|
Lilli Jäger Blog Entry |
|
June 7, 2024, 12:00:11 AM 6/7/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's characters from my anthro WWII storyline are Lilli Jäger, Lotti Jäger, and Liane Jäger. At last! This is the whole Jäger clan, except the unborn one of course. Lilli and Lotti are identical twins, around two years old, while Liane is the youngest, around one year. Their parents are Ludolf and Magda Jäger and their other siblings are oldest half-sister Leopoldine, Lisbeth, Liesl, fraternal twins Lars and Lara, and Lothar. There'll be more about them later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding their design, again, stout necks, shorter muzzles, and big eyes and ears for such young children; additionally, Liane's hair is very sparse, and her teeth are small. TUMBLR EDIT: This part will be abbreviated to minimize repetition in following entries. AND HERE WE HAVE IT. Jäger and Magda's entire clan, sans Unborn Jäger, of course, though at some future point I may draw an "In Heaven" version of him/her. (The unborn can appear in "In Heaven," as you can see if you visit Hesse's completed profile on Toyhou.se, though as Sophie Sommer attempts to explain it, they're different somehow from those who were already born when they died. Anyway I figure I should focus on my already-born characters first, yeah...?) Since the last batch of kids, though, I can no longer claim this is ALL the Jägers...as the info in Lars's entry makes clear, there's now a handful more: Oma NN Jäger (Ludolf's paternal grandmother), Herr NN Jäger and Frau NN Jäger (Ludolf's parents), Ludolf Jäger (Ludolf's deceased older twin--Major Jäger's original name was Luitpold, so, if I ever upload this guy it'll be confusing, not sure how I'll differentiate the names), and Ludolf's six older sisters. So, that's ten more Jägers. 😩 Gawd this family never ends. I currently have no plans to come up with names for these relatives; they never appear in the main story, as they leave the country at the start of WWII (well, except the original Ludolf, who's dead, though Major Jäger swears his soul continues to live within him alongside his own...it's complicated...the Jägers are weird). As I'm attempting to be a completist, however, I do plan for them to someday have profiles, though I'm still mulling over how to handle art of characters who are so thinly developed. (The gaggle of Jäger sisters, for example...six hairstyles!! Probably all blond with white fur and blue eyes! I've had enough coming up with at least subtle differences in the artwork of all the Jäger children.) Unnamed "backstory" characters may have art, may not, although I'd really prefer if they did. Jäger's backstory is left mostly unknown in the main story, though I imagine hints drop here and there. I'd already pictured a scene where Captain Otto Himmel saves Jäger from an explosive device and Jäger dramatically gasps, "My life!--my life is flashing before my eyes!...I was a beautiful baby...granted, my parents dressed me like a girl, but that was the fashion back then..." I estimate Jäger was born around 1910, so he would have been an infant in the Edwardian era, when photos of baby boys indeed often look like little girls, hurr-hurr. Since then, I've also imagined a scene (context uncertain, maybe something on his desk) where someone spots a family photo, featuring a tall/broad mustached man in a suit and a pompadoured woman in a light dress (Jäger's parents), a severe-looking older woman in a dark dress (Jäger's grandmother/"Oma"), a bunch of big-haired girls of various ages in dresses (the sisters), and a single little boy with an earnest expression in a sailor suit (Jäger). It's never said who these people are, but as it's likely near a similar portrait of Jäger as an adult with Magda, Leopoldine, and all the rest, and the running gag of Jäger always being surrounded by women is already well established, it could easily be guessed who the boy is. Again I don't know the context yet, but given Jäger's developing mania throughout the story, he drops further hints about the past referred to in Lars's entry, such as being "two souled/double souled" (doppelbeseelt, I'm assuming, not to be confused with "two spirit"--as Jäger says when ordering a piñata with bright colors and sparkles, yet not TOO many sparkles, "THAT would be homosexual!"), and his self-professed connection to Wotan (Odin) and Donar (Thor), without going into detail about how this connects to his estranged family (mainly, the influence of his heathen grandmother). I'm unsure yet if he ever mentions what exactly became of his family, though if he does, it'll be just a curt comment that they left the country some time back. It's never clarified whether they're alive or dead, though I'm fairly certain that by the time of Jäger's own death in Ultima Thule, all of them--with the possible exception of the elderly Oma--are still alive. So in a way, Oma's beliefs contribute to the annihilation of the Jäger line...I imagine his sisters go on to have families, though Ludolf of course is the only one to actually carry the name, and all of his and Magda's children end up dead as well. It's really rather sad...I'm pretty sure Oma never intended that, although Jäger's parents and sisters had feared they might lose him in combat (not in the bizarre manner in which he and his family really go out). Whatever it is that's going on with Jäger throughout the story--mental illness, just plain fanaticism, both, or something else--it looks to be something he inherited from his grandmother (skipping his father's generation), and then passed on to Leopoldine through pure indoctrination since she's not his biological daughter. It flares up with such intensity at times that even the meth-addled (and fellow believer in the old ways) PFC Klemper remarks to Lt. Ratdog that he thinks Jäger is loose in the head. Something to explore, at least...the influence of family, and the way history repeats itself down the generations almost like a legacy (or a curse, as the Himmels might put it), are recurring themes in the story. Now on to some non-Jägers, let's hope. [Lilli Jäger 2024 [Friday, June 7, 2024, 12:00:11 AM]] |