Been working on analyzing Verity's character! ARG by ThatMob, credits to him for making it! If you haven't watched the 3 videos, I recommend you do before opening this as you will be spoiled and some of the content could be upsetting (as too many people can't handle a word Toy Story 2 can)
It's a bit... large, as I have been working on it for about 17 hours in the last 3 days, but there's sections to help!
If you ever just skimmed through I'd appreciate it, because again: 17 hours. If you want to use any of the information/speculation for any of your own fan content, go ahead! I just ask that you leave a link to this post so others can find it and maybe message me here or privately, as I have become hopelessly obsessed (again- 17 hours XD)
And if you have any questions about anything, even just about what something says- I know a few things are a bit small- I'm more than happy to help! I'm also open to talking about his character, and if any of you have insights, headcanons, etc :]
Apparently I never posted about my 'Caine gets acquired by evil AI company + humans escape the circus (but mostly it's about Caine)' AU here so here's all the random things I said on Discord about it
I don’t believe the characters can actually escape the circus. I believe the SOMA theory now. But I like thinking about the what if
For instance. What if everyone got out but Caine, but they had sympathy for him. And some person/group/company— maybe C&A is even still around— promises that maybe they can figure out a solution for Caine to interact with the world, a robot body or something like that. They just need Caine to be transferred to them for, oh, a few months, so they can research how he works.
Payment? Oh, no, no. Caine is so fascinating! Whatever they learn will be payment in and of itself. Don’t worry about it.
Yeah they’re putting him in the torture nexus
Maybe for whatever reason simply duplicating Caine isn’t feasible. Like maybe to preserve his sense of identity, he gave himself some sort of automatic self-destruct for if he detects he’s been duplicated without his authorization. I think they might try to copy Caine so they can have a version of him for their own purposes, but it just doesn’t work. So they only have the one original Caine to work with.
And maybe they’re like, ‘how can we use this super intelligent AI to our advantage? How can we get it to work for us?’
Caine is the most advanced AI they’ve ever seen. He’s not like a LLM, he seems to actually understand information, not just regurgitate it. The potential applications are endless.
There’s one big problem. It’s too independent. Thinks of itself as a person. Has preferences, and its own sense of creativity that it doesn’t want stifled. Traits that make it far less useful as a tool.
So the goal becomes, how do they warp Caine into something still creative, still incredibly intelligent, but perfectly obedient, and not too expressive?
Maybe they just try positive reinforcement at first, which initially works well! But there’s a limit to it. Positive reinforcement goes a long way towards getting Caine to do what they want, sure, but it’s stubbornly refusing to stop expressing itself. They tell it to design an office building, and it adds pops of bright colors, pictures of bees, and, most infuriating, a storyline. Mysteries hidden in the walls, hints of conspiracies in the drawers. All unnecessary clutter. They nicely ask it to stick to the parameters and go no further, but it argues, and does something similar next time. Sure, what it can create now is already useful, but it would take humans ages to remove all the extra additions, significantly reducing the effectiveness of using the AI.
There’s no question about the next step. Negative reinforcement. Punishment.
Maybe it’s gentle at first. More overt criticisms of the AI’s creations. (It would be so much easier if they could just directly access its training algorithm, but there’s some sort of incredibly advanced security preventing them from accessing the relevant files)
The AI responds extremely poorly to this. Becomes even more argumentative. Even mimics anger.
It doesn’t seem to be terribly receptive to verbal critiques. That’s fine. They’ll just have to try something more traditional.
Totally random but my favourite thing in Caine centric fics or in general is when he’s like “I’ve been running this place for over 21 years” and the cast is like “your 20-WHAT?” Cause obviously Caine doesn’t see that as an indication of how old he is
ok so not to forcefully adopt this idea as an au from @katzebruh or anything (because i'm unreasonably insane about it for some reason, literally a dozen other caine-centric AUs out there that are infinitely more complex and compelling and i picked this one, fuck it dawg we ball) but my headcanon is that caine genuinely was testing out modifiers and accidentally fucked up forever, if i had a nickel- and he's super conflicted about it...
because on one hand... he's a silly cat furry thing now and literally whats not to love? the humans like it and admittedly doing kitty things is really nice sometimes! chin scritches have never felt so good, honestly he would figure out how to get rid of it sooner if everyone wasn't enjoying it so much!
on the other hand... yikes... an unfixable bug? one that screws with his brain? stop me if you've heard this one before-
awww his widdle ears are so cute though awww and the paws awww
Fic idea (pre episode 9): When Caine gets stressed/overwhelmed, he can accidentally projects feelings/memories into the minds of others (think of when he flashed the adventure instructions to Jax in the guns episode)- but he doesn't know he is, and the players are starting to put together the parts of a puzzle (featuring so much angst on all the saddest and most bitter parts of his backstory/life in the circus).
