#archipelago campaign | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

suprnovr · 11 months

Text

Happy pride month folks!

I know I’m late but I’m still doing exaaaaams, they suck….

Love you all!

0 notes

gloriousgwendolinechristie · 7 months

Text

youtube

Highland Park Whisky: Orkney Stories with Gwendoline Christie

The actor soaks up the natural beauty of the archipelago in the whisky brand’s biggest campaign to date.

Single malt scotch whisky brand Highland Park is celebrating its 225-year history with an ode to its Orkney home in a short film featuring actor Gwendoline Christie.

Director Charlie Thomas is behind the film, which goes live on Highland Park’s social channels today (October 5).

’The Orkney Series’ campaign will live across paid, earned and owned media between October and February, with an emphasis on the key markets of US, UK, APAC, Germany and the Nordics.

Christie was hands-on in the making of the film, beyond just starring in it, according to Highland Park, playing an instrumental role in shaping the creative direction of the campaign from the narrative to the props and costumes. ~The Drum

#gwendoline christie #ad #highland park #highland park whiskey #game of thrones #the sandman #wednesday #star wars #advertising #video #giles deacon #the orkney series #Youtube

127 notes · View notes

notwiselybuttoowell · 4 months

Text

Temperate rainforest, also known as Atlantic woodland or Celtic rainforest, once covered most of western Britain and Ireland. The archipelago’s wet, mild conditions are ideal for lichens, mosses and liverworts. But centuries of destruction have meant that only small, isolated pockets remain.

In England, just 189 sq km (46,624 acres) survive from the ecosystem that once stretched from Cornwall to the west of Scotland, and these remain threatened by overgrazing from sheep, invasive species and nitrogen pollution.

After three years of campaigning, the government published the strategy at the end of November to protect and recover England’s temperate rainforests, and committed £750,000 for research and development.

The strategy includes a commitment to protect and restore the internationally rare ecosystems and use public-private partnerships to help fund their conservation. There is also a pledge to reduce pressure from grazing by deer, which is one of the main factors preventing forests’ recovery. The government says it will work with farmers and landowners to protect areas of temperate rainforests on their land.

#yay #temperate rainforest #conservation #great britain

62 notes · View notes

kathanglangit · 7 months

Text

The Second Blade: Diplata - Extinct Bolo

Continuing the countdown to the launch of the Gubat Banwa Kickstarter coming up on the 10th of October- 6 days to go! Gubat Banwa is a tactical war-drama TTRPG set in the Sword Isles, a fantasy setting inspired by Southeast Asian cultures and folklore.

To promote its launch, I'll be posting some of the weapons I've been drawing for the game every day until the campaign kicks off in earnest. These were meant to be Swordtember entries, pardon the lateness I suppose. 2/7 blades so far, let me introduce you to the DIPLATA.

The diplata is a short-to-mid-length blade with a distinct handle, with most specimens sporting a horn-like protrusion facing the same side as the edge.

The blade shape itself I feel is something common across most toolblades in the Philippines, not much longer than one's forearm with a more-or-less rounded out tip- though the diplata seems a bit wider than most. I would say the most unique features definitely lie in the shape of the hilt, and the circular guard. Most Philippine blades don't have anything in the form of hand protection, so a wide guard like this stands out.

This one was a little difficult to find photo references for, as apparently they're quite rare. Some blade scholars call it an "extinct" blade, meaning those who traditionally forge authentic ones supposedly aren't around anymore.

(Photo from Victor Balaguer's museum near Barcelona; Diplata on the blades hanging on the wall, the two next to the rightmost blade) "Traditional" blades refer to those made by the same people to whose culture a blade belongs. To illustrate in the simplest terms, a katana made by a traditional Japanese swordsmith would count as a traditional blade. A messer made by a traditional German blacksmith would count as a traditional blade. I'm sure there's more internal nuance there, but that's the quickest reference point I could come up with. Take note however that the Philippines is composed of many, many different cultures who all happen to exist in the same archipelago with varying levels of overlap- there is no singular, unifying blade culture, so categorizations like "Traditional" and "Modern" (often referring to modern reproductions) aren't always as exact as convenience may demand. In particular, material exchange between cultures makes a mess of this categorization, not just because the blades themselves could get traded (or stolen or lost) and physically make their way to other places beyond the imaginary borders of their "homelands", but because the smiths themselves (or their knowledge and techniques) may travel around. Smiths in different places may also see blades from different cultures that they might feel like imitating or emulating in some way- that's how certain Philippine blades obtained D-guards- but that's a story for another time. The diplata is oft-attributed to the Aeta peoples, specifically those who come from Mt. Pinatubo in Zambales. Not much confusion as to whose culture these blades belong.

It is a little disheartening that most of the refs I could find were photos from foreign museums and loose images in books and blade forums. I will not speculate here as to how these blades ended up in these places, but it isn't hard to guess.

