#and madi loves silver and madi loves flint and silver lives madi and madi loves mr scott and mr scott loves madi and mr scott loves

[assorted-aesthetics]

anyways thinking about the very meta layer of black sails where the ending is a sold lie. Madi forgives Silver and she's his wife in treasure island don't worry about it it's definitely not Max. Max is in power and happy with Jack and Anne and Mark Reed. They weren't hung a few years later for piracy, leaving max alone. Flint is happy and in gay love on a plantation in retirement. If you compromise you can be happy!! you can live peacefully under the empire!! anyway that's all I'll say on the matter

[posallys]

Happy pride month to everyone but specifically to the greater Nassau polycule <3 you're all so special to me

[thelaurenshippen]

the way that silver said "I will stand here with you an hour, a day, a year" to flint and "I will wait a day, a month, a year, forever" to madi....I'm sick to my stomach. who is doing unhinged devotion like this man

[theartthatleavesthemark]

this post probably exists out there somewhere but. you know the book la galatea? the one Flint leaves for Miranda in 2x3? uhh well it was written by Cervantes the man most well known for creating the patron saint of lost causes (don quixote) but that isnt even the most insane part this book was a collection of pastoral poems loosely wedged into a narrative now, what were these poems about you may ask? well, pastoral stories for those of you who do not know are about love specifically they are about overpowering love making people do insane things and many of these stories in this book end either in tragedy or very ambiguously. essentially the love was there but it didnt change the ending. now the frame these tales are set in? well, THAT is the story of two gentleman, one of noble birth named Elicio and one of low birth who is nonetheless quite well-spoken named Erastro (sound familiar?) who are both in love with the same woman (the titular galatea). they agree that their shared love will never interfere with their friendship. now if you, like me, are throwing objects at the walls at this point, wait for the best part: la galatea is UNFINISHED. Cervantes wrote only part 1 and IN DON QUIXOTE there is a scene in which part one is BURNED and a character comments that it will never be any good without a second half. which he never wrote.

[cashmere-caveman]

sometimes someone will reblog my "silver lied in the finale no idea abt what tho" post and their tags all full of #flinthamilton angst and i just really am forcefully reminded that even though we all watched the same show . we did not in fact watch the same show. like yes their affair is basically what set the whole plot in motion and i really love thomas as a plot device but i do have to confess that idc abt thomas as a person at all lmfao

[vir-adahlen]

black sails season 3 rewatch is actually too fucking insane. noticing things. it's all.............here

[ravelqueen]

The reason i love the ending of Black Sails (and why i hate like 80% of the discourse around it incidentally) is that no one is right! No one is wrong! They all make the most logical decisions based on who they are and John most of all.

The way I saw John apologists bending over backwards trying to frame it as an OOC decision because John wouldn't do that he loves Flint! at the same time John haters where feeling vindicated bc see he was a dick who only cares about himself and both sides making me claw at my face because the love was the point.

John would have not betrayed Flint if he didn't love him (and Madi)! Because then he wouldn't have cared if they died. But he does! He does so much in a way that is probably fully new to him and scary and it makes him act impulsively in a way he never did before (because as much as his actions often seem lackadaisical, he's a calculating mofo).

So he loves them.

He also, from the very first moments we meet him, has the biggest survival instinct of anyone. He doesn't care about principle or honour or cause he cares about survival.

He's managed to work for this cause and he's applied himself and i think at the moment of the story the Betrayal happens he's even really on board, but a tiger cannot change his stripes and so John Silver cannot change that his fundamental motivator is survival.

And because he loves Flint he wants him to survive more than he wants the cause to win only there he comes into conflict with the fact that Flint's main motivator is the Cause. He and Madi are creatures of principle of "The Cause Is The Cause Because It Is Worth Dying For".

So the confrontation in the forest is exactly this: Flint following his main motivator of the Cause before anything, because that is what he lives for and John just needing him to live, because you can't care about anything when you're dead.

And so it's tragic and heart wrenching because if John hadn't learned to love so well, so deeply, so earnestly throughout the story he would have let Flint go and continue to fight, but he did and he does so and he couldn't.

