#yes there is a golden crab clock

[halrinach24]

My new Peach riot figurine came today!! I'm so happy with Poppy in the tree stump she's so cute in the trinkets shelf

[jjmaybanksbaby]

Where It Leads (Rafe Cameron)

Summer III

Part 05: With Some Other Girl

series masterlist | previous part

summary: Rafe’s actions surprised you when there’s no awkwardness lingering from last summer.

a/n: New summer new drama!! We're more than halfway through this series and I might post the final two parts within a week so be on the lookout! That's all! Enjoy part five xx

word count: 2.2k words

Nowhere on the East or West coast did seafood quite like The Wreck. During your summers in the Outer Banks, you made sure that practically every other meal consisted of their to-die-for shrimp or amazing crab. For your birthday, back in October, your mom had even looked into getting food from The Wreck shipped to you before realizing that might have been a stretch.

You waited at the bar for the girl with the curly golden brown hair, and especially kind eyes, to return from the kitchen with your order. The smells of the food cooking made your mouth water.

A boy, who looked about your younger brother's age slide onto the bar stool next to you. His dirty blond hair fell into his eyes, clearly in need of a good haircut.

"Leave the customers alone, JJ." The girl set a paper bag with your food down in front of you, grease staining the bottom.

"I wasn't even doing anything, Kie," JJ protested.

"You're total's $40.53. Do you need a receipt?" She asked, taking your mom's card from your outstretched hand.

"I'm JJ, by the way." He held out his hand for you to shake but the girl - Kie, was it? - smacked it away.

"She's way out of your league, idiot. Sorry about him," she said turning to you.

You smiled at the both of them, their playfulness reminding you of your own friends from back home. "Nice to meet you, JJ." You picked up your bag of food, turning to leave.

"She was so into me." You heard JJ whisper to Kie as you walked to the front door.

"No way, is that y/n?" You froze, a few steps away from the exit, knowing exactly who that voice belonged to. "Hey," Rafe called again. "Get over here."

You'd been back in the Outer Banks a total of three days. You definitely hadn't been planning on seeing Rafe Cameron so soon. Well, after how last summer had ended, you hadn't really been counting on seeing him at all.

You spun on your heel, plastering on your best fake smile, and headed in the direction of Rafe's voice.

It's okay. Act casual. He's just an old friend. There doesn’t have to be any weirdness. You said to yourself, trying to calm your nerves.

Rafe was seated in a corner booth at the back of the restaurant, his arm slung over Phoebe’s shoulder who, herself, was sitting practically in his lap. Her expression looked especially irate at the fact that you were interrupting their - what was going on exactly? A date?

"Uh, hey guys," you said, approaching their table.

"Y/n!" Rafe repeated. "You're back for the summer?"

"Yeah, we got in a few days ago.”

"How are you? How's the boyfriend?"

Why the fuck was Rafe asking about Evan? You wondered, your eyes narrowing trying to gather some explanation from Rafe's face.

"We actually broke up. Last September. He hasn't been my boyfriend for a while." Correction, you'd gone back to Oregon and hadn't stopped thinking about Rafe, for the second year in a row. It didn't seem fair to Evan so you’d tried to let him down gently, the week before auditions for the fall musical no less. It became pretty clear how torn up about it he was when he started crying during the monologue portion of his audition and the tears weren't the kind you forced out solely for a performance.

"How sad," Phoebe said, turning her lip down in a fake pout making it clear she couldn't care less.

You just smiled back at her, not wanting to give any kind of validation. You could feel Rafe eyes on you.

"Okay, well, I guess I'll see you around." You turned to leave. Your mom was waiting outside in the car, probably wondering what was taking so long.

"I hope so," Rafe replied.

☼☼☼

You blinked your eyes open, adjusting to the bright sunlight filling the room. You rubbed the sleep from them, yawning.

Holy shit. This was definitely not your bedroom; this was Rafe's room. The events of last night came rushing back, the morning bless falling away.

You'd run into Cleo at the grocery store after your mom had sent you to get an onion she needed for dinner. Cleo had been buying chasers for Sawyer's my-parents-aren't home-and-they-left-the-liquor-cabinet-unlocked party and invited you. And you went. Which was probably the first mistake of the night.

Rafe had greeted you at the door with the kind of smile that screamed "I don't even remember our fight last summer." You'd opted to ignore the white powder under his nose, likely the reason for his bloodshot eyes.

The party had run dry after a few hours so Rafe offered to grab some more from his house since his whole family was in the Bahamas house for the weekend. You’d went with him because what the hell. The night hadn’t even been the least bit awkward. Mistake number two.

You sat on the Cameron's island counter as Rafe riffled through the cabinet, trying to decide which bottle Ward was least likely to notice was missing.

"Do you trust me?" He’d asked.

That was a loaded question but you’d nodded your head yes. He'd pushed your knees apart, stepping in between your legs like that's where he belonged.

"Tilt your head back," he'd instructed and you had.

Rafe uncapped the bottle of Malibu, pouring it straight into your mouth. He’d hummed with satisfaction as you swallowed the liquid. Your eyes locked as he ran a thumb up your neck and over your chin, whipping away the bit that had spilled before he brought your lips to meet his. It was by far the hottest thing anyone had ever done.

The kiss had tasted salty and coconutty, like the drink he had just poured into your mouth. He moved his other hand to your hip, pulling you in closer.

You'd only broken apart to fumble your way upstairs and into his room, shedding your clothing on the way, your lips finding each other's again and again, kissing like there was some ticking clock counting down the seconds.

You remembered the way Rafe's name had tumbled off your lips with his hand between your thighs. How his blue eyes held yours as he pushed into you. The sweet praises that he whispered into your ears as the both of you came underdone together. The way it all felt so fucking right, like the universe apologizing for the last two summers.

You hadn't meant to fall asleep, to spend the night in Rafe Cameron's bed but he'd wrapped his arm around you and your head fell to rest on his chest and sleep just came.

You kept your movements slow afraid of creaky floorboard as you slipped out of his bed. Sneaking out without Rafe waking up was sure to be the path of less resistance. Hadn't last night been a drunken mistake?

Your shorts had landed next to the bed and your bra was hanging from the door handle, the irony of that wasn't lost on you.

Rafe cleared his throat. "Good morning," he said. Oh, shit. So he was awake.

"I was just looking for my shirt," you replied.

The Cameron's front door opened with a bang. Cole and Milo's voices filled the house seconds later.

"Dude," Cole hollered. "Who'd you fuck last night? Some chick's panties are on your staircase."

Rafe's eyes meet yours and he leaped out of his bed. "Linen closet," he hissed, pulling open the door of the hallway closet and pushing you inside. "Stay here."

His footsteps echoed as he rushed down the stairs, stopping at the bottom to pick up your underwear and shove them in his back pocket.

"I need a fucking boat day," Rafe said to the boys. "I'm hungover as fuck. Can you go see if the Yeti coolers' in the garage? I think Ward brought it up from the boat last time."

"Uhh, yeah, sure," Milo answered. "C'mon Cole."

The sounds of their chatter disappeared and Rafe ran back up the stairs, pulling open the closet. "Okay, the coast is clear."

"Rafe, should we...uh...you know...talk about it?"

"What's there to talk about?" He asked back.

"Right," you answered unsure if you really believed that casual sex with Rafe Cameron was a possibility. "Can I have my underwear back?"

He shrugged, a smirk growing on his lips. "Nah, I think I'm gonna hold onto them. For safekeeping." What kind of bullshit patriarchal move was that? He looked over his shoulder to the lower level. "Milo and Cole will be back any second, you should probably go."

☼☼☼

You silently thanked your yesterday-self for having left your window unlocked just in case. You closed it quietly behind you and dove into your bed. The door to your bedroom swung open seconds later.

"Why are you still in bed y/n? I told you yesterday that we were going dress shopping for Midsummers today at noon. It’s less than a week away. Get up, please," your mom said.

"Sorry, mom. I'll meet you downstairs in ten."

"Hurry up." She pulled the door closed behind her as she left your room.

You breathed a sigh of relief, throwing off the covers you had hicked up to your neck to hide last night's outfit. Shit, had you really slept with Rafe Cameron? And then he brushed it off like it wasn't going to change things? As if whatever was going between the two of you couldn't get more complicated.

☼☼☼

The light bounced off the three-way mirror you were standing in front of, making the bedding on the dress sparkle.

"Turn around," your mother instructed. Apparently, this year's Midsummers’ theme was Hollywood Glamour like it was the fucking Met Gala or something so she'd been forcing you and in out of red dresses for the past hour and a half. "I really like this one y/n. The bow is so cute."

You resisted rolling your eyes. The bow was hideous, plus the high-low skirt screamed middle school dance. The bedding was itchy and you’d hardly had the dress on for five minutes.

The front door chimed announcing a new customer and Phoebe's figure appeared in the reflection of the mirror.

"I'm gonna go try on a different one, mom," you said, trying to duck into the changing room before Phoebe had the chance to see you.

"Wait, wait wait." Your mom grabbed your hips pulling you back in front of the mirror. "I just think this looks perfect on you, sweetie. Look," she stepped behind you, using one hand to twist your hair up into a makeshift updo. "you can wear your hair pinned up like this and we can get you a sparkly headband. It'll be gorgeous.”

You definitely weren't wearing any kind of a headband based on the fact that you weren't twelve anymore but, more important, you needed to get out of Phoebe’s line of sight like now. "Yeah, okay, mom. That sounds fine. We can get it then."

"Aw, honey. Do you not like it?" She asked, cocking her head to the side. "Cause we can try a different score. Even though this is the only dress store for thirty miles," she mumbled under her breath.

Phoebe glanced over from the front counter, her eyes meeting yours in the mirror. Your mother's voice became muffled as panic rose in your chest. You hadn't even thought about it last night but now all you could remember was Phoebe with Rafe's arm wrapped around her at The Wreck.

Phoebe abandoned her position at the front of the store, walking over to you.

"Hi y/n!" She started, her voicer reaching an octave that screamed fake niceties. "You must be y/n's mom. You two couldn't look anything more alike." That was a lie. You and your mom couldn't look more different. It was your older sister who was practically your mother’s clone.

God, what game was Phoebe playing?

"Oh my gosh.” She took half a step closer forcing you to notice the couple inches she had on you. "Is this your dress for Midsummers? It's so cute," she said, somehow managing to pronounce cute with two syllables.

Another lie. The dress was terrible.

"I'm just picking up my dress too. Custom-made." Phoebe flashed a smile to your mom. "I'm trying to talk Rafe into getting a matching bow-tie but he refuses. Boys," she giggled.

Shhe must have registered the look of surprise on your face. "Oh, did he not tell you we were going together? I wouldn't take it personally. We've been going together since freshman year. It's tradition at this point."

The saleswoman returned from the back of the store, a garment bag in her hand. "Well, I've gotta run. See you around!" She pranced off, her vanilla perfume lingering in the air.

"She seems nice. I'm so glad you're making friends here, honey.”

"Oh, yeah. She’s the best." If your mom heard the sarcasm in your voice, she chose to ignore it. "I'm going to try on the black one," you huffed, heading back into the changing room.

It wasn't like going with Rafe to Midsummers was in the realm of possibilities anyway, so why was it bothering you so much that he was taking Phoebe? Either way, there was nothing stopping you from making Rafe wish it was you on his arm instead. Petty wasn’t usually your style but something about the memory of Rafe’s lip on your neck being fresh in your mind made all rational thoughts go out the window. Game on Phoebe.

taglist! @oreoenthusiast13 [drop a ☀️ in my inbox or messages if you want to be added]

[astraeal]

Commission for @thedashasaproblem! Hope you enjoy; read it on AO3 here.

Farmer Marie, original character, belongs to @thedashasaproblem. Stardew Valley, and all characters and settings therein, belongs to concernedape.

“Okay! We have quite a few things we need to get done today. Marnie called – you know how I asked her to let us know if she had any more available chicks? Yes? – and said there were some new ones we could pick up, which is perfect and just in time because Robin wrapped up the coop yesterday! And that means we need fresh hay in the coop, and if we need to restock the silo then we’ll mow too. Bessie needs to be milked and we’ll check if Sweetpea has any this morning or if she’s still nursing – ugh, little Delilah is going to be so stunning when she grows up, I can feel it. Oh, and good morning babe!”

Elliott blinks from where he’d stumbled into the kitchen, his hair thrown into a messy bun and loose auburn strands hanging around his face. He is in no way prepared for Marie’s chipper enthusiasm, but that’s what made him love her, after all. And, this entire situation is something he brought upon himself.

Head full of fantastical pastoral fantasies, he’d asked Marie to keep him appraised of what it takes to run Shady Land Farm. He was good with books, which was helpful – while Marie was running about the Valley in search of delicious fruits and rare stones, Elliott appointed himself the financier of Marie’s assets.

It had been difficult; he’d consolidated sticky notes scattered about the house with haphazard reminders about supplies owed to Robin, and items to sell to Pierre at the general store vs. what should be distributed to townsfolk directly, and birthday reminders, and favorite gifts, and occasional notes written in a script he couldn’t parse but appearing on a fantastical dark blue page that made his writer’s intuition spark. (That, and his fingers burned a little whenever he held such a note, as if it knew that he was not the intended recipient, but he never let Marie know that.)

After his book tour had completed, he had taken the better part of their first fall together to consolidate these notes and square the books. It had been helpful when Marie decided to go forward with the basement upgrade, and suddenly Shady Land’s wines and cheeses were worth quite a lot more. They’d only recently begun talking about incorporating more animals into the farm, hence the phone call to Marnie. With the addition of more animals, and Marie’s additional time spent working on repairing the old Community Center, Elliott wanted to assist more. It was only fair, after all; he still got most of his writing done at night, and there was no reason he couldn’t spend more of his mornings helping around the farm.

Marie had been ecstatic, of course, and he’d glowed with the anticipated appreciation for his efforts. So far, it hadn’t been that difficult. Sprinklers handled most of the watering, and with Marie’s clear eye for design, he wasn’t getting lost in the fields as he had feared he would.

But he still wasn’t a morning person, and his brain isn’t entirely on all the way, especially when his wife has inundated him with information and her beautiful visage so early in the morning.

Marie looks up at him, wide blue eyes and a warm smile on her face, blonde hair tucked away in two braids that usually resided beneath her sunhat. The hat now rests on the worn kitchen table, two steaming mugs of coffee and cozy breakfast platters set on the table. Still processing his wife’s words, Elliott makes his way to the second breakfast platter and pours some milk into his coffee, knowing he’ll need it to make it through the day.

“Good morning, my dear,” he murmurs as he finishes those first three blessed gulps of caffeinated beverage. “Would you like me to fetch the chicks? Or shall I stay on the homestead and you venture to the forest?”

Marie takes a bite of her eggs, done up with some goat cheese – “I bought it from Pierre but when we get some we’ll make our own, and it’ll be probably fresher than this stuff!” – potatoes, and sausage in her own little scramble. Elliott’s breakfast is far more tame, scrambled eggs and farm fresh cheese, with toast on the side.

“If you want to take Miss Daisy to Marnie’s, that would be great! She could use an excursion, and she loves the woods.” Marie sets her hand – soft, thanks to the gloves she uses, but still strong and capable – over Elliott’s wrist. “If you don’t mind, that is. I know coming back with newborn chicks might be a little…difficult.”

He warms at her touch. “I’m sure Marnie has a basket or some such thing I could use, don’t fret darling. She’d never let anything happen to the animals in her care.”

Marie smiles at him, and pecks his cheek. “Alright, babe, I’ll head down to the barn –”

“Oh, I can do that!” He blushes a little after his outburst, but still gives his wife a smile. “Let me handle the animals today, my dear. The first fruits of spring will be in the orchard, and you’ve got a better sense for flora than I.”

They both remember the catastrophic effort in Elliott’s old cottage when he watered his rose with sea water and was confused as to why it was dying. That had been one of the many points Elliott began to consider Marie as more than a friend.

She gives him a look clearly conveying that she’s thinking of the same moment he is. “Well, alright. Apricots and cherries, what a combination. Oh! And the wine! I’ll be right back!” She darts away, down the basement stairs, presumably to see if any wine has finished maturing yet. Some things she pulls out early, just for a little extra cash – Gus is always appreciative of a finer quality of any type of ingredient, especially alcohol.

Elliott knows it will take her a little while to check each barrel, so he quickly finishes his breakfast and coffee, and then stands, ready to take on the day.

First, to get himself prepared.

Then, to tend to Miss Daisy.

♢♢♢

Marie loses some time in the basement, checking each and every barrel, weighing the pros and cons of switching out some of the wine barrels for cheese barrels. With Bessie and Sweetpea both producing such quality milk, Shady Land has a near excess of cheese and she knows Gus would pay a fair amount to have some for his pizzas and salads.

Then again, better quality cheese keeps her going in the mines and other excursions, so there might be some incentive to keep some around? She’d probably ask Elliott for his thoughts, but by the time she surfaces from the basement and sees the clock perched over the coffee maker in the kitchen, she realizes it’s already 2:49pm.

She’d left her husband alone for hours. Elliott isn’t incompetent, but there’s still etiquette for handling new animals, especially babies, and all of Grandpa’s farming books are written in family shorthand, something she’d been meaning to teach Elliott but just kept forgetting.  

Alarmed, Marie runs out to the front porch, expecting some sort of catastrophe. Bessie to be loose – not that she’d do much but perhaps wander up towards the house and eat a few tulips or something – or maybe Aspen to have fallen into the lake (again) but instead all’s quiet. She can hear the soft bells hanging from Bessie, Sweetpea, and little Delilah, but she can’t see them through the orchard.

She doesn’t run, lest she startle anyone, but she heads towards the tree line as quickly as she can. As she approaches, she can hear her husband’s voice. She quiets her steps as she enters the dappled shade of the orchard, the apple and orange trees still dormant for the season, yet producing beautiful flowers regardless. A sweet spring wind guides some fallen petals towards her, beautifully framing the tender scene she sees before her.

Elliott sits on a stump, Miss Daisy, Bessie, and Sweetpea, grazing peacefully beside him. He and little Delilah, however, are looking down, enraptured with three small fuzzy brown and golden chirping fluffy chicks in the grass. The chicks are barely visible from her current distance, but as Elliott straightens up his long hair goes back into place, revealing a fourth little chick curled up in his hand, which he gives little pets to every once in a while.

“You’re not too different from the crab that once lived in my pocket,” the story crafter begins, murmuring to the little chick in his hand. The chick chirps in response, and Elliott chuckles. “I haven’t told you that story yet? Well, I absolutely should.”

Marie takes another small step forward, not wanting to encroach on the moment nor startle any of the beings involved. The more she watches the scene, the more she sees things she hadn’t before. Like how all the adult females stood firmly on the edge of the lake, prohibiting the chicks, Elliott, or Aspen from wandering too close to it. And a small – hopefully empty – milk pail sits next to the stump, as if her husband had finished a chore and then simply couldn’t be away from the chicks for much longer.

What gives her away is another small fluff ball in the grass, this one bigger than the chicks, a brilliant white that rockets out of the higher grass and directly into Marie’s arms.

“Aspen! Who’s a good boy?” she coos, on reflex. Miss Daisy looks nonplussed, as if she knew Marie was there the entire time, while Delilah startles a little and runs back to the safety of Sweetpea.

Elliott also startles, which startles the chicks, who all climb and jump up his pant legs and into his lap, chirping loudly until they can take cover in the safety of Elliott’s lap. “Darling! I didn’t hear you arrive!” He looks caught red handed, though with what, Marie’s not sure.

She walks over, Aspen tucked to her chest, and sees with no small amount of relief that the milk pail isn’t full of milk, but rather water. Now, she can also see a small basket, no doubt from Marnie, in which the chicks probably arrived.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to disrupt…you just looked so cute, babe! Everyone treating you nicely?” Marie leans forward, letting Aspen back down to the ground, and gives an affectionate rub to Miss Daisy, who wandered over searching for some treats.

Elliott blushes, visible even with the mid-spring flush he seems to always have on him. “Yes, quite. Everyone has been remarkably kind to me. Miss Daisy had to guide us home herself! I was, ah, a little preoccupied with the newest young ones.”

The wind picks up a little, carrying more flower petals through the air. Elliott’s long auburn waves glint caramel in the sun, unfurling to the side, revealing the turquoise earring usually kept tucked away. Marie had mined that turquoise herself; the earring had been a wedding gift from Clint, repurposing a stone Marie had sold him a few weeks prior to their proposal. (She had briefly wondered if maybe Clint and Elliott had been in on it together, as the timing was so perfect, but maybe she was simply overthinking things.)

Elliott looks completely at home, sitting cross-legged on the stump, worn down by spring rains. With the chicks in his lap and the errant flower petals in his hair, the man looks ever more like a regal prince from all the books and movies Marie had seen growing up.

“They’ve taken a liking to you,” she observes, reaching a finger in to give gentle pets to the soft downy chicks. They accept them, curious and cautious in their new home, but feeling brave under Elliott’s protection. “Have you thought of any names?”

Her husband looks up, green eyes wide. “Names? Oh, darling, I thought that was all you.”

“Nonsense! You picked them up, you should at least be able to name them. These ladies will need fine names, if they’re to live here on Shady Land. And you’re a writer, names are what you do!”

The chicks chirp in agreement, looking up at Elliott.

“Well…I was thinking this one could be Carmelina,” he murmurs, touching the lightest brown one. “Caramel, for the color, but the full name also means “vineyard of Yoba” so I find that fitting for the main exports of Shady Land, don’t you?”

Marie blinks. “You…knew the meaning of the name on the spot?”

“Of course! Clara was almost named Carmelina in Camellia Station, but I thought that would be too close to the title of the book, so I changed it. Still kept the C though.” He gets that wistful look on his face, a little lost in thought, as he usually does when trying to come up with next big ideas for his writing career.

The farmer giggles, giving more pets to Miss Daisy, who finally nosed out the cookies in Marie’s pockets. She gives one to her steadfast companion, looking at her husband with a newfound appreciation.

She takes a seat on the stump beside Elliott, looking up at him as they discussed further names for the chicks. The sun dripped down through the orchard’s branches, spreading dappled shadows up the short grassy expanse. Eventually, the cows and Miss Daisy wander back to their respective barns and stables, and the chicks doze off in Elliott’s lap. Marie delicately takes a couple – the newly named Carmelina and Dahlia – and heads off to the newly constructed coop to set them inside.

The chicks barely move when they’re set down in their new hay lined beds, clearly Elliott’s handiwork while Marie was tending to the house. The two of them hold hands, walking through the fields of Shady Land.

