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Silver Rat Blog Entry |
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October 14, 2022, 4:00:14 AM 10/14/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Drawlloween: Pumpkinder Garten." Two arts today. Second. This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Lance Corporal Silver Rat. He's nicknamed "Silbergeist" for his habit of sneaking in and out of places undetected (and other things I won't get into here). There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding his design, I believe he was originally intended to be white with a pale gray mask, but I decided to make him very pale gray with light gray "spectacles"/eye patches. I'm not sure what I think of this latter decision. 😕 But I guess it's his design for now. TUMBLR EDIT: Despite him being intended to be one of the primary Trench Rats characters, and partly responsible for the short-lived resurrection of this storyline circa 2000, I know woefully little about Silver Rat, and so far he isn't sharing his story with me. :/ He's always been pretty private. Therefore, most of what I know of him is the role he plays during the story itself. Though in the current reboot, he HAS gained somewhat more of a role that didn't exist before. I know practically zilch of Silver's pre-war life. I'm pretty sure he came from a well-off family, and has some Nordic ancestry, possibly Swedish; he seems to dislike Germans; aaannnd that's it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ He enlists in the military pretty early on, before the US even officially gets involved in the extended version of WWII that exists in my story, because he's one of the tiny unit of American (well--plus Indigo, who's Australian but an American citizen) soldiers who head to Germany on a sort of reconnaissance mission, only to end up attacked by the Nazis, and have one of their members, who later becomes known as Doomsday/D-Day but I don't know his previous nickname yet (in fact, none of these guys have their color codenames yet), captured. The rest of them are left under near-constant attack and are basically trapped, unable to flee or even to contact their superiors in the US for help as their communications gear has been damaged. They have food and ammo, but not enough to last for long. (I didn't get to mention, Indigo is the de facto leader of this small unit, since he's the one with the combined highest rank (yeah, a piddly lance corporal) and time in the military; Silver comes in second. I clarify this as it explains Silver's attitude throughout most of the story.) Somehow, word of what happened reaches the US military anyway. There are rumors the Nazis are at work on some sort of medical project, named "Doomsday," intended to create a "super soldier" for use in war. The American captive is believed to be involved in this. They organize a rescue attempt utilizing an experimental battalion they've already been putting together--this is the Trench Rats. They arrive in Germany, establish contact with the British and with some French fighters in the country, and pinpoint the location of the besieged unit. The battered, half-starved soldiers are surprised when the corporal, Drake, pops in on them out of nowhere to let them know they're coming back to the newly established Trench Rat Headquarters as the latest recruits. Most of them--including those who are given the nicknames Battleship Gray, Blue, Copper, Teal, and Turquoise--are grateful to be rescued and brought into the battalion; they quickly take to their assigned roles. Indigo and Silver...aren't so thrilled. Because Sgt. Camo and Cpl. Drake are now in charge, when previously THEY were in charge. Shouldn't they have a say in who's in charge? Well, no. Indigo gives up his grudge when he's offered a position in the medical unit, assisting chief surgeon Burgundy Rat. Silver, however, is still quite disgruntled, and he takes out this attitude on the newcomers as often as possible. He quickly earns a reputation for being asocial and highly unpleasant to get along with, even beating out Burgundy in that category. (Seriously, it's tough to top Burgundy when it comes to having a pissy attitude. At least Burgundy has a far better excuse--his wife cheated on him with his brother.) Fortunately, Silver has a specific skill that ensures he'll get a job that involves very little personal interaction. He's very...sneaky. He can break into and leave buildings and rooms without leaving any trace of his presence, via a combination of lockpicking/breaking skills, and some sort of ninjalike parkour. (It's hard to describe.) The Nazis are absolutely dumbfounded by how various documents keep going missing despite their best efforts to secure their facilities. It isn't until Silver accidentally comes face to face with a guard and is forced to kill him--his gun jams, so he grabs the guard and puts him in a chokehold, only to end up snapping his neck and killing him instantly--that they finally realize the documents are being stolen rather than misplaced. However, the only evidence of this is a dead body left on the floor, and he looks like he died of fright. Broken neck, doctors pronounce afterward, though that begs the question, broken by whom?