#he’s not ahab at all actually

[carefulfears]

i so love the scully that only exists around mulder. with her cheeky dirty jokes and her eye rolls that no one else sees and her tears. there’s something so special about how she exists next to him, outside of the pressures, and the image that she’s constructed.

[umarthiels]

[...] Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself.

LAW TIME!

this is so interesting to me bc it calls back to the fact that ahab doesn't actually own the pequod! he's captaining it and he does own a share in it, but the real owners are peleg and bildad, and on shore he's accountable to them. even though on the sea he is master of the ship, he still answers to the owners, and in derailing the voyage from "hunting whales and making money" to "hunting moby-dick specifically", he is usurping authority! he doesn't (well, in the sense of ownership, which will come up later) actually have the right to do this! and if the crew were to mutiny against him (say, if a certain mate who isn't keen on the quest and prioritizes the commercial interests of the voyage over ahab's goal convinced them), legally they'd be in the right to do it, and arguably it'd be their duty to do it. (nautical law side of tumblr do correct me if i'm wrong) (the idea of whether ahab actually has ultimate authority over the pequod comes up later and it's all very interesting!)

this is extra fun since ahab knows this and is genuinely nervous that the crew might rise up against him. right now starbuck stands alone, and even he gave way to peer pressure in the end! the entire crew is enthusiastic about the quest, but if that wanes and they start to consider it, ahab will be in genuine danger! he can't actually answer to the charge of usurpation, he undeniably did it (within the framework of ownership of the whaling industry ofc) which is something that isn't really obvious in pop culture perceptions of him, he's not just some dictator, he's pragmatic about things!

[im-still-a-robot]

How is anyone in this house functional.

[mosscrab]

mgsv has so many literary references to books i have essays abt it kind of makes me.

[iphigeniacomplex]

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

if you are reading this please donate to $trextalents on cashapp; he is a disabled fx artist active in my city’s horror scene who is in a bad situation and needs financial aid. if you cannot donate, please reblog my pinned post with more information. the world of this post is not real, but logan is.

[thewertsearch]

You've got to be shitting me. Does this wallet even have a size limit?

It's starting to feel like, when the Act ends, John could just pocket the entire session and leave. At the very least, the kids will no trouble bringing their houses to the reboot session.

Hell, they might even be able to bring their Lands.

[...] you wonder where all of her sweet weapons went.

Fuck! We needed those needles!

...wait, no, we don't. The bunny's weapons are from the future, so there's also a present version of the Quills floating around, just like Ahab's Crosshairs. Presumably we'll be using those Quills to cause the Scratch, and the Pen-Pal will get his hands on them later.

Actually, it could be really bad if John used the future version of the Quills. That would cause a true paradox, where the Pen-Pal obtains a set of Quills that he's already sent back in time. The needles would be trapped in an infinite loop, and they'd never have come from Echidna in the first place.

Speaking of the Pen-Pal, it seems like he’s got some more to say. Let’s see if he gives us any more clues as to his identity.

You see i adapted terry with some doodads you may deem practical. An infinitesimalator which i used to littlefy them down in the first place as well as a monstrositifier for when you would like to hugen them up and wield them yourself! [...] I borrowed this technology from my grandmother who had quite the way with manipulating space. Legend tells she was something of a witch with the stuff!

More of the same, really. He certainly seems convinced that Jade's his grandmother - but I still don't think that makes sense.

First of all, for someone who's supposedly Jade's grandson, he sure doesn't mention any of her friends. We’ve already talked about how strange it is that he doesn’t know John, and that was before we learned that God Tiers are semi-immortal.

Sure, maybe John died heroically - but he also speaks about future Jade in the past tense. Like every other character, Pen-Pal is presumably thirteen, so Jade can't have been that old. So now John didn't survive the session, and Jade did, but she apparently died young anyway?

Also, another question. Why did Pen-Pal need to build the bunny? After all, he should be surrounded by Players with endgame alchemy setups, unless you're telling me that none of the kids or the trolls are involved in his life.

