thecoramaria

[thecoramaria]

Hey guys, I have a priority fundraiser rotation for you:

Fadi & Shahed: 2,044 USD out of 62.5k

Sana'a & Sujood: 12,016 £ out of 50k

Mahmoud Qassas: 9,994$ out of 200k

Ezzideen Shehab: 10,296€ out of 32.5k.

Hussam Aburamadan: 16,374€ out of 148k.

Hamdi Hijazi: 1,511$ out of 25k.

Suheir Hojok: 16,897 AUD out of 70k.

Madleen Abu Jayyab: 29,005$ out of 70k.

I have personally verified every one of these campaigns listed here.

As Mona's campaign nears completion I'm preparing for you this list so we can show these families the same amazing and unbelievable support we showed Mona and her family. The invasion of Rafah grows nearer everyday. Please understand the urgency of this campaign.

Version date: April 25th 2024.

[thecoramaria]

Genocide experts warn that India is about to genocide the Shompen people

Who are the Shompen?

The Shompen are an indigenous culture that lives in the Great Nicobar Island, which is nowadays owned by India. The Shompen and their ancestors are believed to have been living in this island for around 10,000 years. Like other tribes in the nearby islands, the Shompen are isolated from the rest of the world, as they chose to be left alone, with the exception of a few members who occasionally take part in exchanges with foreigners and go on quarantine before returning to their tribe. There are between 100 and 400 Shompen people, who are hunter-gatherers and nomadic agricultors and rely on their island's rainforest for survival.

Why is there risk of genocide?

India has announced a huge construction mega-project that will completely change the Great Nicobar Island to turn it into "the Hong Kong of India".

Nowadays, the island has 8,500 inhabitants, and over 95% of its surface is made up of national parks, protected forests and tribal reserve areas. Much of the island is covered by the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve, described by UNESCO as covering “unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems. It is home to very rich ecosystems, including 650 species of angiosperms, ferns, gymnosperms, and bryophytes, among others. In terms of fauna, there are over 1800 species, some of which are endemic to this area. It has one of the best-preserved tropical rain forests in the world.”

The Indian project aims to destroy this natural environment to create an international shipping terminal with the capacity to handle 14.2 million TEUs (unit of cargo capacity), an international airport that will handle a peak hour traffic of 4,000 passengers and that will be used as a joint civilian-military airport under the control of the Indian Navy, a gas and solar power plant, a military base, an industrial park, and townships aimed at bringing in tourism, including commercial, industrial and residential zones as well as other tourism-related activities.

This project means the destruction of the island's pristine rainforests, as it involves cutting down over 852,000 trees and endangers the local fauna such as leatherback turtles, saltwater crocodiles, Nicobar crab-eating macaque and migratory birds. The erosion resulting from deforestation will be huge in this highly-seismic area. Experts also warn about the effects that this project will have on local flora and fauna as a result of pollution from the terminal project, coastal surface runoff, ballasts from ships, physical collisions with ships, coastal construction, oil spills, etc.

The indigenous people are not only affected because their environment and food source will be destroyed. On top of this, the demographic change will be a catastrophe for them. After the creation of this project, the Great Nicobar Island -which now has 8,500 inhabitants- will receive a population of 650,000 settlers. Remember that the Shompen and Nicobarese people who live on this island are isolated, which means they do not have an immune system that can resist outsider illnesses. Academics believe they could die of disease if they come in contact with outsiders (think of the arrival of Europeans to the Americas after Christopher Columbus and the way that common European illnesses were lethal for indigenous Americans with no immunization against them).

And on top of all of this, the project might destroy the environment and the indigenous people just to turn out to be useless and sooner or later be abandoned. The naturalist Uday Mondal explains that “after all the destruction, the financial viability of the project remains questionable as all the construction material will have to be shipped to this remote island and it will have to compete with already well-established ports.” However, this project is important to India because they want to use the island as a military and commercial post to stop China's expansion in the region, since the Nicobar islands are located on one of the world's busiest sea routes.

Last year, 70 former government officials and ambassadors wrote to the Indian president saying the project would “virtually destroy the unique ecology of this island and the habitat of vulnerable tribal groups”. India's response has been to say that the indigenous tribes will be relocated "if needed", but that doesn't solve the problem. As a spokesperson for human rights group Survival International said: “The Shompen are nomadic and have clearly defined territories. Four of their semi-permanent settlements are set to be directly devastated by the project, along with their southern hunting and foraging territories. The Shompen will undoubtedly try to move away from the area destroyed, but there will be little space for them to go. To avoid a genocide, this deadly mega-project must be scrapped.”

