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im-the-punk-who · 4 years

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Hey because I'm not sure we've talked about her yet, but tell me about Madi? 💜

YES! I will talk about Madi.

How I feel about this character

Ugh so, like all the female characters, I LOVE her personally, but I hate her ending, how her character is written, and how she differs from her historical counterpart.

I really love Madi as a character. Especially as such a well rounded, beautifully acted, IMPORTANT character, she is so important. I was watching Black Sails with a black friend of mine, and he said that, even with the ending, even though it’s not good, he could forgive Black Sails because of the things he’s so often used to seeing that they didn’t do. Madi lives. LOVE for Madi is what makes the revolution fail(and yeah, it sucks that it’s against her agency, but the point he made was that you NEVER see LOVE for a BLACK WOMAN be the thing that stops the world.) Black Sails without Madi is a completely different story, and I love that she is an active part of the plot as well as important enough to other characters(not just Silver, Flint, her mother, the alliance, all rely on her at some point. Even Rogers recognizes her value.) That, as low a bar as it is, is an important one.

I love that she’s smart and hopeful and determined. I see her very much as a parallel to Thomas, even moreso than Flint, in that she believes in things with her whole being. She has that line from Don Quixote to Flint, but I think it’s as much a dig at herself as it is at Flint.

“Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be.”

Flint has just told her exactly what could be accomplished if they are successful. He’s not dreaming, he sees the world in terms of if/then. But she sees the future beyond that. She sees the possibility and she’s drawing the parallel(unknowingly) between herself and Thomas and I LOVE it.

But she’s also SMART, she’s WHIP fucking SMART and she KNOWS how to lead her people and she is confident in herself. She is tough, there isn’t an ounce of self-doubt in her and the way that shows the LOVE she must have known growing up??? Just. I love Madi because I love how much she is loved. But also like, she is allowed to be naive in some ways, to be over confident and over trusting. She’s allowed to have flaws that I don’t think detracts from her value as a character, but are the natural progression when someone who, by her mother’s own admission, has been sheltered but still knows of injustice.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Pre-finale I LOVE her and Silver. I thought there was such potential there for her to become his rock, to show him that there were rewards, to be his Thomas, in a way, to love him surely enough that he could take the chance to crack himself open and start healing the hurt parts. And I think then he absolutely would have been ride or die - part of what I hate so much is the parallel between Thomas and James, and Madi and Silver, is that Thomas and James were able to have the time to build that and Madi and Silver weren’t. And the tragedy is that it ends in so much more heartbreak than just personal ones, because of who Madi is, what she represents, and when it happens.

Post finale I ship Madi with whoever and whatever makes her fucking goddamn happy and that probably isn’t John Silver at this point.

BUT my two crack ships are Eleanor/Madi bc i’m ALL about that girlhood bromance and the POWERSHARING dynamic between them??? Magnifique. and Madi/Joshua because Joshua is a fucking dumbass but also has a great heart and seems like a good guy and cares and makes connections and has dumbass false teeth and Madi deserves someone who will be loyal to her and understand her and make her smile.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

GIVE MADI HER GAY UNCLES JAMES MCGRAW AND THOMAS HAMILTON OR I WILL RIOT.

Like my absolute ABSOLUTE non romantic OTP to END all OTPs is Madi and Flint. Because I do think she and Thomas are so similar in so many ways, and honestly just because Flint and Madi get along???? so well?????? like when they do become friends, and they connect, you can tell like, Flint’s just like YES. ANOTHER DAUGHTER. GREAT. THIS IS MORE THAN FINE. and just penguin waddles his way over there and like???? and then Madi - who for all she has HAD Mr. Scott hasn’t really ...experienced the True Dad Energy like that? And she finds in him a partner too, someone who sees the possibility and the freedom that she has been searching for on her island and never finding. Her mother has that line

“they are dangerous, their ideas are dangerous - especially to you.”

Madi didn’t become a revolutionary when the pirates found their island. I get the feeling this has been something she’s been arguing with her mother for a while, and now, with Flint, she’s FOUND that kindred spirit and I just???? love them???????? So much?????????

And especially post finale. Just....just give Madi her gay uncles, James who is like, so chill??? Now that he’s away from having to lead people and be responsible for people’s lives, and he’s FUNNY and she’s never actually seen him smile like that before?? And he plays with all the kids wherever he is and they NEVER mcfucking want him to leave. And Thomas who will talk to her from dusk until dawn about treaties and British Law and how to circumvent this clause or extort this particular weakness.

And at first she’d been weary - after everything with John - of trusting another group of white men. But from the first moment it’s been clear that here, her word will be respected and her wishes upheld because she and Flint share that vision and so does Thomas, and the reports she gets back from the escaped slaves who have reached freedom through the encampment that now sits where Oglethorpe’s plantation once was.

And while she is learning from her mother she is also learning from Julius, from Eme, from Flint, from Thomas. She learns, and learns, and when it’s finally ready for her to step into her mother’s shoes it is a seamless and peaceful thing, like one exhale flowing into the next inhale, it doesnt start or end with violence and wailing, but with laughter, and joy - bittersweet but there all the same - and okay this kind of got away from me give MADI NICE THINGS OR I WILL RIOT.

My unpopular opinion about this character

Huh I don’t....honestly know enough about the popularity of opinions on Madi to know what’s unpopular but I feel like ‘Silver doesn’t deserve her’ is at least a somewhat controversial take? I don’t know OH. Wait I know what my unpopular opinion will be:

She shouldn’t have existed because she exists solely to be a love interest to Silver where the real person she is based off of was an old matron Queen who is basically the Maroon Queen in BS just with Madi’s actual drive and she so badass we STILL use the guerilla tactics she developed to use against the British today but Steinberg was like ‘No, I think a black, 60 y/o Xena is boring, let’s make that part of the character basically non-existent and give her role to the 20 y/o daughter and also make her in need of saving from the white man. That’s hot.’

Cool. I will expect your assassins at dawn.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Eleanor/Madi WHEN

MADI/JOSHUA WHEN!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also that her storyline hadn’t been shoved aside for the emotional angst of the white men, that we had seen more of her in the aftermath, that she had been given agency in her own future and in the future of her people that she clearly believed in. I just wanted good things for Madi and for her to be respected as a character.

To that end, what I wish WOULD happen is that she teams up with Thomas and James at the Savannah BnB to basically completely ignore the treaty with the British, funnel slaves off the islands, and, while they don’t restart the war, they still help to undermine slavery in the Bahamas and the Colonies and uhhh basically everything i said up under the non-romantic OTP. xD

Assuming the assassins don’t get to me, ASK ME ABOUT MY OPINIONS

#zwergenmaedchen #black sails #madi scott #milos black sails meta #this....deserves that tag i am so sorry #long post #listen i've given up im just....#im just here being bitter and loving the shit out of my characters who love people OKAY #ask memes

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silverflintdaily · 4 years

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Schedule - udpates! Submit prompts and work on fills now through the end of the month! We’ll post a link to an ao3 collection closer to posting time. Our main posting week is June 23rd to 30th! We’ll still reblog fills after that but want to have a week of new Silverflint stuff. :)

Submit prompts here: HTTPS://FORMS.GLE/LMGMVAYUHRAFZCVW6 Auto updated prompt spreadsheet: HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/YCGDCNNQ Full details here: https://tinyurl.com/y832muwv

FULL LIST OF PROMPTS AS OF 6/15/20 BELOW.

Ships/characters in bold

Max, Anne, Silver, and Flint They all go to burning man

Silverflint Instagram drama: Silver has crush on Flint, following with each other, Silver shove his love on Flint and Flint’s uncomfortable. Flint unfollowed him one day and Silver was devastated and disappeared from Instagram. Flint found out through friends and he must seek him before Silver did something stupid.

Silverflint Truth or dare

Silverflint Canon era, one (or both) accidently calling the other one pet names

Silverflint (+sort of Flinthamilton) Silver asking Flint, while having sex, to tell him about his sex with Thomas (in detail). I think canon era, placed after 310, would be better but it’s up to writer.

Silverflinthamilton + ? summer vacation modern au - maybe they go somewhere warm (or not, as Flint burns so easily), maybe they meet some beautiful men there

Silverflint post canon era reunion fic - fighting to kissing. they start out almost trying to kill one another

Silverflint modern au - after a meet rude during the coronavirus lockdown they both can’t stop thinking about that handsome idiot they met. One of them tracks the other down online to apologize. how do they spend the endless weeks of shelter in place?

Silverflint canon era - A small happy celebration with just the two of them.

Silverflintmiranda canon era - Miranda survives the shot, convalesces with Silver

Silverflint modern au where either Silver or Flint has an ASMR channel (or they both have) and they secretly love listening to the other. Could be distant pining or enemies to lovers etc.

Silverflint (+Hamilton[s]) tarzan au (you can choose who is on the island and who arrives there). Lord Thomas Hamilton and/or Miranda can also be included.

Silverflintmadi “My name is (Long) John Silver. And I’ve got a long fucking memory [loss].”

Silverflintmadi canon era. They go on a picnic and it starts to rain. Fluff or otherwise good times would be nice!

Silverflint Flint is a cockslut and hasn’t had cock in ages. Silver is happy (and really fucking astonished) to present his for the taking. happens before Silver loses his leg, canon era.

Silverflint Modern au with ‘there is only one bed’ trope and mutual pining. Silver is Flint’s long suffering sassy PA who’s been hiding a crush on his boss and friend forever.He has been successful so far. One day he has to accompany Flint on a business trip to let’s say Bahamas?! and there was a booking mistake - there were booked into a honeymoon suite. And since there is a summer festival there is no chance to get another room. Things happen!