--or what? It's like a literal ghost is to blame. The Trench Rats start their career in Germany dressed in Prussian-style uniforms, to give the superstitious Nazis the idea they're dealing with ghosts from the Great War. The Nazis aren't COMPLETELY stupid so this ruse lasts like all of ten minutes before they catch on, but it helps give the Rats a bit of time to get established. When they finally get a glimpse or two of Silver, however, old superstitions die hard, and his skills are just so difficult to believe that they nickname him Der Silbergeist--a name that doesn't impress him in the least, in fact, he later on comes to hate it. But he takes full advantage of his new reputation to freak the Nazis out, and soon becomes one of the Allies most wanted for capture or execution. He still carries a gun on his missions but finds it much more suitable to just break people's necks, so this is what he primarily becomes known for. (I just Googled out of curiosity and came across the term "Nackenbrecher," though this appears to refer to heavy metal music, i. e., "headbanger." Something to keep in mind for another nickname, though? Heh.) If the Germans want to believe he's a ghost or has supernatural/superhuman powers, well, that's fine by him. He'll go on thinking they're morons, though. In case you've missed it, Silver is rather a d*ck. No other way to put it. In the abortive revamp of the Trench Rats story that took place before this one--about twenty years ago (God I feel ancient just typing that ;_; )--Silver's plotline was the primary driving force, and I had plans to at least write a side story/novella about it even if I couldn't work on the entire series. (Though I did give the latter a try, got about a dozen short chapters through--you can find a fragment of the beginning in Mirela's entry--oh holy crud! I just looked at the final finished part, Chapter 14. It's when Helena Urbach--unnamed at the time--is asking Mahogany Rat for info on her missing relative. Currently, she's seeking her husband, who it turns out was killed in the camps. In the written version, however, I just noticed there's an additional character involved, Sapphire Rat, and Helena--who at 23 is way too young for the current storyline--is asking after someone with the surname KURTZER--and it's her young DAUGHTER. Heh! That really changed! Anyway, this is what happens when you don't look back at your own cruddy source material. I also found Mahogany speaking THIS particular line as he deals with the hassle of admitting rescuees, a process that creepily resembles what I've since read about, but didn't know about back then, "selections" at concentration camps: "'Maybe we should just recruit the NAZIS to take care of our records for us!' he snapped, slapping the papers back into a dissheveled [sic] pile as if he were beating a sullen mule. 'Maybe THEN we'd get something done!'" Er...ouch. Back to Silver.) Anyway, if I'm recalling correctly (as you can see, that doesn't always happen), there are a few scenes featuring Reseda Rat, the other main character of the intended novella (I think it was entitled "Tough Love"), interacting with Silver as one of his inferiors (i. e., Reseda is the inferior) in Echo Company, and Silver just chews him out--uh, figuratively o_o; --EVERY chance he gets. I mean, sure, Reseda's new (you could even say he's green, heheh..."reseda" is a shade of green in case you didn't know), and pretty inexperienced and somewhat bumbling at first, but he tries hard, and Silver seems to specifically target him for most of his criticism. Suffice it to say, the two of them can't stand each other--Silver thinks Reseda is a bungling idiot who will get them all killed, and Reseda thinks Silver is a sociopathic bully who gets off on terrorizing his men. They're both partly right, and partly wrong. Somehow Reseda is indeed at least partly to blame when Silver ends up captured by the Nazis, though I can't recall how. It's through basic negligence, I do know that--and even with as much as he despises Silver by then, he's devastated by his role in things. (He's not solely to blame, however. Teal Rat--one of Silver's former comrades from the early unit, who was captured by the Nazis when Doomsday was rescued and has been undergoing extensive torture since--spots him, and screams, "Der Silbergeist! Der Silbergeist!" to get the Nazis' attention.) Silver, on the other hand, is too busy just trying to stay alive. He's brought to "Dr. C," the Nazi doctor in charge of Project Doomsday. From the start Silver finds this strange, but C--whose real name is Dietmar Kammler--quickly clears things up: He's not just the doctor in charge of experiments, he's pretty good at torture, too. He has Silver brought to the main room where the Doomsday serum is usually first administered to test subjects; it's not a big room at all, more like a small medical office, with shelves and counters along one wall, observation windows at both ends, and a medical table taking up the bulk of the space. Oddly, the wall opposite the counters/cabinets is entirely taken up by a sort of prisoner's cell, and this is