So I've gone ahead and read a fair amount of PoTC fanfic lately. It's been an interesting exercise.

Again, a lot of schlock. Luckily, it's pretty easy to figure those out in the first few lines and flee before it gets any worse.

Some awesome stuff though too, some ideas that had never occurred to me, and some fine wordplay about things I had ( Read more... )

Their route had taken them along the underside of Cuba, and around its west coast before turning northeast toward Nassau.

The weather was muggy and stifling, punctuated by terrible rain storms. The experience on ship was utterly different when one was soaked to the skin with salt water, weary from the oppressively dense air, and bitten everywhere ( Read more... )

Aside from the daily work routine, broken up occasionally by reaching port, there was plenty of training, and not just for the young men. Regular firing drills of the guns, the evening call of 'beat to quarters' so that getting to their battle stations on board ship took a shockingly short time, practicing sword techniques and learning to load and ( Read more... )

I'll be a bit busy to post for a day or so, but I'll definitely catch up. The story bits just keep coming to mind, but they should probably be written in chronological order so some of them will have to wait.

Notes as the character has developed since his creation:

I've noticed he's something of a long-distance momma's boy. Not in the weird Oedipus ( Read more... )

I was looking up details of Commodore uniforms for the time period, and I found this Commodore's portrait that looks an awful lot like Rothwell. Just widen the mouth a bit and straighten the brows, and you've pretty much got him. You might note that I did some changes along those lines to the avatar I'm using, which makes him Spot On.

This'll pretty ( Read more... )

Needless to say, PoTC's world is not entirely possible to create using historical information. The governor of Port Royal in the movie is dressed in about 1700's style, while the Navy appears to be situated about 1750-1760. Most PoTC fiction places it about 1740 as a compromise ( Read more... )

My first intent was just to write a few bits for Rothwell that were critical to character, but for some reason I keep wanting to know what happens to him in between those important character bits. So I guess as long as that stuff keeps coming to mind, I'll keep writing in chronological order about his entire career to date. I might end up having to ( Read more... )

It was impossible to let the matter drop. It was too important to Rothwell to know what was going to come of all this, and he wasn't naive enough to think that the issue was done. Someone stole the meat, and Norrington had taken some form of blame while excusing Rothwell from the scenario entirely. He could certainly take that gift and forget all ( Read more... )

He'd just set the bag of food down for a moment, or what he thought was a moment, to dash to the head. It had looked perfectly unmolested when he returned, but now that he was standing there before the cook with the bag open, his insides clenched to an awful, lurching halt ( Read more... )

Sitting up on the rail of the forecastle was not something Rothwell generally was able to do, or particularly interested in doing. But tonight it was a pleasant whimsy, and he felt secure enough with his left arm wrapped around the curve of the bowsprit. The ship rocked gently, creaking as it brushed against the docks, the sound a gentle bass ( Read more... )