One Passing Night app

Your name: Shannon
Your journal: black_angel_
Contact: AIM: New Age DaVinci ; Plurk
Other characters played at Passing: N/A

Character name: Sam Flynn
Character fandom: Tron: Legacy
Version: V1
Importing development from old game? No
Background:

Sam Flynn was born to Kevin Flynn and Jordan Canas. He lost his mother at an early age, though. In 1985, he lost her to a car accident. He still had his grandparents and his father though, despite the fact that his father was quite absent for much of his young life. Kevin Flynn had been CEO of a major software / video game company called Encom, though he stepped down after Jordan was killed. That didn't really mean that Sam got to see him anymore though. Kevin still had an arcade that he owned and operated, and then there was the Grid. The digital frontier. An entire civilization inside of a computer. Sam heard stories of it again and again but the stories weren't enough. He wanted to see this place for himself. He wanted to be part of the place that seemed to be taking all of his father's time from him.

In 1989, things changed. Drastically. At Sam's grandparents one night, Kevin sat down to tell Sam one of his usual stories about the Grid. Sam had heard them all before. It was obvious in the way that he filled in all the blanks. Once the story had ended, Sam asked once again if he could see it. He wanted to go. He didn't get quite what he wanted though. Instead of a trip to the Grid, young Sam ended up getting a date with his father for the following day. He was to spend some time with his father at Kevin's arcade, playing games with him. For a seven year old boy, that was quite acceptable. Except that watching his father ride away on his Ducati that night was the last time Sam saw him.

Kevin Flynn never returned.

There were theories about just why Kevin was gone. Sam listened to none but his own, though. He didn't want to believe that his father would just up and leave him like that. He didn't want to believe that his father would run from all of his responsibilities. He didn't want to believe that his father had died, or was killed. It had already happened to his mother just four years before. It couldn't have happened to Kevin too. His father had promised him some time at the arcade, and even left him with a quarter to pay for the first round. He couldn't be gone. Despite the sometimes wild theories floating around, Sam believed that his father would be back. He had to be back. He promised.

Losing both parents at such a young age had a negative effect on him, just as it would anyone, really. He started to withdraw from everyone, his grandparents included. But at the same time, he started to act out. He got into fights at school and was often absent for no reason. It was just when he was out, though. At home, he was near to being the perfect grandson. Compliant. Respectful. Willing. Loving. Helpful. She didn't see the budding young delinquent that everyone else saw.

Things got progressively worse when his grandparents, too, passed. The number of people he could turn to was dwindling rapidly, so he mostly stopped turning to people, despite the best efforts of his godfather, Alan Bradley. Alan was Kevin's friend and coworker, and he took up the reins as Sam's surrogate father as the young Flynn's options became more limited. Sam had already closed himself off to most people though. It became even worse twice a year. Sam became much more antisocial during the months of July and September. His father disappeared in a July, and his mother was killed during a September.

As Sam grew older, his behavior didn't much improve. It actually got progressively worse. Dangerous stunts. Extreme sports. Excessive speeding on the restored Ducati that once belonged to his father, as well as what could only be described as reckless driving. He also got into vandalizing property. Graffiti. Tagging things with "89". It was the year everything changed for him, after all.

Sam eventually got into the habit of, year after year, playing a prank of some sort on Encom. It was a way to commemorate his father's disappearance some years before. Usually it had something to do with Kevin's original vision for the company. Kevin thought that the software they created should be widely available, and free for public use. Because it was his father's vision, Sam carried that with him.

Sam didn't really want anything to do with the company, though. He didn't want to be part of the spotlight that came with it, and was just generally disinterested. It wasn't his father's company anymore, so he just didn't care. He had a strange way of showing it, though. In April of 2010, Sam crashed an Encom press conference, where they were announcing Space Paranoids Online. Space Paranoids was his father's game, originally. He didn't want to see his father's work repackaged and resold. He jumped from an Encom helicopter, parachuting into the building where the announcement was being made. But not before filming a short video meant, at least partially, for Alan. The rest of the video was about the year 1989, and it being the year that changed everything for him.

