#fedallah mobydick

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID: A digital drawing of Ahab's boat crew on a whalehunt, headed by Fedallah, and oared by several other men. The perspective is right before the bow of the rowboat, in the splash of the water as Fedallah crouches, holding his harpoon, and looking ahead with a focused expression. Several men man the oars, one looking ahead just like Fedallah, and one looking back at Ahab in the back of the boat, who mans the steering and points ahead, crying out for a whale. Behind them, the Pequod can be seen at a distance over the blue ocean against a pink and purple sky.

Character designs: Fedallah is a lean, older Persian man dressed in Zoroastrian white with a wrap over his hair. He has a thin mustache and short beard. Ahab is a chubby middle-aged Persian man with short, curly hair, and wearing a maroon coat. There are three visible oarsmen: all three are younger Filipino men of varying hair lengths, facial hair styles, and skin tones. They are all wearing various shades of purple. End ID.]

CATEGORY TEN FEDALLAH MOMENT. I haven't posted nearly enough Fedallah art on here, so enjoy some boys on a whalehunt :) i love the colors of this one.

designs are, as always, borrowed from the lovely @pocketsizedquasar-3 :3

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

i cannot stop thinking about Fedallah mobydick. the first description in the book calls him a phantom. he's the first major character to die. he's from a group of people that melville initially seems to admire and then spends the rest of the book being viciously racist about. Ahab trusts him enough to ask him to do seafaring crime for him and Fedallah likes him enough to agree to it. we never learn their history. he spends the whole story ostracized and under the suspicion of everyone around him and never does anything even remotely unkind. he tries to save his friend and fails. he can't save himself. he suffers the most gruesome death in the narrative. he is one of the only two people Ahab is willing to take any sort of council from. he's a skilled harpooner but doesn't get to bond with the other harpooners and we never see why. he's stuck on a doomed voyage thousands of miles from home surrounded by people who think he's the literal devil, and his only friend is hell bent on a suicide quest. he must be unbelievably lonely. he is despised by the narrative despite being objectively right about everything. he makes me so sad to think about in any capacity and i want to be his best friend

[pocketsizedquasar-3]

THE CHASE, UNRAVELED Chapter 12: عزیزم Chapters: 12/13 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.

--------

GAY BROWN PEOPLE. GAY BROWN PEOPLE. THAT'S ALL.

[mobydickmusical]

This was from Dave’s Great Comet Instagram takeover, well over a year ago, yet I somehow only noticed it the other day?

“Far too self conscious to do video on the train. This is my reading today, doing research for Fedallah in Moby Dick. In the novel he is a bit of a caricature, a Middle Eastern magical demon, which does not feel so good to have in a contemporary adaptation. So trying to read up a bit, to be able to write him more realistically and empathetically.

(P.S. in the novel he is Zoroastrian, but making him Muslim seems a bit more relevant for a piece that is discussing multiculturalism in America today.)”

[mossy-rainfrog]

[Several drawings of Ahab, Starbuck, and Fedallah from Moby Dick reimagined as women. More detailed ID in ALT.]

hi everyone today i bring you. more women :)

a continuation of this last post, Ahab openly presents as a woman aboard her ship because she has enough job security at this point to do whatever she wants and her gender identity is essentially "call me sir, but beyond that who cares". Starbuck is still bigender as usual, so she initially went "undercover" as a man to get into the industry and then stuck with the disguise long term because she likes the way it feels to be Nathaniel. Meanwhile Fedallah is free balling tbh, she's under Ahab's protection on the Pequod and everyone's an asshole to her anyways so she truly could not give less of a fuck. All three use she/her, except for when Starbuck is undercover.

