ivyfic

Ivy's fanfic (Index on AO3)
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Where's the story where Charlie Eppes has to take an anthropology class from Blair Sandburg? It has to exist. They could have a hair off!

So I’m getting sucked into Numb3rs, which I realize is so six years ago.

The math seems decently done so far. I don’t understand the equations on the boards, but they are at least feasibly equation-y. (Though him writing everything on chalkboards is more than a little eccentric. I suppose watching him use Mathcad isn’t thrilling TV.) Most of the times they have him explain something, it is recognizably math to me. They run into two problems with how it applies to the plot of the episodes, though:

1 – The math is easily enough understood, but it makes no sense that you would need it to address this problem. Like, there’ve been three sightings of a fugitive in a loose circle around his old house. You do not need to model soap bubbles to say, “Oh hey! The sightings are in a ring around his house!”

2 – The math is complex enough that Charlie’s little explanation doesn’t actually explain it at all. There’ve been a number of cases where the explanation is basically, there’s an algorithm that finds X. But he doesn’t even try to say how. So, for the writers, it becomes a black box. The algorithm said this guy did it! But there’s no evidence linking him to the case. But the algorithm!


What appeals to me, is, of course, David Krumholtz. Charlie is a super genius, but manages to avoid most of the super genius TV tropes. He doesn’t handle extreme emotions that well (but then, who does), and he has a tendency to lose track of things when he’s working. But he’s not autistic, or even Aspergers-like, he’s not unaware of social norms, he’s not bad at social interactions, he’s not wimpy, he’s not emotionally immature. He’s actually a mostly mature, stable, athletic, charming guy who is also a math genius. He’s a rock star—the producers say so repeatedly, and he’s definitely filmed that way. Since they’re modeling him on Feynman, this makes sense.

( Fanon versus canon )

There’s an episode where Charlie says something like, “the one keg party I gave, he stole the keg” (referring to a rival). I’ve seen this pop up in fic. But he went to Princeton. And at Princeton, keg parties? Really not a thing. Princeton has eating clubs, which function as coed fraternities (some you have to rush, like a frat, some are “sign-in,” meaning membership is determined by lottery if too many people are interested). But the salient point is the eating clubs provide free booze to all comers every Thursday and Saturday night. Even as a freshman who has just arrived on campus and knows no upper classmen you can walk straight into an eating club your first week at school and get free beer. Of course, it’s not actually free, the members of the club pay for it, which pissed me off something awful when I was in a club, cause I didn’t drink in college.

But the point is—eating clubs make keg parties unnecessary. People pre-game in their rooms, but usually with liquor. The parties I went to hosted by a cappella groups were also more of the hard alcohol type than kegs. There are kegs on campus—under the bars at the eating clubs. But these are bought by the “liquid assets” chair of the club, whose main requirement is that they be over 21, so Charlie wouldn’t have been one. Charlie would almost definitely not have been in a club. So him throwing a keg party, just from the outside, would be a really odd thing to do. I mean, I could see him at sixteen trying to be cool by doing something like that, but just his lack of awareness of the drinking culture exhibited by having a keg party would have marked him as an outsider. I don’t really see anyone going to such a thing. Except for the rival, who stole the keg. (Given his timeline, the only reason I could see for him to throw a kegger is the Nude Olympics—and why isn’t that a story, Numb3rs fandom? You’re letting me down here, seriously.)


To close, I am terribly amused by the discussion of the original pilot, which had an almost entirely different cast, except for Krumholtz. The producers all say things like, the cast just didn’t have chemistry. Then one finally says, “Casting David Krumholtz took us in a much more ethnically specific direction.” Yes. And the original cast for his brother and father were generic whitebread types. Krumholtz looked adopted. At least one show in Hollywood is not going to ignore blatant ethnic miscasting, so woo for that.

I also have to say, I cannot stand Megan. I know I am from the East Coast and should be used to her accent, but I CANNOT STAND HER VOICE. Oh my god, so whiny and nasal. And she holds her mouth in this really annoying way. Ugh. Bring Terry back, please.

