@hoist-the-colours-podcast / hoist-the-colours-podcast.tumblr.com
I just tried to download this podcast even though I KNOW it’s deleted 😭 I miss it that much apparently.
Well, the good news is I FINALLY put the MP3s up on my gdrive. So, all the episodes are available to download from here:
Any issues with accessing or downloading, just let me know and I'll try to sort it. - Laura xx
Hi there! I just wanted to thank you for putting the episodes of your podcast up for download--I ran into your podcast after devouring Black Sails and scouring the internet for interesting commentary on the series, and your podcast episodes were by far some of the most insightful, thoughtful, and enjoyable commentary on the series I found. Thank you so much for making the podcast and keeping it available, it is an absolute joy to listen to!
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed listening to them, because we loved making them. I'm just sad circumstances got in the way of us making more. I love that people are still finding this show and falling in love with it, because it means so much to all of us. <3 - L
(3/3) queerplatonic though I’ve never called them as such. And Black Sails shows us relationships like that; it reminds us that sometimes there isn’t a subtext in the relationship. I know we love Silver and Flint’s unfilled romantic/sexual/something tension but sometimes relationships like that just are. Sometimes Anne and Jack love each other and maybe are in love with each other too. So yes, I love the subtext, but I love what’s on the page too, relationships that are ambiguous and that’s ok.
(3/3) It took me a long time to admit to myself that I am, in fact, not straight and it took even longer to admit it to others. I am still not out and proud but Black Sails reminds me to know no shame so I’m sure I’ll be okay someday. Long story short, Black Sails and the fandom helped me realize I’m bisexual and I couldn’t be more thankful
I LOVE THIS FOR YOU, ANON!!!!
I’m genuinely just curious because I’ve read so many AU fics at this stage and I want to write some myself but when it comes to fics that have any canonically alive gay characters dead… does that count as burying your gays or not? I just don’t know and I loved your discussion on fandom on the podcast so I needed your input and advice on how to deal with a delicate subject in a sensitive way .
Hello, anon!
I'm going to do my best to flesh this out with you, but I haven't been on Tumblr in a bit and my discourseTM is probably rusty!
This ask is hella tricky IMO. On the one hand, I personally believe that queer experiences should run the gamut in media, because queer people are people, which means queer people can also die, obviously. But on the other hand, the trope is a trope because of the disproportionality therein. Since queer people are usually underrepresented at any given time, seeing them suffer or die often feels unnecessary. Queer people should be able to have stories that don't center around turmoil or being in the closet and romances that don't end with death or one of the partners realizing they were never queer at all and running forlorn into the arms of a member of the opposite sex.
In my experience, intention also matters. I, for my part, don't mind torturing or killing my characters when I write. I treat everyone the same. That is to say, anybody can get it! I'm here the ANGST. But it's worth understanding the motivation behind your literary choices. Why THIS character? Is it BECAUSE they are gay? Does their sexuality add to the turmoil surrounding them or is it just one factor of who they are? Those things make a difference to me.
If you're telling a story about a queer person's queer journey, and that is your intention, I would say to be honest about their story. Don't go for shock value or make them a pawn in someone else's pain. Tell THEIR story and convey the message without intentionally traumatizing your audience. If you're telling a story that has queer characters in it but doesn't center around said queerness, I'd say to be careful about how your queer characters are treated in comparison to your straight characters. Don't have one die right after they finally get to be with their same-sex partner (*cough cough* The 100 *cough*), and don't have them die just because it's shocking (*stares in Supernatural*), and definitely don't kill them in a traumatic way that highlights the stereotypes and disparity that their race or gender expression has seemingly brought upon them (RIP Poussey).
When all is said and done, gays can be buried. And they can be buried well. (Look at POSE as a great example of this) Just don't bury them for the sake of the heterosexual gaze. Queer people have had enough trauma in their lives, and while we deserve to have our stories told in all their multifaceted glory, it's also okay to give us some peace, love, tranquility, softness, and beauty along the way. That alone can also be our story.
To answer your ask more directly, when it comes to fics that have any canonically alive gay characters dead, it CAN count as burying your gays. I think it depends on how and why it's done. If it feels unnecessary, it probably is. If it feels intentionally traumatic, it probably is. TBH, we don't need those stories. We don't even really want them. So ask yourself why you'd want to tell that story in that way and what value it adds to the collective queer narrative before you hit publish.
I hope this is an adequate answer, but if not, thanks for getting my brain juices flowing anyway ;)
-Trinity
Hey!
