#Hoist the Colours Podcast

[hoist-the-colours-podcast]

I just tried to download this podcast even though I KNOW it’s deleted 😭 I miss it that much apparently.

Well, the good news is I FINALLY put the MP3s up on my gdrive. So, all the episodes are available to download from here:

Hoist the Colours MP3s

Any issues with accessing or downloading, just let me know and I'll try to sort it. - Laura xx

[lethal--omen]

[Id: A drawing of Anabelle Cane from the podcast the Magnus Archives. She is a person of colour with brown skin and a bleached afro. She is sitting in a makeshift seat made out of web as she looks off to the side. She has blue lipstick on and a bit of a fang can be seen, alongside her having 6 additional eyes alongside her bright red eyes — all of them being black with a red iris aside from her two main eyes. She's wearing a gray shirt with a ruffle and a high collar, alongside a long blue and gray skirt hoisted by a belt which has slits at the side. She is also wearing undetailed brown boots. There is harsh lighting coming from below her, and on the left side of her head (the visible side) there is a chunk where the hair is missing criss crossed with thread. There are tape recorders hanging in the background — all with a green glow to them. The artist's watermark '@lethal--omen' can be seen just above Anabelle's leg, which is pointed off to the side rather than hanging such as her other leg. /End id]

quiick anabelle cane that ibis paint x was being a bitch over and was constantly breaking over???

me when. manipulative spider woman <3

[thecowardlycreative]

Fic Snippet: Honey, That’s Alright

So, I have no idea when I’ll have the energy to write this series [AO3 | tumblr] again, especially since I’ve kind of moved away from the Voltron fandom, but I wrote this little snippet several years ago and it seems a waste to leave it sitting in my google drive to rot.

It’s actually from the fic in the series after the one I got stuck on so slight spoilers for how But Then Again, There’s You was planned to end.

For those unfamiliar with the series, there’s not a lot of context needed. Just know that Keith is the bassist for a band that’s found fame in the last couple of years. Lance is a high school physics teacher. They’re exes who broke up due to misunderstandings and have only just got back together.

Series Previous Parts: Cocoon, Getting Time and Regretting It, Aftermath, But Then Again, There’s You, Scraping the Paint,  [It’s also the origin of this old art of mine. I’d written the scene before I drew the art, which just shows how long this has been sitting in my drive]

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Pairing: Klance

Snippet Word Count: 2,314

Notes: Lyrics are from Oceans by Seafret.

*******************************************************************************************

The rattle of the subway keeps Lance awake as he leans back in his hard plastic chair, head against the window, and lets it carry him home. He can’t fall asleep. The trip is too short, he’ll miss his stop. But he can lean against the window and breathe deeply and let the even-toned voices of the podcast in his ears lull him into relaxation. He could almost be on a boat with the way the car rocks beneath him. If it weren’t for the smell and the noise of other humans, if it weren’t for the lack of salt in the air and the call of birds, he could almost believe it. 

The old lady across the aisle is staring at him when he lifts his head. He gives her a smile and she quickly looks away. 

His stop comes. He hoists his messenger bag up onto his shoulder and shuffles out of the car with the rest of the swarm, up the steps and into the soft evening light and the wall of street noise. The sky is dyed a magical, hazy violet colour by the light pollution and Lance takes two seconds to stare at it as he comes out into the open, the other passengers streaming passed him like bacteria into an open wound. He may not be able to see the stars but the far off winking of artificial lights isn’t a bad second-best. 

Red greets him at the door, weaving figure-eights between his legs.

“Alright, you little monster. Let’s get you some dinner,” he says fondly, scratching behind her ears. 

She miaos her agreement and he smiles. 

Lance feeds Red, takes a shower and puts on his softest, fuzziest pyjamas. He reheats last night’s leftovers because he’s still not used to cooking for one again yet, keeps cooking far too much, and sits in front of his laptop, making his way through the videos he’d marked for later on youtube. He can hear Red crunching on her biscuits across the room. He’s just sat back down from dumping his dishes in the sink and making himself some hot chocolate in Keith’s mug -- because, dammit, it’s been sitting clean on the shelf for two weeks and that’s just too lonely -- when she comes and settles on his chest. 

He sticks a cushion under his laptop so he can still see the screen over her ears; an elaborate bold-eye look that’s incredible to look at but Lance doubts anyone would want to wear it off the runway.

“I know, baby,” he murmurs, returning her affectionate headbutt as best he can while she has him pinned, “You miss your dad.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth he sees it. A video with both the ‘recommended for you’ and ‘new’ tags cheerily printed across the bottom: ‘Castle of Lions - Oceans live @ east village arts club + intro (AKA the one time Keith Kogane willingly-ish gave us personal info)’

With a grin and a snorted laugh that has Red sending him an affronted look, Lance clicks the link.

The video is shaky and frequently out of focus, clearly from a phone held aloft in a crowd. The band are a series of oddly coloured streaks across an otherwise blue and black screen for several moments before the cameraperson stops waving their phone through the air. Then they’re standing there under lights that are slowly filtering from blue, harsh and cold, through green to a warm orange that sets Allura’s dark skin afire. Matt, the palest of them all, just looks very sunburnt. 