On 7 February 2024, 39 scholars from 13 countries published an open letter to the Indian president warning that “If the project goes ahead, even in a limited form, we believe it will be a death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide.”

How to help

The NGO Survival International has launched this campaign:

From this site, you just need to add your name and email and you will send an email to India's Tribal Affairs Minister and to the companies currently vying to build the first stage of the project.

Share it with your friends and acquittances and on social media.

Sources:

India’s plan for untouched Nicobar isles will be ‘death sentence’ for isolated tribe, 7 Feb 2024. The Guardian.

‘It will destroy them’: Indian mega-development could cause ‘genocide’ and ‘ecocide’, says charity, 8 Feb 2024. Geographical.

Genocide experts call on India's government to scrap the Great Nicobar mega-project, Feb 2024. Survival International.

The container terminal that could sink the Great Nicobar Island, 20 July 2022. Mongabay.

[Maps] Environmental path cleared for Great Nicobar mega project, 10 Oct 2022. Mongabay.

[thecoramaria]

@ fic authors what do you personally consider a successful fic? What’s the bar?

#finishing and posting it #cora reblogs

[thecoramaria]

No see results option, I'm forcing you to perceive yourself. rb for more results plus

#buddy I’m curating my internet persona so hard #you don’t have the privilege of seeing the mess I am irl because that’s MY business #cora reblogs

[thecoramaria]

Portraits of Afro-Palestinians from the Book “Guardians of the Mosque”

[thecoramaria]

Alright curiosity has sttuck me and im also wondering if theres like an ettiquite, because i like almost never post multichapters, theyre always one shots i end up breaking into chapters bc they get so big. So my question is this:

When you post a multichapter you have completely written out/you know what itll contain by the end, do you tag the fic with everything it has when you first publish or do you update the tags as you upload chapters?

I'd also like to hear reasoning if thats cool! Again multichapters are a weird thing for me and i hardly know how to tag my fics as is lmfao

#all the tags at once #especially if they're polarising or triggers #people deserve to know what they're getting into #i do recommend focusing on tropes and vibes that have a strong presence in the fic rather than like... one or two scenes #that's why i'm not tagging 'only one bed' in my epic-length #cora reblogs

[thecoramaria]

Reblog if you didn’t write My Immortal

We’re going to find the author by process of elimination.

#cora reblogs

[thecoramaria]

WRITE IT!!! WRITE THAT SELF INDULGENT SHIT!!!

#cora reblogs

[thecoramaria]

“I cleared the rubble from Israeli airstrikes, tilled the soil, and planted seeds. This is our home, our land. Everything will return more beautiful than before.”

Yahya Bashir, Gaza

[thecoramaria]

Update Harvard students are walking out in solidarity with Columbia’s students

These are billion dollar for profit institutions that directly impact financial backing of Israel’s apartheid regime

[thecoramaria]

#cora reblogs

[thecoramaria]

hi, hope you are doing good!

Lately I've been toying with a fic idea for a fandom I usually don't write for, and with a character who has a very specific tone of voice that I feel like I'm not able to emulate. I wondered if you have any tips on how to make characters act and sound less OOC, and how to kind of get into their head properly to be able to make the fic sound like them?

(The character I want to write for is Wednesday Addams, specifically from the TV show from 2022, so her choice of words and tone is kind of specific and I find hard to emulate😅)

I do have a video on writing in-character in the works, but I did explain the idea of backstory and motivation being at the core of it in this video here. So if you've watched that, and you're looking to go a bit deeper to emulate her voice in your writing, I'll then move onto using Wednesday Addams as a case study. I've only watched the live action movies and the 60s sitcom, but here are some things I would focus on:

What metaphors speak to her? We know she loves the dark and spooky, tortures her brother for fun (he likes it), and despises mainstream tastes (not because it's mainstream, but the fact that what everyone else likes happens to be the opposite of her tastes doesn't help). Because of this, she might describe a song she likes as "as sweet as a banshee's scream" or a song she hates as "as grating as the pluck of a harp string."

How would she describe what's in front of her? Again, we know she loves the spooky and hates the mainstream, so how would she describe barbie dolls, graveyards, flower gardens, or birthday cakes?

I also think Wednesday, being a fan of the dark and macabre, would have a written voice that pays homage to classic gothic literature such as 'Frankenstein' and anything by Edgar Allen Poe. It might help to research how horror writers use syntax in their writing as well. The difference is that Wednesday would take comfort or delight in that which would unnerve a non-Addams. The clap of thunder and the creaking of doors would be a lullaby to her.

#wednesday addams #cora's ask box #cora's original posts

[thecoramaria]

Update: North Gaza Women's Project!

