#also there's still portions of it i like to some degree! agh

[macroglossus]

absolute tragedy in that i started what was supposed to be a duo of drawings three years ago and did not start/complete the second one until now (once again i say three years later) and there's a DRAMATIC difference

[sage-nebula]

I have progressed more in Octopath Traveler, so I thought I’d make a little update on my progress so far.

All of the characters I’ve “unlocked” so far are, in order:

Therion

H’aanit

Ophilia

Cyrus

Tressa

Olberic

And the chapters I’ve completed so far are:

Therion: 2

H’aanit: 1

Ophilia: 1

Cyrus: 1

Tressa: 1.5

Olberic: 1

I’ve decided that, unless Primrose and Alfyn really wow me somehow, my primary party is going to be Therion, Tressa, Ophilia, and Cyrus. Therion is mandatory because I started with him, so I couldn’t remove him until I finish his story even if I wanted to (which I wouldn’t). Tressa is not only versatile in the attacks she has, but her ability to steal coin from enemies is a huge bonus (not to mention that she randomly finds coin with every new area I enter). Ophilia is a healer, so she’s mandatory, and likewise, Cyrus has a lot of elemental coverage, so he’s pretty mandatory as well. That said, of these four, Tressa is the least mandatory, so she’s the one I bench whenever I start a new character’s chapter. It’s not that I want to bench her, but just that it’s smartest.

That said, because I want to just use this party I like, I’m putting off Primrose and Alfyn for now. I was going to put off Olberic, but he was close by to where I was at the time, and I had needed to level a little more before I took on Therion’s second chapter. I had considered collecting everyone before doing the second chapters, but since I was already at the level I needed to be in order to take on his chapter, I figured I’d just go ahead and do it. Then, since completing his second chapter put me near where Tressa’s and Cyrus’ second chapters are located (they’re in the same city), I decided to just go ahead and do theirs as well, particularly since, again, I’m at the level requirement for it. I chose to start with Tressa’s both because hers required a lower level, and also because I’m tbh more interested in her story than I am Cyrus’. 

(Also, can I just say that Cyrus is basically traveling around with a bunch of kids? I looked up the ages, and Tressa is the youngest at eighteen, followed by Ophilia at twenty and Therion at twenty-two. Meanwhile, Cyrus is thirty. There’s a pretty big maturity gap there and I’m laughing about it. Meanwhile, Olberic is thirty-five, and we all know in JRPG standards that’s basically a grandpa, so. It’s probably for the best that he’s benched with H’aanit.)

Speaking of H’aanit, I’ve also decided that she’s permanently benched. She’s good in battle and her story is mildly interesting, but I hate, hate, hate the way she talks and I really cannot bear to read her dialogue (or the dialogue of her townspeople). It’s not even Shakespearan English; it’s butchered middle English. I did a bit more digging, and it turns out that, though butchered, this is the same style of middle English that Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales in. I fucking loathed Chaucer when I had to study him as part of my undergraduate degree. While the concept of The Canterbury Tales was interesting, the writing style was one of the most gruesome, unappealing batches of drivel I’ve ever had to suffer through. So all that said, it’s really no wonder that I can’t stand how H’aanit talks, because she talks in a butchered version of Chaucer’s writing. Why in the hell the English localization team decided to do this is beyond me, but they did, and it completely ruined H’aanit for me, to the point where I will not finish her story, RIP.

(I also read online that apparently there was no Chinese localization, so Chinese players are using the English version . . . and because H’aanit is so incomprehensible to them, they’re calling this game TEM-8 Traveler, as a play on the TEM-8 exam that’s used for English proficiency in China. They’re using H’aanit as practice for the Shakespearan English portion . . . which is bad, because not only does she not talk in Shakespearan English, but this version of middle English is wrong, agh.)

Anyway, back to things I like: Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’m most invested in Therion’s story. I can already see that his relationship with Darius is going south in the flashbacs (seems like Darius is going to hurt him), and I might be wrong, but it seems to me that Cordelia has something of a crush on him already~. I could definitely get behind that ship, haha. Granted, goddamn Heathcote would probably get in the way, but . . . Tressa’s story is all right so far as well, and I’m kind of shipping her with Ali a little. I mentioned it in another post, but this feels a bit like a contestshipping merchant AU, so I can get behind it. The way he calls her “Green Pea” is cute, haha. Ophilia reminds me a little bit of Colette, and the Kindling reminds me a bit of the Journey of Regeneration (only without the sacrifice at the end), so while I’m not super invested in her story, I don’t dislike it, either (although I do dislike how her adopted father never told her to stop calling him “your excellency,” because really?). Olberic’s story is a bit more interesting, but Olberic as a character is not too interesting to me, and Cyrus is the opposite; I like his character well enough, but his story isn’t too interesting to me. We’ll see if any of that changes, though.

