#six poppy seeds

[poppy-purpura]

Wanted to show that SoG can travel on his own legs. SPS cant.

#oram local group #six poppy seeds #steps on gems

[saelrum]

An unexpected gift for my friend @poppy-purpura

#rain world #rain world downpour #rain world oc #six poppy seeds #iterator oc #digital art #sketch #fanart #original character #oc #gift art

[da-birb-writes-sometimes]

Of Truths & Dreams; Sebek Zigvolt

Dreams can tell you a lot about a person. Their wants, their fears. But sometimes they can tell you the truth, and sometimes it isn't pretty.

Supporting Characters; Silver & Professor Trein

Content; Soulmate AU (I call them soul matches though), gender-neutral reader, can be read as familial, platonic, or romantic, enemies-to-friends-to-*insert your relationship here*, reader is done with Sebek's bullshit, bullying Sebek hours (affectionate)

Content Warnings; Talk of death, swearing

Word Count; 5 K

Do not put any of my work into AI, that shit steals. If you do I'm eating your kneecaps.

Prologue & Lilia's Story | Malleus's Story

Sebek knew, even as a young child, that his parents’ marriage would end in heartbreak. That his mother would be left alone for centuries, heartbroken, because of his father’s humanity, because he was mortal. If you know something will only end in heartbreak, why go forth with it? Are a few decades of happiness truly worth it if it will bring centuries of loneliness? 

He used to not think in that light, but the whispers of fellow children, and the look of concern in his grandfather’s eyes upon seeing a single strand of silver in his son-in-law’s hair. His father was ageing, and when compared to the fae, he was ageing rapidly. His mother would still be young when his father would be growing old and senile. That’s what started the seed of bitterness, of resentment, of fear. 

Sebek was scared. He was scared that he may be dealt the same hand of fate; that his lifespan would be short like his father’s. And afraid that he would outlive him by several centuries if he inherited the fae lifespan. Both terrified him, and he was only six. Six years old and sitting on the tire swing that hung from the hawthorn tree, a scowl etched into his forehead. “It isn’t fair,” he muttered under his breath.

“What isn’t fair?” The gentle voice of his father startled Sebek, who fell off the swing. The older man picked him up and dusted off Sebek’s clothes. “There we go, not even a scratch,” he chuckled, ruffling his son’s pastel green hair.

How can he be so happy? Sebek scowled, and he felt a warmness build up in his eyes, tears. “Nothing,” he spat and ran off.

Unlike his mother, Sebek could lie, and it came easier to him than his siblings. It’s because I’m closer to him. And that scared him. It scared him, and he didn’t know why. He loves his father, but his humanity, that scares him. 

Pushing something away is much easier than accepting it, even adults, both human and fae, do it. Keep that fear and hide it away, under a mask of superiority. But the truth will always come out, one way or another.

I hate you! But he didn’t, Sebek loved him, but it was easier to pretend to hate something than to love it and then for it to wither before your very own eyes. 

…

Sebek’s dreams had colour, except for one. It was a mix of fae and human, and a sign from the Thorn Fairy that he had a soul match… but why was there one colour that was missing? His dreams should have been black and white, but the sky overhead was blue, the poppies in the field a brilliant red, and the centres of daisies a cheerful yellow. But one colour was missing, green. Where green should have been, there was nothing but shades of grey.

“Is anybody there?” His voice called out. He could hear his voice, his words weren’t floating in front of him. There was also no one else in the field with him. Sebek was alone. “ANYBODY?!”

He started running, he didn’t know where to, but he needed to get away. So he ran, and he kept on running until he came across a path which forked out into two directions, a crossroad. Sebek needed to choose. Left or right?

On the left, there was a butterfly flitting lazily down the path, whereas on the right was a hornet, its stinger wielded like a sword. The butterfly reminded him of his father, as butterflies do not live for long, and were seen as demure things. The hornet reminded him of his mother and grandfather, fierce and ready to defend; they, and the hornet, were knights. They feared nothing.

Sebek took off running down the right-hand path and kept on running until he came across a familiar castle, the castle where his grandfather worked. The fires glowed grey in Sebek’s eyes, but he knew they must have been green.

“Who are you?”

Sebek startled at the voice and he turned around. Standing behind him was a boy around his age with silvery hair, and lilac eyes. He could clearly make out his face, and his voice. The boy was clearly human, and that irked Sebek; his soul match wasn’t here but this random human child was? Behind him was the butterfly from earlier, glowing white and fluttering about before coming to rest on Sebek’s chest, resting on his heart.

Go away. Leave me alone. But Sebek bit his tongue and marched into the castle. “A future knight,” he boasted, bottling down his true emotions. “I’m going to be a knight. Like my grandfather!”

The boy walked behind Sebek and gave him a sleepy hum. “That’s who you’re going to be,” he said matter of factly, “I asked who are you not who are you going to be.” Not even three minutes of knowing each other, and the relationship between the two children was off to a rocky start.

“Names have power,” Sebek huffed. “How do I know you won’t use it to cross me, human?” He spat out the last word, human, his anger out in the open, his insecurity showing itself. “You tell me yours first.”

The other boy raised a pale brow at the hostility but decided it would just be better to accommodate rather than butt heads. “Silver. And you?”

Sebek huffed, but he could tell that the boy, Silver, was being honest with him. “Sebek.”

Silver offered him a soft smile, his eyes going from the butterfly which was still resting on Sebek’s heart to his face. “It’s nice to meet you, Sebek.”

And then Sebek woke up, blinking his eyes groggily. The only thing he could remember being the castle, his wanting to be a knight, and a butterfly that wouldn’t leave him alone.

…

…

…

The mirror took less than a second to place Sebek into Diasomnia, there was no better or other option. And Sebek was happy, so happy that he could continue serving Malleus, or in his words ‘Young Master’. Scratch that, Sebek was overjoyed. But the ceremony, which should have been perfect, was marred with chaos, because of a human. A magicless human.

Sebek shook his head. Today was good, regardless of the chaos. It should have not mattered, but Sebek couldn’t help but feel that it would have repercussions, a butterfly effect of sorts. It had the hairs on his neck stand on end. He could worry about it more in the morning though, he was of no use to anybody if he didn’t rest.

~

He was on the tire swing in the backyard, slowly going back and forth with the gentle breeze. What am I doing back here?

Usually, his dreams were about training, about being a knight, of protecting the Draconia line… not of childhood places, let alone at his own home. And sitting on the tire with him was the butterfly, still pale and glowing.

“What do you want,” he questioned the insect. 

But the bug paid him no mind and took flight, doing gentle loops around his head. And as Sebek watched the butterfly, he noticed the slow shift in his dream. Everything started to take on a green hue, and the butterfly was now a brilliant pastel green. That could mean only one thing.

They were here. Sebek didn’t really know what to think or feel. On one hand, compared to many, he hadn’t been waiting for very long, which is seen as a kind gesture from the Thorn Fairy. But on the other hand, Sebek was confused about what his colour difference could mean, and why now of all times? He didn’t have the time to go chasing after some random stranger. He had a duty to uphold, and if they got in the way, or possessed to be a danger to his Young Master… well, Sebek knew what he would have to do. 

The air in front of him shimmered. They are just entering the REM part of sleep now. Sebek clenched his fists and righted himself up, standing straight as a board. First impressions meant everything after all, and he for one did not want his first impression to be someone sitting on a tire swing and questioning flying insects. 

The air stopped shimmering, and they appeared in front of him, their appearance hidden because ‘Good things come to those who wait’ according to the Thorn Fairy. 

“Yeah, sure, why not. My day just had to get weirder,” their words floated in front of them, irritated. Sebek could feel their eyes looking him over, inspecting him, judging him. “Who are you supposed to be, huh?”

Sebek wasn’t sure what to expect when he first met his soul match, but he wasn’t expecting someone so… rude. Well, rude in his eyes at least. He felt his eye twitch, but he held together his composure. “I am your soul match!” The words were barked out, but they just floated in the breeze with no volume. The only thing that indicated that Sebek had said it loudly being the exclamation point at the end, as well as the sharpness of the letters.

But his soul match, even though he couldn’t properly make out their face, did not look impressed, and that rubbed him the wrong way. Every fae child grew up waiting in anticipation for their soul match to enter their dreams, to see their coloured hue tint their shared dreams. So why weren’t they more excited? 

“Did you pay any attention to me,” he huffed, still standing at attention, like his grandfather taught him. “I said that I’m your soul match!”

His soul match just brought their hand to their temple and massaged the spot. “I heard… saw? … you the first time, buddy,” they muttered tiredly. “That’s nice, that I’m your ‘soul match’,” they did air quotes around the term, “but I have no idea what that means or why I’m here.”

Sebek felt a lump form in his throat. Fae know about soul matches, even if it was kept secret from the outside world, fae knew. That meant that his soul match wasn’t fae, and other clans knew of the term, which only meant one thing. His soul match is human. 

They were weak and short-lived. Sebek had taught himself to look down on humans years ago, so why now, would the Thorn Fairy make his soul match human? The part of himself that he most feared?

…

…

…

You were running on fumes. Of the meagre sleep you were able to get, you were rudely interrupted by some stranger blathering about how humans were inferior. And quite frankly it pissed you off, royally so. You already got enough shit from everyone else about being magicless in a magic-dependent world, but for your ‘soul match’, someone you barely knew but was supposed to make you happy, constantly berating you for something that you couldn’t change. Yeah, you avoided them at all costs. And when you couldn’t avoid them? Well, you ignored them. It was much easier to ignore someone when you couldn’t actually hear them; all you needed to do was shut your eyes. Could you sleep when you were already sleeping? Well, you were. It was better than paying any attention to your bristly companion.

At least the tree you were resting under was nice, but you could feel your ‘soul match’ staring daggers at you. Cracking an eye open you found them standing as straight and stiff as a board, an air of a scowl surrounding them. 

“Who pissed in your cereal?” 

Your ‘soul match’ reeled back, and you saw a bunch of nonsense spelt out in the air before they controlled themself again, going back to their stiff posture. “THAT IS RUDE AND UNBECOMING TO SAY!” Their words were all capitalized, a sure fire sign that they were yelling at you. But since your first, and honestly disastrous, meeting weeks ago, it had very little effect on you. If anything, it was funny; seeing someone who held themself in such high regard be nothing more than a yappy dog. 

You waved them off, shooing away their words. “You didn’t answer my question though. Did someone piss in your cereal?”

“NO!” They shouted, looking so fed up with you. “You are so… so… so ANNOYING,” they fumbled around with what word to use but finally decided on one. Annoying. “Humans are so annoying! The lot of you!”

And there they went again, on their anti-human tirade again. Seriously, what is their problem? “Better annoying than some stuck up prick,” you countered.

You knew you were playing with fire, but you didn’t care. You just wanted to piss them off. You were tired of playing nice in your waking hours, so in your dreams? You could be as snarky and confrontational as you pleased. Consequences be damned.

They were fuming, and sputtering. “How dare you?! What makes you think you can just act like that?!”

You sighed and got up from your resting spot, and moved over to them. “Because. I. Can.” You poked them, hard, in the chest with each word. “And what makes you think you can act like that? Like an entitled asshole who demeans and belittles others who are different from you?! What is your damage?!”

And right as your soul match was about to answer you, you left the dream, waking up from your own frustration.

Looks like it was yet another night of a restless sleep, only to be met with disappointment and wanting to do nothing more than prove everyone wrong. Prove them wrong about you, and for your soul match, prove them wrong about humans.

…

Understandably, you were not in the best of moods that day. At best you got maybe three hours of rest before you woke up due to pure frustration at your ‘soul match’ and their sour disposition. And it was noticeable, well, noticeable to some people who could pick up the subtle shift. That your smile was a bit too forced, and that you weren’t fully paying attention.

Professor Trein noticed, and Lucius had stayed on your lap throughout the entire class. And as he was walking up and down the aisles, making sure people were actually doing their work, the older man tapped you on the shoulder. “Prefect, a word after class,” it was said quietly enough that you were the only one to hear that, and he went back on patrol.

Shit, was I spacing off? You just hoped that it wasn’t anything serious. The last thing you needed was Crowley finding out about your grades slipping or any other infraction, and getting on your case and bringing up your situation for the nth time. So, the rest of the class seemed to drag on for what felt like forever, even though in reality, there were only fifteen minutes left. But every time you felt the anxiety spike, Lucius would shift in your lap or knead his paws into your uniform, dragging you away from obsessing over it. And finally, the bell rang.

“You guys go on without me,” you said to Ace, Deuce and Grim, shooting them a tired smile. “I’ll catch up with you.”

The trio waved you off, and headed off, leaving you alone with Professor Trein, who was sitting at his desk, preparing for his next lecture.

You took in a deep breath, trying to calm yourself. “You wanted to speak with me, Professor?”

He set his papers down, and motioned for you to take a seat, which you did. This, this meant something bad, you could tell. Why else would he motion for you to take a seat?

“Prefect,” he sighed tiredly, “have you been taking care of yourself?”

Of course he noticed, Trein, unlike your friends, noticed the familiar look. He noticed the tenseness in your shoulders, and the dark shadows under your eyes. Noticed the cheerful air grow weary, which was such a pity. You shouldn’t have to shoulder everything you do, especially while juggling all of the responsibilities and new knowledge that you’ve been acquiring. 

You looked down at your lap, fiddling with your fingers. “No, not really,” you admitted. 

Professor Trein nodded, since he already knew that, even without the confirmation. “I won’t press you for details, but I’ll have a discussion with the others, about lightening your workload. Please, do take care of yourself, Prefect.”

Take care of yourself. That’s something you hadn’t really been doing, what with all the errands, the near-death overblot incidents, and the piss poor sleep you’ve been getting lately because of your ‘soul match’.

“I’ll try.” You couldn’t guarantee anything, but you would try.

“Alright then, that’s a start. Now, off you go, lest you be late,” he collected the papers he needed and adjusted his coat, ready for his next lecture. “Be kind to yourself, Prefect.”

