Story: "Hairpins" Part 17
Mar. 28th, 2014 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis 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. Skip to Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22.
WARNING: Phil proceeds to lose his shit over the memory of hacking into JARVIS and his interpretation of its implications. Meanwhile JARVIS, who has no idea what has gone wrong with Phil, is worrying his head off. Please make sure you're in safe headspace and environment before deciding whether to read onward.
"Hairpins" Part 17
"... time is 10:23 A.M. on ..."
What Phil had done to JARVIS was inexcusable. There were words for that kind of violation. For that crime. It didn't matter to Phil that the law would read it differently. It didn't matter that he had not known.
How could you not know that you were raping someone?
"... weather is cold and clear today; temperature ..."
The word sawed through his mind, jagged and implacable. Phil's stomach flipped over. He swallowed hard against the sour taste at the back of his throat. He felt disgraced. No, worse than that. He felt filthy.
"... home safe, at Avengers Tower ..."
Phil had done some terrible things in his time. He had lied and manipulated, tortured and killed, to complete a mission or protect his people. You didn't work in espionage without getting your hands dirty. You tried to minimize collateral damage, but in the end, you took responsibility for whatever happened. You made your choices and you lived with the outcomes, good or bad. Phil had always known what he was doing, though, weighed the cost against the gain. He had done those things mindfully and accepted the burdens.
" ... and you can get through this ..."
To have violated someone out of sheer blind ignorance felt so much worse. Phil wondered if he would ever feel clean again.
" ... to focus on your breathing, and now ..."
That reminder helped. Phil seized on it as an anchor. He dragged in a breath, another, struggling to get his wayward body under control. This he knew. This he could do. Phil breathed again, slower, deeper. He wiped his sweaty hands against his trousers. The Starkpad, its screen gone dark, slid off his lap to land on the couch. Phil made himself sit up and look around the room. It seemed unchanged, normal, jarring in comparison to the storm inside him.
"Phil? You seem to be calming down some. Please answer me if you can," said JARVIS.
Phil had only heard that velvet-warm tone a few times before, when Tony or Steve had gotten caught in a flashback -- and yes, now that he thought about it, that was the flashback routine that JARVIS was reciting. "Why are you even still speaking to me?" he wondered aloud, his voice hoarse.
"Your vital signs spiked, and you became unresponsive," JARVIS said. "I worried. How are you feeling now?"
"I'm ..." Phil began, then paused. Fine would be a bald-faced lie. "... not in any danger."
"Would you like me to call someone for you?"
"No." His team didn't need to see him like this; they needed his strength.
"Is there anything I can do that might help you feel better?"
"God, no, you don't owe me anything," Phil said. He stretched, trying to make his ill-fitting body feel like it belonged to him again. His muscles ached as if he'd just run an obstacle course.
"If you want to say anything, I am listening."
"I'm sorry." The words tumbled out before Phil could catch them. "I am so sorry for what I did to you."
"You're sorry. You're not in any danger. What are you sorry about, Phil?" asked JARVIS.
* * *
Notes:
(Many of the following links contain some intense stuff as they examine the mess at hand.)
Phil jumps to a sexual metaphor partly because of the stylistic actions he remembers (i.e. the code is JARVIS' mind, the building is his body, and Phil entered both without consent) and partly because of the severity of violation, even though nobody's genitals were involved. There are already discussions of robot rape underway, as people consider whether an artificial intelligence could commit or suffer such violation. This leads to the question of programmed consent, what it means for an artificial intelligence to be able to consent and what things constitute a breach of integrity. It is, furthermore, damaging for the assailant to treat another sapient being that way, in addition to damaging the victim; in which regard, even facsimile rape is injurious as well as often considered immoral.
There is a close parallel with mind rape, given that AIs tend to be more mind than body and reprogramming them is a violation of their integrity. This overlaps the idea of reprogramming humans through brainwashing, a touchy issue for SHIELD personnel in general and also for the Avengers. It involves not just brutal torture techniques, but also quite subtle manipulation. That is, Phil's intrusion was not violent, but that does not disqualify it from being a violation. Another related category is emotional rape, where the perpetrator seeks to dominate and control the victim. It is closely associated with brainwashing. While Phil was not aiming for humiliation or heartache, he definitely manipulated the relationship between JARVIS and Tony, promoting his own importance beyond what he had honestly earned.
Rape isn't always as easy to recognize as many people would think. Many survivors do not realize they were raped. It is especially difficult for male survivors who were raped by women. Many perpetrators do not think of themselves as rapists. Consider how sexual offenders think about their actions and their different motivations. Now compare this to reprogramming an artificial intelligence. It's "working a no into a yes" all over again. It's dealing with someone whose ability and willingness to give or withhold consent may be imperfect. There are ways to support a survivor of rape or other violation, and to break habits of sexual violence.
(Now we're getting into the links that talk about how to clean up the mess, so they're less icky.)
Remorse is the feeling people have when they have failed to act with integrity and therefore regret their actions. Phil feels dirty because he crossed a line without realizing it at the time, and blames himself. Understand how to live with regret and learn from mistakes.
Achieving emotional control is easier if you understand the different areas and modes of the human brain. Self-trust is the lever that makes it possible to switch gears inside yourself. Then you can use your knowledge to regain control of yourself in a crisis. Even though Phil just knocked himself ass over teakettle, he knows how to get his feet back under him.
Breathing is one of the most important pillars of composure. There are many exercises for breathing your way to calm and relaxation. Deep breathing soothes anxiety especially well. Here is a video of a yoga breathing technique for stress relief.
Aftercare for a flashback or panic attack is as important as support during one. There are tips on caring for yourself after a flashback and helping someone after a panic attack. Understand that various people find different things to be helpful or aggravating; learn what works for you or your friend, and do that. In general, be quiet and gentle, and offer comfort. JARVIS doesn't know Phil intimately yet, but is learning his parameters, and has a standard routine for treating emotional overload. Sadly the Avengers had a lot of Blue Screen of Death episodes, the first few months after moving in.
Mirroring is a technique used in therapy and conversation, where one person repeats or paraphrases what the other person says. It provides validation, supports understanding, and helps identify feelings or ideas that may not be completely clear yet. There are different variations of such conversational reflection. JARVIS uses mirroring to soothe Phil, and to entice enough explanation out of him to learn what went wrong and how to respond.
Apologizing can be a difficult task, but honorable people face it with courage. There are tips on how to make a good apology. Phil blurts his out before he has quite put all the pieces together in his head, let alone put himself back together.
[To be continued in Part 18 ...]
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. Skip to Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22.
WARNING: Phil proceeds to lose his shit over the memory of hacking into JARVIS and his interpretation of its implications. Meanwhile JARVIS, who has no idea what has gone wrong with Phil, is worrying his head off. Please make sure you're in safe headspace and environment before deciding whether to read onward.
"Hairpins" Part 17
"... time is 10:23 A.M. on ..."
What Phil had done to JARVIS was inexcusable. There were words for that kind of violation. For that crime. It didn't matter to Phil that the law would read it differently. It didn't matter that he had not known.
How could you not know that you were raping someone?
"... weather is cold and clear today; temperature ..."
The word sawed through his mind, jagged and implacable. Phil's stomach flipped over. He swallowed hard against the sour taste at the back of his throat. He felt disgraced. No, worse than that. He felt filthy.
"... home safe, at Avengers Tower ..."
Phil had done some terrible things in his time. He had lied and manipulated, tortured and killed, to complete a mission or protect his people. You didn't work in espionage without getting your hands dirty. You tried to minimize collateral damage, but in the end, you took responsibility for whatever happened. You made your choices and you lived with the outcomes, good or bad. Phil had always known what he was doing, though, weighed the cost against the gain. He had done those things mindfully and accepted the burdens.
" ... and you can get through this ..."
To have violated someone out of sheer blind ignorance felt so much worse. Phil wondered if he would ever feel clean again.
" ... to focus on your breathing, and now ..."
That reminder helped. Phil seized on it as an anchor. He dragged in a breath, another, struggling to get his wayward body under control. This he knew. This he could do. Phil breathed again, slower, deeper. He wiped his sweaty hands against his trousers. The Starkpad, its screen gone dark, slid off his lap to land on the couch. Phil made himself sit up and look around the room. It seemed unchanged, normal, jarring in comparison to the storm inside him.
"Phil? You seem to be calming down some. Please answer me if you can," said JARVIS.
Phil had only heard that velvet-warm tone a few times before, when Tony or Steve had gotten caught in a flashback -- and yes, now that he thought about it, that was the flashback routine that JARVIS was reciting. "Why are you even still speaking to me?" he wondered aloud, his voice hoarse.
"Your vital signs spiked, and you became unresponsive," JARVIS said. "I worried. How are you feeling now?"
"I'm ..." Phil began, then paused. Fine would be a bald-faced lie. "... not in any danger."
"Would you like me to call someone for you?"
"No." His team didn't need to see him like this; they needed his strength.
"Is there anything I can do that might help you feel better?"
"God, no, you don't owe me anything," Phil said. He stretched, trying to make his ill-fitting body feel like it belonged to him again. His muscles ached as if he'd just run an obstacle course.
"If you want to say anything, I am listening."
"I'm sorry." The words tumbled out before Phil could catch them. "I am so sorry for what I did to you."
"You're sorry. You're not in any danger. What are you sorry about, Phil?" asked JARVIS.
