#black / death

[weirdlookindog]

John Franklin (19th century) - The Dance of Death, 1841

illustration for W. H. Ainsworth’s 'Old St. Paul's: A Tale of the Plague and the Fire' (London: Parry, Blenkharn & Co., 1847)

[rherlotshadow]

'From 1348 to 1350 the Black Death killed roughly a third of England's population, and chronicles recorded that, after months of heavy rain, the fields of rotting crops were taken over by enormous, vivid fungi in red, purple and black. What a sight that must have been at a terrifying time.'

From 'The Secret Life of Fungi' by Aliya Whiteley

[emilybeemartin]

A whopping, like, 2.6 people have expressed interest in my recent adventures in watching Bean films, which is all the encouragement I need to present to you:

An Incomplete Guide to Sean Bean Roles (Investigation Ongoing)

Our guy has a vast filmography, and I'm not even close to being halfway through it, but I've watched a lot of his significant ones in the past few weeks thanks to a perfect storm of illness, injury, and lapses in client work. Crucially, I have created superlatives for a variety of them and present them here for your benefit. Disclaimer: many of these films are violent! Or have butts and/or tits! Some have dick! Some have dated bits that didn't age well! So, if you have triggers or are watching with young viewers, do your research first! Also, these are just the opinions of one solitary millennial! Nothing is objective! Nothing is real! I care not!

Okay, CYA done, let's begin. I'll get the two most obvious ones out of the way up front, otherwise they'll dominate half the categories:

ACT I

Greatest Bean: Fellowship of the Ring. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he achieved more pathos with Boromir than a lot of his other roles have allowed for, and every note he hits just sings. No debate.

Best Bean for Your Buck: Sharpe. For the best confluence of quantity, quality, physicality, emotion, humor, and action, you can't beat Richard Sharpe.

Favorite Dramatic Bean: Time; he earned that BAFTA fr

Softest Bean: The first date scene in Stormy Monday, where Brendan shyly gets to know Kate, slow dances with her, lends her a shirt and strokes her back after she asks if they can just go to sleep instead of have sex.

Most Dashing Bean: Vronsky in Anna Karenina, that uniform cuts, damn

Swooniest Bean: I know I'm supposed to say Chatterley, and he is undeniably sexy as Mellors, but there are parts where his character is actually kind of off-putting. I'll lay a good chunk of the blame on the weirdly ominous score, the very of-the-time depiction of dubious consent, and Joely Richardson's tendency to look like she's having the worst time of her life while shagging the hot gamekeeper. No, I'm giving this category to Stormy Monday again. He's just so gentle and genuine in this one, without some of the obligatory "heartthrob" overtones of his nineties stuff. He never raises his voice at Kate or manhandles her. He really does feel like some kid who just wants to be sweet to his girlfriend.

Laddiest Bean: When Saturday Comes, specifically the strip club and bathtub scenes.

Favorite Sad Bean: As a collective, he has some great grief scenes in World on Fire, but! The railroad track scene in When Saturday Comes?! That was RAW.

Favorite Mad Bean: Black Death; there are plenty of movies where he doesn't smile at all, but unlike some others, his grimness and anger felt proportionate to the story, rather than just rage because he's good at rage.

Favorite Bad Bean: There are so many great Bean villains (Goldeneye, obvs), but I think my favorite is Patriot Games. Bonus points for all the different hairstyles he has in this film (long locks-shag-shag ponytail!-buzz-wet spiky buzz). Also HUGH FRASER AAAA

Favorite Dad Bean: Wolfwalkers, where Bill Goodfellowe literally turns his own convictions and beliefs upside-down in order to protect and support his daughter.

INTERMISSION

A note on GoT: I haven't watched it. When season one was first coming out, it was during a time where I really couldn't handle watching any kind of sexual assault onscreen, and while I have a higher tolerance now, I just... don't want to. I like seeing gifs of Ned Stark and appreciate that it's one of his great roles, but I just can't make myself take the plunge.

ilysm you grizzled dead wolf man

ACT II

Favorite Costumed Bean: Odysseus in Troy: curls, leather, thighs.

Favorite Un-Costumed Bean: He strips in quite a lot of his films, so let's give it to Lady Chatterley for sheer screentime, exertion, and the bonus of being naked and wearing a flower crown. Honorable mention to When Saturday Comes for the totally not homoerotic amount of butts and also dick in the locker room bathtub scene.

Hurtin'est Bean: Bravo Two Zero. Oof, don't watch this one if you have an aversion to seeing pain, although---you're a Sean Bean fan, and we all know one of his MOs is being GREAT at pain. This one was directed by Tom Clegg, who directed Sharpe. Also lol at the sickle-shaped wound on his shoulder, which is covering his 100% Blade tattoo (he gets a lot of sickle-shaped wounds on his left shoulder).

Best Inside References: The Frankenstein Chronicles, where he plays a former Peninsular soldier, and every reference to his service is a reference to Sharpe, including shots of his greenjacket, pistol, sword, and flogging scars. Honorable mention to The Martian for the Council of Elrond line.

Most Unsettling Bean: Cleanskin for moral grayness, The Frankenstein Chronicles for body horror

Most Inefficient Use of Bean: Black Beauty. Despite getting high billing he's only onscreen for about two minutes and I'm convinced the long shots are a body double. Criminal.

