Yusuf Al Kaysani - Blog Posts

little update #3 on my kaysanova lino cut:

[here you can find my first and second update, as well as my initial post with the sketch]

I didn’t have a lot of time to work on this recently, but I’m almost entirely done with the black layer (only the border around them needs to go) I still wanted to give an update since it’s been a while

I changed the hilt of nicky’s sword because with this bigger version I went for a more realistic look for the weapons (not realistic just more realistic) and the shape of the hilt ended up looking weird but I’m not entirely happy with it now either. idk

I should be able to print this next week but maybe I’ll also do it tomorrow?? (and yes I am aware that this project is a continuous string of I’ll-do-it-next-weeks haha but maaayyybe this time I’m right) and if I feel like it I’ll also do the coloured layers (or at least one of them)

I also already have an idea for my next big project but that one is more complicated (and time consuming) than the current one and also not within the ballpark of things I’m capable of and I also really should work on some stuff that isn’t fanart

so we’ll see if I’ll actually go ahead with it

little update #2 on my kaysanova linocut:

[here you can find the first update and my original post with the sketch]

I am now done with about a third (?) of the black layer. this is taking me much longer than I anticipated but right now I'm still having fun with it so I don't really care. I want to finish at least this layer in the next couple of days though.

also (again) a little bonus, the one thing I drew last week:

We’ve been afforded more time than any lovers I can name. And still, every moment we scrape together feels precious. 

–The Old Guard: Tales Through Time

I redrew of one of the panels (or at least part of it) from tales through time

here it is without the speech bubble:

and the original panel:

a little update on my kaysanova lino cut:

(here is my original post with the sketch)

I think I'll get around to cutting this and preparing the coloured layers next weekend

also a little bonus: I already cut a smaller version of this a couple of days ago but it ended up being too small and didn't look right (therefore the second version which is a bit more than double the size)

so here's a little comparison:

I will probably never finish any of these, so I'm just going to leave them here

joe + textposts i have tagged “yusufcore” 💌

the sketch I made for a lino cut I'm working on, I'm not sure about the colours yet though

also additionally, sth I played around with yesterday:

rb joe x nicky (+cat)

rest assured i am always thinking about joe and nicky from the old guard. ALWAYS.

Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad Al-Kaysani,

Proud Citizen of the Zirid Dynasty: Part 2

Ok, so now we can confidently say that the Zirid Dynasty makes sense as the homeland of Yusuf. I was going to get straight into the history of the Zirid Dynasty but honestly, there's nothing straight about this blog. I wrote one line about the city of Kairouan being founded by the Umayyad's on the site of a former Byzantine outpost and came to the conclusion that some more context couldn't hurt. Let's zoom back out for a minute and get a feel for some of the regions historic context, it's relationship with "Italy", and also get some context for "the Franks" feeling of entitlement towards the Levant.

Keep your eye on the city of Carthage as we go, that's modern day Tunis. Phoenicians founded the city in 814 BC and it became the centre of the Carthaginian Empire. Carthage was the trading hub of the Ancient Mediterranean and was an incredibly rich city.

This is probably where a textbook would start, ignoring the Amazigh peoples that inhabited the region for at least 9,000 years before the Phoenicians sailed up the coast. We'll come back to that another day. For now, have a look at Phoenicia itself on the map. Doesn't that region look familiar? People sailing around the Mediterranean and claiming other parts of it was nothing new in 1096 AD.

The rise of the Carthaginian Empire and the rise of the Roman Empire brought them into conflict. This lead to the Maghrebi region of the Carthaginian Empire becoming the Roman province, Africa Proconsularis.*

*This link is not objective and contains blatant historical bias but it was the most accurate, least biased one I could find.

In the 4th century Christianity began to spread throughout the Roman Empire after Constantine I co-signed the Edict of Milan. He was the first Christian Roman Emperor, and he founded the new Roman capital city, Constantinople (now Istanbul not Constantinople).

