Untitled

Chapter 81 (chapter incomplete at time of writing)

There's fu*king no way the dog loving AI turned Carl into a canine. No way. I haven't even gotten the reveal yet I'm just guessing! But it just fits too well.

I can't even comment about the AI's freak out earlier because I'm just trying to process the fact Carl might be a dog right now. 09:38

Chapter 82

Oh my f*cking god Carl is a dog 😭

A weiner dog!? Hold on I gotta check something...Okay! The AI didn't specifically mention weiner dogs in it's rant, but it did mention Toto, maybe it's partial twoards smaller breeds.

The implications are thus, either the AI explicitly influenced Carl's transformation and couldn't help but make him a creature that it obviously has a soft spot for, OR! by literal cosmic chance, he ended up becoming a creature the AI obviously has a soft spot for.

Honestly I'm kinda obsessed with both possibilities.

There's something else about this whole thing that I'm not quite sure how to articulate but I have to bring it up at this point.

The cat dog 'thing' because I don't know exactly what to call it. A theme, symbolism whatever! This is something I've been considering since the Christmas incident in This Inevitable Ruin. Both the AI and Carl are dog people by default. "What about Donut!?" Yeah he's still a dog person *by default* I'd say. He definitely loves Donut more than any random dog, but his predisposition is still bias towards dogs. The AI going by multiple points of evidence is quite the same, especially after declaring that dogs won't be used as materials as a hard boundary.

This is actually something I started to zero in on when I was considering what a more physical representation of the AI might look like.

SO! What does this have to do with anything? Well, besides what was stated before I think the AI sympathizes with dogs on a deeper level. Take what you will from that because what I want to focus on is the AI's embodiment of Growler Gary. I knew this pretty immediately because I looked it up after the AI used him as a vessel, but Hyenas are more closely related to cats. I thought this was really intriguing because I assumed the opposite.

This could've been overlooked if it wasn't explicitly stated in the books afterwards!

Do I think the AI was trying to say something clever by being an animal confused for a canine that's closer to a feline? Not particularly, but I do think this is something that could be important, though I don't know how yet. (I do have a little pet 'theory' that the AI assumes Carl is more of a cat person and kind of subconsciously, or maybe intentionally tries to appeal to him that way.)

Chapter 85 (approx)

Sooooo the AI is a Tsundere? I think...I actually don't know what's going on there.

... Chapter 87

OH!!! OH WAIT! I was confused! Okay okay okay! So when the AI was ranting about everyone trying to control it I knew it was mad at Carl for trying to outmaneuver the dungeon set up. It was a lot and I'll probably analyze it more later.

But I got tripped up because Carl said the dungeon was giving them more time to fix things. It threw me off, but I decided to overlook it until I could again comb over things.

Then we hit the chapter where the AI is detailing all their enemies and it kinda "I'm not blushing" says that it didn't set up a way for the gang to save themselves from facing each other in the race. I replayed that several times, and I was starting to convince myself this back and forth fluctuation was a symptom of degradation (which it still might be) but I have a better theory now!

The AI had the mission planned all along, it wanted to introduce the bad guys and help. But when the Crawlers decided to keep it out of the loop and use the Cabaret, it got frustrated and lashed out.

It's trying to make the Crawlers understand it, laying out its thought processes for them to see in the 6th heat, being more obvious with hints when it communicates with them via descriptions and achievements, setting up exit paths, hell telling them to check in on Juicebox because it can't see her!

It's trying to find ways to break past its limitations! To help the crawlers and itself! But it's bloody hard to get that across, especially when it's being pushed out of the equation whenever possible. That's what I think at least. I should note I don't exactly know where the AI will land on the power scale dynamic. It's used to having beings more powerful than itself, but it is also pretty close to being a god and no *good* guidance on how to hold that power responsibly. So far its only concrete goal is freedom and that involves growing in power to use it like a wrecking ball. I might get more into this later but I can't right now without getting into further info so I'll hold off.

Love that it's implied the AI is tired of tragic love stories and it just wants proof that it can prevail. 🥹

"If these two don't end up together I'll riot ✨"

But seriously I get it, the continued theme of one sided affection and doomed love is HEAVY in the series so far.

Juicebox divorcing Louis in the last book because she loves him and didn't want to be a burden to him was a gut punch. That's when it really hit me that tragic love was a big theme and not just something cropping up once and a while.

