AU that Dyson spends his free time playing Animal Crossing on his Nintendo Switch
Tron plays Nintendogs on his 3DS
….aaaaa.
Tron HAS a Nintendog (except in that universe they’re called EncoDogs) in-system, it’s the behavior emulator for the virtual pet game and it manifests as a lil dog-shaped program inside the encom system.
it’s from the second year that Sam Flynn played his pranks. first year the prank was a MIDI of “dont stop believin” that played on everyone’s computer. second year it was an animated Marv-shaped dog, made from the virtual pet game code, running across everyone’s desktop.
both years, original Encom copy of Tron was devastated that he somehow failed his Directive as a Security Program and got defeated by this hacker slipping through
until he realized… he knew, deep down, who the hacker was, and was subconsciously letting him win. For the Users.
from then on, they work together on the pranks. Tron has adopted the EncoDog (named Mal, even though he’s not really malware). he is an excellent Assistant Watchdog for the Encom Security Suite. and he can catch and retrieve Tron’s disc like a frisbee.
This post reminded me of my first long-form Tron fanfic, in which I made the addition that not just Programs are living people in the digital world, but Files are as well. Including music files (one of the main characters in the story is a music file!).
So I’d like to think that Tron had to chase down the Don’t Stop Believin’ File in the ENCOM system, and that it looked just like Steve Perry. Tron much preferred the dog.
I VERY MUCH APPROVE OF THIS HEADCANON and i fully accept it as part of the backstory of “Watchdog” (the fic I wrote on this topic)
yes. If the spiritual magic of the Encom System can give life to programs as simple as a compound interest calculator, it can give life to text files and images and music files too. It’s like the Velveteen Rabbit. I love this, gonna go read the fic you linked. Yes.