subject to interpretation

Day Dress

c. 1876

by Martha J. De La Mater

American

Text of tweet under the cut because it is loooong.

But... Stochastic Parrots.

My gut reaction to this was "I wouldn't, fuck him", but then I realised that I do actually have thoughts about this.

Open with a white-text-on-black-screen intro that explains that dialogue in this film has been taken wherever possible from historic recordings. Where it couldn't be, it has been constructed from records of the relevant parliament/private discussions that are on record, even if not word for word. Add that all events depicted are real. And, to reinforce this, a huge load-bearing pillar of the marketing for the film would emphasise that this is extremely limited in artistic interpretation, it's all things the man actually said and did. This, the marketing would stress, is the REAL Churchill, in all his complexity. This is the nuanced and complex and very human guy we don't see in the history books, strengths and flaws and all of it.

The first... half, maybe even two thirds of the film would be pre-WW2. A full account of all his actions in power, painting the picture of the man he was. His belligerence disguised as wit, sending in the army against striking Welsh miners, his initial admiration for fascism and eugenics, all of it. All reproduced from things he actually said and did.

Then, the realisation that Hitler included Britain in his fascist plans. The U-turn into hating the guy, all while believing in the same underlying points.

Then, most of the WW2 section would be in montage form. And at this point, the audience sees why he was actually fairly well suited to the task of opposing Hitler, because all those flaws meant he was ego-driven to resist the Nazis or die trying, and that was what was needed at the time. We've set up that ego, that belligerence, that eloquence. Here it is, in context, actually being useful.

But, this would be juxtaposed with all the things we're carefully not told, that are nonetheless historic record. The starving of India to get food to Britain. The lack of bomb shelters in London, and then claiming credit for sending people into the Underground when they thought to do it. The use and abuse of non-British Commonwealth troops in roles kept from the white soldiers. All of that goes in.

And then, once the war was done, the fallout. The rest of the film would cover his fall from power, first of all - the fuck up at the Potsdam Conference, then his continued use of lurid and hyperbolic war rhetoric in the general election campaign that basically made Clement Atlee and let Labour win.

Labour's creation of the NHS, and national parks, and other such things. Churchill's opposition. The fallout to places like India, the Suez, etc.

And then his return for a final term as Prime Minister in which he was unpopular, unsuccessful, and also very unwell; he was 77 and had multiple strokes, which were hidden from the public. He was against the dissolution of the empire, but Labour had already pulled the trigger on it, so his final years were basically a lot of war crimes and whining as countries declared independence; which won't be a surprise to the audience, because we've literally heard his views on eugenics and imperialism already. Of course those didn't go away with WW2. All that congealed ego and imperialist drive, so useful against Hitler while keeping the worst costs away from the UK, made him a fossil unsuited to the role of peacetime leadership in a post-war recovering nation beginning to decolonise.

And finish on how, at the end, he supported the UK's application to join the EEC - the precursor to the EU.

The whole thing would make the Churchill cultists so fucking angry. They'd 100% claim liberal bias and piss themselves. But that's why you'd have to go so hard on stressing in the marketing that all of it is true; he literally said this. He literally did this. It's all real. Even the EU bit. Yeah, you voted against Churchill.

“The level of wealth that Mr. Musk has reached requires human exploitation, wage theft, wage suppression, anti-competitive markets, monopolistic control, price collusion, inadequate tax systems, and corruption.”

Elon Musk’s net worth surged past $1 trillion on Friday as SpaceX—the rocket company he founded and controls—made its debut on the public market, prompting global revulsion and calls for an aggressive wealth tax to rein in out-of-control inequality.

Me: I am literally just doing my job. Everyone else is slacking off.

invisible

never explained

always a different size

you have to guess the size

And I realized I wasn’t nervous? Which is absurd. We were only in about 15 feet of water, though, and the moon was almost full, so we knelt in the sand and the whole world was the softest glowing blue. Even in the dark you could see streams of fish glinting past overhead.

And then! And then we started flapping our hands around and the water sparkled green!!! We spent five minutes kneeling there, flapping and giggling like little kids.

You do not have to twist my arm to hear more about my underwater adventures! I can’t believe I didn’t already mention about the wreck dive with the sharks, see, when they come close you’re supposed to maintain eye contact. And there were a bunch of juveniles there (all reef sharks), and the juveniles can be a little dumb, so they do in fact get really damn close.

I’m not sure how to describe making eye contact with a shark.

Their pupils are slit.

Your stomach does the swoopy rollercoaster thing and a little voice in your head is going holy shit.

