BLACK SAILS 10th Anniversary Celebration
Day Two: Favorite Dynamic: Max/Eleanor
II. • And then what?
Then they blockade the island, choke off trade. A few crews will resist, but how long can they survive without my father's support? One by one their numbers will dwindle. The fort will be abandoned. Soldiers will storm the beach. By the time the smoke clears, my father will have arrived. First time he's set foot here in five years waving the royal commission that his bribes purchased and lording over the place. Round of applause, the new governor. Somewhere in London, some foul fuck will get news of all of this, light his pipe and say, "Finally, all is right again in Nassau."
XIX. • You saying this ain't real?
Of course it is. The fort will be repaired. If he says it, he'll do it. When you first opened that door and showed me the Urca gold, do you know what I saw? A solution. The mortar that would secure the sand beneath our feet. The thing I could offer to England or Spain or whomever arrived here and threatened to reorder things, and say, "Take this and leave me be." Everything is dependent upon that gold, and right now it is sitting in a fort with no guns and full of holes.
BLACK SAILS 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY WEEK
↪ day one : favourite quote / scene
[ season 3 episode 3 XXI. ]
"why are you telling me all this?
so you can decide... to fight me, maybe kill me
and figure out a way of hauling yourself back to that ship alone
or acknowledge the fact that you and i would be a hell of a lot better off as partners than as rivals."
Day 2: Favourite Dynamic - Jack Rackham vs Woodes Rogers
"If no Anne, if no rescue, if this is defeat for me, know this - You and I were neck and neck in this race until the very end, but Jesus, did I make up a lot of ground to catch you."
My First Fanbind! A Black Sails Fic Anthology Series
It took me a year (and a lot of anxious research) before I worked up the courage to bookbind fanfiction, and after months of on-again-off-again work, my first fanbind is finally done!
I knew that if I was going to bookbind fic, I had to bind something from the Black Sails fandom, aka the fandom and show that have had the biggest impact on my life. Y'all, I almost went into academia to study slavery in the 17th-18th century Caribbean because of this show - when folks say this show rewires your brain chemistry, they are NOT kidding. THEE show of all time. Happy 10th anniversary to Black Sails! This fandom is small but mighty. May we continue to get our hearts and souls blasted to smithereens by this show for many years to come.
Ao3 abounds with magnificent Black Sails oneshots, so I decided to put together an anthology of my favorite Silverflint fics under 20k, which I split into two volumes. Included are works by @justlikeeddie, @vowel-in-thug, @balloonstand, @annevbonny, @francisthegreat, @nysscientia, and more! Thank you, thank you all, you brilliant wonderful people, for gracing the Internet with such amazing writing. When I read the fics in these anthologies I want to fling myself into the sun.
More on the design and binding process below the cut!
Vol. 1 Page Count: 270 (12 fics)
Vol. 2 Page Count: 248 (11 fics)
Body Font: Sabon Next LT (10.5 pt)
Title Font: Goudy Old Style
Other Fonts: IM Fell English, pirates pw
The typeset (which I did in Word) took a while, mainly because I'd never done it before. Manually adjusting the hyphenation line-by-line was especially tedious. After making these books, I abandoned Word in favor of InDesign, in large part because InDesign gives you way finer control over your justification and hyphenation settings.
Regarding my actual design choices, I'm happy with how the ocean motif on the title page turned out (it's not the same pattern as my endpapers, but they're complimentary) and I'm very fond of my divider dingbats, which are little swords! Goudy Old Style was a fun title font to use, since it's the font that Black Sails uses as its logo. The stories in Vol. 1 are divided into parts based on what Silver WAS at that point in the show (cook, quartermaster, or king), and Vol. 2 is split up into comedies, histories (AUs set in the canon universe) and tragedies - befitting Black Sails' Shakespearean ~vibes~.
I stuck to a flatback binding, as I wasn't feeling quite ambitious enough to try rounding and/or backing. I've learned that I ~Anakin Skywalker voice~ hate sanding, enjoy folding/sewing, and don't LIKE edge trimming but enjoy the results enough to make it worth it.
The real adventure was decorating the cover, which remained bare for months. After agonizing over Illustrator and experimenting unsuccessfully with HTV and lokta paper embossing, I ultimately turned to using stencil vinyl to paint on the designs. There was a bit of seepage under some of the stencils, but I was able to scrape off the excess with my Cricut weeding tool without damaging the coated surface of the bookcloth (probably Arrestox Blue Ribbon from Hollander's). Even though it was very time-consuming, I'm so happy with the end result of the stenciled paint job and I intend to stick with stencils for my foreseeable future binds.
Are there things I would change? Sure. It was humid out when I printed, so the pages have got a wave. There’s an extra two pages in Vol 2. that I have no idea how I missed, and I got a line of glue in the middle of one of my Vol. 2 endpapers. I’m pretty sure I didn’t case in quite right, since my endpapers pull away from the case at the spine. I think the inner margins are a bit too big, and despite going line-by-line there’s still some wacky justification spacing in the typeset. But man, am I proud of these books! It is so satisfying to learn a new skill - MANY new skills, if we’re being honest - and to make something both beautiful and practical. If I’m still binding in two years or so, I can see myself redoing the typeset in InDesign, cutting out the existing text block, and reusing the cases. I’m also already planning for Vol. 3, which will be Silverflint Modern AUs.
In celebration for the upcoming 10th anniversary of Black Sails, we would like to invite all of you to celebrate with us! The celebration will partake on January 21st through January 27th. Everyone can participate during this week, whether it's making gifs, art, fics, etc! The prompts for each day will be as follows:
DAY ONE: Favorite Quote(s)/Scene
DAY TWO: Favorite Dynamic(s)
DAY THREE: Favorite Character(s)
DAY FOUR: Favorite Story Arc
DAY FIVE: Favorite Location(s)
DAY SIX: Favorite Season/Episode(s)
DAY SEVEN: Free Choice
Also, please use #bsanniversary during this week so we'll be able to easily track all your edits for this! If anyone has any questions in regards to the celebration, please feel free to ask so that we can answer!
Credit for the header goes to @sonyarebecchi! Thanks again!
Ok I'm a day late but in honor to Black sails' 10th anniversary I needed to share this happy memory of both Zethu Dlomo and Louise Barnes commenting to some of my shittiest edits ever 💗
On the crux of a failed war, the crew returns to Nassau to rebuild what had been put on hold. Worried that Flint is hiding something, Silver seeks out his captain when he disappears in the night and finds himself needing to consider what their roles in each other's lives are.
Or: James Flint seeks out a prostitute for company and John Silver is not happy about it.
read on ao3
happy Black Sails 10 year anniversary! it was kind of an accident that i had this fic ready today, but they ARE my favourite dynamic and this is my first FlintSilver fic so this worked out pretty perfectly