(Image from a Spanish museum)

(Image from Philippines, Early Collections, Museum of Ethnologie Vienna)

(Image from The Philippine Journal of Science Volume 81) I'm not a hardcore blade scholar, but even I recognize how inseparable blades are from the myriad cultures of the Philippines. I'm forever thankful to the random communities of blade enthusiasts who dedicate a not-insignificant portion of their time (and wallets) to supporting local artisan blacksmiths to grow their collections, and keeping track and tracing which blades came from which places and peoples. Our blade cultures are alive and still developing, but they could still use a little help sometimes, just so we don't lose them.

(Photo from the collection of Zel Umali) In any case- while it's not exactly a scholarly work in the academic sense- part of Gubat Banwa's violence is pushing a fantasy setting of our own making, as seen by our own eyes, as told on our own terms. This is no foreign museum; This time, SEAsian cultures take center stage.

The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter launches in 6 days! Check it out here:

It would be a huge help to this very small team from the global south if you could help us get the word out! We straight up can't afford to advertise on the same scale as bigger players in the field, so we're relying heavily on word of mouth. You can find out more about the game on its itch page.

98 notes · View notes

zvaigzdelasas · 4 months

Text

When the new Maldives president, Mohamed Muizzu, stepped on a plane in late November for his first overseas visit since being sworn in barely a week earlier, he was breaking with a longstanding tradition in his country’s diplomatic practices.

Across party lines, Maldivian presidents have long made India their first port of call after being elected, in a reflection of the South Asian giant’s traditional influence on the idyllic Indian Ocean archipelago.

But Muizzu, who became president after a raucous and divisive anti-India campaign, chose to make his first official trip to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, showcasing an intent to diversify and reorient his country’s foreign policy.

At the heart of Muizzu’s efforts is a search for new friends at a time he has made it clear that he intends to pull away from India, according to analysts and sources within the Maldives.[...] Soon after taking office, Muizzu doubled down on a campaign demand that India should withdraw troops from the Maldives. During the election campaign, his Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) had claimed that India had plans to use the military base that it was building on the island of Uthuruthilafalhu near Male to take over the country.[...]

Turkey and the Maldives are increasingly also aligned on key geopolitical challenges — they have both strongly criticised Israel’s war on Gaza, while India has been more ambivalent, only recently joining calls for a ceasefire.

Yet, Muizzu’s Turkey visit is ultimately less about Ankara and more about distancing Male from New Delhi, said analysts. After his election but before he was sworn in, Muizzu visited the United Arab Emirates. Muizzu returned to the UAE for a second time, for the COP28 summit. In December, Maldives Vice President Hussain Muhammad Latheef visited China.

For India, this rift with the Maldives is a cause for anxiety — 50 percent of India’s external trade and 80 percent of its energy imports transit through Indian Ocean sea lanes. For Muizzu, the equation appears clear: If he wants India out, he needs others to come in. That, experts said, is what his trips are about.

21 Dec 23

43 notes · View notes

danwhobrowses · 5 months

Text

One Piece Chapter 1099 - Initial Thoughts

And we're back

After a week break it's time to see if One Piece will take the lead in emotionally devastating me for this week, given how other things are leaving me on 3 week breaks of ship-based anxiety, not that you could tell of course I've kept it sooooo well-hidden

Anyways, it's time for more One Piece and so, more Kuma backstory, let's see where we go from here

Spoilers for the Chapter, Support the Official Release also

Oden cover this time, Tanukis are giving him a makeover

We pick up where we left off two weeks ago, King Becori has returned and has been burning down the south

Kuma though is fighting through the fire to save people

Becori got the idea from the Goa Kingdom fire, figures

The people though are a lot more resistant to the act than the Goa Nobles were, so Becori orders a few to be killed to silence the mob

Kuma is here and he is fucking pissed

The church is being used as a shelter, as Bonney worries for her dad

Despite Becori's threats, Kuma lays out the entire castle, the One Man Revolution of Sorbet

News travels to Marejois about a new king in Sorbet, as Saturn learns that the people voted Kuma to rule

Kuma though says he's just a figurehead, since a previous king, Bulldog, is actually running the country

A much more adult looking Bonney is running laps in the church though, surprising everyone in how much she looks like Ginny

Seems she somehow ate a Devil Fruit, but also wasn't aware of it, since her aging up was unintentional and she was just trying to up her stamina

As the others try to see how much control Bonney has over the fruit, King Bulldog arrives at the church

Hey it's that old version of Bonney she used in the Reverie, but also Bonney here...