For now, I’m going to focus on my main party, although I might see about picking up Primrose and Alfyn at least before I start chapter three. My main thing is I don’t want Tressa to fall too far behind, but since Primrose and Alfyn are still in chapter one, my other three probably won’t level up as much when I go to pick them up, so hopefully Tressa won’t fall too far behind. Oh! But speaking of my party! While I certainly wish we got more of it, I really do like the “travel banter” that you get in each new chapter. It’s great to see the characters interact at least a little, and there have been some very funny bants so far, particularly between Therion and Cyrus (granted, I’ve only had one of those, but Cyrus walked right into a burn and it was glorious). I also really like Therion and Tressa’s interactions, because to be honest I was most interested in those, given that Tressa’s first chapter is about stopping bandits and she’s very big on honesty and integrity, whereas Therion is a thief. Surprisingly their first bant was very nice (in that they were nice to each other), but their second had a bit more fire coming from Tressa like I always thought, with her saying how she won’t take advice from a thief and all. Therion then thought that she has “steel in her bones,” which I thought was a pretty cool thing to have him say. (Although I was also laughing, because he was like, “Are you going to help Ali?” and I’m just like, gosh, Therion, you’re just working with so many people, aren’t you . . .) Whenever I’m running through dialogue in my head I imagine Therion and Tressa bumping heads a little more, considering Tressa should be rather >:( at him being a thief, but then I also imagine the two get really excited together as they steal items and coin from monsters and enemies, so . . . it’s a fun relationship to imagine, haha.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’m grinding for money before I finish Tressa’s chapter, because there’s a spear I want to buy her that I don’t have the money for yet, and since this is her chapter I figure it’ll probably come in handy against the boss. We’ll see how this goes, though.

[artsyneurotic]

Meeting Your Maker

A short time after the events of Tron: Legacy, Sam finally brings Alan in on Flynn's big secret.  The Grid. After becoming more familiar with the new world, Alan decides to try and find his old program, Tron...

(This short story also has illustrations after the Read More cut!  Comments on here or AO3 are very much welcomed!)

Read This on AO3

-------

Alan had never been all that great at riding motorcycles.

Fortunately, in this world, that apparently didn't seem to factor in as much. The high-speed whine of his light cycle cut through the silence of the Outlands as he sped on, the lights of Argon City still bright behind him. He found it a bit unnerving that despite going at such a high speed, there was no perceptible wind on his face; yet somehow the tail of his overcoat managed to flap in the non-existent breeze.

Perhaps something about me being a User and expecting my coat to react causes it to react? How much am I subconsciously affecting without realizing? The implications made him nervous, so he tried distracting his mind with other matters.

The Outlands looked as if they could continue on for miles... or the Grid's version of miles, at least. The signal was growing stronger though, so he had to be getting close. He briskly took a turn at a large snowbank and saw a large strangely pointed mountain peak above him. Bringing the light cycle to a stop at the base of the mountain, he got off and examined the area.

There's something about this mountain, he thought. I can't explain it, but I know if I was going to hide somewhere... it'd be here.

He placed his outstretched palm experimentally against the rocky wall and closed his eyes. Even with them shut, he could sense the vague lines of circuitry running through the matter in front of him. One circuit in particular gave him a little tickling sensation in his head. He opened his eyes and traced a line down that circuit's path.

A large shifting movement startled him, as he realized a large slab of the wall beside him had pushed in and away, revealing an entrance.

Okay then.

Alan uneasily entered the darkened cave. Suddenly, lights ticked on around him in a sequence that followed him as he walked, illuminating a simple elevator at the end.

That's... certainly interesting...

The elevator brought him up smoothly into a huge open interior. The large area had what appeared to be one-sided windows along the entire stretch of walls surrounding it. A perfect 360 degree view of the outside. So this was all hidden inside the mountain , he marveled. Pretty slick, Tron.

He walked up the small staircase in the middle of the room, which lead up to a platform overlooking the section of Outlands he had come in from. As he was about to stroll up to the windows, he stopped dead in his tracks.

There was something lying near the window ahead of him.

A body.

The man on the floor didn't move. The lit circuits along his black suit blinked and fluttered in and out, sputtering like a dying light. Large stretches of digital scarring covered the body as it lay there, arms limp and splayed out.

