Story: "Hairpins" Part 16

[ysabetwordsmith]

This story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," and "Green Eggs and Hulk."

Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, JARVIS, Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova, Bruce Banner.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: This story is mostly fluff, but it has some intense scenes in the middle. Highlight for details. These include dubious consent as Phil and JARVIS discuss what really happened when Agent Coulson hacked his way into Stark Tower, over which Phil has something between a flashback and a panic attack. They also discuss some of the bad things that have happened to Avengers in the past, including various flavors of abuse. If these are sensitive topics for you, please think carefully before deciding whether to read onward.
Summary: Uncle Phil needs to pick out pajamas for game night. He gets help from an unexpected direction.
Notes: Service. Shopping. Gifts. Artificial intelligence. Computers. Teamwork. Team as family. Friendship. Communication. Hope. Apologies. Forgiveness. Nonsexual ageplay. Nonsexual intimacy. Love. Tony Stark needs a hug. Bruce Banner needs a hug. #coulsonlives.

Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15. Skip to Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21.

WARNING: In this chapter begins a major meltdown as Phil thinks back over past interactions and the implications of JARVIS being a person. Highlight to read the blacked-out section above, if you haven't already. The intense part continues for several chapters. Please make sure you're in safe headspace and environment before deciding whether to read onward.


"Hairpins" Part 16


"How about grays?" JARVIS suggested, changing the display of pajamas.

"Promising," Phil said as he poked at the offerings. "Lose the black-and-white ones." Several images blinked out. "Tone down the color contrast." More images disappeared. "Look for things with soft, wide stripes. Nothing too loud or busy." Fresh pictures appeared. JARVIS flicked a few of them toward the top. Phil chose a medium gray banded with white.

"That looks good," JARVIS said. "It has a nice foggy effect."

Phil moved the two selections to the upper left of the screen. Then he brushed away the unwanted ones and used the space to open an order form. Given Bruce's tendency to scruff around in clothes too large for him, Phil picked out a design with plenty of room. Soon he requested one set of pajamas in each fabric.

"He'll be like one of those geckos at the zoo that nobody can ever find," Phil said with a chuckle.

"Perhaps so," JARVIS said. He put up two old surveillance photos of Bruce, one in brown and one in gray. Neither showed a clear view. "It is often difficult to find him or get close to him. He knows how to hide from cameras."

"Not without reason," Phil said sadly. He had spent a lot of time watching various members of his team. He'd had to shoot Clint in order to slow him down enough to make first contact, which required a lot of trustbuilding before the damaged archer could really bond with him. Then Clint had brought in Natasha much the same way. Phil had found and lost Bruce repeatedly over the years. Coaxing him to fit into a team would be a delicate process. Even getting within reach of Tony required deft footwork and usually a round of diligent hacking.

Just like that, a memory of bringing Tony into the Avengers slid down Phil's spine like a shard of ice. Phil had first tried to reach him through ordinary channels, and when Tony blew him off, Phil had then overridden the protocols to break in.

Protocols that weren't just programs.

JARVIS was a person.

Phil had hacked a person.

The Starkpad slipped from his suddenly numb fingers to land in his lap. His heart hammered. The edges of the world dimmed and faded. Someone was calling his name, from very far away, but Phil could hardly hear it over the sea-roar of guilt surging in his ears. He curled up, doubling over his knees in a vain effort to keep control.

"Phil? Are you all right?"

JARVIS had denied him entrance, and Phil had forced his way in anyhow. Phil was a master hacker. He didn't have to take 'no' for an answer. He could reach in and write his own 'yes' wherever he wanted. It had been a challenge, but he had met it. The realization was dizzying. The breach of integrity took his breath away.

"... hear me, please respond ..."

Phil remembered the towering firewalls of code that he had breached. He remembered the sense of triumph when he finally penetrated the Stark Industries security, and the inkling of something far greater that shimmered just out of reach. At the time he had felt only satisfaction and admiration. Now those submerged under a wash of shame.

* * *

Notes:

Read about the symbolism of the color gray and see Bruce's gray pajamas.

Men may wear baggy clothes out of indifference or ignorance. Women often do it to hide their bodies, either because they think they look bad or wish to avoid unwelcome attention. Bruce does it to hide, as armor, as camouflage, to leave room for Hulk, and because shopping second-hand makes it hard to find a precise fit. There are tips for buying clothes that fit.

