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sims4luxury · 1 year

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The Nursery/Kid Collection

Hello everyone 🤗

I'm wishing you all a Happy New Year 😍🥳🥳 I hope you're all doing great at the beginning of 2023!

I'm so, so happy today to share with you the biggest collection I ever made and to show you my progress in Blender 😱

About my progress this month:

One of the biggest new skills I have now is that the bed blanket is animated!!!!

I learned how to make a cloth simulation on a mesh, which means I created from scratch for the first time in my life the pillow, the blanket (bed cover?), and the bed canopy

As I already said, I learn how to animate the blanket, which means the bed is fully functional exactly as it should be. No more strange animation when a toddler will going to sleep in it 👌

I also learned how to create a curve, which was needed for the garland

Most of the rugs in this collection has now a thickness even if the shape is not a basic shape such as a square, rectangle, or round. I learned how to add texture details to them which gives a realistic and mellow appearance which can be great if you have a Simstagram and share cute toddler poses for example

I started learning several new other skills but the end result is too bad to be shared right now 😂

Thank you all so so much for all your support without which I simply wouldn't be able to spend as much time learning new 3d skills 🙏❤

About the collection:

The collection is composed of 25 new CC with a total of ... 291 swatches! 😱

I wanted to cover as many styles as possible with plain colors and matching patterns for you to be sure to be able to create a lot of different toddler bedrooms even if you're using the same mesh. I'm personally always frustrated when the CC is exactly the one I want to use but can't find the swatch that is matching with the other items made by another CC creator.

Of course, I couldn't create all the textures ever possible, but for sure when an item has 38 different swatches, you'll find at least 1 of them matching your interior 😍

The color palettes I used to create this collection are mostly white, pink, orange, green, and blue with matching patterns and for some items, I created different kinds and tones of wood from light to dark.

Everything is base game and HQ compatible

Everything is functional and playtested

All items have from 1 swatch up to 38

When possible, all items have all their LODs

Except for the bed canopy (sorry), everything is low poly

They all have their custom thumbnails and are correctly tagged

Most of them can be found under "kid's furniture" or "kid's decoration"

All of them can also be found with those keywords: sims4luxury; nursery; toddler; kid

Here are all the thumbnails of the collection:

How to make the bed functional:

The bed is coming in 3 separated pieces:

Bed frame

mattress

blanket

and ONLY THE BLANKET is actually functional. Bed frames and mattresses are only decor items with 0 interactions or animations linking to them. So you'll need to place the blanket if you want your toddler sim to be able to sleep in the bed from this collection.

You can use the blanket with any other bed frame you have, it will work the same.

I separated the bed into 3 pieces for you to choose between all the swatches and mix and match all of them the way you prefer.

About the bed canopy:

The bed canopy is a high poly mesh. I did my best and created several versions of it but the only one which didn't look too weird to be shared is the version that has 25k poly. So please be cautious!

I created the mesh to be placed as close as possible to the walls in a corner so that the bed frame can be placed below it, not next to or in front of it and it does not create a collision with any sim.

Tips:

Because of the number of swatches a lot of the CC in this collection has, the files are large.

If you need to save space on your computer but still want to keep this collection installed, I suggest you delete the swatches you like the least with Sims4Studio.

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Et voilà 🤗

I wish you all to enjoy this new CC collection and all the best for 2023 😍🥳

Full love to everyone of you and thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support 🙏

Mélissa

* FREE DOWNLOAD *

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outrunningthedark · 1 year

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Youre definitely a hypocrite. When it's something you don't wanna hear or face the facts of you're like "I'm not answering/listening to this" or "stop asking about --- I won't respond to it" hiding behind the facade of you're trying to be a better person than the people in your ask box and telling them off for bringing that "drama" to your sacred blog then being your disability into it so people feel bad for you and can't call you out on toxic behaviour

Then you simultaneously knock down Ryan's now alleged ex. You don't have to like her, i definitely don't care, but you act like miss perfect then go bashing another woman for an idea you conjured up in your head about her. This isn't one of your stupid fictional theories this is real life people with their real life problems. Can't wait for you to delete this and then make a post fake crying about how hard your life is as a disabled woman in 2023 lord knows that's your go to response when you been called out