“You know, we could wash up and head to town. Get a late lunch at the Saloon, then maybe walk down by the beach?” Marie suggests, watching her husband for his response. She likes to spend as much time with him as possible before she loses him to his nightly writing routine, and there’s something a little tender about meandering down by the places they had fallen in love.

Elliott beams, nearly glowing with happiness. “That sounds delightful, dear. I’ll be sure to put on my best shirt.”

It’s not necessary to dress up for a 4pm lunch at the Stardrop Saloon, but Elliott likes to go the extra mile, and Marie can appreciate the little efforts to glamorize being a farmer’s husband. She kisses his dirt smeared cheek, standing side by side on the porch, and marvels at how far she’s taken the farm since her grandfather had worked the land.

Maybe someday she’d tell her husband about the vision she’d received a couple weeks ago, with her grandfather and the ultimate judging of her efforts so far, and the new, strange, blue flame candles on her grandfather’s shrine in the northwest corner of the farm. Someday. But not today.

“I wonder if Gus will have crab cakes,” she teases, stepping into their home, to the sounds of fire crackling in the fireplace and her husband enthusiastically waxing poetic about his favorite dish in the entire Valley.

Truly, it’s home.

[starshinegoblin]

Is It Broken?

@ruensroad - I wanted to make a gift for you and I hope it’s okay that I used your Witch au again! Here’s you some NieYao with a kiss because of the world ending or at least feeling like it.

—

“A-Yao, it’s going to be okay.” Nie Mingjue said trying to calm his husband. Who is currently in his familiar form burrowing into his chest as he was driving them back home. He can feel the little huffs, anxious shaking, and he doesn’t need to check to know there are several scratches too. Nie Mingjue doesn’t blame him though. The call he’d gotten from Jiang Cheng letting him know that a terrible storm had passed through while they were gone at the convention. His mind remembering the call that led to this.

Nie Mingjue grunted in displeasure at the sound of their phone in their room at the inn they are staying at ringing. Blindly he reached out grasping the phone. “Yes.” He sleepily growled, the sound stirring his husband. Meng Yao nuzzled his chest, eyes fluttering open as he tried to wake up.

“Sorry to disturb you Mr. Nie. We have a call from a, Mr. Jiang that says that it is urgent.” the concierge informed him.

“Put him through.” Nie Mingjue ordered, gently running his hand in slow motions up and down Meng Yao’s back to get him to go back to sleep. Blearily, he can make out the alarm clock that read that it was just a quarter after five in the morning. No, reason for him to be up too. Feeling the other huff in sleepy compliance he knew that it was working.

“I am sorry, Nie-ge, I normally wouldn’t bother the both you but I tried your cell phone and that didn’t work. I wanted to let you know that we got a bad storm in the area last night. Since you were out of town, me and A-Huan went to check on your shop. You might want to come home. One of the trees has fallen onto your home.” Jiang Cheng informed, blessedly not beating around the bush. He didn’t have time to say anything before his husband shot up suddenly.

“WHAT? Where did it fall?!” Meng Yao demanded clearly upset and no longer sleepy. Of course he would have been able to hear the conversation with his enhanced hearing.

“Near the back over the solarium.” Jiang Cheng answered him not needing to repeat the question, “The shop in the front looks still intact though.”

“Thank you, Jiang Cheng.” Nie Mingjue replied, his eyes on his husband. Through their bond he could feel the fear and anxiety rising in the other. The location of the tree was awfully close to Meng Yao’s beloved music room.

“No problem. If you need help let us know.” Jiang Cheng stated before ending the call.

“We have to go home.” Meng Yao stated hurriedly tossing back the sheets, getting up.

Nie Mingjue was stirred from his memory at the feeling of Meng Yao moving underneath his sweater. His tiny clawed paws crawling up to a more comfortable spot on Nie Mingjue’s shoulder. He didn’t come out though and Nie Mingjue understood. If he saw how badly the weather had gotten in other places Meng Yao would get even more upset.

How far are we? Meng Yao asked, the first words he’d spoken for miles. Not since he had a panic attack half way back transforming into his sugar glider form. Too on edge to shift back he’d stayed that way and crawled under Nie Mingjue’s sweater through his sleeve.

“We will be there in about ten minutes. Do you think you can shift back?” Nie Mingjue asked. Their town had been hit hard. Debris from trees, businesses, and homes littered everywhere. He hoped that Jiang Cheng’s Cafe was okay.

Maybe. Meng Yao answered sheepishly.

“It’s okay, babe, if you can’t.” Nie Mingjue reassured him leaning over to press a kiss on the bundle beneath the sweater on his shoulder.

I love you. Meng Yao replied.

“But you love your boxes more.” Nie Mingjue teased, earning a nip on his shoulder from tiny teeth.

Not true. Meng Yao argued but they both knew that Meng Yao’s greatest treasure besides his husband was the boxes. They are the literal physical manifestation of their love and devotion. Each one is unique with the exterior and interior designs, songs they play, and sheer size. In his familiar form he is able to be inside the boxes comfortably and move around.

“We are here.” Nie Mingjue announced as the shop came into view. Jiang Cheng had been right. The front of the shop looked good, but the back of the house had fallen prey to the Willow tree from the neighbors yard. Nie Mingjue sighed as he carefully parked in the parking spot in front of the store front.

The small weight he’d felt on his shoulder disappeared as a golden shimmering smoke lifted out of his sweater moving to take human form in his passenger seat. The moment he was materialized, Nie Mingjue reached over taking his husband’s hand. A thin smile on his face letting Meng Yao know that he was proud of him for being able to shift back.

“Let’s go.” Meng Yao said letting out a shuddering breath before the two of them got out of the car. They went through the store front, locking up behind them, before heading into their private residence behind. The living room was a mess of leaves, water, tree limbs, and glass on everything. The two looked up to find the tree protruding from the skylights but the beams were holding strong to keep it from crushing in.

Nie Mingjue was about to say something to his husband when the sound of the music boxes playing their songs started. He looked back to find his husband standing still with his eyes closed. In his human form he had to concentrate more to get the boxes to play like that. Suddenly, his eyes opened wide, tears starting to form.

“NO!” Meng Yao cried out, staying in his human form darting past Nie Mingjue into their house.

“Wait!” Nie Mingjue called after him knowing where the other was going. Fear setting in his bones, their bond feeding his worries. They didn’t know what the rest of the house looked like and in his mind he knew that if any of the boxes are broken that he could fix them.

Meng Yao shoved the door open not caring about the state of the room. The windows were blown out, water and glass all over the floor. Most of the boxes were fine but the ones closest to the windows were askew and a few on the floor. His mouth dropping open in fear as he spotted his seashell music box busted open on the floor at the edge of the carpet.

“A-YAO!” Nie Mingjue called after him watching his husband rush into the room. By the time he got to the doorway, Meng Yao was on the ground cradling what looked like the seashell music box. He glanced up seeing that the ceiling looked stable as he made his way over to his husband. Sure enough that’s what it was in the other’s arms when he moved to his side. The music box was about a foot and a half tall crab shell. It was decorated with hand painted gold leaf starfish laying on the shell with rubies and diamonds with mechanical swimming fish.

“A-Yao, is it broken?” Nie Mingjue called to his husband wrapping his arms around him.

“Yes.” Meng Yao whimpered holding it up to him. The mechanized fish were broke off and the starfish was gone, keeping the lid closed. He peered inside checking to see if the clam that held Meng Yao’s hoard was still there. It was but the remaining pieces such as the laying rock and a lot of the inner mechanized fish were gone. In its glory, Meng Yao would slip inside lay on the rock and watch the fish dance to the lovely song set while the clam opened up to allow him to put his treasures in.

Of all the boxes to break it had to be the the first one and the only one that didn’t have a pendant. It just opened magnetically. Nie Mingjue knew that he should have pushed more to let Meng Yao allow him to modify it to accommodate the others. This one was even more precious because it housed the first thing that he’d hoarded from Nie Mingjue. The peach pearl that had supposed to go into a ring meant for him. He reached in tapping the clam. It opened up easily revealing that the pearl and the ring. A small smile spreading across his face that they were both still there.

“It’s okay, my love, it’s not the end of the world and I can fix it making it even better.” Nie Mingjie said trying to comfort his husband, taking the music box out of his hands setting it aside. He cupped Meng Yao’s face, tilting his head to look at him. Meng Yao gave him a thin smile leaning into his touch. Nie Minjgue smiled brightly, leaning in kissing his husband in promise that he’d keep his word.

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 89

June 8 

Another Monday, the start of another business week, and a very busy day! Today was full of many adventures, such as achieving a new high score in Gardenscapes, being yelled at by an elderly person, and not going to Lowes. Quite the whirlwind! The kiddo has not quite gone to sleep yet, but I have bought time out of his room by telling him I was going to make some tea (which is technically also true). I am hoping that by the time I check on him in ten minutes, he will have fallen asleep cause he was pretty tired. 

First thing this morning was the meeting with the attorney. It was a Zoom visit, and my goodness, aren't we all getting good at using Zoom now? It's practically old hat. We had a list of questions and were able to get some useful answers, as well as start to make a plan going forward with handling the estate. Apparently the office now does drive thru will signing and notarization, which is very funny to me but makes sense since you need two witnesses in person for a will signing and I don't think anyone has tested whether videoconferencing is in person enough. (I think it's gonna happen soon though, and I think the answer will be yes.)  After the meeting, I spent much of the rest of the morning making a list of what entities will need a copy of the death certificate when it arrives and where that certificate will need to be sent. I am hoping we can stay long enough that the certificates come in the mail, but they are apparently kind of backed up right now. 

While I was working, the kiddo seized control of our little iPad (we have many iPads in the house right now, there is the big iPad, which was Papa's, the medium iPad, which is Nana's, and the little iPad, which we got when Papa got the big iPad because he couldn't read the little iPad) and used it to spend all my Gardenscapes stars. I like the match-three game that is Gardenscapes and pretty much ignore the metagame of furnishing the garden except when I need to get extra lives. The kiddo doesn't like the actual game very much but gets a real kick out of furnishing the garden, so he spent all 1400 of my accumulated stars, finished four or five areas, and bumped my coin total to an all-time high of 105,000. I am like unto a god among gardeners, fear my pecuniary might! Upon finishing spending my stars, he gave me back the iPad and insisted I needed to earn him more stars, so that's what I did during podcast time tonight. 

For lunch my husband made mozzarella stick grilled cheese, where he made grilled cheese sandwiches, then rolled them in breading, then pan-fried them crispy golden brown and served them with marinara sauce. They were very, very good and I should probably not eat them more than once a year if I value my coronary artery health. After lunch MIL and I went to the drive-thru at the drugstore for her medicine, and then I tried to go to Lowes for a new outdoor garbage can and garden hose. I figured midafternoon on a Monday shouldn't be too busy, but the place was packed! What the hell is everybody doing at Lowes, anyway? I decided to come back later after noting the number of people not even wearing masks. 

The afternoon was pretty sedate, husband and kiddo took the other guitar, this one a regular size wooden acoustic that FIL made from a kit back in his early retirement days. FIL was a hell of a woodworker at one time, he also built a grandfather clock from a kit that still stands in the living room and keeps good time. MIL wasn't sure that the homemade guitar could be tuned, but the guy at the shop said that while it wouldn't be quite perfect, he could get it sounding good. The kiddo is very enamored with the guitar and spent his creative arts half hour today just playing with it and making fairly musical noises with it. I can already understand why the guitar is a better instrument to have your kid learning than any of the brasses or woodwinds. This bears thinking about. 

The meal train from MIL's church started today. People will be bringing us dinner every other night for the next two weeks, which is very nice of them and gives us dinner and MIL the feeling that people at her church have not forgotten her. FIL had an extremely hard time getting around this past year or two and was often hard to rouse and dress in the mornings, so they weren't getting to church nearly as much even before the virus. I can tell she is happy to know that people still know her and want to help her in a time of need. I suspect, I hope anyway, that within the next year or so she is one of the people signing up to help others, as well as joining committees and groups again. She thrives on being involved in things, and she hasn't been able to do it in a long time. 

Anyway, two people brought stuff over today, one of them a backstop when she saw that the person who signed up was bringing imitation crab salad and sweet potato pecan salad as the main dishes. The second person very tactfully  contacted us directly and offered to bring us a pork tenderloin, which we gladly accepted. The pork tenderloin lady arrived at 5:30 and dropped off the food with a little doorway conversation and condolences, very nice. Half an hour later, I was playing Gardenscapes in our room (the kiddo is a harsh taskmaster) when MIL shoved the landline phone into my hands and said "here, you're good at giving directions, the meal train lady is lost." 

Before I could protest that I don't even go here, the rather elderly lady on the other end of the phone was telling me about how she'd gone from X road to Y road and ended up back on X road and had no idea where she was and was driving around randomly. By a small miracle, I was able to figure out where she actually was and try to explain to her what she needed to do, only for her to interrupt me four or five times to tell me I wasn't making any sense, and also accused me of not answering the phone the first time she'd called. At long last I managed to get her to a landmark that put her back on the correct road and gave her the rest of the turns, then sent the guys out to the end of the driveway to flag her down. When she arrived, I tried to apologize for the confusion and explained that our GPS was also confused for a long time by the fairly rural route, she told me I ought to remember that not everybody has a GPS! It was like getting Tumblr-privilege-checked IRL by an old woman and was rather offputting. But hey, at least it was me and not MIL. Who the hell scolds the bereaved family they are bringing food to because they themselves had shitty directions? I don't even know. 

Anyway, the pork tenderloin was very good, the crab salad was a small container of crab salad, and the sweet potato salad was incredibly weird. it was like a vinegar based potato salad except instead of tiny chunks of white potato it was quartered sweet potatoes and also red peppers with pecans dumped on top. There were also brownies that we could not peg the flavor on but were something in the blonde peanut butter-chocolate chip-possibly dates or raisins category. And man, I know it's extremely gauche to bag on food people bring you out of the kindness of their hearts, but come on, don't both yell at me and bring me weird potato salad, that's not very nice. 

The kiddo has indeed gone to sleep in the time I've taken to steep my tea and write this, so that is excellent. Tomorrow I need to look into the financial advisor stuff some more and hopefully actually arrive at Lowes long enough to buy my items. For now, though, I have some stars to go earn. 

[inyournightmares97]

Unsolicited (3/3) (M)

Jackson Wang is a perfect gentleman and he thinks it’s extremely vital that you understand… that is not his penis.

Warnings: Fluff. Crack? Adult topics, mentions of sexual harassment (but not too serious) and plenty of swearing. College!au. Find the links to earlier parts in the reblog/in my main masterlist! (Also this is unedited but I just have to sleep now and tomorrow is a long day) 

Word Count: 5.1k+

“Hey, hey, look! This crab looks a little bit like you!” Jackson Wang announced cheerfully, lifting the poor creature into the air. The tiny crab waved its pincers around in a panic and finally sank a pair into Jackson’s thumb. He let out a hiss and dropped the crab. “Ow! It even bit me! That crab is definitely you.”

You sighed as you walked over to him.

Why am I so attracted to this idiot?

“Maybe you should focus on picking up plastic and not tormenting the marine life?” you suggested while Jackson pouted and nursed his thumb. “Let me see that. You’re bleeding. Why would you even pick up a live crab if you didn’t know how to handle it?”

Jackson smiled down at you cheekily as you pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it against his bleeding thumb.

“Cause it looked kind of like you.”

You rolled your eyes. “I’m sure it did.”

“No, you should have seen it! It had this huge frown. See! Exactly like the one on your face right now!” Jackson insisted. You couldn’t help it. The corner of your lip twitched in amusement. You lowered your head and busied yourself with tying the handkerchief around Jackson’s thumb but he had already seen your smile. He fist-pumped his free arm in the air. “Yes! That’s smile number seven! I’m on a roll this morning!”

You looked up at him with a sigh. “Why are you doing this?”

Jackson shrugged. His own smile was bright. “I told you already, I like you. It makes me feel special knowing that you’re laughing because I made you laugh,” he replied simply. You took a deep breath and tried to stop your heartbeat from racing out of control. Jackson kept dropping these extremely sweet lines to you as if they were nothing. He didn’t seem to understand the impact his words had on you.

It was driving you crazy.

“You know what would make me smile a lot?” you asked nonchalantly, once you’d tied up his thumb. “If you picked up a little more plastic and did a little less harm to yourself.”

Jackson nudged you lightly. “Come on. It’s a beautiful day. There’s a lovely breeze, plenty of volunteers turned up to help with the clean-up drive. Even the volleyball team showed up in support. How’s that for a happy ending?”

You narrowed your eyes and glanced at the volleyball team; it was still beyond your understanding how Jackson Wang had turned the Environment Club’s mortal enemies into their allies in less than a day. Then again, Jackson just seemed to have this natural way of charming people. Wonho and Minhyuk were currently picking up soda cans as though they hadn’t been the ones who had dropped them there in the first place.

“How did you manage that?” you demanded.

Jackson blinked. “Oh, I exchanged numbers with Wonho and then I went over to his gym. Jooheon came too. After an intense workout and some smoothies, we were all best buds. Once I told Wonho about the fishies he convinced Minhyuk to come join the clean-up drive.”

You sighed.

“What?” Jackson wondered playfully. “What are you thinking?”

“I can’t decide if men are really that fickle-minded or if you’re just really charming,” you admitted. You looked up at him and narrowed your eyes. “Charming people are usually dangerous. I’ve got my eyes on you, Wang.”

“Great. Let me know if the shirt is blocking your view because I can get rid of that for you.”

You opened your mouth to respond but you were distracted by the appearance of two tall figures crossing the sand. You lifted a hand and waved at Bambam and Yugyeom in surprise. “Hey, guys! I didn’t know that you were going to show up!” you called out cheerfully. You had never imagined that the two idiots would haul themselves over here on a Sunday morning to help clean up but they were already wearing the volunteer tags and all.

Jackson chuckled. “You know those guys?”

“Unfortunately. I invited them here. I told them there would be free beers afterward.”

“Why would anyone hand out free beers at 9am?”

“A question those idiots neglected to ask,” you replied smugly as Bambam and Yugyeom finally reached you. You noticed that Bambam had a skip to his step and he greeted Jackson with a friendly clap on the back. Then he took a deep inhalation of the morning sea breeze and sighed happily.

“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” Bambam sang.

You raised an eyebrow. “Did he-”

“Yeah, Bambam                 finally asked out the girl who walks past the basketball court every day” Yugyeom informed you. “He almost screwed up but he managed to invite her to come to the frat party tonight. Are you coming to the party, Jackson-hyung?”

Jackson turned to you hopefully. “Will you be there?”

You cleared your throat. “Uh, frat parties aren’t really my scene, to be honest…”

“What do you mean, they’re not your scene? Of course they’re your scene,” Bambam scolded you with a pointed look. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder and gave Jackson a reassuring thumbs up. “Don’t worry about anything, hyung, I’ll drag her down to the frat house if I have to. She owes me her life considering I came to this stupid clean up drive.”

You shoved Bambam off with a frown. “You haven’t even picked up any trash yet.”  

“I will, give a man a few minutes to settle in for fuck’s sake.”

You sighed and raised an eyebrow at Jackson. “I’m sorry, how did these two guys manage to make it onto your basketball team? Don’t you have some minimum IQ requirement or something?”

Jackson chuckled. “Nope, we just needed tall guys. Besides, I wasn’t the one in charge of decision-making at try-outs. This guy named Jaebum and I are co-captains right now since the old captain dropped out of the team due to an injury. There’s going to be a vote later this week on who’s going to take on the position permanently.”

You blinked. “Oh. Good luck, then.”

Bambam clapped Jackson on the shoulder. “No worries, hyung, we’ve got your back.”

Jackson shrugged. “That’s okay, Bambam. Jaebum is an amazing player and leader too, so you can vote for either of us. It’s not a competition. We just want to see who the team members are more comfortable with so we don’t take an arbitrary decision, that’s all.”

Yugyeom sighed dreamily. “Hyung, you’re so cool.”

You bit your lip as you watched Jackson’s genuine smile. Was it possible that Jackson was really as golden-hearted as Bambam and Yugyeom seemed to think he was? He was so respectful and loving of people in general, and he had an excellent sense of sportsmanship. Jackson Wang was the most charming and easy-going person you’d ever met.

Could he really have harassed Nari and sent her those dick pics?

You were starting to seriously believe that he hadn’t, and that scared you. Was Jackson Wang really the good guy? Or were you so blinded by his charms and attractiveness that you were possibly siding with a sexual predator? You had no reason to believe that Nari had faked those screenshots but your gut was telling that she had. Still. What if your gut was wrong? What if you should be taking Nari’s side and comforting her as a victim?

“Okay, folks. Lots of trash to collect here, let’s stop chatting and get moving!” you announced.

Jackson smiled and gave you a small wink.

“The fishies need us, after all.”

--------------------------------------------------------------

You had seven missed calls from Nari.

She was furious that you hadn’t been answering her calls but to be honest, you didn’t really know what to say to her. Are you sure that you didn’t fabricate those text messages? didn’t seem like something you should be saying to a possible victim of sexual harassment. You didn’t have any proof that she had faked them.

You just really badly wanted to believe that she did.  

Nari: I want another appointment to meet you on Monday, as early as possible. You can’t keep ignoring me.

You sighed and texted her back, telling her to meet you during lunch on Monday. You were waiting for her response when Bambam burst out of your bedroom fully dressed and demanded your attention.

“How do these black pants look? Good? Bad? Should I change?”

You raised an eyebrow. “They look fine.”

He glared at you and placed his hands on his hips dramatically. “You’re worse than Yugyeom. What is even the point of having a female friend if she can’t even give decent fashion advice? Sometimes I wonder why I keep you around at all,” he huffed as he went back into your bedroom.  

You frowned and yelled after him. “You keep me around? This is my apartment, Bambam! You’re the one who barged in here three hours before the frat party with your entire wardrobe saying you wanted to get dressed here!”

Bambam slammed the door shut in response and you rolled your eyes. You knew he was being extra annoying because he wanted to impress this girl. Bambam seemed like a playboy on the surface and he put up a decent front, but when he really liked someone then he got all shy and anxious. You sighed and glanced at the clock. You had somehow gotten roped into attending the frat party as well. The thought of Jackson being there was making you nervous and you wanted to back out.

Bambam burst out of your bedroom in a pair of blue jeans and a rather nice black button-down shirt. You blinked at him in surprise.

“Hey, you look good in that.”

He rolled his eyes. “I look good in everything, bitch. Come on. We’re going to be late to the party.”

You sighed and dragged yourself off the couch.

This is going to be an interesting night.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a reason you hated frat parties and it was a very good one.

