Application for Ataraxion
Feb. 3rd, 2013 01:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hellowall_eP L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Pen
OOC Journal:talkingsoup
Under 18?: nope
Email + IM: Email: tripwire015@yahoo.com ; Plurk: talkingsoup
Characters Played at Ataraxion: none!
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: WALL-E
Canon: WALL-E
Original or Alternate Universe: Original for the most part (explained below in abilities section)
Canon Point: From the end of the movie, after the Axiom has returned to Earth and WALL-E has been restored to life and everyone has their happily ever afters.
Number: 112
Setting: Wall-e comes from a Planet Earth that has been devastated by pollution. Several hundred years ago, the largest corporation in the world was Buy N’ Large, which seems to have been a super-Walmart, selling everything from food and clothes to spaceships. Overconsumption led to the planet becoming choked with garbage and debris, so much so that BNL built some gigantic, ark-like spaceships that could house the entire human race. The human race boarded the ships and set off for the stars, leaving the Earth in the hands of hard-working robots. The idea was that the robots would clean up the planet while the humans enjoyed a life of luxury on their interstellar cruise liners.
The problem that BNL discovered pretty quickly was that the Earth seemed to be unsalvageable. The air and water had become too toxic, dust storms were ravaging the planet and there was so much garbage that the robots had literally started stacking it into giant mountains of crushed cubes. So BNL scrapped the idea to ever return to Earth and resolved to let the human race live happily in space. They didn’t tell anyone about this, however, except for the robotic auto pilots of the cruise ships. That was all about seven hundred years ago.
The Earth is still a mess, with skyscrapers and mountains of garbage everywhere and terrifying dust storms, but recently it has started to bounce back. Plants have started to grow again. A small chunk of the human race has returned to the planet from the ship known as the Axiom, but it’s unknown if any other humans are out there somewhere. The humans who have returned, however, have resolved to try and take care of the planet and clean up their mess. They’ll be helped along by the assorted robots who are now also making the Earth their home.
History: It’s unclear when Wall-e was created, but judging by the fact that in the movie there are other Wall-es strewn around the area who are broken down and rusted, he’s probably very old. BNL created the Wall-e series to essentially be global janitors. Their entire purpose is to take garbage, compact it into manageable cubes and stack the cubes in out of the way locations. Originally there were lots of Wall-es, probably all over the world, but as the decades passed more and more of them began to break down.
Wall-e is now the last Wall-e in his region, maybe even in all the world. He has managed to stay alive by constantly doing self-maintenance, basically replacing any of his parts that break down. There are plenty of broken down robots around to borrow parts from, after all.
Wall-e was presumably just a robot at first, with a very basic AI and no real sense of self. However, over his years of solitude he began to develop a personality. He started collecting things among the garbage that interested him and moved himself and his collection into abandoned trailer of sorts. There he was safe from the dust storms that had undoubtedly destroyed many other robots. Years passed and his collection of items grew, and eventually he discovered music and videos. His favorite of these was a copy of Hello, Dolly, and he would often listen to the soundtrack while he worked to clear garbage. He befriended the cockroaches that lived in the dumps and learned the value of life and friendship.
Watching Hello, Dolly at night left him with a feel of absence, however, like something was missing in his life. That absence seemed to be filled when something strange happened one day. A large ship landed near Wall-e’s dump and dropped off a new, beautiful robot that Wall-e had never seen before. He tried to approach her, but she proved to be scary and rather trigger happy. She also seemed to be looking for something, so Wall-e followed her around for awhile. Eventually she calmed down and they were able to communicate, striking up a rapport. The robot’s name was Eve. When a sandstorm blew in, Wall-e brought Eve to his trailer so she would be sheltered from the scouring dust.
While at the trailer, Wall-e showed Eve his collection of things, including a little green plant growing out of a boot. Upon seeing the plant, Eve took it and promptly shut down. Unable to wake Eve up for days afterward, Wall-e towed Eve around and made sure she was safe. Not long later, the ship that had dropped Eve off returned to pick her up. Wall-e managed to climb aboard the ship as it took off and rode it all the way to its point of origin—a massive space cruiser called the Axiom.
Aboard the Axiom, Wall-e followed Eve as she was taken through the ship up to the bridge. There Eve was turned on again in order to find out about the plant she had found. She was surprised to see Wall-e and tried to get him to leave, saying that she needed to follow her directive. Unfortunately, the plant had disappeared, so both Eve and Wall-e were sent to maintenance.