Christianisation was messy and complicated. There was a rich diversity of indigenous religious beliefs throughout the regions beforehand, despite the uniform picture painted by the term "pagan", and the early adoption of Christianity was varied in its sincerity. But that's a whole other story. It seemed relevant to note that it's rarely ever as simple as "us" and "them".

After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, Africa Proconsularis became the Kingdom of the Vandals. Note that the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) was still going strong. The fall marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, also known as the "the Dark Ages".

The Kingdom of the Vandals was conquered by the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century, when it became the Exarchate of Africa. The Byzantines held it until the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th century. (Why yes indeed, those are both just links to Wikipedia. The other articles I could find were all a mess. The wiki entries at least acknowledge the existence of the regions indigenous peoples and both entries have referenced sources.)

As the Byzantine Empire expands and contracts during the Middle Ages you can see that it extends as far west as Carthage and southern Spain in the 6th century, that it includes Anatolia and the Levant in the 5th and 6th centuries, and that it recovered a portion of Anatolia and the Levant in the 12th century following the First Crusade.

In the 7th century Islam spread throughout the Arab peninsula, (the prophet Muhammad lived from 571-632 AD). Over the course of the next few hundred years Islam spread from the Arabian peninsula as far west as the Iberian peninsula and as far east as northern India.

By the late 7th century "Tunisia" was part of the Umayyad Caliphate. The caliphate mostly kept existing governments and cultures intact and administered through governors and financial officers in order to collect taxes. Arabic became the main administrative language. Non-Muslim subjects paid a special tax. Although many Christians migrated out of the region following the Muslim conquest there was a sizeable Christian community up until possibly as late as the 14th century.

And here we are, we've reached the 10 image per post limit so we'll finish working our way up to the 11th century next time!

Hopefully, dear reader, this gives you a slightly richer sense of the First Crusades historic context, some sense of "Tunisia's" historic cultural influences, and a sense of "Tunisia's" significance within the wider Mediterranean world.

maps: 1, 2, 3, 4

Proud Citizen of the Zirid Dynasty: Part 1

“…even after a millennium” 💙☀️⚔️🌙💙

pictures without animation under keep reading 💙

Keep reading

Also breaking the chain of “all Asians are the same” by changing Noriko to Quyn, because the actress is Vietnamese not Japanese.

A gay Italian character who is not stereotyped. 

A gay Arab character who is also not stereotyped. 

Neither of them fetishized. 

Both of them bad ass as fuck. 

And they’re in one of the healthiest relationships, queer or not, I’ve ever seen in an action movie.

Two female leads, one of them Black, neither of them sexualized. 

 Not even ONCE. 

 Both of them bad ass as fuck. 

And they both have space to be their own characters, with their own arcs.

Directed by a Black woman. 

Edited by a Black woman. 

 Actual MAIN //obviously// Gay characters in a superhero/comic movie? (Not relegated to cameo status, take notes Marvel!) 

 I’m sorry I can’t shut up about this movie. 

I’m just so fucking INTO everything it’s about! 

(Edit: I was too excited to think while I wrote this and but now it’s doing numbers and everyone is yelling at me asking what the name of the movie is lol. It’s The Old Guard, it’s on Netflix and came out a week ago.)

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova Characters: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nicky | Nicolo di Genova Additional Tags: soft, Domestic, they're just enjoying each other's company ok, Fluff, Let them have fun Summary:

"And you understand now why they lost their minds and fought the wars and why I've spent my whole life trying to put it into words"

In which Joe and Nicky spend some time on the Amalfi Coast enjoying each other's company and being deeply in love

ok so @ayasauru and i made a meme cause ya know TOG discord 

a comprehensive “guide” to sin in Catholicism - for the TOG fic writers

DISCLAIMER: I AM GOING OFF WHAT CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL AND GROWING UP IN CATHOLICISM HAS TAUGHT ME ABOUT SIN. IF YOU REQUIRE MORE INFORMATION SEEK OUT A PRIEST OR A THEOLOGIAN OR THE INTERNET (ALTHOUGH THAT MAY LEAD YOU DOWN A RABBIT HOLE) 

pls feel free to add on in the comments section :) 

