Happy Pride Month Eleanor Roosevelt was queer, the Little Mermaid is a gay love story, James Dean liked men, Emily Dickinson was a lesbian, Nikola Tesla was asexual, Freddie Mercury was bisexual & British Indian, and black trans women pioneered the gay rights movement.
Florence Nightingale was a lesbian, Leonardo da Vinci was gay, Michelangelo too, Jane Austen liked women, Hatshepsut was not cisgender, and Alexander the Great was a power bottom
Freddie Mercury is well known for his attraction to men but was also linked to several women, including Barbara Valentin whom he lived with shortly before he died. Friends have talked about being invited into their bed and walking in on them having sex (documentary Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender)
Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are two of the best-known activists who fought in the Stonewall riots
Jack Rackham is just so iconic he starts out as literally the worst pirate in history, he loses several hundred dollars worth of pearls, assists in the (absolutely justified) murders for his entire crew and gets pissed on and ends up the one of the only members of the cast still on the account having sailed along side the most famous pirate in history as his equal and he does this through… Idek a combination of stubbornness, iconic dialouge and the fact that his lesbian gf is rlly good at stabbing stuff
‘so you arrived at nassau at february……….. and the first accounts of captain flint’s exploits are in june…………… are you actually telling me that you became a feared pirate lord in four months?’
I feel like there’s a really interesting parallel between the Anne/Eleanor teaming up to kill Max’s rapists in season 1 and James murdering Alfred Hamilton. There are a few lines in relation to those two situations that draw explicit parallels, but the differences in the way they’re presented to the audience is such a fascinating example of the way this show deals with the truth of a story versus the way a story is perceived and presented to the world.
In season 1 the audience is privy to Anne and Eleanor’s motivations and there’s no question that we’re supposed to be fully on their side even though they’re murdering 8 dudes. And from a place of knowing the why of it and knowing it was a sort of “righteous killing” we then see the way their actions to defend max are twisted in order to vilify both of them. Eleanor is turned into a tyrant and an evil queen who will murder anyone who “offends” her pride. And Anne becomes the monster and madwoman shunned by every crew on the island..
But with James and the Maria Aleyne we don’t know the story. We only know how it’s perceived, we only see the outside version of story where he’s a villain. But then we move in closer and learn the truth and retroactively realize what kind of story this has been right from the start and it’s just SO GOOD.
It’s the whole unraveling of the concept of queercoded villains this show does and it’s just amazing
This is that weird abstract millennial humour that we all laugh at and older generations squint at shouting “I don’t understand the joke!! I think I’ve missed something!!”
definitely click through to the “read more”, i laughed so much!
“Black Sails is crafted a bit differently than any other show I’ve seen. The pacing more closely resembles that to a well-written novel than it does to any modern TV show. Because of that; it takes time. Time for the plot to unfold, time for the characters to reveal themselves to you, and time for you to settle in just before everything you expected gets subverted… …Is television supposed to pick us up and carry us away, or is it something we should work to engage in? There are different standards between what makes a good show and a good novel, but should there always be? Strong literary works ask us to engage with the material and hold it up against a light to analyse it. But TV rarely encourages that same kind of depth of thought. As entertaining as Game of Thrones is, there’s few who would agree that it could withstand the same amount of analysis as Wuthering Heights or Moby Dick. Black Sails on the other hand gets richer the further down you dig.”
This article is what had me thinking about modern television’s obsession with plot over themes the other day. I think the writer, Brook Wentz, is spot on when she compares Black Sails to a novel, both with regards to pacing and to its ability to hold up to in-depth analysis.
I think modern audiences need to open up to a more diverse assortment of show formats—slower pacing, plots that require longterm investment, experimental structures, postmodern components, etc. If we’re going to start calling television “art,” after decades of dismissing it as inconsequential pap, shouldn’t we hold it to the same standards we hold other art forms?
If all novels were written in roughly the same style, with the same restrictions and structures, and if writers who diverged from that style were shut out or ignored, the medium would stagnate and die. Who’s to say the same won’t happen to television if we don’t loosen up our standards?
sometimes i think about how they filmed thomas and james’s love story in season two and i’m just sort of overhwlemed by the narrative and cinematic choices because like
compared to every other relationship on the show, it like – filtered it through this dreamy and lovely haze, all focused on smiles, and comfort, and morning afters, and okay, part of that is probably the fact that it’s being looked back on through the lense of James’s memory
but part of it is that the narrative was holding up thomas and james’s relationship as this ideal – in a world where they both would have hanged for being together, THEIRS is the relationship that is depicted as this pure and almost holy love, their relationship was sacred, and true anD I GET REALLY EMOTIONAL ABOUT IT HELP
if I was a vampire on the run from the volturi I would just. hide at the bottom of the fuckin ocean. the ocean is huge. who’s gonna look there? Demetri would look for me and he’d just see darkness and some plankton. like where is this bitch? idk u figure it out u old hoe. I’m somewhere in the fuck you region. good luck scouring the ocean floor, 80% of this planets surface, u dipshit. I drink the blood of the scary creatures down there. I’m chillin. check mate bitch
One of my favorite tropes is “Villain Decay”. It’s not a redemption or reformation – the character themself doesn’t necessarily change morally or behaviorally, but the as the stakes become higher and more serious antagonists are introduced, the original villain seems harmless and friendly in comparison.
that’s how you end up in an elevator with your adopted emo god of mischief brother trying to convince him to stop being mildly evil for five minutes so you can defeat your mega evil older sister who is destroying your home planet
shesaheroyousee 