Silverflint, Silverflinthamilton 7 years after their escape from Savannah plantation, James and Thomas are living a quiet, happily ever after life - money and jewels they grabbed on their way out were enough for decades of comfortable life which they now had. And almost everything was perfect-they had each other, got to know each other again,accepted each others’ demons and learned to handle each others’ nightmares and guilt. Flint long ago told Thomas about Silver and with time forgave, but didn’t forget him. After all Flint’s heart was broken on Skeleton Island and both him and Thomas knew deep inside he still loved John Silver. They talked about Silver-about the feelings Flint used to hide, about the pain and forgiveness and about love that didn’t had a happy ending. It was fine, discussing it all together, sharing these stories-past is in the past and that chapter of Flint’s life will remain there. Until one day the past refused to remain in the past and John Silver showed up on their doorstep, injured, delirious and looking for his own forgiveness.

Silverflint/Silverflinthamilton Post canon S4: John Silver is no longer Long John Silver. Exiled from Madi and Maroon Island, he brought himself to somewhere nearby Savannah and disappeared. James Flint and Thomas Hamilton escaped from plantation, bought house and live happily together. 3 years later, Flint saw John Silver at tavern. But John Silver doesn’t remember him. Turns out he lost memories due sickness and always forget who he was everyday. Will Flint able bring John Silver’s memory back and reconcile?

Silverflint, Silverflinthamilton Modern AU silverflint - Flint and Thomas are a happily married couple and Silver and Flint are bffs with a long history. But the thing is-Silver has been crushing on Flint forever and his pining is epic. He is also sure he is clever and no one figured it out. Only both Thomas and Flint did a while ago and Flint is determined to make Silver confess his feelings. He has turned Silver’s life into a living hell with his seduction techniques and jeans so tight they should be illegal in public. Meanwhile Thomas is having too much fun watching them two and making his own plans for their shared future together.

Silverflint John Silver is 30 year old virgin and has never had a relationship and sex. Max and Jack decided to set him up with date at local bar. John Silver’s first date was James Flint, a loner and his last partner left him for indifference opinion. James Flint is working as cattle farmer (?) and their date went well. Except.. they are not rushing to have sex and taking time to know each other. There were lot confusion and miscommunication between them on next date. Will John Silver able to lose his virgin and will James Flint make first step to ask John Silver as his boyfriend? First kiss, first touch, sexting, first sex and hot smut.

Silverflint smut ficlet to go with finnguala’s fabulous art

Silverflint post canon - old pirates having a day at the beach

Silverflint Flint is distracted by Silver’s big hands.

Silverflint Modern au: Flint found Silver’s missing childhood’s photo at Silver’s grandparent’s house. He told Silver about it and gave compliment on him (“you were cute as kid and I noticed how baby earsie you were and your smile was beautiful”) and Silver keep blush for non stop teasing. And then sweet, hot summer sex on bed ;)

Silverflinthamilton pornstars au

Silverflinthamilton After reunion. Thomas is trying to seduce Silver with a new, especially tight, pair of trousers.

Silverflint Canon era. S1-S2 After an accident on the Walrus Silver and Flint end up being able to read each others thoughts. How does that end up going for them?

Silverflint + Miranda just some porn where miranda is pegging one of them while the other watches them fall apart. canon or modern era, it doesn’t really matter.

Silverflint Two idiots with mutual pining and obliviousness. Others try to help but it may not go so well at first.

Silverflint canon era. After a really great haul the Walrus has a rum soaked celebration. The next morning Silver and Flint wake up together in the captain’s bed with no clothes.

Silverflinthamilton After reunion. Silver finally appears on their doorstep, later they are talking over their dinner but something goes wrong and Silver and Flint start to fight. Thomas is trying to calm and separate them but Flint accidentally punches him instead of Silver.

Silverflint Persuasion AU. An unmarried Silver encounters his former love Captain James Flint after he returns from battle.

Silverflint competing reality cooking show contestants

Silverflint Silver and Flint have met before many years ago and even spent the night together. Now for reasons (there was a lot of rum that night, they’re both different people, memory loss etc.) neither of them remember. One of them has a nagging feeling when Silver joins the Walrus crew but one of them remembers nothing yet.

Silverflint One of them needs to be restrained and dominated to truly let go. Writer’s choice who and what era.

Silverflint Silver threatens to shave his head

Silverflint/Silverflinthamilton (probably?)Post canon S4 and Treasure Island: Captain Flint’s ghost decided to haunt John Silver for revenge. However, Long John Silver was disappeared to nowhere. Fast forward for this year, Long John Silver’s great great grandson, John Silver bought property in Bristol. One day, he was haunted by ghost Captain Flint. Ghost Captain Flint wants revenge but ended up falling in love sweet, poor John Silver’s due social anxiety. Will they make up for loss done by his late ancestor? Happy ending for everyone. All depend on writer’s idea!

Silverflint AU Canon divergence during season 4. Madi really dies in episode 7; Thomas Hamilton is not found in Savannah. The war goes on, bolstered by an enraged Silver, fueled by the Urca gold. During this time of violence and grief, Flint and Silver become all each other has left in the world.

Silverflint Sometimes one of them will keep the other on the edge for as long as he can stand. There is lots and lots of begging and pleading. There could be fingering and rimming and toys…

Silverflinthamilton Reunion fic where John finds James and Thomas in their home x nbr of years after s4, then realises he knows Thomas because they spent a month living together in Paris some years before Thomas met James and having a blast. John recognises Thomas who doesn’t recognise him until John shows a tattoo/mark placed somewhere there is no misunderstanding of why he recognises that part of him (because he’s seen john naked). Develops into threesome or twosome where the last person joins in later.

Silverflint tentacles

SilverFlint / MadiSilverFlintHamilton Post s4 Thomas and Flint are living together after escaping the plantation. Madi and Silver who are still together come to visit them. SilverFlint have palpable sexual/romantic tension and Madi and Thomas conspire to push them together. Afterwards when the tension is resolved Silver and Flint realize it was planned by their significant others all along and invite them into bed and the four of them have some fun

Silverflint When drunk, Flint behaves like Toby Stephens’ Prince John in BBC Robin Hood.

Silverflint (hamilton) Annihilation Au

Silverflint Canon-compliant up til 4.06. When the Spanish attacks Nassau, Silver is the one who is thought to be dead and later revealed to have been captured (instead of Madi). Rogers tries to use to Silver to cause a rift between Madi and Flint, thinking that Madi will trade the treasure for Silver’s life while Flint will not. To everyone’s surprise, the opposite happens. Madi refuses to trade the treasure while Flint will stop at nothing to get Silver back.

Silverflint firefighter au: silver keeps accidentally triggering the fire alarm while trying to improve his cooking (an actual fire may or may not be involved) and flint is the ridiculously attractive firefighter who has to deal with it

Silverflint vigilante au: they’re both vigilantes watching over the same area and have a bit of a rivalry going on until they have to team up to take down a new threat.

Silverflint modern au (amnesia): silver wakes up with amnesia and forgets that he was dating flint before the accident. as far as he remembers, they can’t stand each other, and he doesn’t understand why flint shows up at the hospital and seems genuinely worried about him. (roles could be reversed–author’s choice).

Silverflint modern au based on this text post: How to kiss a boy 1)grab his waist 2)slip you hand in his pocket 3)steal his wallet 4)don't even kiss him 5)just run.

Silverflint Fic set just after Silver loses the leg and Flint loses Miranda and they are stuck in the cabin together.

Silverflint (Modern?) Soulmate AU (names on skin) - Flint knows Silver is his soulmate and thinks Silver either doesn't want him or doesn't have him as a soulmate in return, meaning a one-sided bond. In reality, Silver has no idea because his mark says James McGraw and all he does is wish the universe had given him a different James.

Silverflint (hamilton) post series canon James is growing back his hair and gets a little teasing when it hits a truly awkward length.

Silverflinthamilton Slow burn

Silverflint Body swap!!! Preferably while they're interested but not yet together. Lasting long enough that they'll have to pretend to be one another for a little while.

Silverflint One of them, or both of them, cries during/after sex.

Silverflint knifeplay! let's just say that first meeting in the wrecks made quite an impression.

Silverflint + Silvermadi madi pegs silver while he thinks abt flint

Silverflint taking care of one another like tending to wounds post battle, caring for Silver's leg

Silverflint Early s3 (probably during/after 3x01): Flint wears eyeliner on a raid, Silver doesn’t know about it until he gets back. He sees Flint wearing the eyeliner and is, unexpectedly and intensely, turned on by it. He wrestles with himself And his attraction but ultimately finds himself drawn into the captain’s cabin. Pining, angst, maybe smut? Writer’s choice!

Silverflint/Silverflintmadi Silver and Hands do not escape Max and her men (Season 4, Episode 2). Hands is killed (?) and Max's henchmen drag Silver off and hold him prisoner somewhere until he can be secretly taken off the island. Bad things happen. Flint and/or Madi eventually locate Silver and find him alive and happy? dead and sad? half alive/half dead and thoroughly screwed up?

Silverflint/Silverflintmadi Flint and the Maroons are defeated on the beach and Hornigold and the British make it through to the village (season 3, episode 10). Silver is captured whilst Madi retreats to the underground shelter to keep the villagers hidden. Hornigold proceeds to torture Silver to discover the location of the cache and to avenge Dufresne's death. Can Flint and the remnants of his forces mount a counterattack and save Silver? Can Madi sneak out of her hiding place and rescue him? Or is Silver doomed to die at the hands of a very angry, silver-haired grandpa?