What, did they all die? Was he kidnapped as a baby? Do all Alchemiters explode when you exit the Medium? The more I think about this guy, the more confused I get, and it's great.

[burningvelvet]

36 chapters into moby dick. some thoughts:

- take a shot every time he expresses his love for nantucket or whaling trivia

- i know everyone said it was queer and usually i've come to expect that as hyperbole but this time they weren't joking

- CHILDE HAROLD REFERENCE?!?!?!?!?! BYRON QUOTED?!?!?!?! not surprised bc it is the romantic genre which byron & chp helped inspire & he was the best selling writer in early 19c usa & is noted for his oceanic refs & he & esp childe harolds pilgrimage esp are both noted on wikipedia's "nautical fiction" page but like. i had no idea they were immortalized in moby dick

- "Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian." AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

- does gay cannibal tumblr know about queequeg & ishmael?

- utterly obsessed with captain ahab for numerous reasons but does anyone else notice how similar he is to captain flint from black sails? like he's literally him but a bit older & combined with silver's leglessness.

- the part where ahab calls stubb a dog lmao

- ishmael getting worried for queequeg when he couldn't find him omg...

- "Where's that girl ? — there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell him to paint me a sign, with — 'no suicides permitted here, and no smoking in the parlor;' — might as well kill both birds at once." MRS. HUSSEY!!!!

- i'm sure that all the focus on queequegs spirituality & his consultation with his god yojo wherein he was informed that ishmael had to pick their boat bc yojo demaded it TOTALLY won't prove to have any prophetic and symbolic consequences later on or anything

- love how the chapters are nice and short but on the flip side that means theyre tricking me into thinking i have less to go than i actually do... as long as i get more ahab i'm good i guess

-melville, at random: and now we take a break from our regularly schedule programming to give you . . . WHALE FACTS! [whips out multiple books on the history of whales and whaling, begins to recite]

[connorsnothereeither]

“And now it’s time for a breakdown…” /ref

Welcome to my (fairly long lol) breakdown of the thought process behind the Ulysses CMV background!! ✨ I’m gonna go through it shelf by shelf because I think that’s easiest, so… buckle up! :D

TOP SHELF:

On the far left, we have an Assassins Creed Apple of Eden! Most of the soundtracks to the Ulysses vods came from AC: Odyssey, and AC: Origins! The Ancient Greek and Egyptian music fit him perfectly, who’d have thought. Including the main song from Ulysses epilogue, “Reunited” from AC: Odyssey. Behind that is of course my hand-bound copy of On the Brink of Scientific Discovery. I had to work out a way to get my earliest entry into the Fable Fandom in there somewhere. Beside it is the skull, and a copy of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly, which I’ve spoken about being an inspiration for Ulysses. Along with, of course, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Herodotus’ Histories (Herodotus being the main inspiration for epilogue Ulysses and who he became towards the end)! And naturally, James Joyce's Ulysses. I had to. Besides that again is another copy of Frankenstein, along with more Ancient Greek works, specifically Euripides’ Medea and the works of the poet Sappho! And a copy of Moby Dick, since Ahab and Ishmael were both concept names for Ulysses during character creation! Besides those, the smaller penguin books, are some of my favourite details but some of the harder to spot because they’re so small. One is another poem by Sappho, Come Close. But the OTHER is The Fall of Icarus by Ovid, which I absolutely had to put in there. Impossible to see, but I know it’s there, and it makes me happy. Of course, once again on the theme of writers is a bust of Shakespeare, but behind him, is actually the set of D&D dice I bought inspired by Ulysses, which are made to look like they have kelp and seaweed inside them! ✨ and finally on the top shelf is a ship, in reference to his sailing and ship in the epilogue art, and a mini Greek style amphora.

