I appreciate a lot your writings, anything you made for black sails fandom, thank you! Sooo I NEED TO KNOW why do you think Miranda never left Flint, lived an utopia in Europe? Is it cause shes like Eleanor, unfittable and despises it all, or shes lost and would follow Flint til they returned to peace? She didnt even believe in that Dream, couldve move on easier but didnt WHY
oh cool anon i love crying on a tuesday night!! thank you!!
i think there are likely many reasons miranda stayed with flint:
1. dat ass. she knew what she was about.
no but seriously. i think, after they lost thomas, they were both so desperately sad and desperately angry, and when you lose someone like that, you cling to whoever understands what you’re feeling.
i definitely don’t think miranda saw Europe as a utopia (because it wasn’t.) i don’t remember if we got specific details but i remember it being clear she wasn’t welcomed by the society she married into. what made her days worth it were her people -- her boys. she could be herself with them, and they could be themselves with her, but she wasn’t stupid about the risks in that. and she could have left Flint whenever she wanted, she wasn’t a prisoner. she only wanted to leave if Flint could go with her, too.
i think they loved each other deeply, right up until the very end. and i think a love like that, you deal with all the frustrations that daily life brings to you, ones we know miranda felt but also ones we know flint felt too.
there was never a moment they weren’t on the same page about life and everything, there were just a few times that miranda was the faster reader. and she’d wait for flint to catch up until the last moment when he just wasn’t fast enough.
listen you know i'd die for each and every one of your fics!!!! but i think a lot of my faves are in orange you glad. established relationship is one of my fave things and orange you glad is a delicious orangey feast of that! also the cowboy au has set up a permanent home somewhere in my brain, i'm always gonna be thinking about long joe silverado and him and flint sharing a horse and that TENT and that INN and ughhh also the maxannejack in that is so precious. and god wrote that too OBVIOUSLY!
tbhhh i’ve never been a fan of reading established relationship, growing up and reading fic, but HELL if i’m not a huge fan of writing it!!! it’s such a treat!!!
you’ve reminded me i need to write more maxannejack. it’s just too wonderful and ridiculous!! and there were so many moments in the miranda fic where i thought to myself “this is gonna fuck cynthia up in particular” just in case you felt personally victimized by that one >:)
it's a tie between god wrote that, too (miranda got the treatment she deserved and the ot3 was so emotionally satisfying) and the straight walk home (so in love with your re-imagining of the characters and it was so easy to get lost in the world you created)
OH GOOD, the two stories it probably took me the longest to write and therefore were the most agonizing hahaha
I’m so glad you liked the Miranda one!! It was literally my first time ever writing her so I was nervous 😬 before i wrote it i liked Miranda a lot but after writing it i would gladly kill a man for her idk she’s The Most
hey everyone! it’s that time again! where i grovel :|
once again, i’m short on my rent because the holidays, which i love, fucked me over (unwillingly losing hours at work + paying to fly home = broke as shit.) my dad normally helps me out because he’s the greatest, but he has to arrange my grandfather’s funeral in a couple days, which are not the cheapest things ever, and i don’t want to burden him even more
so, since it’s the holiday season, and tomorrow is #GivingTuesday or whatever, i’m appealing to my wonderful black sails fam and reminding everyone I have a Ko-Fi account and a PayPal.Me account right over here and if you can spare a dime for a bum down on her luck, i’d really, really appreciate it.
and i’m also really slacking on my fic contributions because Life Keeps Happening, i have nothing full to post in order to sweeten the deal, but here’s an excerpt from my Miranda Lives AU which will be finished! sometime! soon! i hope!
thanks to anyone who has read this far, but in this post and my whole discography. bless you all.
Silver sits by the window with the iron leg on, the ties around his stump suffocating. He’d promised Howell he wouldn’t put any pressure on it, and at the time he’d been lying. But just sitting here with the thing strapped on brings a pain both blinding and sharpening. The only thing he can’t seem to focus on is the book in his lap. Instead, he’s maddeningly aware of the sweat itching on his collar, the throb of his leg that reaches all the way up to his hip, the rock and sway of a boat moving forward, the heat from the sun pouring into the window. The clang of steel as Flint teaches Miranda to fight with one eye.
Flint beats Miranda again with a tap of his sword on her shoulder, although it maybe took him a few seconds longer than it had when they first started. Miranda sits down heavily on Flint’s chair, panting hard, sword limp in her hand. She’s not wearing nearly as many layers as she used to, and no corset, but it’s unlike she ever did this much physical activity since childhood. Silver feels tired just looking at her.
