#Regional Farming Tips

[ggacworldwide]

Maximizing March: Best Farming Practices for Nigerian Regions

Introduction:As March unfolds, Nigerian farmers gear up for a pivotal period in agricultural activities. Tailoring farming practices to regional nuances and climate variations is crucial for maximizing yields and ensuring agricultural success. Explore the following best practices designed to optimize farming endeavors across Nigerian regions this March. 1. Northern Nigeria: Planting Schedule:…

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - June 15-21

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $Kaybarr1735! And if you tip me and give me a way to contact you, at the end of the month I'll send you a link to all of the articles I found but didn't use each week!

1. Victory for Same-Sex Marriage in Thailand

“Thailand’s Senate voted 130-4 today to pass a same-sex marriage bill that the lower house had approved by an overwhelming majority in March. This makes Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia, and the second in Asia, to recognize same-sex relationships. […] The Thai Marriage Equality Act […] will come into force 120 days after publication in the Royal Gazette. It will stand as an example of LGBT rights progress across the Asia-Pacific region and the world.”

2. One of world’s rarest cats no longer endangered

“[The Iberian lynx’s] population grew from 62 mature individuals in 2001 to 648 in 2022. While young and mature lynx combined now have an estimated population of more than 2,000, the IUCN reports. The increase is largely thanks to conservation efforts that have focused on increasing the abundance of its main food source - the also endangered wild rabbit, known as European rabbit. Programmes to free hundreds of captive lynxes and restoring scrublands and forests have also played an important role in ensuring the lynx is no longer endangered.”

3. Planning parenthood for incarcerated men

“[M]any incarcerated young men missed [sex-ed] classroom lessons due to truancy or incarceration. Their lack of knowledge about sexual health puts them at a lifelong disadvantage. De La Cruz [a health educator] will guide [incarcerated youths] in lessons about anatomy and pregnancy, birth control and sexually transmitted infections. He also explores healthy relationships and the pitfalls of toxic masculinity. […] Workshops cover healthy relationships, gender and sexuality, and sex trafficking.”

4. Peru puts endemic fog oasis under protection

“Lomas are unique ecosystems relying on marine fog that host rare and endemic plants and animal species. […] The Peruvian government has formally granted conservation status to the 6,449-hectare (16,000-acre) desert oasis site[….] The site, the first of its kind to become protected after more than 15 years of scientific and advocacy efforts, will help scientists understand climatic and marine cycles in the area[, … and] will be protected for future research and exploration for at least three decades.”

5. Religious groups are protecting Pride events — upending the LGBTQ+ vs. faith narrative

“In some cases, de-escalation teams stand as a physical barrier between protesters and event attendees. In other instances, they try to talk with protesters. The goal is generally to keep everyone safe. Leigh was learning that sometimes this didn’t mean acting as security, but doing actual outreach. That might mean making time and space to listen to hate speech. It might mean offering food or water. […] After undergoing Zoom trainings this spring, the members of some 120 faith organizations will fan out across more than 50 Pride events in 16 states to de-escalate the actions of extremist anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups.”

6. 25 years of research shows how to restore damaged rainforest

“For the first time, results from 25 years of work to rehabilitate fire-damaged and heavily logged rainforest are now being presented. The study fills a knowledge gap about the long-term effects of restoration and may become an important guide for future efforts to restore damaged ecosystems.”

7. Audubon and Grassroots Carbon Announce First-of-its-Kind Partnership to Reward Landowners for Improving Habitats for Birds while Building Healthy Soils

“Participating landowners can profit from additional soil carbon storage created through their regenerative land management practices. These practices restore grasslands, improve bird habits, build soil health and drive nature-based soil organic carbon drawdown through the healthy soils of farms and ranches. […] Additionally, regenerative land management practices improve habitats for birds. […] This partnership exemplifies how sustainable practices can drive positive environmental change while providing tangible economic benefits for landowners.”

8. Circular food systems found to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, require much less agricultural land

“Redesigning the European food system will reduce agricultural land by 44% while dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by 70%. This reduction is possible with the current consumption of animal protein. “Moreover, animals are recyclers in the system. They can recycle nutrients from human-inedible parts of the organic waste and by-products in the food system and convert them to valuable animal products," Simon says.”

9. Could Treating Injured Raptors Help Lift a Population? Researchers found the work of rehabbers can have long-lasting benefits

“[“Wildlife professionals”] tend to have a dismissive attitude toward addressing individual animal welfare,” [… but f]or most raptor species, they found, birds released after rehabilitation were about as likely to survive as wild birds. Those released birds can have even broader impacts on the population. Back in the wild, the birds mate and breed, raising hatchlings that grow up to mate and breed, too. When the researchers modeled the effects, they found most species would see at least some population-level benefits from returning raptors to the wild.”

10. Indigenous people in the Amazon are helping to build bridges & save primates

“Working together, the Reconecta Project and the Waimiri-Atroari Indigenous people build bridges that connect the forest canopy over the BR-174 road[….] In the first 10 months of monitoring, eight different species were documented — not only monkeys such as the golden-handed tamarin and the common squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus), but also kinkajous (Potos flavus), mouse opossums (Marmosops sp.), and opossums (Didelphis sp.).”

