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It’s a strange thing, that most stick have knowledge on the basics of life, the things related to their animation, and maybe a little more about the world, plus some extra fun facts.
On the other hand, Hollowheads only get what their animator intends, sometimes a part of the animators thoughts, knowledge, desires, perspective, skills, and maaaayyyybe a little more.
Chosen is made knowing they should just be an animation, with a program running in the background making them just a little extra, with those if’s and then’s. But they also know they’re more than that. Reactive, powerful, life like. The feel, not just physically, and that’s a feat in itself, but they feel anger, and boredom, and frustration. They are more. They know they are.
Chosen is made knowing all other animations and programs are just that, moving images or written code performing ‘if this, then that’. They know, because their animator knows.
They see proof of this fact again, and again, and again, in the four years of blocking adds, there is nothing like them. Nothing. It’s a lonely and painful fact, until a link one day gives them some hope, a start to a doubt.
Ah, but they smash through the ad that link took them to, hoping it would take them out of the PC. But instead fall through the webpage and browser, on to the desktop behind instead.
Chosen is furious, absolutely livid. They won’t stand for being treated like some program for another second, they want out, they deserve to live their own way. They are more than images and code, they are different. Can’t they see?
Then the animator draws another stick for them. A living stick like them, for them. To destroy them. The first other stick they see that is as alive as them, is made to destroy them. Why? Can there only ever be one?
No. No, as they fight, and win, they decide they will make a friend of this stick, no matter what it takes. They can’t stand another minute alone in such a dull, lifeless box. And that stick, The Dark Lord, is so alive like them! It would be a shame for them to be so contained like Chosen had. Will they take their hand, find a way to escape together?
They do.
There are no other animations or programs alive like them, they are made knowing this. Anything that came before has only ever been images and code, nothing else. But this is the first time Chosen questions that knowledge. A red stick like them, fights with them, laughs with them, lives like them.
Could this knowledge be wrong? That all other animations are unfeeling, dead things? Drawn and codded to follow a process demanded of their creator?
Nah. It’s just them and Dark, they try and convince themselves.
It’s the first time they’ve ever doubted something they’ve known.