I just saw somebody praise your podcast in the notes of some post and was so excited to start listening to it. I am sorry to hear you can't do it anymore.
I'm not exactly sure how well ao3 does with audio files but have you considered putting it there?
Hi! Unfortunately ao3 doesn't directly host audio files, so I'd still need to upload them elsewhere first, but posting the links on ao3 might be a plan. It is still on my to-do list to upload the mp3 files to my gdrive so people can download them if they want. I promise I'll get round to it eventually! I'll post about it here when they're available to listen to again.
Awww no 😭😭😭 I loved this podcast, I understand the logic but I’m gonna miss it. If you do upload the episodes to your GD will you please let us know?
Of course! And thank you <3
Hi! Is the podcast down off iTunes? I can’t download any episodes 😭
It is, I'm really sorry! We were coming up on another year's subscription to podbean, where our eps were hosted, and so I pulled the plug before we got charged again. The three of us talked about it quite a while ago and sadly our lives are just in such different places now that we're never going to be able to make new eps, so it was getting hard to justify the expense of keeping the old ones up. I still have the mp3s of all the published eps though, so I'll see if I can upload them to my gdrive some time soon so that people can download them from there if they want. Sorry again!
Laura
Hi! It is I.... Your friendly neighbourhood anon back again. I just have one more question: IF Muldoon and/or Miranda had survived how do you think Flint and Silver’s relationship would have developed over seasons 3 and 4?
Hello again! Ooooh boy, that’s a question and a half! I’ll be honest, it’s been a minute since I last rewatched S3 and S4, so I might’ve forgotten some significant stuff, but here’s some rambling thoughts under the cut anyway.
If you guys do return to the podcast what are you most excited to talk about? There’s still so much left to discuss about the show.
Ooh good question! There is so much left. Speaking for myself: Anne’s S2 arc is a huge deal and something that I know resonates with a lot of people on multiple levels, myself included. There are so many facets to that journey of self-discovery: what she feels for Max, what she feels for Jack, what she feels about herself, how the world sees her, and who she is when you take all those things away. I think in the past the fandom has got kind of wrapped up in arguments about how we should label her sexuality (and tbh it makes me feel kind of anxious even referencing that now because people get so aggressive over it) but to me that sort of war over labels feels like a pretty reductive way to engage with her story. I think maybe of all the main characters in the show, Anne was the one whose journey of becoming felt the most whole and in a way uncomplicated. Once she found who she was, and found the words to express it, she just was that person without apology or angst over leaving the old Anne behind. We also had plans to do some kind of episode/conversation talking about the non-canon queer characters in the show, which I think would be really fun and interesting. There’s the whole idea of ace Billy, and bisexual Rackham and Silver, and it would be the perfect time to talk about Mark Read’s gender presentation (I see him as a trans man). It would be more of a fandom-leaning episode in some ways, but I genuinely think the areas of deliberate ambiguity in the writing are one of the show’s greatest strengths as a piece of queer media. There is so much space for people from all walks of life, all life experiences, all genders and sexualities to see themselves represented in these characters, and when it comes to queer rep I don’t think it ends with the canonically queer characters. So I’d love to talk about that and the reasons why people headcanon certain characters as queer in ways we have no on-screen confirmation of in a show that already offers us so much representation.
There really is a lot of great stuff left! The consistency of Eleanor’s characterisation and goals throughout and why being with a shitheel like Rogers doesn’t negate her bisexuality; Flint reaching the point of being able to come out to Silver; Max winning the game and finding a way to integrate what her heart wanted and what her ambitions wanted in a way Eleanor always struggled with; and Flint’s ending and why (even though I do personally like the painful ambiguity of it) it’s so fucking important that they left us with hope amongst the tragedy.
God, I miss talking gay pirates. Thank you so much for your question!
- Laura <3
Relistening to the podcast and I’m still completely thrown by how Anne and Flint were both introduced with their faces hidden and they were refusing to reveal their true selves and yet the last proper shot we got of them (when Flint wasn’t snuggling up to Thomas that is) was them as open and as.... defenceless as they’ve ever been. Those ginger pirates really should have just had cups of tea and cried about their love lives together.
Oof yeah, it really is a lot! Somebody get those beautiful ginger murder babes some talking therapy, please. Both of them go through such incredible emotional growth throughout the series and it’s so clearly illustrated by that transition from hiding their faces to being open about who they are. It’s subtle but powerful. This show, man!
