Fun (fan) stories

(Also noticed that his ears are, like, translucent? It's such a cute thing omg never rationally noticed that )

It's Tyrion Lannister. It's his entire life.

He looked at trauma and marginalisation and mockery dead in the eyes and said, fine. If they see me as a monster, I'll be the worst. If they see me as a joke, I'll do cartwheels and laugh of their discomfort.

Sooo, now I'll try to summerize all I've theorized and/or mulled over until now :)

Talking about the dates. Uhm. The Circus has most likely started functioning on 15 oct 1996; something happened on 30 oct of the same year. Kinger trying to break through its system? Whatever he did, it didn't work. From that moment, every 15 oct people are dragged into the Circus. Pretty scary. Why woud someone be (supposedly) willing to put (most likely) some sort of machinery on their heads? Seems like some sick plan. CA??? What are you hiding??

Bubble is not the villain, nor a virus. Uhm, I'm not sure about this one, to be fair. Anyway, Bubble is, for what I saw, part of Caine's code. Was his strange behaviour in ep8 due to a general malfunctioning of Caine's system, or was he controlled by something else? (I tend for the first one tho)

The other AI could be root 1338, or the owner of the mysterious folder markeed with ??? in the beginning. We only see it near the ending. Was it the reason Caine "went crazy"? Or is he just malfunctioning? Was it eliminated with Caine, then? I think so, mostly because of a "storytelling" reason. One can't rationally introduce a new villain, a new character this close to the ending of the story. So I believe they'll leave the doubt unsolved and it'll hover over the fandom's heads for the rest of eternity. :')

Aaaand now, there's what I believe we can expect from the last episode:

What happened on 30 oct 1996. What did Kinger do. Cause he has lore to unleash.

CA. What the fuck do they have to do with this mess. Cos this whole situation, the Circus, the recurring dates, it doesn't feell like a mistake anymore. More like an experiment that got out of hand. I reeeeeally need a big, wide explanation of how the situation started.

Then ✨from a storytelling point of view✨ I believe we won't get any other character's backstory, except from Kinger and maybe Jax. I suppose they'll focus on what I think it's the core theme of the show (I've made a post that): what makes humans humans. What's real and what's not. What's the point of trying to stay human in a digital world. The meaning of the cellar, the parallelism with mental illnesses. At least that's what I got from the trailer.

Talking about the trailer, I'd say it almost looks like Jax somewhat found a way to... uhm, take control of the circus? Judging by the ep9's cover? Two possibilities, either he abstracts or he goes mad. In a scary way. Because we already now they have some kind of grip on the Circus, remember the butterflies. And we saw their brainscans are actually an integral part of the system itself. Idk?

Sooo, in order to do what I did properly I needed to dive deep into programmer lore, which I sadly know shit about. The result is that (1) I found lots of interesting references hidden between the lines and (2) the accuracy is crazy

I made a list of what I found! Not meaningful to the theory, but interesting

1. First of all, from what we see of how Caine's system is built, it could be a Unix or Linux system. I don't actually remember at what point of my hallucinated researches I got to know this but now it's ten in the evening please don't ask (I don't even know if that's a real thing)

2.Then the notorious root 1338! What kicked my attention is the agent written in the code, while the other strings have different things. It seems the term refers to a software entity that works on his own. Strange.

this photo ⏬ has references to what I talk about in points 3, 4 and partly 5

3.Wackytime Lock-out. (Red) Lock-out indicates a security program; it held my idea of a defensive system of Caine's activating when Kinger accessed it, and then having some sort of malfunctioning that lead to it activating self-destruction.

4. (Yellow) I think there's some kind of... joke? I suppose? A programmers' one. Because here the term ground is used in various ways; technically speaking, it basically means data. KInger responds saying greengrounds, which... doesn't make sense? Cause the only thing I could find was a type of new ecological technology. So, the term here is used in three different ways. :))

5.Torment. (the photo ⏬ + green) There's a lot to say. Sooo, first of all. My theory is that Kinger was trying to reach only the "piece" of Caine's system that controls the act of torturing the cast. Which seems to be labeled as Daemon; it indicates a program that works on its own. Uh... Does this mean torture has its own program into Caine's system? Anyway, I found out the line Cannot inject torment. Torment must be 100% accidental is a reference to ep 4:

Uhm, the line itself is pretty creepy. My mind can't just get that's a funny joke and that's all. Nooo. I must creep people out. Anyway, what I'm saying is that, judging by how the line is said, does that mean Caine is programmed so that he can't hurt the cast OR torture must SEEM accidental??? (ok I rationally know it's just a joke. But.)

