cordyceps tcftog

mathamaniac asked: I read ‘CORDYCEPS: too clever for their own good’ like 6 months ago and i can’t get it out of my head. its just now clicked for me that YOU are (probably) the same benedict that wrote it (unless that’s what you want me to think)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

itsbenedict:

Wait, I wrote Cordyceps? And my name is Benedict? That’s not- wait, now I remember, now I remember, AAAAAAAGhfkjdks

#[passes out and wakes up as. what‚ denedict?], #mathamaniac, #but yeah that me, #glad you liked it!, #or. that you can’t get it out of your head wait uh oh.

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #cordyceps tcftog #infohazards #amnesia cw #also what kai-skai said #(”are you just going to skip cenedict or”) #though koito-yuu’s and yieldsfalsehoodwhenquined’s responses are also very good #(respectively ”next is francis‚ right” and ”is there a canonical ordering to all the different ways you can prepare eggs?”)

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

onyxofborg:

alarajrogers:

brin-bellway:

I’m cleaning out my notepad program in preparation for a move to a new† laptop††, and I found this Tumblr draft dated March 10th, 2016.

—

One of the worst non-obvious things about prosopagnosia is that it *reduces the amount of serendipity in your life*.

All else equal, I have far fewer chance meetings with old friends and colleagues than a non-faceblind person would. I have witnessed my mother having chance meetings that I would not have had in her place. I abandoned Orphan Black partway through the first episode because it disturbed me too much, knowing that if they’d based the clones’ on *my* genetic structure instead of hers, the entire show would never have happened. Sarah and Beth would have walked right by each other and never known. How many plot hooks (let alone easter eggs) have I missed out on in my own personal narrative?

(I went bowling on my 22nd birthday. In the group playing on the lane next to my family, there was a girl who looked just like I would if I didn’t wear glasses. I assume it was a coincidence. I assume she was not a secret clone or long-lost twin. If I am wrong in that assumption, I will never find out. If one day I passed someone I assumed to be a stranger, and they were actually a former acquaintance who would have given me some life-changing piece of information had I struck up a conversation with them like old times, I will never find out. Almost certainly, I have at the very least passed by acquaintances who would have given me non-life-*changing* but life-*enhancing* pieces of information, had I only known it was them.)

(This post inspired by CORDYCEPS [link], another story whose plot is dependant on one person recognising another’s face. I like the mystery and I like Benedict’s writing, so I’ve been reading it anyway for now.)

—

†And by “new”, I mean “seven years old, but significantly higher-spec than my current seven-year-old laptop”. Dad’s laptop broke, so we agreed that I would buy a “new” one for me and hand my old one down to him. Back in the day, *I* used to get *his* hand-me-down computers, but my computer requirements have now outpaced his (fortunately not to the point where my usual laptop budget of ~USD$300 is an insufficient amount of money), so.

††My backups are generally pretty thorough, and it wouldn’t have been a disaster data-wise if I’d woken up this morning to find my laptop permanently unable to boot (which did happen to me one morning in my mid-teens! no warning, no particular reason AFAIK why that motherboard chose that night to fail, it just did!), but I’ve found a couple overlooked spots.

Yeah, I find that plots that depend on recognizing people’s faces under extreme conditions are so weird to me. Like… humans can do that? Really? You saw this guy one time on the news and now you run into him in real life and you know who he is? Just because his face was shown on the news once? How is that even possible? I often question the legitimacy of such plot points even though I know my personal experience is not normal for human beings, because it just seems so completely implausible. Meanwhile, here I am not recognizing my own daughter when I drive past her on the street. (Or worse, walking up to her guests at her birthday party and addressing them as if they’re her.)

Honestly, I’ve never wondered how people could not realize Clark Kent was Superman. Take your glasses off and wear tights and a cape, and I wouldn’t recognize you either. Also I’d be too busy staring at the cape because WHEE CAPE! :P

One thing I find unrealistic about stories is when someone is telling someone else about a conversation they had and they remember everything WORD FOR WORD, in the exact order that it happened. If it was me, I’d be like “and then we talked about penguins for a while, and then he told me this story about…oh wait, before that, he told me someone broke into his office and moved a bunch of stuff around!” I’d make a horrible detective.

Tags:

#(June 2018) #conversational aglets #prosopagnosia #embarrassment squick #amnesia cw #cordyceps tcftog #Superman

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

Part 2 of draft-clearing: another CORDYCEPS-related draft. This one is dated September 15th, 2016.