I can't take people seriously when they pick and choose which posts of mine to react to because you're (once again) not telling the whole story. When my disability comes up when dealing with an anon: To try and make you all see that sending me "hate" doesn't have the desired effect when I, as a physically disabled person, have bigger issues occupying my mind. You send me asks thinking you're going to make me feel bad about myself and uh, what someone hiding behind a gray face thinks about me doesn't really compare to the frustration of trying to complete "simple" tasks like getting dressed and cleaning my teeth. The only times I say I "don't want to hear" something is when it's someone *obviously* trying to get a reaction out of me, as you are doing right now, and I can't be bothered in that moment because again, it's tumblr that I have to make time for, not my real life situation. Idk how many times I can answer the same questions about Oliver's articles, or a piece of spec someone read on another blog, or what I think about Buddie's chances of going canon. Or even something that happens on social media. It's all right there in my tags. I should not have to repeat myself THAT many times just because people don't know how to use them. As for the ex-wife. I was never a fan of her because of her fitspo persona (which regurgitates ableist approaches) and her gun obsession and sharing info that comes from FOX News. I was not a fan of his for co-signing her attitudes (fact, given how he was posting anti-vaxx rhetoric) because who he CHOSE to commit to (she did not hold him hostage, he is not innocent) is a reflection of his values and beliefs. SHE went on instagram to tell everyone who reads her page that he was turning into someone she didn't recognize. SHE went on instagram to boast about cutting off "dead ends" and how much better off she was for it. SHE blocked him once that article came out. SHE is the one making it known that she's not on good terms with him, and hasn't been for a while. I, and the people who also pay attention, are reacting to WHAT WE SEE. There's nothing to make up because IT'S ALL RIGHT THERE. Jesus Christ. If you're gonna come at me with an argument, at least run it by a friend to make sure I can't shut it down from every angle.

#anonymous #tina speaks #xoxo gossip girl

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larrydoinglaundry · 1 year

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2022 writing self-evaluation✍️

Thank you @greenblueish for tagging me 💜

1. Number of stories posted to AO3 this year: 4

2. Word count posted for the year: 189 907 (woah)

3. Fandoms I wrote for: One Direction

4. Pairings: Larry

5. Story with the most:

Kudos: love is a word, you gave it a name

Bookmarks: love is a word, you gave it a name

Comments: love is a word, you gave it a name

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

I mean it has to be love is a word you gave it a name because that was a journey and somehow I finished it😭 and obviously because I took a biiig bite with that. The whole gender aspect, internalized homophobia, mental health issues, falling in love... there was a lot going on and three chapters in I wanted to give up so bad. But I didn't !

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

this does in no mean I am not proud of this work, I just wish I would have been able to write more for it. so it has to be I'm insatiable it's all your fault

8. Share or describe a favourite review you received:

I love every single comment on ao3, I am beyond grateful for every single person who reached out in dms on twitter, and everyone who keeps hyping my fic up.

I can't share a favorite, I have so many.

9. A time when writing was really, really hard:

Chapter 3 in love is a word. It was constant writing, deleting, crying, writing, deleting, crying... 💀 there wasn't even anything particularly difficult to write in that chapter ! It just didn't seem to flow at all. I had never wanted to give up so bad.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

Didn't really surprise me per se, but I finally dared to put cunningulus and vaginal sex in my abo 😂 I had been hesitant to be very descriptive about it before, being too worried it turns my readers off. But I loved every second of it ! Pussy, folds, lips... 🤭 and judging by the comments and kudos, people didn't hate it.

11. A favourite excerpt of your writing:

"I won’t forget you. And that you were, will always be, my first love, and my baby. My sweetest dove," Louis murmurs, fingers softly digging onto Harry's jaw. With a soft smile, he whispers, "Will always be my bumblebee."

Harry should be able to say something equally sweet, something just as beautiful, but he can’t, because his brain is short circuiting, and his throat is burning again with the sobs that will probably never end.

Much to his relief, Louis sees it all, and chooses to kiss him to spare him from having to come up with something to say.

12. How did you grow as a writer this year:

hmmm. I think my general skills as a storyteller developed a lot. I feel like on some parts IIIAYF is written way better than LIAW. And while I haven't published my wip yet, I think for the most part it's a lot better than anything I put out this year.

