#flint saying silver construct a story... you see what i was talking about

[hauntingblue]

Happy memory flashbacks we are so over....

[golgafrincham]

The Forest God

Late December into the beginning of January was....tense and grim to say the least. Staring out my window into my own little patch of forest and retreating into an alternate reality where anyone could date a forest god was a huge comfort. Thanks again and again to🍃🌳💚 @dateaforestgod 💚🌳🍃 for the inspiration (psst under no obligation to read this however). The only constructive distraction I could manage that whole time was writing (but not the thing I was supposed to be writing, uh-oh) so ...here is a story about the first person to date a forest god.

Ch 1 They meet Ch 2 They meet again Ch 3 First date

🌳 Once upon a time there lived a person who was neither so young as they used to be nor as old as they would become. They lived in a small village on the edge of a great forest that was not as vast as it used to be, nor as dark as it would become.

Siv, for that is what their parents called them, was the last child of the family.

As the youngest Siv had been doted on and indulged - as one should with a baby - long after they grew up. They loved their parents more than anyone and never bothered to imagine what life would be like if they had not been destined to care for Mother and Father into their old age and until the very end. The older siblings had all been married off long ago, some happily, some not.

When not chopping wood for the fire or carding wool for the spinning wheel, Siv sat at the foot of the village wise woman. Since before they could remember, Siv had been fascinated with healing and little everyday magic, though not everyone in the village still agreed that everyday magic was a good thing. When Siv’s great-grandmother was still a little girl, a new god had been carried into the village by a group of men in black robes. At first the people had driven them away, but they came back again and again, with promises of prosperity and peace if they knelt before the new god - a god who they said was humble, yet of all the gods insisted that he was the only one. By the time Siv was born no one sacrificed to the old gods on their feast days or prayed to them for luck or a good harvest - at least not in public. By the time Siv grew up, no one hardly ever mentioned the old gods by their names, instead calling them all “false gods” or, as the more modern and progressive villagers termed them, “devils.”

As the old gods were pushed to the edges of the villagers’ consciousness, so too was the wise woman pushed to the edge of village life. But they still came to her when the new god wouldn’t calm their colicky baby or return their lost goat to the flock. They came to her after sunset, or in a panic at noon. They paid her reluctantly in bags of grain, or a chicken, or a promise that they never meant to keep. But still the old woman did her best to help, and she passed along her knowledge to Siv.

Together they would often go into the edges of the forest to collect medicinal herbs. The old woman showed Siv how to talk gently to the roots before pulling them up, how to take only what was needed, and how to leave an offering for the spirits of the forest to thank them for their generosity.

One day, after all the chores were done and the orange light of the sun was falling through the remaining dry leaves that still clung to the trees, Siv went to see the old woman and give her a bit of extra food in preparation for the long dark season to come. But she was not in her hut, and the hearth was cold. Assuming she had gone into the forest, Siv started down the well-worn track. It was the first time Siv had gone into the forest alone, though they had been there together many, many times before.

Hours passed as Siv followed the track deeper into the forest. The repeated call of “Grandmother! Are you here?” faded into the trees and received no reply. They called out louder, venturing just a little off the track to head towards the clearings that would allow their voice to carry farther. Still no reply. In frustration, Siv finally decided to give up after realizing the light in the forest was growing dim.

Siv pulled the edges of the woolen cloak tighter and turned around. After what seemed like an hour, though, the track was still in front of them but the edge of the forest was nowhere in sight. A white puff of breath escaped Siv’s lips. The sun had gone down and it was getting as cold as quickly as it was getting dark. There was no tinder, no flint to make a fire, only some bread and a hunk of cheese that was for the old woman. Siv knew they had to keep going, but the track was so dark - strewn with rocks and roots - the going was slow.

The moon rose as a silver sliver in the sky, but it was too weak to cut through the dense branches and reach the ground. It must have been after midnight when Siv, shivering and exhausted, decided to give up.

I will freeze in the forest or I won’t. But I can’t go any farther. They spotted a huge oak on the edge of a rise. The massive roots of the oak had twisted and pushed the earth up forming a little hollow at it’s base. Siv did their best to push a pile of leaves into the hollow to make a kind of nest, but before they lay down remembered that they were a guest in the forest, and a guest should always bring a present for their host.

Siv felt along the ground until they had collected twelve little stones to make into a small circle. In the middle of the circle they placed a larger, flatter stone, and on this stone put a single leaf and the bread from their pocket, just as the old woman had shown them. Satisfied that they had done all they could, they fell back exhausted into the pile of leaves. Wrapping the thin cloak around tightly, they curled up and immediately fell into a leaden sleep.

The forest at night was normally quiet, but immediately after Siv fell asleep it passed into an even more profound stillness. Looking up from the ground, there were only a few places amidst the tangle of trees where one could see the tiny pricks of light that were the stars. Suddenly but silently, even those few lights were obscured. A dark shape nearly as tall as the trees moved towards the gift that had been left in the circle of stones. The shape hunched over and shrunk as it lowered itself to the ground. One long dark finger reached out and poked the bread.

Though it wasn’t much, it was the first gift He had seen in a long time. He turned towards the sleeping figure and the light of the faint stars caught the edges of His horns. He sniffed the air. He had sensed this person in the forest before. Harmless. He thought as He shifted closer. Only a small patch of Siv’s face was visible through the cocoon of fabric, already covered with a light dusting of frost. Weak trails of hot breath escaped through pale lips. Pitiful.

He stared at Siv for a few moments more, then looked back towards the gift. In the center of the dark shape, a dark heart softened. The outline of the shape began to recede and melt like a shadow disappearing into the greater darkness.

The crescent moon peered between the crowns of the trees and threw a cold shaft of light into the hollow, illuminating the edges of Siv’s clothes and the dark gray fur of the wolf that stood facing them. The wolf approached, circled three times, and settled down as close as He could. He rested His chin on His crossed paws and closed His dark green eyes.

Soon enough He could tell that Siv was warming up. The pitiable human stirred and stretched their legs just a bit. They rolled over, threw one arm onto the side of the huge wolf and buried their face in the coarse fur.

He sighed to Himself. Only a human would do such a foolish thing.

They slept.

~~

Dawn had not yet arrived when Siv began to stir. Wrapped deep within a dream of a warm fireside and a faithful dog, the undeniable fact of the hard forest floor only gradually reached into their consciousness to pull them back to reality.

For a moment, a handful of fur told them that the faithful dog was still there, and they wondered where they were. Siv rolled over and  tried to uncurl and sit up, but every joint and muscle refused to budge. With a little time and patience, feeling started returning to the ends of their fingers and toes and they managed to prop themselves up. 

I’m still alive. But also still in the forest. They knew they had to get moving, but before they could even try to stand up they saw it.

Not ten paces away was an enormous dark gray wolf. 

Siv froze in place, barely daring to move. The wolf was staring directly at them with piercing dark green eyes. 

Wolf. Dog. Wolf. This wolf is the dog in my dream. It kept me warm. 

Siv looked more closely at the wolf.

This is not an ordinary animal. 

The wolf cocked its head slightly and opened its eyes wide. It got up and slowly walked to Siv, stopping only two arm’s lengths away.

It spoke, or at least, Siv heard its voice.

You are not afraid.

“I am afraid.” Siv replied quite truthfully.

You do not run.

“If you were going to kill me, I would already be dead.”

“May I ask...” they knew that the wolf, not being a wolf, was best approached with deference “if you stayed beside me in the night to keep me warm?”

I did.

Awkwardly, with limbs still stiff from the cold, Siv got their knees and made a small bow. “Thank you for saving my life.” “I have no way of repaying you.” then they remembered the piece of cheese still in their pocket. That’s a poor present. But no, that’s not all I have. Siv looked around and saw a large brown oak leaf - they grabbed it and placed the piece of cheese on it. Then, slipping a small silver ring off of a pinky finger, placed the ring next to the cheese and slid the leaf towards the wolf.

“Please accept this small gift. Its insignificance is not meant as a slight, it is all I have.” 

It was. The slender silver ring was a gift to a young child from their oldest sister’s family when she married off, and was the only material thing of value Siv had ever owned. 

The wolf rose and lowered its head towards the gift. It smelled it cautiously before releasing a snort of hot breath. The cheese disappeared so quickly Siv wasn’t entirely sure it had been eaten.

The wolf sat back on its haunches. 

I am not fond of metal. 

By this time the sun was beginning to rise and the sky was fading into the blue white of morning. The outline of the wolf, however, was falling deeper into shadow. The shape of the wolf darkened until it became only a shadow, with two bright green eyes remaining.

Siv’s blood ran cold. Fool, fool, you have insulted a ....wolf...god. You’re going to….you deserve to die.