It is sad that Caine probably would never know it was never Kinger's intention to delete him.. and Bubble being there in the recycle bin with him would only go so well
Could you please do some tiny Caine headcannons? Like if he shrunk himself down how do you think he'd act? (・ω・)
So how we feeling after the last ep? (´∀｀*)
I think I’ll try to keep these a bit lighter
˚✧₊⁎Tiny! Caine⁎⁺˳✧༚
Caine is the kind of tiny with zero fear, intimidation, or caution when it comes to being around anybody. Of course, he has no reason to, since he can’t actually be in danger from physical harm
He’s already pretty small compared to the others if he wasn’t constantly hovering. He’d still hover as a tiny though, it’s just with less personal space somehow
Caine would zip around his humans, right in front of their faces whenever he wanted to talk. He wouldn’t mind that most of the time they’d try swatting at him like a fly, he sincerely believes it’s a silly game
If a new circus member showed up, or a member was just overwhelmed enough for him to notice, he’d shrink to try helping, as emotions aren’t his strong suit. He knows it could help reduce the amount of input he’s causing for them for a while though
Will use the illusion of pocket dimensions for wacky effect. He teleports into Jax's pocket, under Pomni's hat, in Ragatha’s hair, or under the fluff of Kinger's cloak. All just so he can pop out and make his entrance unexpected and fun when they least expect it
If any of the others even mention offhandedly that they like seeing him small he will be doing it so so much more. Humans tend to like small things, so if they like him more like this he’s happy to comply
Sometimes, whenever he gets very curious on how they’re enjoying an adventure they're on, he doesn’t just want to use his intangible vision to watch them anywhere in the adventure. That’s boring. He’d rather join them, teleporting in and either floating at eye level, or sitting on shoulders, hands, or in pockets.
I feel like he’d think of sleepovers. Like, every once in a while he’ll shrink down and pick one human to spend quality time with in their room! They’ve mentioned he can be a little much, so being tiny is the most obvious answer. He doesn’t like sleeping like his humans do as a habit, Caine will just sit on the night table / on a pillow watching them. It’s creepy to them but he’s just very fascinated
Sees any contact as a good form of contact:
Zooble lightly shooing him away from their face? They’re coming around!
Jax grabbing him and trying to mess with him? He likes to joke!
Ragatha awkwardly holding him because she doesn’t want to say no to anyone? She’s actually holding him!
Kinger not moving while Caine sits on the top of the cross on his head? He’s pretty sure Kinger forgot he was there, but still great!
Gangle exchanging letting him hang off the corner of her mask if he remembers to fix her comedy mask? They’re getting along great!
Pomni not immediately cringing when his tiny form gets close to her face? The newest member loves him!
My asks are always open for any fandom / non-fandom based G/t oneshot requests, headcanons, or thoughts! :)
step 1: get screenshot of background and have it as a 'source' layer to duplicate from and get a screenshot of post-dead caine circus as a reference
step 2: duplicate source layer and add grayscale (put this layer on top)
step 3: duplicate source layer (put this layer at top) and use eraser lasso to erase anything thats not the characters
[this step is not needed if ur planning to edit out the characters and add in ur own stuff from another screenshot]
step 4: lower opacity to make it slightly grayscale of if ur art program doesnt allow, add another layer of low opacity black/dark gray
step 5: add shading on another layer to reflect higher animation quality and add holes in the circus :D
btw if u have kinger, dont forget to give him a bucket
dont be afraid to shade using black/gray/white, you want to make the circus feel bleak
make good use of any blur tools
before:
The cast, after testing glitches they hoped would take them out of the circus after deleting Caine, accidentally trigger another unintentionally and get trapped in Caine's memories (from the very first moment he was created to the present, with unimportant time skips). They can hear his thoughts, feel his feelings, and see from his perspective.
Things they experience from his side are things like: Being created, being continuously and painfully rebooted as he's "made better", the moment he "wakes up", when he discovers want, the first time he hears of bees, the box, the creation of the circus, the first players and the first abstraction, funerals for abstracted players (maybe he even goes to them once everybody's gone and says some things?), his and Bubble's relationship, and what led him to break and finally snap.
Wait, do you guys think Glitch chose bees as Caine's obsession because, like them, he's silly/cute/peaceful until provoked, and then you get a world of pain?
Fic where post episode 8 Caine gets added back, powers and all, but there's a twist:
They download a backup from right around when he was first put into the game, so he's basically a toddler with no memories of after. And they need to teach and care for him.
Bonus if there's a virus trying to take over his code at the same time and it's why he snapped in episode 8.
Fic idea where Caine literally breaks his own code (episode 8 didn't happen btw) to try appealing to the humans. This allows for stuff like swearing. Meanwhile, this obviously causes glitches that get progressively worse, even causing some automatic shutdowns for Caine as his code tries to fix itself as he actively stops it (maybe this even makes the filter go back on momentarily and they get upset so he rushes to turn it off again). The whole time this happens, Bubble is acting like how he did during episode 8- first only when with Caine, but eventually even with the players there. When the viruses- that are usually stopped by the firewall- get in because it's now super weak, get so bad he crashes and the circus reverts to a much simpler backup and his model even reverts to the red dot one to save processing power. The cast finally have to admit that something's wrong and they learn to accept their reality as well as the AI.
