#bs idelle

[rapselsstuff]

You sure I can’t suck your cock while you do that?

[illuminated-in-darkness]

Wondrous Love (Max/Eleanor) Black Sails Musical Parallels | I. II. III. V. VI.

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[granturn]

[image description: a screenshot of Featherstone and Idelle from Black Sails. They are having an argument, and there is a text post by tumblr user sweetsweetbumblebee that says, "im sorry i said "awooga" when u took off ur clothes do u still wanna fuck?"

/end description]

[orpheusilver]

ANNEEEEEE

[emcads]

costume nerd moment but the way i was going INSANE in the stream over miranda's 1940's housecoat combination sackback gown

[lichfucker]

BRAIN DAMAGE IN D MINOR?

lmaoooooo "brain damage in d minor" is a placeholder title and I live in fear every day that it's going to stick. the only other thing I call it in my own notes is "music and lyrics au" so unless something better appears I'm afraid brain damage in d minor will end up the actual title

a million years ago the sunder server watched music and lyrics (2007) for movie night, which is my favorite rom-com of all time, and I. could not stop thinking about how well the conceit works as a silverflint au. because I am the one with brain damage (in d minor)

it's likely the only bs modern au I'll ever write bc in general I find the canon time period far more compelling, but I digress. flint is a washed-up has-been-- he was in a boyband with thomas and peter ashe in the early '00s but it's been twenty years and his career is dead. suddenly he gets a call from gates, his manager, saying, "charles vane just left his band to get out of a contract with guthrie records and he wants to kick off his new solo venture by singing a duet with you, so you need to write a new song. okay bye"

the problem is that flint is a terrible lyricist. sure he could come up with a pretty metaphor, but he can't write things that are Relatable, and pop music is all about being Vague and Relatable. help, of course, comes from the least likely of places: john silver, a guy flint hires to water his plants, just so happens to be an excellent songwriter.

yes, this is extremely contrived. yes, it is following the plot of the movie to a tee (except, y'know, set in 2023 instead of in 2007).

a meet-cute for your perusal:

The buzzer rings, piercing through the rhythmic discordant chime of Flint repeatedly bashing his head onto the keys of the piano. Great. That’ll be Idelle in to water the plants, and he can either stay in the living room composing Brain Damage in D Minor while she does, or he can spare himself the humiliation and retreat into the privacy of his bedroom. Perhaps he’ll run a bath and drown himself in the lavish tub.

A sigh hauls itself out of Flint’s chest with all the effort of the tow truck that time in ’04 when the tour bus got impounded, and it takes similar heft for him to stand up from the piano bench and answer the door.

Flint registers long black hair before anything else, and his skull is so thick with cement that he nearly turns heel and stalks off to his room without so much as a grunt in hello—but he stops.

“You’re not Idelle,” Flint says.

A very astute observation: the person in the doorway has bluer eyes, tanner skin, and a significantly fuller beard.

The man’s gleaming smile falters. “No,” he says. “Sorry, did she not text you? I’m taking over for a few weeks while she’s away. Can I come in, or are all your plants out in the hall?”

Flint blinks. Considering the man looks like he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in his entire life, Flint hadn’t expected his voice to be so… smooth. Nor so English, not in Manhattan. Before Flint lets this stranger into his (admittedly, very thieve-able) apartment, though, he looks through his phone and—oh. Idelle had texted. Three times over the last two weeks. He’d even given her a thumbs-up emoji. Well, all right, then. He steps aside to let the man through.

“Thanks,” the man says, his bright smile back and full of teeth. “I’m John, by the way. John Silver.”

“James McGraw.”

Silver drops his messenger bag on the coffee table beside the chaise, looking around with cataloguing eyes at the veritable garden lined up along the floor-to-ceiling windows, the crystalline chandelier hanging over the dining table, the glossy baby grand on the shag carpet, the unmasked luxury in which Flint lives. “Watering can?” he asks.

“Under the sink,” Flint says, pointing him toward the kitchen. He waits a few beats and then follows, trying to keep a wary eye on Silver while appearing casual rather than paranoid. He leans coolly against the kitchen island just as Silver finishes filling the watering can. “So, Joe—”

“John,” he says, not unkindly. “Most of my friends just call me Silver, but I’d rather you call me John. No offense. Less personal, you know?”

“Using your given name is less personal than your surname?”

He gives Flint a pointed look. “I can be one of eight hundred Johns you’ve ever met, or I can be one of half a dozen Silvers, if even that many. Maybe we’ll be friends someday and you can call me whatever you like, but for now I’ll take John, thanks.”

