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Doomsday Rat Blog Entry |
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February 11, 2022, 2:28:49 AM 2/11/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." Today's character portrait attempt is Lance Corporal Doomsday "D-Day" Rat. This is the guy whose capture by the enemy started all the drama; he's the first true success of Project Doomsday (from whence he gets his nickname) and was intended to usher in an age of Nazi super-soldiers but fortunately the Americans got him back. He's the Trench Rats' chief engineer and keeps everything running. He went through some design tweaking here. In my old, OLLLLLD writing, D-Day is described as a mouse-rat hybrid, which isn't a thing; this storyline has lots of implausible stuff but that won't be one of them. He's a rat now. Also, though I didn't know such a thing existed back then, he was kind of a "partial albino," with pale cream fur and red eyes; after some Googling last night I determined that, if he were a true partial albino, he probably wouldn't have red eyes. So after testing a few pale offwhite colors on him I bit the bullet and made him a true albino. He's the only character in the storyline of this type, I believe. I also learned about ruby-eyed rats but that got WAY too confusing so I don't think those exist in this universe. Oh and that's supposed to be a utility cap, I think it's called, that he's wearing, though it was hard to draw right. He's one of the few Trench Rats who don't wear the standard WWI-inspired uniform or have a color-themed name. There'll be more about him in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se later. TUMBLR EDIT: Okey-doke. Doomsday, or D-Day (purely coincidental name that has nothing to do with June 6th, wink-wink, seriously though, that WAS the childhood inspiration for the name BUT the two are unrelated according to canon), was a member of a small American military unit stationed in Nazi Germany when he was captured and forced into Project Doomsday, a medical experiment intended to heighten strength, intelligence, stamina, etc. in the hopes of eventually creating a race of Aryan super-soldiers or, at the very least, a solitary Nazi superweapon. The project showed limited signs of success--but only in subjects with a particular very rare blood type. Dr. C, the Nazi doctor in charge of the project, had been able to procure only two other suitable test subjects so far--and one of them (Kolten) was "mentally defective" according to Nazi standards, while the other (Wolfstein) was Jewish. Obviously not Aryan super-soldier material. 😐 I don't think D-Day was captured with the specific intent to make him a test subject (the Nazis had no way to know his blood type yet), it was just a very happy coincidence for Dr. C, who was in imminent danger of losing funding for the project since the SS were getting fed up with the lack of progress and even Dr. C's brother-in-law, Capt. Otto Himmel (Kolten's father), wasn't having much luck holding them at bay. Dr. C invited the SS officer Himmel reported to, Maj. Ludolf Jäger, along with Himmel to witness D-Day (his previous codename hasn't been given yet) receive his first infusion of the experimental serum. (Wolfstein, whom Dr. C liked to keep in an adjoining cell to witness experiments as a sort of punishment, also saw the event.) It didn't go too well. D-Day suffered a seizure so violent that they were all convinced it killed him; Jäger departed ("Better luck next time") before Dr. C and Himmel went to check on D-Day's body, only to realize he was still alive. After recovering from the incident, D-Day was started on a series of regular infusions and at the same time subjected to Dr. C's own brand of psychological manipulation, including a cocktail of mind-altering drugs and constant conditioning to try to make him forget his previous life as an American soldier, and make him compliant to the Nazi cause. (Brainwashing, basically, though this term didn't come about until the Korean War, I believe, so I won't be able to use this perfectly apt word in my storyline. 😒 ) Both Kolten and Wolfstein had displayed too much autonomy and defiance, so Dr. C tried to avoid that mistake this time, and it seemed to work; it wasn't too long before D-Day spoke only German and refused to disobey anything Dr. C ordered. Welp...cue the Trench Rats, organized originally to rescue D-Day (once this was accomplished they branched out into assisting other victims of the Nazis, gathering intel, and trying to stop Project Doomsday from going forward). They succeeded in retrieving him (though the Nazis captured Private Teal in return, which ends up having drastic consequences later on, at least for Silver Rat...and Dr. C too, I guess 😳 ) but had to undergo the tedious process of "deprogramming" him, which was difficult, as he spoke only German and couldn't remember anything before his inclusion in the project. Two things the Rats noticed were he was now incredibly strong despite his slight weight and stature, and had an aptitude for electronics, which he hadn't had before; they decided to name him chief engineer, in charge (heh, no pun intended) of keeping all the power and equipment in Headquarters running. (He played a major role in getting things back up and working after the Nazi bombing which greatly damaged HQ.) When D-Day accidentally shocked himself fixing some wiring, it managed to bring back a few scattered memories of his life before the project (mostly of his time in the military), though much of it is still murky or completely absent; by now he's just resigned to never remembering most of his life. Despite what he's been through, he's generally goodnatured, genial, and well adjusted, although he prefers being alone, and lives in a specially outfitted cubbyhole where he tinkers with various electronics and equipment. When frustrated (as in his often contentious interactions with the poorly socially adjusted Battleship Gray, who's in charge of radio communications and doesn't like other people touching his stuff) he tends to lapse back into speaking German (which just pisses off BG even more since he's a teensy bit bigoted). Result, D-Day ends up yelling German expletives while Battleship Gray yells at him to SPEAK ENGLISH LIKE A NORMAL AMERICAN and it's just a good time all around. ...This storyline has been sitting mostly undeveloped and dormant for almost twenty years and now all this stuff is suddenly pouring out. Almost all of the details I'm sharing now were developed only since this past November. I don't get it. 😕 But I'll keep posting till I burn out, I guess. EDIT 2/19/22: Dr. C's got a real name now! And it doesn't start with C! 😃 Which I know would have annoyed him so that makes it amusing. Anyway. Just thought I'd share in this space absolutely nobody is going to read. Carry on. [Doomsday Rat 2022 [Friday, February 11, 2022, 2:28:49 AM]] |