#On the Edge of Extinction | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

reasonsforhope · 3 months

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"Many people know about the Yellowstone wolf miracle. After wolves were reintroduced to the national park in the mid-1990s, streamside bushes that had been grazed to stubble by out-of-control elk populations started bouncing back. Streambank erosion decreased. Creatures such as songbirds that favor greenery along creeks returned. Nearby aspens flourished.

While there is debate about how much of this stemmed from the wolves shrinking the elk population and how much was a subtle shift in elk behavior, the overall change was dramatic. People were captivated by the idea that a single charismatic predator’s return could ripple through an entire ecosystem. The result was trumpeted in publications such as National Geographic.

But have you heard about the sea otters and the salt marshes? Probably not.

It turns out these sleek coastal mammals, hunted nearly to extinction for their plush pelts, can play a wolf-like role in rapidly disappearing salt marshes, according to new research. The findings highlight the transformative power of a top predator, and the potential ecosystem benefits from their return.

“It begs the question: In how many other ecosystems worldwide could the reintroduction of a former top predator yield similar benefits?” said Brian Silliman, a Duke University ecologist involved in the research.

The work focused on Elk Slough, a tidal estuary at the edge of California’s Monterey Bay. The salt marsh lining the slough’s banks has been shrinking for decades. Between 1956 and 2003, the area lost 50% of its salt marshes.

Such tidal marshes are critical to keeping shorelines from eroding into the sea, and they are in decline around the world. The damage is often blamed on a combination of human’s altering coastal water flows, rising seas and nutrient pollution that weakens the roots of marsh plants.

But in Elk Slough, a return of sea otters hinted that their earlier disappearance might have been a factor as well. As many as 300,000 sea otters once swam in the coastal waters of western North America, from Baja California north to the Aleutian Islands. But a fur trade begun by Europeans in the 1700s nearly wiped out the animals, reducing their numbers to just a few thousand by the early 1900s. Southern sea otters, which lived on the California coast, were thought to be extinct until a handful were found in the early 1900s.

In the late 1900s, conservation organizations and government agencies embarked on an effort to revive the southern sea otters, which remain protected under the Endangered Species Act. In Monterey Bay, the Monterey Bay Aquarium selected Elk Slough as a prime place to release orphaned young sea otters taken in by the aquarium.

As the otter numbers grew, the dynamics within the salt marsh changed. Between 2008 and 2018, erosion of tidal creeks in the estuary fell by around 70% as otter numbers recovered from just 11 animals to nearly 120 following a population crash tied to an intense El Niño climate cycle.

While suggestive, those results are hardly bulletproof evidence of a link between otters and erosion. Nor does it explain how that might work.

To get a more detailed picture, the researchers visited 5 small tidal creeks feeding into the main slough. At each one, they enclosed some of the marsh with fencing to keep out otters, while other spots were left open. Over three years, they monitored the diverging fates of the different patches.

The results showed that otter presence made a dramatic difference in the condition of the marsh. They also helped illuminate why this was happening. It comes down to the otters’ appetite for small burrowing crabs that live in the marsh.

Adult otters need to eat around 25% of their body weight every day to endure the cold Pacific Ocean waters, the equivalent of 20 to 25 pounds. And crabs are one of their favorite meals. After three years, crab densities were 68% higher in fenced areas beyond the reach of otters. The number of crab burrows was also higher. At the same time, marsh grasses inside the fences fared worse, with 48% less mass of leaves and stems and 15% less root mass, a critical feature for capturing sediment that could otherwise wash away, the scientists reported in late January in Nature.

The results point to the crabs as a culprit in the decline of the marshes, as they excavate their holes and feed on the plant roots. It also shows the returning otters’ potential as a marsh savior, even in the face of rising sea levels and continued pollution. In tidal creeks with high numbers of otters, creek erosion was just 5 centimeters per year, 69% lower than in creeks with fewer otters and a far cry from earlier erosion of as much as 30 centimeters per year.

“The return of the sea otters didn’t reverse the losses, but it did slow them to a point that these systems could restabilize despite all the other pressures they are subject to,” said Brent Hughes, a biology professor at Sonoma State University and former postdoctoral researcher in Silliman’s Duke lab.

The findings raise the question of whether other coastal ecosystems might benefit from a return of top predators. The scientists note that a number of these places were once filled with such toothy creatures as bears, crocodiles, sharks, wolves, lions and dolphins. Sea otters are still largely absent along much of the West Coast.

As people wrestle to hold back the seas and revive their ailing coasts, a predator revival could offer relatively cheap and effective assistance. “It would cost millions of dollars for humans to rebuild these creek banks and restore these marshes,” Silliman said of Elk Slough. “The sea otters are stabilizing them for free in exchange for an all-you-can-eat crab feast.”"