…

…  

Sebek woke up that day irritated. What is your damage?! Who did that human think they were? But that statement irked him more than it really should. He wasn’t harmed, his value and worth was not impaired. So why was he so affected by the phrase? Why should he care so much about what a stranger said to him? Because no matter what, they are still your soul match. He shook his head and marched out of his room, going ahead and performing his morning duties, his mood being apparent, following him like a storm cloud.

Silver noticed this as Sebek came to a stop beside him, ready to greet Malleus. “Something is obviously upsetting you,” he murmured, shooting him a sideways look while still standing at attention.

Sebek glared at Silver out of the corner of his eye, his brow slightly pinched. “It’s none of your business,” he hissed under his breath. The last thing he needed was for the Young Master to catch wind that he was distracted while on the job. Malleus wouldn’t really mind, but Sebek wouldn’t forgive himself for his own ineptitude. 

Silver sighed and turned his eyes back towards Malleus’s door. “It’s better to admit something than bottle it up Sebek. Eventually the truth will come out, one way or another.”

“Now is not the time for that,” Sebek said, trying to control his volume. “And it doesn’t concern you.” It concerns only me and them. 

Silver raised his brow but left well enough alone, he knew better than to egg Sebek on when he was in one of his moods. But he knew that the truth would come out, and he felt like it would rear its ugly head sooner rather than later. He just hoped Sebek didn’t just blow up on the wrong person. Not because Sebek was bad for feeling whatever emotions he was feeling, but because not everyone understood him.

Maybe even Sebek didn’t even understand himself either.

…

…

You and your soul match were back at the house, but instead of standing straight up like they had a stick up their ass, they were sitting in the tire swing, swinging gently back and forth. And the butterfly that always followed them around, was resting comfortably on their chest, right above their heart. Here was this usually grumpy and tall person, swinging on a tire swing, a butterfly on their chest, and it was kind of cute. In a really weird way. But you could tell they weren’t happy, muttering to themself.

Usually, you would poke the bear to get a reaction out of them, but tonight you didn’t want to. You were too tired to put in the effort. Plus in all the weeks of antagonising each other, you hadn’t really gotten to know them.

“Hi,” you said, coming to rest beside the tire swing.

Your soul match — who was in actuality, Sebek —  gave you a curt nod as a hello back. Something was on his mind.

“What did you mean the other day?” He turned to look at you, eyes probing to try and find something that would tell him who you were in the waking world. But your appearance remained fuzzy, except for your eyes, which gleamed softly in the green lighting of the dream. He hadn’t really paid them any attention, but now he was lost in them, and what he saw was tiredness. “What did you mean by, what is my damage?”

Sebek wasn’t angry, which surprised you. You would have thought he would be a thundering storm cloud, but he was more like the cool breeze that came once the storm had passed. And you noticed his eyes, chartreuse with vertical slits. You could have sworn that you had seen those eyes before, you knew those eyes, but the person in mind was evading you.

You sighed, and the butterfly that was resting on his chest took flight, did a loopdeloop, and came to rest over your heart instead. “I don’t know, “ you admitted. “I was angry and tired. My life is just hectic and sleep is usually an escape from that, but instead I found myself in here with you… You didn’t really help either. Kept on looking down on me for being human, so I kinda snapped… I’m sorry.”

Sebek felt his voice get stuck in his throat. I should be the sorry one. But instead he offered his hand to you. A handshake. “Don’t be sorry for your anger; it’s better out than to let it fester.”

You took his answer to heart. It felt weird, the two of you were at each other’s throats for so long, but because of your combined tiredness and realizations, there was a truce of sorts. “So,” you looked Sebek in the eye, “what does this make us?”

He raised a brow, “Well, we are soul matches. The Thorn Fairy decides upon a person who will bring out the best in you, and in turn, you do the same for them.” He scratched the back of his neck. He knew that he had to tell you everything, but it felt like he was doing something wrong; technically this is breaking a rule, but you deserved to know. “We can be anything we want to be. It’s up to us.”

“Huh, that’s nice I guess. That we get to choose what we are. Thought for a second we would be forced together by the narrative to be in a relationship,” you chuckled. But it was nice that you could choose what the two of you were. “For now how about uneasy friends?”

“Uneasy friends?”

“Yeah, ya know I can’t forgive you that easily for dissing my entire species. Kinda hard to forgive that.” Your tone was light, but you were serious. You couldn’t just go from being dearly detested to buddy-buddy with your soul match.

Sebek pursed his lips but he knew that he was in the wrong. “I’m sorry, truly.” And it was genuine. Sebek didn’t hate humans, he loved them, but that love scared him because he knew that they wouldn’t last forever. That you wouldn’t last forever. 

You leaned back, splaying out in the grass. “Well, explanations can wait. I for one want to cloud watch. You wanna join?”

Sebek rolled his eyes but decided to humour you. “What does that cloud look like?” To him it just looked like an odd blob.

“Hmmmm, kinda looks like a crocodile in a blanket burrito,” you mused. And you were kind of right, but it still looked like an odd blob to Sebek.

…

…

…

Things had quieted down in your and Sebek’s dreams, and for the first time in weeks you felt well rested and not like you were going to randomly pass out in alchemy class only to find yourself headfirst in a cauldron. Plus you felt like you could actually get along with your soul match now, but you still liked to bug them just a little bit so the two of you could bicker. It was fun to see their reactions.

“So, if you’re fae, that must mean that you’re super old right?” You had a shiteating grin on your face, and your words floated around their head, poking at them to mirror what you had said.

Sebek rolled his eyes, he had become accustomed to your sense of humour, it was charming in its own bewildering way. “I am not old!”

You bumped his shoulder, “So you’re just a kid? Ew, gross.”

“I AM NOT A CHILD EITHER!” There it is, that spark, like a bolt of lightning. “If you must know, I am attending a mage school! Therefore, I am not old.”

You hummed, thinking. “What school? Maybe we go to the same one? Although I probably would have recognized you, what with your… unique personality and being fae and all. I don’t think I could mistake you for somebody else.”

Sebek faltered. They attend a mage school? “What do you mean by that, human?” 

There was that word again, human, but this time it was said with fondness, without hostility.

“Personality or school?”

Sebek sighed, and massaged his temple. “Why do I feel like you’ll just answer both?”

You sent him a wink, “Because I will!~ Part of my charms.” You chuckled but decided to humour him by getting straight to the point. “Well, even though you can be prickly, you care very deeply. A bit awkward, but in an endearing way. Loud, and opinionated. It would be hard to miss you, ya know. I mean that in a nice way too, by the way.” You stopped, and considered what you were going to say next, as it could mean finding him in the waking world much easier, but you were ready to meet him. “As for the school thing, I go to Night Raven College.”

“WHAT?!” His words were the largest that you had ever seen, and you knew that you probably would have needed to cover your ears if you could actually hear them. “YOU GO TO NIGHT RAVEN COLLEGE?! SINCE WHEN?!”

Sebek was distraught. You were so close but he didn’t even know? How could he be so blind?!

“Judging from your reaction I’m guessing you also go there, huh? Small world after all, I guess.” Your words didn’t reflect how you were actually feeling though, they mirrored Sebek’s perfectly. “Since you’re fae, I’m also guessing that you’re in Diasomnia. Am I right?”

Sebek looked at you, beguiled. “Y-yes! And what of you?!”

You opened your mouth, but no words came out. Huh, weird. “Looks like that’s a dead giveaway…” you muttered. Seems like the Thorn Fairy wasn’t going to make this easy for the two of you. But you got an idea. “Tomorrow at lunch, meet me in the botanical gardens! By the roses!”

You were snatched out from the land of dreams by your alarm going off, but you knew what you needed to do. You were ready to meet them. You were ready to meet your soul match.

…

…

Sebek was nervous. After so much he was finally going to meet his soul match. He knew he had seen those eyes somewhere before, been subjected to their teasing on several occasions, but the dreams kept your identity secret, shrouded in mystery. But now, now he and you would know. So why was he nervous? You had come to know him in your shared dreams, but Sebek was nervous that you would reject him once you knew who he truly was.

So he had arrived at the botanical garden in a sprint, having run from his class the moment the bell signified it was over. And it was empty, save for the butterflies and other pollinators that flitted about. It gave him time to gather his thoughts, and he paced by the roses, trying to place where he had seen you before. It was all so annoyingly familiar, it was on the tip of his tongue, but your face and name evaded him. Sebek wasn’t used to being nervous.

He had placed nervousness as weakness, as something human. He couldn’t afford to be nervous, not when he had a duty to the crown to fulfil. But maybe being nervous wasn’t bad. Maybe being human wasn’t bad. Yes, they were weak and had their faults, but that’s what made them beautiful. And Sebek realized and accepted that that was just as much a part of him as it was a part of you.

Sure, it was messy, but Sebek was coming to accept that part of himself because of you. And it would be a work in progress, as he had years of a combination of an inferiority and superiority complex due to the mixture of fae and human, but he was willing to work on it. Not just because of you though, it was a combination of you, accepting himself, and forgiving his father. 

He was mad at him for so long because it was easier to be mad than to love and then lose him. He was mad for his mother. But now he just wanted to say that he was sorry. That he loved him, that he loved him so much that he was scared of losing him. 

The door to the botanical garden opened, and Sebek froze. First impressions are everything! He was about to straighten himself up, but he remembered the last time. This wasn’t a first impression, you knew him, you’ve known him for a while. So, he relaxed, he took a seat on the bench next to the roses. And focused on calming his breathing.

A butterfly, a pale green butterfly, flew around his head before coming to rest on his shoulder, crawling leisurely until it got to a comfy spot, sitting above his heart.

He looked up from looking fondly at the small insect to find you, his soul match, standing in the middle of the path with a butterfly, the same colour as his, resting on your heart.

“I knew that you felt familiar! Ha ha!” You smiled, like you had just won something.

And Sebek felt the same. 

Fin!~

Author's Notes; I love Sebek, but I also like bugging him, so I kinda made the reader a menace in this one. Go forth! Be menaces in the world! Huzzah!

Tags; @xxoomiii, @eynnwwyjth, @twistwonderlanddevotee, @savanaclaw1996

Masterlist~

#twst #twst x reader #twst x gn reader #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland x gn reader #sebek zigvolt #sebek zigvolt x reader #sebek zigvolt x gn reader #twst silver #mozus trein #<- supporting role #i had so much fun writing this reader #aka bullying sebek #i love him but i love poking at him even more #woe crocodile be upon thee #soul match au #twst soulmate au #i struggled for a few days [had like only 1 K written] and then the rest came out in 2 days #sebek is technically a fluffier piece in between lilia and malleus; be thankful becky #yes i call sebek becky #started august 11 | ended august 15 #putting my 'cowabummer' reader to use but they don't say 'cowabummer' #mmmm butterfly effect go brrrrrrrr #no spoilers yaayyyyyyyyy!

[rederiswrites]

Worked in the front garden this evening. Reginald came and visited me. Got a total of eighteen plants in the ground in the front, and did some potting up of succulents in the back.

Everything in this corner is just lovely. My columbine is even more beautiful this year than last, and the yarrow and bee balm have spread and grown so much in this, their second year. I'm so excited to see them bloom. I think the natural purple bee balm is further down and we have the red in this photo.

My calendula is entirely self seeded now, but this one plant must have found a sheltered spot, because it's far outstripped the rest and bloomed such a vivid orange that it kinda screws with my camera. That, and one escape dandelion.

In the back left are the many seedlings of funky-colored echinacea. The plants were pretty puny last year, but this year they're coming up thick! There was a red variety and... Something else? And an absolutely wild one called "green twister" that had pink and green flowers. I grew that one from seed last year, and an very eager to see if it's still there, because it didn't bloom last year. I do wish my actual echinacea purpurea had spread so much, but I only see a couple new plants in that area.

This was a surprise find when I was weeding. There are two next to each other and none anywhere else, so it's a sure thing that I planted them. I *think* it's St John's Wort. Don't actually remember planting that so uh... Sweet.

I won't make you stare at a few leaves trying to figure out what I'm trying to show you, but I will say that within the last week I've seen new growth of a bunch of unusual natives I'd pretty much written off as lost money. I ordered them in late fall last year, and then because of The Sick never getting better until this year, I only got any of them in the ground by--i genuinely think it was December. They died back to the ground by mid-January, and I'd put them down as (quite a bit of) wasted money. But now I find myself pretty unmistakeably in possession of four Cardinal flower plants, six Rattlesnake Masters (best plant name ever?), two wood betonies, and at least four things that are definitely deliberate but which I cannot yet identify. Penstemon? I don't know, but I'm thrilled. I thought it was all lost, but in fact it's almost all growing! Unearned blessings for sure.

I lied, I will make you stare at leaves.

Seedling bonanza! Poppy, calendula, wild violet, and in the bottom right a massive concentration of something that's far too small to id but given the placement might be a return of the toothache plant. I am intimidated by the future task of thinning. But what bounty!

More seedling mania. Here, calendula, marigold, and a few chamomile. I'd expect there to be a LOT of reseeded coreopsis here too, but if so I can't id it yet.

My succulent garden continues to be one of my great joys. And just look at all that new growth on my prickly pear! It would be amazing to get flowers and fruits this year. Just think, this was two pads in a pot last spring! By next year I'll have to start harvesting just to keep it back.

Tree pretty.

#gardening

[torchflies]

Two Purim Nights (5755 and 5777) or How Iceman met Hangman

| Little Purim drabble I had kicking around in my drafts, dropping it in here a day late. 😂 🕍|

Jericho meets Tom for the first time on Purim, 5755. 

It's not the first time Tom meets Jericho, but now that the boy is seven he has the ability to remember this interaction, one that tastes like raspberry hamantaschen and sounds uproarious and loud. 

He sits beside Tom for the reading of the Megillah, in English first and then in Hebrew. He distinctly remembers sitting by Tom because a nasty flu had taken out most of their usual Torah readers, so it was Jericho’s father who read the Megillah in Hebrew for the congregation. His Mama was scared of his baby sister getting sick so she and Leah stayed home while Jericho and his father went to Beth El that night.

