Many books of the Bible that didn't make it to the official canon(s) and other incredibly important pieces of scripture and literature are only known today because they were preserved in the Ge'ez script in Ethiopia. It is very likely that there are lots of other texts dating to the earliest days of Christianity that are still to be "found", only because there aren't enough international scholars who know the Ge'ez script or work in Ethiopia. There are many, but not as much as it deserves. (Important note is that Ge'ez is both a liturgical language, like Latin, and also is a script, much like Latin or Chinese characters, used by many Ethiopian languages, but others can be written and indeed are written in Ge'ez script, this is why it has preserved such a range of literature)

Ge'ez looks like this:

ሀሎ! ይህ በአማርኛ ቋንቋ እና በግእዝ ፊደል የተጻፈ ነው! ለእርስዎ እና ለቤተሰብዎ በረከቶች!

There was briefly a very bad taste meme calling it a "demon language", with people even copypasting random religious literature in Ge'ez thus making it seem more "sinister". I won't comment on how ignorant and offensive that is.

Ge'ez is an important script and language, much like Greek or Latin, because of its connection to major religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Ethiopia is a wonderful country with a deep, rich history, and is an example of how Africa has always been part of world history. But like all languages, it's also a cultural heritage on its own, worth cherising, preserving, and learning about, regardless of its importance to the rest of the world. Instead of being ignorant for a racist joke, we could always take our time and learn and appreciate such things.

Ge'ez manuscripts. Enoch on the left, and Matthew on the right.

@apocrypals

Happy Mother Earth Day...

This machine kills AI

I'm just saying, if there's a curse that runs along your family line and you don't tell your kids about it, how the hell are they supposed to go on a quest to stop it?

Tell your children about your medical history.

Show Notes 4/22/24

Matt and Chris took some listener questions this episode, including about our own comics, the price point of monthly comics, our dream entrance music, and much more!

The rundown:

Comics reviewed:

Listen here!

Midnight Pals: the beard is blue

Anna Biller: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of bluebeard's castle Mary Shelley: sup fuckers? Shelley: you telling a gothic story here? Biller: it's not gothic, it just uses classic story telling elements of gothic Biller: it's its own original thing Shelley: oh yeah yeah i'll be the judge of that Shelley: seein' as i invented gothic and all Biller: it's not gothic, it just uses classic-

Biller: it's not like angela's bluebeard story Biller: very different Biller: but let me explain angela's story in detail Biller: blow by blow Biller: for pages

Biller: this woman goes to a spooky secluded manor Biller: like daphne du maurier's rebecca Biller: with a brooding aristocratic husband Biller: like Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights! Biller: and she has a sweet heavenly voice Biller: like urkel!

Biller: this part of my story is a reference to Jane Eyre Biller: you guys might not have heard of it, its pretty obscure Biller: don't worry, i'll just grind the story to a halt so that i can describe jane eyre Biller: and this bit is a reference to dracula Barker: oh my god its like gothic ernest kline Poe: clive, be nice

Biller: anyway eventually she kinda just putters around until her brooding husband poisons her Biller: and there was nothing she could do to avoid it Biller: real girl boss hours

Shelley: what, she just gets poisoned? Shelley: couldn't be me Shelley: if i was there, i would have shivved that bastard but good Biller: UM no actually Biller: that wouldn't work! Biller: there's a whole concluding chapter about how stupid you, the reader, are for thinking she escape Shelley: rip to her but i'm different

Biller: so what do you think? Mary Shelley: i like the bit where you just repeated angela's version Poe: clive Poe: no wait i mean Poe: mary Angela Carter: no no i can see why she might like that part

Biller: the important thing about my work is to know that women and men should stay in their lanes and follow the strict rules of their gender Patricia Highsmith: poison's a broad's thing Biller: excuse me?! Highsmith: that's how a dame does a murder Highsmith: a real man does a murder with his hands Biller: Highsmith: or a boat oar

Highsmith: see, my ripley- Biller: oh god again with the ripley Biller: always with your OC patricia! we're all tired of hearing about your OC! Shelley: no patricia's right, killing a guy with a boat oar is cool Shelley: poison's sissy shit Shelley: i like how ripley does all those murders Shelley: fucker's got style Highsmith: that's what i've been saying!

