Black Sails X Oceans Brawl By Cœur De Pirate

Lately I went rewatching ep.I. It was the third time, but the first one being as obsessed with this show (and having the full picture of it) as I am now. And, wow, it really could be called an “introduction”. I mean, besides all the main characters' introduction, in those 60 minutes there are hints to all of the main themes treated in the show.

They give a sketch of the pirate figure they are going to deepen throughout the seasons (free men who keep what they want) and also of the way they are seen and conceived by the civilized world (as fearsome monsters).

They also start to give some hints about the nature of that “civilized world”.

They even introduce the concept of shame! I didn't remember that.

Captain Hume says: ”gossip is what holds civilization together. It reinforces shame. And without shame the world is a very dangerous place.”

Which, wow, is pretty ominous considering what we are going to discover in season two.

They also start to make it pretty clear how things work in Nassau, how important it is to have allies and at the same time how easily those alliances may change, with poor Gates trying to gain votes for Flint (and I'm going to say it once again: he didn't deserve to die. Like, I love Flint, but this I can't forgive him.)

And speaking about Flint, they already give very important informations about him.

Sure, we see him being the bossiest and the strongest of the bunch, all determined with his actions and plans and all, but what I'm really talking about are the hints to his personality.

Of course we don't know him yet at episode one (and I'm sure the first impressions of him must have been the most disparate. I can't even remember my very first impression of him, but considering my actual tastes in characters I think that if I had first known him now I would have loved him at once) but they drop things which are very important considering what we are going to discover about his character.

Like, we know at first that he doesn't trust his men at all (“I don't trust them with the truth”+ the various lies lol), and we see that he definitely is not “one of them”, because they find him too different from them to be considered such and probably this is where all those mistrust in him come from (“I know they've always found me aloof, too educated” which really, really, tells a lot about him).

And I just thought: how strong must he have been to gain and hold the power over those men in a world where there are no rules, no indisputable ranks, where trust and submission is granted (and only barely promised) to the stronger ones or to the ones who are considered the most fitted to receive it only basing on one's subjective judgment and advantage, without even being liked by those men?

And also, Dufresne says that “he loves his books” which is another one of the things that in my opinion are so beautiful about his character for the deep links those books have with his story and his development (I could write a whole essay about Flint's books lol).

Anyway, I just finished rewatching season 4 some weeks ago and since I can't stay for long without BS anymore I thought: why not starting it again? And so. Btw, I really needed to rewatch the first season since I feel like I still haven't appreciated it enough.

Oh well, with her even death would be a photoshoot.

Regina’s favorite hobby: pretending life is a photoshoot

They’re scheming

Outcast, fallen angel, you are loved. You are forgiven. You are redeemed. You are loved. - The Exorcist [insp]

Ghosts of the Past 

Commission art for @pinkandgreenroom 

Interesting analysis. It's hard for me to look over Hennesy's words, but this interpretation of them actually make sense. Thank you for sharing. It's just too sad that this doesn't change anything for James and the way he had felt about it, back then as well as later in the years.

I keep thinking about just how much love and affection there is from Admiral Hennessy's side in that final confrontation with James, and how it makes the whole thing all the more devastating.

Had Hennessy responded to the news of James and Thomas' affair with revulsion and anger, it would have been easy, far easier, to cast him aside as a "villain" — both for us as the audience, and also I think, for James.

But earlier in the episode we hear that James considers him to be a father figure and here, right before they walk into that office with Alfred Hamilton waiting for them in it, knowing full well what James has done, he still calls James son:

Good God. You perceive the danger about this to be imagined. I told you when this began to be careful of those people. To be aware of just how sharp and unexpected the knife would be if you discounted that danger. I'd thought you'd heard me, son.

There is no reason for him to do that, not to someone he is about to permanently cast out of his life. Once they walk inside too, Hennesy's lips utter that terrible pronouncement but his expression, his voice is so gentle as he does it. Alfred Hamilton is in the room with them and what James has done is so outside cultural norms, it severely limits what Hennessy can say or do. Without uttering the words, this scene is yet another entry in the show's collection of "this is not what I wanted"s.

In fact, while AH would like to avoid the scandal of his son having a homosexual relationship, I have no doubt there were ways to hang James that would be equally if not more amenable to him that would not cause such scandal, and yet they give him a way out of London without any charges to his person, quite likely because it was the best Hennessy could manage to salvage under the circumstances. And yet still, Hennesy's words:

I would like to defend you. I would like to remind myself that every man has his flaws, his weaknesses that torment him. I would like to help you recover from yours. But not this. It is too profane; it is too loathsome to be dismissed. This is your end.

I keep thinking about what James tells Miranda in s1 re the pardon to go to Boston: "They took everything from us, and then they called me a monster." But who called him a monster? Given how quickly he and Miranda have to leave London after that confrontation in Hennessy's office, not to mention the way the actual affair with Thomas is swept under the rug, I highly doubt he had any more conversations about it except what transpired in Hennesy's office.

It is so much more devastating I think when someone says I love you but what you are is too vile, too profane for me to ever accept. Says I love you but I cannot accept you, and perhaps that is why what James hears Hennesy tell him is that he is a monster.

"These violent delights have violent ends,

And in their triumph die like fire and powder,

Which as they kiss consume."

Romeo and Juliet

FlintHamiltons paintings aesthetic.

Two different worlds entwined by the strings of fate. I thought this ship deserved such kind of artistic tribute.

Just thinking about how Rio fell in love with Agatha despite literally being death and knowing that eventually Agatha would die and she would have to collect her. Thinking about how she let Agatha be the exception to the rule, how she let their child live even though it directly went against all laws of nature. How she still loves her after so long, even though Agatha hates her with all she has. How she stopped at nothing to get to her. How she must have felt knowing that she played a part in the death of the only person she ever loved.

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.

you didn’t think i was gonna miss this, did you?