The outcome is only uncertain for those who disbelieve.

tom hopper spreading the holy word of black sails in 2020 is my jam (source)

100% still not over the fact that Black sails just… exists, as a concept. I mean, so often in TV homophobia is used as, like, a ~learning experience~; straight characters learn to be more open minded and accepting, queer characters learn to be the bigger person and forgive etc. Then there’s this fuckin pirate show where the main character’s like, nope, I’m gonna swear revenge on an ENTIRE EMPIRE for being homophobic and ruining my life, and THEY need to apologize to ME. And that’s just. The whole premise of the show. 

“Managing [Silver and Flint’s] relationship as it relates to Flint’s sexuality is, I think intentionally complicated… in a way where we were constantly aware that the cop-outs would be easy and sort of trying to avoid the cop-outs, but also trying to embrace how complicated it would be for Flint to be in that relationship.”

“[We] just wanted to own that and let a lot of things live in subtext. I think the moment you make them text, that’s the cop-out. The cop-out is making it seem like it would be easy for him to address this.”

jonathan steinberg

“’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

silverflint meme: 3 locations/places 

#alternatively ‘silver & flint gazing into each other’s eyes in the privacy of their cabin’ #‘and sometimes in front of other people bc they dont give un fuck’ #that cabin has seen some good shiet #ho boy this is a long post #if you look close enough you can see the progress of their relationship throughout the gifset #from the initial wariness and mistrust #going towards careful trust with a hint of flirting #hitting a few bumps on the road but still developing #gradually evolving into a trusting and respectful partnership #and eventually leading towards the devastating end of it that leaves both parties fucked up #and if you look even closer you can see me literally ripping my heart out through my kneecaps bc it hurts less than this #fuck this #fuck them (via @captain-flint)

not to be dramatic but black sails really is that show huh. it’s been 2 yrs since i first watched it & im still out here absolutely chilled to my bone just thinking about the sheer Narrative of it all…. like that’s IT!!! that’s it babey!

Silver is a survivor and just because he doesn’t wish to share his past doesn’t make what happened to him any less traumatic. I can’t believe I saw a post that said otherwise. No one is owed someone’s tragedy and saying he doesn’t deserve to rise above it because he doesn’t share his past horrors is ridiculous and tbh insulting. People deal with traumas differently and Silver’s is internalized, which actually is a pretty relatable approach if you ask me. 

Starz network writer in 2013 about to pitch Black Sails: so you know how you read Treasure Island and see mentions of an ornery sea captain named James Flint who died before the beginning of the book and think “wow what a gay icon”?

Starz network executive in 2013 about to approve the pitch for Black Sails: yes I’m with you so far

The part of you that always existed yet never were you willing to allow into the light of day.

“[With Silver, Flint] has allowed himself to be both Flint and McGraw, openly, and found some measure of comfort in that state.” ― J. Steinberg

“PEOPLE AREN’T BORN RABID OR BERSERK. WHEN YOU PUNISH AND SHAME YOU CAUSE WHAT YOU DREAD.” 

– Jenny Holzer, Inflammatory Essays

We are all here towards the end of retaking the island. In terms of motive, maybe we all just have to accept that we’re driven by different things.

Eleanor: A stable Nassau, whatever it takes. Vane: Freedom, with Nassau as one of the few places that he views as free. Flint: Nassau as a staging ground to take on the world and ultimately dismantle the horrible social engineering project that England has dubbed “civilization”. Silver: Initially, simple survival. Nassau itself has nothing to do with his plans, it is just where he first discovered the means to secure his future. Later…survival and security for the people he’s come to care about, not just himself. Max: A similar motivation and relationship to Nassau as Silver, except that she always had people to care about from the start, and always tried to protect those she could.  Jack and Anne: Want the freedom Vane so loves but also want to keep each other, and him, safe. (Jack also wants his name to be known as something worthy of respect. Anne also wants to figure out what the fuck she actually wants out of life.) And this is why so much of the show works so brilliantly: From the beginning, people have different motivations, different goals, that are central to the heart of who they are. Sometimes these things coincide with the wants of their allies, and sometimes they are at odds to ruinous effect on their relationships with one another. 

It was a story about [Flint and Silver] going from a giant and the smallest man he ever knew to those two becoming allies to becoming friends to becoming singular to each other. And maybe the person who they had the closest and most personal relationship with.

me during literally every second of james flint’s screen time: i didn’t know i was capable of this much love

do you think thomas gets jealous when he finds out silver has the naturally curly hair he could only pretend to have with a wretched wig

i mean