However, the voice continued I will accept your gift.

The shadow grew until its piercing green eyes were towering over the kneeling human. Within its darkness though, there were myriad things growing, myriad decaying, plants rustling in the wind, animals digging, running, flying. Siv was frightened and entranced. 

Only when the morning sun had peeked between the trees, and the shadow had coalesced into a new, more solid form, was Siv able move their head just enough to look up and truly see what was before them.

The sun’s rays outlined a figure twice as tall as the tallest man Siv knew. It was crowned with dull golden antlers that cradled the rising sun. 

The green eyes of the wolf looked out of a human, though somewhat long and sharp, face. The wolf was no longer there, but the figure wore a gray wolf pelt around its middle, tied with bands of ivy. Below the pelt the humanness ended, for it stood on the hind legs of a stag.

The being bent down and hooked one sharp pinky nail into the tiny silver ring before lifting it up to His face.

“Though I am not sure what to do with it.” This time when He spoke it wasn’t directly into Siv’s inner ear. Instead He spoke with a voice that was deep and rich as forest loam while gentle as a breeze passing through a copse of ferns.

Siv was transfixed.

He lazily twirled the ring around the end of his pinky nail for a few moments before seeming to remember the human in front of him.

“Why did you come into the forest so late at night with no fire or metal so necessary to your kind?” There may have been a hint of bitterness in His question.

Siv’s mouth opened, but there was nothing to say. 

 “Why? Come? Here?” He tried again, clearly and slowly enunciating. Perhaps I used too many words on this simple human He thought to himself.

Why...? For a few moments, Siv truly had no recollection of yesterday, or any moment before they had seen….Him. Think!

“I….had come…to the forest...with no disrespect.” Their mind shoveled through piles of frozen dusty thoughts until finally -

“the wise woman! I went to see her but she was gone. Her hearth was cold. I thought she had gone into the forest, so I went to find her and...I lost my way.”

“She is not in the forest.”

“Oh.”

“Thank you.”

“How...do you…?” Siv ventured.

“I know everything that comes and goes in this forest.”

“She is not in it.”

“Thank you.” 

“Thank you again for saving my life. Is there anything I can do to repay you?”

“No.”

The intervening silence was long enough for Siv to realize that the forest was no longer silent. Birds high in the trees called to each other, bushes rustled - the forest was awake.

Siv looked around - the giant oak, the piles of leaves, all looked more friendly and comfortable in the daytime than they had last night. Unfortunately, the daylight didn’t help the fact that nothing looked the least bit familiar. They were still hopelessly lost.

In the time they’d spent looking around, the forest god - for surely that is what He must be - had silently moved towards the deepest part of the forest.

“Wait! Please! Wait!” Siv shouted as they struggled to get to their feet.

The god didn’t seem to hear, continuing on in a stately pace. 

Siv ran, jumping over roots and brambles, trying desperately to catch up.

“Please” they could barely get a word out, breathing hard as they ran “I don’t know how to get home!”

The god stopped, but didn’t turn. Instead He raised his hand towards a golden branch of a nearby larch. A tiny sparrow hopped onto his outstretched finger and they appeared to be conversing silently.

This gave Siv almost enough time to catch up. “Please” they fell to their knees, though whether out of exhaustion or as a gesture of respect it was difficult to tell, “I am lost.”

The forest god gently placed the little bird back into the tree and at last turned towards the panting human at his feet.

So frail and easily confused, these humans, yet, so troublesome at times. “And?” He asked, His voice was so low it almost slipped into a growl.

“Please...can….you….point me towards the eastern edge of the forest. The...village?

The god didn’t answer.

Oh no, I am asking for a favor...and I have nothing to offer in return. Fool. Fool. He saved your life, and you are asking Him for another favor. But...if He doesn’t help me I could die here.

“Lord” Siv began again, but this time as respectfully as they could “I don’t deserve your aid - You have already saved my life once - but I must return home. It is my duty to care for my aging parents. They will worry about me and if….if I don’t return there will be no one to chop their wood or go to the market for them.”

“...”

“If I don’t return...the wise woman has no one else to pass down her knowledge of the old ways.” Ah, wait, that’s it. Siv dared to look up at the shining face of the forest god. His face was an impassive mask, at once both beautiful and terrifying. Siv avoided His emerald eyes and looked up - only then did they notice the faded chain of flowers draped between His antlers.

“If you help me to return, I promise to find the forest shrine and make it like new. I promise I will return at the full moon with gifts, and light the little fires to mark the changing of the seasons.” 

“...”

“Why should I believe you, human?” He demanded, though His tone was more weary than angry.

Siv was tired, and still cold, and by this time very very hungry. There was nothing more they had to give. There was no way they could prove that their promise would be kept. 

“I...there is no security I can give you but my word.” But what good is the word of a mere mortal like me? Worthless. Their shoulders slumped.

“Thank you for saving me. I will leave.” 

Dejectedly, Siv turned around and tried to make their way towards the direction of the still rising sun, hoping it would take them to the edge of the forest eventually. 

They made their way under fallen logs and over roots and brambles. The forest had woken up fully by now, and Siv could swear that the birds - there were more of them than seemed normal for this time of year - were mocking the lost and hungry traveler with their echoing songs.

After what seemed like hours of frustratingly slow progress, Siv sat down heavily on a fallen tree. How could I have been so stupid as to get lost? If I die here...and never see my parents again....what a foolish way to die. Like an ignorant child. Their eyes began to fill with tears. 

“You are going in circles.” 

Siv looked up. The forest god was directly facing them, where moments ago there had been nothing. The dappled light that filtered through the trees played across His warm bronze face and shoulders.

“The birds have been trying to tell you for hours. Can’t you hear them?”

Siv’s head shook and they quickly tried to wipe the corner of their eyes. Instead of a proper answer, Siv’s stomach gurgled.

The sunlight that fell on the god seemed to sparkle and the edges of his form became less distinct. He took one step forward and was no longer quite so tall, quite so imposing. He leaned down towards the dejected human.

“Hungry?”

Siv nodded. Everything about the forest god seemed to have softened - His antlers weren’t so large and sharp, His lips were full and curved into a gentle smile.

“Here, I saved half of the gift you gave me earlier. Do you want it?” He extended one long sinewy arm, and in his hand was a half of the piece of bread Siv had left as an offering the night before.

Siv stared at it. The sound of their stomach grew louder.

“No, thank you.” the hungry mortal shook their head, resigned. “I can’t. It is a gift, given in thanks for hospitality. It is Yours alone.”

The forest god took back His proffered hand and stood up. “Good. It was only a rock. I ate the bread last night.” He tossed the brown rock over his shoulder where it hit the ground with a thunk.

He shook his head. Pitiful. 

“I am tired of hearing the birds constantly yelling at you.” He straightened up to His full height, and extended one large hand towards the human. 

Siv stared at the god, awestruck once again. 

“...” He dropped His hand.

“Are you coming?” He said somewhat impatiently.

Siv immediately got up.

“Take my hand.”

Even reaching straight up, they could only just touch the ends of His fingers. In response, the god subtly shifted as if moving away from Siv - though He never actually moved. He was now only a couple feet taller than the confused human whose hand He grasped.

The moment the god took Siv’s hand, their heart began to race and stars filled the edges of their field of vision. Their whole body felt light and heavy all at once like they were going to faint. But instead of fainting, they were pulled forward. 

The trees seemed to part before them. Siv would look to one side, then look again only to see a completely different scene. It was like the forest was running past them in the opposite direction while they were walking calmly. Within moments they were on the well-trod path, within sight of the edge of the forest.

The god stopped and let go of Siv’s hand. To Siv, it felt like suddenly being ripped from a warm bed in winter and shoved outside. It took every piece of willpower Siv had not to reach out and grab that hand again.

“I go no farther than this. I trust you can find your way from here?” He gestured out towards the open land beyond the trees.

Siv’s eyes followed the god’s motion and saw familiar landmarks. They turned to answer, but instead of the forest god they only saw the retreating form of a giant stag passing silently back into the woods.

💚Chapter 2

[revivedxfighter]

Retracing The Past

This is a drabble based on my headcanon for Harmony’s FF7 verse. I talked about it on my muse’s profile and headcanons pages. The focus is more on world building and Harmony taking the time to remember the ones who were lost when the people fought with Seto against the Gi Tribe. This also takes place shortly after the events of the main game and based on interactions Harmony had with other roleplayers over the years.

It’s also inspired by the song “How the West Was Lost” - Link

I hope everyone enjoys this piece. 