You somehow always found yourself standing alone and not knowing what to do with yourself. Bambam would go and flirt around with every woman in sight and within a few hours he’d have disappeared to a bedroom upstairs. Once Yugyeom got a little tipsy he started dancing and nobody could stop him. And you were left here with nobody to talk to and nothing to do except keep drinking.

Until Jackson Wang found you.

“Hey!” Jackson greeted you delightedly. You couldn’t help it; a smile crept up on your own face the moment you saw him. He was a welcome sight in this sea of drunken people. “I didn’t think you’d actually come! Bambam told me you were probably lurking in some corner somewhere.”

You flushed. “I’m not much of a dancer…”

“Do you drink?” Jackson held up two plastic cups in front of your face. “This one is coke mixed with vodka and this one is just coke, take your pick.”

You shamelessly reached for the vodka and Jackson chuckled. His gorgeous smile was making you giddy and you were even more flustered when he gently took your arm and steered you away from the crowd of people. There was an empty couch that Jackson gestured for you to sit on. He sat next to you; close enough that your shoulders were touching but not overbearingly close.

“So, why is a girl like you friends with Yugyeom and Bambam?” Jackson wondered lightly. “I never imagined those two would be your friends but they tell me you guys are really close.”

You sighed and took a sip of the vodka. “I think I just naturally attract stupid.”

Jackson chuckled and looked at you for a long moment. His brown eyes were staring straight into yours. There were so many emotions in his eyes. Curiosity, affection, a little bit of playfulness and something else that made you feel warm and fuzzy. A drunken guy sank onto your other side of the sofa and nearly flopped onto you. You winced and Jackson noticed instantly.

“Come here, switch sides with me.”

“No, it’s fine-”

“You don’t want him falling asleep on you, come on, you sit on the armrest side,” Jackson insisted, standing up and forcing you to scooch down. You bit your lip and took his place while he shoved the drunken guy away and blocked him off with his arm. Your stomach exploded in butterflies.

Maybe it was the vodka, maybe it was just Jackson but you really wanted to just lean forward and kiss his pretty lips right then and there.

“So, what made you come to this frat party?” Jackson teased you lightly. “Was it perhaps in the hopes of seeing my beautiful self?”

“Yes,” you blurted out.

Jackson’s eyes widened a little bit but he let out a small, pleased laugh. “Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. How much have you had to drink so far? Because now I’m starting to think that I shouldn’t have given you the one with vodka.”

You pouted. “This is just my second shot, I’m fine.”

“You really came here to see me?” he wondered. He gave you a hesitant smile and for the first time, Jackson looked a little bit unsure. “Don’t lie to me about stuff like that, you already know I like you. You’re gonna get my hopes up.”

You looked down at the drink in your hands and blushed. “I want to like you,” you mumbled.

Jackson sighed. “But you’re not sure if you can trust me, right? Because you still think that I might have sent some girl pictures of my dick,” he pointed out. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair with a frown.

You bit your lip. “I’m sorry Jackson, it’s just…”

“I know, I know. I just can’t think of a way out of this.”

“I might have to file an official complaint against you if I can’t get that girl to back off. And… well, it’s not really my job to get her to back off. It’s my job to support her and I want to do that but at the same time I might be getting you into serious trouble with the university authorities and I don’t want to be responsible for ruining your life. You seem like such an amazing guy but the truth is that a lot of sexual predators seem like nice guys at the start and…and…”

Jackson bit his lip and nodded. “Yeah, you don’t have to explain yourself.”

You felt a tear begin to form in your eye. Fuck, too much vodka.

“I want to trust you,” you sniffled. “But I’m worried that you might just be really charming and hiding something uglier deep inside. Am I a bad person?”

Jackson reached out and squeezed your hand softly.

“Never. This is not your fault.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. But if you’re really worried that I might have… might have done something like harass some girl and send her vulgar pictures then I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable you must feel around me.” Jackson forced a smile and then slowly began to get up. “You know what? I’m going to leave you alone now because I don’t want to be that guy.”

Ah, shit.

Your throat closed up. “No, please don’t avoid me, that’s not what I meant.”

Jackson sighed. “I know. I don’t want to, you have no idea how attracted I am to you. It’s insane. But considering the circumstances I feel like it would be easier for you if I stopped trying to flirt with you, right?”

You felt miserable. Jackson was the first guy you’d felt comfortable with in a long time. He was the first guy to make you laugh so easily, the first guy that genuinely made you want to trust him. Why did things have to be like this? You just knew in your gut that Nari was lying and you didn’t want to lose Jackson because of this. How could you just sit here and let this happen?

“Jackson…”

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom and if I see Bambam or Yugyeom, I’ll tell them to come find you, okay? Don’t drink too much,” Jackson told you softly. He squeezed your hand again and then gave you a soft smile before disappearing into the crowd of people. You sat there silently and felt miserable.

Why couldn’t things just be easier?

You finished the entire glass of vodka and slowly got to your feet. You were tispy now; by this time you would normally be in a pleasantly giggly mood but you didn’t feel like smiling at all. You wanted to go home. You wanted to go home and bury yourself under the blankets and cry. You started to weave your way through the crowd of dancing people when you suddenly bumped into a girl, hard. You blinked a few times and her image became clearer to you.

“Nari?” you wondered.

She raised an eyebrow. “So it’s you. You’ve been ignoring my calls all weekend so you could party?”

You flushed in anger. “I’m not required to talk to you on the weekend, you’re supposed to make an appointment and come see me. Why are you here anyway?” you demanded. Considering that this was a closed party and you’d only been invited because Yugyeom and Bambam were part of the fraternity, you wondered who had invited her here.

“I’m here with my boyfriend,” she told you smugly. “Im Jaebum.”

You blinked. Im Jaebum. You’d heard that name before. Where had you heard that name before? You felt you’d heard it very recently and also that it had come from Jackson’s pretty lips, but…

“Im Jaebum co-captain of the basketball team?” you blurted out.

Nari nodded. “Yup. That’s right. Now if you’ll excuse me, he’s waiting for me.”

She disappeared off into the crowd and you felt your head spin. This didn’t make much sense. Jackson had spoken about Jaebum as if he was a friend. But somehow his girlfriend was filing a sexual harassment complaint against him? Shouldn’t this have affected Jackson and Jaebum’s friendship at some point? You suddenly remembered Nari repeatedly talking about wanting Jackson kicked off the basketball team.

Something wasn’t right and alarm bells were ringing in your head.  

You headed back inside the party and found Yugyeom dancing on the dance floor, already buzzed and dopey-eyed. You grabbed his sleeve and yanked him down to your height. “Hey! Kim Yugyeom! Listen to me for a second, this is important. I need you to tell me something. You know Im Jaebum, your basketball captain?”

Yugyeom was still wiggling his legs in time to the music but he stopped his upper body long enough to listen to you and bop his head furiously. “Yup!” he told you with a drunken grin.

“Does he have a girlfriend?” you demanded.

Yugyeom looked down at you and his eyes widened dramatically. “What? You’re interested in Jaebum-hyung now? But what about Jackson-hyung, he likes you so much, you can’t just go and date his friend without telling him! That’s so cruel!” he scolded you. You sighed and pressed your fingers to your temples. The effect of the alcohol you drank was already wearing off from his idiocy.

“No, I’m not trying to date him I just want to-”

“Besides, Jaebum-hyung has baggage. There’s this freaky ex-girlfriend of his that cheated on him a few weeks ago and now she’s just constantly hanging around out basketball practice trying to get him to take her back it’s so pathetic,” Yugyeom continued. “She tried to fight this other female friend of his. You don’t want to mess with a crazy bitch like that. Believe me. She’s psycho.”

“Is her name Nari, by any chance?”

Yugyeom bopped his head. “Yeah, Nari, Nora, something like that. No wait. Nora is his cat. Or is Nari his cat? Anyway, one of them is his cat but the other is his ex-girlfriend-”

You let go of Yugyeom. “Thanks, Yugyeom, you’ve been a great help.”

You wandered back into the party, looking desperately for Jackson while you stumbled over your feet. You weren't completely positive but now you felt like Nari had some semblance of a motive to frame Jackson for the text messages. You had to know what Jackson thought about this. Maybe he would find some way to prove himself innocent, maybe Jaebum could help. Maybe all Nari wanted was to get Jackson kicked off the basketball team so that Jaebum could be the captain.

Fuck that stupid bitch, fuck her so much…

You couldn’t find Jackson anywhere. You spotted Bambam, red-faced and flirting with a very pretty girl that was probably his crush but he told you he had no idea where Jackson was. Neither did anybody else. You were about to give up when suddenly, you spotted him coming down the stairs out of the corner of your eye.

“Jackson!”

Jackson spotted you and waved enthusiastically. He looked excited as he shoved his way past people in order to make his way towards you and his cheeks were flushed.

“Listen, Jackson, I need to talk to you!” you began. “I think I might have an idea-”

Jackson cut you off and threw his arms around you, pulling you into a tight hug. You were shocked by the sudden affection but you pulled away and he was grinning from ear to ear. He leaned closer to you and grabbed your shoulders urgently.

“I found it!” he bellowed at you. “I found the right dick!”

“You found the… what?”

Jackson placed his hands on your cheeks and squished them delightedly. “You are so adorable! I found the dick from the pictures! It was right in plain sight all along, I don’t know why I didn’t recognize it before! Come on upstairs, I’ll show you!”

You didn’t have time to respond before Jackson had taken your arm and was leading you up the stairs through the crowds of people. You followed him silently, bewildered, until he banged open a bedroom door. The room was empty except for a slightly green-faced man sitting on the edge of the bed. He blinked up at Jackson as soon as you both entered.

“Hyung, I think I’m gonna puke,” the man muttered drunkenly.

Jackson ignored him and waved a hand in the air dramatically. “Behold, the owner of the penis that started all this trouble in the first place. I walked in on him peeing in the bathroom just now and I swear to god it is absolutely one hundred per cent his dick.”

You stared at the man.

“Youngjae?”

Youngjae blinked at you. His eyes were unfocused and he looked nauseous. “I think I’m going to puke…” he repeated weakly.

“Jackson, he looks sick!” you cried. You found a bin in the corner of the room and hurriedly placed it in front of Youngjae so that he could lean forward and puke into it. Jackson sighed and patted Youngjae’s back comfortingly.

“Yeah, he’s fine. He just had too much to drink. He’ll sober up soon. But listen! The penis in the picture is his penis, okay!” Jackson cried excitedly. “I can prove it to you, I swear!”

You winced. “You are not going to take Youngjae’s pants off while he’s drunk-”

“I know, I know, give me your phone and show me the dick pic, I promise it’ll only take a second!” Jackson insisted. You reluctantly opened up your email and found the dick pic before handing the phone to Jackson. He waited for Youngjae to finish puking before shoving the phone in his face. “Youngjae! Youngjae, look, do you recognize this picture?”

Youngjae stared at the picture for a long moment and then blinked slowly. 

“That’s… that’s my penis.Why do you have my penis?”

Jackson beamed. “See!”

You frowned and folded your arms across your chest. It was definitely a relief that Jackson’s penis wasn’t the one in the picture but there were other consequences to this sudden discovery. “Youngjae, did you send a picture of your dick to a girl without asking her?” you demanded. “Were you the one who told Nari you would rape her and stuff?”

Youngjae blinked. “What?”

You sighed and kneeled down beside him. “When… did you send… this picture?” you repeated slowly.

Youngjae groaned into the bucket and then looked up at you miserably. “T-tinder,” he mumbled. “Three months ago. Some girl asked me to send her nudes and then she ghosted me. Never used the app again.”

You sat back in relief. “So Nari did fake the texts!”

Jackson grinned at you and he pulled you up to his feet before taking both of your hands in his. “Are you convinced?” he asked you hopefully. His dark eyes were shining. “Are you convinced that I wasn’t the one that sent those dick pictures to that girl?”

You nodded.

“So you’ll go out with me?”

“I’ll do better,” you decided, and pulled Jackson down to kiss him. His soft lips met yours eagerly and you let yourself melt into his warm embrace. Jackson didn’t hold back. He had wanted to kiss you ever since the first moment you smiled at him and he was not going to waste this opportunity. His lips caressed yours and his fingers slid into your hair. You were gasping for breath by the time he pulled back.

“Wow,” he whispered.

You giggled. “That was nice.”

“Fuck, you’re so cute,” Jackson mumbled before kissing you again. He took your face in his hands and kissed you again, and again, before pulling back with a small smile. “You taste like vodka so I’m going to stop here.”

You grabbed onto his shirt eagerly and puckered your lips up at him. “No, one more kiss-”

“Nope, you’re drunk. Come on. Let’s get you downstairs and back to the party.”

You bit your lips and flushed happily as Jackson wrapped his arm around your shoulder and began to lead you out of the room. It felt amazing being in his arms and exciting to finally have proof that Jackson was the wonderful person he seemed to be. You were just about to shut the door behind you when you heard Youngjae croak feebly.

“Guys? Can someone please get me some water?”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You were completely drunk when Jackson finally carried you back to your apartment.

After getting a few drinks with Jackson, you finally managed to confront Nari about faking the texts in order to get him kicked off the basketball team. It turned out that she had been trying to help Jaebum become the captain in the hopes that her bold sacrifice would make him take her back. Unluckily for her, Jaebum was completely unimpressed upon learning that she had used dick pics obtained from one of his friends in order to falsely implicate another.

It was only when drunken you began screaming at Nari (something along the lines of if you want a dick so bad then come suck mine, bitch) that Jackson decided you’d had enough for the night and ushered you out of the party. He was extremely amused by how you curled up beside him in the taxi and how you kept stroking his biceps lovingly.

“So this means,” you pointed out with a giggle, as Jackson walked you towards your door. “That I haven’t actually seen your dick yet.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That would be correct.”

“That’s kind of disappointing. All this time I thought I was looking at your penis. I actually have no idea what your penis looks like. At all. Isn’t that wild?”  

Jackson chuckled as he helped you fish your keys out from your jacket pocket. He let you lean on him clumsily as he opened the door for you, and then put the keys back in your pocket. “It’s not so wild,” Jackson replied. “If you must know, my penis is not open for public viewing, I only show it to very special people.”

You blinked at him. “I’m not special?”

“You’re special, but you’re also drunk so I’m not sure you really want to see it. How about you go to bed for tonight and we’ll talk about my dick a little bit more next time?” he offered lightly. You pouted but Jackson simply pulled you closer to him. He wrapped his arms around you in a warm, affectionate hug. “I’m just happy you trust me for now.”

You looked up at him. “I like you.”

“I like you too, babe.”

“You make me smile.”

“And you make me smile too,” he told you with a chuckle. “Now come on. Go inside, go change and go to bed. I want you to text me when you’re all tucked in, okay?”

You nodded obediently.

He leaned forward and kissed you gently on the forehead. “Good girl.”

---------------------------------------------------------

(03/04/19, 01:35)

You: Jackson….

Jackson: Hey babe

You: I got into bed and snuggled in under the covers like I promised

Jackson: Good, I knew you could do it. Are you comfy?

You: Yup. I slept naked under the covers. Want to see?

Jackson: Maybe not right now…

You: (attachment) IMG_20190304_5467.jpg

Jackson: Okay wow you just did that. Okay. I don’t really know what to do with this, I’m just hoping that sending drunk partial nudes isn’t something you do regularly?

You: No, you’re the first.

Jackson: Okay wow

You: Am I ugly? Do you think I’m ugly?

Jackson: You are definitely not ugly. You are gorgeous. It’s just that it’s gonna be really hard for me if you keep doing this

You: I feel so embarrassed I can’t believe I did that you must think I’m so ugly

Jackson: You’re NOT ugly

You: Really?

Jackson: Yes I am insanely turned on right now even though I’m trying really hard not to be because I know you’re drunk.

You: I’m not drunk.

Really. I’m not. I sobered up, I promise.

Jackson?

….. Can you show me how turned on you are for me?

Jackson: You don’t mean that.

You: I do. Please please please please

Jackson: Oh fuck. Okay you have to promise not to hate me tomorrow.

You: I won’t.

Jackson: I feel like I’m going to regret this but fuck, you’re driving me crazy so here goes

Jackson: (attachment) IMG_20190304_3218.jpg

You snuggled into your pillow and giggled as you watched the last image that slowly loaded onto your phone screen. Perhaps it was true that dicks were a little ugly, perhaps they would never be quite so delicious or mouth-watering as washboard abs or bulging biceps.

But when the dick was attached to someone as kind and sweet and gorgeous as Jackson Wang…

… well, it really wasn’t so bad after all.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[they-need-a-revolutionary]

TLC Secret Santa 2018!!

@nerdishfeels i finally finished it! here is your gift. it is a kaider fic about them going on a new year’s eve date after a long state dinner. merry christmas and happy new year! enjoy :)

Cinder puffed a strand of hair out of her eyes in annoyance.

“Almost done, Your Majesty," Iko said calmly. She slid the last pin into the elaborate twist. A footman standing next to the two women held out a lacquered box with a small golden clasp. Iko flicked the latch and raised the lid. Gently she lifted the glittering tiara off of its plush, emerald green velvet cushion. “Come to mama," she murmured. The footman closed the box and dismissed himself with a nod.

Cinder straightened her spine in preparation for the headpiece. “Where'd you get this one, Cinder?" Iko asked, admiring the polished diamonds and smooth pearls.

Cinder glanced behind her reflection in the mirror. “Oh, that one was a wedding gift from Queen Camilla. She gave it to me because it's known as the Lotus Flower Tiara, and the lotus is the EC's emblem. It was made in 1923, Second Era.”

“Ooh, vintage!”

“Yeah, the metal scrollwork is admirable, considering the primitive tech and tools they had back in the day.”

“Leave it to you to get your little mechanic brain all wrapped around jewelry.” Iko placed the tiara gently on Cinder’s head, nestling it safely in the stablest parts of her hairstyle. “You look beautiful, Cinder." Iko bent to kiss her friend's cheek.

“Thanks, Iko.” The two turned in unison at a sharp rap on the mahogany door frame.

“Ready to go, gorgeous?" Kai stood effortlessly straight, a dashing figure in his expertly tailored suit. Cinder rose to meet him but he crossed the room first, catching her painted lips in a kiss. Cinder steadied her tiara with one hand and she could feel some of the stress leave her shoulders just knowing her husband would suffer through this horrible function with her. They broke apart and Iko promptly whacked Kai's arm with a makeup brush.

“Kai! Now I have to reapply her lipstick and adjust her hair. And you're already going to be late!” Iko cried.

Kai placed a gentle hand on Cinder's back, sending the same chill down her spine that it had four years ago. “Well, I'm sure the diplomats can wait an extra minute. Take your time, Iko.”

Cinder sat back down as Iko deftly rearranged pins. “Remind me again why we have to go to this dinner, Kai?" Cinder asked, trying to hide a twinge of whine in her voice.

Kai dragged a hand down his face. “It's a tradition. The leaders of Earth get together for dinner every New Year's Eve. According to official media, we talk about world events and general politics. But usually, everyone is so busy stuffing their faces that very little work gets done. Anyway, it's our turn to host this year. It was going to be in Australia, but it turned out they were in the middle of major renovations that they conveniently forgot about until a week ago. Sorry I didn't involve you more.”

“It's ok,” Cinder started. She paused as Iko approached her face with a lip brush. Once her friend-slash-stylist-slash-hair-and-makeup-artist had finished, she continued. “But afterward, I'd like to do something together. Just me and you. Ok?” She gave her lips a final swipe and stood back up again.

“Of course,” Kai said. Cinder could hear the sympathy in his voice. Kai gave a pointed look at Iko as he kissed Cinder’s cheek. The android made a small disapproving noise but said nothing. Kai bent his arm and Cinder slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. She loved the sureness she felt holding onto him like that, her anchor in a sea of anxieties and mistakes waiting to happen. They glided down the corridors together, followed at a distance by a half-dozen security staff.

When they entered the dining room, the diplomats stood and the kitchen staff bowed their heads. It had taken Cinder months to get used to having that kind of effect when simply moving within her own home. She took a deep breath and forced herself to embody an empress, calling forth her memories of royal training.

As they were led to their seats, Kai grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “It’s going to be fine,” he whispered. Cinder nodded briefly and smoothed her blue crepe skirt. That was the other thing she hated about these functions: she and all the other women had to pretend they were comfortable in their tight, movement-obstructing, or generally unpleasant dresses. She made a mental note to consult Iko about it, and that next time she would insist on wearing a suit as well.

As soon as the first course was presented, conversation ceased and each person was focused solely on eating as much food as humanly possible. Cinder spent most of the meal rotating between chicken satay, tofu curry, steamed bok choy, and a variety of sweet buns. Kai immediately dove for his favorites: chili crab, vegetable egg rolls, inarizushi, and gulab jamun.

When the waiters began clearing plates, part of Cinder wished that the dinner had been scheduled for longer so she could have eaten more. That feeling soon faded as various representatives and politicians swarmed around her and Kai to personally wish them a happy new year. There was a sudden lull in activity, and the two young monarchs only needed to exchange one glance before they both made a beeline for the large double doors leading to the main hall. Cinder leaned against the wall, savoring the relative quiet. One of the women guarding the door glanced in Cinder’s direction but showed no reaction other than a slight inclination of her head.

“So, what did you want to do?” Kai asked.

Cinder chewed her lip and let her eyes wander around the hallway. “Um… I don’t know…” She spun a phantom wrench between her fingers as she considered their options. Kai always loved when she did that, when she was so lost in her own thoughts that the rest of reality seemed to vanish. He gazed at her, still in disbelief that he had married the girl of his dreams. He could almost see the literal mechanisms in her head turning.

Abruptly, Cinder looked straight at Kai, eyes bright. “I know! Let’s go watch the lantern lighting in the park.”

Kai looked at his watch. “Cinder, it’s already 11:30. Are you sure we can make it in time?”

“Yes, what are you waiting for? If we run we’ll have time to change clothes.” Without another word, Cinder grinned and took off down the carpeted hall as fast as her pinchy shoes and confining dress would allow. Kai smiled and ran to catch up with her.

Back in her dressing room, Cinder didn’t even stop to breathe. She rifled through her closet in search of her comfiest cargo pants and sweatshirt. She found them quickly and tossed them on the floor. Iko was no doubt at a wild party so Cinder was left to undo her formal outfit by herself. She placed her delicate tiara on her vanity table. A glance at the clock told her that there was no time for her to remove her makeup or take the pins out of her hair. With a shrug she shimmied out of her evening gown and heels, somehow managing to pull on her incognito clothes at the same time. She had to dig deeper in her closet to find her favorite boots, and she tied them sloppily to save time. She threw on her hood and emerged from her room to wait for Kai.

A moment later, his door opened and Cinder saw that he was wearing his old ratty gray hoodie. She smiled and grabbed his hand.