—

Did you know there’s a Greek alphabet song? {{this was marked as “insert a link here”, but the Youtube URL of the particular version past!me was thinking of was not included}}

I didn’t know for *sure* there was until today, but last night it occurred to me that it was *plausible* that one might exist, and if so it would be pretty helpful in making sure I knew the names of all the Greek letters and learning what order they go in.

Why did I want to learn the Greek letters, you might ask? Well.

So, I read CORDYCEPS [link], yeah? And my brain was like “Hey look, a new skin for our recurring amnesia nightmares [link]!”

And the thing is, my subconscious has been fairly insistent† that my INO is the Greek alphabet. This is weird because I *don’t have the ordering of the Greek alphabet memorised*. I mean, I know the order of the first five letters because of Brave New World, but after that, ???

So now I’m actually learning the order of the Greek alphabet *just so that this will stop bugging me*.

(…thank you @itsbenedict? I guess? For…inspiring me to learn?)

†If by “fairly insistent” you mean “both of the two times it’s come up”.

Tags:

#I never did *completely* memorise the ordering #but I’m much further along than five now #might finish it at some point #oh look an original post #cordyceps tcftog #amnesia cw

~ Brin ~ 3 Comments

I’m cleaning out my notepad program in preparation for a move to a new† laptop††, and I found this Tumblr draft dated March 10th, 2016.

—

One of the worst non-obvious things about prosopagnosia is that it *reduces the amount of serendipity in your life*.

All else equal, I have far fewer chance meetings with old friends and colleagues than a non-faceblind person would. I have witnessed my mother having chance meetings that I would not have had in her place. I abandoned Orphan Black partway through the first episode because it disturbed me too much, knowing that if they’d based the clones’ on *my* genetic structure instead of hers, the entire show would never have happened. Sarah and Beth would have walked right by each other and never known. How many plot hooks (let alone easter eggs) have I missed out on in my own personal narrative?

(I went bowling on my 22nd birthday. In the group playing on the lane next to my family, there was a girl who looked just like I would if I didn’t wear glasses. I assume it was a coincidence. I assume she was not a secret clone or long-lost twin. If I am wrong in that assumption, I will never find out. If one day I passed someone I assumed to be a stranger, and they were actually a former acquaintance who would have given me some life-changing piece of information had I struck up a conversation with them like old times, I will never find out. Almost certainly, I have at the very least passed by acquaintances who would have given me non-life-*changing* but life-*enhancing* pieces of information, had I only known it was them.)

(This post inspired by CORDYCEPS [link], another story whose plot is dependant on one person recognising another’s face. I like the mystery and I like Benedict’s writing, so I’ve been reading it anyway for now.)

—

†And by “new”, I mean “seven years old, but significantly higher-spec than my current seven-year-old laptop”. Dad’s laptop broke, so we agreed that I would buy a “new” one for me and hand my old one down to him. Back in the day, *I* used to get *his* hand-me-down computers, but my computer requirements have now outpaced his (fortunately not to the point where my usual laptop budget of ~USD$300 is an insufficient amount of money), so.

††My backups are generally pretty thorough, and it wouldn’t have been a disaster data-wise if I’d woken up this morning to find my laptop permanently unable to boot (which did happen to me one morning in my mid-teens! no warning, no particular reason AFAIK why that motherboard chose that night to fail, it just did!), but I’ve found a couple overlooked spots.

Tags:

#(I did finish Cordyceps) #(it was good if a bit horror-y for my tastes) #oh look an original post #prosopagnosia #amnesia cw? #cordyceps tcftog

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

(I feel like @itsblehnedict might find this interesting)

[under the cut for non-fourth-wall-breaking infohazards, and also cordyceps spoilers if anyone still cares]

So in my dream this morning I was playing a video game (it might have been a VR game, but the way my dreams work all media is VR media, so I’m not sure if it was *meant* to be VR), and part of the plot was an elephant-induced apocalypse†. I thought it was neat how the game handled that.

(Note: in this game, the elephant is foodborne as well as airborne, and was deliberately developed and put into place by some evil conspiracy. Never reached the part where they explain what the conspiracy was trying to accomplish.)

As you would expect, the game tracks physical infection and memetic infection separately. You can actually survive for quite a while after eating a poisoned cookie, if you play in exactly the right way to keep your character oblivious to the apocalypse going on around them.

