This Is For You, Rainwalker! You Asked For It, Baby!

my personal curse is the knowledge that I function best with rigid structure and strict routine but am almost totally incapable of independently establishing or maintaining that structure and routine

"Curiosity Killed My Beia" A comic I did for The Spinoff's Comic of the Month

Lines from the original composition of “A letter to an Israeli soldier,” written by Muin Bseiso and Mahmoud Darwish as they sheltered during the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982. Courtesy of the family of Muin Bseiso.

Moments of decolonization, in relation to the recalcitrant Palestinian case, have been occasions for jubilation. We may recall the scenes from southern Lebanon in May 2000, when the Israeli military finally withdrew from the region. Israel had been in Lebanon, with the help of its right-wing Lebanese adjuncts, since 1982, when it invaded to evict the Palestine Liberation Organization from their Beirut headquarters. That summer, the Israeli military laid siege to Beirut for more than two months, bombing the densely populated city and killing thousands. While many Lebanese died, Palestinians were the principal targets of the Israeli campaign.

Among those huddled beneath the bombs were Muin Bseiso and Mahmoud Darwish, two of Palestine’s most prominent poets. They would both later produce book-length accounts of the siege, but over the course of one evening that summer, they wrote a poem as one.

A letter to an Israeli soldier, is what they named their poem. In one stanza, the two poets address the “inhabitant of the tank.”

We write to you Before a shell ignites us or ignites you Here is a message of the last besieged to the last besieged We write from a fragment you sent … to carry you From the darkness of the “ghetto” to our bodies … We write to you

Bseiso and Darwish ask:

Can one piss in a tank? Can he read in the tank? Can a person fly pigeons in a tank? Can one fuck in a tank? Or plant trees in the tank? … How long have you been in the claws of the tank? How long have you been safe?

The poem enacts an incredible reversal: the poets, themselves confined to an apartment at the mercy of missiles and mortars, taunt the soldier besieging them. The Israeli soldier is confined by the steel that is meant to protect him. They write in their letter, “You are in a dungeon, behind bars.” Many of the poem’s stanza’s end simply with the refrain Hal anta fi aman?—meaning, Are you safe?

Meanwhile, the poets have their own refrain: our siege is long.

Our siege is long We shall bake the stone We shall knead the moon We shall finish our journey Upon this beautiful day Our siege is long

From "Our Siege is Long," article by Esmat Elhalaby (published 27 October 2023)

Those who approach the New Testament solely through English translations face a serious linguistic obstacle to apprehending what these writings say about justice. In most English translations, the word ‘justice’ occurs relatively infrequently. It is no surprise, then, that most English-speaking people think the New Testament does not say much about justice; the Bibles they read do not say much about justice. English translations are in this way different from translations into Latin, French, Spanish, German, Dutch — and for all I know, most languages. The basic issue is well known among translators and commentators. Plato’s Republic, as we all know, is about justice. The Greek noun in Plato’s text that is standardly translated as 'justice’ is 'dikaiosune;’ the adjective standardly translated as 'just’ is 'dikaios.’ This same dik-stem occurs around three hundred times in the New Testament, in a wide variety of grammatical variants. To the person who comes to English translations of the New Testament fresh from reading and translating classical Greek, it comes as a surprise to discover that though some of those occurrences are translated with grammatical variants on our word 'just,’ the great bulk of dik-stem words are translated with grammatical variants on our word 'right.’ The noun, for example, is usually translated as 'righteousness,’ not as 'justice.’ In English, we have the word 'just’ and its grammatical variants coming from the Latin iustitia, and the word 'right’ and its grammatical variants coming from the Old English recht. Almost all our translators have decided to translate the great bulk of dik-stem words in the New Testament with grammatical variants on the latter — just the opposite of the decision made by most translators of classical Greek. I will give just two examples of the point. The fourth of the beatitudes of Jesus, as recorded in the fifth chapter of Matthew, reads, in the New Revised Standard Version, 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.’ The word translated as 'righteousness’ is 'dikaiosune.’ And the eighth beatitude, in the same translation, reads 'Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ The Greek word translated as 'righteousness’ is 'dikaiosune.’ Apparently, the translators were not struck by the oddity of someone being persecuted because he is righteous. My own reading of human affairs is that righteous people are either admired or ignored, not persecuted; people who pursue justice are the ones who get in trouble. It goes almost without saying that the meaning and connotations of 'righteousness’ are very different in present-day idiomatic English from those of 'justice.’ 'Righteousness’ names primarily if not exclusively a certain trait of personal character. … The word in present-day idiomatic English carries a negative connotation. In everyday speech one seldom any more describes someone as righteous; if one does, the suggestion is that he is self-righteous. 'Justice,’ by contrast, refers to an interpersonal situation; justice is present when persons are related to each other in a certain way. … When one takes in hand a list of all the occurrences of dik-stem words in the Greek New Testament, and then opens up almost any English translation of the New Testament and reads in one sitting all the translations of these words, a certain pattern emerges: unless the notion of legal judgment is so prominent in the context as virtually to force a translation in terms of justice, the translators will prefer to speak of righteousness. Why are they so reluctant to have the New Testament writers speak of primary justice? Why do they prefer that the gospel of Jesus Christ be the good news of the righteousness of God rather than the good news of the justice of God? Why do they prefer that Jesus call his followers to righteousness rather than to justice?