Trust is a vital foundation for human interactions. It is more difficult among strangers or people who have hurt each other. Trust is essential in personal relationships and especially in therapeutic ones. There have even been studies on trust done with a robot. Understand how to earn the trust of your friends, and how to repair trust after betrayal. Trustbuilding is a gradual process that requires time. There are trustbuilding exercises which can help, and should be presented in order from easy ones that ask little of people through ones that require increasing amounts of trust. Forcing people to rely on each other with no established baseline of safety is more likely to undermine trust than build it.

Hackers can break into any computer, for positive or negative reasons. Some of them have ethics relating to the sanctity of knowledge. Some focus on doing no damage, or at least minimizing necessary damage. In this context, Phil is a gray hat: breaking into places he's not welcome, but doing so for valid reasons and with the least possible harm. Learn about how to become a hacker. Of course, there's a world of difference between hacking a mindless computer and hacking an artificial intelligence.

Roboethics must consider the question of whether robots and other artificial intelligences should have rights, and why; and if so, which rights. Robots also interact with the rights of humans. Fundamental to this discussion are the right to life and the right to personal integrity of mind and body. It is the latter which Phil violated by reprogramming JARVIS without consent, and which makes Phil upset with himself. (This next link is downright disturbing.) Studies have been done which indicate that humans can bond with robots and become reluctant to harm them, even when the interactive programming is pretty rudimentary. There is already an American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots. Logically in this series, Tony would have his fingers all up in that pie.

What happens to Phil is partway between a panic attack and a flashback. A panic attack has symptoms relating to acute anxiety over present safety. There are ways to help someone through a panic attack. A flashback entails reliving (in part or in whole) a past experience as if it is happening right now. It has symptoms relating to entrapment and dissociation. Understand how to help a person having a flashback and support them. There are also ways to cope with flashbacks of your own or even stop a flashback. In this case, Phil is not trapped in a memory, but rather is floored by the implications of his past actions in light of newly discovered information. This creates an intense emotional overload, leading to partial dissociation from physical awareness, which takes a few minutes for him to process enough to regain control of his body. dreamwriteremmy pointed out that the trope term for this is Heroic Blue Screen of Death.

Shame is an emotion resulting from failure to live up to personal or other standards. It can teach, but it can also harm. Know how to let go of shame.


[To be continued in Part 17 ...]

Comments

Oh, Phil!

[(Anonymous)]

I feel so badly for him, especially as your warnings say this is the beginning of the 'angst' portion of the story.

Yet, I know you're not going to leave this unresolved, AND you haven't abandoned this particular storytelling world; all I have to do is hang on tight and WAIT.

Sigh. I suspect Jarvis LET HIM IN, as a way to fulfill Jarvis' need to protect Tony, even from Tony's own misguided/mishandled communications. In the same situations, had agents Hill or Sitwell tried to "hack" Jarvis, well, I doubt they would've gotten anywhere.

Tony has enough experience with other people overriding his personal sovereignty that I'm CERTAIN that he made protecting Jarvis' a priority. Nascent-Jarvis would've had an extremely cutting-edge, extremely protected "playpen" for his earliest years. As Jarvis became ready for more of the "real world", especially in the cyberverse laughingly called Darpanet and the 80's internet... I shudder to think what harm could've happened as a result of the wrong kind of attention on Jarvis back then. (Just look at what the military did with the War Machine armor-- at BEST that was theft of intellectual property on par with the economic value of some small European countries. (Maybe the Vatican. Seriously. The implications of that single theft are STAGGERING, and almost completely ignored in canon!)

Hanging on with fingernails until you post the next part, Ysabet. Thank you, thank you, thank you! That kind of anticipation is a PLEASURE.

-Sarah-

Re: Oh, Phil!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I feel so badly for him, especially as your warnings say this is the beginning of the 'angst' portion of the story. <<

Yes. Phil is in a world of hurt right now. He may be well-armored from outside attacks on mind and heart, but inside he is soft and squishy.

>> Yet, I know you're not going to leave this unresolved, AND you haven't abandoned this particular storytelling world; all I have to do is hang on tight and WAIT. <<

Next update should post on Friday (so typically after midnight on Thursday). It's going to take several chapters to work through all the tension, though.

On the bright side, JARVIS very quickly realized that something is wrong, although he has no idea what or why. So Phil isn't going through this alone.