Alan quickly knelt down and checked the helmeted head, gently lifting him up and propping the body against the glass wall in some semblance of a seated position. His finger accidentally brushed past the jawline of the helmet, and it snapped apart, folding in on itself and retreating back inside the man's suit.

He stifled a gasp, his eyes widening at the man's face. A younger version of him, marred by the scarring, but still unmistakable. The digital damage had cut across his face terribly. It almost looked like a disease was eating him alive.

It was hard to take in, to put it mildly.

So this was Tron. Sam had told him what to expect, but it still hadn't prepared him for such an immediate shock to his senses. Tron's eyes were shut, but not completely. His energy looks like it's almost gone. Alan raised his hand up carefully, tracing his fingers in the air. A thin blue UI grid appeared before him, and as he motioned with his hand, variables and dials activated on the floating UI. He'd had the practice up to this point, but it still made him marvel every time. So much of it worked off of instinct, oddly enough.

"Just hold on, Tron," he said softly... though he didn't even know if Tron could hear him at this point. "I'm going to divert some of the energy from this facility to you."

Alan entered the commands briskly as the lights in the large room flickered for a moment, and then surged back on. The lit lines across Tron's body flared, and the faint trace of four distinct squares on his chest blossomed back into a bright glow.

"Tron...?" he tried gingerly.

Tron's eyelids slowly opened, his deadened irises coming to life, focusing. His voice sounded like his throat had been dragged across shards of glass, peppered with distorted corruption.

"What.... who are--" Tron froze, instant recognition on his face.

"Hey, Tron." Alan felt sheepish saying it like that, but couldn't figure any other way of introducing himself.

The guy looks like he's been through hell and back.  Alan's heart swelled with pity, but also tinged with guilt. If I had known about this... if I could've helped Flynn... Then maybe...

But would Flynn have let him? All those years, he could've told Alan about this, but he hadn't. He had chosen to do it alone. Alan had his suspicions, but never imagined anything like this. Then again, who could?

"A... Alan-One," Tron sputtered out. Was he seeing things? Was this a visual glitch? "You couldn't be... you're... you're here ?"

"That's right, Tron," he replied gently, as he checked over some of the deep scarring on Tron's chest. "But just call me Alan."

Tron's mind was racing. "How are you here?" He strained to recall his last memories. So much was fuzzy.

The cold nothingness of the Sea of Simulation. An explosion. Pain.

Before that...

Flynn. He had seen Flynn.

"Flynn," Tron whispered. "Where is he...?"

Alan's eyes fell at the name, his lips tightening. Just from that, Tron knew the answer. He made the same face in the past, when... when things were lost . It was strange, seeing that expression on an older face that looked like his own. He caught himself after a few moments, realized he had been wordlessly staring at the man in front of him. His User.

"I saw him, he... he must have triggered a memory leak. Made me remember." Tron winced as he tried to sit up straight. "It's as if my vision had been cloudy for so long, but seeing him," Tron looked down at his hands. "...It brought me back."

His brows scrunched in confusion, then immediately rose in recognition. He attempted to bolt up, but doubled over in pain.

"Agh, Clu! If he's still--"

Alan raised his hand lightly. "Clu's gone, Tron. Sam told me about it," he took a deep breath, "He told me that Flynn sacrificed himself to destroy Clu, to save him and Quorra. ...To save the Grid."

Tron slid back against the glass wall. Flynn was gone. He found it hard to process the data. Too far into denial, but deep down some part of him knew it was true.

A warm hand tenderly placed itself on his shoulder. "It's all right, Tron, it's over." Somehow while he was comforting Tron, it felt like he was also trying to comfort himself. "Sam is going to return, finish what Flynn started. He let me in on this whole thing a short while after he had come back." His jaw tightened with purpose. "I'm here, too. To help. I'm sorry... I'm sorry it took this long."

A wave of relief washed over Tron. It didn't seem real, but there it was. Clu gone. The Grid free. ... but the cost had come at a high price.

Too high.

Sharp pain scattered across him as he gasped. Alan fumbled but managed to keep Tron upright.

"Alan-One... Alan," he said softly, "I'm glad I finally met you." Corrupted sparks erupted from his shoulder. "But I think I'm..."

"Hold on Tron, I'm not going to let you die," Alan replied firmly. "I programmed you, remember? I'm here to save you." He flittered his hand across Tron's arm, revealing a floating set of UI nodes. His fingers raced to find the answers he needed. Working fast, he set about trying to repair Tron's code.

