#Indigenous Flow

[paulpingminho]

[godbirdart]

Mukw' (sul'sul'tun)

lessLIE (2013) • National Gallery of Canada

[centralflowsource]

“my body not yours”

photo credit: treehouse media - joshua franzos

[beigetiger]

Milo Rossie being really passive aggressive towards America in his history videos gives me LIFE

[paintedmother-blog]

The Power of Call and Response in Art

[reasonsforhope]

"In Northern California, a Native American tribe is celebrating the return of ancestral lands in one of the largest such transfers in the nation’s history.

Through a Dept. of the Interior initiative aiming to bring indigenous knowledge back into land management, 76 square miles east of the central stretch of the Klamath River has been returned to the Yurok tribe.

Sandwiched between the newly-freed Klamath and forested hillsides of evergreens, redwoods, and cottonwoods, Blue Creek is considered the crown jewel of these lands, though if it were a jewel it wouldn’t be blue, it would be a giant colorless diamond, such is the clarity of the water.

Pictured: Blue Creek

It’s the most important cold-water tributary of the Klamath River, and critical habitat for coho and Chinook salmon. Fished and hunted on since time immemorial by the Yurok and their ancestors, the land was taken from them during the gold rush before eventually being bought by timber companies.

Barry McCovey Jr., director of the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department, remembers slipping past gates and dodging security along Blue Creek just to fish up a steelhead, one of three game fish that populate the river and need it to spawn.

Profiled along with the efforts of his tribe to secure the land for themselves and their posterity, he spoke to AP about the experience of seeing plans, made a decade ago, come to fruition, and returning to the creek on which he formerly trespassed as a land and fisheries manager.

“To go from when I was a kid and 20 years ago even, from being afraid to go out there to having it be back in tribal hands … is incredible,” he said.

Part of the agreement is that the Yurok Tribe would manage the land to a state of maximum health and resilience, and for that the tribe has big plans, including restoring native prairie, using fire to control understory growth, removing invasive species, restoring native fish habitat, and undoing decades of land-use changes from the logging industry in the form of culverts and logging roads.

“And maybe all that’s not going to be done in my lifetime,” said McCovey. “But that’s fine, because I’m not doing this for myself.”

The Yurok Tribe were recently at the center of the nation’s largest dam removal, a two decades-long campaign to remove a series of four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River. Once the West Coast’s third-largest salmon run, the Klamath dams substantially reduced salmon activity.

Completed last September, the before and after photographs are stunning to witness. By late November, salmon had already returned far upriver to spawn, proving that instinctual information had remained intact even after a century of disconnect.

Pictured; Klamath River flows freely, after Copco-2 dam was removed in California

“Seeing salmon spawning above the former dams fills my heart,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe, the leaders of the dam removal campaign along with the Karuk and Klamath tribes.

“Our salmon are coming home. Klamath Basin tribes fought for decades to make this day a reality because our future generations deserve to inherit a healthier river from the headwaters to the sea.”

Last March, GNN reported that the Yurok Tribe had also become the first of America’s tribal nations to co-manage land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding involving Redwoods National Park.

The nonprofit Save the Redwoods bought a piece of land adjacent to the park, which receives 1 million visitors annually and is a UNESCO Natural Heritage Site, and handed it over to the Yurok for stewardship.

The piece of land, which contained giant redwoods, recovered to such an extent that the NPS has incorporated it into the Redwoods trail network, and the two agencies will cooperate in ensuring mutual flourishing between two properties and one ecosystem.

Back at Blue Creek, AP reports that work has already begun clearing non-native conifer trees planted for lumber. The trunks will be used to create log jams in the creek for wildlife habitat.

Costing $56 million, the land was bought from the loggers by Western Rivers Conservancy, using a mixture of fundraising efforts including private capital, low interest loans, tax credits, public grants and carbon credit sales.

The sale was part of a movement called Land Back, which involves returning ownership of once-native lands of great importance to tribes for the sake of effective stewardship. [Note: This is a weirdly limited definition of Land Back. Land Back means RETURN STOLEN LAND, PERIOD.] Studies have shown around the tropics that indigenous-owned lands in protected areas have higher forest integrity and biodiversity than those owned by national governments.

Land Back has seen 4,700 square miles—equivalent to one and a half-times the size of Yellowstone National Park—returned to tribes through land buy-back agreements in 15 states." [Note: Since land buyback agreements aren't the only form of Land Back, the total is probably (hopefully) more than that.]

-via Good News Network, June 10, 2025

[rebeccathenaturalist]

If you aren't following the news here in the Pacific Northwest, this is a very, very big deal. Our native salmon numbers have been plummeting over the past century and change. First it was due to overfishing by commercial canneries, then the dams went in and slowed the rivers down and blocked the salmons' migratory paths. More recently climate change is warming the water even more than the slower river flows have, and salmon can easily die of overheating in temperatures we would consider comfortable.

