Starlight Searchers @blueinkedcrowling - Tumblr Blog

something something baby tooth

yeah like rn i'm leaning towards either SOMA theory or the fact that the digital circus players' bodies are probably dead by now but like. can you imagine if they weren't. if, like, their bodies just got zapped into the computer with them or someshit. like imagine one day a group of ~6 people bust out of an old abandoned building screaming "WHAT YEAR IS IT" and when the authorities check them out they realize that they're perfect DNA matches to these people who disappeared, except several of them disappeared DECADES ago and they're somehow the exact same age they were when they disappeared. and all of their stories are exactly the same, they got sucked into a fucking video game but nobody can double-check this because they fucking murdered the AI running it and then probably smashed the computer console when they got out for good measure. every now and again they do something stupid and dangerous and say some shit like "oh yeah i forgot we don't operate on cartoon logic anymore." one of them saw a picture of a gummy crocodile and is crying. dude this would be the biggest news story of the year like nobody would be able to talk about anything else

foudreika

Mother knows best.

muku-gc

Wait

daialune

touch

spudsyhails

everyone is so mean 2 me 💔

omnybus

of course the expert computer programmer would be a furry

demilypyro

I'm fascinated by the line "don't need to scream if you ain't got a mouth" that Caine delivers in his villain song, because while it's obviously the strongest reference to I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream in the entire show, I think it also starkly illustrates the biggest difference between Caine and AM: that Caine is way, way more vulnerable to criticism.

The original line is delivered by the last human: it's Ted's sad internal lament that he's become unable to even express his pain, which is its own form of psychological horror. It's AM's final, cruelest joke. But here the line is instead delivered BY the AI. Caine did his best to please the humans. But the humans just WON'T stop complaining! And that's torture for him. So rather than listening to them, which would take willingness to reflect and improve, he just takes their mouths away, so they can't complain anymore.

Rather than being a cruelty inflicted on the humans, it reframes the whole line as a way for the AI to protect its ego. It's Caine going "la la la I can't hear you." It's not a clever form of torture, it's just pathetic and childish. Caine's ego is his biggest flaw. And it's what gets him killed.