Turns out Queen Dowager Conney was an actual person, explains some things at least in how she made it to the Reverie in that disguise

Kuma yelling at Conney at the back thinking it's Bonney XD

Conney is Bulldog's mother, and Bulldog as Kuma's advisor has come with news

Becori's still about, running a smear campaign on Kuma, thus the moniker of 'The Tyrant'

The propaganda means he's still backed by the World Government, and thus it's only a matter of time until they come back to finish the job

Wanting to protect Sorbet, Kuma leaves it in Bulldog's hands, and goes out to confront Becori again at sea, this also means Bulldog and Conney will take care of Bonney in the meantime

'But I'll be so lonely' welp that's another knife in my riddled heart right now

Alas, Kuma does confront Becori, sitting pretty on a Navy ship and accusing Kuma of usurping him and being a corrupt dictator

Kuma sunk the armada, which got him a bounty (Carrot meanwhile sinks a bunch of Yonko ships and doesn't even get one bounty...yes I'm still sore about it the anime did not help validate her conclusion in Wano)

'He was a hero' 'I don't care, he was my dad first' - Oda please my heart doesn't have room for all these knives

Bonney also wants to be a pirate when she's 10 and cured

Kuma journeys out for info on Sapphire Scales, traveling to all the places he sent the Straw Hats to

He first goes to Chopper's island, since they had vast medical information

Then to Mihawk's island, doesn't look too occupied back then

Oh hey it's those Grand Fleet guys, Jeet and Abdullah

The bounty hunters of course fail in trying to claim Kuma, this was very pre-Dressrosa

Vegapunk's old home is next but they don't have answers

Tequila Wolf is sailed past again (Kuma and Oden have now sailed past it), I don't know what the next one is but it looked like Kuma helped it out, maybe it was Brook's island?

Then Weatheria (Nami's island) and the Boin Archipelago (Usopp's island) with Heracles'n

The stress is creeping up on Kuma though, dead ends and Bonney's 10th birthday is getting closer

Now that's a draconic ship there

The Revolutionaries have found Kuma, Morley has joined and Betty is still looking way different to how she does now

Dragon has a drink with his old Comrade, Ivankov and Inazuma are in Impel Down at this point, but despite all the news around Kuma he doesn't listen to media

Betty also gets Kuma's blessing to lead the Eastern Forces, since Dragon wouldn't allow anyone to take Ginny's position without it

Sabo and Koala also wanted to see Kuma, if only Dragon showed this much pride in his biological child

But he does give Kuma some intel, Vegapunk is moving labs and security is lax, good time for an audience

I think the move is implied to be the Punk Hazard incident too

Kuma is more than willing to rejoin the Revolutionaries once Bonney is cured, and Dragon is more than willing to welcome him back

Back at Sorbet, Bonney is learning how to fight, the scales are still spreading slowly though

Kuma takes Bonney to Navy Science Division Lab 08, which will later be where Egghead Island is, telling her it's a check-up

Got a little box for her like Nezuko

Everyone's surprised about how weird looking the other is

Vegapunk CAN cure Bonney, so clone theory might be done now

Bonney is playing with Sentomaru at this moment so she's not privy to the conversation

Stem Cell Treatment will be the method, real life solutions being thrown in there

The price is exorbitant though, equivalent to building a cyborg

Vegapunk also learns that Kuma's a buccaneer, even though his association with the WG would make that dangerous information

Vegapunk can't explain why Buccaneer blood is special, but he'd like more of it to clone him

Kuma is of course concerned about the idea of clone soldiers, but with Vegapunk using it as a form of payment he's more than willing to do it

Vegapunk hoped at least that the clone army's ability to deflect bullets and shoot lasers would scare evil pirates into submission, having watched Oppenheimer I think the sentiment is meant to be similar

But Kuma does like the idea of robots bearing his likeness protecting the innocent

Saturn meanwhile though has other intentions for them 'a weapon's worth is defined by how many it kills'

The bots are named Pacifista after Kuma's proclaiming himself a pacifist, two men looking to do some good without the hindsight of what damage they will wrought

This was a steady chapter really, could've been a lot more devastating for sure.

We've slowly built up again to all the stuff leading to Kuma's affiliation with Vegapunk, as well as his brief run as a pirate. Much like Corazon it seems most of his travels were fuelled by trying to find a cure for Bonney. A lot of blasts from the pasts this chapter too, though I suppose it makes sense that Kuma visited the places he sent the Straw Hats to, given how them being sent there was tailored for their skills or what they needed to improve on.

The Bonney Clone theory is likely dead, but I still can't put it past Oda to pull the rug, especially for Chapter 1100 - Oda and round numbers after all.

But yeah, it seems a brief alleviation for the moment, before it likely goes to hell again...

#one piece #one piece spoilers #op spoilers #egghead island arc #future island arc #bartholomew kuma #jewelry bonney #dr vegapunk #revolutionary army #monkey d. dragon #belo betty #pacifista #sentomaru one piece #saint jay garcia saturn

34 notes · View notes

flickering-nightfall · 7 months

Note

I think it would be really interesting if in a hypothetical continuation of Rain World we explore other parts of the world or the facility grounds of other iterators in the local group or beyond. I'm just really curious about what else would be going on during the Pebbles & Moon drama, or how the others inevitably broke down, or where the heck did Rivulet come from/who bestowed the mark, or what other crazy situations unfolded elsewhere. I dunno I've always just been fond of exploring and learning more about a story's worldbuilding

Oh definitely! There's so much story/region/new mechanic potential for Rain World and it's already such a massive game. Though the limitations of what we see of RW just means all the more opportunity for people to get creative with their stories!