Mahmoud Abu Salama is doing an amazing thing in North Gaza! He is starting a project to help Deaf Palestinian women use their pastry making skills while also distributing food to families in need. This is helping both the women make a bit of a living and feed the hungry in the North.

By donating, we’re helping Mahmoud hire more women who take pride in helping both themselves and their communities! So please feel free to donate if you have a few dollars to spare, or spread the link if you're unable! Any little bit helps!

HelpGazaChildren Notion Site || #helpgazachildren tag

GoFundMe Link

[Quick ID: Video of Mahmoud Abu Salama speaking to the camera with women sitting on the floor behind him as they put together packages of pastries. We then get a closeup of the women who sign to the camera.]

[thecoramaria]

I think one of my favorite creative joys is seeing how many different things people can do with the same concept. give ten writers the same starting point, or basic plot, or set of tropes to use and you're still going to get wildly different end results

the details you focus on, the ones you omit, turns of phrase, tone, and framing, the cadence and tempo of the sentences themselves, all the little fingerprints you've left littered across the prose — how you tell the story matters, and your personal voice is what makes it unique

#cora reblogs

[thecoramaria]

Hello! I’m the person who asked about detailing the differences between teen and mature on ao3.

Your response was extremely helpful and clarified the confusion about the labels. It’s also prompted me to think more closely about a story’s scope and what might change under this new light.

Thank you!

Aww I’m so glad! Thanks for letting me know 🥰

#cora's original posts #cora's ask box

[thecoramaria]

I don’t think that a story needs to literally make sense in a nitpicky cinema sins type way. Like I write magical realism for gods sake, but I do think a story needs to consistently follow its own type of logic for the most part or else an audience will pick up on that.

I think the reason that something like “Somehow, Palpatine has returned” went over so badly was not because it’s impossible in the Star Wars universe for someone to come back from the dead or something. It’s because so far the new trilogy had a theme of the new generation being allowed to take over. Yoda burned the ancient texts, Kylo Ren continued the sith cycle of the apprentice replacing the master, the old heroes were dying off one by one. Solidly establishing itself as a new thing.

And then, oh no the old bad guy from the last two trilogies was secretly the bad guy in this one too! Oh no!

Like in some stories that would make sense. Not really in this one though.

In some stories there’s a giant elephant in the bathroom just because there’s a giant elephant in the bathroom and we don’t need to question that. In other types of stories you’re gonna need a damn good explanation for how and why the elephant got there.

If your movie has been established as a cheesy stupid martial arts comedy and your goofy protagonist kills a bunch of ninjas with breakdancing moves, that’s fine. I get that. But if you’ve been making a serious cop drama with intrigue, realism, and minimal amounts of gun combat and your hardened old detective kills people with breakdancing, your audience will be lost and confused.

You don’t have to get a degree in physics and fully understand the properties of magnets to put a big magnet in your story, but make sure it’s the type of story that would have a big magnet in it.

#cora reblogs

[thecoramaria]

Do you want to know how to help the people of the DRC? Go donate money to focuscongo.com, that's one possibility.

You can also donate physical objects in high demand right now, if you have the $ to pay for international shipping prices, and send to this address [10 Avenue Des Messagers, Quartier Les Volcans, Commune de Goma, Ville de Goma, Province du Nord-Kivu, République Démocratique du Congo]. They need just about everything you use in a day to get by.

Clothing, socks, jackets, coats, (All sizes from infants to adults), purses, tote bags, backpacks.

Blankets, pillows & cases, bed sheets

Shoes, (All sizes!)

Cutlery, pots & pans, plates, cups, mugs (preferably plastic for the cups & plates so they don't break during shipment)

Over the counter medication & med supplies: ibuprofen (Advil), hydrogen peroxide, pain killers, bandages, bandaids, hand sanitizer, acetaminophen (Tylenol), cotton balls, gauze, deworming medication, compression wraps, saline solution, topical pain relief (Icy Hot), hydro-cortisone, detail, anti-funga treatment, surgical tape.

Baby formula, vitamins, water purification tablets, lifestraws, hair care / skin care products, pads & tampons, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, wet wipes, baby wipes, diapers.

However! If you are in the U.S., you can send (shoes only) your packages to this address in the U.S. [Exile International, Entrance F. 3534 West End Ave. Nashville, TN 37205, United States] which will ship them to the previously listed address, so it's less cost for you!

And finally, you can also go volunteer with Focus Congo! Fill out the application here, and email them at [email protected], make sure to attach your resumé / CV, so they assign you to work that best suits your capabilities. Foreverjuicebae / juicebaeinthewild is one such volunteer and she posts regularly about the conditions of Congolese people in the DRC.

Please reblog! Likes don't help, reblogs spread the word.