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sorcyressBefore I talk about the actual character for today, I need to talk about a half-character. So, let me introduce you to Green-Eyed Sue
Sue gets about twelve lines, in the last third of s00j's three part Wendy Trilogy (which picks up when Wendy is on Hook's ship and told to turn pirate or walk the plank --"the story goes she told him no, but not all tales are true").
and then, after Wendy declares she's ready to go home...
and as a lesson, at the very end...
Ohhhhhh yes. Thankfully, I was blessed with parents who wouldn't dream of telling me that playing pirate was a boy's game (not when Commodore Greykell rules the Chesapeake Bay), so I never had to go off and become a Lost Girl proper, but trust me, the freedom of the sea has called to me longer than most anything else. I was already well into the pirate theme when the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out --you can keep your x-wings, boys, I've got a different sort of ship to sail1.
And at the end, that's the line I need. "First time I've been free" --freedom is my life force, my desire, my need. Everything from my love life to my collection of notebooks echo and reflect on my endless drive to be forever free.
So that's Green-Eyed Sue. But she's not really a character, she's only a few lines in a song2. Not like, say...
Mary "Bloody Jacky" Faber.
There are 12 books in her saga --the last of which I have not yet read3-- and they are some of the finest young adult literature I've ever had the pleasure of consuming. In the first book (Bloody Jack: Being An Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship’s Boy), we follow Jacky as she sneaks onto a ship of the Royal Navy as a ship's boy --doubly complex since she's every inch a fiery young woman. Her series of books is some of the finest historical fiction tall tales there are to read --she rubs shoulders with Goya, Napoleon, Washington, and King George at various points. She sails the seas of China and all the way down the Mississippi, she sings and dances and acts, and she sails on every ship imaginable --navy, slavers, whalers, pirate.
Please read these books, they are so so good.
But the thing that makes them the most good is the spitfire heroine, who is...so me. So *very* me. Even for this project, she is *exceptionally* me. Jacky is impulsive, she doesn't always think her plans through, instead trusting in her ability to improvise her way out of anything. She loves the sea, she loves her *freedom* and she's forever moving towards it. She somehow manages to inspire an overwhelming loyalty in her friends and loved ones, even when she frustrates them madly. And the flirting! Oh, the flirting!!
She is the first YA character I've ever seen who I actually had a stake in her love triangle. Mostly because Jacky's got her true love forever (and she is, of course, saving her precious maidenhood for dear Jaimy), but when he's not around, she's more than willing to have a little bit of fun with the closest bit of pretty...and not just pretty boys! It's pretty clear in a couple of them that she's willing to snuggle up with other young ladies (and I stubbornly maintain the interpretation that her and Cheng Shih were lovers, it's increasingly un-subtle as the series progresses...and yes, that is Cheng Shih as in the greatest pirate queen of all time.)
And her dreams! Oh, Jacky dreams big and wide and splendid! Somewhere around book five or six I took a step back and said "okay, this is too much suspension of disbelief that a character could have all these things happen." And then I checked my damn brain, and reprocessed and went "ah. These are tall tales. She is a folklore heroine, and therefore *of course* she's going to hang with everyone famous of the day." She has such brilliant adventures, from singer to spy, and throughout it all she's going back and forth with her costuming as to whether she wants to present as a girl or a boy. She's not presented as a trans character, not really, but she is presented as a female character who actively *wants* to spend a lot of time dressed as a boy, and not because she "has" to, and that's a very satisfying kind of queer for me to read about.
I love Jacky Faber like fire and earth. I'm probably due for another read through of her books.
I'm going to post this before it gets any longer. Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me!
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Actually, I am one thousand percent in favour of space pirates. Someone has a little meta-fanfic they wrote for Captain Jack Sparrow and the second great Age of Exploration (which has not yet happened), and it's perfect.
2: ACTUALLY apparently she's also s00j. Like, s00j was called Susie Rotten and everything. There are some substantial reasons why I don't wanna compare myself one way or another to Ms. Tucker (although I will always feel a weird twinge looking at the cover of Tangles because UM THAT'S ME in the drawing. Most of the drawings of her don't twitch that in me, but that one, man.
3: For much the same reason I've never read Dirk Gently. LA Meyer passed away a couple years ago (may the sea keep his soul), and once I've read the last Jacky book there will never be any more, not ever. It hurts too much to consider. Someday, just not yet.
Sue gets about twelve lines, in the last third of s00j's three part Wendy Trilogy (which picks up when Wendy is on Hook's ship and told to turn pirate or walk the plank --"the story goes she told him no, but not all tales are true").
