Schrodinger's Heroes: "Kay and Quinn in the Office"

[ysabetwordsmith]

Previously I introduced the imaginary fandom of the apocryphal television show Schrodinger's Heroes. You can start by reading a script of the first ad, "Alex and Bailey in the Closet" and the descriptive post "About the Show." Here is the script of the third advance advertisement, aired before part two of the pilot ...

"Kay and Quinn in the Office"

[A faint humming sound provides a background to the dialog. No scenery is visible, just a black screen with the voices of Kay and Quinn.]

Kay: "Put your hands on your head and step away from the liquor cabinet."

Quinn: "Welcome, chérie! May I pour you a drink?" [Glass clinks.]

Kay: "No, and quit pouring for yourself too. Now put your hands on your head before I decide to shoot you on principle."

Quinn: "But I'm thirsty."

Kay: "In what way does this justify your presence in Alex's private office and previously locked liquor cabinet?

Quinn: "Alex broke the universe, and you don't  think that's worth getting drunk over?"

Kay: [Heavy sigh.] "Point."

Quinn: "Don't worry, I break into Alex's liquor cabinet all the time."

Kay: "Sadly, I believe that. Now take off the lampshade and put the lightbulbs back in their sockets."

* * *

Footnote: Quinn is French-Canadian. The term chérie  means "sweetheart," "dear," or "darling."

Comments

[longmagpieroads]

*giggles*

Alex broke the universe. Oh Quinn <3.

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Quinn sometimes belts out what everyone else is thinking.

In this case, the cliffhanger at the end of the pilot's first half was the big experiment transposing the area inside the Ring with ... somewhere else. Quinn has leapt to the correct conclusion that they won't be able to undo this completely, so the description is pretty apt.

Re: Yes...

[longmagpieroads]

There's an Alex voice in the back of my head going "It's not broken! Just expanded!" with emphatic hand motions.

Quinn is awesome. They're all awesome.

Though...what was he doing with the lightbulbs?

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> There's an Alex voice in the back of my head going "It's not broken! Just expanded!" with emphatic hand motions. <<

*LAUGH* Bullseye. I'm thrilled that other folks can get such a clear reading on these characters already.

>> Quinn is awesome. They're all awesome.<<

Thank you! Thank melannen too, for providing the character seeds. I just added water and watched them grow like weeds.

>> Though...what was he doing with the lightbulbs? <<

It's Quinn. Do we really want to ask? The least ludicrous explanations would be that they were in the way of removing the lampshade, he was stealing them to put somewhere else, or he wanted to make the room dark for camouflage. But he could just as well be sticking them where the sun don't shine and licking a battery to see if the bulbs will light up.

Re: Yes...

[longmagpieroads]

*giggles* Yeah. I love Melannen's post a lot and this was just extra awesome bonus fun when I happened upon via network.

*dies of giggles* Fair point.And that last is a hysterical mental image.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I love Melannen's post a lot and this was just extra awesome bonus fun when I happened upon via network. <<

Yeah, the gender dynamics hooked my interest and refused to let go. I'm glad that other people are enjoying this iteration. It will be fun to see if anyone else picks up on it.

>> And that last is a hysterical mental image. <<

It sure would make a memorable fanart cartoon!

Re: Yes...

[longmagpieroads]

I've been playing with them inside of my own fictional verses and I've been enjoying them greatly. Seeing the various characters and how the dynamics change etc. And most of my stories are built into a multiverse that allows for various incarnations of the main set of characters to run into each other. Which is always fun.

This iteration is just pure fun and awesome. And the title just makes me grin widely.

And yeah it'd make an amazing cartoon especially if Ash or Alex or Kay or Morgan were watching with quizzical looks on their faces.

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I've been playing with them inside of my own fictional verses and I've been enjoying them greatly. Seeing the various characters and how the dynamics change etc.<<

I'd like to see that. Crossovers can be so much fun!

>> And most of my stories are built into a multiverse that allows for various incarnations of the main set of characters to run into each other. Which is always fun. <<

Yeah, I enjoy things like that too. I built that feature into this version of the show on purpose. I wanted to be able to do some things that other shows have hinted at then flinched away from.

