Daggers & Skulls

ramblings mostly centred on black sails, ofmd, and other queer pirates | main: noiraffogato

[raise-the-blacks]

Got inspired halfway through a rewatch, so I made a little chronological mixed genre Black Sails playlist.

[221bnassau]

I had to post this scene like this because I'm obsessed with Toby Stephens and Louise Barnes here, they did a fantastic job in a very important moment because, without yet revealing to us exactly what happened, we see for the first time the true motivation behind Flint's actions so far.

Similar to Eleanor, Miranda is a woman who has lived in the privilege that money has provided her and I love her dearly but Flint is right here. He doesn't come from a wealthy family and has spent his life ignoring his origins and his desires to fit into society. He has been good at his job, has done everything asked of him and has kept any indiscretions hidden.

And it has not been enough.

Miranda has the opportunity to be happy in that society but Flint does not because it would mean denying who he is again and ignoring what was done to the person he has loved most in his life, a person who was the same as him.

Flint is not the right leader for the cause because revenge is his driving force (that's why Madi's future introduction is so important, she is the leader Flint is not capable of being) but he is right: apologizing is not enough, apologizing is making them believe they are right when they are wrong and earning his right to exist requires a much more drastic action.

[221bnassau]

This absolute masterclass in acting, not one time I've rewatched this scene without feeling insane because of what this means in context. Look what having a good script and knowing where your show is going can give to your public.

[ash-is-mythical]

Just reread some Steinberg's interview about Silver and Flint's love and i adore how he says there are no ulterior motives for their love. They are doing the things they are because that love felt threatened, not to hurt the other.

Flint was fighting the war because he knows society will never accept their love the way it was currently.

Silver ended it because he couldnt fathom the idea of losing him to it.

They loved each other so deeply they were willing to end the relationship to make sure the other person was okay, even if it meant they knew they wouldnt

if we are going with what is shown and Flint is on the plantation, it was the most selfless thing we've seen Silver do hidden under something that seems selfish.

im getting closer and closer to writing a long post about my boy John Silver

[calamitys-child]

NATIONAL HOLIDAY

[ID: Two screencaps from Black Sails ep X showing John SIlver standing alone beneath a skylight in the ship's galley. Captions show him saying "An account of goings-on, volume the first on this 13th day in June". End ID]

[vemery]

to love is to turn around. woodes rogers’ ship that transports madi to skeleton island being called the eurydice. silver turns around. silver would turn around over and over again and he loses madi (and flint) in the process. silver loves them enough to turn around to save them. he loves them enough to lose them

[yellowis4happy]

Jack Rackham for @xoxoctic , thank you ❤️

I am currently taking commissions to help a friend stay housed! Click here!

[vampy-campy]

flint: i just told you my sad gay story and you want to suggest that i've sought out my own tragedies? silver: don't be mad silver: but yes flint: holyy mother of god flint: like flint: okay let us skip just how ABSURD and OFFENSIVE this is for a moment flint: what you're suggesting is that......... you'll be my next tragedy?? silver: i mean. a pattern is a pattern. and i'm the most important person to you right now flint: *eye roll* silver: so when this pattern applies itself to me and you....... i will be the end of you flint, to himself: this fucking guy... flint: i've survived the goddamn british navy and all my suicide missions and you think i won't survive you? that's cute. you're cute. and new to power. don't you worry sweetcakes, i'll be fine silver: :)

[genderbinaryisforlosers]

things i am normal about:

not these three

ID (copied from alt): The first image is a drawing of Thomas Hamilton, James McGraw, and Miranda Hamilton in which Thomas (left) kisses James (middle) while Miranda rests her face on James' shoulder as she is stabbed by a silver sword. Miranda grips the sword where it enters her chest while James holds it by the base of the blade, both of their hands bleeding. Miranda's other hand, which has her wedding ring, reaches for Thomas' hand, which rests on James' chest and has a signet ring on his pinky. Thomas' other hand cups James' face. James is the only one with his eyes open, looking conflicted. He is wearing a blue naval uniform and is clean-shaven with a long ponytail. Thomas is clean shaven and wearing a fine green coat. Miranda's hair is in voluminous ringlets and she is wearing a yellow gossamer dress. She is wearing simple makeup and fine earrings and matching necklace. The background is light grey.

The second image is a matching drawing of the same trio ten years later; Thomas Hamilton, James Flint, and Miranda Barlow. In addition to the blood from the sword wounds, Miranda has entry and exit wounds on her head, making blood run down and cover the right side of her neck and shoulder. Flint has a similar looking wound on his head that makes blood run down past his ear into his collar, and a bloody nose. Flint has a shaved head and a goatee beard, and has a gold stud earring. He is wearing a black leather coat and dark shirt, and two silver rings on his ring and pinkie fingers. Miranda is wearing a subtly floral patterned grey dress, and her grey-streaked hair is straight and tied in a bun except for two curls at her cheekbones. She has no makeup on and wears simple earrings. Thomas has greying hair and a scruffy full beard. His cheekbones are further sunken and he has some sunburn on his face and the back of his neck. He is wearing a loose, dirty grey shirt and no rings. The sword is gold. The background is dark grey, and more of the trio is in shadow.

the image it's based on under the cut for anyone unfamiliar

(Audra McDonald, Anne Hathaway, and Raúl Esparza as Olivia, Viola, and Orsino in Shakespeare in the Park's Twelfth Night)

[dragonsinthedarkness]

I was on pinterest and this detail (first image) of a bigger painting (second image) named 'The Jolly Boat' by Albert Lynch caught my eyes, 'cause it reminded me so much of that scene (third and fourth images) with Flint and Miranda on the run from London.