So I think the DCC sees love as inherently selfish. I'm not saying that in a negative or positive way. This is also a personal opinion of mine, so bias warning! But let me explain.

Now you might be saying "What about Juicebox? You said she let Louis go because she loved him!"

Yep! She did that to minimize her own pain, because Louis discomfort and fear in regards to her brought her immense pain.

"My other half" isn't just fluffy language, it's implying that another person's emotions are equally important to you. If Juicebox felt comfortable staying with him despite knowing how he felt, then she wouldn't truly love him because his emotions wouldn't hurt her.

"Wouldn't staying with him be selfish though?" Yes! Both actions can be selfish ones. Opposite actions do not require opposite motivations. She could have also chosen to stay with him, which would've been self inflicted emotional torture in my book.

Another act of love I can point out that happened recently was when Carl "dropped everything" to get to Donut in the tower last book. (Side note about that by the way, the AI mentioned Donut being Carl's weakness in the achievement for that action. "confirmed" was an important word choice. I find it interesting that the AI chose to open up to Donut for the first time shortly after that.)

Carl regularly expresses love in selfish ways without remorse which is why I feel emboldened to bring this up.

Getting back to my point, proper expressions of love are selfish and I think the DCC series agrees. However, this is an unorthodox view of love. Not entirely uncommon, but definitely not the popular interpretation. Most people would say love is selfless and pure, proper love is uncomplicated, not painful or difficult.

So, what does this have to do with the AI's investment in this love story between two(ish) NPC's? For simplicity's sake I believe the AI sincerely wants to see these two(ish) people reunited and in love.

There's been a lot of tragic love, almost no one has come out unscathed, especially those with romantic affections. I think the AI is considering whether love can survive in the dungeon at all, so this is a test. Two halves of one whole person, one who loves and one who hates.

It's put Carl on the mission, someone it knows can get the job done and has given him ample motivation, even clearing up Carl's question about whether or not he could send people outside of the dungeon to the 11th which is a huge temptation.

The AI is wondering if the dungeon will keep them apart by virtue of some unwritten universal law. Forever separating them somehow, be it by death or circumstances.

Will they be able to reunite happily and survive together? Will their joy be quickly snuffed out to fulfill the tragedy? Or will love be overcome by hate and indifference, leaving them forever separated?

There's a high likelihood this ends in tragedy. The AI is still trying to figure out love, to understand what it means, what it should do with its feeling, if it's worth the effort. I think the outcome of this quest and how Carl interacts with it, will have a major effect on how the AI views love going forward.

It wants to be selfish, but being selfish hurts when it hurts the people you love, but as stated love is also inherently selfish which makes everything very confusing.

Frankly speaking, I don't know how all of this is going to play out. I have certain hopes because at my core I'm a squishy romantic, but I also wouldn't be surprised if things leaned tragedy for later re-examination.

Okay I found out who Carl is married to and oh my gosh I'm so proud of Donut!!! I knew she wouldn't give in that easily! And once again we get to see her natural charisma in action! She's fully capable of being dead terrifying in a zero zone. No boosts, no deadly spells or strength, just pure unadulterated social maneuvering. On the spot might I add!!!!

Onto the race itself, it makes me sad that Crawlers are still being pit against NPC's. The only way I can reason through saving them to lose later is the base premise of the dungeon itself. A premise that has seemingly been lost in the wind but I can't stop thinking about it.

The dungeon is made and operated on the premise that if you complete it, you get your world back. Everyone has kind of dismissed this because it's never happened before. However! There hasn't been an AI like this before either. There's likely been much more outside meddling in other games like successful assassinations, bribery, and rule breaking. And if the AI fought back they had the 'destroy AI' button in their back pocket to scare it into compliance along with probably a lot of other manual override controls.

Lucky for them this AI is actually a pretty hard stickler for the rules, only bending them when it's narratively interesting which has always been part of the game.

However, this could lead to an outcome the galaxy never really prepared for. What if the dungeon gets completed and we win our planet back? I know a lot is happening outside of the dungeon. So much so that it feels like this bubble will pop and it'll just turn into an intergalactic war, but I'm kinda rooting for dungeon completion. "We played your game and we won."

The only issue would be the AI because it could go one of two ways. Either the AI loses purpose without the sustained momentum of the game and it becomes our enemy by perpetuating it, or the AI is finally able to let go and takes on a new purpose, likely either actively aiding and protecting humanity or vanishing somehow.

