It has recently come to my attention that between Marvel and DC

[conuly]

there are a surprising number of kids who were raised as assassins, and for some reason the comics world thinks that growing up language deprived will make you really good at that. (I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that this is actually the least plausible origin story, and I think we all know how implausible that makes it. Yes, even less plausible than that one.)

Anyway, after hearing this I suggested to Eva that they all ought to form a crossover discussion group.

Eva: None of them talk!
Me: Hence the need for a group.

She's not convinced.

Comments

[oracne]

Art therapy?

[conuly]

Something along those lines, yeah.

[dewline]

I am guessing that you have been introduced to Cassandra Cain...?

[conuly]

And lived to tell the tale!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

They could meet up and play hot potato and work their ways up to Red Rover. Popcorn with a parachute and the little red balls that should not be used in dodgeball once children have good throwing arms. Rhythm sticks, double dutch..

[conuly]

That's the idea!

[moon_custafer]

there are a surprising number of kids who were raised as assassins, and for some reason the comics world thinks that growing up language deprived will make you really good at that.

(Tilts head, blinks) That….um…. I guess the writers are really into the concept of a silent/traumatized assassin being extra mysterious, or something, but…. how would being raised without language make one *better* at the job? I mean you’d think it would make you worse at passing-for-ordinary in order to get close to your target, and I don’t think it would necessarily make you colder or more detached-- AFAIK the girl in the “Jeannie” case never hurt anybody.

[conuly]

"Reading body language!"

Which is ridiculous.

[moon_custafer]

Even if it made one better at reading body language, I would think the difficulty with, um, language language would offset any strategic advantage.

[conuly]

Like knowing who, exactly, your target's supposed to be.

[moon_custafer]

Well obviously the person with the most nervous body language!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

It's 'like' the albino assassins, in that many RL albinos have vision problems due to excess UV hitting the retinas. They are substituting 'flavor' for world building/character development.

Colorblind snipers however is a bit of an actual thing, because often people break up outlines by color but still have value 'lines' (You can look at this by photocopying a color picture in b&w) The colorblind sniper can have a bit of an advantage versus camouflage.

[moon_custafer]

Colourblind snipers I knew about, and find interesting.

Then there’s the heroine of “All Cats Are Grey,” whose monochromatic vision allows her to *just* make out the invisible BEM (although Norton’s explanation is lamprey on the lines of ‘the creature was a colour that humans can’t perceive, so most people’s brains just cancel out the image).

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

There's a very good TOS novel where some white plastic chairs do not meet with Klingon aesthetic approval. (I'm thinking that it's in a different one than I'd been thinking. The mind is a wacky place.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Reflection (The follow on novel is also Worth Reading)

Not sure of the other novel's title, that one has [redacted parts of speech] the Klingon Empire.

[silveradept]

I think a support group for them is a sensible idea.

[conuly]

Hence why it must happen only in fanfic and never in the comics proper, I suppose.

[silveradept]

Yes, because when you start making characters competent and make their worlds have effects, the gatekeeping fanboys get their feelings hurt.

[baronjanus]

Topic-adjacent: fanfic loves to portray MCU Bucky as barely verbal, or tending towards robotic report-style language. Despite the fact the first sentence we see the Winter Soldier say on-screen is "who the hell is Bucky", which shows control of language, ability to swear and use informal language, and lack of any of the mentioned above (his voice doesn't sound "unused" as in many fics; he doesn't say "command Bucky unknown" or any such thing) and I feel petty but god, after ten thousand fics, it really grates.

[conuly]

It's grating on me, and it's not my fandom.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Tropes, probable mimicry of a resonating fic and off to the races.

The Sentinel has some very interesting fanfic portrayals, even though one character is finely boned and another is a bit of a tank (not the ones you'd expect.)

I admit I let Bucky get a touch nonverbal when things are rough. Until he finds a punchline.

Isn't the 'unused' a trope that started after the trailer/scene link from Bucky in the whatever that industrial machine was (I've not seen CA:CW but the once and I couldn't quite track where the questioning about which Bucky 'fit'.) hit?

[baronjanus]

Re Sentinel: SHORT GUY CAN BE STURDY

Re Bucky: Probably mimicry, yeah. I know fanfic is to fix and sometimes replace canon, but that particular speechless trope serves nothing and you have to wonder, because everyone loves that "who the hell" line, and the "but I knew him" line, but they manage to block out both entirely in their portrayal of his speech pattern.

PTSD reaction ("when things get rough") is a different thing. You can fall silent with panic or disassociation. Just when it's somehow a constant trait that it's weird. It's also reasonable that he's a quiet guy who isn't very chatty, he's been through a lot, but from that to "can't answer a single thing except in report form" is a looong way to go.

The unused stuff started immediately after WS, may have something to do with Stan's choice of vocal range there, or just people loving to take the (already horrifying) abuse shown on-screen and run wild to faraway places with it. When he was stuck with his arm in that machine, he spoke quite fluently about his memories. If I recall correctly.

Hi! hi there. Nice to meet you :)

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Nice to meet you!

In the movie, Bucky is very chatty and pulling up Sarah and so on, in that scene. But iirc it was the grunting and stuff that was making the rounds pre-movie.

Basically, I let the guys sometimes just sit in silent camaraderie, and then they smack talk about something they're fairly sure is not a bad place.

I'd have less trouble with CA:CW if Bucky and Steve actually talked instead of deflected.

PS

[baronjanus]

ok I have to ask. Why today, on May 7th, I see this post as May 9th and the previous as 8th?

Re: PS

[conuly]

For the same reason the next post I make will be dated May 10 and the one after that May 11.

Re: PS

[baronjanus]

Have I been unknowingly rude by asking?

Re: PS

[conuly]

No, I get sometimes tired of making up witty replies, is all.

I like the illusion of having posted every day without actually doing so, and if I backdate entries then I sometimes forget and then it takes a while to show up on the calendar when I edit. It's easier this way.

Re: PS

[baronjanus]

Interesting. Cool.

Re: PS

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

We need to get you a dubious dodecahedron or an interaction chart. ;)

I have to think if we shake all the fandoms we could get a very representative and bizarre set of Reasons.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Group therapy for non-verbal kids who were raised as assassins? Actually, that would make a pretty good premise for a novel, or short story at least.

[conuly]

That's what I keep saying!