The outcome is only uncertain for those who disbelieve.

Toby Stephens on his favourite TV Show growing up.

“’Black Sails’ reimagines representation in period dramas by making it integral to the show itself.

Flint’s internal struggle is not figuring out or discovering his sexuality – rather Flint’s character arc exists entirely because of his sexuality. His sexuality is not a prop meant to bolster another more important character or storyline. James Flint would quite simply not exist if he had not fallen in love with another man. Indeed, few plots on the show would exist if not for the fact that various women fell in love with women and men with men.

The driving narrative of this show is the battle for Nassau, a battle waged because of Flint’s love for another man and because this love was taken from him. 

Flint is seen as a monster by England — he is a vicious pirate, guilty of innumerable crimes. He was a monster to them before he did any of that, though — he is told his relationship with Thomas is too loathsome and profane to be forgiven, and he is cast out because of it. The trope of the predatory homosexual is deeply rooted in our society. Homoerotic undertones in supernatural fiction have long cast gay people as monsters. 

“Black Sails” takes this trope and attacks it. The show insists, rightfully so, that LGBTQ+ people have always existed, but it does not sugarcoat that existence. “They hang men for this,” Mrs. Hamilton tells Flint hours before their worlds all come crashing down, and she is right. Regardless of whether he’s a pirate or a respectable lieutenant, Flint will always be a monster to England, because of his sexuality.

In the third season, our crew is stranded on an island housing a matriarchal colony of marooned and escaped slaves. These people have formed a society entirely in secret. They exist outside the grasp of England’s fist because the crown does not know they exist.  “Black Sails” is about people who have been cast out of society, it is about “monsters.” They are gay, women, marooned and escaped slaves. They don’t exist within civilization because civilization cannot allow them to exist. Their very presence challenges the entire façade, because civilization only survives if people cannot imagine it any other way.

In one of the most powerful scenes of the four-season show, Flint acknowledges this construct: “They paint the world full of shadows, and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments. Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn’t true. We can prove that it isn’t true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it.” The significance of an explicitly gay character making this declaration cannot be overstated.

For a shining moment, the show allows you to imagine a world in which this coalition of outcasts won. An alternate reality in which the New World was wrenched from England’s hands by an alliance of gay and black men and women. Of course, we know they did not win. Homophobia would become the law of the land in the New World, same as the Old. Slavery would flourish, and the world as we know it today would be built on the backs of enslaved peoples.

So what, then, is the point of “Black Sails”? It is just a story, with very little basis in history. Why imagine a world that could have been when we have to live in the one we have? Thinking of his happiness with his male love, author E.M. Forster once wrote “I see beyond my own happiness and intimacy, occasional glimpses of the happiness of thousands of others whose names I shall never hear, and I know that there is a great unrecorded history.”

“Black Sails” is imagining one of those thousands of unrecorded histories.

The show is an examination of the stories we create of, for and about ourselves. It is about how our narratives are wrested from us and twisted, and it is about how we fight to reclaim those narratives for ourselves. It is the lies we construct and the lies we are told, and the eternal struggle to maintain some truth in the midst of both.

The series closes with a character insisting that, “A story is true. A story is untrue. As time extends, it matters less and less. The stories we want to believe. … Those are the ones that survive, despite upheaval and transition, and progress. Those are the stories that shape history.”

We know from the beginning of the show that Flint’s war against England and civilization itself will not succeed. England’s power eventually waned, yes, but not before piracy was crushed and slavery was firmly entrenched. Homosexuality was still a criminal offense in my lifetime. Despite all of this, “Black Sails” is the power of stories we create in opposition to the stories civilization is built on. As long as we can tell those stories, we exist.

As long as we exist, we triumph.”

-Danielle Hilborn

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‘cause sunny days are my favorite days 🌞

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some of u bitches r trying your hardest to stay positive and hopeful despite all the bullshit you’ve been going thru and it really shows and i’m proud of u

“Though I loved Snowpiercer, Fury Road is my preferred representation of what revolution can look like because it includes not only the oppressed, but the oppressors, recognizing that so many people have inside of them a mixture of both. Furiosa is a hero, but she has also been a villain. She is a victim and a victimizer. Though we don’t see it, she has presumably done terrible things to rise up the social ladder of this society and gain the respect and trust of Immortan Joe. But those actions do not totally define her, no more than her past as a child stolen from her home and forced into this system of oppression do. 

Then there is Nux, who begins the movie as an agent of the patriarchal destruction, only to find freedom in the new kind of society Max, Furiosa, The Wives, and Many Mothers have created. This small group represents a different way of moving through the world, and it doesn’t just save the oppressed of Immortan Joe’s social order; it saves many of the oppressors, too. It saves those who are implicit in the system, which so many of us are. This is why I see so much hope in Fury Road.”

– Mad Max, Mr. Robot, and A New Kind of Superhero (via TV Feels)

It’s a lonely existence scrounging for sustenance on a junkyard planet. Rey was ditched on Jakku by her family when she was a child and has no idea why — or why they never returned. “She’s been alone for a long time,” Ridley says. “When something occurs when you’re 5, you know what went on but you don’t understand the reasoning. She’s hopeful for what lies ahead, whether that involves the past or not.” So why hasn’t abandonment made her bitter, angry, and… prone to the Dark Side? “Hope makes people good, a lot of the time,” Ridley says. “You hope for a brighter future, and resentment is outweighed.” [x]

Everlark + Goodbyes

They’ve reached the point where they can’t be specific about when they’re going to see each other again. Because neither one believes they ever will. 

But there’s always the hope. 

Watch: This video is so important — and could even save trans teen lives.

Oh that tiny child wishing for their father to be supportive just breaks my heart. No child should ever have to wish for parental love and support. 

These people deserve all the happiness and I hope one day they get that

This is incredible. I hope their wishes come true

Doctor Who Inspirational Quotes

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