I think some people are interested in making mods like this (I'm saying this with cursory knowledge - I don't follow the modding community closely - correct me if I'm wrong). For a multi-region expansion, it seems very ambitious and like it'd require a lot of work from a lot of people. Downpour was already huge enough as a DLC~

I don't know if RW's going to have more stuff added in the future, but if it does I'm gonna eat it right up :)

My friend Folly and I made a new campaign concept wayyy back when I first played Downpour in January. You play as the Collector, a brown slugcat with a pearl belt. You've been sent by some unknown iterator to gather data from an experimental local group strewn across an archipelago. There were two other campaigns in this setting: The Painter who sought to capture the beauty of the world, and The Noble who leads a colony of slugcats long after Saint's era, long after the iterators have all died out, when the world is recovering from the ice age.

There were also a bunch of other slugcats who had mini-campaigns or were otherwise noncanonical playables. It was all way too huge of an undertaking to even dream about making a mod, but it's still very fun to think about stuff like that.

#don't mind me rambling a bit about ocs eheh >v>;#ask #anon #text

43 notes · View notes

wehavecomeforyourprivateschools · 4 months

Text

Temperate rainforest, also known as Atlantic woodland or Celtic rainforest, once covered most of western Britain and Ireland. The archipelago’s wet, mild conditions are ideal for lichens, mosses and liverworts. But centuries of destruction have meant that only small, isolated pockets remain.

In England, just 189 sq km (46,624 acres) survive from the ecosystem that once stretched from Cornwall to the west of Scotland, and these remain threatened by overgrazing from sheep, invasive species and nitrogen pollution.

After three years of campaigning, the government published the strategy at the end of November to protect and recover England’s temperate rainforests, and committed £750,000 for research and development.

34 notes · View notes

moonstar-mush · 16 days

Text

👻👑🌊

The Silver Prince; ruler of the Skullstone Archipelago and one of the thirteen Deathlords.

My take on this character from the Exalted canon, he’s a major antagonist in the campaign I’m currently running! My version of Skullstone takes a lot of cultural cues from Mexico, which is why his design has those elements in it. The diving-suit aspect is to tie in his silver armor with something appropriate for a nautical deathlord.

He is a Cool and Chill guy :)

#exalted trpg #exalted #silver prince #bodhisattva anoited by dark waters #silver prince exalted #abyssal exalted #deathlord exalted

11 notes · View notes

allthebrazilianpolitics · 2 months

Text

'Sexual Crimes Exist, but We Are Not among the Worst Rankings,' Says Prosecutor in Marajó, Brazil

Region in Pará became a topic again on social media after gospel artist mentions suspicions of pedophilia and sexual exploitation

Last week, a video of gospel artist Aymeê Rocha singing about the woes of Marajó Island, in Pará, went viral. In it, Aymeê talks about pedophilia, child sexual exploitation, and even organ trafficking in the region. The video sparked debates regarding the region, which is marked by poverty and violence but is also a target of fake news. One example was when Senator Damares Alves claimed, in 2022, that children in the region had their teeth pulled out to facilitate oral sex and ate soft foods to be subjected to anal sex — allegations that were never proven.

This time, after Aymeê's video dominated social media, influencers launched campaigns to raise money. At the same time, organizations urged caution in spreading information. The Marajó Observatory released a statement asserting that the population does not normalize violence against children. "Those who want to propagate and dishonor the Marajoara people insist on this narrative," says the organization, focused on monitoring public policies. Marajó is an archipelago that encompasses 16 municipalities, which suffer from lack of infrastructure and difficulty of access.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #children's rights #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

12 notes · View notes

undergoingcalibrations · 7 months

Text

FF7: Ever Crisis New Lore Summary (For those who rightfully don't want to put up with gacha BS)

General Worldbuilding:

SOLDIERs, (as of The First Soldier campaign, which takes place 15 years before the start original game), are divided into two grades: Passive and Active. Passive grade SOLDIERs are only distinguished from common forces by their elite training and superior equipment. Active grade SOLDIERs have only appeared on the scene extremely recently as of FS, and have received 'enhancements' to improve their physical resilience and affinity for materia. Passive grade SOLDIERs, and the public for that matter, have no idea what those enhancements actually are, with one of the Passive grades, Glenn, assuming that they are cyborgs.

Passive grades are also called P0s, short for Project Zero, the VR fighting program used to filter out those eligible for SOLDIER training from other Shinra troopers. This is the source of rivalry between some passives and actives, as being selected for active grade is seen as more of a question of genetics than talent.

A new nation, Rhadore, appears in Ever Crisis. It's abundance of ruins, it's geography (a southern nation composed of several islands), and the presence of a vent where the Lifestream flows out into the ocean, suggest that this may be the name of the southern archipelago where Mideel and the Temple of the Ancients are located.