Now seeing the whole painting I can see the man is not looking behind but to the ship they are going towards (in the detail it wasn't so clear since there is also some land visible in the background), but still there's something in the facial expression of the two which definitely make me think about them. Something in the way the man looks haunted and the woman looks emptied, and they still are so close to one another...

It's so beautiful. Just like Flint and Miranda's relationship is to me.

[burningvelvet]

Robert Louis Stevenson's epigraph in Treasure Island:

"TO THE HESITATING PURCHASER

If sailor tales to sailor tunes, Storm and adventure, heat and cold, If schooners, islands, and maroons, And buccaneers, and buried gold, And all the old romance, retold Exactly in the ancient way, Can please, as me they pleased of old, The wiser youngsters of today:

—So be it, and fall on! If not, If studious youth no longer crave, His ancient appetites forgot, Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave, Or Cooper of the wood and wave: So be it, also! And may I And all my pirates share the grave Where these and their creations lie!"

*William Kingston, Robert Ballantyne, and James Fenimore Cooper were also writers of sea adventures.

[thematicparallel]

there is no daylight between you and i

[lichfucker]

[image description: a poem about Flint and Silver from Black Sails. the poem is split into two columns, so that each column could be read as individual poems, or they could be read together (ignoring the space between them) as one larger poem.

flint's poem reads:

i can only tell you in the strange language of pain, the pull of the sea made me a monster. until i find harbor, let my confession rest in fractures among the forest where you have buried me, but we are way past wanting, and you have braided mythologies, carved me away, until this final hot branding of shame.

silver's poem reads:

the truth of violence so hungry in me it cast the years adrift— a new name to bury my past, frightening against your fire. of your stories, i wanted— nothing. nothing with the tensile strength of a tragedy kills me.

the combined poem reads:

i can only tell you the truth in the strange language of violence of pain, the pull of the sea so hungry in me it made me a monster. cast the years adrift— until i find a new name to harbor, let my confession bury my past, rest in fractures frightening against your fire. among the forest of your stories, where you have buried me, i wanted— but we are way past wanting, and nothing. nothing you have braided with the tensile strength of mythologies, carved me away, until a tragedy this final hot branding of shame. kills me.

end id]

[flintmcgraw]

If I’m not what I was when I was born, and I ain’t what I’ve become instead…

Anne Bonny, Charles Vane, and gender. That’s it, that’s the post.

(Click for higher quality)

[blacksailsblr]

BLACK SAILS + hands

[six-improbable-things]

I could talk for hours about the finale of Black Sails, but especially how masterful of a choice it was to have Jack narrate the final episode. I love him, and this is such a beautifully fitting end to his story. Someone once said that Black Sails is a show where no one gets what they want. That the man who has spent his whole life obsessed with making a name for himself — to the point that he risks his chance at wealth and freedom and life to keep that name —, is now telling the story of someone else, a story in which his part is hardly mentioned it at all, is a just the last in a near-endless line of amazing narrative choices.

And what’s perhaps the most interesting is he very well could have altered the tale. He says aloud something Silver and Flint have seemingly always known: it doesn’t matter whether the story is true when it’s told, it only matters if people believe it. It would have been easy to insert himself into a grander role in that story. To paint himself as a key player in the final events that went down on the island. In the fate of the Urca gold. (And given that he was technically the one who recovered it, it wouldn’t be unwarranted.) But he doesn’t.

He’s always been one of my favorite characters. Jack the schemer. Jack the clever fool. Jack who doesn’t know when to quit. Jack who is so unflinchingly loyal, despite the lies and schemes that surround him. Jack who cannot let things go. Jack who was told that he would never sail under the black again and is now the only one still doing it. Jack who loves art. Who appreciates its power. (“Fine art has felled empires.”) Of COURSE he would be the one to close out this story. When you look at it, despite the irony, there really never was any other option of who would tell this story. And that’s one of the most beautiful things about Black Sails. How despite being able to trace each and every choice that led the characters to their final fates, despite the twists and turns and surprises, somehow, at the end of it all, it all feels inevitable. Like any true tragedy should. In a good way. Like everyone is ending up exactly where they belong, for better or worse.

[chamerionwrites]

Black Sails 1.7 has FlintGates divorce AND FlintMiranda it requires an intolerable sacrifice TO APOLOGIZE! TO ENGLAND! argument of all time AND Mr Scott’s I’ll-need-to-know-your-secret conversation with Hornigold AND Flint + Eleanor straightbaiting AND that absolute banger of a soundtrack as the ships sail off to hunt the Urca AND THEN just when you think they’re about to cut to credits, Vane crawls out of a grave to kill a guy with his whole entire dick n balls out

[technofinch]

Roll The Old Chariot Along is the best shanty when you're bored at work bc you can just keep making up verses. Like sure. A game of solitaire wouldn't do us any harm. And we'll all hang on behind

[fuck-you-jack]

whenever something happens that i should've seen coming i can hear flint's voice yelling in my head "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU THINK WAS GONNA HAPPEN??!?!?!" and i'm just like 😭please don't yell at me captain 😭 i'm trying my best i swear