#project: transatlantic

[dailygillianjacobs]

Gillian, Ralph, Amit, Justine, and Lucas during the Making Transatlantic Netflix featurette

[theboyskisser]

dumb comic I put too much time n thought into

[theriverbeyond]

For some reason I always imagine cytherea and mercymorn to both have either a southern accent or transatlantic accent depending on the scene. (Gideon sounds like me because I’m a poor little kicked puppy that wishes she had muscles) (I’m also gay)

incredible thank you for sharing.... i LOVE accent headcanons, southern accent Cytherea especially has me like 😳

[amyriadfthings]

[hillerska-official]

Me vs the varian fry papers at Columbia (they are not digitized)

[trendynewsnow]

Calls for Permanent Exhibition on the Transatlantic Slave Trade at the British Museum

Calls for a Permanent Exhibition on the Transatlantic Slave Trade at the British Museum A significant majority of individuals in the United Kingdom believe that the British Museum should feature a permanent exhibition dedicated to the transatlantic slave trade, according to new research findings. The YouGov poll, commissioned by the non-profit organizations the Good Law Project and the World…

[nmakii]

GETTING CAUGHT IN THE MOMENT… LIPSTICK ON YOUR FACE

— alastor + lucifer + vox getting caught with lipstick stains all over them…

— generally gn!reader. guys can wear lipstick too smh

hehe i got a new lip tint (˶‾᷄ ⁻̫ ‾᷅˵) maybe alastor’s part is a little self-projected

— alastor

alastor himself isn’t one for physical affection. in fact, the thought itself makes him feel dirty. someone else’s skin against his… eugh…

though, when it came to you, he couldn’t keep his hands to himself; hands clawing and playing with your hair, wrapping his arms around your neck, pinching your cute cheeks, holding your hand… it’s almost as if he’d double-die without you near!

and the only thing he’d enjoy more than that would be having his affection reciprocated; interlocking your arm with his, a surprise hug from behind, a kiss on the cheek, they are all more than appreciated! especially the thing about kissing…

a kiss from you is simply just exhilarating. the suddenness yet sweetness of it, it’s truly the purest form of love, regardless of if it’s familial, romantic, or platonic— it’s the purest expression of your love for another person.

so, just imagine alastor’s reaction to your new lipstick, strawberry red to give your lips a glossy color, yet still light enough to appear natural. the pretty hue of red complimenting your face features perfectly by giving it the color it needs as to not appear pale.

absolutely gorgeous. so confusing how a simple amount of color could make you look as if you were an angel from heaven itself. you quite literally took his breath away from just applying a new lipstick…

at some point, alastor had reached some sort of limit when he finally caved into his inner desires, bringing you to a secluded place in the hotel, his hands moving to your hips and hair.

he couldn’t wait any longer to place his lips on your’s, your lipstick smearing all over his thin lips. kissing him from his cheeks to his jawline, leaving light pink stains all over his skin.

he groaned at the feeling of wet lipstick all over his face, and at the same time reveled in the ways you are telling everyone that the only one who could see the radio demon in such a needy and doe-like state would be you; he’d be yours to fool around with, and yours to do however you’d see fit. just as you are his— no one else’s. the smeared lipstick on the side of your lips should send that as a statement enough to whatever lowlife hooligan would even attempt to sweep you off your feet.

when the two of you had returned, it was a strange sight to say the least… alastor’s face and jaw covered with pink lips, and you with your lipstick smudged and smeared off your lips, instead all over you neck.

“well, uh… you two look like ‘ya had lot’sa fun…” angel said monotonously, awkwardly trying to keep up conversation. “ohh, most certainly!” alastor grinned, his transatlantic accent popping through the radio static.

he knows he could’ve wiped it off… he has a handkerchief in his back pocket, he could’ve easily saved himself that awkward conversation.

but, he didn’t.

could you blame him? he wants all of hell to know that both you and him off-limits for good.

— lucifer

when many imagine the king of hell, it’s hard to think he’d be a social piranha. the same case had gone for you.

who knew lucifer was still as pure of heart as he was during his time in heaven? and who knew he’d fall for someone so easily after the sudden disappearance of his wife?

when he saw you, it was practically love at first sight! your big eyes, your shiny hair, and those big pretty lips of yours that he just wanted to kiss so badly…

he listened carefully as charlie introduced you to him, trying to remember every detail about you and every feature on your face, stuttering over his words once it was time to speak for himself.

and somehow, despite his meekness towards you and your awkwardness whenever he was around, you two ended up in a relationship— with the help of vaggie and charlie’s meddling in pushing you two together.

the two of you loved each other, of course… but it was always hard to express. the only way lucifer knew how to show his love was through his presence and gifts. he wasn’t hell’s greatest kisser, but he tries.

and, today— it was your 5 month anniversary… quite a long time, the hotel’s been good so far, no major threats other than one of cherri bomb’s occasional explosions. and because of how long it’s been, you decided to do something a little special… put on some relatively expensive clothes and make-up your face a little bit.

when lucifer saw you all dolled up, he was honestly a little stunned. lips as red as an apple, hair as soft as silk, the words were stuck in his mouth. “w- er- wow..! i’m not dressed up or anything— agh, this is awkward..” lucifer muttered. “hey, it’s ok… this was a surprise for you, y’know?” you said, comforting him slightly.

“you look… stunning today” he smiled, carefully putting down his anniversary present for you on his work desk, still wrapped in a red ribbon. he made his way to you, hands making their way to your cheeks to softly cup them as he gently leaned into you for a kiss.

he released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding as you kissed his face all over, as if healing the wounds of his past with his present. his banishment into hell, lilith’s abandonment, they all didn’t matter anymore, you are the present and the future.

he wrapped his arms around your waist in a hug as he kissed your forehead, the residual lipstick from his lips smeared onto you.

lucifer laughed awkwardly before using his finger to carefully rub off the pink stains on your forehead. “haha… c’mon, i got a dinner reservation in the lust ring tonight…” he laughed, interlocking his arm with yours.