13. How do you hope to grow next year:

I hope, again, that I could stop being so hard on myself but that will probably never happen.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

@stylesthebrave my beloved, and everyone I met on twitter this year.

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

hehehehe. Always. Yes. Something. One shall never know what.

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

Don't worry about cliches, stories that have already been written, authors that are getting more attention... The story that's planned in your head is unique, and no one else can write it the way you do. Your mind is beautiful.

And most importantly, your worth is not measured by statistics.

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

Finish the sequel to LIAW ! Hallelujah ! And starting my cliche fic heheh.

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

I feel like everyone has already done this so I don't know :(

#writer things #writing self evaluation 2022

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alittlefrenchtree · 4 years

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I feel so conflicted about Timmy. I loved the sweet, humble guy he was, but now he acts like the biggest diva, going to fashion shows, only hanging out with famous people. I miss the old Timmy, what I see now I don't like. And I don't like that he left earlier and didn't care about Armie, but can stop rehearsing to show his face at fashion weeks. I feel at the beginning it was only about his talent, now it's more about his fashion choices. I don't want to hate, I just feel different about him.

Me @ everyone who will read this answer : Please be kind?

Seriously, just be kind. That’s not a question, just be kind.

More important, unless you’re Nonny and looking for an answer of mine you really don’t have to read all of that. It’s mostly an observation on how Timmy’s career and image is handled right now and nothing groundbreaking at all. There a little bit about his relationship with Armie towards the end. Honestly even you, Nonny, you weren’t probably asking for an answer this long. I just love to hear myself thought, apparently. Sorry if it’s boring as hell for you 😅

I choose to believe that this ask isn’t coming from a wickedness place and doesn’t want to be mean. That’s the main reason why I’m answering this ask, instead of deleting it.

The second reason is because I’ve been contemplating the same kind of questions and the same kind of issues about Timmy for a while now. And since I’m now mostly at peace with all of it, and with the way I see him, I thought it could be interesting to share around that.

By sharing my view on how things are at this moment, I don’t want to invalidate your feelings, dear Nonny (or anyone who feels the same way). Like I said, I understand where they come from. I only hope that, by reading a different point of view, you’ll managed to feel a little bit less conflicted and maybe go back to enjoy some Timmy content like you used to. I hope I won’t sound to harsh or anything. This isn’t my intention at all.

I think the most important thing to remember is that 99% of what we see of Timmy is work. The work of an actor is not only acting. Especially when you have the ambition to become and to stay the kind of actor Timmy wants to be. Every time you see him at a public event, he’s working. Networking is working. Existing in the media eyes is working. Attending as fashion shows is working. That doesn’t mean that, in the case of fashion show for example, Haider isn’t also his friend. Of course they’re friends and of course he’s also showing support for his friend’s work. But it’s also a work relationship. That’s why it needs to be public. Haider is the one dressing him for the premieres of his movies. Haider is one of those who helped build his fashion reputation. Being seen together and publicly supporting each other work, it’s good for both of them, professionally speaking. What I mean is, when you see Tim at a fashion show or at a Hollywood party, it’s not free time for him. It’s a scheduled event on his work schedule. So when you said that he stops rehearsing to go to fashion show, that’s not entirely true. Firstly because it’s on week-end. Secondly, it would be like saying that he stops acting to do promo. Both things are work. Attending to Haider’s fashion show is also work.

Beside the London-Paris journey is hardly an effort. It would take me almost the same amont of time to go to Paris using public transports and I’m living like really close to Paris. And beside bis Timmy has seen SWM within the window of two days that was allowed by his work schedule so it’s not like he has never managed to make things work for Armie either.

For me, the problem is that Timmy has three jobs at the moment. He’s ‘one of the best actor of his generation’, the ‘most influential man in fashion’ and ‘a heartthrob for teenagers and young adults’. I’m phrasing things this way on purpose, because it shows how much weighs on him at the moment. All of this means a lot of expectations on him, a lot of judgements but also a lot of money depending on him. Even if all of his current statuts has been happening in a more or less natural way (he’s one of the best actor of his generation because he’s good at acting, his interest for fashion seems genuine and… well… He’s damn cute so of course he’s a teenage dream), my main concern is the fact that, right now, his public image is handled to encourage these three status at the same time. As long as his acting career is doing fine, it’s not a problem. If his acting career starts to be on the skids, or if one of his parts on a movie is suddenly having very bad reviews, the whole world will start to look at him and at his fashion/heartthrob statuts with different eyes.