[celeste-i]

"Even if you can persuade her to keep you... she'll no longer be enough. And the comfort will grow stale" from a man who has lived with a woman for ten years, bound to her by tragedy and a shared love. he wasn't with Thomas long enough to know comfort, but he was with Miranda. and she was crying out, desperate for a life that he refused to give to her because violence and the threat of death was more thrilling than domesticity. this is spoken to a man who has never even known what a home is, and finally has the mere idea of a life in front of him and he refuses to let it go for even a moment. he crashes the entire world to ensure that that door is open. Miranda's letter, the door is open to Boston with joy and peace and music. Miranda saying "I imagine there are two kinds of men who make their life at sea: those whose sense of duty forces them to leave any sense of permanence or identity behind them; and those for whom that is the attraction." We don't know anything about John silver and neither does flint nor Madi. The woman whose world she shattered -- for her survival -- doesn't know anything about him. To the last moment he cannot fight his nature which is selfishness and anonymity. Flint cannot fight his nature which is to fight. Our first scene of silver is him on the sea, nameless and lying and murdering for his survival. Our first scene of flint is fighting. Silver has been into the depths of flints mind. flint knows him even if he is a stranger in all other respects. he knows that silver cannot fight his nature, just as flint can't. flint knows that given the same choice that he had with Miranda, silver will not be content in a home with a woman either. that they are birds of a feather. that silver is comforting himself with a fantasy. and even worse silver may be comforting himself with the idea that flint is alive and well with Thomas and not buried somewhere on skeleton island.

[sleevebuscemii]

I love your black sails opinions but I want to add, in a lot of ways, black sails IS the backstory for silver because unlike most characters in black sails, he will live on and become the main antagonist of treasure island, so in many ways looking at him in black sails is asking if it was worth everything in treasure island

It’s a paradox. He is both a character existing in here in the present but he’s also a character from a children’s adventure novel from the 1800’s who has a animal side kick and says shit like shiver me Timbers.

I don’t think I’m making sense but it drives me crazy to think Flint and Madi ask the same questions about silver that a young Jim Hawkins will ask and we still never get answers.

you are definitely making sense and are so correct. what’s crazy is that there will always be something missing without an origin. and you are so correct to say that black sails acts as an origin but can we take that at face value when we’ll never know who silver actually was? and im not actually asking, it’s kind of just the feeling you’re left with. the shift between silver in the first two seasons and the last two seasons is so drastic in that yes we can ascribe so much of it to everything that happened but it’s insane to see how little of the old silver is there. the jokey smirky sarcastic charm becomes a hardened sailor in the blink of an eye, and it’s not to say that version of silver was just (totally) an act but you can’t say it’s a real person. in the same way we see pieces of flint from before he was Captain Flint in him all the time, as in ‘this person was one thing and life changed him into this’. silver’s comes off like he took one suit off and donned another completely. and it almost makes the shiver me timbers parrot pirate more believable, another suit donned that strips the old one completely. but it’s still to say. i dont think all of it was pretend and i dont think none of it was true. i just think silver is so disillusioned from personhood and identity that he doesn’t see and doesn’t conduct his changes as growth, it’s more of a replacement which is to say there IS a real silver there and we see it in moments and fragments but it’s not enough to make whole and it’s not enough to make him known

[shittinggold]

Black Sails at its core is a tragedy, in that we know how the story will end. This is the nature of its existence as a prequel - we know the fates of many characters, as well as the fate of Nassau and the wider world because Treasure Island exists. We know Billy must end up on that beach, we know Flint must be long gone, we know John Silver must become Long, and we know the revolution fails. The events of the story are dictated by its ending, which we are told before the story starts.

And at the same time, because it is a historical show that uses real world elements and real people, it is also constrained by the bind of history. We know the pirate rebellion does not succeed; we know that slaves do not overthrow the British Empire in 1718. This is what's so brilliant about the way the show's cast is constructed. By using a combination of historical and fictional priates, the show locks itself into being a tragedy on multiple levels. The story of Treasure Island and the story of history both contain it.

Yet even within that, the hope it inspires is so real and powerful that it makes us believe that it can end some other way. We hear Flint or Madi talk about a world after England, and it is such a beautiful thought that we believe it might actually happen, despite knowing that that it can't.

Which is what's so brilliant about the climax, with Flint and Silver in the woods. Flint is raging, rattling the bars of narrative and history both, adamant that the world he envisions can be real. While Silver, the storyteller, knows the truth - that there is only one way the story ends, and the revolution's failure is inevitable.