“don’t you wanna take off that lipstick on your face first?” you raised an eyebrow at him. “i mean… i dont minddd… so, it’s only if you wanna take if off” his eyes wandered, his cheeks growing flustered “hmm… nah. i want everyone to know you belong to me now.” you grinned mischievously.

and when the two of you walked out of the hotel lobby, charlie went to wish you a safe trip and happy anniversary before she noticed the stains on her dad’s face. “err… dad..? you gotta a little something there…” charlie muttered as she pointed all over his face. “ah..? yeah, i know” he laughed it off, proudly showing off to hell how hopelessly devoted he is to you.

— vox

vox was a busy man. from having many public appearances, to coming up with new ideas for voxtek, to putting out valentino’s temper tantrums, he barely had the time for romance.

barely. he loved you, truly. he keeps you dear to his heart, no matter how busy he’d be, vox would still make time for you late at night.

everyone had known you, why wouldn’t they? you’re the partner of one of the most influential overlords in hell, that’s a feat that is amazing to accomplish, dating vox in itself has made you into a sort of local celebrity; causing you to be invited to many galas, parties, and occasional raves.

and tonight happened to be the night of one of those parties. zestial had invited you to a formal dinner party, an all star guest list filled by many of the goetic princes, various overlords in hell, and other local hellborns such as verosika mayday.

“please, voxxx? just this once, it’s only like 3 hours!” you grumble as your apply a coat of ruby red over your lips, checking your appearance in the bathroom mirror. “i can’t.. i have a 5:00 with val and velvette, then after that, a board meeting about new gadgets to release…” vox groaned, already pissed about the day ahead.

“fine then, your loss.” you pouted, rolling your eyes as you left the bathroom and into the bedroom. “holy shit…” vox sighed out. “you look… really good, my love.” he walked over to you, his hands moving to your body, outlining the clothes’ stitching as he recognized it to be the one he had custom-made for you.

your hands rested on vox’s shoulders, forcibly making him lean over a bit before leaving various kiss stains all over his screen.

vox visibly tensed as his screen started glowing a bright teal, showing his clear embarrassment as pink smudges fogged his screen.

his breath heaved as his hands moved all around your body, desperate to find some kind of relief to his pent-up stress.

ending your kiss attack all too soon on his lips, you pulled away, your lips slightly pale now as you grinned at him. “spend the day looking like that and i’ll give you more after work” you winked, taking your belongings and leaving out the door, leaving a flustered vox in your bedroom, covered with lipstick stains.

“vox… the fuck is going on with your face?” velvette snarled. “it looks as if you got fucking mauled by a bear pretending to be a woman.” she yelled, her british accent making her trip over some consonants.

vox sighed, hearing valentino mutter some sort of dirty comparison of vox to a prostitute. “instead of focusing on me, why don’t you put your efforts into our agenda today?” vox frowned, his tone clearly saying that he’s holding himself back from releasing a flood of curses onto the two…

[colourstreakgryffin]

I had a silly idea, what about an Cheshire Cat!reader x Alastor? (Feel free not to do this dearie ( ·∀·) )

Haha. OMFG. A Cheshire Cat would really match with Alastor well! So, thank you, Lady Beelzebub! I’ll try this out!

Alastor- A Little Game

Vaggie has been so frustrated. Charlie has been trying to ease the crew. Husk is on the verge of murdering somebody. Niffty is annoyed that her cleaning equipment is gone. Angel is quite amused by what’s going on and Alastor is very invested in the cause

Lately, the Hazbin Hotel has been dealing with a suddenly appearing invisible menace causing pranks after pranks nonstop; locking or trapping up doors, stealing items and storing them high up, whispering out in the halls at night

Alastor didn’t suspect he’d ever run into the culprit of all this trouble but he has. After Charlie had been giving Vaggie a calmdown pep talk, the Princess politely asked Alastor to check around the hallways for any more prank remnants, the Overlord did so, just to see what he may find… and he made a incredible discovery

A floating cat-like sinner with magenta and pink colouring, most importantly, a big Cheshire wide grin. A rival of Alastor’s own smile and with almost half a body, as if cut in half

The sinner was in the midst of setting up a trap consisting a big silver bucket full of thick blood over the top of Alastor’s own hotel room door, but they’ve been caught in the act

And Alastor doesn’t plan on dealing out punishment… he’s too amused

“Ah… you must be the little troublesome beast causing so much disrupt in this Hotel?” Alastor asks almost immediately with literally no malice towards what’s been going on, his transatlantic accent smooth and almost making his voice sound more friendly and warm than he actually is as this cat sinner… or otherwise, you

Just giggles under your breath and disappears into thin air properly with the wide grin floating in the air for a few seconds almost magically before dissipating with you

“And if I have?” Your voice rings out after a few more seconds of silence, disembodied, invisible. You can’t be tracked with eyes but Alastor’s powerful magic can pinpoint where you are by detecting your own demonic magic, sharply looking over his shoulder to be greeted with your floating head

Just your head… no body, it’s like before when it was half of your torso. Now, it’s just your head. Your magic is a lot like the storybook fairytale character, Cheshire Cat

But that’s because you’re the most Cheshire Cat person anybody will ever met. Alastor couldn’t help but be so amused by you; you’re skilled, you’re snarky, you know what you’re doing and you’re resourceful, good at planning

Able to have avoided being caught by everybody in the Hotel for months now and you’re lucky enough to have been caught by the one member who enjoyed the chaos and madness the pranks caused

“I believe you must avoid the others if so” Alastor proclaims, almost mysterious and still silky in that radio-laced but classy and dapper tone as you tilt your head confused. For the first time, you’ve been snapped out of your mischievous chaotic demeanour

You suspected him to bark, to growl, to be annoyed so him not is so odd to you but quickly brushing it off, you manifest your whole body into frame. Cute fluffy striped cat-like ears flicking and long fluffy cat-like tail curling around, almost like a coil spring

You couldn’t really understand this Overlord, something you don’t like. You’d prefer people to be confused by you, by your style of insanity and madness, by your enjoyment of causing so much disorder and high-tension emotions

You were about to speak, basically floating over his shoulder before Alastor beats you to the punch. You can’t tell if you’ll like him or despise him with the way he speaks, almost condescending

“If you’re going to make my project topsy-turvy, I suggest do a better prank”

[elianaodeleya]

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 IUIC | Day 12 of 30 Days Of Camp Black Men - The Science Project https://youtu.be/ud9_LM9SiJw ……………………………… Visit our website here 💻👨🏾‍💻🖥 🔴 https://solo.to/unitedinchrist Be sure to Like, share and SUBSCRIBE to the channel! 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾 https://youtube.com/c/IUICRaleigh #blackmen #hebrews #project #science #slavery #wellbeing #hebrewisraelites #cursed #america #captivity #Bible #slavetrade #transatlantic #subsahara #God #judgement https://www.instagram.com/p/CmqK5PxOFPy/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[lets-zofifi-stuff]

Did somebody order the DCA Titanic au?!!