currently occupied, by a somewhat older, haggard man in striped clothes and a yellow star. He seems just as perplexed to see Silver as Silver is to see him. Dr. C has his Nazi guards put Silver in restraints on the table and starts to attempt to question him about the Trench Rats and his particular role, but Silver refuses to give up any information, so the guards start punching him after each non-answer. It isn't long before he's black and blue but he still says nothing, so repeated punches turn into an outright pummeling. Silver dimly notices that the older man confined in the cell is watching everything intently, though his knuckles are white where he grasps the bars, and his face is pale--he looks vaguely ill. Finally Dr. C gets impatient and flicks his hand--the guards undo Silver's restraints and lift him up, only to turn him around and shove him back down on the table, prone this time--he's again restrained, and Dr. C sends all the guards out except one, a sergeant. "Do your thing," he says, a bit disdainfully; "All of it?" the sergeant asks, to which Dr. C replies, "Whatever you like--just try not to kill him, bitte?"--and departs. The sergeant looks back at Silver and smiles. Silver instantly gets a very, very bad feeling. This particular Nazi's name is Kaspar Lange, and like Silver, he has a reputation; a reputation that under normal circumstances could end him up in a camp himself, except the Nazi higher-ups have realized he can be quite useful to them, as a torture technique in his own right. Various other characters in the story, both Allies as well as those on his own side--including Boris, Ratdog, and Klemper (almost)--have ended up on the receiving end of Lange's attentions, and Dr. C requested him to handle Silver, who he knows will be a hard nut to crack. By necessity, I can't get into detail here, although this scene WAS written out long ago (titled "Broken Ghost," it's likely very outdated like the rest of my Trench Rats stuff); so I'll just say that Lange indeed gives Silver "all of it" and then some, yet Silver still refuses to give up any information--he actually bites Lange, HARD (uh, his hand, I should clarify he bites Lange's hand hard), which results in even more brutal treatment, yet all Silver has to say even after that is "F**k you!"--so Lange loses his temper and beats him so savagely he goes limp and stops moving. Believing him dead (oh well to Dr. C's request ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ), Lange leaves in a huff, to go tend to his own injured hand. The Jewish captive in the adjacent cell wrings his hands and whisper-yells, "Herr Geist?--Herr Geist?" for a bit before giving up and going to huddle in the corner, wiping at his damp eyes. (One thing I forgot to mention, why Silver grows to despise the name "Silbergeist"--Lange calls him this all throughout this scene. Naturally, that gives it a very distasteful connotation in his mind.) Silver, however, is merely unconscious. He slowly comes to a while later, remembers what happened and where he is, and immediately starts trying to escape. He's lying on his stomach with his head twisted to face the left (looking toward the door to the hallway, beside the counters) and has leather restraints on his wrists, ankles, and waist, so he starts working on his right wrist, twisting his hand side to side--his only real hope is somehow loosening it and possibly taking some of the skin off himself in the process, yet even this is a dim hope. Still, he has to try. After a while of doing this--his wrist getting raw and bloody--he hears a loud Hssst from the other side of the room, behind him, and freezes. "I'm throwing you something," somebody with a German accent whispers, and Silver flinches when something clanks against the metal table near him. "By your hand," the voice says, and he feels around until he touches something--"Right there!"--and he pulls it closer with his fingers. It feels vaguely like a knife, with a handle and a rough but sharp cutting edge. He manages to grasp it and twist his wrist such that he works the sharp part under the edge of the restraint, and starts sawing. It's incredibly tedious, and at one point the voice whispers, "Someone's coming!"--he freezes again and closes his eyes to slits as someone peers in the door but then leaves--but after some time he cuts far enough through the strap to start twisting and tugging until it breaks--his right arm is freed. Buoyed slightly, he picks up the shiv--for that's what it is--and starts working on the left wrist strap. Cuts it, then the waist strap. Painfully pushes himself up and twists around to free one ankle, then the other. Then rolls over, sits up, swings his legs toward the floor to stand, and promptly collapses. The Jewish prisoner--for that's who helped him--grimaces. Silver slowly pulls himself back up after a moment or so, straightens out his clothes, and lets go of the table to lurch toward the cell, grabbing the bars and startling the prisoner; "What are you doing?" the Jewish guy asks as he starts looking around, tugging on the bars. Soon becomes clear he's trying to figure out how to get the cell open. As soon as the Jewish guy realizes this, he