I adore The Cup of Their Deserving! I’m afraid I’m gonna need 1000 more chapters or an entire season 5 AU. All the character voices are perfect! Oh, and thank you for making a big deal of Silver sending 6 men to kill Flint in the last chapter. Apologists forget Silver wanted Flint dead if he wasn’t going to stand down, he just didn’t have the balls to do it himself. I will never understand why he didn’t reveal that Thomas was alive and in Savannah when he first learned of it.

Thank you! I’m so glad you’re liking the fic.

You know, honestly, the sending six men to kill Flint wasn’t the breaking point for me. I wasn’t happy about it, don’t get me wrong – I was angry at him. At the same time, though, it was like – ok, you fucked up but this can be fixed and I could pretty much understand his reasoning at that point, even if I didn’t agree with it. The finale and finding out that he had kept the knowledge of Thomas’ survival from James and then seeing him do the rest of what he did was the point that I couldn’t excuse his actions or see a way for either Madi or Flint to forgive what he’d done – not in the state of mind that we see him in at the end of the finale, at least, and maybe not ever.

I’m so excited for your fic!! I agree with all of your feelings on different characters so I think reading it is gonna be some kind of therapy :) Also, Thomas and Madi united by righteous fury is what dreams are made of <3

Thank you! I’ve got some projects to finish up first and then it’s onward with the rescuing of James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton by the people that care about them! (Ah who am I kidding – I’m working on Chapter 2 of this right now because it’s a sunny day and those evidently are what I need to write Charles Vane. I’m having fun letting him deal with the fallout of the finale).

I don’t have time to reread chaps 8-16 for Upper Air. What’s been added/changed? Also, is the canon series finale getting factored in, or is it still just an AU? <3

Basically, I’ve gone back through and incorporated the series finale. I had previously sort of anticipated that Silver would have betrayed Flint, and I realized that I hadn’t incorporated the guilt he’d feel off of that at all and I needed to for Chapter 17 to work, so I went back through and got inside his head a bit better having watched the finale. It’s actually helped out a lot with his character arc as previously I felt like I didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes so to speak and now I do.

You know after the finale I wonder if Thomas having the chance would have joined the Flint’s cause Unfortunately we will never know what he would say, but I’m sure Flint would discuss it with him as true partners. What do you think?

Honestly, it’s hard to say, but given what Thomas has been through – at the very least being separated from his wife and his lover, being dragged out of his own home and flung into Bedlam, and then being taken from there to be imprisoned on a farm for the past God alone knows how many years – I’d say there’s a decent chance that Thomas might not be one hundred percent for the rule of civilization at this point. I think the look on his face when he sees James says a lot – he looks as though he’s afraid he’s hallucinating things at first, as if he can’t believe his eyes, and for a man who used to be so confident in himself, that says a lot. I don’t know if I can picture him picking up a weapon and fighting, but it’s not out of the question – people change in the space of ten years, after all. I could picture him being firmly behind James’ war to abolish slavery, though – again, given what Thomas has been subjected to, it makes perfect sense, and he’d be able to help with logistics at the very least and talking around supporters such as Joseph Guthrie.

I want to apologise for sending you a few Silver anons and inviting wrath on your head. I know you have your own opinion about Silver, but my asks were unnecessary making you repeat it over and over. And I made you look bad. Pls, don’t say that you don’t mind or something nice! I cowardly used your blog to vent and turned it into a Silver critisism parade. Critisism is fine in measured doses and I pushed you to overdo it. Excessive wank is never good. I’m really, really sorry for that!

You know, Nonny, I have to say this – I’m proud of my fandom. There’s a lot of reasons for that, but primarily because I’ve spent a great deal of time criticizing a character that a majority of the fandom likes, and most people have, like mature adults, let me have my own opinion on my own blog in peace without starting an argument or being horrible about it. I have my opinion. They have theirs, and most of us seem to have settled into a comfortable place where we do our own thing and try not to bother one another and it’s so damn refreshing.

I noticed a strange thing, in the last scene between Flint and Silver Flint is completely disarmed but up to the previous scene you clearly see that he has the sword with him. Maybe it was just a director’s mistake.

Haha – hello, Continuity Error, its me, Margaret. Or maybe he set it down on the ground next to him? idk – I’ve watched the episode three times and every time I get to that scene I’m too busy being emotional to notice small details.

