elanya

1- If you could be aboard any pirate ship in any position other than
captain, whose ship would you serve on and in what position, and why?

I think that would have to be Calico Jack Rackham's ship, because then I'd get to meet him, plus Anne Bonny *and* Mary Read, and there there would be even more female pirates al together! Arr! As to what position, well, on any pirate ship[ the best position is probably Quartermaster… You are the one who is really in charge! Captain's only have absolute authority in battles, everything else is decided by voting. But Quartermasters are in charge of all the stuff. I.E. the loot ^-^


2- If you were banned from pursuing your present career in
anthro/archaeology, what profession would you want to pursue and why?

There are bunch of things I have considered. I might like to try my hand at writing fiction… Or else, if I have my driver's licence, I might join CSIS, or try to become some kind of diplomat. I like writing, but I don't think it is something I could make myself do enough of to live from. As for CSIS, well, who wouldn't want to be a spy? I want excuses to travel and meet people in interesting situations. CSIS work would give me that, as would diplomatic stuff.

3- Name the person who has influenced you the most in the last five
years (I think that asking that about someone's whole life is unfair).

Let me think… what were my last five years, hmm…. School, school, working, England, here. Okay, this may be a *bit* odd, but I am going to have to say shanmonster. I am not an easily influenced person… but she introduced me to bellydancing, which has become one of my primary interests, and also to Kung Fu, which made me interested in other martial arts, or at least, encouraged me to actually *do* them rather than just being interested. And this is going to inflate her ego like nothing else, I'm sure ^-^

4- Name your favourite fictional pirate and explain why he or she is
your favourite. Do the same for your favourite historical pirate.

You know… I'm not sure if I have a favourite *fictional* pirate or not :o How about a favourite fictionalized pirate? In which I will yoink George Macdonald Fraser's depiction of Calico Jack Rackham. He was a suave, and cool, and stuff, and I like how things turned out for him, and also his relationship with Anne in the book was rather touching, in a highly amusing way, of course.

As for my favourite *real* pirate… It depends on my mood. Generally I'll have to go with Howell Davis. He was very clever, and kind of fits the ideal of the 'gentleman pirate captain'. There is an account written by a merchant named William Snelgrave who was capture by pirates, and who ran into Davis as a captive. Davis not only managed to get him back *a* ship (if not his ship), but got the crew on his (Snelgrave's) side so much they wanted to give him *extra* stuff! And when Snelgrave declined (because that technically would have been illegal), Davis managed to placate the crew so that they didn't kill him for refusing their generosity. Another favourite thing of mine that Davis did was to fake out a French ship by making an impromptu flag out of a didrty tarp n a ship he had just taken over to make it look like there were two pirate ships. I also partly love that little scene because it beautifully illustrates English attitudes towards their traditional antagonists. The Johnson/Defoe quote is something along the lines of "Their French hearts failed them and they surrendered immediately." No offence ;D

My *absolute* favourite Davis ploy, however, was the following: He went into a Portuguese port and managed to convince the governor that he was a French man of War! And that they were looking for pirates in the area! So when a promising looking ship would come near, Davis would just go and 'search' them for 'stolen good' and then loot what he wanted! Genius! Davis even had a good death, too, trying to escape after his ploy was uncovered… He was shot while running away but kept shooting back until he died.

In more surly moods, though, I love Edward Low, because he was a nasty brute who swore a *lot* (I picked up the saying 'blood and wounds!' from him), and also tortured people. He would cut off people's noses and fry them and so on. Also one time one of his crew cut his face open (he was drunk. They were *all* drunk, no surprise)… he kept swearing at the surgeon so much while he was being tended to that he was told to do it himself. So he did! Yeah, Low is a brutish badass, all the way.

5- What is the item you've possessed the longest? Explain its
significance and/or origin.

The item that I have possessed the longest is a small heart-shaped silver locket that I got from my parents when I was born. It has a place for very tiny pictures, but all that is there is faded purple velveteen, because, really, where do you get really tiny pictures?