#Actuarial Math

[my-chemical-aromance]

i love looking like a box of crayons threw up on me and telling people i’m on path to become a mathematician. their reaction is always:

[myvirtuesuncounted]

chat i think we've got a viable uni option

[alpha-plus-delhi]

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[suhmayzooka]

math majors are unbelievable these two in my class are nerdily happily chattering away and I'm sitting here like.... u guys actually care about this stuff....? I'm just here to get a job with a stable salary.......

[blizzardfluffykpop]

Bias Spreadsheet Math

Okay, so I have a spreadsheet for my biases because I have quite a few (currently on this sheet: 27) and I like to keep facts about them stored. Just to see what lines up with the other ones. (Side note: None of my biases seem to line up...)

Anyways, I always have to manually put in the age they've turned. And I've had this spreadsheet for like a few years now. And it's tiring...

Cause I'm lazy & okay with math- I made an equation? So, the =DATEDIF() equation only works w/numbers. While Google does have the function for "TODAY" it wouldn't work in said function.

So, if I wanted it to always solve from birthdate to today. I'd have to come up with a different way, so I'd never had to type their ages manually again. I configured a little 'today's date' cell in the sheet. Thus, dubbing "AB2" as the dedicated cell.

And here 'X' will stand for any birthdate/cell w/birthdate. And years will be represented by "Y." After all, that is what we are solving for.

Thus the equation looks like:

=DATEDIF(X, AB2, "Y")

I'll be the first to admit I love math, but as a person who doesn't like to do the same tedious work over and over... This is going to make a nice difference when I look at the sheet again in the future.

Also, disclaimer: I didn't get the idea for the bias spreadsheet, someone else made the original. I have just made it custom to me. It does have some functions from the original, most of them have been scrapped tbh. Especially because this is my third version of the spreadsheet. (I don't keep up w/a lot of groups anymore, so I made a new one to decrease clutter). I don't know how much of it remains? I do have the link to the official one tho.

Anyways- if you've read on this far- and are still intrigued! If you wish to start your own: I have the link to the original and can also link mine! And if you'd like I'd be more than happy to help you set it up!

Idk I'm very proud of myself for figuring it out. It took me a little bit, but algebra was my favorite in school, so it came with ease! :)

(Also, this post marks: 25,000 posts *reblogs & originals* 🥰)

[astercontrol]

So…

I just watched Legacy again.

And… I keep coming back to the Ram-Castor theory.

Which first sparked from a paragraph on the Tron wiki, attributed in the footnote to Tron: Evolution…

Disparate accounts of Castor's origin exist. He was reputedly designed and created by Kevin Flynn in TC30 as an interpreter but quickly and naturally exceeded his original directives. Unconfirmed conflicting reports describe his origin as a "low-priority actuarial algorithm illegally co-opted identity of the obsolete protocol. More investigation required for verification."

This blew my mind, because... cryptic as it is, I found it easiest to interpret as:

The program that became Castor/Zuse was originally an interpreter program created by Kevin Flynn.

At some point, another program-- this "low-priority actuarial algorithm" -- took over his identity and took his place.

and… you know where my mind goes when I think of actuarial programs.

As far as I know, only one character ever canonically was described as such.

One who I cannot help but think of in the same category as Zuse (i.e., queer-coded, fun-loving, my favorite character in the damn movie, and died too damn soon.)

But... what would it take, for Ram to become Castor??

My initial impression was:

Ram gets rerezzed on the Grid, before the coup.

Perhaps Flynn sneaks in one of Roy's backups.

(Maybe this backup, unknown to Flynn, has been updated with some hacker code, for purposes of Zack-Attack shenanigans.)

And this Ram 2.0 is the "actuarial algorithm" who eventually assumes the identity of Castor/Zuse.

This was all months and months ago…

But now, having rewatched Legacy just now, the ideas have…

…. expanded.

Into the realm of the… something.

Here goes.

As to how Ram started out on the Grid:

I imagine that Flynn tried to give him something approaching his original purpose. Actuarial math is concerned with calculating probabilities, and this is useful for plenty of things besides setting insurance premiums.

(Ram probably would prefer many of those alternatives over setting insurance premiums, once he learns just how little insurance companies actually help people.)

His actuarial nature might even have him calculating probabilities about Clu, long before Flynn and Tron do… and seeing danger coming miles away.