Jericho remembers Tom because they had matching outfits. 

He had begged his Abba day and night for weeks, until the Captain had returned from Pearl Harbor-Hickam with a little green flight suit for Jake — the smallest they had in stock, but one that still hung off him like an oversized onesie. He had to fold and stuff the legs into a pair of boots two sizes too big and roll up the arms until it looked like he had a pair of cloth water-wings, but he didn't care. It was a real flight suit! 

He has a pair of his Abba’s aviators perched on his head in front of his green kippah and he practically throws himself down beside Tom, two groggers in hand. 

The blond looks at him with a surprised little smile and reaches out to fix Jericho’s collar with long, nimble fingers. He has a piano player’s hands, like Jericho’s Mama. He even looks like her too, with his very blond hair, round lips and sharp nose. They even have the same pretty blue eyes, like cake frosting. 

“I'm a pilot!” The seven-year-old chirps, swinging his big heavy boots. “Are you a pilot too?”

Tom nods obligingly, opening his copy of the Megillah and holding a finger to his lips, “Shush, we’re about to start, tattele.”

Jericho nods back, very seriously, and finds his place with his finger. Tom reaches over to nudge it into the right spot. He does that periodically throughout the two readings, making horse noises and quietly acting out the sillier scenes to make Jericho laugh into his folded hands. Tom is the funniest pilot he's ever met. They whip their groggers together when they hear Haman’s name and Jericho dissolves into frantic giggles at the bigger blond’s faces, like he's just taken a whiff of the stinkiest cheese. 

After the readings and blessings, he drags Tom into the social hall with both hands, so that they can grab some hamantaschen and punch. 

He keeps up a running commentary on everything he knows about airplanes and jets and the Navy. He tells Tom all about his Abba the Captain and about how much he wants to fly one day. 

They're in the middle of discussing which is better, poppy seed or fruit hamantaschen, with chocolate sliding in as a left field contentor, when his Abba comes up to them with a grin. 

“Tomek!” He exclaims, reaching out to shake Tom’s hand with both of his, “When did you get back stateside?”

“Last week.” Tom smiles, “He's gotten big.” He juts his chin towards Jericho, who is trying to fit an entire cookie into his mouth in one go. 

His Abba laughs, “He's just like Sarah that one, he’ll be taller than me by spring.”

“He's six?”

“Seven!” Jericho pipes up with a giggle. 

“Ah!” Tom reaches over to ruffle his hair, “Your Mama was taller than me by the time we were seven.”

Jericho tilts his head, “You know my Mama?”

Tom looks at him like he's trying to hold the whole world in one go. “I do, she's my twin sister.” 

—

On Purim, 5777 — Jake Seresin dresses as a pilot again for the umpteenth time and sits beside Tom Kazansky at Beth El, with two groggers in hand and a smile on his face. A smile, that he now realizes, is identical to Tom’s.

#top gun maverick #top gun #tom iceman kazansky #jake hangman seresin #jewish iceman kazansky #Jewish Jake hangman seresin #purim #Kit writes stuff #sarah kazansky

[justforbooks]

Daniel Ellsberg, a US government analyst who became one of the most famous whistleblowers in world politics when he leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing US government knowledge of the futility of the Vietnam war, has died. He was 92. His death was confirmed by his family on Friday.

In March, Ellsberg announced that he had inoperable pancreatic cancer. Saying he had been given three to six months to live, he said he had chosen not to undergo chemotherapy and had been assured of hospice care.

“I am not in any physical pain,” he wrote, adding: “My cardiologist has given me license to abandon my salt-free diet of the last six years. This has improved my life dramatically: the pleasure of eating my favourite foods!”

On Friday, the family said Ellsberg “was not in pain” when he died. He spent his final months eating “hot chocolate, croissants, cake, poppy-seed bagels and lox” and enjoying “several viewings of his all-time favourite [movie], Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, the family statement added.

“In his final days, surrounded by so much love from so many people, Daniel joked, ‘If I had known dying would be like this, I would have done it sooner …’

“Thank you, everyone, for your outpouring of love, appreciation and well-wishes. It all warmed his heart at the end of his life.”

Tributes were swift and many.

Alan Rusbridger, the former editor-in-chief of the Guardian, said Ellsberg “was widely, and rightly, acclaimed as a great and significant figure. But not by Richard Nixon, who wanted him locked up. He’s why the national interest should never be confused with the interest of whoever’s in power.”

The Pulitzer-winning journalist Wesley Lowery wrote: “It was an honor knowing Daniel … I’ll remain inspired by his commitment to a mission bigger than himself.”

The writer and political commentator Molly Jong-Fast said: “One of the few really brave people on this earth has left it.”

The MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan said: “Huge loss for this country. An inspiring, brave, and patriotic American. Rest in power, Dan, rest in power.”

The Pentagon Papers covered US policy in Vietnam between 1945 and 1967 and showed that successive administrations were aware the US could not win.

By the end of the war in 1975, more than 58,000 Americans were dead and 304,000 were wounded. Nearly 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers were killed, as were about 1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and Viet Cong guerillas and more than 2 million civilians in North and South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

The Pentagon Papers caused a sensation in 1971, when they were published – first by the New York Times and then by the Washington Post and other papers – after the supreme court overruled the Nixon administration on whether publication threatened national security.

In 2017, the story was retold in The Post, an Oscar-nominated film directed by Steven Spielberg in which Ellsberg was played by the British actor Matthew Rhys.

Ellsberg served in the US Marine Corps in the 1950s but went to Vietnam in the mid-60s as a civilian analyst for the defense department, conducting a study of counter-insurgency tactics. When he leaked the Pentagon Papers, he was working for the Rand Corporation.

In 2021, a half-century after he blew the whistle, he told the Guardian: “By two years in Vietnam, I was reporting very strongly that there was no prospect of progress of any kind so the war should not be continued. And that came to be the majority view of the American people before the Pentagon Papers came out.

“By ’68 with the Tet offensive, by ’69, most Americans already thought it was immoral to continue but that had no effect on Nixon. He thought he was going to try to win it and they would be happy once he’d won it, however long it took.”

In 1973, Ellsberg was put on trial. Charges of espionage, conspiracy and stealing government property adding up to a possible 115-year sentence were dismissed due to gross governmental misconduct, including a break-in at the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, part of the gathering scandal which led to Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

Born in Chicago on 7 April 1931, Ellsberg was educated at Harvard and Cambridge, completing his PhD after serving as a marine. He was married twice and had two sons and a daughter.

After the end of the Vietnam war he became by his own description “a lecturer, scholar, writer and activist on the dangers of the nuclear era, wrongful US interventions and the urgent need for patriotic whistleblowing”.

Ellsberg contributed to publications including the Guardian and published four books, among them an autobiography, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, and most recently The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.

In recent years, he publicly supported Chelsea Manning, the US soldier who leaked records of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who published Manning’s leaks, and Edward Snowden, who leaked records concerning surveillance by the National Security Agency.

On Friday, the journalist Glenn Greenwald, one of the Guardian team which published the Snowden leaks in 2013, winning a Pulitzer prize, called Ellsberg “a true American hero” and “the most vocal defender” of Assange, Snowden, Manning and “others who followed in his brave footsteps”.

Steven Donziger, an attorney who represented Indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest against the oil giant Chevron, a case that led to his own house arrest, said: “Today the world lost a singularly brave voice who spoke truth about the US military machine in Vietnam and risked his life in the process. I drew deep inspiration from the courage of Daniel Ellsberg and was deeply honored to have his support.”

In 2018, in a joint Guardian interview with Snowden, Ellsberg paid tribute to those who refused to be drafted to fight in Vietnam.

“I would not have thought of doing what I did,” he said, “which I knew would risk prison for life, without the public example of young Americans going to prison to make a strong statement that the Vietnam war was wrong and they would not participate, even at the cost of their own freedom.

“Without them, there would have been no Pentagon Papers. Courage is contagious.”

Three years later, in an interview to mark 50 years since the publication of the Pentagon Papers, he said he “never regretted for a moment” his decision to leak.

His one regret, he said, was “that I didn’t release those documents much earlier when I think they would have been much more effective.

“I’ve often said to whistleblowers, ‘Don’t do what I did, don’t wait years till the bombs are falling and people have been dying.’”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Daniel Ellsberg #Pentagon Papers #Vietnam war #in memoriam

[princesssarisa]

Every Purim, I try a new recipe for hamantaschen. I've been doing this for six years now.

2019: Apricot, date, and pistachio (from Jayne Cohen's Jewish Holiday Cooking)

2020: Apricot (from Joan Nathan's King Solomon's Table)

2021: Raisin-walnut (from Jayne Cohen's Jewish Holiday Cooking)

2022: Apple (from Jayne Cohen's Jewish Holiday Cooking)

2023: Poppy seed (from Judy Rosenberg's Rosie's Bakery Chocolate-Packed Jam-Filled Butter-Rich No-Holds-Barred Cookie Book)

2024: Chocolate (from Joan Nathan's King Solomon's Table)

#food #cooking #baking #hamantaschen #judaism #purim #holiday #jewish holidays #cookies

[wlw-webcomic-bracket]

THE WLW WEBCOMIC COUPLES BRACKET

Your nominations are in, your votes have been counted, and the WLW Webcomic Couples Bracket is assembled! There are 64 entries, broken up for early rounds into eight groups of eight couples or poly ships.

It will take me a while to find images to use in the polls, so keep the propaganda coming while I get them ready! (And if your propaganda includes original images from the webcomic that I can use, it will help the process go that much faster.) A text version of the matchups, along with a short note on seeding, is below the cut.

<3

The bracket is lightly seeded - the eight couples or ships with 10-15 nominations each were given the first seed in each group, then couples with 3-7 nominations were given second through fourth seed, and the remaining slots were filled by couples with two nominations. The exception is a handful of cases in which two couples from a single webcomic qualified, in which case they will go up against each other in the first round regardless of seeding.

First-round matchups are as follows:

Group 1

Undine and Kokoro (Sleepless Domain) vs Aarya and Liza (Facing the Sun)

Dani and Christy (My Dragon Girlfriend) vs Tess and Mira (Seven Days in Silverglen)

Sun and Babs (Unfamiliar) vs Arachne and Scarlet (Bugtopia)

Adrian and Hildegard (A&H Club) vs Mia and Grace (On a Sunbeam)

Group 2

Boo and Mimi (Rainbow!) vs Mina and Valerie (Paranatural)

Aya and Mitsuki (The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All) vs Radiant Goddess and Acolyte (Lady of the Shard)

Almond and Peridot (Cucumber Quest) vs Sylvia and Jerry (Charity Case)

Becky and Dina (Dumbing of Age) vs Beau and Julie (Offbeat)

Group 3

Camille, Dendro, and Nyra (Muted) vs Jen and Rocker (Starward Lovers)

Daphne and Veronika (Lesbiampires) vs Claire and Robin (Hard Lacquer)

Sapphia and Odette (High Class Homos) vs Sapphia and Marla (High Class Homos)

Evie and Jack (Pandora's Devils) vs Faye and Bubbles (Questionable Content)

Group 4

Sunati and Austen (Almost Human) vs Honey Hart and Turpentine (Band vs Band)

Mari and Mica (The Four of Them) vs Fiona and Lia (YU+ME: Dream)

Tara and Darcy (Heartstopper) vs Shiina and Mimi (My Wish Is to Fall In Love Until You Die)

Hotaru, Kayla, and Elise (Shootaround) vs Selva and Alice (Namesake)

Group 5

Rose and Kanaya (Homestuck) vs Alex and Lucky (Finding Wonderland)

Delilah and Cheryl (I Want to Be a Cute Anime Girl) vs Hazel and Willie (A Week in Warrigilla)

Allison and Cio (Kill Six Billion Demons) vs Shim Chong and Madam Jang (Her Tale of Shim Chong)

Nell and Jolie (Cursed Princess Club) vs Tabitha and Poppy (Vampire Girlfriends)

Group 6

Lenore and Annabel Lee (Nevermore) vs Mica, Liv, and Red (The Greenhouse)

Ludovica and Luck (Tiger, Tiger) vs Jock, Prep, Nerd, and Goth (Boyfriends)

Roomie and Lillian (Go Get a Roomie) vs Lola and Sugar (Drop-Out)

Kat and Paz (Gunnerkrigg Court) vs Zimmy and Gamma (Gunnerkrigg Court)

Group 7

Rei and Hanna (Not So Shoujo Love Story) vs Claudia and Ava (Console Her)

Quinn and Hana (Encore!) vs Rina and Noa (Us Right Now)

Sun Jing and Qiu Tong (Tamen De Gushi/Their Story) vs Eliza and Darcy (Wilde Life)

Charo and Alesea (Dame Daffodil) vs Sophia and Olivia (It's Okay to Like Girls)

Group 8

Malori and Velverosa (Mage & Demon Queen) vs Connie and Carla (Rock and Riot)

Isaline and Theodora (Isadora) vs Penny and Bianca (Sunflowers & Lavender)

Ellen and Nanase (El Goonish Shive) vs Catalina and Rhoda (El Goonish Shive)

Lili and Sera (Monsters and Girls) vs Mad Spade and Miss Sunshine (My Sweet Archenemy)

[school-of-all-time]

Qualifying Rounds

After 851 submissions and 346 total schools, submissions are now officially closed. The bracket rounds will consist of 256 schools. All schools that got two or more submissions are guaranteed a place in the bracket rounds. Schools that got only one submission will have to go through qualifying rounds to get to the brackets. There are 214 schools with only one nomination, and 125 available spots in the bracket. Following the qualifiers, schools will be seeded according to the number of submissions they received.

Qualifiers will consist of 43 polls, with each poll containing five possible schools. The polls were created using a randomizer. The two schools with the most votes will immediately advance to the bracket round. The school with the third most votes has a good chance of advancing as well, but not guaranteed. There are 38 spots available for the 43 third place winners. Thus, I'll be eliminating the 4 third place winners with the least number of votes (numbers as opposed to percentages).

