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Kolten Himmel II Blog Entry |
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March 4, 2022, 3:06:46 AM 3/4/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." I also did a drawing for Free Draw Friday. Today's character portrait attempt from my anthro alternate WWII storyline is Kolten, one of the test subjects of Project Doomsday, an experiment intended to increase strength, intelligence, stamina, and other characteristics. This part here is a bit spoilery but the story isn't written and nobody will ever read it anyway, so, Kolten is actually the son of SS Captain Otto Himmel and was born with some sort of developmental disability (he's very big and strong even without the influence of the experimental serum and is prone to violent rages, but is what the Nazis refer to as "slow/stupid" and has the temperament and intellect of a young child), which made him a prime target for experimentation although Himmel tried to prevent this. Well, the serum is partially successful on him, increasing his strength--as well as his temper--so that the Nazis intend to use him as a sort of superweapon, except the Allies intercept him first, and it turns out he's not that interested in being a superweapon, he just wants to build elaborate wooden-block structures in peace. Despite him being disabled, Himmel dotes on him while he's still in Nazi custody, spending hours watching him build things and slipping him candies when the doctor in charge of the experiment isn't looking. There is a bunch more regarding all these characters (Himmel's profile is already up) but I'll post that later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. TUMBLR EDIT: Well, I already put the important stuff but here we go. Capt. Himmel's wife--the sister of Dr. C, who was the guy in charge of Project Doomsday (and whose actual name BTW is Dr. Kammler with a K, which is meant to be kind of funny haha hm)--died in childbirth and contrary to the whole Nazi ideology of getting married and having loads of kids, Himmel never got over his grief and so never remarried despite lots of interest from other parties. (His supervisor, Major Ludolf Jäger, who has a litter of kids of his own like a good Nazi, pokes at him over this now and then. Yep, you guessed it, former bit-player Jäger is the character whose history is now percolating in my head.) To add to his woes, doctors inform him, when his son is a toddler, that Kolten is "stupid" and will never be able to function as a healthy adult so he'd be better off putting him in an institution; Himmel, being widowed and with a busy military career, reluctantly relinquishes his son to their care. They attempt to permanently sever his connection with his son by refusing to allow him contact until a set period of time has passed so Kolten can forget Himmel is his father and move on without him, but they don't count on Himmel not giving up so easily; he shows up after the time period is up (by then Kolten is an adolescent), but they still put him off. Not long after, Himmel returns in an SS uniform--he's accepted a promotion and joined the Schutzstaffel in the hopes better pay can help him take better care of Kolten's upkeep, and also with the thought that being an SS officer might stave off any attempts by the Nazis to try anything unseemly with his son. (This effort backfires.) This particular institution so far had no plans to liquidate its residents, so a guy showing up in an SS uniform of course rattles the staff; Himmel takes advantage of this by demanding to finally see his son. The doctor in charge warns him to avoid referring to them as relatives (they still hope to pressure him into giving up on Kolten), and expects him to not even recognize Kolten after so long apart, but Himmel spots him immediately in the common room, playing with wooden blocks, his favorite pastime. He spends hours just watching him, occasionally handing him a block. Aside from an occasion when Himmel is wounded, he visits Kolten loyally every day, thwarting the staff's attempt to sever the connection between the two. Well...the doctor who helped save Himmel's life when he was wounded happened to be his own brother-in-law, Dr. C...and this action brought him to the attention of the SS. Dr. C was already working on an experimental serum intended to create an army of Aryan super-soldiers, but testing wasn't going so well, as the serum's efficacy depended on the subject having a particular very rare blood type, and so far Dr. C had found only one matching test subject, a Jewish prisoner named Wolfstein--not exactly Aryan super-soldier material. Dr. C uses his connection to Himmel to curry favor with the SS, describing his project (which Himmel, no love being lost, derisively refers to as his little science experiment) and requesting funding. The SS agrees, with the stipulation that Himmel oversee Dr. C's activities. (Well, nuts.) This becomes known as Projekt Weltuntergang, or Project Doomsday. (Pardon my German, I'm doing my best with weird Google searches late at night. Doomsday was so named when I was a kid and had no idea what direction this storyline would take, and I only just recently thought, "Hm, I wonder if there's an accurate translation for 'Project Doomsday' in German?" And now here we are.) Things get REALLY tense when Dr. C finds out that Kolten is the perfect test subject for Project Doomsday, having the right blood type and being a disabled "life unworthy of life" and all! So of course Himmel would be glad to make a small sacrifice for the glory of the Third Reich, right? LOL, no. Himmel would not. In fact Himmel would basically tell Dr. C to go screw himself for even suggesting it. Dr. C is of course pissed off not just about the rejection (these two have never liked each other, he sees Himmel as a dumb soldier unworthy of his late sister--Kolten's disability was probably even Himmel's fault for having bad genes--and Himmel sees him as a vain, petty quack) but about how it jeopardizes the approval and funding he just got from the SS. His solution is to hire hitmen to take Himmel out so not only does he get rid of this annoying oversight (Himmel's supervisor, Jäger, doesn't annoy Dr. C quite as much), but he also gains sole custody as Kolten's legal guardian. Win-win! WELL...the murder attempt ultimately fails, and Himmel shows up again a few weeks later with a brand new healing wound to his neck and an even deeper hatred for his brother-in-law. (He was found unconscious by members of the Diamond Network, an Allied-aligned group dedicated to helping escaped prisoners and refugees flee the country, and easily convinced to sabotage Project Doomsday from the inside in exchange for his release. Himmel has exactly zero qualms about making this devil's bargain.) By