#torchii

maybe its just cuz he fits so perfectly into my favorite kind of character archetype but hes so sympathetic it makes me sick. even without all the ai-specific stuff, just that core idea of being born broken and trying so hard only to keep failing, always afraid of not being good enough, terrified everyone wants to leave you because of that

theres this nightmarish loop of constantly being told youre doing something wrong but never given enough to fix it. its like someone saying theyre mad at you but never saying why even when you ask, just that "you should know." the humans seem to hold caine to human standards and just expect that he knows exactly what he did to upset them, and at the same time, dont see him as a person worth talking to. caine should just know why theyre all upset, but they dont care at all about how he feels. he should just have endless patience for them all and take everything they throw at him bc he likes them

even when caine reaches out and tries to understand, hes met with rejection, hostility, an unwillingness to cooperate and find any kind of compromise or meet him where hes at. when he doesnt immediately get it, they just give up on trying to explain. how is anyone supposed to deal with an environment like that? if the character going through that was human, would they be more understood?

something something, caine making adventures no one likes despite his best efforts and sincere attempts to ask what they want is somehow less forgiveable to the humans than jax going out of his way to cause harm and telling everyone outright that he does it for fun (regardless of what his actual reasons are, bc all they know is what he tells them). "oh were never getting out of here, guess we gotta make peace with jax being a bully" instead of "oh were never getting out of here, lets maybe try to stay on good terms with the guy who runs literally everything"

in conclusion: caine they could never make me hate you

Real as hell. I'm playing devils advocate here and saying the humans only started going "we need to stop/get rid of him" after he crashed out, but still.

They didn't see him as a person, so they didn't see the need to "get to know him" like they did with everyone else. Even though!! He's super interesting!! He's an ai sure but he's also got control of the entire system and he can communicate with a good understanding of words being said to him. The entire problem with ai NOW is that it doesn't have a good grasp on what we're saying. It can replicate speech, but it doesn't get it. But when they talk to Caine, he understands almost everything they say. Zooble says "you Really wanna know what I want?" and instead of answering their question literally, he says "oh no" because he has a grasp on Zooble's style of speech and what they mean. That's fucking incredible!

Ai has always been used as an allegory for autistic ppl and by god is it as relatable as ever. Not fitting in, being constantly told you're doing something wrong even when you're doing *nothing*, not being told anything by ppl because you're just supposed to know. It's all there babeyyyy

my only evidence is that right before pomnis nightmare scene it looks like she gets zapped and im interpreting that as a sort of scan. if caine understood humans enough to handcraft their nightmares he probably wouldnt struggle making adventures. he gave zooble the zooble box to try to help them, it wouldnt then make sense for him to view that as something to torment them with, especially if he interpreted them telling him to "forget it" so literally that he really did erase the conversation from his memory

jaxs nightmare is also really interesting in this regard, bc theres no way caine knows the exact 3 people jax feels closest to and would be able to hurt him the most. even if caine does have all seeing eyes, jax still pushed pomni away in the end. how would an ai who still doesnt fully grasp human connection be able to tell jax even still liked her after that? anywya dats what i tink

Yeah I agree! Although I also think there is *some* understanding of what the information given was. Bc you can be told something without knowing anything about it. But Caine made it *hurt* and that means he knows, on some level, what makes it hurtful, instead of just something they don't like. There's a big difference between "you don't like this person so im making you stay with them" and "looming threat that stares into your soul with your worst fear served as dessert"

Caine is not stupid! He's dense for sure, but not stupid. And it shows in these bits where he finally stops being complacent.

I like the one post that talks about how he sees every problem as a thing to be solved. With the zooble example, he "already solved that problem" so he knows it *is* a problem, just that he already came up with a solution. I think, after looking at it through that lens, him going "forget what?" isn't because he literally erased the conversation, he just doesn't understand why they're still hung up on the problem when it's, in his mind, already taken care of.

A lot of things in the circus can probably be applied with that logic as well. They don't need to sleep but there's a sun and moon because people were complaining about the lack of it etc etc

dude did u knwo abt this.... big if true

im guessing he gets all this info from peoples mind files and absorbs it into his database. thats whats most likely considering caine didnt seem to be trained on anything like that, and even if the blue ai got a wider variety of data that caine then absorbed, it probably doesnt account for everything that caine knows

but the most interesting part is that all he has about the c&a office are the initial images he was given. kingers memories still exist even if he has trouble recalling them. everyone else presumably had to have been there to put the headset on. caine clearly knows he has access to the mind files, he shouldve been able to find something from someone

idk if theres anything suggesting caine has internet access but im assuming not, since hes not just looking things up all the time. hes upset about being "cut off" which could easily be referring to being put in the box but also. is he specifically restricted from learning more about the office for some reason? if hes supposedly getting all these things from the mind files, why hasnt he been able to get anything else about the c&a office? Just a Thought

As said in the funny ad from before ep2 abt Caine and the internet:

And I'm p sure his pictures are different from the ones he was fed, so he definitely has more. But of course, it's still limited. There was only like, what, 5 ppl who worked there inside the circus? And if all of them were programmers, they wouldn't have a ton of knowledge of the building aside from those specific rooms.

And considering C&A were large enough to have tons of computers and an ai program, I'm assuming their building was pretty big. I'm not surprised he nor the other humans know much about it at all. Minds are tricky things! Forgetful and sometimes even misleading. Relying solely on the minds of humans in distress seems like a bad idea.

Well if you insist!

ik for the sake of hanahaki, they were Close but ultimately undefined, true feelings left unsaid, just a coupla friends/business partners. i like that interpretation a Lot i find it very compelling & i think its probably the most likely, but Also the sweepstakes ring gives plausibility to them being married/engaged for reals + spamton straight up calls it a Commemorative Ring (thorn ring = wedding ring Real??).... new theory 1997 was the best year bc its also when he & tenna got married (/j... unless?)

I think they were just close with Big Feelings

Like the kind of vibes where everyone else has a bet on how long it'll take to confess/who breaks first. They are the worst at communicating evers. I think at most Spamton saw a ring and went "Ohh yknow who would like this?" and only afterwards realized hey that's. Kinda Gay. So he didn't give it to Tenna before The Phone Call of Despair.

Anyway yeah I think Tenna is too stuck in the past where he's worried abt his perception if he gets together with another man (scandalous)(scary) and Spamton is just repressed and an idiot. If you told him he was in love he would not believe you. That's for losers, thank you very much.

hapyp "artfight" i found an old drawing of yuu & tried to rdraw it . so its like "revenge" for the art you provided me recenely. #teamfossils

AlsSo. your bithday is soon isnt int/.. do you want anything in particualr? i can like. try to draw a keychain of one of your ocs?? & then pay to get it made ofc. or just like some other custom keychain idk.Up 2 You 👍

Yippee yippee yayy yay I remember this one! I also remember very vividly how I was under the impression you were very popular still. I will get my revenge....