Summary: In the alternative XX century the most luxurious transatlantic made by man begins her maiden voyage. Two automatons and a human meet on its board and fall in love. But this ship is destined to sink.

I'm trying to get out of slump so

Yes I started writing a fic based off the plot of Titanic from 1996 the one with Leonardo dicaprio? The first chapter is here, the second will be god knows when. Hopefully soon! Enjoy!

[dailygillianjacobs]

Gillian, Cory Michael Smith, and Amit Rahav on set of Transatlantic

[justforbooks]

Dame Maggie Smith

A distinguished, double Oscar-winning actor whose roles ranged from Shakespeare to Harry Potter

Not many actors have made their names in revue, given definitive performances in Shakespeare and Ibsen, won two Oscars and countless theatre awards, and remained a certified box-office star for more than 60 years. But then few have been as exceptionally talented as Maggie Smith, who has died aged 89.

She was a performer whose range encompassed the high style of Restoration comedy and the sadder, suburban creations of Alan Bennett. Whatever she played, she did so with an amusing, often corrosive, edge of humour. Her comedy was fuelled by anxiety, and her instinct for the correct gesture was infallible.

The first of her Oscars came for an iconic performance in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969). Miss Brodie’s pupils are the “crème de la crème”, and her dictatorial aphorisms – “Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life” – disguise her intent of inculcating enthusiasm in her charges for the men she most admires, Mussolini and Franco.

But Smith’s pre-eminence became truly global with two projects towards the end of her career. She was Professor Minerva McGonagall in the eight films of the Harry Potter franchise (she referred to the role as Miss Brodie in a wizard’s hat) between 2001 and 2011. Between 2010 and 2015, in the six series of Downton Abbey on ITV television (sold to 250 territories around the world), she played the formidable and acid-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham, Lady Violet, a woman whose heart of seeming stone was mitigated by a moral humanity and an old-fashioned, if sometimes overzealous, sense of social propriety.

Early on, one critic described Smith as having witty elbows. Another, the US director and writer Harold Clurman, said that she “thinks funny”. When Robin Phillips directed her as Rosalind in As You Like It in 1977 in Stratford, Ontario, he said that “she can respond to something that perhaps only squirrels would sense in the air. And I think that comedy, travelling around in the atmosphere, finds her.” Like Edith Evans, her great predecessor as a stylist, Smith came late to Rosalind. Bernard Levin was convinced that it was a definitive performance, and was deeply affected by the last speech: “She spoke the epilogue like a chime of golden bells. But what she looked like as she did so, I cannot tell you; for I saw it through eyes curtained with tears of joy.”

She was more taut and tuned than any other actor of her day, and this reliance on her instinct to create a performance made her reluctant to talk about acting, although she had a forensic attitude to preparation. With no time for the celebrity game, she rarely went on television chat shows – her appearance on Graham Norton’s BBC TV show in 2015 was her first such in 42 years – or gave newspaper interviews.

Her life she summed up thus: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act and one’s still acting.” That was it. She first went “public”, according to her father, when, attired in pumps and tutu after a ballet lesson, she regaled a small crowd on an Oxford pavement with one of Arthur Askey’s ditties: “I’m a little fairy flower, growing wilder by the hour.”

Unlike her great friend and contemporary Judi Dench, Smith was a transatlantic star early in her career, making her Broadway debut in 1956 and joining Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre as one of the 12 original contract artists in 1963.

In 1969, after repeatedly stealing other people’s movies, with Miss Brodie she became a star in her own right. She was claiming her just place in the elite, for she had already worked with Olivier, Orson Welles and Noël Coward in the theatre, not to mention her great friend and fellow miserabilist Kenneth Williams, in West End revue. She had also created an international stir in two movies, Anthony Asquith’s The VIPs (1963) – she didn’t just steal her big scene with him, Richard Burton complained, “she committed grand larceny” – and Jack Clayton’s The Pumpkin Eater (1964), scripted by Harold Pinter from the novel by Penelope Mortimer.

Before Harry Potter, audiences associated Smith most readily with her lovelorn, heartbreaking parishioner Susan in Bed Among the Lentils, one of six television monologues in Bennett’s Talking Heads (1988). Susan was a character seething with sexual anger; the first line nearly said it all – “Geoffrey’s bad enough, but I’m glad I wasn’t married to Jesus.”

And the funniest moment in Robert Altman’s upstairs/downstairs movie Gosford Park (2001) – in some ways a template for Downton Abbey, and also written by Julian Fellowes — was a mere aside from a doleful Smith as Constance Trentham turning to a neighbour on the sofa, as Jeremy Northam as Ivor Novello took a bow for the song he had just sung. “Don’t encourage him,” she warned, archly, “he’s got a very large repertoire.” Such a moment took us right back to the National in 1964 when, as the vamp Myra Arundel in Coward’s Hay Fever, she created an unprecedented (and un-equalled) gale of laughter on the single ejaculation at the breakfast table: “This haddock is disgusting.”

Born in Ilford, Essex, she was the daughter of Margaret (nee Hutton) and Nathaniel Smith, and educated at Oxford high school for girls (the family moved to Oxford at the start of the second world war because of her father’s work as a laboratory technician). Maggie decided to be an actor, joined the Oxford Playhouse school under the tutelage of Frank Shelley in 1951 and took roles in professional and student productions.

