This ain't true love

[melannen]

(x-posted to Tumblr with followup.)

So I recently did some reading about WWII in the Arctic in hopes it would give me useful stuff about Capsicle (sadly, it didn’t, although the story about the guy who was so bored on the Greenland station that he taught himself falconry out of a book really wants to be relevant somehow). I even got the main primary source on ILL, a volume called “War Below Zero” that was published before the war ended and is a collection of semi-first-person-accounts, in the hopes that it would also help me with authentic WWII language in my writing.

So the first couple of pieces in the book were published in magazines, co-written by the base commander and some reporters, and they were interesting and sounded a lot like other early-20th-century popular writing I’ve read. And then I got to the next-to-last section, “Flight East”, which purports to be “written by the pilot of one of the [P-]38’s [in the Lost Squadron], Lieutenant Harry L. Smith, known to his comrades as ‘Snuffy’ Smith (all Southerners named Smith in the Air Forces are invariably known as ‘Snuffy’, or sometimes, if they had a good running start, as ‘Chicken Haid’ Smith)”, and, folks. I am never attempting to write authentic WWII GI slang ever again.

I made copies of that section before I returned the book because it was so… amazing; I haven’t gotten around to typing up the whole thing, but here are some random representative paragraphs, for flavor:

"The Labrador base is a hellhole with slimy chuck, knotty beds, and an enemy squadron of 109s disguised as mosquitos. Guy who’s stationed here insists the mosquitos have so much of his blood in them that they sent him a card on Father’s day. Allah, take me home! What the coke, though? Letcha beard grow, ya teeth turn yellow, and live today ‘cause we ain’t made to last forever. Some of those lads on the other side of the world would give more’n I’ve got to be right here where these old flying boots are now… And so to the sack."

"Egg and I were hanging around our crates giving ‘em the last touch after running the engines on morning pre-flight when wing-daing! … Spider hits his Bucket, winds her up and starts billowing forth— damme, looks as if we’re taking off. Seven hundred miles of cold drink ahead, and nothing but a blast of pop to say ‘Let’s go’ … I hit the seat, alert style, wind old Sugar up and blast out on the strip — the Egg Crates are Snafu’d as usual so we have plenty of time to get set for the gun. Two 17’s, two peashooters, and now — me. Whoa, Josephine! Pulled ‘er off at 95 and got a partial stall…"

"The flight turns left and follows the coast northward. Sugar, you blasted beautiful bucket, you can quit running any time now, because I’ll set your tin hide most any place along that shore and be a live cookie."

"Caphonia Cafranz! It’s only 2 a.m… we’ve had no sleep for the last 18 hours.. but the weather is good. Green flight’s finally joined us, so Hitler, here we come. Eight days is a long time in this monotony of eat and sleep, so le’s give ‘er the kiss-off. Poor Buck! some knucklehead let his ship roll off the strip, and the tail was torn up. More of this monotony; ‘tis rough!"

And here’s the last paragraph, after the rescue:

"We finally got aboard the cutter after six hours of waiting for it to break its way to us through the ice. Once I said the coast of Greenland was the sweetest thing I ever saw. That’s retracted. It was the steak those Navy boys gave us aboard the cutter. That was true love, Spider said. Brother, you can say that again."

I’m pretty sure the slang was punched up in this at least a *little* for publication (possibly to make up for the relative lack of obscenity and blasphemy, although there are plenty of ‘damme’s and ‘hell’s left in.) I still kinda want to see somebody write up Steve Rogers’s final post-mission briefing in this style, though, it would be amazing. Anyway here is some more Authentic Colorful Period Language to punch up your Cap and Bucky characterization with, courtesy of Lt. “Snuffy” Smith:

* Sugar, this ain’t true love (used constantly, to describe anything from suboptimal to catastrophic)
* Stand by ypsiporrah!
* Swee’pea, that’s enough of that.
* Cousin, it looks as if this is IT
* Chickadee (To address the audience. Also “babe”, “baby”, “sweetheart”, “chum”, “brother”.)
* Caphonia Caphranz!
* so le’s give ‘er the kiss-off
* before long, zingo!
* the only place you could set a poker chip on
* I’m colder than an Alp dog’s nose
* it’ll put us home with Momma!
* Haw! Funny as Hell!
* Susie-Q, it’s true!
* Holy Joe!
* Hot jive!

…I kinda regret ever finding this, because now any fic that doesn’t write WWII Cap and Bucky talking in 3/4 impenetrable slang is just pale and limp in comparison.

(Two actual capsicle-related things to note: a) the Northern route - via Greenland and Iceland - was a major Allied air route during the war; flying warplanes across the Arctic one at a time was the safest and fastest way to get them from the US to England for the war in Europe. So Cap would have been flying right into what he probably knew was a busy Allied air lane studded with bases and radio beacons, from which some pretty spectacular and already publicized rescues from plane crashes had been carried out, not into a desolate unknown.

And b) the pilots who flew on that route universally referred to the Ice Cap as just "The Cap", and reviled, feared, and respected it, because landing safely on the ice was possible - if treacherous - but getting safely off again was a lot harder. So Howard's rescue missions - at least at first - aren't as much of a long shot as they might seem from this end. And would also have been full of arctic Air Corps veterans making endless puns about Cap/Cap.)

Comments

[ashen_key]

I kinda regret ever finding this, because now any fic that doesn’t write WWII Cap and Bucky talking in 3/4 impenetrable slang is just pale and limp in comparison.

