Heythere. 'Skyward' anon here. It was asked that I share some of my other Soldier pieces, and being easily flattered, well, I'll drop some here. Unless otherwise noted, all drabbles are written with the BLU Soldier (Jane) in mind. Hope you like. --------- Mixed Emotions ----- Today was going to be spent, he could tell, in the fine company of his good dependable friends Jim, Jack, and Bud. Veteran’s Day always caused a well of sometimes conflicting feelings in him. There was pride, of course, and gratitude, a sense of solemn honor. The things people usually felt today, were supposed to feel. Then there were the other things. His old man, Silver Star recipient, utter bastard. A hero, an asshole. Everything he wanted to grow up to be and everything that’d rightly terrified him. He wasn’t ten years old anymore, true, but thirty years later and things were no less muddled. Love and respect and admiration didn’t jive well with fear and hatred and resentment. Makes things painful and confusing to try and sort out. Then there was the question of himself. Did he even count? Maybe it was a little selfish, but he’d fought very hard, with very little, for very long. Maybe it was unconventional but it was NOT fake- he had the scars on his body and mind to prove his mettle, what he’d done, tried to do. But he didn’t do it the ‘right’ way. Didn’t do it with the organization, as much as he’d desperately wanted to. He wanted- needed- to fight, for several reasons. So he fought. Now the war was over, long over. Victory had, rememberance and honors given. Didn’t, maybe, he earn just a little of it? Nobody really seemed to think so. He would march in no parade, have his name on no plaque, raise no flag, and when he died, his name would go on no town memorial and no little brass-poled flag would be stuck beside his grave by a solemn VFW member. His father was awarded all those things- but not him. His father, the abusive drunk, was honored for what he’d given (as he should be, Jane chided himself), but he, who tried to be good even if he didn’t always succeed, would be forgotten, he was certain, once he and his little circle of loved ones were gone from this world. Nothing to do for it, though. Just the way things were. Jane pours himself another shot.
Anon, these are good. You're one of the few people I've seen around here who actually gives a damn about the Soldier beyond him being a plot device. I hope you keep exploring this. Thank you.
this one's a flashback. And I appreciate the feedback so much- Jane's my favorite, and I'm glad to know I'm doing him right. -------- Fear and Loathing in Minnesota ------- Fear and Loathing in Minnesota Argo Lane lived next door, on the other side of the fence. He was around Jane’s age, with a spray of freckles on his nose and light brown hair. He swam all the time and had a lithe but muscular swimmer’s body. He climbed trees, had eyes like green sparks, was always in motion. Argo Lane was a beautiful boy. Jane would watch him through the slats in the fence, through a knothole, the blue fire of his own eyes locked on the boy in the yard next door. He wanted to talk to Argo, to swim with him, to lay beside him on the banks of the lake and dry off in the sun. He wanted to hold his hand. He wanted to bash himself in the head for it, to strangle that wanting until it stopped breathing, until it gave up and stopped being yet another thing that made him not normal. Jane was fifteen- he was strong enough to play junior football, but nobody wanted to risk it. Everyone thought the boy was strange- always looking wound so tight he was fit to explode. The after-school fighter, the intense-eyed loner. The Kid To Avoid. If he didn’t kill this desire now it’d just be all the more reason for people to consider him a freak. And his father… what would he think? It would just be another thing for Jonathan Doe to despise about his son. He didn’t want to be this way. He had to kill it, it was terrifying and wrong and he didn’t want it. And still, here he was at the fence, peering through the knothole, watching as Argo Lane stripped his shirt off to mow the lawn. The wanting that refused to die gathered at the back of his throat in a bunch, like a pearl nestled in the back of an oyster’s shell. He so wanted Argo to notice him. He so wanted Argo to love him. He— “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, BOY?†Jerked away from the fence. Argo, who was warned by neighborhood rumor about the loud and belligerent drunk next door, thought it prudent to finish the lawn later and darted inside his house like a spooked deer. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? PEEPING LIKE SOME LITTLE FAGGOT?