calm down edgelords, the whole point of society is that it’s not survival of the fittest. literally the point is that we’re leveraging our collective strengths to lead to better outcomes for everyone. we’ve been doing it for a couple thousand years now
The survival strategy our species dumped all its skill points in is cooperation and community. Don’t like it? Walk into the woods and die mad about it.
never beating the only capable of doing one task a day allegations
between the nirnaeth arnoediad and the war of wrath i'm really into the apparent elvish thing of naming wars after like. whatever the general emotional vibe was
Do you have enough love in your heart To go and get your hands dirty? It isn’t that much, but it’s a good start So go and get your hands dirty
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silver in season 1 : ha this guy thinks flint is undead and controlled by a witch, what an idiot!
silver in season 3 : Captain Flint Is God And Can Control The Weather And Here's How I Know
silver grasping for a weapon after confessing to flint that he stole the gold is crazy. like to silver this is antagonistic he’s a sailor trying to manipulate a deranged captain. and to flint. well flint already knew he stole the gold so to flint this is his loved one confessing his wrongs and allowing flint to forgive him. And then the wind starts to blow
the bit where ben gunn says, “if it’s madi that concerns you….” and silver just unprompted is like, “madi and flint will be fine” is fucking…hysterical to me. like the walrus crew fucking wishes silver only had one life partner, they were probably so relieved when madi entered the scene. “oh good, silver’s got a nice, sane girlfriend now. maybe he’ll stop trying to mind meld with our fanatical captain.” NOPE! he’s a multitasker, baby!
flint isn’t blorbo from my shows. he’s a guy i wanna wrap in bubble wrap and stash in a dark place somewhere where he can sleep for a week eat soup and read his favourite books without being disturbed. under no circumstances do i want to see flint put in situations
silver on the other hand. i want to put him in so many situations. i want to actively chew on him like a rottweiler with some rawhide. i want to study him under a microscope like a bug. i wanna hand him around like a blunt until everyone understands why he’s the way he is. i want to dissect him with my own two hands
- The Sea Will Claim Everything, Jonas Kyratzes
(this is a remake of an older post of mine that deserved better)
can’t stop thinking about captain flint’s darkness over the death of miranda and his unequivocal belief in his own aloneness nearly consuming the crew and himself, only for the wind to return the moment he realizes that he isn’t alone. that he still has a equal in silver. to latch onto him in the stead of his lost loves, and from that moment on to be completely devoted to him. thinking about how fully flint changes, to the point where glimpses of james mcgraw begin to peak through again with someone who had never known him as such, borne only from the knowledge that he can still connect with someone. a partner, a friend, a love.
Thinking about how we treat head stomp as this pivotal moment of Descent Into Darkness(™) character development, but honestly Silver had no choice. What else could he possibly have done?
Consider that this crew made Dufresne go over the side. [Now that is dumb. It is a dumb plot device. You should not make your accountant fight. But here we are, text is text.]
Consider Silver saying: “We’ve been assigned responsibility for raids we were nowhere near. Jesus, I’ve been given credit for having been a part of some of them. They are so terrified of you, they’re terrified of me.”
Silver has, for months, been staying on the ship while Flint goes off for some light wholesale slaughter. Silver has a fantastic reason not to fight, and no one could possibly expect him to. Flint’s reputation encompasses them both, and together they have a mystique—he can get by on that, and the presumption that if he could go fight, well of course he would.
Except he knows he wouldn’t have. And Flint knows he wouldn’t have. In a certain, horrible sense he is very lucky to have lost his leg and avoided the whole question, but it must haunt him, especially with every one of Flint’s comments about weakness and pretenders.
Now he is going ashore with the express purpose of creating fear, while Flint stays on the ship. (Arguably this is mostly what Flint was doing during the raids as well.) Dufresne challenges him. Specifically Dufresne, given the above history. I don’t see any way for that to play out where both Silver doesn’t lose face and Dufresne lives. Flint could have left him alive, because no one would ever doubt his capacity for violence. But Silver can’t. He has to kill him.
So if you have to kill someone, and the only choice is how, might as well do it in a way that makes an impression. Silver obviously understands the power of stories as well as anyone, and what the impact will be. None of this is to say he didn’t also totally lose his shit, or that he isn’t fucked up after, or that it’s not the most epic disability rage because it is. It can be all that, but it was also the totally rational choice in the situation, and being who he is I don’t think he was unaware of that.
thinking about the tragedy of jack rackham and charles vane. there’s so much going on. “charles vane is something you and i survived”. yes, he is, but he is also their friend and their brother, maybe even jack’s lover, depending on how you read it. they spend so long on their own sides, wary of each other, and then they reconcile, and it’s so obvious jack doesn’t consider charles just “something he survived”. it’s so obvious they love each other, however you interpret it, and they have so little time together in the end. “there’s not a man in that parlor who would lift a finger in your defense, yet you would die in theirs.” “jack would. jack has.” (“godspeed, charles.” “fuck you, jack.”)
and then jack makes a terrible mistake, and charles dies because of it. and it haunts him. he tries so hard to fill his shoes. “i will be our charles vane.” and jack has always had this conflict with his own masculinity and how he’s perceived, but it becomes stronger now. he isn’t charles vane, and he isn’t teach, and, anyway, it becomes apparent that he can’t be them and survive. they’re legends from a dying age. jack’s forging his own legend as we watch. i don’t think charles would ever accept the compromise they come to as a valid solution, but jack does. i wonder if charles would hate him for it, and he probably does too. “charles vane is dead. i do it for us. that’s how it started. that’s how it’s going to end.”
i don’t know, it’s kind of heartbreaking. jack gets a relatively happy ending, and he betrays charles in exchange. and how could he not? charles wouldn’t want him chasing after a ghost anyway. would he hate him? he doesn’t know, but charles is dead. the future is for the living, after all. choices are for the living.
“charles vane was my closest friend in the world.”
Alta / James Baldwin / Gilbert Bradley / Arthur Conan Doyle / E. M. Forster / Sappho / Black Sails / Richard Siken / Regina Spektor
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There’s a sense that Flint’s star is declining, and Silver’s is ascending… Flint makes it happen. He sort of gives away his power to Silver. – Toby Stephens
What did he think? He was going to get a different answer from me?
