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#gridbug
fights4users · 6 months
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More grid bug useage, if for anything just because the music cue associated with them is really fun and bouncy.
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They’re just there and I have to respect that.
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panicclinic · 1 year
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Dancing Gridbug :)
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postpunkindustrial · 2 years
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Gridbug - The World Is Thy Ship And Not Thy Home
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dumbtronaus · 2 years
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AU where Mara has a pet gridbug
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misterradio · 8 months
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I like this exchange in Tron (1982) ::-]
- If you are a User, then everything you've done has been according to a plan, right? - You wish. Well, you guys know what it's like. You just keep doing what it looks like you're supposed to be doing, no matter how crazy it seems. - Well, that's the way it is for Programs, yes. - I hate to disappoint you, pal, but most of the time, that's the way it is for Users, too. - Stranger and stranger...
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radjerda · 10 months
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I just think that if Alan were on the Grid, he and Clu would be very productive when working together. Here, they're helping Tron and Flynn deal with a gridbug problem
A big thank you to @graedari for allowing me to use her Clu design!!
And as a bonus, the drawing without the screen and the screen panel itself are under the cut!
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faeymouse · 11 months
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Yet another one for the lovely @kyctna who asked for Beck and Able in #4 from this drawing meme.
Beck probably just told Able how many times he’s almost been derezzed as the Renegade, and every Dad subroutine in Able’s coding has activated and he’s fighting every urge to personally go rip Clu (and Tron) into fractions
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riinzler · 7 months
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can’t stop thinking abt the concept of rinzler relearning how to operate as a security monitor outside of a dictatorship
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coupleofdays · 1 year
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It was only by chance that I found out that apparently Tim Burton worked in some capacity on the original TRON, as an uncredited animator. There seems to be very little information available on what specifically he did on the film. I'd like to think he did some part of the gridbugs sequence, that's the part of the film that feels closest to something Burton-esque.
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datamodel-of-disaster · 6 months
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So, I was originally going through the first draft script of the Tron 1982 movie that @greetingsprogram1982 archived on their blog to scavenge for references to gridbugs, after @fights4users had an interesting question about those... However, I got distracted. Tron, talking about Flynn to Yori:
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Flynn, in the meantime:
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astercontrol · 2 months
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I think
If a program just got lasered into the User world, with no experience of drinking or eating User food
(only drinking the system's "liquid energy" and otherwise getting charged on the system's power)
that program would have the most fuckin voracious sweet tooth
Oh you get all your energy through your mouth? Okay so how do you turn this stuff into power? Lemme research what's in it... Holy hack this is complicated
Ok but this sugar stuff? glucose, etc... this is what converts to energy most directly for you, right
This is your way of consuming energy. Ok good to know
ALL the candy in the house. ALL the syrup, yes just the syrup don't bother with the pancakes
I'm supposed to charge myself on about 2000 "calories" of your energy daily. Got it. Buying this extra large milkshake and I'll be good for the day... AAAAA. Why does my body feel so bad later. I GOT ENOUGH POWER
Energy drink? Yes please -- OH HOLY GLITCHING GRIDBUGS THIS IS NOT ENERGY. it is... power-intensive malware that makes you use up all your energy faster and then crash??? Mixed with something that TRICKS you into feeling like you're getting sugar but you're not?? I WILL DEREZZ WHOEVER CAME UP WITH THIS
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not-that-dillinger · 1 year
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((This is a companion piece to this thread.))
[Side B: Rescue]
Haste was the word of the cycle and Ark moved quicker than ever.
Her and her lightcycle flew across the Outlands and straight for Tron City, making up for the time she had lost while she was out.
As she traveled, deep underneath the surface of the Outlands, one Gridbug, out of many, became poisoned for no discernable reason.
Ark knew where the Occupation had most likely taken Ed, and the increased guards around the building confirmed her suspicions.
She remained stealthy as long as possible, revealing herself only when she could sneak no further.
Ark fought her way through the building, alarms blaring as she took on multiple Sentries at a time. The narrow hallways worked in her favor, as only a few Sentries could approach her at a time, so she was never outnumbered in a way she couldn't handle.
It took all of Ed's will not to shrink back from Clu as the guards brought him to the tyrant.
Clu grinned like a Cheshire cat. Whatever he had planned for Ed, it was certainly much worse than what he had just been through. It looked like Clu wanted to say something. Probably to intimidate Ed, play with him before doing... whatever.
Ed had plenty of experience of taking control of situations. He also knew how to be a menace.
Beat Clu to the punch. Hit him where it hurt.
Ed opened his mouth, but before either of them could say anything, the sound of fighting came from the hallway.
Ark?
Ed had no idea if it was her or not, but if there was fighting coming this way, it was likely they were coming for him. At the very least, fighting meant they were against the occupation, and thus a potential ally.