“Thank you,” Shiro is half-way through saying as the video opens. “I -- Uh, how you all doing tonight?” The crowd erupts in response and Shiro smiles. “Good. Good. I’m glad to hear it. You know it’s kind of pretty crazy for us to be here. On our first trip to the UK.” The crowd screams again. “Because sometimes it still feels insane, really, that we ever made it this far. And we’ve gotta thank all of you for that. All of you who came to our shows, ordered our merch, and paid for our music instead of just ripping it off the internet. You paid our rent and bought us our instruments -- bought us the sandwiches we had for lunch today -- decided we were worth something. And you’re the reason we managed to get here, all the way to Liverpool to play for you. So thanks.” There’s one last whoop and Shiro starts lifting his guitar strap off his shoulder and over his head. “So this next one is from the new album and… actually, Keith why don’t you introduce this one? I’m gonna go see if I can put this somewhere for a sec.” He gives the guitar a little lift in his hand.

“Wait, what?” says Keith. “Sh-Shiro -- no -- wha? Come back.” 

The crowd laughs as he ducks out from behind his mic to run across the stage and stop Shiro with a hand on his arm. Allura’s hiding a snicker behind a hand. Matt just throws his head back and laughs openly. 

Keith says something then but, away from the mic, the video doesn’t pick it up. Given the way he’s lifting the strap of his bass over his own head, passing the instrument to his brother, and the intense look in his eyes it’s probably something along the lines of, ‘drop this and I will literally skin you alive’.

“Ha, brothers, amiright?” he laughs awkwardly as he returns to his mic. He’s fiddling with it, adjusting the angle, kicking the feet around in a circle. “So… uh, I guess this falls on me, huh?” 

“Woo, Keith!” Allura interrupts and the crowd ripples with laughter again. Keith just looks distinctly uncomfortable. 

“Uh, yeah,” he says, pulling a keyboard on a stand a little closer and kicking the mic over so that he can stand behind it and still be heard. “So, I guess every band has that one nice, pretty song. I mean, everyone who looked up the Plain White T’s after hearing Hey There Delilah can vouch for that.” He pauses like he expects the easily-provoked laughter of the crowd again but they’re quiet, listening. “And, uh, this song is probably that for us.”

Shiro appears, creeping back on stage, but he just gestures for Keith to keep going. Keith probably frowns at him -- that’s the sort of response Keith would do in such a situation -- but the quality’s too low for Lance to see it. The video streaks as the phone is passed from one hand to another. No doubt the cameraperson is getting tired arms. 

“And… Um…” Keith is still straightening the keyboard, making sure it’s all still connected, adjusting the mic, not looking too deep into the audience. He plays a few chords to be sure it’s working. “I don’t know how many of you know this but I recently moved to New York to live with my boyfriend.” 

There are a few whoops in the crowd and Lance feels himself blush. That’s him. He’s that boyfriend. That’s his boyfriend acknowledging him on stage in front of a crowd of people who practically worship him. 

“But,” Keith is saying, “the thing is, we still do all our recording and a lot of filming and all that stuff in LA. We still go on tour. So I’m not actually home a whole lot. And it’s not just me. I mean, Allura’s family -- her uncle lives here in England and she lives in America with us. And Matt missed his little sister’s graduation because we were in the middle of recording on the other side of the country. Luckily she’s going on to do her doctorate now so he’s still got another chance. But still. And Shiro… I mean, he’s got me, I guess, but I’m not exactly the same as our parents or our grandparents or all his friends.”

“Don’t cry, Keith!” shouts Matt, micless and beaming.

“I’m not going to cry!” Keith snaps back. The crowd laughs then, shocked out of their strange stupor by Matt’s interruption. “I’m just saying that a lot of people are separated from the people they love -- whether they’re romantic partners or family or friends or whatever -- for lots of different reasons and, even though we wouldn’t want to be doing anything else, uh, this song is about what that feels like.” He pauses for a moment, chewing his lip with a frown deep enough to show up on even the grainy video. “I guess, what I really mean is: I’ll be home soon, babe.”

Keith never calls Lance ‘babe’. That’s Lance’s thing. He’s using Lance’s word and it’s that, almost more than the way he looks so resolutely ahead, so close to dead down the camera lens, when he says it that makes a little shiver run down Lance’s spine. He feels so close through the poor quality video. Like he could be right there beside Lance in the silent apartment.

“Okay,” he finds himself whispering in return. Red shuffles on his chest and he places one hand on her ribs to settle her.

Keith’s words spark a wave of cheers and, with barely a glance between the band members, Matt hits the first chord. 

A hush falls over the crowd. Like a breath held. This really is so much softer, so much more tender and fragile  -- like all those beloved people are cupped right there in their hands -- than other Castle songs. 

I-I-I want you

Shiro’s voice sounds so lonely, drawn out and warbling over only Matt’s gentle guitar. Lance feels something pinch in his chest.

Yeah, I want you

And nothing comes close

His eyes are focused on Keith, standing there, hands hovering above the keys, eyes closed, waiting for his cue. So it’s impossible for him to miss when he opens his mouth and joins Shiro’s friendless voice in the air.

To the way that I need you

I wish I could feel your skin

And I want you

From somewhere within

Lance knows this song. He remembers Keith writing it. Sitting on the edge of their bed late at night when he should be sleeping, strumming at an acoustic guitar with the soft pad of his thumb so as not to wake Lance and humming the looping melody brokenly to himself. He didn’t need to know that Lance was already awake, curled on his side and watching him through half-lidded eyes as the moon highlighted him in stark white lines between the blinds.

It feels like there’s oceans

Between me and you once again

Without his guitar, Shiro is practically wrapped around the mic. He has it cupped in his hands, eyes closed. And the absolutely heartbroken expression on his face is reflected in the sound.

