#cocoa trees

[thunderstruck9]

Marc Padeu (Cameroonian, 1990), A l’ombre des cacaoyers [In the Shade of Cocoa Trees], 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 200 × 220 cm.

[readtheuniverse]

[iheartchristmas13]

In the mood to bake gingerbread and drink hot cocoa 🍪🎄

[sprinkles-stims]

christmas cookies and hot cocoa !

[glitteringstardust]

🎄 little debbie christmas tree hot chocolate bombs by the.baking.experiment

[from-the-gray-spaces]

Dark Christmas ♥️

[kacievvbbbb]

Just one of the many great tragedies of Mishanks' relationship is that sometimes Shanks wants to feel wanted just as he is, that even beyond the strength he is worth the effort he is worth being loved and unfortunately that just isn't something Mihawk can offer him it's just not something he can do, not as he is now at least. That's a level of emotional maturity that he just does not possess to be able to disentangle the strength from the man that makes no sense to him. Strength is all there is. Shanks is a person, has a life outside of his strength, his power is just another aspect of who he is but for Mihawk strength is his whole person, if he is not strong then he is nothing. If shanks is not strong well then....he's nothing to him.

And God that's a lonely way to live.

[pushing500]

Ivy's idea of diplomatic conversation is... unusual, but it seems to be working. Keep up the good work, Ivy.

Mechi isn't quite as diplomatic, but to be fair, Muscat started it. These wretched Empire folks don't believe in android rights, and they're quite rude to Alistair and Cora, which nobody at Château de Amitié is going to stand for. Especially not Mechi, who won this fight easily.

I don't understand how anybody could be rude to this good boi <3

Also, in brighter news, Mechi now has a Grand Meditation Throne! We could get him to Baron rank now if we wanted, but we're going to wait until Kwahu has a proper throne as well. We do need to wait for the cooldown on our "call gold drop" ability from The Empire, though, as we're still a bit short of supplies to actually build the second throne.

Ah well. Hopefully soon.

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[dfastback68]

Here’s some more post-canon Mihawk’s Home for Displaced Pirates, which continues to be very funny to me, except this time not from the POV of a Displaced Pirate. Now that I’ve got a boyfriend for King, I can throw in Katakuri. If I write more of this (as in, King and Katakuri actually interacting lmao) maybe I can consider it a whole fic and post it on AO3. Until then, please enjoy Katakuri getting flustered by the most beautiful man he’s ever seen under the cut 😊

—

Having been born and raised in the New World, Katakuri hasn’t spent much time in Paradise, or any of the other four seas. He’s certainly made it his business to understand the geography of the rest of the world, and this has served him well in the years since he took stewardship of Totto Land. What the now-defunct World Government once considered a lawless operation is now the largest global exporter of flour and grain. They’d had the infrastructure; once Mama’s appetite was out of the equation, they were well primed to fill a considerable vacuum in world trade.

Not that it had been an entirely seamless transition. Their territories had suffered not just attacks from other pirates and the Navy, but significant flooding as well. Komugi had come out unscathed, but the smaller, low lying islands were not as lucky. Cacao Island took near catastrophic damage, and they lost almost all of their cocoa crop. What survived continues to struggle, and a number of rare strains are lost to them. They may be able to recover or replicate some of them, but the fruition of that process won’t happen in his lifetime.

Still, laying down the groundwork for full recovery is half of his job, and he takes it seriously. Despite the losses, there is some hope thanks to the meticulous record keeping of his brother, Mont-d’Or. Because of that, he’s been able to track down numerous exports and trades over the decades. There’s a particular type of cocoa tree they lost to the flooding, and their records show six of them were purchased and transported out of their territory within the last decade.

The actual receipt was harder to find, but ultimately he found the customer: Dracule Mihawk, located on Kuraigana Island. It’s lucky enough that Hawkeyes still lives there, moreso that he confirmed the trees are intact, and a mercy that he’s agreed to let Katakuri even come look at them. He hadn’t sounded thrilled about the entire affair, but Katakuri thinks that’s just how he normally sounds.

Kuraigana is a gloomy, dark island that fits the general aesthetic and demeanor of Hawkeyes. Katakuri understands the original kingdom here fell to ruin, and Hawkeyes had simply taken up roost. Now the castle grounds are meticulously kept, and the surrounding land is dense pine forests and freshwater lakes. The rest is sprawling farmland, both food and botanicals, tended by a curious army of monkeys.

He’s impressed. It takes a lot of work to achieve this sort of operation. Given the misty, cloudy nature of the island, there’s a lot to take into consideration to get anything to bloom around here.

The cocoa trees are in good company, though, growing in the dappled shade of towering oak trees. They’re mature, but Kakakuri still has to bend to one knee to inspect them. The leaves are vibrant and healthy, and the earth is rich and loomy, perfect for their roots. Hawkeyes, who barely comes up to his knees when he’s standing, is next to him.

