I just realised that Chani and Muad'dib are perfect names for the two Saddle Arabian delegates, given that I essentially see Saddle Arabia as Arriakis WITH PONIES! Shame I already used Mu'addib as the name of Saddle Arabia's King.

How about Paul then? Or Leto?

edited 29th Aug '13 4:25:09 PM by storyyeller

I personally prefer to call the male one Lawrence.

My new idea is to call the King "Liet" (or whatever the closest Arabic equivalent is).

Is it bad that I thought of Spice and Wolf and Pokemon2000 before Lawrence of Arabia?

Chalk art.

More chalk art.

@Chalk Drawings: Want more! I really hope there's one of Fluttershy!

Anyways, not looking forward to tomorrow.

Isn't that a bit too Crapsack World for MLP?

Reads backlog: Oh hey, congratulations Applelight.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:16:19 PM by Bluespade

I decided that having Saddle Arabia with Sandworms and the Spice Manna would be a much more interesting setting than a Saddle Arabia that's a Qurac filled with Arabian Nights Days cliches and Oil and what-have-you.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:18:36 PM by SantosLHalper

So I went and added a few images to the tumblr. Somebody needs to make some more because I don't have much time for it.

I suppose. Then again there is more to arabic literature and culture then the 1001 Nights. I'm sure a little digging will find more interesting things.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:26:04 PM by Mio

Just watched Button's Adventures again.

You know, I think I can understand Button's Mom's Memetic Sex Goddess status.

Goddamn it, do I have to type the entire WebAnimation/ButtonsAdventures for the blue link to work? What a hassle.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:31:43 PM by dRoy

Whenever I heard about Dune and sandworms, I always think of the Azarc race from Age of Wonders, aka The Two Trademark Violations For The Price Of One race. I'm not quite sure how they got away with that.

Okay, I must admit that there are some Arabian Nights influences, but at least I make attempts to make it more than that (I didn't even add djinn into my setting until incredibly late, for starters).

Button's mom is overrated as far as I'm concerned.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:36:08 PM by SantosLHalper

Just what exactly IS "Arabic Literature" besides 1001 nights anyway?

I didn't mean to offend you, I just thought that you thought you were not going with much more then that.

That's well known? The only other thing I can think of is Sinbad.

I have an old persian(Which is now Iran, so... that's arabic, right?) poem called 'the conference of the birds'. It's about all of the birds trying to find their king, The Simorgh. The simorgh in this continuity is actually thirty birds, the last thirty of the expedition joined as one entity

It's not long, but it's very beautiful. Sadly I think there's a chance it was actually written more recently by an englishman based on persian folklore, I can't recall.

Have some Vinyl and Octavia wearing hoodies!

Persian is definitely NOT Arabic.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:48:33 PM by Mio

Fair enough. Geographically, what constitutes arabic, then? Terrible uncultured bastard I am, 'middle east' is basically synonymous with arabic to me, and yes I'm aware that's terrible and innaccurate.

What a bunch of nonsense. What next, Mexico and Spain is not the same thing?

Yes, it's a joke. I really shouldn't need to add this bit.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:52:13 PM by dRoy

@Mio You do realise that Sinbad IS a part of the 1001 nights and besides it's one of the stories that centres around Arabian culture at least. Aladdin is of course something we are all familiar with thanks to the Disney movie. There are two versions of that story the one that got adapted into the Disney version and the other version that was originally part of Chinese folklore as far I can gather. Or something along those lines anyway.

edited 29th Aug '13 5:55:12 PM by Starscream759

My heart.

Pew pew.

@Kegi: That's admittedly a bit fuzzy since Arabic culture spread so far with Islam. If we are going to keep it to the people that actually do speak Arabic as a day to day language, then that would include the Arabian Peninsula, what was Mesopotamia, most of the Levant that isn't Isreal (even then though. . ) and North Africa.

That actually doesn't include a lot of places where Islam is heavily practice like Iran (historically known as Persia), the varies "stans", Turkey, and the nation with the most muslims. . .Indonesia.

I thought it was it's own cycle? Then again 1001 Nights is so all encompassing that you may be right as far as fictional work goes.

edited 29th Aug '13 6:01:14 PM by Mio

I don't get it either.

First off, Arabic is a language. But Arabs are an ethnicity that AFAIK, is primarily found in northern Africa and the Middle East.