6. Towards the end, Kinger is basically desperate. He tries some tricks, like switcheroo, which means that uhm he's really going our of time and tries to uhm manipulate the code? Something like that? For what I found on the internet? I'm such an ignorant T-T

7. Once again, number 57 shows up in the line protected by 57x immersive AI defense system.

8. the best one! Kinger's real name. My friend and I felt free to guess it. We decided to go with Grant, cause it feels like a smart name. ✨

9. Ohhh this is my favourite! The accuracy in this few frames blows my mind. So before this line there's mote; that indicates a change in who's "speaking" to Kinger. A mote is basically a little sensor that is connected to the central system and picks up information for it. The line the mote says is hundreds of all-seeing eyes are watching you! And what are those little eyes? THE MOTES IN CAINE'S SYSTEM BULLYING KINGER I'M DYING T-T this is genuinely so cool to me!! The effort they put into those 0,5 seconds frames!!!

Jaime, whose horse is named Honor: yes. It's my horse.

eh eh this is where the fun begins ✨walk with me now.

So, a very interesting point is the voices interacting with Kinger. If I had time and patience, I'd transcript everything and yap about every single string of text, but since I have none of the two I'll just point out the meaningful things, and I'll put photos so you can have the whole picture. Sigh. The marked things are the lines I reference to throughout my ted talk. Good luck I guess T-T

My conclusion is that there are two voices- two "entities", if you want- messing around with Kinger.

Cayne's defensive system

A mysterious one

So, we know he's trying to access the part of Caine's software that controls the so-called "torment." (cannot inject torment. Torment must be 100% accidental, first photo) he's basically trying to stop Caine from torturing the cast. But he's blocked out by Caine's defense system. I undestood it because of four main reasons:

next to each string of text, there's an indication of who is "speaking". For example, for Kinger there's a K; for Caine's system there's always a S.

This line here: protected by 57x immersive AI defense system (first photo), as soon as the system starts "talking" with Kinger.

because it talks like Caine. It has the same slightly crazy, unhinged tone. So yeah. Caine's system. Like, when it says Gasp! A critical malfunctioning in my spectacular system! (Second photo) Ugh. I already miss him.

...aaand because almost all of his interactions with Kinger seem to be meant to slow Kinger down, to block him out of the system. it doesn't behave like an external, potentially opposed entity would. It's trying to protect Caine's system, not to mess with it.

Long story short, Kinger does things. Programmer shit. Or at least tries; the system, in an attempt of shielding itself, activates self-destructing mode (wackytime lockout, second photo). (From this point it all gets blurred, all of those little hovering heads). Then Kinger tries to revert the process, but the system seems to not undestand him (Actually you're confused let me help you, last photo). And, well, you know what happens.

So, the question is: why does Caine's system go crazy and basically delete itself?

It could be all Kinger's mistake. A possibility. He said so.

Caine's system is a bit unhinged, like its owner. And it's also malfunctioning, as I suggested in part 1 talking about Bubble.

A creepier third reason: a mysterious entity is influencing him. and...

(Triumphant noises) Here we get to the second voice!! It's something like delete this motherfucker aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa (it's quite funny tho) (third photo)

I know it's not him because 2 (two) reasons:

the sudden shift in the tone. This one's angry. Literally hates him.

I can't see the little S of the system anymore. I can't actually see anything, the indication is hidden. Coincidence? I think not.

I actually tend to believe the first possibility, the "it's whole Kinger's mistake" one, is the most reasonable. Sorry Kinger. Anyway, I still believe that entity really showed up.

Aaaand I believe this other entity could be the other AI, the one Caine has basically "eaten"; so well, I think all this hate resonates with it.

Ok so. I analyzed Kinger's monitor. Because I'm very likely crazy. Anyway, I divided it into parts because otherwise it'd be too long.

I know a lot of people have already done this, but well. I had a lot of fun. So let's start (puts glasses on)

There are the folders. Ai and Neuralscans. Let's start with neuralscans: I think these are the scans of the cast's brains, Caine sort of referenced to it once the latest episode.

