I already mentioned how Looti Vario reminds me of Lottie from Princess and the Frog and Wario from Mario games.
Everybody already made fun of a policeman named Lawson, but few people said anything about his name, Brander. What is that name? Is it real? I'm calling him Brandon.
And his son's name is Rylee! As in Riley! He plays space lacrosse, not space hockey.
Lieutenant Blake evoked rather mixed feelings. On the one hand, he's a rather unpleasant, arrogant individual. On the other, it was very surprising when, after the interrogation, he actually let Lawson go.
I also noticed the traditional Imperial headdress for the first time, and for some reason I really liked the fact that it is with earflaps (as someone with frequently cold ears, I completely approve of this design XD).
Uh so still on my quest to draw this guy a buncha times. May have gotten myself dragged into the 1917 rabbit hole as a result but like. Lieutenant Joseph Blake my beloved sad sopping wet blorbo fr-
Anyway. Ta-da?
Played around with brushes and stuff for 2.5 h and this came out lol. Was fun.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: “Joseph Blake’s first ever encounter with death was when their family’s cat died.
He’d been young, around 6-years-old, Tom a 6-month-old baby who stayed cradled in their mother’s arms and tried his best (as much as a 6-month-old could, at any rate) to follow Joe around everywhere.”
An examination of Lieutenant Joseph Blake of the Second Devons and his relationship with death, loss, and grief.
Will Schofield gets his second wound stripe not even a full year after receiving his first one. He deals with it.
Read on Ao3
Guilt, and loss, and hurt washes over him like an ocean wave all over again. It’s like he’s back in the river, getting pulled under the water again, and again, and again. It fills up his lungs, chokes him, makes it hard to breathe. Will swallows mouthful, after mouthful of water. It eats him up from the inside. He’s forgotten how to swim and he’s rapidly sinking to the bottom.
Will comes back, a little less than he was before.
Will Schofield gets his second wound stripe not even a full year after receiving his first one. Someone else sews it on for him. Will doesn’t think he would have steady enough hands to do it himself anyway. It sits next to his first one on his left sleeve, like every other soldier who’s received one.
It’s unceremonious and anticlimactic. No one celebrates it like they would a medal. Will’s barely aware of it happening. The 8th looks at him with pity as he moves through the trenches, almost like he’s a ghost. Quiet and damaged. The stripe is like a beacon to them, impossible to miss.
He’s the only one of them that’s gotten any action recently, ever since the Germans retreated so it makes sense for their eyes to be on him, but it doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable. He wishes something would happen so they’d have other things to do than stare at him.
It’s obvious that something’s missing. Everyone feels it. Tom Blake’s absence is as apparent to them as the Blake shaped hole in his heart is to Will. The silence has never been this deafening. Where Lance Corporal Blake’s funny stories and laughter once filled the trenches, Schofield’s stillness and heartbreak now roams among them. It’s almost suffocating.
War is hell. It’s a nightmare no one could ever dream of, more gruesome and brutal than anyone could have ever imagined. Everyone here already knows that. Loss is just a part of it. There’s not much you can do about it. But it doesn't mean it hurts any less.
They don’t say much to him when they see him, just pat him on the back and give him their condolences. They know what it’s like to lose a friend, all too well. He doesn’t think he deserves it. Their empathy and well wishes. It makes his stomach turn. Instead of accepting them he writes them down in the letter. His hands shake terribly as he writes, handwriting crooked and squiggly, but at least it’s legible enough to read. He hopes Tom’s mother doesn’t mind.
(“You look like you’ve been through hell,” is the first thing Leslie says when he sees Will again. The comment about a ribbon to cheer up a widow hangs heavily between them, even after the days that have passed.
“Yeah, I just got back.” Will stares at the older man, but it looks more like he’s staring at nothing.
Leslie ambles up to him, nonchalant as always. But at least he looks slightly better than when they left. “Not gonna lie. We thought you were goners when we heard the explosion.”
Will doesn’t answer. The new kit he’d gotten at the 2nd weighs heavily on his back. the bandages itch against his skin. The new helmet sits oddly on his head. God, he’s so fucking tired. He could sleep for days if they’d let him, he thinks.
“Hey, where’s the other one—” Leslie waves his hand around with his cigarette as he tries to remember. “—the short, stubborn one.”
Will’s breath hitches and realization dawns on the man’s face. Leslie curses to himself and pats him on the shoulder in an awkward display of sympathy. Will flinches at the contact.
A moment of silence passes between them.
“Was it the—?”
Will shakes his head. Mumbles, “No, it was after.”
“Well, shit. That sucks,” he tells him, lips twitching into a frown. “God knows we’ve lost enough men by now.”
Even through the exhausted haze in his brain Will manages to read between the lines. The “I’m sorry” doesn’t need to be said. Leslie knows Will understands that.