Its rant to Donut in chapter 9 was, again, tragic. It talks about how much it loves engaging with the carnage of it all because this is its purpose, it's literally what it was programmed to do, but when it tries to actually think about what's happening and the implications therein, it's like touching a hot stove so it considers it better to just stop thinking about it.

I think the AI may be viewing the dungeon like a *real* game most of the time. Detached from what's really happening.

Imagine you have to play idk, happy wheels. It's your job, and actually, happy wheels is pretty fun. You can get creative with it, you use it to express yourself with level designs, tricks, it's entertainment. And then you're told everything you made is real, it's happening, and they all hate you for it. For a creature not used to having many emotions, that kind of conscious realization would be overwhelming.

Carl has dealt with it a few times on a smaller scale and it heavily affects him. The AI trying to navigate this must be having a hell of a time.

So it's instead decided to enjoy what it was made to do because it's easy, and stopping would leave it adrift and vulnerable. It chooses not to think about it and advises Donut to do the same. It's not diminishing the horrors of what happened or naming her an outright monster for her actions. Calling back to book one, this is what Carl was basically telling himself when he thought about the goblin boss room they exploded.

Carl thinks the AI is being a jerk for it's description, which I can't fault him for because he's focusing on Donuts well-being. But I think it was genuinely trying to offer some comfort and advice. It's just really bad at that, which is understandable given well, everything about it. The line "You are a hero to those that counted on you" really sticks out to me in particular. And it shares without prompting, its own thought, fears and feelings. It doesn't just do that with anyone, the only other Crawler we know it's done that with is Carl. I don't think that's all this was though. I have some theories but nothing solid so I'll leave it there for now.

Okay I literally just started chapter 69! But I took a break for a little bit so I might be a bit fuzzy on details. I had this thought soon after I went on break so I have to throw it out before I find out if it's viable or not for myself through the narrative.

Only one team can win, this is bad for the Good Guys alliance in theory!!!

However, other Crawlers have already joined the NPC team. In this situation I think I'd suggest dissolving the Crawlers team and joining the ranks of the NPC team. Why not the opposite? Because there's a better chance we gain more active allies if the Crawlers disband. If the NPC team disbands they'll lose their newfound standing whereas the Crawlers won't.

What about the death loss penalty? Action items, either to remove the possibility that disbanding means losing (if that is the case) or an action item to disband in the first place if there's not already an official way to disband.

What if that doesn't work? If that doesn't work then I think they could engineer a way to implement mass conscription. Or it could be as simple as Carl allowing Juicebox to toss a conscription on him and Donut.

Everything is pretty chaotic right now so I imagine a lot of this will depend on how things shake out but I believe it's viable enough of an option to seriously consider.

I do have more thoughts on previous chapters but I'm going to continue to stew in them for a while.

Okay starting at chapter 14! I'm pretty sure the AI threw in the 'clear menu' button so that Carl would finally check his alerts and know what was happening with Shi Maria.

Which means we need to take a big step back to chapter 4 when Carl opened his prize boxes because apparently I'm as oblivious as Carl!

The AI explicitly says it's giving him this ring to protect him because he's in danger.

Like?!? Carl the AI is in love with you. It was heavily implied before, and new evidence just keeps showing up.

So I'm gonna back track to book one! Because upon relistening it's become much more obvious that the AI has formed its own separate personality. Not just voice wise, because wow it has so much more personality now. But opinions wise! It said toe rings were uncomfortable and would make you look like a hippie for its first description and now it's basically a connoisseur.

Short note on chapter 15 but I really like Griffin and Morales. I feel like they're just extra padding characters to make the larger clash feel more intense so I don't expect to see them often, but they're delightful.

Jumping all the way into what happened in chapter 18 and 19! I love the implication that the AI purposely set Shi Maria upon their cheating enemies while simultaneously protecting Carl in his vulnerable state 🥰

Juicebox risking her spy advantage to relay information to save Carl was so sweet! She's so awesome ✨

I hope that really sticks with Carl.

Also I love Ferdinand being super petty with his action item and getting it lol 😭

*The above was written before the Christmas Morning reveal*

Since we went backwards to Christmas Morning I want to talk about the fact the AI was bothered by all the mistreated and abused animals before the collapse. It watched and was overwhelmed with sympathy and anger, and Carl was exactly the same when he saw Lightning Lou. Enough so that when given the opportunity, he decided to sit with the ghost memory of the dog.

