Tag: Anonymous

New ask game for writers: 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 53.

So, I’ve been suuuuuper busy lately and lost track of the fact that I had this in drafts. I’m so sorry for the delay!

2. Favorite part of writing.

When I can hear a character saying a thing in my head so clearly that it’s as if I didn’t write it at all, they did. That, and when I do a thing in an earlier chapter and I’m not sure why it’s there and then I realize why it’s there when I write something that comes afterward and wonder if I’m writing at all or just… channeling a universe where what I’m writing happened. Either way, it’s pretty cool.

3. Least favorite part of writing.

That bit when you have a scene you want to get to but there’s stuff that has to happen first and you don’t. want. to write it. 

5. Books or authors that influenced your style the most.

Honestly? Tolkien has got some very, very descriptive passages that I like to think I learned something from. When the man wrote horror, he did it well. In fact, horror writers in general are usually masters of making you see and hear and feel a scene, and that’s so very important to me. Um… Dickens was probably an important piece of my writing style, because he knew how and when to insert something funny but in a way that didn’t interfere with the tone of the piece. And then of course there are the many fanfic writers that I’ve learned so much from over the years, because let’s face it – I am a fanfic writer and I learned my craft at the feet of those who came before me.

8. Favorite trope to write.

Um…. reunions. That thing where someone disappears and everyone thinks they’re dead but they’re not and then they get rescued. I’m a sap, and I’ll go for it every time.

9 and 53 I’ve answered here: 

http://flintsredhair.tumblr.com/post/171831982542/for-new-ask-game-for-writers-4-9-30-44-50

What’s your headcanon for the new story? What happens next?

ooh, thanks for asking, Anon! 

So, here goes: for this ‘verse, Hennessey had a brief relationship with James’ mother. He didn’t realize he was gay/ace (I can never decide with him but I lean toward asexual homoromantic). Anyway – they were together, and Hennessey did the thing where he reasoned that he MUST be attracted to her, she was cute and funny and beautiful – and then he got transferred to a different post, and by the time he came back, she’d married another man, probably because she was pregnant with James and that was frowned upon without a husband back then. She died in childbirth, and the man she married was also in the Navy and in no position to raise James, so he left him with his father, Darby McGraw, who raised him and never said a word if he suspected that his son wasn’t James actual sire. Darby gets ill, and James joins the Navy as his stepfather’s apprentice, and then Edward McGraw (the name I’ve assigned for him) dies in battle or of some illness or other, and Hennessey takes James in, never knowing he’s just taken charge of his own son. 

As to what happens next – he. hehehehe. So, this is a universe where the pardons went through without a hitch and that means that a certain Hal Gates is going to be looking for something to do now he’s no longer a pirate and has the paperwork to prove it…..

For anyone who’s looking for the story referred to in the ask, it’s here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14118924

I kinda think John Silver is not Silver’s name. He introduces himself as a cook and the ship’s journals probably had the crew’s names written down like: “John Silver, cook”. So Silver took the guy’s name. Of course, it’s possible that he never claimed that he worked on that ship as a cook, but merely that he has cooking skills that nobody knew about and John Silver is his real name.

Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit, Anon, if the original John Silver died in scene 1 of episode 1 and the guy we followed through season 4 was named, oh, idk – Solomon Little, at a guess. I’d be willing to lay good money that whatever that man’s name is, it’s not John Silver. I mean – he’s in the galley when they find him. There’s only one good reason for anyone to be down there when pirates attack, and a merchant ship isn’t going to carry more than one cook at a time. We’re not talking about a ship that would have a lot of men to feed. That means, by necessity, Silver claiming to be the cook kind of knocks the other guy out of his actual function, and since the ship’s log would in fact list “John Silver, cook”… yeah. RIP John Silver, we never actually knew ye. 

For the 10 questions thing – no.2 and Reclamation :)

Hmm. That’s a tough question, Anon, because I’ve got several, and I’m not even done writing the fic yet! 