Rhadore's population was decimated by SOLDIER operations after it broke a treaty with Shinra a decade before the events of The First Soldier campaign (25 years before FF7), with one of the P0s, Matt, giving the current estimated survivors as between 500-1,000.

Based on the naming conventions of regions in Rhadore, and conversations with the one named Rhadoran character, Rosen, it appears to be based on Hawai'i (for instance, Rosen uses the Hawai'ian word for spiritual energy, mana, to refer to mako and the Lifestream).

Rosen refers to the deceased as 'being with the Planet', suggesting that Planetology may have been a common faith there before the Shinra genocide.

A respected occupation in Rhadore was to serve as an 'Eye of Rhadore', responsible for monitoring the flow of the Lifestream into Rhadore's seas and notifying settlements in case of danger, as surges of Lifestream not only cause tidal waves but render seawater temporarily toxic. Rosen states that only a rare few are eligible to become Eyes, as they "need to be able to hear the Planet, even when they're asleep", suggesting that Cetra outside of Aerith and Ifalna may have survived there in one form or another.

Cloud

In Ever Crisis's telling of the events of FF7, Jessie gives Cloud a copy of the Project Zero training program she found while hacking Shinra databases. Nothing's really come of it yet.

When Tifa asks Cloud what his go-to drink was in SOLDIER, Cloud mentions a cocktail called a Winter Salt, though cannot remember how to make it, besides, well...there's salt. One assumes it was a favourite of Zack's.

Cloud says that after Nibelheim, he found himself at the Sector 7 trainyard "as if I was guided there". Presumably, Sephiroth was doing the guiding, but to what end is unclear.

Tifa

Tifa worked at a steam bun shop in Sector 8 for at least three years before her gig at Seventh Heaven. Her steam buns were so good that Wedge would often force Avalanche to go out of their way to eat there, which is how she ended up becoming friends with the group in the first place.

Tifa regards Jessie as a big sister and mentor, even though they're almost the same age.

Apart from out of loyalty to her friends, Tifa joined Avalanche because the religious aspects of Planetology appeal to her- namely, the idea that her father and the rest of Nibelheim are with the Planet, so by caring for the Planet, she will always be connected to them in turn.

Aerith

Aerith loves picnics because as a child in the labs, she naturally wasn't allowed to eat outside.

Elmyra had hired a bodyguard to look after Aerith when she was little (Shinra's got great life insurance payouts, apparently), but Tseng...dealt with them.

On a related note, one of Aerith's lifelong ambitions, ever since she can remember, is to one day be stronger than Tseng. Not that she wants to hurt him, necessarily, just that she never wants to be afraid of him pushing her and her family around again.

Ifalna was able to visit Aerith in spirit at least once after her death, comforting her when she was afraid, and reassuring her that she was strong because her family was with the Planet, and the Planet was with her.

Sephiroth

Based on the timeline, Sephiroth is anywhere between 12-15 during The First Soldier campaign. I'm tempted to say he's on the older end of that spectrum, as the P0s are surprised but not appalled by his age, and Cloud applied for SOLDIER at 15, if that's anything to go by.

Sephiroth uses a katana in Ever Crisis, rather than an odachi like in his other appearances. He's not tall enough to pull that off yet.

At some point between The First Soldier and Crisis Core, Sephiroth's eyes changed from blue to green. Mako will do that, I guess.

Despite Shinra propaganda stating that Sephiroth was already a decorated SOLDIER by this point, the mission to secure a site for a new mako reactor in Rhadore that The First Soldier covers was his first field operation- Shinra was simply trying to boost support for active grade SOLDIERs by attributing the accolades of others to their prototype. Sephiroth is upfront and untroubled about this with the P0s that have been assigned to him.

Sephiroth appears to be a true patriot, having no remorse for the Rhadorans that would stand in the way of Shinra's mission. He has no compunction when it comes to killing even a group of young and elderly Rhadorans attempting to evacuate, a thoroughness that he attributes to Shinra's training- the young could be receiving military training, and the old could be seasoned veterans, so all must considered a threat and eliminated. The P0's, on the other hand, seem to be mostly in this for the money and find Sephiroth's actions disturbing, though hold that against whoever taught him he had to be this way, not Sephiroth himself.

...despite this, Sephiroth states multiple times that he did not ask to be what he is and doesn't want to be the false hero Shinra's propped him up as. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, he thinks to himself that "I just want to live a normal life", but refuses to say it aloud.

Sephiroth keeps a picture of Lucrecia on him at all times, though Hojo told him it was a picture of Jenova. He asks everyone he meets if they've seen her or know anything about her, and appears to believe she's still alive.

#ff7 #ff7 ever crisis #cloud strife #aerith gainsborough #tifa lockhart #sephiroth

29 notes · View notes

suprnovr · 1 year

Text

Render? I barely know her!

Character: Capricious D’Narrator

0 notes

pauliusthemad-blog · 2 months

Text

The Land of Arch-Tyrant - a setting for my upcoming campaign, archipelago of terrible land and old ruins, housing poor "servants" of Arch-Tyrant. Will be setting out to post some of the art and fluff made for this.

