#after WW1

[unreadablehandle]

LEAVES OF GRASS

"Tell me."

She petted his cheek, as if she wanted to distract him and forget. "Future is not set in stone, brother. You know that, right?"

He hated when she did this. "Please. It was about me, wasn't it?"

She bit her lip thoughtfully. "You don't have to know, ok?"

"But I want to!" He squeezed her wrist.

Due to wind, she finally noticed the tears and wiped them off, closing her eyes defeatedly before she looked back at Harry. "Just tell me this. If you could choose, would you rather live through something wonderful - but shortly and for it to end up bad, or have a long, happy life - only never really reaching the wonder?"

Harry made a confused face at first. But then, he said (as if he didn't even have to think about it): "The first option! Wonders are precious. They are worthy of sacrifice."

Gemma smiled sadly, reflections of flames dancing in her glassy eyes. "Hm. Why did I even ask?"

She swallowed the words about how it was not very wise to choose that possibility if one did not know about what was at stake.

OR:

Louis survived the war just to find out he's dying. He decides to focus on a task of financially securing his sisters before he leaves this world and he's really not interested in any annoying old-wives tales his fiancé tells him about the gypsies in the walley. And yet. One of them still finds him.

[kenobihater]

after literal years i finally got around to downloading a pdf of the wipers times, an unsancitioned satitical british trench magazine circulated among the troops in france from 1916-1918 after the fortuitous discovery of a printing press. i have approximately five million other things i need to read so idk when i'll be able to devote much time to it, and i gotta pick up a proper copy bc it's missing at least salient no 4 vol 2. that said? i'm genuinely laughing at what i've skimmed so far

[sapphsorrows]

cosmetic plastic surgeons do not give a fuck about you. their offices are like assembly lines. they do not care about you. they do not care about your feelings. they only care about how much money they can make off of your insecurities.

this especially includes so-called "gender affirming" cosmetic surgeons. "oh i found this great surgeon who affirms me" no you did not. you found a snakeoil salesman who is going to have you chasing a dragon you will never catch.

[driftsart]

Guyz... Guess what I've been watching... (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)

[thespookydookie]

working on müller's design idk what i'm doing but we're getting somewhere

[vodkaslyme]

Veteran of the war

[alistairlowes]

Was so hyped for Daniele actually having a chill adult figure in his life and a place he felt safe how could they do this, like when said he loved her i was literally like aww how cute thinking it was like in a familial way or something?

actually had to close my computer and take a break after that how did they fumble that relationship so bad it could have been so sweet

Andrea slayed this season tho so proud of him my shining star

bestie if you feel bad i tweeted this before it happened

i'm laughing at myself for 2 days now because i really thought. I REALLY THOUGHT. legit feel stupid as hell!!! can't believe they did me like that 😭😭 i'm so crazy for thinking an adult would help someone without sleeping with them CRAZYY

[insert that bus meme where andrea is thriving on the right and everyone else is miserable on the left]

[jovienna]

not enough people are discussing the logistics behind unbuttoning one’s trousers during the edwardian period.

imagine gaunt/ellwood trying to hit it but first have to unbutton THIS:

you know you’ve got it BAD when you’re willing to deal all of that in order to explore another man’s body…

[megannii]

i forogt i have tumblr and i forgot abt this app haha i hate my oc daniel schäfer grrrrrr

[melrosing]

just finished in memoriam by alice winn and. I don’t think it was very good

[zickmonkey]

WIP of my The Warm Hands of Ghost fic

(This might be all of it on account of I lost the ability to write again so posting just in case- Spoilers, happens years after the book, proceed under the cut :))

Despite the things Penelope Shaw had done, the choices she'd made, Laura still named her first born daughter after her, six years after she had lost Pim. Her son, who came four years later, she'd named after her brother. 

It was them, 15 year old Pim Jones and 11 year old Freddie Jones, that Laura thought of when the news of the war broke. 