(I know this all seems very convoluted, but I am an English major trying to do math, this is about as well as it was ever going to go.)

I'll be posting six polls a day (except for the last day where I'll be spicing it up by posting seven!) Below the cut you can see which polls will be posted each day. If the school you submitted doesn't appear in the qualifiers, then congratulations, that means it got two or more votes and has immediately advanced to the bracket stage.

Saturday:

Poll 1: Neptune High (Veronica Mars); St. Claire’s Boarding School (St. Claire’s); Ashford Academy (Code Geass); Miyamasuzaka Girls Academy (Project Sekai); X Middle School (Fillmore!)

Poll 2: The Elgen Academy of Pasadena (Michael Vey), The Magaambya (Pathfinder 2E: The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path), Karakura High School (Bleach), The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too (Zoolander), Magic School (Mahou Tsukai Precure)

Poll 3: Tanz Academy (Suspiria), Jade Mountain Academy (Wings of Fire), Seisho Academy (Revue Starlight), Drearcliff Grange School (Drearcliff Grange School), Blue Heron Institute (Pale)

Poll 4: Budo-ga Oka Middle & High School (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure), Furinkan High (Ranma ½), Malory Towers (Malory Towers), The Guild School (The Monster in the Hollows), Ericson's Boarding School (The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series)

Poll 5: Hemery High (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), The Academy of Unseen Arts (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Discipline Cottage (Circle of Magic), Lawndale High (Daria), Shiratorizawa Academy (Haikyuu!!)

Poll 6: Beekman College Center (Flowers for Algernon), Happy Harbor High (Young Justice), King's Dominion (Deadly Class), Brooklyn House (The Kane Chronicles), Raimon School (Inazuma Eleven)

Sunday:

Poll 1: Wammy House (Death Note), Elite Way School (Rebelde Way), Strange Hill High (Strange Hill High), Westbridge High (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), Namimori Middle School (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)

Poll 2: Yokai Academy (Rosario + Vampire), The School in the Sky (Dragon Tales), P.S. 118 (Hey Arnold), A. Nigma High (Detentionaire), Themis Legal Academy (Ace Attorney)

Poll 3: Cat School (Cat School Worldwide Angkor Wat Secret), Harding-Pencroft Academy (Daughter of the Deep), S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy (Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), ACDC town Elementary (MegaMan Battle Network), Boring High (Everything Sucks!)

Poll 4: Welton Academy (Dead Poets Society), Miss Robichaux's Academy (American Horror Story), New Rome University (The Heroes of Olympus), Lanford High School (Roseanne), Shinonome Academy (Dream!ing)

Poll 5: Sinegard Academy (The Poppy War), Haunted High (Monster High), Mars University (Futurama), The Academy of Natural Philosophy (Dishonored), Akademi (Yandere Simulator)

Poll 6: Club Penguin University (Club Penguin), The Professor's School (La Casa de Papel / Money Heist), Seirin High School (Kuroko no Basuke), Sanshu Middle School (Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero), Kamiyama High School (Project Sekai)

Monday:

Poll 1: PK Academy (Saiki Kusuo no Sai Nan), Third Street School (Recess), St. Joseph's Prep (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Flashburn's School of Swordfighting (How to Steal a Dragon's Sword), Salt Middle School (Mob Psycho 100)

Poll 2: Wildcliff, School of the Arcane (Trials and Trebuchets), Mugen Academy (Sailor Moon), Video Game High School (Video Game High School) St. Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses (Star vs. the Forces of Evil), Edgar Allen University (All for the Game)

Poll 3: Austere Academy (A Series of Unfortunate Events), Roman Academy (Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun), Fukurōdani Academy (Haikyuu!!), Bayfield University (Happy Death Day), School House (Over the Garden Wall)

Poll 4: Strumlotts (BomBarded Podcast), John Adams High School (Boy Meets World), Easton Magic Academy (Mashle: Magic and Muscles), North High (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), You Show Duel School (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V)

Poll 5: Shirahamazaka High (Tari Tari), City College (Community), Itan Private High School (Komi Can't Communicate), Uranohoshi Girl's High School (Love Live Sunshine), Cackles Academy (The Worst Witch)

Poll 6: Royal Academy of Diavolo (Obey Me), Et Fran de Muse Academy (Fairy Ranmaru), Yancy Academy (Percy Jackson and the Olympians), San Dimas High (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure), Academia (Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V)

Tuesday:

Poll 1: Galaxy Garrison (Voltron: Legendary Defender), Echo Creek Academy (Star vs. the Forces of Evil), Alice Academy (Gakuen Alice), Awakened Academy (Eleceed Webtoon), School of Friendship (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic)

Poll 2: Point Blanc (Alex Rider), Spy School (Spy School), The School (Sparkle on Raven: The Life of Drillgirl), Deepdean (Murder Most Unladylike), Coolsville High School (Scooby Doo)

Poll 3: Barden University (Pitch Perfect), Ella Mentry Elementary (My Weird School), Inkblot Art Academy (Splatoon), Land of Departure (Kingdom Hearts), J.P. Wynne High School (Breaking Bad)

Poll 4: Shuchiin Academy (Kaguya-sama: Love Is War), Oxenfurt Academy (The Witcher), Chamberlain High (Carrie), Gallagher Academy (Gallagher Girls), The Fire Nation Academy for Girls (Avatar the Last Airbender)

Poll 5: Royal Academy (Ascendance of a Bookworm), Wu’s Academy (Lego Ninjago), Glasshouse Primary School (Bluey), Starlight Academy (Aikatsu), Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School (The Adventure Zone: Graduation)

Poll 6: Wellston Private High School (UnOrdinary), Princess Charm School (Barbie Princess Charm School), Avengers Academy (Marvel Comics), Phoenix Drop High (My Street: Phoenix Drop High), Bullworth Academy (Bully)

Wednesday:

Poll 1: Baxter High (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Sakuragaoka High (K-ON!), Ayanagi Academy (Starmyu), Pacific Coast Academy (Zoey 101), Ridgeway Junior High (iCarly)

Poll 2: Hillerska Boarding School (Young Royals), Chalet School (Chalet School), Groosham Grange (Groosham Grange), Kinzville Academy (Webkinz), Gravity Falls High School (Gravity Falls)

Poll 3: Doki Doki High (Doki Doki Literature Club), Massachusetts Academy (Marvel Comics), Tremorton High (My Life as a Teenage Robot), Clone High (Clone High), St. Vladimir's Academy (Vampire Academy)

Poll 4: Brookhants School for Girls (Plain Bad Heroines), Atlasdam Royal Academy (Octopath Traveler), Ikenfell (Ikenfell), Knight Academy (Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword), Whitechapel High (My Babysitter's a Vampire)

Poll 5: Crystal Cove High (Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated), The University of What It Is (Welcome to Night Vale), Bayside High (Saved by the Bell 2019), Assassins’ Guild (Discworld), Webster High (A.N.T. Farm)

Poll 6: Cherryton Academy (BEASTARS), Wunsoc (Nevermoor), Kamome Academy (Toilet Bound Hanako-kun), Charles Darwin Middle School (My Gym Partner is a Monkey), The Borderlands (In Other Lands)

Thursday:

Poll 1: Lydian Private Music Academy (Symphogear), Vincent Clortho Public School for Wizards (Key & Peele), Strixhaven School for Mages (Magic: The Gathering), BL University (Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko) The Fire Nation school from "The Headband" (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Poll 2: Seiyo Academy (Shugo Chara), St. Pigeonations (Hateful Boyfriend), Hudson University (Law and Order), Yoba Academy (D4DJ), Forks High (Twilight)

Poll 3: New Mushroomton High (Onward), San Fransokyo Institute of Technology (Big Hero 6), H.I.V.E. (H.I.V.E.), Skolala Refujeyo (Curse Words), Warren University (Bunny)

Poll 4: North Shore High (Mean Girls), Ridgemont High (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), Winding Circle Temple (Circle of Magic), The University (The Kingkiller Chronicles), Spooky Academy (Monster Prom

Poll 5: Ban Ard (The Witcher), Magnostadt Academy (Magi), Blades Academy (Blades and Magic), Bronson Alcott High (Clueless), Moroboshi High (Megaranger)

Poll 6: CHERUB Campus (CHERUB), Haven Academy (RWBY), Nockfell High (Sallyface), Megurigaoka Private High School (School-Live!), Spenser Academy (The Covenant)

Friday:

Poll 1: Nekoma High (Haikyuu!!), Witch University (Return to Halloweentown), Stokely Grammar School (Young Dracula), Atlas Academy (RWBY), Crypt Grammar School for Orphans (Team Fortress 2)

Poll 2: Flying Rhino Junior High (Flying Rhino Junior High), Mayview Middle School (Paranatural), Miskatonic University (Lovecraft), Schoolhouse Rock (Schoolhouse Rock!), Aretuza (The Witcher)

Poll 3: James Buchanan High School (Welcome Back Kotter), St. Freya Academy (St. Freya Academy), James K. Polk Middle School (Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide), Split River High School (School Spirits), La Fiesta Tech (The Sims 2: University)

Poll 4: Konoha's Ninja Academy (Naruto), Suppalo (The Eclipse), Worm College (Adventure Time), Harper Hall (Dragonsinger), Yomiyama North Middle School (Another)

Poll 5: Totsuki Culinary Academy (Shokugeki no Soma), Shermer High (The Breakfast Club), Sycamore High School (The Hatchetfield Series), Creekwood High School (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda), Dotheboys Hall (Nicholas Nickleby)

Poll 6: Lily Piper University (Musical Pipers Webtoon), North High (Malcolm In The Middle), Nevermore Academy (Nevermore Webtoon), Royale High (Roblox), Moperville South High (El Goonish Shive)

Poll 7: Saotome Academy (Uta no Prince-sama), Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children (The Wayward Children), Springfield Elementary (The Simpsons), Jae Won High (Lookism Webtoon), American Eagle Christian High School (Saved!)

#polls #tumblr polls #bracket tournament

[sleepless-in-southlands]

Simple Seeds and Complicated Code

Ao3

Summary: So, turns out, Luke might have brought a few things with him when he was transported to Hermitcraft without realizing. Oops. Luckily though, no one seems too worried about it except for Luke. Or is that unluckily? And why is farming so easy here? Content: Fluff with a small side of hurt/comfort; potions, pranks, code weirdness, luke's gripes with minecraft farming Ship: Lucky Jumbo (Mumbo Jumbo/Luke Carder) Note: Xisuma uses he/him and voi/voix pronouns interchangeably. Part six of Lucky Jumbo

~

“It was just… poppies and water? And that turned into a drink?”

“They were dried poppies, if that explains anything.”

“Why would that explain anything?”

“You live in a very weird world, babe, I wouldn’t put anything past it.”

Mumbo chuckled at that, the sound audible to Luke despite the fact it was half lost against his stomach. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since Grian had left, distracted in his own thoughts of what had happened and what he would do if his legs started to fall asleep, Mumbo not yet having been awake for very long.

Not that Mumbo was willing to change that fact much, content to remain lying tucked close to Luke’s side. Even awake, he still seemed drained, and Luke figured more rest wouldn’t hurt him. Plus, original circumstances leading to it aside, the situation was… nice. Luke was equally content to remain as they were.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“The poppy tea incident? I mean, I thought it was fine-”

“No, not the tea. We can figure that out later.” Mumbo replied, although as he hid more of his face against Luke’s side the harder it became to hear him. “I meant… about today.”

“Oh.” Luke looked down at the top of Mumbo’s head, frowning slightly. “Do you?”

“I asked first.”

“Well, I only want to if you do. So, do you?”

The lack of an actual response from Mumbo was all the answer Luke needed. He gave him another moment to say something before slowly running his fingers through Mumbo’s hair. “It’s okay, Mumbo. We don’t have to talk about it.”

Mumbo sighed before turning his head again, looking up at Luke as he spoke much more audibly, “I think we have to at some point.”

“That ‘point’ can be later.” Luke shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve told you much about my past either, and you’ve known about it being… weird… for a while now.”

“You don’t have to tell me about anything you don’t want to.”

“And neither do you. Not right away, at least.”

Mumbo didn’t seem entirely satisfied by the conclusion Luke reached, likely still feeling that he should explain himself right then and there, but he conceded to his logic. “Alright, then. I do want to talk about the poppy tea. You put nothing in it but poppies?”

“You know the potion-stew accident was a one time mistake, right?” Luke joked. “Yes, I promise, it was only water and the flowers.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe all it was was that I was tired and the tea was soothing?”

“Mayb-”

“But, no, that doesn’t make much sense.” Mumbo interrupted Luke, following his own train of thought. Luke didn’t mind. “Luke, you should drink the tea.”

“What?!”

“I’m a rather poor subject for any new potion testing at the moment.” Mumbo explained, as if he hadn’t done much wilder things running on much less sleep or (in Luke’s opinion) sanity. “You, however, are plenty enough awake. If you fall asleep after drinking it too, we’ll know it’s truly a new type of potion! Or, perhaps, a new way to make weakness.”

“What if it’s just a very calming tea?”

“We can test that next.” Mumbo assured him, as if Luke was worried about such an outcome. He then went through the effort of leaning over Luke to fetch the no-longer-warm tea from the bedside table, offering the cup to him even though Luke could have much more easily gotten it himself. “It’s not like you couldn’t do with some more sleep.”

“I sleep more here than I ever have.” Luke argued. Ever since he had learned what a phantom was, he had been extremely diligent to make sure he was in bed nearly every night.

He accepted the teacup from Mumbo despite his protest, though. The curiosity of the poppy tea incident was obviously keeping his attention from the other events of the day, and Luke was happy to assist in such matters. Plus, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t the tiniest bit interested in what, exactly, was going on- for once, he wasn’t the only one confused by the odd rules of Hermitcraft!

Luke took a sip of the tea. It was sweet, as Mumbo had said, nearly cloying. Even after swallowing it, Luke could still feel it on his tongue, the taste strong and toeing the edge of overwhelming.