Anna Biller: see, Bluebeard's castle is all about how men are men (evil) and women are women (stupid) Biller: as opposed to the love witch, which was about how men are men (stupid) and women are women (evil)

please remember that I am a Canadian illustrator and it is fucking bizarre to come to me with medical questions

Why would you limit yourself to drawing Canadians?

everyone else unfollow me I want to be alone with arsnof

Arthur Aguefort sees the Kobayashi Maru test and says "absolutely not"

Watch the full episode on Dropout

Chapter three part one of my comic Even the Rocks will be posted later this week.

@tyuran was kind enough to request this minus the text, so here's the alt version!

Being into Fallout 4 era ghouls is fine and all but it's not monsterfuckery. They're literally just humans with skin conditions and minor facial injuries. 'This entirely human man with Hollywood bone structure is missing exterior nose cartilage and has advanced eczema' =\= Monster.

Get back to me when you're hitting up super mutants and deathclaws, ya filthy casuals.

if people keep including normal human-looking vampires in their monsterfucker categories i'm allowed to say a 200 year old irradiated half-immortal man with no nose counts as entry-level monster too ;)

Idk man I don't think normal human looking vampires count as monster fucking either. They're still just guys. People. Like that's the point right

why can't they be both like isn't that half of all stories about monsters, is that they were human but became something More and yet we still write stories about them still being people and we keep loving them and it's fine

i count human-lookin monsters as like. entry-level for monsterfucking. yeah i'm into WAY WEIRDER but there's still that monsterous FLAVOR, that more-than-human, that stark and often dangerous difference. ghouls count AND they are people. it is both

Oh okay hello I didn't expect a response, let me try to like, be articulate

My problem with putting humanoids in the monsterfucking category has more to do with what is and isn't considered "monstrous" on a human, than with like any kind of attraction to them. The ghoul has good cheekbones; I get it.

I didn't like the idea that certain bodily/facial features, scars, or injuries are what makes someone monstrous. In the case of the fallout ghouls in specific, I question, like, the choice to categorize them as monsters, because they are mostly just people with intense radiation burns right?--like some ghouls lose their sense of self, but others are functionally regular people with skin conditions (I only ever played fallout 1 and it's been a while so maybe that's changed, but that's my understanding of it). Real life people lose their nose cartridge and have major skin damage for a number of reasons--to a different extent, sure, but there's already a long history of dehumanizing demonizing and othering people with skin conditions around the world. It's not monsterfucking in the same way that like, fucking a guy with some bad burn scars or leprosy isn't monsterfucking, for my tastes

I understand the hesitation to call characters skin conditions or physical deformities monsters and agree (the phantom of the opera is not a monster and I am uncomfortable if people consider him one beyond something like Monster High that included his daughter because he’s public domain and has name recognition. I don’t think he even appears himself but 🤷🏻‍♀️).For example, Quasimodo from Hunchback of Notre Dame being called a monster is uncomfortable and shouldn’t be done because that is just a guy who rings bells. I do think calling out instances where this happens is appropriate because that is harmful. Where I, unfortunately, see it a lot is in evangelical/fundamentalist Christian spaces that call real disabled people demonic or demons to their faces so there is real world harm in doing this.

However, Fallout ghouls are, in a way, like vampires in that they’ve been fundamentally altered by the process that turned them, in this case, hella exposure to radiation. They are constantly radioactive, functionally immortal, and they have the potential to slip into becoming feral zombies. It is on those counts I consider them monsters and not the radiation burns.

Yes that, Quasimodo is literally just a human with disabilities. Ghouls are basically Fallout's radioactive version of undead. Quasimodo could be a real and actual person in real life

Ghouls cannot. Some one in real life gets radiation burns, it will not turn them into immortal zombies. It is WILD that people think ghouls have no functional difference to IRL humans with burns

You know, I figured out what REALLY bugs me about this discussion and it's something I run into IRL with my disabilities. Being told "you look too normal so you don't count" even though I don't FEEL normal because what MATTERS about disability isn't just skin-surface and visible to the naked eye of a stranger. Ghouls "just look" like humans with radiation burns BUT THEY AREN'T, the rads change them SOOO much more than that. That's just a surface-level idea of them, mentioning ONLY their looks. There's MORE to it, and only discussing their APPEARANCE as far as "qualifying" them as "different enough" just... bugs me

I agree with you. People are reducing Ghouls. I can't blame them though because with each successive piece of Fallout media they make Ghouls less and less different visually and pull away from the actual disabilities ghouls have. Ghouls in Fallout 1 had to body mod their faces in order to see. They live in constant horrific pain. It's so strong normal drugs don't even effect them anymore. It's likely why Hancock is an addict. Their bodies warp, one turned into a fucking tree.

