In Living Colour, for ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
icarus_chained
I do love James Norrington, particularly as we see him in the first movie, because he stands out as being, quite simply, a good man. Where pretty much every other character in PotC are motivated by greed or love for specific individuals or other, ultimately selfish reasons, James is all about duty and honour - even when they bring him low, those are what he fights to reclaim, even if he winds up getting a bit lost along the way. Oh James. Of course, him being a good man makes him oh so very tempting to be nasty to, when the mood strikes At first James is relieved - at least this slaver isn't a smuggler going to do his level best to get rid of the evidence before the navy ship catches up with him. I was kind of immersed in quite a lot of literature about pirates and the Age of Sail around the time I wrote this - and it kept astounding me, actually, the things people did back then, the casual, matter-of-fact cruelty that was rampant back then - like a slave smuggling vessel throwing its cargo overboard if the authorities happened upon it, getting rid of the evidence by way of the convenient sharks - and James, being the authorities - he would have seen that, far too many times. Hence his relief At least this is a perfectly legitimate vessel that just happens to be French and therefore also a legitimate prize. His relief is gone by the time he enters the cargo hold. Monsieur Jaune It's funny, I remember, back when I was writing this, around that time I had been reading a Good Omens fic - can't actually remember much about it, other than Pestilence featured, under the name Gelb (and he had a pet duck) - I suspect that's why I went with yellow - partly to distance him from Pollution's white, but mostly, I didn't really think about it - I mean, yellow is appropriate, particularly in a story set around the Westindies, where yellow fever was a major cause of death, but I don't think it's strictly accurate - then again, my recent googling had me just shaking my head and sort of giving up trying to figure out what was accurate, so..., the ship's physician Because what would Pestilence be, if not a doctor :-), wrings his hands as he describes the usual course of the illness - and later James will remember the strange gleam in the man's eyes, as his own ship lies at anchor outside of Port Royal, waiting while his men die around him, waiting for the end of the quarantine.
Frau Karmesin It occurs to me, that there must be vast periods of human history where Scarlet being a woman must have been kind of inconvenient - in the 20th century she can play armsdealer or reporter, no problem - but sometime around the 1700s? A respectable German widow will have to do - though of course, there has been women kicking ass throughout history - I bet she has been among the fiercest of them, of course she has - I bet Jeanne d'Arc had red hair in this continuum, and maybe a certain woman named Helen too...does not at first seem like a particularly memorable passenger, even if James wonders why the Admiral insisted on him sailing her to Hispaniola instead of simply paying for her passage on the next post boat Don't look at me - I'm wondering too - though I doubt your average post boat would last very long with Scarlet aboard, and if nobody else, she probably knows that. Later he'll remember only too well how she laughed in the middle of the pitched three-way battle - and the taste of his own blood as she bit into his lips, the strength of her as she pushed him down on his cot, impaling herself and laughing as she rode him, laughing as he tried to push her off. Later he'll try to forget. Poor, traumatized James - Scarlet might be fun in a book, but I really don't think she's someone you'd like to meet, especially not if you're a fine soldier attracting her attention - even aside from the sideeffects of her presence. And of course, James isn't going to have any sort of counseling available. Poor guy. I'm really mean to him in this fic, aren't I?
Johann van Zwart might be a succesful merchant Ah, Famine, ever the businessman (and Dutch because, well, Dutch merchant was appropriate for the time - besides, I was running out of suitable languages) - I actually loved that Sable was a clever, modern businessman, letting people do his work for him, but listening to him talk about his business ventures is making this dinner party unbearably long - and the usually so very good food at the Governor's table tastes bland today - well, the better parts of it, anyway. James is a sailor, so he soldiers on, defiantly chewing and swallowing Considering some of the things people wound up eating after a few months at sea..., while around the table gentlemen and ladies are trying to discreetly not eat. And next to him, van Zwart drones on and on about his latest deal, a favourable monopoly on the selling of supplies for the slaves on some of the Windward Islands.
He never actually sees the man on the horse. I'm not entirely sure how come James can sense Death's presence here - perhaps it has something to do with his own imminent appointment in Samarra, perhaps it has something to do with his previous encounters with the other three horsemen He barely even sees the horse. He's fairly sure it's white. Reasonably sure. Maybe. Perhaps more yellow than white. Death on a pale horse. Except in the Danish version, it says gustengul, which is a sickly sort of yellow. And wikipedia has the original Greek word meaning something more along the lines of green. Very annoying horse. Anyway, what sort of a colour do you call pale to begin with??? But he'll stand before the gallows as the hangman opens the hatch or by the market as a rolling barrel crashes into a child or at the beach as the man whose second he was slowly collapses in a growing red pool - and he'll hear the sound of hooves and turn around one moment too late. Always too late. He's starts to hear it aboard ship and thinks perhaps he's growing crazy, then later in Tortuga and tries to drown it with rum, as the hooves sound as the echo of fired shots and angry shouts. Then he hears it aboard the Flying Dutchman and this time he finally manages to turn around in time, but he's still not entirely sure what colour the horse is.It should be said, I actually had fun writing this, figuring out appropriate scenarios for James meeting each horseperson and figuring out their personas - truth be told, I'm not entirely happy with Scarlet's, it feels too light, but finding an excuse for a foreign woman to be aboard a British naval ship at a convenient time for a battle - eventually I just went with a shrug, really. I suppose I could have made her a woman pirate attacking the Dauntless, but PotC already has an excess of women pirates - and while a woman sailing as part of the official crew - some officer's wife or maybe someone disguised as a sailor or a soldier - might be fun, I expect that ship wouldn't last very long... So, vaguely inconvenient passsenger she got to be