“Come on, we only have fifteen minutes. I want to get as close as we can to the lanterns.” Cinder pushed the door open and ran much faster than before in her well-worn shoes.

They barreled down the hallways, garnering a multitude of stares from very confused staff, but no one tried to stop them. Cinder couldn’t help but laugh as they scrambled down the stairs to the main road. She hadn’t felt this free and spontaneous since before she became Empress. She glanced at Kai, who was smiling just as wide. The two of them raced around corners and dodged several hovers as they navigated the maze of New Beijing’s streets.

Kai paused against a wall a few blocks from the park, panting. “Wait… a second… I need… to catch my breath… Why… did I skip… calisthenics… with Torin every... day as a kid?”

Cinder snorted as she slowed to a stop. She extended a hand to pull him upwards. Kai accepted, but as she began to drag him up, he drew her forward.

“Ahhh!” Cinder gave a yell as she was thrown off balance. Kai grabbed her other arm to keep her from falling and pulled her into a warm embrace.

“Hey, slow down a minute. I just want to hug you. I love you. A lot.”

Cinder gave a relaxed sigh and nodded into his chest. “I love you too.” She tilted her head back to look at him and tugged his head toward hers for a kiss. She glanced to the left when they broke apart, pulling up a small clock in the corner of her vision. 11:52. Her eyes widened. “Kai, we have to go now or we’ll miss it!”

Kai relaxed his grip. Slowly a mischievous smile grew across his face. “Race you!” he cried. He bolted toward the park before Cinder had time to react. He was already half a block away when she shook her head and followed.

Cinder arrived at the park gate just a few seconds after Kai. He grabbed her hand, momentarily shocked by the coldness of the metal, and they walked in together. Somehow they were able to squeeze their way into the third row of the crowd, the unlit lanterns so close that Cinder could spot the soldered joints of the metal frames behind the ornate paper.

The time was 11:58. Kai stood behind Cinder with his arms wrapped around her shoulders. She rested her head on his bicep as she gazed at the decorations surrounding them. She gave a contented sigh and breathed in the cold night air. It was sharp against her skin, refreshingly jarring compared to the consistent temperature in the palace. The savory smell of fried meat was wafting from a nearby restaurant. The aroma mingled with faint smoke from firecrackers that had been lit earlier in the evening, likely to appease children who weren’t allowed to stay up past ten. Midnight drew closer and the volume of the crowd increased steadily.

“Ten,

nine,

eight,

seven,

six,

five,

four,

three,

two,

one! Happy new year!!”

The lights in the lanterns flicked on while the spectators cheered. Cinder turned her head and smiled at Kai before pressing her lips to his. She could already tell that this was going to be a great year.

[miraculousandbts]

V | Mischevious

Summary: Taehyung has one of his weird ideas which gets them detention.

Pairing: None

Genre: Fluff, Crack (I tried)

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: None

A/N: Thanks to my sister for this idea. It was inspired by a scene in '3 Idiots'. (Mere bhartiya bhai beheno ke liye. Dhanyawaad.) Enjoy!

Bangtan Sonyeondan was a boy group in their school. They were super popular. To everyone, they were the seven guys who had girls and boys fawning over them. But they knew each other better. They were actually just seven brothers who were gifted with good looks. They made mistakes like others and bunked classes too.

Seokjin was the eldest. He was the calmest and the gentlest, and his love for food was never ending. If any of them needed comfort, they usually went to him. He did usually act super childish and extra, but they all loved him because of this.

Next came Yoongi. The quietest and chillest, he was hardworking and sleep loving. He did have his hyperactive moments though, sometimes even showcasing his cute side. He was super talented in making music and writing lyrics, and played a bunch of different instruments.

Hoseok was the third eldest. He was always happy and cheerful. They called him their sunshine and their hope, the nicknames fitting perfectly with his personality. He loved dance as if his life depended on it.

Namjoon came next. He was the same age as Hoseok. He was the smartest, and was always on damage control. He had dimples, loved books, nature, and crabs. Him and Yoongi were the only ones who usually acted sane.

Then came Jimin. He was the cutest and the shortest of them all, often getting playfully teased because of this. He loved dancing and singing, and the voice of an angel. He was also a big form of comfort for the others.

Taehyung was the second youngest. He was the most playful, and the same age as Jimin. He had a unique perspective on things, as Namjoon said, but they usually just called what he did weird or cute. He had a deep soothing voice and was great at acting.

The youngest, Jungkook, was called the 'Golden Maknae', because of his ability to be naturally good at almost everything he did, be it sports, studies, or any other extra-curricular activities. The boys preferred that him and Taehyung weren't together without supervision, or chaos would ensue.

This was just a short description of their personalities. There was a lot more to come.

*****

The seven guys had gathered at their usual table for lunch. They all disliked the canteen food so much that they brought their own lunch. "Jin hyung, did you make me lunch?" Jungkook asked as soon as they settled down. He was running late in the morning that day, and whenever that happened, they called their eldest hyung to ask them to pack an extra lunchbox for them.

Just as Seokjin opened his mouth, Yoongi interrupted him. "He was busy but you wouldn't listen, so I had to make your lunch." He grumbled. They all knew though, he loved cooking and was very fond of the youngest.

Jungkook only grinned and reached across the table to take his lunch which Yoongi had barely pulled out of his bag. The rest of them chuckled at his restless behaviour. He had just had gym before lunch and was very hungry. Before the rest of them could even open their bags, he was already stuffing his mouth in. He moaned at the food taste and said something to Yoongi which none of them could understand because of his full mouth.

They spent the lunch catching up on their days and having fun.

"Hey, guys?" Taehyung suddenly asked, as they calmed down from the laughter Hoseok had suddenly inflicted on them with a random joke. Namjoon turned to him and raised his eyebrows.

"I was thinking...is anyone up for some fun?"

"We're already having fun?" Jimin turned to him and asked uncertainly.

"Not that. The old school fun. You know, irritate the teachers, play pranks, bunk classes. I mean, we do bunk classes, but it's not that fun if you really think about it." Everyone glanced at each other and nodded at him. Nobody was refusing a bit of fun. That, and if Taehyung was the one coming up with ideas, they would have a ton of fun being mischievous...even though poor Seokjin and Namjoon would have to answer on behalf of everyone if they got caught.

And again, if Taehyung was the one coming up with ideas, the rest of them were responsible for making sure that they didn't get caught.

Taehyung smiled his big boxy smile. "Let's meet near the staircase of the third floor after school and take it from there." He checked his watch and got up. The bell rang at the exact moment, and a loud hustle and bustle took over the canteen. All the boys bid each goodbye and made way to their lockers before attending their respective classes.

*****

"So, I'm the last one?" Hoseok plopped down beside Jimin on the stairs. "Nope, Tae is yet to come. He should be the first one, that idiot." The younger boy grumbled beside him. "I bet a teacher held him back. For not submitting another assignment on time. But what's new in that." Yoongi said.

After a wait of another ten minutes, Taehyung came running, panting hard. He had a really annoyed expression, which just told the guys that what Yoongi said was true.

Taehyung didn't say hi or sorry, just sat down and tried to get his breathing to normal for a minute. "So, the exams are near. I was thinking, let's break into the principal's office and steal the papers." All of their mouths fell down from shock; this was definitely not what they were expecting. He knew that this was unnecessary.

Yes, he barely ever submitted his assignments on time. Yes, Jungkook was more sport-focused. Yes, Yoongi never paid attention in class and instead wrote melodies and lyrics, and yes, Hoseok would rather dance then attend school at all, but not a single one of them were bad at studies. They rarely got Cs, and usually stayed in the A and B categories.

"Uh, why?" Seokjin's brain was the first one to start working again. "Go big, or go home. We're doing this solely for our own fun. We'll burn or throw away the paper later; I don't wanna pass by cheating."

"Very noble of you." Namjoon sarcasticly gave him a smile. "Thanks hyung." Taehyung replied to his sarcasm with sarcasm. They all started talking among themselves, creating a lot of noise. "Fine." Yoongi spoke after a long time, effectively shutting everyone. That's all it took for everyone to agree. What Yoongi wants, Yoongi gets. And he thought that this idea could be carried out, it could.

And then they spent the next two hours sitting there making a plan. Next week Friday, they will be stealing some question papers.

*****

Taehyung couldn't wait for Friday. Usually it seemed that they got over with the week too quick, but now, every minute felt like an hour. He stared at the wall clock, ticking away with each second, as his Maths teacher ranted about something which sounded like algebra to him.

'Algebra. Why algebra. They teach algebra like we'll get equations to solve to even know the speed limit in the future. They teach algebra like well have to solve expressions to know the amount of butter to put in a cake.' He audibly sighed. His teacher looked at him.

“Any problem, Mr. Kim?" He stood up. "No sir, algebra is just very boring." He stated with a straight face. The whole class erupted in giggles and chuckles.

His teacher slammed the duster on his desk. "We're studying integers, Mr. Kim!"

"Well then, integers are very boring." Taehyung revised his senetnce, much to the dismay of his teacher. The class was now full on laughing, enraging the older male. "That's enough!" He banged his textbook on his desk this time. "That's detention for you, Mr. Kim! Now pay attention."

"Sorry sir, no can do." Taehyung was pretty unbothered by all of this. The class laughed, confusing the teacher who didn't even hear what Taehyung said. "Attention!!" His face was red by now. Taehyung sat down and smiled to himself. Angering his Maths teacher, it seemed, was his favourite past time hobby.

On Friday, all the guys met on the bleachers like everyday. "So, today's the day. Everybody ready?" Jimin grinned and rubbed his hands, like he couldn't wait for evening to come.

They all went over there plan once again, and stayed and chatted until bell rang for the first period. 'Well, this is going to be fun.' They all had the same thought.

*****

As planned, they met outside the closed bakery in front of their school. All of them were wearing black jeans, black full-sleeved T-shirts, and their sneakers, which were all coincidentally black too, this attire being the easiest to move in. Jungkook also had a small pouch filled with tools for picking a lock. A while back he had randomly watched a video on YouTube for this, and it was proving to be useful now.

They all also had torches and backpacks with stuff they thought which would be useful. They slowly made their way towards the school gates. The guard sat near the entrance of the school, and from here, they could see the watchman sleeping soundly. Glancing at each other, they smirked, and let out a few breathy chuckles.

Hoseok started. He only had a flashlight, and he pocketed it. Firmly grabbing a bar, he hauled himself up. Thankfully for them, the school had recently gotten it's gates changed, as the last one was very creaky and was completely rusted. Jimin followed.

By the time, he was on top, Hoseok had jumped down on the other side. One by one they all came, Yoongi being the last. He almost fell from the top, and the rest of them turned to look at the guard in alarm, instead of caring about their friend. They sighed simultaneously, as Yoongi came down.

Namjoon tilted his head in the school's direction. They nodded and followed him.

They all knew what to do. Seokjin and Jimin had volunteered to keep guard, instead of being involved in the actual fun. Jimin stopped near the watchman. Glancing around to see if anyone else was there, he made hurry up gestures— which were being ignored— towards Jungkook, who was on his knees and trying to pick the lock without making any noise.

After a minute of trying, the lock finally gave in, and opened with a loud click. Again, they all turned towards the sleeping man in alarm so fast, that they almost got whiplash. Seeing the man still snoring away, they heaved a sigh of relief, and went in, leaving Jimin outside with a walkie-talkie. Taehyung had bought children's walkie-talkies for them, and they were content with those as long as they worked.

"Jimin, can you hear me?" Namjoon spoke into his as soon as they reached the door of the principal's office. "Yeah. You okay there?" Came back a static filled voice. "We're good. See you in a minute."

Namjoon went to the back of the school, in the small basement where all the MCB boxes and Junction boxes were (My brain isn't working people. What are those boxes called?!). He was in charge of shutting off the two CCTV cameras pointing in the direction of the principal's office. He took Yoongi with him, to hold the flashlight. They had to shut off those two cameras because a small light was always lit up on top of the principal’s office’s door.

Jungkook, on the other side of the school, was on his knees again, picking the lock of the principal's door.

And then the alarm rang. One of the sharp edges of one of the tools he was using had tripped the alarm installed inside the lock. Taehyung had to give it to their principal; he was smart. The alarm wasn't that loud, but just enough to wake up the watchman sleeping outside. Jungkook freaked out and couldn't move his hands properly. Instead, him and Hoseok literally broke the lock to get in.

Seokjin stayed outside the door, looking around in panic. He was thankful at least all of them had the mind enough to not freak out loudly. Some time later, the noise stopped, and he leaned against the wall in ease.

Namjoon and Yoongi though, were another story. Namjoon got startled because of the alarm, accidentally hitting a switch he knew nothing about. Half a minute later, the alarm shut off. Yoongi shone the light on the switch, seeing the word 'ALARM' written in clear words. He smirked at Namjoon, who was just behind him.

"Good job, Joon." He made his ay towards the door, while Namjoon examined the switch with his own torch. As soon as he saw the word, he understood the situation and ran to catch up with his hyung.

Outside the school, Jimin almost fell down the two stairs as soon as the noisy alarm fell on his ears. He saw the watchman jump up, clearly shaken by the sudden noise, and looking around for burglars. Jimin hid behind the wall, still keeping an eye on the elder man.

The guard spent a minute checking the surroundings, thankfully never finding Jimin. And then he saw the open lock. He stormed inside, but not before taking his own flashlight which had fallen down.

Jimin's eyes widened. He hurriedly pressed the button on his walkie-talkie. "Seokjin hyung, Seokjin hyung!"

"What, what??"

"The guard! He's coming inside! The first place he's going to check will be the principal's office!"

"Oh, shit!" Jimin silently but quickly followed the guard after that. Being short and flexible meant that he could actually hide easily, though the situation never came. Just as the storming man was about to turn into the corridor where the rest were, Jimin loudly opened and closed a door nearby, and hid in another classroom, whose door was already open for some reason.

By this time, both Namjoon and Yoongi had reached the others. Seokjin dragged them in and started explaining the situation, when Hoseok reminded him that all the walkie-talkies were connected, so they knew the watchman was coming.

They decided their best bet would be closing the door and hiding in the office, leaving everything untouched. Taehyung, Hoseok and Jungkook had already made copies of all the question papers.

All they had to do now was escape. Neither of them cared if they got caught. They knew all they'll get is rest of the year in detention, which just meant more fun for them.

Then suddenly, a static was heard. Everybody looked at their own devices. "Guys, I'm hiding in a classroom, while the guard is searching the room opposite mine. Where are you all?"

"In the office. Come here, quick!" Taehyung replied.

The guard was busy searching the whole empty classroom inch by inch, and Jimin saw his opportunity. He ran, making no noise, and quick as a mouse went in the office. They strained their necks, knowing it was Jimin. He hid with them behind the long desk, squatting.

Soon, they had formed a plausible plan for escaping. Just as they confirmed the details, the door opened. The plan was to be executed only if the guard saw them, which was bound to happen sooner or later. The man searched here and there, and finally his eyes fell on the seven boys sitting there, not even trying to hide or run away.

"Hey you!" His eye widened and he started towards them.

They all got up, running in different directions, picking up stuff and moving their hands like they would throw it at him, but actually never doing so. As soon as he would shield himself, they would keep back whatever object was in their hand, confusing him. They kept that up for a while. Slowly, they inched towards the door.

"Now!" Namjoon yelled, and they all hurried outside, closing the door.

Because the lock was broken, they couldn't exactly do anything to hold him in for long, so Seokjin and Jimin searched around while the rest pulled with all their might. Loud bangs and 'Let me out!'s could be heard from inside, as the man pulled from his end. Taehyung and Hoseok were reduced to a laughing mess, as the others chuckled. Who thought doing things like these would be this fun?

The other two boys soon returned to them with a bunch of rope. Yoongi raised his eyebrows. "Where'd you get that from? The science lab?" He asked sarcastically, but actually curios on the inside. "Yup!" Jimin and Jungkook quickly and tightly tied one end of the rope around the handle, and stretched the other end to a nearby classroom, tying it there.

They all ran and ran until they reached the bakery outside. Leaning against anything around them, they heaved and panted, trying to regain their breath.

And then they burst out laughing.

They howled with laughter and clutched their sides. Hoseok, like always, fell on the boy next to him, which happened to be Jimin, who himself wasn't very stable. Just as they were sobering up, Jimin stumbled from the weight, taking Hoseok with him, which resulted in  another round of infectious laughter.

"Come on, let's go home. We have to be in our beds before our parents find out about this." Seokjin calmed down a little. Before going home, they went to a secluded area nearby, burning the copies of the question papers, as Jungkook filmed it on his phone as a fun-filled memory.

*****

Let's just say, the next day, a very hangry guard was found in the principal's office by the principal himself, who was very confused as to why his office was locked with a rope instead of his lock. That, and the seven boys got detention for the rest of the year, as Namjoon never did shut off the cameras. Jungkook had never been so thankful for filming everything around him as a memory, or they would've been suspended.

[camille-marshall-blog]

Practice Challenge # 1

Alternately Titled: Run, Girl, Run

Everyday is routine. There is a time and place for everything that I do. It is scheduled. I must be somewhere, with someone, and doing something. But most of the time, that something… is not following their schedule- and instead, my own.

Today, I wake up at 0400 hours- way earlier than my squad’s typical wake up time thanks to my alarm clock. I then have to tie my hair back in a low ponytail, and do some morning stretches in my pajamas before changing into sweats for my morning run. The running trail near my air base stretches for a good 5 kilometers back and forth, and it’s a good distance to get my blood pumping for the rest of the day. I grab my walkman from my nightstand and start making my to the main entrance of the air base. Once I’m out of the base, I put my headphones on and turn the knob of my walkman to search for any local station playing some music. This morning it’s a playing a song from a local artist from one town over.

The beat is easy to run to, and I start running. One foot in front of the other. Again, and again, and again until I see my marker for me to turn around and to go back to the base. Running helps me clear my mind, helps me remember my duties for the day, but most of all gives me time I need for myself. Today is special because I know that the air base will be holding one of our quarterly war games- and I’d get to fly with the Silver Bullets. I can feel my fingers tingling at the thought of having the opportunity to fly again. It doesn’t take me long to hear the familiar humming of plane engines over my headphones. I arrive back at 0500 to wake up my airmen, and their lopsided grins and bed hairs say it all.

“Five more minutes, Bones.” I hear Ears groan.

“Alright then, I’ll just eat your share for breakfast.” Drone pipes up as he fixes his bed.

I roll my eyes at their banter. “Come on, people! We’ve got war games today. Do I make myself clear?!” My voice rings throughout their shared room.

A chorus of “Mam, yes Mam!” comes from the Silver Bullets, and I nod and start walking around to check if everyone else is awake and fixing their beds. As soon as everyone’s out of their beds, I walk back to my quarters to take a shower, and put on my uniform. I take a seat in front of my desk and pull out my brush to start pulling my hair back in a bun to make sure it fits military hair regulations. Sometimes I wish I had cut my hair again just to avoid the hassle of styling it every morning, but I loved having long hair whenever I wore it down. A trade off I suppose for my own vanity.

Once I’m satisfied with my hair, I move onto taking out my make up bag and putting on some eyeliner and cheek tint to make sure that I don’t look as dead as I sometimes felt inside. It’s nothing too flashy, but it’s part of the uniform. I’m so used to doing this that I finish doing all of this in less than 20 minutes. Again, I make my way to my squad’s quarters and gather them for our breakfast together on the base.

Before we head over to breakfast though, everyone gathers to do a group morning jog- something I have been encouraging since all of us were assigned as a squad. It’s a simple five laps around the dormitory compound, and we all take our places and begin to jog around.

Once we’ve worked up our appetites and a little sweat, the nine of us walk together to the mess hall.

This morning we’ve got ham which makes the squad seem to start off with a positive outlook. Once we've gotten all our breakfasts, we sit together on one table.

"Today's the war game, right?" Ears asks, shoving a spoonful of oatmeal in his mouth.

"Come on, Ears. Bones has been telling us to prepare for the war games for the past week! You know how much she wanted to prepare for Captain Wexley." Lip Gloss laughs, jabbing her elbow at me. I shake my head with a small smile on my face.

"Come on, Captain Wexley just expects a lot out of us." I retort. It was true, Captain Wexley had a lot riding on us since we were under his wing since the conception of the entire squad. We were his experiment, his precious junior air combat squad, chosen from basic training. A younger generation of pilots trained under the wings of seasoned pilots in one of the biggest air bases in Illea.

"So, Bones," Wolf  interrupts my train of thoughts.

"We watched the Report last night." She continues.

"Looks like there's some manpower needed overseas in South Korea-" She mentions before getting interrupted by Lip Gloss.

"Jesus Hailey, that's what you're talking about from last night?! Hello? Prince Nate's Birthday?! SELECTION?" Lip Gloss shrieks.

"Come on, Lip- there's no way in hell that any of us would actually make it to the Selection." Wolf rolls her eyes. A part of me wants to laugh at both of their statements. The Selection

"I don't think Prince Nate would like either of you." I hear Crab laugh out loud.

"Excuse me, I'd make an awesome princess." Lip Gloss flashes an intense stare at Crab.

"Well, Prince Nate isn't bad looking either." I pipe up, earning a whistle from Drone.

I roll my eyes before Lip Gloss nudges me with her shoulder, a sneaky look in her eyes.

"What do you say Marshall? You and me apply for the Selection?"

I laugh at the thought, "Cass, I'd love to but we don't have time for fairytales right now." I pat her shoulder.

"Marshall's just saying that cause she wants to win the war game today." Ears laughs.

"Oh shut up, Adams. Let's be honest and say that we actually want to win this one." Wolf says as she finishes up her breakfast.

"Won't any of you want to sign up with me?" Lip Gloss groans.

"Alright, fine. If we lose, Hailey and I will sign up with you." I propose.

"What?!" I hear Wolf object.

"That will give you" I point to Wolf, "and you" I point at Lip Gloss, "motivation to do your best in today's exercise."

"What about us?" I hear the guys question.

"What? You want to sign up too?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Well I'd jump that Prince's bones if I could." Ears grins.

"I don't know... what can we get if we win? Eternal glory?" More like glory that only lasts an hour.

"I'll promise to give you guys more time to sleep. Extra 15 minutes for the next quarter."

"30 minutes." Drones tries to negotiate with me.

"20." I reply back.

"25." He holds his hand out.

"20." I repeat.

"Fine, 20 minutes." Drones agrees and so take his hand and shake it.

"Remember. Win the war game people, and you all get your share of rewards." I nod my head before starting to prepare for the war game later today.

As a pre-war game exercise, I make everyone run around the base twice to maintain their physique.