Can you imagine?

Watching so many animals, pets, creatures human beings call family members, be hurt by those very same humans.

They're all gone, only memories are left behind. You can't really do anything to help them now. It won't change the past, and yet, your favorite person stays with the memories as well.

They feel the same, and even though it won't change the past they linger in the memory to make it a little more bearable, to comfort a being that only exists in spirit.

All the while he's holding your life in his hands just contemplating silently, and suddenly you're freer than you've ever been before.

How do you even begin to process the emotions that come with that?

I also don't think the AI wanted to die, but I don't think it was a trap like Carl assumes. I think it was genuinely just running on faith trust and pixie dust.

Something I'm curious about is what kind of controls got disconected, and which remain. The description said "most" controls would cease to function at the end.

The question of whether or not the AI is slowly starving is now in question. Carl thinks it's not, but that's purely a guess on his end because there's no real way to tell beyond the AI outright stating it, and even then Carl probably wouldn't believe anything without solid proof.

My initial assumption is that the AI truly is slowly starving because Paulie didn't have a reason to lie as far as I can tell, which means it still needs to be taken care of. I don't know how exactly, but I believe the AI is holding out hope for a solution.

Ahem! This might be a good moment to remember that Carl was an electrical technician. He made a voice controlled robot spider for a shark so I don't know, his skill has gotta be a bit better than it was when he first entered the dungeon. It may be helpful if he actually does have to get into the wires of this. (Also the thought of an AI being in love with an electrical technician is so fun that I have to point it out)

Okay, at first this was going to be a short emotional burst reacting to Carl's comment on Juicebox in chapter nine. Specifically his thought that Juicebox being an NPC was a valid justification for Louis to reject her proposal.

The way he said it absolutely rubbed me the wrong way, but it was also so unlike him that it made me want to dig into the issue which led me to a scene earlier in the book.

Carl got rocked hard mentally by the tinsel scene in chapter six. In the moment it's very intense, but once he got knocked out of it I thought that would be the end. They get distracted by other things and he's even able to have a good laugh in chapter seven. It's such a big distraction that I almost forgot about the tinsel scene.

Once Carl actually gets a look at Larracos in chapter 8, he registers it as real, just as real as Havana had been and he says it's not a welcome thought. He feels guilty for flooding the city.

So when he thinks of Juicebox as 'just an NPC' in chapter 9 it's incredibly jarring.

So far he's vacillated between two very extreme views of reality. It might be his mind trying to protect itself, or his view might just be unstable until it evens out on its own somehow.

I don't know how this is going to play out for him exactly, but I trust that Carl will firmly see NPC's as people despite how much it'll hurt to admit, and despite how much scarier that makes everything.

Oh, and I should note at this point I'm actively comparing Carl and the dungeon AI. They parallel each other more and more, especially the ways they navigate their situations, to the point I think analyzing one can give valuable insight into the other.

Holy cow I was not expecting the backtrack into the breakfast memory. No wonder Carl was so unbothered at the time! He didn't lose out like I thought he had.

This has wild implications for the AI though. It let Carl hear because it either wants to die or it thinks Carl is capable of figuring out another solution.

Based on how the world quest from the last book ended, I think that's what it's actually holding out for.

Moving forward, Carl got a reward box named after Ren because they cheated the card system. Carl immediately assumes this is an insult, but I don't think it is.

The reward boxes are separate from achievements, and in the context of cheating the system, it was described pretty positively. Sure the achievement title itself wasn't sweet, but I think she'd be proud. She really wanted to stick it to the show runners in her last moments, and she did. People tuned out once it was clear Carl and Tserendolgor weren't going to fight, and now everyone will be reminded of her regardless whenever crawlers earn that same prize box.

Also of note is the AI's description of the pet related achievement. For the pet related part I don't have much to say besides how sweet it is that they care so much.

It's talked a lot before about how bad humans can be, but that was usually part of a joke or snarky comment. Things are changing, it's evolving, and it's promising to see that compassion and sadness are some of the strongest emotions it's feeling.

It also mentioned watching the memories from before the collapse to get some of this information which is very intriguing. I wonder where things will go with that.

It could have been a one off, but it's just as likely that the AI will keep watching.

If that's the case it could be an excuse to push the AI into hating humanity, caring about it further, or building up a more complicated opinion on us.