icarus_chainedI do love James Norrington, particularly as we see him in the first movie, because he stands out as being, quite simply, a good man. Where pretty much every other character in PotC are motivated by greed or love for specific individuals or other, ultimately selfish reasons, James is all about duty and honour - even when they bring him low, those are what he fights to reclaim, even if he winds up getting a bit lost along the way. Oh James. Of course, him being a good man makes him oh so very tempting to be nasty to, when the mood strikes At first James is relieved - at least this slaver isn't a smuggler going to do his level best to get rid of the evidence before the navy ship catches up with him. I was kind of immersed in quite a lot of literature about pirates and the Age of Sail around the time I wrote this - and it kept astounding me, actually, the things people did back then, the casual, matter-of-fact cruelty that was rampant back then - like a slave smuggling vessel throwing its cargo overboard if the authorities happened upon it, getting rid of the evidence by way of the convenient sharks - and James, being the authorities - he would have seen that, far too many times. Hence his relief At least this is a perfectly legitimate vessel that just happens to be French and therefore also a legitimate prize. His relief is gone by the time he enters the cargo hold. Monsieur Jaune It's funny, I remember, back when I was writing this, around that time I had been reading a Good Omens fic - can't actually remember much about it, other than Pestilence featured, under the name Gelb (and he had a pet duck) - I suspect that's why I went with yellow - partly to distance him from Pollution's white, but mostly, I didn't really think about it - I mean, yellow is appropriate, particularly in a story set around the Westindies, where yellow fever was a major cause of death, but I don't think it's strictly accurate - then again, my recent googling had me just shaking my head and sort of giving up trying to figure out what was accurate, so..., the ship's physician Because what would Pestilence be, if not a doctor :-), wrings his hands as he describes the usual course of the illness - and later James will remember the strange gleam in the man's eyes, as his own ship lies at anchor outside of Port Royal, waiting while his men die around him, waiting for the end of the quarantine.
Frau Karmesin It occurs to me, that there must be vast periods of human history where Scarlet being a woman must have been kind of inconvenient - in the 20th century she can play armsdealer or reporter, no problem - but sometime around the 1700s? A respectable German widow will have to do - though of course, there has been women kicking ass throughout history - I bet she has been among the fiercest of them, of course she has - I bet Jeanne d'Arc had red hair in this continuum, and maybe a certain woman named Helen too...does not at first seem like a particularly memorable passenger, even if James wonders why the Admiral insisted on him sailing her to Hispaniola instead of simply paying for her passage on the next post boat Don't look at me - I'm wondering too - though I doubt your average post boat would last very long with Scarlet aboard, and if nobody else, she probably knows that. Later he'll remember only too well how she laughed in the middle of the pitched three-way battle - and the taste of his own blood as she bit into his lips, the strength of her as she pushed him down on his cot, impaling herself and laughing as she rode him, laughing as he tried to push her off. Later he'll try to forget. Poor, traumatized James - Scarlet might be fun in a book, but I really don't think she's someone you'd like to meet, especially not if you're a fine soldier attracting her attention - even aside from the sideeffects of her presence. And of course, James isn't going to have any sort of counseling available. Poor guy. I'm really mean to him in this fic, aren't I?
Johann van Zwart might be a succesful merchant Ah, Famine, ever the businessman (and Dutch because, well, Dutch merchant was appropriate for the time - besides, I was running out of suitable languages) - I actually loved that Sable was a clever, modern businessman, letting people do his work for him, but listening to him talk about his business ventures is making this dinner party unbearably long - and the usually so very good food at the Governor's table tastes bland today - well, the better parts of it, anyway. James is a sailor, so he soldiers on, defiantly chewing and swallowing Considering some of the things people wound up eating after a few months at sea..., while around the table gentlemen and ladies are trying to discreetly not eat. And next to him, van Zwart drones on and on about his latest deal, a favourable monopoly on the selling of supplies for the slaves on some of the Windward Islands.
He never actually sees the man on the horse. I'm not entirely sure how come James can sense Death's presence here - perhaps it has something to do with his own imminent appointment in Samarra, perhaps it has something to do with his previous encounters with the other three horsemen He barely even sees the horse. He's fairly sure it's white. Reasonably sure. Maybe. Perhaps more yellow than white. Death on a pale horse. Except in the Danish version, it says gustengul, which is a sickly sort of yellow. And wikipedia has the original Greek word meaning something more along the lines of green. Very annoying horse. Anyway, what sort of a colour do you call pale to begin with??? But he'll stand before the gallows as the hangman opens the hatch or by the market as a rolling barrel crashes into a child or at the beach as the man whose second he was slowly collapses in a growing red pool - and he'll hear the sound of hooves and turn around one moment too late. Always too late. He's starts to hear it aboard ship and thinks perhaps he's growing crazy, then later in Tortuga and tries to drown it with rum, as the hooves sound as the echo of fired shots and angry shouts. Then he hears it aboard the Flying Dutchman and this time he finally manages to turn around in time, but he's still not entirely sure what colour the horse is.It should be said, I actually had fun writing this, figuring out appropriate scenarios for James meeting each horseperson and figuring out their personas - truth be told, I'm not entirely happy with Scarlet's, it feels too light, but finding an excuse for a foreign woman to be aboard a British naval ship at a convenient time for a battle - eventually I just went with a shrug, really. I suppose I could have made her a woman pirate attacking the Dauntless, but PotC already has an excess of women pirates - and while a woman sailing as part of the official crew - some officer's wife or maybe someone disguised as a sailor or a soldier - might be fun, I expect that ship wouldn't last very long... So, vaguely inconvenient passsenger she got to be