#I sure am telling on myself with the type of dynamics I ship huh

[ribbonetteart]

Day 3: Alternate Universe 📖

“Why are you so interested in me?”

“There’s something about you that’s different. I think you can do better.”

[kinetic-elaboration]

June 25: 2x24 The Ultimate Computer

Belated notes on my watch of The Ultimate Computer yesterday.

Kirk’s definitely in Captain Mode today. You can tell when he’s on edge and suspicious and serious.

Yet another old Kirk friend. Does he know everyone in Starfleet?

War games lol. But it’s “not the military.”

Spock is super into this computer.

A-7 Computer Expert Certification.

The crew’s not needed? Wow, okay, this is going to end badly.

“This gadget.” How do you really feel, Kirk?

And there’s Spock literally making faces behind the Commodore’s back. He is soooo that type. He’s like “Jim, are you hearing this? Can you believe this guy?”

I’m insulted on Kirk’s behalf right now. Replacing people with machines so blithely is offensive.

Of course Bones doesn’t like it.

Oh yeah triumvirate walking scene. I love them. it takes so little for me to think ‘what badasses.’ S2 is really stepping up this dynamic in particular.

And Spock is comfortable enough around Bones to be sassy around him

Oh no, the computer is already glitching, and there is no backup and no plan B.... Bones is completely right in his assessment. This is essentially a Titanic situation: way too much hubris involved. Nothing can go wrong so nothing will go wrong so we’ve planned for nothing going wrong!

McCoy has BFF Clearance. He can go wherever he wants.

“It’s the M-5? What happened to Ms 1-4?” Channel #5.

Ahhhh little gratuitous touch to Spock’s arm. They’re In Love.

“There are certain things men must do to remain men.”

“The right computer finally came along.” Damn Bones.

Jim’s suspicions about the computer coming right after that line make it look like he’s jealous that Spock likes it so much.

He’s getting a “red alert right here.” Computers don’t have that kind of intuition.

Jim’s so thoughtful and self-aware. He really cares both about his instincts and about interrogating those instincts for bias and unreasonableness. This is giving me real S1 vibes: the quiet, intelligent, idealized hero Captain at the fore.

This whole scene is perfect, eminently quotable, and sounds exactly like something that could have been written about automation in 2021. You’re okay with it when it’s happening to someone else but then the computer comes for YOUR job....

Uh-h, M-5 is turning off all the lights...

Space merchant marines... good to know.

HOW are the Captain and CMO “non-essential personnel”? The first sign that M-5 is illogical. They should bring some doctor on the landing party mission given that uh humans are going on it and might get injured.

Anyway I can’t wait for Kirk to destroy this bitch and save the day.

Lol it turned off the lights on Bones in sickbay.

Damn, now it’s trying to take Uhura’s job too!

Chekov is so bored.

Spock wants to serve under one man and one man ONLY. Loyalty to one man... sounds like a wedding vow... and Kirk looks so soft...

So, if Spock has to describe to McCoy what that (unnecessary bitchy and catty) “Captain Dunsel” remark means, by saying that it’s a phrase that “midshipmen use at Starfleet Academy,” is this to imply Bones didn’t go to Starfleet Academy?

He’s never felt so at odds with the ship.... a lover’s quarrel...she’s cheating on him with another man...

Jim Kirk, certified Poetry Nerd. He’s such a romantic.

So glad Bones got him a drink so he can return to the bridge and a possible emergency with just a little bit of a buzz going.

Spock in the chair...

Huh, an automated ship with no crew. Interesting concept.

Oh no M-5! She’s got control of the ship and she won’t let go!

Kirk’s face when Enterprise attacks.. the betrayal... his beautiful lady used for mindless destruction.

“Only a robot” ship--! Bones is insulted.

Kirk orders the computer turned off but we’re only halfway through the ep so...

....And the computer is sentient now.

That was the shortest Captain’s Log ever. “The computer has taken over the ship the end.”

Scotty’s like, “...Well what if we just unplug it?”

Okay so now they only have 19 crew.

Spock and Bones are on point today. “Don’t say it’s fascinating.” / “I won’t. But it is... interesting.” This bitch knows exactly what he’s doing.

The computer isn’t a child, guys!

We need powerful computers “so men don’t have to die in space”--like uh that man your computer literally just killed?

I don’t get Daystrom’s logic at all. He talks as if people, like, needed to do work in space, to survive or something. We don’t need to. We want to! We want to go out and meet cool aliens! This guy is no fun.

