#white ash

[nemfrog]

Sections of wood of White ash. The trees of Vermont. 1916.

Internet Archive

[soundgrammar]

Jeffrey Gale, Knitting Basket, 2007, white ash, 9 x 14 x 11 5⁄8 in. (23.0 x 35.7 x 29.5 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Martha G. Ware and Steven R. Cole, 2011.47.22

[zarakinate]

“Not until I’m pure white ash.”

[hollowflight-propaganda]

any chance you can tell us about some of that Hvitur x Asha dynamic/lore you have in your mind👀

HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHHEHEHHEHEHEHHEHEHEEHEHEHEHHEHEHHEHEHEEHEEHEHEHEHEHEE

*clears throat* anyways anon, I'm glad you asked.

I haven't worked out all the kinks with their respective backstories (I'd like to write a prequel novella about them actually), but here's the basics of them;

I like to think that Hvitur was born in a village located outside of the Great Ice Cliff, which was inhabited solely by low ranking IceWings. Since the majority of dragons here had already been born into such a low ranking, most of them didn't feel the same pressure that inclined them to want to climb the ranks like higher ranking IceWings. All of this is to say that Hvitur actually had good parents, shocking, I know. She (the Hvitur in my head is transfem) was about two years old once the war started in full swing, and then from there things start to go downhill. Again, I haven't worked out everything plus I don't wanna give it all away if I do end up writing about this, but I will say that Hvitur ends up dodging the draft by running away once she was of age. She's also traumatized! :D

As for Asha, she's a year or two older than Hvitur, so still fairly young once the war started. I decided to have them be born shortly before the war so that they knew what life was like beforehand, which helped shape their beliefs and their hope that there's a possibility for a better life without war and violence encroaching in on it. But anyway, her and her 4 siblings lived a pretty standard life up until the war started, which after a couple years they all reached the appropriate age to fight in the war (which I imagine is 6 for MudWings since Clay's siblings had only been involved in one battle before they met him). Asha was never a fan, needless to say, and she focused a lot of her attention on helping out younger troops or any unfortunate dragonets who had lost their siblings. Most other MudWings her age viewed it as a distraction and thought that she should focus herself on helping her own troop, but she never could. Something about working with the youth made her feel like she was doing something tangible, and in the face of a continent wide war having something to combat that helplessness gave her at least a little bit of hope. Anyway this is getting long, so to sum it up Asha hears of the prophecy and Talons of Peace and it all reignites that same hope inside of her tenfold, she and her siblings drift further and further apart, and at some point she leaves to find the Talons, wanting more than anything to be of some help with bringing an end to the war.

As we all know she does join the Talons, and wouldn't you know! A certain IceWing is already here! Hvitur had already been with the Talons for a few years at that point, partly because it was the safest option for her survival, and partly because she sincerely believed in the prophecy. Like in canon, the majority of Talons don't really share the same faith in the prophecy and are mostly just here due to circumstance, add that with the fact that Hvitur's the only IceWing here (I like to imagine that Cirrus joined later, maybe a bit after the dod hatched (even though he doesn't count anyway)), she felt quite a bit ostracized. Cue Asha, the nicest and friendliest dragon ever joining the fray, and they immediately hit it off. (Clay gets it from her)

They bond over their shared beliefs and finally feel like they're seen. After being beat down over and over again by such a cruel world and having everyone around them act as if they're crazy for wanting to change things, it comes as a tremendous relief for them to have finally found someone who agrees. I imagine they also have the same fondness for kids (to make the fact they never got to take care of the dod hurt more :)), and maybe once Asha goes, "Why don't we raise a kid together?" To which Hvitur spits out her water and gets all flustered before realizing Asha meant it in a platonic way because of how MudWing families work.

After knowing each other for awhile Hvitur finds herself falling for Asha, but she doesn't express it due to how this is when the prophecy was about to be set into motion and the Talons were busy with all the child kidnapping and whatnot. I think all I really have to say to sum up this last bit is Tragic Doomed Yuri, because we all know how it goes from here.