“Again,” Flint says. To keep things fair, Flint has one of his eyes covered with a scarf. Silver finds his gaze drifting back to his face time and again and he’s not sure why.
Miranda scowls. Her face is no longer so heavily bandaged, but still she keeps her eye covered. She’s smarter than any man on this ship combined, and doesn’t try to push her recovery by risking infection for the sake of appearance. “I need a moment,” she says, one hand pressed into her stomach, the other resting on her brow.
Flint makes a half amused, half annoyed sound with his mouth. “You’re on my crew now, Mrs. Barlow. Crewmembers don’t argue back when their Captain issues an order.”
She freezes. Face still obscured by her hand, she says, “You’re giving me an order?”
Silver winces, wishing he had a white flag to signal to Flint. His captain is an incredibly intelligent and accomplished man, but one thing he had apparently never learned how to do was to yield.
Flint does that trick with his wrist, making the sword spin in a way that is more distracting than the pain in Silver’s leg. “The only way we agreed this would work,” he says, somehow missing her tone of voice completely, “is if you behaved like any other member of this crew. That means listening to my instruction, and that means being able to defend yourself, being able to fight. I need to have at least one person I can trust to have my back out there.”
Silver looks down at his book, trying to find where he left off. Even though they’re all in this small cabin together, he isn’t a part of this conversation and he shouldn’t be listening.
Miranda takes a moment to respond, and when she does, she doesn’t actually say anything. She stands, so abruptly that Silver can’t help looking back up at her. But then she places her sword gently down on the desk. Silver didn’t think her the type to just quit, and they’re out at sea now. She can’t just quit.
“Miranda —“
“Just a moment,” she says, approaching Silver. She reaches for the bucket of water by his seat and grabs a clean rag. “We’ll begin again. I just need to clean my wound, I think the practice has reopened the stitches.”
Along with the bullet hitting her eye, she’d also been shot through the shoulder. Silver hadn’t seen the injury, but he’d heard it had been pretty straight through and no cause for alarm. But he feels alarmed now, watching as Miranda unbuttoned her shirt right in front of Silver, pushing it off her shoulders to hang by her waist, fully exposing her breasts.
He gets a single flash of heavy, pale, soft skin before his eyes close, his head jerking up to the ceiling. His book falls to the floor.
He hears Flint give an aggravated sigh and says again, “Miranda. Honestly.”
“What?” The voice of an angel. Like Lucifer.
Silver opens his eyes again, but keeps them trained on the ceiling. He waits impatiently for it to fall on him. He can see out the corner of his eye that neither of them have fucking moved an inch. Miranda stands by the desk, half turned to face them both, idly pressing the wet rag into her healing wound. Flint just stands there with his shoulders slouched, still holding his sword tightly. He drags the scarf off his eye and, still gripping it, tugs at his beard. He has made no movement to cover her up, or to do the honorable, decent thing of killing Silver.
Miranda, toplessly, says, “I’m just another member of your crew, sir. Keeping this body free from infection to better serve your cause, sir. Besides, I’ve seen your other men far less undressed and far dirtier than I in my time on this ship, and it hasn’t bothered anyone else.”
“What?” Silver asks the ceiling at the same time Flint demands, “Who?”
“What difference does it make?” she says. “I’m just trying to be the best fighter for you, sir.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
Another pause. “No. I’m being thorough. Mr. Silver?”
Silver looks at her instinctively, and immediately regrets it. She’s approaching him calmly, but the way her breasts sway with each step feels like an assault. He looks back at the ceiling, but then she’s right next to him, and he can’t not see her, no matter how far he cranes his neck. She drops the wet rag into his lax hands, spins around, and balances herself precariously on the thin edge of his windowseat. Her backside presses softly against his good knee.
“Do you mind bathing the other side?” she says loudly, like there’s either chance the two of them aren’t listening to a word she says. “I can’t reach it so well, and I believe I felt the wound reopen.”
It hasn’t. The drops she felt sliding down her skin were likely sweat, not blood. The puckered hole is healing nicely, not even needing to be bandaged any longer, but Silver does as requested and brings the rag to her shoulder. He has no other move to make. It’s not like he can just get up and walk away from the two of them. And he isn’t a good enough person to refuse.
Somehow, her bare back, her tapered waist over her billowing skirt, seems more obscene than her nude front. He tracks the drops of water over her sharp shoulder blade, and it’s too intimate, too vulnerable. He can’t look anymore so he shifts his gaze to Flint, still at attention with his sword in his hand.