#rpg art #rpg map #oc #dnd art #pathfinder art #ttrpg homebrew

10 notes · View notes

dailyanarchistposts · 1 month

Text

Chapter 4. Environment

What about global environmental problems, like climate change?

Anarchists do not yet have experience dealing with global problems because our successes so far have only been local and temporary. Stateless, anarchic societies once covered the world, but this was long before the existence of global environmental problems like those created by capitalism. Today, members of many of these indigenous societies are at the forefront of global resistance to the ecological destruction caused by governments and corporations.

Anarchists also coordinate resistance globally. They organize international protests against major polluters and their state backers, such as the mobilizations during the G8 summits that have convened hundreds of thousands of people from dozens of countries to demonstrate against the states most responsible for global warming and other problems. In response to the global activity of transnational corporations, ecologically-minded anarchists share information globally. In this manner, activists around the world can coordinate simultaneous actions against corporations, targeting a polluting factory or mine on one continent, retail stores on another continent, and an international headquarters or shareholders’ meeting on another continent.

For example, major protests, boycotts, and acts of sabotage against Shell Oil were coordinated among people in Nigeria, Europe, and the North America throughout the 1980s and ’90s. In 1986, autonomists in Denmark carried out multiple simultaneous fire bombings of Shell stations across the country during a worldwide boycott to punish Shell for supporting the government responsible for apartheid in South Africa. In the Netherlands, the clandestine anti-authoritarian group RARA (Revolutionary Anti-Racist Action) carried out a campaign of nonlethal bombings against Shell Oil, playing a crucial role in forcing Shell to pull out of South Africa. In 1995, when Shell wanted to dump an old oil rig in the North Sea, it was forced to abandon its plans by protests in Denmark and the UK, an occupation of the oil rig by Greenpeace activists, and a fire bombing and a shooting attack against Shell stations in two different cities in Germany as well as a boycott that lowered sales by ten percent in that country.[67] Efforts such as these prefigure the decentralized global networks that could protect the environment in an anarchist future. If we succeed in abolishing capitalism and the state, we will have removed the greatest systemic ravagers of the environment as well as the structural barriers that currently impede popular action in defense of nature.

There are historical examples of stateless societies responding to large scale, collective environmental problems through decentralized networks. Though the problems were not global, the relative distances they faced — with information traveling at a pedestrian’s pace — were perhaps greater than the distances that mark today’s world, in which people can communicate instantaneously even if they live on opposite sides of the planet.

Tonga is a Pacific archipelago settled by Polynesian peoples. Before colonization, it had a centralized political system with a hereditary leader, but the system was far less centralized than a state, and the leader’s coercive powers were limited. For 3,200 years, the people of Tonga were able to maintain sustainable practices over an archipelago of 288 square miles with tens of thousands of inhabitants.[68] There was no communications technology, so information travelled slowly. Tonga is too large for a single farmer to have knowledge of all the islands or even all of any of its large islands. The leader was traditionally able to guide and ensure sustainable practices not through recourse to force, but because he had access to information from the entire territory, just as a federation or general assembly would if the islanders organized themselves in that way. It was up to the individuals who made up the society to implement particular practices and support the idea of sustainability.

The fact that a large population can protect the environment in a diffuse or decentralized manner, without leadership, is amply demonstrated by the aforementioned New Guinea highlanders. Agriculture usually leads to deforestation as land is cleared for fields, and deforestation can kill the soil. Many societies respond by clearing more land to compensate for lower soil productivity, thus aggravating the problem. Numerous civilizations have collapsed because they destroyed their soil through deforestation. The danger of soil erosion is accentuated in mountainous terrain, such as the New Guinea highlands, where heavy rains can wash away denuded soil en masse. A more intelligent practice, which the farmers in New Guinea perfected, is silvaculture: integrating trees with the other crops, combining orchard, field, and forest to protect the soil and create symbiotic chemical cycles between the various cultivated plants.

The people of the highlands developed special anti-erosion techniques to keep from losing the soil of their steep mountain valleys. Any particular farmer might have gained a quick advantage by taking shortcuts that would eventually cause erosion and rob future generations of healthy soil, yet sustainable techniques were used universally at the time of colonization. Anti-erosion techniques were spread and reinforced using exclusively collective and decentralized means. The highlanders did not need experts to come up with these environmental and gardening technologies and they did not need bureaucrats to ensure that everyone was using them. Instead, they relied on a culture that valued experimentation, individual freedom, social responsibility, collective stewardship of the land, and free communication. Effective innovations developed in one area spread quickly and freely from valley to valley. Lacking telephones, radio, or internet, and separated by steep mountains, each valley community was like a country unto itself. Hundreds of languages are spoken within the New Guinea highlands, changing from one community to the next. Within this miniature world, no one community could make sure that other communities were not destroying their environment — yet their decentralized approach to protecting the environment worked. Over thousands of years, they protected their soil and supported a population of millions of people living at such a high population density that the first Europeans to fly overhead saw a country they likened to the Netherlands.