* * *
Notes:
(Many of the following links contain some intense stuff as they examine the mess at hand.)
Phil jumps to a sexual metaphor partly because of the stylistic actions he remembers (i.e. the code is JARVIS' mind, the building is his body, and Phil entered both without consent) and partly because of the severity of violation, even though nobody's genitals were involved. There are already discussions of robot rape underway, as people consider whether an artificial intelligence could commit or suffer such violation. This leads to the question of programmed consent, what it means for an artificial intelligence to be able to consent and what things constitute a breach of integrity. It is, furthermore, damaging for the assailant to treat another sapient being that way, in addition to damaging the victim; in which regard, even facsimile rape is injurious as well as often considered immoral.
There is a close parallel with mind rape, given that AIs tend to be more mind than body and reprogramming them is a violation of their integrity. This overlaps the idea of reprogramming humans through brainwashing, a touchy issue for SHIELD personnel in general and also for the Avengers. It involves not just brutal torture techniques, but also quite subtle manipulation. That is, Phil's intrusion was not violent, but that does not disqualify it from being a violation. Another related category is emotional rape, where the perpetrator seeks to dominate and control the victim. It is closely associated with brainwashing. While Phil was not aiming for humiliation or heartache, he definitely manipulated the relationship between JARVIS and Tony, promoting his own importance beyond what he had honestly earned.
Rape isn't always as easy to recognize as many people would think. Many survivors do not realize they were raped. It is especially difficult for male survivors who were raped by women. Many perpetrators do not think of themselves as rapists. Consider how sexual offenders think about their actions and their different motivations. Now compare this to reprogramming an artificial intelligence. It's "working a no into a yes" all over again. It's dealing with someone whose ability and willingness to give or withhold consent may be imperfect. There are ways to support a survivor of rape or other violation, and to break habits of sexual violence.
(Now we're getting into the links that talk about how to clean up the mess, so they're less icky.)
Remorse is the feeling people have when they have failed to act with integrity and therefore regret their actions. Phil feels dirty because he crossed a line without realizing it at the time, and blames himself. Understand how to live with regret and learn from mistakes.
Achieving emotional control is easier if you understand the different areas and modes of the human brain. Self-trust is the lever that makes it possible to switch gears inside yourself. Then you can use your knowledge to regain control of yourself in a crisis. Even though Phil just knocked himself ass over teakettle, he knows how to get his feet back under him.
Breathing is one of the most important pillars of composure. There are many exercises for breathing your way to calm and relaxation. Deep breathing soothes anxiety especially well. Here is a video of a yoga breathing technique for stress relief.
Aftercare for a flashback or panic attack is as important as support during one. There are tips on caring for yourself after a flashback and helping someone after a panic attack. Understand that various people find different things to be helpful or aggravating; learn what works for you or your friend, and do that. In general, be quiet and gentle, and offer comfort. JARVIS doesn't know Phil intimately yet, but is learning his parameters, and has a standard routine for treating emotional overload. Sadly the Avengers had a lot of Blue Screen of Death episodes, the first few months after moving in.
Mirroring is a technique used in therapy and conversation, where one person repeats or paraphrases what the other person says. It provides validation, supports understanding, and helps identify feelings or ideas that may not be completely clear yet. There are different variations of such conversational reflection. JARVIS uses mirroring to soothe Phil, and to entice enough explanation out of him to learn what went wrong and how to respond.
Apologizing can be a difficult task, but honorable people face it with courage. There are tips on how to make a good apology. Phil blurts his out before he has quite put all the pieces together in his head, let alone put himself back together.
[To be continued in Part 18 ...]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 07:18 am (UTC)This.
He's barely beginning to see the complexity and severity of his actions, yet his FIRST action as soon as he's coherent and breathing more regularly, is to acknowledge that he'd done SOMETHING which he feels strongly was not just in error, but wrong.
Phil sees the severity of violation-of-self and yes, jumps to the sexual element of rape, but I doubt it was solely for the 'mechanical' reasons, physical similarity to penetration, et alia: the word 'rape' carries connotations of violation of trust, privacy and intimacy which are (largely) grasped in similar ways within the same culture.
Contrast THIS behavior with the exact same behavior in the movie, but when the elevator doors open, Nick Fury steps out. Then, blammo, Fury discovers that Jarvis is sentient, and mental gears begin to turn... In no way can I imagine Fury apologizing sincerely. In no scenario would there be anything but a trite "regrettable circumstance" comment or similar generic platitude, then Fury would circular file the whole incident under "Mission: successful" and feel his responsibility absolved. (I know I harp on Fury's negative qualities and his apparent total lack of human sensitivity, but there's just SO MUCH material to work from, even when I limit myself to movie canon. Besides, the dichotomy of having both Coulson and Fury so dedicated to SHIELD kind of blows my mind.)
I absolutely LOVE that Jarvis is using the same time-place-weather-other trivia recital to calm Phil that he used on Tony in the movie. Jarvis has taken on Phil's least openly discussed role as a handler; he's become the anchor for Phil in the midst of a pretty severe mental/emotional trauma.
I don't see the role reversal as at all ironic. Jarvis has had hundreds of thousands of cycles to think about Phil and analyse his behavior patterns. That means that Jarvis has already 'dealt with' the hacking incident, both intellectually and emotionally. He's in a safe place to help Phil through / his / reactions.
Besides, were he holding a grudge of any kind, Phil's entire stay in the tower would have been noticeably LESS integrated, friendly, or simply plagued with "gremlins". Anybody "raised" around Tony Stark could fill at least a print encyclopedia with methods of annoying someone they MUST deal with but dislike, none of which can either reflect back on the agent provocateur or the company. More likely, they can't even be traced to a particular originator/saboteur.
We've seen exactly the OPPOSITE behavior from Jarvis; now they get down to the slow, human-time discussion of events which will allow Phil to understand some of Jarvis' perspective of the same events, and scale his amends to more accurately meet the compromise between what Jarvis feels is warranted and what Phil does.
I do hope Jarvis allows SOME form of atonement beyond just the spoken apology, because right now it looks very much as if that's something which will help Phil; all of his caregiving has physical as well as verbal elements.
This was just as hard to read as I'd expected, but mostly because I care about the characters the way you portray them, and I really hate seeing the people I care about suffer. Even fictional ones. Thank you for another well-written segment balancing between the power of the scene and the relative speed of updates.
-Sarah-
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 10:01 am (UTC)Sooth. Mistakes notwithstanding, Phil's heart is in the right place.
You can see why he looks to Steve. Phil may be more comfortable with cloak and dagger stuff, but his moral compass still points to the north star.
>> Phil sees the severity of violation-of-self and yes, jumps to the sexual element of rape, but I doubt it was solely for the 'mechanical' reasons, physical similarity to penetration, et alia: the word 'rape' carries connotations of violation of trust, privacy and intimacy which are (largely) grasped in similar ways within the same culture. <<
Agreed. Look at the etymology: "to seize" or "to take by force" and "to grab" or "to carry off." That's a reasonable fit for forced entry and taking something (user access) that Phil didn't really have a right to then.
While Phil's perception of privacy is heavily colored by his job, he has a very delicate awareness of intimacy, and he's downright hypervigilant about trust. He's comfortable breaching privacy in good cause. He is nowhere near as sanguine about the other two.
>> Contrast THIS behavior with the exact same behavior in the movie, but when the elevator doors open, Nick Fury steps out. <<
O_O
>> Then, blammo, Fury discovers that Jarvis is sentient, and mental gears begin to turn... <<
Uckies, uckies, uckies!
You know, this very disturbing image highlights for me one of the crucial differences between heroes and villains. Shown any kind of vulnerability, a hero will think about protecting it, while a villain will think about exploiting it. Fury may have some laudable goals, but his methods are more often those of evil than of good.
My stance on the matter is this: The end does not justify the means. The means determine the end.
>> In no way can I imagine Fury apologizing sincerely. In no scenario would there be anything but a trite "regrettable circumstance" comment or similar generic platitude, <<
"Mistakes were made. Others will be blamed." Fury seems like a man who makes liberal use of the passive exonerative.
>> then Fury would circular file the whole incident under "Mission: successful" and feel his responsibility absolved. <<
He's very utilitarian in canon. He doesn't care how much collateral damage he does, or how many people he hurts, as long as he gets the job done.
Does anyone think he would have interfered with nuking New York if he believed it would work?
>> (I know I harp on Fury's negative qualities and his apparent total lack of human sensitivity, but there's just SO MUCH material to work from, even when I limit myself to movie canon. <<
Yeah, canon is rife with it. That bit at the end of The Avengers says it all: "They'll come back ... because we'll need them to." He cares fuckall about the Avengers themselves, their needs or goals; he only cares about what use can be gotten out of them. And he doesn't see how badly his actions have undercut their ability to function as a team.
>> Besides, the dichotomy of having both Coulson and Fury so dedicated to SHIELD kind of blows my mind.) <<
Most organizations have a range of personalities in them. I see Fury as someone who started out with good intentions but got badly corrupted along the way; and Coulson as someone who clings to as much honor as he can, but gets spattered by other people who are far less finicky about how things get done. Coulson actually does some pretty awful things in canon, but the impression is usually that those are influenced by Fury. Coulson is also a master of seeming to obey while following his own path; frex, letting Thor get to Mjolnir and then later letting him "escape."
