#i was desperate for more potc content

[boltlightning]

tagged by the lovely @aloveforjaneausten, thank you so much!!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 49!

2. What's your total AO3 words count? 315,193. god help me

3. What fandoms do you write for? actively just the one (potc), but the bulk of my ao3 is final fantasy vii, fullmetal alchemist, and assassin’s creed. almost all of my unpublished personal stuff is dragon age. one day it’ll see the light of day. one day

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

a house, a hearth, a (s)holmes (the great ace attorney, 2021)

good company (fullmetal alchemist, 2016)

heart & home (fma, 2017)

the need of everything (fma, 2018–2020)

benchfellows (ff7, 2020)

i'm proud of all of these but flabbergasted by benchfellows, which is 800 words and something i wrote and posted impulsively at like 2am. but. yknow. the kudos are beyond my power.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? almost always! nothing makes you forget how to say “thank you” like a normal human being than comments on your work!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? almost everything i write ends on a melancholy note, but o sleeper (ff7) is probably the worst of them. and that’s really just the threat of canon rearing its head

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? the storm at your door (assassin’s creed) was specifically written to give ezio and sofia a better ending than what they got in canon, and by god i stand by it

8. Do you get hate on fics? thankfully not!

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? nah. i don’t particularly enjoy reading smut, nor do i have any talent for making it not sound stilted. sex will get hinted at but rarely do i write anything more explicit than someone’s bits being out in the wind

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? have you heard the good word of my potc/temeraire crossover that is getting quickly out of hand? and till the long days (AC) is not NECESSARILY a crossover, but entwines the world of AC with greek mythology in a major way.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? / 12. Have you ever had a fic translated? / 13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before? nope to all three!

14. What's your all-time favourite ship? i don’t ship much tbh, and while i wouldn’t say i’m the most fond of them, my longest lasting ship has been cloud/aerith. we’re going on 18 years together and i’d be lying if i said they weren’t part of why i started writing in the first place

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? lmao. most ideas i don’t finish i’m content to leave as they are. however, i have one novelization about my dragon age character going through the events of the trespasser dlc that i desperately want to finish, but i’m such a stickler to the dialogue that exists in-game that i’m hamstringing myself. i like the ideas there enough to revisit it every now and then, so it’s not totally a lost cause, but...it's not looking likely gang.

16. What are your writing strengths? lord knows i know how to set a scene. everything i write is in service of eventually getting to describe sunlight or perhaps weather. know this whenever you read something i wrote.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? i’m desperately bad at just…stepping back and letting a scene breathe. i NEED to explain everything even if it’s obvious. i also am very guilty of describing what happens in prose rather than letting it play out naturally in dialogue. it’s remarkable how much i avoid dialogue without even realizing it

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? eh. it can be used well, but i just speak the one language fluently, so i doubt it’d be a fun or worthwhile bilingual bonus for any reader.

19. First fandom you wrote for? it’s either kingdom hearts or inkheart, and it certainly does not exist anywhere anymore. pour one out

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? my answer changes every time i’m asked this. sticking with the recency bias answer of steadfast and dependable (potc), as i''ve been really into the themes in that fic recently

tagging @johnbly @thesumdancekid and anyone else who might want to snag this <3

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

@nbmonsterkisser Thanks! I didn’t realise you didn’t know!

Current major fandom/ship is Hellraiser and Pinsty (Pinhead/Kirsty). If you haven’t seen Hellraiser 1 and 2 but you like villain/villain ships/falling in love with monsterous cthonic reflections of yourself, please watch them. Back to back preferable. If you have triggers please PM me and I’ll give you a rundown. If you have already seen them, my fics are here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IDreamtOfManderleyAgain/works . Most of my meta content on here is about Hellraiser.