Streams of light pierce the darkness and pools on the cold earth and rocks. The offer the lone visitor light to a realm long forgotten from decades ago when triumph and tragedy came to a head. Her lone, silver eye lowers to find dark sprays and splotches, the blood spilled on the fateful day when her own people took their last stand. The remnants weathered through the seasons, but it is still here, hidden from the world above these caverns.

Yes, Harmony remembers that story. It seems to be only yesterday when her father was alive and told her that tale of where she came from. She is a daughter of a tribe of people who believed Cosmo Canyon was promised to them from the sun goddess. Oklahashi, the People of the Sun. Those were her ancestors who once roamed Gaia, just as the Cetra have. Her father, heavens bless his soul, told her about these ancient people, just as his father told him.

A black leather clad hand rests on the cave’s wall. The very hand that is not her own, but a construct made of metal and wires, courtesy of Shinra’s Science Department after her supposed death. Dread washes over her when she faces the fact that she has served as a soldier, only to be cast aside as fodder when a mission ended with a devastating explosion.  She fell for the lie that the company is the gateway to a bright future. All will be well, they say.

So many were lost here...

Harmony thought and her hand moves away from the rock wall and dip in her messenger bag. She pulls out several flowers from inside and continues on. Vibrant, lush petals contrast the dreary surroundings. Footsteps are her only company in this silent world that serves as a mass grave of that fateful battle that led to the demise of her people and Cosmo Canyon owned by the settlers and Shinra itself.  These steps abruptly stop by each bone fragment, each piece of flint and black spots, gently setting one flower beside the object. An offering to represent a missing soul. A quiet apology to all who suffered and died for what they saw as the right thing.

It explains everything now. Why she is among small number of Oklahashi left, why there is so much bitterness and misery.

Her heart aches for the lost that have died for the deception the tyrant that is Shinra conjured. The very company that claims they want to defend the settlers who claimed the wild land, who lied to the surviving members of the tribe they will be in good hands, and the guardians of this Planet who perished for peace.

Her trek ends before an unusual sculpture. A lion-like figure stands alone with an array of weapons protruding from its body. The ghastly sight of Seto’s resting place is the reason why Harmony came all this way. He was a key player in the fight. He stood with the settlers against the Gi and Oklahashi warriors. Carefully, Harmony approaches Seto, her gaze unmoving. Lips part to finally speak as though he was still alive. 

“I imagine I may be the last thing you want to see...I have not come here with ill intentions or disrespect.”  Harmony’s voice is soft, as though afraid to disturb the others who rest here.  “When I was young, I did not understand why you sided with the settlers. I’m...I’m not sure if I fully understand it now. It hurts to see what has happened to you and my people.” She stands just a short distance away from Seto. Her one eye taking in all the details of how his last moments were. He has stayed with the Gi and many of the Oklahashi, sealed away from the world. Her other eye, replaced with another construct hides beneath the eyepatch. She dares not show it unless she must. 

She has given most of her flowers to every sign of death she saw, but saved something for Seto. “So much has happened since you were among the living. Gaia has almost dealt with the same fate all of you. We were so close to losing everything.” Eye downcast, the bitter memories of fear, the loss of her dear friends, and the catastrophe that ended one era and birthed another. The Planet is healing, slowly but surely, but the new period of uncertainty did little to help those who grieve in light of Geostigma and the deaths of thousands at the hands of their own hopes, dreams, and future. 

“You son...I met him. I don’t think he was quite fond of me, and...I don’t blame him. I don’t. I have hope that things will change. I only want to be his ally and friend.” Her hand slides back into her bag once more. “I know what I say and do cannot change what has happened. Just as our actions, though our home was spared, cannot reverse everything.” She pulls out a second bouquet with an addition nestled among the flowers: A single olive branch. 

“But I am here to say I’m sorry for the anger, tears, and spite that brought us here. I may not understand your intentions, but I forgive you and I know...I know you never wanted hatred to drive the issue of whether to share the land. I hope you can forgive me and my ancestors...Just as i hope they have moved on, leaving their anger behind forever.”  She takes a few more steps closer to Seto. “I wish only peace for every spirit who still dwell here. This is the least I can do for you...If only...” A sad sigh escapes the woman and she lowers herself, setting the bouquet before the rocks that serve as Seto’s base. Returning to her feet, Harmony gives a silent bow before slowly turning away and begin her return to the outside world. 

“If only fate smiled upon all of us.”

[fansplaining]

Hi guys! I recently marathoned Black Sails and i loved it! the only thing I'm sad about is that i didn't watch it in real time... I don't care if my ship is cannon, but I found that seeing it all at once means i know what happened to everyone, and I'm having a hard time shutting it off. I want to be into it, bc there are so many characters and ships i like in BS, but i don't know how to make the story feel open for exploration. any ideas or thoughts on how to incept myself into BS fandom?

Hello! Of course Elizabeth is answering this. This is a GREAT ASK, thank you, and not just because the entry point to this question is Black Sails ⚓⚓⚓. 

(I’ll have you know this is one of, like, three gifs of Flint smiling in the entire series. I also googled “Black Sails happy” and…no one looked happy.)

OK so it seems like there are a few things going on here. Apologies for taking what’s ostensibly about one show and turning it into something broader, but I think it gets at fundamental questions of fannish engagement, so I’M GOING IN.

1) Watching/reading a series all at once 

Flourish and I talk about this one a lot, because we (and many others) have observed that younger/newer Harry Potter fans approach characters and plot elements VERY differently than we do, and we chalk a lot of this up to reading the books as a complete text versus reading it with miserable long gaps in which to turn over every freakin detail only to have 75% of it jossed when the next book came out. In 2002 I legit read this one page of Dumbledore dialogue in GoF 100 times thinking there was a clue that was just…under…the surface.

I think that with some texts and with some fans, the serialized nature of TV and book series are the way in—we climb into those gaps and lingering there, waiting and obsessively turning things over and imagining all the branching possibilities, all the future reveals, all the resolutions, is part of the pleasure. I sure as hell wouldn’t have fallen for Sherlock if I hadn’t shown up to poke at the gaping emotional wound between s2 and s3. (Frankly if you showed me all four seasons at once I’m not sure I’d even like the show—my lingering emotional loyalty was the only thing that kept me saying anything nice about s4.) 

If I had not watched Black Sails all in one go it would have been LITERAL TORTURE FOR ME. I had to pause for a week while traveling and I started to read fic that actually spoiled parts of the fourth season WHOOPS. :-/// But I can also understand how watching it all in one go wouldn’t give you enough space. But then, we watched the same way and I am deep in it, plotting out fic and everything. So maybe… 

2) A complete text can stay with you but might not give you a way in

This happens to me with books *all the time*. I’ll read something that shakes me—I’ve often used the metaphor “knocks your world off its axis” when describing a really great book, like it can be the subtlest tilt and you’ll feel like everything’s changed. I think it’s pretty normal for texts to stay with you? If they’re good or if they touch you in some specific way? Especially if you’re fannish and really feel the media you’re consuming.

But one thing I often find about books is they’re more…complete. Even when television shows end properly, rather than being cancelled, they might stretch for longer than what was initially planned, for example, so it doesn’t feel like the arc of the plot was as carefully constructed—often it can’t be, especially with long-running American shows (and of course with classic episodic television, say, a monster-of-the-week show, it’s not even structurally designed to have the same sort of ~ABCDE structure as a novel might). 

Black Sails is not one of those shows—they knew they were bringing the story to a close, and the entire show rests on carefully-plotted narrative arcs. (Not to mention there was an actual ~canonical endpoint for all the Treasure Island characters, ie where the book begins (like, sort of). I mean, there were also canonical endpoints for Jack, Anne, Vane, Blackbeard, Hornigold, and every other historical figure, but…)

Over the years I’ve joined fandoms for WIPs as well as finished products, and often for me fandom’s been a way of trying to mend the wounds of a media property I found incomplete, either narratively (with bad writing) or literally (like, when a show ends abruptly). I think for some fans, this is a crucial piece—they say that when they find something too complete, there’s nothing to mend. 

3) Different modes of fannish engagement

So here’s another thing I’ve observed—different friends have different definitions of “fandom.” So people are like, “Oh yeah, I’m in the fandom, I love that show!” And I find out that means they enjoy the show and livetweet it and look at some gifs and that’s that. Which is totally fandom! And then there’s me, nodding nervously as I debate mentioning that, “Oh yeah, I’m in the fandom, I love that show!” for me means “THIS IS THE ONLY THING I WANT TO THINK ABOUT, HELP ME, I AM DROWNING.” It’s funny, sometimes I think about archetypal nerdboy fandom and its dick-measuring fact recitation, and then I think about all the times I tried to read the room to see if it was safe to let another person know how much I thought about something I loved, how much I felt about it. Even in totally fannish spaces, I still hesitate. :-/

There have been some things in the past few years that I’ve really enjoyed and toyed with checking out fandoms for, but what I’ve come to realize over the years is for me, it needs to be like falling in love. I think for some people, interest and obsession grows, and for others, you fall in head-first. And for others still, it depends on the thing. 