...Or is it? Certainly, it doesn't succeed, but was it inevitable? So many characters talk about inevitability, but one of my favourite scenes is between Jack and Max in 4x07, where Max claims that war against civilisation is inherently doomed nd history proves that, and Jack points out that it's that belief that caused her to side against the pirates and cause the war's doom. The thing is that they're both right. History is fact, and also written in part because of what people believe will be written.

So the story ends with so many questions, and invites us to write the rest. We thought Flint's fate, drinking himself to death in Savannah, was sealed by Treasure Island, but now we have been told a new story. He instead finds his lost love and lives happily ever afer. Except, no, that itself was a story, and he's actually buried in the forest by Silver. The story's ending depends on the teller, and we are pushed into the role of teller.

And because of how the show is structured - fiction and history interwoven - we must consider how this fuidity in truth applies to history. We assume we know the story of history because we are at its end. It seems so inevitable in retrospect. Yet it never was, and isn't now, as it is being written. Maybe we know that Jack Rackham is arrested and killed soon after the series ends, because that's what happened in real life, but maybe we're wrong. Maybe there's something else. A story is true, a story is untrue.

Everything is built to make the awful ending an absolute certainty, locked tight in the dual cages of fiction and fact. But there is enough ambiguity and hope within to make us justifiably believe that it can end another way. Silver and Flint are both right. The ending was both inevitable and a direct result of the choices people made. It was always going to end this way. It didn't have to end this way.

[dragonsinthedarkness]

"But I hear other voices. A chorus of voices. Multitudes. They reach back centuries. Men and women and children who lost their lives to men like you. Man and women and children forced to wear your chains. I must answer to them.

And this war, Flint’s war, my war, it will not be bargained away to avoid a fight. To save John Silver’s life, or his men’s, or mine.”

I’d like to start from this beautiful speech from Madi to explain why I think Madi is the war itself. Why she was exactly what Flint needed to start fighting it and why she couldn’t be further away from Silver as a person.

Just because I rewatched the final ep. today and I feel the need to honor the one who lost part of herself in this and to reason about the dynamics among the two persons who might have changed the world and the one who kicked that hope back into the dark corner of the untold.

As always, Flint and Silver’s conversation at the end of ep.XXXVIII made me think A LOT. First time I guess I was overwhelmed by emotions, but this time, between the bitterness of the betrayal and the desperation of Flint's loss, I think I started to see exactly what Silver couldn’t get about the war. Which basically is its meaning.

But let me begin with Flint, because is the character I think I know better by now and because I need to start from a warrior who is not the war itself.

Flint started by fighting a war, another one, an easier one, alongside Thomas. He found himself in that period of time, but he lost that war and the one he loved the most with it. Then he started to fight another kind of war, twisted himself in order to fit into its lines. That war was never about liberation, even if that was what he had been telling himself all along and maybe what he hoped he could eventually accomplish by fighting it: it was just about revenge and something to grab in order to stay afloat. It took him to lost every hope of happiness he had left (Miranda), the last possible meaning of his life and of the person he felt he really was deep inside to see the chance for yet another kind of war. A wider one, a harder one, a most fundamental one. It took him to meet Madi. Knowing her, someone completely different from anyone he had known and fought along in the past, someone who was somehow closer to him as a person than anyone he had ever known (except maybe Eleonor, I’m talking mainly about the pirates. Thomas and Miranda were close to him but not very similar in character I’d say and maybe this is why they got along together so well), he finally had the chance to understand that he was not alone in his misery. She had the courage to be what Flint didn’t even know he could become, the fight not for the fight’s sake but for the outcome, as much as he reputed himself already excluded from it, because however he couldn’t ever be part of anything again, not in the way he had been with Thomas and Miranda. But there’s a difference between fighting just to kill and fighting to save who the one you are killing would have been willing to kill, and Madi represented that change for him.

And the war represented the only meaning he was still able to give to his life.

He is defined by his past, absolutely and mainly, and this makes him both someone with valid reasons to fight and someone with reasons to stop fighting.

In the previous episode we see how Silver instead refuses to be defined by his past, which could be a good or a bad thing, depending on how one let that past influence themselves, but that in this specific situation is basically what makes him unable (just my point of view of course) to get the general meaning of that war.