In maintenance, Wall-e panicked when he thought that other robots were hurting Eve and caused a massive break out, causing himself and Eve to be labeled as rogue robots. Eve brought Wall-e to the escape pods and told him to go home, but before Wall-e could go, one of the security robots appeared with the plant and threw it into the escape pod, then set it to self destruct. Wall-e ran into the pod to get it, but the pod launched and exploded. Eve realized how much she cared about Wall-e when she thought he’d been killed, but Wall-e had escaped in time. Both of them agreed that Eve should bring the plant directly to the captain before the security robots could get in the way again.
It turned out that the auto pilot robot wanted to get rid of the plant, because the plant meant that the Axiom could return to Earth. A fight ensued on the bridge as Eve and the captain tried to protect the plant. All seemed lost when the auto pilot threw the plant down a garbage chute, but then Wall-e appeared. He hid the plant in his trash compactor, but the auto pilot electrocuted him and Wall-e fell down the shaft. The auto pilot then threw Eve down after him.
Wall-e was in bad shape, but then Eve realized that there would be spare parts to repair him back on Earth. The only way to get back to the planet, though was to bring the plant to the center of the ship and get past Auto and his security robots. Wall-e and Eve went on a mad dash through the ship while the captain tried to waylay Auto. Wall-e and Eve made it to the plant chamber, but then Auto tipped the Axiom on its side, causing debris to fall toward the humans who had gathered there. Eve rushed to protect the humans while Wall-e tried to hold the plant chamber open. Auto took control again and managed to force the plant chamber closed, but Wall-e pushed himself into it and was crushed in the process, leaving the chamber open.
The captain managed to shut down Auto and Eve quickly threw the plant into the chamber, which released Wall-e’s crushed body. The Axiom shot away through space, and as soon as it arrived at Earth, Eve carried Wall-e to his trailer. She managed to repair him, but when Wall-e woke up he was devoid of life and personality. Eve, certain that Wall-e was lost forever, could do nothing but hold his hand.
Miraculously, that alone was enough to bring Wall-e back. He and Eve happily accompanied the humans of the Axiom as they returned to the planet.
Personality: Before anything else, Wall-e is a robot, which means that his perception of the world and interaction with it is more limited than that of a human. Over time he has developed a personality well beyond his original programming and directive, but he’s still somewhat restricted in his ability to relate to the world and understand things. He has a harder time with abstract concepts and ideas than with concrete things. He feels a full spectrum of emotions, but he doesn’t always fully understand them. This isn’t really a problem for him however, since he interprets his emotions rather simply and finds simple solutions to them. If something makes him happy or curious, he keeps that thing around. If something scares him or makes him sad, he’ll avoid it. In that sense he’s more like a highly intelligent animal in terms of his emotional spectrum. He has learned pretty much everything he does know about emotions by watching movies and listening to music that the humans have left behind.
He’s also limited by the time he lives in, in that he doesn’t know what a lot of everyday items are. He has been alone on the planet for decades if not centuries, so he’s had to learn basically everything on his own. This is presumably how he learned about the planet’s deadly sandstorms and was able to consistently find shelter from them. It’s also probably how he learned to self-repair by taking parts he found in the junkyards or on broken down robots. His AI has allowed him to learn well beyond his original programming. In many ways, it was likely that his long solitude was what led to him developing a personality at all.
Wall-e is very cheerful and optimistic. His life is pretty monotonous considering that all he does all day is collect and compact trash, but he faces every day with joy and excitement. His job isn’t exactly optional considering it’s his directive, but he does seem to like it, seeing as it allows him to find and collect interesting items. He loves to collect things that catch his interest, but his idea of what is “interesting” is pretty arbitrary. Other people might consider his collection to essentially just be junk, but every item has meaning to him at least. He keeps his things well organized and divided by item similarity. He’s also rather resourceful in that he keeps extra robot parts around. This way he always has parts on hand if something breaks down.
His curiosity can lead to recklessness at times, though at least it’s a rather determined brand of recklessness. He’s basically like a cat with a laser pointer, almost literally at times; if he sees something neat or something he cares about he’ll poke it to find out what it does or run after it to catch it. He loves finding and discovering new things and then taking the time to learn what they are. When he does have some kind of goal, he’s rather single-minded about it, and he’s totally devoted to his collection and to the people he cares about. He’ll risk life and limb to help his friends, even if it means going well outside of his directive or comfort zone to
Part of this has to do with how intensely lonely he has been on Earth without anyone else around. He has made friends with cockroaches, but it’s not the same as having someone he can actually talk to. So when he does make friends, or in Eve’s case someone he loves, he does everything he can to keep them around. He discovered the idea of love through watching Hello, Dolly, and to him love means holding hands and being with someone you like. Since meeting Eve she has become the most important thing in his life, and being without her at Ataraxion is going to be very hard for him.