Silverflint Flint, Dooley and Joji are unable to rescue Silver at the wrecks (season 4. episode 3) and see him carted off to Nassau by the Redcoats. Rogers takes out all his frustrations on Silver during some rather brutal interrogations, and attempts to humiliate him and his cause by mocking the street for fearing/following a tiny, one-legged nobody. Somehow, Flint manages to rescue Silver before Rogers hangs him. Don't ask me how. I have no idea. But I have Great Faith in Flint.

#Silverflint #Black Sails #Silverflint Summer Challenge #John Silver #James Flint #prompts

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lairofsentinel · 4 years

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Seriously... I finished watching Black Sail and had several thoughts I want to keep in one post.

Spoilers ahead, of course.

Flint's ending: It's queerly romantic, in the most broad sense of the word. But it felt a bit odd to me. Not because I don't like it, I find it a good smart ending that doesn't imply “bury your gays”. But it felt unrealistic for the context of the series. Through the show, we saw Miranda telling Flint that she could not recognise herself in the way she had changed compared with the woman she was when Thomas was alive. Flint agreed in that respect, and made the same comparison with the man he was in that time. They wondered if Thomas could ever recognise them both now. The scene meant “we both changed too much”.

The message along the series is that loss and pain change you, transform you. Life is a painful continuously changing process. Even the characters that were “written in stone”, like Charles Vane, changed! So, with such reinforcement of the narrative related to “change”, Flint's ending feels troublesome.

How can Thomas, such a naïve and over-idealist man, embrace this Flint, so distant to the man he left in England? The level of tragedy and horror and blood that Flint's wake spread in those years in the real world can't be overlooked, not by Thomas who was a man who cared so much about the manners and the procedures.

Flint also killed Thomas' father. Imagine that scene where he knows this news... I don't know exactly if this news could be problematic for Thomas, since we did not see him too much to infer what kind of reaction he may have. He could be disappointed for his father, but that's different to wanting him dead, specially due to his lover's hand. How much of this event can hurt Thomas' love?

And Flint, in the end, abandoned Thomas' war. Flint himself, in the first time he is asked, said that Thomas would never put aside this war due to all what it means. In the second time he is asked, when he hesitated, it was more his own desire .

After all, Flint is so fucking tired of all this war and blood. I think that letting Silver get closer to him showed that; he was tired of fighting, he was tired of killing his closest partners just because the war demanded it. When he and Silver talked privately, and Flint disclosed his story to Silver, they joked about how they would end. Silver even joked that Flint should not worry to fear to be killed by him. And Flint's response was one of a such tired man. It transpired that he was in peace with the fact that, if Silver ever attempted against his life, he was going to let him do it. Flint is a man so alike to the one that belong to England and Thomas. How the hell this Thomas would see this man? I wonder.

So, for all that, even though I think this ending is nice and Flint truly wanted this [his idea of a Pirate Kingdom to have a place where all pirates can retire and live in peace was always in his plans even though he never allowed himself to be part of it, probably because Thomas was not in that Kingdom]. Flint has changed so much, that honestly, I think Thomas would be completely horrified of him. I don't know how much Thomas could look aside or forgive. This series is also about how forgiveness has limits too... so I wonder.

Sure, Thomas probably changed a lot, but his experience was far less violent and less mutable as Flint's. I don't know. I have mixed feeling with this ending. Maybe too cheesy and open for the deep darkness it hides.

Madi's ending: This was super sad to me. We saw in this series that all women had always been controlled and manipulated or coerced by men. Eleanor's story is exactly this, reflected in most women in the narrative. I thought Madi was going to be the exception... but it was not. Silver, the white man, decided for her what was best for her.

I know, war is not a solution in general... but he denied her anger. He decided for her. He did not allow her to make her own mistakes. And she ended up accepting it just fine. It felt odd. I suppose the best way to describe it is “it felt grey”, like most things in this series.

Sure, war was not the solution of anything... but this whole ending of never doing the revolution and taking comfort in half-measures that can be changed so easily without much consequences.... I mean, as long as Max lives in Nassau, there will be no slaves.... once she dies... what?. I suppose the series has the answer in several repeated scenes: “nothing lasts”. I suppose the freedom of the black people is something that “would not last” either. I felt a bit weird with that idea floating in the last episode.

Eleanor’s ending: Another woman in the series whose ending was so fucked up. I would not mind her story if she were the only woman whose narration is about how fucked up men control women's lives. But sadly, her story was just taking this narrative to the extreme... since her story is the reflection of the life of most women in this series. Anne is controlled by Jack and/or the guilt or gratefulness she has for him, Madi by Silver, Miranda by Flint... most women dancing to the whims of their men. Eleanor thought she was in control of everything, she was the independent strong woman... and yet, her control jumped from man to man, from his father, to Charles Vane, to Flint, to Scott, to the governor. She was never truly free of a man's control, and this is such a devastating truth for her. Her story is so sad... and a lot of her most disgusting betrayals were fuelled by those men. Super sad her ending.

John Silver ’s ending : He is my fave char. Probably his ending is the one I like the most. He was always smart enough to avoid death in the most disastrous situations. But in the process, he started to become darker. Over days, he became closer to Flint, to his thinking process, to his darkness. I understand he saw that he was getting close to become Flint at some point, and Madi put a stop to that. She changed things in his life. Flint also helped him to stop that process, opening himself to him. It's sad to me that Silver could find a way to take control over his own life by deciding over Madi. I know, breaking the cycles is a nice narrative... but I'm not so sure I like to see it when a white man decided such a thing, when you have a wise smart black woman there to do it.... But again, this series is all about grays. It was a nice but at least, realistic shade of gray.

Max's ending: Probably the best ending of all chars. She fought so much to be in control of her own life... and she finally could do it. With a level of intelligence that it was a pleasure to see. She was not even under the control of a man... she was men's toy. Her story is so fucking painful. And somehow, she survived thanks to her intelligence. In that regard, she is like Silver: both hard survivors thanks to their brains. At least she could overcome that fate of being in control of a man. She denied that chance of marry an idiot noble because she wanted to have control over her life and her decision of trying to retake Anne. Lesbian love in gray shades.

Anne's ending: I loved her char. But again, I felt so weird when her life is, once again, restrained to what she feels she owes to Jack. I thought I was going to find a scene of relief when she fought those men that saved her crew's lives. But no. It was just more of the same... the bodyguard of Jack. I don't resent it much though, because Jack truly loves her and cares for her in beautiful ways... but that scene of Anne resenting her own feeling of being in eternal debt with Jack stuck in my mind.

Billy's ending: this char was so surprising to me. He went from one extreme to the other... and he, more than any other char, showed that life, events, tragedy, pain, and loss, change people. And it changes them in ways from where there is not return.

Charles Vane ’s ending : He was a beast. There is almost nothing to say in his favour, he was evil-chaotic to the core. But his vulnerabilities were unbelievable when you contrast them with his personality. How such evil-chaotic man could do such gestures of (twisted) love? Sure, he did a lot for Eleanor in his wickedest ways, but the most surprising love I saw in him was for Jack and Anne. And honestly, being he the symbol of the beginning of the revolution is such a gray thing that this series used. It felt, like all things in this show, wrong and good at the same time. There was probably no other char in this story more “free” and “animal-savage-like” than him. He dismissed domesticity, he hated “peaceful” times. He was a char born in battle to die in battle. Revolution had to be born from this savage to be effective, so he being hanged was a reinforcement of that sentiment that had to be inspired in the revolution. But at the same time, he was absolutely random, selfish [in the beginning] and his behaviour was mostly the confirmation of all the demonization that the stories tell about pirates. He being the symbol that starts the revolution was also a way to tinge the revolution with cruelty and dirt.

I don't know, this series is fabulous. It's so gray that you can be thinking in each char, in each concept... and nothing is sacred, nothing is clean, nothing is pure. Nor good nor bad. Just a disgusting mixture of dirty and evilness and humanity. Masterpiece.

I loved this story, because its complexity makes the watchers think, and that's such a feat to do. But on the other hand, I felt the ending in general not very inspiring, tending to a moderate solution that, through history, we know it changes nothing. Moderate solutions [in times of slavery and empires] are absolutely prone to corruption and to return to the previous state of things.

The only thing I did not like was the unbalanced display of naked bodies or sex scenes when it came to women vs men. We saw all actress naked or having sex with other women and/or men in many, many, many times. In the whole series, only 2 men were displayed naked, and never was shown any gay sex scene. We only had 2 kisses between two men, very chaste, and almost hidden. I mean, I can't care less about nakedness in general or sex scenes, but I'm always annoyed when I see such a big unbalance when it comes to women vs men or straight sex vs gay sex vs lesbian sex. It made me feel that this serie was done thinking mainly in the male gaze. Hell, considering how most female chars are controlled by men [mostly in their endings, showing that their stories are not exactly stories of emancipation] made me confirm this.

But putting aside that, it was a hell of a story, and I loved it.

#black sail #endings #personal opinion

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theyhaveacavetroll · 7 years

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I've seen a few ppl mention that Silver's vague backstory is the reason some fans don't like him. But I don't think that's true. For example, Vane was given an explicit backstory and lots of ppl hate him. Silver and Gates were the only major characters without a backstory. Everyone else was given one and people still hate some of them. Including Flint. No amount of tragic backstory will make them like him. I think the same would've been true for Silver if he was given one.

