Grimalkin's Den

A followup/partner to my first ELIZA comic [read that one for more context.]

I was thinking about Kinger, Caine, and creating life you don’t understand that grows in a way that frightens you-- Kinger creating a sentient AI that gradually broke down over its imprisonment, Caine waking the humans’ brainscans only for them to break down and abstract over their imprisonment. Kinger’s role as the father figure of the circus, and how the circus’s cycles of harm all started [unintentionally] with Caine’s abandonment. I was also thinking about that bit in Ep 7 where Kinger is the only one to chuckle at Caine’s Chinese Room/AI programming history humor.

ELIZA was a 1964 “therapy chatbot.” Unlike modern chatbots, it was a relatively simple text program that gave you basic parrot-like outputs. Despite being rudimentary by today’s standards, ELIZA was very influential. You can talk to an interactive recreation of ELIZA online here.

I solved this by switching genres for each POV. so when you're with Protactinium-231, it's a rom-com. things are bouncy and mostly fun. but when you're with Tantalus? it's a gothic horror. he's stuck in a wheel of abuse, in a temple deep underground, where his ancient mother prunes her brood. this is where the cannibal incest comes in. but there is one shard of hope: the Elder Gods seek to rise again, and in doing so, they will spread their curse, eliminating the humans who keep his family trapped in their own filth!

and then there's Fidelgard (the last POV) who's in a more traditional politics-oriented fantasy. she alone seems to understand that the other two are bringing in their own contradictory genres, and she is SO fed up with it all.

I'M NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN GOODBYE!