I finally watched Gangs of New York. I don't know why I hadn't seen this already, given my love of New York history. (Actually, I do know why--I was put off by the amount of violence. But after watching Rome and Spartacus, nothing can be more extreme than that, right?)

I love all the detail about nineteenth-century New York, even if I know it is a heightened, fantasy version of it. I definitely smiled to see the Tammany Hall fliers being handed out at the docks, along with bread. Having read some about Tammany Hall, I know they did that. And it was a very smart political move. I also know from the NY Fire Museum that their portrayal of fighting fire companies is completely accurate.

( Spoilers )

Also, I am terribly amused by the fact that, in a movie where racial allegiances are central, the main Irish character is played by someone named Leonardo DiCaprio (although from wiki, it looks like he's mostly of German descent). At least Liam Neeson is Irish.

LJ keeps burping week-old comments at me, all out of order. This is really crimping my style, man! Third party issue my ass.

Inception is the kind of movie where I can't tell if some things are plot holes or were meant to be that way.

( For example )

I finished Stealing MySpace last night. I have a friend who used to work in advertising there, so I have heard Stories. Unfortunately, the author, apparently, has not.

This author, like so many nonfiction writers, has mistaken depth of research for narrative. She goes so far as to quote one of the founder's teenage Usenet posts to build a history of his youth. But the bulk of the book is just talking about corporate deal-making and stock options and blah, blah, blah. The book was also published when MySpace was the king of social networking and Facebook was still an upstart, so it feels like it lacks the most important part of the narrative.

Overall disappointing.

Our conductor had mercy on us last night and let us out after only one complete run through. (I think so he could have time to work with our Pontius Pilate, who had been practicing with a recording that went twice as fast and was consequently having a very hard time with his breath support on the now much longer phrases.)

Anyway. This meant that I got home in time to watch White Collar. \o/ I caught the tail end of Raiders before it started (which is a much better lead in than Law and Order:SVU, which could not be more tonally different). This got me thinking.

Is the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark a deus ex machina? On the one hand, yes, duh, big G God literally gets rid of all the Nazis. But from a storytelling point of view, not really. The theme of the movie (insofar as it has any kind of theme and isn't just a string of action sequences cobbled together) is about the hubris of both Belloq and Jones in their pursuit of this object. Throughout the movie, there are signs that this is a knowledge not meant for mankind. Even in the very opening of the movie, when Alfred Molina's character tries to steal the idol for himself, he's killed for it. Throughout the movie is this idea that selfish pursuit of these artefacts is deadly.

So when Belloq opens the Ark and is destroyed by it, it is his hubris that kills him, not God. God sweeping everything up doesn't feel like a cheat because it isn't one.

There is some hand-waviness about Indy's and Marion's survival. I don't think we're meant to believe that they were spared because they're pious--they are, very evidently, not. Instead they're spared because they don't watch, don't see the knowledge Not Meant For Man, and are therefore exempt from the punishment for it. But let's face it--if Indy had got the Ark, he would've opened it. No question. That's what he's advocating at the end of the movie--that it be studied. "Studied." Right. So despite everything he hasn't actually learned a lesson.


As a side note, the end of Raiders is always a little mysterious for me. When I was a kid, I saw Last Crusade in theaters, the first Indiana Jones movie I saw, and though I covered my eyes during the aging sequence at the end, I opened them for a millisecond and had nightmares for weeks. So when I saw Raiders and my mom warned me about the end, I wasn't taking any chances. I always left the room sometime around the time they arrive on the island. And I didn't want to take any chances of coming back in too soon, so I usually missed the entire rest of the movie. So even though I've seen Raiders many many (many) times, I've only seen the ending a few. It was something of a surprise, then, to finally watch it as an adult and realize how cheesy it all looks. ... Now that I come to think of it, it's been a long time since I saw Last Crusade, and I'm not sure I've ever seen the end with my eyes open. I should rectify that.

The very first person to audition for John Watson on the new BBC Sherlock series was Matt Smith. Who went on to be cast as the Doctor a few weeks after that. Given that Doctor Who and Sherlock are done by the same people, I don't think this was a coincidence.