I have to agree. Honestly, for my part, I don’t give a flying blue fuck about Silver’s backstory or lack thereof, and I’ve heard other people who also don’t like him say exactly the same thing. My dislike of him - and theirs - is about his actions in canon, pure and simple. He could have the most complex backstory in the world - one that was fully as fleshed out as Flint’s, and as heartbreaking, and I would still be every bit as furious at him, as I would be at Flint or at any other character had they done the same thing. I am not talking about equivalent actions, because there are none - what Silver did has repercussions that reach down the generations to the modern day world, affecting billions, not just a couple of hundred or thousand people living in the West Indies at that point. My dislike of him is visceral, and it stems from the fact that I forgave him for ages - right up through 4x09, in fact - and then got to 4x10 and discovered that not only had he done the things I had forgiven him for - no. He’d betrayed Madi, and betrayed James, and done it starting as early as 4x04, and intended to do it perhaps since the season began. He’d lied to them time and time again, pretending to be their friend - and then he’d kept the knowledge that James’ husband was alive from him, despite experiencing the pain of losing Madi, and knowing how James must feel about losing Thomas and knowing he could make that pain stop for him. He tore Madi’s dream - the dream of being able to move about the world and not risk being enslaved or murdered merely for the color of her skin - out from under her by ending her war and thus any possibility of making real change. He’d done that to her people, too - her people, whom she held above all, above him, above herself, above anyone, and then he’d told her that he did it for her own good. In what world does “I did it for your own good” encompass “I actively put you at risk by keeping the status quo which is set by a world that wants you dead”? He enslaved James - took away any chance he had of being remembered for who he was instead of allowing society to call him what it liked and do to him what it liked. He took away in the process his freedom, his dignity, and his peace of mind, because I guarantee you that betrayal cemented in James Flint’s head that he could trust no one to care enough about him not to send him away. It’s only what - the third time that’s happened? The fourth?

I can’t forgive any of that. I won’t, because I understand what they were fighting for and I am furious at Silver’s callous disregard for the danger they faced merely in living in the society he prevented them from tearing down, his backstory be damned. Quite apart from caring about all oppressed peoples, he should have cared enough about them individually to treat them like they mattered more than that. I’m female, I’m Pagan, I’m queer, I’ve experienced oppression at the hands of people who want me dead or worse for those things, and let me tell you - if anyone told me that they thought that they, as a member of a group that is not oppressed in any of those ways, had the right to tell me how to fight for my rights as a human after pretending that they loved and supported me?

That person would be goddamned lucky to just be told to leave my life and never come back into it.

#js critical #Anonymous

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feathersandblue · 7 years

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Hi!I love your meta about black sails characters and I've read your last one about flint's real motivations and how much more human silver is.One of the biggest critic moved to silver is about madi, and the fact that he betrayed her stopping the war without her consent. That he has taken away from her a possibility to free the world from slavery. A cause for which she was ready to die for and to see him dying too. And for this betrayal he doesn't deserve and won't obtain her forgiveness...

Everyone is entitled to their own interpretation, and canon does not really answer the question what their future relationship will look like - or rather, it indicates that while reconciliation is possible and Madi might be willing to forgive him, their relationship will never be the same.

I don’t think canon really backs the idea that she won’t be able to forgive him. The fact that Madi comes to him in their last scene is pretty telling - it’s meant to indicate that Madi is changing her stance, rather than Silver. If the creators hadn’t meant to imply that they would still be together in some form, they could easily have their last scene be a shot of Silver looking at her longingly from a distance, and she turning her back on him and walking away.

Of course, we also have a very concise statement from the show’s creators:

“The way you see them at the end, they’re in the same frame but they’re yards away from each other. Emotionally, that’s as close as they’ll ever get again.”(x)

So I think it’s made pretty clear that Madi does forgive him, but that it’s not really the same after. And how could it be? Silver has betrayed her. There are fundamental differences between them that have now become obvious, which at least Madi hasn’t really been aware of before. He’s not the person she thought he was.

Concerning the fact that Silver stops the war without her consent, and that this makes him a bad person … well, I have a couple of problems with that.

1. One of them is a distinct one-sidedness in the way people look at their relationship, where Madi is treated basically as a saint, and Silver as an illoyal boyfriend who doesn’t support her and her cause as is his duty. But in a romantic relationship, both parties have obligations toward each other, it can’t be just a one-sided thing, no matter how much we relate to one partner and their goals and ambitions.

It’s also important to point out that if Silver had acted the way she wanted him to, Madi would be dead. Madi only survived the entire ordeal because Silver chose a wife over a war. If he hadn’t brought the cache, even though Flint and the maroon queen opted against it, the governor would have shot her.

It’s also only fair to mention that the choice between a noble cause and the life of a partner is not one that you can dictate to anyone. It’s a deeply personal decision. The fact that Madi’s life was more important to Silver than vice versa is not something you can really blame Silver for.

“You may think what you want of me. I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you’re alive to think it.”

I imagine it’s pretty difficult to remain perpetually pissed at a person for saving your life, going forward.

When Madi was imprisoned by Rogers, she wasn’t willing to bargain for Silver’s life. It was her choice. I don’t see anyone pointing out that it would have been her moral duty as a romantic partner to think of Silver and what they had together, that she is a horrible girldfriend for putting her beliefs first.

And yet I see people say that Silver’s failure to act in a way that reflects her beliefs rather than his makes him a bad person.

In a relationship between two equals, there is no such thing as an obligation to defer to your partner in such a profound way. There is no way to justify why Silver should have to defer to Madi. And yet parts of fandom consider him a horrible human being for failing to do just that.

So really, that one-sidedness, where people look at things only from Madi’s point of view - one that emphasizes her marginalization as a black woman and comes with the premise that Madi’s wants and needs clearly exceed Silver’s - that he’s a horrible boyfriend for disregarding her priorities, which are so much nobler and more important - is something I can’t share or support. People often judge their relationship from a position of real life activism, where the fact that Madi is fighting slavery is a killer argument. In my personal opinion, regarding their personal relationship as well as their historical situation solely from that perspective is somewhat reductive and simplistic.

2. The second problem that I have is the assumption that Madi was entitled to that war, as if war was some sort of possession or property. It was “her war”, and then Silver “took it away from her”. You might recall what I said about Flint personifying that war in my previous meta post. So according to Flint, Silver is a ruthless murderer; according to fandom, he is a thief.

But no matter how you twist it, war is not something that people have a right to, because war always requires the partcipation of other people. It requires soldiers to do your dirty work. If you are a war leader, you have to have the support of your troups, you have to lead them into battle, you have to order them to fight and kill on your behalf.

I’ve already written extensively about how Flint acts as a leader, but there’s one thing that can’t be denied, and that’s that he’s willing to put his own life on he line, fighting side by side with his men. He’s doing more than his own share of dirty work, he’s usually part of the boarding crew or the vanguard. It’s rare that we see him stand back while others do the killing.

When it comes to Madi, on the other hand, we have an entirely different situation. Madi is the heir of what is framed as a hereditary monarchy, she wasn’t elected into a position of power, she’s awarded that position - stepping into the footsteps of a leader who is “priestess, governess, warlord.” Her authority is absolute, she even takes pride in making it obvious to Silver in 3.08. that her men obey her without question. But Madi doesn’t do the dirty work. She doesn’t spill blood. In an era where war still means a lof of close combat, Madi steps back and lets other peope fight her battles.

What right does she have to this war, morally speaking, when that war demands the obedience and the sacrifice of other people? A position of authority where you can order people to die is not something that any human being, no mater how much we like them, should be entitled to.

Imagine there’s a war, and no one shows up. (*)

Basically, what Silver and Julius do in the finale, is to make that war so singularly unattractive to people that they are no longer inclined to show up. They are no longer willing to kill and die on Madi’s behalf because, guess what, they, too, value their own lives and those of their loved ones more than they value the prospect of a long, bloody war that puts their own freedom at risk and has very little chances at success.

Tough shit. It almost looks like it’s been Madi’s war rather than “their war”, as she so succinctly phrases it in her conversation with Rogers. Madi felt so confident speaking on behalf of her people, but then it turns out that she never actually had their vote. It should be mentioned that Madi herself has not experienced slavery first hand - not the way that Julius, Max, Ruth, or her mother and her father have experienced it, who are all far less enthusisastic at the prospect of a war because they know how much they stand to lose when England retaliates.

I am going to copy & paste a couple of praragraphs from one of my earlier posts here.

Fandom often treats Silver as if he were taking away Madi’s agency, but that’s not really what he’s doing.

By removing Flint and the treasure from the picture, Silver basically dissembles the nukes and cuts the finances of a war that he considers a fucking nightmare, which, and I don’t think anyone can deny it, is a valid concern. Flint, as a war leader and a brilliant tactiction, second to none, is more of a force of nature than a man. His reputation, his tactical genius, his ability to overcome the greatest odds, and his ability to get people to follow him are nothing short of amazing. So really, the analogy of Flint being the nuke - the devastating weapon of mass destruction - is not far off. And of course, the treasure is both a media-effective means of propaganda and a valuable resource.

Both Flint and the treasure, however, are also not something Madi had a right to, or at least, her right to them did not surpass Silver’s.

Silver has bled, and spilled blood, for each of these things.

Silver was a key player in securing the Urca gold in the first place. He bled for the cause (lost his leg in Charles Town), he was part of the Walrus crew which made Flint’s name what it became in the aftermath of Charles Town. He was the one who served as Flint’s quartermaster, he was the one who sailed with him into that storm, he is the one who went with him through the doldrums. When Flint made the bargain with the maroons, he made it under coercion - because the maroon queen threatened the lives of him and his crew. But it was Silver whose intervention forged that alliance. Without Silver, Flint would have given up in that cages, and all of our pretty pirates would have ended up dead either from torture or slave labor, or slain during their escape.

Madi, on the other hand, got that war handed on a silver plate (pun intended). She was living on that island, and, like most young people, struggling to forge her own identity by establishing herself in opposition to the more protectionsist rule of her mother. Along came a bunch of pirates who offered her a shiny war, as well as the war leader to fight it for her, a man with the persuasive power to convince her mother to support it.