†Jane shook. The force of his father’s anger was like waves of heat from a wildfire. Jane saw the man’s eyes glittering like mica chips with the reflection of his own self-loathing. He wondered if he deserved this because he’d wanted to touch and kiss a boy. Everything was so loud, and he kept seeing the arcs of rage like lightning in his father’s eyes, and his own head felt thin like a glass globe, so easily crushed. What was happening to him on the outside was hardly different from the way he usually felt on the inside- pummeled, torn, jarred, slammed. His father kept screaming. ‘No son of mine’. Funny how he only used the word ‘son’ with the word ‘no’ in close conjunction. Blood poured. Jane wanted to die. ————- He lay there for a long time. He never knew later on how he’d made it. Blood stained big patches of the dry grass red. When he finally got up, his father was asleep in the living room with the radio on, bottles of beer all around. He staggered into the bathroom, washed the gashes on his face and head. In the mirror his reflection was pained and blurred, blood caking, dark and thick. He steadied himself by leaning against the wall, dragging himself along ‘till he got to his room, to his bed. He fell upon it and closed his eyes. Help me. Take this away from me. Or take me away from here. Please. Help me, take this away so I can be a little more normal, because right now I don’t want to live… —————— And so he denied it. He beat it like he was beaten and shoved it down deep, leaving it to smother and starve and rot and dig at his insides like a cancer, and there it stayed for the longest time. And then one day, his eyes met the dark, chocolate-kiss brown eye of a man around his age who loved exploding things maybe even more than he did, and the hidden and rotted and almost dead thing was given a breath of life, and all the fear and wonder and horror and joy that came with it rose like a skinny angel, but that’s another story…
Oh my god, please keep going God he's so complex I absolutely love it. There something so bittersweet and melancholy about this. He's just so genuine here! Man, soldier, I'll totally give you all the fancy plaques and medals. I would erect a god damn monument you raccoon loving sweetheart.
I love this. Please keep going. It's great to see Soldier as a person.
That first one was wonderful, I loved it! The second one was good too.
Oh snap, these are fantastic! Really liked the second. It's good to see somebody like the Soldier as more euclidean, rather than just running around hitting himself in the head and screaming for no reason. You should grace us with some more.
Oh my goodness, yes. I'll admit, while I love Soldier being played for laughs, I also love angst. The first one especially hit me pretty hard in the feels...it's so quiet and introspective, and yet so fitting. I liked the first one better than the second one, although I'm not sure I can articulate why (especially at this level of tired). The mention of Demoman at the end of the second one delighted me, and I like the repressed homosexual Soldier headcanon. I felt for him in both of them, but...the contrasts in the first one, I think, were very powerful. The idea that his father was treated as a hero, but was a horrible person, and that he tries to be a good person, but no one honors him as a hero, and the conflicting feelings he has about the different sides of his father...they were all magnificent. The second story just felt a bit flatter in comparison, at least to me. I felt for his situation with his father (although what really stuck out emotionally in that story to me was the description of him being the kid to avoid, and all the loneliness that would have been inherent to that position, especially considering his drunken father). I'll admit, though, there were a couple of things that jarred me while reading these....tense switches, and some word choices that felt like they read oddly (although, that could just be my stylistic preferences). Just things to keep in mind for next time! Which I desperately hope for.
Personally, I feel that the first story is much better than the second because it's much more specific to Soldier's character. It's a story that works precisely because of who he is and because of his particular backstory. Whereas the second story, while good, is much more generic. you could replace Soldier and Demo with literally anybody on the team and it would still work. Heck, you could replace Soldier with Miss Pauling and Demo with the Administrator and it could still work. "Violent (and usually drunk) parent (usually father) causes child to repress homosexuality, angst follows" is an extremely common occurrence, both in fiction and, tragically, in RL. Again, the second story is good. But since these pieces are supposed to focus on Soldier, I think the story that builds upon his unique traits and backstory is much more effective.