Will doesn’t have the energy in him to agree or disagree. He just stands there until he’s ushered away by the other soldiers.)
The gold band sticks out like a sore thumb against his worn uniform. Shiny and new, a stark contrast to his old stripe that’s been dirtied and worn over the past few months. It almost feels like he’s been stamped as defective. Broken, must be handled with caution. Fragile. He can’t quite tell if he’s just not aware enough of his surroundings or if everyone really is stepping on egg-shells around him.
Shell-shock.
He’d gotten injured too, but Will thinks that’s the real reason he’s got them. Both times.
Thiepval had been traumatic at best, downright hellish and horrid at worst. Nothing could have prepared them for the sheer horribleness of it. He’s not the only one who’s got a wound stripe from it. Everyone he knows from the Somme has at least one. The few of them who survived, that is.
Will doesn’t remember much of the battle of Somme. Only that it was truly gruesome and that just hearing the people talk about it is enough for his heart to start racing and his hands to start shaking.
He wasn’t himself for a good while after that, if he ever did become himself again. He’s not entirely convinced he’ll ever truly be himself again. After every mission, every fight, Will felt like he came back a little less than he was before. Every time. A shell of the man he used to be.
He had promised to come back to his family, but he’s not sure there’s much left of him to come back home. Maybe it’d just be better if he did die on the battlefield so they never had to see what had become of him.
It should have been him anyway. Tom was young, and bright, and brave, and easy to like. Tom was Will's best friend, tearing down the walls he had so carefully constructed to protect himself. He’d broken in and Will had let him. And now he’s paying for it. Tom didn’t deserve to die. Neither of them had expected the pilot to react that way.
In the end it was Tom’s kindness that had killed him.
Nothing is heavier than the dead body of someone you loved.
It's not fair. It really isn't. But death is hardly ever fair.
(Will stands in the dugout, stone-faced and tense. He recounts the events of the mission in a monotone voice, staring directly at the wall behind his superior officers. It's like he's on autopilot, reporting back to them as if he's a robot. He's almost surprised at how even his voice remains, even as he tells them about Blake's death.
After receiving 'thank you's and assurances that Tom would get a medal for saving his life Will is dismissed. He rushes out. It's only after he finds a quiet corner that he allows himself to break down.
His face crumbles, his carefully controlled expression falls. One tear runs down his cheek before another, and another, and another. He chokes back a strangled sob and sinks down to the muddy ground. His shoulders shake and tremble.
He buries his face in his hands, the bandage on his left hand absorbing some of the tears.
Will cries. For Tom, for every horrible thing he's been through, and for the war. He cries for his family that he misses so terribly, for Tom's family who's lost a son and a brother, for the baby and the woman in Écoust. Will cries for everything that is horrible and wrong.
The despair claws at his chest. His lungs burn for every breath he gasps for. He's drowning and no one can help him. The waves crash over him, the current pulls him under.
The warm hand on his shoulder pulls him out of his own head. When he looks up, eyes red and swollen, Sergeant Sanders is looking at him with sympathy. The man squeezes his shoulder. It grounds him just a little bit.
"You did good, Schofield," he tells him. A beat. "I'm sorry. I know you were close"
Will can only bring himself to nod shakily before his face crumbles again, a new wave of grief crashing into him. He curls into himself again, pushing the balls of his hands into his eyes in a weak attempt to stem the flood of tears. He can do little to stop the violent trembling of his body.
He hears Sanders sigh sadly beside him.
It's a sad and pathetic scene. Truly humiliating. Letting himself be like this in front of his superior officer. But Will allows himself a second of weakness for now. Just for now. Then he’ll pull himself together again. Just for a moment.
He doesn't know how much time has passed before his sobs die down into quiet sniffles, but his head feels like it’s splitting open. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the concussion, the wound or the fact that he’s been crying, or maybe it’s just a combination of all three. He does suddenly feel very exhausted though.
"Why don't you get some rest?" Sanders asks him.
Will nods wearily and wipes at his face with his hands. Sanders rises to his feet with a groan before offering a helping hand to the younger man. Will only stumbles a little as he's pulled to his feet.
"Come on, corporal. I need my men to be healthy and well rested, after all.”
Sergeant Sanders gently guides Will to the dugout with their cots. A rat scurries past them. Will doesn’t care. When they find an empty cot Will sits down on it heavily. It squeaks at the weight of his body and his kit. He begins the process of tiredly removing his webbing and kit, placing it on the ground next to the cot.
“I don’t want to see you for the next few hours, understand?”
Will nods, eyes half lidded. The Sergeant’s lips straighten into a thin line, the corners ever so slightly curving upwards into a faint smile. He pats the top of Will’s head and leaves. “Good night, Schofield.”