But it’s really hard to do that and people normally only stumble into it by accident, because the game performs (limited, one-way) fourth-wall breaking.

If this is not your first playthrough to reach the elephant plotline, the game *knows that you know* (because you’ve played before), and will flag you as memetically contaminated even if your character has no idea.

But it goes farther than that. The plot flag that triggers the apocalypse is finishing your dinner that night. (You then–if you don’t have other plans for the night–go to eat poisoned cookies and watch a poisoned movie with your family, and many other people in other places are doing the same. If you do have other plans, your family does it without you.) There is no in-game indication that an apocalypse will start then (in the main branch of the plotline, you actually *die* that night, and are resurrected by plot stuff later). If the game notices you building a bunker, buying gas masks, avoiding finishing your dinner to buy yourself more time to prepare††, the game *realises you must have read a walkthrough* and *flags you as memetically contaminated* (because why would you be doing this stuff if you didn’t know what was coming?).

—

†For anyone who has not read Cordyceps but still wants to read this post, the short version is that “the elephant” is a disease that is fatal when symptomatic but can only become symptomatic *if you know the disease exists*. If you’re infected without ever learning about the disease, it lies dormant for a few months and then dies out, unless you learn about it during that timeframe. (They call it “the elephant” because it’s pink and you mustn’t think about it.)

††If you say you aren’t hungry and put your dinner in the fridge, the “finished dinner” flag is not set and the apocalypse is postponed. You can eat other stuff later, and as long as it isn’t *that* particular meal the flag is not set. Letting the food rot sets the flag, but you can still buy yourself about three days this way.

Tags:

#cordyceps tcftog #illness tw #apocalypse cw #infohazards #oh look an original post #dreams

(crosspost from AO3 comments)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

itsbenedict:

kakunya on Chapter 26

I really want to read Light Marathon. Do you have any plans to write it? If not, could you possibly share a summary of the ideas behind it?

Benedict_SC on Chapter 26

I don’t have any plans to write it- it’s mainly window dressing- but I did think a little bit about it so I could keep Arc and Gavin’s nerding-out about it consistent.

The basic idea is that there’s an interstellar civilization that hasn’t quite managed to completely bypass the lightspeed barrier- human settlements are pretty self-contained, since all interstellar communication is asynchronous. To keep everything synced up, there’s these huge AI-run computers- collectively, the Lightspeed Archive or the Perfect Mind- which form a benevolent godlike superorganism that keeps what are supposed to be perfect records of everything it observes. It functions as a sort of oracle, handing out information that it’s confident of with 100% certainty in order to advise local governments on policy and coordinate interstellar travel and communication. (Yes, that’s not realistic- it’s a conceit of the setting that the computers are Just That Good, and I’m sure Archive05, datacrawlers_georg, and the rest of LMOF have had lots of loud arguments about whether this makes sense and whether the author of the series knows anything about computers at all.)

This state of affairs is objected to by a number of groups with different aims, who’ve formed an uneasy marriage of convenience- the Plausibilists, people who seek to corrupt the Perfect Mind’s data and force it to start reasoning in probabilities and guesswork. Some of them think that the PM should be more powerful, and that making it deal with messy reality would empower it, and others think that it should be LESS powerful, and that making it deal with messy reality would disempower it. They’ve got the same short-term goals, but completely different beliefs about what those goals will accomplish, which leads to internal tension and infighting.

The series as a whole is mainly a cyberpunk spy thriller- hackers and smugglers and various ne’er-do-wells trying to alternatively coordinate with and backstab each other across lightyears of distance, while dealing with double agents and plots upon plots. Everyone has to deal with both bizarre, incontrovertible prophecies from the machine, and the uncertainty inherent in being mutually displaced in time from their cohorts.

(And at one point the Plausibilists win out on the fourth and newest colony, somehow corrupting Archive04, and someone named Zack Mainframe decides to blow it up and force people to rebuild it rather than let it propagate its corrupted data to the rest of the Perfect Mind- hence, Riley’s username.)

Note that apart from the part about the no-FTL interstellar civilization, all of this was made up on the fly while writing chapter O/22 as a post-hoc explanation for the username. Not sure whether I want to write out some excerpts and put them in earlier chapters as foreshadowing, or avoid getting too in-depth because it’d be a distracting red herring…

If anyone wants to pick up this setting and write their own thing with it, be my guest- or, since it’s conveniently Worldbuilding Wednesday, send some asks about it?

