How to square handwriting variation?

[Bluetoes101]

That image might be a good example of why I think d has potential to be trickier than transcriptions make it seem
The top two are like you say and the bottom is more like s with the swish of m
I get "it's very small!" but the key component to me is the large i part, like the following a on the top examples, but it carries on up, they have clearly been done differently to the bottom example.

The issue is obviously trying to show how that might be, or if it is just normal variation in writing and there is no difference 
.. anyway, for the most part I think el is close to how they were done in lots of places