#oc spitfire

[deceased-madam]

Star Wars OCs, yay!

[greatwesternway]

wait the stuka and spitfire are friends? how did that happen?

More than friends even. They're a bonded pair; do not separate.

Even without Stuka's particular background, I think they would have ended up together. They're from the same time period, the same conflict, and so the museum always displays them together. They also play too roughly for the other little planes so they can only really play with each other anyway.

But Stuka's particular background is that he very nearly loves the British. Not enough to learn English or anything, but they've done a lot for him. Everything he has, including Spitfire, is British largesse.

Stuka came to be so familiar with the British when he was shot down in combat over Libya. Managing to land safely, his crew attempted repairs but the British found them before they could finish. Protocol was to destroy the plane in this event, but his crew chose to flee before getting captured themselves instead. So the British collected Stuka and took him home with them.

The British Information Services then took him on tour of America with a bunch of other war relics and donated him to the MSI after the tour concluded. And Stuka quite preferred his new job to getting shot at and abandoned in North African deserts. That he's only one of two Stukas out of roughly six thousand to make it to preservation? The British are all right, far as he's concerned.

About a year later after they left him with the MSI, they returned and offered the museum a Spitfire to go with him. "Well, you ought to have an Allied aircraft too," they said. And they were right, honestly. Spitfire... gives Stuka context, let's say.

Spitfire doesn't have any particular love for Germans, but he did learn to speak German for Stuka. Not only does this better facilitate their relationship, but it also serves as a defensive measure. Some engines would question the wisdom of getting so cozy with an enemy unit, but it is hard to argue the point when Spitfire went to the trouble to learn the language. No Nazis will be collaborating on his watch (and what have Some Engines done to curtail the spread of enemy rhetoric in the museum)?

As to why they should have become so friendly at all? Spitifre explains it as a warrior's bond. Once the war is over, it's a lot easier to see oneself in the enemy.

A civvie engine wouldn't understand.

[deceased-madam]

Spitfire, I don't think that's how you hold a tubie 😧 (throw it off the ledge next 🙏). Vroski needs his medical licence removed frfr

[deceased-madam]

This took a whole lot longer than expected, I should get a new line art brush that can be small without pixelating, but I think the pixelation is just an Ibis Paint X thing 😔

[deceased-madam]

My favourite, Spitfire!! Positing this now before I start suffering tomorrow. I don't know how to make references, but I tried 😭

Under the cut is my long yap session about his details.

RC-5820/Spitfire details:

Background

His original squad was killed by friendly fire, as the squad's explosives expert — Haywire, set a bomb off too early, causing two members to die and Spitfire to lose his right arm. The death of those two squadmates made Haywire and Spitfire join a different squad that also lacked in numbers, but that squad died in Geonosis, leaving Haywire and Spitfire to end up in their current squad — Adder Squad.

Spitfire got his blaster scars from the times he got shot during trianing (poor guy took the shots for his comrades). He got his laceration scars from fights with Haywire, with their trauma Haywire has turned unfeeling, whereas Spitfire has turned to feel too much, thus causing them to clash a lot despite knowing each other more and spending more time together than anyone else.

Personality

Negative but will try to be optimistic for other people, angsty, snarky, resourceful, gentle heart with lethal thorns.

As his name suggests, Spitfire has a fiery and confrontational personality, which only became more unapproachable as he aged and experienced more of the sorrowful fate of clones. He has little patience for bullshit and sugarcoating, sees reality as cruel and apathetic, but will say what people want to hear if they are close to death or really need comfort.

He stands up for his comrades no matter the cost, will question risky orders, put their needs before his own; Spitfire even has gone as far as filing reports against his General in hopes of earning some leniency.

He resents the galaxy for putting him and his comrades into an unfair world where justice is biased and rights aren't equal simply because clones are viewed as lesser. The prejudice towards clones has made him despise non-clones.

Being a medic in a battalion under the control of a ruthless General is no easy task, comrades die left and right no matter how skillful Spitfire's capabilities are, leaving him with a slight inferiority complex.

Secretly can't handle his comrades dying even though he knows it will happen.

As a commando, compadre with squadmates is essential, yet Spitfire can't have any of that, because those he were closest to were torn away from him, and his snarky personality makes it difficult to make new connections, not to mention his fear of losing those important to him. He has some attachment issues.

Armour

As a medic, Spitfire needs his hands free to heal allies, and does less fighting than his comrades, so he uses a DC-17 repeater hand blaster, thus he has a holster for it on his right thigh. He also has extra pouches to hold medical supplies. (I only drew one, but incorporate hammer space.)

