I Heard We're Doing Fancasting, Yes? So. I've Been Waiting For This Chance For Months. I Know The Actresses

There’s nothing in Nassau but horror. You said it was just a transition. That something better lay beyond it, something meaningful. But what if that isn’t so? What if the result of this war isn’t beyond the horror? What if it is the horror itself? Have you given this any thought at all? If we are to truly reach a moment where we might be finished with England… cleared away to make room for something else… there most certainly lies a dark moment between here and there. A moment of terror where everything appears to be without hope.

BLACK SAILS 4.08 “XXXVI.”

The truth. 🙏🏻

Miranda: Forever Invisible

This is going to be long and kind of rambly because I didn't feel like editing it. Also: here be spoilers.

There's something terrible and interesting about the way Miranda is doomed to be a ghost in her own story, the fandom, and Treasure Island (because she's not canonical, despite the connection between BS and TI). She is both haunted by and haunts the narrative; she is largely absent from meta-discussions (I have not seen a SINGLE post about her outside of Tumblr); and has minimal presence in fanvids/fanart/fanfic (Madi suffers from a similar affliction but for different reasons).

It's both frustrating and also so fascinating that both textually and fandom-wise Miranda is most present when she isn't. When people write metas about Flint and grief post s2, and how SilverFlinty it is that John helps him through his depression and suicidal tendencies, or even just bemoan the loss of his hair-- that's all because of her. Her love and loss drive the plot in a very real way that, if you know what to look for, is undeniable but invisible to outsiders. The outline of her (like Thomas) is there.

Miranda changes Flint's path at least four times directly that we know of (seducing him, telling him about Lord Alfred Hamilton's ship's location, the Boston Pardons situation, and persuading him to go to Charles Town). Whether that's acknowledged by fans or not, it's true. After my first rewatch, when I actually knew the full story, I got that Flint cared for her from the beginning. But in case I hadn't, it became explicit and unavoidable after her death. In s3e3, Flint tells Miranda's ghost/hallucination/spirit: "When I lost Thomas, I raged. I was distraught. I wept. But with you, I’m ruined over you." Just because their love was quieter doesn't mean it was less important.

I would personally lean toward describing Flint as Bi if you pressed me to assign him a modern sexuality (rather than thinking of homosexuality/queerness as an act like it often was historically), but I've never been 100% certain of that. (Just like BS' ending. Does John Silver [redact] Flint or [redact] him to [redacted]???). Like a lot of the show, it's open to interpretation.

However, I do think it is disingenuous to point to the one explicit and full sex scene we get between Flint and Miranda and say, "He's clearly gay! Look how bad their sex is." I think the 1705 flashbacks show enough physical chemistry that that isn't a solid argument. Also, I (and others too) read that one bad-sex scene as a reflection of their mutual grief over Thomas. Plus, even if Flint was only sexually/romantically interested in men, he still loves Miranda and is in some kind of involved and mutually fulfilling (at least in the past) (queer platonic) partnership with her. He, Thomas, and Miranda are a trio. BS is full of queer trios: Jack/Anne/Max; Woodes/Eleanor (past / and &) Max; Silver/Madi (/ ? or &?) Flint.

This has been said before, and I'm sure better worded too, but it's also tragic how she never gets to be right and enjoy it. Flint very rarely enjoys being right (and you can debate to what extent he's right about many things; I think the War was entirely justified), but we're clearly meant to root for him. I'd say he morphs into more of an overtly positive figure mid-s3 onwards. Despite the show's tragedy, Flint gets to enjoy a few key and decisive victories. Miranda never does.

When she is arguably most victorious (chewing Peter Ashe a new one in Charles Town), she is killed. Miranda is anointed by her tragic foresight and becomes almost untouchable because of it, morphing into an Icon, patron Saint of Lost Lovers, empty of personhood. And then, in season four, her house burns down, so there aren't even any mementos left. She's erased from the narrative physically and psychologically (who remembers her aside from Flint, Thomas, maybe Silver via proxy, and possibly Abigal Ashe)? Who writes posts about her, draws fanart of her, makes edits and videos with her? She's invisible. She's ignored. She's a ghost.

That's amazing😂

So… I tried to make a thing.

