~[...] 'Cause When I'll Stand These Folks Will Run And Tell The Tales Of What I've Become ~

"She loved the sea for its storms alone, and the green only when it grew scattered among ruins."

G. Flaubert

Miranda Barlow's aesthetic.

I love so much this character and her story and I think she would have liked very much Madame Bovary if she had the chance to read it.

(We all know what was written in that burning letter, don't we? I think it was important to include that too about her)

This aspect, at least for me, is definitely what did the magic. I mean, I don't think I'd be here talking about it if it hadn't included such an important theme (current for those times but still very current today too).

Probably is because I understand it personally , but also I think you don't necessarily have to experience something first hand in order to understand it and emphatize with it. So yes, I think there are also people foreign to this problem who can appreciate it.

Moreover, I heard also of a lot of people which are part of this problem on the other side, the one which causes it, that however enjoy very much the show, so I guess each one can find their own attractive aspect in it.

Just...don't know, maybe emphatize with it about this subject specifically makes the like for the show way more personal, in a way. But it's not necessarily the only way to like it.

I wonder what the cishet experience of Black Sails is like — or more accurately I suppose the experience of the show for people who have not known shame and who have not been made to feel like monsters, for one reason or another.

Because there is something so compelling to me about Flint's rage—and his ruthlessness. There is something so satisfying to the way he turns into a monster because that's what England tells him he is, and the way he lies and kills and believes in a better, different, impossible world and will stop at nothing to fight for it—even if the fight is doomed from the start. "This ends when England apologises to me," he says and all I can say in return is go off king.

I wonder what this show is like for the normies who never felt that rage—and that shame—burning under their skin and had to swallow it down.

That last gaze between them...the complicity, the understanding, the solace, the love between the romantic kind and the friendship and way above both of them...one of the best couple ever❤

I found it, Miranda. Parrish’s ship? You found the schedule?

for @ellelan

Don't tell me, I can't wait for it. If someone has their own candidates please share! I already have mine...

Every so often I remember we’re likely going to get casting announcements for Gabrielle and Akasha within the next two months and I get so dizzy I have to sit down

I usually don't fuck with the idea of Max being Silver's wife in TI. My primary reasoning for this is how intentionally the writers set up SilverMadi as a romantic pairing. Whether you like it or not, everything in BS leads to TI. Why Madi chose to stay with Silver post-BS (in both senses of the acronym), I don't know. But Silver canonically has a Black wife in TI. So she does.

BUT there is such a good and angsty reason that Max as Silver's wife (or "wife" for whatever non-romantic reason they have to take those titles) works. Also, the character parallels it gives... Pardon me if this has been discussed before. I just couldn't stop thinking about it once I came to the realization!

Shortly after the conclusion of BS, the real-life Jack Rackham and fellow pirates were arrested and killed; Mary/Mark Read dies in jail after having their sentence postponed due to alleged pregnancy. Anne Bonny is also allegedly pregnant and has her sentence commuted, then disappears. Let's presume that these events play out for BS' characters.

Anne and Max can't marry; Jack and Anne aren't by preference. Jack and Max coexist (with the addition of Mark/Mary, maybe). Silver cannot legally marry Madi (I think? Not entirely clear on that) but certainly they would face serious backlash, especially if people found out it was a loving marriage. Plus, like the whole (ex-)pirate and revolutionaries thing. Also, Madi wouldn't marry him, at least not immediately. In this AU, Madi leaves Silver's ass (as she should), and they never speak again.

So where does that leave Max and Silver? Essentially, as a divorcee and a widow, respectively (if you ignore the complications of their specific circumstances). If you disregard questions of legality, both Silver and Max had relationships that could be defined as marriage. Max (and Silver) would also need to get out of Dodge Nassau quickly after the cards fall (i.e., Jack and Anne's capture). They've worked together before and can compartmentalize well enough to work together now - plus they're tired and lonely and hey, even if we were enemies I respect your cleverness and you're a familiar face.

Civilization won't accept an unmarried couple running an inn, and Max needs the protection of marriage in England. They would get judged still but less than Silver and Madi would. Here's where the parallels kick in. Both Max and Silver were part of a trio of some kind of romantic nature. Both are similar in their approaches to life - they were each other's first allies for a reason - and both have gotten exactly what they wanted (on paper). Max got her safety and power AND got to keep Anne. Silver kept Madi alive and stopped the war, and that now has to be enough for him, or else Flint was right. They were both married - in the purest and idealistic sense. But no more. Silver is divorced, and Max is a widow.

So now, with their dreams shattered and no one to blame but themselves (with some caveats for Max, of course), they only have each other. So they get married. Now they have a 'real' marriage that is recognized by Civilization. But it isn't authentic.

Silver got what he wanted: stability and a life away from piracy. Max got stability, retained (some) of her dignity, and (a fraction of) power. Isn't that what they wanted? And so time flows onwards. Eventually Silver returns to Skeleton Island, leaving his wife behind.

Gosh, that tear! Made me think about Cabanel's fallen angel.

❤️💔

It's the way they and the people who know them refere to those years in New Providence as a dream.

Some say it was a nightmare, and yes, it probably was, especially for James.

But you can't find in a nightmare someone who is so similar to you that you end up so often being unable to face for the fear of facing your same insecurities. You can't find someone who choses to walk by your side for the whole, dark and unsteady road toward a blurred, almost impossible future, just to make it possible for the two of you. You can't find someone who choses to love you without restrain, and to trust you, in the name of that love, giving their own life away in the hope that you will save yours.

This, you may find only in a dream. This is what they both did, in their own way, for one another. Miranda understood it. James almost did.

It's the way you go from bright colors but cold lights in 1705 to dark colors but warmer, secret, intimate lights in 1715.

Really, that's all.

It’s like she’s some sort of clock that’s finally struck its chime and woken me from this dream we’ve been living, reminded me how many years separate me from a world I still think of as home. How unrecognizable the woman I am now would be to the woman I was then.

Black Sails - update on Captain Flint’s reading list - quick thoughts

I’ve been working my way through what I’m calling Captain Flint’s reading list - or the key books he either owned or were key to the plot of the show.  To keep things fresh I have been reading more than one book at a time.

A few books were hard to find as e-books or based on the original formatting that has been maintained for the copies, I chose to purchase the hard copy.

After getting my Covid booster shot, I popped into a bookstore and got a hard copy of Meditations.  I’d been getting tired of the free ebook with rather over the top language.  This copy is hailed as the first translation in a generation from 2003 by Gregory Hays.  I’ve been taking my time with it and find this translation to be more direct in its intentions.  It still keeps the true feelings of the text, but it does shy away from the more dramatic:

- You should be like a rocky promontory, against which the restless surf continuously pounds.  It stands fast while the churning sea is lulled to sleep at its feet.

which is what Miranda reads to Richard Guthrie as her favorite selection.

The Hays translation instead goes with:

- To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over.  It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.

The ebook version has this variation from a translation by Casaubon, which is edited by someone who isn’t credited in the document.  It is clear though that Casaubon took liberties with the translation - including paraphrasing things for the current reader of 1634 or 1635:

Continua a leggere

always have, always will. [twitter]

(please don’t repost)