First off my god you guys are amazing. Thank you for all the feedback so much. I am glad you like the way I write our delightful screwed up loudmouth jarhead. I do admit the first piece was probably more on point than the second. The rest of them should be more focused on Jane as you know him. Or recognize him. Anyway, here's another. Set at Coldfront and featuring Shovel, yay! --------- The weather always made him melancholy. It was the sort of weather he liked least- the unpleasant mixture of rain and cold. Snow was one thing- there was an almost exciting danger to it at worst and it was pretty damn fun at best, not to (grudgingly) mention the sparkling aesthetics of it. Snow was okay in Jane’s book. It was the damn cold rain that was the worst, falling from an iron grey sky, the warm(ish) spell of Spring turning a lot of the snow into an unpleasant muddy mush. The conditions were appalling, made it damn awful to battle in- you came in with numb fingers and soaked socks and probably covered in mud- and impossible to jump properly. It was the sort of weather like those winters in the mountains so long ago, in unfamiliar territory where he didn’t know the language and everyone he met may try to kill him and he didn’t have any proper shelter, and he got soaked to the bone and deliriously sick but Shovel told him he wouldn’t die, it wouldn’t allow it to happen, you are my dear brave one and I will protect you… [Quite alone now, aren’t you?] I am not. [Where are they, my brave Soldier? Where are the people who said they’d always be there?] I am not alone. Shut the fuck up. I have Tav. He won’t ever leave me. He promised. [Tavish, ah yes, my love. The bomber who cares for you. For now.] FOREVER, DAMNIT. HE PROMISED. HE TOLD ME HE CARED ABOUT ME, EVERYTHING, JUST AS I AM. EVEN IN SPITE OF YOU. [Mmmm. He said that?] Yes. [And you believe it?] With all my goddamn heart. [We’ll see, love. We’ll see.] The voice, the soft, alluring, androgynous voice, quiets for the time being. The sound of the rain splashing into the slush, muddying the battlefield, is all he can hear now. The grey of the sky. The grey of the earth below. The black-green of the pine forest. Still, his will is resolute. Shovel didn’t know what it was talking about. Tavish cared for him. He cared for Tavish. He believed every word the Scotsman said to him. If Tavish said he would never leave him, would always accept him for exactly what he was, that was good enough, more than good enough.
I love the Jane-Tavish relationship thing, especially since it's canon. These two guys made a friendship so deep that Solly confided in Demo that he had never been an "official" soldier. Wow. Then you have to look at the WAR! comic. Jane and Tavish cared about each other so much that they were willing to die before destroying their friendship. It took Solly getting tricked into thinking that Tavish had utterly betrayed him, and it took Tavish to get possessed by a haunted sword. "Once you've taken a man out for whiskey and ribs...then fought him...then fought the police with him...well, you have a bond forged thicker than any soup can buy. That's not girl talk, either. That is just FACTS." But Jane won and Tavish lost, and the Administrator seemed satiated. But Soldier and Demo have lines (that apparently were taken out but the robots still have them) that the two reconciled and now keep their relationship incognito. The way you depict Soldier shows his vulnerability. I'm assuming he has some form of schizophrenia, and the voice "Shovel" certainly isn't bringing confidence in him. Soldier is passionate and loyal, but at the same time suffers from anyone having real faith in him. Being on a Team may be the best thing that has ever happened to him, because I believe that Soldier cares about his men even though he doesn't express it in the smartest ways. And then Tavish, his first best friend. Being tricked into destroying that friendship, and then find out you just get a pair of boots out of it, the immediate post-WAR! must have been really hard on Soldier.
These are really good, but where the hell did the idea of Soldier talking to and confiding in his shovel come from? This seems to be quite a common idea in the fandom, and I don't get it at all. I'm no psychologist, but Soldier does not strike me as someone who is schizophrenic. He does have the delusional symptom and the disorganized behavioral symptom down to a T, but he seems perfectly capable of interacting with the outside world, and he doesn't exhibit any negative symptoms. We don't know that he hears voices, and we don't know that he talks to things that aren't there. I feel that, if we had to put a name to any mental illness that Soldier might have, it would probably be psychosis. Even then, though, that's probably pushing it. The Solder's crazy, but it seems that nearly everyone in the TF2 universe is a little unhinged in some way or another. Ugh, sorry anon for dumping this, especially if you're just writing your headcanon, but I really am curious as to why so many people think that Solly's a schizo. There's no canon reason that I can see that would make us think that. So if someone could explain it?
My guess is as good as yours. All we have in canon is that the Soldier talks to a couple of cardboard cutouts as if they're his old war buddies. Ironic that Soldier gets pegged as the schizo, considering that the only person who canonically has in-game lines to inanimate objects is the Heavy Weapons Guy.
I don't think Solly is canonically schizo, it's just that in fanfics sometimes he hears voices, like Shovel, which is a symptom of schizophrenia. It's just me going with what the author has depicted.
Please don't stop, these are wonderful.
>>12 Ten Cent Bastard started it, I ran with it. It's a holdover from old fandom times, from before the comics. Oldfag stuff.
Why the hell does soldier talking to his shovel have to be a schizophrenic thing? I'm 22, mostly normal(clinically speaking), and when I'm alone I talk to my toys more than I probably should admit. So for me, that's how I've always read Solly-shovel stuff. Anyway, keep up the good work anon!
It's not that he talks to Shovel...it's that Shovel talks back and tells him bad things.