My characters are apt to live up to my expectations.
A sort of fictionalized take on my parodying the Ultravox album The Collection.
The lives of real and fictional people intertwined. A version of Jack Sparrow and the crew he had, including Will Turner and whoever joined him wherever, was still filling in the hole left by the recent sacking of his Lego counterpart, ostensibly called Jack Spasm, whom he had yet to properly replace in the minds of his readers.*
Now that their employer had all the Styx albums she wanted, Barbossa, another of said pirate crew, was having to look elsewhere for more songs to parody.
It was universally agreed, albums very familiar to their employer and her readers was where it was at.
Every pirate reached down and pulled a pen out of a pocket, ready to gradually figure out what to do. They could tell there would be advantages to doing so, especially considering how difficult the chosen album was.
But they knew they would keep to the known canon. No tales about, say, a shopkeeper being robbed by Barbossa, because that did not happen in any official material. Sure, they could have shown such a thing in the comic strip their employer was writing of they wanted to, but that was not how parody subjects should be chosen.
The songs were definitely saying things, but not every meaning helped them. Like, say, Vienna. Oh, yes, it was a city known to exist way out where they - the whole association - never went. Nor anywhere like it. Being a friend now would mean taking that into account.
Even if it would have to be worked hard on, at least this album was being worked on in advance. Thus, the job would not be panicked. It would be nice and as easy as it could be for Jack. He had the consideration of what he had, the wealth of material from what existed around him, and could use it all to find a way to use each of these songs, no matter what it had originally been about.
Work was done as vigorously as needed, and creative rhymes were come up with, like Mania
for Vienna and Dementia
for Lament.
Someone would put a finger on something to be worked with - and, as it turned out, there were a few of those, even if there was what would seem like a nonsense word in the 18th century here and there.
You know, these are good, the mention of rain and hearts in Passing Strangers. Oh, and the mention of all those little details we need not change in Visions in Blue,
said someone crawling around in the ivy in a port, pleased to have made such an observation. It did not matter exactly who.
Well, heck - previously songs like Suite Madame Blue whose meaning was not entirely clear to Buccaneer Blue herself had been used well. And so, everyone did her bidding - a bit murky as All Stood Still might have been, it got funny with All Got Ill.
Meanwhile, a plan for the next album might not have been needed before now, but Buccaneer Blue was thinking of the other Ultravox album she had. Parodying anything that recent would have made her old employees angry, out of their fear the audience they relied on having would not know the songs well enough.
But you know I can easily teach them,
Blue remarked to her current crew.
Buccaneer Blue was not a mother to the crew. She was glad she did not need to be like that to them, like she did her barnacle-burning former employees.
I now only sometimes think of those who screamed at everything, and were doing it still just one year ago,
she reflected. It was thanks to their absence she could set aside proper time for learning the next album. Never would she turn back.
Buccaneer Blue was pleased that her readers did not get any Squidbeard
ideas of parodies that could have happened here. It had happened before, and multiple times too, but once the current parody album was reached, not there. It seemed as if all that could be forgotten, for now.
All those parody titles. Each written by an anonymous pirate, but you could tell he or she was trying the right thing. It would take a long, pleasant time for the readers to watch all of the following parodies be shown. It was not just a living. It was treasure, like an amulet could be.
But then Buccaneer Blue had something to state about the next album.
It’s Brilliant,
she had to tell her readers, and play that album for them.
Foreverwillbetoolongifineverseeyouagain,
she thought back to the Comic Five. Further parodying would keep them out, even if her readers did not yet know what for, but that did not have to be discussed.
And now, I keep following ye along the coast, if you come,
she told her crew.
Spoiler: Those Lego characters could be at the well in some town for all Jack Sparrow knew. No reasons could be named not to leave them in the shadows.
Jack will do as his employer says.