-via Anthropocene Magazine, February 7, 2024

#otters #sea otters #conservation #erosion #coastal erosion #coastline #marshes #saltwater #marine science #marine biology #marine animals #sea creatures #ocean #sustainability #soil erosion #erosion control #crab #good news #hope

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thewinchestah · 3 months

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"PREY" - Alastor x reader fic

Pairing: Alastor x Fem!Reader

Tags: One-Shot, 18+, Smut, NSFW, edging, begging, overstimulation, Alastor does what he wants, there's plot if you squint really hard, alastor in heat, breeding kink, degradation kink, praise kink,

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel

Word Count: i lost count. it's big.

| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

A/N: Helloooooo!!! I write a lot but i never publish it! My lovely friend and also biggest inspiration for this fic @smallershorteranduncut ordered me to post this and i'm nothing but her loyal servent! I hope you guys enjoy the fruits of me writing 10 google docs pages today while i was enraged. Also english isn't my first language, no beta we die like men here yadayayfayada! enjoy <;3 (UPDATE!) Part 2 is now up!

Everything about the Radio Demon seemed to be designed to make you desire him, want him. Many times in ways you weren’t even ready to admit to yourself. You haven’t been in Hell long, that’s true. But ever since you manifested here you felt like someone had picked your brain open to make Alastor the perfect bait to lure you into even more sinful, sinister paths.

He had an inexplicable magnetism around him, a piercing presence that made your eyes stuck on him when he worked a room. He had you bewitched and you hadn’t share more than polite pleasantries with each other since you became a guest at the hotel.

Today, again, you were transfixed in his gaze. Sitting in the corner of the hotel lobby, trying to make your embarrassing attraction to him go unnoticed while Alastor waltzed across the room explaining more of his wicked plans to Charlie. God, how you wish he had his wicked way with you.

He seemed more… on edge today. His red eyes glowed a little brighter, his nostrils flared a bit more, static filling the room more often, he was smiling with almost barred teeth, and everyone seemed to be avoiding him. Even Charlie was trying to politely dismiss him, the general feeling of uneasiness inside the hotel just growing larger when Angel stationed himself near your little corner of the room.

“Don’t go near that creepy motherfucker today, he’s about to lose it.” Angel alerted, almost whispering, a pair of his hands making the “crazy sign” near his head

“Isn’t he always creepy and about to lose it?” Husk added, staring at the exchange between the radio demon and Charlie.

“I’m telling you toots, I know that guy definitely isn't normal, but today he is borderline a mass extinction event. I swear, he’s just waiting for someone to give him the excuse” Angel replied, confirming your suspicions. Something was off.

“Uh. Well, about that, I think it’s time we rescue Charlie”

As if on cue Charlie turned to the corner of the room, gesticulating really hard to be taken away from the small commotion her conversation with Alastor was becoming.

“Hey Charlie, do you remember that thing with the hotel’s… personalized stationery you asked me to help you today? Let’s do it!” Said angel gently guiding Charlie away from the Radio Demon.

“Guess that’s my cue Alastor! Greaaaaat chat! As always! Have a nice day!! Byeee!” Charlie’s overly chirpy tone giving away her uneasiness.

Suddenly it felt like all the air was taken out of the room. Alastor’s neck turned into an ungodly angle, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Static grew around the group, almost suffocating. As your vision went blurry from the sheer power that was being evoked, you contemplated if there was another afterlife. Preferably one where you didn’t inherit a death wish from your previous ones.

And as quick as it started, it was over.

Alastor just said a creepy “hm” turned on his hell, and walked away.

It almost felt like it was all in your head, but your friends standing perfectly still and dead silent next to you gave the reality of the situation away: everyone just had a near death-death experience. Maybe it would be a good topic for Charlie’s bonding exercises, who knows with this place.

“I told ya’ll. Mass. Extinction. Event. Stay out the psycho’s way”

Angel’s voice became background noise in your head, your eyes focusing on the spot where Alastor just threatened everybody’s life without saying a word. As the voices dissipated around you and normalcy slowly returned to the hotel, your mind sank deeper and deeper into the mystery that was the Radio Demon.

They were so oblivious, so naive. Thinking he wasn’t listening what they said about him behind his back. Thinking he was unaware of him being the topic of the discussion when he wasn’t looking. He could bathe in the smell of their fear, and he was relishing it.

Alastor stared at the new pretty little thing that arrived at the hotel. Oh how pathetically sweet and innocent she was, thinking she was being subtle about her infatuation with him. Thinking she could hide her interest in him, when she was nothing but a doe caught in the headlights of his eyes. Oh, she was just the perfect prey for him, wrapped in this lovely red bow she wore on her hair.