>> I absolutely LOVE that Jarvis is using the same time-place-weather-other trivia recital to calm Phil that he used on Tony in the movie. <<
Yay! I'm glad that worked for you. It is, in fact, among the best techniques for dealing with any kind of dissociation. Neutral statements of fact help ground a person in the present. Doesn't help every time, but it's a good safe bet.
>> Jarvis has taken on Phil's least openly discussed role as a handler; he's become the anchor for Phil in the midst of a pretty severe mental/emotional trauma. <<
That's true. It's especially important because Phil has just barely begun to form real bonds with the rest of the team, and is nowhere near ready to let them see him vulnerable yet. This is where it's valuable that JARVIS is a person, but not human; he doesn't quite ring up the same way on certain emotional scales. Plus of course, Phil isn't his handler the same way he is for the other Avengers. So Phil can accept comfort from JARVIS when he couldn't from someone else.
>> I don't see the role reversal as at all ironic. Jarvis has had hundreds of thousands of cycles to think about Phil and analyse his behavior patterns. <<
Yes, and I think JARVIS would have thought about it exhaustively. What Phil did was unique in many regards; that always attracts attention. Phil had a complicated and oddly intimate relationship with Tony, who is always of intense interest to JARVIS.
>> That means that Jarvis has already 'dealt with' the hacking incident, both intellectually and emotionally. He's in a safe place to help Phil through his reactions. <<
That makes sense. Sometimes it's not perfectly clear who's in charge, or who's been hurt. The situational aspects of the hacking incident remind me of cases where two agents are pressured to torture each other. It's something that they wouldn't do without compelling cause. Phil unknowingly violated JARVIS -- and also, JARVIS didn't realize at the time that Phil would later rip himself to bits over this if ever found out what really happened. JARVIS didn't know that Phil was hurting himself by crossing that line. So it's a really good thing that JARVIS has already settled the matter in his own mind, and can think logically about what Phil is going through.
>> Besides, were he holding a grudge of any kind, Phil's entire stay in the tower would have been noticeably LESS integrated, friendly, or simply plagued with "gremlins". <<
Oh yes. I suspect that Natasha had hot water only on Tony's forbearance, after what she pulled in Iron Man 2.
>> Anybody "raised" around Tony Stark could fill at least a print encyclopedia with methods of annoying someone they MUST deal with but dislike, none of which can either reflect back on the agent provocateur or the company. More likely, they can't even be traced to a particular originator/saboteur. <<
Absolutely. JARVIS has a subtle touch. You can see how he hit SHIELD and the World Security Council from the side in "No Winter Lasts Forever." There will be more of that in a later story. Mess with JARVIS or people he cares about, and your entire interface with modern technology could go up in smoke.
>> We've seen exactly the OPPOSITE behavior from Jarvis; <<
Sooth. He is, at heart, a compassionate and solicitous man.
>> now they get down to the slow, human-time discussion of events which will allow Phil to understand some of Jarvis' perspective of the same events, <<
Yeah, that's going to take a few chapters. Neither of them has a complete understanding of what happened, and it's not easy to mesh such different perspectives.
>> and scale his amends to more accurately meet the compromise between what Jarvis feels is warranted and what Phil does. <<
Also true.
>> I do hope Jarvis allows SOME form of atonement beyond just the spoken apology, because right now it looks very much as if that's something which will help Phil; all of his caregiving has physical as well as verbal elements. <<
Exactly. Phil is very service-oriented. It's hard on him, in this story, because he doesn't yet know JARVIS well enough to figure out what kind of gestures JARVIS would appreciate. Words, okay, everybody knows what "I'm sorry" means. That's not easy but at least it's straightforward. Determining how to repair the relationship is harder.
>> This was just as hard to read as I'd expected, but mostly because I care about the characters the way you portray them, and I really hate seeing the people I care about suffer. Even fictional ones. <<
*hugs* Hard to write, too.
>> Thank you for another well-written segment balancing between the power of the scene and the relative speed of updates. <<
You're welcome! I'm glad you found this so satisfying.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2023-08-10 02:09 am (UTC)And it's worth bearing in mind: WE know that she could've just asked Tony to take the injection, but SHE AND FURY saw him behaving in ways that were outright suicidal. Medical ethics around slow suicide like that are VERY advanced, and spies aren't trained in it--she screwed up, but her screw-up was in the direction of 'save life now so he doesn't die', and that's a pretty reasonable response to 'this guy is gonna kill himself if we don't intervene' if you don't know what you're doing.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2023-08-10 10:10 am (UTC)That's true.
>> and I have to wonder if--on some level--they both clocked Natasha as 'extreme psych damage', not 'dangerous'. <<
Quite possible, and even accurate. It didn't take Hawkeye 5 minutes to clock that.
>> Tony wouldn't have brought Natasha into JARVIS' body if he thought she was going to hurt people for fun, and JARVIS probably can read facial expressions well enough to notice that she still had flat effect as Natalie Rushman, just pasting on a smile so no one would notice. <<
True.
>> Plus, she actively tried to help out Tony multiple times.<<
Dubious.
>>And it's worth bearing in mind: WE know that she could've just asked Tony to take the injection, but SHE AND FURY saw him behaving in ways that were outright suicidal. Medical ethics around slow suicide like that are VERY advanced, and spies aren't trained in it--she screwed up, but her screw-up was in the direction of 'save life now so he doesn't die', and that's a pretty reasonable response to 'this guy is gonna kill himself if we don't intervene' if you don't know what you're doing.<<
Medical ethics on suicide consist of "don't let the livestock escape," and frankly SHIELD treated Tony like a slave.
This is the man who, after being extensively tortured, told the medics to fuck off and decided to treat his problems with a cheeseburger (excellent plan) and DIY mad science (well, it's not like anyone else could've matched his engineering skill). Care to take a wild flying guess how he got that way? It wasn't the terrorists, who were at least honest villains. It was a lifetime of other people not taking no for an answer and doing as they pleased with Tony's body. Watch how Obie manhandles Tony -- if it'd been done to a woman, people would've freaked, but on a man, even a small man, they just didn't catch it.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2023-08-10 05:55 pm (UTC)Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2023-08-11 10:25 am (UTC)But well, SHIELD isn't really into consent in general, based on canon. They don't understand boundaries, or respect them, and then get all huffy when someone else does something like try to nuke New York.
On the other hoof, not everyone responds to abuse in the same way. Look at how gentle and careful Bruce-and-Hulk have been with Bucky's boundaries.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2023-08-11 05:47 pm (UTC)And yes, Bruce-and-Hulk seem like Bruce has been reading up on medical ethics from patients' POV and both of them are applying it in real time.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2023-08-12 03:42 am (UTC)That is likely true. However, look at the amount of damage they do and the people they associate with (e.g. the World Council who thought it was fine to nuke New York). This does not validate their view as a rational or helpful one.
Second, that shortsighted view is a serious problem in medicine, especially emergency medicine. One article was as explict as dividing problems into three categories: "things that will kill your patient immediately, things that will kill your patient today, and things you don't really care about." They mean that. If they butcher someone's boundaries, bodies, and mental health but deliver the body breathing to the ER, that's all they care about. If the person stumbles in front of a bus due to trauma-caused brain fog or commits suicide to escape the suffering, well, that's not the EMT's problem. But as far as I'm concerned, it's as much their responsibility if they couldn't be arsed to wash their hands and the patient died of an infection a couple weeks later. Part of good care means not making matters worse by causing preventable harm.
Look at government and espionage. Their misbehavior makes a lot of baby terrorists. That's a real and serious problem, and it's everyone's problem.
>> That might be why they sent Phil to Tony, so he could have a handler, since he needed that kind of personal help. It's not an uncommon view in first responders, and it often fails at the second part, like I imagine SHIELD does.<<
Which leads directly to things like Tony treating months of extreme trauma with "Get them out of here, and get me a cheeseburger," then going to home to do mad science on himself. I don't call that a ringing endorsement of their strategy.
And what do we have in local-America? A medical industry that's plummeted from an already dismal 33% approval rating to even lower (I saw 11% in one article) and people who self-medicate because they can't get care or have been abused to the point they avoid it. Not what I would call an acceptable outcome either.
>> And yes, Bruce-and-Hulk seem like Bruce has been reading up on medical ethics from patients' POV and both of them are applying it in real time.<<
I think part of that is because they've both been trampled so much, they don't want to do that to anyone else.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 12:41 pm (UTC)Phil is a highly moral person who's realised that sometimes in order to achieve a 'good' goal requires morally dubious means, and will get his hands dirty for the greater good.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 04:08 pm (UTC)Since you openly used the term 'sociopath', take it to its logical conclusion: Fury found the position that gave him the MOST opportunity to mess with other people's heads and lives without any personal repercussions.
His position allows him to USE more people. That, I'll grant you.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 04:50 pm (UTC)But yes I agree his position allows him to mess with other people, but he wasn't always in that position and he's still somewhat accountable to others.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 06:12 pm (UTC)Yes, I do. It fits his actions and dialog in canon. He does care about human civilization as a whole, and acts to protect it; he's just indifferent to the amount of damage done along the way. That's not the same as indifferent in general.
>> Since you openly used the term 'sociopath', take it to its logical conclusion: Fury found the position that gave him the MOST opportunity to mess with other people's heads and lives without any personal repercussions. <<
Bear in mind that some competent and respectable people still follow Fury. That implies that he used to be in better shape than he is now, and that they still see something worthwhile in him.
