written by @dear-monday and @tw0-ravens
fake book cover by @imprint (@inclines)
backing and border (inclusive of spiderweb) courtesy of "The population of an old pear-tree".
look i get that sometimes characters dying is like good for the story or whatever but consider. i want them all to be alive and have family dinners together. check and mate
Today is fanfic writer appreciation day, so to celebrate, here's a rec list of some of my favorite Tron fics!
Kerberos by Subsequent (@inclines) is one of my all time favorites. This fic is an AU where Alan stumbles across (and onto) the Grid during the Uprising. The characterizations are incredible, it's fun, it's heartfelt, and it's complete at around 34k. I can't recommend it enough. And if you love it as much as I do, you should check out Session Tickets, a series of drabbles in that same universe.
Ichor by Vince_ible (@invincibleinck) is another favorite. In this fic, Tron and Beck find an injured Alan during a lockdown in Argon. If you love sweet sweet angst, this is the fic for you. The characterization is excellent. It'll make you laugh and it'll make you want to cry. It's still in progress and is currently at about 23k. Its prequel, Icarus, is also amazing.
Also by Vince is Stronger, an AU where Beck becomes Rinzler and his friends are left to deal with the fallout. Again, if you love exquisite angst, give this one a read. It's still in progress at about 6k.
Another personal favorite of mine is The Spirit of the Renegade by Minus-Ultra (@ravenser-odd). This fic describes the earliest days of the Uprising, back when Cyrus was the Renegade. It does such great worldbuilding and fills in a lot of gaps we never got to see in canon. It also includes so many characters, from favorites to those who don't get enough attention, and does them justice while exploring some dynamics we didn't get to see (or get to see enough of). If you want to read about Tron, Yori, Able and Cyrus (and more!) working together to cause trouble for Clu, this is the fic for you. It's in progress at around 61k and is criminally underrated. This author has many amazing tron oneshots as well.
Tron: Liberation by saratogaroad was one of the first Tron fics I read, and it remains a favorite to this day. It picks up right where the last episode of Uprising left off and sees the story through til the end. Liberation completes so many character arcs and storylines from the show while still adding its own twists. It's so well written, it has a little bit of everything, it's such a satisfying read, and it's complete at around 107k. Changelog by the same author is equally excellent. It's a series of drabbles for various Uprising AUs.
Tron: Unity by SiriuslyEmily is a Legacy AU where Alan answers Clu's page and winds up on the Grid instead of Sam. It's honestly been a bit since I reread this one so I'm a bit fuzzy on the finer details, but if you want a fic with characters from the original Tron, Legacy and Uprising, where everyone is in-character and Alan is the main protagonist, you need to check this one out. It's currently on hiatus at around 83k, but the author has repeatedly said they plan to finish it in the future.
Everything is Relative by rexrerezzed (@quorras) is one of my all time favorite Tron fics. It's a multimedia oneshot focused on in-universe media and fan theories on Quorra and Sam after the events of Legacy. Rex created tweets, interviews, ads, and edited promotional material for Legacy to create such a fun and sweet story. It's genuinely one of the most unique and creative fics I've ever read and you should check it out if you haven't already. Rex has written so many other amazing oneshots as well. Their ongoing Gaia series about the Grid and various characters' relationship with it is also lovely.
Anything by EnglishLanguage (@epicenglishlanguage) is a work of art. Genesis is a beautifully written oneshot that focuses on Sam rebuilding the Grid and dealing with its "ghosts," including Rinzler. Et Cetera (and other things) is a series of stories mainly focused on shenanigans Sam Tron and Quorra get into in the user world. It's a personal favorite for when you need something sweet fun and fluffy. This author has countless other oneshots that are excellent as well. If you haven't read their work you're seriously missing out.
quantum27 (@quantum27) has written so many amazing works for Tron, but their flynn has friends series is probably my favorite. This is an AU where Flynn tells Alan and Lora about his visit to the ENCOM system, essentially preventing the events of Legacy. Flynn continues to have adventures on the ENCOM system with their input and, sometimes, supervision. It's fluff, fun and feels with all your favorite 82 characters. What more could you ask for?
There are so many more fics I could list, we're lucky to have so many incredibly talented authors here in the Tron fandom, but I'm going to stop here for now. Please check out these fics, give the authors some love, and feel free to reblog this post and add your own recommendations!
