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flyingfish1:

On Thomas possibly still being alive… I’m seeing some people calling it bad writing and I don’t see it that way at all. The only way it could
possibly be bad writing, as far as I can see, is if the writers were just
handing Flint his “happily ever after” on a silver platter without it being
connected in any way to any of the struggle he’s been through for the past
three and a half seasons. And that’s completely the opposite of what they’re
doing, imo. It’s intrinsically connected to that struggle. So much so that, as totally gobsmacked as I am that this is even happening omggg, at the very same
time it feels like it had to happen because how could anything else have
happened??? It had to come down to this because so much of the whole show, and
all of Flint’s journey, have been getting us ready for it.

The conflict is baked into the premise. Silver already said
it, didn’t he? “Wouldn’t you trade it all to have Thomas Hamilton back again?” It
seems obvious that he would—Thomas’ loss is what set him on this path in the
first place—but… would he? Could he?

Eleanor couldn’t, as she talks says later in the episode.
Max was literally down on her knees, begging Eleanor to run away with her, and
Eleanor wanted to say yes—was picturing herself saying yes—and instead she
chose Nassau. She chose her lifelong struggle to make Nassau a better place. (I
rewatched that episode a couple of months ago, watched Flint watching Max and
Eleanor, and I had the vague sense that Flint himself might have to make a
similar choice one day. As if he’s standing there, unknowingly watching his own
future. Little did I know… )

Max couldn’t do it either, when it came down to a choice
between Nassau and a life with Anne. After everything she sacrificed for her
own place in Nassau, Max couldn’t bring herself to jeopardize it for anything,
even that.

And the entire existence of his “Captain Flint” persona is
built around Nassau and his fight for it. The war is the reason “Captain
Flint” currently exists and “James McGraw” doesn’t. Just like Eleanor and Max,
he’s put every part of himself into this struggle. Into this island. “That
fucking island,” says Anne. “Makes you do shit you don’t wanna do. How is it we
haven’t figured that out by now? What the hell are we doing back here, Jack?”
Who is “Captain Flint” without this war? For the last ten years—or is it closer
to eleven, now?—it’s been his whole world. Could he separate himself from it
even if he desperately wanted to?

With Thomas quote unquote “safely” dead, Flint didn’t have
to think about it. Much. Except, for instance, when Miranda brought it up in
1×07: “What does it matter what happened then if we have no life now? There is
no life here. There is no joy here. There is no love here… If he were here,
he’d agree with me!” (If he were here… ahahahaha omg. This was always the plan.
I can’t.) And the very idea that Thomas could disapprove of his actions sent
Flint off to pretty much drink himself into a miserable, self-doubting stupor.
And yet he didn’t stop. He didn’t give up. He didn’t change course. Of course
he didn’t, because no matter what Miranda said, Thomas wasn’t really there in
that moment, and Flint didn’t have to truly address it.

So of course the next logical step is to (it looks like???) bring Thomas back
into play as a living human being with his own motivations and desires and agency. Talk about upping the stakes.

It’s like Jack and Blackbeard discussing what Vane would
have thought of their conflict with Eleanor. It’s one thing to make the claim
that you’re carrying out an action in the name of a dead man. It’s another
thing altogether to grapple with that person’s own perspective on the matter. “There
are moments… I wonder if I will ever be able to truly rest again until I know
that Eleanor Guthrie has paid for what she took from me. And then there are
other moments when I wonder if it would actually please him to see her dead… I
wonder if he were here now, watching us battle with the choice to kill her in
his name or defeat the governor and perhaps therein win the war we all together
started, if he might call us fools.”

Flint is thinking about similar things with regards to
Thomas: “I think if he knew how close we were to the victory he gave his life
to achieve, he wouldn’t want me to [abandon the war].”
“That wasn’t really what I asked, was it?” responds Silver. Because if Thomas
is alive, that’s not going to be the issue anymore. The issue is going to be so
much more complicated than that.

Trading “one irreplaceable thing for another,” Silver says…

Thomas was irreplaceable for James McGraw. But the war, the fight for Nassau, is
irreplaceable for Captain Flint. So who is he going to be, in the end? Flint or McGraw?