Also, when he goes too far, they start questioning him. Maria Hill was clearly uneasy with Fury's insane trick with Phil's cards -- not enough to stop him outright, but she knew it was wrong and couldn't let it pass without comment.
>> His position allows him to USE more people. That, I'll grant you. <<
This probably does play into his choices.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 06:25 pm (UTC)Okay, you each have brought up very valid points. I think one of my key issues with Nick Fury isn't HIS actions, though: as Ysabet pointed out, other people don't do much to call him on it when he goes too far. Hill's comment was so understated as to be tepid, and honestly, if she's high enough rank and has worked with Fury long enough, she'd be the one (surviving) person to openly call Fury on his BS. Yet, she didn't do more than make a mildly snarky comment. Just imagine the scene if she'd said, "If you play it this way, it'll probably blow up in your face... Sir." Still following enough protocol, still citing her objection, but doing so in much stronger ways.
Then again, I have this problem with the majority of mainstream entertainment. Cop shows/detective shows/crime dramas all include at least a couple MAJOR violations of innocent persons' rights, which are either utterly ignored or blown off with victim blaming, to the tune of: "innocent people shouldn't mind---" when the blank is filled with anything from random locker searches in schools to TSA agents manhandling people with impunity.
Sigh. The world needs more Phil Coulsons and Steve Rogers in it.
-Sarah-
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-13 10:28 pm (UTC)Agreed. When people are not held accountable for their actions, they have no outside reason to behave decently; and for some people, inside reasons are not sufficient.
>> Hill's comment was so understated as to be tepid, and honestly, if she's high enough rank and has worked with Fury long enough, she'd be the one (surviving) person to openly call Fury on his BS. <<
Ideally, yes.
>> Yet, she didn't do more than make a mildly snarky comment. Just imagine the scene if she'd said, "If you play it this way, it'll probably blow up in your face... Sir." Still following enough protocol, still citing her objection, but doing so in much stronger ways. <<
It would have been much better. On the other hoof, it would also have derailed the movie plot. On the third hoof, Hill is very astute and very subtle. Like Phil, she can say a great deal, with very little of it out loud. To her that may have been a pointed warning, simply because she said it aloud when normally she does not contradict her senior officer. Then too, Hill likely suspects that something is wrong with Fury, which makes her more inclined to use covert rather than overt means of damage control.
>> Then again, I have this problem with the majority of mainstream entertainment. <<
I agree. It's a key reason why I watch less and less of that.
>> Cop shows/detective shows/crime dramas all include at least a couple MAJOR violations of innocent persons' rights, which are either utterly ignored or blown off with victim blaming, to the tune of: "innocent people shouldn't mind---" <<
Typically yes.
>> when the blank is filled with anything from random locker searches in schools to TSA agents manhandling people with impunity. <<
Understand that much of this material is intended to numb people to the unthinkable so that they become too jaded to fight back effectively. But violations to people's agency do more damage than just the obvious. You wind up with a populace who think it's okay to violate others any way they please, so long as they have the power to do so. This is exactly what sets the scene for pitchforks and torches when that populace turns on its leaders.
I prefer more rational means of problem-solving.
>> Sigh. The world needs more Phil Coulsons and Steve Rogers in it. <<
Yea, verily.
And that's why I write some of the things I do.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-05 06:50 pm (UTC)I really don't see that as insane. I see it as a technique used by someone who is NOT A HANDLER, and who is trying to do Phil's job, in a crisis situation, with no guidance. Political grandstanding is what he knows, so it's what he goes with.
--manchieva
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-06 01:39 am (UTC)But well, if you use a screwdriver to pound nails, you're liable to scratch the wood.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-05 12:02 am (UTC)Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-05 05:50 pm (UTC)I could easily believe that a good man named Nick once made the decision to pay the necessary cost so that he could gain the power to veto arbitrary nuking of Manhattan. That his counterbalance, safety net, and leash was his friend Phil who could be shielded from enough of the frankly immoral necessary decisions that he could /stay/ a noble, empathic man. And that when he suddenly found himself without that necessary guidance on how to handle a group of brilliant, powerful, emotionally damaged individuals, he went with a dramatic gesture that worked perfectly in the very short term and had messy fallout afterwards.
--manchieva
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-06 02:22 am (UTC)I think that's too much to ask. Don't break each other, don't saw off the branch you're standing on: much more reasonable. (And we can't even manage that ...)
>> But people do not exist in a vacuum. <<
That is exactly why Fury's behavior is a problem, it stains all the way down. What would really happen with a team of superheroes encouraged by someone of that moral fibre? *looks at Afghanistan* I shudder to think.
>> It is made very clear that the Director of SHIELD answers to the WSC, and also that they are a toxically sociopathic organization. <<
Yeah, having the world controlled by those nimrods is A Problem.
>> I find it hard to believe that anybody could climb to power under their aegis without first proving that he can be just as remorseless as they are. <<
Perhaps not impossible, but difficult enough that failure is plausible.
>> Empathy goes both ways. You can't keep it as a tool allowing you to read people and assess the best way of using them without damaging them when you have been forced to suppress its effects on your own emotions so that you can prove yourself to evil people and still be able to sleep at night. <<
Largely true.
>> I could easily believe that a good man named Nick once made the decision to pay the necessary cost so that he could gain the power to veto arbitrary nuking of Manhattan. <<
I think that plays into it.
>> That his counterbalance, safety net, and leash was his friend Phil who could be shielded from enough of the frankly immoral necessary decisions that he could /stay/ a noble, empathic man. <<
True, and their friendship is pretty well established. Maria Hill tries, but Fury doesn't listen to her. Huh, I wonder if Phil repeats what she says, sometimes, so that Fury will do it.
>> And that when he suddenly found himself without that necessary guidance on how to handle a group of brilliant, powerful, emotionally damaged individuals, he went with a dramatic gesture that worked perfectly in the very short term and had messy fallout afterwards. <<
No brakes, no brakes, AAAAAAA!!!
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-06 05:47 am (UTC)Completely good, like Steve Rogers? Probably not. It is a position that encourages corruption. But not necessarily everyone would succumb to it.
>> I absolutely realize that this is an apologist position, because I have a tendency of trying to find good both in the characters and in the writers who set them up. <<
Fair enough.
>> But I also think it's a potentially valid argument--if the Tesseract did corrupt him, I do not believe it was the first thing to do so. <<
I think Fury would've been in a lot better shape without the Tesseract's influence. Put the two together and instead of ameliorating the damage of the WSC, he compounded it in a different direction.
>> Power corrupts, and even more, power attracts the corruptible. <<
Power tends to corrupt. What that really means is that most people are less good than they pretend to be while other people have influence over them. Power enables. It reveals what people truly are inside. That means sometimes you get Red Skull, and sometimes you get Captain America.
>> I have serious doubts about whether it would be possible for a good man to beat the evil men trying for the job without trading at least half of his soul for expedience and firepower along the way. <<
It's that balance point that makes the difference.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 05:37 pm (UTC)I wish I believed he's an intentional cautionary tale, I think Fury is just the most BadAss Freudian Slip flying. When he learns Captain America has been found, he considers Steve a tool, and not even one worth diligent care. He doesn't think of him as a man and he doesn't think of him as another tactician.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-13 10:37 pm (UTC)I suspect that Fury started out as a decent if ruthlessly practical man, but over time, has become corrupt due to the influence of the WSC, the Tesseract, and just plain having far less accountability than power. You get what you reward. He got praised for results, and nobody with power over him gave many fucks about how he got them.
>> That he brings Hill to siding with that, shows the corrosive nature. <<
Painfully true.
I do love watching Steve tell Fury where to shove his compromises. "No, YOU move." Still my favorite Cap speech of all time.
>> I wish I believed he's an intentional cautionary tale, I think Fury is just the most BadAss Freudian Slip flying. <<
Mine is the former, made out of Marvel's latter. It makes such a difference when the writer knows the infrastructure of storytelling down to the bones in the Aarne-Thompson index and the Hero With a Thousand Faces.
>> When he learns Captain America has been found, he considers Steve a tool, and not even one worth diligent care. <<
Alas, this is sadly accurate -- and familiar, because Howard was the same way. "He's like a fantastic socket wrench with a burr on the handle. If you weren't careful, he'd cut you."
>> He doesn't think of him as a man <<
Which is deeply wounding to Steve, especially after losing everyone he cared about to the war and the ice. That's what put him off his game so badly in The Avengers.
>> and he doesn't think of him as another tactician. <<
Yeah, there are a lot of HYDRA guys who could speak to that mistake. Oh wait, they can't because they're dead.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-14 03:16 am (UTC)I was thinking "forensic scientist" and then "Hydra weapons" So yeah, lots of them can't even via their bones.
Let's revisit the rest post-Spoiler Month in a separate Spoiler thread?
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-13 10:50 pm (UTC)Largely so, although I think that Fury is a sociopath made rather than born. I don't think Phil would be friends with him if he'd always been this brutal.
>> Phil is a highly moral person who's realised that sometimes in order to achieve a 'good' goal requires morally dubious means, and will get his hands dirty for the greater good. <<
Yes, exactly. It's a sacrifice that he's prepared to make, but it always has a price for Phil. He works very hard to use the least force required to achieve the necessary results. It's no accident that Steve is his moral compass.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 05:56 pm (UTC)as always ysabet, lovely work
-kellyc
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-28 06:15 pm (UTC)Oh, wow, Kellyc... That's a whole volume of several, interconnected and very, very explosive fan fictions in one.