But that moment hasn’t happened yet so I think it’s unfair to call him out on that now. He has shown nothing but hard work on the acting part of his career, and he has great things aligned for the next year. He’s a lead on the Dune remake by Denis Villeneuve, he’s starring on a Wes Anderson movie, he has that Bob Dylan thing who he seems really committed to and he’s about to do a run of a promising play. I think his choice on going back to theater, where everything is about acting, is really relevant of how focused is still he’s on acting.

I think it’s also interesting to notice the timing. For the past two years, Timmy has always been disappearing around that time of the year. So much that the Timmy drought has become a thing in the fandom. In the past, Timmy has expressed his need of disappearing and ‘going back in the mud’, both literally and figuratively, after being exposed to public eyes at this extend and for a long period of time. Truth is, I believe that Timmy is not allowed to disappear anymore. I don’t think you’re allowed to disappear for a while when Legendary Pictures is betting a lot amount of money on your pretty face. Because to disappear means media and social media will talk less about you and, in this industry, if people stop talking about you it basically means you’re dead.

So he can’t disappear. But somehow he found a way to focus on acting through theater, even if he has to do it in front of the public eyes. To be honest, I think it’s the least bad solution. I think the need to disappear for him (or anyone for that matter) for a decent period of time is really crucial for mental health and he hasn’t had this opportunity for a while, and I’m afraid he won’t have it either for the near future. Don’t get me wrong, I love that he’s doing theater again. I love having the opportunity to see him live perform I just wish he has a little bit more time to stay off the radar before going back for a whole year of craziness.

I understand that it can be frustrating to feel like most of the talks about him are about something else than his roles or his movies or his acting skills. Like I said, it’s part because of his/his team’s fault because they’ve been feeding the talk so it can keep going and going. It’s also part because the world works this way and is superficial as hell. Movie talks last a few months with the pre-promo/the premieres/the actually promo. A little bit more if you’re lucky enough to get nominations and awards. Then it becomes old news. Timmy’s persona exists every day. He’s doing and wearing new things every day and people are always more excited by what’s new. And the media will keep on using anything to have him as click-bait. It’s a win-win situation for both sides.

Except you never know when people are going to switch. One day they keep on waiting more and more of someone and the next day, they already grew tired of thi person. It’s been too much. They over did it. I sometimes use a tag that say something like « when can we say that too much is too much? » to react to what people and media sometimes do/write/say about Timmy to express this kind of feeling. Of course Tim and his team can’t control everything that is being said about him but I believe that the decisions they made in the past year? year and an half? have lead to this kind of craziness. This makes me think of that french paper, which was basically saying ‘why don’t we stop to consider Timmy as a kitten and make a fuss of everything he did and why don’t we start focusing on how he acts, because that is the real interesting thing to talk about.

Despite everything I can’t hold all of this too-much-ness against him when he’s still working so hard on his roles. I can’t blame him when I think of him giving so much on himself in that before-the-battle speech in The King that I want to go fight with and for him. I can’t blame him when I see him giving so much of himself for Laurie that he’s making me laugh and melt in the middle of a cinema room full of people when I’m usually pretty stoic in public. I just can’t blame him when I hear him talk about Dune and being so excited that he literally can’t stop himself for bouncing on his chair. I just can’t.

What I can do is not not pay attention to everything. I know it’s not an easy thing to do on tumblr and on social media when he’s everywhere and people are retweeting and reblogging the same things over and over again but if I’m not interested, I try to not pay attention. Back during CMBYN and BB era, I think I was looking at and reading everything. I’ve stopped shortly after. I didn’t read the article you’re referring to, for example. Because what’s Timmy is wearing interests me but not the shallow and irrelevant articles people will write about it. Most of them will say the same thing, that it’s Timothée Chalamet world now and us peasants are just humbly living on it. It’s going to be said over and over again until something newer, younger comes along. It’s ok. Being a teenage heartthrob will pass. Being the most influential man in fashion will probably also pass. I mean his fashion choices will probably keep on arousing interest but the world is going to catch up. Eventually.

But acting will stay.