He chooses to erase his experience in favor of the moment, of the future maybe, and this makes him unable (as much as he likes to affirm the contrary, which I had never agreed upon) to understand the minds of the ones who let that experience shape them. And even more, it makes him unable to understand the minds of the ones who don’t need to have cruel experiences behind them in order to feel the fight. That is, Madi.

To link with my previous post ( https://www.tumblr.com/dragonsinthedarkness/758840316125216768/from-the-moment-he-started-speaking-i-couldnt?source=share ), in that infamous conversation in the last ep. Silver confesses he felt the war only (or especially, but I’d say only) when he lost Madi, because he felt the need to honor her sacrifice, avenge her lost and everything Flint had been doing for years, and the point is that that war was EXACTLY that. It was answering to the multitudes of voices who had undergone all that suffering and that demanded justice for it. It was trying to accomplish that as few others as possible could undergo that same fate.

And the point I want to make is that Madi was not only a warrior but the war itself because she felt those voices and the need to answer to them EVEN IF she had never personally experienced such tragedies. She was raised with the Guthries, then in the camp, she had probably even had the chance to be happy in her childhood, but this didn’t prevent her from developing the knowledge of that evil or the responsibility to fight it as leader of her community and as sisters of all the ones who had suffered before and may suffer again.

She wasn’t defined by her own past, but she brought on her shoulders the most painful and important legacy and decided to honor it.

And one may ask for justice for what happened in their own lifetime with a single chance of succeeding, that can make a great warrior of them, but those voices REACHED BACK CENTURIES, as she said. Her justice, their justice, would have been hopeless as long as something bigger as that war started to change things, and this is exactly what Silver couldn’t understand.

Now of course I know changes don’t happen overnight because “the world is too strong for that”, but I’m talking about their reality in that age right now and I think that as much as a war couldn’t have probably changed things, it would have been a beginning at least. A scream echoing in the night of their existences who would have maybe be heard, and as long as even a single person was able to gain goodness from it, it wouldn’t have been in vain.

As I believe all their efforts had not been in vain, despite the outcome.

For one hour, a month or a year (to improperly quote Silver) of freedom.

For one single moment of victory, of light in the dark.

[lichfucker]

The idea for me Max to be the “wife” in treasure island only works if they remain miserable and constantly wanting different people but also…the familiar company keeps them going. They will outlive everyone but they’ll stop wanting too. They both made the choices that lead them here and now they can only stare at each other knowing it didn’t have to end this way.

Like I don’t know if it’s mean, but sometimes I think it cheapens the tragedy if like…Max ends her life happy. Like if anything, she needs her Jim Hawkins to be a clear sign of change but she can’t do it. And in the end, her and silver are still stuck clawing at surviving.

I know this fandom isn’t a musical one. But Max and Silver reminded me a lot of the songs in “Lempicka” especially “Here it Comes” and “In the Blasted California Sun.”

oh for sure. that situation on nassau we leave max in is NOT a stable one, not by any means, and it's only a few years after the end of the series that jack gets executed and anne disappears. I imagine that that's probably when max finally pulls the plug and flees to bristol.

I don't know if I'd say the tragedy is cheapened by max having that smug power shot overlooking the tavern. I think the tragedy is complicated by it. a pyrrhic victory, of sorts. yes, she got the thing she claimed to have wanted-- the image of a little girl in the muck peering through the window at the safety and warmth afforded to people Not Like Her-- but look at all that had to be destroyed to achieve it. how long can it possibly last? even with the reinforced backing of colonial rule, not nearly so ephemeral as some independent pirate haven, this place is still just sand. it still cannot love her back. other people have articulated this point better than I can right now.