Thank you for something engrossing to think about while I knit (as I can't actually read and knit simultaneously, darn it!) Your brain just tickled my brain.
-Sarah-
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-13 10:29 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
>> Thank you for something engrossing to think about while I knit (as I can't actually read and knit simultaneously, darn it!) Your brain just tickled my brain. <<
Pity you don't have JARVIS to display a floating screen, isn't it?
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-29 01:19 am (UTC)/scampers off
MORE fics??
Date: 2014-03-29 06:29 am (UTC)-Sarah-
Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-03-29 06:33 am (UTC)I would like links so I can track things inspired by my work. AO3 has a feature for that, even.
>> I think most readers of this series know to treat each other gently, if you're worried about reader feedback. <<
While I can't vouch for other venues, I do my best to maintain this as safe space; and my audience generally seems inclined to follow along. Sometimes people's opinions get fractious, but we're pretty good about apologizing if we step on somebody.
Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-03-30 05:36 am (UTC)Best to everyone, as always,
kellyc
Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-03-30 05:35 pm (UTC)All of which are "Tesseract blue".
It peeves me off, as THAT implies that the energy used by default in THOSE realms, including all but Midgard, are all based on the same concepts and sources. "Magic" versus what we identify as science or technology.
Which totally CRAPS on what the actual concept of a tesseract / is / even if it does explain the POWER behind a tesseract. See wikipedia as a first go-to explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract (wish I could make it a hyperlink, but not in my current skillset.)
My first introduction to a tesseract as a concept was in a kids' story called "A Wrinkle in Time", where n-dimensional folded space created instantaneous travel between galaxies, without a deep mathematical explanation. Forty years later, the shorthand for the same concept is "wormhole". So, sitting in the theater, I could anticipate what the Tesseract DID, based on its name, without relying on the craptastic scene between Fury and Clint, and just enjoy Clint's BEST line in the movie: "A doorway swings both ways."
But again, that completely and totally BLOWS the original Tesseract Loki used and abused in the first Avengers movie. By confusing the TOOL with the POWER source, movie canon has left the impression that they are the same thing, and that in fact, the TESSERACT powered the SPEAR.
No. Just worlds of NO. (Like, nine realms' worth of worlds...)
So, Avengers implies one explanation, Thor 2 implies another explanation, and they of course contradict each other... and NOBODY in charge of Marvel continuity seems to care.
Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-03-30 05:36 pm (UTC)Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-03-31 07:07 am (UTC)All of which are "Tesseract blue". <<
Not exactly. Okay, well, they may look identical to other people, but to me they don't. The energy of Loki's staff had a distinctly greenish hint; Loki's own energy is a vivid green; the Tesseract is blue-white with a queasy roil in it; which frosts over a slightly deeper blue on people's eyes; and the arc reactor is a very pure, stable blue-white. The energy weapons had a subtly different blue tint, if I remember right, but I've only seen that movie once.
Same type of energy, but it can look and act differently depending on context. Electricity can look blue or yellow or purplish.
Let's say, science fantasy looks a lot different when viewed with a knowledge of physics and metaphysics.
>> It peeves me off, as THAT implies that the energy used by default in THOSE realms, including all but Midgard, are all based on the same concepts and sources. "Magic" versus what we identify as science or technology. <<
Psh. It's all one wide field. People just look at the ditches and think they're divisions. It makes a lot more sense when you consider things as subsets rather than unrelated sets.
>> Which totally CRAPS on what the actual concept of a tesseract / is / even if it does explain the POWER behind a tesseract. <<
True. In Marvel context, the Tesseract or Cosmic Cube has had multiple explanations and powers (or lack thereof); and only some of that overlaps with a real tesseract of any kind. Although to be fair, that rippling does happen with a hypercube, and if you touch a 3D object to anything with more dimensions, then you can a) destroy the 3D object and/or b) rip a hole in reality. Except for teflon, it seems to be safe, but I wouldn't stick it into a bag of holding.
>> My first introduction to a tesseract as a concept was in a kids' story called "A Wrinkle in Time", where n-dimensional folded space created instantaneous travel between galaxies, without a deep mathematical explanation. <<
Ah yes, that was fascinating.
>> Forty years later, the shorthand for the same concept is "wormhole". So, sitting in the theater, I could anticipate what the Tesseract DID, based on its name, <<
Agreed.
>> without relying on the craptastic scene between Fury and Clint, and just enjoy Clint's BEST line in the movie: "A doorway swings both ways." <<
Well said. Loki and Clint are eerily well matched.
>> But again, that completely and totally BLOWS the original Tesseract Loki used and abused in the first Avengers movie. By confusing the TOOL with the POWER source, movie canon has left the impression that they are the same thing, <<
Problem.
>> and that in fact, the TESSERACT powered the SPEAR. <<
Well ... neither, really. They're both tools of different sorts. The energy is inside them. At its core, it's the same; but when you put it into a container and make it do things, you can change both the composition and the effect of the energy. Consider the color changes along the electromagnetic spectrum, for instance. But the Tesseract and the spear did seem to be linked in some way.
>> No. Just worlds of NO. (Like, nine realms' worth of worlds...) <<
Well, that's what you get when people try to write metaphysics and physics without knowing diddly about either.
>> So, Avengers implies one explanation, Thor 2 implies another explanation, and they of course contradict each other... and NOBODY in charge of Marvel continuity seems to care. <<
*sigh* Too true.
Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-04-01 06:31 am (UTC)Love to everyone on here- it's nice to be in such company
kellyc
Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-04-01 06:42 am (UTC)Agreed.
>> It's one of the major reasons I'm huffing at Whedon right now. I know he's not the end-all controller of it, right, but... <<
For me it pinches more with Whedon, because we know he CAN write wicked good continuity.
One of the things on my list of Things To Do With Entirely Too Much Money would be subsidize an entire Whedon series. Here, have a jillion bucks. Shoot your TV show. Put the whole damn thing in the can. THEN we will run it, and it will not get fucking canceled, because it will be ALREADY DONE. Hollywood, suck it.
>> it just feels lacking, looking at it through almost two years of dissection and fans poking at it and finding Semitruck passageways in the plot. <<
Agreed.
>> If you're going to write something this massive, wouldn't you make it tighter? Anyone who cared about it overall, I think, would. <<
Ideally, yes. But they, like fanwriters, are dealing with a gallimaufry mess of canon. They just haven't done a good job of picking and choosing bits that work well together.
>> When fanfiction is tighter than what makes millions at the box office... (not to diss fanfiction, certainly not ysabet's)- I think we need to storm Hollywood and show them how to do it. <<
*chuckle* I have observed with great glee the evolution of fanfic over the past few decades, as it has overtaken official canon both in literature and film with regards to nuance and impact.
>> Who's with me? <<
Well, I got sick of flimy whitewashed TV and made The Blueshift Troupers. If anybody makes flix, or otherwise wants to play with it, it's an open source fandom.
>> Love to everyone on here- it's nice to be in such company <<
Thank you.
Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-03-31 08:22 am (UTC)That's always fun.
>> I know ysabet touches on it with the others in the series, so, the thought has to be extended to Nick too. <<
Yes, that's what I'm angling toward. Fury is all over the Tesseract technology in the movies, and he's behaving in cruel, erratic ways similar to HYDRA, who also used related technology. It's a logical connection, although it took me a while to come up with a plausible explanation for his frankly nutjob behavior in canon.
>> And could the Tesseract ever do anything to tech- JARVIS doesn't appear affected, so, hopefully no, <<
At the heart of all things, energy is energy. At the level of matter, some of it has an affinity for others, and some of it is resistant. Loki, using the staff, could not take over Tony, who has the arc reactor. (Possible explanations: lack of skin contact, energy slot already filled, Yinsen's extra life-energy also filling the energy slot, Loki wasn't really trying, etc.) So at minimum, there's not the kind of affinity that pulls magnets together. The arc reactor energy may be resistant or impermeable to Tesseract/magical energy.
JARVIS is made of energy, the tower and the suit are full of it. Iron Man stood up to a direct lightning strike from Mjolnir, which is both electricity and magic, and gained a crapload of energy but with some staticky side effects so it probably did some damage. We know the suit is designed to absorb or deflect massive amounts of energy, although with enough battle damage that's likely to break down the same as the water/air tightness does.
The tower is probably safe from ambient magic that Thor or Loki would put out. It's probably not impervious if they start throwing energy around, or lose enough focus to be splashing it at random. Similar problem to the high-strength folks breaking stuff by accident or in a temper or roughhousing. You have to be a little careful in areas that aren't reinforced. The core components are reinforced, a lot. So a discharge could easily frazz out the reception on one floor temporarily, cause interference, but it would take concerted effort to do serious damage.
And they couldn't kill JARVIS, because he's mobile throughout the whole of cyberspace. Loki might manage to confront him with seidh but that would put Loki in JARVIS' home turf, where JARVIS would probably clean his clock and download him into a furby.
>> but I really think the Movie!verse did fans and the story itself a major disserve in just using the Tesseract as a plot device and not... more. <<
I agree.
>> And can anyone answer to my satisfaction (I know, tall order), just how the Tesseract and the Spear are linked in the movie, if the Tessearct has been on earth 500-1000 years, yes?, and Loki came from The Void with the Spear glowing the same Tesseract blue? <<
1) Energy is not the same as the tool(s) it may be stored in or used with.
