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Etienne Laurent Blog Entry |
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August 23, 2024, 12:00:41 AM 8/23/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's characters from my anthro WWII storyline are: Unnamed City Clerk; Herr Heinrich (no last name ever given); Frau Bartz (no first name ever given); and Private Etienne Laurent. So many this week as the first two are completely new characters who popped up as I was writing the Tumblr entry for Frieda Orchudesch and her father (last week), yet I wanted to still check a couple off my list. The clerk and Heinrich, the Orchudesches' manservant, help Josef Diamant start his career as document forger. Frau Bartz is in charge of a maternity home and is always trying to coax Lt. Hesse into settling down with one of the women. And Laurent is an older undeveloped character from my character list, a French partisan whose background I need to develop some. The clerk and Heinrich are already described in Frieda's Tumblr entry. There'll be more about them all later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding their designs: The clerk is a leucistic doberman; Heinrich is a fawn boxer; and Frau Bartz is a blue doberman (I'm iffy on her hair, she's supposed to look more severe). I wanted to try something different with Laurent's colors. TUMBLR EDIT: The rest of this will be modified for each entry to avoid repetition. Etienne Laurent is included on my older character list dating to the circa-2002 reboot, yet was never developed as a character. Here's his original description, which until just as I decided to draw him still held as canon: ETIENNE LAURENT: "Pvt." (title, not rank); French partisan serving under Champere. Very young and inexperienced, naive and easily frightened, yet willing to fight. Appears in sequel Seeing as he has virtually nothing for me to work with, I decided to tweak him. I may drop the "private" part later in favor of a higher "rank." This hinted that he was never military and assumed the title "private" only after joining Champere's partisans, though I believe now that he's going to be older, and was perhaps a soldier, though I'm unsure. (I toyed with him having fought in WWI, but I don't think he's quite that old. BUT!--that's not decided yet.) At some point he serves in the French Resistance and is captured by the Germans and imprisoned in a labor camp near the border. He takes advantage of a chaotic situation one day, combined with lax camp security, to escape and go running, though he's shot in the leg by a pursuing SS guard. He tries to keep going yet the guard soon catches up; just as he's about to be executed, however, a bullet strikes the guard in the forehead and he topples over, dead. Laurent, bewildered, glances back; the sunlight is glaring in his eyes but he sees a heavily scarred, forbidding-looking man in a kepi, with a pistol. The man in the kepi grasps him by the arm and pulls him up--"Come on," he says in French, the most perplexing detail of all--and bustles him off into the woods. Laurent ends up with the small group of Sgt. Maj. Champere's partisan forces, where his wound is tended to and he's given soup--he's been starved for so long he needs to sip slowly to avoid throwing up--and everyone speaks in French, and he's certain he must be dreaming or else dead. This all just seems too good to be true. He's very much alive, however; and when he asks what can he do to repay such kindness, Champere says he can swear loyalty to him, and fight with his partisans. Now, finally, Laurent takes pause. Turns out he's a pacifist and always has been--even during his own service (whether just in the Resistance or also in the military), he never killed anyone, focusing instead on transporting and tending to the wounded, obtaining intel, delivering messages and supplies, etc. He's still willing to do this, anything to be helpful, but he's not sure that he can fight. Champere replies that, well, if he wants to remain with them, he better get used to the idea, because Champere doesn't waste time and resources on pansies. Champere's words, not mine. Laurent is struck dumb, unsure what to think. Another of his men, Papillon, comes to talk with Laurent and clarify a few things. Champere doesn't give a flying fig what, or who, he does in his spare time. He just literally can't expend the group's limited resources on someone who's unwilling to handle a gun or otherwise defend. Everyone has to pull their own weight, and just carrying supplies or gathering intel isn't enough; if the time comes when they're under attack, everyone will need to be on board, weapon in hand. "Monsieur Champere has nothing against pansies," Papillon explains, "just pansies who won't fire a gun." Needless to say, Laurent has to decide upon his priorities pretty fast. He starts carrying a gun, and he even uses it. His reluctance to actually KILL anyone with it is a frequent bone of contention between him and Champere, though. He's similar to Lance Corporal Blue Rat in this respect, and to a lesser degree Wehrmacht sniper Lt. Ratdog, who is perfectly willing to kill people, yet has a strict moral code that prevents him from taking certain actions, such as targeting someone who is too incapacitated to defend themselves, or shooting someone in the back. Papillon, ever the mediator, often has to stick up for him and convince Champere why he's worth keeping around; he really IS an excellent shot, he just never wants to take a kill shot. He can easily incapacitate the enemy, but Champere would rather they were dead, so as time goes on his patience and tolerance for Laurent wear thinner. I imagine Laurent ends up having to deal with quite a lot of disagreement and drama with Champere, especially considering how highly he regards Champere and feels he owes him for saving his life, and handling Champere's increasingly bizarre religious delusions; he likely covers for Champere's precarious mental state more than once. Meanwhile, Champere is so certain that he's sane that he's never grateful for Laurent's help, he just wants him to start shooting to kill. So, it seems there could be plenty of dramatic potential here to develop, though it's all still iffy for now. [Etienne Laurent 2024 [Friday, August 23, 2024, 12:00:41 AM]] |