Or, more specifically, the word of Canada joining the war. 

Freddie, thankfully, was way too young to join the effort. He still had a boyish face, his voice hadn't dropped, even if he tried to enlist they'd never let him.  

Pim was closer to the right age, but still she was off. And in the last war nurses had to be at least 21, not the 18 of men, and had to be formally trained as a nurse. 

Laura herself was free of the war too, when nurses couldn't be older than 39, and she was past that.

The only one left to worry over was her husband. Stephen. She thought there might be a chance he'd stay, now that he'd built so much at home. 

He was the one who'd wanted children- the one who suggested they start trying. He prayed for a son throughout the entire pregnancy, and when Pim was born she became his entire world, even when she wasn't the son he'd wanted. 

And then he got a son, one Laura took charge on naming, just as she had with Pim. She'd told him that he could name the next one, but the next one never came, and Stephen told her that two was all he'd ever need. That his family was perfect, that nothing mattered more. 

He'd proved that just she was enough, when he showed up on her doorstep immediately after the war had ended. When he’d stayed, long after. Making the large move from America to Halifax for her, because he knew that even if he’d already moved to a different part of the province she’d never leave her brother. 

She wondered what her brother and Winter thought of the news, but it fell second in her mind to the wonder of what her husband thought. 

And the wonder of if her husband still thought he had a duty to do even after so much service already, and after so much left to do at home.

[red-velvet-0w0]

digital drawing of the wreckage of the SS Palo alto

based off of this image by photographer Kevin Johnson:

[oc-character-development]

It’s the 6th January so Happy pseudo birthday Sherlock Holmes! The only character I actually like that shares his birth month with me. We’re only just over a week and 145 years apart in age…..Also he’s fictional and I’m a real person but eh 🤷‍♀️

[driftsart]

Some doodles

(Yes ik the first pic is fake but it's silly though lmao)

[edbloves]

After The War by Sarah Slean

Y'all want a hauntingly beautiful song about the war? This is it. I randomly remembered its existence today and had to share, so it's attached below. I believe this version was arranged for the movie Passchendaele (of course, about the Battle of Passchendaele in WW1) but mostly, I've heard it being sung as choral music. (My high school's senior chamber choir sang this at a couple of our Remembrance Day assemblies years and years ago; moved people to tears.)

Yes, parts of it are Buck x Bucky coded, especially just the first part:

After the guns are silent / After your wounds have healed / After those crosses have been planted in all those fields / After that long boat ride / All the way across the sea / And after this train carries thee

There is the obvious imagery of Bucky arriving at the stalag beat to hell and severely wounded, the empty graves that most of the bombers ended up with, the packed train cars as they were shuttled during the march, etc.

I will love you after the war / I'll love you for always, forever more /I will love you after the war / Forever, for always, and more

But there is also the post-war imagery of them healing and promising each other their lifetimes.

After your boots dry / And the tobacco's all but gone / Along with all those postcards you've carried under your arm / After I remember all the words I couldn't say / And after this long night fades away

And then here, I always think of Bucky pining after Buck in the stalag, watching him write and pour over Marge's letters, wishing he had cigarettes and alcohol to at least numb the hurt of seeing Buck love someone else (or so he thinks)

Anything he wants to say to Buck gets stuck in his throat, the fear of ruining what they already have paralyzing him and John deciding that its okay, he can live with only having Gale's friendship and that means more to him than anything else

But, if nothing else, this song deserves to be listened to in its own merit. It's tragic and real and chillingly beautiful. Unfortunately, it's not on Spotify or Apple Music, and this is the only non-choral version I could find. Definitely recommend giving it a listen!

[doueverwonder]

thinking about Roderich getting into a fight with someone (not sure who) and going on a whole tangent about how he worked for his power, about how "I played the long game no one else wanted to, I was nothing and look what I built!" only to get immediately taken aback with "And now you've watched it all crumble"