#tuntsa tuesdays

[arokel]

So help me I WILL create an English-speaking fanbase for Tuntematon sotilas, THEREFORE I have decided to start posting a 200 word drabble a week in order to lure in my victims. (I mean to start this two weeks ago but I didn't get my shit together so oops) If you are my friend and would like to watch the 2017 film hmu for a link (please) 👀

Men Don't Cry

Pairing: Koskela/Hietanen Rating: G Warnings: Major Character Death

Finnish men don't cry.

Finnish men don't talk about their feelings without the numbing help of alcohol and the safety of four rough-hewn walls either, but Ville and Urho moved beyond the usual bounds of male friendship long ago.

Urho cried when Ville was reassigned to Kariluoto's command. He cried when the order came to retreat. He cried when—no, he didn't cry when the shrapnel ripped through his eyes. He couldn't.

Ville has never been emotionally expressive. Not like Urho, who struggled to present himself as gruffly and stoically as a man should, Urho to whom crying was a natural expression of feeling. For Ville, simply being open and honest with Urho was all the release necessary to keep from going craz in the midst of everything. No saunas, no alcohol, just Urho and Ville in quiet moments together, understanding each other like no one else.

"He was a good man."

Rokka; a bracing hand on Ville's shoulder. His wedding ring is a heavy, solid reminder of what Ville has lost.

Urho was a good man—but not to Ville, nor Ville to him. They were more than that to each other.

Ville is only a man. He cries.

[arokel]

huge thanks to @carpblu for pointing out to me the line in Sotaromaani about the rest of the men who died with Kariluoto having only primary school education & not getting their names anywhere! I made it about Sirkka because of course I did, she's my girl :3

But it is the way they look at her when they pass her on the street, on the days when she can't help herself from stopping to look at Jorma's name on the wall of his old school—that look is always the same.

Schoolboys playing soldiers

Characters: Sirkka Kariluoto

Rating: G

Warnings: Major character death

Sirkka has learned to recognize the look. They are always women her age, though that's the only characteristic they have in common: some are thin, some plump with child like Sirkka herself; some wear modern fashions like Sirkka and some dress in traditional farmers' garb. On the surface, there is nothing tying them—and Sirkka—together.

Sirkka cannot bring herself to look back.

Did she think she was better than those women, once, because Jorma was an officer, an educated man who could give her and their future children a life of comfort? Maybe, deep down, in the snobbish parts of herself she isn't proud of. But it doesn't matter now.

Now, Jorma is a corpse in a common grave just like those women's husbands, and all his education and status got her was a too-big apartment in Ullanlinna and a soon-to-be fatherless child. His name on the stone wall mocks her. The women understand her.

[arokel]

might as well start calling these 'Tuntsa joka toinen Tuesday' at this point 😔

(I know Kariluoto is blonde but lettttttt me have thisssssss)

Spitting image

Rating: G Characters: Raili Kotilainen Warnings: Implied/referenced character death, Period-typical homophobia

"She looks like you."

It's well-meaning, and Raili never corrects the women who nod towards little dark-haired, chubby-cheeked Iina, the spitting image—so they think—of her mother. It's too complicated to explain.

And it's nice to pretend, for just a few minutes, that Iina is hers in a way that those same women would accept as valid if they knew the complicated truth: that Iina looks like her father, and that Raili doesn't know how much longer she and Sirkka can get away with the life they've been living under the pretense of Raili helping a widowed mother with infant care. That Iina calls her and Sirkka mama interchangeably, and that Raili wishes desperately the day would never come when she will learn otherwise.

So Raili simply smiles back and allows Iina to play with the women's children while they chat, and she waits until they are alone to scoop Iina up in her arms and say, "are you ready to go home to mama?"

"Mama," Iina says, thrusting a stubby forefinger into Raili's cheek. "Mama home?"

Raili's smile feels brittle enough to shatter. "That's right. Mama is bringing you home to mama, and then we'll all be together."

Vigil

Rating: T Characters: Mielonen, Lammio Warnings: Dubious consent, Non-consensual voyeurism

Mielonen is used to standing around for stupid reasons. He's in the army, after all. But this has got to be the stupidest.

