#thylalock

[kiandra-layne]

#the most chaotic homosexual tension ever

[floweryshell]

So who are you? I’m nobody. I just met him.

[nicholasbritel]

1917 (2019), dir. Sam Mendes

[richardmadens]

George MacKay for Glass Man || 2019 photographed by Nick Thompson.

[softschofield]

hii! i saw your post and i'm so happy you're taking historical accuracy questions because i'm writing a 1917 fanfic and need some consulting: do you know how they assign the men that signed up into their regiments / units? is it random or is it based on where they signed up from? because scho and blake must've come from very different part of england going by their accents alone but sometimes we see a group of boys signing up together and ending up in the same regiment? thank you!

(i actually answer what you want to know like, 3/4 of the way down if you wanna skip to there LMAOOOO ily ♡)

okay, okay, i’ll get to the rest of your wonderful question in a second, but i just have to share something that has broken me: in the autumn of 1915, fearing that the BEF would reach a point where it couldn’t be sustained by volunteers alone, kitchener’s director general of recruiting, the earl of derby, launched the derby scheme. what this scheme meant was that every eligible man between 18 and 41 who was not in an essential occupation had to declare themselves.

in january 1916, as a result of this nation-wide survey, and with the BEF now certain that volunteers alone would not be able to fill the ranks at the rate that kitchener’s new army soldiers were being butchered across the channel, every single man and childless widower between 18 and 41 was offered three choices:

enlist at once,

attest at once under derby’s system, 

or, on 2 March 1916, be automatically deemed to have enlisted.

in may 1916, the bill was then extended to married men.

this means that it is entirely possible scho didn’t voluntarily enlist - that he had wanted to stay with his wife and his daughters, that he had been forced into service through conscription, and that he had arrived at the front just weeks or days before thiepval.

anyway!!!! honestly, it is very difficult for me to work that out, and i’ve been trying to for months. as far as i can tell, at first it was based on where they had signed up from, and then, as the volunteer army was all but wiped out at the somme and enlistment numbers slowed to a trickle, conscripted soldiers were assigned, for the most part, at random. i believe it had something to do with the allocation of regimental numbers, which were generally issued to recruits chronologically and in sequence. 

what i do know for a fact is pals battalions! when derby and kitchener realised that they could exploit local pride and close-knit community bonds, they introduced the concept of pals battalions, which meant that if you and all your mates signed up, you’d be guaranteed to be placed in the same battalion for the adventure of a life time! and they did sign up, in their hundreds of thousands. 

what this meant when they actually got the front was that a whole town could lose its entire population of military-aged boys, many of them under-aged children who had lied about their ages and been signed up by complacent recruiters who turned a blind eye, in one single day. as the highest number of pals battalions were raised in the north of england, this meant that the north was hit especially hard and that entire villages were essentially wiped out and/or spiralled into mourning by just one afternoon’s fighting. but pals battalions were raised across the whole of britain, including the south. 

the 8th (service) battalion of the east surrey regiment, however, was not a pals battalion, nor were any of the devonshire regiments. 

and- oh no wait i just found the information i’ve been looking for for months, and i was half right!!!

so basically, prior to the introduction of conscription in 1916 - and i’ll just talk about the regular army here and not the reserves or territorial force - recruits had a choice of which regiment they would be assigned to. kitchener, hungry for anyone and everyone to enlist and trying to make it as appealing as possible, did away with the stipulation that all recruits serve for a period of 7 years followed by another 5 in the reserves, and introduced a new form of “short service”, in which men would serve for “three years, or the duration of the war, whichever the longer.” to reiterate, during this time of enthusiasm and eager enlistment, recruits had a choice of which regiment they were assigned to. 

following the disappointing results of the derby scheme, the british government introduced the military service act on the 27th of january, 1916. conscripted troops were no longer given a choice as to which service, regiment, or unit they joined, though men with a preference for the navy were given priority. all british males were now deemed to have enlisted on the 2nd of march 1916 – that is, they were conscripted – if they were aged between 19 and 41 and resided in great britain (excluding ireland) and were unmarried or a widower on 2 November 1915. this act was extended to married men, and the lower age dropped to 18, on 25 may 1916. 

so, to answer your question, if scho enlisted before january 1916, he would have been given a choice as to which regiment he was assigned to - and, given that his home in cookham was just across the border, it makes sense that he would have chosen the east surreys. however, if he was conscripted, he would not have been given a choice and would most likely have been assigned to them as a matter of convenience. 

it’s almost certain, then, that blake was conscripted, even if he had been wanting to enlist as soon as he turned 18 and wasn’t unhappy about that fact. he, therefore, would most likely have been assigned to the east surreys at random, perhaps because they had just suffered heavy casualties and needed to be bulked up. and this definitely makes sense re: their accents and different class backgrounds!!

same probably goes with smith’s regiment - that hodge-podge of cockney and scottish and liverpudlian is almost certainly a result of conscription. as desperation for cannon fodder increased, the BEF started taking almost anyone, half-trained and half-disciplined and handed a rifle, and that sentiment is very much reflected in the seemingly random assortment of ages and backgrounds you started to find in any one regiment.

phew!! we got there in the end! :’) x 

[haileymorelikestupid]

AHSGDHSJKL you're really out there showering me with kindness in your tags THANK YOU SO MUCH 😭😭😭💕💕💕

omg OF COURSE!!! you deserve all the kindness in the world!!! I love everything you put out honestly, my only regret is that I didn’t follow you sooner!!! ilysm💕💕💕

[adamparrrish-archive]

for the film questions: the goldfinch? + OMG you have to watch dunkirk it's so good ♡

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

im so bad at watching things 😔😔

yes!!! i want to watch it so bad but i have to watch the two movies i just rented before i can watch that one!!

