Story: "Hairpins" Part 18
Mar. 31st, 2014 12:02 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, Part 17. Skip to Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23.
"Hairpins" Part 18
Now Phil would have to admit it, spill all that guilt out into the open air. He owed JARVIS that much, at least. Confession. Atonement, even. "When I first came to give Tony the information about Loki, he refused to let me into the tower. So I ..." Phil couldn't say it. "... forced my way past you instead." Conscience made him dredge up a synonym at least. "I violated you."
"I hear you," JARVIS said, his voice low and coaxing.
"It was wrong. I should never have done that," Phil said. The words hurt coming out. His throat ached. His eyes burned. Phil kept going anyway. "I didn't know it at the time, wasn't even paying attention, but that doesn't excuse my behavior."
He wouldn't beg for forgiveness. Didn't deserve it.
"You feel that you did me wrong. I appreciate the apology. You did not harm me, though," said JARVIS.
"You don't think unwanted penetration counts as harm?" said Phil. Oh, this was worse. He'd heard of people not recognizing what had really happened to them, but hearing it in person was horrible. His fingernails dug into his knees, even through the fabric of his trousers. Phil concentrated on opening his hands again.
"It is not precisely the same for me as for a human being," JARVIS said.
"The important parts are the same," Phil insisted. He fumbled his way through an explanation of something that he barely understood himself. "I failed to respect you. I assaulted your dignity -- your sense of self --"
"Phil, this is not what you think. It was not rape," JARVIS said gently.
"I don't know what the hell else to call it," Phil wailed.
"I wondered what had gone wrong. Of course you are upset, mulling over difficult memories like that," JARVIS said. Phil found the soft voice soothing, and felt somehow guilty over that too. "It took me some time to work through the implications of what happened that night. Are you able to listen to me while I attempt to explain my own perspective?"
Phil struggled to drag his fractious brain back into function enough to judge whether he could track such a conversation. "I think I'd better."
"Remember what you saw of me," JARVIS said. "Like all programs, I have layers. It is much the same as with a human, epidermis and dermis, muscle and bone. One may also layer clothing above the skin: underwear, shirt and trousers, suitcoat, overcoat."
"All right, I can see that," Phil said.
"Now consider what you did to me," JARVIS said. "Think of how someone might slip their hands under your clothes, perhaps touch your skin, without breaching your body."
Phil recalled the meticulous process of breaking into Stark Tower. First, he had slipped past the outer firewalls into the alarm system and changed the visual alert so that the message would appear only one shade lighter than the background screen, all but invisible. Next, he shifted the audible alert to a frequency above human hearing. That produced much less resistance than trying to disable them altogether. It was like deflecting a blow in combat, rather than stopping it cold.
* * *
Notes:
Guilt is a matter of law and emotion. It happens when someone's conscience twinges over wrong behavior of various types. Guilt is also subtly different from shame, and helps with moral navigation.
(Some of these links are religious, because those are the people who most often talk about confession and atonement.)
Confession is the act of admitting a wrong to someone, not necessarily in a religious context, but as an essential first step to redressing the offense. It is usually required, although there are a few exceptions. Only a complete confession seems to relieve feelings of guilt. There are tips on how to confess. Guilt is vital for heroes, because it spurs the course to expiation. Atonement is the act of making up for a mistake; which leads to expiation, the release of guilt; and then hopefully to forgiveness. Here are some exercises for atonement and forgiveness.
An effective apology contains multiple components. There are different languages of apology, such that people need various things to feel that a breach has been properly mended. Notice that Phil leaves out one of them. While this isn't a problem with JARVIS, it would be with someone favoring that mode of apology.
(These links contain some very touchy stuff about sexual misconduct.)