Removing the dams will allow the Klamath River and its tributaries to return to their natural states, making them more hospitable to salmon and other native wildlife (the reservoirs created by the dams were full of non-native fish stocked there over the years.) Not only will this help the salmon thrive, but it makes the entire ecosystem in the region more resilient. The nutrients that salmon bring back from their years in the ocean, stored within their flesh and bones, works its way through the surrounding forest and can be traced in plants several miles from the river.

This is also a victory for the Yurok, Karuk, and other indigenous people who have relied on the Klamath for many generations. The salmon aren't just a crucial source of food, but also deeply ingrained in indigenous cultures. It's a small step toward righting one of the many wrongs that indigenous people in the Americas have suffered for centuries.

[moniquill]

Here is a brief summary of what is happening in Wikipedia right now:

In the last few years (3-4 years) the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which was originally created to improve the quality and coverage of native issues and native articles on wikipedia, has been hijacked by a small number of users with an extremist agenda. They have been working diligently over the last few years to change the definition of both what it means to be an Indigenous American and even what it means to be state and federally recognized.

The four or five key players (Mainly Editor Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf, (now retired editor CorbieVreccan, Netherzone and Oncamera) who are part of the “Native American Articles Improvement Project” started implementing these changes slowly, but they started pursuing their goals aggressively after November 2023, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in NCAI. Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.

The talk page of Lily Gladstone’s article has a relevant discussion here. Initially, the leaders of the WikiProject removed any reference to her being a “Native American Actress” and instead had her as “Self-identifying as Blackfoot” and “Self-identifying as Nez Perce” because her blood quantum was too low to be enrolled in either tribe.

You can see some of the discussion here:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lily_Gladstone

Eventually they relented and changed her category to being “Of Nez Perce Descent” but you can see in the discussion that they are referring to an article that these editors (Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, and CorbieVreccan) themselves appeared to have mostly written and revised:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_identity_in_the_United_States

This statement is very much at odds with even the government’s description, as seen below;

The DOJ Office of Tribal Justice Office on their webpage “Frequently Asked Questions About Native American”, question “Who is an American Indian or Alaskan Native” states:

“As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person's identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

In addition, “List” pages have been created on Wikipedia for federally and state recognized tribes. The Wikipedia “List” page for state-recognized tribes is inaccurate in its interpretation of state recognition and not supported by expert reliable sources--(1) Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law 2012 edition, (2) NCSL.org current stand on state recognition (not the archived list from 2017 which NCSL no longer supports), (3) Koenig & Stein’s paper “Federalism and the State Recognition of Native American Tribes: a survey of state-recognized tribes and state recognition processes across the United States” (both 2008 & updated 2013 in book “ Recognition, sovereignty struggles, and indigenous rights in the United States: A sourcebook”)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-recognized_tribes_in_the_United_States

State-recognized tribes who have received recognition through less formal but acceptable means have been moved from the Wikipedia list page on state-recognized tribes to the Wikipedia list page of unrecognized or self-identifying organizations.

The Wiki page "List of organizations that self-identify as Native American tribes", in particular, is being used to purposely defame legitimate Native American individuals who are members of the tribes/Native communities that are on this list. 

By the parameters set up on Wikipedia, only the colonizer’s governments can acknowledge who is Native American through either federal recognition or state recognition. If an individual is not a member of a federally or state-recognized tribe, then it is determined that they cannot be Native American and are, instead, considered “self-identifying” or only “a descendant of ...” (example Lily Gladstone). As a result, Native individuals are currently being tagged as “self-identifying” and their names are put on “list” pages that strongly imply they are “pretend” Indians.

These editors have indicated that they would like “self-identification” to be the default setting for any people who they deem do not fit within the parameters that they themselves created within Wikipedia.

Moreof, these editors are admin and senior editors within the Wikiproject Indigenous Peoples of North America, and are being called in specifically to weigh on Native Identity, and any project involving any Indigenous Group.

Any attempt to correct misinformation, add information, or change any of these articles is often met with being blocked, reported for various offenses, or reported for having a Conflict of Interest, whether or not that is actually applicable. They have use this strategically in many different pages for many different individuals and groups within the scope of their Wikiprojects.

While changing things in Wikipedia does not change the truth, it is a way to control how most people take in information, and thus they hope to manipulate the narrative to better suit their goals.

This is quick and messy but:

Here is a link to the google document with the other state recognized tribes (Including yours) that were edited by these editors. This is an incomplete list so far that only goes back to September 2023 but I am going to add to it. If you can add to your own part of this list, and send your complaints and information to the arbitrator committee (the email is below) with the involved editors, this will help our case.

The  more tribes who complain, and the more Wikipedia editors complain, the better our case will be. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YNDEjLTrrZ_mMIRCVxtvt69FwCYpJWKs71lBhWa5a9M/edit?usp=sharing

The place to make complaints on Wikipedia is oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org , and

arbcom-enwikimedia.org . It is most helpful to have an editing account on Wikipedia, because Yuchitown and the others will try to defend themselves using Wikipedia methodology and make anyone who confronts them look like the aggressor (see the other tribes who tried to fight back on Wikipedia I found).