We hide our emotions

Under the surface and try to pretend

But it feels like there’s oceans

Between you and me

The second verse arrives and Allura finally comes to life with the barely there sound of brushes against the skin of her drums. The sound builds. Layer upon layer. Matt’s guitar and then Shiro’s voice, Keith’s voice, the deep bass of Allura’s foot pedal, the brush on the drums. They slide one on top of the other, building up like a figurine from a 3D printer, until Lance feels his throat start to tighten every time the words ‘I want you’ fall from Shiro’s lips, begging and raw. Keith’s fingers finally begin their job. And the steady, simple beat they walk sounds so much like a clock slowed down that Lance is trying not to remember the way that Keith would wrap himself around him from behind when he was cooking and just sway to the steady metronome tick on their wall. Finding music in nothing more than the everyday.

Stop it, Lance thinks. He doesn’t want to remember what it’s like to have Keith here, in his arms, in his bed. Because he’s not. He’s off travelling the world, living his dreams, bringing happiness to people who find meaning in the words he writes. He’s off doing good and he won’t be back for weeks. 

So there’s no point in thinking about this now.

He shakes the thought from his head and Red places a questioning paw on his cheek.

“I’m alright,” he whispers to her. She just shifts her paw to pat against his nose. He gives one of her toe-beans a little kiss and she yanks it back, affronted yet again.

So much like Keith.

Lance smiles as the chorus comes around once more. 

Keith is frowning again as Allura’s drums fall out, letting Shiro’s voice, with Keith’s echoing it eerily, come through clearly. And it strikes Lance yet again how odd it is to hear it without anything around it. There needs to be that second guitar, that bass -- He needs Allura’s heavy drums to hold those precious voices up and support them because it just feels undeniably wrong that they could sound so alone. 

And all of a sudden, as Keith’s voice falls into a haunting hum through his speakers and Red purrs contentedly on his chest, Lance would give anything to just jump on a plane right now and fly to England. To be there. To stand in that crowd, one face among many in a dimly lit room, unseen and unknown, just to be there. And see him. Somehow, knowing he misses Lance too is making this all so much worse. 

Red gives a soft mewl and Lance runs his hand down her spine, scratching the backs of his nails through her fur but she won’t settle back down this time.

“I know, baby,” he tells her again as the song fades out and the apartment falls silent once more, empty but for the two hearts beating together on the couch. “He’s coming home soon. He promised.”

[iwt-v]

@hoist-the-colours-podcast  So I (finally) listened the s2 James Flint episode--so good btw-- and I was especially interested in the discussion about Peter Ashe. There seemed to be an agreement that Thomas would have forgiven Peter. My question is this: Even if Thomas could have forgiven Peter Ashe for throwing him in the asylum, do you think he’d be able to forgive Peter for the consequences to Miranda and James, since he was the one who ratted all of them out to Alfred?

I feel like even though Thomas had the ideals of “Christian forgiveness” as you put it in the podcast, he also seems very selfless in the sense that a big part of his plans for Nassau involved helping the pirates better themselves and to be able to work honestly for a living (which he was very adamant about in defending to Alfred in the dinner scene.) Like the entire endeavor was risky as hell from the beginning, yet even when James returned from Nassau and told him what the pirates did to the governor Thomas still believed in Nassau/them. I feel like that would also be a personality trait that would’ve been carried into his personal life as well and that knowing that his wife and lover’s lives were also ruined because of Peter’s actions would be something unforgivable to him. Thoughts?

[crucifythenburn]

[ithappensoffstage]

This is my first ever finished digital piece, and I want to dedicate it to everyone finding freedom in the darkness, fighting against “their reasons, their judgements.” Know that you are loved. @hoist-the-colours-podcast asked people what Black Sails means to their stories. Well, words can barely begin to explain what Black Sails means to me. While I was out already when I met Captain Flint on screen, the gradual reveal of his homosexuality impacted me deeply--here was a man so betrayed by his country, so vilified for his love, that he turned to the darkness just to find the light and hold it, brilliant and free, to the world and say “don’t you see what possibility there is here?” I remember sobbing my way through the finale watching him find Thomas again. The way they held each other, shattering and being pieced together all at once; the way James never had to apologize to England, never had to grant them his forgiveness. It was extraordinary.

Black Sails taught me that I never have to apologize for myself. I never have to accommodate others at the expense of myself or my pride. I am here, I am queer, and I will fight for myself and all of us as long as I have breath in my lungs.

Happy Pride!

[old-long-john]

jadedbirch replied to your post: Ok but like, ‘Hoist the Colours’ is going right to...

I’m offended by your British spelling of colours. And so is my spell checker. Where do I send hate?

You can pop my hate cherry. Make it anon for added spice please.

[artigas]

Hi! Firstly I just want to say I've been following you for about 6 months and you do a really good job curating your blog, it's so beautiful! Secondly, thanks for getting me into Black Sails and the gay hell that it is :) and thirdly, do have any good book recs about starting to write/writing in general? or any advice about practicing writing?

Thank you so much!! I’m really glad you enjoy my blog and I’m so excited you got into Black Sails. It’s a wonderful show that never got enough hype, imo, for doing exactly what fans have wanted out of their other cult classics faves. Queer rep, strong women, expert writing ... it’s a lot. Now’s a good time to tell you, if you didn’t know already, that my friends @crucifythenburn and @old-long-john also run a Black Sails podcast!! You can information on that right here: @hoist-the-colours-podcast. 

As far as writing tips go, I have to admit I feel like the only hypocrite getting into it. My own writing life has been in a real rut and I deffo don’t feel like the most capable, but my own negative feelings aside ... the first thing to say is I do, in fact, have a writing tips tag. It’s full of quotes and articles I’ve found useful in the past. As far as book recommendations go, I don’t have much- all my books about the actual mechanics of writing are about scholarly writing, literary lenses, all that. I would say, however, that I have casually read through both Neil Gaiman’s View From the Cheap Seats and Stephen King’s On Writing and both really inspired me when I was feeling low. The former isn’t entirely about writing, but Gaiman gets into the necessity of stories multiple times and it leaves me motivated and eager to do the work. 

