#scientistsinistral

then the others are relative (according to @dresslikemaneskin on IG) Ethan is a little taller than Damiano, Thomas is the tallest at about 190cm, and Vic of course is a lot smaller - they said she's 163 or thereabouts but they were doing this by eye on the last two)

can we appreciate that damiano's 5 inch heels meant that he was about 6ft 5 whilst at eurovision, though? (my 5ft 3 ass feels very short aha)

Thank you!!

Hmm, let me talk about via dolorosa then!

I hesitated to write this because as much as I enjoyed the idea, I was still firmly on the “Let’s leave Tommy’s fate after the events of Dunkirk as open as possible” wave. At this point, I had figured that Tommy survives the war, but I didn’t want to commit myself to it haha. But I kept thinking about it and I didn’t want to stop thinking about this family, and so here we are. 

One of the images that really kept me writing this--because I struggled with it at first--was this moment: 

“Are you real?” Tommy says.

“Yes,” Blake says.

“Not just in my head?”

“I am in your head, mate. But your head isn’t your own.”

Tommy fights to breathe. When he speaks, he cannot raise his voice. His words are only a thin exhale.

“Pray for me?” he says.

Blake draws Tommy closer to his chest.

“All right,” he says.

His would-be godfather holds tight onto him and prays, echoing the prayers that across the English channel, Tommy’s mother and sister would whisper before the candles at the Church of St Laurence. The sing-song words are soft and protective in which Tommy would bury his face and wrap around him, well-worn and well-loved. It is his blanket, or his shroud.

First off, I delighted in the King’s Cross-esque concept to it. “Of course this is all happening in your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it isn’t real?” Like, just because you are experiencing something that others can’t see outside of your head, why should negate its realness? The real estate of our head is not our own--there is more than our imagination in our heads. 

Tommy asking Tom Blake to pray for him was really poignant for me, and what sold this idea to me. The idea of Tom Blake musing that he could have been Tommy’s godfather if only he had survived really stuck with me, and this feeling of like, he still can be that for Tommy, even if it isn’t in this world. While I am not personally experienced in this doctrine, there is a reflection of how I interpret the communion of the saints--that is, that those who are dead are still capable and will pray for those who are living. That although Blake is dead, and has never met Tommy in person, he still has that connection to Tommy, a way to relate to Tommy and  be there for him and love and care for him, and death cannot inhibit that love. When I considered giving up on this fic, this was what kept me going. 

Thank you!!

Hahaha so this was decided well before 1917! In the story I was writing about Tommy that was Dunkirk-focused, and the version in which Tommy doesn’t come home, I made some lines that just stuck with me (It may have shown up in here be dragons, as I tried to recycle).

Please keep in mind, before I watched 1917, Tommy’s surname was Wright, haha.

“Still, the Wright family dared to celebrate--quietly, as if to wrap Tommy up in a blanket and hide him in the reeds of the Nile River until the slaughter passed. Sugar was scarce but Mother still baked a cake, Father was giving their grandfather’s watch one last polish before he would pass it on to his only son."

and

“At the station, as floods of other boys huddled by the tracks joining in the chorus of goodbyes, Father had tightened the watch strap around Tommy’s wrist. Edith kissed Tommy on both cheeks and promised to send him packages. Mum snuck an extra pair of socks into his belongings and waited until after supper to cry.”

So again, it all really came down to Tommy, and me wanting to keep that imagery of his father tenderly adjusting the watch on his son’s wrist right before he was going to war. And then I remembered how a watch really did show up quite often--importantly too--in 1917, so I took advantage of that. 

Especially since I’m rather fascinated by watches--my family has saved the watches of beloved relatives, some which are still working even though they are quite quite old. There’s something very beloved about watches from generation to generation. The straps can be changed, the face fixed, the clock rewound, and yet it is still the same beloved mechanism for however long it will last. 

(I do reckon, though, that it had already stopped working after the events of Dunkirk. I don’t think it did very well in water. But Tommy still kept it on through the war, because a little bit of his father is with him when he is lonely and so far from home). 

