#quasartalks

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hello friends 💖🇵🇸 i have been managing this campaign for a dear friend of mine @nader1990 and his family in Ghazzah. I've been speaking with him for several months and trying to assist him, and the situation has only gotten more dire. You can find more info here.

Nader and his entire family, including his wife and three young children, have been displaced several times.

Nader has lost his uncle and his wife, his cousin and his wife and their two young children. His father was injured in an attack that destroyed their entire home.

Just when we all thought there might be a sliver of hope for aid and food to get into Ghazzah, and for Nader and his family to escape, Israel shattered the ceasefire (after already breaking it nearly every day since it started) and resumed the mass carpet bombing and slaughtering of innocents. My friends have nowhere to go.

Please help me help them. Donate if you can and please share/reblog.

I am also selling art prints in support of Nader and his family. You can check out my Ko-Fi shop link in my blog description.

Thank you so much.

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Update on Nader's Campaign!

Hello everyone!

First off I wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far to @nader1990's campaign. Please continue to donate and share!

I also have a couple of updates - first from myself: I have finally been able to actually begin sending Nader and his family the money, after figuring out all the details with my bank and making sure the transfer was working correctly. I have transferred about half of what we've managed to raise so far (still waiting on the rest to process)!

Second, an update from Nader that he wanted me to share with you.

After the ceasefire, Nader and his family, like many displaced Gazan families, began to make the long and arduous trek to return to North Gaza. Unfortunately, the situation in the North is still extremely dire. The return trip was difficult and tiring, and the North is entirely destroyed, nothing but rubble and destruction. There is no shelter, no food, extremely limited internet -- he is only able to talk to me maybe once a week, if that.

Please, continue to donate to and share Nader's campaign. They are in desperate need of aid to help them survive.

Much love to everyone who has donated and shared so far 💖💖 please continue to support!

tagging below for reach 💖!

@fricklefracklefloof @feluka @fairuzfan @tododeku-or-bust @vague-humanoid

@annie-manga @king-b0mbastic @autistickaitovocaloid @ubernegro @coulson-is-an-avenger

@nottesilhouette @ebenana @fiercynn @nabulsi @doppelnatur

@sketchdeath @fox-guardian @the-heron @skelelephant @sadmages

@thevoidcannotbefilled @pronouncingitwang @pathos-logical @pomeg-glitch @pomegranate-cuties

@brainwormterrarium @holocephal1 @scorbutic-properties @ishmaels @anarchotahdigism

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10/25 verified gaza evacuation fundraisers

like my last two posts, a roundup of some lovely people who have reached out to me recently. please check out the first and second post as well!

i challenge you to please pick one, any one of these, and donate right now! any amount, $10, $5, $1. pick one now and donate now! and then reblog and share.

@hadiah1111 Help my kids to evacuate Gaza to Eygpt, I need surgery there. €8,056/€50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost and #136 on @gazavetters list]

@toleen-hassouna Help Me Secure a Better Future for My Daughters. £5,609/£35,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#320 on @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi's list]

@ghadafamily3 Rising from the Ashes: Ghada’s Journey of Hope and Resilien. €2,455/€20,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#6 on @gazavetters' list]

@walaamohamed1988 Helping Mohammad and his family escape genocide. €1,094/€30,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#26 on @gazavetters' list]

@ayaalhabil Help to regain my passion for work & start anew. €125/€15,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@maherdahalan Help Maher and his family escape Gaza, and build a future. €2,516/€30,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#35 on @gazavetters' list]

@ahmed-gaza0 Help Ahmed to regain his physical ability to walk. $2,136/$30,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@shah559 Help Dr. Shahad and Farah complete their education. €7,090/€20,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@yousefhasan55 Help Hassan and his family get out of Gaza. €1,620/€25,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#196 on @gazavetters' list]

@amjadsido99 SAVE my family from the war in Gaza - Rafah. €6,754/€30,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#126 on @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi's list]

@roaaalkh Save Roaa Family From The War. €432/€20,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#126 on @gazavetters' list]

@emanalmadhoun7 Urgent Fundraiser to Evacuate Laylan (5) and Walid (7). $1,655/$25,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified as the sister of someone on @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi's list]

@mohammedayyads-blog Help me get food water and medicine for my little kids !! €5,316/€35,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @bilal-salah0]

@abeer-adel Urgent Relief for Family Living in Tent. €3,125/€50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#79 on @gaza-vetters' list]

@walaamohamed1988 Helping Mohammad and his family escape genocide. €1,154/€30,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#26 on @gaza-vetters' list]