I chose the colours — red, white, grey, and black because they are the colours of the battalion he's in, the 403rd, aka Sacred Dragons — General Krell's Battalion; with those colours I also incorporated Mandalorian colour meanings into his design because because clone commandos are closely tied to Mandalorian culture.

According to Mandalorian culture colours — scarlet stands for defiance, maroon stands for power, grey stands for mourning, black stands for power, erin stands for a yearn for peace, gold stands for revenge, white stands for change. I have used these colours in his design.

From the back he is scarlet to hide his front which is grey, because unless you know him -know that he's putting up barriers due to the fact he's mourning and afraid of getting attached just to lose the person- you'll think he's simply being difficult. He has four dots on his left chest, they are his sergeant's dots, but they -plus the stripe in the middle- have the colour of erin that stands for his desire for peace. He has some gold and black because he wants revenge and justice for all his fallen comrades and the mistreatment towards clones. Has maroon because as a medical sergeant he has power, he also wants power to help his comrades. His left shoulder bell is default white because he loses it a lot due to the fact he has to remove the medic symbol if he wishes to be an active part of combat -which he often has to do- in consequence of Krell's tactics being cruel.

Tattoos

His tattoos also incorporate the Mandalorian colour meanings as mentioned above.

The rose means — love, passion, memory, grief, and duality.

The skull means — death, mortality, rebellion, and by a stretch it can also mean understanding of anatomy.

The initials on his left wrist are "S" and "B" in Mando'a, they are the initials of the first two squadmates he lost; further tying grief into his design.

All these are felt and are part of Spitfire's character.

There are four roses to represent the four squadmates he lost, two skulls to represent the two squads he lost.

Additional

I was going to add tally marks to his armour that represent all the lost lives, but that means his entire armour would be covered in tally marks and I would die each time I draw his armour.

He was supposed to have wing tattoos on his waist or back to symbolise his yearn for freedom, I wanted to use skeletal wings as a nod towards his advanced anatomical knowledge, and to tie it with the skulls, but the wings just didn't look right so I removed them.

Lowkey a germaphobe, wants everything to be as clean as possible. He doesn't care if the room is a mess, as long as it's clean.

Spitfire was going to get a double mohawk to honour his lost comrades, but when he was shaving his head he got forcefully stopped by Haywire who thought it looked unseemly, so Spitfire's head is only half shaved.

His armour has a backpack to go with it, but I forgot to draw it 🫢

Doesn't like being touched, but is also touch starved.

Was best pals with Initial S, leaving a void in Spitfire's heart ever since Initial S died.

Has dark circles under his eyes, paler skin tone, and a lower fat percentage because he's overworked, stressed, barely sleeps, and has harmful addictions.

He is smarter than the average clone, but because of his bad lifestyle, it doesn't appear that way.

He has a nicotine and morphine addiction. His nicotine addiction started young when he was learning his medic stuff, there's a lot of information and studying, nicotine became his stress relief. Initial S managed to get ahold of death sticks for Spitfire. His morphine addiction started after he joined Adder Squad, he had no friends anymore, experienced the horrors of war, and needed something stronger than nicotine to dull the anguish.

Although it's stated he lost his arm in an explosion, the amputation was actually self-inflicted. His arm got stuck under the debris of an explosion so he had to cut it off.

[deceased-madam]

Did some OC artwork, close ups and desaturated version beneath the cut.

[greatwesternway]

does the u-505 have a problem with the stuka and spitfire being friends? what's up with that?

U-505 is of two minds about it.

On the one hand, war machines operate by a lot of rules about how they can engage with each other based on who won what. And in this situation, because the Allies won World War II, Spitfire gets to set the terms.

Technically, if Stuka wanted to avoid this, he could simply not engage with Spitfire at all (assuming Spitfire also chose not to engage). That he seems to have no qualms about letting Spitfire dictate the terms though?

"Have you no dignity?" U-505 asks.

"<No. I lost the same war you did>," so says Stuka.

But then, Stuka and Spitfire are also afforded some latitude in how they interpret these rules. The British did win, but only just. Means there's some room in the off hours for Stuka to win a battle or two. And Stuka, you'll recall, also does not consider himself to have been captured and so thinks prize rules do not apply to him. It's also been decades since the war ended and there was a good ten years before U-505 showed up to have an opinion it.