Bonus: A rare maneless zebra was born in the UK

June 8-14 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[hedgehog-moss]

I was trying to get my donkey to eat the weeds around my vegetable garden (under strict supervision so he wouldn't pretend to mistake my rhubarb for a weed) and I got a visit from two people on bicycles, who said they were staying at a campsite and cycling from farm to farm trying to find information about their ancestors, who according to family documents, lived in this region in the 1600s. Like a genealogy-themed holiday—that's a fun idea. I told them the name of the family who owned my land in the late 1700s and said I didn't have info beyond that, but they should try the nearby monastery, whose nuns wrote a book about local families, using historical photographs & archives found in schools and town halls. They were very happy with the tip.

The monastery is a nice hiking destination (you've got to follow this eerie road that I love) and the nuns have a tiny shop where they sell homemade gingerbread and jams as well as painted eggs, one time I took a friend on that hike and we stopped to buy rose petal jam and an egg from them and a nun showed us that book they'd written and told us about their interest in local archives, so I think they'll be delighted to help these visitors. I'm myself delighted because it's kind of a milestone when you live alone in the woods, to be validated in your role as a forest creature by strangers on a journey asking you to provide them with the information they need to complete their quest. Looking back on it I only wish I'd phrased my answer as a riddle, and issued a tempting warning not to touch the mysterious glyph engraved on a rock by the side of the road (I need to go engrave one first)

[writingquestionsanswered]

I’ve been reading some craft books and online posts about the world building because my story is an urban fantasy set in present day US, in a fictional town, and theres not a secondary world where the fantasy happens, it’s all in the real world, except the magic is a secret that only certain people know about, but all of the resources I find about world building only talk about fantastical worlds that exist by themselves and not the kind of more subtle world building that I’d have to do. Do you have any tips?

Guide: Creating a Fictional Town in the Real World

Step 1 - Choose Your Location - There are two ways to go about choosing a location for your fictional town. One is to go the "Springfield U.S.A." route, ala The Simpsons, and be vague about the specific location (borough, parish, district, county, region, state, or province) and instead give a broader geographic region... "the East Coast," "the Pacific Northwest," "Central Canada," Northern Scotland," etc. The other option is to go ahead and put your fictional town in a specific location. Just figure out where (for example, somewhere outside of Des Moines, Iowa) and go to Google Maps, click on satellite view, then start zooming in on big empty areas. Choose a place big enough to fit a town. Yes, in reality it's probably farm fields, pasture, or someone's property, but that doesn't matter. You don't have to actually show it on a map. It's just a plausible spot to build your town. Now you can measure how far it is to other places, you know what highways to take to get to it. You can even do street view to get the lay of the land, see what the landscape looks like and try to envision the buildings there. You can also use what's there to create parks, popular recreational areas, and anything else your town needs.

Step 2 - Choose Your Inspiration - Even when you're creating a fictional town, it's still a good idea to use a real town (or two, or three) from that general area as inspiration for your town. For a fictional town in Des Moines, I would zoom in on the map to find a nearby town of similar size... like Elkhart, then I can take a look around to see what it's like. Just looking at the map, I can see they have a couple of churches, a couple baseball fields, a very small main street/downtown area with a couple shops and restaurants, a post office, a few different neighborhoods, and a cemetery. This would be a great model for a small fictional town outside of Des Moines. And, as I said, you could look at a couple other sand combine them. Once you have your inspiration town/s, you can walk around on Google Maps street view, go to the town's web site, watch a tour on YouTube (if one exists), or look up pictures in Google Image search.

Step 3 - Start Planning - This is the really fun part! First, you might want to draw a basic map of your fictional town using your inspiration town/s as a guide. This doesn't have to be a pretty map... just a basic line drawing to help you envision where everything is. Think about some of the basic things this town might have, like the ones I listed in step two, and any other things you might want your town to have, like maybe a library, a hospital, a city hall, school, and maybe a movie theater. It might even be helpful and fun to put together a collage of pictures to represent your town so you've got something in mind as you write about it. You can even choose representatives for specific locations in your story, like your MC's house, school, and their favorite hangout.

Step 4 - Naming Your Town - Start by looking at the kinds of town names that surround your town. Look for common naming conventions... suffixes like -ton, -ville, -dale, -burg, -wood, -field, etc. Words in a particular language, like a lot of French-inspired town names, or towns with geographical terms (lake, hill, valley, river, canyon, gap, etc.) My guide to Naming Locations has additional tips.

Step 5 - Populate Your Town and Give it a History - Last but not least, make up a little history for your town, again, using surrounding towns as inspiration. Who founded it? When was it founded? What's the town's main industry? What are the people like in this town? What jobs do they have? What do they do for fun?

Here are some other posts that might help:

Five Things to Help You Describe Fictional Locations Setting Your Story in an Unfamiliar Place WQA’s Guide to Internet Research Happy writing!

••••••••••••••••••••���••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[blueiscoool]

Ancient Celtic Helmet Is the Oldest Ever Found in Poland

Unearthed at the Łysa Góra archaeological site, the artifact, some 2,300 years old, is a prime example of Celtic metalworking

Archaeologists in Poland have unearthed a horde of 300 artifacts dating back to the fourth century B.C.E. Found at the Łysa Góra site in the region of Mazovia, near Warsaw, the trove includes iron axes, scissors and, most notably, a rare Celtic helmet.

