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Multi-Armed Multitasking: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{cleanup|Examples of multi-armed characters who don't multitask need to be moved to [[Multi-Armed and Dangerous]].}}
You look in the mirror and see [[Multiple Head Case|three heads]] looking back at yourselves with [[Extra Eyes|five eyes]] and [[Multi-Armed and Dangerous|seven arms]] and think to yourselves, how do we [[Dual-Wielding|septo-wield]]? Or better yet, how can we write our book, cradle our baby, and make paper airplanes at the same time? Practice, that's how. ▼
▲You look in the mirror and see [[Multiple Head Case|three heads]] looking back at yourselves with [[Extra Eyes|five eyes]] and [[Multi-Armed and Dangerous|seven arms]] and think to yourselves, how do we [[Dual-Wielding|septo-wield]]? Or better yet, how can we write our book, cradle our baby, and make paper airplanes at the same time? Practice, that's how.
Please note this has surprisingly little to do with [[Excuse Me While I Multitask]], if you're thinking about wielding weapons with many arms you [[Required Secondary Powers|still need some form]] of Multiarmed Multitasking; it just belongs in [[Multi-Armed and Dangerous]]. If your extra limbs are for walking, they belong in [[Spider Limbs]]. ▼
▲Please note this has surprisingly little to do with [[Excuse Me While I Multitask]], if you're thinking about wielding weapons with many arms you [[Required Secondary Powers|still need some form]] of
---- ▼
{{examples}}▼
If a character has extra arms but doesn't uses them to do two (or more) things at the same time, that's "just" [[Multi-Armed and Dangerous]], which is a supertrope to this trope.
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In ''[[
* Ceres from ''[[Oban Star Racers]]'' an Animesque racing series co-produced by French and Japanese animation studios. ▼
* ''[[Spirited Away]]'' - Kamaji operates the bathhouse boiler room. He has six spidery arms, which he uses to multitask: reaching into the hundreds of herb cabinets, pouring boiling water, grinding potions with his yagen (related to a mortar a pestle, but using a wheel in a narrow trough) and responding to wooden tags on ropes signalling requests from the bathhouse above.
▲* In ''[[Shinryaku! Ika Musume]]'', Ika appears to specialism in this with her tentacle hair.
▲* ''[[Spirited Away]]'' - Kamaji operates the bathhouse boiler room. He has six spidery arms, which he uses to multitask: reaching into the hundreds of herb cabinets, pouring boiling water, grinding potions with his yagen (related to a mortar a pestle, but using a wheel in a narrow trough) and responding to wooden tags on ropes signalling requests from the bathhouse above.
* ''[[Franken Fran]]'' oftentimes attaches her head to a special multi-armed body in order to perform particularly complex surgery.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In ''[[Ironwood]]'', first mate Tif makes full use of all four of her hands while having a threesome with a jinn and a crewmate.
* [[Spider-Man]]'s foe Doctor Octopus. According to ''[[The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe]]'', he can use his regular hands with his four mechanical tentacles to preform one complex task and two simple tasks simultaneously, and as some stories show, the "complex task" can even be a ''heated battle''. He has been known to do things like casually light a cigarette while his tentacles fend off attacks from ''multiple'' enemies.
== [[Fan
* There was once a ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' fan fic where Sheeva was driving somewhere with the heroes, and had two arms on the wheel, one on the transmission, and one out the window (and no, it doesn't mention how she learned to drive).
== [[Film]] ==
* The bar-tending octopus cartoon from ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''.
** Similarly there's a sushi chef in ''[[Monsters, Inc.]]''.
** And the guy in the octopus costume from ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]''.
* The twin [[Mission Control]]s from ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]''.
** the mail-sorting alien in ''MIB 2''.
* Long John Silver in ''[[Treasure Planet]]'' isn't multiarmed but still manages to pull off this trope in the kitchen, thanks to his multi-purpose cybernetic arm with little armlets.
* From ''[[Spider-Man (film)|Spider-Man 2]]'', Dr. Octopus does this when he built the new sun-generator machine, with his long metallic tentacles.
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' featured a restaurant run by a chef with four arms.
* At one point in ''[[Terminator|Terminator 2]]'' the [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|Voluntary Shapeshifter]] T-1000 grows a third arm to pilot a helicopter and load a machine gun at the same time.
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** Subverted with Zaphod Beeblebrox, who gave himself a third arm and then does nothing at all with it.
== [[Live
* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"|Pilot]] from ''[[Farscape]]''. One episode notes that having the ''mental capacity'' for multitasking is very uncommon, and more important than the multiple arms themselves.
* The short-lived 1970s sci-fi sitcom ''[[Quark]]'' featured Interface, a four-armed alien woman who worked as an intergalactic switchboard operator connecting calls between ships.
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== [[Mythology]] ==
* [[Hindu Mythology]] several gods (Shiva for one) are usually depicted with multiple arms each holding symbolic instruments like scales and scythes and swords.
* Different Buddhas are sometimes depicted with many arms.
== [[Tabletop
* ''[[GURPS]]'' has the Multiple Arms [[Point Build System|advantage]] available for player characters, but you also need to buy special coordination to use them fully- otherwise they are only good for holding things, not performing more than one task at a time.
* Techpriests in the ''[[Warhammer
== [[Web Comics]] ==
*
** Schlock himself has demonstrated on multiple occasions that he can not only form extra hands when needed, but also use them quite effectively. The fact that he can have multiple eyes (if he can get hold of them) means he could aim at multiple targets.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Elzar in ''[[Futurama]]''. The DVD commentary mentions that the animators went out of their way to have each arm work independently rather than have each arm on either side move in the same way.
* ''[[SpongeBob]]'' does this taking care of the baby scallop, probably other times as well.
* ''[[wikipedia:Squiddly Diddly|Squiddly Diddly]]'' did this sometimes. (In fact his pic on [[The Other Wiki]] shows him playing three musical instruments at once.)
* In ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', a cutaway shot of the Earth shows a vaguely Hindu-esque being frantically pressing buttons in the core, apparently to keep the world working. He pauses briefly to wipe his forehead with one of his hands and sigh with exhaustion.
* One episode of ''[[Dragon Tales]]'' featured a dragon with six limbs running a concession stand.
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* Spydra in ''[[Gadget Boy and Heather]]'' does this at times in a few episodes, making full use of her six arms simultaneously.
* In the cancelled series ''[[Stripperella]]'', a supervillainess with six arms pilots a blimp all on her own, with two hands on the wheel and the remaining four on switches and buttons. She also utilised six pistols at one go in the earlier portion of the episode, allowing her to use them as a makeshift machine gun.
▲* Ceres from ''[[Oban Star Racers]]'', an Animesque racing series co-produced by French and Japanese animation studios.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Multitasking]]
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