Madi’s war relied on Flint - his tactical skills, his willingness to sacrifice anything and everything for the cause. It also relied on Silver, who put his life on the line again and again, torturing, killing, and descending into darkness. Silver was reluctant to step into that role, and we can see, during season three and four, how he struggles not to let that darkness consume him. Long John Silver is also not something that Madi has a right to. Nor, and that is where we get back to 1, is his unwavering support and loyalty even when it goes against his beliefs, especially since she doesn’t seem willing to offer the same.

When I say that Madi’s war relied on Flint, there is also another aspect to it, wich ties back to the previous meta about Flint and his reasons for fighting. Madi’s war relies on Flint being fucking miserable.

The thing that Madi seems most upset about in 4.10 is the fact that Silver sent Morgan to Savannah to look for Thomas Hamilton.

But why would Madi be upset about the fact that Silver sent someone to find out whether his best friend’s lover might still be alive? I mean, let’s assume that the Spanish invasion hadn’t happened, that Morgan had returned with the good news that Thomas was alive, imagine Silver had told Flint, there would have raided the plantation to free Thomas, and there would be a tearful reuion of two lovers. How on earth could Madi possibly see this as a form of betrayal?

Maybe because Silver, and Madi herself, knew that Thomas being alive would be a game changer for Flint. Looking for Thomas - which is all Silver did in that moment, it’s not as if he’d really been planning to imprison Flint there at that point - can only be considered a form of betrayal if they both knew exactly that Flint was only willing to fight that war because he was so lost to his grief and rage that it drove him to such extremes, if they both knew that Flint was born “out of great tragedy”. But it’s Flint that Madi’s war relies on. Not James McGraw.

All these things - the treasure, Flint, Long John Silver - they do not belong to Madi. There is a certain irony in the fact that Madi used Silver’s considerable skillset - his cunning, his inventiveness, his power of persuasion, the legend of Long John Silver - to fight her war, but that is is this exact skillset that is then used against her to end it.

Of course, Madi is free to do as she pleases. If she wants that war so desperately, she can go and try to find some likeminded people who help her fight it. She can find the outsiders, the rebels, the other “scattered objections” and form her own army, wage her own war, if that’s what she thinks is right. Build her own resistance. Do it the hard way. She can send someone to Savannah to find Flint and free him. She can do a lot of things to make that war happen.

But she won’t do that, because she isn’t stupid, and she’s not like Flint, who was so consumed by his war that he simply could not let go of it. Madi has other things to live for, thankfully. For sane people, a war immdiately gets a lot less attractive the moment their chances of winning decline. Madi is a good leader to her people, and she’s a good person. She would not waste lives and resources in a war that no one wants.Silver did betray her, and I’m not saying she has to forgive him. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that Silver’s motives and reasons are no less valid than hers, and that taking out Flint and the cache did not mean denying her agency, because if her agency relied on these two things, then it was never real to begin with.

3. Third, what bothers me is to look at Silver’s betrayal of Flint and make it about Madi when it was never about her in the first place. I know we all look at the show from different pespectives, but I think it’s fair to say that Silver and Flint, their individual arcs and their complex and fraught relationship, are central to Black Sails. In Silver’s story, Flint is the antagonist, and the conflict between Flint and Silver and its resolution has very little to do with Madi - if anything, she’s a catalyst that contributes to brings things to a head. Accordingly, the idea that Madi’s wants and needs should be the determining factor in Silver’s decision-making seems quite absurd. Flint may be Madi’s nuke, but first and foremost, he’s Silver’s … friend, alter ego, antagonist, partner, captain, whatever you want to call it - this overwhelming influence in Silver’s life.

The relationship between Silver and Flint is complex, fraught, full of landmines. There’s a co-depenency that’s not quite healthy, a power imbalance that only changes in Silver’s favor in season four - and there’s a tentative, hard-won friendship between them. And in that situation - with their shared history and everything they’ve been through together - should Madi’s wants and needs really be the deteminigg factor in Silver’s decision-making? Or should it be his own moral compass?

Of course, the situation in Black Sails is more complex than that, there are other factors to keep in mind - first and foremost, the issue of slavery, which, as I’ve said before, is a killer argument all on its own. How can Silver possibly turn aganst Flint and Silver when they fight for a better world without slavery, for a revolution? If he doesn’t want to fight, he can just walk away, can he not?

But the thing is, people who tend to say that rarely look at the whole thing from Silver’s point of view. There is a distinct lack of willingness to put themselves in his shoes.

Silver is in a position of an individual having to make a choice. Jack has arrived with a clear agenda, one that gives Nassau a chance at peace. From Silver’s point of view, Flint is entirely driven by rage, the intent “to see the world burn” - as someone who is decidedly not an idealist, Silver simply cannot focus on these far-away visions of a better future the same way. And in that situation, confined by his own experiences and worldview, Silver is left with two options: side with Jack, secure the peace and the freedom of Madi’s people, stop Flint, and keep Madi safe. Or turn against Jack, enable the war and let Flint set the New World on fire, then lose both him and Madi either trough a violent death or by leaving them behind. War or peace? The decision, in this moment, is not an easy one, but I think it displays a lack of understanding to suggest that with Silver’s and Flint’s relationship right at the core of it, with everything that stands between them - the things Silver has seen Flint do, the murder and the insanity and the gambling with lives, and the things Silver himself has done on behalf of the war - that Silver acting according to his personal beliefs makes him a villain, or that it is his moral duty to support his girfriend’s ambitions - the very girlfriend who, at this point, is only still alive because he’s already “betrayed” her once by prioritizing her life over the cause.

So, after all of that, we are still left with a couple of things that cannot be denied.

1. Silver acted behind Madi’s back, and he betrayed both her and Flint on a personal level. They had no reason to suscpect he would turn against them (though I would argue that there were signs, they just didn’t pick up on them), which further contributes to the sense of betrayal.

2. Silver put a stop to a war that was meant to abolish slavery. We cannot conclusively say that it was the right choice (but neither can we say it wasn’t, as we have no means to determine what the outcome would have been).

It’s of course perfectly okay to have personal opinions about all of these things, or to think that Madi should not forgive Silver. But I can’t help but think that a lot of the criticism levelled at Silver is a consequence of a very limited viewpoint that is rooted in activism, not in empathy - to an extent where the entire thing becomes a black and white thing, where Madi gets awarded all the oppression points that forever put her on a pedestal of moral high ground, because SLAVERY!

Perdonally, I don’t think that this viewpoint acknowledges the complexity of the issue at hand, something that the show itself is actually very good at.

—————————————-

* The original phrasing, of course, is “Sometime they’ll give a war and no one will come.” The variant used here is a re-translation of the German version, “Stell dir vor, es ist Krieg, und keiner geht hin.”

#black sails #madi #john silver #silvermadi #black sails meta #long post #very long post

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old-long-john · 7 years

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looks like you are someone in the black sails fandom who agrees that every character is pretty damn flawed (except for, like, madi, and we didn't see enough of thomas hamilton to see his flaws but i am certain he had them) but I have to say some of fandom and their determination to make silver THE VILLAIN of the show just reminds me, over and over, of the quotation "civilization needs its monsters". like you can write john off as an evil white "het" man, even though he is clearly bi, but

in my opinion people like john silver are only made because society makes them. i think silver was probably wounded young, and then just wounded over and over for a period of years that almost certainly felt like forever, as prolonged trauma does, and it is so frustrating to me that fandom doesn’t want to embrace how complicated and tormenting and heartbreaking and infuriating that john silver is. but then i look at state of world and my country (usa) and need for scapegoat in all things, well.

Thank you for this ask. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and it’s been frustrating me too, so it was nice to be given a reason to actually say something about it. I hope you don’t mind me answering it publicly (let me know if you do and I’ll delete it). I’ve spent about four days trying to work out an answer to this that I’m happy with though, because it feels like some of my thoughts might be skating on thin ice and asking for trouble if they’re not carefully expressed, and that’s not at all what I want. I’ll stick this under a read more so I don’t clog people’s dashes.

Honestly, at this point I’ve pretty much stopped interacting with any ‘discourse’. I’m so tired of it. I’m reconciled to the fact that everyone in the fandom is mostly set on their opinions by now, and that’s totally fine, when people stay polite about it. Everyone brings their own shit into the viewing of a show (and I mean that in the nicest way). It’s not just unavoidable, it’s incredibly apt and a powerful thing when it comes to understanding stories like this, which attempt to show us such a broad range of human experiences and conditions and complexities. With a show like Black Sails especially, that doesn’t allow you to be a passive viewer, that demands engagement to be able to understand it, it’s no wonder people feel so strongly about so many aspects of it, and often find themselves feeling helplessly understanding of or very personally wounded by certain characters’ choices. And being part of a fandom which is filled with a beautifully diverse group of people, with opinions informed by their beautifully diverse life experiences and personal baggage, can be such an amazing way to broaden one’s own horizons and see things from different points of view.

That being said, the other side of it is exactly what you described: being exposed to mind blowing bullheadedness. At this point I pretty much just share the same irritation as you. I understand the reasons why some people can’t forgive the things Silver did, and I understand why some people just plain don’t like him (hell, I hated him too when I first watched S1). That’s for them to decide, if it even is truly a decision and not one of those things that exists somewhere beyond choice. I know I couldn’t choose to hate him now or to not understand to a really quite painful extent the fears and emotions that motivated him to do what he did. Quite honestly, I’ve only watched that 4x10 forest scene twice and the second time I was so angry with him too, but I still understand, and it hurts all the more for it. As with so many of the most powerful moments in this story, they’re at their most moving when you can see all the ways in which both parties are right, and choosing a side is almost impossible.