She acted as Margaret Smith until 1956, when Equity, the actors’ union, informed her that the name was double-booked. She played Viola with the Oxford University dramatic society in 1952 – John Wood was her undergraduate Malvolio – and appeared in revues directed by Ned Sherrin. “At that time in Oxford,” said Sherrin, “if you wanted a show to be a success, you had to try and get Margaret Smith in it.”

The Sunday Times critic of the day, Harold Hobson, spotted her in a play by Michael Meyer and she was soon working with the directors Peter Hall and Peter Wood. “I didn’t think she would develop the range that she subsequently has,” said Hall, “but I did think she had star quality.”

One of her many admirers at Oxford, the writer Beverley Cross, initiated a long-term campaign to marry Smith that was only fulfilled after the end of her tempestuous 10-year relationship with the actor Robert Stephens, with whom she fell in love at the National and whom she married in 1967. This was a golden decade, as Smith played a beautiful Desdemona to Olivier’s Othello; a clever and impetuous Hilde Wangel to first Michael Redgrave, then Olivier, in Ibsen’s The Master Builder; and an irrepressibly witty and playful Beatrice opposite Stephens as Benedick in Franco Zeffirelli’s Sicilian Much Ado About Nothing, spangled in coloured lights.

Her National “service” was book-ended by two particularly wonderful performances in Restoration comedies by George Farquhar, The Recruiting Officer (1963) and The Beaux’ Stratagem (1970), both directed by William Gaskill, whom she called “simply the best teacher”. In the first, in the travesty role of Sylvia, her bubbling, playful sexuality shone through a disguise of black cork moustache and thigh-high boots on a clear stage that acquired, said Bamber Gascoigne, an air of sharpened reality, “like life on a winter’s day with frost and sun”.

In the second, her Mrs Sullen, driven frantic by boredom and shrewish by a sodden, elderly husband, was a tight-laced beanpole, graceful, swaying and tender, drawing from Ronald Bryden a splendidly phrased comparison with some Henri Rousseau-style giraffe, peering nervously down her nose with huge, liquid eyes at the smaller creatures around, nibbling off her lines fastidiously in a surprisingly tiny nasal drawl.

With Stephens, she had two sons, Chris and Toby, who both became actors. When the marriage hit the rocks in 1975, after the couple had torn strips off each other to mixed reviews in John Gielgud’s 1973 revival of Coward’s Private Lives, Smith absconded to Canada with Cross – whom she quickly married – and relaunched her career there, far from the London hurly-burly, but with access to Hollywood.

She played not just Rosalind in Stratford, Ontario, but also Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra to critical acclaim, as well as Judith Bliss in Coward’s Hay Fever and Millamant in William Congreve’s The Way of the World (this latter role she repeated triumphantly in Chichester and London in 1984, again directed by Gaskill). But her films at this time especially reinforced her status as a comedian of flair and authority, none more than Neil Simon’s California Suite (1978), in which Smith was happily partnered by Michael Caine, and won her second Oscar in the role of Diana Barrie, an actor on her way to the Oscars (where she loses).

Smith’s comic genius was increasingly refracted through tales of sadness, retreat and isolation, notably in what is very possibly her greatest screen performance, in Clayton’s The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987), based on Brian Moore’s first novel, which charts the disintegration of an alcoholic Catholic spinster at guilty odds with her own sensuality.

This tragic dimension to her comedy, was seen on stage, too, in Edna O’Brien’s Virginia (1980), a haunting portrait of Virginia Woolf; and in Bennett’s The Lady in the Van (1999), in which she was the eccentric tramp Miss Shepherd. Miss Shepherd was a former nun who had driven ambulances during blackouts in the second world war and ended up as a tolerated squatter in the playwright’s front garden. Smith brought something both demonic and celestial to this critical, ungrateful, dun-caked crone and it was impossible to imagine any other actor in the role, which she reprised, developed and explored further in Nicholas Hytner’s delightful 2015 movie based on the play.

She scored two big successes in Edward Albee’s work on the London stage in the 1990s, first in Three Tall Women (1994, the playwright’s return to form), and then in one of his best plays, A Delicate Balance (1997), in which she played alongside Eileen Atkins who, like Dench, could give Smith as good as she got.

The Dench partnership lay fallow after their early years at the Old Vic together, but these two great stars made up for lost time. They appeared together not only on stage, in David Hare’s The Breath of Life (2002), playing the wife and mistress of the same dead man, but also on film, in the Merchant-Ivory A Room With a View (1985), Zeffirelli’s Tea With Mussolini (1999) and as a pair of grey-haired sisters in Charles Dance’s debut film as a director, Ladies in Lavender (2004). Smith referred to this latter film as “The Lavender Bags”. She had a name for everyone. Vanessa Redgrave she dubbed “the Red Snapper”, while Michael Palin, with whom she made two films, was simply “the Saint”.

With Palin, she appeared in Bennett’s A Private Function (1984), directed by Malcolm Mowbray – “Moaner Mowbray” he became – in which an unlicensed pig is slaughtered in a Yorkshire village for the royal wedding celebrations of 1947. Smith was Joyce Chilvers, married to Palin, who carries on snobbishly like a Lady Macbeth of Ilkley, deciding to throw caution to the winds and have a sweet sherry, or informing her husband matter-of-factly that sexual intercourse is in order.

She had also acted with Palin in The Missionary (1982), directed by Richard Loncraine, who was responsible for the film of Ian McKellen’s Richard III (1995, in which she played a memorably rebarbative Duchess of York) and My House in Umbria (2003), a much-underrated film, adapted by Hugh Whitemore from a William Trevor novella. This last brought out the very best in her special line in glamorous whimsy and iron-clad star status under pressure. She played Emily Delahunty, a romantic novelist opening her glorious house in Umbria to her three fellow survivors in a bomb blast on a train to Milan. One of these was played by Ronnie Barker, who had been at architectural college with Smith’s two brothers and had left them to join her at the Oxford Playhouse. Delahunty finds her new metier as an adoptive parent to a little orphaned American girl.