also when I said I like writing madi in bristol because I like tragedy and misery, that's not to say I think everyone would be fine and happy if max were there instead lmao. I just mean that the dynamic of two people who thought they loved each other once trying and failing to make a life in circumstances neither of them could ever have wanted is particularly compelling to me. like. for a few months in her mid-20s madi had Everything. she had a vision of the future that would see the world changed and her people freed; she had authority over a community who not just respected her but revered her; she had the good love of a good man. and ALL of that got eviscerated in an instant by that very same man, and now for the rest of her life if she wants to have a life at all she must be anchored to that man as she knows him less and less; is forced to leave her home and travel across an ocean where she scrapes a living servicing englishmen; will die long before the end of the transatlantic slave trade. how can she ever move on from silver's betrayal? how can she ever get over it? silver isn't over it. silver stays fixated on it for the rest of his life, too. silver names his parrot captain flint. silver goes back to skeleton island to find that fucking cache and when he finally gets his share he disappears just like he always dreamed of doing-- one big prize, and with it freedom-- and where does that leave madi? alone, in fucking bristol, running the spyglass, playing barmaid to white english sailors until she dies. and this, according to silver, is better than her having died in the war? what if her death had meant their victory? he still wants her to believe that THIS is preferable to that? that HE finds this preferable? still? does he even bother pretending he still loves her? does she believe he ever did anymore? did he ever tell her a single thing that's true? she cleans spilled beer off the floor. her father died a king. this is not what she wanted.

[hotniatheron]

man do you ever think about how silver is odysseus and flint is calypso and skeleton island is ogygia and madi is penelope. or how flint is odysseus and miranda is circe and nassau is aeaea. or how madi is calypso and silver is odysseus and flint is penelope. or how this war was ALIVE until you killed it said diomedes to odysseus. or how this place is just SAND it cannot love you back, everyone in search of ithaca but no one able to find it, for they are on shores where they were not born, where there has been a war on civilization and on their rebellion to it all their lives-

[blacksailskmeme]

Black Sails Kink Meme 2024 Round Up: May-June

Hi there pirate fam!

As of today the Kink Meme has collected 130 prompts and 26 fills! Wow!!! 🥳🥳

As I said, I’ve decided to do a round up post for each month the kink meme is live, showcasing those fills submitted to the collection monthly.

We skipped a separate May roundup because things had quieted down for a bit, but in June y'all popped right back up! Happy Hot Kink Meme Summer, we'll be here all of July as well, accepting prompts and fills alike! ☀️☀️

Here ya go: all the fics submitted in May and June gathered in one place for your convenience and enjoyment! ✨

--

Flames of Desire By John Silver, SilverFlint, 4183 words

(For PROMPT #71: silver pre series writes filthy rpf of him and captain flint (think kidnapped by the pirate styles bodice rippers) and then he actually ends up kidnapped by flint and tries to seduce him bc of course he does and flint Resists but silver keeps throwing himself at flint until he finally gives in 😈)

-

Flavor, SilverFlint, 4088 words

(For PROMPT #72: s3-s4 break, Silver likes how Flint smells sweaty and ripe after they do sword drills on the cliffs, so he keeps distracting with questions or bullshit ship tasks Flint after training so that he doesn't have time to wash up before his other meetings. culminating in flint clocking what's he's doing, getting fed up, and making Silver give him a tonguebath one morning. Copious sweat and armpit hair licking is a MUST.)

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Recipe For Disaster, Silverflint; Silver/Others, 5655 words

(For PROMPT #50: Bad Cook Silver accidentally aphrodisiac poisons the crew. Take it any direction you want, but my idea is that he buys a sketchy potion in a port somewhere, planning to put it in Flint's food because he wants Flint to be helplessly attracted to him for manipulation/blackmail reasons. However through shenanigans, it ends up getting added to everyone's food BUT Flint and, oh no! the whole crew is horny for Silver. Flint, who did NOT get dosed (but maybe thinks he did?) has feelings about this.)

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For Her, FlintMadi, 1433 words

(For PROMPT #26: Madi is eaten out while menstruating. Dealer's choice who is slurping her up, could be multiples)

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Enter Leviathan, Silver/Sea Monster; SilverFlint, 2742 words

(For PROMPT #4: The War Ship is guarded by more than men. They have somehow captured a sea creature and are keeping it under decks. It gets loose during the interrogation, and Flint (still tied to the chair) watches as Silver gets tentacle fucked into oblivion.)

