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Black Sails I: Revelation of Flint
"It's done! Wouldn't you agree?"
My name is Cassandra and it's been two years since I first let Jonathan Steinberg and Robert Levine's pirate show 'Black Sails' into my head. Seeing as it is still very much there, I decided that I had to do Something about it. This is the first of likely many Things, and also marks the first time in...longer than I care to remember, really, that I drew and finished the piece I started. There is a fierce joy to be found in creation. Happy first day of letting the beast free to me! You have been warned.
Black Sails I: "A YOUNG SAILOR enters."
COOK: Oh, so you're a coward then?
JOHN SILVER YOUNG SAILOR: Yeah. You too?
Item the first: Where do I begin with John Silver? Actually, let's start from a different angle. John Silver begins Here, no sooner and no later than he sees The Opportunity (though he does not know the Narrative has chosen him just yet, nor that aligning his fiscal goals with those of Captain Flint will irrevocably alter the course of his life) and he takes it.
My first impression of John Silver is that he was a cheeky bastard an impish scoundrel who was possessed of the bad habit of biting off more than he could chew and just enough strategic/ballsy charm to walk away relatively unscathed. I was drawn in by the fact that he was equipped with a dashing smile, at least before, you know, everything that followed, but you could tell behind his big blue eyes that he was playing some sort of 4D Chess.
I would like to credit the writers, showrunners, and actor man Luke Arnold for unfolding this character like a map with only half a key. He intrigues me, he infuriates me, I hate him forever, I love and forgive him implicitly, I cringe when he makes me think of myself. That rare sense of unbalance and discomfort brought on by a story is something I will treasure and hope to even come close to brushing against again. There is a John Silver imprint on my heart, thanks to this story, my own personal Black Spot.
Louise Barnes, Nick Boraine, Zach McGowan, Luke Arnold and Jon Steinberg finally reunited in LA for Black Sails screening on Netflix!
Source: Daphne Olive on twitter
Anne Bonny being shown as accepting of gentle, caring touches. Anne who lets the people who love her bandage her wounds. Anne who suffers greatly but trusts deeply in the ability of her loved ones to take her bloody hands in theirs and never let go. Anne, who gets to walk away from all of this with daggers in her belt and someone waiting for her at sea and on the shore.
John Silver, who never lets himself be handled with tenderness in moments of extreme vulnerability, maybe because he does not trust it, does not know what to do with it, is afraid of what it could mean, what it could cost him. We do not see it. The narrative grants him that one small boon.
At the end of the day, one disappears from the story. The other disappears into it.
Jack and Max tending to Anne's injured hands
One thing I love about the Black Sails fandom is y’all know how to write a damn textpost. I’ve read some meta commentary from you guys and every single one is thought provoking and makes me obsessed with the show all over again. And hearing everyone share their unique perspective and subtle themes they notice/obsess over brings me joy.
I want her looking as sharp and saucy as ever, maybe eating from a plate of mangoes, pineapple, and citrus.
Artist Unknown
"Fruit, Fruit, Tits, Tits", 1715
Oil on Canvas
idelle is so hot I want to put her in a painting
NATIONAL HOLIDAY
[ID: Two screencaps from Black Sails ep X showing John SIlver standing alone beneath a skylight in the ship's galley. Captions show him saying "An account of goings-on, volume the first on this 13th day in June". End ID]
black sails is actually insane, after every episode i was pacing the floor, hands clasped behind my back. there is just, so much to think about. My brain chemistry is forever changed, my life is ruined, 10/10 would recommend 👍
watching the scene where flint kills singleton and i'm clapping and cheering and shouting 'that's my girl!' like I'm an over-enthusiastic mom watching my daughters spring dance recital
Maybe it's my black sails bias but so far I'm on John Silvers side in Treasure Island. With how ableist the book and the 'good' characters are to him, he deserves to commit crimes and cause problems.
They could never make me hate you babygirl
in honor of me finally noticing the little braids in Silvers hair in the later seasons
Silver left his side for a couple weeks and flint is trying to cope
"...you and I would be a hell of a lot better off as partners than as rivals."
“When the Beloved Asks, ‘What Would You Do If You Woke Up and I Was a Shark?,’” Natalie Diaz
My lover doesn’t realize that I’ve contemplated this scenario, fingered it like the smooth inner iridescence of a nautilus shell in the shadow-long waters of many 2 a.m.s—drunk on the brine of shoulder blades, those pale horns of shore I am wrecked upon, my mind treading the wine-dark waves of luxuria’s tempests– as a matter of preparedness, and because I do not sleep for fear of such things, and even other things—I’ve read that the ocean is a large pot of Apocalypse soup soon to boil over with our sins– but a thing is a thing, especially if it’s a 420-million-year-old beast, especially if you have wronged as many as I. Beauty, it is simple, more simple than a beloved can imagine: I wouldn’t fight, not kick, flail, not carry on like one driven mad by the black neoprene wetsuit of death, not like sad-mouthed, despair-eyed albacore nor blubbery pinnipeds, wouldn’t rage the city’s flickering streets of Ampullae of Lorenzini, nor slug my ferocious, streamlined lover’s titanium white nose, that bull’s-eye of cartilage, no, I wouldn’t prolong it. Instead, I’d place my head onto that dark altar of jaws, prostrated pilgrim at Melville’s glittering gates, climb into that mysterious window starred with teeth—the one lit room in the charnel house. I, at once mariner, at once pirate, would navigate my want by those throbbing constellations. I’d wear those jaws like a toothy cilice, slip into the glitzy red gown of penance, and it would be no different than what I do each day—voyaging the salt-sharp sea of your body, sometimes mooring the ports or sighting the sextant, then mending the purple sails and hoisting the masts before being bound to them. Be-loved, is loved, what you cannot know is I am overboard for this metamorphosis, ready to be raptured to that mouth, reduced to a swell of wet clothes, as you roll back your eyes and drag me into the fathoms.
the thing about the black sails finale is that dead/alive is a false dichotomy, which is why there lingers this need to vote for a secret third thing. it has roots in the same false dichotomy of victim/perpetrator that silver cannot get himself out of, that eleanor cannot get herself out of, that silver tries to put madi into, that max understands and weaponizes, that vane crawls out of at his very end. the answer is that james escapes the narrative, or rather the narrative can no longer contain him. the question of james flint or james mcgraw is a false dichotomy that can no longer contain him. he becomes the secret third thing, or is becoming it, in season four. he is unmade because he is removed. as far as the story is concerned, he is dead, because the storyteller can no longer conceive of what he has become.
Nick Cave covers Leonard Cohen’s ‘Avalanche’ again, 30 years after From Her to Eternity, for Season 2 of Starz's Black Sails