A team from Warsaw’s State Archaeological Museum and University of Warsaw’s Department of Archaeology has been excavating in Łysa Góra since the spring. According to a statement by the team, the helmet was buried in a charcoal pit, along with four iron axes.

Though it was damaged by age, researchers determined the “spectacular” helmet was originally shaped like a cone, possessing a separate curved neck piece and decorated with etched lines. Its discovery has changed the team’s perceptions of the Celts—a group of Central European tribes who thrived during the Iron Age, from 1200 B.C.E. until 50 C.E.

The helmet is the first artifact of its kind to be found in Poland, as excavation leader Bartłomiej Kaczyński, of the archaeological museum, tells Science in Poland’s Ewelina Krajczyńska-Wujec. Before, only one other, much newer Celtic helmet had been discovered: a first-century piece found in the southern village of Siemiechów. The Łysa Góra helmet is at least 2,300 years old.

“At first we thought it might be some kind of ancient vessel, because bronze vessels are much more common on Polish soil than helmets,” Kaczyński tells Science in Poland, per Newsweek’s Aristos Georgiou. Then, the artifact’s neck piece—an arched plate near its edge—prompted archaeologist Andrzej Maciałowicz to suggest it could be a helmet.

Based on the artifact’s shape, and the fact that its tip was held together by a double knob, researchers concluded the piece is an early La Tène helmet. The Celtic culture of La Tène—French for “the shallows”—is named for Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where researchers first found La Tène objects in the late-1800s, per ARTnews’ George Nelson. The culture formed around the fifth century B.C.E., about when Celts came into contact with Etruscan and Greek people from south of the Swiss Alps.

The La Tène style of metalworking developed between the fourth and third centuries B.C.E., and examples of it are “very rare,” per Science in Poland. While 1970s and ‘80s excavations at Łysa Góra revealed some small La Tène artifacts, researchers assumed they ended up in Poland via trading.

The recently discovered helmet, on the other hand, is an example of “the most advanced Celtic metallurgy,” Kaczyński says, and the piece was seemingly owned by a Celt, per Newsweek. The La Tène helmet’s presence in northern Poland changes researchers’ perceptions of the reach of the Celtic world in the pre-Roman period.

The other artifacts the research team found illustrate the ancient Celts’ proclivity for animal husbandry and farming: Blades from shears might have been used to cut sheeps’ wool, and scythes might have cut grain or grass. According to a statement by the archaeological museum, the researchers also found a collection of glass, amber and stone artifacts, including jewelry—bracelets, ornate necklaces and rings.

The helmet was taken to the State Archaeological Museum’s conservation department, where an expert in iron and bronze artifacts will spend several months conserving its pieces. As Kaczyński tells Science in Poland, the research team began excavating Łysa Góra to help construct an educational trail through the site. But the team’s “multitude of discoveries” indicates they may have more archaeological work to do than they thought.

By Sonja Anderson.

[howlingday]

last human au) today is the day ruby tests jaune's survival abilities surely his skills will be amazing as he's had to utilize them every day to survive the dire rats bears and wolves of his ancient time! jaune goes camping, but he feels like he's being watched the entire time weird. oh well time to go skinny dipping in the nearby lake!

TLDR: ruby's friends and fellow scientists find her watching jaune swimming naked and she is taunted for her troubles

Darwin's Reward

Previously

"How long has the test subject been active?"

"About three hours now." Ruby answered. "So far, he's just been walking around from the landing zone, gathering things in the middle from his environment."

"Is it building a nesting site?"

"It's kinda hard to say right now." Ruby shrugged. "For all we know, he could just be putting things into a pile for the fun of it."

"It's an animal, Ruby." The wolf faunus gave a scowl at that. "It's no different than Zwei."

"You're wrong. He's smarter than Zwei."

The specimen on camera then took the gathered resources and began separating them into small groups. It was at this point that he lifted his brow, then bit into the twig he gathered before. With an inaudible cough and sputter, he tossed the twig into it's own group.

"Smarter, huh?"

"Okay, maybe as smart as Zwei."

--------------------------------------------

Jaune wasn't much of an outdoorsman, but what he remembered from his family camping trips, beyond the childish bickering he and his sisters continued, even on vacations, was the myriad of lessons his father gave him, as well as the tips told to him on his class field trips. Well, when he wasn't distracted by a farm animal that happened to be close by.

He looked to the heavy metal container, nodding once more at the shelter he had at the ready. He then brought his attention to the little piles he'd gathered; fire, junk, and maybe food. That foul tasting twig wasn't upsetting his stomach, so maybe it would be passable until he found real food. Maybe there were some berries or ripe fruit for him to snack on.

"Sniff! Sniff! Ugh..."

Speaking of ripe, Jaune was certainly feeling ripe. Before he'd woken up in the hospital, the last time he had a decent shower was the night his girlfriend broke up with him. Though, technically, the last time he had any kind of 'washing' was when he was arrested. He'd been doused in a burning, white powder, then power-washed with what could only be described as a beefed-up fire-hose.

Bottom line, it was time for a bath.

--------------------------------------------

"Subject is moving!" Ruby shouted.

"I know. I'm watching the same thing."