So – let’s start with number one. I loved writing the scene where Charles returns to the Maroons’ Island and talks with Jack. It just sets the mood for that half of the fic entirely. It’s Charles thinking “ok, I’m home, thank fuck,” and then finding out that not only is he not home, everything – and I mean everything – is completely wrong in his world. And it also tells us a lot about Jack and where he’s coming from – I realized a few things about him while I was writing that scene.

Number two though – number two absolutely has to be the scene where Madi talks with Hennessey, because again, it tells us a lot about where everyone’s coming from and they’re so very different, but in this they are alike – they miss James, they care about him, and they’re grieving, and they come together in that grief as – not partners yet, exactly, but just as two people who have lost the same person and need answers. It’s really important to me because together Madi, Hennessey, and Charles are all facets of the same stone, and then they get to come together with one singular purpose that’s based around simple human emotion. Also, Madi and Hennessey play off each other well and that dynamic was fun to write.

And finally, last for now but certainly not least, was this: 

“I spoke with Silver,” she confirms. “He is alive.” She does not hear Hennessey breathe a sigh of relief, but she sees his fists unclench and his back straighten, as if a weight had been lifted. Vane, on the other hand, looks more tense if anything. His brows are drawing together – his mouth becomes a line composed out of purest concern and anger, and she sees small lines form at the corners of his eyes as they narrow.  Focused, directed anger, and when he speaks, his quiet growl is almost soothing to the part of Madi that wishes to rip, wishes to tear, wishes to cause mayhem to match the howling in her soul.

“Where is he?” he asks, his tone menacing, and she meets his gaze head-on without flinching, speaking to him directly.

“There is a plantation,” she tells him. She needs say no more – Vane freezes, and Madi holds his gaze, and feels a piece of herself slot back into place at the look in his green eyes.

“A plantation,” he repeats. It is not a question. It is the rumble of thunder that comes before the storm, and she nods, agreeing more with both his statement and the sentiment behind it than with anything else she has heard in the past three months.

“North of Spanish Florida,” she says. “Where they farm sugar cane.” She can see Vane’s eyes widen – can hear the way he stops breathing for a second and then starts again, his hands clenching into fists at his sides.

I love that scene, Anon, because it’s the scene where Madi and Charles really understand each other completely for the very first time. This is a hint of what’s to come – it’s his anger answering hers, and his concern mirroring hers, and the two of them understanding without words what the other is thinking. This is where people are meant to think – you know, that could work, if they haven’t thought it already, because in this moment right here, they’re of one mind. I love their other scenes as well and I loved writing them, but this one really stands out.

If you have a problem about how people read the show, what do you think about this gem that I found on a forum,on 4×10:”if civilisations ought to be judged on “what becomes of they unwanted ones”, Flint is judging civilisation on the fact he believes they killed Thomas. Since they didn’t kill Thomas but he’s alive in a relatively humane place, the monster that is civilisation that Flint’s fighting against simply never existed; he was wrong from the start”(1)

(2)I could not believe what I was reading -_-

You or me either, Anon. I just – I’m fairly certain you can see the logical fallacy that is “because this one gay man was not outright murdered but instead sent to be enslaved, that somehow invalidates the fact that a. SLAVERY IS WRONG AND BAD AND HE DID NOT DESERVE THAT and b. There were other people who were, in fact, hanged for the crime of being gay AS HENNESSEY MENTIONS TO JAMES IN THE SHOW and therefore yes, in fact, that civilization that James is fighting very much existed and, in large measure, still exists today. It needed to be fought, it still does – 

*throws hands in the air* James Flint was right and people can fight me.

1/2 Re TI saying Flint died in Savannah… I actually think it proves that they got out? TI says a few members of his former crew were with him when he died. They were witnesses. How would anyone know Flint is in Savannah is he is locked up for decades? How would they see him dying if he is behind those walls?