frets, "Nein! You have to go!" Silver ignores all his pleas, and after a moment or so he locates the opening and starts trying to force it; the Jewish guy gives up protesting and tugs on it himself, and they both manage to get the cell open. (Truth is...the captive did most of the work. He's a successful test subject of the Nazi experiment, and could break the bars with little effort whenever he wished. He has his reasons for not trying, though.) He hurriedly grabs hold of Silver, who nearly collapses again and says, "I'm not sure I can walk on my own." He asks the prisoner if he knows the way out; he does, though it'll involve a complicated trek through various hallways past possible guards, finding an unattended exit, crossing the yard and fence to the outside, and making their way out of the city into the nearby woods. Silver says they better get started then, so they go. They briefly have to hide in a closet as a guard passes by, but other than that, their passage through Project Doomsday headquarters is relatively uneventful. Everything works out in their favor--empty halls, untended exit (it's locked though, and Silver has to pick it), and no one in the yard. They force an opening through the fence and out into the city. The facility is located near the city's edge, so they have only a few rundown alleys and warehouses to pass through before an open field comes into view. This here is likely to be the most dangerous stretch, as for a few moments they'll be in plain view of anyone who happens to look in this direction; the Jewish guy suggests they go separately so at least one of them might make it, and offers to go first: "I'm a better target, they'll be more interested in shooting me than you." Silver doesn't like this idea, but isn't in much state of mind to argue; he hangs back a moment as the Jewish guy goes running off, then takes a breath and bolts off after him. Well...sort of. More like stumbles off after him, as he's still quite dizzy and in a lot of pain; it's mostly adrenaline that gets him through. He reaches the woods after what feels like forever; before he can fall, the Jewish guy grabs him again and hauls him after him until they're deep enough among the trees to be out of the sight of anyone watching, and at last, they're relatively safe. The Jewish guy actually laughs and hugs Silver, who's still trying to catch his breath. He introduces himself--"Wolfstein, Jakob Wolfstein"--and confirms that he's one of Dr. C's test subjects (though he doesn't confirm that the test was a success). He was known for refusing to follow the doctor's orders, so as punishment, he was often placed in the cell adjacent to the testing table, to watch the torture other captives were subjected to. Silver starts to introduce himself, but Wolfstein cuts him off: "I already know you, everyone knows who you are, Herr Geist." He'd been stunned to see that Der Silbergeist had actually been captured, and though it turned his stomach, he forced himself to watch most of what he went through--"I turned my eyes at the worst, Herr Geist, I can take only so much, and you didn't need me seeing that"--so he can serve as a witness if anyone is ever held responsible. He admits he has no idea which way to go from here, but vows to stick by Silver until he's safe. After a brief rest, they go walking. They make it a decent distance, but Silver's pain and exhaustion finally catch up with him, and he collapses; this time Wolfstein can't rouse him. Rustling noises start coming from the woods around them, so he grabs the only weapon he can think of--a tree branch--and stands over Silver, glancing around. (He unfortunately left his shiv behind. Silver still has his uniform, but obviously his weapons were confiscated.) Several armed men emerge from the trees and jeer at Wolfstein in a vaguely threatening manner (he insults them right back, brandishing the stick, which just amuses them) before taking notice of the yellow star on his shirt; they stop threatening him then, but are still kind of condescending, saying, "Did you escape from a camp, old man?--you know you're not safe out here on your own?" Wolfstein holds his ground and warns them to keep back, until he hears one of them mention the name "Didrika"; suddenly realizing these are resistance-allied partisans, he tells them he has Der Silbergeist with him, and he needs a doctor. The partisans' confusion and skepticism frustrates him, but it's merely that they don't see Silver lying on the ground; as soon as they do, and come closer to get a look at him, they immediately construct a stretcher (using Wolfstein's branch and their jackets), place Silver on it, and hurry further into the woods with him, Wolfstein right alongside. They arrive at a camp hidden deep in the woods, an eye hex painted on a tree to warn people away. This is Didrika's camp; she's the Romani leader of this large group of male partisans, and Wolfstein knows she's Silver's best chance of receiving medical attention. They're intercepted by Boris, her second in command; he too is skeptical of the story the others tell but Wolfstein's angry insistence convinces him to notify Didrika. (This is rather