"Where is he going?"

"He might be foraging for more materials for his nest. Something that shows off to his potential mates that he's a viable partner."

"So he's single?" Ruby asked, genuinely curious.

"Unless he found a way to mount that Penny unit, I'd assume yes."

"She's not a Penny unit. She's just Penny." Ruby was met with an eye-roll. Man, she hated being teamed up with her. "Oh! He found water! And he's..."

--------------------------------------------

Jaune hung his outfit on a low-hanging tree branch. Hopefully he wasn't in a cartoon, otherwise he'd have to be worried about thieves taking his clothes. He'd normally strip down to just his boxers and strip them off in the water, but apparently he wasn't good enough to be given boxers.

"Go!" Jaune sprinted from the cover of the trees and leapt for the water, landing with a loud splash. He winced and shivered from the chilling water as his body adjusted to the drastic change in temperature. Swimming around to help build up his heartrate, he then settled close to the shore, keeping his lower region hidden beneath the water's surface. He couldn't explain why, but he had a feeling he was being watched. "I'm probably just overthinking things."

--------------------------------------------

Ruby and her partner stared at the screen for a long while. The specimen rubbed water against himself, scrubbing with his knuckles while looking around. He never thought to look in the air, where the drone hovered silently. Ruby gulped, then turned to her partner.

"Uh, just for scientific purposes, these are recorded, right?"

[theearthquaketrackingfox]

I used to wonder why foxes - red foxes in anime are most often depicted as white or blond and sometimes light brown whereas in western literature are often depicted with rich rusty red or bright orange fur. Orange foxes do exist in anime, but not as common as white and flaxen-furred foxes. I knew not to let the species term fool me as I was aware of the existence of albino, leucistic, and melanistic(silver and black) foxes a long time ago as well as the color mutations of domesticated red foxes. However, I also knew that red foxes can vary in color in the wild as well in various parts of the Earth. I can understand why most kitsune are drawn with gold to white fur. I have seen photos of foxes in Japan and a lot of them are pale or brown. The foxes at the famous Zao Fox Village are probably not native to Japan. A lot of them look like they were rescued from fur farms where they were bred with color variants(including marble, silver, and pearl). The rest of them look like red foxes from North America as shown here:

However, there is the subspecies in Hokkaido known as the Ezo fox that does not look much different:

Otherwise, most foxes in Japan seem to look like this:

They appear to have a top coat that can shed in the Summer which is sort of similar to their arctic cousins. Many of the red foxes with the more classical red coat with prominent markings with the black feet and white-tipped tail are most common in Europe and North America.

However, they don't all look the same in these regions. I have seen photos of red foxes in Wyoming and Alaska where many of them can have pale fur that tends to be long. There are even red foxes with light-colored fur in the eastern U.S. I have seen one before here in Tennessee.

[ranticore]

how Sirenians deal with disability?

Depends on the culture, and there are hundreds if not thousands of cultures in Siren. To give specific examples -

I've drawn a "shortstrider" harpy wearing assistive devices on his feet - this type is relatively widespread in the coastal regions of the East continent, flightless but without the thick plantar padding that lets them walk easily for long periods on the ground. On earth we call those assistive devices "shoes". While technically a disability anywhere else in the continent, it's common enough in these coastal fishing village regions that it is not remarked upon and getting the right footwear is a simple process. The same harpy in the Spire would be pretty disadvantaged as the place is set up to privilege flight and perching, and a shortstrider's feet are not setup to perch either. In this case the disability is completely relative in the extent to which it disables.

Qedivar can't fly. In the Spire it's not much of a locomotive issue as there are rope ladders everywhere and he can perch (like I said the infrastructure is designed for perching and flying). There aren't any assistive devices he could use to make him fly, and once it becomes clear that his reluctance to fly isn't just because he doesn't like exercise (which was his original cover story), the others treated him with at best pity and at worst contempt. The culture of extreme open emotions & communication in the Spire meant that if people thought less of him, they would tell him right out. Nothing is swept under the rug at the Spire and often times people find it refreshing and freeing, even if what's 'refreshing' is people saying to your face that you suck and not whispering it behind your back (neurodivergent people with trouble reading social situations loooove the communication culture here). He also wears glasses, which, like the shoes in coastal regions, are nbd. Bad eyesight is common among scholars anyway (all that reading)

In pelagic villages south of the Western continent (Huarva's home), the culture of communication is the extreme opposite. It is indirect to the point where you should simply assume that every word out of someone's mouth has at least ten different hidden meanings. Nobody ever says what they mean (and it is considered crass to do so), which is a nightmare for anyone who struggles to read social cues. Life in this region is harsh and risky, and villages might struggle to survive year on year if the currents don't bring enough food or seeds for their crops. A physical disability that limits one's ability to contribute (whether by hunting, farming, fishing, etc) will be punished. Your daily contributions measure how much food you can eat from their big eternal stew pot, so sub-par contributions have the effect of slowly starving out people who don't work. Due to the communication culture, there's never anything as dramatic as a "we don't want you here, leave". You're just supposed to get it. You're supposed to infer that you should leave, that you're not wanted. And if you can't, tough lol.