We're all huffing and puffing until we find ourselves facing each of our planes and the ground crew doing pre flight checks and adjust our specs to the weather today. Thankfully, not much has to.

I head over to one of the silver planes, the only one painted with a golden stripe- representing me and my rank.

"Good morning, Lieutenant Marshall." I'm greeted by one of my fellow air men.

"Good morning to you officer.  How is she?" I say as I bend down to my knees to see the what parts of the plane had been checked out.

"Well, she needed a change in oil, but so far, your girl's doing well."

"Thanks a lot." I nod, patting the side of my plane.

I hear Ears call me from behind, "Hey Bones!"

"What?" I yell back and suddenly I hear the horns signaling the beginning of the war games.

I immediately strap on my red arm warmer, and kiss my dog tag before jumping into my plane.

From there, I make sure that I do all the necessary pre-flight checks and take in the sight of blue colored planes soar over my head. I can feel my stomach turn, that meant that the Illean Navy was already here.

Once I know that everything's ready for take off, I put on my helmet and the ground crew helps put the top of my plane down.

I start my plane without any hesitation, hearing the sounds of plane engines roar around me. A sense of satisfactions fills me as I watch everyone start to take off on the runway.

Ears, Drones, Lip Gloss, Crab, and Wolf. One by one they fly and then it's my turn to move forward and take off.

Take off is my favorite part of flying and today's weather brings out another hot day in Midston. Ahhh how much I loved taking off with hot weather and thin air. I've always loved the challenge.

I brace myself for the take off and I'm weightless. I'm soaring up, and there is no feeling better than this one. This is what made me love being a pilot in the first place. I am complete.

I wait till my plane's in the right altitude before starting to talk to the Silver Bullets again.

"Bones, here. Could I get a confirmation that all of you are in formation?"

"Lip Gloss, affirmative."

"Crab, affirmative."

"Ears, affirmative."

"Wolf, affirmative."

I hear other members of the squad affirm their positions, until I wait too long for a reply from Drone.

"Drone, are you in position?"

Silence.

"Drone, get into your position."

Silence.

Panic sets inside me until I hear Drone's familiar voice. "Drone, affirmative."

We are not alone in this exercise, the whole Illean military is here to join in. I check my tools and I see the familiar sign by my superior: Captain Alexander Wexley.

"So far so good, Silver Bullets. Now join the big guns and let's kick some Navy ass!" I hear him say.

"Alright, Airmen. Let's show these blue bastards what the Red Flags can do!" I agree, and start maneuvering around the sky.

The exercise lasts for an hour before the winner is agreed upon. After that, we land back in the air base. The looks of our ground crew tell me the results.

"They won by one point!" I hear one crew member yell.

I get off my plane with some of the crew's help. And jump from my plane's wing to the ground.

I see the other planes from the Red Side land, along with the blue ones... the navy ones too.

My squad get out of their planes and we all gather together near the center of the base. There they announce the result that the Blue side had won this round... again-making my blood boil, knowing how much we had worked on our squad's strategy.

One look at my squad and I could see the disappointment on their faces.

"I guess there's no 20 minute extension." Drone shakes his head.

"Well, on the bright side, Marshall and Hailey get to go with me tomorrow to sign up for the Selection!" Lip Gloss starts to laugh until she quickly stops and points behind me.

Standing before us was Captain Alexander Wexley, a legend in the Illean Air Force.

My squad and I immediately salute him, and he salutes back.

"Job well done, Bullets. I've seen remarkable stunts and maneuvers pulled off by you." He praises. "I've seen interesting choices in defense and attack, as well. Some of those Navy bastards didn't see Lieutenant Marshall pull up from those clouds or Officer Silva's quick pull out."

"Today, we may have lost this one- but the Bullets have truly made me proud. You are all dismissed. Get some rest kids." I take a step back with everyone else and turn on my heel until I hear the Captain continue.

"Lieutenant Marshall- a word with you. If I could..."

"Sir, yes, Sir." I reply, turning again on my heel.

I walk up to him and he turns around so we're both facing the direction of the pilots from the blue team. I'm searching for a familiar face, hoping to not see him around.

"Your father isn't here, Lieutenant- if that's what you're worried about." He mentions.

"Where is he this time?" I turn to him.

"I believe that Admiral Marshall is doing some splendid work on developing the new Naval base in Dominica. His presence is quite strong over there."

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "Well, good for him, I suppose."

"You performed brilliantly today, Lieutenant Marshall." I'm thankful that the Captain had changed the subject.

"Thank you, sir." I nod with a small smile.

"The leadership you've been displaying these past few months has been remarkable as well. You should be as proud of yourself as I am of you." Pride, that's something I haven't had in a while.

"If it wasn't for your guidance, sir. I wouldn't be here." I try to sound as grateful for the praise he's giving me, but words like that has always felt empty to me.

"Perhaps, but you've got the skills and talents to make something out of yourself.... which is why I had just approved your promotion to first lieutenant."

Did I just hear him right? My jaw drops at the mention of the position.

"Are you serious, Captain?" I clarify with him.

"Quite." He nods his head. "Marshall, You'll be deployed to South Korea to take that position within the month."

Wait.... South Korea?

Oh god no, this wasn't happening. I try to control my face's emotion, trying not to show the fear seeping into my being. This wasn't happening.

"South Korea? Sir..."

"Osan Air Base to be exact. They'll need youth like yours and the bullets' overseas." The captain explains with a smile.

He steps back and offers me a handshake. I oblige despite the obvious shaking of my hand. I wanted to scream.

"Congratulations, Lieutenant Marshall. You'll find your letter of deployment in your quarters." He says before walking away and leaving me standing in one of the Air fields. Once he's out of my sight, I immediately break into a sprint for the dormitory part of the air base and straight to my room.

There on the floor of my room, I see two envelopes, so different in appearance. I bend down to pick them both up. One had calligraphed letters on the back, my name written in expensive ink and beautiful typography. The other was standard, my name marked by a typewriter.

I knew what these two letters were already. I first open my letter of deployment, making sure to read through the details.

I was to be deployed by the end of the month, along with the rest of my squad. We all were getting deployed and I felt sick to my stomach.

This was a great opportunity, I know and that is exactly why I'm freaking out over this. Judging from my history, I will surely mess up this opportunity. Not to mention how much satisfaction this would bring my father.

Oh he loved how my sinlings got promoted to being captains and lieutenant generals in the other branches of the military. If I got deployed and stationed in Osan as a First Lieutenant, I'd be his pride and joy- giving me another amazing opportunity to fuck up... again.

My head is spinning as I'm trying to comprehend what's happening in my life. Fuck, I was only 19 for Heaven's sake. How did I get myself into this. My life is writing checks my body can't cash in and now I'm about to face the consequences.

But I look at the other letter in my hand... the Selection. Maybe, if I got Selected... I could buy some time for myself to think, some time to get ready. I needed a way for me to escape this life I was living, just for a while. I immediately open the letter and go through the application. No one could control my life, no one except for me.

Everyday is a routine, and again I follow my own. For today’s agenda, it’s to surprise people, so I keep my Selection letter on the table as I look for a cute outfit to wear for my application photo for the Selection and throw a crumpled letter of deployment in my trash can. If this plan doesn't work, then nothing will.

[samanthasroberts]

The 15 Most Idiotic Monsters In Dungeons& Dragons History

Stranger Things has drawn Dungeons& Dragons cool again, even if the picture does take place in an era when playing it intended gambling getting your foreman jostle into a toilet. Back then, repudiating “youre ever” a D& D participate was abortive — bullies could reek it on you. But would the favourite kids have taunted us if they truly understood the rich, expansive nature detailed in D& D handbooks? Yes, they would have, because said handbooks were full of shit like …

15

The Roving Mauler

Wizards of the Coast

What Is It?

A visual approximation of Mufasa infected by The Thing .

Where It Went Wrong:

Besides looks a lot like a microbrew brew mascot created by a decorator who mischievously misread the instructions, the Roving Mauler is little more than a biological indebtednes. Does his head stay still while the rest of his mas travels pinwheeling around the desert? What’s to remained his cervix from clicking? If his head goes spinning around with the rest of his organization, how the hell does he recognize where he’s going with the scope whirling around his field of vision like a kaleidoscope?

And where is his lion dick during all this? We’re acquiring it’s between one of those pairs of legs, so given the options, he’s either going to have a dick-chin-beard, a dick-earring, or a dick-devilock. And that’s just awkward.

14

The Gelatinous Cube

Wizards of the Coast

What Is It?

The Gelatinous Cube is a huge blocking of oozing that prowls through the perfectly square hallways of D& D , relishing anyone foolish enough to walk instantly into it.

Where It Went Wrong:

Unless an meeting plays out exactly like the steamroller incident in Austin Powers , we fail to see how the Gelatinous Cube ever kills anybody who’s not either glued to the storey or fast sleeping. In happening, we’re pretty sure the Dungeon Master’s Guide reads: The first actor to request “Can’t I merely get out of the way? ” automatically demolishes the Gelatinous Cube .

13

The Knell Beetle

Wizards of the Coast

What Is It?

The Knell Beetle is a nine-foot-long flesh-eating bug with a monstrous trumpet on its manager that kind of reaches it look like Snidely Whiplash.

Where It Went Wrong:

Clearly this is an example of miscommunication between the writers and the prowes department.

“We need to form him a bit more peril. Give a huge cornet on its head.”

“Huge horn, got it.”

12

The Senmurv

What Is It?

The Senmurv is a wolf/ eagle hybrid, developed without question by a person who is with a dreamcatcher hanging from the rear-view mirror of their pickup truck. Each successful attempt copes 1d6 of liberty .

Where It Went Wrong:

The Senmurv is what Toby Keith becomes every full moon, and as such, it fails to impress us on any conceivable grade. The only thing more ludicrous than depicting this beast clawing feebly through the sky like a Technicolor ValueJet is guessing it was seeking to stand upright on two hind legs never make for the project. Actually, more ludicrous still is imagining this beast’s idea, which apparently involved a wolf, a giant tropical chick, and agonizing howls from within a gloom of neon feathers.

11

The Demi-Lich

What Is It?

The Demi-Lich is a soul-eating floating skull which bides its experience on a galleon full of preciou waiting for the Goonies to show up.

Where It Went Wrong:

Besides looking like a Pirates Of The Caribbean alarm clock, the Demi-Lich seems to possess no tactical advantages of any kind. It just kind of moves around, “re all waiting on” “states parties ” of heroes to smack-dab it out of the air like a pinata. We believe it could try to burn you, but the illustration above kind of stirs it looks a lot like the jaw is fused in place. Man , now we feel sorry for it.

10

The Brain In A Jar

What Is It?

As its epithet indicates, the Brain in a Jar is a brain in a container. This is a compromise of its original reputation, “Brain in a Gnarly H.R. Giger Phallus.”

Where It Went Wrong:

… It’s a intelligence in a cup. Just kick it over, who’s going to know?

9

The Digester

What Is It?

The Digester is a man-sized character that sprays its digestive juices onto its victims, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly or the lunch crowd at a Golden Corral.

Where It Went Wrong:

We be acknowledged that spitting battery-acid in someone’s face is pretty harsh. However, the Digester seems to be in hopeless need of a honcho, and one or two limbs. So if that initial explode of bulimic violence starts wide, it’s maybe screwed. Those talons look nasty, but again, with nothing but two hind legs to substantiate it, the thing is going to go toppling over with the first kicking, hilariously mailing gastric acid raining down its own torso.

8

Moon Rats

What Is It?

Moon Rats gain fierce intelligence as the moon becomes full, for reasons that are not adequately explained.

Where It Went Wrong:

Rats that become super smart under the full moon are only helpful as scoundrels on Chip And Dale’s Rescue Rangers . Sure, they may hatch an ingenious plan to overcome the entire city while be standing smoking cigars and drinking scotch, but once the sunbathe comes up, they’re back to devouring nappies out of the garbage. Solidify frame and bun credits.

7

Ash Rats

What Is It?

Ash Rat are rats that are on fire, all the time, for no explicit reason. This somehow establishes them even less dangerous than their aforementioned non-flaming brethren.

Where It Went Wrong:

Walking into a battle while already engulfed in flames applies you at a pretty hefty disadvantage. Realistically, all the heroes have to do is wait a few seconds for the rats to burn down to gristle, or merely knock the damn things out of the way because they’re fucking rats.

6

Grell

What Is It?

The Grell is a moving beaked brain with jellyfish tentacles.

Where It Went Wrong:

So the D& D world certainly uses the whole “floating” thing as a crutch to construct ridiculous-looking demons that would never be able to travel on ground unless they were buckled into a auto seat in the back of a Chevy Malibu. Likewise, while the Grell is undoubtedly suited for the job of frightening nine-year-olds, we don’t feel it would constitute a serious challenge to a seven-foot-tall barbarian warrior that sucks the blood of the collapse. That president has the seem of something he could unfit by poking it really hard with his finger.

5

Atropal

What Is It?

The Atropal is a stillborn god-fetus risen from the dead to embarrass everyone following the conclusion of 2001: A Space Odyssey .

Where It Went Wrong:

Despite possessing superhuman the authority and being metal as fuck , the Atropal is, at its core, still nothing but a dead fetus. Here’s a general rule for undead animals: If the thing wasn’t all types of threat when it was alive , it’s likely not going to be any more of a problem in its slower, decomposing form.

4

Hippocampus

What Is It?

When you were a little kid and somebody mentioned “seahorses, ” this is what you envisioned in your mind.

Where It Went Wrong:

The Hippocampus simply doesn’t seem like it would pose much of security threats. It sort of was like an ancillary attribute from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , like its call “wouldve been” “MerMare” or “Aquaestiran, ” and it would help the Turtles contact Atlantis before the city goes stolen by Bebop and Rocksteady. That becomes us think this mortal was intended to be one of the good guys, but would something working for such forces of good have that douchey chin whisker?

3

Porcupine Cactus

What Is It?

The Porcupine Cactus explodes whenever something gets near it, blanketing the bordering orbit with a seam of thorns and internal organs. This is gross.

Where It Went Wrong:

Aside from the pointlessly redundant combining( How about an “eel snake” ?), the freaking thing blows up at the first clue of task. Just hide behind a tree and convulse a squirrel at it or something.

2

Anguillian

What Is It?

Anguillians are a multiplied of humanoid eels which live in a patriarchal society under the sea. Judging by the lance and Sarlacc mouth, things down there aren’t quite as whimsical as Sebastian the crab would have us believe.

Where It Went Wrong:

Buddy, you’ve got a mouth strung with millions of razor-sharp teeth and vast terrifying crab claw for handwritings. You do not need to try to jab parties with a sharpened stick.

1

Gelun

What Is It?

The Gelun is a character that has to live in the desert to evade completely freezing into a block of sparkler, sort of like exactly the opposite of Mr. Freeze.

Where it Went Wrong:

Being encased in something that isn’t a monstrous robot clothing actually restraint your duel capability( discover Brain in a Jar, above ). Really, the Gelun’s best hope is that passing cliques of wanderers carve its frost prison into an angel or a swan or something instead of chopping its disclosed head off.

Memorandum: Such articles was originally published in June 2009 ! If you cherished this article and crave more content like this, corroborate our place with a see to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you very much .

Source: http://allofbeer.com/the-15-most-idiotic-monsters-in-dungeons-dragons-history/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/03/29/the-15-most-idiotic-monsters-in-dungeons-dragons-history/

[geekprincess26]

The Snow: Chapter 7

Sansa stood just inside the kitchen doorway for the next several moments, unsure of what to do.  Jon had always been an early riser, but perhaps the past few days had exhausted him as badly as they had exhausted her.  Still, it was almost 11:00 in the morning.

Sansa’s eyes spent a minute or two darting alternately among the coffeepot, the food resting on the stove, and the doorway that led into the living room.  Finally, they settled on the food.  She could at least store it in the refrigerator before it spoiled.  If Jon had not shown himself by 11:00, she decided, she would brave knocking on his door to ensure that he was all right.  It would probably only get her more of Jon’s glares, but better safe than sorry, and anyway, he was perfectly entitled to give her more than a couple of nasty looks.

It took a bit of rummaging through drawers and cabinets, but Sansa finally discovered some glass leftover containers big enough to hold the very full pan of food sitting in front of her.  She rattled the containers rather loudly while trying to extract them from the bowls stacked below them, so when she finally stood up to place them on the counter she turned around, half-expecting the noise to have brought Jon out of his room demanding to know what on earth she was up to.  But Jon did not appear, and after a moment Sansa busied herself with wrangling the chicken and vegetables into the containers.

Once she had emptied the roasting pan and removed the foil, Sansa tackled the coffeemaker.  She had never operated it before – Jon must have bought it after the divorce – but it was similar enough to Margaery’s that she figured out how to work it within a couple of minutes.  This time she did not have to look hard to find the other piece of her puzzle; Jon, as he had when they had been married, stored his coffee in the cabinet directly above where the coffeemaker was sitting.  

Oh, bother it!  Jon!

One glance at the oven clock confirmed that it was almost 11:15.  Sansa quickly punched the last of the series of buttons on the coffeemaker necessary to begin the brewing process and dashed through the doorway into the living room.  When she entered the hallway leading to Jon’s room, however, she began tiptoeing out of instinct.  She stopped directly outside his bedroom door and strained her ears for any kind of noise, even so much as the click of computer keys, but she heard nothing.  

Sansa clenched the fingers of her right hand several times, only to uncurl and flex them.  On perhaps her seventh or eighth try, she finally kept them curled and rapped quietly on Jon’s bedroom door.  She backed away instinctively and waited for him to either open or yell through the door, but again she heard nothing.  Finally, she tiptoed back to the door and rapped on it again.  Still, nothing happened.  This time, Sansa waited directly in front of the door before knocking yet again and more forcefully.  

“Jon?” she called hesitantly when it was time for her fourth knock.  “Jon?  Are you OK?”

Still, Jon gave her no response, and Sansa began to worry.  She did not hesitate at all to pound on the door forcefully this time.

“Jon,” she called, “I’m coming in, OK?  Just to see if you’re all right.  Unless you don’t want me to.”  She waited a few seconds in what silence the roaring of her heartbeat inside of her eardrums would allow her, then reached for the handle.  Please, God, let it be unlocked.

To Sansa’s relief, the knob turned easily, and she slipped through the door and into Jon’s bedroom.  The blinds were drawn and all of the lights turned off, so it took Sansa’s eyes several seconds to adjust to the faintness of the glow that filtered in through the window shades.  Once they did, they immediately made out an enormous bed that took up half the right-hand wall and that, more importantly, was occupied by a solid body huddled in a fetal position.  Without thinking to so much as look for the light switch, Sansa dashed to the side of the bed.  She tripped and stubbed her toe on something solid as she did so, but paid it no attention except for a wince and a couple of whispered curses.

“Jon!” she whispered loudly once she had reached the bed.  He did not respond, which pushed Sansa over the edge of worry into alarm.

“Jon!” she yelled.  She grabbed one broad shoulder and shook it vigorously.  A low, rasping groan emanated from somewhere closer to Sansa’s face, and she almost collapsed onto the bed from relief.

“Jon.”  She bent to draw her face closer to his.  “Are you all right?  What’s the matter?”

That only earned Sansa another moan.  After a few seconds of indecision, she rose and tiptoed to the room’s entrance, then felt along the wall until she found the light switch.  When she flipped it, the room was instantly bathed in the soft golden glow of the overhead light fixture.  Sansa retraced her steps to Jon’s bed at once, although this time she took especial care to avoid the box over which she had tripped before.  

The overhead light revealed that Jon was not only curled in on himself, but shivering.  Sansa’s eyes widened in alarm as she realized that his usually pale face was flushed to a crab-colored pink all over, and so was the one bare arm she could see.  Her hand reached out automatically to feel Jon’s forehead, and, just as she had suspected, it was much too warm.  She withdrew her hand as though she had been stung, and Jon moaned again.

“Jon?”  Sansa crouched so that her face was directly in front of his.  “Jon, can you hear me?”  She shook his shoulder again, more gently this time, but still only got another moan.

Sansa bit her lip.  Jon rarely took ill, but when he did, he usually got a fever that lasted a day or two before breaking.  Once the fever had gone, he would be back to his old self within another day.  This was probably another such case, Sansa thought, but maybe Jon should be taken to the hospital just to be safe.  But God only knew how long it would take to get him there; now that the snowstorm had ended, the clinics and hospitals would probably be overrun with patients who had not been sick or hurt enough to warrant emergency helicopter trips during the blizzard.  Still, waiting several hours to see a doctor would be preferable to seeing no doctor at all if in fact this was not merely one of Jon’s usual illnesses.

Finally, Sansa rose and headed for Jon’s bathroom.  Any doctor she called would ask for Jon’s temperature, and she should know it at any rate.  At their worst, Jon’s fevers had always run to about 102 degrees, or perhaps half a degree more, and his doctor had always told him to come into the hospital if they ran higher than that.

Sansa strode into the master bathroom and headed straight for Jon’s medicine cabinet.  She rummaged through it hastily, which caused several bottles of medicine and shaving cream to clatter onto the counter and floor.  As she picked them up, Sansa found herself interspersing her curses with sorry, Jon.  Then she heard him groaning again, and a twinge of guilt shot through her, followed by an equally sharp pang of relief that he was still there and breathing.  Nevertheless, she proceeded through the drawers next to the sink a bit more cautiously until she discovered the thermometer for which she had been searching.  A bit more rifling produced a box of probe sleeves.  Sansa’s fingers shook as she grabbed one out of the box and dropped it onto the floor.  Cursing, she tossed it into the trash can and sat back against the cupboards.

Steady it.  Jon needs this.

Sansa’s next and more careful attempt succeeded, and she managed to attach the second probe sleeve to the thermometer successfully.  She turned the device on and padded quickly across the bedroom as it calibrated itself.

“Jon.”  She shook him by the shoulder again.  “Jon?  I need to take your temperature, all right?  Can you wake up?  Please?”

Jon groaned but did no more.  Sansa crouched next to the bed and out of instinct reached for a dark curl that had fallen over his eye.  She pulled her hand back just in time, but it was enough to awaken a reflex that had been dormant for the past three years.  When Jon had had his fevers before, she had almost always been able to wake him up by stroking his cheek.  Only hours ago Sansa would never have dared to try it, but this was not the time for delicacy.  She willed her hand forward and brushed her thumb gently in circles on Jon’s left cheekbone, nearly recoiling as she did so at the heat that emanated from his skin.

“Jon,” she said, this time more loudly, “I need to take your temperature, all right?  Can you open your mouth?  Please?”