Angel was right, he was just waiting for an excuse, and she just offered him one on a silver platter. And alastor was everything but a coward.

You cursed a little bit louder than you intended when you saw the blood dripping from your finger. “Stop. making. a. spectacle. of. yourself” you mentally screamed. You still could not figure Charlie’s “special stationary stapler” out, so stapling your finger was bound to happen.

Even though it was not much, the silly little cut was stinging like a bitch, and your best efforts to stop the bleeding were futile, considering the mess on the hem of your skirt. Still high on the adrenaline from earlier, your shaking hands searched for something, anything to put on your finger so you could continue your work without anyone noticing. Everyone already had enough for one day, it was fine.

“My dear, did you just hurt yourself?” Alastor’s voice invaded your ears. Oh, fuck. That’s it, he was going to murder you for being so incompetent with the damned stapler.

Turning to face him, you meet his piercing gaze, not sure if you should run and scream for help. “Oh no worries alastor, it’s just a small cut, i can manage!” you give him your most confident smile.

Alastor’s head tilts, eyes burning red as he watches the small droplets of your blood make their way down your index finger.

“Nonsense, I can't have my staff running around with injuries and bloodied clothes. We are in hell, but we are not savages, dear” He seems transfixed by the blood, and you are too scared to move, too scared to anything other than hold the weight of his gaze and hope for the best. Your lizard brain is screaming for you to run, ask for help. Maybe Charlie isn’t too far away, could you make a run for it? Somehow your survival instincts override your brain, maybe all those hours watching true crime back on earth weren’t in vain, and you decide against running. Let him initiate first.

He catches your wrist, trapping it inside his deadly claws. His face, towering over you, comes all the way down to inspect the offending finger. You can feel his breathing on your skin.

Your breathing stops. You swallow an imaginary lump. He’s gonna bite off your fing-

“Would you be a doll and let me take care of it? Blood being unnecessary wasted truly abhors me”

You must have said yes at some point, you don’t really remember, now you are holding the red handkerchief he handed you, answering his request to “please follow him”. Trailing behind the Radio Demon, both of you walk through the large corridors.

This might be the time to scream for help. the voices inside your head warn. With every step of his feet you hear his microphone going tsk tsk tsk where it touches the ground. You are walking the death row, the paintings on the wall chanting “dead woman walking, dead woman walking”.

“Keep pressuring the wound darling, we are almost there” he gently commands you, too gently… it feels almost… soft, pleading. The way Alastor goes from 0 to 100 is giving you whiplash.

He slows down, reaching for the door knob of an unknown room. Ever the gentleman, he gestures for you to enter first.

the door locks behind you.

if i’m being murdered, at least i’m being murdered with class.

“Don’t be silly, I’m not going to murder you” Alastor says, almost singing the last part of the sentence.

“Oh fuck, i said that out loud, didn’t I?” you blurted out

“Yes you did. And yes, I also noticed your lovely doe eyes on me every time i’m in the room”

Your brain short circuits. That 's it. You are dead. He’s not going to murder you (apparently), but you are going to die of embarrassment. It will feel like murder. He knows, fuck, he knows. He knows about your crush (?) and he’s going to drag you for it. You are going to be so dragged the angels will pity you and bring you to heaven. A creative way to be redeemed, Charlie should know about this. Your thoughts are going downhill as a big snowball, there are too many of them and you can’t follow a single coherent train of thought. You don’t even want to know how you look in the middle of this. You must look pathetic, truly like a doe caught in headlights. And then you hear your name once.

Twice now, in a sing-song voice.

Your eyes fly open towards the sound, breaking from the anxiety induced spell as you realize the Radio Demon had just called you, by name. He knows your name???

“Ah hahah! You’re back.” Alastor says, as he starts to circle you like a predator. Your eyes, as always, follow his across the room.

“I don’t like to repeat myself, little doe. You heard what I asked?”

Again, you don’t really remember answering, your brain is going AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA as you watch him pace around you, eyes burning red, demanding your attention. Teeth slightly barred, voice on the edge of something. Was that “X” on his forehead always there?

“I asked if you know what you are doing to me” static fills the room as he finishes speaking. Alastor’s clawed hand trapped your bloodied finger dangerously close to his grinning lips. Your brain is doing flips as he stares deep into your soul, and when your thoughts land you make the connection. Alastor is horny. Alastor is horny for y-

“You see, little doe, I know what your eyes hide when you desperately lower them everytime I come near you. I know how you feel you can hide in plain sight if you stay quiet enough. But I can taste it. Your fear. Your lust. In the air. In your blood.” He has a white knuckled grip on your wrist now, same with his microphone. You lower your guard, eyes going from startled to lustful. “Good thing right now there’s nothing more i want in this godforsaken pit than your lust, pet”

You want this. There’s no point in lying to yourself. You want Alastor to fuck you. You’ve fantasized about the Radio Demon taking you more times than you can count. More times than you would like to admit to yourself. This feels deeply wrong, but you crave it.

