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Feb. 26th, 2017 01:49 pmcharacter information
● name: James Flint
● canon: Black Sails
● canon point: SE04/E05 while Flint is in the cell in Eleanor's custody in Nassau.
● age: canon is fuzzy on the details. He’s somewhere between 35-40. Given that he was a ‘promising young lieutenant’ in 1705, and that it took six years with the Navy to reach the point of taking the written exams for a lieutenancy and assuming also that he joined up when he was between 16-18, he would certainly be no older than 40 in 1715 and possibly only just by 1717 (the years in which Black Sails is set).
● (canon) background: Flint is a fictional character sort of spliced into the very real world of 18th century piracy. Black Sails touts itself as pseudo-historical fiction, but the characters of Flint, John Silver and Billy Bones are from the story of Treasure Island. So basically this is like the gritty reboot thereof.
Flint’s backstory isn’t given any considerable amount of depth. We know that he was a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, that he came from a poor background but is an accomplished autodidact and that eventually he becomes the most feared pirate in the Bahamas.
What we do know about his sordid history is this: at one point, he was assigned to work alongside the esteemed Thomas Hamilton to come up with a solution to piracy in the Caribbean, while he was still in the Navy itself. This work lead to a romantic liaison between Flint, Thomas and Thomas’ wife Miranda. It wasn't quite an established threesome so much as implied as being Flint/Miranda and Flint/Thomas on separate but mostly equal occasions with everyone's full and informed consent. But, as homosexuality was Intensely Frowned Upon by the Navy, the aristocracy and just about every other god-fearing man alive, as soon as Thomas’ father caught wind of what was going down he sent his son off to the equivalent of an insane asylum, James was given a dishonourable discharge from the position he’d worked towards for his entire adult life, and he and Miranda were forced to go into hiding.
Thomas, theoretically, ‘killed himself’. Though it was heavily implied at the time that his father actually had him murdered to keep the family name clean of that nasty gay business. And James reinvented himself as a pirate. Originally, he wanted to fulfill Thomas’ dream of rescuing the pirates from certain execution and unifying Nassau as a British Colony but as the years went onward... it’s safe to say he sort of just wants to burn England to the ground while yelling fuck the aristocracy in the background.
● abilities: Flint is an expert tactician, swordsman, sailor and fighter. He also tends to have rather encyclopaedic knowledge of everything from cooking to carpentry.
● strengths:
willpower.
Flint is not someone you want to cross. He’s a hard man with an iron will that drives him to perservere in situations that would spell almost certain death for anyone else. It’s to the point where people actually think his soul has been pledged to the devil and he’s wandering around just being an absolute bastard because he presents himself as all but invincible. Certainly, his savvy and smarts go into maintaining that image, but he would be nothing without his indomitable will. Flint has clawed himself back of the brink of utter ruin and emerged triumphant on that alone.
intelligence.
He’s taken it to be true that he’s the smartest man in the room at all times. Given that he’s usually surrounded by an uneducated class of men, this is not as arrogant an assumption as one might otherwise assume but the fact of the matter is: he’s still a genius by the standards of geniuses. He’s well-read, well-spoken, an autodidact of the highest order and he takes pain to cultivate his smarts whenever and wherever possible. He is always learning something, and his voracity for knowledge is all part of that which drives him onward.
perception.
Flint is someone who always strives to have the lay of the land. He knows exactly what buttons to push to draw someone to his cause, bend them to his will. That he’s able to look at someone and understand how best to engage them – he knows when men need a bracing story, a drink, a hard order or a stern look to motivate them. It’s for this reason that he’s both an excellent leader and an utter terror on the battlefield. He’s a leader made – forged in fire – rather than born.
● weaknesses:
stubbornness.
The majority of Flint’s ‘strengths’ as a character can cycle around equally as much to represent his flaws. He’s got an absolutely indomitable will – which, while it relates nicely to the above section, it also means that he is incredibly reckless, stubborn, and possesses a general unwillingness to compromise in all but the most dire situations. 'My way or the highway', essentially.
ruthlessness.
Flint will absolutely slit your throat in your sleep if he feels you’ve crossed him or that you stand in his way. He is blinded by the vision of the world he seeks to create and will stop at absolutely nothing to see it done no matter who he harms or runs roughshod over on the way. Also: everyone around him is a pawn to be used and discarded at his discretion.
duplicity/manipulation.
Flint will tell you exactly what you want to hear at the exact moment you need to hear it. He will tell you the sky is fucking chartreuse if it will spur you towards his goals. The truth of the matter is, his entire persona of ‘James Flint’ is a lie built upon lies. As he adapts to the game setting in which his aspirations are rendered impossible, odds are he’ll discard it entirely and sort of steer himself back more to the personality he had as James McGraw (ie: a gentler, more decent human being). Unfortunately, he’s lived as Flint for so long that it will be impossible for him to really separate the two.
● skills (optional):
● housing (optional): please socialize this ridiculous grumpy loner.
● network username: MDCCXVII (1717 in Roman numerals. aka: the first random thing that was not at any way related to his name, his specific history or anything else he holds dear)
● network sample: With Napoleon Solo (30+ comments)
● prose/action sample: With Wanda Maximoff (30+ comments)