“I’m fairly certain this isn’t actually directed at me” – Yeah, I’m sorry! I was reacting to a post in the main tag. Apparently what Miranda did was “exactly the same” as what Silver did. Miranda, who sacrificed everything for James, is the same as Silver. :( Her wish for them to go to Boston together, free, is the same as Silver locking him up in a labor camp. :(

Ah, got it. I confess – I have blacklisted silverflint and it’s made life infinitely more stress free that way as I don’t feel like spending all day every day weeping while I watch people tear each other to pieces and make arguments in the process that don’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. Like the one you referenced.

Oh great, now we’re putting Miranda’s betrayal and Silver’s betrayal on the same scale. I didn’t know Miranda knew about Thomas being alive and arranged for Flint to be locked up in a Boston’ labor camp, while she gets to leave and live a normal life. Totally the same. Yep.

I’m fairly certain this isn’t actually directed at me, Nonny, since I don’t recall ever likening those two betrayals to one another, so I’m going to assume this is a general complaint about the logical fallacy being displayed in that comparison and treat it accordingly. And yes – you’re absolutely right. Miranda fully intended to go with James. She wasn’t trying to send him away. She wasn’t trying to hurt him – not any more than she thought she had to, at any rate, and while her decision probably wasn’t the right one, I can absolutely see where it was coming from. Her betrayal, as you rightly noted, would not have led him to be enslaved and wouldn’t have cost the freedom of thousands, as James at that point was fighting to see Nassau and only Nassau remain free of British rule. Silver’s decision on the other hand… well, you’ve likely heard enough from me on the subject. Suffice to say – one of these things is not like the other!

According to you why so many people have not believed in Flint’s motives (the speech in the 4×10) but do they believe that Silver was absolutely right that it was just anger to drive him?

Honestly, Anon, I don’t think that Silver has ever understood Flint quite as well as he thought he did. I think that there’s a fundamental layer of misunderstanding between them in that Silver believes he earned Flint’s trust through proving himself every bit as intelligent, as cunning, as ruthless as Flint, and in reality I think he earned his trust by simply telling him the truth for once. I’m talking, of course, of the incident with the shark and the conversation they had there. Silver believed he had gotten to Flint there – made progress by demonstrating his cunning to Flint, and I think that what happened in that boat was something else. I think Flint knew that Silver had done what he did. I think he had been holding him at arm’s length precisely because he knew he was being lied to, and I think that when Silver told him the truth, he proved to Flint that they’d finally stopped bullshitting one another. I can’t speak to what anyone else in the fandom believes about what was driving Flint, but I can say that I think Silver misunderstands Flint’s motives quite often, and not just in Season 4. The fact that Silver doesn’t seem to get how he gained Flint’s trust in the first place tells me that he doesn’t actually get the man’s motives – not really, and it creates the foundations of what happens between them in Season 4. I think Silver, interestingly, actually mistakes his own motives in Season 4 in that he attributes what he’s doing to seeing past the darkness that he and Flint have argued about when in fact I’d argue that that is the moment that it, in Flint’s words, cloaked itself in necessity and Long John Silver bought what it was saying to him hook, line, and sinker. He saw Flint acting out of rage and, once again, failed to look beyond to see what was really happening.

Anyway – tl;dr answer is that I have no idea what’s going through the fandom’s heads but I know that Silver does not understand the man he betrayed or the woman he claims to love nearly as well as he thinks he does and it’s part of why he continually hurts them so very badly.

Um… Silver’s tragedy is that he will realize he was wrong and will regret what he did. So the whole “Silver did nothing wrong, Silver was right to do what he did” is actually something Silver himself will not agree with. He will be totally on board with John Silver critisism and be like, “Yes, drag my ass, I was a damn fool”.

2/2 *same anon* Oh shit. I didn’t specify that this wasn’t a jab at you, but a comment on defense squad. That Silver himself would not agree with a defense of his actions. He would actually agree with us criticizing him for what he did. ‘Cause he’s gonna arrive to the same conclusion: he was wrong.

Thank you, Nonny! Yes – that is a point. Given time to think on things, he does in fact come to this same conclusion that he was in fact very wrong, and it’s the only reason that I’m able to keep writing him in TtUA because for him it’s been twenty years and he’s had time to realize what a complete and utter asshole he has been to the people he cared about. He might not be sorry yet at the end of the series, but I guarantee you that by the time of Treasure Island, he is, or he wouldn’t be chasing a dead man’s treasure in some kind of attempt to mean something again, fulfilling Flint’s prophecy after his death.