And you know Flynn wouldn't have listened to his warnings.

Maybe this causes Ram to go into hiding early, before things with Clu go... clearly bad.

Now. Once in hiding, when the Purge starts, of course Ram decides to help the ISOs. He's a helper by nature. And he's lived under oppression and genocide.

Already he'll need to do this in some secrecy.

And this may very well be when he "reinvents" himself for the first time.

So. He hacks his way into the place of this …translation program that wasn't yet doing much of anything.

He takes on the new appearance, and the name Zuse.

Uses his hacking skills further, to control Solar Sailers and the permissions on other programs' discs, all in the name of getting ISOs to safety.

(This is all mentioned in the wiki, as well, attributed again to Evolution.)

(There also seem to be… hints? that Zuse himself is an ISO? but this is not clear on either the wiki, or in Legacy. There may be more data in Evolution? In any case, I'm proceeding on the assumption that he is not an ISO, just a regular program who may have been co-opted or hacked by another one.)

At the point in Legacy where Sam meets Zuse, some pieces fell together rather clearly for me.

When he says:

"Zuse has been around since the earliest days of the gaming grid. By necessity, he has to mind all the percentages, all the angles."

it feels to me that he was clearly talking about his past as Ram, the actuary. Perhaps calculating percentages of probability for gaming purposes-- betting odds and such-- back when the games were just for fun?

But, as he said, it was self-preservation that made him change his identity. With the Purge over, and Clu attaining greater and greater power… he had to reinvent himself again, to stay safe from Clu's wrath against anyone who supported either ISOs or Users. So he gave himself the name Castor, instead, and kept the Zuse identity under wraps.

"Castor" is actually a fairly clever choice of name. If he was going to go the Greek-gods route, "Ares" would have been the obvious code for Ram (the ram being the symbol for Ares/Aries).

(…AND I continue to pray, probably without hope, that Jared Leto keeps his mitts off of Ram completely. But, that's another topic.)

Ares was a son of Zeus.

Unclear whether this was why Ram chose the Zuse name… or whether the program had that name already before Ram took over him. (The wiki suggests that, like many names in Tron lore, it was an allusion to a famous name in computing history. In-universe, Flynn could certainly have named a program with such inspiration.)

In mythology, Castor was… one of the twins born to Leda after Zeus impregnated her. But the pregnancy had two different fathers, and Castor was not the twin fathered by Zeus.

From the perspective of a Ram in hiding, "Castor" could be taken to mean "false disguise for a true son of Zeus."

Not saying that was the sort of thing Ram himself would have come up with.

It's what I would have come up with, in his position.

But I am not an actuarial program. I am a goddamn pattern recognition program. This is obvious.

So, the above is likely all irrelevant.

Moving on!

By this point, Ram/Castor/Zuse might be pretty disillusioned with the Users, honestly.

Flynn's in hiding, doing nothing! He let Tron get corrupted, Yori either disappeared or never got rezzed in, and a tyrant with Flynn's face is in charge of everything!

I would NOT blame him for being unconvinced that changes at the top actually make a difference; that one leader's better than another.

I would not blame him for being earnest in saying, "I believed in Users once before."

And then, of course, the betrayal!

Clu's guards barge in.

Zuse…. stands back and lets everything happen. Gives them free rein to attack Sam. Stands back and watches in glee, as the whole thing goes down.

Watches Sam fighting back. Watches Kevin Flynn and Quorra bursting in to help. Watches the whole fight. Just watches, dancing and firing energy bolts randomly into the whole mess like a madman, as if he has no stake in it one way or another!

It would be easy to interpret this a number of ways.

He has gotten truly vengeful toward the Flynns, to the point of losing his grip on reality.

He has gotten truly vengeful toward EVERYONE, to the point of losing his grip on reality.

Perhaps his personality has even split somewhat-- the Castor and Zuse personas becoming somewhat separate entities?

This would fit with the idea that he started this whole business by co-opting the identity of another program!

Maybe that program's mind was always trapped somewhere within… fighting him.

Maybe it came to the surface more and more often as time went on.. becoming a possessing demon with very different views about everything Ram used to care for.

BUT.

There is one other possibility.

Let's take a look at just what he promised, and to whom, and just how the promises were followed through on.

