See ALL the stars!
Why not just go with "ordinary" pirate personalities?
Da Rules excuse all the inaccuracy in the world. Listen to them, not me.
What are regular pirate personalities?
I suppose you could make one a romantic, and sees their entire existence as one big glorious adventure. Maybe another which has some kind of grudge against the law and gets a little axe crazy when she gets the chance to hurt some guards or police. Perhaps one who is just plain in it for the money, likes to count her cash regularly etc.
Not sure if any of that helps.
edited 8th May '11 7:38:42 AM by BaleFire
Dreamkeepers Prelude, check it out!
Plus, have you seen & enjoyed any shows with pirates in them? You could make gender-swapped Expies of your favorite characters. (What would a female Captain Jack Sparrow be like?)
edited 8th May '11 7:39:46 AM by Ettina
If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.
watching down on us
Females really aren't that different from males. The only difference between a male and a female pirate is how the setting reacts to said pirate.
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.
@Bale Fire Ah cool thanks. It does.
@Ettina That's true. I should rewatch the Pirates of the Carribean movies.
@annebeech well in this universe female pirates aren't exactly anything new. The majority of pirates are female and males are like Pirate Wenches or occasionally Mooks.
Also...speaking of the culture, what new stereotypes and prejudices could there be in a world where gender roles are reversed? So far what I have is that things like skirts jewelry and such are alright for looking good but women are expected to be strong and capable or great intellectuals. Guys.....I don't know.
Sorry if the last thing I said came out wrong. I didn't mean to suggest that I believe one sex is above the other but to explain the cultural view.
edited 8th May '11 9:27:38 AM by JewelyJ
Zzzzzzzzzz
What Annebeeche said still holds true. Women don't have a different set of personalities form men. There are bullies and wallflowers and braggarts and flirts and quietly competent and flamboyant and funny and gloomy and Casanovas and ...well,, you get the picture.
edited 8th May '11 9:55:00 AM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
watching down on us
Reversed.
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.
^^ah right. Sorry I misunderstood.
I agree with Madrugada and annebeeche - as anyone who's been following the "What if your main characters were the opposite gender" thread will know, I really oppose the idea of there being "gender-specific" personalities. So my advice would be to simply gender-flip a bunch of Pirate Tropes, disregarding only those that would be physically impossible (like, say, Captain Colorbeard).
One thing to note, though, is that a reversed-gender society like this has a lot of potential for a badly-delivered Aesop on equality, so be careful with that.
"Also...speaking of the culture, what new stereotypes and prejudices could there be in a world where gender roles are reversed? So far what I have is that things like skirts jewelry and such are alright for looking good but women are expected to be strong and capable or great intellectuals. Guys.....I don't know."
A cool idea I had once - men are considered weak because of their susceptibility to Groin Attack. They vastly overestimate the likelihood of a guy's balls being permanently damaged, and claim that any guy who doesn't live a sheltered life will end up infertile.
If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.
^^Well the intended Aesop is "In any situation where one gender is believed superior to another there will be problems" I'm going to try and be careful about that.
^Hey that's interesting. I was considering having the reason for women being preferred is the fact that they can give birth. In this society the ability to sustain life is viewed as a sign of strength. Though I'm unsure about using it as seeing GroinAttacks in media is a major Squick for me. Maybe it could be one reason
Any other reasons? I'm sure there would be more than one reason for a "Men should Stay in the Kitchen" mentality.
edited 8th May '11 5:23:26 PM by JewelyJ
watching down on us
A couple years ago I tried to develop a dystopian society based on bees, where both matriarchy and later hivemindedness applied. (I never finished it though.)
- Men are forbidden to grow out their hair. Extra body hair is also considered unclean, so men must shave their beards, chest hair (if any) and leg hair (if an obscene excess).
- Men are forbidden from wearing skirts, dresses, and other such "feminine" garments, except for robes on ceremonial occasions.
- It's not rare for a wealthy mother or wife to have her son or husband drained of any extra fat that he may develop.
- Often, a mother may have an unmarried, come-of-age [thirteen] son dress in a partially opened collar in the hopes that a woman would notice him. A married man always keeps his collar closed.
Just some ideas to toss about.
edited 8th May '11 5:26:02 PM by annebeeche
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.
Those sound interesting. I think I might use the first and last two. Do you have a Fictionpress name I can give the credit to?