I love the annoying fuckers but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel some kind of way about turning around and finding a six foot fish grinning in my face.

Do you love lazy rivers, but wish there was more to see? Drift diving might be for you!

Essentially, your dive boat goes to the start of a known current. All the divers gear up, and then jump off the boat one after the other.

And then you just… sit there. No finning, no nothing. The current tows you merrily along.

You can sorta sit with your ankles crossed, and every so often a turtle will hitch a ride on the current next to you, or maybe a shark will politely cross the stream in front of you. The most effort you have to put in is dodging the coral heads.

The boat loops around and scoops you up down-current.

I’ve never watched a sunrise from underwater before.

The whole world comes to life around you, just teeming with fish.

It was in the middle of a vast, grassy, underwater plain, and the water on this dive was a little murkier than usual—churned up sand giving the whole world a warm haze. So the body of the plane loomed out of this gold-colored mist, broken and brown and absolutely churning with life. Life loves a wreck.

I had to stop, and sit, and breathe. I try to hold on to what I’m feeling when I dive, like I’m running my hands over it again and again, mapping all the bumps and grooves so I can take it with me and call it up when I need it. Sense memory.

I don’t feel enough wonder. Something to work on.

For portraiture you have the unique challenge of capturing the distinctive features while flattering them. There’s a tension of “what makes the person look like themselves?” against what they WANT people to see.

Acknowledging and respecting that, reflecting a View of the Self instead of a simple photograph, has always been an ephemeral and noble challenge of portraiture. It’s a rare skill, and while I’m not claiming to be a brilliant practitioner, here’s how I go about it. You want the person to feel SEEN - on a level and in a way that only a portrait artist could.

If someone in a novel were to spend a paragraph studying the portrait, they ought to be able to say something plot-relevant, like “the artist had faithfully captured the FAMILY RESEMBLANCE in the notable features and the PLOT POINT in the shape of her eyes… but no photograph could have captured the wistful turn of the mouth. Across a hundred years of distance, her soul was clear, speaking to Protagonist as if she were merely in another room…”

That’s the skill of portraiture, really, and it’s rarer than the ability to do good lineart (which I can’t do either; note that I’m not claiming to be GOOD.)

The immediate outstanding features of the “fan” are

Dark, hooded, distinctive eyes - she’s probably proud of them

Challenging, knowing expression

Long dark hair is a feature she’s proud of; because it’s well-cultivated

A sweet beauty of youth, but I can see what she’ll look like when she’s older

Notes on her features:

Roman nose that’s unusually short for the bridge type. Doesn’t have the space to be “hooked” but has the shape.

Natural brow with natural arch - fuzzing in to a shapely tapered form

Rounded face but with an interesting composition of flat slabby cheekbones and a high flat forehead. I’d love to look at it from other angles but she could model for a LOT of time periods and a LOT of artistic traditions.

Cool olive skin - very tricky!!! Especially with that pink lip. Frankly beyond me to depict fairly tbh… but at least I tried

Dark pigmented undereye and eyelid, which I chose to handle in the sense of “flattering eye makeup”rather than true depiction of her colouring.

Full mouth with NO CUPID’S BOW - fullness in lower lip

I’d elide the faint double chin out of gracious recognition of the angle and acknowledgement of the fact that the sitter would PROBABLY prefer it not to be noticed. I ultimately alluded to it, but elided it.

Even without the double chin, her determined yet rounded chin is another charming and forceful contradiction that lends what we call “character” to the face

💯 keep the moles

Presumably a fan of Instagram anime art is familiar with conventions and is therefore hoping for a portrait with glow brushes and SHEEN and TEXTURE and anime petals and veils barfed all over it - so I did a final version with those things - presuming it would make the “customer” happy

Obviously you can see that I’m quite humbly and realistically not an ARTIST but I thought it was interesting to contrast what skills are valued in a party trick of portraiture (breaking down and flattering features, playing a delicate game of flattery/pleasure and clear-eyed recognisability) vs a much more skilled and stylish render that is based on replicating anime aesthetics and thus - despite being better which I acknowledge! - didn’t engage so much with the goals of portraiture. Returning to the goals of portraiture - likeness, gesture, expression, picking out features, affection for the subject - is so,so good for the soul. For one thing, it reminds you of your ability to fall in love with faces…

Archives: The Nanyang Mystery ----------------------- 南部档案 ‧ Drama ‧ 2026

EPISODE 02 / 36

Drama Series ‧ 2026 ‧ 36 EPS

Release Date: 06/2026

Project: Dramas Q3 (2026)