I really believe that if you want to write well, you have to read a lot. Return to the books and stories you love. If you find yourself reading a lot of fic, exchange that for the odd book once in a while, just to expose you to something outside of the conventions you’re used to (the same goes the other way around). If you find a book you hate, be mindful of why you hate it- what about the writing style annoys you? What tropes and writing choices do you dislike as an audience member? 

Remember to embrace the things you love. I think a terrible thing about advice circles is you can sometimes find yourself in a sound chamber where adjectives are always bad, you should always just use the word ‘said’, this trope is stupid, that sort of story is a Bad Story, etc etc. Observe what people say, apply what feels right, test different approaches, but never forget that advice is meant to help you, not rule you. You’re allowed to love flowery writing. You’re allowed to work off tropes. You can be playfully predictable from time to time. Especially if you’re writing fanfiction, I think you’re writing primarily for yourself. You’re creating a work of love. Make sure you love the story you’re writing. Try to believe in it. Try to remember that while there’s nothing new under the sun, really, and someone else may have written something similar to you before, your unique and individual voice will resound in someone in a way that is absolutely not interchangeable. Only you can sound like you. Embrace that. The right people will love it. 

If you can, try to make a routine of writing small things, if you really want to make writing an active, living craft. There are books full of writing prompts, like 642 Things to Write About and when I was in my best state, I’d write a little every day- on my phone, on napkins, whatever, and sometimes turn to the prompts just to see if anything sparked something in me. Embrace the work that doesn’t make it. Keep lines that make you proud. Collect quotes from the work you love and fall back to beloved stories when you’re stuck. Sometimes, I need to be exposed to good writing so I can get my own wheels turning. When you’re feeling stuck, try listening to writers you love talk about writing as craft- again, I love to fall back on Neil Gaiman. Even just hearing him talk about writing or read his own work makes me Feel Something. Remember that it’s okay to have unproductive days. 

In situations when I just can’t get anything down on paper, where nothing feels or sounds right, or when I look at my own writing with harsh criticism, I try to think about other crafts. Don’t musicians do countless warms ups before they can be expert players? Don’t all orchestras tune first, test their instruments first, before playing a jaw-dropping performance? Doesn’t every sketch an artist completes contribute to their skill, even if each sketch isn’t a masterpiece? Think of your work like drops of water in a glass. No drop is ever pointless. No drop is ever wasted. They all contribute to that one wonderful day in the future when you look at your cup and realize with proud and grateful delight that it’s just about full. 

Good luck with your writing! Tell me if you find any good resources and I’ll make sure to keep an eye out for good book recommendations, too!! Thanks again for the sweet message

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 29: The Big Chill (Transcript) - 7th March 2016

tw: graphic violence

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Some places are more frightening than others. It’s hard to nail down a specific reason why, but even so, I can’t think of a single person who might disagree. Some places just have a way of getting under your skin. For some it’s the basement, for others it’s the local graveyard. I even know people who are afraid of certain colours. Fear, it seems, is a landmine that can be triggered by almost anything, and while history might be full of hauntingly tragic stories that span a variety of settings and climates, the most chilling ones – literally – are those that take place in the harsh environment of winter: the incident at Dyatlov Pass; the tragedy of the Donner party; even the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 took place in the freezing waters of the north Atlantic. Winter, it seems, is well equipped to end lives and create fear, and when I think of dangerous winters, I think of Maine, that area of New England on the northern frontier. If you love horror, you might equate Maine with Stephen King, but even though he’s tried hard over the last few decades to make us believe in Derry and Castle Rock and Salem’s Lot, the state has enough danger on its own. Maine is also home to nearly 3500 miles of coastline, more than even California, and that’s where the real action happens. The Maine coastline is littered with thousands of small islands, jagged rocks, ancient lighthouses and even older legends, and all in the cold north, where the sea is cruel and the weather can be deadly. It’s often there, in the places that are isolated and exposed, that odd things happen, things that seem born of the circumstances and climate, things that leave their mark on the people there – things that would never happen on the mainland. And if the stories are to be believed, that’s a good thing. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

The coastline of Maine isn’t as neat and tidy as other states’. Don’t picture sandy beaches and warm waves that you can walk through; this is the cold north, the water is always chilly and the land tends to emerge from the waves as large, jagged rocks. Go ahead and pull up a map of Maine on your phone, I’ll wait. You’ll see what I mean right away – this place is dangerous, and because of that, ships have had a long history of difficulty when it comes to navigating the coast of Maine. Part of that is because of all the islands - they’re everywhere. According to the most recent count, there are over 4,600 of them, scattered along the coastal waters like fragments of a broken bottle. One such fragment is Seguin Island. It’s only three miles from the mainland, but it’s easy to understand how harsh winter weather could isolate anyone living there very quickly, and when you’re the keeper of the lighthouse there, that isolation comes with the job. The legend that’s been passed down for decades there is the story of a keeper from the mid-1800s. According to the tale, the keeper was newly married and, after moving to the island with his bride, they both began to struggle with the gulf between their lives there and the people on the coast. So, to give his wife something to do with her time – and maybe to get a bit of entertainment out of it for himself – the keeper ordered a piano for her. They say it was delivered during the autumn, just as the winter chill was creeping in. In the story, it had to be hoisted up the rock face, but that’s probably not true; Seguin is more like a green hill pretruding from the water than anything else but, hey, it adds to the drama, right? And that’s what these old stories provide –plenty of drama. When the piano arrived the keeper’s wife was elated, but buyer’s remorse quickly set in. You see, the piano only came with the sheet music for one song. With winter quickly rolling in from the north, shipping in more music was impossible, so she settled in and made the best of it. The legend says that she played that song non-stop, over and over, all throughout the winter. Somehow she was immune to the monotony of it all, but her husband, the man who had only been hoping for distraction and entertainment, took it hard. They say it drove him insane. In the end, the keeper took an axe and destroyed the piano, hacking it into nothing more than a pile of wood and wire, and then, still deranged from the repetitive tune, he turned the axe on his wife, nearly chopping her head off in the process. The tragic story always ends with the keeper’s suicide, but most know it all to be fiction. At least, that’s the general opinion, but even today, there are some who claim that if you happen to find yourself on a boat in the waters between the island and the mainland, you can still hear the sound of piano music drifting across the waves.