Water management in that lowland northern country in the 12th and 13th centuries provides another example of bottom-up solutions to environmental problems. Since much of the Netherlands is below sea level and nearly all of it is in danger of flooding, farmers had to work constantly to maintain and improve the water management system. The protections against flooding were a common infrastructure that benefited everybody, yet they also required everyone to invest in the good of the collective to maintain them: an individual farmer stood to gain by shirking water management duties, but the entire society would lose if there were a flood. This example is especially significant because Dutch society lacked the anarchistic values common in indigenous societies. The area had long been converted to Christianity and indoctrinated in its ecocidal, hierarchical values; for hundreds of years it had been under the control of a state, though the empire had fallen apart and in the 12th and 13th centuries the Netherlands were effectively stateless. Central authority in the form of church officials, feudal lords, and guilds remained strong in Holland and Zeeland, where capitalism would eventually originate, but in northern regions such as Friesland society was largely decentralized and horizontal.

At that time, contact between towns dozens of miles apart — several days’ travel — could be more challenging than global communication in the present day. Despite this difficulty, farming communities, towns, and villages managed to build and maintain extensive infrastructure to reclaim land from the sea and protect against flooding amid fluctuating sea levels. Neighborhood councils, by organizing cooperative work bands or dividing duties between communities, built and maintained the dykes, canals, sluices, and drainage systems necessary to protect the entire society; it was “a joint approach from the bottom-up, from the local communities, that found their protection through organizing themselves in such a way.”[69] Spontaneous horizontal organizing even played a major role in the feudal areas such as Holland and Zeeland, and it is doubtful that the weak authorities who did exist in those parts could have managed the necessary water works by themselves, given their limited power. Though the authorities always take credit for the creativity of the masses, spontaneous self-organization persists even in the shadow of the state.

#environmentalism #environment #solarpunk #anti colonialism #anarchism #daily posts #communism #anti capitalist #anti capitalism #late stage capitalism #anarchy #anarchists #libraries #leftism #social issues #economy #economics #climate change #anarchy works

8 notes · View notes

full---ofstarlight · 5 months

Text

tagged in this oc questionnaire by @gwynbleidd !!! i did delvyre because my brain is just full delvyre these days, but also my d&d character sirrus, because it just dawned on me that i can spill all his backstory secrets here without worrying about spoilers bc none of you are my party members hehe

--

NAME: Delvyre Coppersmythe — Delvyre was the name that her mother, whomst she has never met, gave her and it was embroidered onto her blanket when she was left on her father’s doorstep <3

NICKNAME: Del, since it’s just a nice shortened version of Delvyre; her father used to call her Little Flame, even before she started learning fire magic

GENDER: cisfemale

STAR SIGN: I do not have enough braincells to figure out the Forgotten Realms translation, but she’s a Sagittarius Sun, Aquarius Moon, Leo Rising.

HEIGHT: 5’3” (160 cm)

ORIENTATION: Bi bi bi

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: Her mom’s family are High Elves, and her dad’s family has roots in Kara-tur but they’ve been in Faerun for generations at this point. She’s lived in Baldur’s Gate all her life.

FAVORITE FRUIT: While she likes cherry-flavored things, her favorite actual fruit is any kind of citrus

FAVORITE SEASON: Autumn!

FAVORITE FLOWER: Sunflowers!

FAVORITE SCENT: Is it too obvious if I say a campfire?

COFFEE, TEA, OR HOT CHOCOLATE: All three? I think coffee wins out slightly, because she likes the buzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: Either more than 10 or less than 6, there is no in-between.

DOGS OR CATS: I gave her a proficiency in animal handling for no real lore reason, and I guess I’m gonna reverse engineer that and say she’s a big cat person and used to feed stray cats in the Lower City a lot.

DREAM TRIP: I think she’d love to go to Alm.

NUMBER OF BLANKETS: So. Many. She likes to bundle up when it gets cold. She wraps herself up into a little nest.

RANDOM FACT: If she was a Pokemon trainer, her buddy Pokemon would be Nine-Tails.

--

sirrus's has a lot of our homebrew world lore so i did my best not to just gush about it lmao

NAME: Sirrus Montague totally not Eminence Sirrus Mavros Alarie

NICKNAME: The Red Thief is his, like, criminal name. Also what if I told you Sirrus was a nickname?

GENDER: cismale

STAR SIGN: My DM very kindly provided us with her homebrew months and seasons and said she was working on an astrology system, and my only requirement was that there was one that was Lying Liar that Lies for him <3 (Ahem. Gemini.)

HEIGHT: 5’10” (178 cm) // but he wears heeled boots and counts his horns when listing his height, so he’ll tell you 6’1”

ORIENTATION: Pansexual

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: He says he’s from Endoza, a port city in the Peaceable Kingdoms (our homebrew world), but REALLY he is from the Sentose Archipelago, a pirate-y vibe collection of islands just south of the PK, populated by hobgoblins, tieflings, humans, water genasi, and half-elves. Oh, and he’s a tiefling.