Ed twisted sharply, then dropping down to break free of his captors. He backed away, and pulled off one of his boots. It was hefty; much heavier than his loafers.
Ed chucked it, then the other, at Clu.
Without waiting to see if either hit their mark, Ed turned and ran.
Behind him, there was the heavy thud of one of the boots hitting the ground, and an angered, pained roar from Clu. He approached the fight as cautiously as possible, while also not loosing speed. (The guard or Clu catching hi would not end well, an he most certainly would not get another chance to escape.)
He sighed with relief when he recognized Ark's lightcycle.
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teh-kittykat · 1 month
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Ficlet - Blink
I don't think this is floating around Tumblr anymore, but I found it in my stuff when I was moving computers. It's ten years old, but what the hell, I'ma repost it.
It started with a gif and a note about how there was a lack of stuff about Sam and Rinzler getting along, and, well...
Blink
The first time it happened, Sam was pretty sure his life was over.
The transition was subtle—one moment Tron was following him while he laid out some plan or another for the Grid, making little polite I’m-listening noises that somehow still managed to sound sarcastic, and the next there was a thready rumble behind him, and Tron’s epic bitchface was replaced with Rinzler’s featureless helmet. And okay, maybe Sam freaked just a little, words cutting off mid-syllable as he froze.
Rinzler just tilted his head—and it was Rinzler, circuits glowing vibrant orange—and then tilted the helmet around like he was looking for something. The really bizarre thing was that after a moment he just stopped, flinching back and hunching, tensed, until he had somehow managed to make himself shorter than Sam.
All right. So maybe instead of doing anything intelligent Sam just stood there and gaped for a good few minutes. Rinzler still didn’t go for his disks—and it was disks, since for whatever reason he’d had to sync in two of the damn things when they dragged Tron’s ass out of the Sea. If anything, the program seemed to shrink on himself further, helmet locked on in what Sam had to assume was a stare. Just when Sam was about to open his mouth to actually try and say something, Rinzler’s circuits winked out and re-lit blue-white, and then Tron was asking why Sam looked like he’d seen a data-ghost.
The second time it happened, things were a little more tense.
Gridbugs were a fact of life in a system under construction, Sam found out, and apparently even using legacy hardware for the Grid’s new physical home wasn’t going to change that fact anytime soon. It was pretty fun learning he could just blast through the damn things like something out of an anime—and so what if he grew up staying up way too late to watch bad dubs on Cartoon Network?—and it felt pretty good to stand back-to-back with Tron while they fought the nest of them. Only… when Sam turned around to check on Tron, it was Rinzler at his back instead, tearing through bugs with an acrobatic eagerness that was actually pretty amazing to watch if you weren’t the target of it. Rinzler didn’t blink out, either, when the bugs were done for, but rather he did the same flinch-and-hunch as before. It reminded Sam of catching Roy’s niece playing with his old action figures once.
“Hey… good job back there,” Sam said, feeling like an idiot because this was just inviting undivided killbot attention, but instead of the obvious attack, Rinzler actually stood up a little straighter and nodded, his rumble going deeper for a moment before Tron was back and asking for a status update.
It went like that, as Sam did the painstaking work of trying to heal what his dad and Clu had managed to break. Every once in a while Tron would just blink away and Rinzler would appear to fight bugs or peer suspiciously at Sam’s work or sometimes just to hang from the ceiling. The last even started to stop being freaky after Rinzler did it and scared the shit out of Shaddox.
Sam never said he was mature.
He tried to bring it up with Tron. The monitor had apologized profusely and practically shoved his disks in Sam’s hands and demanded to be bug-checked right there, something haunted and worried in his eyes. No amount of reassurance that it was okay, that Rinzler wasn’t hurting anyone, stopped the insistence until Sam actually did check the relevant code with Tron as a worried audience.
The funny thing? There was nothing out of the ordinary there.
No convenient color-coded section that said hey, here’s Rinzler. No remnants of Clu’s control coding, which felt like a personal victory because cleaning up the mess of agonizing restrictions had been a bitch and a half and it was probably a miracle Tron still talked to him with as much trial-and-error as it took. Not even a check from the outside, with Alan’s archival copy of Tron’s code to look from, showed any real deviation from his core command set aside from the evolution and customization that, as an AI project, Tron should have after twenty goddamn years.
Honestly, armchair psychology was a bit out of Sam’s area, and he really doubted that he could drag Tron to a therapist to figure out why Rinzler kept manifesting at odd moments.
When the transition came this time, Sam had sprawled across Tron’s lap because the program was repairing damage and insisting he was fine with a big crack in his torso. Sam glanced up from the reports he was skimming to see Rinzler—thankfully whole—peering down at him.