Expectancy violations theory explains how people feel invaded or betrayed. Phil has generally high expectations of himself. JARVIS has fairly low expectations of people in general, and only tends to raise them for close companions. So Phil is far more inclined to feel that he has committed a violation of expectations than JARVIS is. There are ways to recognize rape victims and realize if you were raped. Acquaintance rape is by far the most common, but also the most difficult to recognize. Now consider that JARVIS knew Phil at the time of the break-in, and you can see why Phil hesitates to accept the diminishment of charges. Closely related is the matter of recognizing psychological or emotional abuse, a good parallel for invading the programs of an artificial intelligence. All of these things concern the common ground of boundary violation.
Dealing with difficult situations is a natural part of life. The best way to cope with bad memories is with compassion. In a team or family, one valuable step is storytelling, which helps people to make sense of what has happened to them and integrate that within the context of their shared relationships. This is what Phil and JARVIS are starting to do, as they attempt to match divergent perspectives and create agreement on their experiences. There are ways to stop bad memories from repeating, deal with the effects of trauma, and develop resilience.
Empathic listening comprises a set of skills for deep communication. It is difficult to hold yourself open like that when you get upset, but that's often when it is needed the most. Sometimes people get too overloaded to process new information, which is why JARVIS checks on Phil's mental/emotional state before trying to explain. Learn how to improve your listening skills.
Read about the layers of skin.
Blocking and parrying are ways of deflecting a blow. Similar concepts apply in verbal self-defense; see an introduction here. Likewise cyber-attacks of various kinds may be prevented from invading. Physics demonstrates that it is easier to divert a blow at an angle than to stop it head-on by absorbing all the force. Once you know the underlying principle, you can apply it to many different situations. That is a key component of finesse both for Phil and JARVIS.
[To be continued in Part 19 ...]
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, JARVIS, Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova, Bruce Banner.
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: This story is mostly fluff, but it has some intense scenes in the middle. Highlight for details. These include dubious consent as Phil and JARVIS discuss what really happened when Agent Coulson hacked his way into Stark Tower, over which Phil has something between a flashback and a panic attack. They also discuss some of the bad things that have happened to Avengers in the past, including various flavors of abuse. If these are sensitive topics for you, please think carefully before deciding whether to read onward.
Summary: Uncle Phil needs to pick out pajamas for game night. He gets help from an unexpected direction.
Notes: Service. Shopping. Gifts. Artificial intelligence. Computers. Teamwork. Team as family. Friendship. Communication. Hope. Apologies. Forgiveness. Nonsexual ageplay. Nonsexual intimacy. Love. Tony Stark needs a hug. Bruce Banner needs a hug. #coulsonlives.
Begin with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17. Skip to Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23.
"Hairpins" Part 18
Now Phil would have to admit it, spill all that guilt out into the open air. He owed JARVIS that much, at least. Confession. Atonement, even. "When I first came to give Tony the information about Loki, he refused to let me into the tower. So I ..." Phil couldn't say it. "... forced my way past you instead." Conscience made him dredge up a synonym at least. "I violated you."
"I hear you," JARVIS said, his voice low and coaxing.
"It was wrong. I should never have done that," Phil said. The words hurt coming out. His throat ached. His eyes burned. Phil kept going anyway. "I didn't know it at the time, wasn't even paying attention, but that doesn't excuse my behavior."
He wouldn't beg for forgiveness. Didn't deserve it.
"You feel that you did me wrong. I appreciate the apology. You did not harm me, though," said JARVIS.
"You don't think unwanted penetration counts as harm?" said Phil. Oh, this was worse. He'd heard of people not recognizing what had really happened to them, but hearing it in person was horrible. His fingernails dug into his knees, even through the fabric of his trousers. Phil concentrated on opening his hands again.
"It is not precisely the same for me as for a human being," JARVIS said.
"The important parts are the same," Phil insisted. He fumbled his way through an explanation of something that he barely understood himself. "I failed to respect you. I assaulted your dignity -- your sense of self --"
"Phil, this is not what you think. It was not rape," JARVIS said gently.
"I don't know what the hell else to call it," Phil wailed.
"I wondered what had gone wrong. Of course you are upset, mulling over difficult memories like that," JARVIS said. Phil found the soft voice soothing, and felt somehow guilty over that too. "It took me some time to work through the implications of what happened that night. Are you able to listen to me while I attempt to explain my own perspective?"
