The Crew provide great delight not just because they are my characters, but because they are my friends.
A sort of fictionalized take on my parodying the Ultravox album Brilliant - and, since there was not much story there, what I had going on afterward.
Jack was doing his charge given by Buccaneer Blue again.
Employer and character had been tormented by the same tentacles, the same things they wanted to speed away from, but even as they did, they kept running into reminders of those experiences. Like, perhaps, hearing a pipe organ - the kind of instrument they knew mostly from having that horrible little octopus dangling over it, in the cabin of the supernaturally seaworthy Flying Dutchman. It had recently turned out they did not know that instrument was one Styx had a history of turning to.*
But they had found creative ways to let out what was gripping their minds. Instead of being frustrated that they could now see anything related to their enemy anywhere - organ music, a bad relationship, losing souls - they could have fun with it.
Now, following the connection from the previous album they had done, The Collection, they had their next album to parody chosen.
Knowing his employer as well as he did, Jack had little need to communicate. Having settled on what to do, having experimented and gained experience, he knew he’d do the part in full. The captain’s good standing would continue.
Antigua - a definite part of the Caribbean where the crew possibly had decided they would parody - after going to the tavern and possibly sleeping there, of course. How the album they were using got there was hard to explain, but the Crew were happily carrying on writing the parodies Give,
Know,
Brilliance,
Eyes,
Yellow,
Fright,
and Blight.
As long as it was funny, not too many questions needed to be asked.
This had to be reflected on considering certain characters who had been sacked not long ago. They were the type who would constantly watch the life of their employer, thinking her looking at a totem might help give them material. (They never actually did that exact example, but it would be easy to imagine.)
The crew stepped onto the S.S. Imagination as normal.
Oh, good for you. You did the bit I needed,
the employer told the crew. But I am holding off a bit on giving you your next charge. When I turn back to you, I want to make sure I need to.
The future has been decided,
Barbossa announced dramatically to the pirates. Buccaneer Blue had decided to draw her strip larger, and was eager to do new things with that space. Thus, parodies would continue.
Aaaaaah!
What?
But initially, the change brought something terrible. It had been some time since Blue had stripped her previous employees, the Lego pirates known as the Comic Five, of the right to do anything in the parodying studio aboard the S.S. Imagination, which one would hope would mean they would move on to looking at reptiles or fish or something, but no, they continued their elaborate schemes to stay in the strip.
Both Lego and not Lego versions of Jack felt they were gifted people, getting the larger strip. But the first things they wanted to do with it were not compatible.
We need the material, and so must discuss the larger strip while it is fresh,
the Five argued. But the readers will notice on their own,
the crew pointed out.
For that, they were dragged toward a hearth (since the Five were not really sailors) and left in front of it, tied up.
We need every drop of material we can get, and must take such limited-time stuff while we can!
Something suddenly had to happen, coming around the volcanic islands in the Caribbean - while that place was, as always, being ignored by the Five. Why they demanded to have dregs of material but rejected the large, fine, well-suited sources of fodder for strips, there was no good answer. That was the exact opposite of what the crew considered the best.
The show off of the bigger strip ran its course, which took days. But Blue knew she would be giving the non-Lego crew another lift. Allowing the Five to do all that carrying on had been enough loosening things, after all.
The Five had wandered off, spending the month of March seeing what places had seasonal weather coming in, possibly. Blue would not make public why they would be anywhere frozen, other than that her readers would know what that was about.
The Crew grabbed on the railing of the exceptionally Lego-proof S.S. Imagination - just what would take them closer to what their employer wanted. They nodded quickly as that grand pirate, Jack, was brought forth. . .
The perpetually sopping wet enemy was featured in every parody of this album, simply because it was the better way to use those songs. But now there was Jack, having to consider he did not even like the idea of the thing he was parodying about, he was then casting himself elsewhere.
All that focus had been on Jack, because he was the one to get caught up in things. Of course, meanwhile, he had the whole crew. Jack’s wish for the future was to reflect the crew was still there, as he had in Blight.
From going to port to doing a night watch, they had lots of things to do and perhaps sing about.
By now, Blue knew quite well what the crew could do. And so now, Jack was the one to ask what was next. From overhead, his employer sent Outside Looking In The Best Of The Gin Blossoms.
Jack will have all he wants.