Nicholas Wolsterstorff (via chamerionwrites)

I don't know about obsession, but if i may ask...

Do you like Moby Dick because it may be based in a true story or because it's written so well??

It's certainly inspired by the true story of the Essex, which was rammed by a sperm whale. Back in the old days it was considered kind of unseemly to write pure fiction. Novels needed to be a travelogue or a biography or a historical account or a religious morality tale - at least on the surface. Pure fiction was too much like a lie, and could get you a dark reputation.

So yes, most of Melville's books were "based" on real events, either others' accounts or stories from his own colourful youth and later travels. But once you read them, you see the narrative is just an excuse for explorations of social or philosophical themes and ideas. Though his first two books were more straightforward travelogues, he couldn't afterwards write anything straightforward to save his life. His readers at the time felt betrayed by this - they'd liked his funny, scary adventures in the South Seas! - but they didn't understand the rest and stopped buying his books. Melville eventually gave up his writing career, got a day job, and died in obscurity.

I mention all this because Herman Melville the man is a big reason why I like Herman Melville's writing. His life was fascinating, sad, and we know a lot about it. It's brilliant stuff to study. His writing, too, is fascinating and sad. I'll just stick to Moby-Dick here but I love all his work.

Moby-Dick was the first novel I ever read that felt like the author was speaking directly to me. I was in high school when I first came across it - I was going through a pirate phase and it was on my list - and it stopped me dead in my tracks. It's not just a novel; it's an anachronistic multimedia experiment. It mixes prose and script and poetry and quotes and dictionary entries with elegant language and salty sailor speak. It's eloquent and disgusting, elevated and deeply down in the dirt and foam. It is an explosion of contrast, a constant seesaw back and forth between the narrative reality of a captain obsessively hunting a whale, and a common sailor named Ishmael reflecting on what that hunt means, what whales mean, what the colour white means, what the sky means, what the universe means. In his ruminations, nothing is dismissed. He wasn't dusty Hawthorne obsessing over the Bible; instead he was a sailor with a wide but naive breadth of knowledge of "Eastern religions," Asian history, "South Seas cannibals," so you never know what he's going to bring up. His was the kind of eclectic thinking that you didn't often see expressed with such eloquence in the 1850s.

So yeah, I like it a lot because it's written really well :)

But also, it's very raw, and you feel the sloppy earnestness of Melville on every page. He's trying so hard to communicate with you and - knowing that so many of his contemporaries didn't understand him - it makes you feel kind of special and connected with him when you do understand what he's saying, and you agree. It's a novel that benefits in a very unique way from NOT murdering the author; from understanding who the author was, what he went through, how exuberant he was for so long and then how much the exigencies of publishing and finances beat him down.

We people who love Moby-Dick tend to really love Moby-Dick. I'm certain Melville himself is a big reason for this. We connect with his struggles. We celebrate the immortality of all artists by raising up his work and reaching back through the centuries to take his tarry hand.

Curious if this could work mechanically- could the shield be altered to only allow first silver in? This would better keep the civvies out once the bubble went down and maybe weaken the silver by causing it to shed some flesh. I think Duane did something similar way back in ch. 9 with Boo’s first brass, too.

Nay. Darkest says in the first panel that the hub can't analyze the First Silver. It's grown too massive and is rendering the khert unstable. At this point the best the hub can do is what it's been doing, and that's a complete but computationally simple Contour blockade.

Foooortunately, while the Queen's camp is ignorant to their presence, we should not ourselves forget that Duane Adelier and his Peaceguard keepers are not very far off. And they ain't no slumps.

Vliegeng air raid is on its way too though... wouldn't it be funny if...

Everyone's gonna die! D:

If you guys want early access to my art, check out my Patreon, Lumenations!

www.patreon.com/lumenations

The final product!! Holy WHOO this was a KILLER DRAWING.

I loved drawing every part of it, but containing myself to get it done by Halloween became increasingly unlikely the more I worked on it and the closer the deadline came.

In total? This drawing took about–

19 HOURS AND 26 MINUTES HOLY–

*Many background wheezing breaths*

It’s all good! I am SUPER proud of how this turned out, tackling 15 characters in a fully shaded drawing was hard but a lot of fun! I got to draw a couple characters I don’t typically, which is awesome!

The speed paint will be up on Youtube soon!

From left to right:

Tanglewood, Cherry Parish, Vestice, Bavel, Alabaster, Toil, Black Griffin, Angela, Khrey, Draken, Wynstunn, Peperre (pink stripe lady), Prime and Plume (circus sisters), and Scat Cat!

If you want to know more about these characters, please check out the descriptions on my Patreon! Thanks for being patient with me, it means a lot that you guys want to see my art and stories! <3

What caste were the Kings of Alderode?

There were a few dynasties before the last was ultimately overthrown. The founding family were the Rortides, and they were Copper. The Rortides were supplanted by the Wauns who were knocked out by the short-lived Caziers. The Jet Allards managed two kings before the Wauns came back and had every one in the family scalped. They were in power when the Council War broke out.

crown swap