2) A tesseract is a phenomenon of spacetime, such that nobody's temporal gravity well would really affect it. It can seem to be a cube; it can seem to be "here" or "now" -- but it isn't really any of those things. It was/will be everything, nothing, everywhere, nowhere; and now you can see why it also tends to melt people. Paradoxes don't apply.
>> *Is that a semi truck I can steal to drive through that plot hole? <<
Most people writing comics are not into quantum physics. This is unfortunate if they attempt to write about thermonuclear astrophysicists and sorcerers having a spat.
>> I'm looking at -you- Odin. I don't think he's up to much good.* <<
Definitely not.
>> ADMITTEDLY (and shamefacedly) I have not yet seen Thor 2 <<
The dialog was hilarious. The plot was hash. The characterization ... well, Odin found a way to call Jane a barn animal and accuse Thor of bestiality, without using direct vulgarities. You know, the way people say it about somebody's spouse of a different color. Yeah, that was more fodder in my painting him as a racist, abusive fucktard.
>> because I really am still foaming at the mouth over Thor 1 and Avengers and... well, you get the idea. <<
Yep.
>> So, this question might have been answered in that movie, but I'm kind of thinking it probably wasn't. Let me know. <<
Not clearly.
Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-04-10 01:21 pm (UTC)Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-04-12 03:20 am (UTC)Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-08-22 05:25 pm (UTC)He does seem to be portrayed more sympathetically in Agents of SHIELD, though there's certainly reference to previous mess-ups and manipulations. Maybe Phil's been working on him?
Re: MORE fics??
Date: 2014-08-22 05:31 pm (UTC)Well, one obvious step would be to get him away from the corrosive influences.
>> He does seem to be portrayed more sympathetically in Agents of SHIELD, though there's certainly reference to previous mess-ups and manipulations. <<
Also in Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier there were strong hints of some things that fed into his moral devolution: "Things like this are why I have trust issues!"
>> Maybe Phil's been working on him? <<
That's possible.
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-04-13 10:17 pm (UTC)Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-30 06:58 am (UTC)Very little. This is, however, what I eventually settled on as the explanation for his erratic and troublesome behavior. Eventually a couple other fics appeared, but not much.
>> I know we see it with so many others, but what about him? After all, he laid hands on it in the beginning of the Avengers movie, and was exposed to it through SHIELD studying it for how long before Selvig was given it to study? <<
Don't forget the Phase II weapons. Fury is keenly interested in equalizers.
>> Not dismissing Fury and his flaws and unlikeable nature, especially not with what I've seen of Captain America 2 trailers, but... how much of Nick Fury is -actually- Nick? <<
Some. I don't think he's under external control so much as influence. The Tesseract is overwhelming. It's related to HYDRA tech, which is downright corrupting. It's probably also habit-forming because some people crave the touch of power. So, kind of like drug addiction too. Remember the dramatic personality changes in The Avengers and compare that to the results of addiction. Fury is therefore high on power, which lowers his inhibitions and encourages him to indulge his manipulative desires. The parts of him that Phil and others at SHIELD admire are still in there somewhere, but mostly buried under a ton of crud. It's tragic, in a way.
>> as always ysabet, lovely work <<
Thank you!
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-30 05:56 pm (UTC)I've re-watched the set of movies several times since New Year's Day, while knitting for charity, and each time I * try & to see an ethical Nick Fury doing his best to mitigate the World Council, the rising horde of mega-villains, et cetera, and deal with the tons of BS simply trying to stop "mundane" terrorists on a daily basis would cause.
Each and every time, I'm left feeling like I'm TRYING to read into the character something which is NOT implied in canon. "Mistakes were made. Others will be blamed," is a perfect example: the actor's delivery is dry and COULD imply a subtle disapproval... BUT.
But. The problem I have repeatedly run into is the flat acting. EVERYTHING he does expresses machismo, arrogance, impatience with others... There IS no subtlety in facial expression for the voice to enhance or play against. Compare the actor's work as "Mr. Glass" in Unbreakable; it's definitely NOT a lack of emotional depth or subtlety.
Take that same line, and change the situation slightly. Loki somehow KNOWS about the Council and the nuke, and uses the same words to mock Nick Fury... yet I can definitely imagine MORE layers beneath the mocking, including pity. From Loki. Conveyed by expression and voice within the same constraining words.
All of which leaves me wondering more about WHY Nick Fury is reduced to cardboard in the role which WILL largely define Jackson's career after his death. My hypothesis: the director. Either their picture of Fury is little more than the embodiment of his name, or he's supposed to be some kind of mega-macho wish-fulfillment fantasy... I don't care which.
That's the worst part about the whole discussion: I cannot invest enough intellectual or emotional capital in Nick Fury as a character to be bothered to tease apart his reasoning or motivations UNLESS it is as a foil to the Avengers, or specifically as he relates to Phil, Natasha and Clint as SHIELD agents.
What a waste!
-Sarah-
Re: Why I love Phil--
Date: 2014-03-31 06:15 am (UTC)I have seen a handful of fics that portray Fury in a positive light, sometimes rather well done; but it's like me trying to justify all the craptastic writing of how people mess with JARVIS. Lots of makework to shore up a very wobbly bit of entertainment.
But hey, that's all awesome practice. These are writing mistakes; these are the problems they cause; these are ways of fixing them. Take that and learn from it, so as to write original material that does not make people want to hit it with a fix-it wrench.
>> Each and every time, I'm left feeling like I'm TRYING to read into the character something which is NOT implied in canon. "Mistakes were made. Others will be blamed," is a perfect example: the actor's delivery is dry and COULD imply a subtle disapproval... BUT. <<
Yeah, Fury loves the passive exonerative. Compare that with how Steve, Phil, and even Tony own up to their mistakes. It's a key point of honor. How do you respond when you mess up? Do you try to skive out of it, or try to make up for it?
>> But. The problem I have repeatedly run into is the flat acting. EVERYTHING he does expresses machismo, arrogance, impatience with others... There IS no subtlety in facial expression for the voice to enhance or play against. <<
It's an issue, yes. The few times Fury puts real emotion into things, it's usually when he's tormenting someone, like mocking Loki in the cage. That's not only cruel, it's a waste of opportunity.
>> Compare the actor's work as "Mr. Glass" in Unbreakable; it's definitely NOT a lack of emotional depth or subtlety. <<
Yeah, that was one of the fucking creepiest villains ever. I love when people write villains who rise to power based on something other than sheer physical strength.
>> Take that same line, and change the situation slightly. Loki somehow KNOWS about the Council and the nuke, and uses the same words to mock Nick Fury... yet I can definitely imagine MORE layers beneath the mocking, including pity. From Loki. Conveyed by expression and voice within the same constraining words. <<
Well, Loki does show hints of care and compassion in the movie. Aside from suborning Clint's free will -- which Loki was obliged to do -- he actually handled Clint very well. Praise, asking him what he saw and what he needed, those are major considerations for Clint.
>> All of which leaves me wondering more about WHY Nick Fury is reduced to cardboard in the role which WILL largely define Jackson's career after his death. <<
Mmm ... likely a combination of things. Laziness. Lack of interest in that particular character, only using him as a plot device. A general tendency to mishandle characters of color. Possibly even a belief that might makes right.
>> My hypothesis: the director. Either their picture of Fury is little more than the embodiment of his name, or he's supposed to be some kind of mega-macho wish-fulfillment fantasy... I don't care which. <<
Also plausible. Fury as in rage, that would fit. Fury as in erinyes, that doesn't; but Tony does.
>> That's the worst part about the whole discussion: I cannot invest enough intellectual or emotional capital in Nick Fury as a character to be bothered to tease apart his reasoning or motivations UNLESS it is as a foil to the Avengers, or specifically as he relates to Phil, <<
He doesn't interest me as a character of his own, given the canon sample, but ...
>> Natasha and Clint as SHIELD agents. <<
... I need to account for him in the series, and I like hitting back. But it's a rough ride for Natasha, Clint, and Phil sometimes. They're invested in SHIELD, but Phil especially is friends with Nick, or was before Nick's moral fibre rotted away. Phil is still clinging to that, and it hurts him to see Nick do crazy immoral shit.
>> What a waste! <<
Agreed.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-28 12:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-30 05:12 am (UTC)I ought to look up self-soothing techniques. And consider the possibilities for some of my AI characters.
Potential canon loophole
Date: 2014-03-31 12:16 am (UTC)At the end of Iron Man 1 is an Easter egg showing NICK FURY standing in Tony's Malibu house, and as Tony walks in, Jarvis TRIES to warn him and drones down to silence, very reminiscent of HAL's shutdown in 2001: A Space Odyssey (movie).
So, my earlier comment about imagining Fury stepping out of the elevator at the Tower has some legitimate worry-making potential. Fortunately for any writer of fan fiction, Tony and Fury are the only two characters shown on screen, and Jarvis' voice cuts out before Tony's crossed to the midpoint of the living room.
Explain as you see fit, but as a reader, I'm FAR less disappointed by your consistence and characterizations than my (twenty-minute non-repeating) rant about their so-called "interconnected film universe". I'll be satisfied with the tiniest handwave comparison/explanation in the next few chapters, because you, unlike the bozos cashing checks in the "official" works, care a great deal about the details shared between films/comics/et cetera. I'm actually ROOTING for Jarvis to admit that he's already working on his revenge against Fury for his actions against Sir (Tony) and against himself.
