#also i just have so many cute outfit ideas for Beatrice lol

[missrandomdreamer]

Thinking about a Smoker and Beatrice modern au where the two meet at an art museum :'3 because Beatrice loves art and I read in Smoker's bio he likes ceramic artwork so just the chance of them meeting at an art museum jsalkdfjasklf just yes plz

[amemenojaku]

I saw umineko stage ep3 today!! it was amazing. the quality level is insane. I got goosebumps several times and it even managed to make me tear up... everyone's performances felt like they all know their characters so well now 🥺🙏 the lights, costumes and choreography were all perfect too

some thoughts (major umineko spoilers obviously):

young eva/evatrice's performance in particular was just. literally perfect? the way she delivered her lines, carried herself, her laugh resounding onstage and the little things she did when she wasn't the center of attention were all 100% in character. she was adorable during the ceremony where she becomes the new beatrice, introducing herself to the goats and giggling w the 7 sisters, and she was absolutely terrifying in rosa's and maria's death scene. also mad props to the costume designer(s) who did her sailor outfit that turns into the witch outfit almost instantly

everything beato's actress did had me go :] there's a lot of cute beato scenes in ep3 and she was adorable in the goofy, endearing way og beato is in the story while still being cool and fun when needed in the other scenes

and last but not least eva's actress did an amazing job too, especially during the emotional scenes of her character (when she solves the riddle, finds the gold, hideyoshi's & george's deaths). her lungs' strength is impressive lol. it's been 4 hours and I still clearly remember her screams

overall I loved the way so many of the actors and actresses would just do little things when they were on stage but not in the spotlight/not talking, like the chiesters whispering in each others bunny ears instead of their human ears/covering their bunny ears because of loud noises, or the 7 sisters just jumping around and messing w each other, maria taking her notebook out of her bag and reading it, etc. they weren't just standing doing nothing and it always felt very in character, too. there was always something new no matter which part of the stage you're looking at

rudolf's actor looked and acted like he came straight out of a yakuza movie? ik he was already like that in the previous episodes but for some reason I felt it even more this time. might be because of the fight against the sisters before he and kyrie die (which was probably my favorite action scene btw. really cool choreography). I'm not complaining though. made me like the character even more

speaking of rudolf. at some point during one of the scenes where the adults discuss beato's first letter, he just... started massaging hideyoshi's shoulders? he did that for at least a full minute before hideyoshi's actor nodded as thanks and he stopped. I have no idea if this was part of the script or if the guys just decided it on their own??

when gohda does his night check of the mansion right before his death he was actually walking in the aisles with his lantern before he got up on stage!! he got to tell a joke and do some fun stuff before being killed and never being relevant again. rip

beato asking battler to give her a new name now that evatrice inherited hers, ronove on the side of the stage writing a stupid nickname on some paper to show her only for her to get annoyed, rip the paper from his hands and stomp on it

I don't know if this was done on purpose or not, but when eva fires the shot that blinds jessica and jessica accuses her of being the culprit, pointing at some random direction since she can't see anymore, she actually pointed at shannon's corpse on the sofa behind her. it could very well just be a coincidence. but. yea

krauss drinking straight from the fucking bottle during the golden land party scene at the end and getting completely smashed

ange!! she was so cool and cute. she punched the goats. I can't wait to see her in ep4 😭

battler literally Just Standing There at the very end, when ange and beato start duking it out before the episode's over 🧍

the curtain call was super cute. everyone got together to pose for the cameras before they realised beato wasn't here so they had kinzo cry for her in the infamous kinzo way and she graced them (and us) with her presence :)

battler's actor: "so we'll need your support -and- your gold for episode 4 to happen"

cat nanjo be upon ye

[morwensteelsheen]

AFTA Chapter 5 Notes

Éowyn is wearing green for a few reasons.

 First, as a reference to green being the medieval “middle” colour (please ask me about the middle colour and Dante’s Purgatorio lmao) —

“Medieval scholars inherited the idea from ancient times that there were seven colours: white, yellow, red, green, blue, purple and black. Green was the middle colour, which meant that it sat balanced between the extremes of white and black.” [x]

And also as a reference to Pastoreau’s take on green knights:

“Conversely, a green knight was a young knight, recently dubbed, whose audacious or insolent behaviour was going to cause great disorder; he could be good or bad.” [x]

And lastly as a reference to Dante’s Purgatorio, in which Beatrice, his first and greatest love, appears to him atop the mountain of purgatory described as such (Kirkpatrick translation): 

So now, beyond a drifting cloud of flowers (which rose up, arching, from the angels’ hands, then fell within and round the chariot), seen through a veil, pure white, and olive-crowned, a lady now appeared to me. Her robe was green, her dress the colour of a living flame.  

Éowyn embroiders as a thistle as a reference to Hugh MacDiarmid’s brilliant poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle: 

O fain I’d keep my hert entire,    Fain hain the licht o’ my desire, But ech! the shinin’ streams ascend,    And leave me empty at the end. For aince it’s toomed my hert and brain,    The thistle needs maun fa’ again. —But a’ its growth ’ll never fill The hole it’s turned my life intill!