Come July, it was time for Sam's annual prank. It happened to coincide with the release of Encom's newest operating system. After evading the police due to some excessive speeding, Sam broke into the Encom tower. He ended up releasing the master file of Encom OS12 to the internet, giving the OS away for free, as it was intended. The operating systems that Encom designed were always meant to be free. After getting cornered on the roof of the building, he proved just how reckless he could be (but not impulsive, in this situation. He'd been prepared). He leaped from the building. Despite that, he still ended up getting caught by the police. His reaction to getting caught just showed that he'd been in that situation before. Either that, or he'd just really stopped caring at that point. They always released him, after all.

After being released that time, when he went back to the garage he called a home, Alan was waiting there for him. He claimed that he'd gotten a page from Flynn's arcade. That place had been closed since Flynn's mysterious disappearance and the number had long since been disconnected.  Sam wasn't really sure what to think but he didn't really believe that there was anything to it. He'd finally convinced himself that there was no big conspiracy behind his father's disappearance. He finally believe that his father had run away or was dead. Or both. Despite everything he said, though, Sam ended up going to the arcade. He just had to know where the page came from.

Just like Sam thought, there was no one at the arcade. The place had still been locked when he got there. Despite the light being on in his father's office above the arcade, that, too, was empty. After that, Sam went to a game at the back of the arcade. It was Tron. He was supposed to play that with his father twenty years before. After a failed attempt to play it himself, right then, the machine swung away from the wall to reveal a passage behind. 

Exploration of the passage behind the Tron machine lead Sam to a computer terminal. Sam finally had a chance to get some insight into what his father had been working on, that he had to disappear for. A bit of looking came up with little. A Last Will and Testament document and something about a laser. The laser was mentioned time and time again. "LLLSDLaserControl". Since it was what seemed to come up the most, Sam ran the program, which brought up a small dialogue window:

Aperture Clear?
<YES> <NO>

He didn't give it too much thought before he hit 'YES'. 'YES' transported him to a world he never thought he'd see. A place that he'd stopped believing in a long time ago. Just from his father's stories, though, he knew where he was. It was confirmed by the first vehicle that he saw. A Recognizer. It was something that he’d only heard of in his father’s stories of when he’d spent time in the Grid before. It was there to pick him up and take him to wherever it was decided that he was supposed to be. He was there with seven other Programs - lines of code given human form - who seemed to be in the same situation as him. He tried to find out what was going on, but the Programs all seemed too worried to speak to him. Each Program was given a designation. Only a small few were told to go to games. Sam was one of them. One Program actually rathered deresolution - death for Programs - than being sent to games.

After being sent to the Armory with the Sirens - Programs whose designation it was to outfit newcomers with proper armor as well as Identity Discs, which would keep a record of everything done by that particular Program. It was something required. A Program found without their Identity Disc was subject to immediate deresolution - Sam was sent out into the Arena with the other Programs who were fated to spent their time in the Games.

Sam managed to survive Disc Wars - a battle fought with the Identity Discs, themselves - and more importantly, his fight with Rinzler who was top notch on the Game Grid. Rinzler took notice that Sam wasn't a Program. He was, in fact, a User. One of only two in the Grid. Humans from the outside world. Sam was taken to a man with his father's face. He hadn't aged, though. He looked exactly like Sam remembered him, even though twenty years had passed. It wasn't his father, though. It was Clu. A Program created by Flynn, in his likeness, because Flynn wanted the ability to be in two places at once. Clu had been told to create the perfect system, and that was what he was doing. He’d become leader of the Grid. It didn’t take Sam long to figure that out. A short conversation and, basically, a death sentence for Sam had him going to the lightcycle Grid. Another thing that Sam had only heard about in Flynn’s stories. Cycles that raced on ribbons of light. Trying to make your opponent hit the ribbon. Sam and a team of four other Programs, against Clu and four of his Black Guards.

The lightcycle battle was down to just Sam and Clu before someone else intervened. Sam’s lightcycle had been destroyed, but Clu was still on his. Sam still stood his ground, though. If not for the intervention, Sam probably would have been killed.

The someone ended up being a girl, about Sam’s age, named Quorra. She took him off Grid, where the lightcycles couldn’t follow, to the Outlands. There wasn’t much out there, aside from one lone home. It was far outside of the city. There were but two people who lived there. Quorra, and Kevin Flynn. The actual Kevin Flynn. He was as Sam had pictured him. He was old. He looked to be in, about, his sixties or so. He’d been trapped in the Grid for those twenty years. Their reunion was short-lived though. A quick catch-up during dinner was all there really was. Sam discovered, though, that his father had changed drastically. He was no longer the impulsive, near responsibility free man that Sam once knew.