The more people and tribes make complaints the more likely it is that this will work and we can rid ourselves of these monsters.

Some of the tribes I have spoken to are taking legal action against these editors. Any groups affected by their policies should also reach out to the news to make knowledge of this more widespread.

Thank you

- quoted with permission from an email sent by an associate of my tribe. Message me for their email address if you'd like to reach out to them.

[fairuzfan]

AMAZING article about what it means to participate in anti-Zionism work both online and in person.

If your anti-zionism does not in any way acknowledge that it is a way of thought and practice led by and for Palestinians, then you need to reevaluate your "anti-zionism" label.

Some passages that felt especially relevant to tumblr:

If we accept, as those with even the most rudimentary understanding of history do, that zionism is an ongoing process of settler-colonialism, then the undoing of zionism requires anti-zionism, which should be understood as a process of decolonisation. Anti-zionism as a decolonial ideology then becomes rightly situated as an indigenous liberation movement. The resulting implication is two-fold. First, decolonial organising requires that we extract ourselves from the limitations of existing structures of power and knowledge and imagine a new, just world. Second, this understanding clarifies that the caretakers of anti-zionist thought are indigenous communities resisting colonial erasure, and it is from this analysis that the strategies, modes, and goals of decolonial praxis should flow. In simpler terms: Palestinians committed to decolonisation, not Western-based NGOs, are the primary authors of anti-zionist thought. We write this as a Palestinian and a Palestinian-American who live and work in Palestine, and have seen the impact of so-called ‘Western values’ and how the centring of the ‘human rights’ paradigm disrupts real decolonial efforts in Palestine and abroad. This is carried out in favour of maintaining the status quo and gaining proximity to power, using our slogans emptied of Palestinian historical analysis.

Anti-zionist organising is not a new notion, but until now the use of the term in organising circles has been mired with misunderstandings, vague definitions, or minimised outright. Some have incorrectly described anti-zionism as amounting to activities or thought limited to critiques of the present Israeli government – this is a dangerous misrepresentation. Understanding anti-zionism as decolonisation requires the articulation of a political movement with material, articulated goals: the restitution of ancestral territories and upholding the inviolable principle of indigenous repatriation and through the right of return, coupled with the deconstruction of zionist structures and the reconstitution of governing frameworks that are conceived, directed, and implemented by Palestinians.  Anti-zionism illuminates the necessity to return power to the indigenous community and the need for frameworks of justice and accountability for the settler communities that have waged a bloody, unrelenting hundred-year war on the people of Palestine. It means that anti-zionism is much more than a slogan. 

[...]

While our collective imaginations have not fully articulated what a liberated and decolonised Palestine looks like, the rough contours have been laid out repeatedly. Ask any Palestinian refugee displaced from Haifa, the lands of Sheikh Muwannis, or Deir Yassin – they will tell that a decolonised Palestine is, at a minimum, the right of Palestinians’ return to an autonomous political unit from the river to the sea. When self-proclaimed ‘anti-zionists’ use rhetoric like ‘Israel-Palestine’ – or worse, ‘Palestine-Israel’ – we wonder: where do you think ‘Israel’ exists? On which land does it lay, if not Palestine? This is nothing more than an attempt to legitimise a colonial state; the name you are looking for is Palestine – no hyphen required. At a minimum, anti-zionist formations should cut out language that forces upon Palestinians and non-Palestinian allies the violence of colonial theft. 

[...]

The common choice to centre the Oslo Accords, international humanitarian law, and the human rights paradigm over socio-historical Palestinian realities not only limits our analysis and political interventions; it restricts our imagination of what kind of future Palestinians deserve, sidelining questions of decolonization to convince us that it is the new, bad settlers in the West Bank who are the source of violence. Legitimate settlers, who reside within the bounds of Palestinian geographies stolen in 1948 like Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem, are different within this narrative. Like Breaking the Silence, they can be enlightened by learning the error of colonial violence carried out in service of the bad settlers. They can supposedly even be our solidarity partners – all without having to sacrifice a crumb of colonial privilege or denounce pre-1967 zionist violence in any of its cruel manifestations. As a result of this course of thought, solidarity organisations often showcase particular Israelis – those who renounce state violence in service of the bad settlers and their ongoing colonisation of the West Bank – in roles as professionals and peacemakers, positioning them on an equal intellectual, moral, or class footing with Palestinians. There is no recognition of the inherent imbalance of power between these Israelis and the Palestinians they purport to be in solidarity with – stripping away their settler status. The settler is taken out of the historical-political context which afforded them privileged status on stolen land, and is given the power to delineate the Palestinian experience. This is part of the historical occlusion of the zionist narrative, overlooking the context of settler-colonialism to read the settler as an individual, and omitting their class status as a settler. 