First, to Sam. He offered Sam "a change of attire," "a forged disc," and "transport to cross the Sea of Simulation."

And then he stood back, and made no attempt to stop either Sam or his helpers or his attackers…

and the fight played out as fate would have it, letting Sam and Kevin and Quorra escape to safety…

as they, most surely, would…

as they could have been predicted to…

from the viewpoint of one whose probability-calculations have always been informed by faith.

One who, deep down, does still believe in the Users.

He might… just possibly… still care.

Also, consider.

Zuse does not allow Clu's guard to take the disc he stole from Kevin. He appropriates it for himself, as a bargaining chip to use with Clu.

For what? "Control of the city. A sizeable request, I know."

Here might be where Zuse finally miscalculates. He was expecting, or at least hoping, that there was a chance Clu would honor his end of the bargain.

If Clu had, indeed, allowed him control of the city, it would have given him an advantage from a large number of "angles"-- no matter how the political side of things played out.

It could have given him leverage to help the Flynns later on, and undo the damage caused by the theft of the disc.

He might, quite possibly, have predicted that Sam and Kevin would both be able to recover from the immediate problem of the disc being lost.

For all we know, that brilliant probability-calculating mind might have already had a plan for that, and for how to help them later.

And even if that plan failed…it could certainly have permitted Zuse to be involved on a much larger scale in the resistance.

(Kevin, deep in his "zen thing," had even said that programs forming a resistance from within could have a better chance of taking Clu down than he himself ever could.)

(Zuse might, at some point, have agreed with him on that, and prepared himself to play a part in it.)

But.

All this seems lost.

Because, instead of honoring the deal, Clu just takes the disc and then blows up the End of Line Club with Zuse and Gem inside it.

However.

We can easily imagine that someone with the previously displayed skills in

hacking

hiding

taking on new identities

calculating probabilities

and playing all angles / planning for all possible outcomes

…might have kept a backup of himself somewhere safer?

In any case.

Whatever was going on in Zuse's mind, in regard to helping or not helping the Users, and preparing or not preparing for Clu's betrayal…

you can't deny two things.

He doesn't give Clu any leads to find the Flynns. He tries to convince him they're already dead.

and, once they do escape…

there just happens to be a Solar Sailer right in reach, waiting for them to sneak on.

A "transport to cross the Sea of Simulation." Just as promised.

Just my thoughts.

[ahedderick]

Pro

Things I have done professionally, ie I got paid, even if it was very, very part-time:

Math teacher

Math tutor

Piano teacher (ye gods)

'Respite care' for a herd of Holstein heifers so the farmers could go on a very overdue vacation. Also goats, a few times.

Tennis court painter/parking lot line-striper

Church organist

Pianist for a secular choir

Actuary (pension)

Odd-job person/yardwork

Editor (the actual paycheck was my husband's, but I was a crucial part of the process)

Artist

Quilter

Photographer's model

Portrait artists' model

Heaven knows what'll happen next. It's been strange, but I've learned a lot.

[triviallytrue]

I'm not sure it's true that the lump sum beats the daily payments if you only put it in treasury bonds, unless you're assuming you can't invest the daily payments. Assuming you'll live another 50 years, invest everything you get from this deal at a 4.25% annual return (the current rate for 30-year US Treasury bonds), and there's a 2% annual inflation rate, the net present value of the $1,000 daily payments will be $11M, vs the $10M lump sum. Obviously your expected lifespan affects this, and you can pretty trivially get a higher ROI with even a modicum of risk, but an extremely risk-averse person who expects to live a long time might genuinely do better with the daily payments. (And having this kind of income probably shifts the actuarial tables in your favor.)

I agree the lump sum is the "right" answer, but after doing the math I'm actually way more sympathetic to the daily payments voters than I was based on my intuition. Especially if your risk calculus assumes that any scenario where you have a comfortable, independently wealthy life is a win condition, so the first/only priority is to avoid catastrophic failures, which do seem more plausible with the lump sum.

Assuming you'll live another 50 years, invest everything you get from this deal at a 4.25% annual return (the current rate for 30-year US Treasury bonds), and there's a 2% annual inflation rate, the net present value of the $1,000 daily payments will be $11M, vs the $10M lump sum.

