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Volodymyr Blog Entry |
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January 3, 2025, 12:00:30 AM January 3, 2025, 12:01:36 AM 1/3/25: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Volodymyr (no last name given), sans cap (top drawing) and with cap (bottom drawing). He's a Red Army member who assists the main characters in finding and accessing the Alpine Fortress. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding his design, he's one of only three bat characters so far (the other two being Papillon and Harricks), thus the giant ears and weird nose. TUMBLR EDIT: I figured I should get around to Volodymyr or Yevgeny, the Red Army characters who don't appear until the final story arc, Ultima Thule. Originally, Volodymyr, a Ukrainian recruit, was going to be an airman, thus why I put off designing him, as I'd need to look up Red Army flight uniforms and UUUUUGGGHHHHH. But then the thought wormed into my head that he could be a different type of "flyer." As soon as I decided he would be a bat, parts of his character started falling into place, though I did waffle a bit at first determining whether he was truly Red Army, or a partisan or what. The Ukrainians' role in WWII was...complicated. (Some, for example, helped the SS guard the camps, though I think they were forced into it, still, they could be pretty brutal.) What I found about partisans seemed to indicate they fought against the Allies, though it was hard to understand. I decided it'd be easiest for him to just be Red Army, and not even necessarily an airman, though he can still fly. Extensive personal background hasn't developed yet. The remaining Allies, upon learning of the Nazi presence at the Alpine Fortress after the war's end, are put in touch with Volodymyr, as he's considered one of the best reconnaissance scouts in the Red Army, and should be able to help them detect the holdouts' location from above. Volodymyr arrives and presents himself with papers to prove his identity, speaking broken English. Unlike Papillon and Harricks (neither of whom is part of this team), he makes zero attempt to conceal that he's a bat; he deftly uses hooks attached to his thumbs in place of hands, and carries his giant ears upright. The Allies are a bit nonplussed, but not dismayed; yet then Otto Himmel realizes something. He holds up his hand directly in front of Volodymyr's face and moves it from side to side; Volodymyr follows the motion with his head, yet when Himmel holds up a finger and asks, "How many fingers am I holding up?" Volodymyr grasps his finger with a hook before saying, "One." Volodymyr is functionally blind; he can discern light and shadow, but that's about it--everything else he detects by scent and by echolocation, at which he's so skilled the others can't even tell he's doing it (as opposed to Papillon and Harricks, who open and close their mouths--certain people like Kolten Himmel and Mahogany can hear them but most can't). This isn't a disability he's acquired, either--he's always been blind. Adel--previously the Wehrmacht sniper known as Ratdog, and hated by the Soviets--is incensed: "They send us a blind guy to scout--? What sort of rubbish joke is this??" "Tie your tongue, Fritz!" Volodymyr retorts in German, "I get by just fine. You need a cliff to jump off, I find it." Volodymyr is equally displeased to learn who Himmel is--an ex-SS captain--and commences calling him "Fashy," though the moment he seems ready to call Kolten some sort of name Himmel (rather uncharacteristically, though this is Kolten we're talking about) pulls a knife and says he can call him any name he likes, but call Kolten anything and he'll slice his throat. Then Volodymyr meets Didrika and exclaims, "I didn't think Krauts let their women carry guns, too busy raising kids, you know?--Kinder, Küche, Kirche." Didrika, who'd normally knock somebody's head off for that, just looks confused. So, the group is introduced to Volodymyr, who seems like a generally decent guy, just that he says what he means and means what he says. He's a bit of an acquired taste, but turns out to in fact be pretty good at what he does; once they reach the Alps, every so often he takes off into the air (usually scaring the bejeezus out of whoever is nearest), and returns a few moments later with a description of the landscape ahead. He can sense out every contour below and around him, and point out the location of every trail, ravine, and, yes, cliff ("Hey, Fritz!