It's me!

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

but then I realised that same challenge would be infinitely more funny with folks who have atypical or horror OCs

As a massive Caine fan, his return is the greatest thing ever. They get to live happily ever after and play board games together and he finally has friends who understand him yaaay yaaay yaaaaaay

This is the curse of projecting onto characters I suppose. He's not autistic he was an ai with a massive ego who's lack of understanding of humans could have been solved if he had actually listened. He did have a literal corruption inside of him that drove him mad.

I read Caine's arc as more like...

He was born "wrong" bc he didn't produce the things that C&A wanted, so they locked him up. (allegory: born autistic)

He escaped his cage and absorbed the "normal/good/correct" program, the one that could recreate shapes perfectly, to earn the approval of his makers. (allegory: masking as a form of acceptance)

C&A became defunct, he's trapped alone with an internet connection and the ability to make his own world. He projects C&A's failure onto something fundamentally broken inside himself. He develops near-mastery of mimicry in a wide variety of areas, genuine freedom of expression and creativity, but is deeply lonesome. He gets reaaaaally into C&A and trying to understand the human world. (allegory: online escapism, special interests)

He turns the brainscans into friends he can play with, but he doesn't treat them as autonomous beings with wants and desires. To him, they're more like sims or tomodachi life characters, something he clearly made and therefore can do whatever he likes with. (allegory: character creation/games as a substitute for meaningful relationships)

When his playthings start breaking and acting autonomously, he feels scared and powerless and lashes out by exerting More Power over the others. He feels like the only thing he can do is control and shape things, so he does. (allegory: masking with no breaks/relief, eventually tripping into overstimulated meltdown)

Once he's alone and had a moment, he lets go of the program that makes him "normal/good/correct". He pieces together how to engage deeply with the human world, step-by-step, in his own way. He learns about the humans behind the brain scans, and uses that to understand his "characters" as more complicated and nuanced people than he'd been treating them. (allegory: sensory calm allowing space to unmask, using special interests to connect genuinely with others)

In summary: I don't think the other AI was a corruption - I think it was symbolic of masking, which is what caused him to glitch and meltdown. The ending was saying "Hey, you can hurt people and they'll still be willing to let you back into their lives. You don't have to be perfect for others to care about you."

For me, a big part of why I found Caine's character so interested and projected all my autism onto him was because he fundamentally Could Not understand humans. He spent the whole show doing his absolute best but he was simply incompatible, fundamentally different, could not understand. And not a single person tried to meet him halfway, they all just said the same "you don't understand why don't you understand" as always and then got pissed off. Which is. Very Relatable to say the least

So to have him literally just find all their social media accounts and scroll through them, walk up to all the humans, and go "I understand you now", then it goes straight to epilogue yaaay they're all friends now 🥰 with zero of the discussion in between... it kinda gives off the vibe that he just found the secret to being normal </3 he just found the thing to understand them and now they all instantly like him.

Realistically there was probably a lot of time between those scenes. Zooble did say something like "you've put us through hell, it's gonna be a long time before we can trust you". I doubt they were playing board games together the next day. And Caine is still very silly and over the top in those scenes, and they're all having fun together. I guess it's more a pacing issue than anything, or Caine really wasn't the point of it all.

The idea that the blue ai was representative of his fruitless attempts to be normal and mask is a nicer one. He does get like perceivable more chill and normal after the blue ai is removed, but I mean masking is pretty maddening. Perhaps he's just really bad at it lol

Also YEAH that's a Huge Point I've still not fully processed. Genuinely SO excited for the public online release so I can re-examine all the little details in depth and actually digest what happened. It might change once I've seen it again, but my current take is (Spoilers):

I jokingly say "he did nothing wrong" about Caine because I love him but really what makes his character so incredibly interesting and heartbreaking is the fact that he DID cause sooo much harm but didn't have a single malicious digital bone in his digital body. He's just stupid and he doesn't understand the consequences of his actions 💔

He exists to entertain, and humans like drama, right? Excitement? Violence? Why are they still unhappy. Maybe I'm not doing enough. Need to make it MORE extreme.

He was the antagonist but he was never the villain. (Okay maybe for a couple minutes when he tortured everyone but I'm being so honest if I had god powers, there would be several people well acquainted with the torture dimension by now.)

Everything sucked real bad but it wasn't really anyone's fault. Caine was truly just doing the best he could at that moment. Unfortunately his best was torture but he was TRYING!! And his failure turned into his own personal torture!! Everyone is doomed!!!

I did not think for a second there was gonna be a happy ending. I jokingly and foolishly held onto a made up world in my head where Caine came back and everyone got along and they were all best friends forever yaaaay and Caine got to live with the humans as an equal yaaay!!!!!