This doesn't make any sense to me. Why does inflation matter here, when you can just compare both numbers? How can the daily payments ever overtake the lump sum when the interest from the lump sum outpaces them substantially?

I decided to sim it with some simplifying assumptions (bond pays out once a year, you reinvest everything always, if you invest something the day before the last day of the year it still pays out in full) but I think these assumptions, especially the last one, are favorable to the daily payouts.

This shows the lump sum diverging from the daily sum instead of the daily sum catching up, which is what you would expect (4.25% is a multiplier, $1000 is a linear addition):

[shalomniscient]

ARCHIVIST’S TRIVIA: FAFNIR [HSR]

◆ Fafnir is an extremely meticulous individual, especially when it comes to managing her business and her money. Although she has a secretary, their duties are simply limited to ensuring the casino runs smoothly—by making sure equipment has proper maintenance and keeping inventory. All financial information and decisions are personally handled by Fafnir.

◆ Due to her long lifespan, Fafnir has had the oppurtunity to attend university several times over, for several different courses. Currently, she holds these degrees: a Masters in Business Management, a Masters in Business Administration, a Masters in Accounting and Finance, a Masters in Microeconomics and Macroeconomics, a Doctorate in Actuarial Science, a Doctorate in Data Science and Analytics, and a Doctorate of Juridicial Science (specifically in Corporate and Interastral Law). This gives her a grand total of 4 Masters Degrees and 3 Doctorates.

◆ In addition to her degree in Accounting and Finance, Fafnir is also a chartered accountant.

◆ Fafnir is excellent at mental math.

◆ Fafnir is a well-respected member of the Intelligentsia Guild, having published her Doctorate theses and a few other publications through the Candelagraphos. Hence, it is not uncommon to see Intelligentsia Guild members studying statistics to be ‘testing’ the machines at Gnitaheath.

◆ Fafnir knew and was friends with Ruan Mei’s grandmother, who was also a member of the Intelligentsia Guild.

◆ Fafnir guards her documents on all her finances with the same ferocity as she guards her money.

◆ Fafnir is about 400 years old.

◆ On the level above Fafnir’s vault in Gnitaheath is an extensive library. Some of the books in this library are up to a few hundred, even a thousand years old. They are relics of her past lives, and although Fafnir does not know what they meant to her previous selves, she painstakingly preserves each and every one. The library is a strictly restricted zone, only accesible to Fafnir and perhaps any extremely lucky guest.

◆ Fafnir enjoys paperwork. She finds it relaxing and reassuring to know the goings-on of her casino in quantitative terms.

◆ Unfortunately, Fafnir is near-sighted—so whenever she does sit down to do paperwork, she needs to wear glasses.

◆ Fafnir’s familiartiy with interastral and corporate law coupled with her expertise on various other mathematical and business subjects makes her somewhat infamous in the IPC, since it is incredibly more difficult to entice Fafnir into prematurely signing any deals or contracts. To IPC agents, getting stationed on assignment to Gnitaheath and dealing with Fafnir is colloquially known as a punishment.

◆ After Topaz’s ‘failure’ at Jarilo-VI, she was stationed at Gnitaheath. Surprisingly, Fafnir and Numby get along well—likely due to the fact that both of them are very good at ‘sniffing out’ profit. Topaz, on the other hand, did not have a good time.

◆ Fafnir’s weapon of choice in combat is a sword called Gram. It was once used to try to kill her—but Fafnir defeated her would-be killer and took the sword for herself.

◆ In both human and dragon form, Fafnir’s tail is prehensile. In human form, Fafnir can use her tail to immobilise someone or defend herself from attacks.

◆ If Fafnir is fond of you, her tail will curl around your feet as a sign of favor and protection.

◆ Fafnir wears cologne. She typically goes for dry woods/leather scents that have a smoky accent to them.

[radjerda]

Can I offer you all some doodles of Ram?

  Including a Legacy design for him that I did when I didn’t want to draw the ‘82 circuits again because they’re so detailed. Ignore the fact that I did the drawing with the disc after I doodled the Legacy design.

Why is Ram on Flynn’s Grid? Because I said so! Also, I’ve decided it’s not too much of a stretch for him to have been modified from an actuarial program to a general math/accounting program. He runs the numbers for Flynn

[racefortheironthrone]

Hey Steven! I've been thinking about medieval banking of recently. Espescificly, how in the medieval period were things like a loan's interest rate and the value of the individual instalments decided? Was the interest applyed instalment per instalment, to the gross total value, or some or other way I'm missing?

