#guizmop

[keensers]

love you going crazy with poetry in tags...

THANK YOU it’s actually a radical face song called servants and kings which is maybe the most silverflint song i can name off the top of my head. it is... exceptionally painful. the rest of the lyrics:

Through rolling hills and many miles of bloodWe slept in the rainfall and marched through the mudAnd you were not like anyone I'd knownYou spoke with impunity, had nothing to atoneAnd quiet evenings you told me what you thought aboutServants and kings and how everyone is boughtAnd how no one's hands are bloodier than God'sAnd I won't be judged for doing as I oughtIt's hard to say just when I fell in loveThere was no epiphany, no light from aboveBut you'd become my candle in the darkAnd all through that Hell you were the shield across my heartWhen all was fire, and the weather's out for bloodAnd the boys, still too young to drink, were drownin' in the floodI'd hear you laughing as I'd come on out for airAnd I'd laugh with you, pretending that we careNow twenty years have passed since the last time I saw youWhen I kissed you on the mouth you walked awayI knew that it'd be too much, I knew that it would scare youBut I couldn't find the proper words for what I had to sayBut I don't regret a thing.

[newtkins]

ok so i finished the balance arc and i just want to say thank you for talking about TAZ on your blog ! i would never have heard of it otherwise and now i literally feel like my heart got bigger listening to this wonderful story

I’m so glad!!!! did you cry? ahzshdj 

it’s really an amazing story, I’m relistening to it right now because I love it sooo much

[old-long-john]

"#has anyone made a gifset of Flint and Silver in the forest with that 'go out into the woods and drown the damned cat' quote?#because it's kind of begging for it but also I'm not sure I actually want to see it because jesus christ" oohhh careful what you wish for i definitely saw a gifset like this going around.... so, it's out there ready to give you Feels

Oh my god, do I dare go looking for it? I’m not sure my heart could actually take it. But now my curiosity is piqued...

[naufragium]

guizmop replied to your photoset “In the waves I’ve lost every trace of you Oh where are you?”

WTF ! you come into MY house with WOODKID and SILVERFLINT and GORGOUS gifs with some parallels hell thrown in ?! how very dare ! :o

I came out to attack everyone with silverflint angst and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now

[cuthalions]

guizmop replied to your post “nothing will ever prepare me to hear silver say “thomas”

can you imagine him saying 'james'...

i’ve asked so many things from season 4 but i swear... this one... THIS IS THE LAST ONE I NEED AND THEN I CAN REST. IN PEACE. IN MY GRAVE.

also maybe use the word “love”, platonically, romantically, idc

[hamiltonthomas]

I never thought I would be okay and able to enjoy a show ever again, but Steinberg and Levine saved the day my life. :’)

[aubreysmaturin]

guizmop replied to your post “if you want to see any more videos off me im gonna need loads of...”

omg no !! you're one of my fave vidder ever ! and the songs you choose, the way you put it all together is always perfect... i have a black sails playlist on spotify, and i systematically add the songs you use in your vids, and when i listen to them i can see the scenes sometimes, that's how good your vidding is. lots of love and i hope you'll get your editing spirit back, especially to send the show and the fandom on a glorious, epic and perfect exit <3

Aw Ludivine!!Bless you! Im think Im having a block of sorts, like how writers do. Its annoying because im finally making this video ive been putting off for a year to get enough material but now im struggling to make it have any sense!!!

bless you though! Hopefully ill get back on track soon!

[koryuoftheriverflow]

guizmop ha risposto al tuo post “I almost had a heart attack during \that\ scene. You know the one. If...”

i can't believe they would be so cruel... like bring this back when we had made our peace with his death... and with the fact that flint had lost him forever... if this is not true or if it IS true but something else happen i swear...

Yeah, like you said... we’d made our peace with Thomas being dead (even if it was never so indisputable). I don’t think they’d put forth something like this if they don’t have any intention to deliver in some way. At this point, what with Toby hinting at a possible not-so-tragic-ending for Flint, I want to believe Ulysses’s gonna find his peace and I really hope it will be with Thomas at his side.

[azirafels]

guizmop replied to your post: “It is some kind of hell to be forced to choose...

which fanvid ? i want to die too

new silverflint vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8yuTPchGu8 

die with me.

[leafofkudzu]

guizmop replied to your photo “”

congratulations ! little question, do you need to include words like "a, the..." etc, because i tried it and i'm fairly confident about my answers but it's wrong nonetheless :(

For the first section, some of them do require ‘the’ or ‘warband’ or ‘tribe’....but not all of them. That’s what made the first part so frustrating to do. Lots of trial and error. I tended to lean towards whatever was bolded or used as the hyperlink on the wiki and that seemed to work pretty well.