something--average-height, sickly-thin Wolfstein managing to cow the tall, muscular Boris, who takes s**t from no one but Didrika. BTW, yes, this is the same Boris who was himself once victimized by Lange, and I suspect the sight of Silver's injuries, combined with the few details Wolfstein gives, convinces him Silver had a run-in with the same guy he did.) He returns a few moments later, gestures them through--Didrika will see them. She actually meets them halfway, glances Silver over, instructs him to be brought to her quarters for immediate medical attention by their doctor; Wolfstein protests to be allowed to stay with him, but Didrika has him brought to their eating area to be given food instead. Wolfstein refuses to eat anything the partisans bring him; a while later Didrika returns to try to convince him to eat something, but he says he won't eat until Silver does. Didrika manages to convince him Silver's in good hands yet needs some privacy, and he reluctantly takes some of the food before she leaves again. Silver, meanwhile, has been brought to Didrika's quarters and their doctor summoned to check him out. He informs Didrika, when she comes back, that the Trench Rat was obviously tortured--he miraculously has no obvious broken bones, but there are signs of sexual trauma. Didrika has him tend to Silver's other cuts and bruises and then sends him away. She waits for him to regain consciousness, which he does some time later; she gives him water to drink, and penicillin since he starts shivering and sweating with a fever. She briefly outlines what happened since he lost consciousness, as well as what the doctor told her and why she sent him away; she offers to finish tending to his injuries so he doesn't have to deal with another man doing it. Silver is silent for a bit before acquiescing; he's obviously humiliated and still in a lot of pain but doesn't protest. Didrika treats him as quickly and discreetly as possible and asks if the Rats know where he is; likely thanks to Reseda's mistakes, they weren't fully informed of this mission, so they may not even know he's missing. She says she'll try to get in touch with them, but won't let him leave until he's well enough to get around on his own. Some time later, a contingent of Trench Rats arrives, including their own doctor, Burgundy. There's a brief delay getting them to Silver when Didrika has a confrontation with the chief nurse, Lyndsey Skye, who knows of Didrika's habit of "testing" men by trying to seduce them, and warns her not to try this with Burgundy; when Didrika makes a crass comment in response, Skye slaps her, which stuns everybody (except Burgundy, who happens to not be there just yet). Silver surprises them by arriving of his own volition, albeit very slowly and haltingly; the Rats negotiate with Didrika's people to take him back with them early (Burgundy and Didrika, who've somehow never met before now, haggle, and involved somewhere in all this is that the partisans will get a new supply of penicillin while the Rats will get fresh oranges), and Wolfstein of course insists on accompanying them, walking alongside the dog used to transport him back to Trench Rat Headquarters. (After a while the Rats place him in a blindfold and headphones, and put him in the dog's other transport carriage (hard to describe, it's like saddlebags except they're square compartments on both sides of the dog, and two to several Rats can fit in each, depending on size), to protect the location of HQ.) Upon their arrival they're both brought to the medical ward for further attention; Silver gets some rest, while Burgundy tends to Wolfstein, who, now that he's sure Silver will be all right, finally lets himself be checked out. Burgundy is stunned and disgusted by the extent of the torture and experimentation Wolfstein himself has been subjected to, including vivisection--he gets a look at the scar where Dr. C basically cut him open while he was fully conscious and unmedicated. After looking him over, Burgundy removes the yellow star from his shirt. Silver slowly recovers, at least physically. His mental state, however, has taken quite a hit, and although he acts as if he's put the incident behind him, obvious cracks soon start to appear. Reseda, who's already sensitive to such things as he's racked with guilt over his own blame for Silver's capture (I really need to work out how 🤔 ), notices first of all. And he starts covering for Silver when he makes mistakes or experiences lapses in attention or judgement. Silver is just as much a jerk as before--probably even more so--which makes Reseda's actions even more notable, considering how trashily Silver acts toward him. All righty, now here is where things get somewhat more conjectural, based mainly on how outdated this part of the story may be. I haven't looked at what text might exist of "Tough Love," as there wasn't much (I'm not even sure it's extant), though there are a few completed adult scenes. At least one of them is f**king stupid and so no longer canon. The other is melodramatic and could use a COMPLETE redo but I think a few of the basics could still occur. Basically, Silver suffers a sort of mental breakdown and ends up compulsively