Generally speaking, I am Old School about villain/heroine and the art that I like. Major favorites include Labyrinth and Legend (1985) The ships are obvious with those. (also love stuff like Company of Wolves, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1993), etc.). For the most part all of the above are the most prominent types of material you’ll see me engaging with, particularly because they are functionally more fairy tale/mythic and are made for deeper analysis.

I used to ship Rumbelle but OUAT kind of ruined it so badly for me that it just doesn’t feel worth it and fanon sucks so it can’t really save it. Also even though I love Robert Carlyle’s performance in season one, I just stopped connecting with the character over time, and Belle was always written terribly.

Also ship Twelfth Doctor/Clara but my DW enthusiasm comes and goes for me so it only pops up occasionally. Technically it’s not villain heroine but it’s always been a bit...gothic romance in space vibe.

Barbossabeth (Barbossa/Elizabeth) from Pirates of the Carribean. Fuck all the pretty dudes, their arc ended up more interesting anyway. Not really involved with POTC fandom.

Favorite dudes (and masculine leaning people) who I don’t have a particular ship for:

Maximillian Strauss from Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Desperately want more content for this dude that isn’t framing him as somebody’s abuser because of his role in the LA by Night tabletop web series. Planning on writing an OFC fic for him.

Loki; I used to ship Tasertricks but I’m annoyed with most of Tasertricks/Loki fandom so I kind of tread my own path with my affection for Loki.

Severus Snape. Don’t even care. Alan Rickman playing the quintissential gothic romance hero. It’s the only Harry Potter thing I ever give a single shit about.

Used to engage in Resident Evil fandom for Wesker/Claire. Caveat: I prefer pre-RE5 characterizations (RE5 is mostly revolting tbh) and I’m not really involved with it anymore. When I see Wesker I just kind of want him to step on me, and that’s pretty much the intellectual extent of it. It’s like how the internet reacted to Lady Ditramescu. Resident Evil is just like that I guess.

I also think Megamind is a cute movie.

There’s plenty more stuff I like but these are just stuff that come to mind at the moment for villain/heroine type content.

[avelera]

POTC:5 - A Hot Mess, with some glimmers of heart

I actually wrote this a few days ago on the plane and consistently forgot to post so here we go Maggie’s analysis of the hot mess that is POTC5 (and thoughts on how it could have been improved). 

So PotC:5 was a hot mess and totally deserves a hard 57% rating, with a good portion of that rating based latent affection for the franchise.

THAT BEING SAID, they broke Will’s curse so given that I have been waiting 10 YEARS (10 YEARS IN AZKABAN/ ON THAT ISLAND WITH ELIZABETH) for that to happen, and it happened, I’m gonna say my time may have been 90% wasted but I’m not unhappy that I saw it.

The thing is, I think there were scraps of  good movie in there somewhere. Not in the same was as say, Wonder Woman (where I think there was a superb movie in there had they only been allowed to simply rearrange some of their scenes and tweak a plot twist or two) but still. Frankly, I don’t think the scenes that would have made POTC:5 great were even shot, but there’s some structural hints towards their potential.

So here’s what I would have done to tweak POTC:5 to make it a better story along the lines of a novel. To my admittedly untutored eye, there was a lot of things that look like they could have been improved, and maybe there was even a stage of the script where the writers would have liked them to be improved, but things such as studio requirements, actor availability, and actor preference prohibited it. I have no idea what the exact making of this movie entailed but let’s just say, for example, I don’t think Keira Knightley wanted to make this movie, even though it would have been vastly improved by her presence.

Tweaks and Improvements:

1) Replace or at least partner Elizabeth with Barbossa. Frankly, we left her as Pirate King and it would have been amazing to see her *ahem* Swanning around on that opulent ship along with him, enforcing her title. I would have adored a subplot in which Henry has either essentially run away from home or, say, a respectable life that Elizabeth set up for him, or that he has simply gone missing and she’s been looking for him. Frankly, the very idea that Henry could be working on breaking the Will’s curse and have a lead and Elizabeth isn’t on that boat with him is crazy to me. The only understandable explanation is metatextual, ie Keira wasn’t available for the film. Pirate King Elizabeth should have been on that quest with them, and it could have provided some really excellent moments of action, pathos and even comedy. It may have also spared us some of the unrelenting fixation on fathers too, or at least balanced it with one present, capable mother instead of the endless string of fridged Disney Moms like Carina’s.