--you want to jump off this one?"), as long as it's not covered or obscured by anything else. He can also warn or notify them of any strangers in the area--and he always knows their nationality. Himmel, perplexed, asks him how he can tell whether a person walking far below, who he can sense yet not see, is a German or a Russian or a Swiss or what; Volodymyr replies that every nationality and race has its own distinctive smell, there are even regional differences. He says fascist Germans, for example, smell like the bratwurst they always eat. Himmel retorts, "I've never eaten a bratwurst in my life!" "Whatever helps you sleep at night, Fashy," Volodymyr replies. They never do figure out how he can tell the difference between, say, an enemy and an ally of the same nationality, except that he says their specific shapes "sound different." That's just so weird they stop trying to understand, he knows what he's doing, that's what counts. Volodymyr is surprised to learn that Kolten can hear him when he echolocates; Kolten winces and covers his ears when he does so, saying the sound hurts. "Most cannot hear," Volodymyr admits; "What, you have some kind of fancy ears...?" He takes to calling Kolten this--when Himmel first learns of it, he looks ready to go murder him, yet Kolten insists the nickname doesn't bother him, "It means I hear well! I do something good, ja?--and he does not call me stupid." So Volodymyr lives to scout another day. Another fact the group learns about Volodymyr is that he spent time in a labor camp as a prisoner of the Nazis, so, no wonder he isn't overly fond of Germans. Himmel asks him how long he spent there before being freed; Volodymyr says about a year. "How did you survive so long?" Himmel asks, knowing how difficult it was to last more than a few months in a camp. "Hard work," Volodymyr replies, "you work hard, they don't want to kill you. But also luck. And prayer." He peers skyward; Himmel, a pious Catholic, does the same. "And bribes," Volodymyr adds. "Probably mostly bribes, tak." I have yet to get into Volodymyr's background, or all that he's intended to do while accompanying the Allies to the Alpine Fortress. There's definitely a lot of potential for interesting exchanges, especially if he gets a good look at what's going on in the Fortress, and who's behind it (SS Major Jäger). Earlier in the story (pre-Ultima Thule, during the war), Jäger is exposed to psychic Nixie's powers when she's temporarily in German custody, yet as seen in the relevant entry, even after this display he's more infuriated by another Nazi's contradiction of his orders than fascinated by what he just witnessed; well, as the story goes on and he grows ever more fanatical, I imagine a followup scene where he encounters Nixie again and offers her the chance to join his side, this time freely and not as a prisoner, to help usher in the Fourth Reich (he seems to believe that his promise of the fall of the Third Reich which treated her so abysmally will win her over). Nixie of course wants no part of that, not only because Jäger is obviously batsh*t by then (I think she stumbles across him while he's preoccupied with one of his heathen rituals, half naked, covered with painted symbols, horns on his head, and obviously high out of his gourd--his protégé Leopoldine might be with him, fully dressed but also high as a kite), but also because she knows his Reich is doomed to failure as well. She manages to escape this bizarre encounter unscathed, although with another promise from Jäger that there's no place in his Reich for dissent; the next time they meet, they'll be enemies. WELL...given Volodymyr's skills, however mundane rather than supernatural, I imagine Jäger would be interested in him too; unlike his former fellow Nazis, he's willing to draw from a widely varied pool of talent, even to invite a so-called "Untermensch" along. Of course Volodymyr has no interest in helping him, though it just occurred to me, Project Ultima Thule appears to offer the ability to resurrect the dead (of course, there are some really big caveats involved, but Jäger is the sort to withhold just the right amount of info to get what he wants)...and maybe Volodymyr has a loved one who fits the bill...? I'm too busy working on updating my site lately to focus much on character brainstorming (plus, this is a process that just occurs more in its own time than deliberately), but like I said, there's future potential. [Volodymyr 2025 [Friday, January 3, 2025, 12:00:30 AM]] [Volodymyr 2025 2 [Friday, January 3, 2025, 12:01:36 AM]] |