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i was Instantly compelled i had to do this immediately

i’m including “really hates whales” in the “attracted to whales” category, as in a literal attraction as in being pulled towards/chasing/hunting them. gay as hell to be obsessed to the point of all consuming hatred and vengeance

ishmael is squarely in the middle because he is the most homosexual man alive (every single man he meets is described in extensive attractive detail) but also have you SEEN the way he talks abt whales. he’s obsessed and enamored. love him.

more explanation under the cut bc i took this shitpost way too seriously /lh but honestly this speaks for itself and is way funnier just as is. 👍

the rest in order: queequeg is very chill and normal about whales. he hunts them but has no particular animosity nor affection for them. he is very queer (my qq is bi but on this scale he’s in the Into Men category). starbuck would be very uncomfortable by this question and his placement on it but he’s definitely into men (he is also bisexual but he won’t admit it <3), but there’s a few moments where he gets a little weird about the whales sure. fedallah is primarily into men (ahab) but due to ahab’s pull to moby dick he’s also pulled in that direction. daggoo is gay and into men but maybe he’s also a big fan of whales idk. the pequod is obviously attracted to whales but she also needs men to make that attraction a reality. and also what’s gayer than a ship and her crew. ahab is A Gay Man who is unfortunately Extremely Attracted (in the most literal sense of that attractive or magnetic force/pull) to Moby Dick. stubb really loves killing whales and flask really really really hates whales (and so loves hunting and killing them). tashtego is aroace and would like to be left alone, thank you.

any of the nonwhite characters are basically my own characterization (heehoo comic) bc melville didn’t rly give them any

moby dick kinsey scale that arranges the characters on a spectrum of how attracted they are to other men versus how attracted they are to whales

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[ID: 6 panels of a digitally drawn comic showing Daggoo doing twist-outs into Pip’s hair. Pip looks a little nervous through the process, with a warm & encouraging Daggoo, and by the end of it he looks at his reflection with surprised joy. More detailed IDs for each panel in alt.]

i finally finished what i was working on for @creatingblackcharacters’ Black History Month Challenge!

so for those who don’t know, for a few years now i’ve been working on adapting Moby Dick into a webcomic. as you might imagine, a text written by a white man in 1851 is oftentimes Very Racist with how it treats its characters of color, and this very much includes its Black characters, of which there are two of note in the cast, Daggoo and Pip. there are parts of the original text in which Melville tries (and even sometimes doesn’t completely fail) to say poignant things or critiques about racism in the text (and much of the text does very explicitly and intentionally deal w/ racism and racialized dynamics, something literally 99% of adaptations ignore), but for the most part, his nonwhite characters are flat, stereotypical, often violent, racist caricatures.

and i won’t get too much into that here (god knows i’ve rambled at LENGTH abt all of this many times & i will many more), because the point of this challenge is to share art about Black joy, but suffice to say that! I am doing my best to intentionally engage with the race & racism of the original text, whether it’s for characters of my own racial identity that Melville bastardizes (like Fedallah), or those of others (like his Black characters, Daggoo and Pip, and his Indigenous characters, and so on). It’s important to me not only to be in conversation with and to challenge Melville’s racism in my work, but also to allow these characters to be more than the one note racist stereotypes Melville writes them as.

So!!! that’s some long winded context, but here’s Daggoo doing Pip’s hair for him and showing him how! I’m extremely fond of Pip getting to be loved and cared for by others of the crew, especially the harpooners (of whom Dag is one). i just think Pip deserves his comically large number of dads who will care for him and make him feel safe and shelter him from the absolute Horror that is 19th century American Whaling (and the Horror that is their white crewmates!). i just think this little Black boy deserves love and joy 😭😭 and i think Daggoo deserves to be a soft, gentle caregiver who can give that to him.

I have lots more thoughts about this and about them and about their hair which i may expand on under a cut or in the tags, but because this is already getting so long!:

to my Black viewers, and my Black readers, you belong in classic literature spaces! you deserve to see yourselves represented thoughtfully and carefully in the ‘canon’ of literature, and to challenge when you aren’t, and be supported in your critiques! your contributions to both literature as a whole (whether “classic” or otherwise) and to literary analysis and critique are invaluable and irreplaceable, both when you discuss the racism in these works and spaces and when you engage in any other kind of analysis or creation. And I want you to be able to enjoy stories of all kinds without people brushing aside your existence or pretending your concerns are invalid or don’t matter because ~it’s a great classic!~ or ~it was a different time.~ your voices and your creations and your art matter.