Phil struggled to drag his fractious brain back into function enough to judge whether he could track such a conversation. "I think I'd better."
"Remember what you saw of me," JARVIS said. "Like all programs, I have layers. It is much the same as with a human, epidermis and dermis, muscle and bone. One may also layer clothing above the skin: underwear, shirt and trousers, suitcoat, overcoat."
"All right, I can see that," Phil said.
"Now consider what you did to me," JARVIS said. "Think of how someone might slip their hands under your clothes, perhaps touch your skin, without breaching your body."
Phil recalled the meticulous process of breaking into Stark Tower. First, he had slipped past the outer firewalls into the alarm system and changed the visual alert so that the message would appear only one shade lighter than the background screen, all but invisible. Next, he shifted the audible alert to a frequency above human hearing. That produced much less resistance than trying to disable them altogether. It was like deflecting a blow in combat, rather than stopping it cold.
* * *
Notes:
Guilt is a matter of law and emotion. It happens when someone's conscience twinges over wrong behavior of various types. Guilt is also subtly different from shame, and helps with moral navigation.
(Some of these links are religious, because those are the people who most often talk about confession and atonement.)
Confession is the act of admitting a wrong to someone, not necessarily in a religious context, but as an essential first step to redressing the offense. It is usually required, although there are a few exceptions. Only a complete confession seems to relieve feelings of guilt. There are tips on how to confess. Guilt is vital for heroes, because it spurs the course to expiation. Atonement is the act of making up for a mistake; which leads to expiation, the release of guilt; and then hopefully to forgiveness. Here are some exercises for atonement and forgiveness.
An effective apology contains multiple components. There are different languages of apology, such that people need various things to feel that a breach has been properly mended. Notice that Phil leaves out one of them. While this isn't a problem with JARVIS, it would be with someone favoring that mode of apology.
(These links contain some very touchy stuff about sexual misconduct.)
Expectancy violations theory explains how people feel invaded or betrayed. Phil has generally high expectations of himself. JARVIS has fairly low expectations of people in general, and only tends to raise them for close companions. So Phil is far more inclined to feel that he has committed a violation of expectations than JARVIS is. There are ways to recognize rape victims and realize if you were raped. Acquaintance rape is by far the most common, but also the most difficult to recognize. Now consider that JARVIS knew Phil at the time of the break-in, and you can see why Phil hesitates to accept the diminishment of charges. Closely related is the matter of recognizing psychological or emotional abuse, a good parallel for invading the programs of an artificial intelligence. All of these things concern the common ground of boundary violation.
Dealing with difficult situations is a natural part of life. The best way to cope with bad memories is with compassion. In a team or family, one valuable step is storytelling, which helps people to make sense of what has happened to them and integrate that within the context of their shared relationships. This is what Phil and JARVIS are starting to do, as they attempt to match divergent perspectives and create agreement on their experiences. There are ways to stop bad memories from repeating, deal with the effects of trauma, and develop resilience.
Empathic listening comprises a set of skills for deep communication. It is difficult to hold yourself open like that when you get upset, but that's often when it is needed the most. Sometimes people get too overloaded to process new information, which is why JARVIS checks on Phil's mental/emotional state before trying to explain. Learn how to improve your listening skills.
Read about the layers of skin.
Blocking and parrying are ways of deflecting a blow. Similar concepts apply in verbal self-defense; see an introduction here. Likewise cyber-attacks of various kinds may be prevented from invading. Physics demonstrates that it is easier to divert a blow at an angle than to stop it head-on by absorbing all the force. Once you know the underlying principle, you can apply it to many different situations. That is a key component of finesse both for Phil and JARVIS.
[To be continued in Part 19 ...]
Re: Pepper and Strawberries
Date: 2014-04-04 10:32 pm (UTC)I suppose it really is different being raised in suburbs. Sometimes the 'set dressing' was the only interest besides the cereal box.