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first prize, SilverFlint, Silver/Others, 4088 words

(For PROMPT #94: some sort of s1/2 au. Flint is fucking Silver, but sometimes he lets a chosen few members of his crew have a go at Silver if they did well on a raid. Lending and voyeurism (Flint watches), Silver feels a mix of humiliation from being used like this and weird messed up pride from being such a Prized Possession that he's being given to people as a prize)

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Bot Love, FlintHam; SilverFlintHam, 5293 words

(For PROMPT #84: Inspired by the porn bots flooding the tumblr black sails tag. Modern AU. POV James. Thomas uses tumblr because he runs an account posting about bawdy quotes from poems/classics. James thinks it's ridiculous (social media at all, that is). One day he looks over Thomas's shoulder and sees such a porny advertise (something along the tacky line of "who wants to play with my cute butt") featuring a picture of Silver or well, parts of his body, in a tantalizing position. Thomas realises that James is very very turned on by it (James is angry about being turned on but damn, that's a really nice ass) and clicks the link. This is followed by a steamy video chat with Silver fucking himself with a huge dildo on his bed. Meanwhile, Thomas gives James a handjob or blowjob or... more (your choice). Bonus points if Thomas pays Silver a very generous tip in the end and if they end up exchanging contact details for a meeting in person (Silver, a poor student, sees his chance to become the sugar baby to these two obviously very rich and hot couple)

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Close Combat, Miranda/Anne, 3261 words

(For PROMPT #117: Miranda and Anne fight sex :) maybe a Miranda lives au or just set sometime in s1 or 2, but Miranda decides she wants to learn how to fight. flints fight style doesn't work for a thin woman, and Miranda hears about how skilled and feared Anne bonny is, so she seeks her out for training. during the course of the training, the sexual tension grows and then breaks and they have nasty rough sex on the ground - something neither of them could get with flint or max who love them too much to be rough nd dirty with them)

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Captain's Treasure, SilverFlint; Silver/Others, 1883 words

(For PROMPT #94: some sort of s1/2 au. Flint is fucking Silver, but sometimes he lets a chosen few members of his crew have a go at Silver if they did well on a raid. Lending and voyeurism (Flint watches), Silver feels a mix of humiliation from being used like this and weird messed up pride from being such a Prized Possession that he's being given to people as a prize)

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Thanks again to all of our May and June contributors! Here’s to more unapologetically smutty, kinky fills for July~~ 🥳🥳

[blacksails-rarepairs]

black sails rarepair week 2024: the week in review

a brief overview of the fics and art posted for rarepair week! there's a delightful array of work here--modern AUs and canonverse, comfort reads and belligerent sexual tension, repression and introspection, gen and queerplatonic and romantic and unrequited affections.

the event is now closed, but the fics & art posted as part of it can be read and appreciated at any time! comments, kudos, reblogs, etc. are highly encouraged!

huge thanks & all my gratitude to everyone who participated--it has been my honor to serve as your host <3

now: the rarepairs!

an introduction by Benja

rated T. Flint & Gates.

fascinating portrayal of Flint's early days as Flint in Nassau, from Gates's POV, with super sharp dialogue

The creation of Captain Flint, from Gates' perspective.

this is what you do at parties (right?) by sunset_waltz (@thenobleprincess)

rated T. Abigail Ashe/Idelle.

new college student Abigail meets-extremely-cute with local bartender Idelle. (nb: sunset_waltz's fics listed here are all set in the same modern & very queer/trans AU!)

Abigail is new in town, and Idelle is too pretty.

let me get this straight by ElectricKettle

rated M. Flint/Gates.

i'm nominating this fic for most apt use of the ao3 tag "Belligerent Sexual Tension" SERIOUSLY oooooough

Hal Gates is a man of moderation. He is not prone to impulse or hotheadedness. So why is it that this all goes out the window when it comes to a man named Flint?

i think it's magic (and i hope you'll agree) by sunset_waltz (@thenobleprincess)

rated T. Miranda Barlow/Madi.

meet!! cute!!! SO much chemistry

Miranda is Abigail's mom. Madi is her teacher.

a love lost or false by @van1lla-v1lla1n

rated T. Billy Bones/Charles Vane.

Jack Rackham reminiscing on the golden days and spinning tall tales about the love life of his buddy Charles Vane (rip).

I met Jack Rackham at a tavern once, long after the golden age of our kind, and he spun me a tale of a love lost or false, I knew not which, and I know not still to this day.

unspoken words (are preferred) by sunset_waltz (@thenobleprincess)

rated M. Bonny/Rackham/Vane but super multiship!

another installment in the author's rarepair-centric modern au, with so many fascinating poly character dynamics

Charles fucks up, and apologizing is hard.

post-XXVII by @kairennart

Flint/Vane art!!!!!! SUCH beautiful colors, amazing lovely expressions, have i mentioned that i'm in love with Flint's freckles BECAUSE. just go look at it <333

by the way (i forgive you) by sunset_waltz (@thenobleprincess)

rated M. Flint/Madi, Flint/Madi/Silver.