After a moment, and a second drink, the sensation began to dissolve into something almost fuzzy. The quiet comfort of the room and atmosphere was nothing compared to what Luke began to feel, a gentle sort of exhaustion settling over him so heavily he didn’t have a chance to even think of fighting it before he was being dragged down with it, grip on his cup loosening as his eyelids slid shut.

He was asleep in seconds.

~

“It’s definitely a potion.”

“Oh, certainly.” Mumbo didn’t look up from where he was pouring the last of Luke’s bucket of sleepy-time-knockout-potion into a glass bottle, several already filled ones sitting beside it. “Good morning.”

“I’m starting to think you didn’t really need a second test subject.” Luke made no comment on the fact it was dark outside, the very opposite of morning. He wasn’t entirely sure how phantoms worked in regards to daytime naps, but he could worry about fixing his sleep schedule later.

Mumbo finished transferring the pink-ish liquid, moustache-smiling very charmingly yet completely unapologetically as he moved his attention away from the bottles. “Well, I did need to make sure it didn’t only work on me.”

Luke did his very best to look suspicious of Mumbo despite the fact he was both still a bit tired and, unfortunately, easily convinced to go along with whatever he was doing. “Ominous of you.”

“I just think it would be rather rude of us to keep this new potion of yours all to ourselves. Sharing is the polite thing to do.”

“Are you going to tell the people you’re planning on ‘sharing’ it with what it is?”

“I think a surprise would be much more pleasant, don’t you?”

Luke laughed as he crossed into the kitchen area of his house, making use of Mumbo’s shoulder as a good place to rest his weary-ish head. “And who, exactly, are we planning on ‘surprising’?”

“I’ll tell you that once you tell me how you actually made the surprise.” Mumbo answered roundaboutly, content to let Luke lean against him.

“Hot water and dried poppies. It’s not that complicated.”

“Except I did try that. Many times.” Mumbo turned his head in the direction of the furnace-oven, Luke following his perch to find a bucket of water warming on top of it with several piles of red petals sitting on the nearest table. “Whole, chopped, crushed, dry, fresh- nothing mixes into that lovely red colour you managed, and the only thing that’s made me tired is the effort. There must be a step you’re not telling me.”

Luke frowned, reluctantly stepping away from Mumbo so he could approach the stove. A glance in the bucket revealed it devoid of any poppies at that moment, the stick Luke had used to stir his batch propped against its internal edge. “There… there isn’t another step. I just-”

Without looking at the options, Luke grabbed a handful of some of the poppies from Mumbo’s piles, crushing them slightly in hand before adding them to the water. Mumbo came to stand next to him as he used the stick to stir them in, repeating his motions from when he had first made the tea. And exactly like the first time, the poppy petals mixed into the water and dissolved, leaving him with sweet smelling potion.

“See? That’s all.” Luke said as he looked over at Mumbo, who was doing an incredible impression of someone who had seen an actual magic trick performed. “Nothing to it.”

“Nothing to it?” Mumbo repeated incredulously, and Luke briefly wondered if that was how he looked when questioning the logic of throwing eyes to teleport and punching trees to collect wood. “Not only have you discovered an entirely new potion, you may be the only one who can brew it!”

“Is that… a thing? Potions that only certain people can create?”

Mumbo leaned his head closer towards the bucket, taking a whiff of the now-potion with his lack of a nose. “Not that I’ve ever heard of. This’ll be a first. Was- was it a thing in your old server?”

Luke idly stirred the stick another time as he tried to decide if potion making was more similar to cooking or making medicine. “Well, uh, usually to do this you’d need skills and tools and stuff. But anyone can do it.” He glanced at Mumbo. “That doesn’t matter though, does it? Servers don’t bleed over like that, right?”

“They shouldn’t. You know what else shouldn’t happen?” Mumbo tapped the bucket on the stove meaningfully. “At least, not in this server.”

Luke squinted. “What are- what do you mean?”

“Nothing bad! Nothing bad. I’m only suggesting that maybe… you somehow brought over a bit of your server’s rules with you. A little, tiny bit of them.”

“That sounds like it could be bad.”

“I doubt it would be. But I’ll ask Xisuma to check it out. In a few days.”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “In a few days?”

“It’d be a right shame we didn’t get a chance to actually surprise voi with the potion first, don’t you think?”

“Mumbo-”

Mumbo put his hands up in mock surrender, the look in his eyes making it clear his intentions hadn’t changed one bit despite Luke’s failed attempt at sounding disapproving of the prank. “You know how Xisuma is, voi needs a rest more than I do. Really, I’d be doing voi and the server a favour! And I owe Exil X one, I know he’d appreciate it.”

“You don’t owe Evil X.” “I might!”

“I’d know if you did.”

“Fine, I don’t.” Mumbo folded, dropping his hands, still looking amused. “But I could at some point! And my earlier points stand!”

Luke chuckled. “Alright, alright. We’ll prank-”

“Help.”

“-helpfully prank Xisuma before asking voi to look into the existence of said helpful prank.” Luke amended playfully. “But if this ends up going the same way as the pumpkin and melon circle, I can and will place all blame for it solely on you.”

Mumbo’s expression became one of faux indignation. “You said you thought the circle was incredible.”

“And I still do!” Luke ducked in to kiss Mumbo’s cheek, ignoring his (unconvincing) pout. “However, I also think that no one else in the server agrees with me, and that I don’t want to be outcasted for crashing the server.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be outcasted . Made fun of, yes. Never allowed to forget it, sure. Scorned for weeks, perhaps-”

Luke rolled his eyes lightheartedly as Mumbo went on, turning to rifle through the kitchen for more glass bottles. “You’ve made your point.”

“I wanted to make it twice.” Mumbo joked, but he stopped with the spiel as Luke found what he was rummaging for and lined the bottles up next to the bucket. He began pouring the potion out, aim surprisingly good given the respective sizes of the containers. “So, who should we surprise first?”

“We’re not starting with Xisuma?”

“We’ll work our way up to him. A grand finale.”

Luke leaned back against the counter, humming in thought. “Well, our fellow Boatem co-workers are close and would probably appreciate the prank, although Grian might see it coming.”

“We could always disguise it.” Mumbo shot a glance at Luke that suggested he would be grinning if he had the mouth to do so. “Bring it to the next Boatem dinner mixed in some rabbit stew, perhaps?”

“Hasn’t that dish wounded my culinary pride enough already?”

“It’s different when you add the potion on purpose, Scar’ll tell you that.”

“You can’t trust half the stuff Scar cooks, he’s not a good frame of reference.”

Mumbo set the now empty bucket down, letting Luke cork the filled bottles and put them aside with the rest. “What would be your suggestion, then?”

The pink potions- that Luke would eventually have to name himself, he supposed- sloshed around in their bottles as Luke moved them. He watched the motion for a moment before turning back towards Mumbo. “I think we should generously gift our competitors a free sample of Boatem’s newest ware.”

Mumbo’s eyes lit up. “Octagon and Big Eyes Crew?”

“Who else?” Luke tapped the side of one of the potion bottles, sending small ripples through the liquid. “If we doctor them to look like, uh, normal potions, we could pretend they’re ‘special’ versions of them.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant. Wonderful!” Mumbo stepped over to Luke, grabbing his hands and holding them tight. “Do you know what this means, Luke?”

“We need dyes?”

“You are no longer simply a member of Boatem. You are now an official employee of Boatem incorporated!” Mumbo used his grip on Luke’s hands to start pulling him towards the house’s front door, excited. “We have to tell the others!”

“It’s the middle of the night, no one’s going to be up-”

“It’s Boatem , they’re all going to be up!”

“Good point.” Luke conceded with a laugh, allowing Mumbo to pull him out into the night. Some worry still niggled in the back of his mind regarding the existence of his seemingly unheard of sleeping potion, and even further back remained his worry from the day’s earlier events, but as Mumbo got the attention of the rest of Boatem (all of whom were indeed awake and working), Luke let himself get caught up in the excitement of the prank instead. Mumbo was happy, after all. As long as that was true, everything was fine.

~

It only took Boatem about a week to reach the ‘grand finale’ of the sleeping potion prank, and less than a day for the grand finale’s victim to confront them about it. Luke had been in the middle of very importantly glaring at dirt, overkill netherite hoe in hand, when Xisuma approached him.

“Has the ground offended you in some way?”

“No more than usual.” Luke answered with a sigh, turning towards the admin. “I don’t understand farming here.”

Xisuma tilted his head, his helmet’s gills bobbing with the motion. “It’s pretty simple. You hit the ground with your hoe and drop some seeds. Easy stuff.”

“Too easy.” Luke argued, stopping himself from going on a longer tangent about the untrustworthy nature of crops that were so easy to plant and grow when he saw the glass bottle in Xisuma’s hand. A few drops of pink-dyed-dark-red potion remained at the bottom of it. Luke grinned. “But I’m going to guess you’re not here to talk about farming.”

“Not exactly.” Xisuma agreed, slightly shaking the mostly empty bottle. “I believe Boatem may have provided me with a faulty, er, ‘strength’ potion.”

“Well you have come to the right person! I’ve recently been promoted from ‘member of Boatem’ to the head of quality assurance for the company.” Luke planted the head of his hoe on the ground, resting his chin on the propped up end of the handle. “How may I assure you of the quality of our products today?”

Through the slim gap in his visor, Luke could see Xisuma roll his eyes in amused exasperation. “Your strength potion made me fall asleep.”

“That doesn’t sound like a Boatem strength potion. No, our strength potions are quality, make you feel stronger than- uh- an iron golem.” Luke said as seriously as he could manage. “Did you perhaps purchase a different type of potion?”

“This was gifted to me, actually.” Xisuma glanced at the bottle. “Or at least, it was presented as a gift.”

“And you’re certain it was a gift from Boatem and not, perhaps, one of our competitors? None of them have quality assurance teams, these sorts of things can slip through the cracks.”

“It was hand delivered by Mumbo.” Xisuma pointed out, pausing before adding, “Is that why I’ve had comments from Doc, Tango, and Keralis about potion mishaps?”

Luke did his best to look innocent. “Because they don’t have heads of quality assurance? Yes, that would be their issue.”

“And you’re sure it’s not Boatem’s head of quality assurance that’s the cause?”

Luke’s best was apparently not very good. “Please, Xisuma, we’re professionals here. We wouldn’t tamper with our competitors’ supplies or mislead them.”

“Now you’re just lying to me.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“What’s happening here?” Both Luke and Xisuma turned in the direction of the new voice, finding Mumbo pushing a shulker into his pocket as he approached them. Luke saw the moment he noticed the bottle in Xisuma’s hand and answered his own question. “Enjoying your gift, Xisuma?”

“Not quite sure I’d call it a gift.” Xisuma tossed the glass bottle at Mumbo, who managed to catch it after it bounced between his hands a few times. “Something tells me that if I had taken that mid-fight, I would have lost.”

“I’ve been trying to assure Xisuma of our products’ quality, but for some reason he seems suspicious.”

Xisuma crossed his arms. “I passed out in the middle of the day, midway through preparations to clear out a fortress. That doesn’t just happen.”

“Even if you were really tired?”

“Nope.”

“Luke, I don’t think our customer feels very assured about the quality of his product.”

“You can say that again.” Luke agreed with a sigh, straightening up and swinging his hoe over his shoulder. “But in my defense, the issue seems to be with his trust in the company as a whole, and not a failure on the head of quality assurance’s part.”

“I know Boatem- and my hermits- too well.” Xisuma said, reminding Luke very strongly of a long-suffering babysitter. “What was it really? A triple dose of weakness?”

“About that…” Mumbo glanced towards Luke.

Luke took the obvious opening. “We’ve been calling it a potion of rest. I made it by accident while trying to make poppy tea.”

“He’s the only one who can make it. Everyone in Boatem’s given it a try to test it, but Luke’s the only one who can actually mix it into a potion.” Mumbo added. “We’re not sure what it is, but we think it might have to do with Luke’s old server.”

Xisuma’s expression shifted into one of confusion. He reached towards Mumbo, taking back the nearly empty bottle of the dyed potion and taking a closer look at it. “Potion of rest? As in, its effect is making you fall asleep?”

“Seems that way. I know there are some mod packs that have that sort of thing in them, but-”

“None of Hermitcraft’s do.” Xisuma finished for Mumbo. He looked towards Luke. “Is this something you had in your old server?”

Luke shrugged a bit helplessly. “Kind of? Poppies were used in a lot of types of soothing products, and we definitely had sleep potions, but it’s not really supposed to be as simple as mixing hot water and poppy petals.”

“Your server does seem to have a knack for complicating things.” Xisuma tapped the ground with his foot. “Seeing as you thought farming here was ‘too easy.’”

“Crops shouldn’t grow so fast- Off topic.” Luke shook his head, ignoring the bemused looks Xisuma and Mumbo were exchanging. “Do you have any ideas why this is happening? Or what’s causing it?”

“There’s a couple of possibilities.” Xisuma answered, and Luke watched the blue shine of code pop up in the admin’s visor as he spoke. “Most likely it’s just a minor code cling from your old server, in which case it’ll be pretty easy to clear off.”

Luke and Mumbo waited quietly as Xisuma worked, visor flickering as he did. The thought of the sleeping potion pranks being done so soon was a bit disappointing, but Luke was relieved that the issue sounded relatively simple. He didn’t think he’d ever fully understand exactly how ‘servers’ functioned, but he knew enough to know that irregular code wasn’t good. Especially if that code had come from his old very-much-not-a-server world.

Past the blue, Luke noticed Xisuma’s eyes narrow at whatever he was looking at. Luke quickly reverted back to not feeling relieved at all.

“Luke, the server you were in before this one was your home server, right?”

“Well it was where my home was, so… yes?”

“Home server means your very first server.” Mumbo clarified. “The one where you were born or created, and typically the one where your family or group lives.”

“Oh! Yes, the last server was my home server. And only server, before this one.” Luke amended, smiling at Mumbo in thanks before focusing his attention back on Xisuma. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“Not wrong necessarily, just… odd.”

