sanerontheinside
mentioned you on a post “1, 25, 29, 30”

@morgynleri yes please, and also I wanna hear more about your plot!? *puppyeyes*

😀

So I am patently ignoring the already written beginning because nope, and I’m going to go with something that fits better with a later piece anyway. Things under a cut because it got long.


Barbossa is one pirate among many that are involved in an attack on a Spanish galley ship heading for the Caribbean, of which one passenger is a newly married daughter of Vicente de Castilla (name subject to change, ‘cause this story is a decade old this past January, and my research was very light), whose husband is the son of a fairly wealthy merchant. This is not a particularly happy marriage, either on the part of the newly wed couple or their parents, but it is convenient for the families.

Anyway. Barbossa is the one who finds her, hiding in with the horses. She promises him anything he asks if he will just leave her to hide here. He agrees, if she provides him with a token that he can use to call on that debt – which is a heavy ring that was her grandfather’s. (Oh, just one of the rings he’s wearing in the movies.)

He keeps his end of the bargain, the pirates do not entirely destroy the Spanish ship because Plot. The heroine and her unwanted husband reach their destination, and nominally settle into their new life. With an often locked door between their bedrooms because she has no interest in him, thank you.

Barbossa shows up after his ship puts in to port, and he tells her he wants a ship. She can’t personally give him a ship, but she invites him to stay the night, while she writes letters – one to a ship captain, one to her father. Also sexy times happen while Barbossa is there, because he’s polite, charming, and a bit frightening, which is exciting (something her husband is not to her). She has approximately no fucks to give about what her husband will think of this.

The ring at this time remains with Barbossa, ‘cause proof to give to her father.

Barbossa goes off to Spain to get his ship, our heroine has a massive argument with her husband, and spends the next year in a convent. Sister Salome is one of the important people there, and is not entirely human (may once have been human, but certainly isn’t now; also, Salome is the name she’s using, not the name that is hers, she won’t tell me that one). Our heroine goes back home a few months after her daughter is born, and leaves her daughter behind reluctantly. Her husband does not want the child in his house, and she’s not confident what he might do if she brings her daughter home anyway.

This does not mean she does not keep in contact, just that Sister Salome and the sisters at the convent raise Elena.

Barbossa finds out he has a daughter some six or seven years later, and finds where she is, and returns to the ship he is captain of with a boy in tow. Because Elena does not care to present as a girl anyway. He leaves the ring with Sister Salome to give back to its owner when she asks after her daughter next.

Elena keeps writing letters to her mother, though how they get between them (if they get sent, even), I dunno. All I’m sure of is that there is some continued contact that also means Barbossa is in contact with Elena’s mother. Because Reasons (I may have actually lost the story, which is sad making, but it involved Barbossa and our heroine being adorable at some point post-AWE).

Fast forward a couple or three years. Barbossa’s ship gets caught in a hurricane, and wrecked. He manages to survive and gets to Tortuga or hauled out of the water by Jack. Elena surives and gets pulled out of the water by British sailors. (Elena is about 10 at this point.)

She gets brought back to Port Royal, because everything in this universe centers around Port Royal or Tortuga anyway. Spends the next years there, grumpy and annoyed about being told she’s a girl and needs to behave like one.

Stuff goes down with Barbossa and Jack and the Black Pearl and cursed treasure. The bit at the beginning of the first movie. Elena ends up meeting Will, because hello pulled out of the ocean orphans club. She’s older than him by a few years, and thinks he’s weird for settling into the local culture, ‘cause she’s mostly Spanish, vaguely Catholic, not really a girl but also not really a boy no matter what anyone tells her, and a pirate if she has a choice.

Things in the movie happen mostly as they do in canon, with bonus cranky Elena who wants off this island, damnit. And may well be willing to hold Jack and Will at gun point to get her off it, because nope, not staying here, can’t make her, and if you’re going off to rescue the governor’s daughter, at least have the decency to offer a friend a place on the ship.

(”Friend? You don’t like me.” “Only because you’re fucking English.”)

Something, something, Elena is going to kill someone because that’s her father, damnit you English bastards.

Elena makes very rude gestures, goes home (to Sister Salome, not her mother), and goes “nope, want him back, who do I talk to?” Sister Salome sends her to Tia Dalma, because of course two non-human female deities in the same general vicinity know each other.

Whatever goes on with Dead Man’s Chest I mostly ignore because Elena does not particularly care. Unless I give into the temptation of having her run into Mr. Down-On-His-Luck Norrington and thwap him upside the head but good.