Though I think I'll let them have head hair xD.
edited 8th May '11 5:27:39 PM by JewelyJ
watching down on us
No, just credit Anne Beeche if you need.
Actually, you may not even need to give credit so long as you don't use all of them at once. The first and penultimate aren't too particularly unique.
EDIT: They had head hair, they just kept it cut short. I just decided to take the fashion of the present day and twist the history behind it.
edited 8th May '11 5:29:08 PM by annebeeche
Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.
Well I'm considering adjusting it to have two people sent in to the world and exploring two classes. The hero gets caught up in noble culture which could be something like you described. His Rival gets wrapped up in the world of piracy and ends up being the male version of the Pirate Wench.
The pirate culture is still sexist and chauvinistic but in a different way.
edited 8th May '11 6:01:15 PM by JewelyJ
Street Writing Man
@OP: My suggestion is to do Expies of famous historical pirates, and just give them a gender lift. Heck, in two famous cases (Mary Read and Anne Bonny) you wouldn't even have to do that. Some other suggestions:
- Captain Edward Teach: Better known to history as "Blackbeard" (for his Bad Ass dreadlocked chin-wig that he stuck slow-burning fuses into to strike fear in his opponents' hearts - and it worked, He was a psychotic holy terror...both in and out of combat. He was fond of buying a cask of wine, sitting in the street with it and forcing people to drink with him at pistol point. He also on more than one occasion locked his crew in the hold of the ship, blew out the candles and then fired his pistols in random directions, as a way to find disloyal crew (if you got hit you were disloyal, because "the lord hates a liar", as he once said). When going into battle, he carried two cutlasses, three daggers and six pistols, augmenting those with a cut-down musket on occasion. It is a shame that he's never been given a good historical fiction, because the story of his life reads like the best pirate movie never made.
- Bartholomew Roberts, aka "Black Bart"; One of the few non-drinking captains, he also holds the best (Western) piratical record, taking over 400 vessels in his career. He was a snappy dresser, somewhat religious, and his crew worshipped him.
- "Calico" Jack Rackham: Mostly known for being the captain of both female pirates, he was also known for being bold, reckless and entirely too fond of women (inconclusive historical data suggests he slept with both Read and Bonny during their time on his ship). He was also a snappy dresser, and his love of colorful clothes resulted in his nickname.
- Francois L'lonais: A french pirate known for his sadism. He would roast men alive on wooden spits, or if he was feeling creative, the following...cut open a man's stomach, nail one end of his intestines to a pole, and then chase the poor bastard around with a hot iron, until his guts all spilled out. Not a nice fellow.
- Captain Kidd: something of an Epic Fail where piracy was concerned, Captain Kidd was supposedly privateering for England, but circumstance (and his own bad temper/worse decisions) caused him to be arrested for piracy and murder by English authorities. Mostly famous for his "buried treasure", which historians now agree may never have existed at all.
- I can't remember her name, but there was a Chinese pirate who, in the mid-1800s, commanded a fleet of ships larger than some navies. She is also one of the few pirates to be pardoned by their country of origin and live out her days with her plunder intact. Considered by historians to be the most "successful" pirate of all time. Started out as a prostitute.
There are others, of course. I suggest this idea because I took it and it worked out well - the main pirate in my series is a female Expy of Edward Teach named Black Beckah.
If I were to write some of the strange things that come under my eyes they would not be believed. ~Cora M. Strayer~
Thanks for all your help. I have the personalities down now and I've gotten almost all of them named. Including the captain who is known as 'The Cutthroat Duchess' because of her brutality and her obsession with "good breeding".
Now I have only one nickname left. This character is a notorious braggart. She is boastful, arrogant and jealous of the captain. She tells tall tales about her fights, her sexual conquests, the towns she's pillaged etc. She's a total show off and once had a fit when the captain told her she couldn't declare herself a commodore (for her pirate name).
^ Bigmouth Betsy?
If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.
Okay so I came up with this idea for a story where one of my characters gets sucked into an alternate Steampunk world where the gender roles are reversed. Females are the head of households and breadwinners while men stay at home.
Because of his 'unusual' behavior the male protagonist gets into some trouble with shady characters and ends up making a deal with a pirate captain who lusts after him. He becomes the ship's cook.
I need to come up with the personalities of a bunch of female pirates. I have a few in mind but suggestions would be nice.