Flint just barely suppresses a grin. “Fair enough,” he says. “Where are you from?”

Silver—John hesitates, and then he says, “London. And you?”

“Cornwall.”

“Really? You don’t sound it.”

“I trained myself out of it, a long time ago.” Flint watches John tend to the orchid on the counter, careful not to over-water it; he’s gentle and methodical with it, which isn’t what Flint had expected. He’s not sure what he expected, in truth. “So,” Flint says, “you’re a friend of Idelle’s? Where is she, anyway?”

The question earns him an indignant snort. “Idelle is in the Bahamas getting married, and I,” John says, crossing the living room to the ficus by the window, “got the great honor of not being fucking invited. She tried telling me it’s because they wanted to keep the guest list small, but I know that’s a damned lie. She invited Muldoon, of all fucking people. Logan I understand, because he and Charlotte are attached at the fucking hip, but Muldoon?” John scoffs. “No, it’s because Augie—her husband—never liked me, not that I have any idea why. Truth be told, I think Idelle herself only tolerates me because she’s close with my sister, and she knows not to say a bad word about me to Max if she intends to say any words for the rest of her life.”

He keeps talking as he progresses down the row of plants. “I told Max to bring me as her plus-one just to piss them all off, you know, but she’d already committed to taking her girlfriend, and, honestly, that’s comeuppance enough. I am far more fun at weddings than Anne is. Luckily for you, I’m also a far better plant-sitter, so—Fuck!”

John hisses in pain and turns around to face Flint, sucking on the pad of his thumb. “Fucking cactus,” he mumbles around the thumb in his mouth. The two of them stand there, twenty feet apart, for an odd moment, the air thick with… something. John narrows his startlingly blue eyes, scrutinizing Flint. Flint hasn’t a clue what he might be looking for. His lips work at his thumb all the while.

And then John’s thumb leaves his mouth with an obscene smack, the sound so loud in the dense silence that had befallen them, and he says, “You look really familiar. Are you famous or something?”

[captmuldoon]

A cool thing that Black Sails does is have the characters’ clothing reflect the society they’re occupying or the societal role they’re trying to play. When Eleanor marries Woodes Rogers, she packs away all her clothes that are filled with bolder colours and patterns, jackets and layers, but she can’t bring herself to throw them away. When she dies, Mrs. Hudson lays them out, and you can just see what they said for Eleanor, and what she lost when she became Mrs. Rogers.

And when the characters go to Boston, how Idelle’s clothing becomes more subtle and softer. How the cut and style of Max’s dresses match Mrs. Guthrie’s, but retain the clashing and contrasting colours from Nassau. How Idelle and Max keep their hair pinned up and back. How Jack’s hair is smoother, more polished, more coiffed. How his clothes still manage to be loud and noticable but seem more washed out in the cold, northern winter than when they do in Nassau.

They stand out, but they don’t. They become part of the environment, but not quite.

[lyaios]

You killed my friend. I wanted you to know that.

another screenshot study, from 4x08 this time

[liviladoodles]

An Idelle Procreate sketch, this ended up being finer and less rough, than the previous 2, with the rusty nibs brushes.

[eleutheryaflint]

XXVIII.

[illuminated-in-darkness]

A New Start (background) Black Sails Musical Parallels | XXIII. XXV.

diagetic music note: this background music, like The Parson's Farewell, Tentative Alliances, and Building Nassau, actually exists within the scenes where it appears: playing in the tavern in Nassau.

I spent a year rewatching Black Sails and tracking all the bits of music that repeated at any point during the show, and my findings are reinforcing that Bear McCreary is a genius and this show should have been called 'parallels that will kill you over and over again'* (tag | chronological)

[orpheusilver]

omg what did u think about 3x07 🫣 it’s one of my all time faves

its everything. It's everything.

[riisinaakka-draws]

IDELLE (Lise Slabber) from Black Sails

I liked my earlier painting with Idelle and the Brothel Blackbeard, so I continued this part of it. At some point I started to think about playing cards (other than King, Queen, Knights, Ace etc...) and I wanted it to have something with friendship, love or her rising into power - and found the Two of Hearts (A Good Friend, Satisfaction) which was perfect! :D

Ps. I like adding hidden shadows, so Max is in there too. And aaah, look at that nice curve of the chair matching the D in Idelle, heh! Please, do not repost elsewhere :)

[manabombs]

Idelle's wardrobe part 1

[daisiesflower]

Black Sails Female Costumes: The Prostitutes

Black Sails historical accuracy is spotty at best when it comes to costumes and props, and this is never more true than with the prostitutes. Historical underwear is completely thrown out the window in favor of made up styles to make the women appear more sexual. So let’s delve into it!

