I want to be really clear about something: Planned Parenthood has done more to prevent abortion than the pro-life movement ever has.

I love a good “Flint’s not known any sort of loving touch other than Thomas’ and Miranda’s for years”. I love Flint being absolutely wrecked by the slightest affection/attention bc he’s been craving it but doesn’t know how to ask, and within the first season we see that whatever love is left between he and Miranda, the sex has certainly lost its spark.

Some of my FAVE fics have done this so beautifully, so breathtakingly and heart-wrenchingly well.

But can we also explore: John Silver never having had a relationship with real love in it before.

John has always looked out for #1 (AKA: John Silver) and as such hasn’t ever really been in the market for like, love. He’s had plenty of sex and met some great people, but he’s also a master of telling lies and keeping his roots from sinking too deep, allowing for quick - although sometimes messy - escapes.

Muldoon, I think, is the first time John’s lost someone this close to him in a long time, at least since he joined Flint’s crew. Losing Muldoon wrecked him, esp. since he was kinda directly responsible for his death - or, at least, directly responsible for not being able to get him free. 

Now, enter a relationship w Flint. John is wary, mostly bc he knows about Flint’s past lovers and how well things have turned out for them, but he’s also kinda sure he can keep things on an even keel between them. They’re both so brutally honest w each other now, but John still has some secrets, some cards he’ll keep close to his chest. It’s just sex. He can handle this.

But they get closer. John sometimes finds himself finishing Flint’s sentences for him; knowing what Flint wants before he can ask for it. He can often tell Flint’s mood just by standing next to him, like there’s this aura radiating off of him that only John can perceive. There is literally no one else left alive who knows Captain Flint so well as John Silver does.

And then Flint is so fucking – well, Flint. John doesn’t know how to take it when Flint, as he undresses them, takes John’s clothing off slowly and trails his fingers down the expanse of Silver’s body, so far unmarked by scars as Flint’s own body is. He doesn’t know how to take how gentle Flint’s hands are on him, how cloying his kisses can be. He doesn’t know what to do with the way Flint looks at him, with how he throws out little smiles and makes terrible jokes and fiddles with his hands like a nervous schoolboy.

John knows very well how to keep Captain Flint at a distance, but when faced with James McGraw, he realizes his error. He understands now, how Miranda and Thomas loved him. It was hard to see, beneath the blood and horror, to the surprisingly sweet and tender lover underneath, who likes to read passages from his books, laughs tremendously when drunk and has freckles everywhere.

Give me John panicking as he realizes his roots are sinking deeper than planned; panicking as they seem to be entangled with the gnarled remains of whatever Flint has left, and panicking at what is slowly, sweetly blossoming between them. 

you didnt miss much

i revolt secretly every time i see an article or post about how we’re all addicted to our screens and never go outside and have no human contact etc etc. 

listen, this is what i wanted. 

i saw star trek, and i wanted to walk around with small flat tech that tells me everything i want to know. i never wanted to talk on a phone, even when there wasn’t an alternative. i didnt want to memorize phone numbers for each of my friends; i was terrible at it anyway. how many fucking times did i go to a public library when i was 10, and the book i needed to answer the question i’d been asking for a week was checked out, or lost, or damaged, or getting rejacketed or, and this was the worst, the library had never heard of it and never owned a copy.

do you have any idea how many of those unanswered questions went into cold storage in my jumbled memory until the internet finally answered them or let me order that book or showed me a dozen other paths in the woods to follow and get even better answers? 

i’m old enough to remember what it was like before we had this, and it was steaming garbage. it was impossible to put a photo of yourself on the internet without a consumer grade camera, film of the right type, access to a photo lab, and $10 to get the roll developed, most of which would be unusable or blinking or sneezing or ugly or blurry, and then the final insult, you had to scan the dirty, smudgy, badly exposed thing into a computer and then, jesus christ, where would you even host it? do you remember how expensive it was just to get some storage space that would display pictures to other people? i do.

this isnt a “kids these days” post, either. its a post for every newspaper cartoonist who’s made fun of a twenty year old for taking a selfie. that middle aged cartoonist spent the 90s doing exactly what we all did in the 90s: worked our asses off trying to make up for the lack of simple contact books, free cameras, free hosting, accessible image editing, inexpensive and tailored music, and internet access that didnt charge by the minute.

it’s not anythig like a utopia but sometimes its such a god damn relief

THIS THIS THIS

Dear Starz, please, notice...