It was then that Sam first got to hear more details about a miracle that his father had once talked about. Programs that hadn't been created by him, but rather, they had manifested just because the conditions were right. They would be the answer to a lot of mankind's problems. They were called ISOs. Isomorphic Algorithms. But with Flynn's ideals in mind, Clu destroyed them. They were an imperfection in his eyes. It was genocide. None of the ISOs survived.

Much to Sam’s dismay, Flynn wanted to do nothing more than wait. They didn’t have the time for waiting, though. There was a portal that had opened when Sam entered the Grid, and that was their ticket out of there. Back to the User world. But the portal was closing. And Flynn just wanted to wait.

Sam didn’t. Quorra seemed to support Sam’s idea, which worked out in Sam’s favor. She pointed him in the direction of a Program that had helped others in the past. So without his father's go-ahead or even knowledge, Sam took Flynn's lightcycle and went into the city. He Program that was was looking for was named Zuse. At the End of Line Club, Sam found just who he was looking for. The Program named Zuse. Things were actually looking hopeful, with Zuse and Sam discussing ways to get to the portal. That was until the club was attacked by Clu's Black Guards. Sam was their way to Flynn. If they got Flynn, they could get his Identity Disc and if they got his disc, they could get out into the User world. Clu didn't think it was right that Users could go to their world, but Programs couldn't go to the User world. He wanted out, and all of Flynn's time in hiding was to prevent that.

Sam started to fight back against Clu's Guards, just to have Quorra intervene once more. She fought for Sam's life while, it seemed, thinking very little of her own. They fought well together until Sam was taken down and Quorra's arm was shattered, causing her systems to shut down. Everything seemed to be going downhill, and quickly, with Sam down and Quorra offline. That was, until the Creator, himself, intervened to save the life of his son, and the girl who'd been with him for so long. During their escape, though, Flynn's disc was stolen by one of the Black Guards.

Sam knew that he did wrong, and wanted to do whatever he could to remedy it. Flynn's disc was gone and Quorra was damaged, all because they'd gone to the End of Line Club to save his ass. Sam was ready to do whatever he needed to, to get Flynn's disc back, but it was that willingness to run into a situation without thinking first that got him into that predicament in the first place. The one where Flynn's disc got stolen and Quorra was damaged. Flynn's decision to do nothing this time was more than warranted.

But then a plan presented itself, in the form of a solar sailer. They'd do it Sam's way, to an extent. 'Full on sprint to the portal'. But they'd do it riding one of the solar sailers. It would provide them with adequate transportation, but it would also give Flynn the time required to make an attempt at repairing Quorra. It was while Flynn was going through Quorra's code that something struck Sam about her. She was one of the ISOs that his father had been talking about earlier. She was the last ISO. It was then that Quorra's intervention at the End of Line Club really started to bother him. Quorra risked herself for him, despite how important she was to Flynn and, ultimately, the User world.

It was a long time coming, and short lived, but Sam and Flynn finally got the reunion that they didn't really get to have before Sam ran off into the city to find a way back home. It seemed like little more than small talk, though. Sam told Flynn about some simple things that were happening in the User world. There wasn't much that had any real weight behind it. They reminisced about when Sam was a kid, and Flynn told him about what the Grid used to be like, back before everything got so messed up. Eventually, though, Sam got sent off to deal with Quorra, who was rebooting.

Once Quorra was on her feet again - and once she got Sam's reassurance that he knew she was an ISO - Sam got to hear about the destruction of the ISOs from the point of view of one of them. He was told about how every one of them was derezzed and how she was the only one to make it out alive. The most important thing, though, was that his father was a hero. He took the ISO in when there was no one else.

Unbeknown to it's passengers, the solar sailer's course had been diverted, and it came to rest at a huge carrier ship. A Rectifier. It was where Programs were taken to be repurposed. Clu couldn't create his own Programs to work for him, and be on his side, but he could change their programming to make them follow him. Clu was building his own army.

Some sneaking around on the Rectifier lead them to what appeared to be a dead-end. Clu's most fearsome warrior and greatest asset was on watch. If they tried to make a run for it, Rinzler would surely see them. Quorra handed Flynn her disc and ran off, almost immediately getting caught by Rinzler. Sam wanted more than anything to go after her - he really didn't like that she was sacrificing herself again, and he hated the idea of her being rectified and ending up like the rest of the Programs in Clu's ever-growing army - but Flynn wouldn't allow it, and instead, they ran.

