#black sails discourse

[knightofmordred]

so incredibly tiring to see people invalidate the queer-ness of black sails, particularly with the women. it makes zero sense to claim that the show is 'only really gay' in the second season when flint and thomas' relationship is revealed.

you have gay women in the first episode.

max literally is so in love with eleanor that she begs her to run away from nassau. yet this isn't classed as 'gay' for you? what do queer women have to do in order for you to validate them 💀

[prouvaireafterdark]

[v333nus-demilo]

a few personal highlights in the notes of That Pirate Battle Post from the last few hours:

[purgaytorysupremacy]

I just started the series finale of Black Sails and if Thomas Hamilton is the prisoner they’re looking for on that farm I’m going to DIE.

[pinimi]

everyone stfu challenge

[prymith]

completely missing the flint/stede poll war because I blocked the ofmd tag is both personally on point AND now providing me with endless entertainment as I try to find the original post and instead keep running into hysterical takes.

[blackfilmmakers]

Idk I think seeing the Black Sails and OFMD people harass each other over who has the gayest slave masters or whatever is pretty funny

[bigwizardhat]

the ofmd v. black sails discourse is so funny but mainly because of the creator of the poll claiming not to really care about either show and then pissing and shitting and vomiting blood on the floor when people didn’t like their fav

and then equating the cancellation of a gay pirate show to the murder of gay people and rise of conservative fascism

and then telling black people that they need the allyship of racist white people and they should excitedly lap up every crumb of representation they can get because “ofmd is not the reason cops kill black people on sight”

and then getting mad at everyone else for taking the poll “too seriously” and declaring stede the winner of the gay pirate poll out of spite towards a problem of their own making

[notyourdeliveryservice]

I wish Captain James Flint was real so I could go back in time and tell him that 65 countries now celebrate independence from Britain :///

[dykealloy]

“one show is a drama and the other is a comedy” if you don’t understand the humour in black sails that’s on you

[intertexts]

funniest shit about black sails is how the first season was like. packed full of sex scenes like ohhhh ok that kind of pirate show. & then it turns out all the sex was like narratively load bearing all along!

[cantsayidont]

Black Sails

I don't think I can write a proper review of BLACK SAILS because that would require rewatching all of it, and the last time I did that, I couldn't get through all of Season 1 because of the truly punishing level of sexual violence, but I have several overall comments:

The sexual violence is really a lot. It's somewhat less pronounced in the later seasons, although the later seasons also expect you to buy a sort of face turn for Charles Vane, who is chiefly responsible for the punishing degree of sexual violence in the first season.

It is exhaustingly overwritten, especially in the final season. It's like being trapped in your home with the members of an MFA writing seminar who follow you to the bathroom and the kitchen and attempt to impute complex character nuance to your choice of toothbrush and pizza toppings. Given how clumsily written recent teevee often is, the writers' determination to build a thematically complex narrative is admirable and all, but EVERY conversation in the later seasons is layers within layers of rhetorical jousting for meaning, and it's just wearying. Sometimes less is more, and I'm not convinced that a narrative in which a cigar is never just a cigar is categorically better than a story that eschews all nuance.

The brutality of the violence can get oppressive, even for the kind of show it is. There were various points where I ended up muttering, "Is this really necessary?"

It doesn't actually line up with either TREASURE ISLAND (to which it's notionally a prequel) or the real history of the historical characters. At points, it acts like it's going to, but it doesn't, and its attitude toward both the Stevenson novel and the history of the period is kind of like Quentin Tarantino's. I don't especially care about TREASURE ISLAND (it was never a favorite even as a kid), nor do I care much about real-world pirates, but the lack of congruity becomes distracting. I would be fine with the show taking a "This is what the characters in the book later say happened, but what really happened is …" approach, but it doesn't even do that. Why?

Its version of Long John Silver is the least-interesting and least-compelling character, especially if (like me) you are wholly uninterested in shipping Silver with Flint. Long John Silver is generally the hub around which adaptations of TREASURE ISLAND revolve, since he is in that story the most interesting and charismatic character: obviously treacherous, but not wholly unsympathetic; crude in speech and full of blarney, but more cunning than he lets on. The BLACK SAILS Silver is a weirdly taciturn twitchy little weasel, and of course, like most of the show's characters, he talks like he's in an MFA seminar. There's something to be said for playing a character against type, but Silver is one of the biggest incongruities between BLACK SAILS and TREASURE ISLAND, which I thought was a puzzling choice.

[maskedhatter]

Me as an outsider watching the disaster that was the pirate poll:

Also me as an outsider watching the disaster that was the pirate poll:

[koizan]

Holy shit…. Hollllly fuck. I cannot believe James Flint was a real character they put on television for real. What the fuck. Insane character and motivation, perfect casting and phenomenal acting from Toby Stephens. Cannot believe Tumblr isn’t more crazy about this show. Do y’all hate horny lesbians this much that you would cast aside your gayest crime-doers. I just don’t get it

[m3r1m4r5u333]

Hm it's been a day of reading about how unhinged and delusional I am. *snort* Yes, thank you for noticing. I try really hard!! Zero regrets.

Anyway. I've been called delusional before. There was a time when my craziest fan theories were just little wee newborns! And now they're canon. I can sail this storm, too 💅 *Gets out a telescope and looks into the horizon.*

Let your freak flag fly, darlings. It's free promo for the show. Love the show? Then get it trending. Go nuts. Be queer. No, QUEER. In every way. Even if you're straight.

[rosie-dear-rosie]

@john-bracket please . . . not again