Luke updated his mental status to extremely not relieved. “What’s odd, then?”

“In admin view, player code is organized into relevant sections. Physical attributes, statistics, that sort of thing.” Xisuma started, making a motion with his hand that didn’t add anything to the explanation other than pizzazz. “One section is a log that tracks all the past servers a player has visited, including their home server.”

“And… what does it say about mine?”

“That’s the thing. It doesn’t say anything about it. Your server log has logged no servers, aside from Hermitcraft.”

Luke blinked once, twice. “That sounds bad, Xisuma.”

“Not bad, odd.” Xisuma corrected, although Luke didn’t feel entirely reassured. “Not all information logs correctly, and hardcore worlds have the highest chances for data loss. I’m sure that’s all it is.”

“Might explain how you ended up here, too. No home server for the respawn mechanics to work off of.” Mumbo pointed out, glancing towards Luke as he did so.

Luke looked away, avoiding Mumbo’s eyes. “Maybe. Still doesn’t seem good. And we still don’t know what’s going on with me and the poppies.”

“Actually, that’s the other thing-”

“There’s another thing?”

“-I suppose you’re not aware that you have some carry-overs?”

“Explain what a carry-over is and then I’ll answer that.”

Again, Mumbo helpfully jumped in. “They’re similar to mods, but they link to specific players, not servers. They accommodate for players having different requirements than a vanilla server might account for. Like, er,” Mumbo hesitated for a moment as he thought of an example, “Jevin! Jevin has carry-overs that adjust for him being a non-hostile slime.”

“Does that mean your moustache is a carry-over?”

“I don’t think I like what you’re implying.” 

“Teasing! I’m teasing.” Luke briefly raised a hand in mock surrender before dropping it. “I think I get the idea. But, uh, I’m not really seeing how making sleeping potions could be a ‘player requirement.’ I hardly need the skill to survive.”

“It is peculiar.” Xisuma admitted. “It’s not your only carry-over either. You have rather a lot here.”

“I- I do?” Luke looked at his hands, as if they would start suddenly glowing with the power of his newly discovered pile of carry-overs. “What are they?”

“Not sure. I can’t read them.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Luke watched Mumbo’s moustache frown. “Player code is a universal language.”

“Tell that to Luke’s home server.” Xisuma quipped with a slight shrug. “Some of the language is familiar- I can see ‘poppies’, for one- but most of it is nonsense to me.”

“Do you think you’d be able to understand it, Luke?”

Luke shook his head at Mumbo’s question. “I didn’t really work with code. Even if I had, I really don’t know if what I count as ‘code’ is the same thing to you guys.”

“Trial and error it is, then.” The blue in Xisuma’s vision faded as he closed out of Luke’s player data. “Whenever you find out about anything else like the potion of rest, before you start pranking people with it, let me know about it, and I’ll make a note of it in your logs in code I can actually read.”

“Wait, but- is that safe? Just ‘wait and see?’” Luke glanced between Xisuma and Mumbo. “What if one of my mystery carry-overs conflicts with the- I don’t know- the server’s code? And crashes everything? Or glitches the- the moon?!”

Xisuma put a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “You’ve been here for a while, Luke, and this is the first time any carry-over effect has popped up. I doubt you’re carrying any break-the-server code on you, and even if you were, there’s nothing you can do on accident that would be worse than some of what your boyfriend’s done on purpose.”

“Hey!”

“The point being: the server will be fine, the moon will be fine, you will be fine. And if something goes wrong, I’ll fix it.” Xisuma patted Luke’s shoulder reassuringly before pulling back. “And speaking of fixing things, I’ve got at least two other fires that need to be put out, and a fortress that still needs to be cleared, so unless there’s anything else…?”

Luke took a slightly forceful breath before he shook his head, waving Xisuma off. “No, that’s all. Good luck with the fortress.”

“And if you want more than luck on your side, Boatem has some very lovely strength potions for sale. All natural, no dyes, no tricks!”

Xisuma laughed, tossing Mumbo the remnants of his gifted ‘strength’ potion as he stepped away, pulling fireworks out of his inventory in lieu of the bottle. “I think I’ll brew my own this time. See you!”

Luke waved goodbye until Xisuma was more a spec on the horizon than a person. His hand then dropped to pinch the bridge of his nose as he sighed. If Xisuma said everything would be fine, then it probably would be, but the thought of so many unknown ‘player requirements’ being connected to him without him even knowing about it didn’t sit right with him. The poppy tea was neutral as far as Luke was concerned, but what if there were bad attachments? What if he could get salmonella here? And Mumbo had been so close to convincing him to try their version of cake…

While Luke contemplated the many diseases he was still possibly vulnerable to, Mumbo shuffled closer to his side, nudging his shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll make the next sale.”

Luke snorted. “I don’t think Xisuma’s ever going to trust a Boatem strength potion ever again.”

“Oh, don’t let anyone hear you say that. Bad look for Boatem’s head of quality assurance.”

“Let me rephrase: Xisuma is never going to enjoy another one of Boatem’s fabulous, completely genuine, extremely quality strength potions ever again.”

“Much better.” Mumbo leaned lightly against Luke, tilting his face more towards him. “Xisuma’s been an admin for a long time. He knows what he’s talking about.”

“It sounds like Xisuma’s not seen any of this before, though. What if something happens that he doesn’t know how to deal with? Something he can’t fix?”

“Luke, love, you’re on Hermitcraft. All we do is invent new ways to break everything.” Mumbo’s eyes and moustache were equally soft as Luke shifted his head slightly to better look at him. “If one of your nonsense-code carry-overs ever does manage to crash the server, you’ll get a pat on the back from every one of the hermits while we wait for Xisuma to get it back up and running.”

“I thought you were shunned for the pumpkin and melon circle?”

“That’s because I had crashed the server enough times before to know better. But the first time’s a rite of passage.”

Despite himself, Luke laughed. “When will the hermits stop surprising me?”

“Soon as your tales of your old server stop surprising us, I’d wager.” Mumbo joked. “And speaking of things from your server and surprises-”

“Please, I only just learned what a carry-over even is five minutes ago. No more experimenting with them until at least tomorrow. For now, I want to do something simple.”

“Such as… farming?”

“Something simple that’s meant to be simple.” Luke clarified, separating from Mumbo so that he could let his hoe fall off his shoulder, opting to glare at it. “Do you really not find it suspicious at all how everything grows so quickly and perfectly without any attention?”

Chuckling, Mumbo pulled his own hoe out of one of his suit pockets, putting the potion bottle away as he did so. “It’s all very average here. It’s not like it’s all perfect. You need to make sure you have water, sunlight. And there’s always a chance for rotten potatoes.”

“But you never have to worry about too much water or too much sunlight! Or fertilizer, or weeding, or pruning! And you can get rotten potatoes, but not rotten carrots, or wheat, or seeds! All you do is hit the ground, drop some seeds, and call it good for two days before you reap your rewards!” Luke slumped, using his hoe as a crutch and ignoring Mumbo’s obvious amusement at his grievances. “Even Planter’s Sun made you wait a few weeks to collect your crops, and that was only after daily maintenance and upkeep.”

“None of that made any sense to me.” Mumbo swung his hoe at the ground, the single tap to the earth somehow causing a square with three tilled lines to form. “But if you want, you can try to explain it to me while I help you actually start planting some seeds.”

“It’s going to take a while to get through everything, you know.”

“I know. I don’t mind.” Mumbo said sweetly as he moved on to the next square of dirt, beginning to make a line of dry, tilled earth. “Besides, you never know what could turn out to be a carry-over! It might be important that I know what a, uh, planted sun is!”

Luke couldn’t help but smile. Alright, so maybe his code was fucked. Maybe he had a million terrible ‘carry-overs’ nestled into the same space his potion of rest skill was living. Maybe he’d wake up the next day and find the entire server turned upside down because, oops! guess who had just introduced the plague to Hermitcraft. Maybe farming would now always be fast and easy and terrible. His current situation was hardly what most would call ‘ideal.’

But with Xisuma’s reassurances in the back of his mind, and Mumbo’s light teasing in front of him, Luke couldn’t bring himself to feel anything other than very, very lucky.

“Alright, then. Let’s start with pruning.”

#lucky jumbo #luke carder #mumbo jumbo #xisuma #hermitcraft #inscryption #m.y funky words #hello everyone . i hath returned #hope u enjoy this tomfoolery

[sissytobitch10seconds]

Opium Lidded Daydreams

Fandom: Shadow and Bone (TV), Grishaverse: Six of Crows Summary: A lot of things have happened to him during his life, this has been one of the best. He thinks that he deserves it after all of the pain that he has had to endure. It's also where he hardens his heart to never care for others. Warnings: Trans characters, canon-typical violence and betrayal, and canon deaths Word Count: 4,628 Ship(s): Kaz Brekker & Poppy Cox

Archive link!

A/N: I very recently fell in love with the idea of Kaz being trans since he has canonically did change his name and totally reinvent himself. I really loved Poppy and the implied backstory with them as well, so I decided that I was going to write something with it! I did take the backstory more from the book than I did the show for Kaz but then things kind of veer to the middle so that I can have Poppy in there since she doesn't show up in the book. I hope that makes sense and feel free to ask me clarifying questions if it doesn't! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone &lt;3

Poppy Reitveld had many changes in her life.

The first had been long before she could remember. Her mother had been desperate for another child, her longing to care for and nurture not satisfied with their collection of animals and Poppy’s older brother. She had always been a sickly woman, so taking on a pregnancy had made her so sick that she was bedridden for a year when she conceived their first. Poppy had been informed that it was a massive sticking point for her parents, the first time that Jordie had ever seen them do anything more than tease each other. Her mother had gotten what she wanted, though, as she always had. A second child was conceived and she was just as sick the second time as she had been the first. She left Poppy with nothing more than the sunny memories of a delicate laugh and the reassuring kisses on the top of her head. She had never known what had really killed her mother, she was too young to be told at the time and there was no one to ask other than a weathered gravestone once she was. Just like that, Poppy was the daughter of only a windower and the sister of a half-orphan.

The second had been her father. She was still young when it happened, but old enough that she had far more cemented in her mind. The memories had stuck to the back of her teeth and her throat like the honey she was spoon fed when she had a cough, refusing to leave. She had been tucked away in the house and given the task of helping her brother cut the vegetables for their supper. She hadn’t been doing a very good job of it, but that was mostly because Jordie had wandered off to do whatever it was that boys at his age got up to. She had heard the shrieking and crying of someone in pain and had rushed out just in time for one of the farmhands to pick her up as though she weighed nothing. The thing that she remembered from her father’s death was the crushing weight of having to stay put, to wait until someone came to get her to tell her what had happened. Poppy remembered the blood stained ground where the seeds should have been and the burning, crackling smell of the plough as they destroyed it, thoroughly convinced it was bad luck. Just like that, Poppy an orphan and the sister of a foolish teenage boy.

The third one had led to the most pain, but only because of the slippery nature of it. She had been dressed up in the clothes that she always wore to mass, the ones that her father had assured her that her mother would have loved to see her in. Poppy hadn’t been so sure about it then, and she was definitely unsure of having to wear it again when she wasn’t being told why. She had blue ribbons woven into her hair to make her extra pretty before they were rushed through the streets of Ketterdam. Jordie had the money from selling their farm hidden away in his pocket. He had been siphoning it off for the room that they were renting and the food they needed to keep them alive. Poppy hadn’t wanted to leave the only home she had ever known, but she loved and trusted her brother, so she had gone along with it anyway. She had trusted Jordie, even after they came up the window of the house that should have been filled with people they trusted to find it completely empty. Just like that, Poppy was a penniless orphan and the sister of the most foolish boy on the streets.

The fourth was the worst thing that she had ever faced in her entire life, and with any luck it would remain that way until she peacefully died under a pile of her own gold. There had been sirens screaming through the air and coughing coming from the little nook under the stairs that they had taken refuge in after the money they had kept for their room had run out. Poppy hadn’t known what was happening when pox began to form in little welts all over her and her brother’s skin, nor had she been able to piece it out when her little body was overcome with the shaking, feverish hurt. The next thing that she could remember was the feeling of clammy, wet flash slipping over her fingertips as she tried to find purchase to locate her brother. The moment that she had found Jordie, it was clear that he wasn’t her brother anymore. Just like that, Poppy was alone and the name Reitveld had died.

The fifth was more of an abstract idea than a single event that had happened. Her body had begun to shift and change as she navigated her new life in the Barrel. Her face softened so she looked more like the sugar-coated memories of her mother instead of her brother and father. Her hips had begun to round, as well as her chest. She hadn’t been able to fit in the simple shirts that she stole from clotheslines and had to invest in not only a slip, but a corset to support herself. She hated the way that the constrictive garment fit on her, and she hated the way that she was spoken to even more. Her voice didn’t deepen the way that she had been expecting it to, which had left her uncomfortable and confused. It was more gravely than it had been before she had gotten sick, yet not in the way she had hoped. The changes were unwelcome and uncomfortable in a way that she didn’t have words to describe properly.

---

The Slat was the closest thing to a home that she had since her brother had sold the farm when she was nine. Her room was better described as a closet, but it had a bed and a basin that she could use to wash herself in private. She had a threadbare blanket and a pillow that could be better described as a stack of fabric, but they were hers. The lock on the door was shitty, so the only thing that she consistently left in her room was her spare set of clothes. Her coin pouch was always tucked next to her hip and buried beneath her skirts when she was working. She hated the skirts, but they got their purpose done when she wanted to obscure a revolver or dagger while out on the job.

Poppy had been wearing her singular pair of slacks since she hadn’t been working earlier that day. Not in the traditional sense, at least. She was almost always working on something since her mind and body wouldn’t let her rest unless she had some kind of purpose. Her purpose lately had become bettering the gang that she was involved with. While she was grateful to the Dregs and Per Haskell for keeping her off of the streets, she knew that times were changing and the old man was not. She was going to work to make the house less leaky and the gang more feared even if it killed her, not just for her but also because it would let her tear down a certain Emerald Palace that made her insides burn.