Finally I guess i should talk about the longwing visors. These make wonderful assistive tools, particularly for harpies who are hard of hearing or visually impaired (it's why Terwyef wears one, he can't see well without it due to his albinism. for deaf harpies the automatic transcription feature is a great help). Any longwing harpy can interview at the hall of faces to get a chance to claim a visor. Whether or not it's being used to aid a disability is not considered during the interview process; you get a visor if you can match a character. But there have been occasions where the guardian of the hall of faces intentionally tipped the scales in favour of a disabled candidate, recognising that a visor would be a significant improvement to their quality of life.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Most people are “very” or “extremely” concerned about the state of the natural world, a new global public opinion survey shows. 

Roughly 70 percent of 22,000 people polled online earlier this year agreed that human activities were pushing the Earth past “tipping points,” thresholds beyond which nature cannot recover, like loss of the Amazon rainforest or collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s currents. The same number of respondents said the world needs to reduce carbon emissions within the next decade. 

Just under 40 percent of respondents said technological advances can solve environmental challenges. 

The Global Commons survey, conducted for two collectives of “economic thinkers” and scientists known as Earth4All and the Global Commons Alliance, polled people across 22 countries, including low-, middle- and high-income nations. The survey’s stated aim was to assess public opinion about “societal transformations” and “planetary stewardship.”

The results, released Thursday, highlight that people living under diverse circumstances seem to share worries about the health of ecosystems and the environmental problems future generations will inherit. 

But there were some regional differences. People living in emerging economies, including Kenya and India, perceived themselves to be more exposed to environmental and climate shocks, like drought, flooding and extreme weather. That group expressed higher levels of concern about the environment, though 59 percent of all respondents said they are “very” or “extremely” worried about “the state of nature today,” and another 29 percent are at least somewhat concerned.  

Americans are included in the global majority, but a more complex picture emerged in the details of the survey, conducted by Ipsos.

Roughly one in two Americans said they are not very or not at all exposed to environmental and climate change risks. Those perceptions contrast sharply with empirical evidence showing that climate change is having an impact in nearly every corner of the United States. A warming planet has intensified hurricanes battering coasts, droughts striking middle American farms and wildfires threatening homes and air quality across the country. And climate shocks are driving up prices of some food, like chocolate and olive oil, and consumer goods. 

Americans also largely believe they do not bear responsibility for global environmental problems. Only about 15 percent of U.S. respondents said that high- and middle-income Americans share responsibility for climate change and natural destruction. Instead, they attribute the most blame to businesses and governments of wealthy countries. 

Those survey responses suggest that at least half of Americans may not feel they have any skin in the game when it comes to addressing global environmental problems, according to Geoff Dabelko, a professor at Ohio University and expert in environmental policy and security. 

Translating concern about the environment to actual change requires people to believe they have something at stake, Dabelko said. “It’s troubling that Americans aren’t making that connection.”

[pokemonshelterstories]

Hello! I'm a rancher at a working historical Miltank homestead/museum. We've got a small herd, some Dubwool and Wooloo, Skiddo, a sweet Mudsdale and a pair of Mudbray, the world's greatest hunting Delcatty, and... my favorite, a large collection of Torchic. Recently, I picked up one of the Torchic to handle and display for visitors, and I discovered (to my complete dismay) that she was missing a wing... and, uh, I don't mean like a congenital defect, I mean like a stump. Do you and the shelter staff have any tips or suggestions for ensuring that the other Torchic don't bully my baby Sephiroth? (Oh, yeah, I named her Sephiroth. She's my favorite.)

oh dear. do your torchic go into a coop at night? if so, check it for any possible way something like a zigzagoon or nickit got in. a wound to that extent isn't likely to have happened from another torchic- you'd expect peck wounds and burn marks, but not dismemberment. i hope she recovers alright. wounds like that are tricky and require some pretty intensive care. you'll need to keep her inside until your vet gives the all-clear. your vet can also give you an individualized plan for keeping her safe around the rest of the flock. the best i can do for you is recommend some livestock wound spray that doubles as an anti-pecking spray, such as blu-kote. it helps disguise wounds to discourage flock cannibalism.

your farm pokemon sound really cool btw! the only other thing i can say is that you should try to encourage the owner not to let the farm delcatty out to hunt. aside from the fact that they kill basically every small pokemon they find, they're a big toxoplasmosis risk to your wooloo and dubwool. delcatty aren't found in the wild in any region, even regions with skitty (there's a small population of feral delcatty in castelia, but that's from humans releasing them), and they can easily decimate the local populations of pokemon like taillow and rookidee. let native pokemon handle the pest control!

[dynoguard]

A Dinosaur’s Harvest Festival

Everyone loves a feast, no matter when you’re from.

Of the five sapient civilizations to call this planet home, only one (the one we don’t talk about) had no known form of harvest festival. The festival for our most recent cousins, the dinosovians, translates as “Festofall,” a corruption of the archaic “Feast of All.”

The “modern” (from the standpoint of dinosovian time-refugees) holiday is a synthesis of a number of similar festivals, mainly “Tubersprang” and “The Hunt of the Gorged” that merged with the rise of multi-species nation-states during the first industrial age. 

From a human perspective, Festofall comes across as a mix of Halloween and Thanksgiving held at a state fair. Cooking begins a full thirdmoon before the festival starts. Each family prepares a vast quantity of a specific dish, all of which is brought together for a community-wide potluck and cook-off. Competition is intense, though caring about winning is seen as gauche. 