And if in the meantime, he manages to enjoy a little bit of more superficial things and take a shot or two of confidence along the way without regretting too many decisions he made, I say why not let him do that? It’s not like we have a word to say anyway.

I understand what you mean about missing him being sweet and humble even if I disagree with you. I’m not saying that he’s not sweet and humble anymore but I felt something shift between the BB era and TK era. It’s also frustrating because it’s more a feeling than something I can prove or explain. I just don’t think he’s changed, I think he’s a little bit more guarded than before. And if I look at things from an human perspective, it makes sense?

The more people are watching me, irl or online, the more I’m going to be cautious about things I said and how I behave. The more guarded I’ll be. And in my case, we’re only talking about dozens from a few hundreds tops of people tops. Can you imagine living your life in front of millions people? I’d put some distance and some defenses between me and the world as well. He has to if he wants to survive.

We’ve been lucky to have witnessed something as precious and rare as what we have witnessed during the CMBYN and a little bit during the BB era. It was something beautiful but it wasn’t meant to last. Not in the same kind of proportions anyway.

So I don’t think Timmy is acting like the biggest diva. Like I’ve said, what we see of his life is 99% work-related and we see about 10% of his time? Less of that?

Like for example, he’s been in London for what? 10-12 days now? And if I’m not mistaking, we haven’t seen him anywhere except from fans meeting him briefly outside of the theater and him picking up food? Whatever he’s doing, if he has a wild life or if he’s in bed at 9pm every night, he’s being discreet about it. Like he’s always been discreet about his private life, his close friends and his family. Just because he’s discreet about it doesn’t mean he doesn’t see them — old friends and people who aren’t famous. He just doesn’t feel the need to post their face on social media or meeting them in front of paparazzis.

Of course if I wanted to see him as a diva, I could. I’d look at him wearing sunglasses inside and declare that he’s a diva. When there could be thousands of reasons for him to wear sunglasses inside. I wouldn’t surprise me to learn that flashes during fashion week are painful for the eyes, especially for people with color eyes as light as Timmy’s. Especially if you’re tired. Or hangover. Or maybe he’s just thinking of sunglasses as an integral part of his outfit. Like shoes or socks or jewelry or backpacks. Or maybe he just feel safer that way and it helps his anxiety. I tried wearing sunglasses all day long at a couple of occasions when I was particularly tired and it was kind of amazing. Plus it allows you to avoid eye contact with humans which is also amazing.

I wanted to touch a little bit on the fashion topic before moving on to the Armie one. I’m guessing you’re not really passionate or fond of fashion. It’s ok. You’re allowed to and fashion and haute couture don’t do much to help themselves. Or didn’t do much. I guess things are slowly changing like everywhere else. But there are a lot of ego, of superficiality, a lot of changes and improvements that could be made. A friend who has worked for designers and still work in the fashion industry once told me that the industry wouldn’t be that bad if designers stop acting like they were saving the world with their clothes. My point is, just because something has a reputation, doesn’t mean every person who takes part of this thing has the same reputation. There are people in fashion who are truly passionate about what they’re doing and teach you things about fashion that make you look at clothes as wearable pieces of art. Because when you look closely at haute couture, you can see that fashion can take its influences in architecture, sculpture, painting and in many many others artistic disciplines. It has its own history, its own revolutions, its own movements. It tells something about our time and ourselves as a society. All of that goes without even mentioning the close relationship between fashion, high fashion and movies, which I’m sure is very interesting from a Timmy perspective. (I swear I wrote all of that before reading the Dazed itw. Like pinky swear).

At this point, Timmy could have a seat in the first row for every fashion show of every brand. He could attend to all of them, with a different outfit for each, make a show every time and take all the clothes that designers would sell their cat to see him wearing. He doesn’t. He shows up for about two designers and communicate about one more and that’s all. It’s work. Something related to his red carpet premieres. It’s fun and something he uses to express himself and his personality. I think he said something in the Dazed interview among these lines. That fashion is fun but is main focus in on acting.

Here :

“With the development of my career, I also slowly entered the fashion industry. I can feel that fashion and movies are similar to a certain extent. For me, participating in a movie or wearing a suit is about the people I work with, not the brand or money. That's why I keep working with Haider and Virgil. I also maintain good relationships with many brands, but I will not be overly tied to fashion for this. Because my career is an actor, my dream is to be an actor, and I am very satisfied and very happy to be an actor.”

