drive yourself insane by changing anything when you’ve made that much progress on your project. You can always improve on certain aspects for future games. 

Especially for fangames: don’t take everything you make seriously. 

Games can still be considered solo projects, even if the developers got help for stuff like art, music, and code. You don’t have to do every single thing by yourself. But if you’re stubborn like me about this and still want to do everything, that’s cool too.

Back up your game or forever suffer in developer hell. Yes, I’m serious. I’ve seen projects get cancelled because they couldn’t afford to get a backup drive (or even a USB key) and it’s miserable.

Don’t act like you’re above other game developers. This applies for anyone, really. Support the other people around you, too! 

Visuals:

If you have absolutely no passion or desire to do your own art assets, premade resources are your friends. However, you need to really focus on your other game aspects in other for your games to stand out. To The Moon used a lot of pre-made RPG Maker XP resources but had a phenomenal soundtrack and used that + its visuals to make the game feel more cinematic than most RPG Maker games.

If you feel like you suck at art or don’t have money for expensive drawing tools, but want to make all of the game assets, then do it! Even with simple/free-to-use tools, your can make game art that’ll be unique and memorable. example / example / example 

Keep backups of every single one of your original art asset files.

If you want to do pixel art for your game, 1: Always avoid coloring with pure black. Your game will look disgusting. 2: Programs like Asesprite are useful for animations. 3: Make sure it’s proper pixel art. Using AA brushes, the blur tool (etc) will completely ruin that.

Video cutscenes aren’t 100% necessary. Certain game devs make it a goal to never include cutscenes to create a certain atmosphere, or for the game to feel more interactive for the player. (ex: Night In The Woods)

Pretend the player can’t listen to game audio while playing. Keep the visuals interesting and make your game feel alive! Whether it’s through tiny animations, window animations, etc. 

For 3D Games: motion blur =/= super cool polished game. >:(

It depends on your game’s style, of course, but usually it’s not a good sign if you can tell your project is made by someone with default assets and doesn’t try to work beyond that (for any engine, 2D or 3D). 

If you want to do regular art for your game: make sure you know what resolution your game is going to be at its absolute highest, and always work with bigger than that. 

Keep your visuals consistent! If an early area looks unpolished/different from the final maps, then fix it. 

I’m going to skip music advice because I 100% suck at composing and don’t know what I’m doing yet. Just make sure your audio files are lossless, even if it adds a bit to your game’s file size. 

Audio: 

Use the same logic like in one of the points for visuals: Pretend like the player can’t see any of your cool visuals or fancy animations, and is just left with blocks for character sprites and very shapes for maps. Make your game convey emotion through audio, even if it’s through tiny sounds, or really quiet environment sounds. 

Voice acting: Don’t even bother if you can’t find people who have good microphones or can’t afford/know how to properly remove background noise. You’ll just be left with really bad quality audio that won’t help immerse the player at all. 

There can be a theme to your audio, much like there can be a theme to your visuals. Whether or not you decide to contrast the visuals with your audio or pair them up is up to you. It can give the game a whole new tone, depending on how you approach sound design.

Audio cues are good for puzzles, but again, don’t just rely on that only to indicate to the player that an objective has been completed. If they have the game on mute, they’re just going to be left wandering around.

Binaural audio can be cool, if you want to try doing that. 

Writing: 

Don’t write game dialogue at 4 am. It never works. 

Game writing is VERY different from what you might be used to. Keep in mind that for the most part players want to interact with an environment, not just only hear what characters have to say about a certain event or area. Forcing them to go through giant dialogue cutscenes every time is not a smart move to make. (Obviously, visual novels and text adventure games are an exception to this)

Not that you only need to have 4 words in your entire game! But there is a chance someone will download your game and just not enjoy the writing. Think ahead of time if you really feel like every game puzzle, every important cutscene needs to happen after giant walls of text.

If you have the ability to make visuals that can be paired with writing, you don’t really have an excuse for avoiding that. Especially if the cutscene 

Proofread every single thing, or get someone else to do it. If you can export all your game dialogue into text files, that could be helpful. 

If you’re trying to write a serious game (with lighthearted moments or not), chances are that adding that one dumb inside joke with your friends in-game could ruin the immersion for the player.

