#posts that are about black sails

[mobydyke]

why does a story have to be true? is it not enough for it to give me indescribable power and authority over my peers

[trashy-greyjoy]

sometimes, it's not so much about the romance as it is about the devotion. the adoration.

[psilactis]

you watch black sails, it rewires your brain, and then what. what now. every queer analysis of media sounds superficial. I want - I need, sometimes - to compare movies and TV shows to black sails so I can make a point, but I can't, because like, five people have watched it. And now what. I try explaining the monster metaphor and how minorities shouldn't conform, but no one gets it. so I just sound like I'm being insane. Which I am, but it has a point and a rationale. And then some media comes out and everyone treats it like it's revolutionary in how it portrays queerness but you've seen it before and you've seen it done better, more carefully, more genuinely, but you can't say anything lest the fans of this new media accuse you of being a prejudiced asshole. And maybe you are. Maybe you're expecting too much of media that should just be allowed to exist as it is. But if that media is putting itself forward as some kind of metaphor for how queer people are treated in society, and it comes to a certain conclusion, and you're queer, aren't you allowed to disagree with that conclusion? Aren't you allowed to think it's shallow at best and homophobic at worse? So you just watch black sails and go insane. and let the cycle repeat over and over. and it's still just you and those five people.

[idontwikeit]

No, no, no… you've got it all wrong… you can't act death. The fact of it is nothing to do with seeing it happen - it's not gasps and blood and falling about - that isn't what makes it death. It's just a man failing to reappear, that's all - now you see him, now you don't that's the only thing that's real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back - an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced, a disappearance gathering weight as it goes on, until, finally, it is heavy with death.

-Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

for @annevbonny

[maraslesbian]

sometimes i think about the fact that black sails took one of the most famous pirate figures in fiction and decided to make the reason he became a pirate that he was gay, and that the man he loved was killed for it. and that this loss fueled a pure and complete hatred of england and its empire, which then developed into actual revolutionary reflections and an understanding of the violence of colonization that then lead him to organize alongside former slaves and local populations to fight for the liberation of the american colonies from british rule. and it's like. what the fuck man. truly the show of all time

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

i'm not an amputee so absolutely tell me to stay in my lane if applicable, but it seems to me that there's something really unique about the way that black sails handles silver's disability and the narrative role of his prosthetic. as in, it's one of the only shows i've seen (although i'm sure there are more out there) where 1) a character's mobility is more impaired when using a prosthetic, and 2) where using a prosthetic is explicitly portrayed as an effort to appear more able-bodied to others in a way that's harmful to the amputee character: silver insists on wearing the leg in front of the men to the point of giving himself an infection and limiting his mobility in a fight because he's worried about maintaining his authority. while he doesn't choose to stop wearing it, i think it's telling that he also doesn't try to have a replacement made after he loses it or otherwise seem bothered by being seen using his crutch after he establishes the myth of long john silver by crushing dufresne's skull with his metal leg for mocking him as "half a man," symbolically tying the myth to his disability

[p00sy-d3stro7er]

I actually thought that my previous text post would be the last one but I found these in the depths of my gallery so. Enjoy your meal *throws them like chicken feed*

[micamicster]

Until then, I remain, Long John Silver.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville, chapter CXXXIV The Chase - Second Day

[howlerbat]

from the makers of “James Flint being a liar for 2 and a half minutes” I bring you “Billy Bones suffering on his job for almost 3 minutes”

[groove-mp3]

JAMES FLINT black sails, 2014 - 2017

[jaynovz]

In discussions about the finale of Black Sails, one of the things I often see is folks hard-focusing on Flint's fate, in an either-or binary fashion, usually presented as "Which do you believe-- that Silver killed him? or sent him to the plantation?"

Now, for posterity's sake, gonna mention a few things-- first off, that's simply not thinking broadly enough. There are farrrr more than two options here and I've come up with my share of the reallyyyyy bad ones for sure. Whatever your mind chooses, none of those are happy endings anyway, there are bittersweet, bad, and worse endings all the way down. (They are paused, they are in a time loop, and also all endings and no endings are happening simultaneously)

But also, the more cogent point is that, it doesn't actually matter what happened *to Flint* The story is... not actually about him at that point. We have transitioned from Flint as protag to Silver as protag, setting up for (the fanfiction that Black Sails has ended up making of, ugh, king shit) Treasure Island.

