Four Times Rinzler Obeyed His Master (And One Time He Deliberately Did Not) - ageless_aislynn - Tron (Movies) [Archive of Our Own]
Title: "Four Times Rinzler Obeyed His Master (And One Time He Deliberately Did Not)"
Author: ageless-aislynn
Characters/fandom: Rinzler & Clu, Tron/Yori, TRON: Legacy (2010)
Summary: Five snapshots of various moments in Rinzler's life.
Rating: PG13
Length: 814
Spoilers: References things in TRON: Legacy as well as the TRON: Betrayal graphic novel but not excessively spoilery.
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine but I do enjoy borrowing them just for a bit! 😉
A/N: Text is both here in this post or available at AO3, however you like to read. The AO3/Tumblr link preview is still failing to work so please accept my humble DIY substitution. 🤷♀️😉
This is the other of my TRON fics, written back in 2011, dusted off and lightly reedited. If you read, I hope you enjoy! 💖
1.
Rinzler never questioned the fact that his master made "Always keep your helmet up, even when you're alone" one of his primary directives. It was such an easy command to keep, it never triggered further analysis.
He didn't know why, but he was instinctively certain that he had no desire to face himself in a mirror.
2.
"Hey, man," Clu said, his voice lazy with satisfaction after the mass destruction of the ISOs. "Job well done. You deserve a reward. Go to the End of Line Club and enjoy yourself. Have some fun."
So Rinzler dutifully did as directed and sat silently, helmet up, a glass of liquid energy untouched on the table before him. However, he was unsure how to follow the dual commands to "enjoy himself" and "have some fun."
He stayed just long enough to feel that he had reached some unspecified time limit – it felt like cycles, sitting there being avoided by the other patrons, receiving nervous glances, even from other Black Guards milling about – before he allowed himself to leave. On the way back, he overheard two programs speaking seditiously against Clu and derezzed them.
He then determined that he had now fulfilled his directive. After all, what could be more "fun" and "enjoyable" than protecting his master?
3.
"Rinzler, take the shot! Finish the game!"
At his master's direction, he pulled the Light Jet around and unexpectedly came face-to-face with a sight that shocked him into a momentary process stall: Kevin Flynn, older but still undeniably Kevin Flynn, the Creator, his friend.
No, Flynn was not Rinzler's friend. They had never met. He was the friend of… The friend of…
The Creator mutely mouthed something to him and Rinzler disengaged as a wave of conflicting information jolted through his system. The name Flynn had said cut through his confusion like the sharp edge of an identity disc and, abruptly, all of the conflicts resolved and he knew.
"I... fight... for the Users," he laboriously said in his broken voice as he changed his aim to Clu's Light Jet. Then, exactly as Rinzler's master had commanded, he took the shot and finished the game.
4.
The first time Clu ordered him to derezz a program whose only crime had been voicing a disagreement, Rinzler hesitated just long enough for Clu to look at him, his eyes narrowing in disapproval.
Despite a faint wisp of code within him that screamed No, Rinzler reached for his discs and swiftly executed the command. Clu smiled and he was flooded with a dark, savage joy. He had pleased his master.
That was his penultimate directive, his entire reason for being. He resolved to give his master every opportunity to smile at him again.
5.
"Don't bother with conversation," Clu told him when Rinzler initially attempted the arduous task of interrogating a program. "Just derezz them and move on."
So he very rarely spoke. He had no real need to, after all. His master never asked his opinion, he certainly had no friends to indulge in idle chitchat with. But… something odd began to happen when he downcycled to recharge.
Images and sounds would flitter through his processes, mostly bits of stray information, random events that had occurred since his last recharge, being sorted for filing and cataloging in his memory. The first time he tried to diagnose the glitch, a male voice had played in his thought process, an unnamed sound file with no originating tag: "Awesome, man, who knew programs could dream?"
But more and more often, he encountered something entirely unexplainable. He was not merely processing events that had happened. He was experiencing events that had not.
He began to see a female program, dressed unlike any other he had encountered on the Grid, in pale gray with luminescent blue circuits. She always smiled when she looked up at him and she called him by a name he never could quite hear or understand.
He knew he shared things with her, the things he had done, the way those things made him feel, things far beyond his ability to express or even to properly process when he was at full power. And, somehow, he knew that she gave him absolution.
That he enjoyed those… dreams, that some part of him looked forward to them, craved them, violated at least the spirit of several of the commands his master had given him.
He should have immediately reported the anomalous code the first time it appeared. Clu would have quickly exorcised the glitch from his processes.
But, with great deliberation, he did not. Instead, he buried bits of an executive file deeply within line after line of mundane code, protected from any casual scan. Only when he was downcycled were those split files extracted and rejoined and then allowed to run.
He wasn't sure why but he named the .exe file "Yori."
ahahaha i had an undead pc (for barely half a session before COVID shut it tf down).he’s a tabaxi and he grew up in the backwoods so once he came back as a lich (not on purpose on his part), he taxidermied himself. Anyway, a mix of dust baths, dry shampoo and fur/leather soap is fine for him, and he’s actually SUPER proud of the condition he keeps his “pelt” in, and always carries a sewing kit, brushes, leather wax, etc. You would think he was alive if you weren’t looking closeley. I really wish he could hang out w Launda, he also has an undead rodent pet (a squirrel, named Dead Jack, and this one actually IS alive and semisentient), and im sure he could. um. fix up any tears she has and.... show her how to use leather soap.....
A perhaps NSFW exploration of fan fiction that puts a whole new spin on "fantasy baseball." [Warning: We alert you to the presence of an adult theme that may offend some readers.]
NOT an article on rpf from a serious baseball reporting website
Hi, I wanted to ask you if you know in which video (a link) Seb says: "I feel you can drive on Chris's chest".
Hi!
That interview is from MTV News, and I think they took it down because I couldn’t find it on their website. If you wish to hear him say that, type on youtube ‘evanstan 2011′ and start the first video at 2:00. :)