Some scenes it would have allowed - fuckin’ Pirate King Elizabeth overtaking Henry & Co. and giving the “I’m not here to stop you…. I’m here to join you.” speech. Moments of bonding between Henry and Elizabeth. Elizabeth expressing her loss of Will, and Henry sharing it. Humorous tension of having your mom onboard when you’re starting to crush on a girl and also prove yourself. Elizabeth’s total lack of interest in Jack and their inevitable banter… I mean frankly, the only reason not to have her is how much she would have stolen the show. MOVING ON.

2) Carina should have been Salazar’s daughter, not Barbossa’s. Frankly, the Barbossa thing just made… no sense at all. He’s never mentioned or shown interest in a family before, it just doesn’t really fit with his story, and I’m pretty sure that even if he wasn’t a ghost at that point of her conception (assuming Carina is younger than Henry but that’s not necessarily a given), it means he had her after POTC:3 which is… weird. Unless I’m missing something from POTC:4.

Reasons Carina should have been Salazar’s daughter instead:

Shared features: We got quite a few interesting close-ups of Salazar’s black waving hair, which looks a great deal like Carina’s. In contrast, technically under all the liver damage, Barbossa does have blue eyes but there any resemblance to Carina ends. Salazar actually looks at least a little like he could be her father, enough to serve as an actual clue to her heritage instead of the out of nowhere revelation about Barbossa. There’s the issue of the accent but they could either hand wave that by saying she studied in England or hire a hispanic actress, or have the actress assume a hint of a Spanish accent. Either way, it’s not a huge hurdle.

Salazar was clearly a good guy and successful before his transformation into a ghost thing, it explains how Carina got such a high-end education as to be an astronomer and a horologist, something that was never explained by the film, because by all accounts if the ruby was all Barbossa left her and she didn’t spend it, Carina would have grown up penniless. Salazar, as a Spanish officer of his own ship, would have been in a much better position for his family and estate to see that his daughter had a fantastic education.

It would have allowed Carina’s story to mirror Henry’s, that both of them are trying to free their father from a sea curse. Frankly, her not believing in magic and still going after the map thing is a bit of cognitive stretch. Having both of them trying to break a curse on their father would have been a nice parallel. You could even have it that Carina is skeptical about her father’s curse, but still sees the trident as a means of “freeing” him or at least convincing him to come home if he’s just gone mad. It could also provide a dramatic scene where maybe her whole life she hasn’t allowed herself to believe that her father was really “cursed” rather than dead or a deadbeat, and she tries to convince Henry that his father is no more cursed than hers and is only absent. Then, at the first sight of magic she could have a true moment of emotion, realizing it was indeed a curse that kept her once-heroic father away from her and her family.

Frankly, Salazar’s story is all over the place. Especially his morality. I get that this is “Pirates” of the Caribbean so the pirates are the good guys, but he was something of an actual good guy at least along the lines of Norrington before he went down and became all ghosty. Also, the moment where they become human again was actually rather emotional. I didn’t really understand why he was still a bad guy after they got turned back? Why the vengeance? How about instead let him get an actual redemption arc, his daughter talking him down from his mercilessness towards pirates because they’re the ones who helped free him. That also eliminates the need for Barbossa’s rather random and out of character “sacrifice” at the end, if he doesn’t need to die taking down Salazar.

(I gotta say, for like a split second I thought the witch would turn out to be Carina’s mother and her and Barbossa gave her up to give her a better life so failing a Salazar parenthood I could totally accept that too.)