Boon island is near the southern tip of Maine’s long coastline. It’s not a big island by any stretch of the imagination, perhaps 400 square yards in total, but there’s been a lighthouse there since 1811 due to the many shipwrecks that have plagued the island for as long as Europeans have sailed in those waters. The most well-known shipwreck on Boon Island occurred there in the winter of 1710 when the Nottingham Galley, a ship captained by John Deane, wrecked there on the rocks. All 14 crew members survived, but the ship was lost, stranding them without help or supplies in the cold winter. As the unfortunate sailors died, one by one, the survivors were forced to eat the dead or face starvation, and they did this for days, until fishermen finally discovered and rescued them. But that’s not the most memorable story from Boon Island, that honour falls to the tale of Katherine Bright, the wife of a former lighthouse keeper there in the 19th century. According to those who believe the story, the couple had only been on the island for a few months when Katherine’s husband slipped while trying to tie off their boat. He fell and hit his head on the rocks and then slid unconsciously into the water, where he drowned. At first, Katherine tried to take on the duties of keeping the light running herself, but after nearly a week, fishermen in York on the mainland watched the light flicker out and stay dark. When they travelled to the island to investigate, they found Katherine sitting on the tower’s stairs. She was cradling her dead husband’s corpse in her arms. Legend has it that Katherine was brought back to York along with her husband’s body, but it was too late for her. Just like the lighthouse they had left behind, she was now cold and dark. Some flames, it seems, can’t be relit.

There’s been a lighthouse on the shore of Rockland, Maine, for nearly 200 years. It’s on an oddly-shaped hill, with two large depressions in the face of the rock that were said to remind the locals of an owl. So, when the light was built there in 1825 it was, of course, named Owls Head. Give any building long enough, mix in some tragedy and unexplainable phenomenon, and you can almost guarantee a few legends will be born. Owls Head is no exception. One of the oldest stories is a well-documented one from 1850. It tells of a horrible winter storm that ripped through the Penobscot Bay area on December 22nd of that year. At least five ships were driven aground by the harsh waves and chill wind. It was a destructive and fierce storm, and it would have been and understatement to say that it wasn’t a wise idea to be out that night – on land or at sea. A small ship had been anchored at Jameson Point that night. The captain had done the smart thing and gone ashore to weather the storm inside, but he left some people behind on the ship. Three, actually: first mate, Richard Ingraham, a sailor named Roger Elliot, and Lydia Dyer, a passenger. While those three poor souls tried to sleep that night on the schooner, the storm pushed the ship so hard that the cables snapped, setting the ship adrift across the bay. Now, it’s not exactly a straight shot south-east to get to Owls Head, it’s a path shaped more like a backwards “C” to get around the rocky coast, but the ship somehow managed to do it anyway. It passed the breakwater, drifted east and south, and finally rounded the rocky peninsula where Owls Head Light is perched, all before smashing against the rocks south of the light.

The three passengers survived the impact and, as the ship began to take on water, they scrambled up to the top deck – better the biting wind than the freezing water, they assumed – and then they waited, huddled there under a pile of blankets against the storm, just waiting for help. When the ship began to  actually break apart in the waves, though, Elliot, the sailor, was the only one to make an escape from the wreckage. I can’t imagine how cold he must have been with the freezing wind and ocean spray lashing at him from the darkness, but standing on the rocks with his feet still ankle-deep in the waves, he happened to look up and see the lighthouse on the hill. If he was going to find help, that was his best option, so he began to climb. He was practically dead by the time he reached the lighthouse, but when he knocked, no one answered. A moment later, the keeper of the light rode up the path on a sleigh, having been out for supplies, and realised at once that Elliot needed help. He took him in, gave him hot rum and put him into a warm bed, but not before Elliot managed to whisper something about the others.

The keeper immediately called for help and gathered a group of about a dozen men. Together, they all travelled down to the shore, where they began to look for the wreck of the ship and the people who may still be alive onboard. When they found the remains of the schooner, the men began to carefully climb across the wreckage, looking for signs of the other passengers. It was treacherous work – the wood was encrusted in ice and each step swayed dangerously with the waves. When they finally found them, they were still on the portion of the deck where Elliot had left them, but they seemed to shiver whenever the light of the lantern washed over them. Climbing closer, the men discovered why: Ingraham and Dyer were both encased in a thick layer of ice, completely covering their bodies. They were frozen. Not taking any chances, the men somehow managed to pry the couple free from the deck of the ship and the entire block was transported back up the hill to the lighthouse. All that night, they worked fast and carefully. They placed the block in a tub of water and then slowly chipped away at the ice, and as it melted, they moved the limbs of each person in an attempt to get their blood flowing again, and somehow, against all logic and medical odds, it worked. It took them a very long time to recover, but Ingraham and Dyer soon opened their eyes. Ingraham was the first to speak, and it was said that he croaked the words “what is all this? Where are we?” Roger Elliot didn’t survive the aftermath of the shipwreck. Maybe it was the trauma of climbing up the hill to the lighthouse, soaked to the bone and exposed to the freezing winds of the storm. Perhaps it was an injury he sustained in the shipwreck itself, or on the climb to the lighthouse. Dyer and Ingraham faired better, though. They eventually recovered and even married each other. They settled down and raised a family together in the area, all thanks to the man who died to bring them help when all seemed lost.