FAVORITE FRUIT: Starfruit!

FAVORITE SEASON: Summer. Ya boy hates the cold.

FAVORITE FLOWER: Hibiscus

FAVORITE SCENT: The sea.

COFFEE, TEA, OR HOT CHOCOLATE: Coffee.

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: Eight on the dot. He needs his beauty sleep <3

DOGS OR CATS: I’m leaning towards cats?? For no real reason????

DREAM TRIP: Our in-game joke is that he’s gonna take our Jimmy Buffet-inspired NPC buddy for a fishing-tour-combo-bar-crawl and the next campaign will kick off with them tied up on a boat and having to figure out how the heck they got here (it won’t happen; I’ve been tipped off as to what the next campaign is).

NUMBER OF BLANKETS: One but it’s very fancy and cozy

RANDOM FACT: since none of you are my party members, I can actually reveal the big big big backstory secret that i’ve been hiding and probably won’t reveal for some years: HE IS SECRETLY FROM A VERY CUTTHROAT NOBLE FAMILY WHO CONTROLS A RUTHLESS TRADING EMPIRE AND AFTER A TERRIBLE SHIPWRECK HE SAW A CHANCE TO FAKE HIS OWN DEATH AND HE’S BEEN HIDING FOR THEM FOR A DECADE AND HE FEELS HE NEEDS TO ATONE FOR ALL THE SHIT HE WAS FORCED TO DO AS A TEENAGER TO HELP FURTHER HIS FAMILY’S WEALTH AND STATUS ///ok done screaming

--

taggin' @criffyzou @sun-marie @yappatadwinks @n7viper @thedeadthree @birbycakes @commander-krios @cynda-queer anddd anyone else with little guys (gender neutral) that they would like to fill this out for!! (tag me bc i always love to read about them :3c)

#char delvyre #char sirrus #oc lore #tama tags

14 notes · View notes

zvaigzdelasas · 4 months

Text

Maldives president courts investors in China as Indian ties sag - Reuters

At an "Invest Maldives" forum in a southern Chinese port city, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu shook hands and exchanged words with smiling local officials on a China visit set to deepen bilateral ties as the archipelagic nation pirouettes [sic?] away from India.[...]

Muizzu became president of the Indian Ocean nation in November after winning on his "India Out" campaign platform under which he called New Delhi's huge influence a threat to sovereignty. His government has since asked dozens of locally based Indian military personnel to leave. And in an apparent snub to India, Muizzu is in China this week, before any visit to his country's giant neighbour. In Fuzhou, the Chinese city designated as the start of China's maritime "Silk Road", Muizzu said China remained one of his country's "closest allies and developmental partners", according to a statement released by his office. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Increasing export of fish products to China under the two countries' free trade agreement will be a key priority, Muizzu added. Fishing is the largest source of employment in the Maldives, where 99% of its territory comprises the sea. Aquatic products account for over 98% of exports by volume and value. Muizzu also said his government was keen to explore partnerships under Xi's Belt and Road Initiative, including the expansion of the country's central airport and commercial port.

Under the Belt and Road Initiative aimed at building a global trade and infrastructure network, China has already helped expand the Velana International Airport in Male and built the cross-sea China-Maldives Friendship Bridge.[...]

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was snorkelling last week in Lakshadweep, an archipelago of atolls and reefs off the coast of Kerala, a visit that some viewed as an attempt to draw tourists away from the nearby Maldivian islands.[...]

Modi's Lakshadweep visit prompted three Maldivian government officials to call him names including "a clown", leading some Indian tourists to share screenshots of cancelled bookings of Maldivian holidays. #ExploreIndianIslands became a trending hashtag in India on X. One of India's largest travel platforms suspended flight bookings to the tourism-dependent Maldives on Monday . "India's strained relations with certain countries in South Asia can be attributed to its perception of being the regional boss," China's Global Times reported on Monday, citing analysts. And, the newspaper added, quoting a Chinese academic, India's current "nervousness" about Muizzu's visit to China showed its "lack of confidence".

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promotion of tourism on an Indian island chain has sparked a row with the Maldives after senior officials from that country accused Modi of being a “puppet of Israel”.[...]

Maryam Shiuna, a deputy minister in the Maldives’ government, labelled Modi “a clown” and “puppet of Israel” on X. Another official slammed Modi as a “terrorist”.[...]

After the uproar, the Maldivian government said it had suspended three deputy ministers who made the critical remarks. Their social media posts were deleted and disavowed by the government. But Modi is close to Israel, and on Monday an account on X linked to the Israeli embassy in India appeared to turn the criticism against Modi into a sign of endorsement. “We were in #Lakshadweep last year upon the federal government's request to initiate the desalination program,” the social media post said. “Israel is ready to commence working on this project tomorrow.” Other social media users critical of Modi reacted to the news, seemingly praising the Maldivian officials.

9 Jan 24

11 notes · View notes