...ahahaha, crap. See, I've been working (very slowly) on a fic where the Soviet guys who rescue Bucky are part of a unit that contains an adolescent Natasha. And mostly she and the amnesiac Bucky talk in German, but she pokes him about practicing English. If he ever starts slipping into slang, she's going to be so. lost. And now I want to write it *facepalming*

That aside, this info is seriously great :D I love old slang so much, particularly when Bucky and Steve are using it.

[melannen]

Don't worry to much, I've yet to read any Cap fic that even attempts the density of slang that was in that article. (That said, I'd love to read that story....)

[ashen_key]

Heee, I can understand why. But still! It'd be faaaaaaascinating. Although for the fic I mentioned, equality would prompt me to try and look up more Red Army slang for Natasha, and that's going to be another rabbit-warren of research (my thoughts on MCU and the writers' relationship to history and geography, let me weep about them.)

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I know! While trying to lay hands on some genuine article Hydra weapons would be reason enough for a Soviet detachment to be somewhere other than our world had any such soldiers, the Swiss Alps? How do they get there? Via Hungary?

[ashen_key]

I'm assuming via Hungary, yes!

I'm running with a couple of things: first, that the unit is one of the rifle divisions at Stalingrad which used to be under the control of the NKVD but were then officially transferred over to the Red Army - thus, I can pick up both Colonel Karpov and Natasha in one go. As they are former NKVD, still have the training and the officers. They march along to Hungary, but from there they go into Czechoslovakia ahead of the main army (Siege of Budapest ends 7th January IIRC). This is handwaving that in MCU that the Czech and Slovak resistance had more help from the Red Army than just a few officers along with partisan groups. So they are running around there doing stuff. Handwave, handwave, they come across a river near the mountains and one of the guys drags Bucky out, handwave that Bucky's travelled a bit in the river, handwave foreeeeeever, dear MCU I hate you so muuuuuuch.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

The Cold War takes one more victim (history, we hardly know you).

I'm going a little later for Karpov (should he appear at all) and Natasha (that's... warnings, there will be archive warnings)- but I just wrote Bucky uncertain which memories are real and which are false.

MCU, stop with the jazz hands.

[ashen_key]

Poor history. So unloved. Even on things that'd only require a wikipedia search, MCU and the KGB, I'm staring at you

And poor Bucky! And yeah, I can see Karpov and Natasha coming in later. (Although, sadly, if you publish, depending on the warnings, I won't be able to read.)

With mine, I'm just way too fond of Red Army!Nat and wanted to pull her and Bucky into a meeting for 'oooh, wouldn't this be interesting' purposes. But the way the fic goes, it sets up some interesting implications and questions for how it all goes to fill in the backstory.

I'm trying to get this current fic long enough so that some of Bucky's memory issues are present - it's not just amnesia, but due to the blow on the head, he's going to have a few issues forming new memories for a little while. But I might end up going 'oh, fuck it' - been writing this a while for not much.

Oh MCU, the things we do to try and get things to make sense, I can't even...

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I just figured that was their bone to the fans that would go 'infinity formula' because no, Natasha not a millenial though she can pull the look off. I doubt her full record was in any stinking files of the uploadable sort.

(It's Red Room and their timelines-- wouldn't want Black Widows wasting on the vine. It'll be not Lolita.)

I know, probably will have to start rereading books from Soviet History to figure out what the Winter Soldier was doing late 40s-60s. Bet a lot of it was 'internal' or settling scores with Mao or other fractious sorts.

I take it that Pierce was running WS more Blood and Circuses than Karpov, and CA:TWS is the Die Harder orgasm of death to solidify the Hydra rank and file. Cause that was no ghost, and you have to believe when death bounds along the beltway.

(Though, maybe some of the 'Soviet' soldiers that found him were conscripts that got 'away' because of Wacky Hydra Machinations? Does that even work, not sure just which fronts those were sent to. This isn't where that period gets focused more the sieges, just like American history sort of peters out in WWII for HS.)

[marmota_b]

I'm laaate to comment, but: as a Czech, I feel very iffy about that river handwaving, because almost exclusively, rivers flow FROM Czechia, not TO it. You might think what with Alps being taller, some of that water would go here, but nope, it goes elsewhere. And we lie on three of the main European drainage divides, which naturally means rivers START here. Sorry.

[brownbetty]

Amaaaaaaazing.

The bizarre thing is that this tone reminds me of old Heinlein juvies written in the fifties. Maybe this is the dialect 'boys own' type tales were written in?

[melannen]

Heinlein has a lot of WWII in him, I've noticed that. Also, a lot of the "boys' own" tales in the late forties/early fifties were directly out of the War - 'ace fighter pilots' and 'nazi saboteurs in the backyard' and so on - so yeah, there was a lot of influence. I suspect the influence is going both ways, though - the GIs were raised on the 1930s versions of the same stuff ('ace fighter pilots' and 'kaiser's saboteurs in the backyard') so probably a lot of this slang is coming out of boys' own tales.

But yeah, I feel like there was a distinct "Brave Adventurers" dialect through most of the period, which this particular account was clearly using - idk if it was the pilot's choice or a heavy editorial hand. While some of this (like the nicknames/call signs and the flying jargon) are specifically WWII language, accounts like these were simultaneously playing into the "Brave Adventurer" image and helping to create it. (It's also the dialect the early Captain America comics were in.)

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Fourth wall, we don't respect no fourth wall, these memes come and go as they pleases.