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ysabetwordsmith"Coming in from the Cold" is the next big piece in its series, dealing with Bucky and his continued issues with that piece-of-crap prosthesis. I'm posting each day within the story as a section unto itself, broken down into post-sized parts.
This story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Hairpins," "Blended," "Am I Not," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Querencia," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," "Green Eggs and Hulk,""kintsukuroi," "Little and Broken, but Still Good," "Up the Water Spout," "The Life of the Dead," "Anahata," and "Coming in from the Cold: Saturday: Building Towers."
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: JARVIS, Phil Coulson, Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Betty Ross.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Hostile technology. Manipulation of mental state. Mention of past trauma with lingering symptoms of PTSD. Temper outbursts. Self-blame. Embarrassment. Current environment is supportive.
Summary: Steve and Bucky cope with some influence from Bucky's prosthetic arm. Uncle Phil uses a private ageplay session to help Steve with his feelings. JARVIS, floundering with his own emotions and interpretations of other peoples' motivations, asks Phil for assistance. Steve is still struggling to get a handle on what's happening to him. They finish up the day with a movie.
Notes: Hurt/comfort. Family. Fluff and angst. Emotional overload. Coping skills. Healthy touch. Asking for help and getting it. Hope. Nonsexual ageplay. Nonsexual intimacy. Caregiving. Competence. Toys and games. Gentleness. Trust. Emotional confusion. Watching movies. Imagination. Discoveries. #coulsonlives
Begin with Part 1, Part 2. Skip to Part 5, Part 6.
Coming in from the Cold
Sunday: Shaking Foundations Part 3
Phil led Steve into the living room. Steve followed willingly enough, but made no move to act on his own. Phil looked at him more closely -- and realized that he was holding not Steve but Stevie. The younger persona lacked the big-brother confidence of the ten-year-old version.
I guess he really needs to let go of responsibility for a while, Phil realized. He spread the sheet on the floor, then set the clay in the center. "Sometimes when life gets messy, it feels good to do something grubby and fun. This sheet is for messy play. It's okay if we get dirty, as long as we keep it on the sheet," Phil said.
"Really?" Stevie said. He looked at the carton but did not reach for it.
"Yes," Phil assured him. He tipped the clay out of its carton. "Clay is safe to play with when you're upset. You can squeeze it or hit it or make it into shapes. You can't hurt it. If you don't like how it turns out, you can mash it back into a ball and start over." Phil peeled apart the bricks of clay and handed one to Stevie. "Go ahead, give it a try."
Stevie took the squarish lump and tried to shape it, without much success at first. "This is hard."
When Phil picked up a brick of his own, he could grasp why -- it was cold and stiff. "Work it in your hands first. Give it time to warm up," Phil said. He demonstrated, kneading the clay.
Stevie rolled the clay between his hands. Emotions flickered over his face, dark and bright. He squeezed harder, and the warming clay oozed between his fingers. For a while he clenched and loosened his fists around it, knuckles going white and pink in turn. Then Stevie turned to slapping and punching the clay, one hand smacking into the other. It made a sound that he seemed to find satisfying.
Phil watched as Stevie worked off some of the anger left over from this morning's encounter. Stopping Steve from punching the wall had interrupted the expression -- a necessary precaution to avoid possible injury, but that emotion still needed a place to go. This is safer by far, Phil thought as he watched Stevie playing.
As the clay became softer, Stevie started manipulating it more. He squeezed it into separate balls and then stuck them back together. He flattened the clay into a slab and then ripped it slowly in half.
Phil recognized the pattern. One piece turned into two, torn and restored, over and over again. Sometimes it was just easier to express your feelings if you didn't have to put labels on them. Phil kept his own work simple. A long coil spiraled into a disc that rose to become a bowl.
Then Stevie began shaping objects. A house. A ball. A bed. A square. A rat. They were crude, lumpish forms just defined enough to identify. He had far more skill with drawing than with sculpture.
"Bucky's better at stuff like this," Stevie whispered.
"What kind of stuff?" Phil said.
"Making things instead of drawing things," Stevie said. "He can whittle dogs and cats."