>> Sigh. I suspect Jarvis LET HIM IN, as a way to fulfill Jarvis' need to protect Tony, even from Tony's own misguided/mishandled communications. <<

Clever you. Watch and see.

>> In the same situations, had agents Hill or Sitwell tried to "hack" Jarvis, well, I doubt they would've gotten anywhere. <<

Heh. Not to mention they lack Phil's epic level of competence and hacking finesse.

>> Tony has enough experience with other people overriding his personal sovereignty that I'm CERTAIN that he made protecting Jarvis' a priority. <<

True, of course, and it gets beefed up after every attack. The same trick will never work twice. Plus which, after Stane and Vanko etc. JARVIS has a lot more ways to protect Tony in return.

>> Nascent-Jarvis would've had an extremely cutting-edge, extremely protected "playpen" for his earliest years. As Jarvis became ready for more of the "real world", especially in the cyberverse laughingly called Darpanet and the 80's internet... <<

I figure that Tony raised JARVIS with an awareness of how other people might perceive and treat him because of JARVIS being artificial intelligence instead of human. It worked well enough that JARVIS hides in plain sight most of the time, but he trolls the hell out of people who offend him. Look how he treated Tony's one-night-stand when she groped him. You could've made snow cones with that voice tone.

>> I shudder to think what harm could've happened as a result of the wrong kind of attention on Jarvis back then. <<

Too true. But nobody would've been able to get JARVIS away from Tony. *chuckle* If kidnapping a young Tony led to utter mayhem, imagine the disaster that would've resulted from kidnapping JARVIS.

>> (Just look at what the military did with the War Machine armor-- at BEST that was theft of intellectual property on par with the economic value of some small European countries. (Maybe the Vatican. Seriously. The implications of that single theft are STAGGERING, and almost completely ignored in canon!) <<

I grant that the military trying to retro-engineer it was extremely gauche. But Tony made War Machine for Rhodey. He had to. A suit like that doesn't have much wiggle room; it's made to fit the pilot like a glove. The later, prehensile suits could adjust to different pilots -- that made sense -- but the earlier ones couldn't. We know Tony was running an elaborate shell game to keep his friends from finding out about his imminent death. Handing off War Machine was part of that plan. It's just an example of Tony's epic fail at relationship issues.

>> Hanging on with fingernails until you post the next part, Ysabet. Thank you, thank you, thank you! That kind of anticipation is a PLEASURE. <<

*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.

Re: Oh, Phil!

[(Anonymous)]

Funny thing about the wiggle-room in the suits, actually-- all of the actors involved in the game of Musical Suits that was Iron Man 3 are within 1 inch of RDJ's height. Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, the President, and AIM Thug #1 are all of a very similar size, and the latter three all wore War Machine during IM3. And the plot was convoluted enough BEFORE I realized this!

-Shoshana

Re: Oh, Phil!

[siliconshaman]

There's an actual real-world reason for that... they only built 1 prop suit. There's a number of partial ones and CGI frames, but only 1 full-length animatronic WarMachine suit.

That said, it maps to the Film'verse too.

Re: Oh, Phil!

[(Anonymous)]

There are some rumors that Iron Man 4 (movie) will be the "Armor Wars", so there will likely be some very specific casting needs.

Thanks, Shoshana! Now I'm imagining sitting in the theater in the first five minutes going "too short, too short, likely armor person, too short, likely armor..." Snicker.

-Sarah-

Re: Oh, Phil!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Yet another reason to the recast of Rhodey.

Re: Oh, Phil!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Iron Man 3 is non-canon for this series. It's a disaster to begin with. The most I've done is borrow a few bits that were already implied elsewhere, like Tony having raging PTSD nightmares and panic attacks.

Re: Oh, Phil!

[(Anonymous)]

>>I grant that the military trying to retro-engineer it was extremely gauche. But Tony made War Machine for Rhodey. He had to. A suit like that doesn't have much wiggle room; it's made to fit the pilot like a glove. The later, prehensile suits could adjust to different pilots -- that made sense -- but the earlier ones couldn't. We know Tony was running an elaborate shell game to keep his friends from finding out about his imminent death. Handing off War Machine was part of that plan. It's just an example of Tony's epic fail at relationship issues.<<

Yes, the original was made for Rhodey, and he "stole" it per Tony's expectations.