You know, I didn’t notice at the time, but reading this it occurs to me: doesn’t the analogy make at least as much sense if you use it to argue the opposite way?

What is St. Shelhart’s goal, after all, if not to destroy part of Arc to save the rest? And what is Arc doing, if not allowing their corrupted systems to propagate and take down everything?

Tags:

#reply via reblog #cordyceps tcftog #cordyceps spoilers #fridge logic #metaphors are tricky things

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

itsbenedict:

lizawithazed:

itsbenedict:

@terminallyuninspired has brought to my attention the fact that i accidentally dodged a rickroll 28 minutes ago

#the scenario is a close real-world analogue to cordyceps actually#a desire for knowledge leading inescapably into terrible consequences#i can’t believe i wrote a novel about people getting rickrolled 

have you MET you because I absolutely believe that

that’s. that’s a fair cop

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #cordyceps tcftog #rickrolling

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

responsible-reanimation:

The best dialogue exchange in Cordyceps (without spoiling it).

Tags:

#cordyceps tcftog #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #I’m getting the distinct impression that this book is going to become a subcultural touchstone a la The Northern Caves #(though admittedly I haven’t read The Northern Caves myself) #(mostly because it seems too horror-y for my tastes) #(arguably I shouldn’t have read Cordyceps either for the same reason) #(too late now)

nevermindbinarity asked: WHYYY (also the way you formatted the link was clever!)

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

itsbenedict:

(I’m gonna put this in drafts and post it in a couple days, once the story’s over.)

the answer to “WHYYY” is mainly “there really wasn’t any other plausible outcome”. like, if it didn’t happen this way, it would have happened some other way, because there’s no chance in hell Arc would ever have been able to do what it took to avoid it.

(even though “what it takes to avoid it” is just “not making all these complicated strings of terrible decisions”.)

(spoilers under cut)

Keep reading

(more spoilers)

Yeah, I was wondering at first why the hell anyone would believe O when they claimed to be J, since surely they’ve proven themself to be completely untrustworthy from the staff’s POV. And then I thought, it doesn’t really matter in the end. Arc could never be satisfied with the situation as it stands. They would always be determined to get their memory back, die trying, or–as it happens–both. If they didn’t die to the fungus on iteration O, they’d die to it in a future iteration, or get themself shot when they pissed off one of the people-with-guns one time too many. They really were doomed from the moment they were infected.

Although it’s not really enough to manifest over the few cycles we see, the process does progressively cordon off more of the brain over time

It doesn’t manifest? Was I reading too much into the fact that N can come up with a not just a plan, but a plan for how to hide their real plan, in the few seconds they have between seeing Orchard and having Orchard come after them, but O has quotes like this:

He turned to me. “Sorry- quick question- what’s your name?”

I froze. What did he need my name for?

[chain of reasoning cut for space]

“Hey. Your name. Can you tell me?” Gah! I wasn’t done thinking! I held up a finger for silence.

[more reasoning]

I’d paused too long. The guard was getting suspicious. “I’m just asking. This isn’t a trick or anything, just… what’s your name?”

And this:

Everything was happening too fast. I couldn’t stop and think through every implication of what they were saying- they kept saying things, without giving me time to analyze it! I couldn’t move, I couldn’t make a judgment- had 5 gotten her to say that somehow? Is that what someone who’d had their cover blown would say out loud? No, but- it explained 5’s behavior, it was plausible- but it could be a trick. HOW could it be a trick? What was Helium even saying, oh, she was saying more things now-

I mean, when I saw the bit about brain damage with each reset, I kind of figured the problem was that O thinks more slowly than N does.

*Potentially*, Arc could be cured with a specialized treatment plan and a really high-security facility, where they just lock them in with no human contact and no clues whatsoever, and hope they don’t work it out for themselves over months of time to think and theorize and potentially hit upon the right solution by chance. Maybe stick a lot of books and video games in there to distract them with? 

Is there a reason why keeping a patient continuously unconscious for six months wouldn’t work, or is it just impractical for them to actually do?

(At first I wondered if you could even avoid the need for amnesia by doing that, but I suppose even if it would theoretically work and they had enough supplies, it would be hard to ensure people are always completely unconscious and not dreaming of elephants.)

Tags:

#cordyceps tcftog #reply via reblog #cordyceps spoilers #not sure what happens to a thread with multiple cuts like this #we’ll find out