What is the thing “greater” than fact finding in space that the robots are going to free us to do? Like what is more impressive than SPACE? I don’t even get that.

Time to mix up fake sci fi world-building references with real references! The Nobel and Zee-Magnee Prizes. Sitar of Vulcan.

A theory emerges... the computer acts illogically...Daystrom won’t let Spock near it... I know this isn’t where this is going, but it kind of sounds like they’re implying it’s a scam, lol. He sold an idea he didn’t have so it’s like.. not a real computer.

Spock’s little protege, Chekov.

“We have been pursuing a wild goose.” Aw, bb’s trying so hard to be colloquial. (Also he 100% learned that phrase from McCoy in The Gamesters of Triskellion and now he’s trying it out on Kirk...when McCoy isn’t around.)

“Not to offend you by using the h-word, but... could it be... human?”

Kirk’s really mad at Daystrom now.

The Commodore really set up that dramatic turn to camera there.

Poor Kirk. His ship is being used for evil.

“They can’t destroy the ship, what would happen to the computer?!” Yes, the computer. And the other 19 people and himself but mostly the computer. Daystrom really has lost it.

I love the actor who plays him, though.

“You are great. I am great.” Nothing weird happening here.

Spirk attack! (Spork it out.)

Spock’s way too sure Commodore Wesley is about to die. “He was decent, it’s a shame the ship I’m on is gonna kill him.”

And now another round of Kirk versus the computer and Kirk’s logic wins.

M-5 should argue that it did not commit murder, it committed homicide in self-defense. But then Daystrom didn’t program it with a lawyer’s brain.

It’s uh just gonna leave? Not turn the lights back on?

Kirk is so smart! I know I say this all the time, but it’s true! He knew what to do to save the ship because he knew Bob Wesley. He had formed connections, he had experience and knowledge that doesn’t come from logic. He is not replaceable!

McCoy’s like “Spock, fight me. Debate me Spock. Fight me. I’ll be fun.”

Spock HAS answered the computers versus humans question--he likes humans. He wants to be surrounded by humans.

That was really good! One of the better S2 episodes. Great Kirk, great triumvirate--as a trio and all three sides of the triangle--great sci fi concept, great guest star, great social commentary--still 100% relevant today.

i definitely have to think more about the ‘human computer’ concept. I liked that they specifically went out of their way to explain why the computer was human, how that was part of its design, and then tied that into its creator, his background, his belief system, and his insecurities. I feel like most ‘sentient computer’ or ‘advanced AI’ narratives just assume a computer that’s powerful enough will eventually be alive, which is not something I believe. The scariness of advanced AI to me is the incredible power it has to act quickly, but in a complete black-box way: you can’t literally see the logic string of its thought processes, and nor can you figure them out easily or completely using the creators’ intentions or logic because the machine has ‘learned’ since its inception, and its learning processes are not human. There is a real alienness to them that I find scary. And I do think this ep captured that nuance in M-5: it has the speed and abilities of a super computer, the “human” qualities of its creator for well-explained reasons, and the unpredictability of a mechanism that is NEITHER human nor human-controlled tool. And of course the ep’s ultimate thesis--that humans cannot be completely automated or replaced, and that we should not want to automate or replace humans--is comforting and of a morality I can and want to agree with.

This was also one of those eps that made me curious about the differences in AOS and TOS Kirk--in other words, an ep that relied on his history with Starfleet and his experience, on the reality that he’s a 34 year old man with 15+years of experience in the Fleet. Time, experience, connections, these aren’t things you can replace no matter how smart you are, and I feel like it would have been interesting to see AOS!Kirk deal with some situation that is trickier for him because he’s a Captain with a startlingly small amount of institutional experience. It’s not just about being young or generally inexperienced, in other words--it’s about NOT knowing every Captain, Admiral, and Commodore in the service, it’s about NOT having friends across the galaxy because he just hasn’t had time to make them. Even in deep space, that matters. And I think it’s something that I appreciate more as an adult myself, with actual real world experience of the importance of connections and experience and time, especially in sort of insular or smaller work communities.

Anyway, next is Bread and Circuses! Another great ep for the triumvirate. I can’t believe we’re almost through S2!!