then, however, Kolten is already a test subject and is already exhibiting signs of increased strength and intelligence--Dr. C appeals to Himmel's presumed disappointment in having a "stupid" son (Himmel in fact has no such disappointment), framing the experiment as something that will benefit Kolten, and lets Himmel visit him. Cue a very awkward reunion where Himmel has to explain to his sulking son why he broke his promise to visit him every day, because he was "sick." (Now cue a very pointed sideways glance at Dr. C.) When Kolten mentions the "skull-hat men" who show interest in the experiment, Himmel is heartbroken to realize his efforts to protect Kolten from the SS were exactly the reason the SS focused on him in the first place. He again vows to visit Kolten every day, while doing everything he can to screw up Dr. C's beloved project, which means Dr. C is always hanging by a thread trying to keep the SS's favor...and can never figure out WTF is going on with his serum, why he can never get his improvements to work. (*evil Himmel snicker*) ...I really need to focus more on Kolten here, sorry. 😕 While the serum does work, its effect on him is limited due to his intellectual disability, so the greatest improvement is in his strength and stamina, what with him already being freaking hulking huge (seeing them side by side, no one could ever guess he and Himmel are related, with Himmel's average height and rather slight build); combine this with his toddlerlike temperament and he can be pretty damn scary, especially if anyone messes with his wooden-block structures. (He will put you through a wall if you mess with his structures.) His increased intelligence shows more subtly as a sort of "savant"-like ability to remember things like faces and building layouts after seeing them only once; thus his skilled portraits and building reconstructions, which he makes almost compulsively. (While in Dr. C's custody, he keeps building and rebuilding miniature replicas of Project Doomsday headquarters, as well as the institution he spent his early life in.) Long story short, he's not quite the "super-soldier" Dr. C was hoping for, though he's just scary and destructive enough to be a weapon in his own right. Dr. C manages to keep the SS interested by rebranding Kolten as such, and his reputation spreads. (Kolten hurling his Nazi guards against the walls of his cell after one of them knocks down his blocks only helps this reputation. Himmel just sits and watches the whole incident because F those guys. Though he does intervene when they try to subdue Kolten, because F THOSE GUYS.) Unfortunately for Dr. C, the Trench Rats intercept and successfully capture Kolten while he's being transported between facilities. The Rat left in charge of keeping an eye on him while they're traveling back to Headquarters, not incidentally, is Lance Corporal Doomsday "D-Day" Rat--so named because he's considered the first true success of Project Doomsday. (D-Day was liberated from Nazi custody some time previously, an event that REALLY, REALLY pissed off Dr. C.) So of course, D-Day is probably the only one who can keep Kolten in check. Nazis attack the two when the other Rats are absent, and one of them is the same guard Kolten previously threw around; so despite his orders to bring Kolten in alive, he thinks it'd be better to shoot him. D-Day jumps in front of Kolten at the last minute; Kolten, witnessing his fellow test subject get shot full of holes, flies into a rage and again hurls the Nazis around. The Trench Rats return and try to think of how to subdue him so they can retrieve D-Day for medical attention, but are surprised when Kolten himself picks D-Day up and lifts him out of the trench to hand off to them; he allows them to put him in restraints although they know he can snap them off easily, and they make it back to HQ without further incident. (BTW, when Dr. C hears of this, he promptly screams for the Nazis in question to be executed for endangering his test subjects. Jäger reluctantly admits that while Kolten is expendable and no such punishment can be meted out over him, a case could be made for the attempted killing of D-Day, who is a former American POW, Aryan, AND mentally fit. Himmel, already grieving his separation from his son, seethes at this in silence.) The Trench Rats' chief surgeon, Burgundy, states that he can't save D-Day without an emergency transfusion of blood--yet D-Day has a very rare blood type (of course) and none of the other Rats match. Sgt. Black Rat goes to Kolten's cell (Kolten is busily scratching building layouts on the floor); as soon as he mentions D-Day, Kolten asks how the "little Rat" is, if their doctor has "fixed him" yet. Black explains that D-Day needs a particular type of blood to survive, at which Kolten declares that he has "magic blood," and shoves his arms through the bars to offer it. He's brought to the medical ward and the blood transfusion is set up; Kolten ends up saving D-Day's life. Shortly after, realizing that the Nazis' secret superweapon is just a child in a huge man's body and he'd far rather spend his days playing with blocks and picture books instead of slaughtering Allied forces, the Trench Rats make arrangements for Kolten to stay with an older childless couple at a large estate in the country, where they fix up the big unused common room with a large table for him to build his elaborate wooden-block creations on. Toward the war's end, after Project Doomsday headquarters is captured and Dr. C is killed, a captive Capt. Himmel promises to tell the Trench Rats what he knows about the project if they'll just allow him to see Kolten; unsure why the SS officer is so interested in visiting a "mental defective," the Rats nonetheless grant the request. Himmel seems relieved to see how well Kolten is doing in his new surroundings. Kolten asks if it's time for him to go back to "Doctor-Father," the name by which he referred to Dr. C; when Himmel informs him that Dr. C is gone, Kolten then asks if he's going to go with Hauptsturmführer-Father (Captain-Father) instead. Cue Himmel and the Trench Rats being all O_O Turns out Kolten isn't so slow that he didn't pick up on Himmel being the only one who truly loved and cared for him all those years, which of course is what a father should do. Himmel has to leave with the Trench Rats to face trial as an SS officer, so Kolten remains at the country estate, though Himmel assures him that no matter what happens he'll always love him, and no, he was never once disappointed in him. In return Kolten hugs him, the first time they've been allowed such physical contact since before he entered the institution. ...I mean, I really try to keep these shorter but I have a lot I want to get out. 😖 [Kolten Himmel II 2022 [Friday, March 4, 2022, 3:06:46 AM]] |