Wall-e has a rather cheeky streak. He’s been on his own for so long that he’s not used to the idea of being told what to do, so he doesn’t follow instructions very well. He’ll readily break rules if he feels it’s necessary or if they’re getting in the way. He generally does whatever he wants, even if a friend or Eve herself is the one asking him to do something. He’s very stubborn; once he sets his mind to something he is totally immovable. He’s also not above teasing people, like when he intentionally leaves mud around for Mo to clean up.
Finally, Wall-e is rather shy and he startles easily. He doesn’t like scary situations, though he tries to be brave when he can. He’s not very straightforward either, preferring to observe someone for awhile before trying to approach them. When he’s nervous or scared he tends to hide somewhere or under the nearest object.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: Wall-e has no special powers aside from an affinity for technology and other robots. He has a rather infectious personality that can make other robots think and feel beyond their directives. He’s also a very good garbage man; he’s not so great at keeping things clean, but he’s all about moving trash from one place to another. It’s pretty much his Thing.
His weaknesses are essentially that he’s been rather abruptly turned into a human and has absolutely no idea how a human body works. He won’t know how to walk, eat, speak or really do much of anything. He’s going to need a lot of help if he’s going to survive in Ataraxion. He has actually seen humans so he’s not completely ignorant of what they do, and hopefully that’ll be enough to keep him alive past the first day.
Inventory: A metal lighter and a tape deck with a cassette tape of the Hello, Dolly soundtrack.
Appearance: Normally he’s a cute little squarish robot with huge eyes. Now that he’s human, however, he’s short, scrappy and tan to reflect his appearance in canon and long time in harsh sunlight. His hair is black and cut poorly, so it stands up in places and otherwise just looks like a rat’s nest. He’s mostly Asian in appearance, and has black eyes and huge glasses. He is constantly filthy and seeing as he’s new to this whole human thing, he’ll spend a lot of his time in badly fitting clothes worn inside-out or backwards or in the wrong places. He may or may not show up with socks on his hands.
Age: Unknown, but certainly decades old if not centuries. Looks young, either late teens or early twenties.
AU Clarification: The AU is literally just that WALL-E has been turned into a human due to the game’s mechanics.
S A M P L E S
Log Sample: One of his best memories, before he met Eve anyway, was when he found the tape.
He had started ignoring his subroutine that kept track of time ages ago, so he wasn’t sure how long ago he’d found it. There had been fewer towers of cubes back then, at least. He’d already started collecting thing, the odd fork or hat or umbrella here and there, when he found the tape buried under some magazines. At first, he hadn’t known what it was or how to use it, so he’d just taken it home, played around with the flippy thing and the twirly things and the black strips that came out of it, and set it on a shelf. Later he’d found a television. It had taken ages to get it to work, and then even longer to figure out that the tape could slide into a panel near the television’s bottom. But eventually he’d managed it, and the tape had started to play.
He’d never seen anything like it until then. There were colors and movement and sounds. The colors and movements formed pictures. The sounds had recognizable patterns that were enjoyable. The pictures had shown humans. He knew about humans, of course—he’d never seen one, but information about them was stored in some corner of his memory bank. The humans moved and spoke and made expressions. They were fun to watch, and the sounds were fun to listen to. When the sounds grew softer at a certain point, the humans on the screen would hold onto each other’s hand. The image made his circuits feel warm.
Eventually he found other tapes, as well as smaller one that only played the nice, rhythmic sounds. He didn’t have words for any of the machines that made the tapes work, or for what the sounds or the images actually were. He figured he never really needed actual words to put to them. Words were for humans, after all. All he knew was that he liked them, and that they awoke something in him that he didn’t want to lose. That was all he really needed.
Comms Sample: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
W. Wa! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Waa-aairrr? Whhh. Wh-eee-rrr-ee? Ev-ah? Ev-ah wh-e-re? Wwww-aaaaa-lle wh-e-re?
Ddddd. Diiii-rec-tive, fff. Ffffiii. Fiiiiind Ev-ah. Di-rec-tive, fin-d Ev-ah! Go Err…Err…Eeee-aarrrth. E-arth. Ev-ah thhh…thhhh…ooon, on E-arth!