“Hey, Rinzler. Stay still a bit longer. Your alter ego did a number on you. Big-ass worm. You shoulda seen it,” Sam said, absently patting Rinzler’s knee as he went back to the datapad. For a while they just sat together in silence, Sam’s attention drifting back into the intricacies of power flows and information routing. Warm hands settled on Sam’s back, and a few moments later he heard an unearthly humming. It took a moment to realize it was Rinzler, whose utter contentment was flowing through the circuit-contact along Sam’s back.
Sam smiled to himself and scrolled the report. This was something he could live with.
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fights4users · 6 months
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In response to the post regarding program figures of speech:
A prayer for the dying: "Return to your maker, and dwell close to them."
"Got his disk on backwards" for when someone is being irritable.
"Looked like he swallowed seawater" as equivalent to "looked like he just bit into a lemon."
I have a list of swearwords and insults. Glitched, sum of a bit, shorted to null, shorted out, short all, bad path, black water, fragged, user-damned, user-forsaken, "user(s) above!" and so on, as well as most references to gridbugs or malware. And for the pun, CAD.
!!! Thank you for submitting, not a lot have there’s been a lot of digging going on.
I love the dying prayer one it’s quite touching and it’s a nice expansion when you think of De-resolution beyond the combat setting. (Injury, virus, being obsolete or randomly deleted etc.)
Sum of a bit is killing me please that’s so good 😭 I love insults so much, there’s a few canonical like “Null-unit, Bit brain, zero bit” and they’re just so good I can’t —
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evecolourshock · 1 month
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Nictate
I read the wonderful ficlet Blink by @teh-kittykat, concerning a developing friendship between Sam and Rinzler, and wondered what our beloved murdercat of a Program would be thinking through the whole thing.
I went into a writing haze and ended up with the following. Enjoy!
The first time Rinzler blinks awake around User_SamFlynn, it's as much a shock to the human as it is to Rinzler.
He's blinked awake before, of course, usually too tired or sore to do much other than research this new Grid being built - and other things too, things Rinzler was never allowed to by The Luminary, like what a gender is (still unclear, but he likes the masculine for its simplicity). And how to retract his helmet. And how to consume energy.
...Rinzler knows now he was made weak and dependent on The Luminary to make him easier to control. Rinzler doesn't like it.
But Rinzler is learning. And he also knows now the User could delete him for any perceived slights. Rinzler's best chances of survival lie in not being noticed.
So when Rinzler gets noticed anyway, because he's too distinct from his origin - the Program everyone prefers, The Hero Rinzler is not permitted to name - he glances around for somewhere to hide. Nowhere viable presents itself, so on a wild hunch Rinzler makes himself small. The Luminary liked Rinzler small and nonthreatening in his sole presence, maybe User_SamFlynn will be the same.
It takes Rinzler several moments to realise the User is just standing there, unreadable save for fear, so Rinzler tries to get smaller and think Nothing Thoughts in the hopes User_SamFlynn doesn't delete him.
Blinking out again is both a relief and terrifying.
Rinzler blinks awake in The Hero's rest space with a nice, fancy, and full glass of energy in his hands. He has to put it down quickly and sit, before he falls, code spasming in relief. For now, at least, the User is letting him exist.
The next time Rinzler blinks awake near the User, he barely manages to swipe at a Gridbug before it latches onto his exposed face. He rezzes his helmet, and makes a few more wild swings to give himself some space.
Rinzler mourns his streak of avoiding the User, but battle is one of the few things more likely to wake him up. He'd been doing so well at being a Useful Nothing so he doesn't get deleted, too.
Another Gridbug swoops at him, and he refocuses. Battle first. Consequences later.
...maybe if he keeps User_SamFlynn safe from the bugs, he can prove himself useful enough to be worth keeping?
Rinzler throws his whole self into destroying bugs. He can do this, see? He's even skilled at it! He can destroy all the bugs, if User_SamFlynn wants him to.
Rinzler will get bored destroying bugs, and eventually will stop being useful for that when there are no more bugs, but maybe he can prove himself useful enough at another task to be kept around.
Rinzler still hasn't figured out how to blink out on command, so he goes small again and awaits judgement. User_SamFlynn... praises him? Tells him he did a good thing?
Rinzler perks up - he did good! And the User said so! He hopes his thankful nod doesn't come over too eager or desperate.
Rinzler blinks out feeling happy. He hasn't felt happy before. It's a nice feeling.
Rinzler likes being around User_SamFlynn, he finds. It makes him happy, although he doesn't like it when he scares the User.
He also gets more good jobs and well dones and kind interactions in a single visit than he remembers ever getting from The Luminary. Rinzler doesn't want to think too hard about that - The Luminary is gone, no use dwelling on the deleted. Programs get derezzed that way.
He likes to... hang out? With SamFlynn.