& on the smallest scale, i hope at least to bring you a little bit of joy. 

I'm tagging some of my art friends! I know the lateness of this in the month means it’ll be hard for anyone to probably do anything of their own for the challenge, but hopefully y’all can still check out & support all the lovely art that’s already been made for this!! @coulson-is-an-avenger @fricklefracklefloof @layalu @brainwormterrarium @seaflying-fliptuna @rootscorrode @holocephal1 and anyone else who wants to!!

& thank you to Ice for making this wonderful challenge, and thank you for all the lovely, incredible work you do on @creatingblackcharacters. truly a blessing to this world 💖💖

anyway, some more notes, because i can’t help rambling:

i referenced a lot of images & videos of people doing twist outs for this but i wanna shout out the video i watched and rewatched and paused and zoomed in on the Most; it’s by kbmaria on YouTube and called “Twist Out on Short TWA 4C Hair | Big Chop Hairstyles”!! def go check her out :]

i loved looking up 1800s hair combs (and afro picks, though it seems they were all just called ‘combs’) & 1800s sleep bonnets for this! the details of the bonnets kind of got lost in simplification (they really do just look like modern ones but with more lace!) but drawing them and the comb was still fun. i also was looking up specifically a lot of Black hair care history and there is some really cool stuff about the original invention and spread of the hot comb (used for straightening hair) and Black people’s role in that (there’s again more i could get into but i won’t right now but do look it up if you’re interested! the library of congress has a good presentation article with sources about Black hair care history. much of it is later the timeline that’s relevant to these characters in particular, but still very interesting!)

i always defaulted to giving Daggoo an Afro when i designed him (mainly because he’s described with one in the book). over recent years, i’ve definitely thought more about this decision and about whether/how to incorporate different hairstyles into representing him. whaling is a…unique situation—long, long stretches of time (we’re talking months) of extreme lethargy with no tasks to do punctuated by unpredictable short bursts (days to weeks at a time) of incredibly high intensity, life threatening, and laborious work. it leaves lots of time to do more complicated, time-intensive hairstyles (which his hair definitely could benefit from in an environment where he’s getting very sweaty, sea-salty, and wet frequently!), but any of that time could be interrupted at any moment; it’s impossible to Plan for when the whale hunts happen and put your hair in a more protective style ahead of time. i don’t really have a specific answer to this yet, but it’s smthn i’m thinking about a lot and researching a lot! visual historical references we have (that i’ve seen at least) of Black sailors of this time tend to have their hair natural and short-cropped (which is how Pip keeps his), but i def want to draw more hairstyles on Dag at different points.

in any case, i do love the idea of him doing Pip’s hair for him (even if the style will be Very temporary due to the nature of their work — he’ll probably get wet very soon 😔) and showing him how to do different ones. starting with something maybe a little easier to do (like this twist out) and maybe showing more complex ones as time goes on.

as far as hair moisturizers go, ive also done a good amount of reading over the years of what kinds of hair moisturizers were available at diff time periods (did you know lots of victorian women used egg washes in their hair to keep it moisturized? i didn’t). i like to think that Dag keeps his own personal stash of natural oil of some kind — he may have access to coconut oil/cedarwood oil/smthn like that. and if he’s ever in a pinch, apparently whale oil is a fine hair moisturizer! and was even used in cosmetics in the 20th century! so hey. got plenty of that around lmao

i think that’s all i have to say for now lmao. thank you again Ice for making this challenge 💖💖

[pocketsizedquasar-3]

vetted gaza evacuation fundraisers 10/23

another roundup as i continue checking my backlog! please also go see the post from earlier this week!

i challenge you to please pick one, any one of these, and donate right now! any amount, $10, $5, $1. pick one now and donate now! and then reblog and share.

@ashraffblog Hope for Gaza: Support Ashraf's Family Rebuild Their Lives. €26,004/€30,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@ameertaims Help Amir and his family to leave Gaza. kr32,257 SEK/kr200,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#59 on @gazavetters list]

@salman-1990 Save the family of Salman Hellis from the Gaza Strip. €4,459/€50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@children-gaza Help my family to evacuate from gaza and rebuild t. €11,505/€22,500. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@ibrahim-family Help Ibrahim's family escape the Gaza war. €2,728/€10,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#25 on @gazavetters list]

@kenzish and @nisreensuhail Help my family survive and start a new life. €15,848/€50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#75 on @gazavetters list]