Thank you to all the fic authors out there, and happy reading!
Almost exactly 3 years ago (give or take 2 weeks) I reached out to @davetheshady (author) and @inclines (artist) to ask permission to print this book, which they graciously provided. I'd seen inclines' absolutely gorgeous print and fallen instantly in love, and they were kind enough to provide the cover and Word files when I asked for their help in getting it set up for printing.
Then I decided I wanted to format the text body like an actual book. And do an editing pass over the whole thing, just to clear up any egregious typos. And justify the text, which meant monitoring the entire 700-page novel for hyphenation. And learn what the fuck 'gutters' meant for book printing??? Suffice to say, after about a month of feverish editing, I got Extremely Burnt Out and couldn't bring myself to do the second pass I knew the thing needed, so the near-complete document proceeded to languish on my hard drive.
Fast forward 3 years later! I now have a roommate who I can force to proof the draft for me! I have a spare few days! I finally complete a personal project!!!!!
I am so, so, so happy with how this turned out. It is so hard to communicate her Weight and Width in pics, but trust me when I say: the darling is a brick. I love her immeasurably but she is 710 numbered pages plus front and back matter, she could probably kill a man. I will read her voraciously and keep in mind her heft if ever I am victim of a home invasion.
ENORMOUS thank you to both davetheshady and inclines, for your permission, your generosity, and (if you're still around to be reading this 3 whole years later) your patience. This project was begun in my freshman year of college at one of the loneliest points in my life, when having something big, meaningful, and time-consuming to work on was an enormous comfort, and now I've finished it just a month and a half before I'm set to graduate. Life, amirite?
Legacy-AU ficlet. Accidentally ended up becoming something of a prequel to @infiniteviking's excellent fic Redact - I can only hope I've done it some justice.
Primarily written because I wanted to do something for the anniversary of Legacy, but literally everything else was coming out Wrong. This won't ever be posted to AO3, so enjoy, tumblr peeps, and happy anniversary! ❤
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Something in his mind is faulting and he’s not sure why.
He’s - flawless, Clu made him flawless, Clu made him Perfect, and his thoughts are skittering like marbles are like - these balls, man, they’re spheres, you play games -
Games. He’s at the games. He has two discs in his hands and he’s the best, he’s always been the best, and he’s staring down at someone who should, by rights, be nothing more than voxels now.
Someone who is staring back up at him in defiance, hand wrapped around his arm as he holds a disc to his throat, pinned down and helpless, and
and something - there’s - something - there’s something about - he’s -
The crowd is shouting - de-rez - de-rez - de-rez - but the screaming at the back of his mind is louder than the chants around him and for the first time in a long time Rinzler feels afraid.
“Well?” asks his victim, voice barely trembling, unhappy but clearly unwilling to show it. You sound just like him, y’know. When I finally show him the Grid - “Congratulations. You won. I’d rather you didn’t draw this out, for all our sakes, so whatever you’re about to do, make it quick.”
He’s still falling apart, splintering, but whatever part of him has thrown a spanner - what’s a spanner - into his - perfectperfectperfectFINISHTHEGAME - whatever part of him is still operating, spinning smoothly, yelling - not yet not here can’t show - can’t show imperfections - MOVE - instead reaches down and roughly jerks his victim to his feet, arm twisted up and behind, held in a grip that's firm but not as firm as it could have been.
Should have been.
“Identify yourself, program,” Jarvis calls out, and he’d never liked him before but now, now, he can feel himself seething, because there’s danger here, and for once, it isn't him.
“Lie,” Tron manages to spit out, Alan’s startled glance towards him quickly averted to something less suspicious, and his grip is shaking, and he’s shaking, and he holds them both steady and prays.
So... to make a long story short, this is an AU-ficlet riffing off an idea in Chapter 9 of Kerberos. Basically - Alan sending shit into the Grid to troll Clu. I posted it in the comments of the fic itself but figured I should probably post it over here as well, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Written in one sitting and unedited. Don't take it too seriously, this is basically pure crack!
I'm pretty sure my blog theme eats formatting, leaving it a mess, so the link to the "properly formatted" version is here. Otherwise, it's below the cut!
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Clu stared at the guards. They kept their heads up, arms stiff, no emotion in their stance.
“And you thought this was worthy of my attention,” he said, flatly.
They, if anything, stood even straighter.
