The outcome is only uncertain for those who disbelieve.

  Kings being negative together.

(not for long tho)

JANELLE MONÁE 2019 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival, California (April 19, 2019)

One of the MANY things I find really cool about black sails season 2 (seriously, I think its absolutely the best season of any TV show ever) is they way they use Ned Lowe and peter Ashe as sort of bookend villains.

The season starts with this guy who looks and acts like he got lost on his way to the game of thrones set. They make it seem like he’s going to be the big bad of the season, he’s the epitome of cartoonish villainy. He’s got an evil scar, he gets a creepy villain monologue, he makes gross rapey threats, he carve a dudes head off in broad daylight, he is 100% aware of his own villain status… then his over the top psychotic antics get him killed three episodes in (in any other show he’d inexplicably last 5 seasons just to manufacture cheap tension and drama and it would be boring as hell)

Then there’s peter Ashe, the only other true (living at least) antagonist of the season, and he only shows up (in present time) for the last three episodes. If Lowe seems like a typical TV villain, Ashe is exactly what real world “villains” are. He doesn’t get a villain monologue, he doesn’t ACTIVELY do much of anything, and that’s kind of the point. Its terrifyingly easy for someone to be a peter Ashe. He’s a passive, lawful good citizen. He’ll act helpful when it doesn’t cost him anything, but the moment things get rough, he’ll throw his friends under the bus and say he had no choice. He may not be actively homophobic like Alfred Hamilton, but he’s also to weak to stand up to him, and for that the show treats him as just as much of a villain. He’s the ultimate bystander, horrible things happen because he steps back and lets them, not because he actively causes them, and I fucking LOVE that this show makes it very clear that that is just as bad.

Lowe was a red herring; the real villain of the season was just a dude who repeatedly allowed injustice happen because it was easy. THAT’S how you do an amazing and unsettlingly real villain, you don’t need cardboard cutout psychopaths.

Tbh this show never resorts to the lazy villain tropes that the majority of TV shows use, but season 2 does such an amazing job of teasing that cliche and then completely turning it on its head.

They took everything from us. And then they called me a monster. The moment I sign that pardon, the moment I ask for one, I proclaim to the world that they were right. This ends when I grant them my forgiveness, not the other way around.

#oh my god okay i dont know if this makes sense#i dont know if my thoughts translated all that well onto screen#but here it is anyway#the point of this gifset is that their story was very much similar to silver and flint’s story#james and miranda both went through a drastic change in the past ten years#they both became monsters in their own way#flint was the villian in the story the world has been writing and she the cheating wife before they named her the devil’s accomplice#(thomas was the tragic character; the victim of their monstrosity)#like silver and flint they were on the brink of a major change.. they stumbled upon a chance for absolution and justice#and they failed because someone else wanted to continue writing their life in a way they did not want it to go#but what breaks my heart the most is that miranda was so close to something resembling a life again#(she didn’t even know just HOW CLOSE.. literally.. thomas was just a few days ride away and peter knew)#she had long ago made peace with being the victim of scrutiny and rumors#but in that one and only moment when letting go and forgiving those who hurt her mattered the most.. she couldn’t#because she loved too much; cared too much; hurt and witnessed her loved one get hurt too much#for that one fleeting moment she took back control of her life and soared before they silenced her for good#when the same thing happened months later.. flint facing another betrayal from a friend threatening with a gun aimed at his chest#flint chose peace#but at the cost of everything else he stood for#in the end neither he nor she got justice for the accusations thrown at them for all those years; no apology#they both went down in history as the false characters the civilization had created#and while in the end flint got some measure of peace.. there is still a tragedy underlying his journey towards that end#anyway im dead (via @captain-flint)

You’re not concerned about this? Concerned? Well, you say you’ll be teaching me to fight. But if every man fights differently, seems to me what you’ll really be teaching me is how to defeat you.

I’ll take my chances.

Here’s another thing I’ve been thinking about that I think Black Sails pulled off really well.

I’ve seen so many debates about whether what Silver chose in the end was the right thing to do, whether it was selfish or done out of love, whether it was moral or immoral. They’re all good points too, beautifully explained and argumented.  

But essentially, what I think is that lot of the show’s motives boiled down to this one particular question: is it worth to spend your life pursuing a fight for a better world in the long run, or find a way, a simpler way, to live a life worth living while you can? And ultimately, is it worth to sacrifice one for the other? 

And as many times as they had touched on that question, I think in the end, there is no right answer to that. How can there be when the question itself is anything but simple? Anything but black and white?

This show has always been about the grays in between, and I don’t think the ending is an exception. There’s no right choice. No one way, no perfect answer. We all make choices under the circumstances of the given moment. We all think the choice is the right one, or we would not be making it. We’re all shaped by different experiences, molded into the person we are today and as such our judgement of what makes up a life’s worth will differ. 

I think in a way, that’s the whole point. Just like how none of the character fates felt final, just like how it all felt like a conclusion of a chapter but not the end of the story, just like how it was both an ending and a beginning — this choice too was a part of a life, of a story that keeps unfolding. I think there’s something real, something raw in that; that instead of feeding us an answer, a moral of the story, it all teaches us that life is far more complex, and that sometimes the truth of it is that there is no answer at all. 

Captain James Flint in S02E04 of Black Sails.

(♥ for @witchec and @biclarkent ♥ )

“Infinite lifespan, finite memory. It makes for an awkward social life.”

Max by atlantiss505

“Is it a sad song?” “Nothing’s sad till it’s over… Then everything is.” “What’s it called?” “I think that it’s called Clara.” “Tell me about her…”

Viola Davis on Amanda Waller - Jimmy Kimmel Live! (June 16, 2015).

Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man they say murdered three. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where the dead man called out for his love to flee. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free. Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree. Are you, are you Coming to the tree Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree

The Hanging Tree, from Mockingjay part 1 score (HQ version)