"Dogs and cats, hmm?" said Phil as he mashed his bowl into an amorphous lump again. "What do those make you think of?" Stevie's fingers were already shaping the clay into a dog. He didn't say anything, but he looked so sad that Phil didn't want to push further. Stevie tipped the dog off its stubby legs and rolled it back into a ball.
The ball became a snake. The snake pinched off into squared sections like a train, but Stevie only made three of those before he stopped and wadded them all up again. He glanced up at Phil, then back down at his work.
"You can make whatever you want. You can talk about it, or not," Phil said. He was trying to make his own clay into a fighter jet.
Stevie flattened the lump of clay into a circle, then carefully pressed the circle into a shallow dome. He used his thumbnail to mark out the rings of the shield, and finally the star at the center. This time Stevie smiled a little, and so did Phil. "You like this one," Stevie said.
"It's a good shield," Phil said. "You know, a friend of mine taught me something interesting." He wadded up his clay again, then divided it into several pieces. "He said that everything consists of a few simple shapes." A cylinder, a cone, and three triangles fitted together.
"That's a rocket," Stevie said as Phil stood it up.
"Yes, it is," Phil said. "I think it's nifty how things can stick together to become something bigger. I bet you could do it if you tried." It had been Steve, after all, who showed Tony and Clint some exercise he was doing in his sketchbook with shapes and armatures for drawing.
"Hmm," Stevie said. He made quick work of assembling a set of short cylinders and balls, along with one larger oval. Then he stuck them together, carefully smoothing over the seams. When he finished, a little clay man stood at attention. "I wish we had some toy soldiers." Then Stevie gave Phil a guilty look. "Sorry. I should be grateful for what I have. The clay is nice."
"If you're done playing with the clay, we can put it away and get out some toy soldiers instead," Phil said.
"My hands are all dirty," Stevie said, staring down at them.
"Clay is messy," Phil agreed. "It washes off, though. Do you want to help me clean up?"
Stevie nodded. He helped Phil flatten all the clay into blocks again, wrap it in plastic, and put it back in the carton. Then they folded up the sheet.
"Go wash your hands. There's lava soap in the bathroom. Look in the soap dish on the left side of the sink," Phil said. He kept that in addition to regular hand soap because sometimes people came up here after working in the garage, and the pumice helped remove heavy grease.
"I'm done," Stevie said when he came back, presenting freshly scrubbed hands for inspection.
"Good boy," Phil said. "Now, there are toy soldiers downstairs in the common room, but I've also got some of my own under the bed. Shall we look for them?"
Stevie scrambled under the bed with more grace than Phil would have predicted. For all his size, he could squeeze into amazingly small spaces. He pawed several storage boxes out from their places, then wriggled free to explore them. One held assorted plastic soldiers, while another held older ones of tin, all neatly arranged in layers of foam.
"I have action figures too," said Phil. "You like G.I. Joe."
"Yeah, he's really swell. Joe will need someone to save him when he gets into trouble, though. Do you have Jane too?" Stevie asked.
"I do. She's on the other side of the bed," said Phil as he walked around.
Stevie dove back underneath. The bed actually lifted off the ground as he humped his way toward the target. Phil laughed as Stevie groped around for the desired box.
"Oh, wow," Stevie said softly.
All of a sudden Phil remembered what else he'd left under the bed, in the middle position behind all the other boxes.
Sure enough, Stevie had the lid off the "rescue" toys. Most of those were action figures -- or pieces of action figures -- along with a few other things. Sometimes, with luck, Phil managed to collect the right parts to reassemble them.
"Sorry. I never meant for you to see that," Phil said. Embarrassment welled up as he recalled their awkward first meeting. "I didn't want you to think it was creepy."
Stevie shook his head. "It's not. Most of my toys were old. If things broke, we tried to fix them instead of throwing them away." He smiled at Phil. "It makes me happy to see that at least one person still does that."
"I'm glad you're okay with it," Phil said. "Sometimes opening the wrong box can cause all kinds of trouble."
"Like how?" Stevie asked.
