tricksyliesmith

[tricksyliesmith]

Goodbye 'Much Ado About Nothing' 🩷

It was so cool to live and follow this play. There were so many fun moments and every detail of this play was so funny and wonderful to experience. I will miss it so much. Especially these two.

[tricksyliesmith]

Hayley and Tom silently thanking each other for their partnership over the past 2 months. 🩷

– Photo credits: lonfi96 (Instagram)

– Video credits: natrose21xx (Instagram)

[tricksyliesmith]

Hayley and Tom silently thanking each other for their partnership over the past 2 months. 🩷

– Photo credits: lonfi96 (Instagram)

– Video credits: natrose21xx (Instagram)

[tricksyliesmith]

Please make a post about the story of the RMS Carpathia, because it's something that's almost beyond belief and more people should know about it.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a respondibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

[tricksyliesmith]

sigh.

[tricksyliesmith]

[tricksyliesmith]

[tricksyliesmith]

Important questions, important answers

[tricksyliesmith]

[tricksyliesmith]

My thoughts about the good omens situation:

While it sucks we only get a 90 minute episode, boycotting it or saying it's not even worth the watch is can be harmful.

Because the options were not between a 90 minute special or 6 episodes. The options were a 90 minute special or cancelation. After the horrible actions of N*il G*aiman came out, season 3 was done. Off the table. They canceled the entire production team's contracts in the middle of pre production. There's no way we would have gotten 6 episodes. So the fact that we're even getting 90 minutes is nothing short of a miracle.

While I agree that having everything resolved in a satisfying way in 90 minutes is quite a tall order, I still think it can be done.

Have faith in Rob Wilkins, now one of the producers, to ensure that it is a faithful representation of what Terry would've wanted. Have faith in David Tennant and Michael Sheen, who love these characters as much as we do, to deliver a fantastic final performance. Have faith in the amazing production team whose passion for the show is evident in all the visually stunning details that always add so much to the story.

This is not to say that people should stop signing petitions, or stop demanding 6 episodes, or even to stop being angry or upset over the situation. I sure am. But Rob and Rhianna already fought so hard for this, and I'd hate to see it canceled because fan behavior causes Amazon to think it's not worth it.

[tricksyliesmith]

[tricksyliesmith]

Tiny friends

Photographed by Miles Herbert

[tricksyliesmith]

They are more interested in getting the look exactly right, rather than being vain.

BBC: Did you work very closely with Michael and David?

Claire Anderson (Costume Designer): Yes. They were both involved in creating their looks. When you put something very distinctive on them, that helps them find the character. They are more interested in getting the look exactly right, rather than being vain. We had mood boards - light for good, dark for evil. Michael’s costume is ethereal. He wanted something timeless that wouldn’t look out of place now or in Victorian England. He found a way of contemporising his Victorian look. We were able to use aspects of his costume all the way through.

We gave him a tartan bowtie, but all tartans are owned, so we had to design our own specifically, incorporating golden thread and heavenly aspects. He also wears a Victorian waistcoat that is almost bald. We dyed things a lot to get the pale blue on his shirt that would give him serenity and warmth. He wears soft suede shoes and soft light cashmere trousers. It’s about balancing colours with his very white hair to give him the right look. He needs an ethereal aura, and all of the colour palette needs to emphasise his heavenly glow. He’s deliciously cherubic.

BBC: How did you go about creating David’s look?

Claire Anderson: It really started with his 1940s look. The tailoring is very crisp and aligned. It’s hard and sharp. Under the colour of every suit, we put red felt which was like the belly of a snake. Underneath that loucheness, David is slightly rock-starry and Keith Richards-esque. His black leather gloves have a tiny red line to emphasise his snake-like characteristics. We also found a 1980s jacket that had a quilted quality. We worked on it until it had a textured feel to it, like snakeskin. It’s all about semiotics.

Full interview here

[tricksyliesmith]

Hot beverages from season 2 ☕️

I made these into stickers hehe

[tricksyliesmith]

I spent a very reasonable normal ordinary amount of time painting smooches and contemplating how lovely it must be to finally be kissed by someone you’ve desired for oh, say, 6000 years? and how it would be obvious if demon boy here were the one to completely take apart soft, shy Aziraphale but how it would be even better if it were the other way around. Crowley likes to think he’s really smooth and cool but the fact may be that, actually, he’s the soft one and maybe he’s pined so hard he doesn’t need much to completely lose his shit… and then there’s M*chael Sh**n being… like that and I-I-I……hjkj;;;f;f;;;;; maybe projected a bit too hard. I am feeling supremely awkward about myself and my life choices right now and I’ll probably have several breakdowns later about posting things like this on a website that doesn’t allow you to remove them ever, but look, I put some real fucking effort into those hands and faces and y’all are going to look at them

[tricksyliesmith]

eddie + her colourful similes

[tricksyliesmith]

Crowley's angelic essence (Dominion)