3) Just… less Jack Sparrow, please. His wacky hijinks are at their best when they’re played against someone who is actually trying to pursue the plot. That’s why he was such a good foil and antagonistic ally for Will and Elizabeth, he’s best when he’s a wild card. But also, the schtick is getting a bit old. Hence why it would have been nice to have Elizabeth in the film to play off him a bit.

That being said, the glimpse we got of Young Jack the Sparrow was waaaay hotter than I expected, like I never had a real thing for Sparrow like many others did but godDAMN young cocky pirate kid who is just finding his sea legs, wasn’t totally crazy yet, and looked like he walked off the set of Black Sails was one of the small highlights of the film. It just goes to show what giving Jack Sparrow even a dash of integrity can do to strengthen the character.

Another thing absent from the film which was desperately needed - some connection between Henry and Jack Sparrow. It seemed assumed but never shown. Really, we got a ton of Jack Sparrow being disdainful of Will and Elizabeth, but I’d like to think that he would feel at least a little protective of their child. There was moments in the film that seemed to hint at that, but it would have been nice to get a verbal admission at some point (unless I missed it) along the lines of how he actually does care about them beneath his wacky and selfish exterior, and by extension doesn’t want their son to die.

Overall the film felt like 3 or 4 film ideas sort of crammed into one story. I definitely saw snippets of discarded plots, the whole possession of Henry came out of nowhere (though I forgive it because possession is my jam), Salazar’s pathos went in and out in favor of him in the end just remaining a monster despite the fact he just got his life back, Carina’s backstory and relation to Barbossa makes no sense at all, Elizabeth not participating makes no sense at all, and characters would randomly move vast distances or have extremely helpful coincidences just when they needed them to a level that went beyond “fun adventure story” and into “writer clearly ended up in a corner, again” territory.

I think the best parts of the film came down to Henry’s authenticity and his quest to save his father. The scene at the beginning where he meets Will by nearly dying was perhaps my favorite of the whole film, if not for the ending, and with just those two I would have been quite content. The film really needed to be more about that and less about Sparrow hijinks, which are always a great spice but they are a terrible center piece. POTC has consistently been the story of Elizabeth and Will, and it loses a lot of its fire when it shifts to be about Sparrow rather than their story serving as a stage where he could serve as jester and commentator. If this was to be the story of the next generation of Henry and Carina, it should have been allowed to remain fixated on them, and allowed there to be pathos in Carina’s story as much as Henry’s, which is why I think a parallel lost father and a connection to Salazar would have added a great deal.

I’m not sure if there’ll be a sixth film. It’s probably better if there isn’t. But I would be willing to drag myself back to the theater if we can finally see Will and Elizabeth again because frankly, apropos to nothing, their reunion was the single hottest most powerful moment of the whole movie and I’ll take a lot of confused garbage for that.

[obdurare-archive-blog]

🔥🔥🔥 - about POTC characters :D

send 🔥 + topic for salt : accepting : @properpoppet

Hector’s first, because.  Well.  I mean.  Look where you are.  ON THE WHOLE I really dislike the trends I see toward Hector’s character.  He seems to come in two, and only two, flavors which are literally just facets of him as a whole, and it bugs the literal shit out of me.  So let me break that down.