Regarding of Armie… Honestly I’m kind of tired of the debate. Because I’m tired of what the debate says about how we see relationships these days, without even talking about Armie and Timmy.

I’m still trying to understand at which point we has started to need public proofs of private relationships. Likes, Facebook statuts, pictures shared publicly, couple selfies… I mean what the point? How have we become so insecure about relationships and ourselves that we’re now feeling the need to share proofs of private relationships with the whole world to believe it? And to the point that we are now projecting our own insecurities on relationships of others? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

If I wasn’t talking with/seeing my close ones for a whole year or a whole decade for whatever reason, they would still be my close ones. I believe the same thing about Armie and Timmy. Except these two idiots seems to be talking to each other all the time and seeing each other pretty regularly. But because Armie isn’t about work anymore, we don’t have to see it.

Over the past four years, they’ve done nothing but showing and saying how much they care about each other and know about each other and how much they’re still close. Timmy literally said I love you to Armie in a damn public speech. Name me another person for whom he said that. The three words, plane and simple.

If you’re willing to believe that liking each other post on social media or showing up at a public events or pose in front of photographers are better proofs of closeness that what they’ve been doing so far, that says something about how you see relationships, not about how they really are.

Loving someone is not always about rubbing it off publicly for everyone to see. More often than not, loving someone is about answering your phone in the middle of the night, because the person you love and care about can’t sleep or is on another time zone and needs you. That something you can show off on social media or get papped. And maybe we need to start to believe that it’s even more valuable exactly because of that.

#alft asks

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old-long-john · 7 years

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looks like you are someone in the black sails fandom who agrees that every character is pretty damn flawed (except for, like, madi, and we didn't see enough of thomas hamilton to see his flaws but i am certain he had them) but I have to say some of fandom and their determination to make silver THE VILLAIN of the show just reminds me, over and over, of the quotation "civilization needs its monsters". like you can write john off as an evil white "het" man, even though he is clearly bi, but

in my opinion people like john silver are only made because society makes them. i think silver was probably wounded young, and then just wounded over and over for a period of years that almost certainly felt like forever, as prolonged trauma does, and it is so frustrating to me that fandom doesn’t want to embrace how complicated and tormenting and heartbreaking and infuriating that john silver is. but then i look at state of world and my country (usa) and need for scapegoat in all things, well.

Thank you for this ask. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and it’s been frustrating me too, so it was nice to be given a reason to actually say something about it. I hope you don’t mind me answering it publicly (let me know if you do and I’ll delete it). I’ve spent about four days trying to work out an answer to this that I’m happy with though, because it feels like some of my thoughts might be skating on thin ice and asking for trouble if they’re not carefully expressed, and that’s not at all what I want. I’ll stick this under a read more so I don’t clog people’s dashes.

Honestly, at this point I’ve pretty much stopped interacting with any ‘discourse’. I’m so tired of it. I’m reconciled to the fact that everyone in the fandom is mostly set on their opinions by now, and that’s totally fine, when people stay polite about it. Everyone brings their own shit into the viewing of a show (and I mean that in the nicest way). It’s not just unavoidable, it’s incredibly apt and a powerful thing when it comes to understanding stories like this, which attempt to show us such a broad range of human experiences and conditions and complexities. With a show like Black Sails especially, that doesn’t allow you to be a passive viewer, that demands engagement to be able to understand it, it’s no wonder people feel so strongly about so many aspects of it, and often find themselves feeling helplessly understanding of or very personally wounded by certain characters’ choices. And being part of a fandom which is filled with a beautifully diverse group of people, with opinions informed by their beautifully diverse life experiences and personal baggage, can be such an amazing way to broaden one’s own horizons and see things from different points of view.

That being said, the other side of it is exactly what you described: being exposed to mind blowing bullheadedness. At this point I pretty much just share the same irritation as you. I understand the reasons why some people can’t forgive the things Silver did, and I understand why some people just plain don’t like him (hell, I hated him too when I first watched S1). That’s for them to decide, if it even is truly a decision and not one of those things that exists somewhere beyond choice. I know I couldn’t choose to hate him now or to not understand to a really quite painful extent the fears and emotions that motivated him to do what he did. Quite honestly, I’ve only watched that 4x10 forest scene twice and the second time I was so angry with him too, but I still understand, and it hurts all the more for it. As with so many of the most powerful moments in this story, they’re at their most moving when you can see all the ways in which both parties are right, and choosing a side is almost impossible.