also *said through tears* ahab and fedallah are FRIENDS btw. they LOVE each other and she's FINE. melville when i GET you

also, side note because I don't think I ever mentioned it, but Starbuck is ID'd as "middle aged" in my art because (s)he is based on @pocketsizedquasar 's adaptation, where Starbuck's age has been interpreted to be around 40. <3 aging :)

anyways GIRLS! I've heard of them 👀

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID: A traditionally drawn and digitally colored drawing of Fedallah, Starbuck, and Ahab genderbent as women and wearing out-of-era outfits. Fedallah is a lean older middle-aged Persian woman with a light mustache, wearing a Zoroastrian headscarf, a white button down shirt with a black fashion harness belted over her torso. She wears black pants with four brass buttons on each side. She is smiling coyly and standing with her hip slightly cocked. Starbuck is a thin and buff middle aged white woman with short, wavy hair, freckles, and a light mustache. She is wearing a small jean vest over dress pants. The vest shows her stomach, which has a lightly visible happy trail, and the wrappings of a chest binder beneath. Starbuck is standing rigidly with her arms behind her back, looking off neutrally to the side. Ahab is a fat and buff older middle-aged Persian woman with curly graying hair in a bun, and scars over her face and body, including a lightning scar over the left side of her face. She is wearing a tight black dress with a deep v-neck that ties back behind her neck. She is standing with a neutral expression and holding a harpoon in one hand as she looks at the other two women.

Next there are three photos of the live performers: Danielle McKnight, a thin Black woman with shoulder-length curly hair wearing the same outfit as Fedallah without the headscarf, Courtney Basset, a thin white woman with chest-length straight auburn hair wearing the same outfit as Starbuck, and Grace McLean, a thin white woman with shoulder-length brown hair wearing the same outfit as Ahab. Danielle sings into a mic with a hand extended, looking sternly down over at Ahab. Courtney sings with a smile, holding her mic to her chest. Grace is not singing, and is combing back her hair with both hands, eyes closed. End ID.]

been having what the kids call an Extremely Normal Time about the concept album Kill The Whale* lately so I decided to draw my butch/genderbent designs of the characters in the outfits their album counterparts wear in the live show. im so fukcign gay 😀👍

*For any who don't know, Kill The Whale is a concept musical album based on MobyDick that genderbends much of the crew! There's a love triangle between Starbuck, Ahab, and Fedallah (with some incredible nuances about Fedallah being exotified/fetishized for her prophecies and then her later taking back control of herself). It is very wlw and fascinatingly composed. However comma there are also Extensive Critiques on this as an adaptation of MD (particularly in reference to racebending and really altering character narratives) so. proceed with awareness! i will be saying more later lol

EDIT: Thank you so much to the folks who caught that I had Danielle's name wrong!!!! I owe you my life!!!! 🙏

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID in ALT]

Doodles in order: Butch Ahab with her hair down, my Nautolan Star Wars OC in a cool outfit, Dev Patel from Monkey Man, Ahab Starbucks, Crimson Peak ghosts and John Malevolent, Butch Ahab again, my oc Serena and some Fedallah and Ahab being cute, a little fun tattoo I drew on my hand, the dragon pit scene from Incarceron that makes me insane, and a self-portrait doodle of me getting compression gloves

so I've been having an averagely understimulating time at my new job lately. over 50 pages of a sketchbook have been filled in 2 months. 😀👍I am not going insane! I have more theme-specific sketch hauls of these so those will be coming soon! I have. so much art.

Anyways did you know that compression gloves can help with faulty hand circulation so that you don't feel like you're dying as badly??? life is so beautiful????

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID: Four traditional pen drawings involving characters from Moby Dick. The first shows Fedallah staring darkly out into space with a thought bubble, showing a photograph of Bingus the cat. The second drawing shows Ishmael drawing Queequeg in a sketchbook as Queequeg reclines in front of him, chin in his hands, and smiles as Ishmael laughs. Text on the art reads: "lazy day - drawing his husband". The next drawing is of an autism creature, with Fedallah's harpoon and Zoroastrian skull cap. The fourth drawing shows Ahab and Fedallah walking together. Fedallah has a brace on his knee in view, side by side with Ahab's peg leg. Text on the art reads: "disabled besties".