In 2×05, Miranda says, “There is no other way [than peace] to
achieve what you want to achieve… once you’re willing to tell the truth about
your intentions here. You say you fight for the sake of Nassau, for the sake of
your men, for the sake of Thomas and his memory. But the truth of the matter
is, it isn’t for any of those things… I think you’re fighting for the sake of
fighting. Because it’s the only state in which you can function, the only way
to keep that voice in your head from driving you mad. The one telling you to be
ashamed of yourself for having loved him.”

She needs him to acknowledge what she views as his true
motivations: and of course it all comes down to shame. That’s one of
the biggest themes of the show and it always has been. And again, with Thomas “safely”
dead, Flint doesn’t have to deal with it—can’t
deal with it—is prevented from
dealing with it—in any other way than just continuing the fight. Continuing on
in the same holding pattern he’s been stuck in for the last decade.

When it comes down to it, as far as I can see, the writers could have let things stand or they could have forced him to deal with the issue. The only ways to force him to deal with the issue were (a) by having him
fall in love with another man or (b) by bringing Thomas back into the story. I
had been assuming that (a) might happen because I thought (b) was too unlikely.
Shows what I know. But the trouble is that there aren’t really any other
options that can address Flint’s issues as well as Thomas himself would. In the “Are you going to choose to
live happily ever after with this guy or are you going to continue dashing
yourself on the rocks of your unwinnable war with the entire British Empire
over this island?” stakes, Thomas himself is the ultimate test case, really… it needs to be somebody we know Flint has a real chance of living a peaceful life with in the
long term, should he allow himself that.

“You were told that it was shameful,” says Miranda, “and
part of you believed it. Thomas was my husband. I loved him and he loved me. But
what he shared with you? It was entirely something else. It’s time you allowed
yourself to accept that.”

Accepting that means that he’d have no need for the constant
violence that he’s been using to drown out the voices of his own inner demons. Can
he do that? Can he put aside his own inner shame over the idea of loving
Thomas and being with him? Can he put aside his war, and go live a peaceful
life somewhere? Can he let “Captain Flint,” and Captain Flint’s war, go?

I don’t know. As I say, similar choices have been difficult
for other characters.

For his sake I just really, really, really hope he can.

Sorry but I need to vent, the way teach died was so poorly done. He fell for a ridiculously obvious trap, ironically right after jack was talking about his brilliance, then while he was being tortured, the whole crew just stood there and watched, along with jack and anne. There’s no way he would be so easily fooled like that and there’s no way his loyal crew would just stand there and watch. he had no final words even. It just didn’t seem like good writing, so anticlimactic and unfitting

captain-flint:

Yeah, I understand what you mean. I personally thought (up to the last episode) that his entire character was in a way anticlimactic, but that might be because I expected a lot more from him because the lore always glorified him as this once Great Invincible Ruthless Pirate. What we got in the show was just more stories. He was once great, but that mystical grandeur we all expected now barely clung to this version of Teach. He was subtle and real, and I believe that was the whole point of this pirate story. That even those who were once considered the mightiest of them weren’t above an underwhelming and poor end. Their deaths are not romanticized and heroic, but they are still poetic because of the aftermath they cause. I mean look at Flint’s death in Treasure Island (died of drink and yet his presence heavily lingered in the story). Look at Vane’s death. He, too, died unceremoniously in a drawn out, silent torture scene, and yet his spirit endured and is now driving the narrative. We all expect them to die in a glorious battle, fighting against God himself, but as far as reality goes, this is perhaps the next best thing.