@eman-kha Help Eman and Her Mother Evacuate for Urgent Treatment. $4,260/$40,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@nouralkhaldi98 Help Noor's family get out of Gaza to safety!!!!!. €502/€150,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#150 on @gazavetters list]

@hashem1979 Help Hashem's Family Escape Gaza. $4,635/$60,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@etafalqattaa Please help us get out of life's crises and the woes of war. €4,548/€100,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#88 on @gazavetters list]

@mahmodsy1 Help Mahmoud and his family escape Gaza & continue education. $7,217/$25,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#190 on beesandwatermelons mutual aid collective's list, and #63 on @gazavetters list]

@bessalah Donate to Help Bisan and Her Family Survive In Gaza. £7,182/£8,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#351 on @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi's list]

@karamalmadhoun1 Desperate plea: Help my family evacuate Gaza war! €18,947/€20,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#109 on @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi's list]

@anqarfamily Helping Ahmed's Family: Escaping War to a New Life. €66,488/€75,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#264 on @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi's list]

@motazjad Defend my brother's family from genocide in gaza. kr100,054 SEK/kr250,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

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hillary won the popular vote and still was not president lmao. idk why y’all keep forgetting this.

kamala is presently repeating the dems’ 2016 ‘strategy’ of catering to right wingers and ‘never trump’ republicans while completely abandoning progressives. she is priding herself on being further right on issues like immigration than trump. don’t be shocked pikachu face when it doesn’t work for dems this time just like it didn’t work for them last time.

the choice is not between “a Black woman and a white supremacist.” the choice is between a white supremacist and a while supremacist. stop saying “Black woman” about kamala as if that’s any meaningful distinction when she is just as much an active, gleeful agent of white supremacy as any white person in her position. the fact that you can agree that yes, having a white supremacist president is “the worst possible outcome” and then happily vote for a white supremacist just because she happens to not herself be white is ridiculous. you don’t actually care about white supremacy.

you all tried the “push biden/dems left”thing four years ago (and for the past several elections). this has Not worked out.

people aren’t voting for Kamala because SHE IS COMMITTING GENOCIDE. she is actively, happily committing genocide. she has over and over again shown how happy she is to continue committing genocide. she has over and over again shown she has no intentions to stop continuing to commit genocide. and why should she, when you all have gladly and readily (since the start of the genocide over a year ago) been yelling about how you’ll vote for any dem no matter what? no matter how many people they gleefully slaughter?

kamala and the democrats would rather lose the election than stop committing genocide. multiple polls have shown that calling for an arms embargo and a ceasefire would be enough to guarantee their win in necessary swing states. they would rather continue to burn palestinian children alive and carpet bomb hospitals than win the election. they have very clearly and unequivocally decided that losing the election is not as important to them as continuing to commit genocide. if they do not care enough about winning to do the single thing that the majority of their party voters (hell, the majority of all voters in the US) want (you know, the responsibility of a democratically elected entity — to respond to the wishes of the majority they represent), then why should i care about them winning? what makes you think that a party which actively refuses to listen to the majority of its constituents in order to continue slaughtering civilians is going to listen to you on Anything? on climate, COVID, immigration, anything? why do you trust the people committing genocide to ‘defend’ any sorts of rights?

this party cares more about slaughtering brown people than it does about any responsibilities it has to you as the people who vote for it. why the fuck should i care about them?

vote for whoever the fuck you want, but stop pretending you’re doing anyone, especially palestinians, any favors.

white liberals are a poison.

due to systemic oppression, usamerican leftists don't currently have the political power to instate a leftist president. we do, however, have enough power to make one of two candidates lose the election. we could use this power to make the white supremacist lose to the black woman, or we could use it to make the black woman lose to the white supremacist. the obvious choice for leftists would be to prioritize making the white supremacist lose, but tumblr users have devised a loop hole, where they agitate primarily for making the black woman lose, but omit the detail about who she would be losing to. this makes their stance more palatable to people who correctly believe that having a white supremacist president would be the worst possible outcome.

[pocketsizedquasar-3]

vetted gaza evacuation fundraisers 11/09

it's been a little while since i've been able to sit down and collate these; i apologize. please go check out my prior posts as well and donate/share! [1] [2] [3]. Many of the campaigns on this list are very low on funds!

if you are reading this, i challenge you to please pick one, any one of these, and donate right now! any amount, $10, $5, $1. especially if you're someone who sees a lot of these posts and reblogs them with the thought of "oh i'll donate later ! I'll try to rememer later this evening!" or something (which, no judgment, I do that too sometimes) -- i'm cashing in on that "later" now! I challenge you to if you see this, go and donate any amount to one of these Right Now (or as soon as you are able) pick one Now and donate Now! and then reblog and share.

