Just Thinking About How Rio Fell In Love With Agatha Despite Literally Being Death And Knowing That Eventually

"Genesis", Oil on canvas by Matthew Cornell

🖤Exciting news! 🖤

🖤My free-to-play visual novel, "Phantom of the Black Rose Revue," is now available!🖤 This nostalgic yuri game features 19 animated CGs, 13 original music tracks, and an introduction to the world, mysteries, and love interests of the Revue! 🖤

Signal boosts greatly appreciated, especially as this game is entered in the Spooktober Game Jam!

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

It's not my blood.

Absolutely true. Because Flint and Madi were just two birds of a feather. They learned it slowly, through hard experiences I'd say, but they definitely understood it (and each other) by the end of it. How great the two of them would have been in leading that war together! And what greater evidence of this is the knowing look they share after Madi's rescue in ep.XXXVIII?

And the sadness Madi shows at the end, learning of Flint's departure, how true that was! Either she thought he was dead or not, the point is that she felt on her own skin the same desperation and defiance he must have felt seeing their war and all their effort going to waste, because she felt the same -if not worst. She felt that losing that, for him, would have been just like dying, as it was for her.

So yeah, that's why I'll never forget Silver for what he did. He loved her by cutting away her wings, he locked her in a cage just to protect her, and how can you do that to someone whose life is lived in the name of freedom? I can't accept that.

For how I see it, he never deserved her nor her trust.

Y'know, something that's very elucidative to me regarding John Silver's character, and in a way Flint's character, is that despite him not being the one in a romantic relationship with Madi (in fact I believe his dynamic with her is more of a brothers-in-arms, united for the same cause, that later transforms into something bordering on a mentor/pupil dynamic or even almost a father/daughter dynamic but not quite), Flint ended up understanding Madi as person FAR better than Silver ever did, or could.

So much so that Flint knows Madi would never allow anything to jeopardize the start of the war or its success: not her own life, not Silver's life, nor any promises of safety for her people and her people alone in her maroon encampment - nothing. And he's right! Madi herself confirms it to Woodes Rogers toward the end of S04. Silver might have fallen in love with Madi, but he never actually saw her. And if there ever was an instance when he did, I don't think it was voluntary and it only fed into his own selfish desire to protect her at all costs, not just to himself but to her, too.

Silver also knew she would stop at nothing for the revolution, he knew that even if she were to die, they would make a martyr of her and she would have been fine with that because even dead, she would have accomplished what was necessary, which was to make the war explode and the revolution set in motion. Where Silver failed but Flint did not, was that he was more scared of losing her than he was of losing the war. Which is very human for someone who is definitely not as idealistic as either Flint or Madi, but still selfish and in a way, cruel.

Flint and Madi understood each other completely and made this silent pact to do anything to make their plans go forward, always with the intent to keep each other safe whenever possible, but willing to let the other die if all other options had run out, and they would hold no grudges toward each other should it come to that and they happened to survive. And Silver... Silver didn't. He loved Madi with all his heart, but he never understood her. Not enough to respect her wishes, anyway.

I was on pinterest and this detail (first image) of a bigger painting (second image) named 'The Jolly Boat' by Albert Lynch caught my eyes, 'cause it reminded me so much of that scene (third and fourth images) with Flint and Miranda on the run from London.

Now seeing the whole painting I can see the man is not looking behind but to the ship they are going towards (in the detail it wasn't so clear since there is also some land visible in the background), but still there's something in the facial expression of the two which definitely make me think about them. Something in the way the man looks haunted and the woman looks emptied, and they still are so close to one another...

It's so beautiful. Just like Flint and Miranda's relationship is to me.

I'm the breath on your hair, the endless nightmare, devil's lair. Only so many times I can say I long for you The lily among the thorns The prey among the wolves

Someone please tell me how this scene was not meant to be what it looks like.

After all these years I still can't get it.

I've been wondering about Urca de Lima's true story for a bit, and after reading some pirate history I thought it was the Hampton Court.

I'm greatful for this explanation, it's very interesting to me to know all these details about those magnificent ships they used to have (also, I'm not very skilled in history, so...if someone else offers their researches it's way better lol).

thank you!