Wh-e-re?
Your Name: Pen
OOC Journal:
talkingsoupUnder 18?: nope
Email + IM: Email: tripwire015@yahoo.com ; Plurk: talkingsoup
Characters Played at Ataraxion: none!
C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: WALL-E
Canon: WALL-E
Original or Alternate Universe: Original for the most part (explained below in abilities section)
Canon Point: From the end of the movie, after the Axiom has returned to Earth and WALL-E has been restored to life and everyone has their happily ever afters.
Number: 112
Setting: Wall-e comes from a Planet Earth that has been devastated by pollution. Several hundred years ago, the largest corporation in the world was Buy N’ Large, which seems to have been a super-Walmart, selling everything from food and clothes to spaceships. Overconsumption led to the planet becoming choked with garbage and debris, so much so that BNL built some gigantic, ark-like spaceships that could house the entire human race. The human race boarded the ships and set off for the stars, leaving the Earth in the hands of hard-working robots. The idea was that the robots would clean up the planet while the humans enjoyed a life of luxury on their interstellar cruise liners.
The problem that BNL discovered pretty quickly was that the Earth seemed to be unsalvageable. The air and water had become too toxic, dust storms were ravaging the planet and there was so much garbage that the robots had literally started stacking it into giant mountains of crushed cubes. So BNL scrapped the idea to ever return to Earth and resolved to let the human race live happily in space. They didn’t tell anyone about this, however, except for the robotic auto pilots of the cruise ships. That was all about seven hundred years ago.
The Earth is still a mess, with skyscrapers and mountains of garbage everywhere and terrifying dust storms, but recently it has started to bounce back. Plants have started to grow again. A small chunk of the human race has returned to the planet from the ship known as the Axiom, but it’s unknown if any other humans are out there somewhere. The humans who have returned, however, have resolved to try and take care of the planet and clean up their mess. They’ll be helped along by the assorted robots who are now also making the Earth their home.
History: It’s unclear when Wall-e was created, but judging by the fact that in the movie there are other Wall-es strewn around the area who are broken down and rusted, he’s probably very old. BNL created the Wall-e series to essentially be global janitors. Their entire purpose is to take garbage, compact it into manageable cubes and stack the cubes in out of the way locations. Originally there were lots of Wall-es, probably all over the world, but as the decades passed more and more of them began to break down.
Wall-e is now the last Wall-e in his region, maybe even in all the world. He has managed to stay alive by constantly doing self-maintenance, basically replacing any of his parts that break down. There are plenty of broken down robots around to borrow parts from, after all.
Wall-e was presumably just a robot at first, with a very basic AI and no real sense of self. However, over his years of solitude he began to develop a personality. He started collecting things among the garbage that interested him and moved himself and his collection into abandoned trailer of sorts. There he was safe from the dust storms that had undoubtedly destroyed many other robots. Years passed and his collection of items grew, and eventually he discovered music and videos. His favorite of these was a copy of Hello, Dolly, and he would often listen to the soundtrack while he worked to clear garbage. He befriended the cockroaches that lived in the dumps and learned the value of life and friendship.
Watching Hello, Dolly at night left him with a feel of absence, however, like something was missing in his life. That absence seemed to be filled when something strange happened one day. A large ship landed near Wall-e’s dump and dropped off a new, beautiful robot that Wall-e had never seen before. He tried to approach her, but she proved to be scary and rather trigger happy. She also seemed to be looking for something, so Wall-e followed her around for awhile. Eventually she calmed down and they were able to communicate, striking up a rapport. The robot’s name was Eve. When a sandstorm blew in, Wall-e brought Eve to his trailer so she would be sheltered from the scouring dust.
While at the trailer, Wall-e showed Eve his collection of things, including a little green plant growing out of a boot. Upon seeing the plant, Eve took it and promptly shut down. Unable to wake Eve up for days afterward, Wall-e towed Eve around and made sure she was safe. Not long later, the ship that had dropped Eve off returned to pick her up. Wall-e managed to climb aboard the ship as it took off and rode it all the way to its point of origin—a massive space cruiser called the Axiom.
Aboard the Axiom, Wall-e followed Eve as she was taken through the ship up to the bridge. There Eve was turned on again in order to find out about the plant she had found. She was surprised to see Wall-e and tried to get him to leave, saying that she needed to follow her directive. Unfortunately, the plant had disappeared, so both Eve and Wall-e were sent to maintenance.