It's the obsolete that's interesting. Why are their brainscans not accessible anymore? Does this mean that the central system is not in control anymore? Is Caine the only one able to access them? (Cos I HAVE EVIDENCE. Sort of. Stay tuned for that.)

AI is interesting: there's two subfolders; Caine, and a mysterious one marked with ??? . At first I thought it was Bubble, but, uhm. Guess I'll get to it later on.

When Kinger logs in, the first interesting thing I noticed is his username. It already references to his new identity as Kinger, his identity into the circus. Maybe I'm overthinking, but if his username is Kinger, wouldn't that mean he's already logged in somewhere in the past when he was already in the circus?

(his password being Queenie T-T)

Then, a date. 1996-10-30. Keep an eye on that. If we stick to what I suggested up here, it can be the date of his first log-in, or maybe it's the date of birth of the circus. A friend of mine and I made some research, it seems the only event that can have to do with the circus is the 31 October 1995, when a videogame about "I ain't no mouth and I must scream" came out. Sooo, maybe it's just an Easter egg, but who knows.

Then he enters Caine's system, and for what I could understand, these roots are the foundations of it.

Ok so. That's where it gets hard.

Let's start from brainscans. (Green) As I said before, it seems Caine is the one in control of their scans, but is he this much? To the point of having them implanted in his system as an integral part (a root)?

Then something called consciousness research (yellow) . His conscience, I guess? I looked up to the original story, and when AM basically takes control, it's because he gains a conscience. So maybe it's a reference. Or maybe CA was developing consciousness in its AIs, but something went wrong. And as Caine gained consciousness, the circus was created. Uhm nice parallel I guess

Aaaand the odd one. Root 1338 (red) . Based on what comes later, I thought it can be a software integrated to Caine's system. Like, a defensive system or something like that. Buuut. We move on for now.

More dates! We read:

Oct 15 1996. The date of birth of the circus?

Oct 15 1999. Scratch entered the circus?

Oct 15 2008. Ragatha entered the circus?

I'll just say it's odd that there's just the two of them. Does this mean Caine has Ragatha's and Scratch's brainscans as roots? And if it's like that, why just the two of them? (Or maybe it's just because the animators wanted to give only an hint and leave us all to rot in our overthinking.)

On Oct 15 1996 Bubble's string of data was uploaded too. So that's why Bubble can't be the mysterious entity that owns the subfolder we saw at the beginning; he's part of Caine's core. That's enough for me to scrap the theory that he could be a virus, and his strange behaviour the latest episode can be explained with Kinger's words: Caine is their first "semi-successfull attempt". (tried to put the videoclip but it wouldn't download it T-T)

After all, we know Caine is somewhat damaged. Imperfect. We don't need Bubble to be a virus, because we've been told Caine has some mulfunctions.

Hailee Stenfield! She's Juliet in the 2013 movie

David Tennant 💯

Sir Patrick Stewart our goat

...And Micheal Fassbender OMG

Me studying shakespeare:

SO I REWATCHED NO WAY HOME AND NOW I'M LIKE THIS GUY HERE

Follow me. So we know that Tom Holland's Peter Parker was born on August 10, right? On fandom wiki they say so about MCU Peter. So yes.

And then we know that in the USA high school lasts 4 years. So, when you finish it, you're like either already 18 or you're gonna celebrate them soon, if you were born in the second half of the year

(very obvious things, I know)

SO now follow me

In the beginning of nwh they say that he's starting his last year of high school, sooo that means he's 17, since his birthday is in August

BUT that also means that he's STILL 17 at the end of the movie

✨SO ✨

HOW TF has he managed to rent an apartment LEGALLY? How is he gonna live all alone WITHOUT MONEY until the end of the school year?? (Cos I get he can work after school, but like. Not enough to pay rent.)

Idk someone has ideas??? I'm literally going crazy

Maybe my math is wrong I'm horrible with math but I'm pretty sure?? Like??? Is he hiding from social workers?? How did the spell work? Is he still recorded as May Parker's nephew who's never been seen by anyone before for some reason? Or has the spell affected ALSO his ID exc?????

SO MANY POSSIBILITIES AAAAAA

Long story short, this was the genesis of an outline for a fanfic I'll probably never write. Now lying in my notebook. Probably for eternity.