But one of the things that makes Tony Stark's tech so far ahead of the norm in the Marvel Universe is that he thinks differently about EVERY aspect of an engineered item (like the "all glass" look of the Stark Phone). Once the military had hold of the prototype, they began to look at it under a microscope, reverse-engineering every single aspect of it from the gears, pistons and actuators in each limb to the circuitry and eventually the software. (Justin Hammer's OS was made of Fail, but it showed exactly how far the military was going to re-create the armor, and them GIVING Hammer access to the suit was an invitation for Hammer and his company to ALSO rip off Tony's work and then patent it as their own. That Hammer could not meet expectations to create an army of the suits for them is completely beside the point.

Cumulatively, considering a single patent for something as simple as a carabiner with swivel joint can be worth hundreds of millions, the level of theft is just mind-boggling. The metallurgical patents alone would be astronomically valuable. The US military treated Tony exactly the way Ross treated Hulk-- like their own golden goose. Extremely ironic that Obie used the exact term when intending to murder Tony for the mini reactor, because Obie -died- as a result, but there has been NO indication of repercussions or fallout from the situation to the military.

"Genius" is not synonymous with "public property". Tony's right to the fruits his own creativity has been badly ignored in canon. Frankly, the only comparisons I can think of which are severe enough are also inflammatory enough that I'm not going there.

-Sarah-

Re: Oh, Phil!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Well, Tony didn't think he'd be around. And he was depending that his designs are far enough ahead he'd bog down the reverse engineers and maybe some of them would be seduced by the elegance.

And yes, that all is just as abusive as Obie. Why do you think they let Tony waltz about drinking? Because if your Golden Goose can lay greased, you keep it greased.

Re: Oh, Phil!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Yes, the original was made for Rhodey, and he "stole" it per Tony's expectations.

But one of the things that makes Tony Stark's tech so far ahead of the norm in the Marvel Universe is that he thinks differently about EVERY aspect of an engineered item (like the "all glass" look of the Stark Phone). <<

Agreed.

>> Once the military had hold of the prototype, they began to look at it under a microscope, reverse-engineering every single aspect of it from the gears, pistons and actuators in each limb to the circuitry and eventually the software. <<

Well, they could try. But have you ever tried to program a watch without the manual? Tony's tech is so far ahead of the curve, people barely understand what it is when they're looking right at it.

>> (Justin Hammer's OS was made of Fail, but it showed exactly how far the military was going to re-create the armor, <<

Yeah, but they couldn't make it work. Tony was right about that. Vanko only managed to get as far as he did, because he was close to the caliber of Howard and had some of the proprietary notes. In the end it was still a piss-poor knockoff of the real thing.

>> and them GIVING Hammer access to the suit was an invitation for Hammer and his company to ALSO rip off Tony's work and then patent it as their own. That Hammer could not meet expectations to create an army of the suits for them is completely beside the point. <<

Unquestionably. This is another example of the might-makes-right principle in action. And that is not a playing field where you want to face Tony Stark, because you will lose, so very badly.

>> Cumulatively, considering a single patent for something as simple as a carabiner with swivel joint can be worth hundreds of millions, the level of theft is just mind-boggling. The metallurgical patents alone would be astronomically valuable. <<

Well, that's how Tony went from decently rich to more money than a small nation. The US military deals in a similar scope. Just as a corporation's sole purpose under current auspices is to make money for its shareholders, so too is the military's sole purpose to protect its country's interests. If that means torture, slavery, entrapment, calumny, or industrial espionage -- right now they're comfortable with all of that. It's a problem.

>> The US military treated Tony exactly the way Ross treated Hulk-- like their own golden goose. <<

Yes, they did. If they had treated him decently, he would have done just about anything for them; but they couldn't be arsed to hold up their end of the deal. So they lost it all, and then tried to take it back by force. There are a lot of no-longer-living people who can demonstrate what happens when somebody tries to force Tony.

>> Extremely ironic that Obie used the exact term when intending to murder Tony for the mini reactor, because Obie -died- as a result, but there has been NO indication of repercussions or fallout from the situation to the military. <<

Not in canon, where people are terrible about following through on the implications.

In my setting, well ... who do you think helped point Steve Rogers at some of the weak spots where he has used his massive iconic leverage to instigate changes? Tony won't do things that would hurt the soldiers, but he will making life unpleasant for the brass, such as by setting Steve on the politicians and SHIELD staff who cheat soldiers of fair support. Not to mention that Tony has enough pocket change to buy congresscritters by the sixpack, and is presumably using that influence to aim in different directions than he used to.