Biggest Missed Opportunity: We were robbed of a Sean Bean Odyssey. R o b b e d

Funniest Bean: Deploying Bean for comedy is woefully underused, but he made full use of his ~15 seconds in The Vicar of Dibley ("Spring" episode). He's also hilarious in Wasted, though I haven't watched the show, only the clips he's in on YouTube, where he plays a mock version of himself serving as a spirit guide for a stoner. IMO, though, Sharpe gives him the most room for humor.

Favorite Character Quirk: In World on Fire, when Douglas is having WWI flashbacks and really coming apart, he kept putting his hand to his mouth. My modern brain first read this as talking into a phantom radio, but of course that wasn't right, and then I realized--he was reaching for a phantom gas mask. CHILLS. AMAZING. (Honorable mentions to the Mouth Rub and the Tongue Thing [pictured above]).

Most Nostalgic Bean: National Treasure. The concept may be utter silliness, but you have to admit, this is a fun movie to watch.

Best Dismount from a Horse: Henry VIII, he goes pshwing out of the saddle

Best Swordplay: You may think there's no possible answer to this, but there is---two moments, specifically: the preparatory sword-spin he does at Balin's tomb just before the goblin attack in Moria, and the four lunges he does at 1:26:22 of Sharpe's Battle. It's just facts.

Prettiest Bean Film: Wolfwalkers, hands downnnn

Favorite Bean Death: All right, you knew we had to eventually end here. It's Boromir, obviously--- nothing tops that. But if we're looking at other roles, I think Patriot Games is my favorite, followed by Goldeneye.

So! That concludes this installment of Bean films, though I'll be continuing the labor, and I hope you will, too. What are your favorites?

[mapsontheweb]

Spread of the Black Death, 1346-1353. It arrived from Central Asia & quickly traveled on merchant ships carrying grains & furs from the Italian Black Sea colonies Tana & Kaffa, moving west along the dense, interwoven trade networks and eventually causing ~ 50 million deaths.

(Credit: Simeon Netchev)

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was in medieval England and instead of the Black Death everyone kept getting Gonorrhea so in the history books they called it “London’s Cheeks: The Clappening”.

[underratedgrapeju1ce]

Listen.

LISTEN.

LISTEN.

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[harrowedworld]

You may be old, but are you old enough to remember the Black Death?

Then you might just be a vampire.

[pragmatismandmagic]

Would love to study the sociological reason we all decided plague doctor's needed to be fashionable. It has no roots in actual history. Look at what plague masks actually looked like in Europe during the Black Death:

look at these silly little birds. These ugly ducklings. Why the fuck did they grow up to be sexy goth swans

You could make a historically accurate plague doctor costume out of a burlap sack and a graduation gown, and if you showed up to a Halloween party like that you would be cropped out of the Instagram pics for the night. Why did this happen???????? Where did you come from historically non-existent tumblr sexy-men plague doctors

[curtvilescomic]

Black Death movie promotional poster by Simon Bisley

The Sean Bean movie is quite good too

[less-undertale]

Shadow is easily manipulated

Shadow is easily manipulated, yes. But there's a reason behind why. Multiple reasons, actually.

MY PAST IS MY WEAKNESS: Shadow is usually manipulated with the promise of revealing his past, or his truth. Though he's gotten better at finding lies over the past few years, he DOES still get manipulated by promises of finding himself once more. (Some use specifically picked out words and times to say to him.)

Black doom speaking to shadow in SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG 2005

2. I don't want to remember that!: Shadow also gets manipulated by his BLACK ARMS past and his creation in general, though. This is different from FINDING his past, because he doesn't WANT to remember it. When told he was created for a specific reason, or told about something about the world in general, Black arms blood, you name it. It breaks him down mentally.

Eclipse and Black Death mentally abusing Shadow.

Thats most of the reasons i could find, if you have any other reasons, please put them in the ask's box and I'll answer them.

Thanks for reading.

[weirdlookindog]

John Franklin (19th century) - The Plague Pit, 1841

illustration for W. H. Ainsworth’s 'Old St. Paul's: A Tale of the Plague and the Fire' (London: Parry, Blenkharn & Co., 1847)

[ollyvoile]

Add your reasons, if you like!

Other people have added these:

• Yellow fever @notoverjoyed

• Scurvy @monitorchakas

• Lymph disease @wyrmalien

• Diphtheria ( I couldn’t fit this one)

• Malaria “ye olde marsh fever” @bombadilbaddie

• Scrofula “The King’s Evil” @hasturswig

Edit for all the people telling me “uhhh tuberculosis still exists”: I know! :) In fact, all of these sicknesses still exist. In the modern world we live in, however, most of these are only prevalent in developing countries, and certainly not to the extent they once were.

[syrupie]

Medievalist Professor Answers Medieval Questions From Twitter

[mapsontheweb]

The second pandemic of the Black Death in Europe. 

One key reason often attributed to the low rates of contagion in Poland was the decision by Polish king, Casimir the Great, to close the country's 'borders' shortly after the initial reports from the west and set up internal quarantines.

[theplague1346]

Me in real life.