One day Wendy says to Peter, "I'd like more girls on my crew."
So Peter goes a-hunting Lost Girls and brings back Green-eyed Sue.
Green Eyed Sue was feisty, quite surly and quite sad
called Suzy Rotten by her mum and tomboy by her dad.
At the chance to be a pirate and call Peter Pan a friend,
Her face lit up, her sadness fled, and she ne'er looked home again.
She proudly followed Wendy, and she ne'er went home again.
Sue becomes first mate, as she's the first Lost Girl to live upon
the ship and give to Wendy all the spirit she can give.
and then, after Wendy declares she's ready to go home...
Nearly all the crew let Wendy know they cannot wait
But stoic stand a handful, including the first mate.
Green-eyed Sue before her captain asks to plainly speak her mind:
"It's sooner I'd lay down my life than leave this ship behind!"
"A simple life of growing up is surely not for me.
Working as a sailor's been the first time I am free.
So by your leave dear Captain, I will be a pirate still
And carry on the legacy of our Red-handed Jill!"
and as a lesson, at the very end...
Such warning fables show each mom and dad a thing or two.
If e'er your sweetling makes a cutlass from a cardboard tube,
You'll ne'er berate nor tell her it's a boy's game she pursues.
The freer that you raise a mind, the brighter it will bloom,
And ye'd rather have her home than off to join some scurvy crew
Or sail with the likes of Green-eyed Sue!
Ohhhhhh yes. Thankfully, I was blessed with parents who wouldn't dream of telling me that playing pirate was a boy's game (not when Commodore Greykell rules the Chesapeake Bay), so I never had to go off and become a Lost Girl proper, but trust me, the freedom of the sea has called to me longer than most anything else. I was already well into the pirate theme when the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out --you can keep your x-wings, boys, I've got a different sort of ship to sail1.
And at the end, that's the line I need. "First time I've been free" --freedom is my life force, my desire, my need. Everything from my love life to my collection of notebooks echo and reflect on my endless drive to be forever free.
So that's Green-Eyed Sue. But she's not really a character, she's only a few lines in a song2. Not like, say...
Mary "Bloody Jacky" Faber.
There are 12 books in her saga --the last of which I have not yet read3-- and they are some of the finest young adult literature I've ever had the pleasure of consuming. In the first book (Bloody Jack: Being An Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary “Jacky” Faber, Ship’s Boy), we follow Jacky as she sneaks onto a ship of the Royal Navy as a ship's boy --doubly complex since she's every inch a fiery young woman. Her series of books is some of the finest historical fiction tall tales there are to read --she rubs shoulders with Goya, Napoleon, Washington, and King George at various points. She sails the seas of China and all the way down the Mississippi, she sings and dances and acts, and she sails on every ship imaginable --navy, slavers, whalers, pirate.
Please read these books, they are so so good.
But the thing that makes them the most good is the spitfire heroine, who is...so me. So *very* me. Even for this project, she is *exceptionally* me. Jacky is impulsive, she doesn't always think her plans through, instead trusting in her ability to improvise her way out of anything. She loves the sea, she loves her *freedom* and she's forever moving towards it. She somehow manages to inspire an overwhelming loyalty in her friends and loved ones, even when she frustrates them madly. And the flirting! Oh, the flirting!!
She is the first YA character I've ever seen who I actually had a stake in her love triangle. Mostly because Jacky's got her true love forever (and she is, of course, saving her precious maidenhood for dear Jaimy), but when he's not around, she's more than willing to have a little bit of fun with the closest bit of pretty...and not just pretty boys! It's pretty clear in a couple of them that she's willing to snuggle up with other young ladies (and I stubbornly maintain the interpretation that her and Cheng Shih were lovers, it's increasingly un-subtle as the series progresses...and yes, that is Cheng Shih as in the greatest pirate queen of all time.)
And her dreams! Oh, Jacky dreams big and wide and splendid! Somewhere around book five or six I took a step back and said "okay, this is too much suspension of disbelief that a character could have all these things happen." And then I checked my damn brain, and reprocessed and went "ah. These are tall tales. She is a folklore heroine, and therefore *of course* she's going to hang with everyone famous of the day." She has such brilliant adventures, from singer to spy, and throughout it all she's going back and forth with her costuming as to whether she wants to present as a girl or a boy. She's not presented as a trans character, not really, but she is presented as a female character who actively *wants* to spend a lot of time dressed as a boy, and not because she "has" to, and that's a very satisfying kind of queer for me to read about.
I love Jacky Faber like fire and earth. I'm probably due for another read through of her books.