Like you said though, what’s really beginning to grate on my nerves is this idea that Silver is the villain of the piece; irredeemable, two-dimensional, bland, or simply the ‘abusive cishet white man’ (a tag I’ve seen too, and one that made me roll my eyes so fucking hard I almost sprained something. Tumblr’s a truly magical land of over-simplistic juvenile twattery sometimes). It’s utter bullshit, and it feels like my annoyance has taken a step up out of the complexities of canon and into the difficulties of tumblr and fandoms. Sometimes I really think some people could benefit from stepping away from the bubble of tumblr and going outside once in awhile. (Do you hear that? It’s the sound of my fragile glass house shattering around me.)

Black Sails is not perfect. I am fully aware of that. But the one thing the writers managed incredibly consistently (mostly) was creating complicated, flawed, and human characters. There are only a handful of characters who approach being two-dimensional, villainous, or flawless, and they tend to be the ones who had the least screen time to be developed, or served more as plot devices than characters. John Silver was certainly not one of those. People are free to despise him, people can be horrified or outraged or disgusted by his choices, people can even just not personally find him that interesting, but reducing him to just The Villain? That’s choosing to be ignorant and refusing to engage with the text, simply because it doesn’t suit their own narrative. Good people can do appalling things, and bad people can do good things, and most people (and so most characters in this story) are neither of those two extremes, but horribly messy shades of grey, just trying to do the best they can for themselves and their loved ones with what resources they have. Some people are better, some are worse, but most traverse that middle ground, rarely remaining static or uncomplicated in their ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’, and Silver is most certainly among us complicated good-bad people. Refusing to acknowledge the depth of those nuances pisses me off because it feels like such a disservice to the hard work of everyone involved in creating this show and the astonishing things they accomplished with these characters and their relationships. Beautiful art deserves fair and thoughtful analysis. Anything less than that feels like a waste of everyone’s time. Why bother consuming a story like this and investing so much time and energy in discussing it if you’re not going to engage with it in an honest way? It’s possible to hate a character but still appreciate their complexity.

What you said is so true. It’s abundantly clear (from very early on, if you actually take the time to look for it) that Silver is a very damaged person, good at reading people but dead set on avoiding becoming attached to them (and the things that suggests are not pleasant), and someone who had nothing in the world but the clothes on his back and his wits. He was never going to be an idealist, because the world had made him a realist. Even if people think his choices in the end were abhorrent, surely they must see why he made them? To be in a position to end a war, which he saw as only an unwinnable nightmare, to save the people he loved from death (and every other innocent bystander whose lives would have been weighed against the cause, without their consent, and sacrificed in its pursuit). How is that difficult to understand? Even if it seems unutterably selfish or short-sighted, it’s the easiest thing in the world to empathise with on a human level. And his love for both Flint and Madi just isn’t up for debate. It’s right there in every scene, and confirmed in every interview with the writers. Even if he loved them poorly, he still loved them. That’s a very human thing too. Perhaps people would’ve felt differently about him if they’d definitively told us what those ‘unending horrors’ he’d suffered in his past were, but they didn’t and so we have to read between the lines. It just doesn’t take that much effort to see those lines flashing like neon signs throughout his arc, if you aren’t actively trying to ignore them for the sake of stuffing him into that box labelled ‘Long John Silver – Moustache Twirling Villain’.

It was also a pretty damn significant element of his story line that his becoming disabled slammed a whole lot of doors in his face, gave people a reason to judge him as less than other men, and left him desperately clinging on to the one vaguely happy life and future he had left within his reach. Are people conveniently ignoring that aspect of his character arc because it doesn’t fit in with that tumblr attitude of ‘boo, fuck white cis men. They’re all disgusting and none of them can know true suffering or injustice in this society that favours them’? Of course those privileges exist, and of course white male characters so often get free passes for things they really shouldn’t, and those are things that desperately need addressing and I wouldn’t try to minimise, but I don’t see how going balls to the wall in the opposite direction and refusing to see nuance makes any more sense. Especially when it comes to a story set during that historical time period and a character who we all saw have one privilege (being able-bodied) violently ripped away from him. Anybody who can dismiss as irrelevant the impact of his disability and the profound suffering and limitations that came with it is being wilfully blind. (I’ve written absurdly excessive meta about the significance of that.)

There are infinite different ways to suffer and end up irreparably damaged, and just because he doesn’t know some types doesn’t mean he hasn’t experienced others and hasn’t been truly and deeply scarred by them. It’s not a goddamn competition. This isn’t a world where only the most widespread and systemic suffering ‘counts’. Half of the point of this story was showing us the myriad fucked up and inventive ways in which the structure of ‘civilised’ society shat (and still shits) on anybody who wasn’t sat comfortably at the top. Or simply the ways in which ‘civilised’ society didn’t give a fuck about anyone else shitting on the little people either. Of course he hasn’t suffered the specific and enormous cruelties that say the people Madi was fighting for suffered, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t want to live whatever hellish past it was that he couldn’t even speak of either, and which sits within the context of this whole narrative of fucked up pasts as the single one too awful to be named. I also definitely wouldn’t want to live the present that saw him mutilated and handed a lifetime of suffering that no ideological war could in any way redress. And I’m really not trying to weigh his suffering against other people’s, or trying to build it into any kind of justification or excuse, because that way lies ignorant fuckery and it isn’t my point. The only point I’m trying to make is that some people’s determined lack of acknowledgement of the ways in which he was a beautifully complicated, damaged, suffering, good-bad person too is aggravating to me as someone who is in awe of the intricately complex things the writers and actors accomplished throughout this story. More than anything I just don’t see how anyone can have watched his whole character arc and honestly come to the conclusion that he’s bland and two-dimensional, or that his relationship with Flint was insincere or insignificant (to either of them), or that his ultimate choices can be explained simply by labelling him Evil™. He isn’t even as simple as that in bloody Treasure Island.

It doesn’t even seem to be about whether or not people see Silver’s actions as defensible at this point. It does seem to have devolved into a division between people who have very different opinions on that, but ultimately see why he did those things, and people who refuse to engage with the more sympathetic aspects of his character at all, for whatever reasons. Maybe because it makes the whole thing more difficult and uncomfortable when you have to accept that The Villain was an ultimately shifting and amorphous thing that was someone or something different for every character, and that in some ways Silver was as much a victim as anyone else in that story, and it was partly the result of the ways in which he was victimised (before and after we met him) that bound him to a course where he ended up horribly hurting the people he was trying to help. Nothing is ever black and white, in real life or on this show, and trying to reduce it to that is being either intellectually lazy, disingenuous or obtuse, and missing so much of the beautiful subtlety of the writing.

This answer got way out of hand…but yeah. John Silver isn’t a hero or a villain, because he is not a two-dimensional character, and he sure as fuck isn’t bland or boring. Few people on this show are. We’re all of us in love with a bunch of thieves and murderers and master manipulators. But that’s the point. They’re all just people, beautifully multifaceted and forced to extremes at the very edge of the world and clinging on to life by the skin of their teeth. They’re complex and fucked up and every single one of them running away from something or running towards something else. With barely thirty seconds of thought I could find sympathetic things to say about almost every single character in this show, even if those things wouldn’t be enough to tip the balance of judgement in their favour or make me like them. I’m completely aware that Silver is far less in need of defending than some unfairly maligned characters on this show, but I think perhaps to a certain few it’s the complexity of the writing and therefore the necessity of complex interpretations that needs defending. Nobody is obliged to forgive Silver or to like him, but if they’re happy to forgive and like other characters who have done equally fucked up things or worse ones then that’s a double standard they really ought to take the time to consider. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose, but a story like this deserves better.

#I'm not sure why I've felt so nervous about posting this #but I've written and deleted at least four times as much as I actually ended up happy with #I suppose it's the idea of coming across as saying 'don't be mean to the white boy!1!!' that's worrying #but hopefully it's clear that that's not the point I'm trying to make??#I hope #because it's really not #I'm just so tired of people being obtuse about this when so much care and effort went into the writing and performance #of this character #it's lazy and irritating #poodle snake's as complicated and fucked up as any of them #and that means he's also as capable of genuinely good intentions as any of them #just #respect the fucking art people

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keensers · 7 years

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listen i just read your new fic so if you're still up for talking about writing characters TALK TO ME ABOUT MADI YOU WRITE HER SO BRILLIANTLY OH MY GOD

dear cynthia: thank u for this ask and thank you for your kind words (as always)!!!!!! AND, i will never ever NOT be up for talking about madi. ever. if i had the time i could talk about madi every hour of every day but i have to do things like “work” so i can “make rent.” but it’s sunday and you opened this can of worms SO!

1. madi really is as wise as her father and as strong as her mother. to borrow a couple of cliches, she has learned to bear the weight of the crown, and does so with incredible grace. the maroons clearly respect her a great deal - that isn’t something that just happens, it’s something that’s earned. SHE ONLY HAS TO WHISTLE AND HER MEN RAISE ARMS IN A SITUATION WHICH IS PRETTY FUCKING TENSE. this strength and the almost expectation that she’ll be listened to comes through in the way she talks, i think - you also get the sense that she always always always thinks through what she’s about to say before she says it. her words are measured the way anyone who has learned to be a leader has learned to measure their words; each one means something, each one is there to serve a purpose (an aside: i think we see this in mr scott & the maroon queen as well, more similarly in the latter, which would make sense). i actually focus quite a bit on getting madi’s voice right BECAUSE she has such a particular way of speaking in the show - she talks in these wonderful paragraphs (the speech she gives rogers in 4.09 is hands-down one of the most well-phrased in the show) that are premeditated and aimed very exactly at whoever she wants to convince.