@lanamohanad7 Save My Family:Support my fathers treatment and a dignified life. €10,257/€20,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @gaza-evacuation-funds]

@montaser-jehad Help Save Me and My Family To Get Life Deserve. €245/€20,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#224 on @/gazavetters' list]

@lana-89 Help Karim Al-Hayek's Family Rebuild Life. $10/$50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#239 on @/gazavetters' list]

@ahmed79ss Help my family to get out of Gaza. $13,630CAD/$50,000CAD. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by Ahmed @/90-ghost; prior tumblr account lost]

@strangekittengalaxy Save Our Children: Emergency Relief for a Family in Gaza. £2,563/£55,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by association with ^ previous campaign on this list]

@ayamohammed2024 Help me and my family. €1,200/€60,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#230 on @/gazavetters' list and #1133 on The Butterfly Effect Project's list]

@jalalosama Help jalal and His Family Leave Gaza and Start Over. €931/€25,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#204 on @/gazavetters' list]

@abuzoor Help me to evacuate my family from Gaza. €2,401/€60,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#503 on The Butterfly Effect Project's list and #27 on @/gazavetters' list]

@famousturtlebanana Trapped Family in Gaza Appeals for Help to Survive. €66,000/€70,000 (so close!!). [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#174 on @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi's list]

@shadi90 Help Shadis family to survive from war to a safe place. kr20,164 SEK/kr200,000 ($5 = 55 SEK). [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#185 on @/gazavetters' list]

@mahmoud2002gaza Help us evacute from Gaza. €140/€50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [shared by @/90-ghost]

@nouraayman Be Our Light: Help Us Rebuild Love and Safety. €4,120/€50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @gaza-evacuation-funds]

@mohammed-hassouna Help Me Secure a Better Future for My Daughters. £7,021/£35,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#320 on @/el-shab-hussein and @/nabulsi's list]

@abedallhferwanagaza Urgent Appeal: Save Ola' family evacuate Gaza war. €14,365/€35,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#60 on @/gazavetters' list and #964 on the Butterfly Effect Project's list]

@abedhilles Help me save myself and my child Karam. $4,901/$35,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [shared by @/90-ghost]

[pocketsizedquasar-3]

vetted gaza evacuation fundraisers 10/22

i did this every week on my prior account, but tumblr nuked me (again) the last time i did this. but we are back again! here are some of the people who have reached out to me for help recently.

i challenge you to please pick one, any one of these, and donate right now! any amount, $10, $5, $1. pick one now and donate now! and then reblog and share.

@freepaleatine95 Please Save What's Left of My Family (formerly titled Donate to restore the lives of the Balousha family). $34,770/$50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@anas--ahmed Help Anas & Ahmed rebuild their future in Gaza. €3,570/€29,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost and #83 on @gazavetters spreadsheet]

@mohammedatallah Support Muhammad's Surgery & Children Amir and Malak. €21,233/€82,000 [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost here and @bilal-salah0 here, as well as additional information from the artist organizing the campaign here]

@heba-baker Help heba and his family to survive their life. €5,895/€60,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@familygazaamal Support the family of little Amal to get an urgent operation. $5,545/$30,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#55 on @gaza-vetters list]

@fatimabalawi2 Help save my family to survive the genocide in Gaza. €44,231/€85,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@ahmed-fathi-gaza Helping the Ahmed Fathi family achieve a better future. €20,480/€80,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@familymajed2 Please help Shamaly family SURVIVE Gaza & start a new life! $24,912CAD/$90,000CAD. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#227 on @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi's spreadsheet]

@abuadam86 Emergency Appeal: Help Save My Children's. €1,319/€50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#187 on @gazavetters list]

@abedallhferwanagaza Urgent Appeal: Save Ola' family evacuate Gaza war. €11,582/€35,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#60 on @gazavetters list, #964 on The Butterfly Effect Project list]

@yosef-hussin Evacuate Kareem & Carmen NOW from Gaza. $13,110/$50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [verified by @90-ghost]

@odayfamily Help Oday And Family Evacuate Gaza, Rebuild Lives. €7,990/€50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#261 on @el-shab-hussein and @nabulsi's spreadsheet]

@youseffamily Save the life of an innocent child. €24,246/€30,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [$406 on The Butterfy Effect Project list]

@imanaqar Help Abd AL Salam and his family get through this war inGaza. €14,129/€50,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#4 on @gazavetters list]

@ghazialamoudi From War and Tents to Safety: Help Us Evacuate Gaza. €1,506/€10,000. [DONATION LINK] [reblog link] [#89 on @gazavetters list]

please donate and share!

additionally, i am selling art prints and comics for @fahedshehab-new's campaign!

