Tag: sxllbotvp

“Certainly: I have tons of copies of them. GPSes aren’t perfect, you know.”

He opened a desk drawer and shuffled around a bit, eventually leading to his whole arm being in the desk part until he pulled out a box completely full of up-to-date maps of all of Toontown.

He pointed to Sellbot Hq, in the lowest left corner.

“You’re here. See, we’re connected to the flowery playground, Daisy Gardens, which connects to Donald’s Dock and Toontown Central, where the mayor Flippy is. I talk to him sometimes when he ends up being in the cage and it’s a slow day. Even then we still hate each other, but I guess that’s a given.”

The Repairman slid back as the box was placed onto the desk.

“M-hm,” he said, studying the map. A very colorful one, to be sure, with greys where, presumably, the Cogs resided. Interestingly, there didn’t seem to be any gradual shifts between places, they were just there. He assumed this was just th way the map was drawn.

“I see,” he said, after a moment. “What do you talk to… Flippy, was it? … about?”

“Yes, it’s a night-themed area of town and a very sleepy little burg too, as you could imagine.”

He folded his hands.

“Cashbot Headquarters is accessible from there. It’s weird, because their HQ’s a train station, but also a massive bank?”

The cog shrugged. He didn’t get the whole train thing. Maybe the CFO just really liked trains.

“Reminds me a tiny bit of Gringott’s if that’s the name of the place… Haven’t read those books in years.”

“Gringott’s…?”

The Repairman had never heard of such a thing. What was that? Well, if it was just in a book, it probably wasn’t part of this game, so he mentally shook himself and continued:

“Actually, speaking of locations, do you have a map or something? It would probably help me get my bearings a little.”

“Ah, yes! I’ve heard of the other Toontown before, especially from stranger looking ‘toons’ I’ve seen come up here. It’s always a little surreal to see toons that actually are 2D and not just given an effect to look like that. Or characters that’ve been rotoscoped and look hyper ‘realistic’. Whatever that means.”

He looked at himself again and back at the Repairman.

“Hmm. Maybe I should see about going there if one of those weird greyfaced fairy things turns me into a bunny again.”

The Repairman wasn’t too surprised that the VP had heard this before.

What confounded him was the phrase “grey-faced fairy things.” What was he talking about…? The inkblot stared blankly at the Cog for a moment or two, then it hit him.

Magic Anons.

The Repairman could only recall two Magic Anons he had had to deal with. One had helped him have a nice break by creating a duplicate (who, last he heard, was living in Townsville under the name “Philip Gelatino”), but the other had turned him into a plank of wood that said “MeeM” over and over.

Needless to say, those things were a fickle bunch. He was personally glad he hadn’t seen any lately.

“Well, um…” the Repairman replied politely, “I hope you enjoy yourself if you ever go there. There’s certainly a lot to see.”

“I can only assume after things like Kingdom Hearts and Smash… Or…”

He shuddered. Did he want to even say this? Did he want to bring it up? No. He wasn’t going to tread into the territory of noncanonical authorizations. They scared him, really. He’d been on the internet before.

“…Nevermind. Anyway, massive crossovers like those probably made travel between universes not as exciting as it could be. Anyway, uh, where’s your favorite place you’ve been? It’s not easy for me to get out much, considering…”

He gestured at himself. Yeah. A 20-foot-tall tanklike business robot probably wouldn’t fare too well on the streets,

“Yeah…” the Repairman nodded. But what was that shudder? There wasn’t an iss– oh. The inkblot agreed; it wasn’t a good idea to bring those up. A lot of it made him glad he usually showed up after a scene.

The Repairman shook himself at the VP’s “anyway.” He was grateful for the shift in gears.

“…Favorite…hmm…”

One would think this would be easy, considering how often the Toon had to travel. The problem was, for most of the Repairman’s life, he had been incredibly focused on his job, more so than nowadays, so he hadn’t paid too much attention. Still, there were a few places he did rather like…

“Well, there’s a world also known as Toontown, where folks from every universe can meet. You’re never out of place there, regardless of shape, size or style.”

He coughed. He was aware of his inky form often clashing with the looks of the world he was in, and he didn’t like to dwell on that.

“So long as you can look past the constant crashes, explosions, and pratfalls, it’s actually pretty nice.”

“Sounds like a tough job… Let’s hope things stay in tact for a bit.” 

Maybe he should talk about something other than the fourth wall. That should help, right? Well, he didn’t. VP. VP. Please.

“You know… I just remembered, there are a whole rank of cogs who actually break the fourth wall on purpose as part of an attack.”

He’d dealt with those birds before, odd cogs they were.

“Hey— since you can fix the Wall and interact with it, does that technically mean you can be on either side? So basically you could go literally wherever you wanted to?”

“Yes, let’s,” the Repairman replied, almost solemnly.

He perked up when the VP mentioned Cogs who deliberately broke the Wall. Still, if the VP didn’t deliberately do it, why would these?

“Oh, good to know.”

He would ask more about them later. For now, there was more the VP wanted to know.

“No,” the Repairman replied, “I can’t go to…”

He cringed. He really didn’t like discussing the other side. He was only concerned about the side he was on, and talking about the other was dangerous territory.

“…‘the real world,’ as they call it. I can visit other Toony worlds, but that’s not too special these days.”

“The simulation thing was just an argument we had. Cogs do ‘respawn’, but they’re not. They’re not really the same? It’s weird to explain because mass production and personality scrambling software to create personalities for each chassis and the difficulty of getting compatible hardware to back yourself up, and—well, you get what I’m catching at.”

He looked over at the wall that supposedly had cracks on it. Cracks he couldn’t see, maybe he could now, but they weren’t registering for the robot yet. He kept looking between the different walls around him, a bit of an embarrassed expression on one of his two faces.

“Wait. Since you’re the Repairman, what’s the worst broken wall you’ve ever actually seen? What happens if a wall gets COMPLETELY broken, or has that never happened?”

“Ohhh…” the Repairman nodded. That made sense. Even if it was a game, this was still a coherent world.

He furrowed his brow at the VP’s questions.

“The worst wall? Well, I only really fix the Fourth Wall, but where was it worst…?”

The Repairman adjusted his stance to be closer to a “sitting” position, pondering this question. He muttered things like “that one office with that narrator,” “Townsville,” and “wherever the heck that moose was.”

After a while of musing, he looked back up and said “…Let’s just say it’s been pretty rough.

"As for what happens if it gets completely broken,” he continued, standing upright again, “I…honestly don’t know.”

If he had feet, he would be shuffling them right now.

“Wait. Really? HAH. THE CJ OWES ME $50.”

The award for ‘Under-Reaction Of The Year’ goes to…

“Okay, but that’s really hilariously meta, because if someone tried to change my code, someone else on another plane would have to code them to re-code me, and I’m written in an actual programming language entirely, not just mentally. That’s hilarious, but also kind of terrifying, but still hilarious.”

The Repairman jumped in surprise at the VP’s laugh. He had anticipated a lot of reactions to the news, but that was not one of them.

“So not only do your cogs likely respawn, but you profited off this, too!”

What he did expect was more fourth-wall-breaking, but not anything like this bot was making it out to be. The Repairman couldn’t even bring himself to explain the Wall to the VP until he was finished. He found himself half-heartedly laughing along, instead.

“Heh, well,” the Repairman started after it was done, “I’m glad you’re taking this as well as you are, but I probably should have introduced myself first. I am the Fourth Wall Repairman, and I would appreciate it if you tried to be less…meta.”