I'm going to post this before it gets any longer. Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate's life for me!
~Sor
MOOP!
1: Actually, I am one thousand percent in favour of space pirates. Someone has a little meta-fanfic they wrote for Captain Jack Sparrow and the second great Age of Exploration (which has not yet happened), and it's perfect.
2: ACTUALLY apparently she's also s00j. Like, s00j was called Susie Rotten and everything. There are some substantial reasons why I don't wanna compare myself one way or another to Ms. Tucker (although I will always feel a weird twinge looking at the cover of Tangles because UM THAT'S ME in the drawing. Most of the drawings of her don't twitch that in me, but that one, man.
3: For much the same reason I've never read Dirk Gently. LA Meyer passed away a couple years ago (may the sea keep his soul), and once I've read the last Jacky book there will never be any more, not ever. It hurts too much to consider. Someday, just not yet.
For Posterity
on 2021-08-14 04:33 am (UTC)#pirates of the caribbean was kind of a formative influence #so here’s the thing #after years of chasing curses and hearts and fountains; losing the pearl and winning her back and losing her again #after rum enough to drown his sins and sorrows both#captain jack sparrow wakes up one morning and he’s immortal #just like that #no deals with calypso (he hasn’t been able to find her since the brethren court broke her chains) no desperate double-dealing #one morning he just…stops #stops aging stops dying #he gets the seas forever—except #except #the edges of the map are closing in #the lure of undiscovered treasures is waning and merchant ships are becoming better defended #the day that the East India Company takes Shipwreck Island; Jack feels a great chapter in the world’s history close #(he flees to the Barbary coast with the rest of his ilk; but the romance has gone out of it—the is too much desperation #too much hunger too much blood to it nowadays #the age of the swashbuckler won’t live out the decade) #I imagine this thing he’s chased all his life would crumble through his hands as he bounced from ship to ship #he never gets used to the square rigging on the clippers; though they lead to some good work running tea from china #but the first time he sees a steamship he nearly walks off the dock out of shock #of all the ways sailing would have changed; who thought you’d get rid of the /sails/ #(he swears he’s never getting on one of those monstrosities; let alone sailing on one) #(he manages to hold out until 1893 when the longing for the sea overwhelms him and he decides that even #that ghastly smog and the humming of the engines can be endured) #sometimes he’ll see calypso out of the corner of his eye—leaning on the deck railing; darting alongside the ship with the dolphins #(someone in the early 20th century tells him they’re not fish and he nearly busts a gut laughing) #he wears a hundred names and a hundred looks; cuts his hair short or grows it long #calls himself american; spanish; english (british); caribbean #he has two dozen different copies of Stevenson’s Treasure Island—it reminds him of something gone and half-forgotten #and in 1920 when Seitz comes out with Pirate Gold; Captain Jack Sparrow is in the first row (x)
And then in the future, everything changes. He’s been through it all, of course-watched humanity rediscover the heavens above them, watched them begin to wonder what’s out there. He cheered with the rest of the world when they landed on the moon, cheered as if he’d found Isla de la Muerta all over again, because there was something new. New treasure, a new horizon. But then they stop going, stop exploring, and he goes back to riding tankers across the rising seas. So he’s surprised when one day he wakes up from a night with his bottle of rum (his truest companion), and hears that there’s colonies on Mars now, and they need ships to supply them. He spends the next decade crafting new identities, learning all he can to qualify for the job, and after several tries (and even more faked deaths-this immortality thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in the age of the inerasable digital self) he gets it. The ships go nearly constantly now, the needs of the terraforming project creating an unbroken line of vessels from Mars to Earth and back again. “Show me that horizon,” he whispers to himself, his personal prayer of thanksgiving, each time they leave orbit, because the worlds, the stars are in motion and it’s never the same, with nearly three years for a round trip the ports are always different, even if they keep the old names. And finally one trip something goes wrong with the reactor, they’re too low on power and have to deploy the backups, and Jack (Lucky Jack, they call him, for he survives too many things he shouldn’t but science has yet to accept that maybe some things weren’t old wives’ tales after all) goes out for the spacewalk to bring up the solar panels. And as they rise, geometric patterns black against the sun’s glare, he’s struck by a powerful sense of déjà vu, because it’s all here-wind and sails, a ship beneath his feet and stars above his head, horizon in all directions. He wonders, for a moment, if the reason he’s still here is because the universe wanted a witness, to mourn the end of one age of exploration, and rejoice in the birth of the next.
(Source: jamesfrancos, via robinade)
Tags: pirates of the caribbean jack sparrow meta fanfic scifi i wrote a thing