[fangirlinglikeabus]

i read some non vna dw books a while ago but because i am a Clown i’ve only just finished typing up notes on them...i think my next dw book i’ll make notes as i go rather than just marking the pages and Hoping I Remember. anyway! here’s my thoughts on thirteen doctors 13 stories. i have more opinions on some than others. 

A BIG HAND FOR THE DOCTOR

"...Susan, who was possibly the only person in the universe who could make the Doctor smile at the mere thought of her."

awwwwww

didn't really like this one that much - i wasn't too impressed with eoin colfer's characterisation of the first doctor (esp since pre-ian and barbara i don’t think he’d willingly attempt to stop some villains until susan was in danger)

THE NAMELESS CITY

Polly...once described him as looking like an unmade bed.

lmao

...he didn't know exactly what he was, though when he was growing up, he had heard tales of the legendary fairy creatures of the Unseelie Court who haunted Scotland's deepest valleys. He suspected the Doctor might be one of the dark Sith.

HEAVILY vibe with this concept the world is saved by bagpipes.......peak dw THE SPEAR OF DESTINY

"You know what I love about London?" he said, turning to her briefly. She sighed. "I'm sure I can't guess." "It's the only city in the universe where you can drive around in a car that's seventy years old and get away with it." "Who says you're getting away with it?" Jo muttered. 

nkdfsjksn

"Fire away!"

"Oh, Doctor, please. Not after that business at the museum."

no doctor is immune to the temptation of a good pun. no matter how inappropriate. actually i really like how jo and three are written in this generally. there's so many good scenes. also, when the doctor asks her why she doesn't know anything about the vikings: "Doctor, we did the Romans. Every year." rip jo

From a distance the Doctor watched as a group of about twenty men loaded the TARDIS on to the back of a large low wagon pulled by four sturdy oxen.

jo: the doctor told me about the perception filter on the tardis so it'll be fine! they won't even spot it. literally the next scene, immediately:

She longed to stand and give this old goat a piece of her mind, but she knew she'd most likely fall over if she tried, which wasn't the effect she was after.

aw jo :(

"Do you know they wash once a week?" "Could have fooled me," muttered Jo.

*desperately resists the urge to write down every jo line in this story*

"I have the ship. And I have the spear. What need have I of you any more?"

the master is betrayed. to the surprise of no-one but himself.

The Doctor held her by the shoulders. "My dear girl," he said. "That is very noble of you. You were right. Your aspirations /are/ the very noblest. But you're wrong about something. Nothing is more important than you."

me, sobbing:

ROOTS OF EVIL

realised as i was reading this that i don't own any books featuring leela.....a crime

"Surprise!" the Doctor said. "You know you were complaining that you missed trees?"

this is actually the cutest thing no-one look at me

She could never understand why the Doctor was so careless of danger. It was a good thing he had her to look after him, she thought, as he opened the TARDIS door and they stepped out together into dim, green light and the earthy, warm-compost smell inside the great tree.

phillip reeve gets the four+leela dynamic. like. he Gets it. 

"It will not hurt you," she promised. "It is called a 'scarf'. It is like a cloak, only pointless."

ousdofnsoksfd

"Did it look a bit like a gravel pit? You'd be amazed how many alien worlds look just like gravel pits..."

what is doctor who. without quarry jokes.

"I mean, he's wearing a bow tie!" the Doctor explained patiently. "Ridiculous objects! I wouldn't be seen dead in a bow tie!"

1) says the guy who wears an obnoxiously long scarf everywhere 2) honey, you've got a big storm coming

TIP OF THE TONGUE

there's a scene in this where nyssa and the doctor chill at a diner and they drink chocolate milkshakes together. this is all i care about.

Good Lord, was that celery he was wearing on his lapel?

Yeah We Know

"Are you British?" Nettie said, as if this was the most surprising part of the whole thing.

i mean, fair

He paused. "I don't suppose either of you would be interested in travelling?"

the fifth doctor: hey one of my friends died recently and i abandoned the other one but i really miss having a large crew so i was wondering if you two literal children would like to risk your life travelling with me :)

SOMETHING BORROWED

you'd think given this one is from peri's pov she'd be slightly more central to the plot. ah well.

"That's two storeys up!" I exclaimed. "And I'm in heels." "Well then, you should have worn more sensible shoes, shouldn't you?"

maybe she lives in hope that she won't have to do any running/scale buildings every time she steps out of the tardis. i get that. 

