crossposted from my Discord group because it builds on a concept we talked about there…

the idea of programs (sorta) slut-shaming each other

and my thoughts went in a kinda interesting direction

I mean yeah, I had Tron call Ram “little shareware” in my last smut fic

which yeaah was basically calling him a slut, although it does not have all the same connotations for programs that it does for Users

(I think in that case, between those two, it was on the level of mild friendly teasing– same goes for Ram’s “repressed firewall” retort afterwards)

but a couple things occurred to me

for one: I don’t think Ram is literally shareware– a program written to be free for anyone to use, by someone who’s maybe requesting voluntary donations from users who like it.

No, I think writing him was part of Roy’s job, and I think the insurance company bought and paid for him.

I think what he is, though, is still kinda slut-connected.

He is a program written for commercial distribution, to be used by many end-users.

Whereas Tron is a program custom-written for his System, to be used primarily– maybe exclusively– by the User who created him

which I think is the source of how pious, how dedicated, how serious and task-focused Tron is

And how Ram in contrast is …friendly, outgoing, dedicated to pleasing and helping as many users and programs as possible

Which can be as sexual or as nonsexual as you wanna go in fanfic, I guess, lol