A Harringrove Pirate AU but it's so John Silver and James Flint coded 🥴🤤

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A Harringrove Pirate AU but it's so John Silver and James Flint coded 🥴🤤
JOHN SILVER GENUINELY LOVED JAMES FLINT IN HIS OWN WAY I shriek as they drag me away
Silver seeing beyond the performance. Silver SEEING the performance. He’s in awe at it but he understands. He understands because he is the same. His whole life. Just like Flint.
i think what some people tend to not realize is that silver’s repression is like a HUGE part of his dynamic w flint. silver is so completely unwilling to do any kind of self reflection which we see based on the whole like “my past is irrelevant” you know its a really fascinating thing to build a character on but it’s also deeply deeply unhealthy like silver utterly refuses to reflect on a past that he says explicitly was full of “unending horrors” like the actual nature of that trauma aside it’s a really important part of silver’s character that he refuses to reckon with it! he refuses to deal with the fact that even though his past was awful it’s still part of him and instead chooses to ignore his past and remake himself whenever he wants to.
that’s what makes it easy for him to reject his bisexuality over and over because 1. it’s much easier to be a chameleon when theres nothing remarkable or targetable about u he wants to be a perfectly average white guy who’s a little dumb (which by the way is why he acts like an idiot in the first 2 seasons its a false persona it’s not a character trait) and being bisexual doesnt fit w that bc it would put a big fat target on his back. and 2. he literally cant stand the idea of genuine human connection “you know all of me i can bear to be known” and to draw out something so deep seated and repressed as his attraction to men it would require a meaningful and honest relationship w another human being and specifically another gay man bc he refuses to do this self reflection on his own so at the very least it would take seeing that aspect of himself reflected in Another person who he had a meaningful connection to. and that was flint.
and so flint makes silver deal with something that he has very successfully repressed his whole life! that’s why and how silver consistently sees flint the way he does! like he thinks of flint as incredibly powerful and capable almost inhumanly so and he is shown to be unnerved by the fact that flint can talk him into anything (when they were on the ship after the storm when he’s saying “he had the men right where he needed them but he had me there too,” at the end of s4 when those thoughts are narrated by hands the fact that silver will usually believe what flint tells him). and he sees those things as proof that Flint is a monster (his final speech to madi “i’m not the villain here i’m not him”) instead of those things just...being true of somebody you really love and respect! the reason he thinks so highly of flint and the reason flint can convince him of anything is bc silver just really likes flint!
but that’s too hard for him to deal with. truly reckoning w the “darkness” that is part of flint and is part of their relationship is just too painful for him to do and so instead he decides to condemn darkness as violent and evil and monstrous. he decides to condemn FLINT as violent and evil and monstrous (his final kindness being, in his words, killing flint and reviving mcgraw even though james is both of these people at once). and in doing so, he condemns that part of himself that he can’t deal with and locks it away. like it’s said at least once or twice that silver and flint are becoming so tied up w each other in billy’s words “i couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began and i feared separating them would destroy them both.” so silver “killing” flint is in effect him trying to destroy a part of himself that he doesn’t want to know
black sails + most heartbreaking scene (requested by @ohdaenerys)
this is how they survive. you must know this. you’re too smart not to know this. they paint the world full of shadows, and then tell their children to stay close to the light - their light, their reasons, their judgements - because in the darkness, there be dragons. but it isn’t true. we can prove that it isn’t true. in the dark, there is discovery. there is possibility. there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it. and who has been so close to doing it as we are right now?
Alright, I mean I’m not saying that Flint isn’t impressed by Silver and his schemes and lies and truth-twisting, I’m not saying he doesn’t like him, or that a dark wriggly part inside of him isn’t fucking drawn to that level of intelligence and amoral grit.
It’s just that their type of intimacy involves brain fucking and resentment, not trust or actual ...y’know...touching.
Edit: I’M ACTUALLY REALLY KEEN TO TALK ABOUT THEM/HAVE DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES POINTED OUT IF ANYONE WANTS TO ADD STUFF/TALK
if ur still up to do the au things i want some silverflint parents au pls
i’m always up for parent aus
It starts because James Flint is the most maternal man on the face of this planet. He tries to hide it but he absolutely ends up having very serious conversations in the produce section of Wholefoods with toddlers about the merits of the tangerine.
