listening to my Tideturners playlist was a mistake because I am having SO many feelings about the Sidewinder again.
she's not just any AU of Mai Trin; she's a version who's endured the absolute worst case scenario and lives every day in fear of losing everything all over again. but her story flips the entire narrative of Guild Wars 2 on its head; it's all a matter of perspective, and hers comes from an entirely different angle than we're used to.
what is a monster? as they say, to a bird, a cat is a monster.
the Sidewinder's monster is the Commander.
the first Commander she ever met was a tyrant who set the world on fire just to watch it burn. nothing could stop his rampage until there was nothing left to destroy. he made Scarlet Briar's war look like a playground scuffle; in fact, he did it by killing her and seizing her army to do it with. the Sidewinder doesn't have to wonder what a rogue Commander is capable of at their worst. she KNOWS.
and she also knows that if even a single one knew about her outpost, about her, about her people, and decided they were a threat to get rid of, there's absolutely nothing she could do to stop them. the most she could hope to do is be enough of a speed bump that the rest of the Turnabout can escape and make her sacrifice worthwhile.
she's spent decades building up a new world, a new society, and a new identity-- and in a split second a single person could bring it all crashing down. that absolutely terrifies her. it's all so fragile.
a major part of the Sidewinder's personal arc has to do with overcoming that dread to find common ground. because, truth-be-told, much as she'd insist otherwise? she's not so different from the Commander herself. she's fought long and hard to become someone worthy of the trust and respect that so many refugees from so many, many different worlds have placed on her. it's not enough to have it, she wants to DESERVE it. and even if she'd claim she's not there yet, most would agree she's succeeded. she's the beating heart of the Turnabout; none of it would exist without her. she's given all of them the hope that the heroes of their own worlds couldn't.
Mai Trin never wanted to be a leader or a hero or a politician. but as the Sidewinder, she's become all three out of necessity. she had no other choice. no one else was left alive to do it in her place.
so she puts on her mask, and she steps onto the stage, and she talks big, but deep down she knows that if the worst case scenario came back, there was nothing she could do to protect them, not on her own. the only thing that might stand a chance is another Commander, and is she really prepared to take a risk like that? is she willing to put it all on the line to fight for a future without fear?
and even if they are the right choice, even if they do agree to help in spite of it all... can she put one of the last good people at risk, knowing just what horrors they'd be up against? facing someone who's killed others like them a hundred times over, allowing them no rest even in death as their shambling corpses are conscripted into his undead army? how can she, in good conscience, expect anyone to face something so horrific with stakes as high as THAT? which is worse; that they turn against her, or that they trust her and die, adding another force of nature to their enemies' ranks? the Sidewinder doesn't know the answer to that question, if there is one.
there's so much weight on every choice she must make, and the consequences of every wrong move are unfathomable. she might not be the Commander, but that, at least, is one thing they have in common. the decisions they make will decide who lives and who dies.
all the Sidewinder can hope is that when she finally does make that leap of faith, she'll be ready to handle whatever results lay in store.
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Ancient redwoods recover from fire by sprouting 1000-year-old buds
Article | Paywall free
When lightning ignited fires around California’s Big Basin Redwoods State Park north of Santa Cruz in August 2020, the blaze spread quickly. Redwoods naturally resist burning, but this time flames shot through the canopies of 100-meter-tall trees, incinerating the needles. “It was shocking,” says Drew Peltier, a tree ecophysiologist at Northern Arizona University. “It really seemed like most of the trees were going to die.”
Yet many of them lived. In a paper published yesterday in Nature Plants, Peltier and his colleagues help explain why: The charred survivors, despite being defoliated [aka losing all their needles], mobilized long-held energy reserves—sugars that had been made from sunlight decades earlier—and poured them into buds that had been lying dormant under the bark for centuries.
“This is one of those papers that challenges our previous knowledge on tree growth,” says Adrian Rocha, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Notre Dame. “It is amazing to learn that carbon taken up decades ago can be used to sustain its growth into the future.” The findings suggest redwoods have the tools to cope with catastrophic fires driven by climate change, Rocha says. Still, it’s unclear whether the trees could withstand the regular infernos that might occur under a warmer climate regime.
Mild fires strike coastal redwood forests about every decade. The giant trees resist burning thanks to the bark, up to about 30 centimeters thick at the base, which contains tannic acids that retard flames. Their branches and needles are normally beyond the reach of flames that consume vegetation on the ground. But the fire in 2020 was so intense that even the uppermost branches of many trees burned and their ability to photosynthesize went up in smoke along with their pine needles.