Flint’s in all black, standing in the kind of dusty shade that only exists beside bright sunlight. But Silver can still see his slim waist, his rising chest, the flush sitting high on his cheekbones. The way his bottom lip hangs slightly as he stares at Silver, touching his wife. No, as he stares at Miranda, her naked skin beneath his Quartermaster’s hands.
No. As he stares at Silver and Miranda, together.
There seems to be some kind of argument, some kind of dialogue happening between the two of them that Silver can’t understand. Miranda shifts her body slightly, moving her shoulder against the rag held still in his hand.
Flint opens his mouth as though to say something, and the closes it with a huff, finally looking away.
It’s the end to whatever conversation they’re having. Miranda shoots up suddenly, shrugging her shirt back on as she stomps towards the door. Flint doesn’t watch her.
“I’m going to get something to eat,” she says to the room, before exiting with an angry slam.
Tension hangs in the air like the wet cloth in Silver’s hand. He lets it slip to the floor, and it narrowly misses the book he’d dropped. The sound of it slapping makes Flint turn abruptly back at him. Something he sees on Silver’s face makes the anger bleed out of him, because he just sags, throwing his sword down next to Miranda’s with a lot less care than usual. He collapses into his chair, rubbing his eyes with one hand.
Without looking at Silver, he says, “You think she’ll be alright out there?”
Choosing his words carefully, Silver says, “I don’t think you have to worry about her with the men.”
Flint snorts, dragging his hand through his hair, unsettling his ponytail. Strands come loose, hanging in his face as he says, “I don’t understand what she wants from this. She wants to be part of the crew, but doesn’t want to be treated like part of the crew? It cannot work like that.”
Silver shifts in this seat, trying to relieve some pressure in his leg. He doesn’t say anything.
“Whatever it is you want to say,” Flint says, “just say it.”
“What makes you think I have anything to say?”
“Your eyebrows speak even when your mouth is shut. Just say it.”
Silver scratches at the back of his neck, feeling unusually short of breath, and it’s not because he’s unexpectedly seen a set of breasts, because he isn’t twelve anymore. It’s just the two of them here, which is rare. He likes having Miranda here. He feels less likely to be strangled or to beg to be strangled.
But with just the two of them here, he feels able to uncoil just a little. Just enough to undo the straps on his iron leg. Miranda might soon be more familiar with such bloody cruelty, but she doesn’t have to be introduced to it by him. Flint already knows.
Slowly undoing to ties, and not looking at Flint, Silver says, “She wants the crew to see her as one of the crew. You and she have too much history for you to ever see her as anyone unimportant to you, and she’s smart enough to know you’ll never actually see her as just another pirate. So you treating her like you treat the rest of us, is just you treating her with disrespect.”
The boot falls to floor beside the book, beside the rag, and Silver sighs with relief even as the fresh air stings the raw skin. He’ll put it back on in a little bit. It just needs to breathe, but then he has to put the leg back on. He must.
“And you?” Flint asks. “How do you treat her?”
Silver stops leaning down to pick up the rag. Flint is staring at him now, but he doesn’t look angry. Silver is only learning how to read Flint’s face, but one of the first lessons had been angry or not angry. He doesn’t know how Flint is feeling, but mad isn’t it.
“I treat her like a member of my crew,” Silver says plainly, turning back to his leg with the cloth. “The contentedness of my crew is of the utmost importance, which is the only reason why I’m telling you what I think.”
Flint doesn’t say anything, but he makes a sound that has Silver looking up. It’s a — chuckle, almost. More of a shake of his shoulders and a stuttered puff of air than an actual noise.
It is, on the whole, more shocking than Miranda’s breasts. “What?”
“Nothing, I’m sorry,” Flint says, smirking slightly. “I just. Well, I guess I had nothing to base it on, but I had always gotten the impression that you didn’t know a thing about women.”
“What's to know?” Silver treats all women like how he used to treat a mark. The most important thing to remember is that they probably know more than you ever will. “She's part of my crew.”
Flint hums, but it's a contemplative noise, not a dismissive one. Silver continues to bathe his leg, sure that if Flint had anything else to say, he'd just fucking say it.
“Miranda and I – ” Flint stops. He's looking straight ahead, at the shapes of light on the wall, opposites of shadow streaming through the window. “We have a different relationship than other people.”
“....I'd gathered.”
“We've been together for a long time, and we love each other,” Flint says. “But there are certain things.... certain needs....”
Silver stops bathing his leg.
“We have an understanding,” Flint continues, toying with the fringe on his belt. “And I can't help but notice... If she wants... and you want... well, I won't take offense. Or try to interfere.”
What? “What?”