I understand this ask might have been specifically looking for resources or suggestions and while I’d just say if you’re not feeling it in this way, that’s cool, there are lots of different ways to fan, and you can keep thinking about something even if you aren’t drawn to, say, create transformative works about it? But maybe I should say something about Black Sails in particular…

4) Black Sails-specific: unreliable narrators and transformative works

If anyone hasn’t finished Black Sails, stop reading here, I’ll keep it vague but there’s only so much I can do. This is one thing that’s especially interesting to me about this ask: while I’m going on about how final and precisely plotted it all was, it’s not…that final. Because the entire point of the show is about narrative, right? Who gets to write them, who gets to own them, how they can be manipulated, how they shape “civilization.” Characters constantly talk—and constantly show—how both Flint and Silver (and, like, most of the characters, from Max to Thomas to Vane to Woodes Rogers) are these masterful shapers of narrative. Flint is the victim of clashing narratives: what’s actually happened to him, what he tells the world he’s doing, what he’s actually doing (note that explosive scene when Miranda calls him on this, ahhh I love Miranda). But the show’s choice to shift to Silver’s narration to wrap up events is a really fascinating one: the man who works so hard to obscure his past, laying out the narratives of the future. Should we believe him? 

I recommend this interview with creators Johnathan Steinberg and Robert Levine—the Flint section at the start is really delightful if you’re into artists being super into open-interpretation of their work. “Do we have a sense of what we imagine is happening?” Steinberg says when asked if we should believe Silver’s speech to Madi. “Yes, but if I was someone else, I wouldn’t want to watch it with my interpretation coloring it.” They talk about how this is essentially a transformative work (they don’t use that term)—a certain decision “made sense as a way to both acknowledge the book and spin it.”

So this is like the literal opposite of, say, JK Rowling, who seems intent on letting us know every freakin detail of canon and post-canon and seems genuinely unhappy at the idea that people will interpret things in ways that “aren’t true.” (At least in interviews I’ve seen/read of hers in the past few years.) Steinberg and Levine seem to be the ultimate “open to interpretation” guys, which really is like this big blank slate for fandom building on and playing with this world they’ve created. That being said, if oppositional fandom is your cup of tea—if you love fic and fandom as a corrective, as a way of wrestling a creator over the text—then the, “Go for it, interpret however you want” thing is probably not super appealing. 

This is the first time in my entire fandom life, going on two decades now, that I have simultaneously been really satisfied with a show’s ending and still wanted to write and read fic. And that seems…weird to me? So I don’t think it’s that weird that it wouldn’t work for someone. TL;DR: I’d just say if it happens, it happens. But it’s OK to love something and not find a way into the fandom. But if that changes for you, I’ll be there. :-)

[old-long-john]

Jonathan Steinberg’s Fathoms Deep Interview

I’ve written up the whole of Jon’s interview here. It’s summarised, but I tried to keep the wording as close to what he actually said as I could where it made sense in this format. It’s loooong, so buckle up kids. 

Jon said he’s very proud of the show and he misses the people involved terribly. He thinks that if judged by the idea of in 6 or 7 years watching the show back and wondering whether they’d feel they did right by it, they would feel that way. This was the show they wanted to make, which not a lot of people get to feel.

Liz said a lot of the actors they’ve spoken to feel the same way, which Jon said makes him feel good, because the actors are in a very specific position with respect to the story (being both inside and outside of it), so their opinions are important to him as a section of the audience.

They talked about the long list of titles he has (co-creator, writer, producer, wrangler of pirates, ‘the grim reaper’ - for those ‘your character’s dead, sorry’ phonecalls) and how he’s now also a director after 4x10, and how that was for him?

He said it was a weird process to go from writer and showrunner to director. He talked about how there’s so much you’re trying to control from one point of view, but there’s so much that happens after the fact with all the visual effects, and he wasn’t sure how much he was ready for and how much he didn’t know he didn’t know. The speed and complexity was difficult, because the last week they spent shooting two simultaneous units for the ship battle, that even the more experienced people thought was a lot to juggle. Ultimately he felt it gave him a lot of control over making things either work or not work, throughout the entire process from conception to finished product, and he enjoyed it.

His favourite part to direct was the forest scene with Toby and Luke, because a lot of the technical mishigas falls away and it’s just storytelling and performance. It was great to work with the two of them in a scene that felt like it was working. He said they were both exhausted, but they were really willing to just go with it.

The first day they shot the final library scene with Schmitz, and JPK, and Harriet Walters, which was daunting, because Harriet Walters is a pretty big name to be the first person you’re trying to direct. He said it took him about 8 hours to film something that should probably only have taken 4, but everyone was very forgiving.

Then they talked about the Dragon Speech. They thanked him for it and said how much it’s meant to a lot of people, and that they’ve had a lot of correspondence about that.

Daphne said they’ve seen Flint go through a lot, and they asked Jon where he thought Flint was in season 4, because they thought he’d transformed to a point where all of his parts felt integrated, and while he wasn’t necessarily in a ‘good’ place, he was in a healthier one. 

Jon agreed, and said where he understood him to be was as a guy who had run all but the last 100 yards of a marathon and could see the finish line, and every step he took got exponentially harder, and it was just an onslaught of obstacles and traps and problems that were trying to prevent him for getting there. He could figure out a way to get through every one of them, but it was his best friend who would be the one he couldn’t get past, which felt right. That was the core of the story they were trying to tell, and so they felt like they could build the details from there and even if some of them missed, at least they were still telling the right story at its core.

He does think it’s very different from the first 3 seasons, because in a sense the big dramatic question isn’t Flint’s. It had been, but in season 4 the big dramatic question was Silver’s, which was always going to happen in some respect. He doesn’t think that backgrounds Flint, because if anything he’s finally the guy we’re fully rooting for, but there’s a clarity to it that makes it feel different.

On the idea of Flint being fully integrated with himself, they asked whether Jon feels like Silver truly sees Flint at the end, or is he seeing an older version of Flint. Because Flint gives that speech and then Silver brings it back to rage. Jon thinks this has always been two narratives interacting with each other, finding ways to embrace each other and appear as one story: one Silver’s, one Flint’s. In that moment they are in some respects as close as they’ve ever been, and in some the most opaque they’ve ever been to each other, depending on whose story you’re watching in that moment.

He talked about the classics and how a professor distilled The Odyssey and The Iliad into two ideas: that Achilles is a character for whom glory and glory seeking is the ultimate end, and Odysseus is a character who just wants to get home, and in the tension of that is in some respects all of drama. That’s always been buried into the show. What clarifies that conversation they’re having is that it is the most distilled version of that. There’s the guy who you can tell all you want to about government and cause and good, but he has a really good argument that he loves his wife and just wants to go home, and nothing you can say will make that not true. And the guy sitting across from him can see a coward and a guy who’s giving away the world, and nothing you could tell him would make that not true. For two people who are almost indistinguishable at this point, to have this space where they’re disconnected be the thing that separates them felt right, and like the story was resonating with itself in all the right ways.

He said in some ways the whole season was very deliberately working towards that scene, and at any points at which they were confused they were always looking forward to this place they were trying to get to and which they knew how they wanted to feel.

Talking about knowing the ending from early on, at the beginning they knew it was a story about a guy standing on a rock in the middle of the ocean and shaking his fist at civilisation, and eventually he started to make that mean something and terrify them and win, and that he would be undone by the least likely complication. A guy who could take on an empire and could change the world is undone by nobody. That’s why it was always important to him that they didn’t know where Silver came from, because it made him nobody, and not important. There’s no twist to how he’s connected to the story, he’s just a guy.

Daphne said that except he’s everybody for Flint, which Jon agreed with. There’s a strange catalytic reaction between them, but to us and the story he’s just a guy who was the undoing of a giant. And they felt like that was somehow baked into the story of Treasure Island too. And thinking about it that way made the forest scene feel right.

Daphne said she’d had a conversation with someone, that also connected back to Vane, that Flint could fight an empire and civilisation, but the one thing in the world that brought him down is something that we all have: this sense of ‘I want to protect my people’, and that was the thing that brings down the revolution, rather than the large scary things.

Jon said the conflict between Flint and Silver was extremely internal. We’re watching Silver become Flint, so that Flint can have a version of himself that he can have this conflict with and finally reach some conclusion with. That also felt right that ‘just a guy’ was also a human being and that in order for that conflict within Flint to be resolved all of the complications need to get stripped away until he’s staring at himself in a mirror, and the one thing that’s different is just this one awful traumatic event that isn’t there and it creates this massively different outcome. 