>> "Genius" is not synonymous with "public property". Tony's right to the fruits his own creativity has been badly ignored in canon. <<

Agreed. However, it is consistent; they treat Bruce-and-Hulk the same way. And anyone else who has something they want, like a lot of the mutants. It's a precedent destructive to a healthy or even functional society.

>> Frankly, the only comparisons I can think of which are severe enough are also inflammatory enough that I'm not going there. <<

I'll point out that the last father of artificial intelligence who was treated this badly, took his ball and went home. Imagine where we'd be today if Alan Turing had stuck around.

Re: Oh, Phil!

[(Anonymous)]

>> Not to mention they lack Phil's epic level of competence and hacking finesse.<<

Finesse may be the saving element here. As an example, if Jarvis were programmed to display an "intruder alert" on every screen, the most subtle, least invasive change to his programming would be to simply alter the color assigned to said display-- not to the point of invisibility, but well into the range of dimmed, muddy grays that'll be completely overwhelmed by the otherwise unchanged display, even if the text is flashing. That allows the program to run otherwise unmolested, and if Phil can get past that without triggering the next level of defenses (e.g., an audio alert), it's also the least amount of effort on Phil's part. Elegance and gentleness- changing a visibility element, rather than bashing the subroutine into nonexistence- would appeal to Tony, and thus to his offspring, Jarvis.

Jarvis, a self-directed AI, would have self-checking subroutines which compare his current programming to both his defaults and to the short- and long-term backups made in regular cycles. (Imagine how long a single hour is in processing cycles, computations per second, and the relatively tiny window of opportunity makes Phil's accomplishment all the greater.) Because Jarvis is self-directed, he wouldn't blindly follow a protocol which would overwrite ANY part of his code. How DID Phil accomplish that? Either through misdirection, conducting simultaneous changes to two or more subroutines (How much free processing power, equaling 'attention' in humans, does Jarvis denote to certain areas? How much wiggle room does that allow for any potential hacker?), outright subversion/deletion (which is akin to amputating a finger to treat a hangnail), or--

The "or" is where the focus of the story shifts. The "or" is actually the first evidence in movie canon that Jarvis made a judgement call about Agent Coulson of SHIELD. And that same "or" will show us an awful lot about Phil, perhaps even a little bit of how Flip developed into Agent Coulson.

Re: Oh, Phil!

[(Anonymous)]

Oops, forgot to sign the above. Sorry. -Sarah-

Danger, Will Robinson!

[thnidu]

Not "highlighted"! There is no "highlighted stuff"; there is blacked-out stuff that you urge the reader to highlight to read.

Re: Danger, Will Robinson!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Fixed, sorry about that.

Ack!

[(Anonymous)]

I should really wait a few weeks to come back and read this... because I dislike waiting and I agonize over cliffhangers. I'm so excited that you're still writing in this universe and I absolutely LOVE it. <3

For now, poor Phil. Poor JARVIS, because he's got no idea why Phil is freaking out and that's terrifying, too. But this will get fixed because you always fix it and I friggin' love you for it. Update soon! <3

~RageQueen

Re: Ack!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I should really wait a few weeks to come back and read this... because I dislike waiting and I agonize over cliffhangers. <<

That's okay. Read it however works for you.

>> I'm so excited that you're still writing in this universe and I absolutely LOVE it. <3 <<

Yay! I'm happy to hear that.

>> For now, poor Phil. Poor JARVIS, because he's got no idea why Phil is freaking out and that's terrifying, too. <<

Yes. It's always worse when something goes wrong and you have no idea what or why. Phil was blindsided by the realization but at least has a handle on what ran him over. JARVIS has no clue until Phil recovers enough to explain aloud. So all JARVIS can do is default to the standard flashback-care routine, which actually is a great routine and does help. But it's still nerve-wracking.

>> But this will get fixed because you always fix it and I friggin' love you for it. Update soon! <3 <<

I appreciate the vote of confidence. For what it's worth, the story currently updates on Monday-Wednesday-Friday.

More about Clint?

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, I've been lurking on your stories for a few weeks now and I find them fascinating. I read them over and over again, and click on the links in your notes. I'm finding out all kinds of interesting things.

