making up a guy to get mad at can actually be really lovely and rewarding like for example i was feeling understimulated so i crafted an alternate world where moby dick was super popular on tumblr and the most popular ship from moby dick was ahab x humanized whaleboy merguy moby dick who was always drawn as like a skinny little white guy with white hair and sharp teeth and sort of unusual eyes like maybe with black scleras or something. and it was literally inescapable and people made like hannigram aus where will was ahab and hannibal was moby dick and people also made human!boatless!modern! aus of ahab x moby dick where they were just like normal guys as well. and the moby dick fandom all thought they were so cool and countercultural because melville's unfinished novella billy budd was also really popular and the billy budd fans were at odds with the moby dick fans because billy budd fans described it as like a heartfelt queer story in comparison to moby dick being toxic and soulless (because ahab was trying to kill moby dick in canon) and moby dick fans described billy budd as basically steven universe but none of this ended up mattering because in four years the meteors came and all life on earth was lost

Attention Whale Weekly fans: I saw some people that thought “white whales” were fictional but they are Not, and I’m not just talking about belugas. Albinism and leucistism has been recorded in over 20 species of cetacean! The most famous albino whale is a humpback named Migaloo. Look at this large impressive man!

There are also two more albino humpbacks alive currently, including a baby that we think may be Migaloo’s spawn.

There are also multiple albino orcas and dolphins, some in captivity and some in the wild.

And we recently found a white sperm whale. Just a lil baby. Look at the small man;

A teeny tiny Moby Dick. He will grow into a legendary beast someday just like his famous predecessor. I can feel it.

the og 'there was only one bed'

[An excerpt from the novel Moby Dick. Text: "Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's arm thrown over me int he most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife. The-"]

the first chapter of Moby Dick rewritten in tiresome modern idiom

CHAPTER 1. Loomings.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - it's none of your business how many - being mostly broke, and bored with the land part of the world, I thought I would sail around a little and look at the watery part of the world. I'm probably the most mentally healthy person you know. Whenever I feel my face getting grim; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself accidentally reading the ads in the window of funeral homes, and following funeral processions through traffic; and especially when I'm hangry, and only my extremely strong moral principles stop me from deliberately going out in public and methodically slapping people's earbuds out - then I know it's high time to get to sea, ASAP. This is my substitute for getting in fights. I'm too mentally healthy to kill myself; I quietly and considerately put myself on a ship and sail myself away instead. There is nothing surprising in this. Everyone feels exactly the same way, and if they don't, they're lying.

You think I'm lying? Exhibit A: a city. Go to your local coastal city. Everyone is looking at the water. They drive over from other neighborhoods just to come to the water. They make a day of it. They're not doing anything, they're just staring at the ocean. Why? Is it because they all work office jobs? No! Here come more of them! They cram themselves up to the edge of the water and stare at it. WHAT DO THEY WANT? WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT. Perhaps the ships themselves all packed together, each one with several compasses on it, creates some kind of critical mass - all of the small compass-magnets on all the ships in the harbor combining into one really big magnetic field - and the people get sucked into the field and trapped there. That's science.

Exhibit 2: the countryside with lakes in it. Every path you follow in the countryside brings you to some water, such as a stream. There is magic in it. If you take your standard fool with ADHD dissociating in the middle of a supermarket and put them outside and give them a shove, they'll automatically lead you to water (if there is any nearby) (try it). Another good experiment to try is to get lost in the great American desert in a caravan supplied with a metaphysical professor! Try it in the great American desert at home!

Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are a match made in heaven. Married forever. That's science.

this was so amazing i had to go read the first chapter of the original again, and by god did op do an amazing job updating the language while keeping the original meanings.

but in a stunning commentary on united states history and politics, the newspaper headlines DID NOT NEED TO BE CHANGED!

Apparently,

“Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States. Whaling Voyage by One Ishmael. Bloody Battle in Afghanistan.”

works just as well in 2022 as it did in 1851.

Ah I’m so glad to hear that, thank you! Thank you for noticing that it’s pretty much a line translation! with the headlines I was SO SO tempted to just leave them as they were…

Everything Tumblr has told you about Moby-Dick is absolute bullshit, and everything that Tumblr has told you about Moby-Dick is 100% true. It’s a travelogue fantasy. It’s proto-science fiction. It’s cosmic horror. It’s shockingly original and it’s shamelessly plagiaristic. It’s a misotheistic Christian parable in which the whale is the mask of a cruel, uncaring God and Ahab is Satan himself, not as trickster or as tempter, but as doomed hero. It’s the most gripping thing you’ll ever read. It’s boring as shit. But above all else – and I cannot emphasise this enough – it is filled with Facts About Whales.

