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I'm no one, from nowhere, belonging to nothing. I'm a wretch like you.

#waah #black sails #john silver #he intrigues me so

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Walking away from the sea to find some peace has never seemed more tempting to Silver 🥲

#black sails #black sails fanart #john silver #james flint #i continue to be insane about these men

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Kintsugi, or: a study in fault lines

Happy Black Sails day!!

#black sails #black sails fanart #flinthamilton #james flint #thomas hamilton #black sails netflix #flinthamiltons #if you squint #;; #blacksailsnetflix

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he's a man. he's god. he's a monster. he's nothing. he's everything. he would kill for you he would die for you he would kill you if necessary. he's a protector he's a killer he's a savior he's destruction he's a friend he's a liar. he wants to do the right thing he doesn't know what the right thing is anymore. he's a lover he's a fighter he's vengeful he's terrified. he's broken. he's ruined. he's never been stronger. everything hurts. he can't feel anything. he's just a man.

#james flint #love of my life #black sails

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u kno what drives me absolutely feral. the series of flashback snippets of thomas hamilton in his shirtsleeves, in what looks like the rented rooms of a navy lieutenant - definitely not the glamour of the london house of landed gentry - and he looks so soft and in love. and the sound is so gentle that in my memory it's almost entirely silent. and it's just three tender moments forever immortalized. and the scene looks worn and soft, like the pages of a book so well-loved it was either constantly handled or locked away. and i don't know which is more terrible - that james thinks of thomas always, or that james tries to think of thomas never

#:) #how dare you :) #flinthamilton #thomas hamilton #james flint #black sails

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Ok so something else that does NOT get talked about enough but that’s so central to who Flint is is the fact that he was the son of a carpenter and yet made it into the officer class, a lieutenant in the navy! I don’t think people really understand how huge this is, and it leads to people not understanding the depths of his conflict with England and himself. I’ve been thinking about this ever since I saw a post somewhere saying that they didn’t like that James was waging this huge war purely out of a lost love. But no no no, of course his love for Thomas was a huge driving force, but to say that that was the only thing? No, that’s a huge misunderstanding of who James McGraw was and what he had to deal with. Strap in, folks, because here it comes:

We are told so much in so few words when we are told that James was the son of a carpenter and had no formal education, and yet became a lieutenant. This is such a big deal in a way that’s hard for us modern people to grasp. It was nigh on impossible for a man of such a working class background to break into the officer class, because young boys were educated and signed on as midshipmen at like 12 and then promoted to lieutenant thereafter. To be an officer you not only needed to be of a higher social status and have connections, but even more importantly you needed to know how to behave in ways that showed you were a gentleman. You needed to know where to place your hat when you took it off, how to cut up a fowl correctly, what minutiae of conversations you had to put forth to show you knew the status of the people around you. Being the son of a carpenter and having no schooling, James simply would not have known that. Hennessy was the scrap that allowed him even the fuzziest of chances at breaking into the officer class, to have a chance at promotion, at command, at making a living. James had to fight like hell to even be given the chance to prove himself worthy.

It was only some twenty years before we see him, in the 1680s, that the examination for lieutenant was even instituted. Before that, you were appointed by a captain, which of course allowed for all sorts of noblemen to be put in places they didn’t belong. To take the examination for lieutenant, you needed a royal appointment and a recommendation from your captain that you were not only fit to be an officer, but also a gentleman. Before he even learned the all ins and outs of naval strategy and warfare necessary to take his examination, James would have had to study the behavior of gentlemen around him on the ship, to refine himself and imitate them in such a way that allowed him to mask the unfortunate circumstance of his birth. And to do this would have been difficult: as a noncommissioned officer or a seamen, he would not have bunked or eaten with these men of higher status.

And even when he became a lieutenant, the struggles would not have stopped. Now, he would be allowed to bunk with the officers, to be among gentlemen, and of course he would have messed up, would have committed some faux pas that reminded them just how much he was not one of them. He would fight and fight, but there would always be that division between them that would not allow this to be forgotten. This is coupled with the fact that he is James McGraw, a surname from either Ireland or Scotland, both countries that were propagandized as uncivilized. His very name reinforces the divide his fellow officers would perceive between them. The fact that Thomas Hamilton, upon first meeting him, brings up the circumstances of James’s birth shows just how anomalous this is, just how much this reputation precedes him and how much he has been able to accomplish in spite of it.

James had the makings of a great leader and a great sailor, and he knew it. We see it when he commands The Walrus. He would have seen countless men of higher birth but less skill promoted ahead of him, and he would have dug in and fought harder to prove himself. Because I think this is what he’s been fighting all along: he’s been told from the very beginning that he is inherently inadequate because of who he is, a carpenter’s son, and he has spent every waking moment fighting against that judgment of him.