1.  Edgelord:  What do you mean by that, Amanda?  Hector as cursed Hector without the curse.  Where he’s nothing but a manic hardass that flips between literally not giving a shit to rage.  Where he’s always angry.  Y’all.  Hector’s pretty fucking chill most of the time.  Does he have a temper?  Fuck yes.  Does he actually lose it much?  Nah.  The curse is the exception, because we see him at the end of that.  We see him at his most desperate and hanging on to what little humanity he has as tight as he can.  That’s not Hector’s natural personality, and as such, I don’t think it would ever show itself unless he was under extreme duress.  On the whole, he’s actually fairly laid back most of the time.  The shouty part he likes to use is just a front, it’s his captain persona.  Also this type of view of him physically emotes entirely too much.  Hector’s not giving you shit, it’s why he doesn’t talk with his hands unless he has reason to (and I think naturally without all the betrayal in his past, he would be a hand talker).  This type of view doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, either.  Guys.  This fucker baby talks his pet monkey, makes dick jokes with his best friend, and has stupid arguments over who’s captain of what side.  No.  Hector Barbossa is literally an awkward nerd with a resting bitch face that is more intimidating than most.2.  Emo:  This bothers me so much more than the other one.  The idea that he’s somehow got self-esteem issues or a low view of himself.  He really doesn’t.  Hector is confident.  Hector is sure.  Hector won’t give his opinion on a thing until his opinion is solidified and trying to force it out of him won’t end well.  I hate the idea that it seems like people think he would think himself beneath someone, or not good enough.  Nah, son.  Hector Barbossa is fully aware of his own worth, to the point it borders on laughable arrogance.  He’s not shy, he’s got a clear view of who and what he is, and he knows he has value.  He does not have self-esteem issues.  He’s content in his own skin and you’re literally not going to really make a dent in that ego, because he knows himself inside and out, and he doesn’t make a move unless he’s sure of the path he’s going to take.  This is no unsure, self-pitying sop.  He’s got a romantic side - does he ever - but his isn’t the shy, hesitant type and he will pursue it with the same kind of tenacity and drive as he would anything else he wanted, with the same kind of self-assuredness.Now let’s talk about Jack.  The view that Jack is a silly drunk.  First thing, let me stop you right there because Jack is highly intelligent.  Highly.  He and Hector run neck and neck with each other, they literally are the smartest people in the room when they walk in, and if Jack wasn’t, his luck alone would not save him from half of what he’s survived.  He’s witty, he’s clever, he’s quick on his feet, and yes, he does make shit up as he goes along.  Because Jack, I really believe, can read patterns very well.  Patterns in the way a conversation goes, patterns in the way scenarios will play out.  He has an outstanding layman’s knowledge of physics.  And he wobbles the way he does because he’s never really gotten his land legs.  He’s literally spent far more of his life at sea than on land, so of course he still walks like he’s shifting with the ocean when he’s on solid ground.  That’s just a quirk, and not one brought on by being a drunk.  In fact, if Jack ever actually gets drunk - truly drunk - I’d be fucking surprised.  It’d be incredibly stupid of him, when literally most of the people who know him want him dead.  Of course he’d want to keep his wits about him as much as possible.  Jack is complex and fascinating and so much more than the comic relief and that idea of him really just grinds my gears so, so much.  Jack has problems with empathising, but that’s not actually Jack’s fault.  Jack drinks too much, but he’s never sloppy.  Jack likes to be underestimated because it plays right into his plans.  He’s not silly.And lastly, let’s talk about Gibbs.  Gibbs isn’t comic relief, either.  Gibbs has a schtick he has going, because Gibbs is far, far from stupid.  He ran rum while still in the Navy, and you definitely can’t be stupid about that kind of thing.  Is Gibbs a drunk?  Hell yeah.  Doesn’t make him any less of a true equal to Hector or Jack, when it comes down it, and here’s why:  Gibbs is a wily bastard.  He’s the “friendly” one.  The one that will tell you stories and be the exposition since neither captain of the Pearl is given to it.  He’s the one that you’ll lean on.  The one you’ll trust.  And literally everyone, to a man, forgets one important fact about Gibbs.  Gibbs is a pirate.  Gibbs is as much of a pirate as any of them.  You feel these things about him because that’s what he’s given you, when in truth, Gibbs is world-class on playing that underestimation game, as well.  So making Gibbs the butt of every joke is kind of…Well.  Underestimating him, and under-utilizing him as a character in fandom.  Gibbs is a damn good pirate, and a damn good first mate.  He deserves more credit in the fandom that what he gets, and definitely more time to shine on those qualities it tends to pretend he doesn’t have.