#potc:cotbp

[veronica-rich]

POTC came out 21 years ago today. It's old enough to drink its own rum.

[tortoisesshells]

the straight path to the end of my days (T, ~1400 words, PotC:CotBP, no particular warnings, canon-compliant Elizabeth Swann character study)

Elizabeth Swann decides the expedite their rescue from Rumrunner's Isle. The details are a little annoying.

or,

Was Will even alive, still?

Elizabeth dug her fingers into the sand, through the thin layer still warm from the sun to the startlingly cool dampness beneath. He couldn’t be dead. There was a silly thought, buzzing louder from the scant mouthful of rum she’d swallowed and the exhaustion of the day – a silly thought, that in old songs and stories, lovers knew the moment of the other’s death. An inventory of her thoughts revealed no such pangs or pains that had no natural accounting. And so – she told herself sternly – she would not believe that Will had died.

This was desperation, but it was spite, too – Captain Barbossa, with his heavily-embroidered coat and extravagant hat eaten to nothing, spat at her that she was in a story, now. Why should not such story-conventions here apply?

Read the Rest on AO3!

[veronica-rich]

[tortoisesshells]

Suffer A Sea Change (T, ~5400 words, canon pairings, warnings for language, references to past child abuse/James Norrington’s frankly terrible childhood of debatable canonicity, minor naval shenanigans, canon-typical supernatural goings-on, canon-atypical levels of self-reflection; special shoutout to @theonlyredcar for being a tireless friend, co-conspirator, beta, and cheerleader!)

For @lieutenantnorrington, who gifted me with two phenomenal edits & is a true rock of the PotC fandom - thank you for everything you do, Elle!

Between Rumrunner's Isle and Isla de Muerta, Elizabeth Swann and James Norrington independently realize how far beyond their respective understandings of the world they’ve travelled, and grapple with the futures they're choosing. Jack Sparrow is not quite as unhelpful in this as he might be.

or,

Appropriate. That was the word that her mind supplied, looking around the great cabin of the Dauntless. Entirely appropriate. Neither extravagant nor Spartan, neat as the proverbial pin, with nary a perfectly-polished trophy sword out of place – wide windows ceremoniously admitting tidy squares of light into the room, at regular angles to the regular black-and-white checkered floor cloth. If any man could organize the world so that the patches of sun appeared to be at perfect right angles to his painted canvas floor-coverings, it would have been James Norrington.

Elizabeth Swann did not huff or sigh or stamp her feet, but only because (clad only in a filthy chemise or not), she was the well-bred daughter of Weatherby and Portia Swann – and yes, because years on, she still vaguely felt as though the late Mademoiselle Dupont was hovering like a great malign crow – always ready to drill Elizabeth on her comportment at the earliest signs of mutiny from her ungrateful, bull-headed charge. Her head was spinning, and all the sins and fears of the past several days were coming home to roost; she was sun-burnt, exhilarated, exhausted, extraordinarily thirsty; while Jack Sparrow had been snoring into the sand, clutching a coconut in an entirely inappropriate way, she’d worked through the humid night to build herself a signal-fire.

She had earned the right to rest, dammit. And she would be marrying the Dauntless’s commanding officer soon enough, so he could damn well lend her his cot for an hour.

Read the Rest on AO3!

[veronica-rich]

villains

Every time I watch the first POTC movie, I’m reminded of how rare it is to get a villain who isn’t a cartoon cutout with one or two dimensions only. In all the times I went to see this in the theater 15 years ago, never once did the audience cheer when Jack killed Barbossa. It was always dead silence; everybody got why his story and end were tragic, even if they realized he had to die the way he did for the story to play out.

Good character, good actor. Not easy to get in a supposedly gimmick Disney children’s film.

[veronica-rich]

old POTC fic

From an old missing-scene POTC fic I posted many years ago, called “Raconteurs” and one of the ones I’m in the process of moving over to AO3 from LJ:

“-And then there was the kraken,” Jack started in at some point, hands wide apart to indicate the monster’s eye size. “This big – no, THIS big. Whole was big as a ship – not one of those lil’ Navy girls like th’ Interceptor, but a real ship. A pirate ship, a proper one like th’ Black Pearl.” Turner seemed to think for a moment, as if trying to remember, leaning forward, yawning and holding his head up, eyes at half-mast as he stopped nodding along. “Barbossa’s ship, right?” Jack looked pained and glared at the oblivious boy. “Aye, her.” He sucked in a breath, another sip of rum, and plunged forth. “Thing’s tentacles are at least thirty feet long. Were. Were.” The look on his face clearly said what he really thought of the questionable idea a beast that size might be dead. “Was thrashin’ around, wavin’ those fifty-foot arms around, suckers big as dinghies-” “I thought they were only thirty feet long.” Turner was tracing a bead of liquid up the side of his mug, now giving Jack a hooded, suspicious look. “You said thirty.” “I didn’t swim over to measure th’ bloody things!” Jack stabbed a forefinger almost into Turner’s face. “It’s an educated guess. You wan’ finish telling this tale?” The kid snorted, tapping his wet finger on the rim of his mug. “Could probably do better ‘n you makin’ up th’ stuff you’ve yammered all night.” I tensed my leg muscles, prepared to slide under the table; Hurricane Jack looked about ready to make landfall! His face flushed an interesting shade of dark, and the finger didn’t move. Turner simply crossed his eyes to stare down at it, frowning as I guess he was trying to focus on it. “It’s not customary to question your captain, boy,” Jack warned him, his voice dropping, sounding fairly cold despite the slur. “Or have you found another way to get to your bloody strumpet?” That seemed to dissolve the tension; Turner cleared his throat uncomfortably, I thought, and blinked. “Fifty feet, you say?”