Flynn and Sam were there to witness Clu as he addressed his army, telling them of the User world, and his plan to get them all out into it. That simply reinforced the idea that there wasn't much time for the User's to get out. Sam had had it in his head since the beginning that if he could just get out, a simple keystroke would be the end of Clu. But that took getting out before him, and they had all started toward the portal together, on the Rectifier. There was little time left to get Flynn's disc back. And Quorra.

While Flynn wanted to get Sam to the portal to destroy Clu from the outside, Sam wanted to go for Flynn's disc and get the three of them out together. He knew that Flynn and Quorra wouldn't last in there until he managed to keystroke Clu away. Minutes outside were hours on the Grid, after all. The time flow was too different. He'd never get it done in time. No, they were going to do it Sam's way. He just told his father to find them some transportation and meet him on the flight deck. He claimed to have to plan, but then, he didn't need one. One thing Users had over Programs was the ability to improvise, after all.

Sam was going after Quorra and the disc. He infiltrated the inner sanctum of the Rectifier, derezzing a fair number of Clu's Black Guards along the way. Upon arriving where Flynn's disc was being kept, Sam came across Clu's 'right-hand man', Jarvis. Self-preservation took over, though, and Jarvis just let Sam walk out with the disc. Sam wasn't finished with him though. He still didn't have Quorra and he wasn't leaving without her.

She was with Rinzler. That much was clear rather quickly. Sam took Rinzler on a second time, but he had something that he didn't have the first time: he a second disc, and Quorra. With the help of both, Rinzler was incapacitated long enough to allow Quorra and Sam to escape. Down on the flight deck, Flynn was waiting for them with a light jet, just as Sam had instructed. As was the "plan", they made a run for the portal. But they were being pursued, though that happening should have been an obvious occurrence. Clu, Rinzler and several of Clu's Black Guards. With Sam on the turret and Quorra at the wheel, though, they managed to whittle their pursuers down to just Clu and Rinzler. Rinzler was right on their tail when something happened and Rinzler flew his light jet straight into Clu's, taking them both out. It was over. They were home free.

It wasn't going to be that easy though. Clu was waiting for them at the portal, and the Rectifier was still on it's way to them. Sam wanted to go after Clu, but Flynn wouldn't allow it. That was, until Clu took Flynn down. Then there wasn't really much that could hold Sam back, and he went after Clu, himself. Sam was all but tossed aside by Clu, and was about to make another run at him when Quorra intervened and started to force him back to the portal. He wanted to go back for his father, though. He didn't want to leave without him. He didn't want to lose him a second time, so soon.

Clu went after Flynn, and left Sam and Quorra. He needed Flynn's disc, but Quorra actually had it. Despite Clu's best attempt, Flynn managed to keep him from reaching the portal - and more importantly, his son - and reintegrated Clu, taking the Program back into himself. It was supposed to destroy them both. Sam barely saw the blast before he and Quorra were taken through the portal, and transported back to the arcade.

Back on the other right - his side - Sam copied the Grid onto a microchip that he wore on a chain around his neck. When he left the back room of the arcade, Alan was waiting for him. Sam had paged him and called him to the arcade to inform him of his decision. Sam was taking back the company. He also told Alan that he was right about everything, though he didn't elaborate from there.

Quorra was waiting for Sam outside of the arcade and when she questioned him about their next move, he simply said that they were supposed to change the world. But there was something more important that they needed to do first.

Sam wanted to show Quorra her first sunrise.

Changes from canon, if AU: N/A

Personality:

Sam's not quite the person he seems to be on the outside. Due to his father's disappearance back in the late 80s, Sam became a lot more angry at everything, and started to shut himself away. He lashed out at people in school, getting into fights too often. He often challenged authority. He just stopped caring about most things, even himself, as was shown in the way he'd pull risky stunts, starting with a skateboard, and moving up to a motorcycle, as well as jumping off of buildings and from helicopters.

After the death of his grandparents which, thus, left him without a family, Sam became reclusive and even more anti-social, though the anti-social and reclusive behavior got even worse in July and Septmeber, which was when his father disappeared and when his mother died. He never got over what happened to them but then, they were his parents. It's only natural that it would be something that he wouldn't really get past. He didn't like the idea of being in the spotlight - or any sort of light, for that matter - and wanted to simply fade into the background. He walled himself off from society. He didn't even live near everyone else, choosing, instead, to live in a garage on the water front. Even his pranks are usually pulled anonymously, even though getting caught tends to often change that.

