#maybe silver ? or black?

[futuristichedge]

Someone I am not

[idontwikeit]

No, no, no… you've got it all wrong… you can't act death. The fact of it is nothing to do with seeing it happen - it's not gasps and blood and falling about - that isn't what makes it death. It's just a man failing to reappear, that's all - now you see him, now you don't that's the only thing that's real: here one minute and gone the next and never coming back - an exit, unobtrusive and unannounced, a disappearance gathering weight as it goes on, until, finally, it is heavy with death.

-Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

for @annevbonny

[lizzybeeee]

DATV explaining the 'Regret Prison'

A REGRET PRISON IS STUPID AND I'M TIRED OF PRETENDING THAT ITS NOT

TL;DR: a prison can serve as a metaphor but it shouldn't be entirely comprised of a metaphor.

From what I understood from what the game gave us: Solas has made a new prison to move the God's too - since bringing down the veil would free them from the Black City. This new prison is separate(?) from the fade or so far removed/contained that bringing down the veil would not compromise it...apparently. We interrupt his ritual, Solas gets sucked into the new prison he made, and the elven gods are free.

When Rook gets kicked into the fade they're physically there - which means it's a physical place in the fade, like how it was a mixture of physical/thought when we entered it in DAI. Which makes sense - the gods are real and living beings, they need to be in a place, there must be some aspect of physicality to it.

Alright, cool, it's a Black City 2.0 - I assume it's better defended to prevent people breaking in/out again?

NOPE.

We get there and it's a 'regret prison'?? It's tied to the regrets of those within it? Composed of regrets??? Solas had to wait for the right moment for Rook to be sufficiently 'full of regret' that they could switch places?

So is the prison tied to Solas's regrets? If so, how can Rook escape? The prison seems to work around the idea that it relies on the regrets of the person it's holding to work - which is how/why Rook was able to be trapped and later free themselves (along with whatever remains of the team apparently being able to do something on their end, not that we hear about it).

WHICH IS STUPID!

Are you telling me the prison intended to hold to megalomaniac elven gods was going to imprison them based on their own regrets? Is Solas assuming that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are as self-pitying as he is? They'd break out quicker than Rook did! He made a time out corner for the elven gods to sit in and gave them an out if they reflected on their emotions/regrets or decided that they don't regret what they did. Elgar'nan, a spirit of tyranny, is not going to 'regret' his actions - he is going to justify them by telling himself and others that he knows what's best.

We can come across some of Solas's regrets in the prison if you run around a bit and explore:

Remnant of Failure - talking about the orb from Inquisition.

Remnant of Parting - talking about Mythal

Remnant of Reflection - more vague, talking about the Titans I believe.

So maybe he altered it - maybe he intended the prison to be 'locked' with his own regrets because after a millennia of having a pity party he still can't bring himself to self-reflect and look to the future. But what if Solas died? Or if his guilt lessened - would it diminish the strength of the regret prison?

We already have pre-established lore (though DATV has shown they don't really give a crap tbh) that once the being that has claimed/altered an area of the fade is slain, it's influence diminishes both in and outside of the fade. So if the prison was tied to his regrets then it would require Solas to basically live forever to keep it stable - especially if he brought down the veil and removed the one barrier that kept the world and the fade apart.

Rook and Solas needed some assistance to exit - but it doesn't seem like it was much! Solas used his dagger and Rook just...got out through a fade tear? This is Solas's 'more secure' second prison? It has a worse track record than the Black City! If Rook - who is not an elven god - managed to escape the regret prison what is to stop anyone else from breaking in and out of the prison?

And what did Solas intend to do with the blight - the bulk of which is apparently in the black city?? If bringing down the Veil would free the gods in the black city doesn't that mean that the blight would also be released?! Did he have a plan? Why does he go fully ahead with bringing down the veil at the end if the black city is still there and filled with blight?!

I get it: the 'regret prison' is a metaphor for how Solas holds onto the past and how Rook can move past their regrets and grow. He's trapped by the past - it's a prison. Cool. But this prison is supposed to by a physical place to contain the gods - not just to solely contain Solas. The mission is literally called 'A Cage for Gods'.

The Black City is an actual place that's so far out of reach of anywhere else in the fade that no mage can ever reach it while in dreams - let alone physically, which was only done once and took tremendous effort/blood sacrifices. It made sense - it was cool to see floating in the sky in DAO!

Though it's not said specifically, it's strongly implied that Arlathan is the Black City. You can see in the concept art that floating elven city is exactly the same as the black city in DAO! It's this foreboding thing just lurking in the sky - a constant reminder of the sin that led to the horrors of the blights and darkspawn. A real place with lore and history that also serves as a metaphor for the hubris and destruction of those who call themselves gods and act as tyrants -> for both the evanuris and the magisters.

