There's good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.

cause she knows that it’d be tragic if those evil kaiju win i know she can beat them oh mako mori they don’t believe me but you won’t let those kaiju defeat me

1. will and elizabeth’s love story

2. elizabeth becoming pirate king

3. avoiding sexualizing elizabeth or the other female pirate characters in the first 3 films by allowing them to wear period-accurate pirate outfits that aren’t tailored to be revealing and impractical for ‘sex appeal’ just because they’re women

6. I run a corseting panel at cons and literally use Elizabeth’s lace-up scene as a video clip of what historical corseting was actually like, because the only thing they got wrong in this scene is that tightlacing wouldn’t be a thing for about another 200 years (and you couldn’t tightlace with the corset style Elizabeth is wearing anyway). It’s one of the most accurate corseting scenes I’ve ever seen.

7. Will’s hat.

8. That scene with all the pirates on the gallows where that little boy starts singing Hoist the Colours? Yeah, that’s fucking legendary. The rest of AWE was kind of a trash fire, but that scene gave me goosebumps.

9. There’s this great shot in the first one where they really drive home the class differences inherent in this time period by having the governor talking about progress and civilization to Elizabeth in their carriage, and then they cut to a shot outside the carriage where a beggar gets splashed by mud from the wheel. It’s a perfect way to underline that everything is not, in fact, a nice little upper-class fairytale, and to give some weight to Will’s storyline, because he has a lot more in common with that beggar than with the governor.

10. For its time, the CGI was fucking amazing.

11. And let’s not forget the work of the makeup department, which had to actually invent new ways of putting on makeup for this movie.

12. The governor’s death scene. Holy shit.

13. They could have gone with a Jack/Will/Elizabeth love triangle, but they didn’t. There are some hints Jack is in love (or at least in lust) with Elizabeth, but he recognizes that she loves Will, and that’s that.

And not just pirates. Presumably she’s been on a ship once- when she comes over from England. But nope no piracy wasn’t enough for this kid no she did some intense studying of sailing too because why not. So when they’re being chased down who’s coming up with all these nautical maneuvers? Elizabeth fucking Swann, sea nerd extraordinaire.

Fast forward and she’s not just a nerd anymore. And she isn’t a pirate, either. She’s the Pirate King, doing battle with Davy Jones and the entire British navy, with every Pirate Lord and their crews behind her. No more improvised weapons, no more parlay- she commands every black heart that ever set sail. And then her bae becomes ferryman for every soul lost at sea.

So then what? Everyone just goes back to what they were doing? And Elizabeth just goes home to make a quiet life for herself as a single mum? From studious sea nerd to Pirate King and now suddenly she’s happier at home, waiting for Will?

Give me an epilogue where Elizabeth has her father’s estate and enough gold to keep her comfortable for a lifetime, but instead travels the world, her son at her side. Adventuring and exploring, in and out of the law. Tell me she calls up Calypso for tea from time to time and they talk about uncharted lands and the price of sugar. Tell me in some ports she’s recognized as the daughter of Governor Swann and wined and dined. Tell me in some ports she’s recognized as the Pirate King and gets barrels rum on the house.

Tell me even honest sailors whisper stories of the mysterious and elusive Pirate King, who rarely strikes at all but then vanishes for years at a time.

Tell me Elizabeth spends time aboard the Flying Dutchman, so she can be with her husband, and her son can be with his father and grandfather. Imagine young William learns to sail on his father’s journeys to and from the land of the dead. And when he finally captains his own ship, he’s learned to be both a respectable gentleman and a good pirate.

Pirates use this innate fear to their advantage to protect themselves from mermaids, hence the iconic beards and hat:

If you look at the structure of a fin, it actually separates into sections. In some fish, these sections can get extra long, in the form of stiff spines or soft, flexible rays. You can see this most prominently in species like the lionfish:

It’s entirely possible that these structures could become longer and thinner over time and come to resemble a human hair, at least from a distance.