Flint’s paying job is in construction, but he also teaches woodworking at the art center on Saturday mornings. Silver runs a social media blog for a big corporation and also has a podcast called Three Legged Dog. It’s urban horror/comedy.
Silver /likes/ kids, but he stays away from them because of Issues(tm). But when Flint crouches down in his Art Teacher Sweater to patiently listen to a five year old talk about her favorite color, his heart does somersaults and when they get home he thoroughly wrecks him.
But one day Silver has a function at work for one of the local charities and it’s an ADOPTION charity and it’s mandatory to go to this thing so he brings Flint and clings to him the whole night because again, Issues(tm). But there’s a wall of pictures of kids looking for foster homes and Silver is frozen in front of it, staring up at all these kids.
There’s a picture of five girls, aged 13 to 2, with curly brown hair and Silver stares. Turns to look at Flint. “It’s very hard to place siblings” he says softly. Flint’s face wrinkles as he thinks, but then he softens at Silver’s look and his eyes crinkle in a smile. “Okay,” he says, very softly.
Silver, who normally dresses like 20 year old humanities student, wears a very soft blue sweater when they show up to meet the girls. Flint wears a soft white tshirt that makes Silver want to scream, especially when Flint holds a baby one of the social workers hands him while she goes to gather up the five sisters and the shirt stretches over his arms as he cradles the baby.
The sisters stare up at them, and Silver stares back. The eldest, a girl just turned 13, squints suspiciously at him and Silver squints back. But she must see something she trusts, because she ushers her sisters forward to say hello. Flint crouches down to say hello to the younger ones, and the two year old toddles right into his arms and leans against his shoulder.
Silver’s heart does its thing, and he asks the older girls about school, and is pleased to see that they all light up and talk about how they love to read. “James likes to read too,” Silver says, pointing at Flint, who’s now got a dozing toddler in one arm, and a chattering 4 year old in the other. “But between you and me, he reads boring old people books with no pictures”. The girls laugh and Silver’s heart blooms.
The girls’ names are Mary-Ellen, Lucinda, Eleanor, Marianne, and the youngest one is Cecelia. “Our mother was old fashioned,” Mary-Ellen says primly, hands clasped in front of her. “We’re named after our great-aunts.”
Everyone has a nickname, except for her, as she informs Flint, and they learn to write everyone’s names on everything unless they want drama.
It takes a while, but sure enough, they fall easily enough into being parents because Flint has always been a dad and Silver has no idea what a dad is supposed to be like, he’s never had one (he has an advantage in that regard) so he just gives what he wanted to be given as a child and the girls bask in the affection. Flint is who they come to when they need something important or they’re sick, but it’s Silver they curl up when they’re having Emotional Issues.
They’re literally the cutest kids ever and Silver likes to put them in matching but different colored outfits and their youngest tapping around the house in baby blue patent leather shoes nearly gives him heart failure, but so does Flint very seriously combing Mary-Ellen’s hair into braids that he ties with lilac purple ribbons.
Silver has to get a new prosthetic because he can’t keep up with five children on his old one, and once he does the girls are toast because they used to be able to outrun him before they left for the school bus looking a mess, but now he ambushes them and makes sure they’re bundled up in the winter. “And don’t think I won’t know if you take your mittens off before you’re on that bus! No more throwing snow balls at the neighbor’s kids, we’ve already gotten a complaint.”
They are officially adopted on Christmas, and Flint keeps the photo of all the girls in their matching pajamas, piled on top of Silver, in his wallet and he shows it to everyone who will listen and says “Aren’t my daughters the most beautiful children you’ve ever seen?”
The first time Flint says “our daughters” Silver cries and then they have really romantic sex and he cries some more.
Flint is the PTA dad who fights with Helen and says no one likes her homophobic lemon meringue squares anyways!!!
Silver is the parent that glares at teachers, but he’s also no-bullshit when it comes to grades and discipline, surprisingly. He was a mess as a kid and he doesn’t want his daughters ending up like him so homework is very important and being grounded is very popular when three of the girls are in highschool at the same time, but they’re good kids for the most part and far too cute to stay mad at.
They call their youngest Cici and she’s so tiny and so much younger than the other girls, Flint just kind of carries her around until she’s about 6 or 7 and she’s the undisputed princess of the house and is treated as such, even by her sisters. But Silver cries when she goes to Kindergarten, he doesn’t want her to grow up.
I made some Black Sails icons for my amazing friend James B) Super happy with how these turned out!