having caine thoughts but i dont wanna bug you in dms again. anyway impromptu caine essay
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
Anyway yes. Caine they could never make me hate you