"Well, you are the expert when it comes to gaudy," I said, giving a meaningful look to his red-and-yellow plaid coat and green tie.

every six story is legally obligated to drag his coat

The Doctor shook the man's hand vigorously. "Yes, yes. A little different round the edges since our last meeting on Kiri 4, but all the charm and intellect are still here."

i love this bastard.......

"Love? That contrived, chemically driven state of idiocy?"

mood

A clatter of metal was the sole warning I had before a hole in the ceiling suddenly opened, and the Doctor came tumbling down to the floor, landing in an ungraceful heap of rainbow plaid. Nonetheless, he rose to his feet with all the dignity of an Olympic gymnast who'd just landed a perfect somersault.

not to sound like a broken record but i would Die for this idiot

withholding myself from using more quotes to illustrate my unbridled love for the sixth doctor whom..........

"You might regret not helping me with this one day," she  [the Rani] called over to us. "Your next regeneration may be sooner than you think."

Huh. I Wonder What That's Referring To

RIPPLE EFFECT

From the look on his face, Ace reckoned that a visit to the Time Lords was something similar to her having to visit the dentist back on Earth.

i mean to be fair.....the time lords are a whole lot worse although in this case the doctor's reasons for not wanting to visit are: (i) they're 'old, boring and judgemental' (ii) they have stupid clothes and a stupid non-intervention policy (iii) they treat him 'like a naughty schoolboy' (can't have that in front of your companion!)

i apparently didn't have many comments to make on this one. um...it was good. i liked the idea of an alternate universe with nice daleks. MOVING ON

SPORE

"They're all dead....everyone's dead, flesh turned to liquid. It moves...There are things! Moving things! They're alive..." Major Platt looked up at the Doctor. "The caller became incoherent after that and disconnected shortly after." The Doctor drummed his fingers thoughtfully against the top of the aluminium folding-table between them. "Hmm...That really doesn't sound very good."

YEAH YA THINK?

"I was at the opera," the Doctor explained, "when my phone went off."

this is his excuse for That outfit. really just copying everything from grace here huh

THE BEAST OF BABYLON

She also didn't yet know that he wasn't a man at all.

yeah cos he's non-binary duh

"So now we're landing on Earth," he shouted, "two thousand years before the birth of Christ..." "Who?" "He was a bit like Sherlock Holmes. Knew the answers to everything. Very good at solving mysteries. Some humans use him to measure time."

obsessed with the implications of this dialogue...

THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED COTTAGE

absolutely love the concept of this one...a world created from martha's memories of reading a famous five expy as a child

"What?" Martha said defensively, keeping her voice down. "That's how he was described in the books. Don't blame me. This was 1951. Everything back then was blinkered, sexist, and ever-so-slightly racist. It was a backward time." "Ah, yes," said the Doctor, "because 2007 has none of those things."

vibe with this convo

"Am I lonely?" Martha asked. "You're a particle of dust," the Doctor said. "Of course you're not lonely." "I sound lonely." "Well you're not; you're having a great time."

this conversation where the doctor tells martha to imagine herself as a particle of dust has exactly the same kind of energy as discussions you have at 3am at a sleepover

NOTHING O'CLOCK

Amy looked irritated. She wasn't irritated, but she liked to give him the impression she was, just to show him who was boss.

yeah...

ok the villains in this one are actually really fucked up like. it's been a While since i read it now because i procrastinated on making these notes but they were Good creepy. thank you mr gaiman. 

LIGHTS OUT

now THIS is one where the pov heavily contributes to the story...

He turns to look at me with piercing, hollow-set grey eyes, then furrows his impressive silvery brows. "I'm buying a coffee," he says. "For a girl."

so THAT'S why twelve took so long to find coffee for clara......he wasn't buying it on earth. good vibes

TIME LAPSE

i absolutely LOVE the concept for this one, which is that the year 2004 completely disappears from records

A typed envelope reading The Doctor, The TARDIS, Ex-Gallifrey followed by a long string of numbers, letters, and things that probably were letters but looked like they came from about eight different languages.

obsessed with the fact that (i) you can apparently send letters to the tardis, like it has an actual address (mel throwing a message in a bottle into space doesn't seem so unreasonable now huh...) (ii) part of this address is 'ex-gallifrey'

this dude gets rejected. and is so badly embarrassed that he erases 2004 from existence. i promise i'm not making this up.