The festival lasts for “two claws” (eight days) of feasting, carnival games, live music, dancing, and traditional theater. The potluck aspect is used by every aspect of food production, from farming to dining, to showcase wares and joust with rivals. On the fourth day of the festival, just as the sun begins to set the participants’ offerings are judged, and prizes are passed out.

The prize in question is an “honorloop”, conceptually similar to a blue ribbon or a medal, but taking the form of a ring of metal, braided leather, carved wood, or horn (tough plastic is always an option in the modern day) that is inscribed with the accomplishment.  These are worn over the winner’s own horn-tips, spikes, or talons as jewelry during every major festival for the year, before they are returned for the next year’s competition.

But when the judges go to give the honorloops, they are always wrong! Each replaced by a crude fake bearing a humorous, insults. The nature of the insults varies regionally, but “least improved”, “tastes like it smells” and “bland in, loud out” (very rude in the native podite) are traditional favorites. The honorloops have been stolen by impish bogies called “wildmolts”, “hollowkind”, or “Snappy Jarry.”

Dinosovian folklore associates the child’s first full molt with the shedding of their “hatching wildness” (Dinosovian children can walk within hours of hatching. A hatchling for the first three years or so is essentially a pet raccoon that gets bigger and more sapient every day, with substantially more bite-strength). The wildmolts are this lost wildness made manifest, in the form of macabre goblin-like pranksters.

The wildmolts, are of course, dinosovian children, who have been making their costumes and planning the theft of the honorloops since cooking began. The children hide the stolen loops in public places, and the winners must find their proper prizes before the festival ends or they must wear the mock-prizes at each of the year’s remaining cultural festivals and bank holidays (of which there are many). Wildmolts trade hints at their hiding places (in the form of riddles and puzzles) for treats and small toys. Adults are expected to play along with the ruse.

The second half of the festival belongs to the wildmolts, with adults and children alike participating in ritualized practical joke games that vary community-by-community (the uniqueness of which is a point of local civic pride.) These range from insult-competitions to hold-my-klem* reckless self endangerment. At night, live theater performances take on a more macabre tone and scary tales are told around bonfires.

Many of the more modern additions to the holiday, such as Aegis Shows, Pulse-Tag, and the Gorge-o-Rama (sponsored by Mr. Big Byte, Gorge Responsibly) take place in this latter half of the festival. 

The dual nature of the holiday symbolically conveys that even in times of plenty, the unexpected can strike at any moment. Post Time-Slip Festofall celebrations are held from November 16th through the 23rd. Mid October is generally considered more “seasonally accurate” to the original Pre-KT celebration, with the later date being intentionally chosen to overlap with American Thanksgiving. 

Festofall is, in human terms, a largely secular holiday and is open to human participation in most communities.

The above images were taken at the Ceratopolis Festofall celebration on the 7th-12th of Harvest Moon 2, 5 BKT, and were generously provided by the Dinosovian Cultural Council of Colorado. 

* a foamy beverage distilled from cycads 

[fatehbaz]

The Chacoan peccary is so elusive that scientists believed it was extinct until its “discovery” in 1975. Today, only 3,000 remain in the [...] forests and lagoons of the Gran Chaco region, which stretches across northern Argentina, Paraguay and southern Bolivia, and comprises more than 50 different ecosystems.

Micaela Camino, who works with the Indigenous Wichí and Criollo communities to protect the animals and their land rights in Argentina, knows how difficult to find they can be. She has only seen one Chacoan peccary, or quimilero, in 13 years [...], but has fallen in love with the critically endangered mammal [...]. “I was told that the Chacoan peccary was extinct outside protected areas when I first started,” says Camino. “So when we found it, I thought it was great. We set up monitoring to find more in one of the most isolated parts of the dry Chaco. But then the loggers started to come.”

---

The Gran Chaco, South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon, is one of the most deforested places on Earth.

Every month, more than 133 square miles is lost, cleared for vast soya farms and cattle ranches that export to markets in the US, China and Europe – including UK supermarkets, according to a joint Guardian investigation in 2019. However, the loss is largely ignored on the international stage, receiving little conservation money or celebrity attention in comparison with the Amazon.

---

The area is home to charismatic species such as the maned wolf, the giant armadillo and the jabiru, many of which are not found anywhere else on Earth.

At current rates of deforestation, the mosaic of life in the Gran Chaco could collapse entirely. The loss of the Chacoan peccary would be guaranteed this time. Unlike the Amazon, there are few academic studies on tipping points and the forest’s waning ability to support itself as the climate changes and land is cleared, but people who live here are seeing the changes. [...]

---

In Paraguay, the success [of farming and ranching] [...] has transformed the country into one of the most important beef producers in the world, largely at the expense of the forest, dubbed “the green hell” by early settlers from Canada.

“The Gran Chaco has been at a crossroads for a long time,” says Gastón Gordillo, a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia. “The 2007 forest law in Argentina did manage to slow some deforestation, but it also created the paradox by establishing legitimate ways of destroying the forest.” [...] However, a new motorway in Paraguay appears likely to open up more of the region to ranching. “The agribusiness sector in Argentina is very powerful,” says Gordillo [...]

