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Boris Blog Entry |
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July 1, 2022, 4:00:23 AM 7/1/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Frigid Draw Friday/Free Draw Friday." (I did the regular Free Draw Friday. Though this guy does come from a cold place, I suppose.) This week's character from my anthro WWII series is Boris (no last name ever given). He's a Red Army deserter who is briefly captured by the Germans before being rescued by Romani sharpshooter Didrika. He's pivotal in helping her establish her partisan fighting forces, even though he doesn't get along very well at all with the American Allies who request their assistance. I had a lot of trouble drawing his hat. Red Army hats are funny looking, sort of like the peaked caps I'm used to drawing but softer and rounder somehow; I didn't have a good side image of one to work with. Also I think he's not intimidating looking enough, so his design might need tweaking in the future. TUMBLR EDIT: Boris is one of my older characters, not one of the originals but I think he's been around since the old version of my character list dating to around 2002. Despite this, I've never developed his past that much, maybe partly because Soviet Russia isn't a topic I've looked into. I have to make some assumptions about him, I guess. I assume he's working class, not highly educated like Lt. Hesse or Capt. Himmel (despite their rather impoverished upbringing, they got decent schooling), but with practical smarts, more like Lt. Ratdog, which is kind of ironic considering the interactions these two end up having near the end of Boris's part in the story. I know nothing about his family though I'd have to assume he has none left since he never makes an effort to return to Russia BUT that could also likely be due to the fact that he's a deserter. I know very little about WWII Soviet Russia. But I'm pretty sure they would not deal kindly with deserters? The deserter aspect of Boris's story is a relatively new one. Previously, he was just captured and transported into Germany for whatever freaking reason (lots of this doesn't make clear sense, for example, WTF Papillon and Champere are doing in Germany, I'll admit right now the whole "partisan" angle of the story is wonky), but more recently the word "deserter" popped into my head and it just seemed suitable. Boris tries hard to come across as tough, independent, fearless; it's almost like he overcompensates trying to be macho. His first interactions with Didrika show this. (More on that soon.) From whence comes such overcompensation? Well, him having fled the Red Army could have something to do with it. I imagine this could lead to a lot of guilt and the need to prove himself still worthy of being a fighter, just with a different sort of army. That "army" ends up being Didrika's. I'm not sure why Boris deserted, I'll just assume life in the Red Army was too damn difficult. Seems feasible. He and a small group of others sneak off but get separated somewhere along the way, and before he knows it, Boris ends up captured by Nazis. In keeping with the old version of events, they transport him into Germany and he ends up in a forest where they subject him to various humiliating kinds of torture. One of the Nazis present at first is Sgt. Kaspar Lange. I don't think I've gone on much about him in here, if at all? That's the name I finally gave to a character better known as Lance Corporal Silver Rat's tormentor when HE was captured by the Nazis. I guess I have to go into some unpleasant specifics, so, reader warning. Lange is incredibly sadistic, so much so that some parties like to utilize him as a torture device in his own right. For example, Dr. C is the one who sics him on Silver, and he subjects him to a lot of the same types of torture he used on Boris, just in a laboratory setting (Wolfstein is an unwilling witness who afterward helps Silver escape). He has his own small unit of men, and I'm pretty sure they're the ones then-Sergeant Klemper encountered prior to the story, getting ready to burn down a village; Klemper barely manages to prevent this, earning an Iron Cross in the process. Later in the story, now-Private Klemper (he's been demoted) goes to work as a sort of assistant/"bodyguard" for Ratdog, and the two have a sort of on-again, off-again relationship at first; when Klemper gets angry at Ratdog and tells him to go find somebody else to, ah, take home with him, Ratdog obligingly heads to the bar, and runs into Lange. Lange offers to be that someone to go home with him but Ratdog senses something is off, and rejects him. Lange just shows up on his own later on. Ratdog's a good fighter, but not good enough (one reason Klemper's been assigned to him--one of them is a soldier, the other isn't). When Klemper visits him the next day it's obvious something awful happened but Ratdog shrugs it