MIDDLE SHELF:

On the far right, at the bottom, is the black knight chess piece, the same as Ulysses tattoo!! A reference to both the Trojan horse and him being a piece in the Telchin’s game. Behind it, the tiki mug, is a somewhat vague reference to the Sea Dragon Tavern! It’s never explicitly stated that they serve tiki drinks, but it certainly feels like a place that would. Tucked in, barely noticeable, is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Both a reference to more ancient mythology, but also, in a little way, a reference to Lenarius. A book on the treatment and care of the dead. I think it would suit him. Make Len happy. More Greek texts (the Iliad and Odyssey again) this time including Ovid’s Metamorphosis, and Virgil’s Aeneid, a reference to both the mythological epic itself and to my little guy Virgil, from SkyBound SMP. Propped against those are a boatswain’s whistle, which I like to think is a little gift from Vorago and Casus. A captain’s call, to get someone’s attention no matter where you are on the sea, along with a small canon, which is actually from St Augustine Lighthouse, and felt very nautical. Behind those is a set of tarot cards, displaying the Magician, a symbol of manifesting and living to your true potential, which is fitting for Ulysses. All of that is of course propped on ANOTHER copy of the Odyssey. The full moon, as a little reference to his bestie Fenris, and a bear statue, which is a little nod to the fact I also voiced Deltavera (and the statue was actually a gift Jamie got me one of the times we met up)! Beside that is a handful of little bottles! The dice inside are mostly just because… that’s what I keep in those little potion bottles, but maybe they’re a reference to Wheel Not Fake or something too, who knows lol- and a little white axolotl plush. My son. My own personal little Perseus, I bought him the second I saw him akgsksgs ✨🫶

BOTTOM SHELF:

Almost done lol. The globe on the end, both a reference to the cartography/travel, and the fact that it’s turned to just show the ocean, rather than any countries. The sea is his home, after all. Another axolotl plush, peeking out from behind yet ANOTHER copy of the Iliad and Odyssey, which is balanced on a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy, as another little reference to Virgil from Bound SMP. Behind that is a whisky bottle, which is empty in the photo but not in the CMV, as a reference to the Kelpin’ alcohol! And finally, the stack of books in the corner. The folio society set of The Greek Myths are some of my favourite books I own, and I had to include them, along with a few more potion bottles, which actually include the dice from various Cantripped One Shots (I have special dice for characters and one shots when I can)! The stack of books behind the scrolls and lanterns also include Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles (one of the inspirations behind Ulysses & Vesperae’s relationship) and Circe (more Odyssey references), along with world myths and Icelandic Sagas, and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, which was an early and incredibly influential historical text about the Roman’s (which somewhat inspired the structure and lore of the broader Telchin society!), on top of which is more mythology like the Welsh Mabinogion, the Norse Poetic Edda, and a horror anthology titled The Great God Pan and Other Horror Stories, many of which inspired Brink!! The lantern is, in all honesty, the only there not there for a specific reason… I just thought it looked cool :)

So yeah! That was my overly long analysis of my overly detailed Ulysses set background! Barely any of it is visible in the CMV, but for my little farewell to the character and world I had spent so long falling in love with, I wanted to make the background something special 🫶

[penig]

Today is the second day of the climactic whale chase in Moby Dick, and I am so strongly on the side of the whale, it's hard to believe anyone ever wasn't.

Up to this point, we can side with the whale in a general sense, mostly on the basis of our modern sensibilities about endangered species and industrial exploitation of the environment, which no one expects either Melville or the average contemporary reader to have. The omens, Ishmael/Melville's dropped hints about the fates of the crew, and Starbuck's common sense awareness that Ahab needs to get over this stupid revenge fantasy and do his capitalist duty to hunt whales for oil instead of personal satisfaction are all enough to make everyone aware of the need to turn back and let the damn whale go, but we can grasp how a 19th century audience, primed to Conquer Nature, can succumb - like the sailors - to the thrill of the hunt and prospect of symbolic destruction of Nemesis.