She had stopped by her room to change into something that would make her blend in more with the nightlife that she was going to be patrolling through that evening. She wasn’t looking forward to it, but she had done far more unpleasant and dehumanizing things until she was given a place within the gang. She knew that she always had the option of refusing a job if it was something she really didn’t feel like she could do. Per Haskell liked her and she could argue her way out of just about everything.

She shucked off her pants and then folded them neatly on the end of her bed. She reached down to tug on the hem of her chemise where it had bunched up underneath her corset. It reminded her of how uncomfortable she had been for the duration of her work, so she reached behind her for the bow she had tied with the laces. She undid it and then loosened the garment with well-practiced hands. Even the other women that worked for the Dregs had to help each other to get dressed the way that Poppy dressed, but the feeling of other people being in such a powerful place behind her made her stomach crawl.

She had been feeling uncomfortable with the form that her body had taken against her will since she woke up that morning. It had lessened a bit throughout the day as she had other things to take up that space in her mind, but it was always present. She half figured that she would always feel at least a little bit uncomfortable with her body and the idea of how her skin lay on top of her skeleton after everything that she had been through. Poppy hadn’t exactly grown up in the most stereotypical household, after all.

She needed more of the feminine wiles that she had long since learned to use to her advantage for the job that she was going to be on that evening. She was good at looking the part, distancing herself from the feelings that crept up from the bottom of her stomach and lodged in her throat.

Poppy carefully redid the laces on the back of her corset so that the garment was allowed to actually support her breasts instead of squishing them down so that she looked nearly flat again. She then tugged on her chemise to get it to lay properly before she grabbed the heavily pleated, full skirt from under her bed.

She undid the hook and eye on the back of the garment and then tossed it up over her head. Her arms went into the air to allow the waistband to fit over her chest before it naturally fell down to her waistline. Her nimble fingers then did the clasps up again so that it was secure around her body. She fidgeted with the waistband a little bit longer to make sure that it was seated properly and wouldn’t become uncomfortable. Then came the bodice.

The feeling of the pleats that came with shoving something as billowy as a chemise into something as tight as a bodice was one of Poppy’s least favorite when it came to clothing. It was better than wet rainwater dripping onto her skin, or the touch or another person when she wasn’t coated in layer after layer of protection, but it was still unpleasant.

She tugged the garment on over her chemise and then pulled at the delicately embroidered sleeves. When she had first started working with the Dregs she had barely anything, so she had to make all of the choices for what clothing she’d use for jobs such as her new assignment all at once. She had chosen a chemise with black work around the neck and cuffs so that it would both contrast against her white skin and bring out the darkness of her raven locks. The fact that the embroidery was also blockier in shape instead of the delicate, elegant swirl that the rest of the garments had held was merely a bonus.

She quickly did up the buttons on the front of the bodice so that it was hiding the majority of her corset and her chemise. It was fine for her to have it semi on display when she was wearing her heavy overcoat, giving mere glimpses to the people that passed her by. She hadn’t ever viewed the garment as something that was protecting what other people wanted but rather a way to change her shape and who she was entirely. She was playing a role that night though, so she had to look the part.

Her long black hair was pleated into an even braid that fell down her back as she searched for the iron pins that she had stashed underneath her bed after easily lifting them from a Mercher’s stall. Once she found them, she took the thick braid into her hair and then began to wind it around itself. She tucked the tail further into the swirl so that it wasn’t perceivable by people looking at it from behind her. She placed one of the pins into her mouth to open it before she shoved it into the bun and the hair stretching across the expanse of her head to hold it in place. She did that with all eight of her pins and then picked up the pretty flower barret that she had lifted the week after the pins. She figured that it would help the illusion that she was trying to set even if she felt apathetic at best towards such things.

She glanced her body over as she tugged her thick black gloves over her hands. She looked every bit the part that she needed to for her job, even if she was less than enthusiastic about having to do it. Her clothing was high quality fibers and weaves without being so pricey that someone would try to rob her. She didn’t need expensive makeups for the look she was going through either, the natural curves and hues of her face would do just fine.

Poppy tried to ignore the way that her stomach clenched at the thought. She had seen some of the other Dregs that looked as she did, but she was always more than they were. Her cheeks were rosier instead of having the stubble to shadow it like she so desperately wished for. Her nose was softer and her jawline blended too well into her neck. She was too soft, too delicate, not sharp and bitter like she wanted.

She was working to get there as quickly and efficiently as she could. She didn’t do anything halfway and she got what she wanted, no matter what was standing in her way. She may not have understood why the darkest part of her soul cried and begged for her to look like something that she never could, but it did and she was never one to refuse herself something like that. Power and money could buy her anything, so she harnessed her quick wit into a sharp tongue to make up for the softness of her body.

Tonight, though, the softness would give her the power that she needed.

She grasped her cane from where it had been leaning against the edge of the bed and slotted the birdhead perfectly into her palm. Her gloved fingers naturally wrapped around it and she subtly brushed her thumb along the underside of the beak in a nearly instinctual self-soothing gesture. She turned towards the door and walked out of her room, careful to lock it behind her by pulling out the tumblers after twisting them to the side. It may have seemed ridiculous to pick her own lock every time she wanted to come inside her room, but she just called it practice.

Poppy made her way down the steep stairs of the Slat until she was able to meet the man that she had been informed that she was going to be working with earlier that week when she got her orders. He was a tall Zemini man, short cropped hair and a soft yet angular face. There was a kind of in-betweenness that she wouldn’t quite let herself long for, but subconsciously knew that she wanted.

“Hello there,” the man smiled widely as he caught sight of her. His Kerch was clear and held little accent to it, but Poppy was still easily able to identify exactly where he haled from in Novyi Zem. He held his arm out for her and she begrudgingly took it. There was a reason that the bodice she had chosen had long sleeves and her chemise had even longer ones. Being a woman in a male-dominated space meant that she was more likely to be thrust into a role that required her to be touched and she didn’t want to refuse them. Taking more jobs and being easy to work with would make the boss more inclined to pass his business off to her when he finally kicked the bucket and would let her siphon away power from him while he lived.

“Good evening,” she replied curtly. She let her hand fall into the crevice of his arm but kept her body far enough away from him that they weren’t brushing up against each other. It was nice to have the excuse of a massive skirt when it came to that particular part of her job, she supposed. She would rather just not have to do it at all.

“What’s your name?” the man asked, his eyes still boring into the side of her head as they made their way out of the Slat and into the busy streets of Ketterdam. 

She huffed, the words on the edge of her tongue and yet still sounding so wrong when she said them, “You may call me Poppy.”

“Poppy’s a wonderful name,” he beamed so wide that she wanted to punch him in his mouth just to see how many teeth she could knock out.

“Then you can have it, I’ve never been particularly fond of it,” she replied, letting the poison drip from her mouth like it always did. They were still walking side by side, weaving easily through the groups of people like they were a young teenage couple on a stroll to some opera or play instead of two dangerous criminals that were going to be trying to take down a competitor for their boss.

There was a beat of silence and she heard the man take in a sharp breath before he blew it out slowly. He then said, “My name is Kaz.”

“That’s not a very Zemini name,” she replied curtly. She knew that they had to pretend to be making pleasant conversation with each other so that they could go unnoticed while trying to infiltrate the more dangerous parts of the Barrel, but she also detested it.

“I thought that it would be best to pick a Kerch name when I came here as a child,” Kaz replied. 

She turned and looked at him, scrutinizing his face for any kind of lie. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone had fed her a bunch of drivel about where they had come from or how tragic their pasts were to try and get closer to her. That was the main thing she hated about the body that she had grown into.

Instead of saying anything or trying to call him out on a bluff, she just turned her head back to the busy street and kept walking.

---

Missions came and went for Poppy, as they always had. Another change had occurred in her life, however, but this one seemed to be more pleasant than the other ones had been. Kaz was becoming a bit of a friend of hers.

She didn’t think that the other Dreg was at all suited for the life that he had fallen into. He was sweet and compassionate, and more than a little ignorant to the world around him. There had been more than one time where Poppy had to grab her dragger from where it was always hidden along her bodice so that she could protect him despite the fact that he carried a pistol on him at all times.

She hadn’t really known how to have friends before, she had been too young and too isolated on her farm when she was young enough to learn that skill. She didn’t make friends with the other Dregs because they were all far older than her and several of them had attempted to come onto her the first time that she had come out of her room dolled up. Kaz had never tried that on her, which she was eternally grateful for.

She often found herself sitting on his bed as he sang to himself, just enjoying his company. They ate together on most days and were paired up to go on missions and jobs more than they were with anyone else. They worked well together, especially when Kaz learned that Poppy didn’t like to be touched and liked being prodded about the same.

The moment of the sixth biggest change in her entire life came during one of those times. Poppy was sitting on the edge of Kaz’s bed, her head turned towards the window so that she could watch the flickering of the lamplight shining down on the passersby, people that were completely unaware of the sinisterness that ran deep within the veins of every person. She was wearing her chemise with her corset done up around her chest to push it down because she couldn’t tolerate the lump that it left when she got dressed that morning. It was the same reason that she had chosen her pants that day despite some of the work that she was told to do.

Kaz was perched on the little stool that he had for the vanity he had bought with the money he saved from working for the Dregs. Poppy didn’t understand why he would want something that expensive when he could have paid for something far more crucial to everyday life. She didn’t question him as she barely understood the minds of others outside of how to get what she wanted from them.

They were both quiet as Kaz picked at some of the little bottles of perfume that he had splayed out over the top of his vanity. “Poppy?” he asked, his eyes flickering up to meet her own in the mirror.

“Yes?” she asked. She had been speaking lower that day, which was helped by the injuries that her childhood sickness had given to her throat.

“How much do you know about Novyi Zem?” he asked, still refusing to turn and look at her.

That gave her pause. She traced her gloved fingers up and down the head of her cane for a moment as she thought about the way that she wanted to respond. Finally, she said, “I would say a fair amount.”

Kaz turned to face her finally and she almost jumped back when she saw the intensity of the emotion in his eyes. Before she had the chance to ask what was wrong with him or why he was acting the way that he was, he said, “I think that I’m a girl. It’s a very common thing in Novyi Zem but it was still going to be so hard to transition if I stayed back in my hometown because so many people had known me as I was but then I came here and it doesn’t seem like anyone is so I just changed who I was so that they wouldn’t find me. But I don’t think that I can keep going on like this. Were you serious about giving me your name?”

For some reason, the idea of switching genders had never occurred to Poppy before. It was likely because she had been too busy pickpocketing people to survive and vividly reliving the worst moments in her life every time she closed her eyes. Having the short first sentence that her friend had said spread out in front of her for the first time left her sitting on his- her, Poppy reminded herself- bed with her mouth open like an idiot.

She had apparently been too quiet for too long because Kaz stood up and bolted for the door, which she locked. Kaz almost never locked her door because she was too trusting, something Poppy had chided her for time and time again. “I’ll give you a month’s wages if you promise not to tell anyone.”

“What? Absolutely not,” she, Poppy shuddered at the reference to himself as that in his own mind. His thoughts were whirring faster than the waters that lapped at the massive stone piers of Ketterdam. Everything that had come with the discomfort of growing up and going through puberty suddenly made sense. The disgust and borderline fit that he had when Jordie had woven all of those blue ribbons into his hair to try and make him look presentable for that godforsaken meeting that ended up being their downfall. The fact that he hated touch was most likely a combined side effect of what had happened on the Reaper’s Barge and the fact that his body did not feel like his own.

The realization that he was a boy rang through his head like the morning bells, waking up a part of himself that he hadn’t even realized existed. “Will you calm down?” he snapped when Kaz was still fluttering about her small room to try and fix her perceived slight on him.

“How can I calm down when I just bared my soul for you and you’re likely going to have me killed for it?” she asked, rather melodramatically, as she sat herself back down on her stool.

“I will do no such thing,” Poppy shook his head. “I was simply realizing that being a different gender than the one that you were assigned at birth is an option for me as well. And plenty of people here are trans, it’s just something that you’re expected to keep rather hushed up. No one talks about themselves as much as you do, Kaz.”

Relief had spread over her features the more that he spoke and reassured her that she was safe with him. The moment that he said her name, she deflated and looked down at where she was worrying her hands together in front of her. “Oh, please don’t call me that,” she murmured.

“Right,” he nodded. “I was never particularly fond of my name but I certainly can’t use it now.”

“What?” she asked, tilting her head up at her friend in surprise.

“You’ve opened my eyes to something that has been staring me in the face since I was ten. I’m a boy and you’re a girl, but we have mismatched names. We should switch,” he replied simply, as if he hadn’t just discovered something that was going to affect his every waking moment from that second forward.

---

Kaz Brekker was born on that late Summer evening. The smell of rain and the perfumes that his close friend Poppy had used soaked into the memory, mixing with the euphoria of being who he was. They had constructed an elaborate hoax where they both disappeared for a while and then returned under the correct genders with the names that they preferred. There were a few people that recognized them and tried to make a stink, but they were quickly dealt with. 

Months later, Kaz would become the leader of the Dregs and then promise to buy the building that would become the Crow Club with Poppy. However, he knew that as the leader of a gang he couldn’t have someone that knew something so sensitive about him so close to him. So, despite the fact that she was his only friend, he double crossed her until he was the only owner of the Crow Club. They didn’t see each other again for a long while, until he took an incredibly risky job, but the feelings of resentment she harbored for him could only go so far since Kaz had given her her name. 