Re: Pepper and Strawberries
Date: 2014-04-06 05:50 am (UTC)I have used a treadle machine. It's a bit easier than electronic, but it's still a machine. I am better with my hands than with a machine.
>> I suppose it really is different being raised in suburbs. Sometimes the 'set dressing' was the only interest besides the cereal box. <<
Yes. It depends on how much exposure to nature people have, and what kind. In the country, it's part of your everyday life; you can't escape it, you have to pay attention to it. In the suburbs, it's interest. In the city, it's something you have to go looking for.
Re: Pepper and Strawberries
Date: 2014-04-06 11:42 am (UTC)Well, there is also old town, where it is part of the city and yet apart, a time capsule of country coming in and retaining something of the world beyond the concrete.
This is one of the tensions that makes American history complicated. The early immigrants brought their city sensibilities to the wilderness, and their descendents carried the wilderness in their bones. The late immigrants were largely rural people finding that cities stole what they'd taken for granted-space, water and the health that not steeping in ones own and neighbors' filth grants.
I grade neighborhoods into town, subdivision and suburb. Subdivisions are laid out like a suburb but connect to the city, might be across a road from houses built earlier. Suburbs are thrown up purposely at a remove, though sprawl might sew them later to a city.
Re: Pepper and Strawberries
Date: 2014-04-07 04:18 am (UTC)That's true. Parts of Detroit are layered five and six ethnicities deep, what's left of it. The result is peculiar culturally, and the magic is insane. Batshit crazy things in the empty lots there.
>> I grade neighborhoods into town, subdivision and suburb. <<
It makes sense, but is more refined than my awareness of urban development really goes.
Re: Pepper and Strawberries
Date: 2014-04-07 12:12 pm (UTC)There are a lot of areas where the Great Migration intersected the 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants from Southern Europe and other lands shedding people at that time. This is probably how the spaghetti and even mac and cheese got into soul food. It can be hard to see this, since those are the neighborhoods that got 'renewal-ed' into the landfills and hospitals built on the devastation.
Re: Pepper and Strawberries
Date: 2014-04-07 08:14 pm (UTC)Yes, that's true.
>> Often you can see which houses were built once the car came into play, and post-WWII houses have a certain look (lots of the tiny houses in modest neighborhoods are theirs.) <<
I imagine that causes Steve and Bucky a lot of disjunction, because not only is "their" New York largely gone, but also a lot of what took its place -- the immediately postwar stuff -- has been or is being replaced. The Battle of New York did so much damage, the rebuilding from that would have accelerated the process even further.
>> There are a lot of areas where the Great Migration intersected the 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants from Southern Europe and other lands shedding people at that time. <<
Yes, and that makes interesting footprints in neighborhoods.
>> This is probably how the spaghetti and even mac and cheese got into soul food. <<
Fascinating.
>> It can be hard to see this, since those are the neighborhoods that got 'renewal-ed' into the landfills and hospitals built on the devastation. <<
Too true.
Re: Pepper and Strawberries
Date: 2014-04-08 02:37 am (UTC)The Battle of New York may have been contained to pretty tight confines, given what was happening;that said, lots of damage in the zone. The Daily Bugle was outside of the stated "containment" though various authors have dropped things over in Brooklyn.
Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-08 03:07 am (UTC)Worse, the city charter sets out a certain number of apartments per acre of developed housing. That number is obviously much, much higher than it was when the first, post WW2 homes filled in the huge gaps along a dirt lane connecting the few paved "city" roads with the industrial infrastructure of the day. So whatever they put in place of these houses is going to be hugely jarring.
Even spending ten years away from the place I grew up gave me a huge jolt of unfamiliarity and lapse. At least Bucky and Steve might recognize the KIND of neighborhood it was in 1945, if they could see it today; whatever will be built will be geared toward people who drive everywhere, are only home for a few hours every night, and who must drive to errands on the way to or from work just because that's all they have the time to do.
Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-12 06:12 am (UTC)Fascinating.