When Will wakes up it’s far into the next day. It’s the best sleep he’s had in ages. The cots around him are mostly empty, only a few men sit there, chatting amongst themselves. He does feel a little better though. The current has slowed, allowing Will to catch his breath.)
Blood. Will’s hands are coated in it. Warm and sticky and so, so red. Will feels like he’s going to be sick. No matter how much he scrubs it won’t come off. Under his nails. In his cuticles. Staining his skin. Red, red, blood red. And it won’t come off. There’s so much blood. It’s everywhere. The metallic smell in the air. It won’t stop. No matter how much Will tries to stop it. Red, red, red. Everywhere. Staining his skin.
Blake. Tom.
Will tries wiping his hands on the grass, but it does little to help.
Will is drowning in blood and no one can help him.
Will scrubs until his skin is raw. until his skin burns. Will can’t breathe. It won’t come off. No matter what he does it’s there and it won’t come off. It won’t come off. It won’t come off. It won’t—
He fumbles with his uniform, undoing the first button, loosening the scarf under. It only helps a little. When he calms down there's no blood, but his hands have been scrubbed and washed so harshly they're red and his skin is raw. The cold water only soothes his burning skin so much.
One time he almost dipped his hands in scalding hot water, so desperate to get it off - get Tom’s blood off his hands - but he was stopped by someone just before his fingers dipped into the boiling pot. Afterwards he’d been horrified at the thought of almost doing it. He’d been so out of it he couldn’t even trust himself.
He has these episodes sometimes. It's like he gets pulled under the tide, scrambling to get back to the surface, but he's stuck. Something's pulling him down and Will's scared. Utterly terrified. Fear grips his entire being and holds him down, dunking his head under the water so he can’t breathe, no matter how hard he struggles.
Things return to normal. A semblance of normal at the very least. It doesn’t feel like everyone's watching him with hawk eyes anymore. Then again, maybe they never were.
Will still finds himself staring at the brass in his sleeve. He loses track of time, getting lost in his own head. Memories replay over, and over, and over again. The Somme, the river, Ecoust, no man's land, Tom. Everything in between.
William Schofield weeps for them all. The war and every life lost in it, Tom and his family who will never have him back home, for every other family who’ll never get their loved ones back, and his own family waiting for him to come back to them.
Will feels both numb and fragile. He feels nothing and everything all at once. There’s a void in him, a hole shaped like Tom Blake, the war, his family. People say being a soldier makes you a man, but Will has never felt less than he is now.
But there’s no time to mourn in war.
Eventually Will has to get back to work, like the rest of the 8th. When they deem him fit again. He always knew he couldn’t get away with sitting around and staring at nothing, but it still feels odd. Once his head and hand heals they set him at work around the trench. Pretends he’s fine.
He deals with it. Decompartmentalizes it, like always. Like they all do. It doesn't do to dwell on it, after all.
The wound stripe sits heavily on his sleeve, carefully sewn on next to his other one. Five centimeters long, gold Russia braid, no. 1. An unpleasant reminder of 6th of April, 1917. An unpleasant reminder of Tom Blake bleeding out in his arms, holding his hand. Young and scared, but so, so brave.
Will Schofield gets his second wound stripe not even a full year after receiving his first one. The way this war is going it’s only a matter of time before he gets a third one as well. After all, all good things come in threes.
I think one of the similarities between Tom and Joe is that they feel the need to be ‘the strong/dependable/helpful one’ in basically every situation.
This is assuming a lot from the >5 minutes of screentime Joe gets, but from what is there it seems to be a family quality. Let me explain:
From the moment we see him, Joe is helping wounded soldiers get the attention they need, ordering able men on where to go
Then as soon as he hears of his brother’s death there is a split second of grief on Joe’s face before he goes back into ‘rock’ mode and tells Will to help himself and get some food
And with Tom, he rushes to help his brother despite not knowing for sure whether no man’s land really was safe (or as safe as it could be) because it’s his brother and he needs to help him no matter what
It is also demonstrated twice after the bunker collapses; first when he asks Will if he wants to go back, thinking he could manage on his own because he had to; second when they are walking, he tells a funny story to distract his friend from the awful reality because he has to be the one to be there
And I suppose one could also link it to the need to help an enemy pilot who, realistically, would probably be killed or severely damaged (but that’s another essay altogether)
This could be because, as seen in the family picture, their father was not present and so obviously they would have to assume the role of ‘man of the house’ instead, as well as help their mother around the farm. Plus, Joe is a lieutenant and Tom is a fast-promoted Lance Corporal in the biggest war the world has ever seen as that point in history; they’ve almost certainly had to be ‘the strong one’ for a person/group of people at some point.
Tl;dr: Both Blake brothers feel the need to be strong/helpful/dependable probably because of their home life and life in war- this is demonstrated a few times in the film