and almost violently scrubbing at his wrists--where he'd had restraints placed--with water, fuming angrily that he can't wash them off. Reseda tries to convince him to stop, by now there's nothing there, even his injuries have healed; but when he grabs Silver's arm to stop him, Silver punches him. Then is stunned by his own actions. In the original version this led straight to an adult scene, but I don't think that's realistic considering the trauma Silver is still dealing with, so in the new version perhaps it just leads to a brief pause where both of them realize they have some unresolved feelings, then they go on with their day, except something between them has definitely shifted. (I suggest this based also on two other adult scenes featuring Reseda but not Silver, one where he's briefly involved with an older male character named Vischer--Vischer is still on the character list, but I don't know if he still appears in the story--and one where he passes the night with two female prostitutes. I won't go into details, but both scenes make it clear Reseda has developed feelings for Silver. He tries hard to deny it to himself, but eventually realizes he can't. The thing is, he's pretty sure Silver is straight, so can't possibly feel the same way. The situation with Silver is...complicated. I'm pretty sure he's straight, too. He shows no interest in any other male characters, and while he doesn't show much interest in women either, I think this is more to do with him just being too busy with his work; he's not asexual. But he definitely feels something for Reseda, and yes, it's confusing. Throughout the story and after, this is also the only time he experiences something like this--just once. I understand most "alternate" (hate that term) sexualities, but I don't really understand Silver, an apparently straight guy who ends up attracted to a man just this once. I decided not to bother attempting to explain it, because such things happen, don't they? Human (well, "human") attraction is inexplicable sometimes, and not everyone can be so easily pigeonholed. Anyway, yes, the two of them are attracted to each other. I think a big part of it is how the previously bungling Reseda steps up to help Silver out when HE becomes the bungling one. He's used to being painfully self-sufficient; he despises needing help; but he realizes he's not quite able yet to handle everything on his own. Reseda helps him without endangering his leadership position by outing him as incompetent or overwhelmed to the other Rats. In reality this could be seen as dysfunctional or deceptive, but to Silver, who's been independent and flown solo most of his life, it not only helps ease the stress but jars him a little bit, that anyone would go to that trouble for him, much less someone he's treated like such garbage. He v-e-e-e-r-r-r-y slowly warms to Reseda, and eventually, though I'm not sure how yet, they start a relationship. This plotline, as I said, was the main impetus behind my brief spark of renewed interest in the Trench Rats story around 2000 or so, and was originally intended to be a major theme. My interest waned again before I got far, however, and the Rats again went on hiatus, this time for what I came to believe was permanently. I just...had no more passion for these characters, no real desire to see what happened to them next. (The Trench Rats is a rather odd storyline for me anyway in that, unlike all my others, it isn't open ended and potentially endlessly ongoing--it goes from around 1900 (flashbacks) to around the mid-1950s (flash-forward), and that's it. No continuing plot. I think that alone put a big damper on a serial writer like me, and still does--I get close to characters, I want to keep coming up with more plot for them.) This went on for about two decades--TWENTY YEARS. I go through extended "phases" where I'll fixate on one story and "abandon" the others for years--I haven't worked on my Manitou Island storyline since around 2005 or 2007 or so, I think--yet I always end up returning to them at some point, plus, all those storylines at least have some substantial written content, unlike the Trench Rats, which hasn't even one completed short story. (I don't count the adult scenes unless they're full novellas, which none are; "Tough Love" never made it.) Plus--I don't think any have gone on full hiatus for TWENTY YEARS. So, yeah...I reached the sad conclusion that the Trench Rats story was permanently dead. But for some reason, in November 2021, I got to thinking about a character I never much cared for--Papillon, the French bat partisan--and wondered what it would be like if he got involved with another male character. And I wondered, what if that character was Drake Rat. For all I'd known these two had been originally intended as straight--I'd never really thought about it, honestly. Yet I thought about it a bit more, they clicked, and I started writing an adult novella (because I don't do trashy little throwaway scenes anymore). And kept writing and kept writing. Nope--it's not done, it was paused when I started writing ANOTHER such story--this one featuring the brand-new character Otto Himmel. Alas, I can't recall