The Artificial Entity's Guide to Empathy 101 - Parole AU [5/6]
Part 1! || Part 2! || Part 3! || Part 4! || You're here! || Part 6! (coming soon!)
Me when I lie (I didn't take into account that Part 5 wouldn't fit the entire lesson)
And so we've finally gotten to the first part of the lesson: emotional hurt!
Honestly, I kinda do and don't believe that Caine knows emotional hurt. Or to explain it in better terms, he knows that you can cause discomfort without any sort of physical contact, but not the fact that it can linger and counts as emotionally harming. Since he constantly shifts from one thing to another, he is unable to process emotional pain and doesn't notice that it isn't as easy to scrub off as physical.
Or long story short, he doesn't experience lasting emotional pain. Not a significant one, in canon. The reason he understands it in this AU is because the cuff is hindering his ability to ignore, since he can't teleport away, and create adventures-- to say it lightly, he's unable to distract himself away from it.
This is why he tends to ignore the cast, because he is unable to empathize with them/put himself in their shoes.
Now as you may have noticed, it's actually a bit out of character for Caine to listen to Pomni for this long. I also have answers for that:
He's eager to learn, because he's a learning AI. He'll ignore requests, but he can't ignore tasty information. Especially one that he thinks is the missing puzzle piece.
He is unable to teleport away and ignore Pomni
uhhhhhhhh I can't afford to make the comic longer than intended, SMOKE BOMB DISTRACTION!!!!!! 💣💥💣💥💣💥
Ughhhh I need to finish this thing soon... lowkey wishing this wasn't a comic because MAN, the rushed comic format is really hindering the message a lot.
UPDATE: edited Caine's reaction to better imply he had SOME semblance of an idea towards emotional hurt, but never really understood it fully.