[longroadstonowhere]

oathbringer spoilers (somewhere in the middle of part four i think? page 950 or thereabouts)

this series is just a little too good at portraying broken/abused/healing people

like, i think sometimes my boredom/frustration with kaladin comes from having depression myself, so it’s like every time i think ‘come on dude, just get with the program and move on’, it’s really just me saying it to myself and then myself going ‘yeah no that’s not how this works’

and gods, that scene with wit and shallan where he takes the story she was telling herself and gives just a little piece of new information that completely transforms everything, and then he relates it to her and her past and ‘accept the pain but do not accept that you deserved it’, that is a moment that is going to stay in my mind for years to come, like i might just type up that entire sequence and present it to people as a reason to read the stormlight archive

also just in general i love wit and shallan’s dynamic because hoid is like, not a good person no matter where he shows up - he pops in, does something funny or clever or dastardly, and then he pops out, but he shows such care for shallan, care that honestly no one else has shown her yet (mostly because no one else knows enough details of her life to be able to show her the care she needs), and it doesn’t feel like a plot or some kind of leverage he’s setting up, it just feels like hoid wanting to help and (finally) being in a position where he can actually do something

anyhoos

i appreciate that i called the thrill being one of the unmade a couple of days ago, like i’m sure there were hints in earlier books that cosmere scholars instantly picked up (like how the heralds still existed and who the cameos from other cosmere books were), but i’m not so great at big picture stuff so the fact that i noticed it long before it was spelled out is good enough for me

oh yeah also azure!!!!!!! who i am ninety five percent sure is vivenna!!!!!!!!!! that is a really great cameo that i am so glad exists, especially because it seems like the sort of thing that almost came as a surprise to sanderson - i know he wrote warbreaker basically as a place for zahel to come from, but vivenna’s actions at the end of warbreaker weren’t something he thought of until he wrote the end, so the fact that she’s now on roshar and has actually become important to a certain degree, that’s just so great, i am so happy, vivenna’s grown so much aaaaaaaaaaaaa

i also like how szeth’s perspective has returned, especially after the extended break through the first several parts because i think we needed that amount of ‘time’ to separate out the understanding of past-szeth and current-szeth

it’s pretty great that he understands all the skybreaker stuff on a very basic level, like he’s always following thoughts all the way to their conclusion, not just accepting the first (or second, or third) perspective he’s been given

i wonder, though, about the Lashings, because the windrunners and the skybreakers only share one surge, but the Lashings have been described as a combination of both the surges the windrunners use, so either all the Lashings are actually from the one surge the two orders share and therefore the windrunners actually have an entire surge they aren’t properly using yet, or the skybreakers don’t have access to all the Lashings that windrunners use (a quick wiki look would suggest they can’t use Full Lashings, which is the ‘stick a thing to a different thing’ one - does make a certain thematic sense, as windrunners and skybreakers apparently didn’t get along well in the past and the differences in their powers would be that one group sticks things together and the other breaks things apart)

i feel real bad for dalinar at this point, considering he never actually healed from his past trauma, just papered over it (like shallan, only he didn’t even have any control over getting rid of the paper), so he’s dealing with a resurgence of all his worst memories, plus the guilt of getting rid of those memories in the first place, plus dealing with the thrill’s attention again - that is one of the worst combinations of things that has happened to a person in the archive yet, i think

it could be interesting if he and shallan ever have a conversation about it, actually - about hiding from your trauma by forgetting it ever happened, and how you actually deal with it once that original coping mechanism is harming instead of helping

side note: really hope shallan eventually becomes, like, ultimate ally to the unmade and manages to get at least some of them on her side because so far it definitely seems like she is strongly connected to them and redemption arcs are cool

speaking of(?) redemption arcs, elhokar’s death was..... rough - like, the possibility of becoming a radiant had clearly been there for a while, like with him seeing the symbolhead spren in the first book, and that scene where shallan sketches him was clearly supposed to be a callback to her sketching the soldiers who would later become her squires, and it could have been an amazing dynamic for elhokar to act as one of shallan’s squires until either bonding as a lightweaver himself or becoming a different radiant (truthwatcher could’ve been interesting, as it could’ve made for some interesting bonding between him and renarin)

but, as happens in life, the potential was cut short because events combined in such a way to bring moash what he most wanted

hm... now that i try and remember it, i think the scene where shallan first sketches someone as a better version of themselves was actually one of the guards for the slave caravan she grifted? and i think that man died in that one fight with the..... bandits? something like that, so i guess elhokar’s death could’ve also been foreshadowed