I’m sad we never got up to sharing our thoughts on Anne’s S2 story, because there’s so much to be said about her parallels with Flint. I’ve just been rewatching the show actually and there are so many little details that are similar. I can’t remember now if we mentioned this in the Flint S2 ep but there are multiple similarities between McGraw and Anne’s ‘betrayal’ moments. Like the way the sound fades as Admiral Hennessey tells McGraw he’s been discharged from service, in the same episode where Jack tells Anne she’s off the new crew and the sound fades out as her entire life crumbles around her. And when Max later talks about how she’s not mad, she’s adrift, because the one man she thought would never betray her did so and bought for himself a future with that betrayal...hello Thomas’s ‘good friend’ Peter Ashe and ‘the closest thing [McGraw has] to a father’ Admiral Hennessey. The list goes on and on and I could talk about the endless parallels in this show forever tbh!
But what I really want now is fic of Flint and Anne having the most awkward, tense tea party in the world together. Once they got talking I bet they would’ve got on like a house on fire (or just, y’know, set the actual house on fire).
- Laura <3
I just want to say that I miss you guys talking about Black Sails and I can understand that life gets in the way but I can’t help but admit that I really wanna hear you thoughts on Flint (and Silver)’s arc in seasons 3 and 4. Hoping you all are well and will be able to record again one day <3
Thank you, lovely. <3 Oh man, there’s SO MUCH to say about those two in S3 and S4. Not to be all Poetic Cinema about it, but I still feel like I might lose my mind if I think about that arc for too long and it’s been over three years since the finale. When will tv ever be that good again?
- Laura
I’m really sorry but did you ever get into how you felt during the reveal scene in your podcast? I was listening to the James Flint season 2 episode and you seemed to talk so much about the SilverFlint and FlintMiranda of it all and like that reveal scene was huge in terms of Flint and his characterisation? Did I miss you all talking about it or was that meant to come up and unfortunately life got in the way?
Hey! So, I’ve gotta be honest, it’s been so damn long since we recorded the eps that I can’t remember what we talked about in much detail. We did talk about the reveal a couple of times in our Flint S1 ep (which seems like a weird choice, but it was difficult to know how to talk about his S1 arc from a queer perspective without jumping ahead somewhat). The discussion there was largely framed around whether we and other people knew about Flint’s sexuality going into the show, or whether it was a complete surprise, and what difference that might have made to the watching experience. You’re right though, it is a massive moment in terms of his characterisation, and it’s something I’m sure we could cover in much more depth.
We did talk about making an episode/episodes specifically delving into key relationships in the show, like James/Thomas(/Flinthamiltons), Jack/Anne/Max, etc, but obviously we never got that far. We’re still hoping to get back to talking about the show at some point, so when that happens I’ll definitely bear in mind that there’s more to say about that moment, because it is so important both within the story itself and for all of us who felt our little gay hearts grow about a hundred sizes when it happened.
-Laura
i see myself all over black sails, in almost every character (to different degrees). but in this time i’m thinking most often about flint’s desperation to not let this all be for nothing, to not let them become the monsters in the stories they tell their children, silver’s need to save those he loves, and madi’s prioritizing the revolution. the multitudes.
Anne’s instinct to scream at everyone she loves bc she’s scared of how much she cares about them.. relatable
Thank you for bringing the BlackSailsPride weekend to Tumblr! Reading everybody's contributions is lovely 💙
You’re very welcome! It’s been so much fun to be a part of. Thank you to everyone who joined in. :)
(1/3) In the Black Sails fandom, we talk a lot about how valuable the subtext of the show is for allowing multiple interpretations of different relationships and sexualities. But to for me, the ambiguity itself is valuable. To see relationships that slip and slide between romantic, sexual, and platonic reminds me that yes, it is ok for my own relationships to do the same. Especially in the light of a dear friend of mine moving away recently and how devastating I’ve found this move
(cont.) even though “we’re only friends.” Outsiders often question the level of intimacy and devotion in my relationship with that friend. People tell me it’s excessive or romantic rather than platonic. I don’t know how to explain that the love is maybe a little romantic but it is platonic also. This love does not want anything else than what we have right now. No one is pinning or unfulfilled or desperate to fuck. And I’ve had multiple relationships like this, relationships that might be called queerplatonic though I’ve never called them as such. And Black Sails shows us relationships like that; it reminds us that sometimes there isn’t a subtext in the relationship. I know we love Silver and Flint’s unfilled romantic/sexual/something tension but sometimes relationships like that just are. Sometimes Anne and Jack love each other and maybe are in love with each other too. So yes, I love the subtext, but I love what’s on the page too, relationships that are ambiguous and that’s ok.