In maintenance, Wall-e panicked when he thought that other robots were hurting Eve and caused a massive break out, causing himself and Eve to be labeled as rogue robots. Eve brought Wall-e to the escape pods and told him to go home, but before Wall-e could go, one of the security robots appeared with the plant and threw it into the escape pod, then set it to self destruct. Wall-e ran into the pod to get it, but the pod launched and exploded. Eve realized how much she cared about Wall-e when she thought he’d been killed, but Wall-e had escaped in time. Both of them agreed that Eve should bring the plant directly to the captain before the security robots could get in the way again.
It turned out that the auto pilot robot wanted to get rid of the plant, because the plant meant that the Axiom could return to Earth. A fight ensued on the bridge as Eve and the captain tried to protect the plant. All seemed lost when the auto pilot threw the plant down a garbage chute, but then Wall-e appeared. He hid the plant in his trash compactor, but the auto pilot electrocuted him and Wall-e fell down the shaft. The auto pilot then threw Eve down after him.
Wall-e was in bad shape, but then Eve realized that there would be spare parts to repair him back on Earth. The only way to get back to the planet, though was to bring the plant to the center of the ship and get past Auto and his security robots. Wall-e and Eve went on a mad dash through the ship while the captain tried to waylay Auto. Wall-e and Eve made it to the plant chamber, but then Auto tipped the Axiom on its side, causing debris to fall toward the humans who had gathered there. Eve rushed to protect the humans while Wall-e tried to hold the plant chamber open. Auto took control again and managed to force the plant chamber closed, but Wall-e pushed himself into it and was crushed in the process, leaving the chamber open.
The captain managed to shut down Auto and Eve quickly threw the plant into the chamber, which released Wall-e’s crushed body. The Axiom shot away through space, and as soon as it arrived at Earth, Eve carried Wall-e to his trailer. She managed to repair him, but when Wall-e woke up he was devoid of life and personality. Eve, certain that Wall-e was lost forever, could do nothing but hold his hand.
Miraculously, that alone was enough to bring Wall-e back. He and Eve happily accompanied the humans of the Axiom as they returned to the planet.
Personality: Before anything else, Wall-e is a robot, which means that his perception of the world and interaction with it is more limited than that of a human. Over time he has developed a personality well beyond his original programming and directive, but he’s still somewhat restricted in his ability to relate to the world and understand things. He has a harder time with abstract concepts and ideas than with concrete things. He feels a full spectrum of emotions, but he doesn’t always fully understand them. This isn’t really a problem for him however, since he interprets his emotions rather simply and finds simple solutions to them. If something makes him happy or curious, he keeps that thing around. If something scares him or makes him sad, he’ll avoid it. In that sense he’s more like a highly intelligent animal in terms of his emotional spectrum. He has learned pretty much everything he does know about emotions by watching movies and listening to music that the humans have left behind.
He’s also limited by the time he lives in, in that he doesn’t know what a lot of everyday items are. He has been alone on the planet for decades if not centuries, so he’s had to learn basically everything on his own. This is presumably how he learned about the planet’s deadly sandstorms and was able to consistently find shelter from them. It’s also probably how he learned to self-repair by taking parts he found in the junkyards or on broken down robots. His AI has allowed him to learn well beyond his original programming. In many ways, it was likely that his long solitude was what led to him developing a personality at all.
Wall-e is very cheerful and optimistic. His life is pretty monotonous considering that all he does all day is collect and compact trash, but he faces every day with joy and excitement. His job isn’t exactly optional considering it’s his directive, but he does seem to like it, seeing as it allows him to find and collect interesting items. He loves to collect things that catch his interest, but his idea of what is “interesting” is pretty arbitrary. Other people might consider his collection to essentially just be junk, but every item has meaning to him at least. He keeps his things well organized and divided by item similarity. He’s also rather resourceful in that he keeps extra robot parts around. This way he always has parts on hand if something breaks down.
His curiosity can lead to recklessness at times, though at least it’s a rather determined brand of recklessness. He’s basically like a cat with a laser pointer, almost literally at times; if he sees something neat or something he cares about he’ll poke it to find out what it does or run after it to catch it. He loves finding and discovering new things and then taking the time to learn what they are. When he does have some kind of goal, he’s rather single-minded about it, and he’s totally devoted to his collection and to the people he cares about. He’ll risk life and limb to help his friends, even if it means going well outside of his directive or comfort zone to
Part of this has to do with how intensely lonely he has been on Earth without anyone else around. He has made friends with cockroaches, but it’s not the same as having someone he can actually talk to. So when he does make friends, or in Eve’s case someone he loves, he does everything he can to keep them around. He discovered the idea of love through watching Hello, Dolly, and to him love means holding hands and being with someone you like. Since meeting Eve she has become the most important thing in his life, and being without her at Ataraxion is going to be very hard for him.