Character designs: Fedallah is a thin, Persian man with a dark beard and mustache, wearing a long shirt and white Zoroastrian skull cap. Ishmael is a thin, white man with short hair and sideburns. Queequeg is a muscular Māori person with tattoos on his face, and a curly topknot on his hair. Ahab is a chubby, Persian man with short, curly hair, a beard, and a scar across his face. He has a pegleg, and wears a long coat. End ID.]

part 1 of all the mobydick themed doodles ive been doin at my new job for the past month in between trainings and call work :3 god i love fedallah. btw.

designs as always are from the delightful @pocketsizedquasar and their magnificent comic btw!!! go check them out always mwah mwah mwah

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

Chapters: 4/16

Words: 1,525 (in this chapter)

Fandom: Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Captain Ahab/Starbuck (Moby Dick), Starbuck/Mary Starbuck (Moby Dick), Captain Ahab & Starbuck (Moby Dick), Captain Ahab & Fedallah (Moby Dick), Starbuck & Fedallah (Moby Dick)

Characters: Captain Ahab (Moby Dick), Starbuck (Moby Dick), Mary Starbuck (Moby Dick), Fedallah (Moby Dick), Stubb (Moby Dick), Other Character Tags to Be Added

Additional Tags: Eventual Romance, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Genderqueer Character, Character Study, Trans Character, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Genderswap, Butch Captain Ahab, Butch Starbuck, Butch Characters, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, lots of wound tending, author is disabled and trans

Summary: What would change about Moby-Dick if the major driving forces of the narrative were women?

How much does this single factor radically alter their choices, their relationships, and their eventual end? What would it take for the women of Starbuck and Ahab to stand in the same places as their male counterparts in the novel? Do they go undercover as men to attain power? How do they feel about that? Why is this the power they seek? Is that power enough to save them?

Or, Moby Dick, reimagined through the lens of Captain Ahab and First Mate Starbuck as butch women.

—

Some weeks later. Now, getting her legs beneath her once again, Ahab ventures to visit the stowaway crew she brought on board for the purpose of later providing her an extra crew to chase down Moby-Dick.

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID: A digital drawing of several Moby Dick characters in a simple, silly style, wearing Halloween costumes. Starbuck wears a full-length purple witch dress complete with a matching hat and broom. Fedallah wears an angel costume with a long dress, wings, and a halo. Ahab and Pip have matching silly whale costumes, worn like carboard box costumes around their torsos with their arms as flippers. Ahab makes a cat smirk and strikes a pose and Pip laughs. Text around the image reads: "happy (late) Halloween!!!" The background is a purple-to-orange gradient. End ID.]

im gay and this is over a week late. sorry. happy late hallween :3 featuring the results of a couple of the polls I did on instagram. I have feelings for these characters

[mossy-rainfrog]

hello everyone, I made a series of doodles to put inside of my copy of MobyDick and I would like to share them :3 pls enjoy:

[ID: Two traditional drawings. Ahab shows off his new pegleg with a flourish. Ishmael infodumps about whales to a fond Queequeg. End ID.] [More detailed ID in ALT.]

New Leg Goofin is for chapters 108-9, when Ahab gets fitted with his new leg! it's right before a super devastating chapter so i needed to make myself laugh lmao

Wikipedia Page About Every Whale is for the whole goddamn book, honestly, but I chose to put it at the beginning of ch.32, Cetology, where Ishmael really does try to explain every whale ever

[ID: A comic of Stubb and Flask bursting into Ahab's quarters, thinking the Captain is in danger, only to find Ahab and Fedallah playing a game of cards. End ID.] [More detailed ID in ALT.]