Monsters often represent an idea. Ghouls do too. They represent the way nuclear weapons effects linger, how they affect generations of people not just those in the immediate blast radius. Their extended lives are an intentional cruel irony. The very thing that made their lives hell from that point on also granted them extended life span (I don't buy that they're immortal.)

But fuck all that! Our newest ghoul has ears! (I'm sure the show is as good as people say but it does erk me that it continued that trend visually.)

So yes imo ghouls are monstrous enough for ghoul lovers to be monster fuckers.

yeah the newer Fallout ghouls are fun but also don't show just how weird and monstrous they can get. and part of this is a Bethesda modeling problem - they'll often make like two faces for a whole race to save time/money and don't explore the weird and unusual because that's extra work when they'd much rather prioritize this big open world. and I like open world, don't get me wrong! but it doesn't leave much room for the actual characters themselves to be varied and interesting, because the varied and interesting is mostly reserved for the setting. it's just a matter of storytelling priority and makes me wish sometimes they'd try to push a little more on CHARACTER variety and not just world variety.

and the show IS good btw, even if I've roasted the main Ghoul for being too hot lol, but! there's a handful of other ghouls in the show (most feral, one on the verge of being feral) and their makeup is a lot more ghoulish than he is so it's less "the show doesn't understand ghouls" and more "this ONE GHOUL looks more human than the others but mostly that's not the case". there's some variety, even! i liked it a lot, it showed that ghouls are incredibly complicated - long-lived but with big ol' asterisk on their "immortality" (it's a heavy heavy price, physically and mentally) and at any point they can lose themselves. they're narratively fascinating and very much not categorized in canon as "just humans", it's more complicated than that

Very interesting discussion, I think the idea that "ghouls are monsters bc they are the supernatural represention of the horrors of nuclear fallout" and "considering ghouls monsters has uncomfortable connotations in part due to their skin conditions when these traits often belong to disabled people and other people in general" are ideas that can and should co-exist.

I think it's coming down to how people view monsters - is it ALL PHYSICAL, or does the internal and narrative and inhuman aspects of them matter? Me, I say it DOES matter. People who are ONLY focused on what the character LOOKS like only are going to say it's bad to count ghouls at all. It's basically down to why you like monsters and why you're into them and care about them. I love the WHOLE picture - what that monster is, what they used to be, how that change changes their place in their world and narrative, etc. some people just want to see claws and wings and tentacles and won't count anything else

Also probably comes down to how negative people might feel about the word "monster" to begin with

now i've watched a fair amount of d&d i've started to pick up on the differences between dm style i think

like brennan IS all the bad guys. every game he dms is brennan vs the players. he makes npcs and battles that make his friends throw things at him and he smirks the whole time. he makes them tell him their worst fears and then he makes them do it. and it's awful and amazing and really funny

matt IS exandria. his characters and battles never feel written or constructed, they just feel like things that already existed in the world. it's all about verisimilitude with him, and he's amazing at it. he tends to fade into the background and let the players react to the story and it makes everything he does incredibly cinematic

aabria dms like she's just another player at the table reacting to the story, right up until someone gets lulled into a false sense of security and tries to fool around and THEN she throws a curveball by making them deal with the consequences of their choices. she's like oh you think that's funny?? then i'm about to be hilarious, bitch. and she keeps getting away with it bc she's just that good!

basically, brennan's an evil bastard, matt's the world, and aabria's the queen of consequences

or:

brennan - fuck

matt - around

aabria - find out

Transcript:

Nice, my dropout email about this week's content, hell yeah..

WAIT

Dropout.tv is a company where they encourage theatre majors to get the zoomies

#Sam reich coming up with ideas for game changer#thinking about what enrichment to toss in their enclosure next

IKR - psychological torture? No, my friends. Sam is throwing the improv tigers some meat-filled pumpkins and letting them go wild

Medieval babies are ADORABLE

LOOK AT THEM

@the-merry-otter I am so damned guilty of this. I can do way more with so much less effort, hence my little pastel viking

Omg 🥹🥹

to be fair though, at least in my community, kid garb gets passed around for YEARS once the original kid grows out of it. I still see kids that I've never met running around at events wearing garb I used to wear, and I grew out of it like twenty years ago.

Thats how clothes worked all the way through up until the last century so it's historically accurate!

Also children are smaller! It takes less cloth!

i just heard the phrase “if you wouldn’t trust their advice, don’t trust their criticism” for the first time and i don’t think i’ve ever needed to hear anything more