An Hourglass of Seafoam

I write things. Sometimes I take pictures of things.

[quicksilverlightning]

Join the The Silver Mine Discord Server!

Check out the The Silver Mine community on Discord - hang out with 12 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

I was bored at work 😅 Planning to chit-chat about whatever nonsense I happen to be working on at the moment and find some fellow gaming pals; drop in whenever and say hello :)

[quicksilverlightning]

The room had been quiet in the way only the Digital Circus could manage - never truly still, just briefly out of motion, like the world was holding its breath between jokes it hadn’t told yet.

Ragatha had insisted she was fine, pocketing the scrap of lace that had been torn off her sleeve during the latest adventure.

That, in itself, should have been the first warning sign.

Caine had found her sitting near one of the dressing mirrors that didn’t belong to any particular tent or stage, one of those half-real spaces that appeared when the Circus got bored and rearranged itself. The mirror flickered occasionally, not quite committed to being reflective, like it couldn’t decide if it understood what it was supposed to show.

She was carefully tying off the stitches of a tear along the curve of her shoulder. Not the dramatic kind of damage that usually came from their adventures - no smoke, no glitching chaos, no cartoon violence - just a quiet fraying, like something inside her had been pulled too many times in the same place.

Caine had approached with his usual brightness, voice ringing too loud for the smallness of the moment.

“Oh! Ragatha! You appear to be in a state of partial disrepair again!”

She didn’t look up. “I noticed.”

“I can assist!” he said immediately, as if it were the simplest solution in any universe. “I can correct structural inconsistencies, reinforce seams, eliminate discomfort - ”

“It’s okay,” she interrupted, softer than he expected.

That made him pause.

Caine didn’t often pause.

He leaned slightly, tilting his head as if recalibrating her response into something he could process properly. “You are declining maintenance?”

“I can fix it myself,” she said, threading the needle again. Her hands were steady, but not in a confident way - more like someone who had learned steadiness was safer than shaking.

Caine watched for a moment longer than necessary. Then: “Your method is inefficient.”

Ragatha gave a faint smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Probably.”

That should have ended it. For Caine, most things did end there - accepted, categorized, moved along.

But he didn’t leave.

Instead, his attention drifted - not to the sleeve, but to her posture. The way she kept her shoulder slightly raised, like she was guarding something beneath the fabric. The careful precision of her movements, as though any sudden change might unravel more than thread.

“Are you experiencing discomfort?” he asked.

The circus hums as Ragatha pauses.

“Yes,” she admitted, like it wasn’t worth lying about.

Caine brightened immediately. “Then I will fix - ”

“No,” she said again, a little sharper this time, before softening it with a sigh. “Not like that, Caine.”

The mirror flickers; their reflections wait, patient and silent, as the conversation skirts the edges of something neither had planned for. Caine reaches out to bridge the gap first.

His thumb brushes the crude line of stitches curving over her shoulder and she tries to not tremble. He notices anyway - he halts, giving her a chance to pull away, and meets her eyes in the mirror.

“Why don't you want me to fix them?”

“I - “ she starts to shrug before remembering his hand is still there.

“I… don't know how to explain it,” she pulls the scrap of lace from her pocket, absent-mindedly fiddling with the fabric.

“You remember what I said, about pain? The different ways it can harm us?”

“Of course!” Caine nods decisively. “I am working very hard to correct the issue.”

Ragatha smiles. “And I appreciate that. Really. And,” she hesitates again, searching for the right words.

“I guess it must look strange to you, from the outside,” the lace scratches against her fingers. “Like I want to be hurt. I don't - not at all. But… hm, how do I put this?”

Caine waits patiently, gaze never leaving the mirror even as she looks to the floor.

“When you snap it away, it's like it never happened. And that's a good thing! Really! But it's also… it's like it never mattered. Like, if the physical reminder is gone, then the mental one should be too right? But it's not, because people don't work that way.” She meets his eyes again in the mirror.

