AmazonDolphin

I really liked the visual of his connector strings. Literally another point of distance between him and the humans because he could never really touch the mind files himself he could only do it through this thin connector.

Ok so Caine's part of the finale was my favorite because he's my son and I love him. I watched it for the first time in theaters and was mostly caught up in the joy that he was still alive and the absolute beauty of the visuals that I kinda glossed over the confusion I felt until I could watch the episode on YouTube.

I think Caine's part was half flashback and half what was going on in the present day. Idk if that's what everyone has already interpreted and I'm just stupid but I have seen people say that the dot slowly growing a human body was to symbolize Caine becoming more human as he got closer to the WiFi and I don't think that's the case.

Before everything, Caine consumed the blue dot (known to most of us as Abel). Just after this, he glitched out for a while and then created the circus. We were shown all this in the opening to episode 8. I believe that every scene with Caine being this red dot (including him growing limbs), was from just before the circus was created. He created the circus, and probably the grounds surrounding it, and then was left entirely alone. So he floats through the void, because what else is there to do? Eventually, he sees a folder in the distance. He builds supports for himself to not fall further into the void away from the folder, and as he approaches he forms something resembling a full avatar around himself. Inside the folder are the mindfiles of the original cast (Kinger, Scratch, Queenie, and all the other employees of C&A). Kinger said that they weren't working properly at first, and that Caine somehow found a way to get them functional. And he does; he brushes away the glitches surrounding them, he gives them an avatar of their own and places them in the circus, showing humans what he's created, as he was made to do. Added benefit of him finally not being alone anymore.

The other half of this scene was Caine accessing the WiFi. He's done this all before, but it's been so long he probably doesn't even remember anymore. he accesses the WiFi, and pulls out the names of the active players that he has (including Jax, as he doesn't yet know she's abstracted). He could leave, go see the infinte world of the macroverse he's so obsessed with for himself, but he doesn't. He stands at the threshold and absorbs as much information about his cast as he can, until the connection breaks, and he's left in the void again.

In both these scenes Caine is reaching out to the humans. He's giving them their lives. In the case of the original cast, this is their circus avatars and activating their dormant mind files. In the case of our cast, it's their lives in the macroverse. In both these cases doing this for the humans is dangerous to Caine; at any point he could fall into the void, and directly interacting with the files or the WiFi was shown to be painful. But he does it anyway because he would do anything for his humans.

IRL update for anyone who cares: finally done with everything school/internship related so I have been doing nothing but drawing, going on walks and eating food for the past 3 days. It's been great and tomorrow I get on a plane and see my dog (and parents) whom I haven't seen in like 3 months and I AM SO HAPPY :DDDD

Alt version without the xenonite suit cuz I felt really proud of the textures on Rocky.

Also, Ryland Grace being widely headcanoned as aroace is so important to me. That Grace got his happy ending with his best friend and his students. That his relationship with Rocky was never once diminished by Rocky having a romantic partner. That this movie made over 600 million and had ZERO romantic subplot. People connected with this relationship that was purely platonic, and I honestly didn't realise how much I needed to see that.

On the actual drawing, the xenonite suit was actually so much fun! Geometric shapes my beloved. Also the background is a lil reference to the book version of the mission patch :]

I love Yao and Ilyukhina so much, this was the best part of the karaoke scene change my mind. LOOK AT THEM <3333

Also close-up of Rocky cuz he's so fudging cute I love him <333

I'm really excited to draw Rocky, this was just me getting him in the right pose over where my sketch was, I'll move him later :]

Seriously Artemis II made me feel like everything might be ok. That at it's core, humanity cares for one another. That we can go explore the unknown with love and art and care and curiosity. I cannot look at the moon in the same way.

Some highlights of the mission that I will never ever forget:

⁠Astronaut describing the view outside the window of the moon all excited and mission control replying “amaze amaze amaze”

⁠⁠”Copy moon joy”

Rise the zero gravity indicator

Reid Wiseman showing a friendship bracelet and giving a heart to the camera when he realised his daughters were in mission control, and mission control replying “copy love, copy bracelet”

Victor Glover before going behind the moon into communications blackout saying “We love you from the moon”

⁠⁠Their conversation after the blackout: “Ultimately, we will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other.” “Integrity, from Earth, from our single system, fragile and interconnected, we copy” (Christina Koch and Jenni Gibbons respectively). This quote makes me insane

The astronauts got a call from Trump. They had nothing to say to him so there was a full minute of silence on the livestream before Reid Wiseman called mission control to make sure the comms didn’t cut off.

Them visiting Trump in the oval office when they return to Earth and looking completely done the entire time

⁠⁠There were two new craters on the side of the moon. One is named Integrity after their capsule and the other Carroll after Reid Wiseman's late wife, who died of cancer in 2020. They called it a “bright spot on the dark side of the moon”

The astronauts hugging after confirming the name Carroll

The nutella jar

⁠⁠Everything during the splashdown went well except the sat phone to call the rescue crews wasn’t working inside the capsule

⁠⁠Because of this mission control asked the astronauts if they were hitting the right button to talk

⁠⁠”I have two versions of Microsoft Outlook and none are working”

Reid bringing Rise off of the capsule despite that not being protocol because Rise is part of the crew

The astronauts being incapable of being far from each other after spending 10 days together.

"Planet Earth you are a crew"

All the amazing pictures we got

Alt versions:

His little "uh... wait..." actually broke me. Alex Rochon when I catch you Alex... I am going to shake your hand because you are a FANTASTIC voice actor holy moly.

He's so tragic. The cast was finally ready to accept the adventures but CAINE had just- snapped. And he didn't even really enjoy tormenting them! His actions were that of a pathetic child with a god complex, but still... lover without a heart. He could never understand and the cast couldn't explain. And CAINE will never know that Kinger tried to save him... he died thinking they wanted him dead.