He said that if the mechanics of it are working properly then there should be a lot of different ways to look at it and hopefully it does have facets and is open to be interpreted.

Daphne said she thinks that’s true and they succeeded in that, because a lot of viewers have both analysed it intellectually, but have also on a personal level experienced that conversation in different ways.

Jon said he would argue that it is universal to feel disenfranchised to some extent, and there is no perfect citizen, and that that feeling, whether big or small or defining or not, is there and a component of being a human being. That’s something that he felt was an important aspect of telling the right story, when you can reduce it back to something that should be relatable to anyone. They wanted that last episode to be something of a closing statement to the argument, and they knew before they wrote it that that would be the meat of it, of trying to put a period at the end of the sentence.

Daphne said it feels like the launching pad for the torture Silver will have that we won’t see in BS, but is the beginning of an experience that might lead to him feeling compelled to go looking for the treasure in TI.

Jon said that the idea that the treasure was cursed in the book was something he’d forgotten and which snuck up on him, and in the process of constructing that scene became the clearest thing in the world, that that was Flint’s curse. The curse was ‘you think you’ve figured this thing out, but you haven’t, and at some point you will feel unfulfilled by shutting the world out and by choosing to make domesticity the only priority you will feel unfulfilled and then you will come back looking for this thing’. So Flint has the last word in that moment, and that curse is now meaningful; it isn’t ghosts and skeletons, it’s a different spin. On a show about domesticity, it is a bit dark, but also something that suggests what Silver’s story is going forward, which is that he’s happy until he’s not, and eventually he knows why he’s not happy and he’ll always remember the moment that he made that choice. And now the book is a different book.

Daphne then segued from that into a question about reusing terminology, and how much that’s specific and deliberate. Particularly ‘mattering’. When Flint talked about mattering she was immediately reminded of season 2 when Flint said ‘where else would you wake up in the morning and matter?’. And so we go into this scene already knowing that that’s important to Silver on some level, whether he understands it or not.

Jon said the hope and dream when creating this is that it was music, and that even if it’s not always thought through in that way it should feel right and sound right. And what that frequently means is repetition, and just a feeling of ‘I’ve heard this before but now it means something different’. Sometimes it’s very specifically intended to tie itself back to an earlier conversation, but sometimes it’s not.

He said that it’s so gratifying when people notice those things, because he often has that feeling of ‘you’re working too hard, nobody’s going to notice that’, so when they do and find other pieces he didn’t even know were there it’s very fun. As a way of understanding authorship, sometimes you’re aware of the things you’re authoring and sometimes you’re not, and sometimes it takes an audience or a reader to put it all together, which makes it a communal experience. He finds it fascinating the things your head will put together without you knowing it, and when people ask if it was on purpose he knows he wasn’t consciously aware of it, but he doesn’t know that it was an accident either, and he thinks it’s hard to write without that, without things just coming out of the ether. He thinks great writers are more aware of that though, and he sometimes feels like it’s scary because if you don’t know where it comes from then it’s hard to make it happen, and it’s hard to go through a process that you feel like at any point might just go away.

Daphne asked about categories of things that have been in the story from the beginning, that have many layers to them and season 4 brought new layers to. In particular, darkness. They brought up in the roundtable podcast the use of it in the dragons speech, and that it was interesting in a story that talks so much about the duality within people of darkness and light that they almost got flipped in the dragons speech. That when Flint says that in the darkness there is discovery and possibility and freedom, it felt like a reframing of the idea of darkness and how it relates to people (though it’s not always been dark is bad and light is good in this story before that point).

Jon said in the exercise of hindsight, of looking at what those last few episodes are, there are at least a couple of times where the same word is used in different contexts to mean very different things. He noticed it first in the ending where Rackham talked about ‘truth’, which at first felt like a mistake in post-production, because it sounded like ‘it doesn’t matter if the story’s true, but it matters if the story’s true in the end’. But after thinking about it he doesn’t think that was a mistake, because what Rackham’s talking about is that truth in storytelling in terms of historical verifiability is different from truth in art, and the use of the word in two different contexts is meaningful. 

When Flint is talking about ‘darkness’ in season 3 in general, he’s talking the thing that is a part of a person’s psyche that will force you to do things or tempt you to do things that your best self would not want to do, and that that is a danger inherent to the human condition. When he’s talking about darkness with Silver in the end he is talking about it in the artificial sense. Very specifically he’s talking about the casting of shadows, which is not darkness, it’s the absence of light. His very specific construction of it as a thing created by people to achieve an end and to create the appearance of something that is bad or something that is to be avoided, when in reality there should be light shining there, is different.

He said is is potentially confusing, but at this point he thinks they’ve hopefully earned the right a little bit to have some of those themes that are developing get complicated and to embrace the contradictions. He felt that early in the season as a storyteller he could feel these contradictions piling up, and he thought if you were Flint and you were aware of narrative, you would be aware of it too. The closer you get to destination, the more the contradictions pile up, and that’s how you know that the rhythm is building to something. Daphne pointed out that that’s exactly what Flint said to Silver.

Jon said that he thinks the definitions of ‘darkness’ is one of these things, and he thinks they’re distinguishable in a meaningful way, and in the distinction between them there is story and more content to what he’s saying.

Daphne said it felt to her like the difference between internal reality and the story that is told by someone. That internal darkness is a thing that you struggle with, and the casting of shadows is the not true story that civilisation is telling. Jon then said that, to clean it up a little bit, the absence of light is different from the obstruction of light. That there should be light there and there wants to be light there, but someone is standing in the way. That’s different than a place in which there never was light, and that’s partly the distinction Flint is trying to draw. That there are things that are not inherent to human nature that are portrayed as dark, but they don’t have to be.

Daphne said that one of her favourite things about season 4 is the way Flint arrived at a point where he managed to take his own pain and anger and generalise it in that way, where it encompassed even the people being told to be afraid of the dragons. That he had reached a stage where he had a generosity even to the people who are part of civilisation, who were also being controlled by the casting of shadows.

Jon said it’s the closest thing to an explicit acknowledgement that everyone there, despite their differences and different agendas and circumstances, shares some common experience, which is having felt like they were in that space, and that was a component of the full stop they were trying to create at the end of the argument.

Daphne then talked about backstories, and people coming to terms with their inciting traumas and their legends, and they way some characters build those legends and some decidedly don’t, and Silver’s a case where the legend is built for him. She asked how Jon felt that related to Silver and his lack of backstory.

Jon said that obviously he must have one, because everyone does, and that when he watches it the clear implication is that Silver’s is awful, and if the story’s going out of its way to suggest it’s unspeakable, considering the things we have spoken about, he as an audience member is willing to take Silver’s word for it. If you’re invested in that character and you understand where all the norms are set for the show, for someone to say ‘I can’t say it out loud’ suggests that it really is awful. They played with versions of what it could be, but the moment it’s named it becomes less scary, and there might be an instinct to explain it and rationalise it or suggest it was his fault or someone else’s fault or that ‘it could never happen to me’. It was the ‘it could never happen to me’ that’s the most destructive to the story. It had to feel like he was everyone, and that required him to be no-one at the same time. You can see in him what you need to.

He said that from the first frame of season 4 there is a point at which these two guys aren’t connected, and it’s clearly Flint’s concern, and on some level Silver’s awareness. Jon felt it was meta and interesting that the point at which they were not connected is how they feel about story and how they feel about their obligations to it, their place in it, the burden of it. They just don’t agree that there is some need to create stories to explain things, and that ultimately is the death of their relationship. Because they have that discontinuity between them, that is the thread that unravels the sweater. They felt like they were naming the thing you didn’t know you were looking for a name for, which was the space between them and not specifically who did what to Silver when he was a kid.

Daphne said that she’s said in podcasts before that if the show says ‘horror’ and ‘I’m not gonna tell you any more’ that she’s going to go to all sorts of dark horrible places in her imagination with that, especially if it’s a backstory so it possibly involves a childhood. It brings out all of her personal fears about what people can do to each other. Jon said that it almost has to be that, when you stare into it. If anything specific comes out of that it starts to diminish its impact, because then you can’t assign your own fears to it, which are always going to be scarier than anything he could create.

They then talked about the concept of introspection and how Silver of all people, who is so good at understanding others, is the only one who can’t do it. All the characters have their own way of relating to and telling their backstories, but he’s the only one who can’t do it. Jon said it suggests the horror from another direction. That whatever happened was so horrible that it broke his ability to exist within his story. There is something therapeutic about existing within a story, and something that is normal and part of the human condition to find a place within a story where you feel like you make sense, and whatever it was that happened to him that made him incapable of reconciling that, that is his trauma; his backstory was that he was removed from his own story. Then his curse is that he is stuck in someone else’s story, that he never wanted to be in, but can’t get out of.