Although he may have misinterpreted the phrase, because SamFlynn does not dangle from the ceiling with him despite there being plenty of room, and looked baffled the only time Rinzler invited the human as best he knows how.
He does accidentally scare one of The Hero's friends while hanging out, and feels... Not Good about it, despite SamFlynn's reassurances. So Rinzler researches how to get someone to understand he didn't mean to scare them, and finds the most helpful advice to be writing an apology letter.
Rinzler has never written anything before. He can read pretty well, but was never taught to write.
The letter takes three rest cycles to complete, Rinzler coming out to carefully write his letter while The Hero is in sleep mode.
It's not a masterpiece by any stretch, certainly isn't perfect, but it is genuine. So Rinzler signs it and delivers it. The soft smile and not so bad after all The Hero's friend gives after reading it is enough to give Rinzler a warm bubble keeping his nightmares away, and is saved with his important memories - secure, and right next to that first bit of praise from SamFlynn.
Rinzler's not sure when User_SamFlynn becomes SamFlynn, or when SamFlynn becomes simply Sam, but he likes it.
Rinzler thinks Nothing Thoughts on automatic, when he is not awake. This hides him from The Hero, because he knows The Hero insists he is cruel-bad-wrong and wants him deleted.
Rinzler doesn't know how to tell The Hero he is learning how to be good. Sam seems to think Rinzler is harmless-friendly-good, or at least trying to be.
He blinks awake to soreness and a weight on his legs, but before he can worry about a threat Sam tells him to rest because The Hero fought a big codeworm. The worm is dead-gone-deleted, but in its death throes it opened a large crack in their chest and they need to heal.
Rinzler is safe. Sam is safe. They are spending time together, and nobody is scared.
Rinzler purrs, not wanting to try the hug gesture he's researched because Sam is working, and sets his hands against the human's back instead.
He's not sure the complicated data transfer of how happy he is goes through, and even if it does it's definitely tinged with how relaxed he is, but Rinzler doesn't mind.
This is nice.
He hopes Sam agrees, and they can spend time together like this again - and not because of big codeworms.
Just relaxing, and sharing space. Being friends.
Rinzler thinks it would be good.
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[I have no idea how Eos got on the Grid... Maybe Sam borrowed him? but I wanted to try RPing him, and I also want more Eros and Kaiser, so... here you go! —@not-that-dillinger]
At first, Eos had been delighted when the users transferred him to the new system. And what was not to be exited about? He had a new purpose after hundreds of cycles of obsolescence, and a new world to explore. Except the excitement quickly wore out when Eos realized just how alone he was in this new system without his siblings. He had no Heli to chase head first into danger, no Conch to drag him out when he was in over his head, and no Sabazi to fill the silence with silly jokes and songs.
Without his brothers, Eos felt out of place. It didn't help that this system was so different from the Encom system. rather than soft blues, everything here was white circuits on black surfaces. Sure, the pastel yellow of his circuits on his white suit were familiar, but little else stayed the same. He still had his emblem, but most of his circuits were... gone. hidden. The suit fit and feel was different from what he was used to. His helmet was different.
And so Eos drove himeslt (literally) to distraction by exploring the barren wastelands (the Outlands, they called it) beyond the city to fill the void that had once been his family.
As it turned out, Eos did not need Heli to drive him into danger. The Grid had enough dangers, and Eos was new enough, and unfamiliar enough with the system that Danger found him.
The gridbugs were not a surprise, and Eos easily outran them, except once he had evaded them, he realized he was so far off course, he had no idea where he was, or what direction he was going.
He hadn't expected the storm. Storms like that didn't happen on the Encom system. To make his situation even worse, the blowing snow made it impossible to see, and the cold quickly sapped his energy.
He was lucky to find the cave. By then, he had gone through his emergency supply of energy, and though he was still shivering, he wasn't nearly as much as he should have been (not a good thing).
Eos thought he must have been hallucinating at first, and only realized the two programs were real when he nearly stumbled into them (orange circuits on black suits... he'd been told to be wary of those, hadn't he?).
"Oh thank the users," he muttered, and promptly collapsed.
Eros quickly moved forward to catch the strange program, his brow creased with worry. He scanned the stranger a million times over as he carefully scooped them up.
"Kaiser, can you give me your emergency vial?" It was more of a hurried command than a question, and Kaiser was quick to obey it. He fumbled for a few microcycles before handing the small vial of energy to Eros.
Eros knew Gallium would be too dangerous for a neutral program, especially a stranger. Clu didn't trust Eros to truly rule a city on his own, so he sent plenty of sentries over to ignore the General and slapped a title on Eros to make him feel proud.
He couldn't take this stranger anywhere else, though, it would be too far. Gallium was just nearby, the only reason they were out here in the cave was to investigate strange activity. So Eros and Kaiser took this new program towards Gallium, taking the alleys and streets where there were blind spots in security.
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