And so, I just, don't find it to be of particular interest exploring what we think Flint is actually doing or if he's alive for real. What is EXTREMELY interesting to explore though is how Silver's speech at the end to Madi is sort of giving Thomas back to Flint as a pacifier/comfort object, but how... Silver is giving Flint that thing in his own mind as his own type of pacifier/comfort object.

That's the REALLY chewy bit. What actually happens to Flint is not the purpose of that scene for me, of Silver's recounting of events to Madi. It's more about... projection. It's about how Silver is dealing with whatever happened to Flint/whatever he did.

And I just feel like it's missing the point to focus so hard on if Flint is alive or not.

He is the ghost of the story regardless, that's what's important. He's going to haunt the narrative for the rest of everyone's lives. No one has been untouched or unscarred by coming into contact with Captain Flint; he has a forever legacy. I'm not the first to call him this, but he's Schrödinger's Flint and he's staying that way.

But this?

"No. I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past... and undo it. There is a place near Savannah... where men unjustly imprisoned in England are sent in secret. An internment far more humane, but no less secure. Men who enter these gates never leave them. To the rest of the world, they simply cease to be. He resisted... at first. But then I told him what else I had heard about this place. I was told prominent families amongst London society made use of it. I was told the governor in Carolina made use of it. So I sent a man to find out if they'd used it to hide away one particular prisoner. He returned with news. Thomas Hamilton was there. He disbelieved me. He continued to resist. And corralling him took great effort. But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish. I couldn't say why. I wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight. Or perhaps as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer... he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he created in response to his loss. The man whose mind I had come to know so well... whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it... so unexpected. I choose to believe it... because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all... but one who existed beforehand... waking from a long... and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight... and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes... letting the memory of the nightmare fade away. You may think what you want of me. I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you're alive to think it. But I'm not the villain you fear I am. I'm not him."

This is the speech of a man who is self-soothing, who is spinning himself a tale, who is projecting, who is coping.

and THAT is just, way chewier, innit?

[rocks-in-space]

-Julian Gough, "End Poem"

[Image ID: 8 photos from Black Sails overlain with text. Image 1: Flint looks curiously at Silver as they stand on a hilltop on Maroon Island in a flashback. Image 2: Silver speaks to Madi, whose back is just visible on the left of the image, in her room in the Maroon camp. Image 3: Silver points a gun at Flint in the woods on Skeleton Island. Image 4: Close-up of Silver's face looking at Flint on the hill in the Maroon Island flashback. Image 5: Flint and Thomas embracing in a field. Image 6: Close-up of Madi's heartbroken face in her room in the Maroon camp with Silver just visible in the background. Image 7: A group of 4 pirates stare at something off-screen in the woods on Skeleton Island. Image 8: Close-up of Silver's sad face in the flashback on Maroon Island. The text reads, "The player is growing restless. I will tell the player a story. But not the truth. No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words. Not the naked truth that can burn over any distance." end ID]

[frau-kali]

[officialjimmybuffett]

no because james flint was the son of a carpenter. james flint was cast out of civilized society for his beliefs. james flint was a radical preacher. james flint was the shepherd of thousands of lost men. james flint birthed his own kingdom. james flint was wanted dead by entire empires. james flint was betrayed by those he loved the most. james flint was only a story. james flint THE most christ figure of all time.

[frodo-of-the-nine-fingers]

He knew I had no choice in the matter.

No choice?

A hard choice. Made under great duress, but with the intent to achieve the least awful outcome.

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

so something i noticed on my latest black sails rewatch is that despite most of the show taking place on various ships we never really find out what skills silver has as a sailor? like he's pretending to be a cook when flint's crew picks him up and we never see him doing regular sailor duties on the walrus, and when he's briefly left in charge while flint is ashore he says that he's basically agreeing with whatever mr. de groot says to hide that he doesn't know what he's doing. but also he wasn't the cook on the ship he was on before the walrus and he knew where to damage the ship to keep vane's crew from leaving charleston, so he is an experienced sailor? maybe? i don't have a point i just love how the more you watch the more you start having flint on the cliffs moments where you realize that despite watching him for four seasons, you don't really know anything about john silver