i’ll say it i think when flint first got to nassau he and vane fucked and for flint it was very emotional and meaningful because it was the first time he has sex with another man since thomas and for charles it was just guys being dudes. cuz like. sometimes ur at sea for months with no women so u gotta have sex with the homies ya know? and also owning cups is gay.
and i think this drove a wedge between them that escalated to the absolute “hating each others guts and getting into constant screaming fistfights” energy we see in the pilot, because of course charles “fucks men but doesn’t consider himself gay” vane would drive james “queer liberation” flint up a fucking wall.
They really went to Toby Stephens and said, “We’re imagining the saddest man—completely regret ridden, absolutely terrified of his own passions, but also weirdly “dark nautical” in theme.
And Toby Stephens went, “That’s actually kind of my specialty.”
If we were able to take Nassau, if we are able to expose the illusion that England is not inevitable, if we are able to incite a revolt that spreads across the New World...then yeah, I imagine people are gonna notice.
i am once AGAIN thinking about the scene in black sails where flint has just been forced by miranda to confront his overwhelming grief over losing thomas, which has been fueling his unholy rage for the past two seasons. flint is sitting there, having a flashback, drowning in the tragedy and injustice of his gay lover’s death… then vane bursts into the room like a roided-up kool-aid man and immediately tries to kill him. 10/10, flawless tonal whiplash, one of the funniest moments in the entire show.