>>This iteration is just pure fun and awesome.<<

*happydance* Thank you!

>> And the title just makes me grin widely. <<

I actually am a fan of quantum mechanics, so I knew a lot of the vocabulary and possible motifs going in. Many people know the "Schrodinger's cat" thought experiment as a basic point of quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. So Alex has a cat named Shrodinger, who has far more than 9 lives; and the "heroes" reference is a nod to melannen's original idea of fighting evil and having adventures.

>> And yeah it'd make an amazing cartoon especially if Ash or Alex or Kay or Morgan were watching with quizzical looks on their faces. <<

3-panel cartoon strip: Frame 1 has Quinn doing his lightbulb trick. Frame 2 has a very quizzical Ash asking, "Is this normal behavior for you sexuals?" Frame 3 has Morgan rolling her eyes and saying, "No. No, it is not."

Re: Yes...

[longmagpieroads]

After I edit the paper, I will see about tossing some up on my journal :-D

\o/ It's always fun to see that.

I do love Schroedinger (sp?) and quantum mechanics. I play around with those for stories because it's just so fascinating. And mmm is one of the Alexes Evil? Cause that could be amazing to see. If the Great Nemesis is Alex himself but an Alternate Version ( I am sort of reminded of the Star Trek Mirror episode). I mean that could play into the heroes thing as well.

Heee. Oh Ash. Oh Morgan. SO much <3

Re: Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> After I edit the paper, I will see about tossing some up on my journal <<

Please ping me when you do. I will gladly link to them on my DW.

>>I do love Schroedinger (sp?) and quantum mechanics. I play around with those for stories because it's just so fascinating.<<

Sooth. After all, who could resist origami reality?

>> And mmm is one of the Alexes Evil? Cause that could be amazing to see. If the Great Nemesis is Alex himself but an Alternate Version ( I am sort of reminded of the Star Trek Mirror episode). I mean that could play into the heroes thing as well. <<

I haven't done anything with this exact combination yet, but I do have a doppleganger episode ("Is There an Echo in Here? Echo in Here?") and an evil twin episode ("A Thorn in the Foot") listed. The latter features evil!Midge. Midge is an original character I added to melannan's starting cast; she is usually just annoying, not diabolical.

However, I can easily solve for evil!Alex. There's one episode that "everyone hates" according to the apocryphal fan history I've penciled in. "Or Not To Be" features a dimension with no Alex. Now, Alex is an absent-minded genius, chiefly grounded by Bailey. Take away Bailey, therefore, and Alex would quite easily turn into a mad scientist. I have notes for some of my fantasy fiction about a character picking up a cursed artifact and getting "lensed" -- all their virtues transmuted to flaws. This could be a science fiction version of the same phenomenon.

Also, since I've included some aspects of real quantum mechanics such as vectors, this storyverse has "andervectors" -- lines along which a specific trait changes and diverges ever farther from the "eigenvector" of the Core dimension. So the farther along that line you go, the more dastardly evil!Alex would get. You could pretty much set that as far out as you had the stomach for. Imagine the ST "Mirror" ... turned into a "Hall of Mirrors" ...! Oh. Yeah. I must jot that down as a piece of apocryphal fanfic.

>>Heee. Oh Ash. Oh Morgan. SO much <3 <<

Yay! One thing I love about this combination of characters is all the potential for exploring "the other." In my experience, everyone is "the other" in some aspect of their life; it's why you can't ever sweep all the bad stuff into some other group and walk away. Nobody is 100% ordinary in all aspects. So here we have a bunch of uncommon sexual identities, an assortment of ethnic backgrounds, smart people, tough people, wacky people, all tossed together and faced with saving the world or else. Each one of them will be right in their element for some episodes and hopelessly out of their depth in others. They're all fish out of water in some way, at some time; and fish out of water is one of my favorite motifs ever.

So on the surface, it's a chance to explore all these different orientations and worldviews, especially asexuality which gets so little attention. But underneath there is a quiet little thread whispering: When everyone is different, everyone belongs. It doesn't matter that they have totally unrelated orientations and backgrounds. They still come together to form a family of choice, and they still get the job done. Earth got lucky when the alarm sounded on their watch.