Reblog if you stand against order, civilization, and goodness itself

so this is me basically yapping about my queen’s complexity😊 regina mills they could never make me hate you

ANYWAYS. one thing i absolutely ADORE about her complexity is her voice. lana parrilla’s voice consistently changes depending on her scenes and i think it is done absolutely BEAUTIFULLY.

when she’s with cora, her voice is sensitive and quiet, as if she’s afraid to get yelled at but still looking for approval and validation.

with henry, her voice is firm but still caring. it’s her SON, after all.

with daniel, it’s free and joyful and you can just tell the difference when she speaks to him vs to anyone who’s not her family.

her voice is so powerful in so many other ways. it shows weakness, strength, fear, love, and it’s all portrayed and executed in a way that’s purely majestic.

next thing is the parallels.

regina’s greed is eventually fully explained, she loses everything, but something i’ve noticed is that everything she loses is everything she’s never actually had.

her mother’s approval, daniel, henry, hell even graham. something archie says in s2 is that everything she loses is because of magic. i think that’s true and they should’ve extended that theory further throughout the show.

her mother never truly loved her — only taking advantage of her daughter’s weakness, her need for love.

i’m not sure if this is stated, but i’ve always interpreted this way. i don’t believe she and daniel were together very long. yes, long enough to fall in love, but in ouat, that normally seemed to happen rather quickly. anyways, regina was this close to marrying daniel until cora killed him. she never truly had him in the way she wanted — and we all know nothing happened in the way she wanted.

with henry, she, again, never really had him. he was never her son, not in the way she needed him to be. he was always emma’s son, even if it felt like he was hers. yes, henry loves her, he cares about her, but at the end of the day, his determination to stick with emma in the earlier seasons always seems to overcome that.

the last one is obvious but graham could not feel anything. meaning, whatever regina felt for him, whether it was love, lust, or nostalgia, was not real. which, equals in false hope, false love, all that. (i say nostalgia because in my mind, regina sees daniel in all her past/current lovers.)

so, in conclusion to this little yapping session, regina goes several seasons with absolutely nothing. it hurts to say it, but that’s just the way her life was portrayed. now, i’m leading up to how her greed is involved in this, along with her almost drug-like addiction to magic.

she consistently goes after things she cannot have. an example of this is her attachment to children. in later seasons, regina takes away her fertility with magic to piss her mother off. this soon comes to bite her in the ass and leads to her adoption journey with henry.

maybe three times she tried to take someone’s children as her own. yes it sounds bad but there’s an explanation for that. since she can’t have children, regina’s greed for one only grows stronger. the first time she did this was with owen, a little boy who managed to get inside storybrook with his father — whom she framed for drunk driving and i believe child neglect when owen refused to live with her and abandon his father.

another time was with ava and nicolas, at the time known as hansel and gretel. after retrieving the iconic apple from the blind witch, hansel and gretel come back to regina’s castle and as a “reward,” she tries to invite them to live with her. she basically tried to bribe them, but their love for their father was so strong, so out of spite she uses magic to separate the twins from their father.

and lastly, throughout season one, she attempts to kill or frame emma several times. this is because of her attachment to henry — which this time is somewhat explainable. for once, she finally has the child she deprived herself of and all of a sudden, after years of trying to fully connect with her son, she loses him. as she did several times before. hence why i said henry was never truly her child.

ANYWAYS.😊 regina mills you are a being of majestic and conflicting things that make you the woman you are and i absolutely LOVE IT.

😏😏

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Happy birthday Wei Wuxian!

I'm so happy to share my first playlist about this amazing character!

Timestamps are on the way

When Miranda gives back Meditation to Flint in episode XIII, they somehow make you think that he hadn't seen nor read that book in a while. Of course it was related to Thomas and he remembered that very clearly, but Miranda was the one to keep it and she is the one to say it was a precious thing she shared with her husband and all, over the general tendency of Flint to distance himself from the past, if not ideologically at least emotionally. But in truth, in ep. III he got what Miranda was reading from a single sentence overheard through the door...I mean, he had to know that book pretty well to do that. In fact, I've always liked to think about that book as some sort of comfort through the darkest hours for him as well as it was for Miranda, for what it means as an object at least if not for its philosophy which, as much as in line with Thomas' mind , I believe was pretty far from James' point of view.

I'm honestly relieved by the fact that they somehow confirmed this headcanon of mine. Like...yeah, some parts of his mind try to obscure the past in order to survive, but since he cannot separate himself from something which has defined him deeply he may as well find comfort in what is left of it.

That's so heartbreaking, but I love the way they orchestrated since ep.I his whole story.

I'm trying to get back into the groove of things. I am currently diving headfirst into one of my oldest hyper fixations. I finished this a few days ago after taking too long to work on it, but well....