.... huh, wonder if anyone’s made a foreshadowed/shadesmar joke before.... (because shadows point the wrong way, get it?) (.... it would take a lot of set up and probably would not be a joke worth much at all)

anyhoos, i think i have like three hundred or so pages left (i’m trying not to flip ahead whatsoever, not even to check page amounts), which i’m fairly certain i can do tomorrow, even with going to martial arts, so that’ll be nice

(final side note: really hope syl gets off her ship and finds a different one cuz kaladin and shallan really shouldn’t be together i think - kaladin still doesn’t really see shallan, he just sees the version of her he wants to see, and shallan desperately needs someone who can actually see her)

(i do not know if that person could be adolin, but in some ways his simplicity actually could help make that happen)

[illegiblewords]

Right now I am honestly tired as heck just out of work but I think I am figuring out a writing thing so gonna type that here.

I’m basically in the kind of :I position rn where besides on and offline responsibilities and social stuff I have:

1) A novel I am supposed to be working on through July, which is properly outlined and I feel pretty good about.

2) A fun D&D campaign that I’m :> over.

3) A new idea that hit me in the head like a sack of bricks like a day or two ago.

#3, literally it’s the second time in my life that kind of situation has happened. I don’t normally have ideas where the concept just sort of gets vomited out in a weird detailed state. But after a late af night at work apparently that was what had to happen and I ended up scribbling notes for that for like five hours into some stupid time at night/morning.

Honestly, prob some part of me had been low key preparing for that to happen. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a thing involving multiple fantasy races (main novel isn’t about that) and then when I hit D&D that basically unclogged a bunch of concepts that had previously been mushing together and they sort of exploded out in a much more articulate way than originally planned. I can see pieces of what I’d been vaguely considering before floating around.

And now I have to deal with it. :[

One of the parts I’ve been very D: about though is cast.

Let me tell you dudes, I actually talked to a dear friend who is a pro editor about writing and she gave me some advice I try to keep in mind. That advice was to not make such ungodly huge casts.

This isn’t because I can’t make solid characters with huge casts or stories can’t be told with huge casts. It’s because I’m a goddamn crazy person and whenever I try to set up a story I end up doing horrifyingly detailed levels of worldbuilding and literally with notes of like eight generations of personal ancestry and all the social circles of every single character and then when you have casts of like 60 people that goes into the sphere of hundreds of pages of OUTLINING and it’s hard to get started. Not even fucking exaggerating. My main novel I basically have two points of view (so I’d list main cast is like two people) and less than ten significant cast members because I know I’m like this and I deliberately looked at myself in the mirror and was like NO URBAN YOU NEED TO STOP.

This novel, the original main cast size I had in mind was going to be like nine. As in, the people traveling together having an adventure was going to be be nine. I would still have had to do all the “npc” types and make backstories and motives for their asses.

I realized at some point this was excessive and did that whole look-yourself-in-the-mirror thing and went DO YOU REALLY NEED A MAIN CAST OF NINE URBAN THAT SEEMS PRETTY EXCESSIVE, and so then proceeded to look at my cast and be like “DEFEND WHY THIS PERSON NEEDS TO EXIST AND IF YOU CANNOT THEN FUCK THEM”.

Basically, self-amputation is an important part of writing my friends. It really is.

So step one, there were a series of stern conversations with myself that amounted to “DO YOU REALLY NEED A SUBTERRANEAN HALF-ELF BARD URBAN?” “Well I mean I don’t know it might raise neat questions and I have so many guys in the cast and I’d like to balance things–” “DO YOU REALLY NEED A SUBTERRANEAN HALF-ELF BARD URBAN?” “… No, not really…” “SAY HASTA LA VISTA BABY” Then rinse and repeat with a bunch of other characters.

For the record, I try to do this same process when I go shopping too. It is not always successful but I do use it. In this case I was fortunate and I succeeded in whittling the main cast down to six members, which is still big but not obscenely big.

When I was younger, I used to use tv tropes as a guide to try and help myself figure things out not going to lie. As an older and more experienced writer lady I know that tv tropes does a lot of focusing on the superficial bits of writing but not so much the reasons for those superficial bits that actually let you do important structural work. Still, I did have a look back at cast calculus to see what those were in case it gave me an idea of how to approach the issue of making dynamics and fleshing out characters and doing the pacing with a situation like this.

