#black sails spoilers

[billysboner]

the reveal of flint being gay adds so many layers and so much depth to everything leading up to it but it especially makes his reaction to eleanor and max’s breakup simultaneously hysterical and heartbreaking, mans is stuck in the eye of a category 5 dyke drama hurricane

#black sails spoilers #black sails #eleanor guthrie #max #james flint #captain flint #also i am a lesbian

[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

#black sails #black sails spoilers #john silver #i saw a post about how mobility aids often seem to be forced on people or withheld based on what would to make them appear most able-bodied #and didn't want to derail it with my pro-black sails propaganda bc that's like. an actual important real life issue #so i made this post instead #kvetch oc

[ravelqueen]

The reason i love the ending of Black Sails (and why i hate like 80% of the discourse around it incidentally) is that no one is right! No one is wrong! They all make the most logical decisions based on who they are and John most of all.

The way I saw John apologists bending over backwards trying to frame it as an OOC decision because John wouldn't do that he loves Flint! at the same time John haters where feeling vindicated bc see he was a dick who only cares about himself and both sides making me claw at my face because the love was the point.

John would have not betrayed Flint if he didn't love him (and Madi)! Because then he wouldn't have cared if they died. But he does! He does so much in a way that is probably fully new to him and scary and it makes him act impulsively in a way he never did before (because as much as his actions often seem lackadaisical, he's a calculating mofo).

So he loves them.

He also, from the very first moments we meet him, has the biggest survival instinct of anyone. He doesn't care about principle or honour or cause he cares about survival.

He's managed to work for this cause and he's applied himself and i think at the moment of the story the Betrayal happens he's even really on board, but a tiger cannot change his stripes and so John Silver cannot change that his fundamental motivator is survival.

And because he loves Flint he wants him to survive more than he wants the cause to win only there he comes into conflict with the fact that Flint's main motivator is the Cause. He and Madi are creatures of principle of "The Cause Is The Cause Because It Is Worth Dying For".

So the confrontation in the forest is exactly this: Flint following his main motivator of the Cause before anything, because that is what he lives for and John just needing him to live, because you can't care about anything when you're dead.

And so it's tragic and heart wrenching because if John hadn't learned to love so well, so deeply, so earnestly throughout the story he would have let Flint go and continue to fight, but he did and he does so and he couldn't.

#black sails #John silver #James flint #black sails meta #black sails spoilers #WATCH THIS SHOW I BEG

[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?

#Now that's just from a canon point of view #once we start to delve into like fan fiction #Because fic must necessarily change the story and change canon because it's creating something new #so of course then figuring out what you want to do with flint post canon is necessary #but for me fanfiction is a different realm than canon only based meta conversations about the show #black sails meta #long post #black sails #john silver #james flint #thoughts #black sails spoilers #I was coaxed into writing my group chat meta into a post by the Committee mwah

[howlerbat]

I love the way Flint always looks so pikachu face surprised whenever he sees Billy do something Evil tm in S4

he’s like wow he’s changed. wonder who he gets that from.

#billy wearing flints outfit complete with a beard (-sleeves obviously) is just a cherry on top #black sails #james flint #billy bones #black sails spoilers #it’s funny how s4 is when flint is the most chill but billy is the most off the shits unhinged #season1 uno reverse for real

[clitfisto]

silver voice Noo hes not dead i just sent him to a farm upstate, where thomas is, hes happy there

#im sorry he has done nothing to dispute the lying liar allegations #black sails spoilers

[bookshelfmonkey]

#black sails #black sails spoilers #charles vane #jack rackham #eleanor guthrie #anne bonny #max black sails #james flint #john silver #billy bones #madi scott

[detnuah]

it doesn't sound so bad.

#IT WARMS YOU #IT SETTLES YOU #THEYRE ALL THERE WAITING FOR YOU #my art #2023 art #black sails #black sails spoilers #muldoon black sails #screenshot redraw #fanart #muldoon has the biggest wettest eyes in the world #that might be the um. the drowning though

[sadbloodbag]

“Flint’s too macho” “Flint gives into toxic masculinity”

um… are we talking about the same dude that almost burst into tears when talking about what a good person he thinks his nerdy little boyfriend is?

#bro was EMOTIONAL #he really kicked that old man out of his own house #flint said nobody disrespects my boyfriend and my girlfriend in front of me #he may be a morally corrupt murderer now but ya gotta give it to him #he’s ride or die for his polycule #black sails spoilers #black sails reaction posting #black sails s2e4 #black sails

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

the funniest black sails viewing experience was when i rewatched it on [definitely 100% legal streaming site] and it played tourism ads for nassau like three times per episode. so i'd be watching nassau get destroyed by cannon fire or whatever and then the ad jingle comes on at twice the volume of the rest of the episode like everything is better, better in the bahamas (that was the actual song, btw. i got this ad so much that it is permanently seared into my brain)

#black sails #black sails spoilers #in like. the vaguest way possible #kvetch oc

[farfartothewestofeverywhere]

it'd be the funniest thing ever if we could effectively straight-bait Netflix subscribers when Black Sails starts streaming

#black sails #black sails spoilers

[noclassnowitnosoul]

I was always like ''what do you mean flint is dead i saw him alive with thomas with my own two eyes'' and then ''i wanna believe he's alive i CHOOSE to believe'' but i was wrong i was so blind hes dead he is soooo dead there is no other way silver said ''i will stand here with you, for an hour, a day, a year while you find a way to accept this outcome so that we might leave here together for if not then i must end this another way'' and what else could flint possibly say if not Over My Dead Body and OFCOURSE silver would tell a soul wrenching beautiful story about how he ''unmade captain flint'' because why would he tell it if it WASNT a lie a story is true a story is untrue but flint is fucking dead there is no other way

#black sails #james flint #john silver #black sails spoilers #im losing my mind im going entirely wild over this #hes dead he has to be

[storkmuffin]

Billy's been proven to be a deadly accurate shot while on this sad massacre boat. He had all the time in the world to perfectly line up his sights on Flint, who wasn't even bothering to check where the bullets were coming from. AND HE MISSES??

Do you ... not actually want to kill... Daddy? Billy? Or are you still that afraid of him? Is that much hatred actually love?

#billy bones #james flint #black sails spoilers #black sails s4 #storkmuffin liveblog #black sails finale

[clitfisto]

how it feels

#black sails lb #black sails spoilers

[neosatsuma]

the epic highs and lows of black sails character feelings is INSANE, like. I'm watching it with another friend and they looove Dufresne. and who didn't!! It's season 1, he's a beleaguered nerd with floppy hair who's never fired a gun! and they freaking hate Vane. which is SO fair; all he's done is kill and threaten people. but it's like, what if I told you that both of these characters are going to Die Badly and you will cheer for one and bawl your eyes out for the other, there's no WAY you're guessing correctly which is which

#black sails #black sails spoilers #Russell don't look #my nonsense #and of course viewer feelings toward Flint are a ROLLERCOASTER