Only time I think the developer should focus more on their own opinion than the players: create as much atmosphere as you can. Figure out the things YOU like about a game world, and focus on that as much as you can. Don’t worry about making it appeal to all/certain audiences. 

Don’t act like every single player in the world will like all of your characters. Even if they’re nice, someone could absolutely despise your main characters, or find themselves liking the antagonist more.

Dumb character ticks and speech mannerisms can still work.

Not everything about a Serious Game™ has to be gritty and all that. Me and Katie wouldn’t recommend making a completely serious fangame anyway, but that’s another topic. 

You’re probably not going to ever write a game that has absolutely no tropes in it whatsoever, so give up on that. 

You can make a character dislikeable but still charming. The other way around works too. Not everything has to be clear-cut right and wrong.

Game design / Programming: 

If you ever use shortened names for certain switches, variables, etc - or have a complex system for one game feature, write down what all of it does somewhere. You don’t want to screw yourself over months after you implemented something because you forgot what one button does, or what another variable is for. 

Bite the bullet. If there’s an area you restrict access to for the player purely for the sake of not having to deal with coding it, that’s no fun.

You can never make a game with endless options/possibilities.

If there’s something buggy in your absolute basic gameplay mechanics (movement, UI) just change it and don’t focus on anything else before it’s fixed. There’s no excuse not to.

Make sure your game UI is bearable to look at. Please.

You don’t have to add 50 game options or features for your game to stand out. Unless you know it’ll encourage the player to keep playing or will help the player enjoy the game, then there’s no real use for it.

If you can ever optimize your game (frame rate, controls, etc) do that too. Having a simple 2D game running at 15fps one second and 60 the other won’t make your players happy. 

Personally, I’d rather play a working puzzle even if it’s a bit boring, over something that’s super creative but buggy as hell. 

Color puzzles aren’t going to work for colorblind players, and if you have an aesthetic (super tiny) game font, people with bad eyesight won’t be able to play. Give people options! 

“Choices in this game matter” if you know they don’t matter whatsoever for the ending or for a majority of the game, then don’t say that. This also ties into the branding section.

Making band-aid fixes for every single one of your game bugs is a really bad idea. If you can take some time to fix one bug fully rather than relying on workarounds, do that. 

Back. Up. Your. Code. Files. Especially if you’re planning on making major changes to it. It can be very useful to have old pieces of code to fall back on if your changes don’t work as planned. 

Figure out what you can and can’t do with an engine. There’s a section in The Beginner’s Guide that talks about the limitations certain engines can pose to developers, and how certain engines are just better fit for certain tasks than others. You won’t be able to include or make everything for one project. (Chances are, that wouldn’t work well anyways). 

Don’t expect the player to only behave one way to your game’s design, puzzles, or mapping. Again, give people options. There can be some fun in giving the player different results for different puzzle solutions. 

Presentation: 

You don’t have to reveal every single thing about your project online-  but on the other hand, keeping everything to only vague/abstract teaser posts isn’t very helpful to people, either. 

Social media is your friend. Twitter, tumblr, youtube, etc- Find different audiences through your games there! 

Figure out what sites you want to put your game on. There are tons of options: Itch.io is my favorite. But sites like Gamejolt, indiedb, rmn.net, Steam (more for commercial games), etc can work for you. You can always just upload it for yourself online (mediafire, google drive, dropbox) too, if you dislike all of those sites or prefer doing it through direct download links. 

Don’t self promote your game on other people’s games or accounts…

Even if someone is hoping to see something really specific in your game, your project will get out of hand if you just add in what every single person wants. Convince people that your game will be worthwhile even if a feature or a character doesn’t appear in it. 

Remaining transparent with your audience will help you a lot.

Keep things easy to access and read/look at for potential players. Make sure people can find something about the game quick. Things like FAQs, “About this game”, external links, etc are very helpful. 

Apologies in advance for any embarrassing typos that I may have missed.  

One last thing: Focus on making something that you ultimately like. It’ll be much easier to handle any sort of obstacles during/after development that way.

There is so much more I want to cover on this, but this should give you some basic things to work with. Hope this helps!

#mod makorie #SPG advice #text #ask #anon #anonymous

[yiercitycutlery]

Is the wooden knife easy to use? Do you know the knowledge of wooden knives?

Wooden knives may not need very technical steel, and use machine cutting. Some people can even make wooden knives by hand. Yes, you are not mistaken, you can make your own knives by hand.