One of the answers that didn’t have explicitly bolded/hyperlinked text on the wiki though was ‘Dusk Warband’ and not just ‘Dusk’, so if you got that question, there’s a free answer for ya. ;D

Good luck, you can do it! \o/

[keensers]

i wouldn't mind reading a black sails thesis if you want to do one... you know, for fun. :p

like i honestly................. am this 👌close. but then i’m like, or i could put that english degree to better use and write a 30,000 word space pirates au, so yknow, there are choices to be made here, and also, i graduated already,,,

..that said, i was thinking about this during a boring meeting today, and uhhh i ended up idly writing down literally 20+ potential thesis topics (a sampling: “flint as odysseus,” “the failure of parental figures,” “missing histories: how the oppressed pushed society forwards,” “women’s power in men’s spaces,” “the monstrous Other,” “revolution as an act of love/love as an act of revolution,” “the power of a name”......... i will stop now) so [cracks knuckles] if you want any of those in short form i can do my best

[newtkins]

@guizmop replied to your post “ silver was immediately like “what families???” he was asking...”

the fact that he thinks about thomas regularly... since flint told him... like. Wow.

@madhardy replied to your post “ silver was immediately like “what families???” he was asking...”

i cant believe it occurred him to him so quickly like. I DIDNT EVEN THINK ABOUT THOMAS UNTIL HE SPECIFICALLY ASKED

silver remembers every word flint said to him that night..........

[old-long-john]

guizmop replied to your post: oh my GOD your tags on the cook gifset - i had...

i love this

:D I’m always finding ways to add to the poodle snake’s tragedies!

[naufragium]

guizmop replied to your photoset: ~ Louise Glück

are you trying to end me for good i’ll just stare at this for the rest of my life

I thought making this would stop me from shaking but GAAAAH NOOOO

they deserved a soft epilogue AND THEY GOT IT ASDFGHJKJHFJDKSD

[visenyatargaryn]

feanarofinwion replied to your post “black sails fam I need your help. I’m working on a gifset with the...”

did you ever post this one? bc i'd love to see it, great idea :) i agree w/ guizmop on pretty much all btw, only i'd choose Aphrodite for Max and Athena for Eleanor, maybe Hera for Miranda?, and for Silver Hermes rather than Hades, i'm trying to think of one for Jack but idek :p

I haven’t gotten around to it yet actually but that’s what I was thinking as well! As for Jack I was going to use Apollo :)

[squid-inspiration]

#not sure it really is one of charlotte's design#but it's my headcanon now <3  (by @guizmop)

Honestly, to me it hadn’t occured that it could be in doubt?

Now, if we were talking real life, then I’d agree that we can’t be sure, bc life isn’t designed to be meaningful and symbolic on all levels. (Oh hi, Silver! How’s your existentialism?)

Maybe Jack sat down and sketched it himself, maybe Max is secretly a great artist, maybe somebody on Jack’s new crew had a sexy skull tattoo that inspired him to create his new logo, maybe somebody doodled it drunk and Jack happened to like it!

However, as with any narrative, Black Sails is carefully crafted, certainly with more attention to detail than most, and there is only limited screentime. We can’t just waste time on insignificant things (well, there are parts that I think could have done with less time bc I’m a human being with my own specific tastes and there’s stuff in Black Sails I don’t adore; but even those parts have been carefully placed where they are because the creators considered them important) so whatever is there, is there with a reason. 

Charlotte’s main distinction in the story is that she draws the designs for the flag. She doesn’t play much of a role beyond that - of course she has the whole Logan thing going, and is then killed by Anne, but the most memorable part of her character is her artistic struggle to please Jack. To devote not just one but several scenes to that little subplot and then have the flag’s design be someone else’s creation without any remark upon it would plain be bad storytelling. It would be a set-up with no pay-off, and we all know how much Black Sails loves its pay-offs. 

And then of course there’s the recall to Charlotte by Idelle, which draws attention to that character when any other narrative would have left it and no one would have noticed. I’ve discussed with my live-watch buddies how S4 in general “feels like S1″ - by which is meant that many threads are picked up again that haven’t been mentioned in forever. It’s truly the season of pay-offs for parts you didn’t even know you needed resolved. Mr Gates died way back, but his death is brought up and directly linked to the journal he left behind, his legacy that shapes the present. Same for the offhand mention of the Guthries’ machinations in Philadelphia. Same for Richard Guthrie’s casual prediction that Eleanor would die “by [...] Spanish sword”. Same for James McGraw’s tale of Governor Thompson’s throat being slit by one of Blackbeard’s men. Same for the constant hovering presence of Henry Avery that finds its conclusion in the old pirate guiding Jack to Skeleton Island. (More or less.)

That’s why, lacking any in-universe indication that anyone else had spent time designing the Jolly Roger, it is to me a safe assumption that it is of Charlotte’s making.

In Praise of Charlotte & Female Legacy

Strap yourselves in, crew, because I Have Thoughts.

I’ll start this off by repeating (with some changes & additions) what I wrote in another reblog about the theme of female narratives on Black Sails.

Black Sails is incredible not just for its queer representation but also its women and, even more incredibly, its commitment to female relationships, women supporting each other, and female legacy.

Idelle always stood by Max, and when Max started her steep social climb, she never forgot about the friend by her side and pulled her up along with her, as she put to use the skills she herself had learnt from another woman: Eleanor.