Flint sighs, finally looking his way. “Her happiness is always a concern, but an area I've too often neglected. We have – different needs. We’re both well aware of it. And I have no intention of intruding on what happiness she finds for herself, from whatever corner it comes.”
Silver is generally smart on the uptake, but it takes him too long to understand what happiness Flint is referring to. In his defense, it's been a long time since he's been associated with anyone's happiness.
“Captain,” Silver says, louder than he'd intended. “Do you take me for a stupid man?”
Flint blinks. “No. I mean. Not recently. I'm not trying to trick y– ”
“Do you think,” Silver interrupts. “given the man I was up until recently, that I would have survived as long as I have by ever getting involved with a married woman? Are you insane?”
“I'm giving you permission,” Flint insists. The tips of his ears are turning red. “I'm just thinking about what she might want.”
“And what about you?” Silver says without thought. “What is it that you want?”
The look Flint gives him this time is not unreadable. Instead, Silver translates a thousand different meanings in the tick of his cheek, the movement of his eyes, how quickly he looks away. Every one makes Silver's heart expand like a full sail, stretched taut and liable to tear before an unrelenting wind.
“That's my concern,” Flint says, standing up suddenly. “I must go check on Miranda.”
On his way to the door, he adds without turning around, “I'll fetch you some fresh water.”
And then Silver is alone, his heart still rippling in his chest. He has no idea which direction it's blowing in. He has no idea where it's taking him, and he's helpless to do anything but stay the course.
Hey, here’s one that has both! From the Miranda AU:
“He breathes heavily through it, eyes squeezed shut as it flares up from cauterized flesh towards the crown of his head. When it lessens enough so he can feel his soul again, he realizes Mrs. Barlow has touched his hand. Not squeezing it, and adding to his pain, but just resting it there. “
okay so i finally feel like a normal human again, because the combination vacation + illness + travel + work has made me barely coherent up to now. hello everyone!
i’m not gonna respond to everyone who commented on my selfies because that is like the utmost vanity but thanks for putting up with me everyone. and i managed to do a little fic writing in the meantime, which is why you’re all here anyway.
which brings me to this WIP meme, tagged by @starrose17, thanks love! this is from my miranda au which i’m still chugging away on
Rules: Rules: Post the last sentence you wrote and tag as many people as there are words! no
Silver sits with the iron leg on, the ties around his stump suffocating. He’d promised Howell he wouldn’t put any pressure on it, and at the time he’d been lying. But just sitting here with the thing strapped on brings a pain both blinding and sharpening. The only thing he can’t seem to focus on is the book in his lap. Instead, he’s maddeningly aware of the sweat itching on his collar, the throb of his leg that reaches all the way up to his hip, the rock and sway of a boat moving forward, the heat from the sun pouring into the window. The clang of steel as Flint teaches Miranda to fight.
tagging: @karategirl448 @storiesabouthestars @reluming @jadedbirch @old-long-john @lurkerdelima @primal--scream idk who has done this over the weekend but THAT WAS DAYS AGO YOUR WIPS SHOULD BE FURTHER ALONG BY NOW RIGHT?
i’ve answered these already but i’m just gonna ANSWER EM AGAIN because i don’t want to get up and make dinner
13. hardest character to write
before i said Miranda, so this time i’m also gonna point out how exceptionally fucking hard it was to get Anne’s voice right in the cowboy au, holy god. every time i would get into a groove with her and then her section would end and then later another Anne section would come up and i’d be ????? pain in the NECK
46. share a scene from a story that you haven’t published yet
okay i just shared a lil bit from the miranda fic but i have literally nothing for the smallpox fic and maybe if i post enough of this, you guys will give me the confidence to keep going with it:
“There something you must know about what occurred in Charles Town,” she says. He wishes she would sit down. “We learned of a betrayal of the deepest sort. Of the most brutal, unforgivable nature. Were James and I better people, forgiveness might have been considered. But we are not good people, not by any measure of a society who betrayed and nearly killed us both. We were not capable of forgiving this injustice, and so when James ordered Charles Town to be burned to the ground, do you know how I felt?”
Silver did not.
“I felt happy, Mr. Silver,” she says. “I felt peace.”
It’s the kind of thing someone might say before storming out a room. But she stays. She stands away from him, watching his eyes. He’s able to sit up today, and he looks down at his leg. He holds it with both hands above the blanket, and he can still feel the fire. His wrists are black with bruise, and he can smell smoke.
He says, looking at his leg, “What did it feel like?”
“What’s that?”
Silver swallows. “Peace.” He’s still looking at the flat place on the bed, where his leg just ends.
She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then she says, “I can’t remember. It passed too soon.”