But now that Moby Dick is actually on stage, his behavior is that of an animal trying to get on with its own business and acting in self-defense. Indeed, his self-defense is reasonable and measured. Smashing up four boats with only one fatality? He had a man in his mouth! He may or may not recognize Ahab, but he is familiar with humans in whaleboats, their vulnerabilities, and their aggressive tendencies. He could probably kill the whole lot of them, and from his point of view it would serve them right!

But he's a predator, humans are not his prey, and if he stays to kill them there's a chance their nasty pointy things will damage him severely. Also he knows that the amount of damage he's dealing out is enough to make whalers back off, like sensible predators, and look for easier prey. So he smashes the boats and keeps swimming, encumbered by those stupid ropes. Whales can't unwind ropes; he'll have to find a place to scrape it off or wait till it rots and falls away.

(We all know the meaning of Fedallah's prophecy here, don't we?)

Nothing this whale does is savage, vicious, cruel, malicious, or vindictive.

What happens tomorrow is all on Ahab.

[captainsvscaptains]

Round 2 Part 7 Poll 4

Propaganda

Crozier has alcohol problems but stands up when he's needed; he and everyone he answers for are stranded in the coldest place of the Earth after he's warned the previous captain of the expedition to find the north-west passage; yet he /still/ rises up for the occasion eventually for damage control; he has a noble heart; he commands one of the most beautiful warship of the 19th century; he is a little bit cringefail; his love life is a drama; he opens up to his second in command when all is mostly lost; he tries so hard to save the crew; he fails.

what is a captain tournament without ahab tbh? moby dick (whale) bit his leg off in true dick fashion and ahab ditches all efforts of actually whaling to kill him for it. (well not ALL efforts but like. quite a few.) the pettiest bitch ever. had a new leg made out of whale bone SPECIFICALLY. has a hole in the deck where he just. pivots from. loser. has gay tension with his first mate starbuck also i don't know if that matters

(bear in mind i haven't actually finished the book yet ^^ so this may be slightly inaccurate)

[shranstan]

Moby Dick Modern AU

Captain Ahab isn't actually a captain but instead a professor in the marine biology department. He does, however, answer to "captain" instead of "professor", and will never call the captain of the ship he is currently on the captain.

Ahab is obsessed with the white whale in that he's been trying to put a GPS tracker on it for years but it always fails someway. Moby Dick is such a distinctive whale, and he really really wants to study it, but it just keeps getting away or moving at the last moment so that the suction cup gps doesn't stick...

The Pequod is a research vessel owned by Ahab's university, Starbuck is the actual captain, but is called the first mate by Ahab because.. Ahab is Ahab. So, the others started calling him that, too.

Ishmael is also a marine biologist by trade however because of his controvertial opinion (whales are fish! most species we consider fish aren't that closely related anyways! it's a description of ecological, not genetic, importance! so whales should be considered fish, too!) he has been largely shunned/considered of no importance in the scientific community. He teaches biology at a highschool instead.

Ishmael is also a trans man. That is also canon to Herman's novel but I need to underline it here bc naming yourself basically "Is-male" is such a funny joke.

Ishmael signs himself up for a research cruise under the guise of not being a biologist but a simple sailor - this ruse is discovered incredibly quickly (it only takes one infodump).

Pip is one of those brilliant kids who skip 5 grades. He's 16 and in the final year of writing his bachelor's thesis. Ahab is his supervisor.

Queequeg is the ship's chief engineer, making him 3rd most important person on the ship (after the captain and first mate; source: my childhood bff's father was one) and also making him a lot of money. The university's usual chief engineer was unavailable and Ishmael was hyped to get his hubby on the same expedition as him.

Speaking of, Ishmael and Queequeg met at a motel in Vegas, got high, cuddled all night, and then got married the next day.

Queequeg usually works on all sort of ships, spending a couple months home with Ishmael and then doing engineering for the next couple months away on the sea.