Fuck it, you are in hell, there’s nothing to lose. Alastor is still watching you, impatiently. For the first time today you realize you actually forgot to say something. He’s waiting. Alastor is waiting for your permission.

“Take my breath away, Alastor”

Your permission might have been really loud, it felt like you were screaming the words. But you can’t be sure, it might have been a whisper. Either way he didn’t miss it, what happens next is fast, angry and delicious.

Alastor pounces and licks the blood on your finger, something clicks inside him as he tastes the red liquid, because he lets go of his microphone instantly and his arms grab your waist aggressively, so forceful you wouldn’t be surprised if it breaks skin. You shouldn’t be so turned on by this, by the sight of a psychopathic demon drinking your blood. But you are, and there’s no going back.

“Strip” he orders. You want to say to him that you can’t take your clothes off your person with him holding you like this. He must have realized the conundrum: if he wants you naked, he has to let go of you. To Alastor, letting go of you right now is simply unthinkable. So he doesn’t: you feel his claws cut the bodice of your dress open, sending the most delicious shivers down your spine. Another claw rips your skirt apart, and you are almost fully naked in the Radio Demon’s arms, pressing your body hard on his still impeccable dressed body.

It’s humiliating, it’s dangerous, it’s hot, it is delicious, to be at his complete mercy, just how you always wanted.

Somehow both of you made your way close to the enormous bed in the middle of the room. Alastor cornered you, so the only way you could escape was walking backwards towards the bed. The brilliant bastard.

You feel your calves hitting the edge of the bed, and Alastor breaks away.

Pity, your mind complains. Get him back to touching you again. right. now,.

“Now now, we should establish some rules for this, pet” Alastor’s hands might have stopped touching you, but his piercing eyes never did. He knocks you on top of the bed, you lay there sprawled open just for him. His hands move up to do a quick work of his bowtie

“Rule one: you will take what I give you. Nothing more, nothing less. What I give you is enough. You might feel like you can’t take anymore, but you can. You will take it, I will make you take it” He takes his tailcoat off, his frame towering over you, even with your body completely flat on the mattress and his in front of it.

“ Rule two: every ounce of your pleasure is mine and mine only. Mine to give, mine to take. And you will give me everything. I want to hear every sound, to feel every touch, to know every nasty thought that runs inside that pretty little head of yours. You will not suppress anything, I wanna hear your moans when you make a mess of yourself as I take everything I desire from your delicious body. I will relish on your desperate screams of pleasure.Nothing outside these walls matter” He is climbing on the bed now. You hold the weight of his gaze, underneath your demonic lover’s eyes your skin burns.

“Rule three: don’t you dare cum without my permission, good girls earn their orgasms and you will be a good girl. Or else…” static starts to pick up around the room, you are seeing the blackest black that ever was, his shadows enveloping you both. Nothing outside these walls matter. “Understood?” Alastor says as he pins your hands on top of your head, against the fancy headboard. His hand cups one of your boobs and he is worrying your nipple between his sharp claws. finally finally, your mind sings. You feel a surge of magic binding your wrists in green chains, attached to the headboard. It’s overbearing, it’s ridiculous. His magic feels like him, another part of him for you to take.

He pinches your nipple particularly hard and you moan softly, pleasure and pain consuming any other sensation. You forgot to answer him, you realize. You’ve barely started and you are already being bad. “yes alastor, yes.. but please don’t stop” the soft whimper leaves your lips.

“lovely.” he replies, and with that his mouth is on your nipple, sucking it while he administers his wicked ministrations to your other one. His sharp teeth prickling on the edge of breaking skin, and you already feel like you won’t be able to take all of him.

His hand trails down to aggressively grip your thighs, his tongue sucking the neglected nipple his fingers left. Your moans become frequent and messy, if he’s already making you go insane with the beginnings of foreplay... You might pass out and die when he starts fucking you, but you don’t care. Let him show you the true meaning of la petite mort.

“My my, what do we have here” his hand leaves your thigh to trace the wetness of your panties. A clawed finger rips it apart, the last barrier between you and total consumption by the Radio Demon. He takes the finger between your glistening lips, not entering, just teasing

“I don’t think i will get enough of this pretty little body of ours anytime soon, pet” he says as his finger finally enters your sex, He moves his digit with an expertise you didn’t really know he had in him, making you whimper his name, ooohs and aaaahs, your hips start threshing from the pleasure. If you continue at this pace, you will be begging for permission to cum too soon. Pathetic. you think to yourself. Because you know how hard this building orgasm will be,you don’t know if he will grant you more than one orgasm. And will you murder you yourself if you don’t feel his cock inside you tonight. You take a deep breath in between your moans and will your hips to stay in place, your nerves to calm down.