Then they moved on to Max. Daphne said Jon had asked her a while ago if she was suggesting that Max is the secret protagonist of Black Sails, so she asked him the same question (mostly joking). Jon said there were a number of narratives, like they’d been talking about with Flint and Silver, and so to look for ‘a protagonist’ was maybe to miss a piece of the engineering. He said that when various people appear to be protagonists, it’s because they’re not following the same narrative within the show. To him, if there is another fully coherent narrative of a show he would watch that feels complete and meaningful, it’s Max’s.

He thinks she is the only one throughout who refused to allow violence to be an answer applied to an unsolvable problem. It’s been applied to her, but never by her. To have her be where she is by the end is meaningful in that sense, because there is a sense that she has in some way figured out an answer that no-one else can see. It’s baked into that ‘drowning the cat’ scene, that there’s a riddle being put to her, hiding inside what appears to be her being messed with, and she gets it right away. He thinks a lot of season 4 rests on that scene. To be put to a false choice of which part of a cycle are you, and for Max to  figure out that there is a secret protagonist in that story (Marion) and that a woman who was tired of seeing her son being abused did one awful thing to be able to break that chain, and it was too late and for nothing and awful, but he liked Max being able to see the secret protagonist. And there is something happening that is applicable in the bigger story, that she is the one who is able to essentially figure out the way to get the show to end and to get everybody out of there.

He said it’s a constant recurring theme from everyone that they’re in these situations they don’t want to be in and if everyone is in a situation they don’t want to be in, it requires someone to step out of it, almost to step off the stage and see all four corners of it, in order to find a solution.

Daphne then talked about rewatching since season 4 and how certain things feel different knowing the end. She said the scene in ep 2 where she’s begging Eleanor to leave with her and says ‘I will never ever leave you’ felt significant in relation to Max and the story as a whole, because she’s saying it to Eleanor, but Eleanor is Nassau in a lot of ways, and it was almost like it was quiet but Max had a commitment to Nassau that perhaps exceeded everyone.

Jon said she’s the only one who made that connection that the conversation that was running throughout season 4 was a bit of a fantasy, that question of ‘can you leave civilisation?’. It comes with you and is a part of you and to separate from it is temporary at best, and Max’s arc is a story about a woman who is abused by it, who thinks she can run away from it, who gets trapped in it to the point where it looks like it will be her end, but then learns how to tame it. She’s the only one really trying to tame it. Everyone else is trying to defeat it or kill it or separate from it. She’s the only one standing there with the chair and the whip, trying to figure out how to get it to do what she wants and acknowledging that it’s always going to be bigger and stronger than she is, but that it is manipulable.

Daphne talked about how Max parallels with so many characters, some that seem to be two sides of the same coin and some that don’t even seem to have a relationship to each other. She thinks the people that Max was textually most paralleled to were Vane, especially in the beginning and at the end where she talks about slavery with Grandma Guthrie in a similar way to how Vane did, and Silver obviously because they meet in the beginning and were both looking for angles. But she keeps thinking about Vane saying ‘give us your submission and we will give you the comfort you need’ and she thinks Max found the way between those two things, which seem like two ends of a spectrum. When she was telling Grandma Guthrie near the end of 4x10 the things she couldn’t give her but what she could offer instead, she found a way not to submit but also to get her way.

Jon said part of what feels like ‘Max’s Story’ is a series of compromises and that in season 3 she starts to suffocate under the weight of them. Everything feels like a compromise that just leads to a more unpleasant compromise behind it, but where she is able to break through is when she realises that there are certain things you plant flags around, and that in a story about a series of compromises it’s actually the moment she refuses to in which everything cinches for her. She refuses to create a situation that is exclusive of Anne and refuses to accede to every demand that is put upon her.

He also thinks that it makes sense to him as a kind of 3D shape, and that if you look at it in a certain light it looks like she harmonises with Vane and with Silver, but it doesn’t require turning the light very much for it to look like she is in Flint’s story; that she is abused and traumatised for who she is and what she is and has to figure out a way to shake her fist at civilisation, but come up with different answers about how to do it. And you don’t have to work that hard for her to look a lot like Anne, which is text in seasons 2 and 3. And it’s text in season 4 that she is literally in Eleanor’s story, just 8 episodes behind; living the same choose your own adventure story and trying to figure out a way to get to a different ending. Part of the reason therefore that she feels central for him is that she exists in the middle of a venn diagram in which there are meaningful pieces of everyone. And that’s part of the reason it felt right that she’s the one left standing.

Liz talked about a discussion in the round table podcast about the world of the immortal myths and legends and the mortals of Nassau, and how Max was one of the mortals whose story was very big on its own, but was also so much hers, as opposed to say Flint or Silver’s which impacted so many other people on such massive levels of civilisation and society. Hers was a small contained universe where she was very active and had a great deal of control, even though there were times there were crossovers, such as being involved in getting the Urca gold. She was so low in the hierarchy when we met her, but she worked her way right to the top.

Jon said that, with the Greek myth instagram filter on, there is a story happening where she is subject to Flint’s story. She is trying for three and a half seasons to make the best of a story which is the guys who hate England and want to kill it vs. the guys who are with England. There is a massive pivot in the argument scene with Jack in 4x06, which is possibly the first time we’ve heard her swear in anger, and it is a moment to him that is Max wrestling the story away from Flint. It’s the first time we’ve really seen her lose it. She is by sheer force of will starting her own version of the story in which she is not operating in accordance with the terms Flint and Rogers have set out, and she gets to the ending that way. She is able to find something that has eluded Flint and everyone else. The moment she applies her own terms, either she’s going to get killed for it or she’s going to make it work, and she makes it work.

Jon said he thinks Max is really the only one who ever saw the end of the story. There is an element to that kind of conflict where the participants will consciously or unconsciously keep it alive, but she is the one who has been saying since the beginning ‘I don’t want that ending’ and has been rational about trying to figure out where all these decisions lead to. That’s where he feels her frustration comes from, the idea of ‘where the fuck did you think this was going to end? We’ve been in this same story for thirty-some odd episodes and nothing is changing.’

Daphne said they’ve joked that Max is the only one who’s been watching the show. Jon agreed and said she is able to see that there are certain realities that you can do the things that make you feel good, and you can do the things that feel inevitable, but if you’re not trying to figure out where it’s going to lead to then you’re gonna be in season 3 of black sails forever and you’re never going to get to season 4. She circulates a little bit, and does these tasks to get to this ending, which is why Rackham at the end feels like witness (or chorus or narrator) to her story.

From there they went on to talk about Rackham’s truth speech. Jon said they actually wrote it on the set on the day, because it never felt right to him on the page. It came out as they were rehearsing and Jon wrote it down on the back of the script and handed it to Schmitz, who got it and later gave him shit for it. Daphne asked, shit for the process or for the speech? Jon said both. Schmitz was like ‘we’re really just going to talk about art at the end of this? We’re just gonna go for this and do this?’.

Daphne said it really worked for both of them, and Liz helpfully supplied that it doesn’t work for her with the ‘happy’ ending story, but with the ambiguity she loves it.

So then they talked about the ambiguous ending, and how it was a bold choice. Daphne asked what the process was that led them to choose to make an ending that could be read in different ways.

Jon said season to season and episode to episode they put a tonne of pressure on themselves to make sure that everything was better than what came before it and that it was developing in a way in which every episode, scene, and line of dialogue was meaningful in some way. The unavoidable result of that is that the ending has the pressure of a lot of narrative behind it, and how do you make all of that mass and momentum stop? Because you want it to stop; you don’t want to walk away from the story feeling like your head is spinning and you don’t know what the hell happened. Jon said he personally doesn’t appreciate story that way. At the same time it would be unfair to the narrative to suggest that it is reducible to something simple. Added to that is the complication that there is a wholly other narrative (Treasure Island), that is completely alien in some respects to their show, that they were trying to contextualise and marry this to, and make Captain Flint’s curse and the interim between show and book and what is Silver’s life after he decides he doesn’t want to be Long John Silver again, and what makes him put that name back on? It’s got to do all of those things too.

He said there aren’t a lot of great models for ends of shows that don���t feel like you’re just dragging yourself cross the finish line. They looked at a few and tried to pull out what it was that made them shows they went back to and what was it that made them feel right. The Sopranos was one, and whatever people think about its finale it said something and it forced you to engage with the material after the end of the narrative. They also went back and spent time with the Cheers finale. And there were others that you would expect, and some that you wouldn’t.