Madi adored and was inspired by her father, but it’s her mother that has raised her and taught her the leadership that sets her apart from every other character on the show. I’d argue that none of the men, not Flint nor Silver nor Billy nor anyone else, is as accomplished a leader as Madi, and it’s no coincidence she learnt a great deal of that from her mother.

Even though we never get to fully delve into that aspect on the show, the profound impact of losing her mother has forever shaped Eleanor, who started her life-long quest of legitimizing Nassau in response to her mother’s statement that it was “no place for a little girl”. As Hannah New said, this made her determined to be „the girl that makes sure no more women die the way [her] mother died.“

Marion Guthrie is not just a woman in power, she’s a woman who wanted to pass on her legacy and skills to her granddaughter. When she learns of Eleanor’s death she recognizes a kindred spirit in Max, who finally gets to see modeled for her the kind of person she could be, that Eleanor could have been. Even if she turns down Marion’s first offer, this relationship is massively important to Max and must have widened her horizon immeasurably by showing her just what is possible. Marion immediately chooses to bestow her inheritance on Max in lieu of Eleanor, wanting her life’s work and power to remain in a woman’s hands.

Heck, add Mrs Hudson conspiring with Mrs Mapleton, or Eleanor and Miranda’s initiative that saved Abigail, or Mrs Mapleton’s continued work for Max, or Madi drumming up support by talking to Eme, or her nigh-prophetic talk with Ruth.

And all this isn’t even going into the romantic or not-supportive relationships between women!

However, within the universe of the show, as in real life, women’s achievements are often dismissed or forgotten by the larger narrative. Even if they leave visible fingerprints in history, the hand that made them is often forced to stay invisible.

Marion Guthrie is pulling the strings behind the scenes, Max can only run Nassau by using Featherstone as the face of her rule, and Eleanor’s efforts for Nassau on Rogers’ behalf were never going to be remembered by the history books. Civilized society allows them no other venue to visibly hold power. Eleanor, Max, Madi and the Maroon Queen could carve out spaces of open sovereignty only outside of civilization, in places that were created with the express purpose of existing outside of mainstream society. In real life, they would likely go on to leave no visible trace of their contributions and relentless struggle for influence.

So let’s get to the main course. 

Charlotte, who unwittingly and against all odds has the most visible and longest-lasting legacy of all female characters, possibly all characters, period.

To start off let’s appreciate Idelle confronting Anne about Charlotte’s murder in 408. (Which is an exceptionally good episode for the female cast, and was - surprise! - written and directed by women.) 

In any other show, Charlotte would never have been mentioned again. She was a minor character, and a prostitute to boot, and we all know how media likes to treat women like that. But Black Sails, even if it took 20+ episodes, reminded us that she wasn’t just cannon fodder, that her death was impactful and cruel, and that she left a legacy in the people she surrounded herself with, be that Idelle’s friendship and loyalty or Jack’s pirate flag - which leads us to my main point here.

Can we acknowledge that the symbol that goes on to represent pirates forever was designed by a woman? 

Yes, Rackham gives directions and gets to popularize it, but the show went and took this important piece of pirate mythology and entrusted it to the hands of a young woman of low circumstances. 

The show could easily have had Jack himself draw the motif, he is after all a creative man with a background in textile design, and his most defining character trait is his wish to design his own legacy. Instead, we get more than one scene of Charlotte struggling to fullfill a difficult client’s demands. (And isn’t that relatable to everyone who has ever created art on commission!) And two episodes before the final reveal, the narrative makes sure to remind us of this seemingly unremarkable woman and what happened to her. Her involvement was significant and the show doesn’t allow us to forget. If it had only ever been about setting up the punchline (”it’s fine”) for the final reveal, there would have been no need to draw so much focus to her untimely demise in 408, at a time when all plot threads were coming to their end, when everyone was scrambling for the finish line.

Rackham, by grumbling that it’s “fine”, relinquishes ownership to some degree: it’s the first time he sees it as it will henceforth be recognized as his insignia, and further down history, the ultimate symbol of piracy itself. He didn’t design it, Charlotte did, and her inheritance is the one that, within the world of Black Sails, will live on when Rogers has returned to Nassau and every pirate has been hanged, when all bones have crumbled to dust and all our heroes have been reduced to monsters by history. Any child alive today will easily recognize the skull and crossbones, but how many can recite the deeds of Calico Jack Rackham? Or that it as Woodes Rogers that brought Nassau to heel? So even if Jack went on to make it the icon it is, the symbol far outlived his own infamy.

And finally, when Jack has already turned away to deal with ship’s business, it is Anne that spends a moment longer looking at the flag, maybe even remembering its origins - the woman whose premature death she is responsible for. And it is Anne that has the final words of the show, ordering the crew to “Get us underway!”

Flint knows that as a deviant man, he will likely be remembered as a monster along with his fellow pirates. A woman’s legacy, on the other hand, is often glossed over and forgotten by history, like Max and Marion Guthrie’s power behind the scenes, like Charlotte’s contribution to history.

Black Sails reminds us of the stories that real life history distorts by diminishing those on the fringes.

And that’s why to me, Black Sails is an incredible statement on female legacy.