Phil sat down beside him, leaning back against the bed. "Well, there's an old story about a woman named Pandora and a box full of problems," he said. Stevie snuggled against him as Phil told the myth. "In the end, the only creature left in the box was Hope. He was so squashed from all the wicked sprites sitting on him that Pandora had to lift him out and straighten his wings so he could fly away." Phil reached out and ruffled Stevie's hair. "That part of the story always made me think of you."
"... 'cause Captain America gives everyone hope," Stevie guessed.
"No, the skinny kid from Brooklyn is Hope, because that's what it takes to see a future in someone that a lot of people would overlook," Phil explained. "Captain America is what you get if you nurture Hope."
Stevie hugged Phil around the waist. "Does that make you Pandora? I kinda have a hard time seeing you as a girl!"
"Remember that you're not the only boy who likes playing with dolls," Phil said with a nudge at the cardboard box of action figures. "Also, think about my job. I deal with dangerous things and dangerous people all the time. I have to decide when someone is so destructive that they need to be kept in the box, and when to open the box to let out someone who might do some good. I have to hope that I make the right decisions."
"You do," Stevie said, confidence warm and strong in his voice.
"I'm happy to hear you say that," Phil said.
Next Stevie assembled a small strike force of G.I. Joe figures. Phil wasn't surprised to see him pick out a good combination of specialties from the available options, including some from the British and Australian armies. "They remind me of some fellas I used to know," Stevie said as he lined up the little men.
Phil could see the parallels: Howling Commandoes to G.I. Joes, HYDRA to Cobra. The toys had drawn some inspiration from history. "It sounds like you knew great fellas, then."
"They were the bestest," Stevie said. He gave Cobra the high ground, putting them on top of the bed. There he made a formidable fort out of pillows. Then Stevie took out a box of Avengers action figures and appropriated the Hulk, who wound up inside the pillow fort.
"This looks like an interesting story," Phil observed.
"Hulk always saves people, but nobody saves him," Stevie said. "I think it's about time somebody came to his rescue."
"I agree," Phil said.
Stevie played out the combat with great enthusiasm, sound effects and all. The Joes, armed with information about Cobra's captive, infiltrated the enemy camp. They managed to take out several sentries. Then Stevie whacked his elbow on the end table, rattling it against the wall.
A tinny siren sounded and JARVIS announced, "Cobra operatives have heard a noise and raised the alarm."
Stevie giggled but gamely went with the change. Soon enemy forces swarmed the heroes. An empty box was pressed into service as a holding cell.
Fortunately G.I. Jane remained free as backup, so when the Joes missed their check-in, she went in after them. Her silent grace clearly owed something to Black Widow, but there was a sassy spring that put Phil more in mind of Peggy Carter. Phil watched, entranced, as she managed to gain Hulk's wary trust while she picked the lock on his cage.
* * *
Notes:
Clay therapy is a type of art therapy that helps with preverbal or nonverbal expression of feelings. Children can go from pounding the clay to making shapes with it, as Stevie does here.
Messy play also offers many benefits for exploration. In therapy it helps to process emotions. Have some messy fun!
Sketching involves learning to see and draw the shapes of things. Then you can draw things like a woman or a horse's head. Similarly, you can use basic shapes in clay to make animals such as a puppy. Polymer clay toys can be baked permanent.
Lava soap contains pumice to remove stubborn dirt such as clay.
Toy soldiers have a long history. Know how to nurture children with toy soldiers.
G.I. Joe and G.I. Jane belong to the same team fighting against Cobra. Don't worry too much about letting kids play with scripted toys. They're going to go off-script after a few minutes anyhow.
Pandora is a famous figure from Greek mythology. Thanks topeoriapeoriawhereart aka Peoriapeoria on AO3 for the idea of Steve as Hope.
War play is a traditional activity that promotes imagination and self-regulation. Sometimes kids need a little help keeping it safe, constructive, and fun.
The Howling Commandos have appeared in many iterations, including the version in Captain America: The First Avenger.
[To be continued in Part 4 ...]
This story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Hairpins," "Blended," "Am I Not," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Querencia," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," "Green Eggs and Hulk,""kintsukuroi," "Little and Broken, but Still Good," "Up the Water Spout," "The Life of the Dead," "Anahata," and "Coming in from the Cold: Saturday: Building Towers."