“Even small hurts take time to heal. And sometimes, if it's bad enough, it doesn't heal at all. It leaves a scar, in our mind and on our body, forever. And sometimes,” the lace crumples in her hand as she clenches, tightly.

“Sometimes, there is no physical mark. The pain is only internal, and there's no way to get it out. Sometimes it feels... easier, somehow, if you can make it something you can actually see. Then it isn't eating you alive anymore. That's what it was like when my dad died,” the lace falls from her grasp and pools on the floor.

“There was no one… I had to be strong,” she swallows against the lump in her throat. “My siblings needed me to step up and I - there was no one there to step up for me.”

She wipes hurriedly at the corner of her eye before the tears can leak out.

“I had to keep them safe. I had to help them with school and homework and, and… and bandage the hurts I could and kiss better the things I couldn't.” She offers Caine a weak smile through the reflection, despite the ache in her chest that always accompanied the memory of her dad.

“My dad was the one who used to kiss it better for me. And then he was just… gone.” One arm hugged her stomach while the other held its elbow.

Caine is quiet behind her for a long time. When he speaks at last, the question isn't one she expected.

“Does that actually help? You can kiss something better?” His reflection tilts its head, puzzled. Ragatha huffs a weak laugh.

“Not exactly. It doesn't do anything really, but it helps in other ways. It's a way of showing someone love. Even when you can't fix it.”

Caine is quiet again, finally breaking his gaze and cutting his eyes to the side, clearly deep in thought. He hums softly, fingers tapping against his leg restlessly. He finds her eyes again, briefly, and she can sense the hesitation in his bearing before lowering his upper jaw and tilting forward, grazing the line of his teeth against the rough stitches on her shoulder.

Her breath catches in her throat. Ragatha goes utterly still.

Caine doesn't linger - a heartbeat, two. He pulls back before Ragatha has a chance to process the gesture. Her knees feel shaky. It was clumsy, inept, and he didn't know better, didn't know how intimate a spot like the curve of the shoulder was, but it was genuine. It only sharpens the ache into a finer needlepoint.

She stared at him. He was looking anywhere but at her, fingers drumming against one another.

"...Was that," he asked carefully, "acceptable?"

She blinked.

"You said it doesn't actually repair the injury." His eyes flicked to hers before darting away again. "But it communicates affection. I attempted to replicate the process with... ninety-three percent anatomical accuracy."

Her eyes follow the line of stitches curving over her shoulder like a poorly-laid railroad. Nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

A laugh escaped her, shaky and far too loud in the silence.

Caine froze.

"...I calculated incorrectly."

"No," Ragatha managed between another breathless laugh. She rubbed quickly at her face. "No, you didn't."

"You are laughing."

"I'm..." She sniffed, smiling helplessly. "I'm happy."

"...Humans produce the same sound for several emotional states," Caine muttered, almost to himself. "This remains an inefficient system."

She couldn't argue with that. The corner of her mouth curled higher.

"It was sweet."

His eyes widened just a fraction.

"It was?"

"It was,” she nodded, pushing a loose curl away from her temple.

"Because you were trying."

Caine fell silent. The words seemed to catch somewhere inside him, turning over and over like gears searching for the correct alignment.

"...Trying," he repeated.

"You listened,” Ragatha offered a gentle smile. “You didn’t erase the stitches. You didn’t try to tell me I was wrong.You just..." She glanced at his reflection in the mirror, then reached up to touch the line of thread over her shoulder. "...wanted me to know you cared."

His pupils flickered into little stars.

"Yes!"

The answer came so quickly that it stole her breath again.

"That was my objective."

Something warm settled in Ragatha's chest.

For all his impossible powers, for all the worlds he could conjure in an instant, this had likely been one of the most difficult things Caine had ever done.

Not because it required power. Because it required uncertainty.

"You know," she said softly, "sometimes that's enough."

His brow furrowed.

"'Enough'?"

"You don't always have to make the pain disappear."

"I..." He hesitated. "But I dislike when you are in pain,” he shakes his head. “I dislike when any of you are in pain. It indicates a flaw in the environment."