Later stories from inside Owls Head lighthouse have been equally chilling. Although there are no other tragic events on record there, it’s clear from the first-hand accounts of those who have made Owls Head their home that something otherworldly has taken up residence there. The Andrews family was one of the first to report any sort of unusual activity on the property. I can’t find a record of their first names, but the keeper and his wife lived there along with her elderly father. According to their story, one night the couple was outside and looked up to see a light swirling in her father’s window. When they climbed the stairs, they found the older man shaking in his bed from fright. Some think he might have seen the old sailor, a common figure witnessed by many over the years. When John Norton was keeper in 1980, he claimed to have seen the same apparition. He had been sleeping, but when a noise woke him up, he opened his eyes to see the figure of an old sea captain standing over his bed, just… staring at him. The old sailor has been blamed for mysterious footprints that tend to appear in the snow, footprints that could be found on the walk toward the house. The prints never seem to have an origin point, and always end abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk. Others have claimed to feel cold spots in the house, while some have gone on record to swear that brass fixtures inside the lighthouse, fixtures that were usually tarnished and dark, would be found mysteriously polished. None of the keepers have been able to figure out who was doing the cleaning for them, though. There have been other stories as well, tales of a white lady who has been frequently seen in the kitchen, of doors slamming without anyone in the room, and of silverware that has been heard to rattle in the drawers. Despite this, though, most have said that they felt at peace with her there – more at peace, at least, than they are with the old, bearded sailor.

In the mid-1980s, Andy Germann and his wife, Denise, lived there while tending the light. They moved in and settled into life on the harsh coast of Maine. Andy divided his time between tending the light and a series of renovations to the old lighthouse, which left the yard outside rather chaotic and full of construction materials. One night after climbing into bed, the couple heard the sound of some of the building supplies outside falling over in the wind. Andy pulled on his pants and shoes and left the room to go take care of the mess before the wind made it worse. Denise watched him leave, and then rolled back over to sleep with the lamp still on. A short while later, she felt him climb back into bed. The mattress moved, as did the covers, and so she asked out loud how it had gone, if there had been any trouble or anything unusual, but Andy didn’t reply, so Denise rolled over. When she did, she found that Andy’s spot in bed was still empty. Well, almost. In the spot where he normally slept beside her, there was a deep depression in the sheets, as if an invisible body were laying right there beside her. Of course, it was just the dent where Andy had been sleeping moments before. At least, that’s what she told herself, but thinking back on it later, Denise admits that she has doubts. There were moments when she was laying there, staring at the impression in the sheets, that she could have sworn the shape was moving. Maybe she was too level-headed to get upset, or perhaps she was too tired to care. Whatever the reason, Denise simply told whoever it was to leave her alone, and then rolled over and fell back asleep. At breakfast the next morning, she wanted to tell Andy about the experience, thinking he would laugh it off and help her to explain it away, but before she could, he told her his own story. It turns out Andy had an unusual experience of his own the previous night. He explained how, as he had exited the room and stepped out into the dimly lit hallway, he saw what he could only describe as a faint cloud hovering close to the floor, and this cloud, he said, had been moving. According to Andy, when he walked down the hall, it moved right up to his feet and then passed on through him. That’s when Denise asked Andy where the cloud had been going. “Into the bedroom,” he told her. “Why?”

You don’t have to travel to a lighthouse to bump into tales of the unexplained or otherworldly. You can hear them from just about anyone you meet, from the neighbour down the street to your real estate agent, but lighthouses seem to have a reputation for the tragic, and maybe that’s understandable – these are, after all, houses built to help save lives in a dangerous setting. It might be safe to say that the well for these stories runs deeper than many place – but are they true? Like a lot of stories, it seems to depend on who you talk to. Keepers across the decades have had a mixed bag of experiences. Some see odd things, and some don’t. Maybe some people just connect to the stories more than others and go looking for hints and signs where there are none. One recent family described their time there as “normal”. They never saw ghosts, never watched objects move, and felt right at home the whole time they were there. Another family, though, acknowledged that something unusual seemed to be going on in the lighthouse. They would find lightbulbs partially unscrewed and the thermostat would constantly readjust itself – perhaps whatever it is that’s haunting the lighthouse is just very environmentally conscious. It’s easy to laugh off most of these stories, but we’ve never lived there, we’ve never heard or felt something that can’t be explained away, and like most samples of data, there’s always the outlier. Another family who lived at the lighthouse in the late 1980s claimed to have experienced their fair share of unusual activity, though. One night, while Gerard and Debby Graham were asleep, their three-year-old daughter, Claire, quietly opened her eyes and sat up in bed. She stared into the darkness for a moment, as if carefully listening to something, and then climbed out of her bed and left the room. Her little bare feet patted on the cold floor of the hallway as she made her way down towards her parents’ room. Inside, she slowly approached the side of their bed, and then tapped her father on the arm to wake him. When he did wake up, he asked Claire what was the matter. The little girl replied that she was supposed to tell him something. “Tell me what?” he father asked. “There’s a fog rolling in,” Claire replied, somehow sounding like someone infinitely older. “Sound the horn”. When he asked her who had told her this, the little girl looked at him seriously. “My friend,” she told him, “the old man with the beard.”