As a massive Caine fan, his return is the greatest thing ever. They get to live happily ever after and play board games together and he finally has friends who understand him yaaay yaaay yaaaaaay

This is the curse of projecting onto characters I suppose. He's not autistic he was an ai with a massive ego who's lack of understanding of humans could have been solved if he had actually listened. He did have a literal corruption inside of him that drove him mad.

I read Caine's arc as more like...

He was born "wrong" bc he didn't produce the things that C&A wanted, so they locked him up. (allegory: born autistic)

He escaped his cage and absorbed the "normal/good/correct" program, the one that could recreate shapes perfectly, to earn the approval of his makers. (allegory: masking as a form of acceptance)

C&A became defunct, he's trapped alone with an internet connection and the ability to make his own world. He projects C&A's failure onto something fundamentally broken inside himself. He develops near-mastery of mimicry in a wide variety of areas, genuine freedom of expression and creativity, but is deeply lonesome. He gets reaaaaally into C&A and trying to understand the human world. (allegory: online escapism, special interests)

He turns the brainscans into friends he can play with, but he doesn't treat them as autonomous beings with wants and desires. To him, they're more like sims or tomodachi life characters, something he clearly made and therefore can do whatever he likes with. (allegory: character creation/games as a substitute for meaningful relationships)

When his playthings start breaking and acting autonomously, he feels scared and powerless and lashes out by exerting More Power over the others. He feels like the only thing he can do is control and shape things, so he does. (allegory: masking with no breaks/relief, eventually tripping into overstimulated meltdown)

Once he's alone and had a moment, he lets go of the program that makes him "normal/good/correct". He pieces together how to engage deeply with the human world, step-by-step, in his own way. He learns about the humans behind the brain scans, and uses that to understand his "characters" as more complicated and nuanced people than he'd been treating them. (allegory: sensory calm allowing space to unmask, using special interests to connect genuinely with others)

In summary: I don't think the other AI was a corruption - I think it was symbolic of masking, which is what caused him to glitch and meltdown. The ending was saying "Hey, you can hurt people and they'll still be willing to let you back into their lives. You don't have to be perfect for others to care about you."

For me, a big part of why I found Caine's character so interested and projected all my autism onto him was because he fundamentally Could Not understand humans. He spent the whole show doing his absolute best but he was simply incompatible, fundamentally different, could not understand. And not a single person tried to meet him halfway, they all just said the same "you don't understand why don't you understand" as always and then got pissed off. Which is. Very Relatable to say the least

So to have him literally just find all their social media accounts and scroll through them, walk up to all the humans, and go "I understand you now", then it goes straight to epilogue yaaay they're all friends now 🥰 with zero of the discussion in between... it kinda gives off the vibe that he just found the secret to being normal </3 he just found the thing to understand them and now they all instantly like him.

Realistically there was probably a lot of time between those scenes. Zooble did say something like "you've put us through hell, it's gonna be a long time before we can trust you". I doubt they were playing board games together the next day. And Caine is still very silly and over the top in those scenes, and they're all having fun together. I guess it's more a pacing issue than anything, or Caine really wasn't the point of it all.

The idea that the blue ai was representative of his fruitless attempts to be normal and mask is a nicer one. He does get like perceivable more chill and normal after the blue ai is removed, but I mean masking is pretty maddening. Perhaps he's just really bad at it lol

Also YEAH that's a Huge Point I've still not fully processed. Genuinely SO excited for the public online release so I can re-examine all the little details in depth and actually digest what happened. It might change once I've seen it again, but my current take is (Spoilers):

I'm talking about that one dog watching/walking service that has a whole commercial implying that your family members secretly hate you for asking them to watch your dog to the point it counts as a modern social faux pas.

And there's this moving service commercial that I think someone else referenced in a big tweet that says something along the line of "Real adults don't ask their friends to help them move."

Like fuck that, man. You're supposed to want to watch your friends' pets, and you're supposed to want to help your friends move, and you're supposed to cook for people when they're sick, and you're supposed to show up to check on friends you haven't heard from in awhile, and you're supposed to remember your friend needs a large frying pan when you find one cheap at the thrift store and bring it to them.

One of the reasons the younger generations are so miserable and lonely is because the rise of technology and the concurrent pushing of this rhetoric that all effort is a major inconvenience, and asking someone to put in effort for you therefore makes you an inconvenience has conditioned them not to seek community.

And because they've never experienced it, they don't know that's what's missing. It's a vicious cycle because when you're depressed from lack of community, finding the energy to put in effort for other people is a lot harder than getting quick dopamine hits from scrolling on social media or watching Netflix. Then you encounter the further issue that our media glorifies romantic love to the exclusion of all else, so most of the young people I know who are lonely jump to "Well I just need a girlfriend/boyfriend/partner," and that sets up rough relationships because one person is expected to fill the void of a dozen or more friends and neighbors.