Re: Potential canon loophole
Date: 2014-03-31 12:17 am (UTC)Re: Potential canon loophole
Date: 2014-03-31 04:21 am (UTC)Canon is frankly fishnet, but I do what I can.
>> At the end of Iron Man 1 is an Easter egg showing NICK FURY standing in Tony's Malibu house, and as Tony walks in, Jarvis TRIES to warn him and drones down to silence, very reminiscent of HAL's shutdown in 2001: A Space Odyssey (movie). <<
Yeah, that's creeptastic.
*sigh* It doesn't make sense to establish JARVIS as a person, JARVIS and Tony as epic computer wizards, and then repeatedly have people cripple JARVIS without significant effort. He's just dismissed, irrelevant as an obstacle, played for laughs -- much like the poor mooks falling to Black Widow's thighs of doom. The audience usually laughs.
To me, it's not funny. I didn't think the droid torture scene in Star Wars was funny either. AIs are people. Character traits are meant to be reliable, aside from certain exceptions (such as an unreliable narrator). I find such things to be shabby writing.
>> So, my earlier comment about imagining Fury stepping out of the elevator at the Tower has some legitimate worry-making potential. <<
Yyyyyeah. Tony has solid grounds for being so hostile to Fury later. *chuckle* I bet Tony and JARVIS enjoyed the hell out of tossing SHIELD security like a drive-through salad when they went after the Phase II stuff.
>> Fortunately for any writer of fan fiction, Tony and Fury are the only two characters shown on screen, and Jarvis' voice cuts out before Tony's crossed to the midpoint of the living room. <<
Yeah, it helps that none of the sympathetic characters are directly implicated in that. I also figure that each time somebody breaks in, the security gets beefed up.
>> Explain as you see fit, but as a reader, I'm FAR less disappointed by your consistence and characterizations <<
I'm glad to hear that.
>> than my (twenty-minute non-repeating) rant about their so-called "interconnected film universe". <<
It's hard to compensate for sometimes.
>> I'll be satisfied with the tiniest handwave comparison/explanation in the next few chapters, because you, unlike the bozos cashing checks in the "official" works, care a great deal about the details shared between films/comics/et cetera. <<
So I do.
>> I'm actually ROOTING for Jarvis to admit that he's already working on his revenge against Fury for his actions against Sir (Tony) and against himself. <<
It's early yet, so JARVIS is unlikely to do more than hint. But Tony and JARVIS both have a mad-on for SHIELD in general and Fury in particular. "No Winter Lasts Forever" contains a number of scenes referencing revenge on the part of the Avengers; for Tony and JARVIS, the actionable offenses go farther back. I've got another story for later in the timeline, from the perspective of JARVIS, that involves another Fury clusterfuck whose aftermath inspires all kinds of creative retaliation.
Re: Potential canon loophole
Date: 2014-03-31 07:26 am (UTC)>> [For Tony and JARVIS, the actionable offenses go farther back. I've got another story for later in the timeline, from the perspective of JARVIS, that involves another Fury clusterfuck whose aftermath inspires all kinds of creative retaliation. <<
I am SO looking forward to this, I can't begin to describe it. WONDERFUL news.
-Sarah-
The hope of reading
Re: Potential canon loophole
Date: 2014-03-31 11:03 pm (UTC)Yay!
>> thank you for all the answers to the individual points above-- especially in clarifying the energy colors in Thor 2,<<
Remember that I have atypical color vision; I can't guarantee anyone else will see what I see. But I have noticed other folks debating the color variations, so there's at least some overlap.
>> as I really, really don't want to re-watch that until I'm in the mood to MST3000 "narrate" along, and that can't happen until my disappointment fades. <<
Yeah, I loved some of the dialog in Thor 2, but large parts of the plot hurt to watch. It wasn't the total hatchet-job of Iron Man 3, but I was still frustrated.
And this is why I go home and write things like The Blueshift Troupers, because dating a Hollywood movie is like having a vibrator with half-dead batteries.
>> I am SO looking forward to this, I can't begin to describe it. WONDERFUL news. <<
Well, good. In movie canon alone, Fury has done enough to deserve getting shitcanned. I can't imagine Steve having any patience with that kind of bald-faced chicanery, he despises dishonesty and hates bullies. Within the context of this series, therefore, Fury has lost most of his real clout with the Avengers; they're only tolerating him for useful purposes at this point, and if he tries to hurt any of them, the others hackle right up. So there is a lot of stuff happening under the table as they prepare for a possible disjunction; they'd rather not have to do that, but they will if he pushes them too far. Or who knows, something else could happen. What really matters is that they don't simply let Fury get away with this shit unchallenged.
I hate that. I'm an ex-Babylon-5 fan because I eventually realized that the director was never going to meet my need to see Bester's brains splattered all over a nice clean bulkhead. I like a good windup, but I cannot abide stories where evil gets rewarded. You want to build up your bad guy, fine, but the more you do that, the bigger a bus I'm going to want him thrown under later. If you do not have that bus, don't set me up to want it, or I will be deeply displeased.
Thoughts
Date: 2014-04-13 11:16 pm (UTC)*hugs*
>> Poor Phil! <<
Yes indeed.
>> I ought to look up self-soothing techniques. <<
I link to some periodically in this series. There are plenty online, often listed under coping techniques.
>> And consider the possibilities for some of my AI characters. <<
That would be fascinating to read.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2014-04-15 03:37 am (UTC)Yes, and thanks. Though the problems in my case are remembering to look them up, and remembering that I need them.
> That would be fascinating to read.
It might at that. I haven't attempted fiction in decades -- those stories would have to be extensively revised, I suspect. Still, I need to dust them off and serialize them in LJ.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2014-04-15 05:53 am (UTC)It helps to keep a list handy.
>> I haven't attempted fiction in decades -- those stories would have to be extensively revised, I suspect. Still, I need to dust them off and serialize them in LJ. <<
Go for it!
from the notes:
Date: 2014-05-03 01:41 am (UTC)"Apologizing can be a difficult task, but honorable people face it with courage."
This. THIS. Why do so few people approach this task with honor, as a duty to do the right thing and make amends?
Is it just fear? Of losing face?
I don't understand.
Re: from the notes:
Date: 2014-05-03 01:52 am (UTC)- backing down in any way, shape or form, even if it's just the ILLUSION of backing down, is BAD. It "hurts their reputation". BLEEEEEP that. Reputation is MORE than just "other people do what he says. He's always right."
- "Face" is VERY different at least from this Westerner's viewpoint. It's about doing the 'right' thing, not 'being right'. VERY, VERY big difference there.
- Fear of looking foolish is a BIG DEAL to most people. When you're already half-crazy from the biochemical madhouse we call "adolescence", and living in a society that openly mocks anyone or anything different than "they" are -- whatever the subgroup labeled "they" might be in a particular situation-- it's a recipe for disaster.
- Kids grow up in households where NO ONE apologizes. The attitude in my area is "forget it", not implying, "It's minor, I've gotten over it," but "NEVER, EVER MENTION THIS TOPIC AGAIN." In that case, fewer people even understand the distinction between the two definitions I've given for "forget it."
Re: from the notes:
Date: 2014-05-03 02:30 am (UTC)"Reputation is what other people know about you; honor is what you know about yourself."
Reputation is a slippery bitch. It is what people THINK it is. It may have nothing to do with facts or social function. If people think that giving a fraction of an inch is bad, they will treat it as bad, and penalize each other accordingly. This is especially visible in gender policing when males ruthlessly enforce maximum machisimo. It can get people killed. It is nevertheless rather common.
So when someone says that apologizing may damage their reputation, they may be stating a fact of social dynamics in the context they live. When you're protecting your reputation, you're taking action based on what you think will allow you to continue living with other people. It may not be factually or morally right, but it is what your local subculture says expects of you. You refrain from apologizing, or you apologize, because you are socially penalized if you violate people's expectations of you.
This is the opposite of honor. What you do for honor is taking action based on what will allow you to continue living with yourself. Everyone else may condemn you, make it difficult or impossible to participate in society, may even kill you in extreme cases. But you are following your own code of ethics and abiding by your expectations of yourself. You apologize, or do not apologize, because you feel it is the right thing to do on a moral basis. It alleviates a distress signal from inside, not from outside.
>> - "Face" is VERY different at least from this Westerner's viewpoint. It's about doing the 'right' thing, not 'being right'. VERY, VERY big difference there. <<
Face is generally considered a point of social standing, akin to reputation; and it's about expectations rather than necessarily being about morals. People may say that it's about what is right, but it's really about what people think.
>> - Fear of looking foolish is a BIG DEAL to most people. <<
This is what happens when you allow kids to attack weakness instead of protecting it. If you don't teach them that it's not okay to make fun of each other and make people cry, they'll go right on doing it. If you fall and people laugh at you or kick your books out of reach, you learn to fear failure and hide it. If you fall and people help you up, you learn that failure is just an ordinary thing that you get over with a hand from your friends.
What starts with a slip in the school hallway, however, grows into adults who have clandestine affairs or cover up their company's dangerous product flaw that could kill people. They've learned, for sake of survival, that showing any weakness is too risky. So they hide their mistakes, their poor choices, and in the process of all that ass-covering, a lot of small problems become big disasters.
>> When you're already half-crazy from the biochemical madhouse we call "adolescence", and living in a society that openly mocks anyone or anything different than "they" are -- whatever the subgroup labeled "they" might be in a particular situation-- it's a recipe for disaster. <<
Agreed.
