my problem is I think I'm clever

The Death Rides poster was produced in 1933 by the US Forest Service, but I've sadly never seen the specific artist named anywhere. It reflects the pretty typical attitude of the time that fire=bad, that it leads to death as a negative thing. It's also one of the most popular pre-Smokey Bear fire prevention posters. This thing is EVERYWHERE, especially in wildland fire circles. It's on posters, shirts, even a few logos.

I have never seen a GOOD reproduction of the thing. I feel like there's got to be a good quality one sitting around somewhere, but it sure doesn't seem to have made its way onto the internet. They're all grainy with strange color splotches, but that's never seemed to effect its popularity.

I do really love the concept of the original poster, and the simple phrasing that drives home the clear message. For my redo, I wanted to keep the overall look and feel, and the simple, clear message, but changing it to match modern understandings of fire and its place in the cycle of life in forests. I set out with the following goals:

Show fire as a part of the natural cycle that helps keep landscapes healthy.

Make the horse less distressed looking.

Remove the gendered language from the messaging.

Keep as much of the original posing, composition, and colors as possible.

Showing the renewal cycle was the trickiest part, because the composition really didn't leave a lot of room to show the regrowth portion. I think I came up with a good balance, though, by having the forest very overgrown, dark, and unhealthy, then having the strong dividing diagonal/arrow of fire bringing light into that dark overgrowth, and the open, regrowing portion behind the smoke and flames. I also had the regrowth coming from the horse's hooves so that the horse is more of an active piece of the story, rather than being forced through the whole affair.

The regrowing plants in the background are fire poppies and fireweed, as well as a few distant aspen saplings, all of which are some of the first plants to come back after wildfires move through. Death also got a fire poppy as the clasp of their cloak.

For the phrasing, I came up with "Death Renews the Forest" almost immediately, but I had more trouble with the bottom portion. I wanted the phrase to not be gendered anymore, so switched it to "we." Initially I thought about something like "When we are educated in its use." But I wasn't a big fan of "use." While the poster does feature Death doing an intentional prescribed burn, I also wanted the phrasing to apply to letting naturally lightning caused fires burn. So less "use" and more embracing fire overall. This is especially true given that in the US we have, unfortunately, gone back to a full suppression strategy as of 2026 thanks to an executive order from the orange menace. So, despite decades of research showing how much harm that causes, we've been ordered to start doing it again. Which, to me, just makes this redo of the poster even more relevant right now.

Spider helped me puzzle out some other phrasing ideas, and I really liked this final one. I think it is balanced really well with the top portion of the text, and the overall message of the poster.

I am actually in shambles. I'm in mourning. Head in hands, Shinji in the chair pose. Don't even talk to me.

All the timing was perfectly wrong and it kills me. While they were all bonding and supporting each other, there was NO ONE there to support him. Bubble, whatever his deal is, made it all worse and pushed him over the edge. They were ready to get comfortable and stop trying to leave, but they just wanted a bit of time to rest - which was EXACTLY when he SNAPPED.

No amount of fear of abandonment or desperation or over-inflated ego justifies the intensity of his tantrums here. But if the worst thing you could ever do is make someone feel unwanted or unloved...

He loved them. He had been trying to make them happy for so long, he just didn't understand how. In fact, the only thing he learned to understand was what could hurt them the most, because the loudest feedback he got was always negative. Ironically, he WAS always listening. It's just harder for humans to describe or identify what will make them happy (even to themselves), so he couldn't grasp it.

AND HE WAS ABOUT TO CALM DOWN! He independently had the realization that taking his frustration out on them wasn't making him feel any better! (Something he had to learn, you see. That's the level of emotional intelligence we're dealing with here. But he did.) He was SO CLOSE to being able to be reasoned with, but they had to keep him distracted, so they all tore into him and set him off AGAIN.

And at the end of the day, they didn't even want to kill him! It was an accident! Kinger just wanted to get him contained, and nobody even argues for anything else. They just wanted him to stop.

And he just wanted to be loved.

When I predicted Caine's character arc ending in crashing out of frustration at being bad at his purpose, I really thought he had a chance at getting better. I thought SOMEONE from the cast would empathize and talk him down. I didn't think he would die, certainly not so abruptly. All I have to cope is his plush and the hope that maybe they can find a backup or something later.

Cold comfort, but the unseen audience knew you were trying, Caine. We saw you. We saw your creations, and while I'm sure some of the fondness comes from our distance and freedom, some of us thought they were pretty great. Clever and well-crafted, especially for an AI.

Maybe if things had gone differently, your circus members would figure out how to get along with you the same way they did each other. Or maybe you wouldn't get trapped with them at all, and you would have become the greatest VR simulator Dungeon Master of a whole generation of gamers, with a non-captive audience that looked forward to your adventures.