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: JARVIS, Phil Coulson, Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Betty Ross.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Hostile technology. Manipulation of mental state. Mention of past trauma with lingering symptoms of PTSD. Temper outbursts. Self-blame. Embarrassment. Current environment is supportive.
Summary: Steve and Bucky cope with some influence from Bucky's prosthetic arm. Uncle Phil uses a private ageplay session to help Steve with his feelings. JARVIS, floundering with his own emotions and interpretations of other peoples' motivations, asks Phil for assistance. Steve is still struggling to get a handle on what's happening to him. They finish up the day with a movie.
Notes: Hurt/comfort. Family. Fluff and angst. Emotional overload. Coping skills. Healthy touch. Asking for help and getting it. Hope. Nonsexual ageplay. Nonsexual intimacy. Caregiving. Competence. Toys and games. Gentleness. Trust. Emotional confusion. Watching movies. Imagination. Discoveries. #coulsonlives
Begin with Part 1, Part 2. Skip to Part 5, Part 6.
Coming in from the Cold
Sunday: Shaking Foundations Part 3
Phil led Steve into the living room. Steve followed willingly enough, but made no move to act on his own. Phil looked at him more closely -- and realized that he was holding not Steve but Stevie. The younger persona lacked the big-brother confidence of the ten-year-old version.
I guess he really needs to let go of responsibility for a while, Phil realized. He spread the sheet on the floor, then set the clay in the center. "Sometimes when life gets messy, it feels good to do something grubby and fun. This sheet is for messy play. It's okay if we get dirty, as long as we keep it on the sheet," Phil said.
"Really?" Stevie said. He looked at the carton but did not reach for it.
"Yes," Phil assured him. He tipped the clay out of its carton. "Clay is safe to play with when you're upset. You can squeeze it or hit it or make it into shapes. You can't hurt it. If you don't like how it turns out, you can mash it back into a ball and start over." Phil peeled apart the bricks of clay and handed one to Stevie. "Go ahead, give it a try."
Stevie took the squarish lump and tried to shape it, without much success at first. "This is hard."
When Phil picked up a brick of his own, he could grasp why -- it was cold and stiff. "Work it in your hands first. Give it time to warm up," Phil said. He demonstrated, kneading the clay.
Stevie rolled the clay between his hands. Emotions flickered over his face, dark and bright. He squeezed harder, and the warming clay oozed between his fingers. For a while he clenched and loosened his fists around it, knuckles going white and pink in turn. Then Stevie turned to slapping and punching the clay, one hand smacking into the other. It made a sound that he seemed to find satisfying.
Phil watched as Stevie worked off some of the anger left over from this morning's encounter. Stopping Steve from punching the wall had interrupted the expression -- a necessary precaution to avoid possible injury, but that emotion still needed a place to go. This is safer by far, Phil thought as he watched Stevie playing.
As the clay became softer, Stevie started manipulating it more. He squeezed it into separate balls and then stuck them back together. He flattened the clay into a slab and then ripped it slowly in half.
Phil recognized the pattern. One piece turned into two, torn and restored, over and over again. Sometimes it was just easier to express your feelings if you didn't have to put labels on them. Phil kept his own work simple. A long coil spiraled into a disc that rose to become a bowl.
Then Stevie began shaping objects. A house. A ball. A bed. A square. A rat. They were crude, lumpish forms just defined enough to identify. He had far more skill with drawing than with sculpture.
"Bucky's better at stuff like this," Stevie whispered.
"What kind of stuff?" Phil said.
"Making things instead of drawing things," Stevie said. "He can whittle dogs and cats."
"Dogs and cats, hmm?" said Phil as he mashed his bowl into an amorphous lump again. "What do those make you think of?" Stevie's fingers were already shaping the clay into a dog. He didn't say anything, but he looked so sad that Phil didn't want to push further. Stevie tipped the dog off its stubby legs and rolled it back into a ball.
The ball became a snake. The snake pinched off into squared sections like a train, but Stevie only made three of those before he stopped and wadded them all up again. He glanced up at Phil, then back down at his work.
"You can make whatever you want. You can talk about it, or not," Phil said. He was trying to make his own clay into a fighter jet.