When he met Thomas he was finally seeing a bit of the fruits of this lifelong struggle, and then in an instant, everything he had fought tooth and nail, against all odds, to build was stripped from him because of who he was. Again, he was told he was inadequate, unworthy of the life he was trying to build because of an immutable characteristic no more his choosing than his own low birth or surname.

When Miranda accused him of fighting for the sake of fighting and of fighting because this is all he knows how to do, she is entirely correct. He’s been fighting his whole life to make other people see him as the man he is and not what they’ve already decided for him to be. We all know how important what other people think of him is, because that’s the way he’s been raised. He’s been battling against the way other people perceive him all his life. So it is such a natural extension that at this calamity, at this turning point, he directs his battle against the institutions that told people to perceive him so in the first place. The turning point is Thomas’s believed death, yes, but it is also because James’s entire life’s work has been pulled out right from under him. His entire life means nothing because England has told him so. Because of who he is, he is unworthy. She has told him this now with a finality she never has before. She had told him before that he was inadequate and he fought, mustered up enough to shove his way into being a lieutenant. Now she tells him again, and he has no choice but to fight against it, just as he’s been doing all his life. He doesn’t know how to exist and do anything but fight.

He’s fighting against the little voice in his head, the same voice that tells him to be ashamed of loving Thomas, because it doesn’t tell him just that. It tells him, more broadly, that England was right. That he is inadequate, he is lesser, simply because of who he is and he cannot let that voice be proven right. That’s the fight he’s dedicated his life to undertaking. He’s fighting against a world that would tell him or anyone else that they cannot be good because of who they are.

He wants to build a world where the fight that he’s been waging from the very beginning means something. And that’s the most human thing of them all, because who among us can bear the thought of our lifelong blood, sweat, and tears being rendered pointless at the end of it all? He needs to win against England because if he doesn’t, then the fight he was born into as little James McGraw, means absolutely nothing at all.

#I'm so normal about this man #james flint #black sails #james mcgraw #flinthamilton #black sails meta

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Being a member of Flint’s crew must be exhausting. Twice a week you’re put in an impossible, desperate situation then the captain does something unhinged and saves the day in a way no one understands but everyone has come to expect anyway. He tells you to do something, you do it; two hours later, he tells you to do the exact opposite and you do it too (he makes a compelling argument). The crew voted him off six times already and somehow he’s still captain; no one has anything to say about it. There’s no way he’ll wriggle out of this one, you tell yourself for the eighth time this month. No one wants to die for him. You’ll all do whatever he wants you to do. He can control the weather.

#james flint #the man that you are #i'd sail into a storm with you #black sails

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the beginning & end of Captain Flint

caps courtesy of grande_caps/kissthemgoodbye

#it's one of those days #:) #james flint #blacksailsedit #black sails

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He’s just never been good with names, apparently.

[Image description: Gates, with Billy behind him, approaches Flint at the docks. Gates: Billy’s going with you. Flint: Who’s Billy?

Flint and Gates sit drinking in Flint’s office on the Walrus as a storm rages. Gates: I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about. The man that nicked that bottle was called Cregg. Flint: Cregg! That’s him. Cregg.

Thomas Hamilton and Flint, as Lieutenant McGraw, look upon a gallows that has a man about to be hanged. Thomas: Who is he? Flint: Davey someone-or-other. /end description]

#that face when he is literally me #james flint #the man that you are #black sails gif set

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#flinthamiltons #james flint #thomas hamilton #miranda barlow #black sails fanart #black sails #it's so whimsical! #devastation waiting in the wings

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My submission to the fanbook! I'm blown away by all of the incredible work in it. Thank you to everyone who made it happen!

#10yearsblacksails #black sails #black sails fanart #friend art <3

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It's been ten years since the world was blessed with this unparalleled masterpiece. Happy birthday Black Sails, and thank you past Rab for thinking s4 Flint meeting s1 Silver was a cool concept and not destined to break your own heart a thousand times over in the future <3

#10yearsblacksails #black sails #black sails fanart #silverflint #james flint #john silver

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We did a winter exchange in the Sprizzy server and I drew this for my giftee <3

#izzy hands #lucius spriggs #sprizzy #our flag means death fanart #ofmd fanart #maybe the last piece of ofmd only art I will ever draw :/

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JAMES FLINT ▸ Black Sails, 1.5

#most beautiful man in the world #black sails #black sails gif set #james flint #gosh #this look

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In the dark, there is discovery

#flinthamilton #black sails #james flint #thomas hamilton #black sails fanart #i haven't been unhinged enough about James and Thomas yet I think #they invented love

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BLACK SAILS - X.

#black sails #silverflint #james flint #john silver #they make me insaaaaane actually thank you

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every single day I wake up and I miss Hal Gates

#hal gates #billy bones #black sails gif set #black sails #I miss Gates #and this Billy #;;