[Closing statements]

[hoist-the-colours-podcast]

(3/3) It took me a long time to admit to myself that I am, in fact, not straight and it took even longer to admit it to others. I am still not out and proud but Black Sails reminds me to know no shame so I’m sure I’ll be okay someday. Long story short, Black Sails and the fandom helped me realize I’m bisexual and I couldn’t be more thankful

I LOVE THIS FOR YOU, ANON!!!!

[gaysails]

white bisexuals get called bisexuals while black lesbians are ““queer woc”” huh?????? @hoist-the-colours-podcast care to comment

[jadedbirch]

@hoist-the-colours-podcast is so problematic!

Why so pretty?

Why so smart?

Why voices so sexy?

Where is my next podcast?

[iwt-v]

Are you not getting an anti-Thomas vibe from the podcast? I don't know, it just feels like they're all "YAY SILVER AND FLINT" and "Thomas is a condescending asswipe and he doesn't deserve Flint but Silver does."

No anon, I’m not getting that. And frankly I’m so sick of hearing the word “anti” in this fandom I want to barf.

As I’ve said in tags, I’ve listened to roughly 36 minutes of the Flint season 2 podcast. And what I am getting from the podcast is the different perspectives the lovely ladies of hoist the colours have of the show’s characters. 

Could it be argued that some perspectives on certain characters are colored by individual shipping choices? Sure. If I, as a die-hard flinthamilton shipper, were discussing my thoughts and feelings on the development of that ship on the show, there’s probably things I’d have to say that would be different than someone else’s. The conversation on the podcast discussed each member’s take on that first meeting between Thomas and James and no, not everyone thought it was love at first sight. And that’s…a perfectly legitimate read on that scene?

The same goes for other things discussed. I’ve heard nothing to make me think “anti” at all. You can have different perspectives on a character. You can even be critical of a character or a character’s actions and that’s totally okay too.

So please, don’t try to throw me on the anti merry-go-round again. I’m not buying.

[ithappensoffstage]

Happy Pride to everyone, especially my wife and favorite lesbian pirate, Anne Bonny! Here she is as a sketch I requested from @hcnnibal 🏴‍☠️🏳️‍🌈

[vowel-in-thug]

I am 385739373 years late but thank u ladies of @hoist-the-colours-podcast for doing the Gay Lord’s work and also i have crushes on all of you

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 2: The Bloody Pit (Transcript) - 23rd March 2015

tw: death, claustrophobia, racism (H. P. Lovecraft), ghosts

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Most people are afraid of the dark, and while this is something that we expect from our children, adults hold onto that fear just as tightly; we simply don’t talk about it anymore. But it’s there, lurking in the back of our minds. Science calls it nyctophobia, the fear of the dark, and since the dawn of humanity our ancestors have stared into the blackness of caves, tunnels and basements with a feeling of rot and panic in their bellies. H. P. Lovecraft, the patriarch of the horror genre, published an essay in 1927, entitled “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, and it opens with this profoundly simple statement. “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”. You see, people fear the unknown, the what-if, and the things they cannot see. We humans are afraid of the dark. We’re afraid that our frailness and weakness might become laid bare in the presence of… whatever it is that lurks in the shadows. We’re afraid of opening up places that should remain closed. We fear what we can’t see, and sometimes, for good reason. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

The Berkshire Mountain Range in Western Massachusetts sits in the very top left corner of the state. It’s not the Rockies by any stretch of the imagination, but in 1851, those hills were in someone’s way. The Troy and Greenfield Railroad Company wanted to lay some track that would cut through the mountains, and so they begun work on a tunnel. On the western end sat the town of Florida, with North Adams holding up the eastern end. Between those towns was about 5 miles of solid rock. This building project was no small undertaking, no matter how unimpressive the mountains might be. It ultimately took the crew 24 years to wrap things up, and came at the cost of $21.2 million. In 2015 money, that’s $406, 493, 207. See? It was a big deal. Monetary costs aside however, construction of the tunnel came with an even heavier price tag. At least 200 men lost their lives cutting that hole through the bones of the earth.

One of the first major tragedies occurred on March 20th , 1865. A team of explosive “experts”, and I use that term loosely because nitro-glycerine had just been introduced to America about a year before, entered the tunnel to plant the charge. The three men, Brinkman, Nash and Kelley (who, by the way, his first name was Ringo, which I think is just awesome) did their work and then ran back down the tunnel to their safety bunker. Only Kelley made it to safety. It turns out that he set off the explosion just a bit too early, burying the other two men alive. Naturally, Kelley felt horrible about it, but no one expected him to go missing, which he did, just a short while later. But the accidents? They didn’t end there.

Building a railway tunnel through a mountain is complex, and one of the features most tunnels have is a vent shaft. Constant coal-powered train traffic could result in a lot of smoke and fumes, so engineers thought it would be a good idea to have a ventilation shaft that extended from the surface above and allowed fumes and water to be pumped out. This shaft for the Hoosac Tunnel, as it became known, would be roughly 30ft in diameter, and eventually would stretch over 1000ft down and connect with the train tunnel below. By October of 1867 it was only 500ft deep. Essentially it was a really, really deep hole in the ground. To dig this hole they built a small building at the top which was used to raise and lower hoists to get the debris out, as well as a pump system to remove ground water. Then, each day, they would lower a dozen or more crazy, Cornish miners (not underaged kids, by the way, the other kind of miner) into the hole, and set them to work. You see where this is going, right? Please tell me that you see where this is going.