Besides, that chunk of time is useful for Barbossa figuring out this not-dead thing and reconnecting with our heroine and being all adorable.

I need to rewatch AWE to remember how I was incorporating Elena in there, because like fuck is she leaving her father’s side again now that she’s found him.

(There is also, at this point, a certain amount of temptation to do Elena/Elizabeth, just because femslash, especially after Elizabeth takes up piracy. It was not in the original plot. On the other hand, if it doesn’t show up, it’s because Elena makes rude gestures at the idea of sex at all.)

Post AWE, Barbossa possibly getting a new ship because our heroine has at this point long since inherited everything from her father, and is perfectly capable of arranging a ship for her pirate lover. Also, she’s widowed for one reason or another, and may or may not have had any children with her late husband.)

And anything that happened after AWE in the so-called canon is not my canon and I do not care, because Barbossa with his pirate daughter and Spanish Lady, and just. Yeah.

Ah, right, that’s why I don’t watch that episode. Episodes. Bleah. *scrubs hand over face, and tries to pretend they’re not attempting to melt through the floor from second-hand embarrassment*

You know what the best thing about writing alternate universes is?

Fuck canon, I do what I want.

And the best thing about writing alternate histories is?

Fuck canon, I Do What I Want.

Good alternates do require an intimate knowledge of the fandom/historical period you’re breaking, but still.

Fuck. Canon. I do what I want.

(This brought to you today by screaming crankiness about the Borg and the alterations to canon brought about by Star Trek: First Contact, and putting a female face and a social insect facade over a forced-assimilation-into-the-dominant-culture, might-makes-right, one-true-way, military-imperialism-and-white-supremacy terror. FUCK. CANON. *gets out a metaphorical sledgehammer and goes after canon with it*)

I’m not sure if my distrust of this character is because Seven doesn’t entirely trust him, or because he’s played by Mark Sheppard.

(Also, I’m pretty sure my dislike of Icheb is both because recently becoming aware the actor has engaged in serious asshattery, and because the character is an arrogant little shit.)

Janeway, darling, you will always be my favorite captain from Star Trek, and I love you. But there has been more than one point where I’m fairly certain you need hit with a brick. And to be honest, perhaps some of those metaphorical bricks are ones I might not have recognized as ones needing to be introduced to you the first time I watched Voyager. Or even ten or five years ago, if I’d done a rewatch at those points. But I recognize those moments requiring a brick a bit better now, and damnit. *sighs, and scrubs hand through hair* At least this one is one you’re about to be hit with by one of your crew anyway.

*paws at the screen* Damnit. I want his clothes. I mean, Chakotay is a lovely person, and I keep wanting to have him sit down and let me draw him (because references are fantastic), but. I want the shiny pretty dark silver vest and the black underneath and just. *sighs, and makes more grabby hands*

(Ok, so it’s actually a leather jacket over black, and the silvery color is because lighting, but whatever. I want what my brain resolved. And I wouldn’t mind the leather jacket anyway.)

… And another bit of drama in Star Trek that could be avoided with seatbelts. *thumps head on desk a moment* One thing that definitely could be improved on. I mean, inertial dampers are all well and good, but they only go so far, and especially in the shuttles, which are far more likely to, oh, crash land than a star ship, seatbelts would be a huge safety feature.

morgynleri:

I don’t usually have OTPs for shows, though there are a couple notable exceptions. Babylon 5, Susan/Marcus (with Talia and Neroon to round out a polycule). And Voyager, Janeway/Chakotay. Others welcome, because polyamory everywhere, but. I remember thinking they were together when I was a kid-sized Morgyn who didn’t actually give much thought to romance anyway. (I’m not quite sure what my thought processes about it were at the time other than assuming that they would always be together. Which doesn’t have to be romantic, really.)

I’m watching this episode, and the interactions of Chakotay and Janeway keep making me think old married couple. People who have been around each other all their lives, and are comfortable with each other and just. There’s something there that makes me think lifelong friends or partners of some variation.

I don’t usually have OTPs for shows, though there are a couple notable exceptions. Babylon 5, Susan/Marcus (with Talia and Neroon to round out a polycule). And Voyager, Janeway/Chakotay. Others welcome, because polyamory everywhere, but. I remember thinking they were together when I was a kid-sized Morgyn who didn’t actually give much thought to romance anyway. (I’m not quite sure what my thought processes about it were at the time other than assuming that they would always be together. Which doesn’t have to be romantic, really.)