HailQiqi

The largest dam removal in U.S. history. So successful that the salmon that haven’t run freely in the river for literally over a century came back the next year. Not steady progress over a decade as expected, the very next salmon run they came home. No one alive saw salmon in that river outside the hatcheries kept by native’s tribes and the Department of Fish And Wildlife scientists desperately trying to save them. One of the activists who helped bring the suit spoke of their dying grandmother making them promise to bring the fish home, and they didn’t know how that was possible, but they spent decades doing it.

The legal basis for successfully suing the power company who owned the dams was Indigenous treaty rights to eat the fish. Eating the fish was the one thing in a century that succeeded in being a clear and legally binding right that superseded the desires of white capital and industry. I have been going to the public interest environmental law conference off and on for 20 years where a lot of organizing for Undam The Klamath happened. I’ve heard updates about every legal tact they tried as they happened, and they tried everything.

There are healthy, thriving salmon, trout, and lamprey in a rewilding and recovering Klamath River right now as a direct result of Indigenous people eating them. Of their legally binding right to eat them. They sure as fuck care more about those fish than any white vegan ever could. They are salmon people that the Creator sent Salmon to feed, while charging the People with protecting and stewarding them. It’s not possible to learn about salmon and trout in the Pacific Northwest without learning this, and it’s unambiguously racist to dismiss this symbiotic relationship.

The white vegans are trying to get all hunting and fishing banned in Oregon, and that’s quite possibly the single most catastrophic thing that could be done to the animals here because we killed off all the major predators of creatures like deer and without anything hunting them their numbers will explode, eat all the vegetation, destroy the ecosystem, and then die along with everything else in that failing ecosystem. Controlled hunting of deer is vitally necessary for the deer to survive. This is something Native people know, but patronizing racist savior-complex white people refuse to listen to.

I have a whole collection of Oregon’s Public Broadcasting’s documentaries about Klamath River or the larger story of fish and people in the region. If you watch nothing else, watch Klamath Dams Are Coming Out, First Salmon Ceremony, After The Dams, and First Decent (Native made). It could not be clearer that the salmon are being protected and nourished by the people who eat them, and that stewardship is a massive part of their creation myths. But it contradicts political vegan dogma so they don’t listen.

fandom is a hobby, not a form of activism

adult women aren’t inherently creepy for being in fandom and having hobbies apart from raising babies and doing taxes

the vast majority of people pushing back against the worrying trend of instigating harassment over fictional characters and relationships aren’t incest supporters or pedophiles, actually

liking a m/f ship doesn’t make someone a dirty heterosexual invading your space

preferring gay ships doesn’t make you ‘’woke’’ and good

no one owes you a disclaimer that they are a good person who recognizes that their favorite fictional villain’s actions are evil and that they don’t condone those actions irl

liking a fictional villain is in no way comparable to advocating abuse/murder/genocide/etc and you’re a fucking idiot if you believe that

just because a woman is attracted to a fictional villain doesn’t mean she’s promoting toxic relationships or going to end up in a toxic relationship. assuming women can’t tell fiction and reality apart stinks of internalized misogyny 

some rando’s a/b/o fanfics have none of the level of influence that popular tv shows and movies spreading propaganda have

no one owes you a detailed description of their traumas and mental health problems

abusive relationships are not the same as enemies to lovers ships

y’all need to chill the fuck out over people, relationships, actions and events that don’t actually exist and learn how to enjoy and discuss them like normal people

fandom is a hobby, not a form of activism

You're holding an actual child to higher standards than you hold yourself, but it's the child that should be removed from public and community spaces. For your comfort.

"u cant save smth that doesnt want to be saved"

I Dreamt of Something Lost is a fake desktop game about data, grief, and memory. It is about the Facebook profiles of dead friends, about parts of yourself still stuck in a particular social media profile like a fossil stuck beneath layers and layers and layers of sediment, about the fragility of digital storage, about what it feels like to have your world shrink to the breadth of a computer screen. I made it back in 2023, during a particularly difficult time in my life. I was convinced it wouldn't come to anything; instead, it won a New Media Writing Prize and more-or-less launched my career. Funny how things work out.

I'm trying to grow my writing to the point where it can financially support me - crazy difficult, I know, but I believe in my work and what it can do. I Dreamt of Something Lost is possibly the best thing I've ever made - it would mean the world if you could check it out on itch.io HERE.

You can also buy it as a cassette game (with bonus creator commentary) or postcard HERE!

said is not dead

but neither is the thesaurus

adverbs are good friends, as are superlatives, epithets, and all of those “cringey” words tumblr tells you not to use

the best thing you can do for your writing is to read—it’s like unlocking new skills

the best thing you can do for your writing is to write—it’s like leveling those skills

people-watching and psychology books will improve your writing more than any writing advice ever will.

new speaker, new paragraph

if sandra and dee are talking and sandra smiles, the smile goes with sandra’s dialogue, not dee’s

if you’re planning to release/publish your writing, pick up a style guide or take a grammar course at your local college. knowing where you’re supposed to put a comma is kind of like knowing how to format your resume; it tells people you know what you’re doing

get self-indulgent as shit

and don’t let anyone turn your story into something you don’t like

if you’re stuck with a “how do i say this” problem, make a note to yourself about what you meant and move on

if you’re stuck with a “what comes next” problem, find a human, pet, or rubber duck, trap them with snacks (yes, even the duck), and then babble to them about your problem until you fix it yourself

write every day*

*except the days you can’t, don’t want to, or would be better off for taking a break

remember to stay hydrated and eat well; “food for thought” is surprisingly literal sometimes

Soupçon actually means “suspicion” and the reason nobody called me out on this is because I would use the word to imply the idea of something sprinkled on top of something else ala croutons. If someone said, “A soupçon of homoeroticism,” I thought it meant “Someone sprinkled homoeroticism on this story like croutons on a delightful Caesar salad.”

I wrote multiple essays that used soupçon as a noun with this translation in mind and I got a degree and this haunts me.