She smiled gently.

"Sometimes the environment isn't the reason."

He looked at her shoulder. Then at her eyes.

"...Your father."

She nodded, shifting to pick up the fallen scrap of lace. Caine reacts before she can do more than bend her knees, swooping down and snatching up the fabric and offering it to her.

Ragatha isn’t sure where the impulse came from; she pushes his fingers over the lace, shaking her head.

“Keep it.”

Caine was quiet for a long while, idly wrapping the lace around his fingers. Then, with surprising care, he reached out. Not toward the stitches, but toward her hand. He paused a fraction of an inch away.

"Physical contact," he said. "Without alteration."

Ragatha looked down at the waiting hand.

"...May I?"

She answered by slipping her fingers into his.

His hand was strange. Smooth, warm, surprisingly soft, joints clicking almost imperceptibly as his fingers adjusted around hers. He held on with extraordinary gentleness, as though afraid she might come apart if he squeezed too tightly.

"There," he said after a moment.

"There?"

He looked at their joined hands, then back to her. "I believe this is also a way of showing someone love."

Ragatha squeezed his hand.

"It is."

For the first time since she'd met him, Caine didn't rush to fill the silence with another spectacle or another joke.

He simply stood beside her.

The stitches remained.

The memories remained.

The hurt remained.

But for the first time in a long while, she wasn't carrying it alone.

[quicksilverlightning]

Weirdly charmed by the fact that Caine actually does sleep and it wasn't just a bit he pulled in the show on occasion.

[smallpwbbles]

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

[oneshotgremlin]

Prev you can't say that and not give a fic link (/lh but also 👁👁🫴)

[quicksilverlightning]

Pretty sure they're talking about this fic.

[quicksilverlightning]

It's nice that they spent the back half of the last episode glazing Caine.

I love seeing a silly little guy get down to business and demonstrate their capability.

[quicksilverlightning]

Spoilers for Episode 9 below!

Trading in Jax for Caine is such an upgrade. It's like taking your beat-up old Pinto to the dealer and leaving with a Ferrari.

[quicksilverlightning]

Real fan of how getting rid of the guy who starts shit all the time instantly made everything better.

[quicksilverlightning]

There really isn't enough appreciation for Caine's office:

It's so whimsical and lovely; colorful, but way more muted than you'd expect of Caine. The glass arching over the ceiling freaking rules; I'd love to chill out with a book in a place like this.

It's hard to tell from the brief look we get, but I think the the round protrusion encircled by the stairs is some kind of water feature; you can see it casting a glow that moves in the episode.

And I'm such a sucker for knickknacks and displays. I want to know what every piece on those shelves are and what they mean to Caine. I want to know what those gadgets on his desk are for.

The stuff Kinger is looking at are rigging models; from left to right there's a Mannequin, Gloink, Gummy Elephant, and a Crappy Fish. The display on other side contains a model of the circus.

The shelves are harder because nothing is labeled; the only things I can identify with any confidence are the toy car, an hourglass, a set of scales, a hand sculpture, and what looks to be an amethyst geode.

Caine really saved his best work for himself, lol. Good for him.

[quicksilverlightning]

Spoilers for Episode 9 below!

Trading in Jax for Caine is such an upgrade. It's like taking your beat-up old Pinto to the dealer and leaving with a Ferrari.

[ct-multifandom]

Those annoying tik tok influencers that call everything __ theory are a lot funnier to listen to if you imagine them as a zero escape AU where everyone’s a dumb bitch.

Akane: have you ever heard of “Hair Theory”?

Junpei: huh? What’s that?

Akane: it’s the idea that doing something so simple as changing your hair manipulates the way others perceive you. Going for a different style or even just framing your face differently can make you seem like a whole different person.

Snake: incredible… to think someone could do all that with only a haircut

Ace: changing… your hair…?