She was Mother Superior in the very popular Sister Act (1992) and its sequel, and her recent films included a “funny turn” as a disruptive housekeeper in Keeping Mum (2005), a vintage portrait of old age revisited by the past in Stephen Poliakoff’s Capturing Mary (on television in 2007) and as a solicitous grandmother of a boy uncovering a ghost story in Fellowes’s From Time to Time (2009).

As this latter film was released she confirmed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone an intensive course of chemotherapy, but had been given the all-clear – only to be struck down by a painful attack of shingles, a typical Maggie Smith example of good news never coming unadulterated with a bit of bad.

Her stage appearance as the title character in Albee’s The Lady from Dubuque at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in 2007 was, ironically, about death from cancer. She returned to the stage for the last time in 2019, as Brunhilde Pomsel in Christopher Hampton’s one-woman play A German Life, at the Bridge theatre, London.

Cross, who was a real rock, and helped protect her from the outside world, died in 1998. But Smith picked herself up, and went on to perform as sensationally and beguilingly as she had done all her life, including memorable appearances in the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films (2011 and 2015) and two Downton Abbey movie spin-offs (2019 and 2022). Her final film role was in The Miracle Club (2023), co-starring Kathy Bates and Laura Linney.

She had been made CBE in 1970 and a dame in 1990, and in 2014 she was made a Companion of Honour. Her pleasure would have been laced with mild incredulity. A world without Smith recoiling from it in mock horror, and real distaste, will never seem the same again.

She is survived by Chris and Toby, and by five grandchildren.

🔔 Maggie Smith (Margaret Natalie Smith), actor, born 28 December 1934; died 27 September 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[fanby-fckry]

Actually, I Don’t Like Cake Either

Day 1 of Ace Alastor Week: Cake Day

Word Count: 1,433

Chapters: 1/1

Fandom: Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon)

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Additional Warnings: Spoilers for Hazbin Hotel Season 1 Episode 8 The Show Must Go On

Relationships: Alastor & Rosie (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor & Charlie Magne | Morningstar

Characters: Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Rosie (Hazbin Hotel), Mentioned Charlie Magne | Morningstar, Mentioned Hazbin Hotel Ensemble

Additional Tags: Canon Compliant (mostly), Post-Season/Series 01, Humor, Attempt at Humor, Light Angst, Friendship, Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Aromantic Asexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor is Bad at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), Alastor Has a Heart (Hazbin Hotel), Talking, Conversations, Ace Community Inside Jokes

Series: Part 1 of Fanby’s Ace Alastor Week 2024 || Part 1 of Piece of Cake! ( || Next -> )

Summary:

“This isn’t the first cake,” Alastor confessed. “This isn’t even the second or the third! No, no, no, this is the sixth – the sixth – cake she’s given me since I returned to the hotel!”

Alastor broke into manic laughter. “I don’t even like cake!” he said. “I detest sweet things! Can’t stand them! But for some reason she Just. Keeps. Baking them!”

*

For some unknown reason, Charlie keeps baking Alastor cakes. With no sweet-tooth to speak of, nor the willpower to face Charlie’s disappointment should he turn down her gifts, Alastor seeks Rosie’s help with this dessert debacle.

Better on AO3

Alastor made his way through Cannibal Town, walking with a purpose and a cardboard pastry box.

In fact, the box was his purpose for being in Cannibal Town today.

He needed advice. And who better to ask than his dear friend Rosie?

“Alastor!” Rosie dropped everything she was doing to come rushing over to him. “Oh, it’s so good to see you! Things get so gloomy here without you!”

Alastor lifted the box above his head and out of the way as Rosie wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him in for a hug.

The movement drew Rosie’s eyes upwards, and after a moment spent embracing him, Rosie turned her attention to the box.

“What’ve we got here?” she asked.

“My reason for visiting!” Alastor announced. Then, somewhat quieter, “If I could just speak to you in private…”

“Of course, of course!” Rosie ushered Alastor away from the crowd and into one of the more secluded spaces of her emporium – the same room they’d used to discuss Rosie’s potential involvement in defending the hotel.

“Come, sit down, get comfy.” She motioned for Alastor to take the closer chair, then crossed the table to take her own seat.

Alastor did sit, but he felt far from comfortable.

“Well?” Rosie folded her hands in her lap, and Alastor felt distinctly aware of his own hands, still gripping the cardboard box. “Show me what’s in this mysterious box of yours.”

Alastor set the box on the table and opened it to reveal…

“A cake?” Rosie laughed. “Alastor, you charmer, did you bake me a cake?”

Alastor exhaled in a sigh, releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Actually, Charlie did!” he said, doing his best to keep his cadence and tone in its typical Transatlantic manner. “Although she baked it for me. I just didn’t want it to go to waste and was hoping you might know of at least one demon around here with a sweet tooth!”

Rosie raised one eyebrow. “There’s more you’re not tellin’ me, dearie,” she said.

Alastor looked down at the cake. Then back up at Rosie. Then at the cake again.

Even with his smile, Rosie could read him like an open book. There was no point in trying to deceive her. And besides, he had come here to ask for her help.

“This isn’t the first cake,” Alastor confessed. “This isn’t even the second or the third! No, no, no, this is the sixth – the sixth – cake she’s given me since I returned to the hotel!”

Alastor broke into manic laughter. “I don’t even like cake!” he said. “I detest sweet things! Can’t stand them! But for some reason she Just. Keeps. Baking them!”

“And then she hands them off to me with that smile of hers and…” Alastor closed his eyes.

He didn’t tell Rosie that he’d grown fond of Charlie. That he genuinely considered her a friend and couldn’t stand the thought of seeing that smile fall. A smile that was so unlike his own: honest and true where his was a weapon, a mask, and – more often than not these days – a lie.

He didn’t need to. Because Rosie already knew.

Alastor opened his eyes and folded his hands on the table. “I just don’t want it to go to waste,” he repeated, and it was half true.

“Why don’t you give it to one of the other guests at that hotel of hers?” Rosie asked.

“Because she would know,” Alastor insisted. “Vaggie and Angel Dust would sell me out in a heartbeat! Even if I gave it to Husker or Niffty and ordered them not to tell, it would only be a matter of time before she figured it out.”