Tashtego is working on his master's in marine biology and unfortunatelly Ahab's his supervisor same as Pip except Ahab loves Pip's ideas but hates Tashtego's

Daggoo is on a scientific exchange from a university from his home country, he's just a researcher (as in, doesn't study or teach)

Fedallah is there even though he's like. Completely unrelated to marine biology. He's like a professional olympic-level archer but Ahab forged his papers to bring him aboard so that he can finally put that tracker on the Moby Dick.

The rest of the crew are a combo of researchers and regular sailor folk who are, y'know, needed for the ship to function as a ship.

Pip falls into the ocean multiple times while trying to take samples but is saved quickly every time. They just force him to essentially wear buoy marker attached to him at all times in case he was submerged and unseen.

[carefulfears]

scully whispering “oh my god” in paper hearts when roche tells mulder that he just wants to see his face when he finds samantha’s body is one of the most affective small moments of the series. scully so rarely lets anything slip, so rarely speaks from a place of emotion rather than rationality, so rarely doesn’t have her words carefully chosen when she does.

but it’s just SO CRUEL!!! it’s just so cruel. and all mulder can do is sit there silently. it’s scully that jumps up and screams. i love the way she goes over to the door and just opens it and stands there, waits firmly for mulder to quietly follow her. she just gets him out of there without directing a single word towards him.

[femmeslash]

heathcliff and ishmael share one base skill, which is wrath, but i think it's worth examining the two they don't, because those are foils too. (CANTO VI SPOILERS)

so for those unaware, the inferno doesn't actually start getting into the circles of hell until canto iv, which covers limbo. canto v is the lust circle, and canto vi is gluttony. Interesting.

early on in canto v, ishmael has a massive envy moment: she's absolutely furious that her coworkers are comforting pilot about his team possibly being killed. ishmael believed, truly, that she was the only survivor of the pequod's wreck besides ahab. no one was there to comfort her when she needed it. later in the chapter, also, it's revealed that she wanted to be like ahab, and really looked up to ahab at first. however mild and aspirational it was, it's still envy. wanting what someone else has.

heathcliff, on the other hand, has burnt out all his rage and is fully in gloom mode. he has an unremovable sanity debuff called "bereavement" (hey! another foil to ishmael's earlier sanity debuff, but his doesn't even make him stronger - he's just exhausted). i think we're finally going to see him confront the depths of his grief and process what the years of abuse did to him.

what i'd really like to see, and this is something i think is entirely possible, is him fully breaking down and just crying. just getting it all out. and if this does happen, i fully believe ishmael will be the one to ground him, just like he did for her when he pulled her out of the pallid membrane. and why is this, you may be asking?

the blubbering toad log.

if this turns out to be real i'll start screaming louder than don quixote

[rdbrainz]

Info and oc related stuff Characters in the following order: Ikkon, Turzo, Zanni (in his Resurrección form, you can find his regular outfit somewhere on here wink-wink), Kenpachi Ryuya, Betsuyaku Taisuke Their stories take place in an au btw

Ikkon "Capitano" Agreda Refused his number Zanpakuto: Tiamtum. Doesn't look like a katana at all, it's a silver brass knuckle knife Resurrección: Orca. However, no special form is obtained when activated Other: h-207cm, w-about 130kg