off as a "bar fight." Lange himself all but admits what happened when the two run into each other again but this time, Klemper warns him off at the point of his gun, and threatens him. Lange bears grudges for a long time and this is no exception. When his and Klemper's units are exploring abandoned houses in the countryside one day, he attempts attacking Klemper in the same way he attacked Ratdog. Klemper's a lot smaller and skinnier and younger than he is. BUT, he's been victimized a couple of times himself and isn't going to take it anymore, plus he's cranked up on Pervitin, AKA, meth. Lange subdues him at first but quickly gets the s**t knocked out of him. When Klemper's lieutenant arrives and demands to know what's going on, Klemper snaps that it was a "misunderstanding." Shrimpy effeminate teenaged Klemper is the only one of Lange's victims to manage to fight him off throughout the story. The detail I find uncomfortable to share is that Lange's specialty is rape. During the story he victimizes Silver and Ratdog (and nearly Klemper) in this manner. Prior to the story's events, Boris was another one of his victims. Didrika, who recently left a life of prostitution after being attacked as an adolescent herself and shunned by her family and has by now learned how to defend herself and live on her own in the woods, stumbles across a group of Nazis torturing him in a clearing; by then Lange has left (fortunately for him), but the evidence of him having been there is evident, as Boris is only half dressed. From a safe distance, Didrika aims and starts shooting. The first Nazi drops dead, startling the others; when the second falls, they realize they're being sniped, but they can't pinpoint the shooter's location since Didrika is taking advantage of a nearby ridge and keeps moving around. Everyone, including Boris (who's restrained and unable to look around himself), is positive they're under attack by numerous shooters. Since they can't fire back, they try to flee. Didrika picks them off until only one is left, who she intentionally lets escape, to spread word that the woods are unsafe. After waiting a bit to make sure no one else is coming, she heads down to the clearing to untie Boris. He can hear her approaching but not see her at first, and fully expects to encounter a group of armed male soldiers, which is why when a lone woman unties him he gets so confused. Looks all around the woods, demands to know where the others are. Then refuses to believe her when she says she's the only one, and he even cusses her out some. The Red Army has its fair share of female snipers, true, but this is Germany, where they don't really believe in such things (when Klemper first encounters Didrika, he disparagingly calls her Flintenweib, "rifle broad") (she calls him "Toy Soldier" in return, which he really does not like, mweheheheh), and besides, what just occurred was surely the work of numerous people, not a lone gunwoman. Oh plus Boris is a chauvinist. Didrika's all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , don't know what to tell ya, dude, it was really just me. Seeing there's genuinely nobody else around, he has to accept her story as true. Didrika finds his clothes and lets him dress himself in privacy since he's obviously humiliated, then leads him to the cave network she located and has taken up residence in, and offers him shelter there. She also offers him alcohol and he gets drunk and very angry. To say they don't start off on the right foot is an understatement. Sure, Didrika just saved Boris from further torment and possibly death, but she's just a filthy German and possibly aligned with the Nazis herself (he doesn't know she's Romani, a people the Nazis hate), plus it doesn't sit right with him that he had to be rescued by a woman. He also hates that she witnessed part of what happened even if not Lange's actions themselves. So he takes that out on her. Literally. He comes to the next morning with an awful hangover; Didrika is nowhere in sight. His memory of the previous night is foggy but he gets the gist of it and assumes she left him there, for good reason. Instead, after a bit of exploring, he finds her washing herself up at a small waterfall outside; she offers him its use when she's done and heads back into the caves, so Boris washes up too, not realizing until then how dirty he feels. He heads back into the cave and Didrika has cooked up some breakfast. He awkwardly attempts to apologize for the previous night; Didrika quickly makes it clear she wasn't entirely unwilling, saying that if she'd wanted to, she could have fought him off. Despite his apology, Boris is still a chauvinist, and he's a lot bigger than she is, so he kind of snorts at this comment. Didrika says, "You doubt me?" and Boris begs off further argument though yeah, his attitude clearly says he doesn't believe her. She stands up, challenges him to try to take her