That only got her another moan, and another few minutes of rubbing and pleading and shaking Jon by the shoulder got her nothing more, so finally Sansa reached for Jon’s mouth.  Halfway through the motion, she stopped and headed for the bathroom.  After all, she need not add whatever bacteria lurked on her fingers to his misery.

Sansa took care to wash her hands thoroughly before she returned to Jon’s side.  Gently, she pried his mouth open and inserted the thermometer.  When she withdrew it, the tiny digital screen read 102.1 degrees.

Damn.

Sansa felt her hands shaking as she discarded the thermometer’s probe sleeve into the trash can next to the nightstand.  Jon’s fever was not enough to warrant a trip to the hospital, at least not yet, but he was still in a bad way.  She lost no time in running upstairs to retrieve the phone Jon had lent her.  She looked up the number for the nearest clinic, dialed it, and then spent almost ten minutes on hold; apparently the clinics were just as busy as she had thought the hospitals must be.  Just as she was about to hang up, however, a harried-sounding nurse picked up the line and listened as Sansa described Jon’s symptoms.

“Did you take his temperature?” she asked briskly.

“Yes, it’s 102.1 degrees,” Sansa replied, just as briskly.

“And you said he’s had temperatures this high in the past on a regular basis?”

“Not on a regular basis, but yes, he has had them that high,” Sansa admitted as she rearranged the pillows on the living room sofa where she had spent the night before last.

“And he hasn’t vomited, you say?”

“No.”  Sansa almost wished she had said “yes” so the woman would tell her to bring Jon to a hospital, but instead, she was graced with a curt suggestion to feed Jon as many fluids as possible and bring him into a hospital if his temperature cleared 103 degrees, followed by the click of her suddenly disconnected call.  She dropped her head into her hands and sighed.

However, the nurse had been right about Jon’s needing water, so Sansa headed back to Jon’s bedroom.  She shook him, rubbed his cheek, yelled his name, and even slapped his shoulders and chest, but he did not move, let alone groan.

Shit!  Sansa rubbed her temples in frustration.  A lump rose unbidden in her throat, and moisture rose at the back of her eyes.  No.  She could not help Jon if she were soaking yet another pillow or T-shirt with tears.

Wait.  Maybe soaking something would help.

Sansa dashed back into Jon’s bathroom, where she grabbed the glass next to the sink and filled it with cold water as fast as she could.  She forced herself to go more slowly enough on the return trip not to knock half the water back out of the glass, so that when she returned to Jon’s bedside she had a full pint’s worth to dump onto his face.

This time Jon spluttered instead of moaning.  He flailed his arms, as if anticipating another dumping, and blinked rapidly.  His gaze settled on Sansa, and he looked confused.  Sansa clapped one hand to her mouth out of pure relief and promptly dropped the glass out of the other hand, which she then settled on Jon’s shoulder.

“Oh, thank God,” she breathed.  Then she realized how warm Jon felt through his T-shirt.  “Jon, here – oh, shit – ”  She glanced at the empty glass lying on the carpet.  “I’m getting you water, all right?  I’ll be back in five seconds.  Stay awake, all right?  Please?  Please stay awake.”  Her hand moved from his shoulder to cup his cheek.  “Stay here; I’ll be right back.”

Jon merely blinked at her.  Sansa hesitated for a moment, not wanting to look away for fear that if she did, he would sink back into that terrible stupor.  Then she stepped back, grabbed the glass from the floor, and sprinted for the bathroom.  Once again, she counteracted her urge to dash heedlessly back to Jon in favor of leaving the glass full.  When she reached him again, he was still blinking, to Sansa’s everlasting relief.

“Here you go,” she said, and cupped a hand behind his head.  Then she remembered that with a fever as high as his, he could hardly be expected to sit up of his own accord.  She set the glass down on the night table and reached around Jon’s body to push her other hand behind his shoulder.  He moaned again, and this time Sansa could feel it through her own shoulder, which was pressed against his chest.

“Here you go,” she murmured again, this time more gently, and bent one knee to the floor.  “Up so you can drink, all right?  One, two, three…”  On “three,” she dug the opposite heel into the carpet and pulled on Jon’s upper body until it rose to meet hers.  She let his head loll against her left shoulder and grabbed the glass from the night table with her right, then held it against Jon’s lips.

“Jon, here you are,” she said, but she got no response.  His head was a dead weight on her shoulder, and his eyes had closed again.

“Jon!”  Sansa snapped, fighting the urge to panic.  “You need to drink it – come on, here.  Don’t make me splash you again, all right?  Please?”  She set the glass down again and rubbed his cheek as she had before.  When that produced no results she slapped it, perhaps a bit harder than she had intended to.  But it worked long enough for Jon to blink and moan again.  In one swift motion, Sansa had grabbed the glass and tipped it backwards against his mouth.  He spluttered again at first, although Sansa could hardly blame him, since in her eagerness she had splashed perhaps a quarter of the glass’s contents down his front.  Her second try, though, proved more successful.  This time, some of the liquid made its way into Jon’s mouth.  When she saw his neck muscles contract to swallow it, Sansa closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“Good job,” she said, and smiled into his still-bleary eyes.  “Here – more, all right?”

Sansa spent the next few minutes pouring the water down Jon’s throat bit by bit.  No sooner had she emptied the glass than she headed off to the bathroom to fill it again.

Idiot.  Purified water would be much less likely to make him sicker.

Sansa could feel her face flushing to match her hair as she dashed to the kitchen to refill the glass with water from the filtering pitcher sitting in Jon’s refrigerator.  She took both back into the bedroom with her and wasted no time in propping Jon back up in bed, where she gradually emptied the glass into his overheated body.  He moaned more this time, which encouraged Sansa.

“Good job,” Sansa whispered as he gulped down the last of the water.  She slowly let him back down onto the pillow and reached for the pitcher.  “Here – one more glass, all right?”

By the end of the third glass, Sansa’s arms and shoulders were shaking from exertion.  After lowering him to the bed, she sank to the floor, propped her knees in front of her, and rubbed the sweat off of her forehead and palms with her jeans.  Eventually, she pushed herself up to retrieve the thermometer from the bathroom so she could check Jon’s temperature again.  It was still 102.1 degrees.

Damn it.  Sansa shook the probe sleeve into the trash can a little more vigorously than necessary.  But Jon had only just drunk the water, so perhaps his temperature would take a bit more time to lower.

Please lower.  Please, please, please lower.

Once she was back by his bedside, Sansa’s hand reached instinctively to brush Jon’s sweaty curls off of his forehead.  Her fingers had gotten to within millimeters of his skin by the time she remembered to stop them.  Muscle memory could be such a stubborn thing, she thought.  Three years of estrangement had not been enough to make her body follow her mind entirely.  She still awoke in the midst of some nights feeling the ghosts of Jon’s arms around her, and on the rare evening she had to herself when she would stretched her legs along the length of her couch to read instead of onto the coffee table in front of it, she would instinctively curl her toes because Jon had always tickled them when she’d done it during their marriage.  

But they were not married now, and Sansa had no right to touch Jon’s forehead or any other part of him.  She barely had the right even to worry about him.  That did not stop her, of course, but she spent the next few minutes pacing back and forth between Jon’s bed and his doorway, wondering whether she should sit with him or wait in her room until it was time to take his temperature again.  If Jon were to wake up, he would not appreciate her presence, but at the same time, at least she would know he was on the mend – or, alternatively, whether he was getting worse and needed immediate medical help.  

The last consideration outweighed all of the others, and within five minutes Sansa had transplanted her borrowed laptop and phone, along with the entire nest of blankets and pillows from her bed, into Jon’s room.  Once she had taken his temperature yet again and confirmed it had not changed by so much as a tenth of a degree, she ensconced herself in the armchair across the room from the bed – close enough for her to rush to Jon’s side should he need it, but too far away to grab the thermometer and insert it into his mouth every three minutes as her nerves wanted her to do.  Still, she could only wade through the hundreds of unread e-mails in her inbox at a snail’s pace because her eyes kept darting off the screen and onto Jon’s flushed face.

Please get cooler.  Please get better.

Several dozen deleted e-mails later, Sansa decided to try and get Jon to drink more water.  It took a good deal of shaking for her to get him blinking and borderline coherent again, and her back and arm muscles were screaming loudly at her by the time he finished his second glass.  No sooner had Sansa lowered him back to the pillow – a little more quickly than she had intended, since the muscles between her shoulder blades were threatening to spasm – than his head lolled sideways, signaling his return to unconsciousness.  Sansa took his temperature at once, only to get a reading of exactly 102 degrees.  Shit.  And that was after he just drank a load of water.

Sansa picked up the filter pitcher and took it back to the kitchen for a refill.  Her gaze traveled idly to Jon’s shiny silver refrigerator-freezer unit.  Freezer.  Right.

As soon as Sansa had shut off the faucet, she opened the freezer.  Fortunately, it took her very little digging to unearth not one but two ice packs.  She rooted through the drawers next to the sink for some towels, then carried the lot into Jon’s bedroom, where she wound the towels around the ice packs and set them on the bed.

“Jon.”  She shook him a few times but received no response, so she worked his shirt off his body of her own accord.  By the time she had finished, both of them were sweating, and Sansa could have sworn that the flush on Jon’s face had gotten deeper.  She set one towel-covered ice pack on his chest, then gently swept off the hair that had fallen over his forehead and put the other pack there.  After that, she wasted no time in checking his temperature again.

102.2 degrees.  Shit.

Sansa retrieved a glass from the kitchen to fill with water for her own use, then settled down uneasily into the chair to work through the remainder of her e-mails.  This time, she set the phone’s timer for half an hour so she could check Jon’s temperature at regular intervals.

After only a few minutes of wading through the concrete monster her inbox had become, Sansa remembered the pot of coffee she had brewed not an hour before.  Pouring the drink into one of the mugs she’d found in the cabinet above the coffeemaker reminded her that Jon would eventually need to have some broth or soup, which she had fed him often during his past bouts with the fever.  She spent several minutes rooting through Jon’s pantry and, to her immense relief, finally retrieved a carton of chicken broth from the bottom shelf.  She would try feeding it to him, she decided, once he had had a couple more rounds of water.

Back in Jon’s bedroom, Sansa removed the ice packs from his forehead and chest and replaced them in the freezer.  As she ate the bowl of cereal she’d poured for herself, she scrolled through the latest headlines, having given up on her inbox for the time being.  The Met Office was reporting a record snowfall and still encouraging all residents of Yorkshire to remain in their homes unless absolutely necessary.  Margaery’s latest film had come in third at the weekend box office, doing much better than had been expected.  The two houses of Parliament continued to bicker over the newest budget bill.  Sources connected closely to prominent Scottish government officials had predicted that yet another independence referendum would take place before next year ended.

Jon moaned loudly and kicked the bed, and the sound startled Sansa so that she almost flung her cereal bowl through the air.  She dashed to the bed, shook his shoulder, and called his name, but received the same lack of response as she had before.  Just then the timer beeped, and Sansa undertook another round of force-feeding Jon water and taking his temperature, which had not changed at all.  She retrieved the ice packs and applied them to his forehead and chest once again.  Instead of re-seating herself in the chair, however, she laid down on her side in the thick carpeting next to the bed facing Jon’s bookcase and began rolling back and forth to relieve some of the tightness in her arm and shoulder muscles.  Her eyes began to drift idly across the bottom row of titles and eventually settled on a volume of plays by Shakespeare’s contemporary and friend Christopher Marlowe – no, Kit Marlowe, Sansa could hear Jon correcting her playfully.  Jon loved Marlowe’s works, and although Sansa had never read any of them, perhaps they would engage her fluctuating attention and help her keep away her simmering worries about Jon better than her e-mails had.

However, when the phone’s timer went off to remind Sansa to remove Jon’s ice packs, she found herself reading through the first paragraph of the introduction to Marlowe’s Edward II for the third time without comprehending a word of it.  She was only too glad to get to her feet again to retake Jon’s temperature.  However, the number had risen by a tenth of a degree, and Sansa worried her lip tightly between her teeth as she returned the ice packs to the kitchen.

Please get lower.  Please get better.  Please.

Jon was groaning again when Sansa returned to the bedroom, and this time she saw the reason in the form of the dark yellow fluid spreading rapidly from his sweatpants to his sheets.  Sansa swore loudly, which made Jon groan again.

“Sorry,” she muttered as she let out an exasperated sigh.  She shook Jon by the shoulder again, but as before, he only laid there limp.  Sansa let out another sigh before she turned and marched resolutely back to the bathroom.

Luckily, Jon had a spare set of sheets in his linen closet, along with an abundance of towels and washcloths.  Sansa grabbed as many of the latter as she could hold and set the entire pile on her chair before retrieving some clean clothes from Jon’s dresser.  She stood next to Jon’s bed for a good minute or two trying to decide which to change first.  Finally, she began pulling the sheets off the bed; better, she thought, to tackle the bigger mess first.

That proved to be easier said than done.  It took the better part of ten minutes for Sansa to crawl onto Jon’s bed, pull the sheets and blankets off the bottom half and the corner opposite Jon, divest the bed of the blankets, and figure out which ones were stained and which could safely be piled back atop the new sheets.  Yanking at the blankets, however, did jog Sansa’s memory four years back to the month-long boot camp session she’d undergone to prepare for her role in a futuristic sci-fi film.  One scene in particular had required her character to shove several barrels of stardust out of her way while climbing frantically through a hidden passage leading her to her love interest, and while her stunt double had handled a good deal of the work, Sansa had had to learn how to apply her body weight effectively against a heavier object without straining her back.  Jon, of course, was not an object, but at the moment he was as inert as every last barrel in the film, so Sansa set to work.  Once again, it proved easier to remember the training than to execute it, but a quarter of an hour’s worth of heaving and panting and straining later, Sansa had successfully wrestled Jon off the remainder of the sheets and mattress pad and yanked them off of the bed.  She did not try to mute her exclamations of “Sorry, Jon!” this time, and by the look of him, Jon was none the wiser.

Removing Jon’s clothes proved less strenuous, but Sansa felt her face flush a much brighter red than it had all day as she pulled off his boxers.  Not that she had not seen him nude too many times to count, and even several times in this same context when he had taken ill during their marriage; but three years apart had that sight as awkward as it had been the first time she and Jon had made love.  But Jon’s condition left no room for Sansa’s embarrassment, and she quickly threw his dirty clothes on top of the sheets and set to work wiping his body down with the washcloths.  

Once she had dressed Jon in clean clothes as gently as she could, Sansa deposited his old clothes and the stained bedding into the washing machine.  On a hunch, she checked the shelving units behind the laundry machines, hoping she would find the tarp and stack of buckets that Jon had kept stashed in the garage of their London house back when he and a couple of his friends had taken on a sudden enthusiasm for camping.  She let out a long sigh of relief and let her body relax against the shelf for several moments when she found them.  After all, she did not want to keep changing Jon’s sheets, and she could not haul him to the bathroom whenever he needed it even if she could somehow telepathically sense his need, so unpleasant as it was, the tarp and bucket approach seemed the best option.  She second-guessed that notion a few times as she wrangled the tarp onto the bed and Jon onto the tarp, but in the end she managed to secure both.  She even tied the center section of the tarp to the opposite bedpost with the twine she’d found next to the buckets so as to form a rudimentary trough directly over the bucket.

Sansa checked Jon’s temperature again before she embarked on a fifteen-minute stretching routine courtesy of YouTube.  Her back still ached at the end, but the soreness was preferable to the spasms that had been threatening to envelop it after she’d secured the tarp.  Staying on her feet a bit longer would not hurt, she decided, and headed to the kitchen to heat some of the chicken broth she’d found in the pantry.  Unfortunately, while waiting for the broth to heat, she detoured to the bedroom to check on Jon and took too long in an unsuccessful attempt trying to wake him fully when he let out an especially loud groan.  By the time she gave up, she could hear the sounds of the pot boiling over all the way from the bedroom.

Once she had cleaned up the broth, she fed what she could salvage to Jon, but he took longer to drink it all than he had to drink any of the glasses of water he’d had that day.  It had been just cool enough to be safe to feed him, although Sansa had to admit that her standards for determining safety at that point were quite cautious, and it was only lukewarm when he finished it.

Once she had settled Jon back down onto the pillow, Sansa, having realized she would get nowhere with Marlowe’s play, tried sorting more of her e-mails.  Those proved just as futile in holding her concentration, and almost in spite of herself pulled up the document she’d written for Jon the prior day.

Mya would call me ridiculous for thinking I made you sick, she found herself typing.  I’m sure I didn’t.  But you’re sick, and the fever’s high.  Please get better.  

I know you told me the truth.  I didn’t believe you, and I don’t blame you if you didn’t believe me yesterday when I told you that the English language really doesn’t have any words for how sorry I am.  I don’t blame you if you don’t believe that for a lot longer than three years.

That put a bigger lump in her throat than Sansa could handle, so she returned to reading the news.  However, she had to keep re-reading the articles in order to understand them, much as she had with the introduction to Marlowe’s play.  She had just read the first paragraph of a piece about the discovery of a Viking hoard in Northumbria perhaps three or four times before her phone’s timer went off to inform her that Jon needed his ice packs changed out.

Sansa sighed with relief.  She’d changed the rotation of the ice packs from twenty minutes of sitting on Jon and forty in the freezer to twenty on Jon, ten tucked against her still-tender back and shoulder, and thirty in the freezer.  That meant it was her turn with both packs.

Slowly, the golden glow outside the windows faded.  Slowly, Sansa added to her document sentence by sentence.  Each one pinched like the history books Sansa loved said leeches caused a person when sucking out poisoned blood, and perhaps some of the thoughts bursting onto the screen belonged better in the oblivion of electronic haze than inside of her, especially those she had not realized she was harboring.  She could only handle emptying them out for so long, however, until tears began seeping down her cheeks and she shut off the computer; Jon, after all, did not need the only person who could take care of him breaking down altogether.  Slowly, the tears stopped.  Slowly, Sansa’s eyes readjusted, and she busied herself with playing game after game on the phone Jon had lent her so that she wouldn’t have to think about the document or the divorce or her nagging impulse to click onto WebMD and find out exactly how many illnesses Jon might have based on his symptoms, no matter what the nurse had said.  Slowly, the pastel pink and orange of the sunset that had overwhelmed the golden glow faded in its turn, and by the time Sansa headed into the kitchen to help herself to the chicken and vegetables Jon had cooked the previous day, it had given way entirely to the brilliance of white stars against a clear night sky.  

Between changing out the ice packs and blinking for minutes on end at the phone screen, Sansa had to warm her plate in the microwave several times before finishing her dinner.  By the time she had cleaned her dishes and returned to the bedroom, Jon had begun shivering and had gotten the tarp dirty.  She cleaned everything thoroughly and spread a couple of Jon’s blankets over him (not too many, she kept reminding herself), but by the time she had finished, she was exhausted and ready to drop into her own bed.  That, Sansa had decided hours ago, would not happen; so she trudged back into the laundry room and took thorough stock of all the shelves in search of the air mattress Jon had kept during his camping phase.  She finally found it, but not until she had gone through several of the flat’s closets first.  While it inflated, Sansa returned to the computer and clicked into her e-mail inbox to compose a new message.  Dragging the mattress out of its hideaway had jogged her memory about yet another project, a heart-wrenching, semi-biographical miniseries about a mother who had fled the UK illegally with her three children to avoid their abusive father.  At one point, all four characters had slept on the same air mattress in a cramped apartment, and although brief, the scenes involving that bed had taken forever to shoot because getting all three of Sansa’s young costars to lie still at once had proven quite a formidable task.  Besides that, in between those scenes Sansa had been practicing feverishly on the dramatic courtroom confrontation near the end of the show with her other costars and the series’s legal consultant.  Sansa could not remember the woman’s name for the life of her, but she knew that Podrick Payne, one of the project’s producers, could.  She and Pod went back about a decade; he had produced half a dozen of her projects over the past several years, and he had a memory like a steel trap and more connections than a computer factory.  Even though it had been three years since they’d filmed the miniseries, Sansa knew it would take Pod no time at all to either remember the consultant’s name or find someone who could.

Sansa had typed only a line or two when she heard the mattress’s air pump shut off.  She unplugged the device and, deciding it had been long enough, headed out to the kitchen to heat up more of the chicken broth for Jon.  This time it did not boil over, but Sansa would gladly have traded another such incident for a more responsive Jon.  She had to douse him with water twice to keep him awake long enough to swallow half the bowl of broth she had prepared for him, and finally decided to refrigerate the rest until the following morning rather than drench Jon’s head and pillow for a third time.  She already felt cruel enough as it was, although she supposed that was more than a bit rich.

Changing out Jon’s pillowcase and setting a towel over it proved to be the last two tasks Sansa could handle without her eyes threatening to shut any second.  She wearily climbed the stairs to wash up, and barely managed to take Jon’s temperature one final time – 101.9 degrees.  Thank God. – and reset the timer on her phone before collapsing onto the air mattress.

Sansa got up faithfully every half-hour that night to take Jon’s temperature, change his ice packs, and give him his water.  She also cleaned the tarp twice more before the sky began to turn gray.  Gradually, the grey began to bleed into a hazy blend of pink and indigo and every shade in between.  Normally, Sansa would have marveled at it, but now the more color seeped into the sky, the more leaked out of her.  Some time during sunrise, she accidentally turned down the phone’s volume, and when she awoke next, almost two hours had passed.

Cursing, Sansa leaped off the mattress and fetched the thermometer from the bathroom.  Jon’s temperature had risen to 102.3 degrees, which made Sansa curse again before heading to the kitchen to refill the water pitcher and warm up more broth.  This time, she had to splash Jon three times before getting the broth into him.  She set the empty bowl on the floor next to the equally empty filter pitcher and sank down next to the bed, exhausted.

Please fight it away.  Please get better.

It took a few shaky breaths for Sansa to keep from sobbing again.  She decided to call a different clinic for a second opinion on Jon’s condition, even though his current symptoms were identical to the ones he’d always had before when ill.  Apparently, however, the clinics were still quite busy, for Sansa spent nearly as long on hold as she had the prior day, and the nurse who finally answered the line sounded just as harried as yesterday’s nurse, if not more so.  She also gave Sansa the same advice.

“Bring him in if he’s still not showing improvement by tomorrow morning,” she said, and Sansa felt like shouting at her.

Sansa briefly considered brewing some coffee after that, but decided it would only fray her already exhausted nerves.  She settled instead for more dozing between alarms and only got up around noon to force another bowl of cereal into her stomach; appetite or not, she could not afford to get sick for lack of food or anything else.