Alastor adds another finger, and it takes all of your willpower not to become a puddle of wetness right there. You bite your lip so hard you taste blood.

“you do make a mess of yourself, don’t you? you just can’t help it” he says as he curls his digits inside you. Your hips start thrashing hard again, and you sink them deeper into the bed. The chains on your wrists shake with the effort to hold back. As if alastor wasn’t going to notice. “no no no what did I say?” he snaps angrily, he’s eyes flash red at you and he takes his fingers out with a wet “pop”, you feel like crying at the emptiness. “please please alastor, don’t stop” you plead. His hands leave you entirely, you are left with just his piercing gaze, the one that makes your skin burn. “did I say you could hold back? don’t pretend like you aren’t a common whore for me, that you love how pathetic it feels that you are creaming yourself and we haven’t even really started”

his condescending tone just makes everything even more sublime. It’s so wrong how good being told you are nothing more than a common whore by the Radio Demon feels. But you never felt anything close to this. “please Alastor” you beg again, nothing but a small whisper

“I would love to taste this pussy, so red already for me, but since you broke one of the rules… i’m afraid I will make you understand that are nothing but my pretty cockslut the hard way”

Punishment? His punishment sounds ever better than his praise right now. You moan at his voice. He laughs.

His knees cage you, as he lifts his upper body from you and starts undoing his zipper. He is taking his cock out. Oh fuck, he’s gonna fuck you without anymore foreplay. And he’s not going to be gentle about it either. You shiver.

Alastor pumps himself a few times, his cock is big, thick, and an angry red shade, flush red like that, because of you, just for you. He’s gonna make you pay: pay for holding back from him, pay for making him feel like an animal and almost losing his hard constructed control.

The look on his face says it all, he’s gonna take it out on you and you can’t do nothing about it.

You don’t have much time to think about the repercussions, in one swift motion his tip is already inside you, stretching you deliciously. Your brain short circuits again, the feeling of his cock inside you is everything you imagine and more. Depraved, heavenly, delicious. You struggle in your binds again, you want desperately to touch him. To feel his skin beneath your finger, to scratch him, mark him. But oh well, he’s the Radio Demon, he’s the one in charge and you are his prey.

Alastor starts to slowly enter you, he’s trying his best to hold back. He knows if he does this too fast it will hurt in a way he doesn’t want you to feel. And by the look on his face going slow is as torturous for him as it is for you. tantalizing inch after tantalizing inch he spreads the walls of your cunt apart. You understand now why this is punishment, it hurts in a perfect way, it hurts even more that he is doing it slowly, and not just thrusting like you imagined he would, if he had more time to work on you.

You become a mess of moans and incoherent words. His cock is halfway inside you now “HoLY FUCK ALASTOR” you scream. It’s already too much.

“There’s nothing holy about this my dear. I’m going to breed you. I’m going to break you” and with that he buries himself to the hilt inside you. Now you truly scream in pleasure and pain “you won’t be able to walk straight for days, you will feel me in every step, and you will thank me for it”. His thrusts pick up at breakneck speed, the bed shakes from the sheer force that Alastor is using to fuck you. Every snap of his hips you moan more and more.

The sound you make when he takes everything out and enters you at once is so obscene that it would make Angel Dust blush. He’s growling now, his antlers growing bigger as he fucks you like his life dependend on it. As he fucks you like he hates you.

Alastor pushes your hips higher, and suddenly he’s even deeper. His other hand holding your waist in a bruising grip. The strain on your pinned hands will bruise too. His lips graze the skin of your collarbone, he looks so feral you are scared he will maul, the thrill of not knowing adding to your fucked up sense of pleasure.

He seems to pick up on your fear, and bites down on your collarbone, hauling as he tastes your blood and buries himself inside you again and again. Moans turned into screams, and the only thing coming out of your lips is his name, spoken like a profane prayer. You would give everything you have to Alastor, and he doesn’t even have to ask.

Your orgasm has been building for a while now, the coil on your belly becoming tighter and tighter, like a supernova about to be born. “Alastor, please please let me come” you beg. His unfocused eyes stare down at you, as he takes a moment from feasting on your sweet blood to address your desperate, sweet pleas.

“Don’t. You. Dare” he says, punctuating every word with a sharp thrust. As much as you want, you are not sure you will be able to hold any longer. “I beg you alastor, please let me cum, i will let you do anything you want. but i need it so badly, please please”

You sounded so desperate when you begged, so beautiful.