on; he refuses to fight a woman but she jeers that surely he'd take her on if she were one of his "comrades" and goads him into lashing out at her, then promptly lays him out on the ground. Boris grudgingly accepts that she's a better fighter than he is, and Didrika earns his respect. Thus begins their rather odd, contentious, but genuine relationship, which carries on throughout the rest of Boris's time in the story. Not long after, they spot a small group of soldiers while exploring the woods, and Boris excitedly tells her these are the other Soviet soldiers with whom he escaped, obviously searching for him. Didrika prevents him from just running off to greet them, asking if he's positive, if some German soldiers haven't simply stolen Soviet uniforms and disguised themselves as a ruse. Boris says he recognizes their faces, and she lets him go, but refuses to accompany him; when he asks why, she gives him an "Are you completely stupid?" look and says, "I can fight off one of you, not a whole group." Boris is chastened but promises he won't let them try anything with her; she stays behind anyway. He approaches the group of soldiers and they all greet each other enthusiastically; Boris explains how he was rescued by a female sniper, and tries to coax Didrika into coming out. She refrains at first and the other Soviets just kind of side-eye each other, thinking maybe Boris is losing it; Boris hisses that Didrika is making him look like an idiot, and she finally steps out, rifle trained on the group. They're surprised to learn that she's real, but Boris says she's okay, so they greet her as an equal. Things are a bit rocky at first, for example, when they sit together for supper later that night and one of the men approaches Didrika, saying, "Hey, pretty lady, would you like a look at my gun?" she knocks him to the ground and subdues him so he has to yell, "My rifle! I meant my rifle!!" With a combination of this sort of behavior and Boris's persuasion, however, they're convinced to stick together as a group, with Didrika as the leader. Over time the group expands with the inclusion of partisans and a few more deserters and ex-prisoners of different nationalities until Didrika's got her own little army going on, with Boris basically as her second in command. Didrika's got an odd way of keeping all these men in line. Do I need to go into detail? I think that says enough. Boris is the only one she'd consider a "lover," though, and he isn't jealous of the attention she pays the others since he knows it's only temporary and practical and she doesn't have feelings for them. He DOES, however, get jealous if he suspects she's interested in anyone outside the group, for example when they take in the injured Silver and tend to him. Didrika's not interested in trying anything with Silver, but she spends quite a bit of personal time with him while he's recovering, so yeah, Boris gets jealous--mainly because he thinks SILVER might try something. (Silver's not interested in Didrika, either.) Then again, he just doesn't like the Trench Rats, period. I'm not sure WHY, I just know he doesn't. Maybe he thinks Americans are wimps, maybe he feels the need to prove himself superior to them, maybe it's because they're dirty capitalists, who knows. He doesn't get along with them. He's hostile toward Major Champere's "partisans" (I use the term loosely, as you can see) as well, ironically, because they failed to help prevent an attack on Trench Rats Headquarters when they knew about it ahead of time. Nah, he doesn't care about the Trench Rats themselves, just that he feels this was cowardly on Champere's part, and Boris hates cowards (even though he's a deserter, heheh). (BTW, is it Major Champere or Sergeant Major Champere? I thought it was the former. But my old old notes clearly refer to him as Sergeant Major! So I'm just way beyond confused about how to refer to him now. Meh.) Back to Sgt. Lange for a moment. He's a rare semi-important character who dies earlier on in the story, in the "Reborn" arc (Sgt. Black Rat/Cpl. Gold Rat), rather than in the horrible, depressing bloodbath that is "Reunion" (return of Sgt. Camo/Cpl. Drake and the climax/end of the war). And yep, it's because he ends up murdered. His body is found lashed to a tree in the woods with a knife wound to his stomach and his mouth full of dirt; he slowly bled out, alone. (Ah, crud. Lange is one of the few characters whose death I don't give a s**t about, but typing that made me feel a twinge. Stop, damn it.) There's a bloodstain on the ground, indicating he died there and was strung up later. Needless to say, there are plenty of suspects. Capt. Otto Himmel of the SS, which decides to investigate the murder, has some difficulty retrieving him and even ends up captured by Didrika's men, which leads to a quite awkward confrontation. Didrika likes to try to flirt with enemy males in an intimidating way, while