Wall-e has a rather cheeky streak. He’s been on his own for so long that he’s not used to the idea of being told what to do, so he doesn’t follow instructions very well. He’ll readily break rules if he feels it’s necessary or if they’re getting in the way. He generally does whatever he wants, even if a friend or Eve herself is the one asking him to do something. He’s very stubborn; once he sets his mind to something he is totally immovable. He’s also not above teasing people, like when he intentionally leaves mud around for Mo to clean up.
Finally, Wall-e is rather shy and he startles easily. He doesn’t like scary situations, though he tries to be brave when he can. He’s not very straightforward either, preferring to observe someone for awhile before trying to approach them. When he’s nervous or scared he tends to hide somewhere or under the nearest object.
Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: Wall-e has no special powers aside from an affinity for technology and other robots. He has a rather infectious personality that can make other robots think and feel beyond their directives. He’s also a very good garbage man; he’s not so great at keeping things clean, but he’s all about moving trash from one place to another. It’s pretty much his Thing.
His weaknesses are essentially that he’s been rather abruptly turned into a human and has absolutely no idea how a human body works. He won’t know how to walk, eat, speak or really do much of anything. He’s going to need a lot of help if he’s going to survive in Ataraxion. He has actually seen humans so he’s not completely ignorant of what they do, and hopefully that’ll be enough to keep him alive past the first day.
Inventory: A metal lighter and a tape deck with a cassette tape of the Hello, Dolly soundtrack.
Appearance: Normally he’s a cute little squarish robot with huge eyes. Now that he’s human, however, he’s short, scrappy and tan to reflect his appearance in canon and long time in harsh sunlight. His hair is black and cut poorly, so it stands up in places and otherwise just looks like a rat’s nest. He’s mostly Asian in appearance, and has black eyes and huge glasses. He is constantly filthy and seeing as he’s new to this whole human thing, he’ll spend a lot of his time in badly fitting clothes worn inside-out or backwards or in the wrong places. He may or may not show up with socks on his hands.
Age: Unknown, but certainly decades old if not centuries. Looks young, either late teens or early twenties.
AU Clarification: The AU is literally just that WALL-E has been turned into a human due to the game’s mechanics.
S A M P L E S
Log Sample: One of his best memories, before he met Eve anyway, was when he found the tape.
He had started ignoring his subroutine that kept track of time ages ago, so he wasn’t sure how long ago he’d found it. There had been fewer towers of cubes back then, at least. He’d already started collecting thing, the odd fork or hat or umbrella here and there, when he found the tape buried under some magazines. At first, he hadn’t known what it was or how to use it, so he’d just taken it home, played around with the flippy thing and the twirly things and the black strips that came out of it, and set it on a shelf. Later he’d found a television. It had taken ages to get it to work, and then even longer to figure out that the tape could slide into a panel near the television’s bottom. But eventually he’d managed it, and the tape had started to play.
He’d never seen anything like it until then. There were colors and movement and sounds. The colors and movements formed pictures. The sounds had recognizable patterns that were enjoyable. The pictures had shown humans. He knew about humans, of course—he’d never seen one, but information about them was stored in some corner of his memory bank. The humans moved and spoke and made expressions. They were fun to watch, and the sounds were fun to listen to. When the sounds grew softer at a certain point, the humans on the screen would hold onto each other’s hand. The image made his circuits feel warm.
Eventually he found other tapes, as well as smaller one that only played the nice, rhythmic sounds. He didn’t have words for any of the machines that made the tapes work, or for what the sounds or the images actually were. He figured he never really needed actual words to put to them. Words were for humans, after all. All he knew was that he liked them, and that they awoke something in him that he didn’t want to lose. That was all he really needed.
Comms Sample: Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!
W. Wa! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Waa-aairrr? Whhh. Wh-eee-rrr-ee? Ev-ah? Ev-ah wh-e-re? Wwww-aaaaa-lle wh-e-re?
Ddddd. Diiii-rec-tive, fff. Ffffiii. Fiiiiind Ev-ah. Di-rec-tive, fin-d Ev-ah! Go Err…Err…Eeee-aarrrth. E-arth. Ev-ah thhh…thhhh…ooon, on E-arth!
Wh-e-re?