Their ending just ended up feeling right. Jon said that the ending doesn’t feel ambiguous to him, and when he watches it it is pretty clear what it feels like is happening. He is also fully aware that there are multiple interpretations of what it is, which is also by design. In a story about what your place in a story is, in a story that is fully self-aware about narrative, the audience or reader needs to have an opinion and there needs to be space within the story for that opinion to matter. It’s why, while it is clear to him what is happening, he doesn’t feel as though it is his place to impose that on anyone. The act of watching it and feeling an ending in that story is a personal one.

He has two different positions to stand in with respect to this story. He said if you ask him that question as the person who wrote it, the answer is he doesn’t want to talk about it. It is built the way it’s built and it’s for you to appreciate. But for him as audience, he feels like he watches it and he is seeing the story that feels right to him, and it feels clear. So if that story feels clear to you then you are watching the right story too.

[Honestly, bless Jon Steinberg for all of that.]

Daphne talked about how fascinating is is that throughout the show the story took us to places emotionally we didn’t expect and made us think about things we didn’t necessarily want to or it didn’t occur to us to think about, and the ending brought that to a new level. You really had to look inside yourself and what aspects of the story are important to you, and what aspects speak to you personally, and that helps you find the ending that is most meaningful to you.

Jon said he’s aware when making a show that has to appeal to a large number of people that a lot of people are watching different shows and are invested in and like different things and want different things, so part of where the burden of the ending comes in is that you have to make choices about what story you think you’re telling. So the challenge was ‘can we land this in a way that it is still interpretable even in its ending, in the way that it was half way through?’, which is difficult but doable.

[That fuckery about the Devil’s Theory is coming up here. I’ve included it just in case anyone wants to know exactly what it was, but I’ve crossed through it because I’m spiteful and it annoys me and it isn’t necessary to understand anything Jon said.] 

Liz agreed that it came down to your personal satisfaction and what speaks most to you, and that to her what always brought her back to BS was the conversation about light and darkness and shadows and obstruction, and she thinks there’s more room to explore that theme with the ending she prefers [i.e. if Flint is dead]. She thinks if it ends up an almost happily ever after then she loses some of the catharsis and what continues to make her think about these people and their choices and about herself and her choices.

Daphne said they really did succeed in creating an ending that allows us all to have different experiences, and thanked Jon for it.

Liz asked how Jon feels about the demise of Eleanor and her full arc, and said that there has been some dissension between the podcasters about it during the roundtable.

Jon said he was going to beef with Lauren Sarner a little. He doesn’t think Eleanor’s is a story about a woman who is Stockholmed. He thinks (with his audience hat on) that that isn’t fair to Eleanor, and he doesn’t know that it’s how he would read the text of it. He said that Rogers, for an episode [3x01?], which is just a scene and not even the entirety of it, he is fully in control of her, but it immediately gets turned upside down. In the second episode, in their second scene together she calls him on his bullshit and says he doesn’t have anything without her, and so they are fully partners. Rogers threatens to kill her straight after, which Jon says in the language of this show is always the resort of ‘I’ve run out of productive things to say’, and anybody can say it, but it doesn’t suggest he actually has the power in that relationship. It actually feels like a moment in which he’s losing power. So platformed that way, what the story felt like to him was two people who didn’t belong where they were from, and who were unusual and who had never met anybody like themselves before, and who did in an incredibly unlikely way. So it felt like a moment where Eleanor could start to have a relationship she’d never had before.

Jon said he doesn’t know that her relationship with Vane was based in ‘love’, depending on how you define that. He thinks they both think it is, and there are elements where that is true, but not really. They’re both trying to have a relationship that is fulfilling to themselves that the other person is screaming to them ‘this is not what I want’. In season 2 when she turns on him, Jon says that Vane has essentially told Eleanor that he is a dead-ender, who wants to drag her down with him and that there is nothing she’s going to say to change his mind. And she’s saying ‘I want to live a life and be happy and not have to kill what we eat’, and he’s saying ‘it makes me feel good to kill what I eat’, and Jon thinks it would have felt really fucked up for her to decide she was going to go down that drain with him.

So the relationship with Rogers was the first heterosexual romantic story in which both players are actually on an equal footing, and in which there is some meaningful commitment to each other, that ends tragically when there is that one space in which they’re not connected. He called it a cyclical tragedy she keeps finding herself in, that the only way to do what feels right is to do something that is patently wrong.

He says he knows there’s a way to watch it where there’s a lot of second guessing about what she’s up to, or what he’s up to, but he always watched it at face value, as two people who fell in love with each other because they could understand each other. They could understand being half and half: half of a pirate and half of somebody who wanted better than that.

The scene between the two of them in bed was one take from Hannah New. Jon said either Eleanor Guthrie the character is the greatest actress of her generation, or that is a real moment of a person expressing ‘I love you’ in a way that she’s not actually able to say.

Daphne mentioned her speech about ‘so many goddamn men’ and their references to introspection. Hannah had talked in her interview about Eleanor not being an introspective person, but the one commonality between Rogers and Vane is that each of them tells her who she is, and it’s not who she is, and that ends up being part of the problem with each of them. Vane’s constantly saying she’s like him, and in the end the problem with Rogers is that he brings Spain to bear when he thinks she’s not acting like herself, but it’s a herself that he defined as who she’s supposed to be.

Jon agreed and said the second half of the season doesn’t happen if Rogers is able to hear her. She’s making herself very clear and he just doesn’t want to hear it. There is tragedy in that, that in every direction she looks there is a man who is making it very difficult to figure her way out of this puzzle, in a way Max is able to. Eleanor is kind of the first one into the breach who is setting off all these landmines and creating a path through which Max is able to finally find a way out.

Daphne says Eleanor isn’t very good at defining herself, but she more than any character is subjected to definitions by other characters throughout. Not just romantic partners. Everyone seems to be defining who Eleanor Guthrie is, and maybe Flint’s the one who gets closest to who she really is, and then Max ultimately. Eleanor’s constantly subjected to judgements by the characters and also judgements by the fandom that often match them.

Jon said it’s an interesting thought experiment to think about the things she has done that become fan favourites to excoriate her for and either hold them up to things that men in the show have done or imagine them being done by men, and it’s very hard to suggest that those things would be judged in the same way. He thinks it’s more complicated than that, and it’s hard to compare two characters because they’re people and there’s different spins on it and things that come with it in terms of baggage, but even if it’s not an entirely true statement there is certainly some truth to it.

Also Eleanor was sort of written that way deliberately. She doesn’t know anything else. She was raised by not just men, but these men, and it’s the only thing she knows how to do. So it felt untrue to try to protect her from that and there is some nobility in it for her. She is trying, which is not necessarily something you can say of the characters people do love. She is trying to make this work, and failing at times and failing to see answers that maybe she should have, but her head and heart are in the right place.

Daphne called her ‘a messy person’, in the most sympathetic of ways. She came from a messy place. Though Max also came from a messy place and is Max.

Jon said they have different relationships to violence. In as much as things like civilisation are characters in the vocabulary of the show, violence is as well. Eleanor resorts to it in ways that define her. Strangely those are the things that people are least turned off by, but it does make her culpable in a way that the rest of them are, and in a way that Max largely keeps her hands clean of.

Daphne then talked about talking to other people about violence in the show, and how of course it’s there, because it’s a story about pirates. But then Jon said earlier that it was a story about domesticity, and she finds it fascinating, because what she kept saying to people was that this show, unlike almost every other tv show that has violence, doesn’t feel like there’s ever a place where violence doesn’t have consequences.

Jon said he thinks that’s true, and if it’s ever the case that the violence doesn’t have consequences then it wasn’t the intention. And in terms of the show being about domesticity, it’s actually a very short trip from piracy to civilisation, and is domesticity the end of civilisation or the means by which it perpetuates itself? He felt like that was something that was interesting about the show to them, because none of that had been explored before. It was always just Errol Flynn. When you scratch the surface and realise there’s this other thing underneath it, it had to be a story.