That’s why I dont believe Teach’s death was poorly done. It carried a very strong message. He did exactly what Vane did. He let Rogers kill him in order to save his crew and give the pirates all the more reason to fight back when he’s gone. (He was dying anyway). He may have been too proud and sure of himself when he went into that battle, though I’d say the more probable reason for that stupid decision was the fact he greatly underestimated Rogers (as did we all) and he realized that when it was too late. However, once it was over he used the situation to incite a revolt in the most powerful way imaginable. He refused to die. Three times they tried to kill him and three times he laughed and sneered in Rogers’ face. So badly wounded and he still fucking held on stubbornly and out of sheer spite. His crew saw that. Jack and Anne saw that. No speech could’ve had a stronger impact than his mockery in that moment. He smiled before they put a cover over his head and he wasn’t afraid for one second as they tore at him. When they threatened Jack (and Anne) he fought back yet again just to spare them and that, in my book, was the greatest thing he could’ve done. His death was as anticlimactic as it was enormously effective. Rogers knew there was no point in making any more examples out of those men because the damage was already done. And thus Teach ultimately won. (at least for the time being)

tielan:

inkshaming:

So, I posted a fic today, and as I was setting up the AO3 post, I found myself writing in the end notes an impassioned – almost desperate, ngl – plea for comments. For interaction.

And yeah, for validation too. Because you know what? Writing is hard – despite commonly held misconceptions, it takes a shit-ton of effort to take some blank, empty void of a page and fill it with something that lives and breathes and touches the minds and hearts of others. 

And don’t you dare wave that “you should be writing for yourself” bullshit in my face. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve been able to do that, and honestly I’m glad managed to recover as much as I have and write as much as I do. Having an audience is an integral part of the writing process.

Let me repeat that.

HAVING AN AUDIENCE IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE WRITING PROCESS.

We fanfic authors don’t ask for much. As someone who is a published author, who has been published in a Real Physical Book™ and was paid hundreds of dollars in Honest-to-God cold-hard cash for less work than I put into my fanfic, let me tell you, a few comments will not pay my tuition or buy my groceries or put clothes on my back. Compared to the hours of labor that went into earning the money I was paid with, comments take substantially less time to create.

And yet, to us, they are priceless. Authors will create entire worlds for the sake of making a single person smile. YOU CAN BE THAT PERSON. WE WILL WRITE FOR YOU HAPPILY.

You just have to let us know you care.

And you’d better do it soon. I’ve heard too many authors all too willing to pull their tumblrs and erase or abandon their fics on AO3 because they have grown weary of screaming into the void. That fanfic you love? Gone. That chapter you’re waiting for? Never gonna happen. How many of you have bookmark lists with fics already missing? I bet you won’t even remember which one it is.

You can keep that from happening. Just write “Omg thank you for updating, I really liked _________!” and fill in the blank. Someone worked hard to put that smile on your face. You can make them smile in return.

I just finished a fic that got 20 independent comments on the first chapter.

There are ZERO comments on the final chapter.

Is that demoralising? Yes. Yes, it absolutely is.

ohflint:

tbh i will never breathe a bad word about black sails or the writers no matter where they take flint and silver’s relationship i mean they already gave us an incredibly beautiful complex gay/bi man plus 3 powerful lesbian/bi women like trash talk my show and i will drag ur ass across a beach

odinsblog:

Paul Ryan once argued that “liberal government programs give people comfort, but not dignity.”

And to justify cutting Welfare and defunding food programs, Republicans disingenuously equate having the basic necessities needed to live — like food — to dignity. Following that logic, are we to believe that wealthy people somehow have more dignity than poor people, because they have more access to more resources like housing, food and clean drinking water? Do the mostly white residents of Bismarck North Dakota have more dignity than the Native Americans at Standing Rock? Do Donald Trump’s children somehow have more “dignity” than does Little Miss Flint? Because Trump’s children don’t need to depend on free lunch programs?

Wealth ≠ dignity.

Access to resources ≠ dignity.

People living in or born into poverty do not have less dignity. They have less wealth and less political power.

Providing free school lunches to children living in poverty doesn’t “give kids an empty soul” it simply feeds hungry children. Feeding a hungry child is not “giving them undue comfort” or making them lazy, it’s simply feeding a hungry child. How did feeding hungry children become a controversial act for “Christian” conservatives?

Intentionally starving children to teach them the “dignity” of hunger is inhumane.

Stop stigmatizing poverty. Stop equating poverty with a lack of dignity. Stop reinforcing the notion that poor people have no dignity just because they’re poor. There is no nobility in starvation, and there is no benevolence in allowing children or anyone else to go hungry when you possess the power to prevent it.