2/2 Perhaps after Thomas dies of old age, Flint goes to tavern to drown himself in rum (it would take some time) and mentions that he used to be Flint (not as bragging, but because he doesn’t give a fuck anymore). Or maybe someone who knows him happens to be there and recognises him. And the word goes out and his crew hears it and feels nostalgic (like they do in TI) and some of them go there.

It’s a point, Anon. It could very well be read that they escaped and that James simply came back to Savannah or that they stayed in Savannah all that time after they escaped, but I have a hard time imagining Thomas particularly being ok with that. He’s been enslaved for ten years, and I can’t imagine him actually feeling all that safe staying in one place considering that he was stolen from his own home at the start of that imprisonment. It just seems like the kind of experience that would make one want or even need to travel, and of course James would come with him.

Re the other anon. Here’s my stance on the Savannah thing, from almost a year ago. So if Treasure Island is not canon and a story based on stories and so on, that’s just based on the pirate’s last info that he would have been in Savannah, so even if parts of TI are true then that’s what that info would have been based off. Meanwhile they’re off staging a revolution with Madi somewhere

That sounds like a good take on it to me, Anon! I just can’t picture the Madi that I know bowing down and letting that happen to her friend – I can’t. She and James understood each other, they respected each other, they had each other’s back – he saved her life, for fuck’s sake, which is not to say that she owes him for doing the right thing, but it’s to say that there’s a lot more between them than just being allies in the same war. I like to think that she went up to the cliff to tell Silver that if he won’t leave her island, then she will, and then went to go find James and Thomas, because I’m not sure how she could bear to do anything else. I know I certainly couldn’t.

In the various interviews the creators say that Flint had to end up in Savannah because in the treasure island it is said that he died there and they wanted to be faithful to the book. this makes me think that James and Thomas remain at the plantation until death because if they manage to escape I do not understand why they decide to remain Savannah? What is your idea?

Honestly, I can see what the writers were doing. I recognize that they’ve made a decision but I’m also electing to ignore it, because it implies that the two of them stay enslaved for the rest of their lives and nope nope nope that is not in any way, shape, or form something I can see James Flint McGraw allowing to happen to either of them. He loves Thomas far too much to allow him to stay a slave, and likewise Thomas loves James far too much to allow that to happen to him either. I’m going to go with “Treasure Island is quite obviously a fabrication/something we’re not meant to take as canon given some of the other changes made to the narrative in s4,” and assume that James and Thomas either escape or are broken out of the plantation by an irate Madi, because there’s also no way she’d allow them to stay there.

I’m afraid that the creators have seen it as a positive thing From an tvinsider interview: Was there really a place in the colonies that rich Brits sent their wayward, i.e. gay, children?Levine: The founder of the Savannah colony was a reformer who wanted the colony to reshape how the world treated those deemed as dangerous or different.(1)

(2)That was a basket we could put Thomas in, and then we had the thread to use for Silver to end Flint’s war without necessarily ending Flint. It also helped Flint find his way back to McGraw [the compassionate man he was before his vengeful turn into Flint.] It’s bittersweet; there’s tragedy in it but renewal as well.

I’m afraid you’re right, Anon, and unfortunately I couldn’t disagree more strongly with them. One – James Oglethorpe did want reform, but he didn’t want it the way show Oglethorpe does. Real Oglethorpe, though, had some skeletons in his closet too – he was, for example, the guy that helped to destroy the very first free Black community in North America, Fort Mose. He was the founder of Savannah and outlawed slavery there – maybe he regretted his actions at Mose, I don’t know. I know that the difference between show Oglethorpe and real Oglethorpe is a big one and I know that I’m not fond of the writers’ definition of renewal when it involves allowing two gay men to be enslaved and locked away from the world. That’s not renewal – it’s exile. It’s being told once again that there’s no place for them, that they don’t belong – it’s the same message LGBTQ+ people have been hearing all our lives.