[pocketsizedquasar-3]

Have been too busy to post this friday and yesterday but IT’S FEDALLAH TIME!!!!!!! THIS WEEK’S PAGE WAS FEDALLAH TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

copying over today’s blog post from the comic site, because i think it’s important! under a cut because u know how i ramble when it comes to these guys 💖:

God I have so so many thoughts about Fedallah. Before everything else, it’s VERY important that you know that he is my Favorite Fucking Guy and I Love him So Fucking Much and he Means SO fucking much to me. But anyway! I’m going to copy a lot of my thoughts here over from the notes of a fic chapter of mine where I talk about Fedallah: There are, of course, many, many issues with the way Melville portrays Fedallah in the book. He is a horrifically racist and Orientalist stereotype. Just one of these issues is the fact that Fedallah is given a number of conflicting, racist, and caricaturized racial/cultural markers. The descriptor he most often gets is “Parsee,” so we at least know that much about him. Throughout the book, he’s also described as having "swart" (dark) skin and being an "eboness" (another racist way to describe dark/Black skin), but he is also lumped into descriptors of his "tiger-yellow crew," wears a "rumpled Chinese jacket," wears a "glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head," is accompanied by a crew of Filipino oarsmen, and has an Arabic name. The only thing we know for certain about him is the only consistent descriptor he gets: Parsee.

“Parsee” loosely means Persian, and is largely associated particularly with Zoroastrians. Today, the word "Parsi" specifically describes the group of Zoroastrians in India who are descended from Zoroastrians who fled Persia starting a couple centuries after Muslim rule in Persia (there are other nuances and names used to describe different groups of Indian Zoroastrians, who migrated throughout the centuries since then, but this is just a large summary). Persians in India (and elsewhere) had long been referred to as "Parsees" before this, and so this group picked up that moniker over history. In the early modern period (aka starting the 16th century), though, there are also several examples of European travellers and writers in general using "Parsee" to refer to Zoroastrians still in Iran as well -- the term was used to denote Zoroastrians generally, whether referring to the group in Iran or in India. In the Western consciousness of the time, as far as I can tell, "Parsee" just means "Zoroastrian."

So all that in mind, Fedallah could plausibly be either a Zoroastrian from Persia, or from India. I personally have chosen to make him Persian for a few reasons, a) because i'm persian <3 b) because I am far more familiar with Persian history broadly, and am extensively researched in Persian Zoroastrian history (…i did get really autistically special interested in this. like. more than 1200+ pages of research i’ve read glsdfdklsfja) c) i think there can be Some argument made that Melville thinks of "Parsee" as "Persian" specifically. He refers to "Persian fire worshippers" in Ch 42 and 86 (which, Zoroastrians are not 'fire worshippers;’ this is a common Orientalist stereotype and misconception both within and outside of Iran/India which Zoroastrians today are STILL fighting — but it IS what Melville would have thought/read/been told they were). Melville has Ahab say the following in Ch 199 The Candles: “Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee...", which ties into some of the WEIRD stuff Melville seems to have going on with Fedallah and Ahab and the implication that Fedallah is Corrupting Ahab or pulling Ahab into Fedallah's sinful/devilish desires…etc etc. (Which, also, sidebar, Ahab calls himself Persian here! “I as Persian”!!! really weird and interesting!! no I don’t think Melville necessarily is actually writing Ahab as a Persian Person (that’s what I’m doing); I think he’s being weird and racist and Orientalist about Ahab being figuratively ~~persian~~ aka mystical and strange and demonic and whatever else, but still really interesting!!) There is a very particular and horrible kind of Orientalism going on here that I don't Reaaaaally have the desire to get into right now. 

But point being, I think you could make the textual argument that Melville sees "Parsee" Fedallah as specifically one of the Persian "Fire-worshippers" (Zoroastrians) that he continually references. Melville was a well-read individual, and there was by the time of Moby Dick an already long history of Western (particularly European) scholars being ~fascinated~ by the mysterious “fire worshippers” of ancient Persia; there is a LOT of contemporaneous writing about the Zoroastrians (both Indian and Persian), in the way that much of the “Orient” and its religions were ~fascinating~ to Europeans. (again, I must stress, 'fire-worshipper' is considered a wildly offensive and derogatory way to refer to Zoroastrians, and it has been used as a pejorative towards them by their oppressors in Persia and in the West alike for centuries. it is inaccurate and offensive.) 

