I love how consistent this show is with even it’s background extras. Like at the beginning of season 2 when that bald pirate beats Jack up and pisses on him? And Anne offers to kill whoever did it?
Flash forward to the end of season 2; the assassin Eleanor sends to kill Jack is the same guy. And Anne does get to kill him after all.
And it’s done so well with other slightly more prominent background characters, like Dobbs or like Dooley or Jacob Garrett
Chapters: 3/3 Fandom: Black Sails Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Captain Flint/Thomas Hamilton, Thomas Hamilton/Original Character(s), Miranda Barlow/Captain Flint (mentioned) Characters: James McGraw, Miranda Barlow, Thomas Hamilton, Lord Alfred Hamilton, Original Characters Additional Tags: Period-Typical Homophobia, First Time, Character Study, Angst with a Happy Ending, Class Differences, Class Issues, Porn with Feelings Summary:
A peer never begs or pleads, his father had once said, that would be vulgar. Thomas had realised that he was not, and never would be, his father. That he was vulgar, his base desires too shocking for a man like his father to consider. Thomas wanted men with their beards and their rough hands and their heat, and he might marry but he would always want to be with men.
Or, the story of Thomas Hamilton, and those he met from his first love to his last.
Hey, listen: We’re not gonna get anywhere with this “socialism” stuff unless we can establish solidarity networks that provide real, tangible aid. And I do mean “tangible” in the sense of “you can fill up a box with it.”
Back in the old-timey days, when we didn’t have things like a minimum wage or government assistance, folks didn’t think twice about paying union dues every month out of their meager paychecks. And in those days, when it was a regular, everyday occurrence for union people to get beat up or outright murdered for their union-ing, the unions still managed to win a lot of their fights. Reason for all that? The bigger part of them union dues I mentioned *went into a strike fund*.
Time on a picket line means time off the clock. And as for me, in this economy, if I go a week without a check, my family don’t eat. I go two weeks without a check, and we’re homeless. And them’s the brakes.
In my community we started a co-op in order to, in part, purchase things with mass buying power (i.e. we can get things at wholesale if we order enough of them, so we can, for example, eat organic food for about what conventional costs a lot of the time.)
But we also set aside a little money each time we order, and that money helps pay for donation boxes… and the social network we created when we created the co-op means that if someone has a crisis, someone else probably has the answer. “This family just lost their job and can’t afford to buy presents for their kids” may get a response of “Here are presents for every single family member” or it might end up with finding a job for the people looking for work, or both, because the co-op membership is diverse and represents a lot of people who are otherwise very connected in the community.
When a part of town is out of power, it’s usually possible to find a co-op member who can run for ice or bring a meal, or offer use of a washer/dryer for the evening.
We had one year where we were making donation meal boxes for a holiday, found out on the last delivery about a family in severe need, talked about it in the co-op group and ended up showing up at their house with not only a meal, but enough dry goods, paper towels, toilet paper, etc. for a month, plus a credit with the co-op for fresh fruits and veggies.
I cannot overstate the power of networking in your community. This one started out in a natural parenting group, but quickly spread beyond that, from college students to retirees. It’s like a small town, only more open-minded. We started with about 20-30 families. There are now hundreds of people involved.
I had a trans kid land with me at one point and asked if anyone had size whatever clothes and within a few hours we had a box on my porch, within a couple days we had a bunch of things he needed.
The co-op keeps a lending library of tools and weirdly specific kitchen devices like an Æbleskiver pan, a food dehydrator, a capsule maker and a carpet cleaner. The kinds of things people need once or twice a year, but might not have the room to store.
We periodically do a buy of sensory toys and sensory bin supplies, for example, because we have a lot of autistic members and parents of autistic kids.
I have bought socks from the co-op that were purple with unicorns farting rainbows on them. We recently got in Black History flashcards and we’ve done a lot of Black Lives Matter and Hate Has No Home lawn signs. Pretty much if people want it and we can find it at wholesale, the co-op will order it.
It even spawned a side-business (more than one, actually, but this is the relevant one) of an online app for co-op managing, called http://managemy.coop so that other communities could take advantage of our experience and start out with an easier tool than the google spreadsheets we started out with.
Anyway… if you want to network within your community, this is a really, really good way of connecting with a broad cross-section of people.
All that stuff about unions still applies, too. Unions have hardship funds. If you’re a union member and you’re broke, or you’ve been fired, or whatever, you can apply to the union for a grant to help you out. The binmen in Birmingham pulled off a months-long strike recently thanks to the union paying their living costs. Unions force employers to pay decent pension contributions and have safe sick leave policies.
ofc there’s superficially a tits tits fruit fruit when it comes to james/thomas and silver/madi, which is totally part of why james kept believing in silver and believing he would go on the same path of understanding and enlightenment he did, but the most striking thing about it is how it showcases the stark difference between james and silver, james has a first protective instinct that involves silencing thomas’s ideas and ideals but thomas’s idealism and determination quickly become integral and organic to james falling in love with him, thomas isn’t just that but, just like madi, that is a beautiful and bright part of him, and james come to profoundly understand that, and so he doesn’t just fall in love he becomes a better happier larger person (which maybe is “just” falling in love) whose world suddenly has light and purpose and things that are worth fighting for, and thomas isn’t it, thomas shows him it, and they share it, “he becomes himself with thomas hamilton”, on the other hand silver remains fixed in that initial state of blind protectiveness, he ultimately did not understand, and therefore could not love, a part of madi that is integral to her, her ideals, her choices, to the point that he leaves me wondering who’s the madi he fell in love with, who’s the madi he thought he could take everything from (if i’m cynical i’d say the caretaker focused on him only)
We all have that one fic that we were so excited to write, that we had a wonderful time writing, that we are really proud of….and it doesn’t get any attention.
Raise a glass to all those fics that didn’t find their audience.
For me it’s probably all my fics! Although my level of pride in them swings wildly from too much to none at all. Here’s to the enjoyment of writing them and to the people who read them nonetheless – thanks ❤
But reblog and share yours! Makes for jewels to discover.
Also @flintsredhair, whom I reblogged this from, named Renewal as her poor forgotten fic, and it’s GORGEOUS. Black Sails, Miranda/Thomas/James, post-canon.
Don’t go, run!
WTH, how dare Renewal not get the love it deserves?! That fic is GORGEOUS and some of the best catharsis in all of Black Sails fandom. All the love to @flintsredhair for that one!!
You two are the best, have I told you that lately? Thank you for the recs, both of you!
Meg's Mumbles 