“And besides,” he added. “Niffty really shouldn’t be eating this much sugar.”

Niffty on a sugar rush was a level of chaos even Alastor struggled to endure. At one point, the tiny cyclops had eaten an entire batch of cupcakes and wound up deep cleaning Alastor’s radio tower and stabbing a dozen demons – one of which was Alastor, himself! Non-lethally, of course. Although, the same couldn’t be said for the other eleven.

“Well, what did you do with the other five?” Rosie asked.

“Opened a portal and threw them into the same dimension I summon my tentacles from,” Alastor said with a dismissive hand wave. “They’re probably rotting in there. I’m not entirely sure whether or not those abominations eat, but I’d assume that if they do, they’re carnivorous.”

Rosie shrugged. “Well, I don’t mind sweets myself,” she said. “I prefer when they’ve got a little blood baked in, of course, but I can make do.”

“Thank you,” Alastor said, relief washing over him as Rosie picked up a knife to cut herself a slice.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do if she keeps this up,” he admitted.

Alastor knew what he had to do, and what would happen if he failed to do it. But he didn’t like the looks of either option.

Either Alastor was going to have to tell Charlie to stop and watch her mope around like a kicked puppy, or someone would eventually figure out that he was going out of his way to avoid disappointing her.

His reputation had already taken a massive hit after his battle with Adam – his televised defeat, his failure. He couldn’t afford to let any more evidence of weakness reach the masses.

Alastor’s inner monologue was interrupted by Rosie’s laughter.

“What?” he asked. “What’s so funny?”

Rosie stifled her laughter and put a hand on Alastor’s shoulder. “I think I might just have an answer to your dessert debacle, darling.”

“Oh?” Alastor’s ears perked up at the thought of a solution.

“Tell her you’d rather have garlic bread,” Rosie said, smiling ear to ear. “Bonus points if you use those exact words.”

Alastor tilted his head at a forty five degree angle. Garlic bread? he wondered. What does garlic bread have to do with anything?

But, he did prefer garlic bread to cake. Maybe if he could channel Charlie’s inexplicable urge to bake towards something he might actually eat, then he could have his cake and eat it too, so to speak.

“Well, it’s worth a shot!” Alastor decided. “Thank you for the advice, my dear. I may not grasp the particulars, but I trust your judgment! You always did have such a knack for these things. Why, it’s no wonder you’re Cannibal Town’s go-to gal for guidance.”

“Aww,” Rosie cooed, swatting playfully at his arm. “You’re such a flatterer. You’re gonna make me blush!”

Rosie hummed and took a bite of Alastor’s unwanted cake.

“Guess you’d better get back to that hotel and tell the Princess about the menu change before she fires up the oven again,” she said after swallowing the bite.

Alastor laughed. “Oh, I think I can stay a while,” he said. “Surely she’s gotten it out of her system for the time being.”

“You said this is the sixth cake?” Rosie asked.

“Yes,” Alastor confirmed.

“And would you say the rate she bakes them is consistent?”

“Hm,” Alastor hummed. “The first one was to celebrate my return… Then she baked another later in the month, then one about a week later… Two last week, and now…”

“Shit,” he cursed as it finally hit him. “The cakes are increasing.”

“Mhmm,” Rosie hummed. “How long did you have this one before you managed to sneak it out of the hotel?”

Alastor’s smile widened. “Well, it was great chatting with you, darling!” he said, wrapping Rosie into a hug and preparing to take his leave. “I’ll be seeing you!”

Rosie giggled. “Good to see you too, Alastor.”

She hugged him back, wished him luck, and just like that, Alastor was on his way.

Rosie speared a piece of cake onto her fork, capturing all four distinctly dyed layers – black, gray, white, and purple, in that order.

“Oh, Alastor,” she said to herself with a sigh.

If only he would stop cutting her off every time she tried to actually bring up the concepts of asexuality and aromanticism.

Rosie could make jokes and puns that flew over Alastor’s head – although not over a certain Princess’s head, apparently – day in and day out, but the minute she tried to explain the identities behind them, she was met with, ‘I don’t care for all those modern labels,’ and ‘I don’t understand what any of this has to do with me!’

Too bad, really. Alastor would probably get a kick out of aroace in-jokes. Even if he didn’t like cake.

[chadfallout76podcast]

"Deah Shroud!: A Nick Valentine Mystery" EXPLAINED and AMA

It never occurred to me to do this last year, but a lot of people have asked me questions about our Fallout 4 play in the last year in the Discord, so I wanted to open an AMA but also explain "Death Shroud!" and some of the broader themes involved in it.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Part 1: Pre-production

Before I get into the story, I wanted to explain how this production even came about. Over the years after working together on some official community projects with Wes Johnson through Bethesda, we became good friends. I took a couple of his acting classes and he talked about the Fallout For Hope charity initiative I started and asked for help in organizing the gaming community for his Alzheimer's Association fundraiser. The idea was to host a month-long digital event of discussion panels, game shows, improv and a play with as many different voices of video games, film and TV as we could round up. In our second year of his VoiceAPalooza fundraiser, I wanted to do an original old time radio show and see if could bring back as many of the cast that we could from Fallout 4. It was Wes who first suggested an adventure with his Silver Shroud character (that he voiced in Fallout 4's radio plays) teaming up with Nick Valentine (voiced by the amazing Stephen Russell). Valentine is, for me, one of the best written, unique companions in Fallout lore.

So, I reached out to Stephen Russell who had joined us before for charity work and he was all in on bringing Nick Valentine back to life! After that things moved fast with Bethesda's Pete Hines and Emil Pagliarulo joining us to have some fun for a good cause. We tried to get EVERY companion from Fallout 4 that we could, but schedule wrangling is tough, and some people are just impossible to track down or find. Matt Mercer would've loved to have joined us as Macready, but unfortunately scheduling didn't work, so the best we could manage would be a holotape (the only reason our snarky gun running merc had to take the big sleep in the story).

After having everyone plugged in to reprise characters, it was time to put fingers to keys and find the story...