Like you said though, what’s really beginning to grate on my nerves is this idea that Silver is the villain of the piece; irredeemable, two-dimensional, bland, or simply the ‘abusive cishet white man’ (a tag I’ve seen too, and one that made me roll my eyes so fucking hard I almost sprained something. Tumblr’s a truly magical land of over-simplistic juvenile twattery sometimes). It’s utter bullshit, and it feels like my annoyance has taken a step up out of the complexities of canon and into the difficulties of tumblr and fandoms. Sometimes I really think some people could benefit from stepping away from the bubble of tumblr and going outside once in awhile. (Do you hear that? It’s the sound of my fragile glass house shattering around me.)

Black Sails is not perfect. I am fully aware of that. But the one thing the writers managed incredibly consistently (mostly) was creating complicated, flawed, and human characters. There are only a handful of characters who approach being two-dimensional, villainous, or flawless, and they tend to be the ones who had the least screen time to be developed, or served more as plot devices than characters. John Silver was certainly not one of those. People are free to despise him, people can be horrified or outraged or disgusted by his choices, people can even just not personally find him that interesting, but reducing him to just The Villain? That’s choosing to be ignorant and refusing to engage with the text, simply because it doesn’t suit their own narrative. Good people can do appalling things, and bad people can do good things, and most people (and so most characters in this story) are neither of those two extremes, but horribly messy shades of grey, just trying to do the best they can for themselves and their loved ones with what resources they have. Some people are better, some are worse, but most traverse that middle ground, rarely remaining static or uncomplicated in their ‘goodness’ or ‘badness’, and Silver is most certainly among us complicated good-bad people. Refusing to acknowledge the depth of those nuances pisses me off because it feels like such a disservice to the hard work of everyone involved in creating this show and the astonishing things they accomplished with these characters and their relationships. Beautiful art deserves fair and thoughtful analysis. Anything less than that feels like a waste of everyone’s time. Why bother consuming a story like this and investing so much time and energy in discussing it if you’re not going to engage with it in an honest way? It’s possible to hate a character but still appreciate their complexity.

What you said is so true. It’s abundantly clear (from very early on, if you actually take the time to look for it) that Silver is a very damaged person, good at reading people but dead set on avoiding becoming attached to them (and the things that suggests are not pleasant), and someone who had nothing in the world but the clothes on his back and his wits. He was never going to be an idealist, because the world had made him a realist. Even if people think his choices in the end were abhorrent, surely they must see why he made them? To be in a position to end a war, which he saw as only an unwinnable nightmare, to save the people he loved from death (and every other innocent bystander whose lives would have been weighed against the cause, without their consent, and sacrificed in its pursuit). How is that difficult to understand? Even if it seems unutterably selfish or short-sighted, it’s the easiest thing in the world to empathise with on a human level. And his love for both Flint and Madi just isn’t up for debate. It’s right there in every scene, and confirmed in every interview with the writers. Even if he loved them poorly, he still loved them. That’s a very human thing too. Perhaps people would’ve felt differently about him if they’d definitively told us what those ‘unending horrors’ he’d suffered in his past were, but they didn’t and so we have to read between the lines. It just doesn’t take that much effort to see those lines flashing like neon signs throughout his arc, if you aren’t actively trying to ignore them for the sake of stuffing him into that box labelled ‘Long John Silver – Moustache Twirling Villain’.

It was also a pretty damn significant element of his story line that his becoming disabled slammed a whole lot of doors in his face, gave people a reason to judge him as less than other men, and left him desperately clinging on to the one vaguely happy life and future he had left within his reach. Are people conveniently ignoring that aspect of his character arc because it doesn’t fit in with that tumblr attitude of ‘boo, fuck white cis men. They’re all disgusting and none of them can know true suffering or injustice in this society that favours them’? Of course those privileges exist, and of course white male characters so often get free passes for things they really shouldn’t, and those are things that desperately need addressing and I wouldn’t try to minimise, but I don’t see how going balls to the wall in the opposite direction and refusing to see nuance makes any more sense. Especially when it comes to a story set during that historical time period and a character who we all saw have one privilege (being able-bodied) violently ripped away from him. Anybody who can dismiss as irrelevant the impact of his disability and the profound suffering and limitations that came with it is being wilfully blind. (I’ve written absurdly excessive meta about the significance of that.)