Himmel has some bad experiences with intimidating women. He ends up evening the score when he spots Didrika's necklace, a skull and crossbones, and stares at it. Thinking he's staring at her chest, she says, "You like my t*ts, old man?" (Himmel's only in his forties, Didrika's just mean that way.) Himmel, who's not interested in Didrika (or in anyone else, honestly), replies, "I'm sure they're nice, but I was actually looking at something else." Didrika remembers her necklace, which looks so much like the Totenkopf on Himmel's hat, and tucks it in her shirt with a dirty look, nonplussed; she's not used to guys not being interested in her. Himmel's boss, Major Ludolf Jäger, arrives with a white flag and he and Himmel are allowed to retrieve Lange's body and exit the woods without incurring serious bodily harm. So, what happened to Lange, and who's responsible? Well, Private Klemper is the one who strung him up and shoved dirt in his mouth. Yep, shrimpy, effeminate, teenaged Klemper. He and Ratdog stumble across Lange's body--he's already dead by then--and after a moment or so, Klemper starts laughing. He drags Lange's body to the tree and ties him there, then shoves the dirt in his mouth and laughs even harder. Ratdog just standing there staring all the while like O_o (Klemper's...not quite right in the head, obviously. All the trauma and being a child soldier and whatnot. Oh. And meth.) Klemper's not the one who killed him, however. And neither is Ratdog. Even though both likely had thoughts of doing so, and Klemper is terribly amused that someone actually went through with it. Silver Rat is briefly a good suspect, but his preferred method of killing is to just snap people's necks, not stab them. Himmel theorizes Lange could have any number of other victims they don't even know about, and any one of them could have done it, so the chances of finding out who the killer is are pretty slim. None of these parties are aware of the one remaining victim I've mentioned in this entry, Boris. Didrika briefly mentioned to Private Reseda Rat, who serves with Silver, how she'd found him when she'd rescued him, but never went into detail, and Reseda never told anyone else. She never saw Lange and Boris together. No one has any reason to suspect him, as he and Lange haven't been in any sort of contact since the incident occurred, ages ago. When Boris spots Lange alone in the woods, he can't miss the opportunity, and manages to sneak up on him and grab him from behind, putting him in a headlock. "Remember me?" he says, and yep, Lange remembers him. Boris stabs him in the stomach and he drops to the ground. "Gut wound," Boris says, "a slow, painful way to die," then salutes him--"Will give you plenty of time to think"--and leaves him there. Nobody ever finds out for sure who killed Lange. I think Boris's attitude, especially toward the Trench Rats, mellows out a little over the course of the series. He doesn't survive the war, however. Similar to Klemper, he almost makes it, but not quite. Somehow he suffers a severe injury to his midsection and crawls into an old trench to take shelter; here, he assesses the situation, saying ruefully, "Gut wound...a slow, painful way to die. Pizdetz." With the way things being as they are, Ratdog is the one to find him there; he just recently lost Klemper to a similar injury. (With the way things being as they are, Klemper once saved the life of, and was temporarily involved with, a man who ALSO suffered a similar injury and was taking shelter in a trench much like Boris is now.) He realizes he has no way to help, so he takes his gun, removes all but one bullet, and gives it to Boris, advising him to "use it wisely." He turns to leave and hears the gun cock--Boris is aiming it at him. "I can take out one dirty Kraut before I die," Boris says. "Would it really be worth it?" Ratdog responds, not really giving a s**t anymore, and turning around again and walking away. Boris doesn't shoot him; after sitting and thinking for a while, he decides to use the bullet wisely. Didrika finds him soon after and, uncustomary for her, breaks down crying; no matter how odd and casual their relationship, they really did care about each other. Similar to Ratdog with Klemper, she has to bury his body alone. She runs into Ratdog not long afterward (they spent a good part of the series shooting at each other while also respecting each other's skills, then Ratdog and Klemper even sent some rescued prisoners her way), and due to their shared grief, the two of them end up together. With the way things being as they are. They name their son Godfrey, after Klemper; the second time Didrika gets pregnant, she wishes to name the child after Boris, but they end up with a girl. They name her Tatiana, after Boris's deceased sister. After the war, they often spend time visiting with Himmel's large adopted family. [Boris 2022 [Friday, July 1, 2022, 4:00:23 AM]] |