Things changed, though, when Sam got to the Grid. It no longer paid to be anti-social. Working with people was the only way to get out of the Grid alive. Just getting his see his father again seemed to fix some things for him. He became a little more open with things, and started to depend a little more on others. He never really got over his need to challenge authority, though, and even often challenged his father, even though he knew Kevin knew better than him about the goings on in the Grid, given that he'd spent twenty years / over a thousand cycles there. He also never really got over his impulsive nature, or tendency to make rash, and even dangerous, decisions. That, though, was almost as much of a help, as it was a hindrance.

Sam even ended up starting to feel a sense of responsibility, and decided to take his place at Encom's head. He still probably wouldn't be making much in the way of public appearances for Encom, but reintroducing himself into society after so long alone wasn't really a jump in with both feet kinda thing. Even for someone like Sam. Or rahter, especially for someone like Sam.

Abilities:

Sam has some pretty regular abilities. Nothing superhuman or flashy. He's trained in a Brazilian art form called Capoeira, which mixes elements of martial arts, sports and music. It uses a series of quick and complex moves including kicks, leg sweeps and aerial acrobatics (it helps that he was quick and agile before he ever started training). He's also such a smart boy. Good with computers and other tech, just like his father was.

Can't say for sure how much of an ability this is, but Sam's also pretty fearless in the face of physical danger. Easily due, at least in part, to the way he grew up with his family all dropping off like flies, but he's not really afraid of putting himself out there physically. He'll try just about anything if he thinks there's even a chance that he'll make it. It's just a bonus that he has confidence in his abilities. Either that, or he's a rather gifted faker.

Writing sample:

Life-long delinquency. Anti-social and reclusive behaviors. Self-destructive tendencies. He often challenged authority. There was a whole laundry list of problematic tendencies that he had due to -- or maybe in spite of -- his father’s disappearance twenty years before. He had some resentment issues, but he wasn't about to dwell on those during his first reunion with his father in twenty years. They were just always there. There was nothing that he could do about them. There wasn't much that he could do about any of it. It was all a part of who he was. It was all since he was a child. His mother died. His father disappeared. His grandparents died. That was a lot to deal with for a young boy. He would never admit it out loud, but it damaged him.

Sam watched Kevin and Quorra speak in their hushed tones. Kevin, his father who'd spent the last twenty years on the Grid, and Quorra, the girl who saved him from his untimely death at Clu's hands. The girl that Kevin seemed to have taken under his wing. ...the girl who seemed to have replaced Sam. Kevin would probably tell him that it wasn't true, but there was something more there than teacher and pupil. He didn't even know his father anymore, and he could see it. The father that he remembered is who he saw in Clu, not in Kevin. This new person... Sam didn’t know him. The new Kevin was so... Responsible. Calm. Everyone changed, of course, but it made the reunion with his father something less than special. Reuniting with someone he barely knew. Regardless, Flynn was still his father, and Sam was still happy to see him, even if only because he got some kind of closure from it. No more wondering what had happened.

Sam approached the old man and the girl. They needed to get out of the Grid. He was sure that both of them wanted to get back just as much as he did. He stopped behind both of them, looking out of the digital screen and toward the city. The way home was that way too. If they could just get through the city, and to the portal before it closed then they would be home-free. Clu could be dealt with from the outside. Clu couldn’t get them from the other side of the computer monitor. Users were capable of great things, right? “Dad, what are we doing?”

“We’re waiting, Sam.”

Waiting? They were just waiting? They were just waiting and the portal was closing. They didn’t know how much time they were going to need to get past Clu and his Black Guards and Rinzler. They were wasting time. No wonder Flynn didn’t get out twenty years ago. “We can’t just sit here and wait! We have to go. Time’s running out.” Flynn gave Sam some explanation about why they were waiting, but Sam only half listened. He was already trying to come up with a way to get his father to go along with him when he decided to leave, which would be soon. That definitely wasn’t the father that he remembered. The Flynn he remembered would have made a run for the portal as soon as he could. He would have been practically dragging Sam along. It was up to Sam. He would get them out of there his way, if Flynn refused to act.

Voice sample:

Example #1 ; Example #2