(modern au) Silver disappears, and Flint and Madi find each other as they grieve in his absence. & as if that weren't an amazing enough premise: BONUS OT3 AT THE END

After John Silver vanishes, Madi and Flint are left to their own devices--until he comes back.

under the stars and the sky by Veridissima (@thestagthatlovedthewolf)

rated T. Miranda Barlow & John Silver.

a very quiet and comforting middle-of-the-night Miranda-Silver interaction, with background Miranda/Flint/Hamilton/Madi/Silver. super compelling miranda-silver queerplatonic relationship

Miranda hears Silver walking past her bedroom door, and she can't help but follow him outside.

the unnoticed bulge by BilliesBud

rated M. Billy Bones/Charles Vane.

my wife's first fanfiction :''''''') a very tongue-in-cheek portrayal of a deeply repressed Charles Vane confused about why he's thirsting after Billy Bones

Billy living rent-free in Charles' head.

five times Howell was too blind to see what is right in front of him + the one time he wasn't by tahiri_veila (@twopointsinspace)

rated E. De Groot/Dr. Howell + unrequited Howell/Flint.

absolutely masterful portrayal of Howell's unrequited affection for Flint shifting to a requited friends-to-lovers situation with De Groot. (with bonus background silverflint)

"Welcome aboard." De Groot lowers his voice to a near-whisper. "Don't mind the captain's disgruntled mood. He may be a capricious bastard, but he's damn good at his job. The best, I'd say. You get used to his ways."

pourparler by @van1lla-v1lla1n

rated T. Max/Marion Guthrie.

i'll be honest this was mainly me thirsting after Harriet Walter. but don't you want to know what all those meetings between Max and Marion Guthrie were like! this is that.

Max meets with Marion Guthrie for initial negotiations.

joy, and music, and peace by Benja

unrated. Eme/Madi.

ough be still my heart this one is SO sleepy-sweet--literally sleepy like Madi and Eme have a cozy little rest together, a lovely moment of safety and security.

A moment of rest.

[reneewalkersknives]

about your tags, i havent watched black sails but im nosy, how does flint end up living?

Hi, that’s a loaded question as whether he DOES actually live is up for debate. Basically a famously unreliable narrator, storyteller and liar, John Silver tells a “nice” story abt how he betrayed him but didn’t kill him and in fact reunited him with his “dead” lover in an English prison/labour camp. Problem with this happy ending is that flint’s character (and a lot of the story as a whole really) is centered around fighting against English rule. Flint is a radical who dedicated his life to harming and overthrowing the empire/ colonial rule, as he was branded a “monster” and betrayed by his father figure (an English navy man) for being gay and in a relationship with his “dead” lover.

He was exiled for that crime which then led to him becoming a pirate to seek revenge which eventually leads to him becoming a radical figure and connecting with other radicals. The last we’re 100% sure we see of flint is Silver betraying him and pointing a gun at him. Silver tells Madi,the woman he loves and another radical leader whom he betrayed that flint got a happy ending at the prison camp and his lover (who has been firmly dead since years before the show even took started) was miraculously alive.

Personally I like to believe that Silver just killed Flint (as fucked up as it sounds, I know) bc I believe flint living out the rest of his life betrayed, trapped under English rule and punishment is a much bigger tragedy than his death would be and I think flint would be happier to be dead than alive in a labour camp. It sounds bad I know but when u watch the show he is very passionate in his hatred for England, his refusal to apologise or be pardoned by them, his determination to overthrow them and get revenge and I don’t think even getting his dead lover back could ever change that. (Probably the Irish in me speaking too lol)

Anyways one of the biggest themes of the show is storytelling, lying and performing to create certain narratives and mythos. In the final episode of show one of the main characters (whom is obsessed w creating his own legacy) states “a story is true, a story is untrue, as time extends it matters less and less. The stories we want to believe, those are the ones that survive” which is basically confirmation that both interpretations of flint’s ending are valid and it allows you to choose your personal favourite:)

Sorry this was so long winded lol I just have a LOT of black sails thoughts