This opens up interesting possibilities such as:

Poisonous hair

Flaring out the hair-spines to scare off predators

Mating displays involving aggressive hair flipping

Elizabeth Swan should've remained the Pirate King and become a scourge of the seas, as she always dreamt of freedom and adventure and that's why Jack's magic compass always pointed to Jack when she held it, because he represented not romantic attraction but her love for adventure.

And she should've fucked her sexy undead boyfriend every time their ships happened to pass one another.

Seriously.

Why even do that "only fuck once in ten years" thing?

Fuck him every week, if you want.

Is it not pure romance, pure sex, for the Pirate King to rule the seas...and also the heart of a man who guides those lost at sea to the afterlife?

Is it not pure cinematic poetry for the curse of Davy Jones to be broken by a true unbreakable love, built between two people in love with not just one another, but the sea that brought them together?

Is that not pure romance and a fitting end to a movie series dedicated to the reckless and wild love humankind have always held for the dangerously alluring, tempestuous sea?

Honestly.

I liked pirates of the Caribbean but Elizabeth Swan would never.

Never.

elizabeth swann: sorcerer. natural charisma and an innate sense of calculation and cunning. quick to consider a lot of options at once. later on she gets more close-range options and can control whole battlefields. (dump stat: strength, the classic spellcaster minmax choice)

will turner: fighter, potential multiclass into rogue (or even cleric, depending on how you read into the ferryman thing). he does one thing really really good and it's fight things. comes with a lot of great proficiencies and a background that seems mundane but is deeply tied in with the narrative. of course. (dump stat: intelligence. sorry. his wis is good though.)

jack sparrow: a classic thief rogue — though i think you could argue for arcane trickster too. stumbles into situations and skill checks himself out of them. hidden depths lie beneath a roguish exterior and many, many sessions of bullshittery that somehow always tie back into the main plot. (dump stat: constitution. he's gotten hit in the head so many goddamn times.)

barbossa: hear me out: warlock. they have a lot of variation that can make it hard to tell what class they are, and you could argue that the aztec gold and later calypso are patrons to which he owes his unlife and, subsequently, his powers. comes with a high charisma stat for chewing the scenery. (dump stat: he cheated his stat rolls and has none)

norrington: paladin. my god. a paragon of light until he breaks his oath in dmc through no fault of his own and destroys himself clawing his way back into favor. (dump stat: strength, so he can be a dex-based paladin but his wis is probably next lowest)

beckett: bard. no further explanation.

davy jones: has since surpassed the levels of the class-based system but was a cleric, back in the day, devoted to a goddess he believed abandoned him. no it hasn't defined his existence for centuries. no he's not bitter. why do you ask?

calypso: aforementioned goddess ex. you know how it is.

elizabeth: the spellcasters with huge variety: cleric, druid, even wizard. being able to prepare for a situation while having enough wiggle room for wild card spells would be fun for her to balance i think. she leans heavy into every fairytale trope and it's delightfully self-indulgent.

will: hmm. in a game i can see him wanting to specialize in frontline tactics, keeping enemies off his allies and stirring up shit. perhaps barbarian or a dodge tank monk? aren't you tired of being nice? etc. i like the idea of him running right into the shit every single battle and being the only person standing at the end somehow.

jack: artificer or maybe ranger. both classes are built for very specific flavors and situations, but have enough shit to throw at the wall to weasel their way out of any scenario. lots of options and weird off-meta builds for him to play around with.

barbossa: HMMMM i can see him being very invested in building a dramatic story and ignoring half the rules. a simpler class, fighter or warlock maybe, that he can build a tight story around. or he's a brutal dm who always favors rule of cool over the rule book. and his players always face consequences for their actions. he's too sharp to let those opportunities pass

norrington: he likes single player games, and he's shy about role playing. i think he'd take great relief in classes that have built-in rp features, and he'd probably want to play support. bard and paladin come to mind. he mostly plays himself but a half-elf, but when he finally has a big rp moment you KNOW the whole table cries

beckett: good luck getting him to play pretend, but i think he'd like to dm. he would be really good at crafting a narrative, but he's going to throw a lot of very pointed obstacles in your way.