#fanfiction #fanfic #writing #ao3 #archive of our own #grishaverse #shadow and bone tv #shadow and bone #six of crows #soc #kaz brekker #poppy cox #trans kaz brekker #trans poppy cox #opium lidded daydreams fic

[poppy-purpura]

my ancient sona

#rain world #iterator logs #six poppy seeds

[peachy-panic]

Whumptober Day 2: Confrontation

Just a little thing. I didn’t want to flunk out of Whumptober completely this year. Don’t worry, a real chronological chapter is still coming (aka Jaime’s first night with Sebastian). This takes place a few weeks into the contract. Directly references the events and characters of this chapter of Sebastian’s backstory.

warnings: implied past noncon, bbu/bbu-adjacent, alcohol/alcoholism

Sebastian isn’t one for making dramatic statements––okay, that might not be precisely true––but really, he can’t help but feel like the universe is conspiring against him. As if bringing Jaime on his first grocery outing isn’t stressful enough for everyone involved, god or whatever deity is looking down at him laughing, has decided to place a familiar face directly in his line of sight the second they walk through the door.

His legs falter. Jaime, who has been trailing dutifully close behind him, collides with his back before he can yank himself back. “I’m sorry,” he hears, quick and quiet behind him, but the sound of his voice barely registers as Sebastian locks eyes with the man at the cart corral.

He hasn’t seen Ethan Blackwell since his freshman year of college, and he is every bit as beautiful as his mind stubbornly remembers him. The sight of his black curls wrangled into a loose bun at the crown of his head, the plain white tee and casual joggers, momentarily  transports Sebastian back to lazy Sunday mornings spent in a dorm bed, the taste of poppy seed bagels from the student center and the smell of coffee from the Keurig he wasn’t allowed to have.

When he snaps back to the present, it’s because–– because shit, fuck, fuck, Ethan is walking toward him. Based on the sharp intake of breath at his side, he isn’t the only one who noticed.

“It’s okay,” Sebastian hears himself say, too quietly for Ethan to hear as he approaches. “He’s not going to hurt you. I… I know him.” I used to, anyway.

“Sebastian Tate?” The sound of Ethan’s voice reverberates through his entire body. “Oh my god. What are… I mean, hi. Hello. Wow.”

“Wow,” Sebastian echoes, relieved and shocked in equal measure at how steady his voice sounds. “Ethan.”

“What are you doing here? Besides, you know, shopping.” God, even his laugh sounds exactly the same. “Do you live in Pittsburgh now?”

A part of him, the part that is braced for outrage or revulsion from his ex-boyfriend, struggles to wrap his head around Ethan’s light demeanor. He can almost believe, looking into his eyes, that he actually cares about hearing the answer.

“I do,” Sebastian says. “What about… Oh.” His memory catches up with him before he can finish the inquiry. “Your parents,” he says. “They’re from around here, right?”

“Right outside of here, yeah. I’m visiting for the weekend. What wild timing.”

Wild fucking timing indeed.

Ethan’s eyes shift over Sebastian’s shoulder. He stiffens and feels Jaime do the same. Selfishly, he is grateful that he had thought to give Jaime a scarf before they left the house, concealing the tell-tale band of metal wrapped around his throat. Sebastian forces himself to speak before Ethan can ask––or worse, assume.

“Ethan, this is my friend. J,” he says. He doesn’t think he’s imagining the slight decrease in tension at his back when he skirts past using Jaime’s real name.

“Nice to meet you.” Ethan offers out a hand to Jaime, who hesitates for only a moment before returning the gesture. Sebastian feels the surreal impact of his worlds colliding like a physical explosion.

It’s quickly concealed, and barely visible to begin with, but there is an unspoken suspicion in the way he eyes Jaime. A burst of inappropriate hysteria bubbles up inside his chest as he imagines explaining himself: “Oh no, don’t worry, Ethan. This is not my twenty-year-old boyfriend, he’s just my borrowed property for the next six months, pending approval for extension. It’s fine.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jaime echoes. And if Sebastian didn’t already have ample motivation to remove himself from this interaction as fast as possible, the strained anxiety in Jaime’s voice would more than suffice.

They exchange the usual pleasantries of  an incidental run-in: How are you? (Not great). How’s your family? (They still don’t speak to me, thanks). What are you doing for work? (I’m a doctor, please don’t press for specifics on that). And as much as Sebastian is perfectly prepared to lie through a happy little shield of contentment, he finds that, beyond his own nerves, he is actually interested in hearing Ethan’s answers. Ethan had never been anything but good to Sebastian; one of the first good things he had ever had to himself. He hopes he is being honest when he tells Sebastian that things are going well for him.

The whole thing almost goes as smoothly as a run-in with your ex-boyfriend possibly can, until the conversation takes an accidental left turn toward the point that their paths diverged, and the backend of Ethan’s sentence catches him off guard.

“...just kind of lost touch. After everything that happened with Matthew, I–”

“What?” Sebastian stops him, feeling cold down to his fingertips all of a sudden.

Ethan cocks his head, his brow dipping in the middle. “What?” he repeats.

Sebastian struggles to gain control of his tongue, then finally manages to stutter out, “You said, everything with… with Matthew.”

Ethan rolls his shoulders back, looking uncomfortable. He shoots a quick glance at Jaime and back to Sebastian. “Look, we don’t have to lay everything out right here, alright? I shouldn't have said anything. Really, it’s… It’s water under the bridge, Seb.”

“With Matthew,” Sebastian repeats, feeling like a skipping record. “I never– I told you I didn’t know his name.”

“Yeah, well, you never were very forthcoming with the details, were you?” He seems to clock his own tone and, with some effort, pull back. “I had to find out from one of my teammates after we broke up. He saw you leaving the party that night with Mathew Scott. Said you were hanging all over him.”

Matthew. Scott.

The name means nothing to him; no sudden flood of memories comes rushing back at the sound of it, no long repressed realizations suddenly illuminated. And somehow that makes it worse. Sebastian never lied about that part–– about not knowing his name. Or at least being too drunk to remember it.

Still, the parts of that night he does remember, the details that have never quite stopped burning a quiet fire in the back of his mind, come roaring to life. Sebastian sees himself colliding with the tiled floor of his dormitory lobby. He sees his hand rip a bedsheet off the corner of a mattress. He sees himself on the carpet the next morning, throwing up into a plastic bin from the dollar store in nothing but his t-shirt. He sees his reflection in the washing machine as it spins and spins and spins, and his reflection in the front glass door of the clinic.

But he can’t be there right now. He can’t be that boy in his memory, the one who slowly stopped existing out loud after that night.  

“I see,” he hears himself respond, back in the chilly entrance of the grocery store. Sebastian needs to be gone. He needs to be home right the fuck now. “Well, um. It was really nice running into you, Ethan. I’m glad you’re well. I need to… I have somewhere to be.”

“Sebastian, wait. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“No.” He forces a smile that he can only imagine comes off as borderline maniacal. “Really, it’s okay. It was good to see you.”

He just barely keeps himself from touching Jaime, pulling back at the last minute before cupping a hand on his shoulder, but Jaime follows after him anyway.

Blessedly, Jaime says nothing about the lack of groceries once they load into the car. Neither of them says anything at all. This, Sebastian thinks, is what delivery is for anyway.

--

Jaime stands at the edge of the living room, wringing his hands.

Sebastian hasn’t moved from his spot on the couch, his head buried in his hands, and he doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what happened during that conversation with the man in the grocery store that made Sebastian retreat into himself, but he hasn’t been able to reach him since.

He had fumbled his way through ordering pizza as soon as they got home, then gave an abbreviated version of his usual encouragement for Jaime to do whatever he’d like around the house. But his mind had clearly been elsewhere.

At first, Jaime’s instincts screamed at him to make himself scarce. He tried that for a while, holing himself up in his bedroom (not locking the door, never locking the door) so that he wouldn’t be in the way. But when he crossed the hall to use the bathroom, he got a glimpse of Sebastian in his current position and couldn’t swallow the fear that he was handling this all wrong.

Jaime needs to do something. He needs to make this better.

He goes to the kitchen. The bottle of vodka stares back at him from the top of the fridge. Jaime isn’t oblivious; he knows he didn’t do a great job of concealing his nerves around Sebastian when he drank in the first few nights of the contract, and he suspects the decrease in alcohol consumption in the past couple of weeks has everything to do with his reaction. Which is hardly fair, because Sebastian isn’t Mr. Torley, and Sebastian has never tried to hurt him when he drinks, and this is Sebastian’s house. If this is what helps him feel calm, Jaime’s feelings should not factor into his decision to stop.

The bottle cap twists under his fingers before he can let himself second guess. He retrieves a small glass from the cabinet and fills it halfway, exactly the way he watched Sebastian do on his first night. He forces himself to take a breath, and then another, before he turns and crosses back into the living room.

He hesitates when he reaches the rug, toes curling and uncurling subconsciously in the plush fibers. “Sebastian?” he says quietly.

His head snaps up as if Jaime had shouted. “Oh. Hey,” he says, eyes bloodshot and shifting around the room as if he is coming out of a dream. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in. Are you… Is everything okay?”

Jaime nods, unnerved by this version of Sebastian he has never seen before. He switches the glass to his other hand, then steps forward and holds it out.

“Oh,” Sebastian says again. He stares at the cup for a long time, then back up at Jaime. “This is for me?” he asks, sounding even more uncertain than before.

Jaime nods again.

Slowly, Sebastian reaches forward, but as their hands overlap on the glass, he catches his eyes. “Jaime,” he says softly. “You know… I know we talked about it, but you know you don’t have to bring me things like this, right? You don’t have to…”

“Serve you,” Jaime finishes for him, echoing the sentiment Sebastian had repeated over and over. “I know.” And he does know. He does. “You seemed upset. I wanted to help.”

The corner of Sebastian’s mouth twitches, and his eyes soften. He takes the glass fully from Jaime and settles between his hands.

“Thank you, Jaime. That’s...” He stops, clears his throat. “That’s very thoughtful. I’m okay, though, I promise. I’ll be okay.”

He does his best to return Sebastian’s smile, but it falls short. Jaime is intimately familiar with the sort of false promise Sebastian is offering him now. He’s told it to himself enough times to see through it.

—

@whumpervescence @shiningstarofwinter @distinctlywhumpthing @whumptywhumpdump @nicolepascaline @anotherbluntpencil @hold-him-down @crystalquartzwhump @maracujatangerine @batfacedliar-yetagain @thecyrulik @finder-of-rings @melancholy-in-the-morning @insaneinthepaingame @skyhawkwolf @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @mylifeisonthebookshelf @dont-touch-my-soup @whump-world @inpainandsuffering @cicatrix-energy @quietly-by-myself @whumpsday @extemporary-whump @the-whumpers-grimm @thebirdsofgay

#whumptober 2022 #no. 2 #confrontation #oc #fic #Do No Harm: Jaime & Sebastian #implied/referenced noncon #alcohol tw #running into people you dont want to see in the grocery store #BBU #like bbu adjacent? #listen #nobody wants this but me and thats ok #this is for me #~write for yourself~ they say #look im trying

[obeymebutnotlikethat]

Once the bullet pulled you close

American glories faded beneath poppy seeds

Their crackling, invasive, stubborn birth

Sucess breeds profit, so,

wreckage remains untouched.

The bullet remains tucked in your heart, throbbing, beating in rhythm,

A solemn dance into eternity

they'd carve this your grave, your succumbing.

Someone loss without dignity, body snatched from this good life,

Yet, for this moment you are here.

Stubborn root, a song reaching the crescendo

the bullet tugs you away

Warm light floods six feet below rubble,

Oxygen pulls itself from your dwellings

This is your place now. Nothing can take you.

Nothing can touch you as you breathe.

.

It is still yours

Not yet given

To the Earth, the Lord, your benevolent God,

There is homage not decadents to this

#writing #poetry #war #poem #original poem

[mariacallous]

I have always been Team Bialy. Not to say I won’t eat a bagel, but if there is a choice between a morning bagel or a morning bialy, I am choosing that round carb filled with onions and poppy seeds.

Bialys, like bagels, come from Poland. Bialy is actually short for Bialystoker Kuchen (German) or Byalestoker kukhn (Yiddish), both meaning “bread from Bialystok, Poland.” But the two have some key differences. For starters, bagels are boiled and then baked, whereas bialys are just baked. Bialys have a much softer texture than bagels, and instead of a hole in the middle, they are filled with their signature onions and poppy seeds.

“At the beginning of the 20th century, bialys were a staple of the city and region,” writes Caleb Guedes-Reed for The Nosher. “They were most often served with butter or soft cheese but were also served with herring and, occasionally, with halvah. For the wealthy, kuchen was a part of the meal, while, for the poor, it was the meal.”

Jewish immigrants in New York began baking bialys sometime around 1920. Kossar’s, a bakery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, has been producing bialys for 85 years and is one of the institutions most closely associated with bialys today. But the inspiration for these bialy bourekas came not from the Lower East Side, but from Tel Aviv. My colleague Rachel Myerson spotted onion-and-poppy-seed bourekas earlier this year at Hama’afia bakery, a small chain in Tel Aviv. I love when culinary traditions collide, resulting in something that is both new and old, fresh yet nostalgic.

These pockets aren’t complicated to make, since they use store-bought puff pastry. While chopping five onions does take some time and patience, the filling can be prepared ahead of time. I like to chop onions while listening to a good podcast or binge-watching my favorite show.

You can shape these bourekas any way you like, though I did try to recreate the bakery version. This recipe makes six large bourekas, but you can fold the pastry into smaller triangles if you want smaller portions.

Notes:

You can make the filling (see Direction 1) a few hours, or even 1-2 days, ahead of time.

Frozen puff pastry should be thawed in the fridge for a couple of hours before using.

Tools that would be helpful to make this dish include:

a vegetable chopper (for chopping all those onions!)

a silicone rolling mat to use as a work surface

a rolling pin for rolling out the puff pastry

a pastry brush for the egg wash

and a pizza cutter for cutting the dough.

[askvladdraculatepes]

*pours a large jug of poppy seeds on the floor* ... oops

"...Oh boy, here we go. I'll try to help clean it up, but it may... Take a while. Let's see... One, two, three, four, five, six, seven..."

#castlevania roleplay #ask vlad dracula tepes #ask dracula #ask blog #dracula #castlevania dracula #vlad dracula tepes #castlevania rp #castlevania askblog #castlevania netflix #castlevania