#shadowy flight

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tfw I'm not sure if the second draft should lean more towards alien!KARR actually trying to get Garthe interested in living with alien!KARR by doing normal things like interacting with him and trying to slowly persuade him over to abandoning his daddy issues and revenge saga. Both of them learning and growing as people.

or,

Go full darkness and roll with the trauma being a plotpoint, have alien!KARR fuck with Garthe's brain to stick him in some fucked up groundhog day type scenario where he's just reset to day one of captivity whenever things go extremely out of alien!KARR's hands, forgetting what's happened during months of time spent in captivity, suffering and forgetting trauma over and over until it either blows up in alien!KARR's face or he figures out what makes Garthe tick and reprogramming him for his purposes.

Option one feels like a cliche beauty and the beast type romance setup/saving Garthe from himself, other option feels more entertaining to read at the cost of genuine relationship development.

Although I do like the idea of alien!KARR just going full on "fuck humanity, after everything I've been through they're my playthings now."

But also, duplicitous alien!KARR that can be both charming and persuasive, yet capable of the most horrible shit imaginable- but I feel like that kind of characterization of him has been done already, and the charm canonically was put on in KITT vs KARR because he needed humans do things he could not physically do himself. If he does not need humans to accept him, does he need to worry about making them comfortable around him? Probably not.

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A few knight rider fics got me thinking about what KARR might enjoy if we had ever gotten a chance to see him in a state other than "argh Michael Knight, arrgh KITT!"

Given he's still pretty inexperienced regarding the world around him, I could see KARR just exploring. Scanning things. Maybe he makes a game out of identifying certain things that are in his databanks out in the field. Bird watching perhaps could be something he does, or just general wildlife identification.

He definitely people watches, partially for entertainment, partially to get better at emulating human behaviors. He pays attention to speech patterns, what people say to each other and takes note of their bio readings. The best part about it all is that since he's housed in the body of a car, no one notices him watching their conversations and taking notes.

I've seen it brought up before in fics, and it does have basis in how KARR acts in the series; where in the show he tended to hack electronics to get what he wanted, making his own code is not a far step away from that. He probably dabbles in learning and using coding languages, along with generally messing with any unsupervised electronics that are laying around.

As for his music tastes, its difficult to discern; where he could have absolutely picked pop music as a favorite from going off of the music he plays in KITT vs KARR for John, that also could have been whatever was on the radio while he was laying low. He may enjoy making his own when he's left alone by using his synthesizers, but I doubt his tastes are the same as KITT- whom enjoys classical.

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Figured out why trying to find Martin Jantzen's actor was impossible, evidently he was played by William Bumiller which was interesting since that means the credits guy got Martin Jantzen's actor mixed up with James Marlin's actor. Even on imdb he's credited as playing James Marlin instead of Martin Jantzen but

That's him.

On the plus side at least I can see some stuff with him in it that's higher resolution so I can figure out what Martin looks like without the CRT crunchiness.

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POV fic where Occulomata!KARR seduces the reader to join his polycule, and the resulting drama that unfolds between the reader and Garthe from his paranoia about being abandoned and replaced.

POV fic where the reader runs into Martin Jantzen while he's on the run from FLAG with Occulomata!KRO, but the reader is unaware of Occulomata!KRO's existence. Meanwhile Occulomata!KRO is watching the reader like a hawk and plotting to get rid of them like the yandere machine they are but their attempts to kill the reader manage to always be thwarted by some ridiculous act of god.

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I feel like if TKR actually made it to a second season there would have been an insane deus-ex machina plot loophole to bring KRO and Martin back so there could be an interesting Garthe-esque villain and evil AI for their own show.

Or alternatively someone manages to get KRO out of that block of steel and get him working again only to find he's gone completely off the deep end with grief and rage because Marlin killed his husband.

If I could actually tolerate the main cast I would not mind seeing either plot point.

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I love how consistent knight industries is with it's fuckups with highly dangerous machinery.

"Our prototype vehicle is going into storage for being too dangerous, nah we don't have to worry about disarming it, siphoning the fuel out, or removing the battery. It'll be fine."

Fifteen years later:

"Our replacement vehicle for KITT went rogue and needs to be reprogrammed before being considered safe to use again. Let's put it on a plane without removing the fuel, disarming/removing its weapon systems, or removing the battery. It's not like this lead to anything bad happening before!"

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Me watching TKR: A-list and getting to the part with the psychotic BMW chicken scene: Why are they playing dramatic music over this? All I see is typical freeway beamer driver behavior.

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KRO and Martin are what would have happened if GarthexKARR was canon in the original show.