#it’s a fantastic fic and I love how it explores Alan’s POV

[inksandpensblog]

Don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before but ever notice how Alan stops using hotkeys whenever he’s interacting with the sticks in a friendly capacity, after AvA4?

Like I know in real life people don’t really have any rhyme or reason to when they do or don’t use keyboard shortcuts, but it really seems like he consistently does not use them in non-combat situations.

The only exception I can think of is after the five-month timeskip in AvA4, when he and Orange are working on the Pegasus together. He hotkeys between the pencil and text tools (which presumably is also how he was able to still use the pencil function even while Orange had the pencil icon).

But that’s just five months after they made their deal. By The Virus they’ve had years together.

In The Virus he switches to the text tool and the grabber tool manually once Orange initiates an interaction, but once Orange asks for the hammer he's back to hotkeys.

In Wanted he uses hotkeys after throwing that rock at Orange and all through the spar, but when he first goes to get whatever tool he used for that rock he fetches it manually.

And I don’t know, but to me it almost feels like he’s deliberately putting himself at a disadvantage. Not a tremendous one, granted, but. When keyboard shortcuts are an option, heck when keyboard shortcuts may be natural or even expected…and he chooses to forgo them…

He’s holding back. Evening the playing field. Meeting them on their level.

I like the dynamic that implies ^_^