Trees photosynthesize to create sugars and other carbohydrates, which provide the energy they need to grow and repair tissue. Trees do store some of this energy, which they can call on during a drought or after a fire. Still, scientists weren’t sure these reserves would prove enough for the burned trees of Big Basin.
Visiting the forest a few months after the fire, Peltier and his colleagues found fresh growth emerging from blackened trunks. They knew that shorter lived trees can store sugars for several years. Because redwoods can live for more than 2000 years, the researchers wondered whether the trees were drawing on much older energy reserves to grow the sprouts.
Average age is only part of the story. The mix of carbohydrates also contained some carbon that was much older. The way trees store their sugar is like refueling a car, Peltier says. Most of the gasoline was added recently, but the tank never runs completely dry and so a few molecules from the very first fill-up remain. Based on the age and mass of the trees and their normal rate of photosynthesis, Peltier calculated that the redwoods were calling on carbohydrates photosynthesized nearly 6 decades ago—several hundred kilograms’ worth—to help the sprouts grow. “They allow these trees to be really fire-resilient because they have this big pool of old reserves to draw on,” Peltier says.
It's not just the energy reserves that are old. The sprouts were emerging from buds that began forming centuries ago. Redwoods and other tree species create budlike tissue that remains under the bark. Scientists can trace the paths of these buds, like a worm burrowing outward. In samples taken from a large redwood that had fallen after the fire, Peltier and colleagues found that many of the buds, some of which had sprouted, extended back as much as 1000 years. “That was really surprising for me,” Peltier says. “As far as I know, these are the oldest ones that have been documented.”
... “The fact that the reserves used are so old indicates that they took a long time to build up,” says Susan Trumbore, a radiocarbon expert at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. “Redwoods are majestic organisms. One cannot help rooting for those resprouts to keep them alive in decades to come.”
-via Science, December 1, 2023
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Jealousy - Lucifer (Hazbin Hotel) x Fem!Sinner!Reader SMUT
Summary: Lucifer's jealousy emerges when your Ex from when you were alive enters the hotel in search of you. Lucifer makes sure to claim you as his.
Contents/Possible Warnings: P in V sex, dom!Lucifer, cream pie, Lucifer being possessive, marking, unprotected sex, degradation (it happens like once), SMUT, MDNI
A typical day in Hell was far from calm, so whenever a peaceful moment occurred, even a small one, you made sure to savor it, appreciating it for what it was. For example, you intended to let the wonderful moment you were currently in last for as long as you possibly could. You had been watching a movie in your room in the hotel, but by now your attention had turned away from the movie in question and onto Lucifer. The king of Hell had snuggled up closer to you than he already had been, his head resting on your shoulder as he watched the show.
The simple gesture made you melt, and you couldn't resist gently turning his face to look at you. Lucifer looked at you curiously, waiting for your next move. You placed a gentle kiss on his cheek, enjoying the smile it brought to his face.
"Hmm, that was nice, but I think you missed, love." He leaned in, closing the gap between you two, kissing you lovingly. You moved to deepen the kiss and— a knock came at the door. You parted from the kiss and looked towards your room door as Lucifer let out a disappointed sigh. "I'll make sure to give you as many kisses as you want later, alright?" You whispered to him, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before standing up and answering the door.
"(Y/N)!" Charlie exclaimed in excitement. "The hotel has a new guest! They said that they know you. You two must've been friends before! Come on, let's go see them!" Without warning, Charlie eagerly grabbed you by the hand, pulling you through the hallways of the hotel and towards the main lobby.
In the lobby, you saw them. The fucker you had hoped would never die purely so you would never have to see them again. Yet, here they were in all of their trashy, shit glory. "Hi." You said with a fake smile, trying to remain civil and hold back the resentment that had since been dormant.
"(Y/N)! Baby!" Your ex grinned, approaching you with wide, open arms. "I'm so glad I found you after all these years. It took some asking around, but we're together again!" They wrapped their arms around you, squeezing you tight enough that it felt like you might suffocate.
"Woah, haha! Hands off, please!" Lucifer appeared next to you, poking at your ex with his cane, annoyance seeping into his forced, polite tone. They finally released you, glaring at Lucifer as he stepped between the two of you.
"And just who the hell are you?" Your ex questioned, watching as Lucifer wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you close to his side. "I feel like I should be asking you that question." Your boyfriend replied snidely, any attempt to be polite despite the situation now far gone.
"Alrighty!" Charlie said with a nervous laugh, wishing that she had gathered more information about her hotel's newest guest and their relationship with you before allowing them to see you. "Let's all just relax, and maybe (Y/N) can introduce the two of you to eachother."