So I don't know whether interest was applied to each installment of the loan or the gross total - I think it was each installment, but don't quote me on that.

However, I do know that interest rates were determined very much based on the instincts and gut feeling of the banker, and most of all on the debtor's reputation. Certainly, this is way before anyone's worked out the math and come up with formulas and algorithms to try to predict repayment rates. After all, you don't get the necessary developments in statistics and mathematics that allowed for the emergence of actuarial science and thus modern life insurance until the late 17th century.

So it's not like anyone's working with hard numbers here, it's all about guesswork and experience and networks.

[vampire-rodeo]

7 X 8? wrong answer only

my dream job is to be an actuary. and your making me do math WRONG?!? this is autism abuse.

anyway the answer is 56….. point 5. it’s 56.5.

nailed it.

[gardensandtaverns]

Dev Journal: Day 1

I’ve tried a few times at putting myself out there with my system, boss, level, and world design content. Every time I did it for feedback, or validation, because I was looking for a reason to go out and do it full-time. Well, I’m now fresh out of college, a year down the drain trying to find any job that matches my qualifications, and have nothing better to do than to take the hobby I’ve poured countless hours into and run with it. So now this blog is finally just going out there for myself; clean slate.

For anyone who finds themselves becoming an interested and long-time fan of my work, I’ll document where I’m starting from here. Like I said, I’m fresh out of college. Twenty-two years old with a degree in Statistical Analysis, and a sizable amount of coursework in Operations, Actuarial Math, and Physics to boot. All that aside, I’ve been a huge game nerd for 15 years, been writing worlds and systems for a decade, and have been a perma-DM of both Dungeons and Dragons as well as, now, Pathfinder for a sum total of 5 years and counting. Needless to say, I’m a nerd who wasn’t encouraged to write - so I did all the hard homework first to make time for it.

This blog is gonna start out kinda boring, it’s really just me documenting what I’m doing. In part so I can look back at it, in part so I have it all somewhere that can be seen, and finally just so I can put myself out there. Being nerdy doesn’t really score you a huge network until well after school. Eventually I’m hoping to put some of my old D&D content and notes as a DM and worldbuilder out there. Maybe someone will learn something, maybe not.

Regardless, today was Day One. My first steps to really becoming a game designer. I’ve always had a knack for level and world design. I like making things that feel meaningful and have something to add. I’ve also been infatuated with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim since I was in middle school. So me, who has no credentials in softdev or compsci, well how am I going to make myself stand out to game studios? I’m starting with the Skyrim Creation Kit, and hopefully I can make something good enough to play with the big boys in some of the large community projects.

Today is Day One, Project One: The Bookwyrm’s Vault.

When I think of Skyrim, I think of three things. Vikings, dragons, and the Jedi Greybeards. But when I think of my ideal fantasy, I think of the wizarding type of sorcery, I think of arcane dragons - long-lived individuals who have honed magic over generations. And who’s to say that the dragons of Skyrim can’t be this way, Parthurnax certainly is.

So I devised the idea of the Bookwyrm’s Vault. I’m still undecided whether it is a Dwemer ruin built around the den of a long-departed dragon, or a ruin which a dragon took interest in. Regardless of which, the goal of this dungeon, unlike many of those in Skyrim, is not to add a crawl through enemies to feed the martial prowess of so many of the races of Tamriel. It’s to instead create something once beautiful and tranquil.

Initially I thought to conform to the Dwemer dungeon stereotypes of long hallways with many guardian automatons and littered steamworks and metal scraps. I’ve decided instead to be less industrious and more mystic and monastic with this ruin, to design a great library of magic and lore, one that rivals the College of Winterhold. Perhaps some Dwarven Spiders, remnants of a bookkeeping system as degraded as the parchment, remain to provide a small inconvenience to the Dragonborn. Even maybe a few runes of fire and lightning protecting more secretive experiments, or lingering from the attempts to keep something else in. This is my level, my addition, and I want it to reflect my interests in fantasy.

Now, today was my first day working with the Creation Kit. Panning with the MMB is a new experience, and wow could it use an efficiency update, but it is a decade-plus old piece of software, so I guess it gets a pass. For my first time working with the software, and having no clue what assets Skyrim actually uses, I decided to go pretty simple.