how I came up with him! But with this, a swarm of OTHER completely new characters started pouring out of my head, and with them, changes to existing characters (Gunter Hesse is the most dramatic example--his current character is NOTHING like his original character description), and more significantly, entirely new chunks of plot that filled in previously gaping holes that had stumped me for years. For example, I'd gone since childhood having no clue WTF the deal was with Inspector Dobermann, why he's the way he is, what side he's even on--I thought he was a Nazi sympathizer, a bad guy. That's how he was always imagined (even though a niggling voice in the back of my head insisted there was something good in him--should've listened more to that voice). Turns out I was COMPLETELY wrong--he's a resistance sympathizer--with a Jewish wife!! (No, he doesn't KNOW she's Jewish for a good long while, but still.) It took him around thirty years to reveal himself to me. Thirty years! What took you so freaking long, Dobey?? And with something like that, I wonder if these swarms of new characters are actually "new" or if they've just been locked away in my unconscious all along, and something, I don't know what, prompted them to emerge a year ago and start telling me about themselves. I rather wish I fit into some writing communities so I could bounce theories around. If anyone reads this and has experienced anything similar, feel free to drop a note, however that works on Tumblr. Anyway. Silver?...is NOT one of the characters who've started telling me more about themselves. 🙄 Thanks, Silver. When even the super-stoic Dobey speaks up more than you do it says something. His role in the story may as a result be reduced in importance. I can't think of much else to say regarding his and Reseda's relationship except to hint at how it seems to end: Even in the previous version of events, I had a strong feeling it isn't a permanent relationship, i. e., the two aren't together after the war. :/ I felt this was due more to Silver than to Reseda; Reseda would definitely be open to a longterm relationship, but Silver is more skittish, less likely to commit. Another factor in this, however, is that I had no concrete idea how Silver ends up at story's end. He just kind of seems to disappear; I started getting the impression that he goes MIA at the end, possibly even captured--or killed--by the Nazis, so Reseda has to head back home without him, heartbroken. I've been mulling over this situation recently since Silver won't reveal his background to me, so I'll get to that in a moment. A relatively new development ties in with the other newish detail regarding Silver being part of a small early group who arrive even before the Trench Rats and this is how Doomsday, part of that group, ends up captured. This tiny unit didn't exist in the earlier versions of events. D-Day's capture was really confusing to me; his previous story (the original story is never explained) was that he was actually a civilian who was visiting Germany for whatever reason. I couldn't figure out why an American civilian would be visiting Germany at a time of rising hostility; made no sense. :/ This newer development of the small reconnaissance group at least makes a bit more sense, and D-Day starts out the story as a soldier who gets captured when Indigo's and Silver's unit is attacked. I already went over the rest, how resentful Silver is at being denied a leadership role in the Trench Rats, and how he spends the series taking this frustration out on others, but especially Drake (hm, does Silver have latent antisemitism, too?) and Gold, the corporals--because he feels he should've been a corporal. There's LOTS of tension between him and Gold--it's obvious he despises Gold, no matter how much the sociable Gold tries to reach out. Later in the story, after Sgt. Black is killed, Gold takes his place and then is later promoted to sergeant. He's informed he has to name a new corporal, and after some thought, he names Silver. Silver is like o_o ... He'd had NO idea that was coming, and similar to how he'd treated Reseda, he can't understand why Gold would promote him, with how poorly he'd acted toward him. He's fully aware of what a jerk he is toward others, yet the concept of being the bigger person seems to be beyond his understanding; I guess he subscribes to the idea of "to each his own" (yes, I realize the irony here of that particular saying), or you reap what you sow. So, when others are magnanimous toward him despite his behavior, it's weird to him and he doesn't know how to react. He accepts the role of corporal and I think this more than anything (though definitely combined with Reseda's actions) convinces him to finally start shaping up, let go of his bitterness, and consider how his actions influence others. Being a leader isn't a solo job, it involves all the people you're leading, too. This takes place late in the story, so while I hope Silver is second in command long enough to make some differences, it isn't that long before he exits the story. Originally, there was no indication that he appears in the final story, Ultima Thule; Reseda definitely doesn't