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I love that Flynn makes life-changing decisions and his thought immediately goes to Tron. Tron is always on Flynn's mind.

And Tron looks so beautiful. My babygirl.🥰😍

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that's kinda weird huh

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I need to make a bumper sticker for my car that says "my other ride is a lightcycle"

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Everyone say thank you Bithell for giving us difficulty levels including a story mode in Tron: Catalyst. More games need that feature. 💙

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I found Tron Catalyst deeply underwhelming on a lot of levels. Mike Bithell has some neat ideas, but is a poor writer. Each time I leap into the indigo waters of his Tron games, I shatter my shins because it's only ankle deep. 

I think it annoys me because he tries to make something deeper. And it's not. I hate the shallow-ass way he does "diversity." You need more to your character than their minority traits. We learn nothing about Exo. Her traits are: Black, woman, courier, protagonist (and I got to flirt with a woman one time before it was permanently erased). It's like Exo didn't even exist before booting up the game.

Does she like her job? Is she saving up to go elsewhere? What were her goals before becoming a time goddess? Does she buy into the doomsday glitch rumors that everyone else seems to know? What did she think of Core before getting arrested -- maybe lukewarm, or uninformed, or trusting? Maybe she already harbored disdain for them since outlawing lightcycles; as a courier I imagine that was quite a blow. Does she have no connections prior to the game? You telling me she's never heard of Automata or Reset? It would have brought SO much more depth with just that simple change: "Oh yeah, I've heard of [your group here], they're [incorrect boilerplate opinion here that gets more nuanced over the course of the game]" or whatever. She meets everyone for the first time enough times that there could have been some, I dunno, character development there beyond "yeah I've done this before." Mike Bithell tells me she trusts these programs but he definitely doesn't show me. Surely she's heard of the games at least---maybe experiencing them first hand could have been enlightening. "I thought it was volunteer, they say it's volunteer..." Make her a person, make her someone who exists outside of the viewer/player/reader's eye.

And that's not even touching the boring as hell dialogue. God. Every single sentence is doing exactly one job and it's exactly what it says on the tin. No foreshadowing, no beautifully blended exposition, no worldbuilding except if you explicitly ask for it, nothing. At least we get every single beat for beat goodbye sequence though!! Ugh. If there was any subtext it was solely in Bithell's head and we aren't given access to it.

And I don't believe these things can be blamed on low budget. Games like Night in the Woods, Tacoma, Gone Home, etc do a masterful amount of worldbuilding and characterization with a fraction of the writing.

I suppose it's easier to list the things I did like about the game:

- lightcycle was fun - i ran into a lot of things but the lightjet was enjoyable - Query's voice - some of the art - that blink-and-you-miss-it container marked kflynn/storage/bin/permanentserver or whatever it was (an ounce of foreshadowing yayyy!!!) - the handful of references to better Tron stories but alas, a nostalgia button push does not a good story make - the antifascist vibes even though the execution was deeply lacking (like seriously crack open any edition of Clarkesworld and you're bound to find a short story pulling it off better)

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Do you ever think Able found out that Tron electrocuted Beck like twice I wanna know how that conversation went down

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This is who is leading the NYC mayoral democratic primary rn

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Do not think for a moment that this admin is only going after trans folks. They are ultimately going after the whole LGBTQ community. They start small, like getting rid of a hotline option, then go BIG.

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Gridpride, week two: Instant Crush / "Who is that?"

Alan has to pull Lora aside. “Who is that?” he asks right next to her ear.

Lora grins as she leans in, too. A necessity in a place as loud and boisterous as an arcade, and especially one run by—“Flynn,” she says. “I told you, Alan. His name’s on the building.”

She watches his eyes widen, sees his gaze go up and down Flynn’s figure. She smiles: she remembers putting on a similar expression when she first met the mysterious, eccentric jock programming at ENCOM. It’s just what he does.

“No,” Alan says. “That can’t be—but he’s—”

“Come on,” Lora says, taking Alan’s hand. “Let me introduce you.”

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Shall We Dance?

[We're supposed to be a couple,] Quorra pings. Paige scoffs.

They're sitting at a table at the End of Line, keeping an eye on Castor and his connections. Looking for potential allies for the uprising in Argon.

They're also supposed to be on a "date," in order to blend in with the crowd.

"Come on," Quorra coaxes. "Just try to relax." She twines her hand with one of Paige's on the tabletop, toying with her fingers like an absentminded lover.

In reality, Quorra is perfectly focused. These are the hands that saved her life. The gentle, capable hands that patched her injuries back in Gallium. The talented hands of a musician, a program who's chosen a path outside of her function, over and over again. The hands that taught her how to fight.

"How do you like your new job?" Quorra asks.

"It's an adjustment." Paige shifts in her seat, leaning in closer. She manages to meet Quorra's eyes. "I'm having trouble with one of my coworkers."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Quorra murmurs. Poor thing. "Have you tried talking with them?"

Paige shrugs one shoulder. Casual. Enticing. "I'm not sure it's the kind of problem that talking can fix."

"Then maybe you should try something other than talking." Quorra looks at her under her lashes as she takes a sip of her drink. Suppresses a smile when Paige flushes. "What do you think of the music?"

"It's nice." Paige tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. She's wearing it down again, like she did when they met. "It's been too long since I came to a place like this. I've missed it."

Quorra musters her courage as she polishes off her drink. "Shall we dance?" she asks.

She doesn't think she imagines Paige's circuits brightening when she says yes.

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no way i just saw people in tiktok comments crying screaming throwing up at the idea of aslan being a jesus figure. worsties the lion literally dies to save edmund (the sinner) and then rises from the dead. he tells the pevensies he can be found under a different name in our world. what else could this have meant

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damn they weren’t lying that mental health medication CAN make the heat even more unbearable

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mimic predator rinzler ❤️ rinzler who uses audio clips of rebel’s friends or programs asking for help to lure them out

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Tron: becomes the Rinzler

Cyrus, somewhere: