A wonderful piece about fandom history, friendships, and legacies.
Dee called AO3 a “candy store,” and said the fan art she has seen, in particular, has been overwhelming. “I cannot get over the art,” she said. “We would have jumped at this. I would’ve given my right tit for all this art when I was in my twenties. Because you couldn’t reproduce it, you couldn’t send it out, but [now] there’s this fabulous art coming out every single day.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. This is how it happened. Excellent article.
Thanks to the author for permission to share this here, and for being just a really nice human being, and big thanks to the artist who did my mom’s portrait, above. -Zachary
Ooh. Saving to read later.
“I missed you,” Flint sighs into the curve of Silver’s jaw, and it’s like a secret being told, like a weight being lifted, a ten year burden being put down.
It isn’t a question. It doesn’t demand any response, though Silver can feel the moment stretch, honey gold and comfortable. That alone is astounding. The silence.
It hadn’t been easy, showing up at Flint’s doorstep unannounced. They’d fought, of course. Flint had yelled. Silver had barely dodged a lampshade hurled at his head, distracted by the fact that Captain Flint owned the thing in the first place. Thomas had watched, carefully. Then he had made tea.
After that they talked. It felt like slicing open a poorly healed wound with an instrument too blunt to be safely used. It felt like bleeding, all over again. Like staining the freshly swept floor red.
Somewhere along the way, Flint had asked Silver to stay.
Now they lay breathing together in the dawn light, Flint’s pale leg thrown over Silver’s good knee. And try as he might to contain it, Silver feels himself shiver when Flint’s thumb begins to graze the side of his neck, up, down, and up again. He listens to Flint breathe. In and out and in again.
I missed you, he considers saying.
That’s what people say, right? That’s how he should respond. Somebody leaves and you miss them, and when they return you tell them, and that’s that. Easy. Simple.
The problem is: Silver had agreed not to lie anymore. It had been the first of many stipulations. Honesty. Truth. They were strange, fickle things, Silver knew. Because if he were to say I missed you he knew it would be true, but it would also be a lie; as though Flint was just somebody who was there and then wasn’t; who existed one moment and was gone the next; as though he was something Silver had just removed as easily as Howell had removed his leg.
It had been equally bloody, sure. But it hadn’t been easy. And it hadn’t been simple.
I dreamt about you, Silver considers saying. Even that is a lie. Insofar as hauntings are dreams; insofar as opening his eyes in the middle of the night and seeing Flint in every dark corner of his house had anything in common with the word. As if standing on the deck of a ship and looking out at sea and feeling Flint look back at him hadn’t been a nightmare and a lifeline all the same.
They shift a little on the bed. Silver watches Flint settle in and rest his cheek over his heart, Flint’s ear pressed warm to his skin. He’s grown his hair out again, long and red, smattered with grey. Silver threads his fingers through it. Thinks: I love you. I loved you and I love you.
That’s the truth. Though it takes a little longer to say it.
#flint and silver: [being really fucked up]#me: [GETTING EMOTIONAL]#flint is so unbelievably desperate here#all he knows is silver is about to walk out on them – on /him/ – and he cannot have that#HE /NEEDS/ HIM#but because he forgot to take How to Express Emotions in a Healthy Way 101#of course he cannot just tell silver that#he’s got to twist it around on him. not ‘I need you here’ but ‘YOU need THIS. /us/. you need /ME/’#and it works IT WOOOOOORKS#just like 2×02 when silver sneaks his way back onto the crew not by appealing to them#not by saying he needs them#but by BECOMING something /THEY/ need#god these two are so different but#the way they can both appear so cool and rational and in control when inside they are PANICKING#the way they can take any situation and flip it on its head#each of them with one hand reaching out to latch onto someone else’s heart#with the other hand placed over their own so as to conceal it#I will never stop saying it: they truly are one another’s match#DESTINED TO BE PARTNERS OR RIVALS#and everyone around them can only wait and watch to see where the pieces fall (via candlewinds)
When customers walked into Edeka supermarket in Hamburg recently, they were surprised to find that the shelves were almost empty, and the small handful of products that remained were all made in Germany. It seemed like the supermarket had simply forgotten to restock their produce until customers saw the mysterious signs left around the shop. “So empty is a shelf without foreigners,” read one sign at the cheese counter. “This shelf is quite boring without variety,” read another.
It turns out that Edeka, in a rather controversial move, had opted to solely sell German food for a day in order to make a powerful statement about racism and ethnic diversity. As a result, there were no Greek olives, no Spanish tomatoes, and very little of anything else that can normally be found in a typical modern household. “Edeka stands for diversity, and we produce a wide range of food in our assortment, which is produced in the different regions of Germany,” said an Edeka spokesman. “But it is together with products from other countries that we create the unique diversity that our customers value.” (Source)
do this in America and nothing will remain
A very powerful statement about how cultural diversity has added to our lives!
August 19 2017.
This is always the best email in my inbox when it arrives.
Thank you to the commenters! You make my day!
Amen to that. Seeing an AO3 comment notification in my Gmail inbox makes me light up like a Christmas tree.
I love it when writers respond to my comments. Seeing A03 in my email is alway my favorite too because I can get questions answered and see how what I said made that person happy
Interviewer: What was your favorite moment? Like, what was your favorite moment in the stages of Silver becoming the person he became at least by the end of season three?
Luke Arnold: I mean as we were just talking about, the stomping [scene with Dufresne] is pretty big. Getting that was a big moment…it is the big shift really. But overall, it is all the Flint/Silver relationship. And there are so many little moments in that that I love. I love the one…the Flint and Silver in season two, the “are we still going after the gold?” “that’s all I needed to hear” scene…AND there are just so many pieces! Hunting the shark together was incredible. Everything on that little boat was amazing to do […] Just all those moments of discovery and how that relationship evolves. There’s even a moment early on in season four where Flint like…smiles?!? [continues talking] It’s great because you think of all the little moments in that relationship from the very beginning. So as much as it’s been great working with everyone, working with Toby and charting the strange little journey of Flint and Silver through the whole show is what it all comes down to for me.
(x)
they ask him what his favorite MOMENT in silver’s character development is and………..luke just proceeds to list……every silver and flint scene……in the whole show……..I’m crying
For A Few Dollars More (1967) → Col. Douglas Mortimer & “Manco”
It’s all for you. I think you deserve it.
(Meltmeltmelt). Very happy that 30-odd young Australians, who think Westerns are uncool, uninteresting and un-awesome, were exposed to this. Most of them enjoyed it a lot.
Lani Ka’ahumanu, co-founder of BiPol (the first bisexual political organization), marches in the San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Freedom Day, June 24, 1984.
The history of bi activism is bad puns. It’s good to know we’re keeping up the tradition.
Love “Bi and large”. Thinking of the faintly patronising 1970s German “Ein Bißchen bi / schadet nie” (a little bit bi / never hurts), badly translated into 1970s Italian as “un pochino bisessuale / non potra’ mai fare male”. Are there any bi-rhymes in English?
After a 30-year career, I felt like I spent the past six months being able to work at my fullest capacity. All my main collaborators were women. I’m on a show about women. I felt that was remarkable. So if we’re trying to move the needle in a way where there’s a more feminine point of view, a system where more women are in power, where the people who you see on the screen are primarily women, I felt like I spent the past six months making it. I feel really good about that. It has always been a part of my world desire to increase diversity in every kind of way. And I hope to expand that. But it takes a long time to get power, and probably my first experience of really being able to exercise that was with this.
mici's campfire 