The Man O'War

One of the mysteries of Black Sails is where the Spanish man o’war captured in season 1 vanishes to after Captain Flint and his crew return to Walrus…but another mystery is exactly WHAT is this ship. I’ve seen her referred to as a frigate, but now that I’ve captured a good screenshot (season 2, episode 4), that this is definitely no frigate.

The man o’war has three full gun decks. Counting gun ports, it looks like each has approximately fifteen guns, plus a short gun deck back aft near the main deck. This averages to 45-49 guns per broadside, which makes this grand bitch not just a ship of the line, but a first rate ship of the line. That's the age of sail equivalent of a battleship! Take a look at the gif below of the man o’war savaging Walrus and Ranger.

(Frankly, if she was a frigate, I don't think Flint would've worried much; Walrus has the throw weight of a sixth rate frigate and would've stood a good chance; with Ranger along, they would've been just fine and no one should've panicked.)

So, what ship is this? The Urca de Lima was a real ship, though Urca was only a nickname for Santissima Trinidad, and she was part of a combination of two flotillas that made up the 1715 Treasure Fleet. This fleet consisted of eleven ships, of which at least two were ships of the line.

The first was ex-Hampton Court, a British built third rate ship of the line of 70 guns that was captured by the French then sold to the Spanish. Sources say that she was renamed Nuestra Señora del Carmen, but contemporary sources such as the governor of Jamacia, Archibald Hamilton indicate that this was a separate ship and the flagship of the second part of the fleet. (More on that in a moment.)

The second confirmed ship of the line was the French Griffon, which was the one and only survivor. (Cool fact: the captain of this ship was also likely the informant who gave Hamilton his information).

The third ship is the mystery ship that brought up the rear of the formation. This ship is harder to place, and was either a different "massive war galleon" or Nuestra Señora del Rosario, a third ship of the line. This may have been a third rate or fourth rate ship of the line, but sources make it very hard to tell. Given that the wrecks that have been found have never been positively identified, it's even harder to determine which ship was which.

Back to Black Sails. Historical evidence says that there wasn't a first rate ship of the line in the 1715 Treasure Fleet, but the show does also indicate that the Urca was traveling alone, so a bit of dramatic license says that we've got a first rater along for the ride. It's far from outside the realm of possibility, given the contemporary evidence that the Spanish definitely did use ships of the line as escorts for treasure ships.

I think it's safe to say that the ship isn't Hampton Court, however. An ex-British officer like James Flint would 100% recognize Hampton Court, who would've been captured (1707) after he left England but was a distinctly British design. Additionally, the characters continuously refer to her as a Spanish man o'war, which indicates she's Spanish-built.

Spanish-built ships of the line with three decks have 94 guns or greater. Until 1700ish, they frequently were referred to as galleons, a term that faded out of use and was replaced by navíos. If I'm going to be a real history nerd, Spain didn't really have a three deck ship of the line in this era; they'd scrapped the only one they had in 1705, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y las Animas. But prior to scrapping, this ship was sent to the colonies to harass settlers around Panama, so she was on the right side of the world in the early 18th century.

Historically speaking, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción y las Animas (Our Lady of the Conception and of Souls) is the best candidate for the Man O'War in Black Sails.

In-universe speaking, that big bitch is a three deck, first rate ship of the line of somewhere between 94-100 guns, just based on the number of gun ports and the mincemeat she makes of two ships at the same time. Why did she vanish? Probably because it'd be hard as hell for anyone to beat Flint if you let him keep that ship, and Woodes Rodgers would've had a much harder time taking Nassau when she was protected by a ship of the line.

Have you seen this post before? Probably a close cousin of it. Dimwit me deleted my tumblr and had to remake it.

Additional sources:

1715 Treasure Fleet Information

Ship resting places, armament, and educated guesswork

Archibald Hamilton's information

People like that are so hard to find, really. So many are good at speaking but very few are actually good at listening.

I think it's important to interact too, ask questions and show interest while someone talks about things they love, even if it's not your favourite kind of things, because you may find new interests you never thought about first of all, and then because it's a form of respect. If I'm interested in you as a person, I should be also interested in what you say, whatever that may be.

Just my thought about it.

It makes me happy when they listen