2. when she trusts, it’s with her whole self. i think that’s both a) why she takes so long to trust flint and b) why she’s so cut up by what silver does in 4.10. i will also say, i think that she comes to trust flint because she sees right the fuck through him. she understands him at the moment that he says “i don’t know what i’m trying to say, i guess just that he was my friend” - we all know that’s bullshit! madi knows that’s bullshit! we know she knows it because silver TELLS HER about thomas, and then tells her that he’s the closest person to flint, now. i think there’s something that clicks there, when flint says that, because it’s clearly a turning point in their [madi’s and his] relationship. i really don’t think that turning point happens because they’re forced to trust each other by circumstance; i think it happens because flint is trying his utmost to be emotionally honest with her and she sees that and sees him. there are people she trusts because she has to trust them due to the situation (e.g. kofi, eme, ruth) but she doesn’t have to trust flint. that’s an irrational thing, borne of affection and loyalty and shared grief, but it’s SO strong that (just like for flint) it’s something close enough to love that the line gets blurry. i really think she did kind of love him, by the end. there’s no other reasonable explanation for the look on her face when she walks out onto the deck with silver in 4.09. (the ot4 fix-it i wrote hinges on the fact that) when you end up trusting someone in a situation like that, where trusting the wrong person likely means death, it’s very difficult to shake. that’s why i also think it’s going to take her a very long time (and possibly some swordfighting) to come to forgive silver. as i wrote in my silver meta, to save their lives, he killed the dream which was as much hers as it was flint’s, and all three of them know it.

3. following on that, madi is the single most idealistic character on the show with the POSSIBLE exception of thomas. this is partially because she’s one of the younger characters on the show (i doubt she’s older than 28) and partially because she was raised mostly in the more-or-less peaceful maroon camp, so she’s seen how a society like that can be built and can function. i want to clarify that being idealistic doesn’t make her a fool - as i mentioned above, madi IS really wise and has a deep understanding of both the world and the people around her. i think she puts the pieces together and sees a picture very similar to the one that flint sees, if a bit less rosy (still thinking about “we could even take boston”), just in terms of how winnable the war really is. she believes in the cause but she also believes that the war can be won. by s4, she believes in silver’s capacity to lead it AND in flint’s capacity to make it happen. i think this idealism also means she’s incredibly determined. she’s determined to do what’s Right; she has a very strong moral compass, and routinely chooses the less expedient thing for her own safety over the easy way out which she feels is morally repugnant. but she’s also determined in a simpler, accomplish-her-own-goals way, which is why i REALLY don’t see her settling into a life with silver after the finale. it’s going to take her ages to forgive him, and as i have been yelling about for the past month, that just isn’t a life she would accept for herself. like thomas being a “great man” because he just won’t shut the fuck up and stop trying to improve the world EVER, madi is the same way. i don’t see her resigned; i see her pissed off. i see her using that anger to do her utmost to change what she can, fix what she can, and remake the world so that she and silver CAN live in it together, because love doesn’t end like that. she just wouldn’t let it.

#black sails #bs meta #madi #i WOULD DIE FOR MADI SCOTT #from an authorial standpoint she's actually the easiest for me to write #because i really feel like i Get her and her motivations etc #hope you enjoyed this fucking. wall of text #ITS LITERALLY 1000 WORDS #why am i Like That #long post #reluming #ask #really i end up not putting cuts because i accidentally hit 'enter' and publish it #before managing to go back and edit in a readmore #and by then i'm too lazy.....#ANYWAY OT4 POLYAMORY IN SAVANNAH OR BUST

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hellsbells91 · 7 years

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Black Sails 4.10 Watch Notes

Where do I even begin to talk about this ending, that wraps everything up in a big beautiful tragedy and yet also manages to be not just an ending, but a beginning for so much more to come. If I were as good at talking as Jack is, I’d go on and on, but I’m not so I’ll just say fuck me. I think I’ve cried about three times since watching the finale last night. It’s heart wrenching and hopeful and overwhelming with a sadness that is probably going to linger with me for a good while. I applaud this show, I applaud the creators, the writers, the actors, the production team, the crew and everyone involved in making this for creating a stunning period drama about pirates that is anything but the stereotypical, cheesy or romantic version of piracy we most often see.

The standout moment for me in this episode was definitely the conversation between Flint and Silver in the forest. The two give equally impassioned (and extremely well-acted) speeches and we’re faced with two options that are both with merit and understandable in a way that makes it impossible to decide who is right and who is wrong. How could we judge such a thing when the outcome is so unclear? If the war is stopped, will they have missed their one opportunity to effect real change in world? What’s to say that the world would have changed at all, even if they did win? It’s this kind of complexity to situations that I feel Black Sails has always excelled at. To seemingly lead us to one outcome but then throw us in the other direction.

Speaking of which, the scene in which Jack trying to reach Woodes Rogers is paralleled against Silver trying to reach Madi left me so sure that either Madi would be dead or Jack would die. But neither did, and I think I am just so used to having a main character have to die in a series finale that it was a much-needed pleasant surprise that they both survive. The battle sequence is not the biggest Black Sails has done or the noisiest but it sure didn’t let up on the intensity and stakes, and gave us the final fight between Flint and Billy that had been left unfinished at the Underhill Estate.

Billy’s fate, as he once again is dropped off the side of a ship, is fitting as his own warnings come back to bite him in the behind. He made his choice, and now he has to live on that island surrounded by the bodies and ghosts of men he once knew as brothers. Nothing is more satisfying than Rogers’ outcome though, and this is actually something that I wanted, I preferred this over his death. His death would have been too easy, he deserved something more cruel, more humiliating, and Jack is brilliant as usual and proves that despite being a fearsome pirate, he is a better man than Rogers. A man who keel-hauled another and still failed in breaking him, is now broken in one fell swoop with barely any blood being drawn. It’s narrative heaven for me. On one hand I would have loved to see Eleanor in that courtroom, continuing to haunt him as he rots, but on the other I like the idea that she and her memory have now been set free of him.

As for everyone else, was Silver right to stop the war? John has perhaps paid the heftiest price in ensuring the outcome in which the most people survive. Not a noble cause necessarily, and maybe not without selfish motive, but he did what he did out of love and with good intentions. He knows that Madi and Flint wouldn’t forgive him for taking their cause away from them, he knows that he will have to live with whatever outcome they get, maybe he even knows deep down that Flint is right about him when he says a quiet life will never be enough for him. But as we see a prosperous Nassau in which Jack, Anne, Max, Featherstone and Idelle have survived this world and continue to live in the next, even in secret, I can’t bring myself to view him as a villain for doing what he did - even though we know that he will go on to be remembered in history as the villain of Treasure Island. (I wrote more on my immediate reaction to Silver’s actions here). This is exactly what the finale offers us, happiness tinged with unease and compromise - Steinberg said something similar in an interview, that most of the characters may have gotten the outcome they desired but the way in which they acquired it was not done without a hard sacrifice.

As I rewatch the episode, the theory that Silver did in fact kill Flint is becoming more believable to me (hang on a second)… The biggest clue is in the forest I think. You hear birds, then see Ben and Hands looking to each other before moving off in the direction of Flint and Silver. We don’t hear a gunshot, but the implication is there. Wouldn’t it have taken Silver a lot longer to transport Flint to Florida than the short amount of time it would have taken to get the cache? And it’s not too difficult to believe that Silver could have made up the rest of the story he relays to Madi at the end of the episode. You can poke many holes if you look hard enough. But on the other hand there is also good stack of evidence to suggest that what we see with James at the plantation is actually what happened. Why would Silver take the time to say that he would wait for Flint if only to kill him? Why would Ben and Hands be accompanying Flint in the afterlife? After Flint told Silver last episode that he would never be able to spin a story that would make Madi forgive him, wouldn’t that just be a kick in the face to have that actually happen? Do we really believe that John would have been able to do that?

I personally believe that the similarities between the journey to the plantation and the journey into Hades are purely symbolic. I don’t think that Flint is actually dead and he’s moving into the afterlife, I think it’s more symbolic of this being the ending to his journey. When he passes through those gates, James Flint is dead. Silver pays the ferryman, James McGraw is judged, and he is left to travel into the fields of Elysium, where he is reunited with his true love.

It’s annoyingly open-ended, and in a series that often tells us that stories may have little truth to them, or that the truth matters little, we’re being left to question it.

Did Flint die in that forest? Did he retire with Thomas? Did he drink himself to death in Savannah?

Maybe the writers were getting a bit meta by suggesting to us the viewer, through the voice of Jack, that the story we want to believe is the story that will survive. Jack’s entire last speech is in itself a wonderful ode to the show, and how we will continue to remember the men and women who lived in this world long after they’re gone and the truth is forgotten. Technically the story is a Treasure Island prequel, but it’s just as fitting to end with some of the real historical figures, standing in front of the most iconic and recognisable symbol of high seas piracy.

#Black Sails #bs spoilers #xxxviii #4.10 #watch notes #this show is amazing #I've gone through it what... about 4 times now #oops #so yeah #give it a try #it deserves more love

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dani-annie · 7 years

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The End of the Cult of Personality Triumvirate

Black Sails Finale

I think a lot has been said on-line about the duplicity of John Silver after the Black Sails finale. Some believe that he actually killed Flint and lied to Madi and everyone to hold onto his relationship with her. But, I don’t believe that.

