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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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pikepuncher · 1 year

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i think i got pizza in my pores god help me

#orgin story of PIZZA MAN #he oozes cheese and sauce then starts crying

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spiderattractedtoman · 2 years

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argh i got suspended on twt so i’ve been listening to even more music for stimuli and it’s leading to my hashtag teenager moment where i’m lying down in my depression nest of a bed face down and still in the clothes i put on at 5:30 am trying to cope w a bitch of a headache with my meds (talking heads playlist) (i cant move enough to get my actual meds)

#king of run on sentences that aren’t even punctuated #that jungle river flow if u will #blah blah blah #the song by the oozes if u will #oh my god i hope i d word (no cheese) (i am white)

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getodrools · 1 month

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Can't stop thinking about throating Gojo’s fat and pretty cock with Getō… Your knees blossom into blue hues the longer they pressed into the hard floors of the classroom. You couldn't whine much, because so were Getō’s, who was kneeling right with you — as if you both were praising the one and only’s cock.

And he spoke with a guttural moan, “Fuck… You both look so pretty…” Satoru praises, watching with eyes wide at the pure sight of you both on each side of his cock in fervor.

Moaning in sync, your tongue lathers up pools of spit, bubbling it over every last inch of turgid, pale meat on your side; slipping around with puffy lips back and forth, feeling the fat curve and the veins throbbing beneath your wet muscle as you did. And Suguru did just the same — sloppy with puckering glossy lips right in front of you, so close your clinging lashes almost tickle at the point of his nose. And at each messy, fumbling slide, your maws would mush together at the thick middle, slipping right into each other's mouths for a deep kiss before working him again.

Panting, “You taste just like him.” Suguru could say the same.

When you both would reach from his fuzzy base to the bulbous tip, you'd take turns who'd vacuum the sticky pre oozing from the flushed-out pink crown. Popping with a wet ‘o’ at your turn, Getō would push your head, guiding you deeper — proud even through gags. He even would kiss at the corners of your working mouth when you‘d take the man whole; lapping up the spilling drool in sloppy pecks…

Gojo’s head knocks back, followed with the somber hues trembling in awe.

Blanketing him in a heavenly pocket of smooth, slicked, gummy flesh, and sloping your flushed cheeks in to milk him. Gojo’s dick pulsates down the warm pocket you wrap him with.

Suguru was visibly turned on by the fact you could take such a monumental cock and almost make it disappear… and you worked yourself harder as sought to cover more of the crimson nth-inch, meat-pole in adore… His mouth felt empty – and he dipped right below your chin that began to puddle in slop right at the tip.

“Holy fuck…” Gojo’s syllables drew out as Suguru worked the heavy balls completing his package; those two large, round orbs that could have been the size of apples, perfectly displaying his raw virility – so close and ready to pop as Getō gurgled them down.

Gagging, you tease Getō’s hard confines, catching how his tent rose higher and higher the longer this session went on, “Aw! Sugu-boo wants some attention too Toru!” You cheese.

<– BACK: PINNED NEXT: JJK MASTERLIST –>

#okaaay i’ll get to my request i just needed to cream this out 😔#🌐 𝐿𝒜𝒱𝐼𝐼 𝒲𝑅𝐼𝒯𝐸𝒮!#ᝰ satoru gojo!#ᝰ suguru geto!#jjk x reader #jjk #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen #jjk gojo #jjk geto #gojo x reader #gojo smut #geto smut #gojo x geto #geto x reader #satoru gojo #suguru geto

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dazaislanderer · 2 months

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PART ONE: oozing cheese for this year's corporate exploitation of love

edit: part 2 here

#yayayay #sillyposting #bsd #bungo stray dogs #KARL#bsd nikolai #motojirou kajii #chuuya nakahara #f scott fitzgerald #i wonder if someone looking for like gatsby quotes will accidentally see this #nathaniel hawthorne #ranpo edogawa #can you believe it's not dazai #valentines day

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wynnyfryd · 6 months

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Trailer Park Steve AU part 7

part 1 | part 6 | chapter 1 on ao3

cw: panic attack, ptsd flashback to minor character death, graphic depictions of… food? lol

Dinner is exactly as chaotic as Steve expected it to be. He and Claudia take opposite end seats with a glass of red wine each, and the kids take the middle and start acting like a pack of caffeinated raccoons: talking over each other, scraping forks against plates, stretching their entire upper bodies across the table and dragging their sleeves through the side dishes instead of just asking someone to pass them the butter; Steve’s starting to wonder if any of these kids have ever eaten at a table before, or if they maybe just wandered in from the surrounding woods. Feral asses.

When they do start asking for things, he regrets wishing they would, because Lucas goes “Erica, can you pass me the salt?” and Erica sneers “I don’t know, can I?” and Mike jabs “Whatever; nobody says ‘may’ anymore, you dork” and Claudia gasps “Michael!” and it all escalates from there until Dustin tries to catapult lasagna off the end of his fork and hits Steve in the side of the head with a glob of warm cheese.