Stevie flattened the lump of clay into a circle, then carefully pressed the circle into a shallow dome. He used his thumbnail to mark out the rings of the shield, and finally the star at the center. This time Stevie smiled a little, and so did Phil. "You like this one," Stevie said.
"It's a good shield," Phil said. "You know, a friend of mine taught me something interesting." He wadded up his clay again, then divided it into several pieces. "He said that everything consists of a few simple shapes." A cylinder, a cone, and three triangles fitted together.
"That's a rocket," Stevie said as Phil stood it up.
"Yes, it is," Phil said. "I think it's nifty how things can stick together to become something bigger. I bet you could do it if you tried." It had been Steve, after all, who showed Tony and Clint some exercise he was doing in his sketchbook with shapes and armatures for drawing.
"Hmm," Stevie said. He made quick work of assembling a set of short cylinders and balls, along with one larger oval. Then he stuck them together, carefully smoothing over the seams. When he finished, a little clay man stood at attention. "I wish we had some toy soldiers." Then Stevie gave Phil a guilty look. "Sorry. I should be grateful for what I have. The clay is nice."
"If you're done playing with the clay, we can put it away and get out some toy soldiers instead," Phil said.
"My hands are all dirty," Stevie said, staring down at them.
"Clay is messy," Phil agreed. "It washes off, though. Do you want to help me clean up?"
Stevie nodded. He helped Phil flatten all the clay into blocks again, wrap it in plastic, and put it back in the carton. Then they folded up the sheet.
"Go wash your hands. There's lava soap in the bathroom. Look in the soap dish on the left side of the sink," Phil said. He kept that in addition to regular hand soap because sometimes people came up here after working in the garage, and the pumice helped remove heavy grease.
"I'm done," Stevie said when he came back, presenting freshly scrubbed hands for inspection.
"Good boy," Phil said. "Now, there are toy soldiers downstairs in the common room, but I've also got some of my own under the bed. Shall we look for them?"
Stevie scrambled under the bed with more grace than Phil would have predicted. For all his size, he could squeeze into amazingly small spaces. He pawed several storage boxes out from their places, then wriggled free to explore them. One held assorted plastic soldiers, while another held older ones of tin, all neatly arranged in layers of foam.
"I have action figures too," said Phil. "You like G.I. Joe."
"Yeah, he's really swell. Joe will need someone to save him when he gets into trouble, though. Do you have Jane too?" Stevie asked.
"I do. She's on the other side of the bed," said Phil as he walked around.
Stevie dove back underneath. The bed actually lifted off the ground as he humped his way toward the target. Phil laughed as Stevie groped around for the desired box.
"Oh, wow," Stevie said softly.
All of a sudden Phil remembered what else he'd left under the bed, in the middle position behind all the other boxes.
Sure enough, Stevie had the lid off the "rescue" toys. Most of those were action figures -- or pieces of action figures -- along with a few other things. Sometimes, with luck, Phil managed to collect the right parts to reassemble them.
"Sorry. I never meant for you to see that," Phil said. Embarrassment welled up as he recalled their awkward first meeting. "I didn't want you to think it was creepy."
Stevie shook his head. "It's not. Most of my toys were old. If things broke, we tried to fix them instead of throwing them away." He smiled at Phil. "It makes me happy to see that at least one person still does that."
"I'm glad you're okay with it," Phil said. "Sometimes opening the wrong box can cause all kinds of trouble."
"Like how?" Stevie asked.
Phil sat down beside him, leaning back against the bed. "Well, there's an old story about a woman named Pandora and a box full of problems," he said. Stevie snuggled against him as Phil told the myth. "In the end, the only creature left in the box was Hope. He was so squashed from all the wicked sprites sitting on him that Pandora had to lift him out and straighten his wings so he could fly away." Phil reached out and ruffled Stevie's hair. "That part of the story always made me think of you."
"... 'cause Captain America gives everyone hope," Stevie guessed.
"No, the skinny kid from Brooklyn is Hope, because that's what it takes to see a future in someone that a lot of people would overlook," Phil explained. "Captain America is what you get if you nurture Hope."
Stevie hugged Phil around the waist. "Does that make you Pandora? I kinda have a hard time seeing you as a girl!"