It is essential to note that Palestinians have never rejected Jewish indigeneity in Palestine. However, the liberation movement has differentiated between zionist settlers and Jewish natives. Palestinians have established a clear and rational framework for this distinction, like in the Thawabet, the National Charter of Palestine from 1968. Article 6 states, ‘The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.’ When individuals misread ‘decolonisation’ as ‘the mass killing or expulsion of Jews,’ it is often a reflection of their own entanglement in colonialism or a result of zionist propaganda. Perpetuating this rhetoric is a deliberate misinterpretation of Palestinian thought, which has maintained this position over a century of indigenous organising.  Even after 100 years of enduring ethnic cleansing, whole communities bombed and entire family lines erased, Palestinians have never, as a collective, called for the mass killing of Jews or Israelis. Anti-zionism cannot shy away from employing the historical-political definitions of ‘settler’ and ‘indigenous’ in their discourse to confront ahistorical readings of Palestinian decolonial thought and zionist propaganda. 

[...]

In the context of the United States, the most threatening zionist institutions are the entrenched political parties which function to maintain the status quo of the American empire, not Hillel groups on university campuses or even Christian zionist churches. While the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) engage in forms of violence that suppress Palestinian liberation and must not be minimised, it is crucial to recognise that the most consequential institutions in the context of settler-colonialism are not exclusively Jewish in their orientation or representation: the Republican and Democratic Party in the United States do arguably more to manufacture public consent for the slaughtering of Palestinians than the ADL and AIPAC combined. Even the Progressive Caucus and the majority of ‘The Squad’ are guilty of this.

Leila Shomali and Lara Kilani

[merkabatraindepot]

Cold Islanders/Shvuumh

An introductory primer to a new birg culture under the cut. Project done in collaboration with @iguanodont

Across the lashing grey waves of the Messenian strait, and south of the great equatorial ice belt lies a land once thought as little more than myth. Suhurmv vi Hmascah, or as it is known by people of the West, The Cold Islands. Despite the name of the archipelago, the Islands are just as affected by Hyperborea's extreme seasonality as the rest of the planet.

Inland temperatures during summer on larger Islands will often soar to 45C°, while winter temperatures plunge to -64C°. The fauna, and flora (inso much as such terms are applicable, on Hyperborea Adult Sedentary vs Adult Motile are more useful) native to the archipelago are adapted to these extremes. Currents flowing from the ice belts in conjunction with warmer waters from the East keep oceanic temperatures in a range from 12C° to 5C°. The nutrient rich upwellings mean the waters surrounding the Islands are particularly fertile, and home to some of Hyperborea's largest marine life. Inland likewise represents high endemism, the rugged topography somewhat reminiscent of Earth's Aotearoa- including several large flightless distant relatives of the velocifalcons. In the mind of outsiders The Cold Islands are, perhaps not undeservedly, a Burroughsesque primordial lost world.

(Rest of entry under cut)

Suhurmv vi Hmascah is not a land without people. Indeed, the largest island of Ksmah susc (lit; Honored Sma's toe bones) supports a population of almost five million across seventeen distinct polities, and over sixty spoken languages. As a people, every Shvuumh culture has ties to the sea, being the only region on Hyperborea to successfully domesticated fully semiaquatic predators as a kind of damp hunting hound. The attached image of a Shvihiim canoe depicts the less glamorous above water aspects of a hunt.

The Shvuumh (Most common blanket term for the Cold Islanders, taken from the Susmahk language word for "people". All Northwestern Ksmah group languages use a derivative of a common root for this word) are generally considered the most isolated population of on Hyperborea. Historically this had them interpreted as almost mythical, a race of sea wizards during the early days of infrequent Ss'wassoum contacts. Modern science has confirmed their isolation, if provided no clarification on their collective wizarding capacity. Shvuumh are characterized by several cold resistant adaptations found in no other Hyperborean people, including ice belt nomads. Their peleage is dense, but the outer layers rapidly detach in summer heat. Similarly, their facial ruffs are famously expansive. The only true beards on the planet, and are styled a dizzying number of ways. They also exhibit extensive feathering on their limbs, though during the warm season this is often trimmed to fit inside traditionally leather leggings. Their physical colors tend towards paleness, with some piebaldism present in specific ethnicities.

Perhaps the most interesting trait found in indigenous islanders is their incredible internal filtration system. The Cold Islands are the site of Hyperborea's longest ongoing chemical arms race. Nearly every native plant being minimally unpalatable to outsiders, to abjectly toxic. Perhaps curiously, this has also resulted in a society for which hard narcotics are roughly as damaging as tea or coffee in their preferred dosages. Most Twowi heartland street drugs (especially dream stings) would be metabolized by a Shvuumh before any effects set in. Conversely a mild smoke on the Cold Islands would have the most hardened Ss'wassoum glimmerbeak fiend convulsing on the ground within a single hit.