“Don’t strike deals you don’t know you can fulfill, pet” his voice is low, a warning. You ignore it. “I promise Alastor, anything”. Alastor laughs.

his finger touches your clit as he finally allows your sweet relief “you may come now, sweet doe” and that’s it, you are off, you are dead. You see stars, you see the entire universe as you scream out and climax. Walls tightening around Alastor’s monster cock, eyes rowling, his name a scream on your lips. You ride out your wave slowly, but Alastor is not slowing down.

Instead he is picking up his pace, maneuvering your hips even higher, your chains are stretched to the limit. You can feel them start piercing your skin. Thrust after thrust the sensation becomes too much, you are too overstimulated to go through all of this again.

“i can’t take it, i can’t take it!”

Alastor doesn’t care. “I told you not to make deals if you can’t hold them, didn’t I?” You don’t answer, you can’t. you can’t to anything but let him fuck you as hard and as much as he want. “but you are such a little cockslut for me that you can’t help it. What a shame”

He is gripping your hips so hard it breaks skin, tiny trails of blood on his claws. “you will take it. You better take it, or I will make you take it” static picks up as he threatens the last words. You know you are spent, you know how bad it hurts, you know how bad his words sound, but the lines between pleasure and pain are so blurred that you can’t think coherently. Even this pain of being broken feels good.

Still, tears fill your eyes and you start crying, from pleasure, from pain, you don’t know anymore. What Alastor is doing to you has no precedent. No one can do this like he does. He knows torture too well, and he is tortouring you in the most decadent, delicious ways possible. “alastor i want to, i want to so bad but i just can’t” the tears sting your eyes and stain your face.

Alastor sees it. He slows down just a bit, his voice softening “oh my dear doe, but you can. Just this once more, just for me. One more” his voice is so maddening soft it acts like fuel to your tears. Your skin tingles and you feel giddy, somehow your throbbing hot, wet cunt seems to find the right amount of relief, and you can feel only pleasure again.

Alastor continues to fuck you, your moans returning to normal, you are being so loud now, making a mess of yourself, just like he said, and a big hand comes to cover your mouth.

“Oh we can’t have you being this loud can we?” his voice goes to that delicious mocking tone. His thrusts are slower now, but as deep as they can go. “what would you friends say if they found out that you moan like a common whore for their feared radio demon.. hum,.?”

You start to feel the pit of your belly tightening again, and alastor doesn’t stop humiliating you. The degradation feels just the right amount of perfection. You are exactly what he says you are. A common whore when it comes to him. “weren’t you ashamed just a few moments ago? trying to hold back the sinful sounds you make when I touch you? I already gave you one orgasm. I’ve been way too generous for my liking. I should stop right now since you feel so conscious about this” Alator’s breathing is becoming erratic, his thrusts sharp, hard, and out of the breakneck rhythm he was torturing you before.You start moaning even louder through his hand. “ungrateful little pet. You are just so greedy for one more orgasm, you don’t even care that everyone downstairs can hear you hm??”

You can’t think straight. you feel on the edge of glory, this orgasm threatening to be harder than your previous one, as if it is possible. “alastor i’m so sorry, i know i don’t deserve it” you muffle behind his hand, he hears you speaking and takes if off “but can you please let me cum? just this once? just for you. Please Al” his thrusts are truly erratic now. He’s close too, even though you are too wrapped up on your own sensations to notice

“please” you beg, nothing more than a whisper. Already making peace with the fact that you are going to come without his permission and he will probably never fuck you again

“Good girl, you can come now”

instantly as you are granted his permissions your world explodes, blinding hot pleasure takes over your body, the waves of pleasure making your heart beat so fast you feel like it’s going to stop. The petit mort is coming, and her sweet embrace envelops you, specially now that you feel Alastor’s cock twitching and spilling his seed inside you. You scream his name. Maybe you hear him screaming yours too. You don’t know anymore, your nerves are singing from pleasure unheard of back when you were alive. Pleasure so great it could only be found in hell. The most heavily, depraved way of torture.

You come down from your high, still dizzy, your body going limp. You are not dead, but you are positively spent. You give in into the warm and fuzziness of sleep.

The last thing you remember is the softness of a blanket, a gentle kiss on your cheek.

“Oh my dear, I knew you had one more on you,spending yourself this way just for me! What a truly precious thing, doe”

You might be dreaming now.

You weren’t dreaming. Alastor praises you, knowing his words will be the last thing you hear before a night of peaceful, deep dreamless slumber. He makes sure to put the softest velvet blanket he owns on your body, not to make the damage you gladly allowed your body to take for him an inconvenience. Tomorrow you will wake up to fancy letters of praise and sweet chocolate covered strawberries. And no one will know how Alastor found the perfect doe to breed as he pleases during the height of his mating season.