There are infinite different ways to suffer and end up irreparably damaged, and just because he doesn’t know some types doesn’t mean he hasn’t experienced others and hasn’t been truly and deeply scarred by them. It’s not a goddamn competition. This isn’t a world where only the most widespread and systemic suffering ‘counts’. Half of the point of this story was showing us the myriad fucked up and inventive ways in which the structure of ‘civilised’ society shat (and still shits) on anybody who wasn’t sat comfortably at the top. Or simply the ways in which ‘civilised’ society didn’t give a fuck about anyone else shitting on the little people either. Of course he hasn’t suffered the specific and enormous cruelties that say the people Madi was fighting for suffered, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t want to live whatever hellish past it was that he couldn’t even speak of either, and which sits within the context of this whole narrative of fucked up pasts as the single one too awful to be named. I also definitely wouldn’t want to live the present that saw him mutilated and handed a lifetime of suffering that no ideological war could in any way redress. And I’m really not trying to weigh his suffering against other people’s, or trying to build it into any kind of justification or excuse, because that way lies ignorant fuckery and it isn’t my point. The only point I’m trying to make is that some people’s determined lack of acknowledgement of the ways in which he was a beautifully complicated, damaged, suffering, good-bad person too is aggravating to me as someone who is in awe of the intricately complex things the writers and actors accomplished throughout this story. More than anything I just don’t see how anyone can have watched his whole character arc and honestly come to the conclusion that he’s bland and two-dimensional, or that his relationship with Flint was insincere or insignificant (to either of them), or that his ultimate choices can be explained simply by labelling him Evil™. He isn’t even as simple as that in bloody Treasure Island.

It doesn’t even seem to be about whether or not people see Silver’s actions as defensible at this point. It does seem to have devolved into a division between people who have very different opinions on that, but ultimately see why he did those things, and people who refuse to engage with the more sympathetic aspects of his character at all, for whatever reasons. Maybe because it makes the whole thing more difficult and uncomfortable when you have to accept that The Villain was an ultimately shifting and amorphous thing that was someone or something different for every character, and that in some ways Silver was as much a victim as anyone else in that story, and it was partly the result of the ways in which he was victimised (before and after we met him) that bound him to a course where he ended up horribly hurting the people he was trying to help. Nothing is ever black and white, in real life or on this show, and trying to reduce it to that is being either intellectually lazy, disingenuous or obtuse, and missing so much of the beautiful subtlety of the writing.

This answer got way out of hand…but yeah. John Silver isn’t a hero or a villain, because he is not a two-dimensional character, and he sure as fuck isn’t bland or boring. Few people on this show are. We’re all of us in love with a bunch of thieves and murderers and master manipulators. But that’s the point. They’re all just people, beautifully multifaceted and forced to extremes at the very edge of the world and clinging on to life by the skin of their teeth. They’re complex and fucked up and every single one of them running away from something or running towards something else. With barely thirty seconds of thought I could find sympathetic things to say about almost every single character in this show, even if those things wouldn’t be enough to tip the balance of judgement in their favour or make me like them. I’m completely aware that Silver is far less in need of defending than some unfairly maligned characters on this show, but I think perhaps to a certain few it’s the complexity of the writing and therefore the necessity of complex interpretations that needs defending. Nobody is obliged to forgive Silver or to like him, but if they’re happy to forgive and like other characters who have done equally fucked up things or worse ones then that’s a double standard they really ought to take the time to consider. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose, but a story like this deserves better.

#I'm not sure why I've felt so nervous about posting this #but I've written and deleted at least four times as much as I actually ended up happy with #I suppose it's the idea of coming across as saying 'don't be mean to the white boy!1!!' that's worrying #but hopefully it's clear that that's not the point I'm trying to make??#I hope #because it's really not #I'm just so tired of people being obtuse about this when so much care and effort went into the writing and performance #of this character #it's lazy and irritating #poodle snake's as complicated and fucked up as any of them #and that means he's also as capable of genuinely good intentions as any of them #just #respect the fucking art people

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