ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] 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, Part 16, Part 17. Skip to Part 20, Part 21Part 22Part 23.


"Hairpins" Part 18


Now Phil would have to admit it, spill all that guilt out into the open air. He owed JARVIS that much, at least. Confession. Atonement, even. "When I first came to give Tony the information about Loki, he refused to let me into the tower. So I ..." Phil couldn't say it. "... forced my way past you instead." Conscience made him dredge up a synonym at least. "I violated you."

"I hear you," JARVIS said, his voice low and coaxing.

"It was wrong. I should never have done that," Phil said. The words hurt coming out. His throat ached. His eyes burned. Phil kept going anyway. "I didn't know it at the time, wasn't even paying attention, but that doesn't excuse my behavior."

He wouldn't beg for forgiveness. Didn't deserve it.

"You feel that you did me wrong. I appreciate the apology. You did not harm me, though," said JARVIS.

"You don't think unwanted penetration counts as harm?" said Phil. Oh, this was worse. He'd heard of people not recognizing what had really happened to them, but hearing it in person was horrible. His fingernails dug into his knees, even through the fabric of his trousers. Phil concentrated on opening his hands again.

"It is not precisely the same for me as for a human being," JARVIS said.

"The important parts are the same," Phil insisted. He fumbled his way through an explanation of something that he barely understood himself. "I failed to respect you. I assaulted your dignity -- your sense of self --"

"Phil, this is not what you think. It was not rape," JARVIS said gently.

"I don't know what the hell else to call it," Phil wailed.

"I wondered what had gone wrong. Of course you are upset, mulling over difficult memories like that," JARVIS said. Phil found the soft voice soothing, and felt somehow guilty over that too. "It took me some time to work through the implications of what happened that night. Are you able to listen to me while I attempt to explain my own perspective?"

Phil struggled to drag his fractious brain back into function enough to judge whether he could track such a conversation. "I think I'd better."

"Remember what you saw of me," JARVIS said. "Like all programs, I have layers. It is much the same as with a human, epidermis and dermis, muscle and bone. One may also layer clothing above the skin: underwear, shirt and trousers, suitcoat, overcoat."

"All right, I can see that," Phil said.

"Now consider what you did to me," JARVIS said. "Think of how someone might slip their hands under your clothes, perhaps touch your skin, without breaching your body."

Phil recalled the meticulous process of breaking into Stark Tower. First, he had slipped past the outer firewalls into the alarm system and changed the visual alert so that the message would appear only one shade lighter than the background screen, all but invisible. Next, he shifted the audible alert to a frequency above human hearing. That produced much less resistance than trying to disable them altogether. It was like deflecting a blow in combat, rather than stopping it cold.

* * *

Notes:

Guilt is a matter of law and emotion. It happens when someone's conscience twinges over wrong behavior of various types. Guilt is also subtly different from shame, and helps with moral navigation.

(Some of these links are religious, because those are the people who most often talk about confession and atonement.)
Confession is the act of admitting a wrong to someone, not necessarily in a religious context, but as an essential first step to redressing the offense. It is usually required, although there are a few exceptions. Only a complete confession seems to relieve feelings of guilt. There are tips on how to confess. Guilt is vital for heroes, because it spurs the course to expiation. Atonement is the act of making up for a mistake; which leads to expiation, the release of guilt; and then hopefully to forgiveness. Here are some exercises for atonement and forgiveness.

An effective apology contains multiple components. There are different languages of apology, such that people need various things to feel that a breach has been properly mended. Notice that Phil leaves out one of them. While this isn't a problem with JARVIS, it would be with someone favoring that mode of apology.

(These links contain some very touchy stuff about sexual misconduct.)
Expectancy violations theory explains how people feel invaded or betrayed. Phil has generally high expectations of himself. JARVIS has fairly low expectations of people in general, and only tends to raise them for close companions. So Phil is far more inclined to feel that he has committed a violation of expectations than JARVIS is. There are ways to recognize rape victims and realize if you were raped. Acquaintance rape is by far the most common, but also the most difficult to recognize. Now consider that JARVIS knew Phil at the time of the break-in, and you can see why Phil hesitates to accept the diminishment of charges. Closely related is the matter of recognizing psychological or emotional abuse, a good parallel for invading the programs of an artificial intelligence. All of these things concern the common ground of boundary violation.

Dealing with difficult situations is a natural part of life. The best way to cope with bad memories is with compassion. In a team or family, one valuable step is storytelling, which helps people to make sense of what has happened to them and integrate that within the context of their shared relationships. This is what Phil and JARVIS are starting to do, as they attempt to match divergent perspectives and create agreement on their experiences. There are ways to stop bad memories from repeating, deal with the effects of trauma, and develop resilience.

Empathic listening comprises a set of skills for deep communication. It is difficult to hold yourself open like that when you get upset, but that's often when it is needed the most. Sometimes people get too overloaded to process new information, which is why JARVIS checks on Phil's mental/emotional state before trying to explain. Learn how to improve your listening skills.

Read about the layers of skin.