This gem belongs to p.344 where Stubb wonders if Fedallah means to kidnap Ahab, which was such a baffling ridiculous concept that I couldn't help but make fun of it. literally Ahab snuck this man on board bro, what the fuck is fedallah going to do to him. they're playing uno. shut up

[ID: Two drawings, with the first showing Pip after being cast away, haunted and alone on the deck of the Pequod. The other shows Ishmael and Queequeg homoerotically grasping hands while processing whale spermaceti. End ID.] [More detailed ID in ALT.]

this goes out to chapters 93-95, because the UNREAL whiplash from "a child was just abandoned at sea" to "hey let's be horny about whale oil" is still the most insane transition of all time. Ishmael, what the fuck

[ID: A simply doodled meme diagram for how to greet a fellow amputee. The "wrong" answer shows Captains Ahab and Boomer shaking hands, while the "right" answers show Ahab in a handstand and then kicking his leg up high, both times to cross his prosthetic with Boomer's. End ID.] [More detailed ID in ALT.]

this goes out to p. 454. every interaction between these two absolutely delighted me but my mental image for the specific line about them "crossing ivory limbs" got. very silly.

[ID: A small comic of Ahab asking the Harpooners to give him blood to temper his harpoon in. They stare back at him with varying expressions of confused, uncomfortable disbelief. End ID.]

the last one, for p.504. yknow that feel when your boss just walks up and asks you to bleed on his custom made harpoon??? yeah uh. normal workday things

anyways thank you for reading, I had a delightful time making these and am so very fond of them all, so yea :3

credit as always for the designs goes to the darling @pocketsizedquasar , as well as credit for pricelessly annotating my copy of MD and thus getting me to actually read it, love youuuu💙💙

[mossy-rainfrog]

[ID: A black and white traditional drawing of Fedallah from Moby Dick. He is a thin Persian man with a mustache and short beard. He wears a turban and a long shirt, and holds a whaling harpoon beside him. He is holding onto the harpoon with both hands, leaning on it, as he looks down to the side with a reserved, pensive expression. Beside him, in pencil, is written his name, and "my sweet boy, my best friend" with a sad face. There is also a small doodled heart. End ID.]

Hello Herman Melville I have been reading your book and have come to the conclusion that you do not deserve to have Fedallah in your novel. He is a good man and seeing him villanized as a racist stereotype brings me anxiety, so I will be expecting a reply to this DM when you are ready to relinquish him to someone who will treasure him like he deserves xoxo

God, seriously though I have not been able to stop thinking about this guy for days. He's Ahab's friend!!! He tries to warn everyone of the coming tragedy!!! He is quiet and skilled and his character is an ocean of missed narrative opportunities. AUGH. holds him

EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to add this; they have yet to post their Fedallah publicly, but this lad is still based on the design/influence of @pocketsizedquasar 's Moby Dick comic!!! pls go check it out!!! :D

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

trying to make a playlist for a character with a very specific vibe is so humbling. it’s like sorry my entire music library cannot match this person actually i need to go find 30 new playlists of never before heard indie bands to accurately portray them. actually. or i will combust. and then it takes 7 years

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

still losing my mind over the 2011 MobyDick shows decision to make Stubb, second mate Mr. "makes fun of the disabled captain and bullies the older Black cook and treats Fedallah with violence repeatedly and threatened a child with slavery and then abandoned him to drown" Stubb an anti racist like gbskfjekfk. i never thought I'd be mad about an adaptation making a character less racist but the decision to make all the officers #Good White People who correct the racist lower sailors is SO OFF THE POINT OF SYSTEMIC CAPITALISM THAT MELVILLE WAS TRYING TO MAKE. AND it takes away the agency of the characters of color defending themselves and each other WHICH THEY DO IN NOVEL, in favor of making Mr Racism now suddenly in favor of diversity i just

[ID: A screenshot of text reading: "he would not fucking say that." End ID.]

the POINT is inherently unfair systems and power dynamics and the violence of capitalism. the point is finding community and rallying against the awful oppressors who are in charge. finding community even within that. sanitizing the oppressors feels very very weird to me