“I can pay,�� Katakuri says. “Extraction, transport and delivery.”

Mihawk frowns. “I was unaware you wanted the entire tree.”

Katakuri sighs. “We’re not going to get a lot of production out of just six trees. Back home, we can clone and reproduce them. Replenish the strain.”

“I understand that,” Mihawk says. “But they’re not mine to trade away. You’ll have to speak with Perona.”

This surprises Katakuri. He’d assumed everything here was under the purview of Mihawk himself. He’s not familiar with Perona’s name.

They walk back towards the castle. He keeps his pace slow to match Mihawk’s, which gives him time to admire the scenery. Everything about this place has been restored beautifully; cobblestone walkways, brick archways and wrought iron gates and trellises heavy with blooming vines. In the context of the island’s inherent gloom and mist, it makes for a very serene, peaceful landscape.

His pace slows when they pass an adjacent courtyard. Through the stone moon gate is a garden full of every color and variety of hydrangea, every one of them in full bloom. The enormous blossoms create a riot of pastels and whites and greens, woven around statuary and a bubbling water feature. Katakuri stops dead in his tracks when among all that beauty sits an angel.

He isn’t an angel, of course, but Katakuri knows who it is: King the Wildfire, once right hand man to Kaido and a rival to his own position among pirate crews. Katakuri has never seen him unmasked in person. After Kaido’s fall and King’s escape from the World Government, his bounty had been reissued and doubled, if only because the thought of a lunarian on the loose has been an affront to the Navy. His new bounty had been blurry, poorly angled, but obvious enough.

The picture didn’t do him justice at all. He’s stunningly handsome, the picture of masculine beauty even while he just sits there, head bent slightly as he reads from the book in his lap. He’s traded in the studded and spiked leather for jeans and breezy, cream colored shirt that’s open down nearly to his navel. It’s a perfect contrast against his dark skin, same as his white hair, which falls in a long braid over one shoulder. His wings are tucked close, black feathers glossy, nearly iridescent, though the right one is half gone.

King pauses halfway through turning the page of his book and looks up, red eyes landing directly on Katakuri, who immediately loses his nerve. Face blazing as he ducks his chin deeper into his scarf, he hurries to leave, catching up to Mihawk in only a few long strides. He can feel King’s piercing gaze on him until he’s out of his line of sight. His heart is pounding.

Mihawk doesn’t appear to have noticed anything amiss, but he does say: “I assume you recall the rules about fighting here?”

“I have no quarrel with him,” Katakuri says, a little too quickly. Mihawk has misunderstood his staring, which is a relief.

“Perona will be back later tonight. In time for dinner, at least,” Mihawk continues. “You’re welcome to join us.”

He hadn’t wanted to spend more than a day here, but he also hadn’t planned on needing to negotiate with anyone except Mihawk himself.

When he hesitates, Mihawk arches one brow, and says: “Alber will be there.”

Alber. Of course King isn’t his real name. And if that’s his given name, given so freely by Mihawk, what else can be learned about such an enigmatic figure? It’s likely the only chance he’ll ever get. He’s not even thinking about the cocoa trees anymore.

A bit belatedly, he also realizes Mihawk had not misunderstood his staring at all. He feels his face burn hot again. He should have known. Their mastery of Observation Haki might manifest differently, but they weren’t considered the best for nothing.

“If it’s no trouble,” he says, regretting it almost immediately. Agreeing to dinner is the same as eating in front of strangers, something he’s spent most of his life carefully avoiding. He’s not sure how he’ll pull it off without offending the host.

”None whatsoever,” Mihawk says. They stop at the doors. “Feel free to explore the grounds. Don’t mind the ghosts.”

Hawkeyes disappears inside before Katakuri can ask: what ghosts? Then he decides it’s probably a joke, judging by the look of this place. Given free reign, he looks back towards where the courtyard is, frozen to the spot with indecision. Eventually, he heads back towards the docks, to let the crew know they’ll be staying the night, at the very least.

He has no idea if he’ll leave with the trees by this time tomorrow, or any kind of agreement. It should be the first and only thing on his mind.

Instead, as he walks the path down to the docks, shiny cobblestone bordered by blooming rows of lavender, his thoughts circle back to a lunarian surrounded by hydrangeas.

[lindseymcdonaldseyelashes]

Leverage 4x8- "The Boiler Room Job"

[nmasnest]

smells like summer ☀️🌴

[vegan-nom-noms]

Vegan Peppermint Hot Chocolate

[pumpkablog]

❄️WINTER PUMPKABOO WONDERLAND❄️

Here’s all of the seasonal Pumpkaboos I’ve drawn this month together! Which one is your favorite?

(I’m looking into turning these into stickers, please let me know if that’s something you are interested in!)

[paopu-kiddo]

Nook-kid’s prompts: 5. Favorite season

☕️🍪❄️🌨️

[cozyautumnhalloween]

[from-the-gray-spaces]

13 days until Christmas