Silver told Flint that it was only when he thought that Madi was dead that he finally understood him, that Captain Flint had been born out of the rage of losing Thomas. Flint started out as a hard-line navy man, who was influenced by Thomas’s ideology because Flint loved him and thought he was a miraculous creature. Flint told him that the death of Thomas and defilement of their love had shown him that the English system was broken and needed to be replaced entirely. I think losing Madi finally gave Silver the emotional intelligence to realize that a large portion of Flint’s fight for freedom was in fact rage-fueled grief. I’m not saying that Flint didn’t believe in freedom. I’m not saying that he did not feel he had been oppressed and persecuted, or that Thomas hadn’t been persecuted and to his knowledge murdered by that system. I’m saying that it wasn’t a sense of moral rightness that drove Flint. Silver couldn’t know this before feeling this grief-fueled rage himself. And even before the loss of Madi, Silver had began to worry when Flint went from the fight to free Nassau, to freeing the Caribbean, to waging war on Boston, all in a few weeks time.

I firmly believe that giving Flint back a the possibility of a living, breathing Thomas would force Flint to evaluate his whole world view. If grief and rage over Thomas’s death gave birth to Flint’s war for freedom, then Thomas’s being alive would remove most of the justification for all of the violence Flint had perpetrated and inspired. The true motive behind all of Flint’s actions would no longer exist. Furthermore, Thomas would never approve of Flint’s methods. With the possibility of Thomas being alive, Flint had the burden of fearing the judgement of a living Thomas, and not of a ghost who Flint could convince himself might have understood his actions. The Thomas the viewers met would not approve of what Flint had become. He would still love him and forgive him, but the real Thomas would want Flint to stop all the violence immediately and completely.

In terms of Madi, she had the burden of centuries of the suffering of her people, living and dead, to carry on her shoulders. It would be impossible for her to stop fighting. As Madi said to Silver, she was raised to be the one who tended. So naturally Madi was angry and ashamed of Silver’s choice to make the compromise and stop the war. She probably also felt to a degree that the betrayal was racially motivated, that is that as a white man Silver could not ever fully understand the suffering of black people. That would also make her feel humiliated and ashamed of herself for forgetting their racial differences, as if she had betrayed her people by loving and trusting Silver. However, Madi was an extremely smart, analytical, and observant woman. I think that once she was able to understand that Flint’s leaving Should Not have ended the need to fight for freedom if people were really committed, I think that she would begin to forgive Silver. I Believe that Madi would eventually forgive Silver once she analysed the significance of Flint giving It All up just to have the man that he loved back. I think if she accepted that, it would make her question Flint’s ideology and begin the process of shrinking Flint down to real-life size. She would begin to understand how much of the fight had been inspired by “the Cult of Personality” comprised of the triumvirate of Flint, Silver, and Herself. Considering the fact that the compromise included retaining the freedom of all the slaves who had already freed themselves, and that some of those ex-slaves, like Julius, had never wanted the war, I think that she would be able to make peace with what had happened. After a while she would realize that she had been ignoring the voices of those of her people who had been saying Enough Now. And, the treaty was historically accurate. There were maroon communities as early as the 1600s, and two major maroon wars were fought in the Caribbean. While Madi would never have chosen John over her people, she would see that Flint DID chose Thomas over Everyone, over the entirety of all people oppressed by England everywhere. And if Flint could walk away, Madi could be forgiven for adjusting to the reality that both her people and the pirates were ready to stop and reap the rewards of what they had fought and bled and sacrificed so much for already. That maybe it would be acceptable to lead her people in peace and partake of the love that John offered, a love that for once in her entire life put Her first. And she would come to understand that the choice that Silver made was in actuality the very same choice that Flint had made himself.

#silver x madi #madi scott #silver x flint #john silver #james flint #flint x thomas #black sails #black sails theories #silver x madi x flint #black sails finale #fireeatero6

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misayuhki · 7 years

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Billy Bones' Mystery: "Restrain the Captain"

Now I'd like to talk about the fight between Billy and Flint at the Underhill plantation. Actually my conclusion here is plain and simple, Billy's intention here was to restrain Flint not to kill him. Flint understood it somehow, I think, so that he seemed to Silver not angry about the incident. And lastly I will talk about my speculation of who killed the Underhills and why Billy said nothing about it.

I'm a blint shipper, so looking for those blint moments became second nature of mine and I do this unconsciously ;-p So if there is any blint bias going on, forgive me.

Yes, that was really really really a bad timing to rebel against the ally of Flint and Madi. And he and his people shouldn't shoot at Flint, Madi, and their men. But before the shooting, Billy told his people to restrain Flint. The main purpose of Billy's fight against Flint was, I think, to restrain Flint so that Billy can continue working on plantation raids. And the purpose of this plantation raids was to gather more men to fight with them, Flint, Madi, and Billy to take Nassau effectively. Here Billy sort of snapped like that having a childish tantrum and exploded. But no. He wanted to take Nassau and rescue those brothers of his captured when the invasion failed. Because I think Billy knew what Berringer and his men were doing to his brothers.

Before the conflict between Billy and Flint, at the sleep chamber of Underhill estate, Billy literary begged Flint not to retreat. When Billy said "I ask you, please, don't do this." to Flint, when Billy said "please", Jacob Garret who stood behind Billy faced downward as if it was painful for him to hear Billy beg, or he thought he shouldn't witness his leader begging. But Flint didn't accept Billy's opinion (personally I think Flint was right, though).

As asking to Flint, I imagine Billy remembered what he'd done for Flint for all those years, and he wished and hoped that Flint hear him for once to show appreciation for Billy. But Flint didn't. Billy must had felt so disappointed and even betrayed. It's natural for him to got very very furious. But first Billy ordered his men to restrain Flint ("Henry, Davis, restrain the captain"). Of course it didn't go well and things went wrong then the shooting and the fight happened.

The fight itself, for my eyes, didn't look like deadly serious. Billy and Flint are able fighters and killers, if they both truly tried to kill each other, I think one of them was ended up killed by the other or both of them seriously injured. But none happened. They both sure had some bruises and Billy had minor cuts on his face from (I suppose) Flint's punches, but they were OK. OK as in they could have another big fight with British Navy next day. And simply this fight lacks the intensity and fierceness of one Billy had with Vane at S2-09.

Let me get back to the fight. I'm no expert of fighting and choreographing of fighting, but their sword fighting looked a little bit slow in speed and the movement looked a bit coordinated, like they are doing training.

At the first couple of sword swinging of Billy made remained me of Vane went to Teach to help Flint at the beach on the Ocracoke Island. Flint looked so surprised as Teach did. Billy swung his sword a couple of times in big motion and the moving pattern was, I think, familiar and predictable to Flint. And Billy swung his sword at Flint sword, never aimed other than the sword.

And then the shooting. Billy kicked Flint before he pull out his pistol. This kick looked rather weak to me. Billy could have kicked Flint with much stronger force so that Flint would fall on the ground. Billy kicked Flint not to give some damage to Flint but, I think, make some distance between them so that Billy can put Flint in his gun point.

Then the shooting. Because I think Billy's purpose of this fight is to restrain Flint not to kill him or harm him, what Billy wanted here was put or aim the barrel on Flint's forehead to make Flint stop fighting back against him. But the barrel was swiped by Flint's sword and then (I believe) accidentally Billy pulled the trigger.

Apart from this shooting, Billy never tried to hurt Flint; his kicks were not that strong, he once punched Flint in the gut but never on the face, and when they grabbed each other's wrist, Billy (and Flint) could have head-banged but (both of them) didn't. And the shooting, Billy could have shot Flint's belly or chest (if he really wanted to kill Flint) or other body parts to give some damage, but he didn't.

So I think I can say in this fight Billy had no intension of hurting Flint but wanted to only restrain him and he failed, as in S1-01.

And I believe Flint noticed the true intension of Billy. That is why he didn't look like angry to Billy at all for Silver's (and Madi's) eyes. But still it was shocking experience for him. Did you hear the voice of his saying "Fall back!"? Hoarse and shaky and breaking. I thought he was in tears (I know I am wrong). Flint must have realized how Billy changed, grown to be his own man, who has strong sense of responsibilities to his people. Hope Flint will show some respect to Billy and stop ordering around like when Billy was his bosun.

After Flint and Madi ran into the corn field, Billy stood up wearing this cynical sneer on his face and went to fight with militia. I thought he was going to be suicidal and so so worried about him. But thankfully I was wrong. Billy and his people fought with militia, put them away, and then sent warnings to the other estates (!!) as Ruth (not sure with her name) stated to Madi.

Lastly here I would like to talk about the killing of the Underhill family. This is strictly my speculation because both Billy and Ruth said nothing about it but I feel the Underhill family was killed by the released slaves who had, it's easily imagined, grudge against Underhill. Ruth didn't say it to Madi, because who wants to tell bad about your own people, especially in the time of war? And there is Julius going around.

Then why Billy didn't say anything, because Billy knew Flint spared them (he must have been really glad to find out that Flint didn't kill innocent people) so he wanted to do the same. But he couldn't save them. If you cannot save them, it is as same as you killed them. Billy is grown so so so much, now he became an alpha male who doesn't make any excuse.

#Black Sails #billy bones #restrain the captain #teamBilly

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silverflintdaily · 4 years

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Schedule - udpates! Submit prompts and work on fills now through the end of the month! Ao3 collection linked below. Collection is open for posting, it will be revealed 6/23. Our main posting week is June 23rd to 30th! We’ll still reblog fills after that but hope to have a week of new Silverflint stuff. :) Submit prompts here: HTTPS://FORMS.GLE/LMGMVAYUHRAFZCVW6 Auto updated prompt spreadsheet: HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/YCGDCNNQ Ao3 collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SilverflintSummerChallenge Full details here: https://tinyurl.com/y832muwv FULL LIST OF PROMPTS AS OF 6/16/20 BELOW.