#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

[magicgirlboss]

john silver - i'm your man

[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

[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.

[donnapalude]

we have a lot of ahahs about flint having gay panic while holding silver at knifepoint in 201 (and i am sure he was) but i often think about how it's also a very defining moment for him in starting to see silver as a serious threat. up until now, silver has done moderately smart things in his presence, but he has been careful about not overdoing it. the insight about the boatswain's whistle is the first time he genuinely outsmarts flint, thinking about a better plan than he could come up with.

and i think the evidence that flint is really taking that in comes a few episodes later. when in 207 flint makes his point that "those men listen to you...where else would you wake up in the morning and matter?" it seems like an intuition that comes a bit out of nowhere, one of those broad statements that flint often makes because he is better at reading masses than specific people and he believes that, statistically, he will hit something. but, thinking back, this is almost exactly the same argument silver used in 201 to manipulate him. to earn his trust he plays on flint's isolation by underscoring "i'm the only person within a hundred miles of here who doesn't want to see you dead". the manipulation is imperfect. it's in silver-speak and, therefore, about survival, which flint cares less about than reputation (silver has not had this epiphany yet). still it partially works, but more importantly it alerts flint to the fact that silver is in the exact same situation and that saving flint is an extreme act of desperation to have anyone on his side. also, that silver thinking this is an effective point could potentially be very revealing about what his priorities are. so he files it away. and when he needs to convince silver to stay he brings it out to see if it sticks. but the manipulation is also imperfect. it was translated in flint-speak in transit which means that it's now about reputation, which silver cares less about than survival. still it partially works. and so on.