But! All that being said, I do think it would also be very fair for someone to choose to make Fedallah an Indian Zoroastrian if they wished! Both would make sense. But my Fedallah is Persian.

I am NOT myself religiously Zoroastrian (I am not at all religious), though I am Persian, and so much of the religion’s practices have still featured in my life. & I consider myself largely aligned with many of Zarathustra's/Zartosht's ideas (something I am still exploring for myself in my personal life). Any errors or missteps in portraying him respectfully are my own.  Separately from all this, I am working on writing out a story centered on Fedallah's backstory in general -- his upbringing, how he came to receive an Arabic/Muslim name, how he came to leave Persia, how he met Ahab, etc.

Regardless, Fedallah is (as I have yelled about.. SO MUCH…) deeply, deeply important to me. It is important to me that he gets treated with love and kindness and care, and the respect he deserves. He matters to me and the story I’ve made for him makes me ache. I love him so so very much. This is by no means an exhaustive discussion of all of the complicated factors involved here; if I have glossed over some things it's because I'm trying to prevent this from being longer than it already is. This is just a VERY brief overview of some of the things that have been important to me to consider with respect to Fedallah. I love and adore him so much. 

[pocketsizedquasar-3]

sahar you should watch conclave i feel like you'd find it entertaining lol. also i find it to be a good well-told story that's accessible to even those who don't like the catholic church, because it is at heart a drama (described as a political thriller by wikipedia i think haha) and it is critical of the church in some ways! even if it's about popes 🙂‍↕️ also the costume designer cuntified the priest clothes

hello! omg yeah i definitely have planned to; it looks really interesting 👀 it also definitely went from “oo mildly interesting thing that my tumblr mutuals are making old man yaoi about” to “oh i absolutely have to watch this” when i learned there was an intersex character (that from all i’ve heard seems to have been handled really well) so i’m def interested in watching/have been planning to!!

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recently started playing animal crossing again after >2 years and u know what? maybe i Do have reasons to live <3

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OH I CAN YELL ABOUT JEREMY DUTCHER he is one of my Favorite artists

he is a two spirit artist from the Tohique First Nation and has made so much beautiful beautiful music with the goal of preserving language and culture. most of his music is in Wolastoqey, an endangered language with less than a thousand speakers. his album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa (sung entirely in Wolastoqey) is genuinely one of the most gorgeous bodies of music i’ve ever heard.

go listen to him!!!!

bro i LOVE indigenous fusion music i love it when indigenous people take traditional practices and language and apply them in new cool ways i love the slow decay and decolonisation of the modern music industry

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if i had a nickel for every time white trans friends / mutuals suddenly blocked me without a word (usually immediately after i’ve dared to talk abt TPOC issues) id have like so many goddamn nickels lmfaooo

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THE CHASE, UNRAVELED Chapter 13: Nocturne, Coda Chapters: 13/13 Relationships: Captain Ahab/Starbuck (Moby Dick), Captain Ahab & Pip (Moby Dick), Captain Ahab & Fedallah (Moby Dick), Captain Ahab/Fedallah (Moby Dick), Characters: Captain Ahab (Moby Dick), Starbuck (Moby Dick), Pip (Moby Dick), Fedallah (Moby Dick), Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, except not really - one person dies…

Summary: Tomorrow morning, the sun will dawn upon the White Whale’s inexorable spout, his hump like a snow-hill, and for the next three days Ahab will chase that haunted whale across the horizon till one of them spouts black blood, and all will collapse, and the great shroud of the sea will roll on as it rolled five thousand years ago. This is how it goes. But perhaps not this time. Perhaps…

Or: Ahab, choosing to live.

---

So ends.

(GAHSDFHDHSHGASHGSDAGHGHDSHFHDGHHRHSHDNFGDSHFNNGNNNGHGHDHGH)

[pocketsizedquasar-3]

this is more of a spitballing question: how do you think a jonah-type character and an ahab-type character would interact? in the sense that jonah was running from God and it followed him in the form of a whale, and ahab was looking for a whale who is also God?