#hello guys im insane can you tell?#eu escrevi isso aqui na força do odio puro e genuino de quem ta sendo xingada no twitter tem dias #alastor #alstor smut #alastor x reader #alastor x reader smut #alastor fanfic #the radio demon #the radio demon x you #hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #hazbin fic #autora também está no cio #serio aquela msuica sento no bico da glock rebolo e tiro o short e vem vamo fudeee o gabriel tirou o meu cabaço e me botou de quatro nao #sai da minha cabeça #aquariano nato também não #QUEBRA A CAMA DESSAS PUTAAAAAAAAA #baixaria

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plumpybeatz-blog · 1 year

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Happy weekend 😍

#africa #myflatmates #episode #beat #friday #taylor swift #the bold type #survivor edge of extinction

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headspace-hotel · 8 months

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There, in the sunlit forest on a high ridgeline, was a tree I had never seen before.

I spend a lot of time looking at trees. I know my beech, sourwood, tulip poplar, sassafras and shagbark hickory. Appalachian forests have such a diverse tree community that for those who grew up in or around the ancient mountains, forests in other places feel curiously simple and flat.

Oaks: red, white, black, bur, scarlet, post, overcup, pin, chestnut, willow, chinkapin, and likely a few others I forgot. Shellbark, shagbark and pignut hickories. Sweetgum, serviceberry, hackberry, sycamore, holly, black walnut, white walnut, persimmon, Eastern redcedar, sugar maple, red maple, silver maple, striped maple, boxelder maple, black locust, stewartia, silverbell, Kentucky yellowwood, blackgum, black cherry, cucumber magnolia, umbrella magnolia, big-leaf magnolia, white pine, scrub pine, Eastern hemlock, redbud, flowering dogwood, yellow buckeye, white ash, witch hazel, pawpaw, linden, hornbeam, and I could continue, but y'all would never get free!

And yet, this tree is different.

We gather around the tree as though surrounding the feet of a prophet. Among the couple dozen of us, only a few are much younger than forty. Even one of the younger men, who smiles approvingly and compliments my sharp eye when I identify herbs along the trail, has gray streaking his beard. One older gentleman scales the steep ridge slowly, relying on a cane for support.

The older folks talk to us young folks with enthusiasm. They brighten when we can call plants and trees by name and list their virtues and importance. "You're right! That's Smilax." "Good eye!" "Do you know what this is?—Yes, Eupatorium, that's a pollinator's paradise." "Are you planning to study botany?"

The tree we have come to see is not like the tall and pillar-like oaks that surround us. It is still young, barely the diameter of a fence post. Its bark is gray and forms broad stripes like rivulets of water down smooth rock. Its smooth leaves are long, with thin pointed teeth along their edges. Some of the group carefully examine the bark down to the ground, but the tree is healthy and flourishing, for now.

This tree is among the last of its kind.

The wood of the American Chestnut was once used to craft both cradles and coffins, and thus it was known as the "cradle-to-grave tree." The tree that would hold you in entering this world and in leaving it would also sustain your body throughout your life: each tree produced a hundred pounds of edible nuts every winter, feeding humans and all the other creatures of the mountains. In the Appalachian Mountains, massive chestnut trees formed a third of the overstory of the forest, sometimes growing larger than six feet in diameter.

They are a keystone species, and this is my first time seeing one alive in the wild.

It's a sad story. But I have to tell you so you will understand.

At the turn of the 20th century, the chestnut trees of Appalachia were fundamental to life in this ecosystem, but something sinister had taken hold, accidentally imported from Asia. Cryphonectria parasitica is a pathogenic fungus that infects chestnut trees. It co-evolved with the Chinese chestnut, and therefore the Chinese chestnut is not bothered much by the fungus.

The American chestnut, unlike its Chinese sister, had no resistance whatsoever.

They showed us slides with photos of trees infected with the chestnut blight earlier. It looks like sickly orange insulation foam oozing through the bark of the trees. It looks like that orange powder that comes in boxes of Kraft mac and cheese. It looks wrong. It means death.

The chestnut plague was one of the worst ecological disasters ever to occur in this place—which is saying something. And almost no one is alive who remembers it. By the end of the 1940's, by the time my grandparents were born, approximately three to four billion American chestnut trees were dead.

The Queen of the Forest was functionally extinct. With her, at least seven moth species dependent on her as a host plant were lost forever, and no one knows how much else. She is a keystone species, and when the keystone that holds a structure in place is removed, everything falls.

Appalachia is still falling.

Now, in some places, mostly-dead trees tried to put up new sprouts. It was only a matter of time for those lingering sprouts of life.

