Moby Dick Chapter 41: Oh, He’s *Crazy*

Narrator Ishmael calling Captain Ahab insane for 20 minutes. Go off, king.

Moby Dick Chapter 40

So, we get this screen play of all the sailors kicking it in the forecastle at midnight, and Tashtego and Daggoo are also hanging out.

And who doesn’t get mentioned at all? Our boy Ishmael or his husband Queequeg, who deeeeeefinitely didn’t sexile the other two harpooneers from their quarters, right?

(And this is why we’re getting the narration in such a different format, because Ishmael is getting the play by play from someone else the next day. This is canon, and I will not be convinced otherwise.)

Moby Dick Chapter 36 Time to drop the title

It’s been 35 chapters without a mention of the titular whale. Time for Ahab to growl his name 7 times in one pep talk to make up for lost time.

(Moby Dick gets mentioned 13 times this chapter. I’m listening to the audiobook but had to pause and look up the text to count because I was so curious how many times Melville was going to title drop in rapid succession.)

Starbuck, meanwhile, is over here unimpressed like

Moby Dick chapter 32 Ishmael’s bad takes on ocean mammals

I am actively meming things while listening to keep myself from glazing over while Ishmael rambles.

Moby Dick chapter 32 Ishmael’s bad takes on ocean mammals

I am actively meming things while listening to keep myself from glazing over while Ishmael rambles.

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Moby Dick AND Dracula time!

So, where I’m sitting at (going in to MD Chapter 30), I can’t help but feel like most of the problems of both books could get solved by one character switcheroo:

Taking over the Pequod is… the Captain of the Demeter! He runs a tight ship, but makes sure to praise the crew when they’re doing a good job, and he’s interested in where all of them are from. They do a normal job of whale hunting and come back as expected. (And when Cap hears that Queequeg and Ishmael are married-but-not-married, he’s like ‘oh, I’m a ship’s captain, let me officiate that real quick’ like the supportive grandpa he is.)

MEANWHILE

On the Demeter, Drac breaks out of his box for a snack and runs smack dab into Ahab, who is also Lurking Around Creepily at Night. This paranoid man is primed and ready to kill a pale creature who wants to bite him (or sink the ship trying), so he either stakes Dracula through the heart with a spare whalebone peg leg or leaves him in a box on the bottom of the ocean. Either way, Drac doesn’t get to (New) England, Lucy lives, and once Jonathan recovers from parkouring himself out of the castle, the rest of the Drac pack all live their best lives.

Moby Dick chapters 26-27

Our doomed crew is rolling in.

Starbuck, my dude, I know this ain’t ending well for you and your wife and kid, but I’m rooting for you.

As someone who took French as my middle school and high school foreign language, I could always count on getting some kind of extra credit for seeing a production of Les Mis.

Moby Dick chapter 22 Ishmael racing past all the red flags

🚩 unseen captain that’s tooooootally hinged, you don’t need to see him before you sign on for 3 years, nuh-uh

🚩crazy old guy who sprung fully formed from the beginning of a horror movie trying to warn you off going on this boat, you crazy kids

🚩shipmate passed out so hard your super ripped boyfriend can sit his fine ass on him and this dude still don’t wake up til you hotbox him out

🚩the two old boomers who ask for your work experience and then cut you off while you’re answering and get your name wrong every time, who robble robble off the boat after giving you a swift kick and a ‘thoughts and prayers’

We’re in for a normal and reasonable boat trip, fam.

(PS I know the basic way this story’s going to go, but at the canon point I’m at, the AU I want is Peleg and Bildad weekend-at-Bernie’s-ing Capt Ahab, who is totes dead but they need him alive on paper for tax purposes. Queequeg clocks it immediately, Ishmael suspects nothing for at least 20 more chapters, then gaslights himself through 20 more.)

Moby Dick chapter 17, Ishmael lets the intrusive thoughts win.

“Listen, Mrs. Hussey, my husband (who I’ve know for a whole 3 days) isn’t answering the door. He is absolutely dead or dying and I am fully in hysterics to the point that I’m convinced my depressed, career wet-kitten body can break down the door to get to him.”

Just a normal reaction to your buddy leaving you on read after telling you he’s busy today.

So, having long ago missed the boat on Whale Weekly, I decided to just listen to the audiobook of it at my own speed, and it is not at all what I expected. I think I’m 13 chapters in?

I’m just… first Dracula and now this? Am I destined to write more gay fanfic about hundred + year old books?

The fic-writing struggle of ‘do I keep this story T for teen or smut it on up?’

One of my artist friends, Pine, had commissions open, so I snagged a pic of my problematic Dracula fav, Dr. Jack Seward:

Look at this sad pathetic man. I adore him.

I want to write more suitor squad nonsense, but am struggling with sitting down and doing it during the quiet time in the dracula fandom.

for the people who have read my fics, any opinions about what I do next?

1. Finish the damn werewolf porn story already (I am sitting on a half-finished Morward post canon werewolf smut fic)

2. A pre-canon adventure with the guys (either their first 'adventure' together or one of their wild trips that helped establish their brotherhood)

3. A third, secret thing (give me a prompt?)

I’m in the mood to do a fic challenge. Is that still a thing in the year of our lord 2024?

Me: ‘time to write some mindless werewolf pwp’

Also me: /spends the evening writing an intro about Jack Seward’s depression and survivor’s guilt and googling about telegraph technology in the Victorian era