All peoples of the islands practice aquaculture to an exceptionally sophisticated degree, though only cultures on the larger islands have a dedicated land based agricultural system. These land crops are the result of independent plant domestication disconnected from any other agrarian development. Some can be seen in the above illustration, such as the tuberous looking kskhid, which has both rhizome and leaf focused cultivars. Several cultures on the main island are also seminomadic pastoralists who migrate seasonally from different villages (see Kikram long house for the most common form of multi-family summer home) who graze a mixture of indigenous livestock mixed in with introduced animals from both East and West. Shvuumh notably lack the sex segregation which is the norm for most of their world's cultures. Rather large fusional family groups work with almost no separation of roles beyond some ritual acts in various religious events. Even in the more Sedentary cultures, the notion of a gifter or receiver exclusive town is bizarre to say the least- that would be akin to only using one specific color of feathervane log to build a long house.

It is generally believed the ancestors of the Shvuumh arrived to their homeland via island hopping roughly 45k years ago during an unusual warm era (out of the normal long cycle). Their ancestors were from a Southwestern population referred to as Paleo-Masakkid people, who left no genetic trace on any modern ethnicity of the Eastern Continent. For roughly half of their history, they have hugged the coasts, only establishing static inland populations approximately 10k years ago (based off of archeological evidence). Their histories and diversity have been vast, and only began contacting the outside world some 700 years before the present day with global current shifts allowed for outside sailors to visit them.

By 300 years ago, these interactions increased. Some even resulting in interested Shvuumh spending years away from home as itinerate specialists, or in more sinister cases victims of the slave trade akin to the scourge of Pacific blackbirding. 200 years ago, the spectre of colonialism began to rear is head over Suhurmv vi Hmascah. Suddenly every nascent empire found itself interested in a land full of mineral wealth, virgin forests, and valuable botanicals populated by a people without firearms. In most cases, this would mark the beginning of a tragedy- the first act in a sordid drama of subjugation and genocide.

Curiously, it was drugs which saved the day. The very same compounds which attracted attention to their home also gave the Shvuumh an incredible collective bargaining chip against invaders, as early exports of what were to the islanders mild stimulants resulted in an explosion of addicts. This massive demand combined with invaluable pharmaceuticals have safeguarded Suhurmv vi Hmascah from being truly invaded beyond a handful of port towns. Well, that and the fact that it would take roughly fifteen minutes to poison the entire food supply of colonial armies with crushed leaves. Or just leave them alone for the high summer biting gnat swarms. Truly, living in what most of Hyperborea considers a hell has worked out wonderfully for the Shvuumh.

-Excerpt from Bulakul's Reference Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Cultures, 20 year anniversary edition, volume three

[centralflowsource]

"we not only want to break glass ceilings in rock music, but we want to replace them with stairs for others with similar dreams to follow" - roxanne, central flow

photo credit: kitoko chargois

[whencyclopedia]

The Indus Valley Civilization was a cultural and political entity which flourished in the northern region of the Indian subcontinent between c. 7000 - c. 600 BCE. Its modern name derives from its location in the valley of the Indus River, but it is also commonly referred to as the Indus-Sarasvati Civilization and the Harrapan Civilization. These latter designations come from the Sarasvati River mentioned in Vedic sources, which flowed adjacent to the Indus River, and the ancient city of Harappa in the region, the first one found in the modern era. None of these names derive from any ancient texts because, although scholars generally believe the people of this civilization developed a writing system (known as Indus Script or Harappan Script) it has not yet been deciphered. All three designations are modern constructs, and nothing is definitively known of the origin, development, decline, and fall of the civilization. Even so, modern archaeology has established a probable chronology and periodization: Pre-Harappan – c. 7000 - c. 5500 BCE Early Harappan – c. 5500 - 2800 BCE Mature Harappan – c. 2800 - c. 1900 BCE Late Harappan – c. 1900 - c. 1500 BCE Post Harappan – c. 1500 - c. 600 BCE The Indus Valley Civilization is now often compared with the far more famous cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but this is a fairly recent development. The discovery of Harappa in 1829 CE was the first indication that any such civilization existed in India, and by that time, Egyptian hieroglyphics had been deciphered, Egyptian and Mesopotamian sites excavated, and cuneiform would soon be translated by the scholar George Smith (l. 1840-1876 CE). Archaeological excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization, therefore, had a significantly late start comparatively, and it is now thought that many of the accomplishments and “firsts” attributed to Egypt and Mesopotamia may actually belong to the people of the Indus Valley Civilization. The two best-known excavated cities of this culture are Harappa and Mohenjo-daro (located in modern-day Pakistan), both of which are thought to have once had populations of between 40,000-50,000 people, which is stunning when one realizes that most ancient cities had on average 10,000 people living in them. The total population of the civilization is thought to have been upward of 5 million, and its territory stretched over 900 miles (1,500 km) along the banks of the Indus River and then in all directions outward. Indus Valley Civilization sites have been found near the border of Nepal, in Afghanistan, on the coasts of India, and around Delhi, to name only a few locations. Between c. 1900 - c. 1500 BCE, the civilization began to decline for unknown reasons. In the early 20th century CE, this was thought to have been caused by an invasion of light-skinned peoples from the north known as Aryans who conquered a dark-skinned people defined by Western scholars as Dravidians. This claim, known as the Aryan Invasion Theory, has been discredited. The Aryans – whose ethnicity is associated with the Iranian Persians – are now believed to have migrated to the region peacefully and blended their culture with that of the indigenous people while the term Dravidian is understood now to refer to anyone, of any ethnicity, who speaks one of the Dravidian languages. Why the Indus Valley Civilization declined and fell is unknown, but scholars believe it may have had to do with climate change, the drying up of the Sarasvati River, an alteration in the path of the monsoon which watered crops, overpopulation of the cities, a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia, or a combination of any of the above. In the present day, excavations continue at many of the sites found thus far and some future find may provide more information on the history and decline of the culture.