HIIII i got this ask when i was still incapable (?) of receiving asks (i saw the notification but couldn't open it) which was a SHAME because it's a VERY FUN GOOD QUESTION AND I WAS VERY EXCITED TO ANSWER so anyways!

first: ahab in the book is already deliberately posited as a jonah inversion / antithesis / opposite figure. in the Sermon chapter early in the book, ishmael and queequeg attend a church in New Bedford and watch this Father Mapple give a sermon about Jonah. and the Entire Point of this chapter is to serve as Foreshadowing and Framing and Setup and etc etc for the narrative to come. (this is part of why it makes me sad when MD adaptations eliminate the onland chapters, because while I understand the need to save space/time and the desire to get to the action as soon as possible, those chapters exist for a reason!! and it is to set up and frame and foreshadow the story in a way that we aren't really able to when we get to sea!)

But yeah, the Sermon is basically all about Jonah and how Jonah disobeys God, tries in vain to run away from him, dooms the entire crew of the ship he is on in the process, and is only saved when he accepts his punishment. It's one of my favorite chapters in the book and I definitely recommend giving it a close read if you're ever interested! For sake of comic space, I had to condense it down into the most direct & salient bits, but I'll otherwise let Mapple speak for himself here:

ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᵉˣᶜᵘˢᵉ ᵗʰᶦˢ ⁵ ʸᵉᵃʳ ᵒˡᵈ ᵃʳᵗ

now obviously mapple doesn't directly mention ahab or anything in his sermon; the benefit of visual medium is i can put ahab very explicitly right there when i want him to be <3 but there's a lot of imagery and language that comes up in the sermon that then repeatedly comes up later in reference to ahab -- jonah's swinging lantern becomes the swinging lantern in ahab's cabin (also drawn here), which shows up at several points; jonah "sleeps his hideous sleep" and later so does ahab, so too is his sleep haunted and tumultuous; and then obviously there's the parallel story you mention involving whales and God and all that.

jonah and ahab disobey God; they affront God; even with their sin of disobedience they further flout at God by seeking to flee from him: jonah and ahab think that a ship made by men will carry them somehwere God does not reign, but only the Captains of this earth (see, later, the multiple times ahab states that there is no God on the Pequod, only him; that he cares for no lords or shipowners or Gods; that there is one Lord of the earth but there is one God of the Pequod and that is him). jonah and ahab disobey god; they sin; they think that they can flee from him; they doom their crews in the process.

but in the sermon, and in the story of jonah, jonah is saved. jonah recants:

“In all his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven, they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah’s; that discovered, then how furiously they mob him with their questions. ‘What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is upon him. “‘I am a Hebrew,’ he cries—and then—‘I fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!’ Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then! Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts,—when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for his sake this great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder; then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.

jonah recants; he says he Does fear God. he allows himself to be dropped into the sea, which calms the storm and saves the crew, and when in the belly of the whale, he prays to that God: not for deliverance, because he "feels that his dreadful punishment is just...Here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment."

so jonah is saved. jonah recants and obeys and trembles like the proper obedient God-fearing servant he is, and so jonah is spared.

and ahab is not.

ahab does not recant. ahab does not obey. ahab does not fear God. (though in the end, he goes from believing his vengeance quest is defying God to believing that his vengeance quest is God's will, and that he has no power/control of his own, which is its whole other thing that makes me Ow). ahab is not good, pious, obedient, God-fearing, repentant. to the last, he grapples with God. for hate's sake he spits his last breath at God.

SO to get back to your Actual question that you asked and not this long tangent that you didn't ask for, how do I think a jonah-type character and an ahab-type character would interact? they both have the similarities mentioned above: disobeying and then hubristically flouting at God, believing they can either escape (jonah) or best (ahab) God. but also as you said, they're also opposites in an important way: Jonah is fleeing God, and Ahab is chasing it. Ahab likely would see himself as a more active participant in his own story, more willing to directly confront and defy God:

That’s more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own size; don’t pommel me! No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves!

Ahab does not flee the Gods that threaten to destroy him; he challenges them directly, head on, just as he faces Moby Dick directly, head on.

and Ahab does not care to repent. Ahab does not care that he's offended God. even in the end when he believes himself to be bound to God, bound by fate, devoid of all free will, it is not with obedience, it is not with acquiescence; he is not grateful for punishment; he is still just as enraged with God, just as furious with the God that he sees as having violently damned him. I think he would be quite angry with a character/figure who would apologize, would submit to the God that damned him. He would see that as an unacceptable (and even shameful) defeat, I think.

And we do know already how he responds to characters who beseech him to heed that God. Starbuck is no Jonah figure, but I can't imagine Ahab's response to one would be much different:

Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most South-Sea-men’s cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck, exclaimed: “There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain that is lord over the Pequod.—On deck!”