Explain/The Moby Dick Saga

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This page intends to explain the 1851 novel Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, its impact on the Wiki Camp 2, and the creation and perpetuation of the term "Girl Ishmael".

The book

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (hereafter shortened as Moby-Dick) is a novel published by American writer Herman Melville in 1851. The story is told from the perspective of Ishmael, a seasoned sailor. The book describes the voyage of Captain Ahab, of the whaling ship Pequod, in his quest for revenge against Moby Dick, a white sperm whale who bit Ahab's leg off in a previous voyage. While having mixed reviews at released, it has since become a very notable and famous book, and is considered one of the Great American Novels.

Relevant information

The opening line of the book, "Call me Ishmael", has become a famous and iconic line in literature.

Moby-Dick is a very masculine book at its core. There are few mentions of women at all - the majority of them come in the form of being attached to their husbands. The only two women that show up physically are Mrs. Hussey, a servant at a local inn, and Aunt Charity, a worker on the Pequod and sister of Captain Bildad - which by all means, she seems like a very lovely person from her description in the book[quote 1], but only shows up scantly. Other than that, the only use of feminine pronouns are used mainly for boats.

In summary: Chapter 94 of Moby-Dick breaks Rule 4. The following collapsible tries to explain why in as little detail as possible.

In addition to Rule 4, Moby-Dick also breaks Rule 1 by having some casual racism littered throughout the book, because this book was published 14 years before the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery. No, I'm serious.[1]

Genesis on the Wiki Camp 2

It appears that Moby-Dick first appeared on the wiki on the Sealon Musk article. User:GopyXP wanted to make a joke about how the Tweet template was not restricted by a character limit, unlike actual Tweets, so Moby-Dick was chosen to serve as the quintessential incredibly long piece of text. However, templates appear to break after enough data is input, so the entirety of Moby-Dick had to be manually broken up into smaller segments for each template, which flooded Special:RecentChanges with many edits with large byte counts.[2] Afterwards, however, it appeared that the article would simply stop rendering templates after a while, which necessitated the creation of Sealon Musk Returns.

Edit War and the "Please do not paste Moby Dick" rule

See also: Explain/Edit War

In the Edit War, an edit was made that pasted the entirety of Moby-Dick in part of their edit as "lorum ipsum"-like filler text, without reading any of the text within. After the edit was published, User:Misch13vous was quick to point out Moby-Dick's breaking of the rules. Because Moby-Dick was pasted without knowledge of its violation of the Rules, this created the "Please do not paste Moby Dick" rule.[quote 2]

In the end, User:Satomi did not have to read Moby Dick. She decreed that, since the contestant that pasted Moby Dick had not read it, she didn't have to either. Even if she attempted to do so, the same edit caused the page to shake harder the more the user scrolled, making the end of the novel essentially unreadable.

Girl Ishmael

The Girl prefix and "Girl 9150625"

Adding Girl as a prefix to nouns is a byproduct of the Tertiary Sexual Characteristics trope, where character designers, assuming that viewers will automatically assume that every character is a guy unless specified otherwise, convey femininity in stereotypical design choices, such as side bows or pronounced eyelashes. Adding "Girl" as a prefix to nouns stems as a satire of this trope.

This trope had existed on the Wiki Camp prior (see Girl Niko) but relevant is the concept of Girl 9150625[3] created by User:QWillow[4], which brought the concept of adding Girl as a prefix into the cultural zeitgeist. Coincidentally, 055 was later revealed to be female, completing the cycle of the joke.

Lesbian Moby-Dick and "Girl Ishmael"

In response to being threatened to read Moby-Dick in judging the Edit War, User:Satomi asked if Moby-Dick "[had] a cool girl in it".[5] Remember that Moby-Dick is a masculine book with two female characters in the entire book. In response to this quote, User:Misch13vous, one of the few people commenting on Moby-Dick to have actually read it, started considering the concept of a female-oriented Moby-Dick[6].

On December 6th, as the concept of a female-oriented Moby-Dick was discussed in voice chat, User:BobTheTacocat threw out the quote permutation of "Call me Girl Ishmael," which started the joke of Girl Moby-Dick, in which Girl Ishmael tells the story of Captain Girl Ahab on the Girl Pequod seeing revenge against Girl Moby Dick (#girlbossing). The quote "Call me Girl Ishmael" was used as shorthand to denote the concept's ridiculousness.

The term "Girl Ishmael" can be seen on page Girl Ishmael 2.0.

Limbus Company

Limbus Company is a turn-based RPG created by Project Moon, known for Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina. Limbus Company has 12 controllable characters (known as "Sinners") based off of the names and stories of famous literature. One of these characters is Ishmael, a female sinner based off of the plight of the Moby-Dick character of the same name.[quote 3] She even says "call me Ishmael" in her character promo!

User:Arllyhautegoth brought this up to the Wiki Camp 2 Discord[7], and the coincidence that a Girl Ishmael actually existed was not lost on us. She has since become a prominently mentioned character in The Wiki Camp 2 Discord.

While Ishmael from Limbus Company was discovered during the post-Challenge 3 lockdown (and because of that does not make many appearances on the wiki so far), Ishmael from Limbus Company can be seen on Wiki Camp 2 page Ishmael, and is an official emote in the Wiki Camp 2 Discord server[8]. File:DiaGirlIshmael.png is a reupload of emote :girl_Ishmael: for use in the 5b Dialogue box template.

So that's where Girl Ishmael came from. She's pretty neat

Conclusion

In conclusion, Moby-Dick is a book

Quotes

  1. ↑ "Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if SHE could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea. [...] Never did any woman better deserve her name, which was Charity--Aunt Charity, as everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this charitable Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of well-saved dollars." Moby-Dick, Chapter 20
  2. ↑ "One time, someone pasted all of Moby Dick, without reading the whole thing, and it turned out to contain a chapter that was disgusting and violated the Rules. Basically if you're going to dump a large amount of text onto the wiki, be prepared to be held responsible for all of its content." Rules
  3. ↑ "However, you mustn't forget: this sinner has survived an absurd voyage in a far and wide body of water. Her patience may run deep, but once you take a wrong turn with her, it will be a difficult task to regain her trust." Limbus Company official website

References

  1. ↑ Thirteenth Amendment, Section 1 of the Constitution of United States (1865)
  2. ↑ https://twitter.com/WikiCamp2/status/1590043880572956672
  3. ↑ Girl915.png
  4. ↑    channel‑for‑people‑who‑want‑to‑talk‑in‑vc‑but‑dont‑want‑to‑use‑their‑microphone  
  5. ↑    general‑3  
  6. ↑    general  
  7. ↑    general‑3  
  8. ↑ https://cdn.discordapp.com/emojis/1054251559237730304.webp, emote :girl_ishmael: on The Wiki Camp 2 Discord
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