[kabr0ztrousers]

Kabr0z Writes episode 31: Bug Buzz

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: Oviposition; aphrodisiac sting; arthropods; noncon; intox; inconclusive ending; implied kidnap

A/N: No requests today, so I'm taking the opportunity to remind you all that you can absolutely send one in. It doesn't even matter if you think it's a good idea for a story, limitation breeds creativity, as they say

##########################################

You've been mapping this forest for a while. Hell, you've alone in this sweating woodland for weeks, but this is your thesis so you're not going back to the Cartographer's Guild without a map. You'd stopped wearing a bra after about the third day, but you're the only person for miles, so what does it really matter?

You got to today's square mile easily enough. You're not exactly blazing trails, but making maps from ground level in this kind of environment means you either get real good at navigating the forest floor or go home early.

Mapping this kind of terrain is simple enough, but takes forever. Ranging poles are brilliant if you have long sight lines along gradients. Issue is every ten yards, there's another tree. You sigh and get to work, setting up equipment, taking readings, gathering up your kit, and repeating the process, meter by agonising meter.

What got you was how lonely this forest is. Only a tiny part of the world has been charted, and a big part of the Cartographer's Guild remit was identifying indigenous populations, seeing which are friendly and open to trade, and which would rather be left alone. That's then passed on to the Anthropologist's League who do their thing later. So far though, you haven't found anyone. That means either the area is actually unpopulated or, much more likely, whoever lives here has decided not to make themselves known to you.

The sky had just opened. The rain here was never cold, so you didn't mind it, even if it did plaster your thin shirt to your tits and show off your curves to the world at large. It also meant the world was filled with a constant white noise of pattering raindrops on the foliage around you. The rain always relaxed you. You stretched, letting the water flow over you before settling down for your lunch break.

You heard something behind you, before you're forced over a log. You yelled out as something ted your skirt and pushed your knickers aside. Something hard and angular was pressed up against your pussy, rubbing against it.

A sharp pain rocketed through your leg. Something big just stung you. The effects were immediate. You felt your legs instinctively spread as both your mouth and your pussy started to drool, fluids dripping from either end of you. The angled appendage slipped inside of you, you could feel fluid oozing from it and adding to your own as it started to fuck you. Six pairs of limbs wrapped around you as a pair of mandibles locked on to the back of your neck. The warmth of the venom and the fluid being pumped into you was making you ache and whine. Your pussy was throbbing and swollen around it already and your clit felt hot and erect

You could feel the thing on your back taking shorter and shorter thrusts, already buried inside you. Your hand strayed to your clit, rubbing yourself to orgasm. You fell to your knees when you came, jolting the creature out momentarily. It responded by madly thrusting back in, coating your skin with the thick slime that refused to wash off in the rain. It burned where it touched you, drawing blood to the surface and making your skin so sensitive. A lot of it coated your pussy lips and your clit, only making them ache more. You hadn't recovered from the last climax when the thrusting brought you to another.

You felt the cock in you expand. The base filled out first. You'd had a canid lover before, so you knew what it's like to be knotted, but then you felt the tip open and latch on to your cervix, spurting the thick aphrodisiac directly into your womb.

It was too much. You half screamed, half moaned. Your orgasm was coming from the deepest parts of you as your womb clenched. It would've been the most agonising period cramp of your life, but something about that sting had rewired you. You almost choked on your copious drool as you panted and bucked, desperate for more.

Then it gave you more.

You felt it. Something travelling down this thing's cock. Pushing past your cervix, numbed from the toxins and the repeated orgasms, and planting itself in your belly.

"Yes. Yes. Please" you panted, you cried, you moaned and screamed "Fill me, give me your eggs"

You don't know if it understood you. It definitely obliged. More and more of the eggs passed into you. Your stomach bulged with them. The shapes of the shells visible in your belly. You looked like you had twins on the way, then triplets, then quads.

At last the creature pulled itself out of you and took flight, spurting more of the toxic cum onto your back so every raindrop felt like an electric jolt against your spine, and every gust of the breeze became the caress of a lover.

You stayed there for hours. Still rubbing your aching hole and your engorged clit, forcing out orgasm after orgasm until you couldn't move from the exertion.

You were rolled over. Your eyes wouldn't focus. Vision bleary and swimming you watched a pair of figures tie your hands and ankles over a pole and lift it, before carrying you away

You wonder where you're going

##################################

And that's a wrap on the month of January! A total of 6 stories were requested as of 10pm today, my time, which wound up making 8 total episodes!

