#ishmaels

[saranilssonbooks]

A bit of Moby-Dick oceanography context:

Up until the mid 1870s, it was generally accepted that life could not exist below a depth of 550 meters. This is why some of Ishmael's whale theories are so off and why Ahab pictures the sea floor as a vast wasteland of bones and shipwrecks. 🌊

[teaboot]

Reading Moby Dick and the whole opening is wild. "I'm Ishmael. Sometimes being a person makes me want to scream, so whenever I feel I can't hold it in anymore I run to the nearest shipyard and sign up for some hard manual labour on a random ass boat where nobody cares who I am. After a few months I'll settle down and get back to business. Everyone does this sometimes, it's probably normal. Anyhow, I'm at the pier."

[akakris10]

AKA my "bad-ends deserve good endings too" AU. They are not redeemed villains so much as they are domesticated scrunklies

[l4zyd3m0n]

[natalieironside]

So I'm reading Moby-Dick finally, and it's very interesting. I'd seen a lot of quotations from it over the years and I was broadly familiar with the plot and most of the characters but you lose . . . everything outside of context. Let me explain.

Whenever westerners quote Confucius, they always say it like "Confucius said, '[some mystical metaphor that doesn't make a lot of sense]'" and they just leave it at that like that's all there is. Gives people the idea that Master Kong was some kinda goddamn wizard instead of a moral and political philosopher. If you actually sit down and read the Analects, most of those quotations are bookended by other quotations or little explanatory anecdotes that make it make perfect goddamn sense.

The way people talk about Moby-Dick is also like this. If you've ever seen a quote from Moby-Dick and thought "what the fuck is this shit," it needs to be put into context. When somebody delivers a monologue replete with quakerly thee'ing and thou'ing talking about how whales are actually God because whales could be a metaphor for God and (as everyone knows) all metaphors are true or some similar words and you think ". . . What the fuck am I reading," there's a better than even chance the character being addressed is just as baffled as you are

[thelostpretzel]

bitch i mean beach volleyball

[lights-on-the-ridge]

happy pride to these two whalers i guess

[quinnonimp]

have u drawn ishmael beforeeeee pleaseee if u have can i see her? can i see my girl

sorry no BUT i have now just bc u asked 🤙

[ronk]

[firestorm09890]

it's the end of Canto III. you're Ishmael. Heathcliff is seated behind you, eating chicken kebabs at an alarming rate and being extremely loud about it. "At least you're normal, Meursault," you sigh, rolling your eyes and turning to look at your seatmate. he's dumping an entire bottle of ketchup onto his kebab. sauce everywhere. all over his clothes. it's like a crime scene. he has not taken his gauntlets off. the bottle's been obliterated. his expression is stone cold. this is canon

[art-is-kayos]

I see why people do MS paint rage doodles this is really great

[lostthingy]

[ratlesshonret]

Heathcliff Buys a Pepsi

[sl4sherselfie]

yeah

[vermeanist]

Bon voyage, your mermaid's setting sail

[that-mystic-knight]

I guess Ishmael was climbing Ahab like a tree to threaten her if she's that huge-huh?

Based off this Twitter Post