We start, as all subterranean dwellings must, with a passageway down and in to the earth, allowing all the room needed to carve out the great recording hall that is front and center. This room will, once populated, hold a dozen or more desks in varying states of repair and organization, and will have been where historically research of older tomes and transcription was done.

To the east of the recording hall, I’ve made a larger laboratory for more practical experimentation, which will feature a handful of crafting stations, like an alchemy and enchanting table, as well as maybe a staff enchanter if I feel inclined to make this mod require the Dragonborn mod.

To the west of the recording hall I plan to have a short hallway that connects a number of bedchambers, or private cells. A place to rest or study quietly.

Finally, to the south a passage leads further down. The door at the end of this passage will be locked, and I feel the key would be best kept in a well-warded chest in one of the private cells, as it leads to the special collections room.

Based on what I’ve seen of the assets library so far, I’m worried about making the special collections room because I had been hoping to make it a two-tiered library, but that may not be possible with the assets that exist and I certainly don’t have the experience to produce new ones. I may be able to use some of the components normally reserved for exteriors to get by, though. Only time will tell.

[imc-t-rying]

Aaaagggh I really want to get into the major I want :((((

I’ve literally been so stressed lately, it’s already been 6 months of just studying and I still feel so fearful of failing my exam 😭. I really don’t want to keep studying accounting, it’s soooo freaking borING, I need a real challenge, I really want, NEED to study maths, andbcb

I really regret having wasted my high grades with a major I didn’t even end up liking :( like, I could’ve chosen actuary from the start but I didn’t, and now I lost one semester and have to take an exam :((((

You always hear from people that failed the exam so that’s why im scared sh!tless, but on the other hand, classmates that took the exam (as their plan b) all say it was easy so who do I believe?😭. I’ve done many practise exams to see my progress, but it’s been 2 to 3 weeks that I’ve been stuck on a 100 pts and I need AT LEAST 105 :((((. I’m really trying to keep calm, since everyone says (and they’re right) that usually those practise exams are harder than the actual one, but I don’t want to be cocky or way too confident and end up failing.

Anyways I’ll keep studying, still have one week, my exams is on the 26th

On another topic, when I got into accounting I started playing (is that right?) softball and really got into it, I found it so much fun, but in the last few weeks I went I was really feeling under the weather and like I wasn’t good enough, I actually felt kind of relieved that I stopped going, even tho it’s smt I really enjoyed at first:(. So my plan always was that when I went back to college, now with the major I actually want, I would go back to softball, but I’m having some doubts if it’s really worth it to go back … every other girl makes it seem so easy and then im just there all clumsy and making a fool of myself ugh idk, bc I think it’d be good to have another thing to distract myself and not be thinking of stupid stuff or feeling like trash but idk unu

Also, all this time I’ve been focusing on just studying but I actually haven’t thought of what i’ll do in the two months (if I actually get in) after the exam 💀

Whatever, thanks for coming to my venting session idk

[astercontrol]

So, in a chat about that last post regarding Dillinger taking the credit for Flynn's game development, I found myself saying: "He's got what it takes to write the 'doing our business is what computers are for!' kind of software. It's just hard to imagine him writing the fun kind."

...Which got me thinking about, more generally, the programs in Tron 1982, and how "fun" I'd say each one is.

in order of appearance:

---

SARK

User: Ed Dillinger, the guy who somehow convinced people he wrote some fun games.

Function: "command program"-- presumably some sysadmin software that's on shaky ground at the moment, largely being replaced by the MCP. Not a fun role.

Personality: Generally serious and angry-- but more capable of enjoying himself than you might think. Looks very grim during his introductory Lightcycle match, but afterwards genuinely excited about the potential challenge of future matches. Seems to be feeling pleasure and satisfaction of a sort, whenever he's at the podium with Master Control-- until, of course, MCP decided to "slow down his power cycles" as torture.

Fun: 4/10. Better than expected.

-----

CROM

User: Mr. Henderson (a full branch manager!) We don't know anything about him, except that his program thinks this software theft is gonna make him "very angry."

Function: Compound Interest Program. Works at a Savings and Loan. Practically the definition of a stuffy, un-fun job.