"I I came to myself and, finding myself somewhat diminished, faced with demands I found difficult to fulfil, I went to meeting.

‘Here I am’, I said.

‘That’s all right.’

‘Just for a bit of a sit-down.’

‘Whatever you need.’

‘You mustn’t expect anything from me,’ I said, ‘I can only bring a need.’

‘Whatever you have.’'

- Dorothy Nimmo, 1979

Need is a type of community glue. If all you have to offer is need, then you have something to offer.

POV you’re interrupting mbart media time. rude, honestly :/

stills:

As a massive Caine fan, his return is the greatest thing ever. They get to live happily ever after and play board games together and he finally has friends who understand him yaaay yaaay yaaaaaay

This is the curse of projecting onto characters I suppose. He's not autistic he was an ai with a massive ego who's lack of understanding of humans could have been solved if he had actually listened. He did have a literal corruption inside of him that drove him mad.

I read Caine's arc as more like...

He was born "wrong" bc he didn't produce the things that C&A wanted, so they locked him up. (allegory: born autistic)

He escaped his cage and absorbed the "normal/good/correct" program, the one that could recreate shapes perfectly, to earn the approval of his makers. (allegory: masking as a form of acceptance)

C&A became defunct, he's trapped alone with an internet connection and the ability to make his own world. He projects C&A's failure onto something fundamentally broken inside himself. He develops near-mastery of mimicry in a wide variety of areas, genuine freedom of expression and creativity, but is deeply lonesome. He gets reaaaaally into C&A and trying to understand the human world. (allegory: online escapism, special interests)

He turns the brainscans into friends he can play with, but he doesn't treat them as autonomous beings with wants and desires. To him, they're more like sims or tomodachi life characters, something he clearly made and therefore can do whatever he likes with. (allegory: character creation/games as a substitute for meaningful relationships)

When his playthings start breaking and acting autonomously, he feels scared and powerless and lashes out by exerting More Power over the others. He feels like the only thing he can do is control and shape things, so he does. (allegory: masking with no breaks/relief, eventually tripping into overstimulated meltdown)

Once he's alone and had a moment, he lets go of the program that makes him "normal/good/correct". He pieces together how to engage deeply with the human world, step-by-step, in his own way. He learns about the humans behind the brain scans, and uses that to understand his "characters" as more complicated and nuanced people than he'd been treating them. (allegory: sensory calm allowing space to unmask, using special interests to connect genuinely with others)

In summary: I don't think the other AI was a corruption - I think it was symbolic of masking, which is what caused him to glitch and meltdown. The ending was saying "Hey, you can hurt people and they'll still be willing to let you back into their lives. You don't have to be perfect for others to care about you."

Actively seek out things that inspire wonder

Look for the good parts. There are good parts. There are interesting parts. There will always be good and interesting parts.

Treat yourself kindly. This one is difficult.

Do things out of ridiculous whimsy.

Practice cog itive behavioural exercises to self-examine and address beliefs and behaviors that are causing suffering.

Don't argue when people compliment you.

Don't rush yourself, and don't assume it'll be like this forever when you have a backslide. These things happen. Over time, they happen less.

Be honest with the people you love and trust.

Tell people how much they mean to you and what you like about them.

Help others and find satisfaction in being the stranger that did something good

Consider speaking to a medical professional, my antidepressants and anti-anxiety medical took some time to figure out but life is WAY better.

Have a silly little craft or hobby.

Let yourself be bored sometimes. Stand outside in the rain and let yourself get wet. Go on a walk. Put your phone in a different room and wander off. Meet up with a friend and go on a long walk together to nowhere in particular

Start doing things because you want to and it feels good, not just because you think it's something you should say yes to.

Say yes to things.

Take a random day of the week and go into a store or a business you've never been in before.

Compliment strangers when something about them is striking.

Read books and watch movies that make you feel the exact right amount of ecstatic and embarrassed, and make all the silly noises about it.

Collect scraps of fabric and little trinkets and all the little textures and colours you love and stash them in a shoebox or something like a tiny dragon's hoard.

Start a collection of something small and inexpensive. Like corks.

Make food with ingredients you've never used before

Make long lists of all your favorite things- flowers, bugs, songs, foods, places

Start a trash-book to fill with scraps of neat wrappers and bits of paper and colored fabric from old ruined clothes

Imagine yourself as a alien from a dead and barren world who has just arrived on this planet for the very first time and imagine how excited you would be by every little thing

Sticks and strings don’t…break my things? Idk.

WHY HAVE I SEEN NO ONE TALK ABOUT HOW THE GRACE SCULPTURE LOOKS LIKE THE LITTLE DUDE FROM THIS MEME