Ultimately, though, U-505 leaves well enough alone. When Spitfire and Stuka are in disagreement, Stuka prefers to loiter around U-505's exhibit. Better that they entertain each other than Stuka spend all his time down there with him, intruding on his solitude, trying (and sometimes succeeding) to get him to slip in to speaking German, and making it look like they're up to something.

It is very annoying when 727 arrives in the 90's and states her interest in U-505 because now the war planes get their turn to have an opinion on what he's doing.

"<If a beautiful plane wants you>," says Stuka, "<then you should let her have you.>" Especially if she's American (or United, as it is).

No one wants wisdom from a little plane though. Idiot unterseeboot.

[greatwesternway]

We know 999's favorite exhibit is the fairy castle, do any of the other engines have a favorite exhibit (besides each other)?

Kinda mean, throwing the "besides each other" caveat in there! Even excepting engines with personal reasons to favor another engine's exhibit, lots of them just really enjoy each other's exhibits for their own merits.

Texaco's a big fan of Pioneer's exhibit, for instance. She likes racing the trains, other planes, and vacuum cleaners on the big panorama displays. She also thinks the Zephyr Fleet film is cool looking, but the questions it begs about who is who leave Pioneer trying to explain his complicated family tree to a little plane who just cannot follow it and loses interest as quickly as she asked. He doesn't mind though; he knows it's a lot.

Every ten years or so, Spitfire will get a little jealous of U-505's exhibit. It's not that he doesn't think U-505 shouldn't have an exhibit that big and detailed. There's a lot to say about him. Spitfire just has wartime stories too! He shot down five Nazi planes and he's got the stamps to prove it. (And he was on the right side of the war so his exhibit could be more fun). But we don't really have a lot of substantiated information about Spitfire, not enough to make an entire exhibit out of. You can't just go by what the plane himself says.

The most expeditious way to get him to let go of the idea is for U-505 to remind him that if he had a big exhibit all to himself, he would have to leave the Transportation Gallery fleet. A submarine is meant to work alone, but a small plane is meant to work in a group. It would be tactically disadvantageous then, both for him and the rest of the little planes, to leave them all to fly solo. (Texaco almost always ruins this because she is used to working alone and her display is appropriately separate of the other little planes. It's nothing an elbow in the ribs from Jenny won't stifle though.)

U-505 enjoys the Dome Theater, if he has claimed it before Stuka and Spitfire can. He particularly likes if the film is about the ocean. When he was in the ocean, it was usually too dark to see everything that was apparently down there with him. They can also go deeper now than he could. He finds films about space intriguing too, because space and the ocean are very similar (expect that one is finite and full of life and the other isn't). He'll watch anything in there though, as long as he's alone or with engines who know how to sit there, shut up, and watch the film.

Mate is not such an engine, so while all these guys were learning about tide pools or some shit, he was left in front of the Swiss Jolly Ball. Which he took as an insult at first, but the Jolly Ball is actually quite enthralling all told. You lean at the railing and watch the ball go on its Rube Goldberg journey and you get to thinking about how one guy put all this together and then you get to thinking about how a railway is a lot like the Jolly Ball except it needs everyone doing their job to run effectively (which is maybe why the Jolly Ball is out of order half the time you visit) and that maybe you yourself are just a large metal ball bearing on your second trip through the Swiss Alps, all thanks to the work of lots of people together. But the Jolly Ball, Mate suddenly realizes, is actually on its fifteenth trip through since he got there, proving... something about why he was left here in the first place, but he's sure it's not anything he wants to bring attention to.

The space wing has just been updated (per billionaire donor interests) and 40B rather likes the new SpaceX capsule room when the video isn't running. The dim lighting when the starfield attract mode is on the screen reminds him of flying at night in the snow. Ray and I have not put much thought into the MSI's space artifacts because we are not billionaires, but I expect most of them (those that might be engine enough to be sentient) also share 40B's sense of seriousness with regard to their work. They weren't just doing exhibition runs.

727 likes to take a stroll through the Ships Gallery from time to time. Aviation borrows a lot from naval tradition and now she's even got a boat to give her a personalized tour (although he doesn't actually know much about sailing).

And Pioneer... well, Pilot's favorite exhibit is the baby chicks. So Pioneer's come to be quite fond of them too. Before that, though, he also enjoyed watching films with a quiet friend who knows theater etiquette, but he preferred the silent comedies of the Yesterday's Main Street Nickelodeon. He wishes they'd thought of the seating they have in the Dome Theater a little sooner though.