For the Chacoan peccary, research indicates there are only 30 years left to save the species, with current deforestation rates meaning all of its habitat outside protected areas will have gone by 2051.

---

Headline, images, captions, and text by: Patrick Greenfield. “Deforestation piles pressure on South America’s elusive Chacoan peccary.” The Guardian. 31 January 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

[n6918]

Oscar: hi my name is Oscar pine

Pyrrha: cute

Nora: hum what was that?

Pyrrha: AHHHH nothing (I won't let this cute boy get away like poor Jaune did)

Oscar: *blushing* nice to meet you Miss Nikos

Pyrrha: (definitely not)

-Later that evening out behind so bush and trees-

Oscar: ahhh~ Pyrrha please waittttt~

Pyrrha currently had the young man in the poem of her hand, or her arms to be more exact. His back was pinned to a tree and his arms holding onto branches to keep him up; he was quite far up the tree So far that his hips were at Pyrrhas head level. Oscar's pants were on the ground in a heap, and his boxers dangled from one of his ankles waving over her shoulder. The farm hand stared down in amazement at the champion as she went to work between his legs.

Pyrrha's lips were fast at work, forming a tight seal around Oscars cock. She would occasionally pause to let his dick be free, only to lick along the sides and around the tip; or places his balls in her mouth to swish them around, before going back to sucking him. His penis was covered in her lipstick, which also adorned Oscars lower stomach and thighs. One of the champions hands was holding him by his booty, keeping him high on the tree. Will the other continue to explore and fill up her new boy toy. Only leaving his body when he would shutter and climax into her mouth, then her hand would leave him to go explore her nether regions; before coming back sticky and wet having only edged herself.

Pyrrha: *Pop* oh come now Oscar *slurp* it's only been 30 mins hehehe~ I'll have to train you to suit my needs~

[aronarchy]

Anthropologists and philosophers have asked whether agriculture could have been the tipping point in the power balance between men and women. Agriculture needs a lot of physical strength. The dawn of farming was also when humans started to keep property such as cattle. As this theory goes, social elites emerged as some people built up more property than others, driving men to want to make sure their wealth would pass onto their legitimate children. So, they began to restrict women’s sexual freedom.

The problem with this is that women have always done agricultural work. In ancient Greek and Roman literature, for example, there are depictions of women reaping corn and stories of young women working as shepherds. United Nations data shows that, even today, women comprise almost half the world’s agricultural workforce and are nearly half of the world’s small-scale livestock managers in low-income countries. Working-class women and enslaved women across the world have always done heavy manual labour.

More importantly for the story of patriarchy, there was plant and animal domestication for a long time before the historical record shows obvious evidence of oppression based on gender. “The old idea that as soon as you get farming, you get property, and therefore you get control of women as property,” explains Hodder, “is wrong, clearly wrong.” The timelines don’t match up.

The first clear signs of women being treated categorically differently from men appear much later, in the first states in ancient Mesopotamia, the historical region around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Around 5,000 years ago, administrative tablets from the Sumerian city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia show those in charge taking great pains to draw up detailed lists of population and resources.

“Person power is the key to power in general,” explains political scientist and anthropologist James Scott at Yale University, whose research has focused on early agrarian states. The elites in these early societies needed people to be available to produce a surplus of resources for them, and to be available to defend the state—even to give up their lives, if needed, in times of war. Maintaining population levels put an inevitable pressure on families. Over time, young women were expected to focus on having more and more babies, especially sons who would grow up to fight.

The most important thing for the state was that everybody played their part according to how they had been categorised: male or female. Individual talents, needs, or desires didn’t matter. A young man who didn’t want to go to war might be mocked as a failure; a young woman who didn’t want to have children or wasn’t motherly could be condemned as unnatural.

As documented by the American historian Gerda Lerner, written records from that time show women gradually disappearing from the public world of work and leadership, and being pushed into the domestic shadows to focus on motherhood and domestic labour. This combined with the practice of patrilocal marriage, in which daughters are expected to leave their childhood homes to live with their husbands’ families, marginalised women and made them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse in their own homes. Over time, marriage turned into a rigid legal institution that treated women as property of their husbands, as were children and slaves.

Rather than beginning in the family, then, history points instead to patriarchy beginning with those in power in the first states. Demands from the top filtered down into the family, forcing ruptures in the most basic human relationships, even those between parents and their children. It sowed distrust between those whom people might otherwise turn to for love and support. No longer were people living for themselves and those closest to them. Now, they were living in the interests of the patriarchal state.

This is interesting.

[christiansorrell]

Play-By-Blog #0.5: Cloud Empress

asdfasf

So, here are the results:

Our starting party will be a Courier, a Magician, and a Lordling! Screw Sellswords! No one here likes them apparently (literally not a single person, not even me, voted for them)!

I rolled all three characters randomly across the board, as is Play-By-Blog tradition. That said, let's take a look at our crew!

THE COURIER: "Senior" Stone (they/he)

(I'll be typing this up in a little character keeper for upcoming entries, but for now, here's my handwritten sheet! Sorry for my bad handwriting! I have little patience for legibility.)