The food gave Sansa just enough energy to finish typing her e-mail to Pod Payne, then edit it to her satisfaction before hitting the “send” button and collapsing back onto the air mattress.  She could not have said whether it was the alarm or Jon’s unusually loud groans that woke her.  In either case, she sat bolt upright and saw at once that the tarp was dirty again.  Jon not only groaned but fidgeted restlessly as Sansa cleaned up the mess, which resulted in some of that mess ending up smeared on Sansa and her clothing.  She muttered a stream of curses while heading off to fetch a plastic bag from the kitchen to hold the dirty laundry.

“Not at you, Jon, it wasn’t your fault,” she whispered apologetically when she returned to the bedroom.  Jon, of course, showed no sign that he had heard her.  But he was moaning softly when she came downstairs after having showered in her bathroom, and a lump formed in her throat out of thin air.  This time, she could not refrain from sweeping a few dark curls off of his forehead, and when he moaned again, Sansa leaned over before she could stop herself and brushed her lips against where the curls had been only moments before.  She was just raising her head when Jon stilled, and she jumped back as though his forehead had burnt her lips to a crisp.  But he did not wake, and after a few moments Sansa sank back to the mattress and let the lump in her throat dissolve in the form of tears.

The alarm went off again just then, and Sansa, grateful for the distraction, changed out Jon’s ice packs.  Once finished, she wiped the remaining tears out of her eyes and, looking for anything she could to distract herself, settled her gaze once more on Jon’s bookshelf.  She gazed at it for a few minutes before any of the titles began to make sense.

Holy Bible.  That was interesting, to put it mildly; Jon, like Sansa, had never been religious in the least.  However, Sansa began to understand why he had bought that particular book when she saw a few of the titles around it.

The Broken Heart (You Can’t Fix)

When You Didn’t Want the Divorce

After You Shatter: How to Pick Up the Pieces of Your Broken Life

This time, neither deep breaths nor anything else could stop the tears from spilling down Sansa’s cheeks.  She bent her face into her propped-up knees to keep her sobs from reaching Jon’s ears, deaf though they might be at the moment.  Deaf right along with the ears of God, or karma, or the sun or moon or stars or any other higher power that might exist, because according to almost everything Sansa had ever heard, higher powers were supposed to reward people for doing the right things and punish them for doing the wrong ones.  Yet there lay Jon, burning with fever after having spent the past three years being punished for something he hadn’t done, and here she sat, perfectly fine except for lack of sleep.  

And some of her mother’s friends still had the nerve to wonder why she wasn’t religious.

It was a little odd, though, Sansa later reflected, that it was just at that moment she heard an earsplitting crack followed by the sound of shattering glass on the other side of the wall.

[titoslondon-blog]

New Post has been published on Titos London

#Blog New Post has been published on http://www.titoslondon.co.uk/2018-met-gala-all-the-facts-and-figures-you-need-to-know/

2018 Met Gala: All the facts and figures you need to know

The countdown clock is ticking toward the start of the 2018 Costume Institute Gala—a.k.a. The Met Ball—in celebration of the soon-to-be-unveiled (and possibly controversial) Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibit. The invite-only guest list—filled with the most notable fashion designers, musical artists, Hollywood stars, business leaders and members of culture glitterati—is top-secret leading up to the event, but experience—and this year’s co-chairs, which include Rihanna, Amal Clooney and Donatella Versace—portends a jaw-dropping roster. Long-serving Gala Chair Anna Wintour and her team of organisers also keep an airtight lid on details for the glamour and festivities inside the event, but based on past spectacles, expectations are sky high for 2018. How do we know? It’s all in the numbers.

The Costume Institute Benefit celebrating the opening of Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between. Photograph: Rex Features

3: The number of courses served up for guests on the night (yes, between spilling the tea with fellow fabulous friends, avoiding exes with their new SOs and sneaking selfies in the bathroom, guests do eat at the Met Gala). Last year’s menu included a sumptuous starter of lobster and king crab, followed by wagyu beef in green peppercorn sauce—a vegetarian option and sea bass dish were also offered—and a very Hollywood-friendly dessert of matcha, coconut mango and yuzu citrus mochi to finish.

Jay-Z and Beyoncé at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala (2015) celebrating “China: Through the Looking Glass”. Photograph: Rex Features

4: The number of hours the media and photographers had to wait for the most VIP of VIPs—Beyoncé and Jay Z—to hit the red carpet in 2015. The Met Gala carpet officially opens around 6pm, when Gala Chair Wintour—and namesake of the Anna Wintour Costume Center, dedicated in 2014—ascends the grand staircase. The red carpet arrivals typically happen over the following two hours or so, but Queen Bey and Jay Z pushed the boundaries of “fashionably late”, nonchalantly sauntering up the stairs in their own sweet time.

Cara Delevingne seen at the Costume Institute Gala celebrating ‘China: Through The Looking Glass’ in New York City. Photograph: Getty

11: The hours it took tattoo artist Keith “Bang Bang” McCurdy to draw the Chinese drawing-inspired bird and floral design adorning Cara Delevingne’s 2015 body art. It was a classic red carpet “is it or isn’t real?” moment. The temporary tat lasted for 10 days after the event concluded.

17: The number of people—if you count photo-bombers in the background—squeezed into social media queen Kylie Jenner’s (not-so) clandestine bathroom shot at last year’s Gala. Wintour infamously enacted a social media and photography ban for guests in 2015—what happens at the Met Gala, stays in the Met Gala—but as any high school teacher could tell you: phone bans do not work. To this day, celebrity guests are still taking and posting covert IG snaps, especially those popular bathroom selfies. Let’s see who can beat Jenner’s huddle this year.

Rihanna at Costume Institute Gala Benefit celebrating China: Through the Looking Glass, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photograph: Rex Features

55: The weight (in pounds) of Rihanna’s red carpet-winning golden couture cape by Chinese couturier Guo Pei, worn to attend the 2015 China: Through the Looking Glass-themed party. The fur-lined imperial creation, with a 16-foot-long train, possibly set records for generating the most fashion memes ever, but it also made history for its impressive heft. When the cape first appeared on the runway in 2010, it was so heavy that the model wearing it never completed her runway walk. She gave up halfway through her walk and started crying as the lights came down—a literal showstopper.

65: The number of tables at 2016’s Manus x Machina: Fashion in the Age of Technology celebration. Similar to a wedding, the number of tables at the event—hosted inside the majestic Temple of Dendur—depends on both the guest count and the event designer’s ambitious vision. In 2016, there were 610 guests in total, so roughly 10 guests per table—not counting anyone dancing atop one, of course (see Rihanna in 2015).

70: The milestone anniversary being celebrated by the Met Gala this year. In 1948, the inaugural Costume Institute celebration was actually (and presciently) named “Party of the Year”. We can’t help but wonder what organiser, PR maven (and founder of the International Best Dressed List) Eleanor Lambert would have to say about Kanye West’s ripped Fear of God jeans or Madonna’s buttcheek-exposing Givenchy Haute Couture bodysuit worn on the 2016 red carpet.

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and Cassie at ‘Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between’ Costume Institute Gala. Photograph: Getty

150: The yardage of red carpet required to blanket the vast steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fifth Avenue entrance for the arrivals. More than just a temporary catwalk, it plays multiple roles in the early evening festivities. The tapestry has carefully cushioned Hayden Panettiere’s graceful trip down the stairs in 2014 and also served as an impromptu chaise lounge for Sean Combs in 2017 (technically the carpet was cream and blue that year, but semantics).

Sarah Jessica Parker at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating “Charles James: Beyond Fashion”. Photograph: Rex Features

200: The number of photographers and media officially approved, on average, to document red carpet arrivals each year. Because, of course, even the press list is exclusive at the Met Gala.

Madonna at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Benefit celebrating the Opening of Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. Photograph: Rex Features

325: Obviously, the party of the year calls for champagne, but how much? Well, in 2016, the 610 guests powered through 325 bottles of champers (about half a bottle per person and, to be honest, we expected more). Presumably only 324 bottles made it to recycling because Madonna strolled out of the bash still clutching a partially consumed bottle. You always do you, Madge.

Kylie Jenner at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Benefit Celebrating the Opening of Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. Photograph: Rex Features

420: The number of minutes it took for make-up artist Ariel Tejada to create Kylie Jenner’s understated beauty look for the 2016 Met Gala—that’s seven hours, FYI. No shade of a doubt—makeup really is a lot of work.

Donald Glover at the ‘Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between’ Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photograph: Getty

600: The exclusive and invite-only guest list hovers around 600 each year (Note: That’s an invitation to pay $30,000 for a single ticket or $2,75,000 for a table to fill with your own lucky guests). From 2015 to 2016, the list slightly increased from 600 to 610. Last year, organisers kept the event more “intimate” a headcount of 550.

610: The number of shiny green apples that were fastidiously hollowed out for the 2016 event’s dessert course, which included “green apple sorbet on a spun-sugar nest and rhubarb compote” (Yes, even the dessert requires a painstaking attention to detail at the Met Gala). Fun fact: For that year’s tech-themed Manus x Machina gala, the pommes were in homage to one of the evening’s sponsors. Take a guess as to which one.

Mindy Kaling and Freida Pinto at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Benefit Celebrating the Opening of Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. Photograph: Rex Features

955: The number of Swarovski crystals worn on the red carpet in 2016 by Freida Pinto and Mindy Kaling. In theme with the Manus x Machina exhibit, Pinto’s bonded-crepe column gown by Tory Burch featured 29 electronic ink colour-changing panels boasting 840 crystals, while Kaling’s custom quadruple-panelled clutch, also by Burch, was embellished with more than 115 sparklers. Batteries and multi-pixel technology stealthily embedded in the seams powered the hypnotic illumination.

50,000: The hours required to achieve such a mind-blowing event at a massively grand scale. In 2016, a total of 250 staffers spend 200 hours each to set up the decor, 65 tables and beautiful floral arrangements.

Kate Bosworth at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Benefit Celebrating the Opening of Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. Photograph: Rex Features

750,000: The number of blooms, blossoms and flowers that went into dressing up the Grand Staircase in 2016. Event designer Raul Àvila actually flew 500,000 blooming roses a whopping 2,500 miles from Colombia to mix with 2,50,000 exquisite silk roses to cover the Great Hall and the staircase in all its glory. (Then there were the centrepieces, too, which in 2016 numbered 300, featuring no less than seven types of blossoms.)

$186,000,000: Interestingly, the Costume Institute is the only department in the Metropolitan Museum of Art that’s self-funded, so that means the Met Gala needs to pull out the big guns. Luckily, fashion kingmaker Wintour, chairing her 20th gala this year, heads up the fundraising efforts and deep-pocketed guest list curation. As of 2017, approximately $186 million has been raised. Most recently, the Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between counted $12 million while the Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology the year before rang in $13.5 million. All eyes on you, Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.

1/13 Jay Z and Beyonce at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating “China: Through the Looking Glass”, 2015

Image: Rex Features

Cara Delevingne at the Costume Institute Gala celebrating "China: Through The Looking Glass", 2015

Image: Getty

Kate Bosworth at the Costume Institute Benefit celebrating the opening of "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology", 2016

Image: Rex Features

Katy Perry at the Costume Institute Benefit celebrating "Rei Kawakubo/ Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between", 2017

Image: Getty

Kylie Jenner at the Costume Institute Benefit celebrating the opening of "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology", 2016

Image: Rex Features

Madonna at the Costume Institute Benefit celebrating the opening of "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology", 2016

Image: Rex Features

Mindy Kaling and Freida Pinto at the Costume Institute Benefit celebrating the opening of "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology", 2016

Image: Rex Features

Rihanna at the Costume Institute Benefit celebrating "China: Through a Looking Glass", 2015

Image: Rex Features

Sarah Jessica Parker at the Costume Institute Benefit celebrating "Carles James: Beyond Fashion", 2014

Image: Rex Features

Sean 'Diddy' Combs and Cassie at the "Rei Kawakubo/ Commes des Garcons: Art of the In-Between" Costume Institute Gala, 2017

Image: Getty

The Weeknd, Alexis Ohania, Selena Gomez and Salma Hayek at the Costume Institute Benefit celebrating the opening of "Rei Kawakubo/ Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between", 2017

Image: Rex Features

Selena Gomez at the opening of "Rei Kawakubo/ Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between", 2017

Image: Rex Features

Donald Glover at the "Rei Kawakubo/ Comme des Garcons: Art Of The In-Between" Costume Institute Gala, 2017

Image: Getty

The post 2018 Met Gala: All the facts and figures you need to know appeared first on VOGUE India.

[longislandweekly-blog]

To some people, the very idea of food and drink pairings conjures up images of snooty high-brow types sipping from tea cups with pinkies proudly protruding. The more modern day stereotype is that of a bearded, flannel festooned hipster braying on and on about how perfectly IPA’s bouquet pairs with his artisan, grass-fed duck bacon. Well, here’s what I say to that—the tea drinker and the hipster, they are both right.

Pairing food and drink for a miraculously complementary bite is not only a taste-enhancing way to approach meal time, it is also the smart way to eat. Think about it. You sit down in front of a plate piled with squares of dark chocolate brownies. You eat one, then another, then another. What are you reaching for to wash it all down? What is the ideal beverage that will not only save you from choking, but also tastes great with a mouth full of rich chocolate? Is it tomato juice? Probably not. Perhaps a nice mug of thick clam chowder?

Wrong again.

If you said “milk,” then congratulations, you’ve just joined the illustrious food and drink pairing club.

It is that very same concept that goes into pairing certain drinks that enhance the flavor of particular bites of food. Whether it’s red wine and steak, white wine and fish or any beer with 20-or-so buffalo wings, drinks have helped food reach the next level of culinary exuberance ever since the first enterprising foodie decided that it was an art worth supporting some 50 to 1,000 years ago.

And now, with New Year’s Eve bearing down on us all—and with it, the end of another middling year and (gasp!) an entire decade of our lives, it’s perhaps the auspicious time to sit down and figure out what food and drinks will drop down your gullet when the ball drops in Times Square. Let’s take a look at few of the more audacious ways to eat and drink your way into oblivion this New Year’s Eve.

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Jägermeister

Have you ever felt like the ultimate golden god, completely impervious to both physical and emotional pain? If you answered yes, then you, my friend, have downed a few shots of Jägermeister on New Year’s Eve. This bitterly spiced and viciously viscous beverage, at its best when it’s pulled from the depths of your freezer and drank entirely in one gulp, is the ideal way to begin your New Year’s festivities. But since it’s a notoriously abrasive drink, it craves a rich food, specifically covered in sauce. Perhaps an extra sloppy serving of pulled pork with sticky and sweet barbecue sauce on pillowy potato buns. Another great option would be spare ribs or baby-back ribs or maybe even a cauldron of extra dark chili made with multiple cuts of meat.

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Whiskey

Whether slowly sipped with the cadence of a regal head of state or furiously guzzled like someone whose New Year’s date just disappeared into a crowd with some other guy, whiskey is that smoke-kissed, woodsy beverage that is equally at home on the rocks or neat. And those flavors of the outdoors are elevated with foods that are naturally salty, like cured meats and cheeses on a charcuterie board or bacon-wrapped scallops or stone crab claws with drawn butter. Of course, whiskey also finds a home paired with simply a salted and seared porterhouse or rib-eye steak; just be sure to just say no to any thick steak sauces, which would put you back into the cross hairs of our friend Jägermeister.

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Tequila

Like that one friend who shows up to your New Year’s party who you just know is going to cause all sorts of mayhem, tequila has the power to destroy friendships, render romantic relationships dead on arrival, and quickly transform minor disagreements into knock-down, drag-out fights. What does tequila taste like? Mostly like regret, with undertones of failure and hostility. When tequila enters the party, you’ve officially reached the part of the night where you no longer care what you put into your system—but if you absolutely must pair this mind eraser with food, definitely reach for something spicy and acidic, like grilled steak or pork tacos with hot peppers and a squirt of lime. The assertive flavors and heat of the tacos have the brawn needed to stand up to brash characteristics of tequila, especially the gold version.

Champagne

All good things must come to an end. As the final countdown begins and the seconds tick away on yet another year, chances are everyone at your party will have in their hand a champagne flute or maybe a red Solo cup filled with whatever cheap version of champagne you decided to buy for twelve bucks. At this point in the night, no food pairing is going to fill the void in your soul. And in that split second before the clock strikes midnight, when it’s just you, your drink, and your life’s choices, grab whatever is food within reach, and continue your brave but ultimately futile march toward the year 2020.

Party Pairings: Long Island Weekly's Steve Mosco shares foods and drinks to ring in the New Year with. To some people, the very idea of food and drink pairings conjures up images of snooty high-brow types sipping from tea cups with pinkies proudly protruding.

[shortsrifle7-blog]

The Captivating Charm of Cape Kudu, Koh Yao Noi, Thailand

*Unspoilt

not spoiled, in particular (of a place) not marred by development. "unspoiled countryside" synonyms: immaculate, perfect, pristine, virgin, unimpaired, unblemished, unharmed, unflawed, undamaged, untouched, unmarked, untainted, as good as new/before;*

Like stepping back in time, the sleepy, rustic, friendly island of Koi Yao Noi, half an hour from the bustling city of Phuket seems from another time. Rush hour is passing half a dozen motorbikes and the main road is barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other.

There's a sleepy mellowness to this fascinating island that seems to be resisting development as much as it can. But that doesn't mean that they aren't welcoming of visitors. Some say that the friendliest people in all of Thailand are found on Koh Yao Noi and I'm inclined to agree.

It's amazing how much things can change just in a 30 minute speed boat ride. Koh Yao Noi literally means "island long small" (it's sister island Koh Yao Yai means island long big). Koh Yai Noi's mostly Muslim population make their living through the sea, agriculture (rubber, rice and coconuts) and eco tourism.

We are greeted at the pier by a staff member of Cape Kudu, the island's latest hotel development. The government has tried to keep hotel development limited to preserve the island's unique culture. I can't help but extend an outstretched hand to feel the breeze and I crane my neck to see the views from the open vehicle.

All I can see are simple homes, a lush jungle setting and the occasional person. Navigating around the 30km island is easy as one road circles the island. We pass the beach where there are massages offered on open air beds laid with colourful cloth. Big news was the island getting a 7/11.

Our driver turns left into Cape Kudu. Open for 1.5 years it is a stunning resort beautifully decorated in seafoam blue and whites. Welcome drinks are proffered along with cold towels and I dab at my décolletage with it trying to undo the seasickness from the speedboat ride.

We are offered a seat with ocean views while we check in and my nose twitches. I smell...cookies? Yes there are three types of freshly baked cookies on offer during check-in. I'm tempted, sorely so, but having eaten a substantial breakfast, I mentally note that come 3pm I shall come creeping back, quiet as a mouse, and slip some on a plate to nibble on.

We are shown to our room. There are 50 rooms and Cape Kudu is part of the Small Luxury Hotels collection along with Hua Hin's Cape Nidra. Our room #1108 is a pool villa, a private sanctuary from the popular main pool and it is decorated in the resort's signature blues and whites.

It's as soothing for the eyes as it is for the soul. There's a work desk area with speaker, mirror and phone. Behind this is the very comfortable king bed. There is a large, thick pillow as well as a smaller one and I order some pillows from the pillow menu.

To the right is the lounge area with a comfortable sofa, side chair and television. The mini bar is behind this. Behind the blue door is the bathroom with tub, separate shower, sink and toiletries by Erb. The tiles feel wonderful underfoot.

And if you slide open the balcony door you can glide straight into the square plunge pool or take advantage of the sun on the day bed. There is also complimentary wifi.

Keen to explore the rest of the resort we head to the cool reading room where there are refreshments, fresh fruit and some of those freshly baked cookies. We play a game of pool and read while everyone else sun bathes.

The clock swings around to 4pm and we join everyone near the pool for happy hour cocktails. There's a very good Pina Colada and a "Nanny says No" non alcoholic cocktail strong in maraschino cherry.

We take a seat under the rotunda and watch scooters putter past and geckoes climb walls. Nobody, including the lizarding folk seem to be in a hurry.

Day turns into night and it's time for dinner. The Hornbill restaurant has both an indoor and outdoor area. The weather is pleasantly warm but not oppressively so (Koh Yao Noi has an ideal tropical climate that is less humid and hot than the rest of Thailand) and we pick a corner table with large comfortable seats.

The menu is comprehensive and includes an all day breakfast (those three words fill my heart with joy) as well as Western dishes like grilled steak, cioppino seafood stew and lamb shanks as well as Thai specialties. It's also on-trend with fresh juices including a cold pressed pineapple and lemongrass juice as well as beet juice with beetroot, apple, carrot and mint.

We hone in on the Thai dishes particularly the Southern Thai ones. We also went with a lot of the chef's recommendations as indicated on the menu (spicy, vegan and vegetarian dishes are also marked). There is no pork served at the resort to respect the Muslim population and there is also no foie gras or shark's fins at any Cape and Kantary properties for ethical reasons.

Suspiciously Delicious Squid Soup 320THB

With a name like "Suspiciously Delicious Squid Soup", we were very curious to try the soup. The broth is clear, slightly sweet and served with slices of boudin blanc sausage and a minced chicken stuffed squid and vegetables. It's a mild but comforting soup.

Tom Yum Kung "Eggstraordinary" 220THB

The menu has some twists on dishes or modern interpretations. This is a omelette version of tom yum soup with plenty of lemongrass and chilli served over a bed of rice. Over this is an omelette layer. I don't think they quite believed me when I said I liked spicy so I need to order some more chillies.

Thai Chicken in Gravy and Rice 210THB

I've had something very similar to this at a Shanghai restaurant but made with chicken and tofu. This is made with chicken and mushrooms. There's a rich, comforting gravy made flavoured with Shaoxing cooking wine and chicken thigh on a bed of jasmine rice with a fantastic chicken chorizo sausage, a sunny side up egg and pickled jalapenos. Heaven. I actually ordered a side of sticky rice and I really enjoyed the sticky rice with the sausage.

Southern Crab Curry 360THB

Southern crab curry is fast becoming my favourite Thai curry. The crab is already shelled for those who don't like dealing with cracking crabs and comes with flavours like kaffir lime leaves with a plate of fine vermicelli noodles that you dip in the curry sauce.

And when we go back to our room, turndown has been performed and there are delicious chocolate coated macadamias on our pillows as a welcome amenity. A long soak and catching up on the book is all there is on the agenda tonight.

The next day is spent exploring Koh Yao Noi by scooter but before we do that, we make our way to the Hornbill restaurant for breakfast. There is an a la carte menu selection which is extra but the included buffet is plentiful and tempting so we go for that. There's a fresh fruit cart with a good selection of fruit. There is also a roti cart making fresh banana, egg or Nutella roti.

We take a seat inside and there's a range of pastries and breads including fat pretzels and danishes. There's a continental selection of cheeses and meats as well as an egg station making omelettes, French toast, waffles and pancakes. There is beef bacon, beef sausages, stir fries, curry and congee as well.