Ikkon's animal prototype is orca, the most fearsome sea predator. I wanted to give themes to the members of my Arrancar troupe (aside from literally being inspired by theatre, circus, etc.) and settled on self-destructive attitudes and relationships☝🤓 So his theme is anger, resentment and revengefulness. Many in the troupe call him by his nickname, "Capitano", but Ikkon is not a Spaniard who came from far away like his theatrical counterpart, he has no army and in this respect, he resembles Captain Ahab who blindly hunts for his own death with his decisions. Incredibly and sometimes unreasonably vicious and cruel, firmly believing that if the world and its creatures have treated him with nothing but cruelty since his birth, he shouldn't treat the world any differently. He has no sporting interest in violence. Ikkon can have fun in the process - even dance as a mockery - but he is not interested in fair fights purely for the sake of finding a worthy opponent, so he hates when opponents try to initiate small talk during encounters. He would be much more happy if his prey would just shut up and die. Ikkon is dismissive towards everyone around him and keeps them at arm's length even when he seems to like someone, and he is more than happy with his position as a "hired force" since he refused to play a role in the troupe and kinda sticks around to find himself new things to kill time with or, well, kill. He has murdered a great number of Arrancar either for fun or because of some quarrels and dug himself an even deeper grave. Despite actually having some semblance of self-awareness, he always finds someone to blame. Technically, he's just a big, angry kid who's lucky enough to have a huge power advantage over literally all of his kin and who's is so stuck in his own anger, so limited by it that he's unable to change at this point. His views have gotten him nowhere but to an aimless, stupid and painful death, which he'd always predicted for himself, but even then he's managed to do his own thing and took the shinigami who fought him out in the process. "If I go down, you go down with me." He mainly relies on his immense physical strength, size, and good fighting ability, but he also uses Sonído, Cero, Bala, and other delights of the Arrancar form. His personal ability is blowing bubbles filled with compressed spiritual energy hundreds of times stronger than when it's just surrounding him. When they burst at his command, they release it in the form of powerful waves that, depending on the opponent's spiritual energy, can either blow their head off from the pressure or just topple them over. His Resurrección doesn't give him a cool orca-man form but works kinda like a Domain Expansion. The lack of any new physical abilities or a new form when released is paid off by the fact that Ikkon's Reiatsu at a large radius from him is so intense that it creates a pressure similar to that of being submerged deep underwater. It's called Hadal Zone (Ultra Abyssal) because of it. He can easily tinker with this pressure and change it back and forth with various rapidity, so he can give his enemy either a decompression sickness or an instant death from rupture… of pretty much everything… It's up to him, but he's more fond of killing shinigami, humans, and his kin with his own hands rather than standing aside while it's happening.

Ikkon's far more cool and talented in all sorts of things than people give him credit for. He has a very strong singing voice and sometimes sings to himself when he's alone. But nothing more than that. He's not ashamed of his talent, in fact, he takes pride in it but being the object of attention of the troupe is worse than death itself to him, so it's kinda his fault people tend to overlook things abt him. He actually finds most of the members annoying. Especially their voices thanks to his extra sensitive hearing. It gets so bad that if he were to fight shinigami in the world of the living he'd probably bawl his eyes out due to the noise pollution and not be focused enough to do anything. He also lives on the outskirts of the cathedral-like building, where the other Arrancar reside, in a cave of some sort. Not because he's not a part of the whole mess but because he feels safer and calmer in the place he's been living alone in for a couple of hundred years now, even in his hollow form. Named after two musicians - Federico Augusto Ágreda Álvarez (Zardonic) and Niko "Ikon" Lehdontie (Oranssi Pazuzu). Theme songs: Twelve Foot Ninja - Coming For You, Staind - Change, Combichrist - Throat Full of Glass, Seether - Pride, P.O.D. - Listening For The Silence, Найк Борзов - Слышу Тьму. Heavily lyrics-oriented I guess?? Whatever… Tbh he's grown on me over time and the more I think abt him the less I wanna kill him off (and Ryuya too) but for the sake of keeping the story intact, there's an alternative route where he almost dies but doesn't. Maybe I'll write it down later but first I need to tell you about Volto so ehh… We'll see I guess.

[arthur-morgans-last-journal]

Maybe I'm in the minority here but if we ever did get a red dead redemption 3 I would love it to be about the formation of the Van der Linde gang from the perspective of Annabelle. RDR and RDR2 are both told from extremely masc perspectives, and I think the third game portraying a western heroine as the main protagonist would be really fun/interesting and give some more/different opportunities for storytelling that John and Arthur don't have access to.