THIS:

is proper m/m representation

THIS, however:

looks very much like trying very hard to not offend the homophobes and shy away from all the ertoticism in m/m romantic interaction…  the gif is even making the shadow lighter than it was in the show, by the way.

Just saying…

Now which one is relolutionary, I wonder?

malec gif by  khylinrhambo

james/thomas gif by  flintxhamilton

….or one is a dramatic, passionate moment in a WHOLE DIFFERENT situation than the equally dramatic, passionate moment.

It’s not shying away from eroticism at all. I’d argue I got more shivers from the bottom scene than the top. It’s just a different story with a different situation. As for the light, that isn’t a strategically placed shadow. High contrast lighting like that is used to up the tension in a scene, and in a scene like this, the tension is definitely high. It is true, it is darker (uncolored gif to compare) but it’s not like by using a more contrasted lighting technique that the tender face caress is any less shiver-enducing.

Malec was a situation where Alec has decided ‘FUCK IT!’ and strode down the aisle like it was his personal catwalk and dragged Magnus into a big, dramatic kiss in front of the whole world. Yes, his culture is incredibly homophobic and there will probably be consequences, but it’s still a VERY different story than the other. (Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED THIS SO MUCH you don’t even know)

Thomas/James is a situation where it is the early 1700s, James is a young officer in the British Royal Navy and Thomas is Lord Thomas Hamilton and the precursor to this kiss was Thomas’s father having a go at how his son is a ridiculous dreamer with ideas that are outrageous and when he asks James to agree with him, James stands up and in an INTENSELY reserved rage (shaking but not moving, tight voice, but speaking at a calm level) dramatically rebuts everything he has just said and extols the brilliance and nobility of Thomas and then tells him to LEAVE HIS OWN HOUSE if he can’t be proud of his son, and after his father has stormed out, Thomas is in awe, he’s looking at him like he can’t breathe but can’t look away, and then he slowly approaches him. ALSO NOTE, THIS IS ALL HAPPENING WHILE THOMAS’S WIFE IS WATCHING (she’s in on it, obviously, but still, another person) and he gently touches James’s face and steps into his space and kisses him IN FRONT OF ANOTHER PERSON. James is visibly upset and scared so Thomas is so gentle in kissing him. 

It’s a tender, beautiful, romantic moment that I would was was unparallelled before this beautiful Malec kiss.

But the situations are different. Neither one is good or bad. They are both appropriate for the situation. It’s clearly not about ‘don’t offended the homophobes’ it’s because that’s the ONLY way it could’ve gone in that situation without it being extremely unfitting. ALL of Thomas and James is in a flashback so we know all along that they don’t get a happy ending. Whereas with Malec, this is supposed to be the beginning of something that CAN have a happy ending.

Also if you watch the show, you know that this kiss is a flashback of the origin story of the most feared pirate. Usually any hero or villain has someone they love taken from them and it starts them on their path, and anybody who watches Black Sails, you know that James’s fear of Thomas doing something that is impossible to pass off as anything but homosexual in front of others is WELL founded because what happens? They get found out and THOMAS DIES because of it. 

The situations are different, the stories are very different, and most of all, the narrative structure of these two shows is VERY different.

One is a supernatural show about demons and demon hunters set in modern day New York.

One is a gritty historical drama about the Golden Age of Piracy.

Anybody with the slightest training in film technique and film theory knows that there is no world in which the two are comparable in any way other than ‘both these narratives have a gay man as a main character’.

A lot of words can be said, a lot of explanations offered, but the fact stays a fact: Black Sails doesn’t treat it’s M/M relationship with nearly the same respect as it does it’s hetero- and F/F ones.

I could go on for pages here how they use this gay plot as a shock value to the audience, and how they use the idea of this eternal love from the past in order to not let Flint act on his sexuality in the current timeline, and how they never showed an actual sex-scene with Thomas, only a very safe and totally non-threatening cuddling… etc. etc…

But I don’t feel like repeating my own words for like a 1000th time.

I repeat: Black Sails doesn’t treat it’s M/M relationship with nearly the same respect as it does it’s hetero- and F/F ones. End of story.

First of all, I never gave you permission to use my gif. I would appreciate if you please refrained from using my gifs in the future. And I would ask you to please remove my gif from your post. I have previously posted on how uncomfortable I am with the way James/Thomas gets treated in these arguments and I really do not appreciate having my gifs used to further this argument.