Silence falls around the room.

The cheese plops onto his plate.

“Sh-ii-it,” Dustin breathes, face stuck in wide-eyed shock.

Steve gives Claudia an imploring look.

“Why don’t we clear the table for dessert?”

The commotion starts up again in double time, everyone scrambling to clean up and clear the room before Steve starts bitching about them messing up his hair (and his plate, and his clothes, because the cheese splash sent a spray of little tomato sauce droplets splattering all over him, and isn’t that just perfect; he’s gonna have to hand-scrub the stain out of his khakis), so it’s just him and Dustin left when Dustin’s elbow catches and tips over his wine.

The liquid spills onto his plate: dark, and red, oozing into the uneaten scraps of sauce and cheese and pasta to form a viscous, fleshy sludge. Red like his dad’s office, like his father’s mangled thigh, and it’s just food it’s just food it’s not blood it’s not blood but he can’t fucking breathe, can’t hearing anything beyond the wet, gasping sounds his dad made the night he died, and then he realizes that he’s making them, mouth moving fruitlessly around air that won’t pass, trapped in the bottleneck of his choked-off windpipe.

“Steve?” Dustin asks, and his voice sounds far away. “Shit, shit, Steve! Can you hear me? Are you choking? I know the Heimlich, just- just hold on!”

He snaps out of it when Dustin pulls him halfway from his chair, gets his fists under his ribs and all but punches the air from his lungs. It sets off a nasty coughing fit that leaves Steve snotty and ready to hurl, and he braces himself with his forearms on his knees and stares hard at the ground until the hacking finally stops.

There’s a scuff on his sneakers.

He can’t replace them any time soon.

A moment to catch his breath, and Dustin’s shaking him by the shoulders. “Are you okay??”

Steve keeps his head bowed. “Yeah.” He needs to get the fuck out of here. “Yeah, I’m good.”

He rises from his chair, grateful that everyone else already cleared out before they could witness his little moment, that the blare of the TV from the family room covered the sound of his retching coughs; more grateful still that they won’t notice him now, scampering out of here with his tail between his legs. “Hey listen, man, I’m not feeling so well,” he says absently, fishing his keys from the pocket of his jeans. “Can you get your mom to drive everyone home?”

“Shouldn’t you stay?” Dustin frowns in concern. “If you’re sick? You can go lie down in my room or something, it’s—”

“—Nah, man; I mean, thanks, but…” His hand trembles around his keys, the muscles in his calves screaming bolt, bolt, bolt. “I just- I gotta go.”

He makes a break for it, rushing out the side door so no one else will see him leave (and he knows it’s fucking rude to head out without saying goodbye, but he’s also pretty convinced he’s going to combust if he doesn’t go right now.) “Tell your mom I said thanks, okay?”

“Tell her yourself!” Dustin chases after him, clumsy and slow across the darkened yard. “Dude, will you slow down? Talk to me!”

Steve throws himself into his car like there’s a demodog on his heels. “I’ll call you!”

“What the fuck!” Dustin shouts, but Steve’s already gone.

—

part 8

tagging a few people i know have been following along 🩷 @slowandsteddie @paintsplatteredandimperfect @stevesbipanic @pennyplainknits @ledleaf @hellion-child @formosusiniquis @missjashin @runninriot @xpaperheartso @steddieas-shegoes

#trailer park steve au #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #stranger things #steddie fic #steve harrington fic #dustin henderson #claudia henderson #lucas sinclair #erica sinclair #mike wheeler #tw: panic attack #tw: ptsd

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steddieasitgoes · 3 months

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written for @steddielovemonth Day 7 prompt: Love is: Silently passing them a pickle because you know it’s their favorite. Rating: T (for suggestive language) | no cw

Eddie wouldn’t call Steve a push over, he’s witnessed him annihilate the kids with a bitchy retort and a pointed stare too many times for it to be true, but there are times when Steve’s soft center oozes out, allowing the ones he loves to walk all over him.

Like when it comes to food.

Eddie’s always known Steve’s willing to share his food with his friends. He witnessed it enough times in the Hawkins High cafeteria — Steve wordlessly passing Tommy his unopened applesauce seconds after he finished his own or scooting his tray closer to Carol when she opted for a salad and looked at her choice with regret.

It’s only gotten worse though.

Now, Steve’s plate barely gets set in front of him before there are hands making passes at it. Dustin’s grubby paws snatching the pickle spear from the plate, Max and Erica harvesting his fries until all that’s left are the burnt and wonky ones, Mike and Lucas occasionally shoveling spoonfuls of Mac and cheese into their mouths before it’s even had a chance to cool. Even Robin gets in on it, swiping a slice of garlic toast from his plate like some feral bird.

And Steve never says anything.

Well, most of the time.

If anyone ever takes something he really wants — like the time Dustin tried to get a sip of his Neapolitan shakes a few weeks back — bitchy Steve comes out in force, defending his food with the same ferocity he used to rip a demobat apart with his bare hands in the Upside Down.