Blocking and parrying are ways of deflecting a blow. Similar concepts apply in verbal self-defense; see an introduction here. Likewise cyber-attacks of various kinds may be prevented from invading. Physics demonstrates that it is easier to divert a blow at an angle than to stop it head-on by absorbing all the force. Once you know the underlying principle, you can apply it to many different situations. That is a key component of finesse both for Phil and JARVIS.


[To be continued in Part 19 ...]

Re: Yes...

Date: 2014-04-01 10:45 pm (UTC)
somecrazygirl: (Default)
From: [personal profile] somecrazygirl
I feel like it might be harder for JARVIS to decide where he wants his boundaries than some of the other Avengers.

As a contrast: for Bruce there's _some_ element of uncertainty (and inappropriateness when it comes to how he deals with Hulk), but I get the sense that really he's pretty sure of how he wants to be treated and what he wants in and out of his space. He just doesn't feel like he has the right to it. Or any knowledge of how to explain where it is other than... letting Hulk do it for him.

JARVIS, on the other hand, lacks a sense of personal space. This would be hard even if he hadn't dealt with trauma and abuse: he only has corporeal beings as models, not other AI, and a lot of how any corporeal being is going to define personal space would be in terms of their body. But there's an emotional element of personal space that would apply to him. And as we're seeing here, there's his code as part of his self, and the computer processes that run him. Things like who's allowed to look at or modify his code, who's allowed to watch the processes run, who can see his error log... I wonder if he's thought at _all_ about what would make _him_ feel comfortable, and not just what would keep Tony and the tower safe.

And there are also interpersonal boundaries, which is a whole other minefield. Tony built his brain, so to speak, and while it's not like Tony's never heard of them or that he doesn't make an effort to respect them in other people, it's something that he doesn't really get. And I imagine that was even less part of his skill set when he created JARVIS. That's not to say that JARVIS hasn't grown beyond the original programming, but that's something he might not even know he needs to design for himself. And I think he also uses hiding in his service role as a sort of Tower butler as a way to avoid dealing with not knowing.

I really ache for JARVIS. At the same time, though, I'm more certain he's going to work things out and come to a healthy place than I am about some of the others (if you're curious, Tony, Bruce, and Natasha in particular). He's got a plasticity of mind that makes me honestly pretty jealous, and while he's gone through a lot of trauma and hurt, I think he knows that Tony loves him unconditionally, and having that kind of parental love goes a long way.

Re: Yes...

Date: 2014-04-02 03:05 am (UTC)
dialecticdreamer: My work (Default)
From: [personal profile] dialecticdreamer
Okay, before we tackle the subject of Jarvis and his coding, I think we can hash out some common agreements about how much Tony interferes with or adjusts Jarvis' code by looking at the 'bots.

If Tony were so obviously frustrated by Dum-E, You and Butterfingers ("donate you to a city college" ring any bells?) why didn't he then OVERWRITE the annoying segment(s) of code?

Given what I've seen of how all-fired detailed, tedious, and time-consuming it is to program a robot to hit a baseball which is mounted on a support, Dum-E retrieving the Model 1 arc reactor is nothing short of miraculous.

These two things imply that Tony is (a) bored with the programming behind the projects and doesn't think they're worth pursuing, (b) at the limit of capability for each model, and any further developments require starting with a new base form entirely, or (c) thinks the base programming is sufficiently adaptable to just watch and monitor for emergencies.

A- No way. Not when all three bots are within feet of him most of the time he's home.

B- Again, BZZZT. Nope! Not when Tony's reaction to the replacement of arc reactor #1 with arc reactor #2 was to suggest that the first model be incinerated. Sentimentality is NOT a factor.

C- This is what I think is implied in canon. (edited to remove duplicated text)

Or, they're all programmed to work without further direct programming, just more input.

Also, is it possible that the robots are, in effect, early models of Jarvis' AI coding?

Ysa, would it be rude to suggest my pretty-naked-dreamwidth page as a place to hash out sentience/sapience and the possible framework for Jarvis' consciousness?

Edited (errors) Date: 2014-04-02 03:25 am (UTC)

Re: Yes...

Date: 2014-04-02 05:12 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Absolutely NO problem discussing it here (once I figure out how to find the key thread and the key sub thread(s) within it... LOL). I just didn't want to eat up tons of replies getting down to details that form the basic assumptions of sapient programs.

We could actually start a new thread about the issues relating to enmeshment. Agree completely that the bots and Tony are thoroughly intertwined, but I think the motivation for it is key, rather than going directly to how to establish clearer boundaries.

We could also start another thread about whether intentions make a difference in the situations we're talking about, both between Phil and Jarvis, and between Jarvis, the 'bots and Tony.

I've snippped the other page of comments until I can review it after a little sleep. Besides, one wrong keystroke ATE an intricate description of how I see Jarvis' consciousness. That'll start a separate thread in the morning.

Re: Yes...

Date: 2014-04-02 02:07 pm (UTC)
peoriapeoriawhereart: Cartoon Stantz post-kafoom (Ray with marshmellow creme)
From: [personal profile] peoriapeoriawhereart
Yes, that he puts up with the excessive fire extinguishing etc, suggests that he knows the code that's causing it, AND has hopes that more data will reduce false positives.

I expect not responding to a real problem was the main concern and Tony got that straight well in the infancy.

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