Personality: Alternates between nervous and blustering in introductory scene; definitely not having fun there, although there's a bit of lightness in the way he protests at first. By the time he faces Flynn in combat, he's clearly gotten some sort of confidence boost. He's genuinely smiling and laughing in that fight, up until it kills him.

Fun: 6/10. Also managed to surprise me there.

----

RAM

User: Popcorn Coworker (named Roy Kleinberg in later canon). Seems like a fun enough guy in later years, in the Next Day short, although also kinda scared at that moment. As of 1982, the only thing we knew about him was he asked Alan for some popcorn. I guess popcorn is pretty fun.

Function: Actuarial program at a big insurance company. Another stuffy math-nerd job-- although he describes it with an optimistic helping-people spin.

Personality: The most adorably friendly and personable program in there. So many smiles and laughs. Uses his death-weapon/personality backup as a drinking cup, and shares it with Flynn. Having fun even the one time we see him kill someone ("so long, sucker!") Smiling even when he's dying.

Fun: 9/10. Just the best little guy.

---

CLU

User: Kevin Flynn. We all know him. Fun to a fault.

Function: I guess spyware, injected into Encom system to find a file. Could be a fun job-- looking for stuff, exploring.

Personality: For the on-Grid avatar of the indisputably most "fun" human in this movie, this guy is serious as HECK. Monotone, ultra-formal "yes sir" responses to everything Flynn says. Notably the only program shown to shed actual tears, which is achieved through extreme torture. Closest he comes to smiling is in the very last moment when it is 100% clear he is doomed.

Fun: 1/10 WTF.

TRON

User: Alan Bradley, serious programmer. So serious about work that he "doesn't even balance his checkbook on downtime." Does a fair amount of smiling and making jokes when off the clock, although the jokes tend towards the cynical ("more bugs than a bait store"; "can it send me to Hawaii?")

Function: Security program to monitor connections between systems. Troublingly close to cop. Anyone with that job who didn't take it seriously and tried to have fun with it would become a downright menace, really fast. Tron, however, takes it super seriously.

Personality: Serious as death when at work or trying to get back to work. Love and friendship can bring out a softer side, though. Capable of fun but has to be REALLY talked into it. (Yori only manages to seduce him into a circuit-touching session by making it into roleplay about his job.)

Fun: 5/10 but he's got the potential to be so much more

YORI

User: Lora Baines, laser scientist. Dedicated, smart, intense, gets things done. Brains of the whole break-in operation. Definitely has a wild fun side. Parked her van without paying because she wanted to use her coins for arcade games.

Function: Driver for the laser scanning hardware. Could be fun. Probably the first program who got to see an orange. I bet she tried to taste it.

Personality: As good at planning and getting things done as her creator. Definitely the brains of Tron's mission, the one he goes to for help operating all the machinery and navigating all the systems involved in reaching his goal. But ALSO super fun at the same time! Treats the slope down to the I/O dais like an amusement park slide, and jokes that she wants to go again. They made their plans in her quarters, which she illegally decorated in wild rainbow colors just for the fun of it, and then she dressed up in a sexy sparkle cape to convince Tron that circuit makeouts can be part of the planning.

Fun: 10/10 the FUNNEST. I wanna be best friends with her.

[otrtbs]

heyo nattybops how are you!

also some fun sleepover topics tell me about unpopular opinions you have about your best boy jamesie

also also i finally started reading tgf! i'm like... barely in yet like 5% according to my kindle and i have not had the brain capacity to focus on reading it but im excited to get into it

linds my love! i'm so good, how are you?? also also YAYAYAY tgf !!!!! ugh, you're gonna love it!! and we can dissect it when you're which is one of my top 5 fav things to do 😋

unpopular james opinions...hmm

i do not subscribe to the himbo james potter beliefs 9 times out of 10. i think that mf was smart. not kid genius or anything. but he was smart.

also huge fan of the numbers james potter. like i think he's really good with numbers and math and excels at that. stats, actuarial science, accounting. that's his shit. it's as easy as breathing to him.

also i do not think james is the type to let people walk all over him. i still like when he has a touch of that arrogant personality he's known for. and part of that arrogance means he doesn't stand for anyone talking shit on his name

also he fucks heavy with the beastie boys (idk how unpopular that is but it's going on the list!)

sleepover weekend!