The answer wasn’t there. But it did help me get my fucking head together, so credit where it is due.

TV tropes talks about five man band a lot, which is basically a structure of leader, person to direct foil the leader, someone intellectual in the group, someone physical in the group, and mediator of the group. It’s not actually said that nicely, they have some admin there being a royal turd focusing on “wah the mediator has to be a gurl” instead of character dynamics. Annoying and useless for storytellers but w/e. They also talk about how sometimes you get a sixth person tacked on and usually that person is an edgelord of some kind who reforms.

Superficial stuff, not that useful. But some person made a note that made me stop and just explained the whole goddamn thing for me clearly.

The sixth person usually acts as a second foil to the leader.

Huh.

So basically, shit’s like this. I’m pretty sure I heard at some point that humans are only really able of fully comprehending numbers up to 3 at a time. It’s not that you don’t know there are bigger numbers. But like picture a bunch of dots or something, they usually break into 1′s, 2′s, or 3′s. If you imagine four it’s like 2+2 or 1+3. If you imagine five it’s like 2+3 or 1+2+2 or something. Grain of salt me on this I am not a mathematician or a scientist, but I do remember hearing this is a thing.

If you look at the way cast calculus tries to break shit down on the tv tropes website, they follow this more or less. Duos you have person A and person B contrasting their qualities, they end up bouncing off each other and creating a balance. Trios you have person A and person B with that structure but then person C is also there and is a kind of mediator role. Id (impulsive and a bit selfish)/ego (aware of reality)/superego (morality or intellect) with ego as mediator if you wanna go old psych. With groups of five, the setup is leader/right hand (contrast), then mind/body (another form of contrast, doesn’t strictly need to be that probably but it is one), then mediator.

2+2+1, or you can attach the mediator to either group of two and have 3+2.

Huuuuuuh.

So six, though. What the fuck are you supposed to do with six?

3+3 my dudes, and 2+2+2. AND, if you aren’t gonna be lazy and shallow and just blindly mimic what people have done before without understanding it (disclaimer: I have in fact been lazy and shallow and blindly mimicked what people have done before without understanding it many, many times) you gotta be able to switch the party members in each subdivision and explain where they stand with the dynamic so you don’t have any redundant bits or hiccups and all the relationships read distinct.

So basically:

Character A

Character B

Character C

Character D

Character E

Character F

You gotta be able to explain:

ABC, DEF, AB, CD, EF first. Then ABD, CEF, AD, BE, CF, and so on.

Reasons larger casts get harder, you have more shit you have to figure out with fucking math. Cut corners at this and the risk of you having two characters who are basically the same person and have a boring nonsense dynamic you don’t know what to say about goes up.

But Urban (you say as my levels of insane analytical bullshit continue to climb), haven’t people figured this shit already??? A-Archetypes happened yeah, so theoretically some older and more mathematically/instinctively gifted storytellers in the past figured some shit out. Wasn’t there a thing about the sixth person being some kind of douchecanoe edgelord? Why not just go with that and pray it sticks?

See I figured that trick out my dudes. I figured it right out. The douchecanoe is a trick. Secretly, that douchecanoe has a hole and that hole is flooded with more math.

Why do you need a douchecanoe? Well, we said earlier–usually they show up and turn out to be a second foil to the leader. So you got leader, foil A, foil B. One is gonna be mediator (probably the leader) and then each of the others will be a pole of some kind. Id, ego, superego is one way of putting it but so is idk idealist, realist, cynic. You can go a lot of routes with this. For mine I have ends justify the means, ends never justify means, and maybe both sometimes depending on the situation. It’s all foiling. And depending on who you have in which position you will have greater or lesser levels of contrast or parallel going on. I could have ABC and DEF be id, ego, superego respectively but then I try ABD and in that setup D is ego/mediator compared to A and B or something.

Basically, you have a team who is mostly pretty heroic overall, the person jumping in being either a moral extremist in some ways or being extra impulsive about what they want is a way to increase the range of morality on the whole and offer more foiling opportunities. I'd like to say though that isn't the only way to do it. If you have an asshole teammate in a group of five and then send in a sixth person, that sixth person could stand out for being really decent too. It's basically about generating a big moral contrast, especially between the leader and their direct foil.