You let out a sigh. You loved how sweet Charlie was taking in any sinner, you really did, but sometimes it did more harm than good, usually to no fault of her own. You motioned to your ex, "Lucifer, this is my ex." Then you motioned to your boyfriend, "This is Lucifer. King of Hell...And my boyfriend." The last part felt almost weird to say, the surrealness of dating the Hell's king and the man sometimes known as the devil himself finally setting in.
Your ex only laughed in response, earning an angry, growling-like noise from Lucifer. You grabbed his hand, squeezing it in an attempt to calm him down which only partially worked.
"There's no way this little guy is Hell's king! He's so fucking short. I really thought you had better standards in who you date, babe."
"Fuck you." You hissed, anger bubbling up inside of you as you felt yourself slipping into your more demonic form. "He's certainly better than you ever were." By now the other inhabitants of the hotel had gathered around, some more entertained than anything, while others, particularly Vaggie, were preparing for the brawl that was surely about to happen.
"Woah! Look at the time." Charlie intervened. "It's getting pretty late, why don't we all start heading to bed?" You responded only by turning around and heading towards your room, in desperate need of calming yourself down. Lucifer followed behind you, the walk to your room quiet with no words spoken.
You opened your door, nearly throwing it open in your still-present anger, before flopping down onto the bed with a loud, frustrated groan. You looked to the side, taking notice of the way Lucifer refused to look at you, his arms crossed.
"Honey?" No answer. "Love?" No answer, yet again. "Luci?" That did the trick. He always melted whenever you called him that.
"Your ex is fucking annoying."
You let out a small chuckle at his bluntness, a smile making its way onto your face. "They are, Luci. That's why they're my ex." You sat up, pulling him down onto the bed with you, kissing him, causing both of you to relax, some built-up tension leaving.
"You're all mine, aren't you?" He questioned, already knowing your answer. "Mine to love. Mine to claim." His mouth moved to your neck, sharp teeth grazing the skin, and you let out a soft moan as he began to nibble and kiss at the skin, his teeth leaving a mark you were sure he'd take pride in.
Your head fell to the side, giving him more access to your neck as you took his hat off, throwing it to the side, your fingers running through his hair as he continued to mark you.
"I'm going to ruin you for anyone else. You'll only ever want me." He whispered, lips returning to yours in a fervent kiss. Your lips remained locked together, only occasionally parting for a few seconds so you could help rid each other of the clothes that separated you from what you both craved.
He moved between your legs, the tip of his hardened cock teasing at your wet entrance. Usually, you two would've done more before the main act, but you two were more than ready to indulge in the other right now.
"Don't be a tease, Lucifer." You purred, spreading your legs wider. "Can't you feel how wet I am? How ready I am for you to fuck me senseless?"
He smirked before finally slipping in, biting his lip to prevent an almost embarrassingly loud moan that threatened to surface at the way you felt wrapped around him. He has been in heaven before, and he could say with confidence that being deep inside of you felt better than anything his former home could've offered him.
He began to thrust, his pace starting slow, still teasing you. He wanted you to beg, and you already knew it.
"Faster, harder, please, Lucifer—" You pleaded, giving in to what he wanted from you. "I know you want to pound me into this bed, Lucifer—Ah! Fuck!—" His pace sped up, and the sound of hips meeting yours in rapid succession filled the room. "Fuckfuckfuck–yes!"
"You always feel so fucking good." He growled, wings slipping out as he lost himself in the ecstasy that was your pussy. You ran your fingers through the red and white feathers, and he let out a pleasured whine at the feeling. His wings had always been sensitive.
"Fuck me—Let them all know I'm yours!" You cried out, losing yourself in the feeling of his cock fucking you with quick, deep strokes. You gripped the sheets in your hands, back arching as he angled himself just right, hitting your sweet spot head on.
"Mine. Mine to ruin, mine to fuck, and mine to fill up. All mine." His hands found yours, pinning them down against the bed as he began to fuck you even harder, his climax nearing. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him in closer.
"I'm gonna cum–You're going to make me cum so hard–"
"Then fucking do it." He demanded with a growl. "Cum around my cock like the little slut you are for me." You came around him, cunt spasming as your orgasm coursed through you. Lucifer's wings fluttered as he followed you soon after, filling you up with his hot cum.
You pulled him down into a sweet kiss once your climax subsided, cupping his face in your hands. God, you loved him more than anything. The kiss ended after a good moment, leaving you both to bask in your shared, post-coital bliss.
"You lost a few feathers," You observed with a giggle, holding one up. He chuckled warmly, lying beside you. You rested your head on his chest, enjoying the peacefulness of the moment. You'd have to deal with your ex in the morning, but for now, you were both satisfied with knowing that you were entirely Lucifer's, and that's how you'd always want it to be.
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