Plus, if you want to keep with Dutch being the central antagonist AND maintain the moral ambiguity introduced in RDR2, then there is no better candidate for a protagonist than someone who knows and loves him and is failed by him (rather than betrayed by him as in RDR2). Plus, PLUS, Annabelle reflecting on the failures of the ideologies Dutch has developed by RDR2 and RDR means we can get alternate perspectives on it by someone perhaps more willing to engage with those ideas than Arthur and John.

Not to mention the whole drama of the Van der Lindes and the O'driscolls, the doomed romance of it all, Dutch thinking he's the narrator of "Song of Myself" when he's really Ahab, what it means to be a woman redeemed when redemption stories are usually reserved for men (or women reclaiming sexual purity/goodness), the potential for baby Arthur and John interactions (it would actually be super interesting to complicate Arthur's morality here to see him acting as Dutch's right hand regardless of the order and maybe even against the interests of another protagonist, or, alternately, see Annabelle mentor the boys the way Arthur does John and Jack in RDR2), the way people can love each other and fail each other and how people's deaths can impact others in unexpected ways. Rockstar games call me I want to write this story if you won't 😭

[cari-canes]

I recently reread Frankenstein after watching the Underverse Series and BOY do I have thoughts. I’m going to separate them into a few posts over a few days because it would actually be an essay if I put it all down in one post.

For now - I’ll leave quotes that I found most impactful from Frankenstein (and other gothic horror/horror) stories with a few of the characters from the Underverse Series.

Also - sorry for the bad grammar. I’m typing this on my phone at like midnight.

Ink: Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. (Frankenstein - Mary Shelley)

Obviously, Ink or Cross would be “the monster”. I think it’s even more fitting that although the “monster” never really has a name in the book, Mary Shelley did reference him as “Adam” in her earlier version. The “first born” creation. I think it’s very fitting, especially as Ink’s role, how his cannon role was formed, and what his new “goal” in the multiverse is.

Cross: I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other. (Frankenstein - Mary Shelley)

OR

I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel. (Frankenstein - Mary Shelley)

For Cross’ quote, I actually had a difficult time choosing which fit him better, so I went with both. Cross being one of XGasters creations who “breaks free” is just amazing. XGaster was so focused on perfection and trying to make his timeline perfect that he completely abandoned his creations in the meantime. This causes Cross to meet Ink, Dream, and eventually Nightmare and start his own reign of terror.

Dust/Killer: The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone. (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson)

A different book for the two killers felt fitting, especially considering Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - at its core - is about addiction and loss. (It’s also a murder mystery but that’s besides the point). Both kill everyone in order to prevent another Gen*cide, but in doing so, allow themselves to be completely alone. (I’m also obsessed with the religious imagery but that’s another ramble for another day.)

Nightmare: To the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. (Moby Dick - Herman Melville)

Obviously, Nightmare was going to be Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. He’s chasing a goal that’s frankly, nearly impossible. He let the corruption completely take over him “for hates sake”. (I also think this is something Nightmare would actually say in cannon).

Error: Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm. (Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson)

For Error, I had a very difficult time finding just one quote. He has so many complex layers to his character, especially in his own cannon. But I eventually landed on the Jekyll and Hyde quote, as I felt it resonated more with him. No matter what could or could not happen, he always has the antivoid to return to. The story of Jekyll and Hyde being about addiction and loneliness only made that point clearer for me, especially with the duality of man potentially paralleling the duality of Errors own psyche.

Fresh: Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form. (Moby Dick - Herman Melville)

I think this is pretty self explanatory for Fresh.

Dream: When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness? (Frankenstein - Mary Shelley)

Finally, Dream. He spent so long thinking that he was the one who killed his own brother, that the ‘truth’ was so painful that he couldn’t necessarily come to terms with it. His brother no longer exists and is instead consumed entirely by the corruption.

I think using gothic novels as a starting point, the Underverse - or at least the Undertale Multiverse could become a fascinating story about the connections between creation and creator, dark and light, and the pursuit of an unattainable goal.