I'm just gonna leave off on what I said about them in the tags of a post from last September; I ship them in a "Wow. Imagine if they got to live and explore their identities together while also raising their 5 kids and strangling Kestrel every time she so much as breathes in their direction.... Oh well. Too bad they died horribly," way.

[problematic-rwby-shipping-poll]

SHIP #73 - WHITE ASH

Do you ship Weiss Schnee/Cinder Fall?

OTP

Ship

Neutral

Don't Ship

NOTP

Haven't Considered But Interested

Voting ended onNov 7, 2024

[tomoleary]

Jae and June Lee - White Ash Season 2 #1 (2021) Source

[aisling-saoirse]

White Ash - Fraxinus pensylvanica

For this post I'm going to discuss the snags and reason I got back into ecology: The Ash Tree

Around the 1990s an insect from northeastern Asia was accidentally introduced to the Continental United States, by 2002 this insect was identified in Michigan after destroying several million acres of forest, this insect was the Emerald Ash Borer. The borer's larvae consume the living inner bark layer (leaving an interesting pattern), ultimately starving the tree of nutrients. The bark will often flake or peel off. By the year 2015, there were signs that the borer had spread to the east coast, its journey likely accelerated by the spread of firewood from infected logs, by 2019 nearly every mature Ash tree in Northern New Jersey was killed.

I grew up in a yard with twelve 150 year old Ash trees, the yard was adjacent to a section of Ash dominant forest, I watched the slow decline of all these trees, for half a decade I hoped our trees would be lucky enough to survive but unfortunately they all died within a few summers. Although the White Ash trees I encountered were wild from a 20th century clear-cut, they were a fairly common street tree around the northeast, straight growing, lovely bark and unfortunately most of the nursery stock was derived from a similar gene pool. There was little genetic diversity and many suburban neighborhoods were wiped of Ash trees. Many Ash trees were infested and look like the section of log I saved from my yard now (image below)

Suburban yards aside I quickly began to notice entire sections of forest filled with standing deadwood (image below). Worse yet white ash wasn't the only ash species affected, the entire genus is at risk. American Ash species often occupy a unique niche in cultivating young organisms which grow in vernal pools, the leaves of american ash are low in tannin, meaning they're one of the few leaves which are a suitable food source for young frog tadpoles. The loss of the ash means damage to American frog populations. It also means insects which utilized ash as a host are also at risk.

Ash also has quite a lovely ethnobotanical history, black ash is famous amoung various tribes around the northeast for its use in basket weaving. Historically Lenape elders would use the juice from white ash leaves for reducing swelling. More modern settler usages revolve around using the elastic yet study wood for baseball bats, oars, hockey sticks, and tool handles. My friends father used to raid his boss's construction sites at night to harvest ash slated for removal and deliver it to a baseball bat manufacturer for a decent payout. Ash also has a lovely grain visible in the broken log in the second image

Ash forests now eerie snag filled openings which creak and occasionally fall on unsuspecting hikers. The thought of watching an entire forest ecosystem go really bothered me, ash swamps are unique, varied, there's something almost indescribable about growing up hearing early spring chirps from little tree frogs at night which are now silent. I left my job in architecture and started pursuing a degree related to landscape architecture and ecological planning (not that this is the answer). I started propagating ash trees where I could and planting them around. Unfortunately ash can't immediately return, invasive species often outcompete ash trees in their former forest, the added pressure ultimately reduces their ability to regenerate. The borer has spread so far there is little we can do to remove it, however there is a positive effect with biological control via the borers' specific parasitic wasp.

Is this the end of the ash? Hopefully not. I still find saplings throughout the woods, ash can be aggressive in the right conditions, can they survive into maturity is another question. Perhaps in another century, more will return, and ash will occupy our woods once more. Like the Chestnut work is being done to breed more resistant species.

[lauramariescorner]