But what about shipping? Opposites attract is one thing but isn’t birds of a feather flock together also a thing? And isn't shipping is just another form of character dynamic? What the hell does that do to all this horrible math? The thing is, opposites attract and birds of a feather flock together always, by nature, have to be trends. Not absolutes. Otherwise you get selfcest or two people with nothing to bond or relate over at all. Practically aliens. Any contrast you create between characters must also parallel in some other way and vice versatile. And ye both still work. It's good general policy to always have some level of foiling AND some level of paralleling between each pair of cast members that is distinct.

Also, as a bonus--why do people think casts of four are tricky? Basically when you are doing groups of four every single character has to be equally foiled and paralleled by every other character in some way. The balance of similarity and difference is real precise and can be a little tricky to wing.

But yeah, seven and higher cast numbers scare the hell out of me especially since they don't break evenly into subgroups within human comprehension limits. I think it's still doable but Jesus.

[incblackbird]

YOU NEED TO READ KILLING STALKING! It's a Korean manga that's very Thramsay like! The translated english dialogue is a little off in places but it's still so awesome! And the tag is filled with both people who love and hate it lol. It reminds me of the Thramsay discourse back in the day.

Oh my sweet summer child! i’ve already read it. I normally don’t read manga but someone made a post about it in the thramsay tag so I was like “oooh, sounds interesting, must check out” I obviously got addicted right away, read everything that is out so far in one go and today I discovered it’s actually popular... like I had no idea, I thought it was an obscure manga no one had ever heard off but I was clearly wrong. and I checked out the tag and just... the amount of posts I saw policing what people are allowed to feel and think about these two is just... argh. the self-rightiousness I can’t stand it. I know I should be used to this by now but I was honestly amazed at the things people dared to say in public (and be proud off) about how others are disgusting for like a certain fic. Like... the fact that they think they are in the right in saying that is just beyond me. Even some of the people defending the ship said things like “it’s ok to ship it in this way but not in this way” like... to give a thramsay example: if someone ships thramsay in a romantic way I will not understand them. I won’t get why they would ship thramsay in the first place if they want romance. I might even think that it’s a bit creepy of them to romanticize an abusive relationship. But i’m not gonna judge them for it and tell them that they can’t like thramsay in that way. It’s none of my fucking business. if it makes them happy then who the fuck cares! just the entitlement of these people and frankly the lack of empathy to think that people should only be allowed to like what they like, that if they can’t understand why someone would like something that automatically means they shouldn’t be allowed to do so. It’s really the lack of self awareness that hey,  not everybody is like you. people have different interests, different opinions they even *gasp* have different ways of responding to certain types of stories. it’s not because you can’t separate reality from fiction that I can’t. your limitations are your own. And yeah I know I’ve been ranting a lot tonight but this is really important to me. I’ve always been attracted to a certain type of really messed up relationship. Specifically a captor/captive one where the captor while a bad person has moments of caring for his captive (exactly like in killing stalking tbh). I could read about that stuff day in day out and not the fake half fluffy stuff, I don’t like the ones where it starts messed up but then  they fall in luuuuuuuuv. Tbh, if anything that kinda creeps me out cause it represents a messed up relationship as something positive. I like the ones the feel realistic. that are messed up and honest about it. And yes, it gives me a thrill, I am certainly sure that I am a submissive because of this stuff. I had a really hard time accepting this part of myself and it took me a long time to do so. I know that a lot of other people have trouble accepting it and that is unhealthy, that is when you get emotional issues... when you have trouble accepting yourself as you are. And these people would tell me that I can’t feel what I feel (which is something I can’t control) They seem to think that it’s a choice that it gives me a thrill, it’s not a choice believe me! It kinda reminds me of the far right claiming that being gay is a choice....Someone also mentioned something about how if you like that stuff in fiction you’ll end up in an abusive relationship yourself. I actually think it’s quite the oppesite, because I’ve accepted this part of myself I can now keep it under control, I am self aware of it and I have informed myself on how the dynamic of abusive relationships work. People get into them because they don’t realise it, it sneaks up on them. Plus, in real life I tend to fall for the SUPER nice, soft slightly nerdy guys. pretty much the complete oppesite of what I fall for in fiction... weird huh? how reality and fiction are not the same thing... Anyway I went off on a completely unrelated rant but yes Anon, I really like killing stalking. Also, for anyone else who likes it go read the original fic : waiting in the throes. be warned though it’s VERY dark, much darker than killing stalking. So know what you’re getting into, this is for the people who are not at all into fluff and like the very very dark stuff!