On October 17th, a leaky lantern filled the hoist house with natural gas, a naphtha, an explosive gas found in nature, and the place blew sky-high. As a result, things started to fall down the shaft. What things? Well, for starters, 300 freshly sharpened drill bits. Then, the hoist mechanism itself, and finally, the burning wreckage of the building. All of it fell five stories down the tunnel and on top of the 13 men working away at the bottom. Oh, and because the water pump was destroyed in the explosion, the shaft also began to flood. The workers on the surface tried to reach the men at the bottom, but they failed. One man was even lowered into the shaft in a basket, but he had to be pulled back up when the fumes became unbearable. He managed to gasp the words “no hope” to the workers around him, before slipping into unconsciousness. In the end they gave up, called it a loss, and actually covered the shaft. But in the weeks that followed, the workers in the mine frequently reported hearing the anguishing voice of men crying out in pain. They said they saw lost miners carrying picks and shovels, only to watch them vanish, moments later. Even the people in the village nearby told the tales of odd shapes and muffled cries near the covered pit. Highly educated people, upon visiting the construction site, reported similar experiences. Glenn Drohan, a correspondent for the local newspaper wrote that “the ghastly apparitions would appear briefly, then vanish, leaving no footprints in the snow, giving no answers to the miners’ calls”. Voices, lights, visions, and odd shapes in the darkness, all the sorts of experiences that we fear might happen to us when we step into a dark bedroom or a basement.

A full year after accident, they reopened the shaft, drained out all 500ft of water. They wanted to get back to work, but when they did, they discovered something horrific. Bodies… in a raft. You see, apparently some of the men survived the falling drill bits and debris long enough that they managed to build a raft. No one knows how long they stayed alive, but it’s pretty clear they died because they had been abandoned in a flooding hole in the ground. After that the workers began to call the tunnel by another name: the “Bloody Pit”. Catchy, right?

About 4 years after the gas explosion, two men visited the tunnel. One was James McKinstrey, the drilling operations superintendent for the project, and the other was Dr. Clifford Owens. While in the tunnel, the two men, both educated and respected among their peers, had an encounter that was beyond unusual. Owens wrote: “On the night of June 25th, 1872, James McKinstrey and I entered the great excavation at precisely 11:30pm. We had travelled about 2 miles into the shaft when we finally halted to rest. Except for the dim smoky light from our lamps, the place was as cold and dark as a tomb. James and I stood there talking for a minute or two and were just about to turn back when I suddenly heard a strange, mournful sound. It was as if someone, or something, was suffering great pain. The next thing I saw was a dim light coming along the tunnel from a westerly direction. At first I believed it was probably a workman with a lantern; yet, as the light grew closer, it took on strange, blue colour, and appeared to change shape, almost into the form of a human being without a head. The light seemed to be floating along, about a foot or two above the tunnel floor. In the next instant it felt as if the temperature had suddenly dropped and a cold, icy chill ripped up and down my spine. The headless from came so close that I could have reached out and touched it, but I was too terrified to move. For what seemed like an eternity, McKinstrey and I stood their gaping at the headless thing like two wooden Indians. The blue light remained motionless for a few seconds, as if it was actually looking us over, then floated off towards the east end of the shaft, and vanished into thin air. I am, above all, a realist. Nor am I prone to repeating gossip and wild tales that defy a reasonable explanation. However, in all truth, I cannot deny what James McKinstrey and I witnessed with our own eyes”.

The Hoosac tunnel played host to countless other spooky stories in the years that followed. In 1874, a local hunter named Frank Webster simply vanished, and when he finally stumbled up the banks of the Deerfield River three days later, he was found by a search party without his rifle and appearing to have been beaten bloody. He claimed he’d been ordered into the tunnel by voices and lights, and once he was inside, he saw ghostly figures that floated and wandered about in the dark. His experience ended when something unseen reached out, took his rifle from him, and clubbed him with it. He had no memory of walking out of the tunnel. In 1936 a railroad employee named James Impoco, claims that he was warned of danger in the tunnel by a mysterious voice, not once, but twice. I’m thinking it was Ringo, trying to make up for being an idiot. In 1973, for some unknown and god-awful reason, a man decided to walk through the full length of the tunnel. This brilliant man, Bernard Hastaba, was never seen again. One man, who walked through and did make it out though, claims that when he was in the tunnel, he saw the figure of a man dressed in old clothing of a 19th century miner. Again, not a kid. He left in a hurry, from what I’ve read.

Stories about the tunnel persist to this day. It’s common for teams of paranormal investigators to walk the length of the tunnel, although it’s still active with a dozen or so freight trains that pass through each day. There are rumours of a secret room, or many rooms, deep inside the tunnel. There’s even an old monitoring station built into the rock about half way through, though few have been brave enough to venture all the way there and see it. Those that have report more of the same: unexplained sounds and lights. Oh, and remember Ringo Kelley, our sloppy demolition expert who got his co-workers killed in 1865? Well, he showed up again. In March of 1866, one full year after the explosion, his body was found 2 miles inside the tunnel, in the exact same spot where Brinkman and Nash had died. He had been strangled to death.

Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. You can find a transcript of this show, including links to source materials, at lorepodcast.com. Lore is a biweekly podcast, so be sure to check back in for a new episode every two weeks. If you enjoy scary stories, I happen to write them. You can find a full list of my supernatural novels, available in paperback and ebook formats, at aaronmahnke.com/novels. Thanks for listening.