“Sir,” said one, and if there was strain in their voice they hid it well. “It rezzed into the arcade. Sir. Is it not a User?”
Clu knew they weren’t joking, in their question.
Somehow, that was worse.
“It is an orange,” he said, still flatly. “Do not show me anything like this again. Dismissed. Leave. Now.”
The guards could not have been said to flee, but they did, perhaps, leave the room a little quicker than regulation allowed.
Clu’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing, even as he assessed the orange carefully placed on the desk in front of him.
It sat there, unassumingly. He stared at it. It remained an orange.
He picked it up and threw it against the wall with all the force at his disposal.
It... exploded, leaving smaller bits of itself strewn across the room, stuck to the ceiling, splattered to the floor.
Even as he watched, one bit slowly slid down a pillar until it fell off with a wet splorch.
“Clean this up,” he said to the soldier next to him, and he strode out the room with as much dignity as he could muster.
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“Sir,” said the guard, carefully holding out a - rectangle, with odd edges. A book, Clu realised, as he assessed it. A User information device. “It rezzed into the arcade. It - has your name on it.”
Clu’s eyes narrowed again as he reached forward, roughly taking the book and examining the cover.
Downfall of the Roman Empire, read the title, helpfully, as a colourful square of paper seemingly attached to it underneath, read,
Clu -
Learn, pal.
- Alan.
Clu did not throw the book across the room. He rifled through it, noting that some pages fell open easier than others - with odd, thin rectangles placed in particular places, enabling for quicker references. Ruins of the Coliseum, read one rectangle, cheerfully. The Death of Julius Caesar, read another.
Quite a few sentences were helpfully underlined in that chapter. One was even marked with an exclamation point.
Clu snapped the book shut one handed. The guards flinched, minutely, before standing to perfect attention again.
“Do not,” said Clu carefully. “Bring me anything further from the arcade, unless it speaks. Are we clear?”
“Sir, yes, Sir,” said the guard.
“Dismissed,” said Clu, and the guards fled.
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Clu’s eye twitched.
“It speaks, Sir,” said the guard, almost defensively, as they held out a larger rectangle.
They also, Clu noted, held it out as far as it was possible for them to do so, as if trying to physically distance themselves from the sheer racket that the thing was producing.
“So it does,” said Clu.
There was a beat, where everyone just absorbed the sound.
“- ‘s new pussycat - wooOOOAAaaaaHHHHHhhhh -” warbled the boombox, at volumes previously unknown on the Grid.
Clu’s eye twitched yet again, as he strode forward and snatched it from the guard’s hand in one clean motion.
It hit the ground the second after, but unlike the orange, it didn’t explode - instead it bounced, landing again and sliding a little before coming to a stop against the guard’s foot.
“-wooOOOAAaaaaHHHHHhh-” the thing repeated, though a little more muffled this time.
Clu stared out at nothing for a moment and grit his teeth together.
“Take this and get it out of my sight,” said Clu. “Put it in the cells.”
“Sir,” said the guards, and turned hastily to leave.
The sound followed them all the way down the corridor and beyond.
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“What,” snarled Clu, as the doors slid open behind him.
“C’mon now,” said a voice, cheerfully, and Clu whirled around. “Is that any way to greet someone? Didn’t you like my gifts?”
Tron’s face, but not Tron’s circuits, the guards beside him holding him in a grip that Tron would have broken out of in an instant.
“You,” said Clu menacingly, and moved forward.
Tried to move forward. A hand, as if from nowhere, took his shoulder, and he found his disc - locked, his feet frozen, unable to move.
“Me,” said Alan cheerfully. “Hi.”
“What -” started Clu, and a voice behind him - the mirror of the one in front of him - said
“I rather think it’s more who.”
The guards beside Alan purged their red lights, dropping their grip and relaxing. Alan rolled his shoulders back, as if stretching, and said, cheerfully, as the room exploded into movement around them -
“You know, you really should be more careful about what you let in here.”
10% canon did WHAT!? I’m sorry(I’m not) to disagree BUT *write intensely*
15% wanna write something with these characters specifically
70% didn’t find the very specific and precise fanfic they’ve been searching for hours and came to the inevitable conclusion that they have to provide it themself *mutters* “ fuck ”
tumblr friendships are hard to maintain like im sorry i know i havent talked to you in 5 months but you’re still super rad and i still consider us friends im just dumb
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