Second, the fact that the validity of a lgbt+ relationship rests on whether or not a couple has had sex is abhorrent (not to mention acephobic). The fact that lgbt+ couples need to meet this list of things to be considered real and not “shock value” is appalling. As someone who is in an f/f relationship, I am extremely offended by this notion, also by the notion that f/f relationships are “just for the male gaze” and “everyone’s okay with lesbians.” You know why otherwise homophobic people are okay with f/f and m/f sexual scenes? Hint: it has nothing to do with being okay with lgbt+. It’s about sexualizing women, the two things those types of pairings have in common and why some people are not okay with m/m. Not because they are true supporters. 

Despite the fact the writers have continuously underscored Flint/Thomas’ relationship’s importance in the show, have built it up so the entire plot wouldn’t exist without it, have shown how much Flint loved him and how important Thomas was to him, but this is apparently all “shock value.”

Also, they are not using Flint’s “eternal love” to keep him from having a relationship. You can be in love with more than one person and have important relationships with more than one person (this show has two polyships….) If someone’s spouse dies it does not stop the person left behind from loving and remembering them, nor does it stop them from falling in love again. You know what distracts people from relationships? Watching someone you love get shot to death right in front of you not a few months prior when you’re already traumatized from so many losses.   You know what else distracts people from a relationship? Last time he got into a relationship, the man he loved freaking died because they had their relationship used against them. You know what else distracts people from relationships? Fighting a freaking war. 

I have zero problem with wanting another m/m relationship, or sex scene, or another relationship for Flint, so you can miss me with that. What I do have a problem with, is people devaluing their relationship and reducing lgbt+ relationships to only sex scenes.

End of story :) 

Fandom Policing

I really, really hate fandom policing. I hated it when I was twelve and was so afraid to read slash because OMG DICKS TOUCHING WHAT and I hated it when I was fifteen and was smuggling the yaois under my mattress so I would always have a supply of top notch garbage to read, and I am 24 and I hate it now.

Here is the thing: YOU CONTROL what you take in. I am not responsible for your consumption of Hydra Trash party noncon, I am not responsible for your consumption of pegging smut, and I am not responsible for your consumption of fluffy sickfic. I am not responsible for you consuming anything. 

I might be responsible for writing that noncon or pegging or sickfic, but I did not make you read it. I did not hand it to you, I did not give it to you. I created it, and made it available for those who want to enjoy.

If you don’t like it, if you don’t want it, then you don’t have to read it. 

That choice made, the choice not to consume a type of fic or art, also means you don’t get to drag the person who wrote it. 

That is a damn slippery slope. 

Fandom is a “safe space” but not in the way that it protects you from things that you don’t want to see or don’t like or are offended by. Fandom is, and has traditionally been, a space for people to create and explore with out being told “no” by outside media. Fandom is where you can find out if you don’t fit in the boxes society tells you to, or it you just really, really like reading about Bucky getting repeatedly rammed in the ass by Hydra agents sans lube. 

And no matter how well-meaning you are, you don’t get to tell other fans what they can and cannot write, or draw, or enjoy. 

When you start telling people what they can create or enjoy, you invalidate the purpose of fandom, and create a situation where instead of free exploration, we have something similar to mainstream media in which certain tropes or topics are not allowed. This limits the free expression, exploration and innovation so highly prized in fandom.

Maybe what they draw is illegal in five states, and highly restricted in several countries. Maybe it’s offensive, maybe it’s inaccurate, or just plain bad.

It doesn’t matter. 

You don’t get to tell fans how to enjoy fandom. You mind your own path, your write your own fic, you write meta on why x trope is offensive/problematic/bad but you do not tell other fans how to enjoy fandom.

“Fandom is a “safe space” but not in the way that it protects you from things that you don’t want to see or don’t like or are offended by. Fandom is, and has traditionally been, a space for people to create and explore with out being told “no” by outside media.”  

THIS!!! THIS is the TRUE definition of fandom as a ‘safe space’. It is a ‘safe space’ for creators.

“You do not tell other fans how to enjoy fandom.”

This needs 99,999,999 notes.

There comes a point where you, not your teachers and not your parents or guardians, are responsible for what media you consume. It’s not for others to censor themselves to protect you from what you don’t want. Heed warnings. If something doesn’t have warnings, either don’t read/watch/listen to it or search out reviews that will tell you if it’s something you would be OK reading/watching/listening to. Descending on a creator or creators and demanding they not create something or shaming them for doing so because you don’t approve is censorship and furthermore, it’s hubris of the highest order.

THANK YOU.