Step 1: What do you need

Like I said, I only used three tools in this project. Joinery, bench sander and rolling saw. Carpenter may be unnecessary, but I have taken it out, so I made it easier for myself. All these tools can replace other things.

1. fitter

2. Workbench sanding machine

3. Scroll to see

4. Other sandpaper

5. Small scraps of wood

6. Butcher block machine

Step 2: Where to start

I have been doing carpentry for a while, but I still don’t have everything I need. For young carpenters, one of the most difficult things is to have enough wood supply. Hardwood is expensive and not available in all regions. It takes years to build a good wood collection, not decades.

I am honored to have an older and more experienced woodworking tutor to help me solve this problem. Last summer, that mentor gave me a very exciting call. He is cleaning his wooden frame, and he has prepared a lot of wood for me! Now it comes in many different sizes and types, but it feels like Christmas to me. This is the source of this piece of wood.

I have to admit that I don’t know what kind of wood it is. At first I thought the dark thing was walnut, but the color was not quite right and it smelled different. The balsa wood may be maple, but I am not 100% sure.

Anyway, I found a professional knife I found in the kitchen, made some slight modifications to it, and copied it to some of our dark woods. I couldn’t decide which direction I wanted the grain to be on the knife, so I made two.

Step 3: Cutting, planing, sanding

I start with the blade. First, I used my reel saw to cut out a more manageable part for easier use. Then I put that piece on the joinery to get a nice smooth side. I have tracked my pattern, so I am careful not to plan on that side.

After one side is smooth. I cut off the blade with a reel saw, and then placed the other side on the joiner. At this moment you may ask yourself why I chose to follow this order. The reason for the deliberate consideration is…I don’t know. This is how it happened.

Once I had two smooth sides, I quickly threw it on the bench sander to smooth the sides and flat surface. Just when I took it off, one of the blades flew out of my hand and got stuck on the sander, leaving ugly marks. You can see it in the last picture. I was a little angry, but then went ahead and fixed it in a very cool way, I will show you in a few steps.

Step 4: Initial sharpening

Step 5: Handle

Use maple wood or other things to make handles, I place them on the knife where I want, and draw a rough shape. For the blades in the woods with sandpaper, I lengthened the handle to make up for my mistakes. I think I like this handle style better than the other one. I took the pieces back to the reel saw and cut them off. The last step before gluing is to taper the front edge of the handle. The rest can be done after everything is glued, but not before. I used a bench sander for this.

Step 6: Glue

Step 7: Shape and Finish

I used a food-safe meat conditioner to complete this basic knife. The surface is not as shiny as I want, but this will cut food, so it needs to be food safe. If it is just an ornament, then polyethylene will do. I applied three coats of conditioner. After each use, I wait for it to soak for 20 minutes and then wipe off the excess. After 3 layers of coating, it is silky smooth and seems to be waterproof. I wiped it off with a damp towel after using it and I did not encounter any raised grains or any other problems.

Maintenance of wooden knives

Wood is a natural material, and like all natural materials, it is easily degraded. Not all wooden knives are made for handling, so if you want a wooden knife to be durable, you need to do something to maintain it. Here are some of them.

Keep the tool oiled

Because wood is a natural material, it is more sensitive to environmental changes than plastic or steel. Exposure to too much moisture will cause swelling, and too much heat will dry out and shrink the wood. One way to protect wood from environmental damage is to regularly oil the wood.

Avoid using the dishwasher

Dishwashers are characterized by high temperature and large amounts of water. Wood is very sensitive to temperature changes, so extremely high temperatures may cause expansion and eventually warpage. Your beautiful wooden knife will look a mess when taken out of the washing machine.

Just wash the knives by hand in soapy water, dry them immediately, and then put them in the open air to dry completely before storing. It is important to let it dry because wood stays moist longer than plastic or metal. Storing it in damp conditions may cause unhealthy mold growth on the wood. Once this starts to happen, your knife is complete.

Why choose YIER Knives

● The complete knife set contains all kitchen knives.

● Delivery from the local warehouse, within 3 days.

● Manufactured in our own factory, cost-effective.

● Transparent acrylic knife holder, like a work of art

● Excellent materials, safe and durable.

● Free returns

● We listen to customer needs and feedback.

#yier knife #yiercity #good knife set #basic knife set #nice cutlery