Sin

Committing an action or thought that goes against the teachings of Catholicism

Teachings can include the Bible, 10 Commandments, whatever the Catholic Church says is right

Examples of sin: murder, lying, cheating on your partner

Original sin 

When Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree of forbidden knowledge, sin entered the world through them

Every human being born since then is born with original sin

Original sin can only be washed away through the Sacrament of Baptism (which is what you need to be part of the Catholic faith)

Absolving sin

Sin can only be absolved by a priest or someone higher up in the Church hierarchy through the Sacrament of Reconciliation/Penance

The priest acts as a direct line to God, allowing him to remove sins which you confess to

Reconciliation will only forgive sins which you have confessed to or completely forgotten, not sins that you are deliberately holding back

The priest is forbidden to tell anyone else of what you confessed to, even murder

The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick also has a similar effect of forgiving sins

If someone died with sins, they would go through purgatory (sin cleansing) which is a period between death on Earth and going to Heaven

Mortal vs Venial sins

These are the two types of sins

Mortal sins

Extremely grave sins e.g. murder (although the Catholic Church does not give an exhaustive list of sins and which category they fall under)

For a mortal sin to exist, it must satisfy these three criteria 

Grave matter: the matter is evil and immoral e.g. murder, masturbation, divorce

Full knowledge: the person must know that what they’re doing is evil and immoral

Deliberate consent: the person must freely choose to do this action

Think of it like this: a Catholic person has their own unique relationship with God but when said person commits a mortal sin, their relationship with God is completely cut off until they confess to that sin in Reconciliation

A person who dies with mortal sin intact is sent to hell

Venial sin

Lesser sins basically

A venial sin will weaken a person’s relationship with God but will not destroy it however, going to Reconciliation will restore and repair that relationship

Jesus dying for our sins

Jesus dying on the cross can result in a deep rabbit hole with many different interpretations and different symbolic meanings depending on which way you focus on it so therefore we’re doing it through the idea of sin and what I remember from high school religion classes this is going to be so rough

Jesus dying and resurrecting can represent the idea of Baptism as Catholics come to new life in Christ through Baptism 

Jesus’ cross represents human sin, therefore he died carrying our sins and for human sin

As mentioned before with a Catholic’s relationship with God, Jesus dying restores the relationship between God and the human race so that we could be forgiven of our sins

Revelations

I’m going to say right now I do not know much about this

Revelations is the last book of the Bible, most famous for detailing the end of the world

This specific point is also covered briefly in the Nicene Creed

At the end of the world, God with Jesus at his right hand, will judge every soul and deem those worthy to join him in the new eternal kingdom of God

This is depicted by Michelangelo in the Last Judgement 

The worst-off person at the end of The Old Guard isn’t Andy or Booker, it’s Copley. The man has the job of being the beard for this group of old assholes, half of whom are depressed and half of whom are in a perpetual honeymoon phase, plus one who has yet to figure out just what immortality means (PS. It means skiing off the top of Mt. Everest) When he goes to do the paperwork he’s astounded at how these people managed to stay a secret for any length of time in the 20th century and beyond. Andy has become an honest-to-god cryptid with a massive internet following (it would help if she’d just stop having one night stands and doing the ole’ love and leave em’ routine) Booker regularly goes gambling at and cleans out high-end casinos, which means he has literally every mob on the planet after his ass, Joe kills 100+ people every month for breathing in a way he didn’t certify near Nicky, and when Nile gets over the shock of things it dawns on her that she can do literally everything and anything and not die, which. is another type of hell altogether.  Nicky is the only fairly normal one out of them all, until Copley finds out he secretly owns seventeen different fortune 500 companies and runs a black market or something, and Copley has to take a month off to fuck off back to Booker and just like. drink for ten days straight. This is a disjointed mess, and not even remotely meant to be taken seriously, but Copley probably thought he got off good by being made into the Guard’s secretary/PR man, but my point is that that is distinctly so NOT the case.