Her little cultural mix up with food service is loosely inspired by the transition period between when service à la française was popular, and when service à la russe became popular. Adapted for my own purposes.

Éowyn musing that the Gondorrim probably hired people to hold their swords for them is loosely based on the role of actual medieval squires, lol 

The basics of Boromir (and Éowyn’s!) education is based on notes given by Tolkien in Appendix F of LOTR. 

Specifically: “[S]o that at the time of the War of the Ring the elven-tongue was known only to a small part of the peoples of Gondor, and spoken daily by fewer. These dwelt mainly in Minas Tirith and the townlands adjacent, and in the land of the tributary princes of Dol Amroth.”

Boromir’s discussion on the artistic/political merit of print culture is based on my own private research. For more on that, I suggest James Raven’s chapter, “The Book as Commodity” in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain.

Éowyn’s belief that her people could remember more history than the Gondorrim is based in reality — people raised in oral cultures tend to have better long-term recall. More on that in David Rubin’s Memory in oral traditions: the cognitive psychology of epic, ballads, and counting-out rhymes.

The idea that very few people actually went into the archives/libraries of Minas Tirith is not totally supported by the text, but I’m fudging it based on the following:

“And yet there [in Minas Tirith] lie in his hoards many records that few even of the lore-masters now can read, for their scripts and tongues have become dark to later men.” (This is a reference to Adûnaic iirc But) — The Fellowship of the Ring

"Yet now, if the Rohirrim are grown in some ways more like to us, enhanced in arts and gentleness, we too have become more like to them, and can scarce claim any longer the title High. We are become Middle Men, of the Twilight, but with memory of other things. For as the Rohirrim do, we now love war and valour as things good in themselves, both a sport and an end; and though we still hold that a warrior should have more skills and knowledge than only the craft of weapons and slaying, we esteem a warrior, nonetheless, above men of other crafts.” — The Two Towers

The description of Imrahil’s outfit is based both on this marvellous description in AnnaFan’s Whenas In Silks and on Joffrey Baratheon’s fabulous outfit from fuck knows what episode of GOT. Absolutely brilliant costuming. 

Blue is also a colour with a fascinating history (I recommend checking out Pastoreau’s book on the topic if that’s your sort of thing). Blue pigment was pulled from the woad plant, a plant native to the Mediterranean, so it seemed fitting to associate it with Imrahil. 

Blue was also the colour of medieval royalty, and given that Imrahil is the only ‘royalty’ (as such, obviously used very, very loosely) remaining in Gondor, it’s another nice fit. 

Here’s a cute little Google Arts and Culture ‘exhibit’ on the history of the colour, if you’re bored. 

Okay so on Faramir being a bit of a loudmouth as a teenager, I suspect this might be controversial. My take is based on this:

Within minutes of meeting Sam and Frodo, he’s shooting his mouth off about, like, literally everything. Gondor being shit, wars being shit, the Rohirrim being shit, so on and so forth. Obviously he’s serving the narrative function of being Gondor’s Big Exposition Man™ before we get to MT in the next book, but as a character moment it’s pretty intense. This is how he behaves at age 36 and as (effectively) one of the highest ranking military commanders in Gondor. 

He’s still pretty mouthy with Big D when he’s getting sent away to Osgiliath. I know there’s a tendency to interpret the line as miserable self-pity, but I think he’s being snippy about it. 

The music the musicians play is something Byzantine in my head, it doesn’t have to be that in your head, but that’s just where I was going with it. 

Militarily: we’re in autumn 3016 here, So it’s not as if the war proper is gearing up yet, but we’re definitely starting to see a larger output (if you will) of Orcs, and Sauron putting forth a more concerted effort to strip away Gondor’s military resources. 

There is remarkably little in canon about the two or so years leading up to the start of the Ring War. Off the top of my head, all we’re given is the destruction of the bridge at Osgiliath, which happens in the summer of 3018. 

I’m not a military historian and I’m not going to pretend to be, so I’m mostly just guessing at what the latter days of a war of attrition/early days of a hot war would look like. Forgive me.

Faramir marking the gravesites of the fallen is lifted directly from Altariel’s The Book of Days

A note on the level of communication between Henneth Annûn and Minas Tirith —

We know very little about the practicalities of it. What we know for certain is that access to Ithilien is limited, and knowledge of the location of Henneth Annûn even more so. Still, in February and March 3019, Faramir’s on record as doing quite a bit of riding around between HA, MT, and Osgiliath. He wasn’t doing that of his own volition, most of what he was doing was coming from higher command, so I think it’s not unreasonable to think that there would have been pretty regular communication with the outside world. Have I inflated that regularity to serve my regency-esque purposes? Absolutely. But I also don’t think I’m shooting too wide of the canon mark with it either.  

For reference, the distance between Minas Tirith and Henneth Annûn, via Cair Andros, is about 65 miles, which is an eight or so hour ride by horse. Given that the Rangers, when we meet them in Two Towers, number about two or three hundred strong (per Window on the West), it’s not unreasonable to think they may have had a dedicated messenger or two to make communication with MT easier.