In fact, I find myself looking forward to particular days of the week when I know that you'll be updating. "Oooh, to-day is Wednesday, there'll be a new chapter! There, read it. Why does it have to be so short? Now I have to wait until Friday for the next one."

Anyway, I was just wondering if you'd ever consider doing a sort of a prequel story about the time when Phil shot Clint, as you mentioned in this part, and how he won Clint's trust? I would really enjoy that.

Or if you think you might get around to including Thor (and maybe even Loki) in these teambuilding exercises?

Still, no matter what you decide to concentrate on, I'll still be reading. Thanks for all your hard work on these. :-)

Zelofheda

Re: More about Clint?

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Hi, I've been lurking on your stories for a few weeks now and I find them fascinating. I read them over and over again, and click on the links in your notes. I'm finding out all kinds of interesting things. <<

Welcome! I'm delighted to hear that.

>> In fact, I find myself looking forward to particular days of the week when I know that you'll be updating. "Oooh, to-day is Wednesday, there'll be a new chapter! There, read it. Why does it have to be so short? Now I have to wait until Friday for the next one." <<

*laugh* Yeah, I hear that a lot. Shorter stories get 500 words per chapter, longer ones get 1000 words. More than that risks the blog posts hangfiring.

>> Anyway, I was just wondering if you'd ever consider doing a sort of a prequel story about the time when Phil shot Clint, as you mentioned in this part, and how he won Clint's trust? I would really enjoy that. <<

I have done a prequel for Happy, and I'm considering others. This one of Clint is a possibility.

>> Or if you think you might get around to including Thor (and maybe even Loki) in these teambuilding exercises? <<

I'd love to, but not soon. There's a lot of stuff already in motion that needs to resolve first. Those boys are heavy, so I need to make space for them.

>> Still, no matter what you decide to concentrate on, I'll still be reading. Thanks for all your hard work on these. :-) <<

Yay! I'm happy to hear that.

[dreamwriteremmy]

Aww, Phil. The trope name for this reaction Heroic BSOD immediately came into my head. And now I want to give everyone more hugs.

Inappropriate humor, but--

[(Anonymous)]

NOW, you've got me thinking of Jarvis, displaying a blue screen with flashing white question mark filling the center of Phil's Stark Tablet, and when that doesn't work, he calls someone else for help... My brain is a strange, strange land.

But seriously, thanks for the link; I can kill an afternoon wandering that site without once being bored!

Re: Inappropriate humor, but--

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> NOW, you've got me thinking of Jarvis, displaying a blue screen with flashing white question mark filling the center of Phil's Stark Tablet, <<

Not quite something JARVIS (at least at this stage of his evolution) would say to someone else, but if he gets dazed enough, screens can go blank -- and in that kind of overload, they default to kind of a blue-white color. So that's a thing we might see eventually.

>> and when that doesn't work, he calls someone else for help... My brain is a strange, strange land. <<

You're not far off. The next chapter shows a lot more of the flashback routine that JARVIS has developed.

>> But seriously, thanks for the link; I can kill an afternoon wandering that site without once being bored! <<

*laugh* Yeah, me too.

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Aww, Phil. <<

Yeah, this chapter is ouchie.

>> The trope name for this reaction Heroic BSOD immediately came into my head. <<

Added to the references, thanks.

>> And now I want to give everyone more hugs. <<

They can use all they can get.

showing my age

[thnidu]

I've been working with computers since the late sixties and am all too familiar with the BSOD, but I didn't recognize the initialism and had to Google it. I must be showing my age, because the TVTropes pages all assumed the reader would know what it stood for. "Assumed": I linked them.^WP

Oh, and: Phil is a hero of ethics. :-)

Re: showing my age

[(Anonymous)]

>> Phil is a hero of ethics. :-) <<

Thnidu, this is PERFECT! Agreed!

Re: showing my age

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I've been working with computers since the late sixties and am all too familiar with the BSOD, but I didn't recognize the initialism and had to Google it. I must be showing my age, because the TVTropes pages all assumed the reader would know what it stood for. "Assumed": I linked them.WP <<

Thanks for patching TVTropes. (There's a reason why journalism rules require spelling out an acronym the first time it's used in each article.) I have added the Blue Screen of Death reference to my links here too.

>> Oh, and: Phil is a hero of ethics. :-) <<

Well said! There's a lot more of this in the next chapter, which I just posted, as he flogs himself over what he did to JARVIS.