"Remember that you're not the only boy who likes playing with dolls," Phil said with a nudge at the cardboard box of action figures. "Also, think about my job. I deal with dangerous things and dangerous people all the time. I have to decide when someone is so destructive that they need to be kept in the box, and when to open the box to let out someone who might do some good. I have to hope that I make the right decisions."
"You do," Stevie said, confidence warm and strong in his voice.
"I'm happy to hear you say that," Phil said.
Next Stevie assembled a small strike force of G.I. Joe figures. Phil wasn't surprised to see him pick out a good combination of specialties from the available options, including some from the British and Australian armies. "They remind me of some fellas I used to know," Stevie said as he lined up the little men.
Phil could see the parallels: Howling Commandoes to G.I. Joes, HYDRA to Cobra. The toys had drawn some inspiration from history. "It sounds like you knew great fellas, then."
"They were the bestest," Stevie said. He gave Cobra the high ground, putting them on top of the bed. There he made a formidable fort out of pillows. Then Stevie took out a box of Avengers action figures and appropriated the Hulk, who wound up inside the pillow fort.
"This looks like an interesting story," Phil observed.
"Hulk always saves people, but nobody saves him," Stevie said. "I think it's about time somebody came to his rescue."
"I agree," Phil said.
Stevie played out the combat with great enthusiasm, sound effects and all. The Joes, armed with information about Cobra's captive, infiltrated the enemy camp. They managed to take out several sentries. Then Stevie whacked his elbow on the end table, rattling it against the wall.
A tinny siren sounded and JARVIS announced, "Cobra operatives have heard a noise and raised the alarm."
Stevie giggled but gamely went with the change. Soon enemy forces swarmed the heroes. An empty box was pressed into service as a holding cell.
Fortunately G.I. Jane remained free as backup, so when the Joes missed their check-in, she went in after them. Her silent grace clearly owed something to Black Widow, but there was a sassy spring that put Phil more in mind of Peggy Carter. Phil watched, entranced, as she managed to gain Hulk's wary trust while she picked the lock on his cage.
* * *
Notes:
Clay therapy is a type of art therapy that helps with preverbal or nonverbal expression of feelings. Children can go from pounding the clay to making shapes with it, as Stevie does here.
Messy play also offers many benefits for exploration. In therapy it helps to process emotions. Have some messy fun!
Sketching involves learning to see and draw the shapes of things. Then you can draw things like a woman or a horse's head. Similarly, you can use basic shapes in clay to make animals such as a puppy. Polymer clay toys can be baked permanent.
Lava soap contains pumice to remove stubborn dirt such as clay.
Toy soldiers have a long history. Know how to nurture children with toy soldiers.
G.I. Joe and G.I. Jane belong to the same team fighting against Cobra. Don't worry too much about letting kids play with scripted toys. They're going to go off-script after a few minutes anyhow.
Pandora is a famous figure from Greek mythology. Thanks to
peoriapeoriawhereart aka Peoriapeoria on AO3 for the idea of Steve as Hope.War play is a traditional activity that promotes imagination and self-regulation. Sometimes kids need a little help keeping it safe, constructive, and fun.
The Howling Commandos have appeared in many iterations, including the version in Captain America: The First Avenger.
[To be continued in Part 4 ...]
(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-15 10:37 am (UTC)I can't remember where I saw it, but I'm pretty sure there's a type of therapy for returning veterans with PTSD that's darn near identical to Stevie playing... helps them talk though stuff, when talking is not easy... but I know I saw a Captain America action figure in the picture of the toy box that came with the article.
Thank you!
Date: 2015-06-16 07:55 am (UTC):D I am happy to hear that!
>> I can't remember where I saw it, but I'm pretty sure there's a type of therapy for returning veterans with PTSD that's darn near identical to Stevie playing... helps them talk though stuff, when talking is not easy... <<
Yes, I have done research into therapeutic play and art therapy, both for children and adults, including for PTSD. I'm glad it came through clearly.
>> but I know I saw a Captain America action figure in the picture of the toy box that came with the article. <<
That is awesome. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen that one, or I would have saved it for a link. Maybe someone else will find it!