As he worked, the deep scarring slowly began to recede, small blocks recombining and stitching themselves back together all across his body. The power of the User , Tron thought absently. My User. Trying to save his Program. Through the pain, he took a kind of pride in his situation. Even if he de-rezzed now, how many Programs could say that?

Alan's brows knit in concentration. It looked to be working , he was actually doing it--

Tron spasmed in agony.

"Tron?! What's wrong--?"

Like a ripple effect, the previously repaired portions of Tron's body began re-corrupting at a horrifying rate, unraveling his work faster than he could fix it.

"I-I don't understand, I thought I defragged the subroutines, flushed out the trace remnants of the virus..."

Tron's eyes shut hard. That damn virus. That's what it was. What it still was.

"You can't fix this, Alan." His voice was resigned.

"What? But if this was damage from your fight--"

"That's not what it is. It's what it isn't."

"I don't understand..."

"Clu's virus," Tron grimaced. "His attempt to re-purpose me. I had already been infected before. Even though Dyson's virus had been stripped away, my code was vulnerable because of it... and Clu exploited that." His breaths grew distorted and ragged. "His virus slowly wormed its way through me... I never realized I had it until," his voice hitched, lost in a memory. "Until it was too late."

"Then that means..."

"The virus rewrote the vulnerable sectors of my programming, the parts that the old virus had weakened." The corrupted scarring was back in full force across Tron's body, spreading across his face as he spoke. "If you purge the virus, that code... no longer exists. I'd have too few functioning clusters. When I overrode the virus and fell into the Sea of Simulation... well, that was it for me."

Tron managed a bitter smile. "Clu knew that I couldn't live without that virus. A bastard... right to the end of line."

The look on Tron's face. Not just the pain, but the exhaustion. The strain. Alan couldn't pretend to know what Tron had gone through all these many cycles, but he knew that he must've been through a lot. He'd reached his breaking point. Or maybe he'd had breaking points before, but this was the mother of them all. Alan could see it in his expression.

"Tron, don't give up on me." He insisted, looking through the code as fast as he could read it. "I'm your User, remember? Maybe I couldn't help you before, but I'm here now ..." Alan clenched his teeth, "and I'll be damned if I fail my Program."

Alan leaned forward and raised his other hand, bringing up an additional sub-menu of UI screens. There had to be a way . The damage was too complex and scattered to fully re-program at this point, and Tron didn't have enough time for that anyway. He swallowed hard. Don't give in, Tron. Please. You're the toughest Program around, and you've clearly been through a lot.

You internalize the pain, don't you? It's strange... in so many odd ways, you remind me of myself.

Alan's eyes lit up for a moment.

That's it.

"I'm going for a Hail Mary on this, Tron, but stay with me." The scarring was still eating Tron up. " Fight ." He didn't have long, and he didn't know if this would work.

Extending his palm on the secondary UI screen, Alan accessed a flurry of cascading sub-windows, each moving faster than the previous. He strained as his eyes lit up unnaturally for a moment and then dimmed back to normal.

Alan's overwrite of the damaged and deleted sectors had begun in full force, and for a moment he wondered absently if perhaps this is what Flynn had thought about. Bending the rules... breaking them? Creating something new altogether?

Once his command lines had finished, the floating UI screens hummed with a brilliant blue hue, beckoning him to press a final button. The light lines across Tron's body flared in tandem, as the darkened scars were suddenly imbued with that same bright blue and began slowly filling in, like a river covering a ravine. The damage melted away along his form, finally retreating from his face and repairing its damaged tracks. An old familiar wave of alabaster light rippled across his blackened body, as his suit was once again enveloped in white.

After a few moments, the process was completed. Before Alan sat Tron, now whole and revived. Alan made some cursory checks to ensure that any traces of any virus was gone. He didn't want Tron going through that again... eve r, if he could help it.

"Tron? How do you feel?" Alan ventured.

The Program blinked several times. His hands touched his face, chest; everything seemed fixed.

"I feel... better. Thank you, Alan." He paused, incredulous. "But there's something I can't explain... a feeling I've never had..."

Alan bit his lip.

"You were right about the destroyed sectors, Tron. And I couldn't replace them, not in the way you were originally programmed. You've gone through too many revisions and too many updates to be rolled back that far. So I had to... pull a Flynn . " He patted Tron's arm, smiling. "Heh... or at least I'd like to think that's what he'd call it."

Alan scratched the back of his head. "You know, Tron... Users like to think that they pass down a bit of themselves in their children, in that new being ." He took a breath. "You're my Program, Tron. So I did what I thought I had to do to save you."