appear, as he's among the majority of Rats who returned to the US after the war's end. As I said, Silver just seems to "disappear." I thought maybe he'd been killed by the Nazis, since he was one of their most wanted. Recently, though, plot has been developing; I don't know if this is the final version of events, I could change my mind, but currently, Silver indeed gets captured toward war's end, and is declared MIA. Reseda, heartbroken as I said, returns home not knowing what became of him. Some time passes, then those remaining in Germany catch wind of Nazi activity ongoing in the mountains, and form teams to investigate. They arrive at the Alpine Fortress, which they'd previously been informed isn't even real, and start exploring. It isn't long before they make a shocking discovery: Indigo Rat. They KNOW he was killed by shrapnel near the war's end, yet his body had gone missing. Yet here he is in the Alpine Fortress, very much alive, except wearing a white SS-style uniform and attacking them as if THEY'RE the enemy. Wut. It doesn't matter how much they try to get through to him--including trying to remind him of his fiancee back home--he keeps targeting them, as if mindlessly. It isn't until they run into Sturmbannführer Ludolf Jäger, a member of the Allgemeine-SS, that things are clarified: Doomsday, the medical project the Nazis had been running during the war to create a "super soldier," didn't end when the Third Reich fell--several Nazi doctors fled to the Alpine Fortress to continue the project, now renamed Ultima Thule, with a new and improved version of the serum. The project goal is now not increased intelligence and strength, but immortality itself, as Indigo's presence proves. There's no such effect on those who were alive when administered the serum (case in point, Jäger, who volunteered), but those who've been resurrected are blindly obedient to pre-programmed orders given to them by the Nazis--meaning that no matter how much the Rats try to get through to Indigo, they can't break his programming. And oh yeah--the effects of the original serum are still present, too, meaning amped-up strength and ability to withstand pain. So Indigo, who's already a big scary guy, is nearly impossible to fend off, much less defeat, and the Rats have to retreat. Things get even more alarming when they run into Indigo again, and now, Silver is with him--also dressed in one of those weird white uniforms, also seemingly resurrected. Indigo attacks while Silver's actions are more restrained and defensive, a detail the Rats assume is based on their original fighting mentality (Indigo was more into brute force, Silver would think things through). The Rats again have to retreat, but run into the pair a third time later on--except this time, before Indigo can attack, Silver quickly knocks him out, something only someone on the serum can do. He shows all the other signs of being on the serum, including a blue sheen to his eyes, yet as the Rats are briefly stunned by this turn of events, he addresses them directly and with full awareness--something resurrected subjects CAN'T do--and instructs them not only on the only thing proven to stop an experimental subject for good (destroying the brain), but on where to find the doctors' files with more information on the project. He provides a few more details as they go looking: Obviously, while he was indeed captured by the Nazis at the war's end, he wasn't killed, thus wasn't resurrected. His situation is more similar to Jäger's; he was given the serum as a conscious test subject, though unwillingly--the Nazis thought it would be some delicious irony if Der Silbergeist himself ended up fighting for them. The full effects weren't understood yet, so he was able to convince his captors he was brainwashed as well, though the torture and conditioning he also underwent contributed to the Nazis believing he would side with them. In reality he's been biding his time, gathering information. Upon learning that the remaining Trench Rats had arrived, he accompanied Indigo in hopes of tipping them off to ways to destroy the project for good. Burgundy, the Rats' chief surgeon, ends up discovering that the Nazis also created a sort of "antidote" to the serum, which stuns the subjects back into awareness. Silver helps them track this down, and they try it out on Indigo when he next attacks; he reacts as if in extreme pain, but it isn't long before he comes back to his senses, and recognizes his colleagues; he defects back to the Allies. The Rats pass word of their discovery to their canine counterparts also in the Alpine Fortress, and together they manage to destroy it in an explosion/avalanche while escaping to safety; this time the project truly IS destroyed for good, and those Rats who haven't decided to remain in Europe head back home. Details are still hazy and could change, but in the snippet that currently plays in my head, Silver returns to the US and tracks down an address. He knocks on the door and it opens--it's Reseda. The two of them stare at each other for a moment before Reseda steps aside; he lets Silver in, and shuts the door. [Silver Rat 2022 [Friday, October 14, 2022, 4:00:14 AM]] |