As always, if you want to see something, if something in particular revs your engine, or you just want to see me take something on, please submit it in an ask or a DM, and I'll probably make it happen!

See y'all in February!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Fantasy Worldbuilding

Fantasy worldbuilding - the process of creating a fictional world replete with core characters, overlapping storylines, detailed settings, and fantastical elements that set the world apart from our own.

A clear, detailed fantasy world will help readers invest in the characters that inhabit it.

Essential Elements of a Fantasy World

The fantasy genre often contains elements of science fiction, magic, or imaginative creatures—but it’s more than just writing every fictional element you can think up. The world of your fantasy novel, video game, television show, or film has to make sense in order for the rest of its parts to work in harmony.

Magic: Decide if there is a magic system in place, then set the rules of it. What powers it? Is it a secret? Can anyone use it?

Geography: It may be helpful to create a fantasy map. Identify major landmasses and historic sites. How does the landscape impact the plot or the characters? What is the climate like? You can get as specific as identifying the indigenous flora and fauna, even if you don’t use those details. As a world-builder, you can include as much or as little in your process and final version as you like—as long as your story comes together in a way that makes sense for the audience.

Society: Figure out the inhabitants of your fantasy world. What language do they speak? What do they look like? Are they humanlike? Are they creaturelike? What sort of culture do they have? How have previous historical events impacted the way they live now?

History: While you don’t have to outline the beginning of your world’s history to the end, it’s useful to know of any key events like wars, plagues, political strife, extraterrestrial invasions, or anything else that had an effect on the way your world operates now.

Time: How does it flow in your world? Is there a calendar? Are there seasons? What affects the light and the darkness?

How to Create a Fantasy World

There are many avenues for writing fantasy worlds, and you can start with whichever aspect you like first:

Use real life as inspiration. That doesn’t mean taking people from existing ethnic groups and putting costumes on them—but observe how other cultures live, how they interact with their environments and each other. By incorporating real-life into your fantasy book, you can avoid falling into tropes and clichés, and create a richer template for your characters and plot to thrive in.

Define the setting. A good starting point when creating a fantasy story is the universe itself. Is this an imaginary world existing within our own world, like Black Panther’s Wakanda? Or is it its own entirely new world, like Narnia in C.S. Lewis’s fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia? Describe what the landscape looks like, what colors it contains, or how many suns and moons it has. Any details that can help make your fantasy world feel more like real-life in order to help ground it in something believable will make a difference in how your audience feels and experiences it.

Create inhabitants. A fantasy world has more than one type of inhabitant. They can be vastly different from one another, or only have subtle contrasts between them. For example, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the magical world setting of middle-earth has both Dwarves and Hobbits, which, despite both being the smaller races, contain many differences between them. They each have their own origins and backstories, temperaments, key aesthetics, daily life routines, and various other aspects that enrich and define the separate races. Inhabitants include the antagonists as well. Make them more than one-dimensional bad guys—give them a motivation that’s relevant to the world they live in.

Make magic. Implement your magic system, if there is one. Write its limits, along with its capabilities. For instance, in George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, the magic in the world seemingly gets stronger when the main character Daenerys Targaryen brings about the birth of her dragons. Magic needs rules in order to function properly in your fantasy world, and while you don’t need to include a list of laws in your writing, the use of it must make them apparent.

Source ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[reasonsforhope]

The Klamath River’s salmon population has declined due to myriad factors, but the biggest culprit is believed to be a series of dams built along the river from 1918 to 1962, cutting off fish migration routes.

Now, after decades of Indigenous advocacy, four of the structures are being demolished as part of the largest dam removal project in United States history. In November, crews finished removing the first of the four dams as part of a push to restore 644 kilometres (400 miles) of fish habitat.

“Dam removal is the largest single step that we can take to restore the Klamath River ecosystem,” [Barry McCovey, a member of the Yurok Tribe and director of tribal fisheries,] told Al Jazeera. “We’re going to see benefits to the ecosystem and then, in turn, to the fishery for decades and decades to come.” ...

A ‘watershed moment’

Four years later, [after a catastrophic fish die-off in 2002,] in 2006, the licence for the hydroelectric dams expired. That created an opportunity, according to Mark Bransom, CEO of the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC), a nonprofit founded to oversee the dam removals.

Standards for protecting fisheries had increased since the initial license was issued, and the utility company responsible for the dams faced a choice. It could either upgrade the dams at an economic loss or enter into a settlement agreement that would allow it to operate the dams until they could be demolished.

“A big driver was the economics — knowing that they would have to modify these facilities to bring them up to modern environmental standards,” Bransom explained. “And the economics just didn’t pencil out.”

The utility company chose the settlement. In 2016, the KRRC was created to work with the state governments of California and Oregon to demolish the dams.

Final approval for the deal came in 2022, in what Bransom remembers as a “watershed moment”.

Regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted unanimously to tear down the dams, citing the benefit to the environment as well as to Indigenous tribes...