But life, however weak, means hope.

I learned that once in a rare while, one of the surviving sprouts got lucky enough to successfully flower and produce a chestnut. And from that seed, a new tree could be grown. People searched for the still-living sprouts and gathered what few chestnuts could be produced, and began growing and breeding the trees.

Some people tried hybridizing American and Chinese chestnuts and then crossing the hybrids to produce purer American strains that might have some resistance to the disease. They did this for decades.

And yet, it wasn't enough. The hybrid trees were stronger, but not strong enough.

Extinction is inevitable. It's natural. There have been at least five mass extinctions in Earth's history, and the sixth is coming fast. Many people accepted that the American chestnut was gone forever. There had been an intensive breeding program, summoning all the natural forces of evolution to produce a tree that could survive the plague, and it wasn't enough.

This has happened to more species than can possibly be counted or mourned. And every species is forced to accept this reality.

Except one.

We are a difficult motherfucker of a species, aren't we? If every letter of the genome's book of life spelled doom for the Queen of the Forest, then we would write a new ending ourselves. Research teams worked to extract a gene from wheat and implant it in the American chestnut, in hopes of creating an American chestnut tree that could survive.

This project led to the Darling 58, the world's first genetically modified organism to be created for the purpose of release into the wild.

The Darling 58 chestnut is not immune, the presenters warned us. It does become infected with the blight. And some trees die. But some live.

And life means hope.

In isolated areas, some surviving American Chestnut trees have been discovered, most of them still very young. The researchers hope it is possible that some of these trees may have been spared not because of pure luck, but because they carry something in their genes that slows the blight in doing its deadly work, and that possibly this small bit of innate resistance can be shaped and combined with other efforts to create a tree that can live to grow old.

This long, desperate, multi-decade quest is what has brought us here. The tree before me is one such tree: a rare survivor. In this clearing, a number of other baby chestnut trees have been planted by human hands. They are hybrids of the Darling 58 and the best of the best Chinese/American hybrids. The little trees are as prepared for the blight as we can possibly make them at this time. It is still very possible that I will watch them die. Almost certainly, I will watch this tree die, the one that shades us with her young, stately limbs.

Some of the people standing around me are in their 70's or 80's, and yet, they have no memory of a world where the Queen of the Forest was at her full majesty. The oldest remember the haunting shapes of the colossal dead trees looming as if in silent judgment.

I am shaken by this realization. They will not live to see the baby trees grow old. The people who began the effort to save the American chestnut devoted decades of their lives to these little trees, knowing all the while they likely never would see them grow tall. Knowing they would not see the work finished. Knowing they wouldn't be able to be there to finish it. Knowing they wouldn't be certain if it could be finished.

When the work began, the technology to complete it did not exist. In the first decades after the great old trees were dead, genetic engineering was a fantasy.

But those that came before me had to imagine that there was some hope of a future. Hope set the foundation. Now that little spark of hope is a fragile flame, and the torch is being passed to the next generation.

When a keystone is removed, everything suffers. What happens when a keystone is put back into place? The caretakers of the American chestnut hope that when the Queen is restored, all of Appalachia will become more resilient and able to adapt to climate change.

Not only that, but this experiment in changing the course of evolution is teaching us lessons and skills that may be able to help us save other species.

It's just one tree—but it's never just one tree. It's a bear successfully raising cubs, chestnut bread being served at a Cherokee festival, carbon being removed from the atmosphere and returned to the Earth, a wealth of nectar being produced for pollinators, scientific insights into how to save a species from a deadly pathogen, a baby cradle being shaped in the skilled hands of an Appalachian crafter. It's everything.

Despair is individual; hope is an ecosystem. Despair is a wall that shuts out everything; hope is seeing through a crack in that wall and catching a glimpse of a single tree, and devoting your life to chiseling through the wall towards that tree, even if you know you will never reach it yourself.

An old man points to a shaft of light through the darkness we are both in, toward a crack in the wall. "Do you see it too?" he says. I look, and on the other side I see a young forest full of sunlight, with limber, pole-size chestnut trees growing toward the canopy among the old oaks and hickories. The chestnut trees are in bloom with fuzzy spikes of creamy white, and bumblebees heavy with pollen move among them. I tell the man what I see, and he smiles.

"When I was your age, that crack was so narrow, all I could see was a single little sapling on the forest floor," he says. "I've been chipping away at it all my life. Maybe your generation will be the one to finally reach the other side."

Hope is a great work that takes a lifetime. It is the hardest thing we are asked to do, and the most essential.

I am trying to show you a glimpse of the other side. Do you see it too?

#american chestnut #hope #climate change #biodiversity crisis #climate crisis #trees #plantarchy #learning to imagine the future

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