(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-15 03:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-15 04:53 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2015-06-15 07:45 pm (UTC)Guess I was worrying over nothing, about whether this long, sprawling storyline would make sense when cut down into day-sized segments. :D Experiment = success. \o/
(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-15 06:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-15 08:29 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2015-06-15 08:31 pm (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2015-07-04 06:17 am (UTC)It matters a lot that Uncle Phil thought to offer different play options, starting with something that could take a pounding.
>>then play with a GI Joes, and rescue Hulk.<<
I've known since I first told the story about the rescue toys that Steve would eventually find Phil's Captain America figure. And of course Hulk needs someone to save him for once!
(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-15 10:49 pm (UTC)Yay!
Date: 2015-06-15 11:19 pm (UTC)Come to think of it, that may be why all of Bucky's efforts to set him up never worked. At least at that time, they had very different tastes in women. I think that later on, Bucky developed more of an eye for tough gals. But earlier, Bucky was looking for a good time dancing and partying and maybe a quick lay. That's never really been Steve's thing, and is unlikely to change much. He may have picked up more appreciation for casual social interactions, but Steve will always prefer deeper relationships to shallower ones.
Re: Yay!
Date: 2015-06-15 11:23 pm (UTC)Re: Yay!
Date: 2015-06-16 12:47 am (UTC)Of course, I'm older. One of my favorite action heras has always been Sarah Connor.
Re: Yay!
Date: 2015-06-16 04:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-16 01:29 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2015-06-16 02:00 am (UTC)He so needed to take a load off today.
>> I'm really enjoying this storyline. <<
Yay!
>> And I'm very happy to see JARVIS joining in the play! <<
:D He is very slowly coming out of his shell. The more opportunities people give JARVIS to join in, and the better they respond to these little glimmers when he does, the more comfortable JARVIS will get and that probably means venturing further into the ageplay. It's just taking a while for him to understand and interact with it, because he's not human and his growing up was a different experience than theirs.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-16 03:03 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2015-06-16 03:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-06-16 07:00 am (UTC)-JARVIS sloooowly coming out of his shell and joining play more
- Phil protecting JARVIS from Steve's outburst (Are we going to get some JARVIS perspective of that? I suspect he might have been very confused/surprised) and just the whole diverting the cliché of "hero punches wall because of aggravation", I liked that, you did it very well.
- Little Stevie!
- I'm a huge fan of myths and mythology (with Pandora's myth amongst my favourites) so I loved LOVED the bit where Phil told Stevie about it. I didn't expect that to happen at all, it came completely out of nowhere for me and you should have seen my face when I read it, squee!
- Just the whole play with the toy soldiers, that they saved Hulk and Stevies reasoning behind it and the matter-of-fact way he said it (any chance Bruce and/or Hulk might hear about or even see that?).
I'm looking forward to the next part and where that will take us :)
Thank you!
Date: 2015-07-04 07:23 am (UTC)Yay!
>> -JARVIS sloooowly coming out of his shell and joining play more <<
It's a lot for him to process, mostly emotional stuff, which is challenging for JARVIS. But he likes the concept.
>> - Phil protecting JARVIS from Steve's outburst <<
Phil is a quick thinker, so it's lucky he was there.
>> (Are we going to get some JARVIS perspective of that? I suspect he might have been very confused/surprised) <<
I hadn't thought of it. *ponder* JARVIS would have noticed the life signs slowly shifting. He can sense brain waves. Steve's were probably a mess. So, readings slowly skewing farther from normal, but not quite enough to make an issue of. Then suddenly the conversation goes awry, metabolism spikes, and there's Steve trying to punch the wall. That much, JARVIS didn't expect, even though he knew something wasn't right.
>> and just the whole diverting the cliché of "hero punches wall because of aggravation", I liked that, you did it very well. <<
Yay!
>> - Little Stevie! <<
He doesn't come out often, but he is soooo cute.
>> - I'm a huge fan of myths and mythology (with Pandora's myth amongst my favourites) so I loved LOVED the bit where Phil told Stevie about it. I didn't expect that to happen at all, it came completely out of nowhere for me and you should have seen my face when I read it, squee! <<
:D The Pandora myth was a reader suggestion that just felt right to me.
