on the subject of Rictor

[eliyes]

Okay, so, Rictor is adorable and I want to hug him and feed him cookies and tell him it's all gonna be okay. So far X-Factor #17-23 have been the most important issues of that series that I've bought for him, sort of his introductory arc. He's a sweetie.

But of course, having now read this, I am nitpickpickpicking stuff I've read for him.

A lot of fanfics I've seen say he was illiterate when X-Factor rescued him, which didn't jive with this quote from X-Force #34:

"I sold my soul to become everything I didn't want to become. Did you know that when I was a kid...all I did was wanna read books an' escape from this life I led. I used to remake my father into one of the heroes I read about...because I wanted him to be better than he was, 'cuz that would mean maybe I was better, too. But look at me now...in the end, am I really all that different from him?"

I thought maybe the X-Force thing could possibly be a retcon -- giving people the benefit of the doubt when I hadn't read his early appearences. I am now convinced it's not.

First of all, Rictor speaks English fluently, at least as fluently as the other kids. He has either read or at least watched a version of Peter Pan, watched Star Wars, and heard of Central Park. He understands chess well enough to watch Hank McCoy play it and immediately see where and how Hank's opponent is in check. The kid is neither stupid nor, I'm guessing, particularly uneducated for his age.

We also don't know how long The Right had him, but it's probably less than a year. They didn't make him destroy the city in Mexico -- we are not, at first, told which one it was -- but found him after he did it and tortured him for long enough to thoroughly traumatize him. He was powerful enough to do it again, they just wanted to make sure he did it when they wanted him to. Also injected him with various drugs, it seems, which isn't gone into and from his behaviour wasn't addictive, so I'm guessing sedatives, stimulants, various things to fiddle with his reaction time or control....

Your heart just goes out to the kid. He's a sweetie. We also have no idea how old he is. He's about the same height as Rusty Collins (who was in the Navy, and so at least 17-18? What was the minimum age in the 80s?), but thinner and younger looking in the face.

Additionally, he has the worse set of cowlicks ever -- his hair pretty much stands out however it wants from his head. I know he starts spiking it at some point (my roommate recalls seeing this when he started, as she was reading the books as they came out, adn thinking it was a sign that he was getting "a little less fucking traumatized," as she put it. :3) and I'm glad he eventually figured out that his hair was heavy enough when he grew it out to counteract that...

His hair was still short and curlyish when he showe dup in the current X-Factor, but now it's ...looking a lot like it did when he was first found. Unwashed. Lank. D:

(more later! work now!)

Comments

[naiveprophet.livejournal.com]

I don't remember if I ever wrote Julio as illiterate. 'Star illiterate, sure, but I can't remember if I did for Julio. I've probably wrote him as struggling with English at some point, but I can't really remember. I've always known The Right didn't make him destroy Guadalajara though, so I know for a fact I never wrote that.

I'm really surprised about the age though. I always guessed him at way younger. All of them way younger, actually, and I never knew Rusty was in the Navy. That's totally bizarre. In fact, I always thought Julio was 13 at this time. That's always the age I've put for him, I think. Where the hell did I pick that up from?

Maybe Rusty's just short. *hopeful*

If I've ever done bad things I beg a thousand pardons.

[eliyes.livejournal.com]

Rusty was shipped off to the Navy at the age of 16, and spent "months" at sea. He's probably still 16 when we meet him. His (adult, I guess?) height is given as 5'11", which was what I figure, since he's between Bobby and Scott in height.

So, no, not short. :3

I had thought Rictor was 13 as well, but thus far in what I've read, his age hasn't been given. I'll keep my eyes peeled.

*laughs* This was in no way an attack on you. Calme-toi, mon ami, calme-toi. Trust me when I say I have things sitting in my notebooks right now which violate continuity all over the palce, and half the time it's because I just didn't know, and sometimes it's be deliberately going "that didn't happen!" ...often in cases where what's in the books violates continuity...

Rar. I'm starting to get the feeling I should check out the Shatterstar mini-series, and praying the art on the inside is not by Liefeld....

[naiveprophet.livejournal.com]

Phew! I'm so relieved. I mean, I didn't think it was an 'attack', but, y'know, I didn't want to have fics so full of errors that people scream and run away when they read them.

Hahaha, I very often go "that didn't happen!" Because sometimes things just suck.

I have seen (and had it saved, but on an old computer, so no more) a scan from one of the Shatterstar mini-series things. I mean, if we're talking about that one from... was it one or two years ago? Anyway, he looked good. It was not Liefeld.

[eliyes.livejournal.com]

The covers are Liefeld, though, and he plotted it, so it's kinda ehhhn. I'm wary.

[taichara]

And now you know why various things -- both fan-based and "canon"-based (canon my arse raaarrghghghggh) -- rot my eyes like no other things when it comes to Rictor.

*hamsterrawwwrs*

[eliyes.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to track down where and when various things were introduced.