Alan pointed at Tron's chest. "I passed down a bit of myself... to you. I replaced those missing sectors with elements of a User. To be honest, I don't know the ramifications of what I just did... but I tried my best to make sure the merge would be as compatible as possible."

The silence was almost deafening.

Tron reeled at the revelation.

"What am I..?" he asked finally.

Alan smiled tenderly. "You're you , Tron." He sat back, thinking further. "You're a Program... but you're so much more." Leaning in, he added, "But you already were so much more, even before this." He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Sam tells me that new kinds of life-- of programs-- were already starting to form on the Grid, so in some ways, you're not so different. Everything eventually changes... Don't be afraid of change."

Tron nodded, dully. He understood what Alan was saying, but there was this strange sensation... this heaviness on his heart. Or at least what would be the equivalent of a heart.

"I'd been under Clu's control for so long," he murmured, "I'd forgotten what feeling was like. What thinking for myself was like." He winced, as his mind was slowly assaulted by fresh, now-unhindered memories of what had occurred before. "I could see everything, but I couldn't act. The memory leak from the virus kept my memories from being overwritten."

Alan noticed Tron's body language was shifting. Slowly he began curling up, his hands grasping at his temples.

"All those Programs..." His face scrunched up as he fought his feelings. "Yori... Yori..." His eyes shimmered as his voice stammered.

Then his eyes widened in horrible realization. "No... No!"

"Tron..?" Alan asked worriedly. It was as if Tron's whole being was convulsing. Now that his memory was free and clear to be accessed properly again, he was involuntarily experiencing everything Clu's virus had deadened him to before.

He could see the faces of every program he ever de-rezzed.

Every last one.

Tron's voice went dry and his hands covered his face entirely.

...

Beck.

Beck.

The kid who just wanted to help his friends, who just wanted the Grid to be free.

His friend.

"Fight it, Tron! I know you can!" The words haunted him to his core.

He couldn't.

"...Fight it!"

He hadn't.

Tears poured from his covered face. Alan was taken aback. Did Programs cry? He hadn't seen that before, and hadn't heard Sam mention that. Or... is this my fault?

Anguish escaped Tron's throat; he felt like he was going crazy. He had never felt this strongly before. All those cycles, all the pain he had repressed... the sadness, the loneliness. The loss. He had kept it down for so long. Something in him refused to bottle it up anymore.

Alan couldn't see what Tron was remembering, but this reaction, he knew. Tron was a fighter, a soldier. And it looks like a soldier going through the worst PTSD of his life. The guilt gnawed at him. If these User-created emotions hurt Tron, it was his fault.

He embraced the broken Program.

It felt like an eternity hearing Tron's muffled sobs.

Eventually they stopped.

"I'm sorry Tron," he whispered. "Part of being a User... of being human , is to have these feelings. I'm sorry it hurt you so much." He hesitated. "I... I could wipe those painful memories, if you wanted."

Tron took in a large, jagged breath and swallowed hard. He wiped his eyes, half-confused from the liquid, and looked square at Alan. His brows dipped but held firm.

"No," he replied simply. "I want to remember the Programs I cared about. I need to remember." He sniffled slightly, unaccustomed to this new, intense feeling. "These emotions may take getting used to, but that's exactly what I'll do." He rose to his feet. "Whatever may come... I'll get used to that, too."

Alan stood up and gently addressed Tron. "You're not alone." He couldn't help but smile a little ruefully at himself. "In some ways, even before the added code, I think you were a lot like me." Tron's face was like a glimpse from the past, but despite looking youthful, it had so much pain etched on it. A little too familiar.

"It'll eat you alive if you let it. Don't let it."

They both looked out the large glass windows to the scenery below.

"I know you probably have a lot of questions for me... as you should. I'm not sure how much I can answer, but I'll do my best." His eyes scanned the horizon outside.

"Sam and I are going to try and fix things," Alan continued. "There may be some bumps; we're picking up from where Flynn left off, but there are a lot of gaps we'll never know if he planned for."

He turned to Tron. "But, if you'd like to help us... we're going to try ."

Tron stared out the window, and closed his eyes.

"You know, I used to have a mantra... that I 'fight for the Users'. And I know that's still true." He inhaled deep and exhaled, opening his eyes. "But now I'd like to finally fight for myself , too."

He regarded Alan thoughtfully. "I want to help you make the Grid... that my friends fought for."

Alan smiled, putting his hand on Tron's shoulder.

"I'm glad. Let's get to work."

END OF LINE