Now, when researching to figure out what these women would have worn, one has to look at two separate sources: what prostitutes of the time would have been wearing and underwear of the time period. 

What prostitutes would have been wearing is a little difficult to discover - people weren’t exactly commissioning full portraits of these women, however the existence of propaganda images means that we do have some idea of what they wore (albeit probably slightly more sexualized than is realistic).

Essentially, they wore what every other woman of the time wore. Some images that emphasize the breasts seem to indicate that perhaps they didn’t wear stays or underwear underneath their dresses for added sex appeal, while other images show them with the defined silhouette in the bodice that could only be created with the use of stays. Clearly, however, Black Sails decided not to go the route of showing these women in regular dresses, with the exception of one of Max’s dresses, which appears to be a regular dress with no underwear under it (see my post on dresses for a more in depth look at what women of the time would have been wearing).

Rather, Black Sails has the prostitutes wearing versions of underwear. Unfortunately it’s not anything close to what underwear of the time actually looked like, or even a somewhat altered version of this underwear. The basics of underwear at the time: a shift/chemise/smock that reached below the knees with long and full sleeves, a pair of stays (a boned “corset”, though without any of the tightlacing of late 19th century stories, that provided support and the desired shape of the bodice, which was conical and reached the hips - stays were always laced in the back though some had lacing on the front for decoration), and stockings. Panniers (the wide, hoops on the hips) are shown in some of these images, though they were not in use until around 15 years after Black Sails is set. Instead women achieved the desired round shape with petticoats. Occasionally free hanging pockets were wrapped around the waist to be accessed using pocket slits in the dresses. 

As we know, this is nothing close to what is worn by the prostitutes in Black Sails. These women are shown wearing a pair of shortened drawers, occasionally a long skirt hitched up on one side, a pair of stays (if their breasts are covered), often colorful stockings, and occasionally a robe or shawl. 

Now let’s go into each of these offenses, the most egregious being the drawers and stays. The drawers that the prostitutes wear are closer to cloth knickers than actual drawers, however the frills on the bottom clearly show that that costume designer was trying to invoke the sense of drawers for a historical feel. Drawers have just not been invented yet and wouldn’t be for nearly 200 years, while pantalets or pantaloons will be invented in just over 100 years. These “drawer shorts” just flat out shouldn’t exist in the world of Black Sails. 

While stays do exist, the shape of the stays worn by the prostitutes is completely wrong. These stays end at the bottom of the ribcage and lace up in the front. Historical stays laced up in the back and ended closer to the hips in order to give a conical shape to the bodice. The shoulders would have been pulled back, with the most fashionable ladies wearing stays that nearly forced their shoulder blades to touch, in order to give a very tall posture with emphasis on the breasts. At one point we do see Max wearing a very accurate pair of stays, however without the silhouette of the shoulders pulled back (which can be explained away in universe as her not being able to afford a more expensive pair of stays, unfortunately this is a problem most of the women in the show wearing stays have). Perhaps this is to make up for her wearing one of the most historically inaccurate items of clothing in the whole show - the stays we first see her wearing (the picture isn’t very clear so I’ll explain - it has boob cups).

As for the other pieces of clothing worn by the prostitutes - the skirts, the robes, the stockings - these are relatively accurate to varying degrees. The stockings are very accurate, and the skirts are relatively accurate. They seem to be the same style of skirts as worn by other women in Nassau, simply hitched up at the waist and given how little we know of what prostitutes wore in history I’m inclined to believe this would have been an accurate thing for them to wear, especially in a warmer climate. As far as the robes go, they vary from being very accurate to very inaccurate, which mostly comes down to fabrics used - Idelle’s robes are very accurate while Max’s is a completely modern invention despite the similar silhouette (though as I say in my post about dresses, I am personally a fan of modern fabrics used on historical silhouettes to create interesting textures and images in period pieces). 

All in all, this outfit of Idelle’s is probably the closest to what a prostitute in the Bahamas during 1715 would have worn. It’s got its issues - the extremely pointed stays/stomacher, modern fabrics and patterns, the length of the bodice (I discuss bodice shapes in my post about dresses) - but that being said in terms of the pieces used it’s probably the most accurate look at what the other women of the brothel would have worn at the time.

Which makes sense, as Idelle is a complete queen.

[flintsjohn]

— i’m tired and angry but somebody should be