Immediately and gratefully, thank you for the 'problem area' content warnings WELL in advance of the actual scenes.
Frankly, your writing engrosses me well enough that, so far, every difficult concept has been MORE than amply "rewarded" by the wonderful portrayals of the characters. You write not to simply show "hurt/comfort," but to show (and hopefully,subtly tinker with) the psychological, emotional, and mental underpinnings of the universe where the story takes place. That's a million worlds away from writing... gore, of any stripe, with the primary purpose of shocking the audience. (It may have other purposes, but I'm not sure, as my tolerance for that kind of "entertainment" is so low as to be measured with a microscope. An electron microscope.)
Phil and Jarvis are beginning to communicate, to truly collaborate. I am delighted! They will NEED that trust, however tentative, when they begin to communicate about more personal topics.
I think Phil's "superpower" is his insight into human psychology. So far, I'm not seeing hints that he survived an abusive or traumatic childhood (quite the opposite, in fact, given how naturally he acts as caretaker, both as Agent Coulson and as Uncle Phil). Did you set out intentionally to make him a "model of preferred adult interactions"? Really, one can pick a psychological skill and place any other character (save Nick Fury, who is conspicuously absent in any meaningful way, thank you!) in a spectrum from "least able to deal with it," to Coulson's "sane and competent, fully adult" mindset.
That doesn't mean he isn't strongly emotional, or strongly affected; it's his resilience and confidence (in most definitions of the word) that I find engrossing.
For example,if the topic is "physical touch and emotions," Tony is probably the least able to cope with ANY element thereof. In canon he is either wildly inappropriate and "handsy", overly sexual and promiscuous, or so touch-phobic as to refuse any object being handed to him in CASE there might be skin-to-skin contact. He's, quite frankly, "a bit nuts" and definitely all over the map -- as it relates to THIS aspect of life. The other Avengers are portrayed with differing amounts of comfort/need for physical contact, and each employs SOME primary form of touch interaction, with Steve being the least noticeably affected (I argue that Clint uses his high perches to avoid casual touch, and that it is still a default behavior for him, long after it would've developed as a survival skill.) Phil can adjust and interact with each of them in ways that imply that he is most aware of his needs and preferences, the other person's needs and preferences... Then he takes it a step farther and ADJUSTS his interactions accordingly. That implies a great deal more self-awareness than just "typical adults". Then you take things a step farther, and imply that he is aware of dozens of different subcultures and how those elements change an individual's reactions. Superpower, in a nutshell! I see him in your stories as an extremely thoughtful, proactive person, and have a chuckle at his apparent mental checklist, "Hm, assess, plan, test, measure results, review, repeat as needed."
You've done one thing that keeps him from being a flat, useless Mary Sue: he makes mistakes. Things go wrong, even with his arsenal of skills and his many years dealing with increasingly unusual situations with cool aplomb, neither he nor the universe you draw for us are perfect.
We, the readers, are about to be front row center for the element of Coulson's personality I think is largely overlooked by Marvel canon: integrity. I don't want to speculate "aloud" yet, but I will readily admit to trying to predict how the "hacking" discussion between Jarvis and Phil will play out. The one thing I can easily predict is that Coulson IS an adult; he will face the results of an earlier mistake with integrity. Nick Fury is horribly aggravating to me in part BECAUSE he tends to blow off other people's reactions to HIS behavior as THEIR problem, and not evidence of exactly how callous, militant and ruthless he can be.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_serpent
Thank you!
Date: 2014-03-24 07:14 am (UTC)Frankly, your writing engrosses me well enough that, so far, every difficult concept has been MORE than amply "rewarded" by the wonderful portrayals of the characters. You write not to simply show "hurt/comfort," but to show (and hopefully,subtly tinker with) the psychological, emotional, and mental underpinnings of the universe where the story takes place. That's a million worlds away from writing... gore, of any stripe, with the primary purpose of shocking the audience. (It may have other purposes, but I'm not sure, as my tolerance for that kind of "entertainment" is so low as to be measured with a microscope. An electron microscope.)
Phil and Jarvis are beginning to communicate, to truly collaborate. I am delighted! They will NEED that trust, however tentative, when they begin to communicate about more personal topics.
I think Phil's "superpower" is his insight into human psychology. So far, I'm not seeing hints that he survived an abusive or traumatic childhood (quite the opposite, in fact, given how naturally he acts as caretaker, both as Agent Coulson and as Uncle Phil). Did you set out intentionally to make him a "model of preferred adult interactions"? Really, one can pick a psychological skill and place any other character (save Nick Fury, who is conspicuously absent in any meaningful way, thank you!) in a spectrum from "least able to deal with it," to Coulson's "sane and competent, fully adult" mindset.
That doesn't mean he isn't strongly emotional, or strongly affected; it's his resilience and confidence (in most definitions of the word) that I find engrossing.
For example,if the topic is "physical touch and emotions," Tony is probably the least able to cope with ANY element thereof. In canon he is either wildly inappropriate and "handsy", overly sexual and promiscuous, or so touch-phobic as to refuse any object being handed to him in CASE there might be skin-to-skin contact. He's, quite frankly, "a bit nuts" and definitely all over the map -- as it relates to THIS aspect of life. The other Avengers are portrayed with differing amounts of comfort/need for physical contact, and each employs SOME primary form of touch interaction, with Steve being the least noticeably affected (I argue that Clint uses his high perches to avoid casual touch, and that it is still a default behavior for him, long after it would've developed as a survival skill.) Phil can adjust and interact with each of them in ways that imply that he is most aware of his needs and preferences, the other person's needs and preferences... Then he takes it a step farther and ADJUSTS his interactions accordingly. That implies a great deal more self-awareness than just "typical adults". Then you take things a step farther, and imply that he is aware of dozens of different subcultures and how those elements change an individual's reactions. Superpower, in a nutshell! I see him in your stories as an extremely thoughtful, proactive person, and have a chuckle at his apparent mental checklist, "Hm, assess, plan, test, measure results, review, repeat as needed."
You've done one thing that keeps him from being a flat, useless Mary Sue: he makes mistakes. Things go wrong, even with his arsenal of skills and his many years dealing with increasingly unusual situations with cool aplomb, neither he nor the universe you draw for us are perfect.
We, the readers, are about to be front row center for the element of Coulson's personality I think is largely overlooked by Marvel canon: integrity. I don't want to speculate "aloud" yet, but I will readily admit to trying to predict how the "hacking" discussion between Jarvis and Phil will play out. The one thing I can easily predict is that Coulson IS an adult; he will face the results of an earlier mistake with integrity. Nick Fury is horribly aggravating to me in part BECAUSE he tends to blow off other people's reactions to HIS behavior as THEIR problem, and not evidence of exactly how callous, militant and ruthless he can be.