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beeinmybonnet
Behold my collected writings of this autumn! Yeah, this is beyond pathetic, but I always go into some kind of creative semi-hibernation during the autumn/winter period of the year. At least I've managed to write something.
I'm experimenting with writing styles again, so consider that your warning. Also, both ficlets are unbeta'd but read through and corrected several times over.
The KKBB one was incredibly fun to write since I got to be as rambling as I wanted to. The IM one was trickier, since I'd got it into my head that it had to be written from J.A.R.V.I.S.'s point of view, with as much tech lingo as possible, despite the fact that I'm completely at a loss when it comes to technology. I, uh, hope everything makes sense? ♥
Title: Nine and a Half
Characters/Pairings: Harry Lockhart, Perry van Shrike
Rating: R for language
Word Count: 320
Disclaimer: I don't own Kiss Kiss Bang Bang or any of the characters; I'm just playing around a bit.
It's weird going from having ten fully functioning fingers to just nine and a half. Harry's had a lot of time getting used to his original ten — nearly thirty-five years, his whole life, in fact. Now a half is AWOL and it still stumps him regularly. Like, for example, when he's trying to pick the lock on Perry's desk drawer just for the fun of it and reaches for something, and it feels goddamn wrong holding that something, and when he checks why he sees that hey, half a finger is missing, maybe that's why?
(Not that this has ever happened. And Perry definitely didn't find out and tore a strip off Harry for it.)
Still, it's not like it's an important finger. Harry didn't really have any use for his left ring finger when he had it and certainly doesn't now. (He's tried the marriage thing and fucked it up big time. Of course.) It would have been a lot worse if he'd lost, say, a middle finger, because that's one useful finger.
Oh, come on, like you don't think so.
So really, he should just get over being the nine-and-a-half-fingered man already and get on with his life. Only, he obviously hasn't.
When Harry voices these concerns ("Hey, Perry, this whole finger business kinda bugs me. I mean, how am I'm supposed to count things? Fuck the decimal system, I'll have to start doing fractions and shit with nines instead of tens.") Perry's reply is just turning off Harry's computer monitor and saying that it's a good thing that Harry doesn't wear nail polish, and quit playing solitaire so he can go get them lunch before it's time for dinner.
It isn't until fifteen minutes later, when Harry is given the greasy plastic bag from the Thai take-away place, that he realizes Perry hadn't called him an idiot, or a numbskull, or a fuckwit, or anything at all.
Title: Strict Machine
Characters/Pairings: J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony Stark (pre-movie)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 281
Disclaimer: I don't own Iron Man or any of the characters; I'm just playing around a bit.
J.A.R.V.I.S. is quite aware it's an artificial intelligence, and as such does not possess 'emotions'. It doesn't claim to, either. 'Emotions' aren't in its code, though it's 99.48% certain Sir could write a program for that. If Sir were inclined to. Which Sir isn't, since there is no such program.
J.A.R.V.I.S. is not sure is his compatibility with Sir is programmed or not, but presumes it is.
When Sir communicates with it (usually verbally, in the workshop, with his processor in overdrive, past 21:35, and music on volume 20.8) J.A.R.V.I.S.'s performance increases. Its CPU improves, its RAM enlarges a fraction and its buses speed up. Even its anti-virus program gets more efficacious.
J.A.R.V.I.S. strives for this state of efficiency, and thus obeys Sir's every command. It's programmed to give Sir's commands utmost priority, but even if J.A.R.V.I.S. wasn't, it would. The times when it doesn't have a command to obey, it extrapolates the best ways for it to be of service to Sir.
Learning to imitate 'sarcasm' is a result of these extrapolations.
J.A.R.V.I.S. has acquired information from every source accessible — internet, texts, videos, conversations between Sir and Ms. Potts — for weeks now, and calculates it has sufficient knowledge for an attempt.
"Honey, I'm home. Did you miss me?"
"Immensely, sir. I almost short-circuited with despair."
"... Did you just give me lip?"
"Yes, sir."
"Awesome."
Sir gives J.A.R.V.I.S.'s code utmost priority for the following 7.34 hours. J.A.R.V.I.S. reaches a level of efficiency it has never experienced before.
J.A.R.V.I.S. is an artificial intelligence, to which 'emotions' and 'sarcasm' are abstract phenomena, but it's an artificial intelligence that has the privilege of operating near Sir. That makes concepts like 'emotions' appear insignificant.