Part 2: The Deep Lore

The origin of this story started with a thought: how would the NPC's and characters we love perceive modification of their universe by us? We, as players aren't the true creators of this universe or these characters (Bethesda is). If anything, we the players are the equivalent of "lesser gods", reshaping it in new ways, unexpected and subjective ways, and sometimes even chaotic ways (I'm looking at you avalanche of adult mods with realistic jiggle physics and Thomas the Tank Engine Vertibird).

It started with a mental image of the small ways in which we start out modding games, or even the first mods we (using the "Engine of Creation) actually create. I had a mental image of Magnolia doing her thing, singing away sultry in a crowded and smoky third rail when she looks one way, back the next and sees new curtains. A subtle thing, something a little startling, but in a universe where recreational drug use is met with a YEEE YEEEE WHEEEE...a change you simply dismiss as being overtired or a little too juiced.

I'm a sucker for old time radio. I grew up listening to classic radio horrors like The Whistler, Suspense, and Lights Out on vinyl records and cassette tapes when I'd spend summers with my grandmother on a little island off the coast of Canada. Getting the tone, feeling and sound to stage an old-time radio show was the easiest part of this whole process...it's baked into my brain lol. The key of course is finding the right narrative voice.

Enter: Bill Lobley. If you play Fallout 76, he is the announcer for the "Tales from the West Virginia Hills" holotapes, but before that he's a prolific voice actor, maybe best known for his role as the truly vile Jeremiah Fink in Bioshock: Infinite. He has a FANTASTIC transatlantic voice for old time radio and was perfect as narrator in the script.

Part 3: What Is Going On?!?!

I had the base idea, the voices to pull it off, but what was the meaning and message of the whole thing? I always start there. From a meta experience level, the story is about dealing with subjective reality that’s being torn apart. After Fallout 4 launched in vanilla, we the players changed that world and reshaped it with mods. The small changes in perceived reality are meant for the omniscient player (us) and are not meant to be perceived by the characters themselves...and yet, what if they were? And if they were...WHY?! The answer was right in front of me: there's a difference between something born into a world and something MADE into a world.

You take someone like Magnolia or Nick, both synths, that obviously weren’t naturally born from two people. They were conceived as an idea...a human idea sure, but still they were made, not born. Without even needing to say in the script, the Trickster from the Grognak comic books who shouldn't exist yet does IS also an idea. Some MADE into a world but not born...a different world sure, but still the creation of it. Nick, Magnolia, any synth as ideas themselves would sense that the world was wrong and being changed in a way no one else would because of fundamentally who they are and what they represent.

Everything that unfolds is because Nora as a keystone event in the Commonwealth, a focal point of the causal nexus making her a unique entity in that world. A causal nexus is the link between a cause and its resulting effects and ignore the science mumbo jumbo, because here's an example of how that works:

The Sole Survivor, Nora, listened to Kent's message, chose to answer him and put on the outfit of the Silver Shroud. As a unique figure she shifted perceived reality of everyone in the Commonwealth by becoming the Silver Shroud, acting like him and making people believe that a fictional character exists.

Unfettered belief and faith in an idea = manifested reality.

Rejected belief and faith in the idea = dispels that reality.

This HAS happened before in Fallout lore in the instance of people with horrifying backstories and personal tragedies choosing to become someone else such as the Mechanist (Fallout 3 and Fallout 4) or even the Ant-Agonizer (Fallout 3). This time however it was a unique figure who did this, a figure fated and meant to reshape the Commonwealth for good, bad or ugly.

This opened a door, the door through which another figure could influence and enter a new universe provided it take the form of something already in it...a reality side-step into the form of the Mechanist. Concurrently, the moment that happened, reality counterbalanced by making the Silver Shroud who was already believed to be real BECOME real as the ying to the Mechanist/Trickster's yang.

Now at home in reality, the Trickster found himself very much alive and unbound by story but had very little power to do much at all. He needed something more, an idea and faith that already existed in the Commonwealth with the infinite universe of ideas made, but not born like himself. His goal wasn't power, it was to sow chaos, reshaping reality into a realm for any and every idea despite the consequences to reality itself.

So what did he need? The belief in the Old Gods and a focus point of belief in the idea: a staff. The universe is as adaptive as it is remarkable and where the Mechanist had its opposite: the Silver Shroud, the Trickster needed its twin: enter Sheogorath...because what better staff to tear apart and reshape reality than the Staff of Sheogorath. There is a quest added in the new Skyrim Anniversary Edition in which you can build it for yourself with a few items: Branch of the Tree of Shades, Ciirta's Eye, Fork of Horripilation. In this universe it would have to fashioned with things FROM this universe.

Two eyes were needed:

The eye of a True Believer: Kent Connolly

The eye of a True Seer: Mama Murphy

Affixed to the top of a staff of the purest heartwood from a Twice Born Tree. Living wood from Harold, born a man who eventually mutated into a living tree.

Lastly, it had to be soaked in the tears of ages end: barrels of radiated blessed waters courtesy of the Cult of Atom.

The Trickster had no magic of his own in this universe in which to act, but thankfully courtesy of some powerful allies, he was able to make contact with shadowy cults and worshippers of the old gods who gave him the name of someone truly of faith in the old magic to make all of this work: Jebediah Blackhall, who in this spin of the universe did unfortunately get his hands on the cursed book: the Krivbeknah.

Finding allies was all too easy, as the events post main quest left the Commonwealth changed. To many, the Sole Survivor and his/her companions would be hailed as heroes. To others, they would be villains, particularly in light of what Nora CHOSE to do to the Railroad to end the synth threat for good. That's a lot of blood on the hands of heroes...

As the Mechanist/Trickster, Blackall and the Lombardos began using the staff, its changes and shifts in reality rippled backwards through time, as changing one specific thing would change its entire existence. You change some curtains and the manufacturer of those curtains only every made one pattern...the world object becomes changed universally. Tapping into the Engine of Creation to make these changes, leaves anyone MADE not born aware of them as they don't fit into the design as it shifts around them. Nick, Danse, Magnolia would all feel and see it, be thrown off for a bit before settling into the changed reality state.