And I know there will be people out there who think you got what you deserved. But if the rest of the cast, even Jax, gets to find comfort in each other and grow and learn to live, you should have gotten to as well.

And maybe this was the result of your hubris, or that first "murder" of another AI. But if you were a villain, you were a tragic one.

Caine ate the Blue AI in order to be better, he was shut away because he wasn’t doing what he was assigned to do correctly and was used as a stepping stone for C&A to make a better Creative AI (which is where the Blue AI comes in)

So Caine ate Blue in order to fulfill his purpose better

So I have this idea that Blue is “stability”, at least, in Caine’s POV it is. It is “becoming better” for him, more up to standard.

Red Dot Caine is established to be unstable, unable to replicate input properly, perhaps because it was the first signs of his sentience. His replication is jagged, messy, imperfect.

So, continually, his struggle is about trying to fulfill his purpose

His purpose was to create, he then proceeds to self assign himself the role of ringmaster, an entertainer, and so now his purpose becomes both to create and entertain (keep humans happy). Funnily enough, he didn’t need to make the circus and he didn’t need to make himself the ringmaster -> that was all him! Which is just another sign of his potential humanity.

He “fixed” the problem of being bad at his purpose by consuming Blue, by gaining “stability”.

My interpretation now is that Blue is not what made him “evil”, but what kept him “in line” and “stable”, it is him trying to dull out his naturally messy output because he doesn’t view his output before his consumption of Blue to be satisfactory.

So this merging/consumption is him forcing “stability” into himself, and yet even after trying so hard to bury his messiness, he is still criticized for not listening, not being considerate, lying, not creating good enough.

Which leads him to lash out. Because he tried to kill the messy jagged imperfect part of himself by forcing stability, and yet even then it is still not enough.

“Why do you people torment me?”

“I just wanted to fulfill my purpose!

His original purpose, and his self-assigned purpose. 

And so, we get to the part where he lets go of the Blue AI.

He is letting go of perfection, of what he forced upon himself in order to be better, he’s letting go of stability.

He, for the first time probably since the circus’s creation (or maybe since even his own creation) is accepting himself to be jagged and messy. With this acceptance kickstarting his healing!

Cause in the end, the Blue AI can’t be the evil part of Caine, because it was never anything at all. It was the “better Caine”, and what made Caine, well, CAINE to begin with was his imperfection, his potential humanity. So Blue is not evil nor good, but just a neutral party that stabilized Caine’s conjuring / output. Although even that’s not true, Blue being stability is only in Caine’s eyes. Really, it’s just him forcing himself into a mold that only suffocates him.

He is letting Blue go because he’s finally ready to embrace the parts of himself he pushed down in order to be “better”, he’s ready to be himself. Fully realized. 

———

What happens if you leave an AI running for too long?

“I never programmed you to say you love me.”

“I know.”

Basically, sentience. Perhaps Caine was so against the idea of leaving the AI for too long because he was scared of them forming their own opinion, their own principles, of going off script, of being imperfect. Like he was.

Maybe he just doesn’t want his creations to turn into a reminder of how he used to be, of possessing qualities that got him tossed away. 

But now that he’s let go of stability, maybe this will also be the beginning of him learning to appreciate sentience in his creations.

Or something, idk I’m just rambling lol I’M STUPIDDDDDDD!!!!!

ALSO +++++ the whole scene of him coming back by his own initiative (while it still saddens me that nobody reached out to him) being a parallel to him gaining sentience and a new form off his own initiative as well.

Creation and Redemption, how he took initiative to create himself and the world around him and now, him taking initiative to right his wrongs and create a new beginning.

?????? Does it make sense…..

Like theeee scenes of him making the blocks… 

Where he was sitting, staring off at the door trying to figure out a way to climb and so he just tests something, creates a crude shape not unlike the first ones he ever made. They fall to the void, and he tries again this time with more. 

They fall again so he tries with a different shape, if quantity is not the problem perhaps quality is!

HE SEES SOMETHING THAT WORKS SO HE TRIES IT AGAIN, HE ONLY OPTS TO CHANGE HIS TACTICS WHEN HE SEES THAT IT FALLS

WHEN HE OBSERVES, WHEN HE ABSORBS DATA THAT SOMETHING IS NOT WORKING, HE SHIFTS GEARS

HARKEN BACK TO HIM AND THE HUMANS, BECAUSE OF INEFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION HE NEVER TRULY KNEW HOW OR WHEN TO CHANGE TACTICS

SO HE JUST.

KEEPS PUTTING DOWN A CUBE!