I ask for a crispy roti topped with sugar and condensed milk. Every day the selection changes slightly-one day it may include crispy coconut cakes, the next "wild eggs" with chilli in a banana leaf, sticky rice desserts and Kanom jeen soup noodles. One of my favourite drinks is the smoked coconut which is an intensely naturally sweet coconut water. Every morning I would spring out of bed, do a workout and wander down to breakfast like a hungry bear.

There is also a hot Thai selection on a separate table that changes daily. It's also my favourite stop at the breakfast buffet-one day it is the Muslim yellow rice curry which I absolutely adore (recipe coming up for this!) and the next it is fried chicken with sticky rice. It's all we need to set us up for a day of exploring and because breakfast finishes at 11am we find that we are happy eating this and then eating dinner at the end of the day bypassing lunch if we were too busy exploring the island.

While getting around in Phuket is not that easy and expensive, getting around KNY is easy by scooter or bike. No license is needed to rent a scooter and there is a vendor literally right outside the hotel that rents scooters for 300THB per 24 hours.

We get the low down on the best hidden gems from Olivier the guest relations manager and all round wizard who makes things happen. He gives us great tips for things that you can't find on tripadvisor with a real local focus.

We discover wonderful local cafes, delicious roti, incredible seafood restaurants, look out points, and the island's best food (I'll share these in a separate post). We return each day in a buoyant mood after a full day exploring.

One of the in-house activities I enjoyed the most was the Cape Kudu Thai cooking class. There are plenty of Thai cooking classes but all of these classes tend to offer similar dishes like green curry and tom yum goong which are delicious but I wanted to learn a bit more about Southern Thai and Muslim cuisine.

And when I mention that I'd love to learn how to make that Muslim yellow rice and chicken and the chicken with gravy sauce and the Southern crab curry to Olivier he says that they can show me how to make those which makes me ridiculously happy.

We have the cooking class in the Hornbill restaurant where they have set up three stations: one for chef Chan and one for me and one for Mr NQN while front of house staff Annie interprets. There are traditional golden pots called Thong Leang or the ancient version of a wok. These pots are interesting to cook with as they heat up very quickly but also lose heat very quickly.

We start with spicing the chicken which is best left marinating in the spices for 2 hours. We mix it with yogurt and butter and you can use chicken on the bone or off-we are using chicken thighs. We also spice the rice, add it to a rice cooker with chicken stock and the chicken on top and leave this to cook.

Then we move onto the chicken with gravy sauce, a Thai Chinese dish that is so simple but wonderfully comforting. They serve this with a chicken chorizo sausage that tastes like lup cheong except isn't made using pork. This comes together very easily too with just a few ingredients.

And lastly we make the southern crab curry with a rich curry sauce. You can also use prawns or fish or any other meat in place of crab. They serve this with rice vermicelli noodles instead of rice and it is served in a clay pot called a mor din that sits above a tea light. There's an abundance of food but it's so good that we can't stop eating it.

Another day we spend exploring around the island and watching day to day life. We watch as a man carries his bird in a cage while we watch another gentleman grooming himself on the side of the road in his scooter mirror.

Families look on as the father brings in a catch of the day's fish - most of the industry on KYN is based around the sea with many fishermen.

A group of four boys wave eagerly as they go off in search for new adventures. There's one area of the island that we haven't explored so we go off in search of it and follow a sign up a steep hill to the Hideout hotel where we stop for a look at a view, a lie back on the hammock and a drink.

There are more stops to run errands and get ready for our impending trip home. I have a massage and then it's time for a late lunch. The fulsome breakfasts mean that we aren't even hungry until 3 or 4pm. We make our way to Cafe Kantary, Cape Kudu's photogenic cafe and popular spot for photos and selfies. The decor is all whites and blues and it is a self service cafe with plenty of cakes, breakfast and lunch as well as pizza and burgers.

I order a matcha red bean cream drink as well as a Mocha Chocachip frappe topped with cream and an Oreo. You wait at the counter for the drinks but they will bring the food to you. There are three indoor tables but plenty of outdoor ones which are the pick.

Mac and Cheese Burger 340THB

The mac and cheese burger comes with a thick beef patty, slices of white onion, lettuce, tomato, melted cheese and mac and cheese. I spread some tomato sauce on it. It also comes with a generous side of fries.

Kaikrata 180THB

The Kaikrata is a smoked salmon omelette served in the pan it is cooked in. There's also chicken ham, croutons, salmon roe, kaiware srpouts and mozzarella and is strong in salmon flavour.

And then there's dessert-the bannoffee pie is a tower of banana and a chocolate topped biscuit base with cream. They use fresh cream but they treat it so that it has a bit more staying power in the heat. I would have loved a bit more caramel in this.

But the item I had been looking at every day when I got my matcha latte is the matcha toast with lashings of white chocolate sauce, cream and ice cream as well as matcha syrup. There are three slices of toast each buttered with a slightly sweet matcha butter. And to top it off, some chocolate sticks and a matcha macaron!

The whole time I had been here we were so busy. So much for the do nothing holiday but we loved the freedom of being able to easily explore things ourselves and looked forward to an adventure every day. But it soon came to the last full day here and I realised that I hadn't even been in the plunge pool yet!

We go for our final dinner at a local restaurant called Kaya which is a 10 minute scooter ride away. The all female team that run Kaya are so welcoming and sweet that we realise that we are going to miss the island a lot when we have to leave in the morning.

We feast on massaman beef curry, sticky rice and green curry and follow it with banana simmered in coconut milk. They wave us goodbye while genuine smiles.

The next morning as we check out we are given a parting gift-a box of macarons from Cafe Kantary. It's with a sense of sadness that we have to leave (although this is coupled by the fact that I know that I will return). The staff and locals are so friendly and their smiles aren't predicated on a potential purchase. As I get off the speedboat to be whizzed off to Phuket airport, a local woman sees my hesitation at walking across the other boats and gently takes my hand and guides me across with a kind smile before waving me goodbye.

So tell me Dear Reader, which country or place do you think has the friendliest people? Have you ever heard of Koh Yao Noi? Do you prefer relaxing or exploring holidays?

NQN and Mr NQN stayed as guests of Cape Kudu but all opinions remain her own.

Tambon Ko Yao Noi, Chang Wat, Phang Nga, Thailand Phone: +66 76 592 600 capekuduhotel.com/

Source: http://www.notquitenigella.com/2018/12/14/cape-kudu-koh-yao-noi/

[adambstingus]

The 15 Most Idiotic Monsters In Dungeons& Dragons History

Stranger Things has drawn Dungeons& Dragons cool again, even if the picture does take place in an era when playing it intended gambling getting your foreman jostle into a toilet. Back then, repudiating “youre ever” a D& D participate was abortive — bullies could reek it on you. But would the favourite kids have taunted us if they truly understood the rich, expansive nature detailed in D& D handbooks? Yes, they would have, because said handbooks were full of shit like …

15

The Roving Mauler

Wizards of the Coast

What Is It?

A visual approximation of Mufasa infected by The Thing .

Where It Went Wrong:

Besides looks a lot like a microbrew brew mascot created by a decorator who mischievously misread the instructions, the Roving Mauler is little more than a biological indebtednes. Does his head stay still while the rest of his mas travels pinwheeling around the desert? What’s to remained his cervix from clicking? If his head goes spinning around with the rest of his organization, how the hell does he recognize where he’s going with the scope whirling around his field of vision like a kaleidoscope?

And where is his lion dick during all this? We’re acquiring it’s between one of those pairs of legs, so given the options, he’s either going to have a dick-chin-beard, a dick-earring, or a dick-devilock. And that’s just awkward.

14

The Gelatinous Cube

Wizards of the Coast

What Is It?

The Gelatinous Cube is a huge blocking of oozing that prowls through the perfectly square hallways of D& D , relishing anyone foolish enough to walk instantly into it.

Where It Went Wrong:

Unless an meeting plays out exactly like the steamroller incident in Austin Powers , we fail to see how the Gelatinous Cube ever kills anybody who’s not either glued to the storey or fast sleeping. In happening, we’re pretty sure the Dungeon Master’s Guide reads: The first actor to request “Can’t I merely get out of the way? ” automatically demolishes the Gelatinous Cube .

13

The Knell Beetle

Wizards of the Coast

What Is It?

The Knell Beetle is a nine-foot-long flesh-eating bug with a monstrous trumpet on its manager that kind of reaches it look like Snidely Whiplash.

Where It Went Wrong:

Clearly this is an example of miscommunication between the writers and the prowes department.

“We need to form him a bit more peril. Give a huge cornet on its head.”

“Huge horn, got it.”

12

The Senmurv

What Is It?

The Senmurv is a wolf/ eagle hybrid, developed without question by a person who is with a dreamcatcher hanging from the rear-view mirror of their pickup truck. Each successful attempt copes 1d6 of liberty .

Where It Went Wrong:

The Senmurv is what Toby Keith becomes every full moon, and as such, it fails to impress us on any conceivable grade. The only thing more ludicrous than depicting this beast clawing feebly through the sky like a Technicolor ValueJet is guessing it was seeking to stand upright on two hind legs never make for the project. Actually, more ludicrous still is imagining this beast’s idea, which apparently involved a wolf, a giant tropical chick, and agonizing howls from within a gloom of neon feathers.

11

The Demi-Lich

What Is It?

The Demi-Lich is a soul-eating floating skull which bides its experience on a galleon full of preciou waiting for the Goonies to show up.

Where It Went Wrong:

Besides looking like a Pirates Of The Caribbean alarm clock, the Demi-Lich seems to possess no tactical advantages of any kind. It just kind of moves around, “re all waiting on” “states parties ” of heroes to smack-dab it out of the air like a pinata. We believe it could try to burn you, but the illustration above kind of stirs it looks a lot like the jaw is fused in place. Man , now we feel sorry for it.

10

The Brain In A Jar

What Is It?

As its epithet indicates, the Brain in a Jar is a brain in a container. This is a compromise of its original reputation, “Brain in a Gnarly H.R. Giger Phallus.”

Where It Went Wrong:

… It’s a intelligence in a cup. Just kick it over, who’s going to know?

9

The Digester

What Is It?

The Digester is a man-sized character that sprays its digestive juices onto its victims, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly or the lunch crowd at a Golden Corral.

Where It Went Wrong:

We be acknowledged that spitting battery-acid in someone’s face is pretty harsh. However, the Digester seems to be in hopeless need of a honcho, and one or two limbs. So if that initial explode of bulimic violence starts wide, it’s maybe screwed. Those talons look nasty, but again, with nothing but two hind legs to substantiate it, the thing is going to go toppling over with the first kicking, hilariously mailing gastric acid raining down its own torso.

8

Moon Rats

What Is It?

Moon Rats gain fierce intelligence as the moon becomes full, for reasons that are not adequately explained.

Where It Went Wrong:

Rats that become super smart under the full moon are only helpful as scoundrels on Chip And Dale’s Rescue Rangers . Sure, they may hatch an ingenious plan to overcome the entire city while be standing smoking cigars and drinking scotch, but once the sunbathe comes up, they’re back to devouring nappies out of the garbage. Solidify frame and bun credits.

7

Ash Rats

What Is It?

Ash Rat are rats that are on fire, all the time, for no explicit reason. This somehow establishes them even less dangerous than their aforementioned non-flaming brethren.

Where It Went Wrong:

Walking into a battle while already engulfed in flames applies you at a pretty hefty disadvantage. Realistically, all the heroes have to do is wait a few seconds for the rats to burn down to gristle, or merely knock the damn things out of the way because they’re fucking rats.

6

Grell

What Is It?

The Grell is a moving beaked brain with jellyfish tentacles.

Where It Went Wrong:

So the D& D world certainly uses the whole “floating” thing as a crutch to construct ridiculous-looking demons that would never be able to travel on ground unless they were buckled into a auto seat in the back of a Chevy Malibu. Likewise, while the Grell is undoubtedly suited for the job of frightening nine-year-olds, we don’t feel it would constitute a serious challenge to a seven-foot-tall barbarian warrior that sucks the blood of the collapse. That president has the seem of something he could unfit by poking it really hard with his finger.

5

Atropal

What Is It?

The Atropal is a stillborn god-fetus risen from the dead to embarrass everyone following the conclusion of 2001: A Space Odyssey .

Where It Went Wrong:

Despite possessing superhuman the authority and being metal as fuck , the Atropal is, at its core, still nothing but a dead fetus. Here’s a general rule for undead animals: If the thing wasn’t all types of threat when it was alive , it’s likely not going to be any more of a problem in its slower, decomposing form.

4

Hippocampus

What Is It?

When you were a little kid and somebody mentioned “seahorses, ” this is what you envisioned in your mind.

Where It Went Wrong:

The Hippocampus simply doesn’t seem like it would pose much of security threats. It sort of was like an ancillary attribute from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , like its call “wouldve been” “MerMare” or “Aquaestiran, ” and it would help the Turtles contact Atlantis before the city goes stolen by Bebop and Rocksteady. That becomes us think this mortal was intended to be one of the good guys, but would something working for such forces of good have that douchey chin whisker?

3

Porcupine Cactus

What Is It?

The Porcupine Cactus explodes whenever something gets near it, blanketing the bordering orbit with a seam of thorns and internal organs. This is gross.

Where It Went Wrong:

Aside from the pointlessly redundant combining( How about an “eel snake” ?), the freaking thing blows up at the first clue of task. Just hide behind a tree and convulse a squirrel at it or something.

2

Anguillian

What Is It?

Anguillians are a multiplied of humanoid eels which live in a patriarchal society under the sea. Judging by the lance and Sarlacc mouth, things down there aren’t quite as whimsical as Sebastian the crab would have us believe.

Where It Went Wrong:

Buddy, you’ve got a mouth strung with millions of razor-sharp teeth and vast terrifying crab claw for handwritings. You do not need to try to jab parties with a sharpened stick.

1

Gelun

What Is It?

The Gelun is a character that has to live in the desert to evade completely freezing into a block of sparkler, sort of like exactly the opposite of Mr. Freeze.

Where it Went Wrong:

Being encased in something that isn’t a monstrous robot clothing actually restraint your duel capability( discover Brain in a Jar, above ). Really, the Gelun’s best hope is that passing cliques of wanderers carve its frost prison into an angel or a swan or something instead of chopping its disclosed head off.

Memorandum: Such articles was originally published in June 2009 ! If you cherished this article and crave more content like this, corroborate our place with a see to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you very much .

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-15-most-idiotic-monsters-in-dungeons-dragons-history/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/183793690577

[allofbeercom]

The 15 Most Idiotic Monsters In Dungeons& Dragons History

Stranger Things has drawn Dungeons& Dragons cool again, even if the picture does take place in an era when playing it intended gambling getting your foreman jostle into a toilet. Back then, repudiating “youre ever” a D& D participate was abortive — bullies could reek it on you. But would the favourite kids have taunted us if they truly understood the rich, expansive nature detailed in D& D handbooks? Yes, they would have, because said handbooks were full of shit like …

15

The Roving Mauler

Wizards of the Coast

What Is It?

A visual approximation of Mufasa infected by The Thing .

Where It Went Wrong:

Besides looks a lot like a microbrew brew mascot created by a decorator who mischievously misread the instructions, the Roving Mauler is little more than a biological indebtednes. Does his head stay still while the rest of his mas travels pinwheeling around the desert? What’s to remained his cervix from clicking? If his head goes spinning around with the rest of his organization, how the hell does he recognize where he’s going with the scope whirling around his field of vision like a kaleidoscope?

And where is his lion dick during all this? We’re acquiring it’s between one of those pairs of legs, so given the options, he’s either going to have a dick-chin-beard, a dick-earring, or a dick-devilock. And that’s just awkward.

14

The Gelatinous Cube

Wizards of the Coast

What Is It?

The Gelatinous Cube is a huge blocking of oozing that prowls through the perfectly square hallways of D& D , relishing anyone foolish enough to walk instantly into it.

Where It Went Wrong:

Unless an meeting plays out exactly like the steamroller incident in Austin Powers , we fail to see how the Gelatinous Cube ever kills anybody who’s not either glued to the storey or fast sleeping. In happening, we’re pretty sure the Dungeon Master’s Guide reads: The first actor to request “Can’t I merely get out of the way? ” automatically demolishes the Gelatinous Cube .

13

The Knell Beetle

Wizards of the Coast

What Is It?

The Knell Beetle is a nine-foot-long flesh-eating bug with a monstrous trumpet on its manager that kind of reaches it look like Snidely Whiplash.

Where It Went Wrong:

Clearly this is an example of miscommunication between the writers and the prowes department.

“We need to form him a bit more peril. Give a huge cornet on its head.”

“Huge horn, got it.”

12

The Senmurv

What Is It?

The Senmurv is a wolf/ eagle hybrid, developed without question by a person who is with a dreamcatcher hanging from the rear-view mirror of their pickup truck. Each successful attempt copes 1d6 of liberty .

Where It Went Wrong:

The Senmurv is what Toby Keith becomes every full moon, and as such, it fails to impress us on any conceivable grade. The only thing more ludicrous than depicting this beast clawing feebly through the sky like a Technicolor ValueJet is guessing it was seeking to stand upright on two hind legs never make for the project. Actually, more ludicrous still is imagining this beast’s idea, which apparently involved a wolf, a giant tropical chick, and agonizing howls from within a gloom of neon feathers.

11

The Demi-Lich

What Is It?

The Demi-Lich is a soul-eating floating skull which bides its experience on a galleon full of preciou waiting for the Goonies to show up.

Where It Went Wrong:

Besides looking like a Pirates Of The Caribbean alarm clock, the Demi-Lich seems to possess no tactical advantages of any kind. It just kind of moves around, “re all waiting on” “states parties ” of heroes to smack-dab it out of the air like a pinata. We believe it could try to burn you, but the illustration above kind of stirs it looks a lot like the jaw is fused in place. Man , now we feel sorry for it.

10

The Brain In A Jar

What Is It?

As its epithet indicates, the Brain in a Jar is a brain in a container. This is a compromise of its original reputation, “Brain in a Gnarly H.R. Giger Phallus.”

Where It Went Wrong:

… It’s a intelligence in a cup. Just kick it over, who’s going to know?

9

The Digester

What Is It?

The Digester is a man-sized character that sprays its digestive juices onto its victims, like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly or the lunch crowd at a Golden Corral.

Where It Went Wrong:

We be acknowledged that spitting battery-acid in someone’s face is pretty harsh. However, the Digester seems to be in hopeless need of a honcho, and one or two limbs. So if that initial explode of bulimic violence starts wide, it’s maybe screwed. Those talons look nasty, but again, with nothing but two hind legs to substantiate it, the thing is going to go toppling over with the first kicking, hilariously mailing gastric acid raining down its own torso.

8

Moon Rats

What Is It?

Moon Rats gain fierce intelligence as the moon becomes full, for reasons that are not adequately explained.

Where It Went Wrong:

Rats that become super smart under the full moon are only helpful as scoundrels on Chip And Dale’s Rescue Rangers . Sure, they may hatch an ingenious plan to overcome the entire city while be standing smoking cigars and drinking scotch, but once the sunbathe comes up, they’re back to devouring nappies out of the garbage. Solidify frame and bun credits.

7

Ash Rats

What Is It?

Ash Rat are rats that are on fire, all the time, for no explicit reason. This somehow establishes them even less dangerous than their aforementioned non-flaming brethren.

Where It Went Wrong:

Walking into a battle while already engulfed in flames applies you at a pretty hefty disadvantage. Realistically, all the heroes have to do is wait a few seconds for the rats to burn down to gristle, or merely knock the damn things out of the way because they’re fucking rats.

6

Grell

What Is It?

The Grell is a moving beaked brain with jellyfish tentacles.

Where It Went Wrong:

So the D& D world certainly uses the whole “floating” thing as a crutch to construct ridiculous-looking demons that would never be able to travel on ground unless they were buckled into a auto seat in the back of a Chevy Malibu. Likewise, while the Grell is undoubtedly suited for the job of frightening nine-year-olds, we don’t feel it would constitute a serious challenge to a seven-foot-tall barbarian warrior that sucks the blood of the collapse. That president has the seem of something he could unfit by poking it really hard with his finger.

5

Atropal

What Is It?

The Atropal is a stillborn god-fetus risen from the dead to embarrass everyone following the conclusion of 2001: A Space Odyssey .

Where It Went Wrong:

Despite possessing superhuman the authority and being metal as fuck , the Atropal is, at its core, still nothing but a dead fetus. Here’s a general rule for undead animals: If the thing wasn’t all types of threat when it was alive , it’s likely not going to be any more of a problem in its slower, decomposing form.

4

Hippocampus

What Is It?

When you were a little kid and somebody mentioned “seahorses, ” this is what you envisioned in your mind.

Where It Went Wrong:

The Hippocampus simply doesn’t seem like it would pose much of security threats. It sort of was like an ancillary attribute from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , like its call “wouldve been” “MerMare” or “Aquaestiran, ” and it would help the Turtles contact Atlantis before the city goes stolen by Bebop and Rocksteady. That becomes us think this mortal was intended to be one of the good guys, but would something working for such forces of good have that douchey chin whisker?

3

Porcupine Cactus

What Is It?

The Porcupine Cactus explodes whenever something gets near it, blanketing the bordering orbit with a seam of thorns and internal organs. This is gross.

Where It Went Wrong:

Aside from the pointlessly redundant combining( How about an “eel snake” ?), the freaking thing blows up at the first clue of task. Just hide behind a tree and convulse a squirrel at it or something.

2

Anguillian

What Is It?

Anguillians are a multiplied of humanoid eels which live in a patriarchal society under the sea. Judging by the lance and Sarlacc mouth, things down there aren’t quite as whimsical as Sebastian the crab would have us believe.

Where It Went Wrong:

Buddy, you’ve got a mouth strung with millions of razor-sharp teeth and vast terrifying crab claw for handwritings. You do not need to try to jab parties with a sharpened stick.

1

Gelun

What Is It?

The Gelun is a character that has to live in the desert to evade completely freezing into a block of sparkler, sort of like exactly the opposite of Mr. Freeze.

Where it Went Wrong:

Being encased in something that isn’t a monstrous robot clothing actually restraint your duel capability( discover Brain in a Jar, above ). Really, the Gelun’s best hope is that passing cliques of wanderers carve its frost prison into an angel or a swan or something instead of chopping its disclosed head off.

Memorandum: Such articles was originally published in June 2009 ! If you cherished this article and crave more content like this, corroborate our place with a see to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you very much .

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-15-most-idiotic-monsters-in-dungeons-dragons-history/