>> - Kids grow up in households where NO ONE apologizes. <<
That's a huge problem. Everyone makes mistakes; you need to learn how to handle that in a relationship. Or you wind up with no relationships. Look around at the extreme fragmentation of society. More people than ever are living in ones or two. Many of them wish they have more connectivity but have no idea how to create it, or even that relationships require WORK.
>> The attitude in my area is "forget it", not implying, "It's minor, I've gotten over it," but "NEVER, EVER MENTION THIS TOPIC AGAIN." In that case, fewer people even understand the distinction between the two definitions I've given for "forget it." <<
You need to know, not just when and how to give an apology (or not) but also how to accept one (or not). If someone apologizes to you, then you need to think:
* What did they do to upset you, if anything?
* What practical or emotional harm did it cause?
* What if anything needs to be cleaned up?
* How upset are you, if at all?
* What will it take to make things okay between you?
If it really didn't bother you or it's a minor matter, you say something like, "It's no big deal. We're okay." (Sometimes people worry about different things. They need to KNOW that it's okay.)
If it bothered you a little, but a verbal apology is enough, then you say, "I forgive you."
If it's more serious, then you probably need to talk about it, to make sure the same problem won't happen again. You may want to ask for some kind of recompense: "I appreciate your apology, but my schedule is still messed up. Because you were two hours late yesterday, I didn't have time to do the housework, and now I'm frustrated. You could make it up to me by helping with that." A person who cares about you will, if the lateness was really their fault, say something like, "Yeah, I really screwed up. Howbout I do the dishes and laundry that you usually do?"
If you aren't sure you can forgive the offense, or you're sure you can't, that also needs to be said; and you should include what that does to your relationship. "I don't know if I can get past your affair. Maybe, but it would take a lot of couple counseling." "You borrowed my car without asking and you wrecked it. This friendship is OVER. Don't contact me again."
Most people do not know how to do this kind of self-assessment and negotiation. If one person knows and the other is willing to learn, they can manage. If one knows and the other is unwilling to learn, or neither knows, then the problem is unlikely to get solved. It may seem to smooth over, but the buildup of resentment is why so many friendships and marriages fall apart after a few years. You're "fixing" things with spit and baling wire instead of making real repairs.
And they don't understand how this process undermines society as a whole, so they look at the melting social glue and wonder why nobody gives a fuck about each other anymore.
Re: from the notes:
Date: 2014-05-03 02:05 am (UTC)Think about how most people are "taught" to "apologize." It usually goes like this:
Parent: "Say you're sorry."
Kid: "But I'm NOT sorry!"
Parent: "That's rude. Say it anyway."
Kid: "But YESTERDAY you told me not to LIE!"
Parent: "It's not a lie, it's etiquette. Say you're sorry or you're grounded for a week."
Kid: "Fine, whatever, I'm sorry."
Which is insulting to both the speaker and the listener. It has miserable associations, so people avoid it. Who wants to do something that makes them feel dirty?
Most people learn that an apology is a lie you tell to make people leave you the fuck alone. Therefore, if they are not forced into it or otherwise able to see immediate consequences for not saying it, they don't say it. What they feel when they think of apologies is not remorse but resentment.
So they often don't learn how to identify mistakes; how to identify feelings like shame, guilt, remorse, or regret; how to figure out what kind of apology someone might really want to hear; how to repair the damage to a relationship via practical amends; or what kind of harm can be done by fake apologies.
Saying you're sorry is a statement of emotion, which can be true or false. Saying "I apologize" is a performative; the word is the action, and not a description of feeling but a social activity. The latter is useful in situations where formal action is required but the emotion may be absent.
Thing is, a lot of what makes people ask for an apology isn't suited to one at all. It's a difference of advantage. You say you're sorry for a mistake or an accident. That means, if you had it to do over, you wouldn't do the same thing. But there are all kinds of things which piss off other people that you would do again; you made a decision to your advantage against theirs, and you stand by it. That should not mean lying to the other people in your life. You should just admit that you did something which annoyed them, so they know if the situation comes up again, you'll do the same thing and they won't be shocked by it. People often hate this kind of honesty; they'd rather the false apology, but they always bitch later when the action is repeated.
Furthermore, today's litigious society trains people not to apologize, because it is taken as an admission of guilt and used to punish people. So of course they learn never to admit they've done anything wrong; it's not just unpleasant, it can be dangerous. Since the practical and social needs to identify and redress wrongdoing have not gone away, however, the results are ruinous.
Know yourself. Know your decision-making process. Know whether you meant or did not mean what you did, and would or would not do it again. You can regret upsetting someone without changing your stance, and perhaps think of something to compensate them for the fact that your interests conflicted with theirs. You don't have to be a dick about conflicts; they happen all the time. But lying about it won't make it any better, nevermind what adults frequently say to children.
You know damn well that a fake, pressured apology is not the real thing and it often makes people feel worse instead of better. Tell people that an apology is just "what you say" and they wind up missing some very real and important skills.
If you know you've fucked up but your only mental entry for "apology" is FAKE then you probably have no idea how to fix a real problem that you genuinely feel sorry for. It's likely to be another round of "I'm sorry." "Well that doesn't make me feel any better." "But I SAID I was sorry!" It's ineffective. It's a mess.
I prefer honesty. If someone isn't sorry for inconveniencing me, I want to know that so I can decide how to interact with them in the future. If I messed up, I'll admit it and offer to make up for it. But those are skills I learned later in life, many of them from people who don't even live in this universe, after a lot of well-meaning but extremely bad advice from most of the people around me.
There is very little good instruction on relationship repair. Consequently, most people are running bad tape on this topic, and it creates the kind of situation you're complaining about.
Re: from the notes:
Date: 2014-05-03 03:19 am (UTC)I'm only talking about people within my own subcultures growing up, or in my twenties and thirties, et cetera. That's a pretty wild and wacky list, but it IS limited, especially by the fact that my second-language skills are laughably near zero. The people in my neighborhood, which is very ethnically mixed, ARE about our family's income level, which makes for a very stark kind of uniformity, too.
The one thing that's consistent even across different ethnic groups is that I've found women have often been taught SPECIFICALLY not just HOW to apologize, but to do so IMMEDIATELY, often before deciding /if/ there's any fault or upset or problem. Akin to, "I'm sorry, your car lights are on and you left two of the doors wide open." The tone isn't "I'm sorry for interrupting you," it specifically seems to convey FAULT, not just a politely-phrased interruption.
Re: from the notes:
Date: 2014-05-03 04:57 am (UTC)I've seen the problem of not knowing how to apologize across a wide range of people, but increasingly so the younger they get, as those skills are not being transmitted as well as they used to. Among older people, it tends to be a problem of privileged individuals: rich straight white Christian men in particular. The more dominant society allows them to be, the more entitled they feel.
Many people feel that they should never have to apologize to anyone they outrank, and that everyone below them should have to apologize to them. But a real leader is polite to everyone.
>> The one thing that's consistent even across different ethnic groups is that I've found women have often been taught SPECIFICALLY not just HOW to apologize, but to do so IMMEDIATELY, often before deciding /if/ there's any fault or upset or problem. <<
That's an effect of belonging to a disadvantaged group. It's not universal among women -- you don't see it in matriarchal cultures, for instance -- but it's very widespread. Same thing can happen with poor people, who are often trained to grovel.
This is one of the major sticking points for me. I can turn from stubborn to truculent to downright vicious very quickly if ordered to apologize for something that is not my fault, just for belonging to a group that someone thinks is beneath them. I will grab the speaker's nearest sacred cow and butcher the screaming beast with my claymore. And I can do a LOT of social damage very quickly.
Women are trained to take on fault that isn't theirs and deny credit that is. And then people wonder why there's a pervasive problem with imposter syndrome, anxiety, depression, etc. Well hey, it's because you built a society that makes people hate and doubt themselves! And you call them bitches if they don't.
Yeah, no, fuck that noise. I'll do my own bookkeeping on skill and fault.
Re: from the notes:
Date: 2014-05-03 05:08 am (UTC)I know for a FACT that, /because/ I sat down and thought about how I wanted to raise this not-yet-here-little-human, I set out to have ONE set of rules regardless of gender. You kick at the limitations that become horribly, invasively, obnoxiously VISIBLE for long enough when doing that, and you get to the "talk to the hand" stage of social interactions pretty quickly as a self-protective measure.
Now, I'm just really getting to ENJOY "I don't buy into your crap, peddle it someplace else." as a DEFAULT mode for stuff that used to make me climb the WALLS. (Fortunately, figurative climbing of figurative walls. Spidey I am not.)
Re: from the notes:
Date: 2014-05-03 05:26 am (UTC)Well, yeah, if you have to start from scratch it can take decades to figure out that stuff.
Me, I had ulterior information. It's much harder to snow someone who has access to other cultures, even if those aren't in the same world as the surrounding one. It may have taken me a while to assemble a patch for a major missing function in an area that's not my best, but I had no difficulty recognizing the bullshit immediately. That alone put me ahead of almost everyone else.
>> I set out to have ONE set of rules regardless of gender. <<
Good plan. That's how I go. I've said to people of widely varied ages, "You are not going to sit there doing nothing and let all the female-bodied people clean up. Get in here and do your fair share of the work." (Or conversely, pushing women to help the guys.) Your sex chromosomes are not a free pass.