I WANT TO UNDERSTAND THIS BIOWARE!

WHAT IS THIS KINGDOM HEARTS NONSENSE???!!

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[magicgirlboss]

john silver - i'm your man

[brotherconstant]

BLACK SAILS || XX.

I'm useless to 'em up top. Gotta do my part somehow.

[amber-tortoiseshell]

Cat report

Today i was walking in the neighbourhood, and saw such a silver cat!

It had amazing white undercoat, a real treat for me. I tried to take photos, but mostly was too busy petting the cat

Bonus: i also met a red tabby 😊

[mossspond]

Sea dog(s)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

[asaethiel]

two of many attempts to figure out his Shapes

[buckwildrabbitry]

8 doubloons

[the-call-of-the-ocean]

Going mad over Silver being told “The crew will look after you” in the final episode of season two as the crew’s surgeon is about to cut off his leg despite Silver’s repeated pleas that he doesn’t want him to, and part of it may be due to the unbearable pain he’s in, but I don’t think that’s all of it.

Randall died one episode ago. When Billy introduced Silver to him at the beginning of season one, he said that Randall had been injured while in service of this crew and that the crew owed it to him to take care of him despite his infirmity — because of his infirmity. As a disabled man, Randall has no future outside Flint’s crew in the harsh world they live in.

Silver knows this. As we approach the end of season two, he’s slowly becoming a true member of the crew, “I” becomes “we” and “the men” becomes “my men” or “my brothers,” but he can still walk away from them if he chooses to do so. By cutting off his leg, even with the best intentions in the world, the crew is tying him to them more securely than any contract or blood pact to these men and — for the time being — to Flint’s captaincy. His very ability to walk away from them is literally being limited, which we see in the beginning of season three as he struggles with his new wooden leg.

Silver has gained the infinite loyalty of these men at the price of his leg and maybe even of his independence — he can still leave them and try his luck elsewhere, he knows how to make himself useful, but no matter how charismatic he is, the first thing people will probably always see is his wooden leg. He has become Randall. Despite being in the throes of immense pain, I think Silver realized what he was about to lose. Even if a part of him had still been entertaining the possibility that this was just a temporary situation, from this point on, he has no choice but to serve these men to the best of his ability because now they’re in a symbiotic relationship.

It’s a very grim answer to the question his entire season two arc is asking: where does he belong? What is his place in the world? In the end, he who held most of the cards in his hands at one point is not being given a choice: he’s staying here, with this crew, echoing the question Flint asked him earlier in the season — where else in the world would you wake up and matter like this? It’s the only place left in the world where he can matter now. The infinite possibilities have collapsed down to one. The man who wanted everything, who could be anyone, is now forced into a single role and can only play it genuinely.

[beyhr]

im diseased

[sunflowerseraph]

Hi guys. Jake lockley among us suit

[angeibody]

whatever the hell of an attempt this was

[canarydraws]

It’s been a while since I shared anything sorry guys! Have this messy sketch I kind of like

[familiar-smile]

I've been thinking about comedy and tragedy in Black Sails. I've been thinking about Silver and Flint and mutability. The thing that stuck with me most from reading Shakespeare in high school English was this: my teacher told us that what separates a comedy from a tragedy is the characters' ability to change. Mutability allows characters to escape tragic narratives, to work differently inside of them.

Silver is a comic character—that's how he survives. He comes into the show with no history, and he believes so strongly in his detachment from the narrative that out of everyone, he is the most surprised by his sacrifice for his crew in season 2. He wields his mutability consciously, and it makes him unpredictable and amusing.

But Black Sails is Flint's story, Flint's tragedy, and Silver gets sucked into it. There's so much talk of inevitability in Black Sails—"this is not what I wanted" over and over again. We've known from the very beginning that Flint wants to walk away from the ocean and find peace. Leave "Flint" behind. I think that's one of the central questions of the show: can Flint change? Can he turn away from his darkness?

Season 2 revolves around that question, draws us into that conflict around Flint's image. How close did he come to setting "Flint" aside and being unmasked? But after Miranda's death, there's no turning back. The timing of Flint's final descent into his own darkness matches Silver's first signs of being tied to something correspond so exactly. Does Silver lose his mutability in this moment? I wonder if the loss of his leg takes that away from him, too. It connects him to a past, implies a lived history...

By seasons 3 and 4, Silver has followed Flint into the darkness, but I'm really interested in the subtler shift from Silver as this comedic schemer/shape-shifter to someone who becomes trapped in a space where it seems there are few real choices. He forever sees himself as an outsider, but that final scene between Flint and Silver is equally tragic for both characters. Silver is so intimately involved with Flint's tragic arc that the story and the tragedy have become Silver's by the end.