#making this unrebloggable purely bc I don't want it circulating to people who will inevitably get pissed about it like people always do 💆

[gaysails]

hoping this is not an example of "the worst black sails takes on earth" but i genuinely want to know why it is that you, and some others fans, insist on taking creators' words outside of the script as canon facts about anne and flint's sexualities. personally i interpret both of them as gay at least most of the time so i'm not even disagreeing, but i don't see why thinking otherwise should get such harsh reactions. is it dismissal of the notion of death of the author? enlighten me?

okay here goes

crucially, word of god is not the only factor here. flint and anne are depicted as gay in text. this gets lost on some people and understandably so. black sails is a show rich with unspoken motives and feelings; these characters in 1715 have completely different language and frames of reference for sexuality compared to what modern audiences are used to; the narrative intentionally manipulates the audience's perception of flint's sexuality in order to pull off the s2 reveal; anne's storyline begins with her still believing herself to be straight and even her realizing that she's attracted to max doesn't change her feelings for jack at the time; etc

but again, putting writer commentary aside and strictly going off what is in the text of the show, these are not bisexual characters. there's no evidence of flint enthusiastically engaging in a sexual relationship with miranda. period. it does not exist in the text and I defy anyone to point me to where it does. we're shown them having sex twice (explicitly in 1.04 and implicitly in 2.03) and both times miranda is the active partner. both times we are shown flint's discomfort around the act (in 1.04 during as well as afterwards, and in 2.04 when miranda alludes to that carriage ride from the previous episode). there is absolutely nothing that suggests he takes pleasure in it. as for why he goes along with it, that question is never addressed in text so we can only make educated guesses. but what is textual is that these are the ONLY two sexual encounters between them that the writers chose to give us. and there's no basis there for assuming they ever had a mutually enjoyable sex life offscreen. it's never shown, never implied, it simply is not there.

wrt anne, she states more than once that she feels like she owes sex/a relationship to jack because of what he did for her. we see two sex scenes with them as well, where anne isn't passive, but she's also never facing jack. her "coming out" scene in 2.10 can't include terms like gay or lesbian because this is a period piece – but she explicitly tells jack that she can be a partner to him but not a wife, that with him sex felt like something she was obligated to do but with max it's because she wants it. this is surface level, this is not subtext, this is a lesbian telling her former lover they can't be in a sexual relationship anymore. and after that scene they're not! they stop sharing a bed. anne moves in with max while jack moves into the governor's mansion. in 3.02 jack complains that the only time he gets to see anne is when she comes to deliver messages from max. even after anne and max break up, there's no indication that anne goes back to sleeping with jack. what we do see is that they kiss once in 3.08 and once in 4.07, and an emotional kiss between two soulmates in a life-and-death scenario is not in and of itself an allusion to sex. silver and madi share a similar kiss in 4.03 but the context is entirely different – we saw them naked and post-coital in bed two episodes earlier. if the story meant for us to understand that anne and jack resumed their former relationship, there would have been some context for that. again, it doesn't exist.

still people continue to watch black sails and leave with the impression that flint and/or anne are bisexual, despite the text contradicting that when examined. I've been in the fandom for six years and have seen people put forth all kinds of justifications for handwaving what's in the text, or for projecting alternate readings that don't hold up in full context (ignoring why miranda is SO happy to be having such bad sex with the pastor, for example). plus as I mentioned at the start, there are a number of factors in play that make pinning down the text in this regard intentionally tricky. so yeah at a certain point it becomes tiresome in my eyes to argue what's onscreen canon and it's much easier to simply say These Characters Were Written As Gay And Here's The Showrunner Confirming It. and in my personal experience nine times out of ten the person hearing this will say "yeah but I don't agree with it, death of the author, my interpretation is valid," etc... which is incredibly frustrating to constantly hear. someone deciding that a character who was consciously, thoughtfully, and meaningfully crafted to be capital g Gay is actually bi because they think that's a better option – it's disrespectful. it's not remotely the same as taking a character who is textually straight and arguing for a bi reading. that's fair game. but we don't get to willfully appropriate gay characters as bi, OR bi characters as gay, not without metaphorically spitting in the face of someone else in our community. and after six years of this discourse I do tend to be harsh about it when sometimes I shouldn't be. I'm a dyke with a fandom blog, it comes with the territory.