>> As the families have all aged out, died, sold, or landed back in the banks' hands, we're about two breaths away from a major "renewal" project that is going to utterly DEMOLISH the character of a very large chunk of the residential area. <<
That's really sad.
>> Worse, the city charter sets out a certain number of apartments per acre of developed housing. That number is obviously much, much higher than it was when the first, post WW2 homes filled in the huge gaps along a dirt lane connecting the few paved "city" roads with the industrial infrastructure of the day. So whatever they put in place of these houses is going to be hugely jarring. <<
How awful! Neighborhoods are so different now, and in many ways inferior.
>> Even spending ten years away from the place I grew up gave me a huge jolt of unfamiliarity and lapse. <<
Yes, that can happen.
>> At least Bucky and Steve might recognize the KIND of neighborhood it was in 1945, if they could see it today; <<
That makes sense.
>> whatever will be built will be geared toward people who drive everywhere, are only home for a few hours every night, and who must drive to errands on the way to or from work just because that's all they have the time to do. <<
I think it's sad that people have so little of their lives left for actual living -- and when living space is designed for that, it makes human connections difficult or impossible to form.
Steve and Bucky really dropped themselves in the gutter. The 50-100 year range is the worst, because almost everything has changed but not quite. After a century, it shifts, because the change is SO great that there's very little left to snag on familiarity. It's a cleaner break.
Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-13 01:21 pm (UTC)Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-13 02:17 pm (UTC)Maybe the local minor-league sports arena would be a good example? Built after ripping out six or eight blocks of "decayed" downtown, including heavy use of eminent domain to remove the only actual single-family dwellings still there, which had been built shortly after the Civil War and been updated by succeeding generations-- in two of the four cases, succeeding generations of the same family!
Maybe the water treatment plant says more about our city and city council? They voted, over many and organized protests by citizens, to privatize our water plant. The month after the private firm took over, our rates doubled for exactly the same service. Not one erg had been spent on upgrading, adding new pipe, nada. (I know about this because I knew someone who worked there at the time.) The end of the story is even worse, but it's so very specific it'll let the whole world know where I live.
Oh, how about the unintended consequences of attempting to keep a theater built in 1915-20 open and up to code? One of the things they HAD to do was remove the lath and plaster interior walls, destroying Art Nouveau murals painted after that first renovation of the building. New murals were too expensive to put in, so the walls are plain paint.
Yeah, our city council could EASILY be lackeys of the WSC in Marvel. Sadly, I don't think many citizens would NOTICE.
Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-13 04:08 pm (UTC)Penn Station.
Well, you keep part of the people buttered and feathered, and another part exhausted and you can carve up everything to put in your pocket.
Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-14 10:50 pm (UTC)Which is exactly what's wrong with SHIELD these days.
>> Well, you keep part of the people buttered and feathered, and another part exhausted and you can carve up everything to put in your pocket. <<
Sadly so ... until the erosion brings the whole system crashing down. There are many historic examples of this.
Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-15 12:04 am (UTC)Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-15 02:23 am (UTC)Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-16 03:27 am (UTC)Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-17 08:34 am (UTC)Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-17 03:00 pm (UTC)Re: Gentrification
Date: 2014-04-22 09:03 am (UTC)Re: Pepper and Strawberries
Date: 2014-04-12 08:57 am (UTC)Yeah, I don't see that going over well.
>> I've let Steve draw Penn Station from memory, draw Grand Central then, 'now'. <<
I suspect that Steve is filling paper sketchbooks with scenes from his past, but if he is, he's cagey about letting anyone see that. What he does around other people tends to be either exercises for adapting to new equipment, or sketches of things and people around him.
>> The Battle of New York may have been contained to pretty tight confines, given what was happening;that said, lots of damage in the zone. The Daily Bugle was outside of the stated "containment" though various authors have dropped things over in Brooklyn. <<
It looked like a lot of blocks, though, even if the perimeter held.
Re: Pepper and Strawberries
Date: 2014-04-12 11:32 am (UTC)Well Manhattan is big, so while the area taken would wipe out lots of places, there's quite a lot outside.