Icon: Ryan Bergara of Buzzfeed Unsolved looking at the camera with growing terror. I share it with my good mate @bartonbones who has the counterpart icon of Shane Madej laughing with delight at the idea of Londoners watching executions as a nice day out.

My content: My hyperfixation of the season, memes, lotr content, and the occasional text post of me rambling about something that’s probably related to either movies (especially historical ones lol) or fictional characters that deserve better

Letter color: um??

Header: A photo I had taken in Japan in the countryside. That was the view from my window! 

URL: If I wanted any semblance of social media continuity, it should have been something related to LadyCharity. But I didn’t think of that when I first chose my URL and at this point it’s too late to change it. But it’s a bastardization  spin on Shakespeare’s “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” from Richard III, instead of a king who would trade his whole kingdom for a horse, I would (theoretically) trade a kingdom for a pen because I’m a ‘*~*~*~writer~*~*~*.’ 

My blog title: I kind of have two, the one that shows up on the tab would be ‘just my soul responding,’ which is a song from Amber Run, and in theory a reflection of what this blog could be. The other title is ‘you too shall be psyche,’ which is a repeated line from Till We Have Faces from C.S. Lewis, a really compelling retelling of the myth of Eros and Psyche from the point of view of Psyche’s sister that really digs deep into what it means to have faith in a higher being. I really loved that line because of how the main character wrestles with that cryptic line that the gods (specifically and presumably, Eros/Cupid) give her, what she first interprets to be out of fear and pain and bitterness, and what she ultimately realises it means. 

Hahaha ooh this is challenging. I love Tommy but we gotta be real, he has the least amount of screentime to pick from. Maybe that should make it easier, then.

This one I particularly like not because it’s poetic, but I tried to make it capture as much of Tommy as I could in circumstances that, frankly, have very little chance for dialogue. 

Tommy presses his forehead against the cool earth. Cleverness has nothing to do with it. Last time he made it home is because he happened to run a little more to the left than to the right, because he noticed the light above his head as he nearly drowned, because someone held onto his hand instead of let him go when the boat sped away from the oil spill. He might be dead now either way, and all the hope that is left is to sprint from Marathon to Athens, and have the strength to do nothing else but to tell his fellow soldiers that he is still with them, for just a moment.

From ‘via dolorosa.’

The problem with ‘via dolorosa’ is that because there’s certain factors of near-death experience, blood loss causing confusion, and it takes place only in a matter of like...an hour, at most, there isn’t as much time to deeply explore Tommy’s inner monologue. We have to get to the basics, which is Tommy’s immediate goal: stay alive, get to his unit, make sure whatever men he has left are okay, and maybe survive. But even then,  I think that goal says a lot. He’s not thinking so much about his survival--he knows that’s beyond his control. What he cares about is that his fellow soldiers are okay, that they know what’s happened and aren’t afraid, even if what’s happened is tragic. He isn’t an optimist. He’s just very loyal, even if it’ll just result in him dying.

I also really like this line from ‘here be dragons.’

It’s fairly accurate, innit? he said. Home is to the west and the dragons are out east. I know where to go. I know which way to come back.

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

I am really proud of a lot of works but the one I want to shout out to the most is for what you have tamed from Ted Lasso! It is to date the longest one-shot I have ever written at a whopping +20k words, and I'm really glad about how I hit every point I wanted when writing it to reflect Jamie and Ted's father-son-esque relationship and its growth in both the two of them as a pair and their individual journeys.

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

I never want to declare a story discontinued, but for sure I have not yet given up on May you bury me (Avengers), sweet as cherry wine (Ted Lasso), and heck, and from his bones the hills (Falcon and the Winter Soldier). I'm honestly really proud of all of these works, it's just...difficult to update alskdjf

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

I've been asked twice which is fine by me because I have several lines/passages I enjoyed!

“I remembered him, I remembered him,” Roy wept, which was as close to him saying I loved him this whole time as he would ever get.

today is such a good day (Ted Lasso)