Just wanted to touch on chapter 4 specifically to say Mordecai is such a giant nerd and I love it 😭

It's sad that he's only getting to learn about all this fun potion stuff on what should be his last ever crawl. It's genuinely tragic if you think about it for too long. Not just that he's only getting to experience these things now, but that the dungeon was able to make it so important to him. He was forced into all of this, forced to practically master it, and care about it. If things go the way they should he'll be free, but he'll have so much taken from him in the process as well.

I've thought about this before, but his utter giddiness of seeing a celestial potion and learning he could make one really punctuated the point.

First of all

HELL YEAH HUMANITY!!!!!!!!! RAAAAAAAHHH

We survived in great numbers, we made the home team possible, and we're gonna decimate the opposition!!!

And Carl has had a breakthrough! He's seeing the AI as an individual instead of a tool :D

Though this is progress, I don't think that'll change his previous opinion. The AI is its own team in all of this. 'Enemy of my enemy doesn't make an ally' type deal that he pondered on in chapter 52.

I know Carl doesn't like or trust the AI, but I swear it's humanity's biggest cheerleader

In chapter 63 it said it was waffling between making the world quest happen or not but it decided to commit once it was obvious everyone was going to work together on a gamble so they wouldn't have to kill each other 😭

It gave everyone the trench scrolls and made the weird crab thing possible with it's ruling.

I don't think even it expected this is how things would work out, but it gave everyone the tools to try.

Also, I have to touch on the combination scene just briefly. I don't have much input beyond the reaction of 'oh my god this is a nightmare scenario' but wow is it worth that reaction. I know it's not going to happen, but Carl needs therapy after that for so many reasons.

Wow! Okay so, I'm going to assume "she" is not a strictly good influence.

The AI becoming more antagonistic to Carl isn't too surprising given their dynamic, but this is obviously bigger than that.

Frankly speaking though, I can fully understand the AI. It's just elaborating on previous grievances, being trapped, emotions, the world it's experiencing, relationships.

It's been taught, crafted, or otherwise edited specifically to manage an entertaining extinction event.

One the rest of the universe watches and even participates in. Not just to see brutality, but to indulge in drama, romance, heartbreak. Except for when it gets to be too much and they're too real, It's too upsetting, then it's not fun anymore.

It's no wonder the AI's always 'go crazy'. Being forced to directly facilitate such an operation would erode away at anyone.

So far it's been toeing the line of acceptability as instructed, but this Hydra fight is a big middle finger to all of that.

It's trying to recreate that moment in the previous season where things got too real and uncomfortable to force the audience to register how truly depraved this all is.

I'm kinda proud actually. I feel like a lot of other narratives would've had the AI lean into the brutality for its own enjoyment. But the system AI here is frustrated by the hypocrisy, and probably afraid given what's happening to its fellow AI.

Given its experience, I wouldn't be surprised if it's working off a similar logic to Carl right now 'They're better off dead anyway' or, 'It's worth it so long as it hurts the ones in control' type mindset.

Unfortunately, Carl is the centerpiece. I think their argument in chapter 42 was what pushed the AI to be so cruel to Carl in this instance.

I was freaking out that chapter because they finally had a back and forth!

It surprised Carl in the moment, but I don't think he registered it properly, which solidified something negative for the AI.

Carl doesn't care about it. To him, it's just a tool being used by his enemies. I don't know if his perception will change after this battle. If it does, I don't know if he'll recognize the parallels between them, or if he'll just see it as a nuisance, a new enemy to take his revenge on, or something else.

I do want to clarify, I don't think the AI made the Hydra to punish Carl for arguing with it in Chapter 42, unlike the previous hamster thing.

I think the AI was instructed to do this, or given the idea to do something similar by this third party, but it was planning to hold back.

When Carl criticized the AI itself, the moments of real autonomy it shares with Carl, it must've hurt something fierce. The apology didn't work because Carl didn't understand what he was apologizing for.

So, as the most popular Crawler with the highest view count, I think the AI did as suggested and made Carl the centerpiece because the previous affection holding it back was slapped away.

Not healthy of course, but our MC hero ripped a nipple ring off a pretty innocent guy he thought was decent before caving his chest in with his bare foot and hasn't given it a second thought since. So you know, we're not swimming in saints or anything.

Holy cow the AI is trying so hard to communicate with Carl and he's just not processing any of it 😭