Some of which are even true.

I’d argue that the wrong Whale Facts are much more interesting than the correct ones. Every time you run into an incorrect Whale Fact, you’re left with several options:

Each of these options has a potentially fascinating story behind it. Basically, when Melville gets a Whale Fact right, that tells you a thing about whales – but when Melville gets a Whale Fact wrong, that tells you something about the context of the work’s authorship. And frankly? I’ve got better sources available to me if I just want to know things about whales!

Sample whale facts from Moby Dick:

- whales are absolutely fish.

- Linnaeus argues that whales are not fish, but: consider their vibes.

- Whales have fish vibes.

- A better way to sort and classify whales is to sort them by types of books: namely, folios, octavos, books and chapters.

- Only by sorting whales as books we can comprehend them all, but as books we can definitely ultimately comprehend them.

- For example, one type of whale is the sulfur-bottom, who has a yellow stomach probably from scraping against Hell. There are no other facts that are true about the sulfur-bottom, and anything else you may have gathered about them is probably a lie.

- Theologically, all existing names for whales are okay except for the stupid ones. The Black Fish is a stupid name, so it should be called the Hyena Whale. These are statements, not recommendations, and are once again based on vibes.

- There are a lot of reasons why Narwhales might have a horn, but probably the most vibe-based one is that it could use its horn to help it read small books. Think about it.

- Killer whales attack other whales by biting their lips.

- Biology aside, Whales can also be differentiated into Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.

- “What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish? What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?”

- Sperm Whales are the biggest of all things.

Etc. Etc. Ishmael’s voice throughout is of frantic, somewhat desperate persuasion mixed with last-minute undergraduate bullshit, swinging between lofty theological authority and accusing the reader of being a fish. Hanging out with Moby Dick and its jokes are like being in a room with someone very exhausting who constantly says things that are 65% true. Whales should best be taxonomically defined as books, and frankly, it’s none of your business why.

At some point you’re like, “Ishmael, I don’t think whales are fish,” and he’s already interrupting you with “the planet is a loose-fish,” and you’re like. Ishmael, words work best when they mean things. And he’s like: I Review The Top Five Whale Oils For Burning For Light (Number Four Will Surprise You.) also I’m absolutely trolling you.

And you’re like, okay Ishmael, I do know you’re trolling me, but how much of your own bullshit do you believe?

And he’s like, that’s exactly what a whale would say.

im obsessed with stories that have a fixed ending before they even start. stories with narrators who are crying as they tell it because there is only one way this can end.

there is only one way this can go.

stories where the characters might know how it all ends and beg the audience to change it, knowing they can't. stories where the characters are unaware, but given the people they are and the situations they're in- well, what else are they supposed to do?

stories that are loops. that start with everyone dying and getting back up again to do it one more time.

because this time, maybe, it will be different.

the narrator cries.

unfortunately i will be thinking about this moby dick cabinet for the foreseeable future

dracula daily for moby dick but it takes three years bc that’s how long they were on the pequod

y’all got so excited about 3-year moby dick that uhhh… i made it happen

I went to screencap this because uh. I feel seen,

but then had a very sensible and mature chuckle at how my phone cut off the header:

everyone this is your sign to subscribe 

dracula daily for moby dick but it takes three years bc that’s how long they were on the pequod

Queequeg and Ishmael cuddling in bed, illustrated by Rockwell Kent

«Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, the Whale. New York, Harper & Brothers; London, Richard Bentley, 1851.», in The Card Catalog. Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures, Foreword by Carla Hayden (Librarian of Congress), Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA, 2017 [© The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.]

i may have made this exact post before but guys. god.

Queequeg’s face when he thinks that Ishmael doesn’t want to ship out with him:

Queequeg’s face when Ishmael assures him that he does indeed want to ship out with him:

seconds later:

what conclusion would YOU draw from this

Well I certainly don’t object to the notion of them as lovers. And if there are any fanfics that get them together, then I’ll happily read them.

But on screen. I think they’ve simply found themselves ‘a brother from another mother’.

Clearly Queequeg’s been whaling for some time and so he’s quite used to people like Ishmael.

But this Ishmael, rather than the merchant sea man of the book is a teacher who’s never been on board ship in his life. So people like Queequeg might as well be from another planet.

Yet as soon as he gets know this new companion he likes him and it’s mutual.

well, fair

i did make the post sort of open ended but my point was that to me this absolutely reads as romantic and imho so does every iteration of these characters i've come across