Is it Mielonen's fault? Maybe. He did wake Lammio up unforgiveably early with a message from HQ that, honestly, could have waited until the sun was up, and he had chosen to ruin Lammio's sleep instead out of spite. Lammio is allowed to be pissed.

What most decent people would do in that situation, though, is call Mielonen a dick and go back to sleep. Not make Mielonen stand guard outside in the cold and dark while they jack off.

Mielonen shifts, shaking out his cold-stiff legs, and wonders what Lammio was dreaming about to leave him so turned on that even his ironclad military discipline couldn't will it away. A girl back home? A lotta? His own smug reflection?

More likely Lammio could have ignored it and decided not to just to be cruel. Mielonen fidgets again, flushed face stinging in the cold wind. What kind of man gets off on making another man stand vigil while he masturbates?

Better not to ask those sorts of questions. Mielonen has a suspicion he won't like the answers.

[arokel]

Posting early because I missed last week! I loooooove the little added touch in the 2017 version of Vanhala moving the gun closer to Ukkola; I think it's a fascinating bit of characterization for him

tw suicide under the cut

Vaimennut

Characters: Vanhala, Ukkola, Sihvonen Rating: M Warnings: suicide, minor character death

Ukkola shot himself with Sihvonen's gun, which had been left lying against the stretcher on a break. That much everyone knew.

Moreover, everyone knew that Sihvonen would never have left it there knowing that Ukkola would use it; he had been too shaken by his role in Lehto's death and would surely never let something like it happen again, no matter how much pain Ukkola had been in and the fact that, in the end, death by his own hands had likely been kinder than death by slow blood loss.

So, as far as everyone knew, it was just an unhappy accident. Sihvonen had left his gun there, and Ukkola had shot himself, and there was one less stretcher to carry. No one blamed anyone.

Certainly no one would have suspected cheery, apple-cheeked Vanhala as the true culprit, the one who had nudged Sihvonen's gun those few inches closer so that Ukkola could grasp it if he chose to. Vanhala the ever-jovial optimist would never offer a man the chance to end his own pain like that. Weary and despondent as they all were, no one had yet noticed that the old Vanhala, too, was dead.

Vanhala didn't correct them.

[arokel]

Another scene from the 2017 series! (can you tell I just rewatched) just saying, we need more Rokka/Lammio in this world :D

If We Live

Characters: Rokka, Lammio Rating: G Warnings: none

Lammio says nothing when he offers Antti a cigarette. He doesn't need to; they're all beyond the need for words. Old divisions mean nothing; camaraderie is absolute in defeat. Antti accepts the gesture.

"I'll take two."

Lammio says nothing about that, either, and nothing further still when Antti slides three cigarettes out of the pack. It doesn't matter, really. Either he'll live long enough to owe Lammio three cigarettes or he won't. There will be time to square up smaller debts once the war is lost, for those who haven't paid the big one.

"If we live, I'll owe you," Antti says, because he has never stood silence well even at a time like this.

The faintest of smiles flickers over Lammio's weary face. "You can't afford the cigarettes I smoke."

"I roll my own," Antti says. Lammio didn't intend to insult, and Antti can't be bothered to take offense. "They taste better. You'll see."

Lammio laughs, then, hoarse and hollow though it is, and lights Antti's stolen cigarette for him.

"If we live," he promises. "You insufferable hick."

"Pious bootlicker."

If they live, Antti will find it within himself to hate Lammio again someday. First, they have to live.

[arokel]

normal, well-adjusted man feels normally about his war criminal crush

What sort of man

Characters: Riitaoja, Lehto, Koskela

Rating: M

Warnings: Suicidal ideation, Murder, War Crimes

"He wasn't that sort of man," Koskela says quietly, and leaves it at that. The enlisted men give Lehto suspicious, sideways looks for the rest of the day, but by morning the incident has been forgotten—by all except one.

Riitaoja is no fool. He knows the Russian soldier didn't try to run. He saw himself in the face of that starving, terrified man, and he knows that a man like that wouldn't have the guts to flee having already given himself up. Lehto shot an unarmed man in the back, with no provocation, and for no reason besides expediency.