>> - Just the whole play with the toy soldiers, that they saved Hulk and Stevies reasoning behind it and the matter-of-fact way he said it <<
I'm glad that worked for you.
>> (any chance Bruce and/or Hulk might hear about or even see that?). <<
Possibly, if I have time to write it in.
>> I'm looking forward to the next part and where that will take us :) <<
Yay!
Oh, wow!
Date: 2015-06-16 10:07 pm (UTC)That shines through very, very clearly.
I was so caught up in enjoying the bonding between Stevie and Uncle Phil, that it wasn't until I took a break to get some water that I realize what an EPIC step Jarvis had taken, too.
He took an entirely inconsequential moment, a physical accident, not only parsed it as an opportunity, but parsed one of a series of possible responses.
Fine. That's how they set up traning scenarios as adults, right?
EXCEPT-- Jarvis didn't kick in the "training scenario" routine. He changed it, MUTED it, and adjusted the "alarm" in order to contribute --to PLAY with them, at Stevie's level.
THAT is an EPIC show of not only intelligence, but sapience.
Yet it's such a light, light touch that it is seamlessly PART of the scene, not overwhelming it.
Re: Oh, wow!
Date: 2015-06-16 10:37 pm (UTC)That shines through very, very clearly. <<
Yay! In a way, that inner sweetness is what the shield protects. What are they fighting for? A world in which little boys can be little boys, and not just baby soldiers. But also a world in which Captain America can put down the shield, put on his pajamas, and be Stevie again to relax. :D
>> I was so caught up in enjoying the bonding between Stevie and Uncle Phil, that it wasn't until I took a break to get some water that I realize what an EPIC step Jarvis had taken, too. <<
Hee!
>> He took an entirely inconsequential moment, a physical accident, not only parsed it as an opportunity, but parsed one of a series of possible responses. <<
Yes, exactly.
>> Fine. That's how they set up traning scenarios as adults, right? <<
It is. But in Stark Industries, the training scenarios for adults have a playful edge. Tony wants people who can think on their feet. So sometimes he'll dump out a box of Legos, or even random junk, and tell people build something with it. He does this in interviews and lab seminars and so forth. It's a favorite tiebreaker. It's even hinted in canon with "You'll love it -- it's Candyland." That helps JARVIS extrapolate wider possibilities than a purely war-oriented program could.
He has also been watching how Uncle Phil plays with the Littles. Very often Phil joins in by making one small chance or addition based on happenstance, and then he lets the Littles play out what happens next. It's a way of teaching adaptive response and encouraging creative thinking.
>> EXCEPT-- Jarvis didn't kick in the "training scenario" routine. He changed it, MUTED it, and adjusted the "alarm" in order to contribute --to PLAY with them, at Stevie's level. <<
Yes, exactly! :D The alarm is specifically an outgrowth of JARVIS listening to the Littles making choo-choo noises for months. A human would probably have said something like "aaaOOOgah!" For JARVIS, his natural speaking voice is mechanical rather than biological. So to make a 'play' siren, he made it sound like the siren sound-effects on electronic toys.
>> THAT is an EPIC show of not only intelligence, but sapience. <<
Sooth. And care, that JARVIS not only wants to enhance the experience by playing with his friends, but also makes sure that he doesn't spook anyone with a siren that is too realistic.
>> Yet it's such a light, light touch that it is seamlessly PART of the scene, not overwhelming it. <<
Yay! That's what I was aiming for. I'm glad someone caught it. *happydance*
(no subject)
Date: 2015-08-04 04:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-09-07 01:29 am (UTC)Thank you!
Date: 2015-09-07 01:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-11-08 11:56 am (UTC)Yay!
Date: 2015-11-09 09:49 am (UTC)Once I spotted Phil's "rescue" toys I figured that sooner or later Steve would find them, and this made a good setup.
>> I love that a) he immediately asked about GI Jane <<
Steve really misses Peggy. Who saved his bacon more than once.
>> b) he incuded Hulk in his play <<
Steve is fundamentally a team player, even if given a team that doesn't work together at first. So he thinks about ways, even in play, to get people interacting.
>> and c) in the end it's Jane to the rescue! <<
:D