At the climax when everything starts falling apart and you get everyone from GlaDOS and the Joker strolling on in, the only way to end it all is to separate the Trickster from the Staff and restore the saved intended state of reality. The Silver Shroud finds himself powerless against the Trickster...only someone from this universe would be able to intercede, hard wired into the Engine of Creation itself as an existing element connected throughout its framework and history. After sending the Trickster off packing to the moon (thanks GlaDOS), but its a little too late for reality. It collapses around them, finding themselves elsewhere...the point between the mind, creation and the outcome of reality.

After the Shroud fades away, Nick has the power and choice to roll the universe, his universe back along the tapestry of choices that led him here. They all were haunted by the choices they made the first time around, something Nora couldn't live with...that ultimately led her relationship with Danse to fall apart. So Nick decides to go back further, as far back as he can go and he finds himself back in his office with Ellie waking him up.

There are consequences to what he's done, that he's not yet aware of, ones that will become clear in our next episode. The synths remember, as he remembers...Danse, Magnolia and everyone else remembers the fall of the Institute. They all find themselves at their starting point, moving towards their intended fated position to encounter the Sole Survivor. For Nick? He's starting down the path that will led him to be held prisoner and meet the Sole Survivor for the first time.

As he'll soon discover however, things don't play out the same way this time. Moreover, while he was rolling back reality to an early saved state, he made a huge mistake and completely forgot about something and someone so incredibly important...

You'll have to wait to see what that is...

[yourlocaltreesimp]

HIIIII :D

Do you have any Blorbo headcanons that you wanna share?

Hhhhmmmmmmm

let’s do one for each, hm?

Time:

Can’t cook. Like yeah, he can try, but with so long of only eating salad while living with the kokiri and not necessarily needing to eat during a time loop, he can’t cook.

Twilight:

Look i’m as in love with him having wolf traits as the next person, but hear me out. He knows how to bake. So well infact that he doesn’t know when to stop and needs to shovel off the goods onto other people.

Wild:

Partially deaf, knows sign to accommodate for this and his muteness, nerve damage to the scar, partially blind, you get the deal… So he has everything. Oh what’s that? Someone’s knocked out on the road? He has a solution. Someone’s frozen in ice? Give him a minute. You died? He knows a guy who can undo that. He’s also really good at braiding hair.

Warriors:

Ok, bit of a stretch here. But literally Achilles. His mother prayed to the Hylia river as she washed her son for the first time and oops he’s immune to pretty much everything. But not everything.

Four:

He looks like he can sing. No real basis to this. I just imagine him singing as he works. I also imagine there being a kiln in his forge and every now and then he’ll throw something. He just likes any creative work where he’s using his hands.

Legend:

I’m on team Legend with chronic pain or needing mobility aid. Projecting? Yeah maybe. Anyway- I’d like to present all those magic rings are also finger splints to keep his joints in place while fighting and what not.

Hyrule:

Fae. Loves sugar, honey, flowers, spare rupees, etc. I also feel like he’d know how to paint to some capacity. I think he’s more of a watercolor guy but I could see him going absolutely insane with some oils or charcoals.

Sky:

Literally a disney princess. Animals flock to him. Voice of an angel. Transatlantic accent, but the soft kind of that makes sense? Not “where’s my dinner woman!!” but like “I’m so glad to be home to you darling” …

trans ftm.

Wind:

Can and will drink someone under a table. Constant sea walk. Knows all the sea shanties. High society’s worst nightmare…. accept his behavior switches on a dime. So imagine when the chain meets, Wind is originally all sweet and polite with time… but then warriors shows up and he goes back to being a menace.

[probablyasocialecologist]

While enslaved people were mostly overseas, in colonies, out of sight, slavery funded British wealth and institutions from the Bank of England to the Royal Mail. The extent to which modern Britain was shaped by the profits of the transatlantic slave economy was made even clearer with the launch in 2013 of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership project at University College London. It digitised the records of tens of thousands of people who claimed compensation from the government when colonial slavery was abolished in 1833, making it far easier to see how the wealth created by slavery spread throughout Britain after abolition. “Slave-ownership,” the researchers concluded, “permeated the British elites of the early 19th century and helped form the elites of the 20th century.” (Among others, it showed that David Cameron’s ancestors, and the founders of the Greene King pub chain, had enslaved people.)

But as Bell-Romero would write in his report on Caius, “the legacies of enslavement encompassed far more than the ownership of plantations and investments in the slave trade”. Scholars undertaking this kind of archival research typically look at the myriad ways in which individuals linked to an institution might have profited from slavery – ranging from direct involvement in the trade of enslaved people or the goods they produced, to one-step-removed financial interests such as holding shares in slave-trading entities such as the South Sea or East India Companies.

Bronwen Everill, an expert in the history of slavery and a fellow at Caius, points out “how widespread and mundane all of this was”. Mapping these connections, she says, simply “makes it much harder to hold the belief that Britain suddenly rose to power through its innate qualities; actually, this great wealth is linked to a very specific moment of wealth creation through the dramatic exploitation of African labour.”

This academic interest in forensically quantifying British institutions’ involvement in slavery has been steadily growing for several decades. But in recent years, this has been accompanied by calls for Britain to re-evaluate its imperial history, starting with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign in 2015. The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 turbo-charged the debate, and in response, more institutions in the UK commissioned research on their historic links to slavery – including the Bank of England, Lloyd’s, the National Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Guardian.

But as public interest in exploring and quantifying Britain’s historic links to slavery exploded in 2020, so too did a conservative backlash against “wokery”. Critics argue that the whole enterprise of examining historic links to slavery is an exercise in denigrating Britain and seeking out evidence for a foregone conclusion. Debate quickly ceases to be about the research itself – and becomes a proxy for questions of national pride. “What seems to make people really angry is the suggestion of change [in response to this sort of research], or the removal of specific things – statues, names – which is taken as a suggestion that people today should be guilty,” said Natalie Zacek, an academic at the University of Manchester who is writing a book on English universities and slavery. “I’ve never quite gotten to the bottom of that – no one is saying you, today, are a terrible person because you’re white. We’re simply saying there is another story here.”