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#oh and like. this isnt a 'they should know/research this stuff' its a fucking minceraft fanfic i know theyre not gonna research its fine
dykesymmetry · 3 years
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I'm sorry to tell you but I would love to hear about the historical inaccuracies and all of your qualms with the pirate au with naval captain techno and this is your blog on a site you presumably come onto to enjoy yourself so you genuinely should have to worry about offending people with your thoughts and opinions so long as you're respectful and acknowledge their efforts before listing what was done wrong so they can learn :// /gen
WAH ok ok. uh. this is not gonna be a super serious rant bc i dont have any actual issues w the fic and its very well-written and if u like shit like potc or whatever u should definitely read it bc its very fun. that being said thats also MY special interest theyre butchering so im just gonna like. infodump about golden age of piracy below the cut
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gonna start this off rq by saying im ignoring any obviously fantastical elements like erets magic or the weird storm at the beginning cause like. idrc about adding in fantasy shit, my own pirate au has like. piglins and shit. its fine idc
ok first major point is like. general characterization. which i dont honestly think is the fault of the writer misunderstanding the characters or anything, i think its more just the general assumption that pirates were all lawless renegades and the navy were idealistic men or something, in which case, lil bastard shit philza would fit the pirate role better while deeply ideological techno would fit the navy. but. i find it really fucking hard to believe that a character whos anarchist ideals make up a big portion of his motivations would be a bootlicker. and he honestly fits pretty well into the role of pirate captain? a big part of like. piracy in general. was creating this terrifying image of yourself, bc realistically you didnt want to get in a fight with every ship, that costs ammo and ship repairs and possibly lives. and i think technoblade, someone who is usually known as The Blade and who has a reputation for just being. super fucking bloodthirsty. but in reality has deepseated ideals and is determined to protect his friends at all costs, would fit way better into the role of pirate captain than phils casual war criminal self would (to be clear: i aint saying phil wouldnt be a pirate, he absolutely would. im just saying hed be a kinda shit captain tbh)
second point: pirate crews did not have the same highly hierarchical approach to roles on a ship as the navy did. to the writers credit, they kinda touched on this in ch 3 when they mentioned that the mens loyalty would still lie w phil rather than techno, but like. pirate captains werent just put into place like that, and certainly not by the previous captain. they were generally elected by the crew, who could then elect someone else if they didnt live up to their standards. also, when someone joined the crew, there'd be this whole captains code thing that theyd have to read and sign (admittedly, i know why they didnt put that part in, paperwork is boring im not faulting them for that)
along the same lines as the hierarchical shit, there wasnt really a first mate, at least in terms of like. "second in command." what there Was was a quartermaster, someone who kinda like. relayed messages between the crew and captain. again, not a huge grievance, just something that kept bugging me every time they mentioned it
another rather small grievance but one that bugged me nonetheless: at the end of ch 3, they had this moment where techno looked up at their colors and had a minute of Self Reflection that i completely ignored bc like. you would absolutely not just sail around w the black raised you are a sitting fucking target and it gives any navy vessel/pirate hunters just like. a dead giveaway that you should be attacked. youd only raise the colors if you were like. actively chasing a prize
ALSO while we're at it. this ones not a historical inaccuracy but is more of just a missed opportunity. not everyone had the same flag! most pirate captains had their own unique designs, some a bit more. goofy. than others
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in phil and my au, techno has a flag similar to calico jacks (top right), but with a pig skull instead of a humans. again, its not entirely historically inaccurate, but it wouldve been cool to see what their ideas were for a unique philza flag
ok my last major issue here and one i wanted to save for last bc its a bit more graphic than others: corporal punishment (pogchamp!). im gonna be honest, im not super familiar w what could and couldnt get you punished w the royal navy, But what i do know is that the whole. cutting off a hand thing. would not be super accurate. if he was punished, hed likely be whipped (probably w a cat o nines which are like. super fucking brutal. not a fun time in the slightest). amputations were more of a "whoops you got an infection and this is the 18th century so our treatment is just to Chop" thing
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