And Riitaoja doesn't mind.

Lehto didn't do it to be kind, but that was the outcome all the same. In the dead Russian's position, Riitaoja would hope for the same quick end rather than a slow death by Soviet torture. He doesn't have Lehto's decisive courage, the resolve needed to pull the trigger on a prisoner of war—or, separated from his squad and surrounded by enemies, himself. Someone else would need to do it.

Lehto is cruel and dismissive and determined to make Riitaoja's life miserable. But he is also the only person Riitaoja would trust to end it.

[arokel]

back at it with a ship no one cares about BUT WE ALL SHOULD I THINK

Count On It

Mäkilä counts under his breath as he runs his fingers down the stack of folded cots. Taking inventory is almost meditative when he's alone like this, and no matter how Hietanen teases him, he wouldn't trade his solitude as Supply Sergeant for anything.

Pairing: Hietanen/Mäkilä

Rating: G

"Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six…"

"Ninteen, fifty-seven, one million and forty-three," comes the brash interruption, cutting through the pleasant silence as its owner leans against the open door to the supply room.

Mäkilä sighs. "Go away, Corporal."

"What, I can't come say hi?" Hietanen says. His lanky frame is nearly too tall for the doorway containing it, hip cocked jauntily and face alight with an infuriating grin.

"Not while I'm counting," Mäkilä says. He refuses to gove Hietanen the satisfaction of smiling back.

Hietanen feigns hurt. Mäkilä ignores that too.

"What about when you're off duty? Say… oh-sixteen-hundred? Can I see you then or will I still be interrupting?"

Mäkilä allows himself the tiniest, bashful smile in response to that. Hietanen can be charming and annoying in equal measure, but either way he's an excellent flirt. Mäkilä never claimed to be immune.

"That should be fine," he says.

Hietanen blows him a kiss. "I'll count the hours till then."

[arokel]

IT'S STILL TUESDAY IN MY TIME ZONE SO IT'S FINE

Machine

Rating: G Characters: Aarne Honkajoki, Urho Hietanen

Remedial marching lessons had been an utter failure. Unfortunately, the end of marching meant the start of target practice instead. The only small consolation, Honkajoki thought, was that it was easier to deliberately botch something he was genuinely bad at.

"You really are a terrible shot," Hietanen said, watching bullets whizzing past the makeshift target. "For a man who carries a bow and arrow, you'd think you'd have better aim."

Honkajoki lowered his rifle.

"A gun is a machine. Leave it and tape down the trigger, and it will shoot on its own. The bow is an extension of the body. I have never felt compelled to develop the so-called skill of killing via machine."

"Sure, but if your finger's on the trigger, you're still the one shooting. It's not as imperonsal as you're making it sound."

"No. It's worse." Honkajoki stood, abandoning his rifle for someone else to pick up. "War destroys even its survivors. It kills the humanity within men by making them kill each other in inhumane ways. Numbing myself to that is not an area I wish to improve in."

Hietanen blinked, shook his head, and laughed. "You know, that's the most sense you've ever made."

Role model

Rating: G Characters: Salo, Yrjö Lahtinen, Vilho Koskela

"If you hate the Germans so much, why fight with them?"

It's a stupid, childish question, meant to irritate, and Lahtinen doesn't dignify it with a proper answer.

"They didn't give me the option to decline when they drafted me."

Salo is annoingly undeterred. "Why not desert? You don't like the politicians in charge; what do you care if the Russians rule us instead?"

"I'm a Finn." Lahtinen bares his teeth in warning and Salo backs down, a young wolf who has playfully challenged his elder and only too late realized his mistake. "Just becuase I abhor the chains of capitalism doesn't mean I'll roll over and let Finland be chained by Russia again. Our land is ours."

"Oh," Salo says. "I didn't think you, uh—that was well-put."

Lahtinen glares after Salo's hastily retreating back. "Someone's gonna shoot that kid for running his mouth one of these days."

"He only asks your opinion because he respects the strength of your convictions. He looks up to you," Koskela says.

Lahtinen scowls. "I never asked to be anyone's role model."

"Tell me about it." Koskela offers him a quiet smile. "He could stand to be a bit more like you, though."