[unstatedmartini]

THINGS THAT I’M UPSET ABOUT TODAY: black sails was so much about stories and myths and constructed identities and the narratives we empower by choosing to believe them, but ultimately what was so beautifully tragic about silver was that we left him just as he was starting to understand that there are limits to a person’s ability to re-invent themselves, and that when you become emotionally entangled with other people you can’t just shrug off your identity and make a new one unless you want to risk losing them too.

i keep thinking about how the london flashbacks make it explicitly clear that flint - the potential of him; the darkness and the rage and the wildness - was always a part of james mcgraw. it was only ever just below the surface, and thomas and miranda both understood and loved that part of james. similarly, james mcgraw never went anywhere. his tenderness and his idealism and his helpless, hopeless need to try to make the world better - that’s james. flint was about as separate from james mcgraw as mrs. barlow was from miranda hamilton, which is to say NOT VERY.

it’s understandable that silver, given his repudiation of backstory, given the heights to which he rose on his ability to tell stories that made men follow him, love him, die for him, would buy in a fairly uncomplicated way into the idea that captain flint was a mythical creature made of rage and sea foam, who was made and could be unmade, and was wholly separate from the man beneath. he talks about james mcgraw awakening from a nightmare, like a princess in a fairy tale who could only be woken by true love’s kiss. but that’s not true. flint was just the name james mcgraw gave to his pain; it didn’t keep him from feeling every agonizing second of it and being responsible for every choice he made because of it. unmaking flint doesn’t return james mcgraw in some ancient, innocent form, any more than repudiating the bloodthirsty pirate king long john silver could deliver john silver into a state of blissful domesticity. 

i give luke arnold so much credit for the fact that you can literally see the dawning awareness, as he’s talking to madi, that this isn’t how it works. he doesn’t get to unmake captain flint, shrug off long john silver, trade away everything flint and madi fought and sacrificed for, and then demand that madi love him just the same as she did yesterday. the man she loved was her partner, and flint’s partner, and she trusted him to keep her war alive even if she herself died - he doesn’t get to say “oh i don’t consider myself bound by that backstory” and have her not feel deeply betrayed and hurt.

weirdly i’m actually hopeful for them in the long run, because black sails was so deeply compassionate towards people choosing forgiveness and choosing to repair bonds that seemed irreparably broken. but it’s so perfectly, achingly tragic that silver wasn’t ready to hear what flint was telling him in the “i don’t care”/”you will” exchange. that wasn’t flint saying “someday you’ll care how their histories remember you” - that was james mcgraw saying that your identities aren’t as distinct as you think they are. if you love someone truly, you have to allow them to know you fully. and sooner or later you will have to deal with the fact that long john silver is a part of you just as flint is a part of me. that wasn’t a curse; it was just the truth.

[sweetsunrayssr]

Madi’s “No!”

Analysis post. Warning: 4x09 spoilers

“But I hear other voices, a chorus of voices, multitudes.They reach back centuries. Men and women  and children who'd lost their lives to men like you. Men and women and children forced to wear your chains. I must answer to them and - this war, their 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’ve discussed and read opinions on several sources from viewers on Madi’s arc. I’ve expressed my hopes where it could be going since 4x06. I’ve expressed my opinion on Madi’s choice in 4x09. But this post isn’t about that. Just an analysis in reflection of how Madi has dealt with losses since 4x01. For me this “No” is not just a “No”, but expresses a willingness to martyr and sacrifice Silver, his men and her own life for the war.

Now obviously she lacks some crucial information such as the amount of runaway slaves there are Maroon Island at present. She has not heard Julius’ words. It actually matters little, because her “No!” comes from the purest conviction about herself and what she is willing to giving up. Madi started out as a sheltered girl with little to no contact to the outside world, and the sole violence she truly consciously experienced before the S3 finale was that of the Maroon men torturing and hunting pirates and sailors that ended up on the Maroon Island by accident, which she recognizes as lawful defense. Until S4 the sole loss she truly experienced was the death of her father, who had been absent for the last 12 years. Certainly from the first episode in S4, Madi quickly experiences heartfelt losses.

Losing Silver

During the invasion, she experiences defeat, witnesses John fall into the water and never surface again, sees her men and Silver’s men being picked off. We know from the flashback that if she was a no good pirate, she’d follow Silver into anything and anywhere. She loves him and she admires him. And she is shocked, broken hearted and devestated by his seeming death.

She holds out hope that Silver may still have been saved or resurfaced and makes it to the beach, where Flint and Madi wait for the last uncaptured survivors to arrive with the longboats.

Her hope is crushed, and first we see her from behind, looking out over the sea, as if she is saying goodbye to Silver.

Next, we see her cry for Silver from the right angle, “looking right”. She grieves. And finally we get a view from the left angle, “looking left”, where she decides to move onwards with the war.

Because in the next scene we see her, at Miranda’s house the first thing she asks Flint is whether the war is over now.

Madi: “Is it over?” 

Flint: “Is what over?” 

Madi: “You looked into my mother's eyes  and you said a great war lay ahead of us, one in which pirates and slaves would stand together  and strike a blow that might shake the very foundation  of the British Empire. Now our ships are gone, our army is fractured, battered and beaten. And the only man among you I trusted is dead. I'm asking you if this war died with him.”

Madi does not stop grieving, or loves Silver no less than he does her, per her response when she learns that Silver is alive and when she sees him again. And just prior to learning that he is alive, she tells Eme, “I lost more than you can know.”

What we do learn and what Madi learns in 4x01 is that, despite loving Silver as much as he loves her, she can live with his loss, that she can sacrifice him for her war. So, when Silver asks her in 4x05, “If this goes away, Flint's war, if it all ended and we had to walk away from it would I be enough for you?” we actually know her answers since 4x01. Hence, “You know what? You don't have to answer that.”

When Madi says she will not bargain away a fight to save Silver’s life, Madi means it. Nor will Madi ever regret sacrificing Silver, which is why she is pitted against Woodes Rogers in 4x09 who is haunted by regret for his choice. If Woodes could go back in time and undo his choice, he would.

His men (and his means) and her men

Of course, if Madi can sacrifice Silver himself, whom she loves, it is as easy for her to sacrifice Silver’s brothers and friends, who she does not love. More, she expects Silver to be able to do that too. This becomes clear when she pushes Silver to get rid of Billy.

She sides with Billy to free the Underhill slaves. She opposes Billy to prevent reprisals on the family and loved ones of the Underhill slaves. Afterwards she pushes Silver to get rid of Billy, to heal and salvage the alliance with the runaway slaves of New Providence and to remove the one voice that urges Silver to follow his own better judgment about the cache and go against Flint.

Fuck Billy! Don’t fuck Billy! Fuck Flint! Don’t fuck Flint!

But Silver loves Madi. Despite the fact that Billy saved them in 4x03 from the soldiers on the roof, helped to retake Nassau, built the resistance for Silver, and totally echoes Silver’s own mind on issues, Silver chooses Madi’s advize who talks and reasons exactly like Flint. Of course, he does it in his own way - severe punishment, and promise to never do it again.

She also lost a large amount of her own people, including Kofi. Madi is indeed very much a monarch in that way. Absolutely everyone and everything can be sacrificed for an idea in her mind (a nation is an abstrahation of people). And she is better at it than Flint even.

In contrast, Silver tries to avoid as much as possible to have blood on his hands. Yes, he was callous in the first two seasons, but he had no attachment to anyone then. The likeliest reason he avoided attachments in the past is how he could not live with sacrificing loved ones and friends. That is why he ultimately is the best quartermaster, and continues to think like one, instead of a king or captain.

And if you took notice, Silver is the diplomat, the man most prone to make deals, to search for a common interest: (S1) over a page from a log, a share and his life with Max, Flint, Randal and Eleanor; (S2) for a share in gold, the Man O War, Flint’s life with Flint, Max and Vane; (S3) the foundation for a deal with the Maroons, even if Flint does the pitch talk; (S4) with Eleanor, Ruth and Julius and Woodes.

Her own life and freedom

Finally, Madi faces death several times - at the Underhill plantation against Billy, against the Spaniard, and Woodes’ barrel of a gun. She loses her own freedom and has seen the might of the world and men taking the freedom away of her people.

She saw New Providence razed. She can perfectly imagine how easily Maroon Island can be torched with thousands of men. She is reminded by Ruth, by Eleanor of the wisdom in making a safe haven for your loved ones and the happiness that could be had in it.

But to her, a safe haven is a temporary illusion easily destroyed by the horrors of the world. A lifetime of horror, violence and brutality makes love, life and the chance of a safe haven so precious to Eleanor that she dies fighting for it, even if she knows it to be an illusion at some level. A lifetime of reading, shelter and love make loss, sacrifice and horror an unavoidable and bearable certainty and necessity. There can be no deal made, no peace had.

And thus Madi’s queenly strength radicalizes into the strength of a martyr, a revolutionist, a suicide bomber. Any of these minds are strong, inpenetrable, and unalterable. And I think we should take that very seriously.

Even if you could kill me,  even if that somehow helped you see her alive again, how are you going to explain it to her? She believes in this as much as I do. You know this. If it costs the war to save her, you'll have lost her anyway. Even you cannot construct a story to make her forgive you that. You do this, and you're gonna regret it.