With that knowledge in mind, Eddie comes to the conclusion that pickles, fries, Mac and cheese, and occasionally thick slices of garlic toast are low on Steve’s favorite food list.

So, one can imagine Eddie’s surprise when he excuses himself from the movie marathon going on in the living room of Steve’s place in search of a beer refill to find Steve chomping on a pickle spear in the bright light of the fridge.

The sight is something, sure. Especially the way Steve’s sweatpants strain against his ass as he squats to put the jar back. But Eddie doesn’t want to get caught intruding on Steve’s secret pickle whims so he quietly retreats to the living room — beerless, sure, but with a lot on his mind that he doesn’t even care.

If Steve liked pickles all this time, why hasn’t he told Dustin off for always stealing his? And if he’s secretly harboring a love of pickles, what else is he selflessly giving up without anyone knowing? Does Robin know about his pickle love affair?

Eddie spends the rest of the night rethinking everything he’s thought he’s ever known about Steve until he’s so worked up he makes up some lame excuse about needing to help Wayne with some yard work in the morning and leaves right in the middle of the third movie of the night.

On his drive home, he comes to the conclusion that he’s not going to let Steve miss out on pickles anymore. Not if he can help it.

Operation Save Steve’s Pickle gets put in motion the following day when Eddie is summoned via Dustin’s booming voice over the walkie-talkie to lunch to make up for his abrupt departure last night.

It’s business as usual so far in the diner, just with fewer faces. Steve, Robin, and Dustin are the only ones in attendance today, making the corner booth more spacious than it has ever been.

Eddie feels the adrenaline coursing through his veins as the waiter approaches with their food. He might not be running for his life this time around, but his heart sure hasn’t gotten the memo practically beating out of his chest in anticipation of what he’s about to do.

Like clockwork, Steve’s plate is set in front of him and Dustin’s hand snatches the pickle without a second thought. The little shit even has the audacity to take a bite, juices pouring down his chin, as he lets them all know that it’s the best pickle yet.

Eddie wants to strangle him, but he refrains and sticks to the plan. When Steve’s preoccupied lathering his burger in more ketchup than one person should consume, he picks up his untouched pickle spear and slides it onto Steve’s plate.

“Are you giving Steve your pickle right now?” Dustin screeches, drawing the attention of everyone in the crowded diner.

“Maybe don’t phrase it like that, please,” Robin chimes in, burying her face in her hands in embarrassment.

Eddie can’t help but bark out a laugh before glancing at Steve who hasn’t broken eye contact with the pickle on his plate. He’s pretty sure he sees the smallest twitch of his lips, threatening to pull into a real smile but gets interrupted from watching the sight by Dustin’s hand. Eddie swats it away.

“What the hell!” Dustin groans, massaging the back of his reddening hand. “If you’re going to share your pickle, you should give it to me, not Steve. He doesn’t even like them”

“Except he does.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Steve,” Eddie huffs, turning in the booth to face him. “Can you please tell this insufferable know-it-all that you do like pickles? Like them so much you have a secret jar in your fridge?”

“I mean, yeah I do—wait how do you know about the secret jar?”

“I caught you eating one last night.”

“You have a secret jar of pickles in your fridge that you’ve never told me about?”

“That is what secret means,” Steve deadpans, rolling his eyes. “You get my pickle every time we come here. Why should I share them at home too?”

“This is a betrayal of epic proportions!” Dustin whines.

“Oh can it, Henderson. Go back to eating your lunch and let Stevie here enjoy a pickle from Sue’s for once in his life!”

Surprisingly, the kid actually listens to Eddie and the table launches into silence except for the crunching of fries and pickles in Dustin’s case because Steve still hasn’t touched his.

Eddie nudges Steve’s forearm, “Better get to it before Henderson makes another pass for it.”

“We could share?”

“No need. This one’s all you.”

Steve gives Eddie one of his uncharacteristically soft smiles before taking a heaping bite out of the pickle. Juice dribbles down Steve’s chin but he doesn’t seem to mind judging by the pure bliss on his face. Eyes closed and head tipped back as if he…

Jesus H. Christ

Maybe giving Steve his pickle wasn’t a good idea after all.

“Holy shit,” Steve moans, taking another bite. “This is the best pickle I’ve ever tasted. Thanks, Eddie.”

Eddie's stunned for a moment, eyes locked on Steve's throat, watching as he swallows before he comes to his senses.

“You can have my pickle anytime, Stevie,” he says without thinking, high off Steve's pickle-drunk expression.

It is not until Robin groans and they all erupt into a fit of laughter does the euphemism lands on Eddie. He didn’t mean it like that, not in the slightest. But hey, if Steve wants that pickle too, Eddie’s sure as hell not going to say no.

#steddielovemonth #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #eddie munson ficlet #eddie munson fic #steve harrington fic #steve harrington ficlet #eddie pov #stranger things fic #stranger things ficlet #dani writes

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