[castiel]

do you have any recommended ineffable fanfics? my weak heart cant take it any longer, i need fanfics lol

that’s a huge mood. 

i actually don’t yet! i’ve been so busy giffing and making content i haven’t had time to get into it yet. (also writing my own small fic as well!)

BUT, if you’re not already following them, darcy ( @forineffablereasons ) writes LOVELY scenes on tumblr and they also have an AO3 which i have been meaning to dive into…

[eretriahs]

Omg i love your icons!

thank you so much!!

[kiandra-layne]

crowley + calling aziraphale “angel”

[floweryshell]

Well, the short version... not dead.

[nicholasbritel]

I’m fine, really. Bewitched (2005), dir. Nora Ephron

[richardmadens]

George MacKay for The Guardian || March 2020 photographed by Linda Brownlee.

[softschofield]

I LOVE YOUR HEADCANONS they give me life also i hope i'm not too weirdly embarrassing in my tags BUT, i'm just curious, any thoughts on jos slovick's character (the soldier who sang poor wayfaring stranger), headcanon or canon-wise? ILY!! ♡♡♡

alisdbaogisdlgb i LIVE for your tags, they literally make me BEAM you’re such a sweetheart ilysm ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡  omg and you’re really out here completely pandering to me, this question is so lovely aisudgiuavda 

okay, well!

canon-wise? i can’t really tell you much (it’s classified) - but based on his lack of rank insignia, he’s a private, and we know he’s in D company of the 2nd battalion of the devonshire regiment. i feel that i can reliably place him as being from the south of england, going by his accent? london? we’ll say london. but he certainly doesn’t sound cockney, so... i’ll get to that later.

he also seems to be one of the few soldiers in the film who isn’t wearing a sweater under his uniform - yes, it’s fashion hours. he also isn’t wearing mittens, but he IS wearing a scarf, though honestly?? it seems like it’s of much worse quality than rossi and kilgour’s scarves, and certainly of worse quality than scho’s properly knitted and probably hand-made one. it looks thin and cheap. no family to send him warm clothes? 

the script also mentions that his voice is “untrained”, so his family clearly didn’t send him to lessons or to be a choir boy despite the fact he sounds lovely. what am i getting at? he’s poor and either has a bad relationship with his family, or hasn’t got one at all. is that a ridiculous assumption to make based on clothes? MAYBE SO. maybe so. but i’m making it. MWAH

head-canon wise? well CLEARLY he’s soft. he comes from a tiny tenement flat in a rough part of inner-city london, one that makes cooke’s upbringing look luxurious. as a child, despite all the grey lifelessness and violence of the city around him, he clung to his belief that the world was beautiful - and singing became a part of that. he’d go by himself to the pretty parks in the posher neighbourhoods whenever he could, and he’d sing for pennies. he sang quietly to himself at night, and he sang as he walked, and whenever he found a rare flowering bush or a blossoming tree, he’d pick some of the flowers and hide them under his coat and put them in his bedroom where his father wouldn’t see. 

his mother wasn’t from london - she’d married beneath her station - and she went to great pains to see that her son wouldn’t end up with a lower class accent. it’s one of his few gentle memories of his childhood. 

after both his parents died of illness, he went to live with his grandparents in the country outside london. his life there was a beautiful one - meadows and forests and streams and gardens, and his little bedroom at golden hour, and birdsong, and the lace doilies on the kitchen table - and, quietly, he blossomed. he sang in the open, and he sang for his grandparents, and he was happy. he was free. the air was fresh and the world was flowering and green - and he could smile without fear. 

when the war started, he was hopeful and naïve and happy and a hopeless believer in the good in people, and he hopped off to enlist with a smile on his face. he wanted to do the right thing. he was underage, but that didn’t matter; they signed him up readily enough, and though his grandparents wept for him, he left, and was happy for it. he was only sixteen. 

for the first two years, he didn’t dare let on that he liked to sing - that he liked to sing high and sweet and whimsical, not just drunken pub ditties. he’d always known that he was pretty and slight, and he knew what would happen if a bunch of soldiers labelled him the wrong thing. 

the war dragged on, and he endured trauma upon trauma, and still he sang. at first, it was just for himself. he’d sing during shellings, with his hands over his ears so he could hear himself and his knees drawn up against his chest and his mouth against his scarf and his voice choked and half-sobbing. he’d whisper songs to himself while everyone else slept around him. the night before the opening day of the somme was the first time he sang for soldiers. everyone was silent, and everyone was terrified, and no one could say a word - no one could move a muscle. they were packed in too close to breathe. 

and so, he sang. quietly and gently. and no one spoke; they just listened. they listened, and for an hour their fear faded away, and they were back home, and the somme wouldn’t happen, and they were safe and at peace.

after that, for the few that survived, it became a tradition. before every big battle, he’d sing. and then, eventually, it wasn’t just for battles - it was because it was a calming influence, it was a point of beauty and softness and life amid all that horror, and they all grew to love him for it. he became their little beacon of hope.

and- thanks i love him now 

also he’s gay x 

[adamparrrish-archive]

+ THANK YOU for blessing my dash with your dps and anderperry contents!

of course!!!! i’ve fallen in love with the movie and them so i have to let it known!!

[floweryshell]

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” ― Khalil Gibran