Stone is a rough-n-tumble courier in their final year of being a teen. They just recovered from a broken arm for a few weeks in Tack Town, and are eager to get back on the road. With a new, still-unnamed crew at their side, they are confident about this next job, if for no other reason than they'll be more targets than just a lone courier this time. Stone is the party's provision carrier, being a Courier and all. They currently have 3 days worth of Provisions for the entire party (the max they can carry).

THE MAGICIAN: Boto "The Penitent" (she/her)

Boto is a full-grown Magician and practiced arcane healer, looking for something new and exciting among the, frankly, boring fields of the Breadbasket. She just finally learned more about an unknown spell after a few weeks in a backwater village, convincing the townsfolk of her trustworthiness. She's dying for some adventure, and this job looks like it could be just the thing.

THE LORDLING: Iselbraid "The Judge" (he/him)

Iselbraid is a Lordling of some renown but few achievements. After romancing (and angering) several members of the Royal Court, he's taken to the surface for a bit, looking to earn himself a valorous tale or two before returning in the fall. Hopefully they'll be some new members of the court that catch his eye by then. He's still convincing himself that this whole bit of adventure is the right decision, but he doesn't know how long he can get by off of smooth-talking alone.

OUR STARTING GOAL: Hunt a fleshthresher in the Breadbasket. The components fetch a decent exchange in trade, plus there's a local farmerling group offering to aid you considerably if you are able to make the fields around the fleshthresher save for them to harvest.

Fleshthreshers are ancient and deadly automatons, responsible for protecting the automated farm fields of the World Before. We'll need to explore the region or possibly chat with some locals and see if we can get a tip about any known Fleshthreshers in the area. Scout crews frequently gather in Tack Town and head out in search of food, working to gather undetected by the field automatons, so its reasonable to assume some may have a worthwhile lead, if we can find them.

OUR STARTING LOCATION: Tack Town (B18), the largest city in the lowland wastes centered at the heart of the Breadbasket.

"There isn’t an adult Farmerling who has not spent a season in Tack Town and only badly misplanned Farmerling children are born outside its crumbling plastisteel walls. The Lowland’s last city is filled with a jumble of hard shell tents, ancient dwellings, and tack-shaped rolling campers resistant to the unearthing Imago."

"Many make their way to the cafeteria, waiting to taste today’s sweet-meat soup; milky bone broth infused with cardamom and honey. Farmerlings high on mushroom tonic gulp down bowls of the stuff, stumbling past a parading Lordling and nir guards. The Lordling finds few eyes meet nir gaze and the Farmerlings that do bite their thumbs in anger."

"In the market, travelers buy handfuls of seeds with their winter savings, preparing to make their way back to ancient farmlands. There is no singular day of departure, just a growing feeling that it is time to move on. Folks trickle out, four or five at a time, and only the old and unwell stay behind preparing Tack Town for its next winter."

It is here our adventure begins, but first, we have a choice.

(As always, sound off in the comments in you've got another approach or a specific thing you'd like to see the characters do/investigate. Thanks for joining me for character creation! Next entry will dive into the adventure narration proper and we'll see how these characters explore the world, what events trigger, and more. I'm happy to have y'all along for the ride! - Christian)

[somer-writes]

Please lore dump about your fic. Please 🥺

YES FUCK!!!! ok so i really want to talk about ordon-hyrule!!

so we know there are 4 light spirits, 3 of which are named after the goddesses (lanayru, eldin, faron) and a fourth which is ordona. SO i think this could mean that ordon was (a) not commonly subscribed to the hylian faith and (b) independent from hyrule. hylians specifically have pointed ears to hear the goddess but ordon is exclusively populated by humans (which we do see both in hyrule proper).

therefore h/c is that ordon was brought into hyrule within the current dynasty of the royal family (likely preceding king harkinian since rusl lives in ordon but we know that he's from hyrule originally.

the current dynasty has overseen civil wars (since at least time's birth per the manga) and imperialism (hyrule absorbing ordon, death mt, and the zora domain)

Fun Facts!!

-> ordon is both the province/territory and the name of Ordon Village. for political logistics the crown declared ordon village (the closest to the border) the capital.

-> ordon has no centralized government and is instead a series of scattered farming villages with local mayors who convene cyclically from village to village. ordonian fashion is commonplace but the style of knot used to tie the sash is a good tip off on which village an ordonian comes from

-> ordonians are largely spiritual. no central power, no central religion. most of them don't worship hylia as a goddess but instead treat her as a regional deity of hyrule. they instead offer prayers/offerings to river/forest/etc spirits

-> ordon and hyrule share a common tongue (with some dialect/accent inconsistencies) but ordon's written language came long after hyrule's. ordon has a largely oral tradition (folk tales are extremely important to passing down their history). ordon's common alphabet has a few quirks. ch/sh are written using the same symbol, rather than a 'w' they use 'vv', 'll' is common in place of a y or ie.

-> ordon is not difficult to get to but the easiest way is the long way. ordonians don't typically venture into hyrule but their crops/wool are so valuable that merchants come to the province for them. ordonians usually trade for stock rather than purchase. it's likely sera spent some time in hyrule or set up the shop as a savvy way to attract merchants

-> hylians look down on ordonians as being "simple folk" mostly for their accents and how simple ordonian dress seems (although sash tying is something most hylians can't do properly)