Tears of joy

Destruction of the first dam — the smallest, known as Copco 2 — began in June, with heavy machinery like excavators tearing down its concrete walls.

[Amy Cordalis, a Yurok Tribe member, fisherwoman and lawyer for the tribe,] was present for the start of the destruction. Bransom had invited her and fellow KRRC board members to visit the bend in the Klamath River where Copco 2 was being removed. She remembers taking his hand as they walked along a gravel ridge towards the water, a vein of blue nestled amid rolling hills.

“And then, there it was,” Cordalis said. “Or there it wasn’t. The dam was gone.”

For the first time in a century, water flowed freely through that area of the river. Cordalis felt like she was seeing her homelands restored.

Tears of joy began to roll down her cheeks. “I just cried so hard because it was so beautiful.”

The experience was also “profound” for Bransom. “It really was literally a jolt of energy that flowed through us,” he said, calling the visit “perhaps one of the most touching, most moving moments in my entire life”.

Demolition on Copco 2 was completed in November, with work starting on the other three dams. The entire project is scheduled to wrap in late 2024.

[A resilient river]

But experts like McCovey say major hurdles remain to restoring the river’s historic salmon population.

Climate change is warming the water. Wildfires and flash floods are contaminating the river with debris. And tiny particles from rubber vehicle tires are washing off roadways and into waterways, where their chemicals can kill fish within hours.

McCovey, however, is optimistic that the dam demolitions will help the river become more resilient.

“Dam removal is one of the best things we can do to help the Klamath basin be ready to handle climate change,” McCovey explained. He added that the river’s uninterrupted flow will also help flush out sediment and improve water quality.

The removal project is not the solution to all the river’s woes, but McCovey believes it’s a start — a step towards rebuilding the reciprocal relationship between the waterway and the Indigenous people who rely on it.

“We do a little bit of work, and then we start to see more salmon, and then maybe we get to eat more salmon, and that starts to help our people heal a little bit,” McCovey said. “And once we start healing, then we’re in a place where we can start to help the ecosystem a little bit more.”"

-via Al Jazeera, December 4, 2023

[saturngalore]

CLUB SATURN 🪐🪼⭐️

“welcome to CLUB SATURN. enter into a whole new world where the bass is blasting, sweat is dripping, drinks are flowing, and bodies are moving. . . especially the bodies that are heavenly, unruly, and ungovernable. this is a space where the marginalized can escape from oppressive systems that dominate the outside world and finally feel free. . .even if it’s just for one night. it’s a counterpublic where its participants actively come together to learn how survive and sustain each other through acts of pleasure, resistance, and above all. . .love. are you ready to enter, CLUB SATURN?”

more importantly CLUB SATURN would mean nothing if i didn’t also continuously remind y’all that all of our struggles and oppressions are often intertwined and that we should always support marginalized communities across the globe (especially rn palestine, dr congo, sudan, haiti, black and indigenous lgbtq people, immigrants in the “usa”, etc.) and in your community! i will be including this list HERE where i complied a lot of fundraisers and organizations that you can help a wide variety of communities and people by donating and sharing their links and/or funds!

download button, cc information, and a curated CLUB SATURN playlist below! 🩷💙💜

happy last day of pride + black music month! welcome to CLUB SATURN! this is a mini cc set that’s comprised of a dress recolor and a jellyfish hairstyle…both things i made in 2024. the 2S2DS (2 Something 2 Do Something) dress has a heat map design with star t*ddies and a very sl*tty tramp tattoo on the bad…perfect for my fat sim baddies (and those who admire them) to wear this summer! it has 40+ swatches and some swatches don’t have the stars on them. the dress’s name is inspired by the Juicy Body Goddess boutique’s motto: “you have to be two something to do something”, which basically says you have to be 200+ pounds shop at the store because specifically it’s a plus-size store. so, it’s just a cheeky reference to that because i honestly think this dress looks better on fat sims and hopefully this pushes y’all to make more fat sims!!!

anyways, the GENESIS hair is a simple jellyfish cut hair that i randomly made after seeing this picture. it’s not exactly the same and the jellyfish hype is kinda gone but idgaf! i also made THIS PLAYLIST that’s 2 hours long to go along with this cc set because im a huge music enthusiast and of course, CLUB SATURN definitely has some good ass music playing inside. anyways, i talk too much but i hope y’all enjoy what i made from the cc to the curated playlist and remember to always be whooooo youuu areeee for your prideeeee 🌈✊🏾🙂‍↕️

base game compatible (bgc)

dress: has 40+ swatches that come with and without the star patches

hair: maxis palette (24 swatches)

young adult-elder for dress / teen-elder for hair

both frames

hair is not hat compatible (some accessories can fit!)

custom thumbnails

disallowed for random

all lods

please tag me if you do use my cc! i would absolutely love to see it! also, please let me know if you encounter any issues with my cc! here’s my tou.

tysm to cc rebloggers! @public-ccfinds @sssvitlanz

download via patreon - ALWAYS FREE!