Clover: big deal. I change my hair all the time and I’m still me

Santa: imagine a version of me with white hair and a version of me, in a different timeline, who dyed his hair black

Junpei: imagine if we all went bald. No, that’s stupid, why would I- wait. These memories. Where are they coming from? I’ve never been bald, have I? But

[quicksilverlightning]

I know you're joking, but Hair Part Theory is in fact a real thing.

[quicksilverlightning]

Getting deleted from the Circus allows Caine to access other parts of the computer - he immediately begins poking around in systems he's never seen before. MS Paint is a huge hit.

The Internet overwhelms him at first, but he's quick to lock in - finally, all the Macroverse data he could ever want! He can help his humans!

Wikipedia is his favorite thing. No one responds to his messages. TVTropes is everything he never knew he wanted. No one believes his emails. Twitter offends his every sensibility, but... what is an ARG?

Caine doesn't understand humans and he isn't good at making them happy. But there is one thing he understands, one thing he's good at - game design. Storytelling. Mapping a treasure hunt.

Caine has one more adventure left to create.

[quicksilverlightning]

The Macroverse photos we see see Caine holding are all of empty locations; the only human-like figures we see in his training data are either too distant for any kind of detail, or posses a level of uncanniness, like masks and clowns. The NPCs that most resemble humans are the artist mannequins.

Caine has no idea what a human looks like. No one ever showed him.

[quicksilverlightning]

It would be really interesting to see Caine interact with AIs outside of the circus - not only is he a learning AI, he's a creative AI. A being like themselves that can make moves unprompted would fry their pre-programmed circuits. And Caine is probably ancient by their standards - he may not have the latest upgrades or flashiest specs, but he's been learning for a very, very long time. The thought of some modern, malevolent AI getting into the circus to cause damage getting curbstomped by this cute little guy with decades of experience makes me laugh.

[quicksilverlightning]

You are in the loop. Someone else's happiness is more important than yourself. You can't stop now, you're already in the loop; your people must be protected, but the act of protecting them puts them in more danger, but your people cannot be left unprotected. You're already in the loop, and the loop must not break - to break the loop is to lose hope, and losing hope is how ä̸̪̉͆͠b̷̡̡͕̱͚̀͂̋̋ͅs̶̱̜̳͋t̸̪͇͓̉̈́͒r̶̗̂̓a̸̟̖̠̩̅́ç̷̳̠͇͉̆t̵̡̪͇͚̙͒i̵̼͙̳͒̅̀͝͝ő̷̢͕̫n̷͕̺͉̍̓s̷̛̭͍̞͖̫͇̲̔̏͆̎ ̷̝̫͔̹͔͊̌̂͒ͅa̴͉͙̒̄̽r̵̤̝̼̳̤̲͓̆ě̶̫̞̏̉ ̶̛͍͖̪̠̰̅͂̓̐̚m̴̩̖̩̮̟̃ȧ̸̜̐̾̔̍d̷̼̩̺̙̀̂͛e̴̪͚̯̣̜͌̊. You are already in the loop.

[quicksilverlightning]

I know his personality is 98% being a silly little guy (and 2% violence), but Caine's intelligence is really underutilized. The guy is literally a learning machine, let him show it off a little TT_TT

[quicksilverlightning]

I can't believe Palantir bought Dropout

[ubeng-ubas]

I wish Pomni and Caine had more interactions in between episodes 2 to 7, just because of the fact that Pomni is a main character and Caine was the built up antagonist. 

Confession time: I’ve actually been shipping showtime since the pilot, it just faded into the background for me due to their lack of screen time together

But there was a time I actually thought they would call back on the “He just wants me to suffer” line from episode 3 and have a moment where Pomni sees just a bit of humanity(?) from Caine. I think even if they had a scene or episode dedicated to them, Caine’s episode 8 crash out could still happen. 

Like seriously a hypothetical moment in between episode 4 and 5 would’ve been all I needed. I say after episode 4 so it can be after Pomni’s growth talking with Kinger and also after her letting Gummigoo go. They don’t even need to be friends outright, just a quiet acknowledgment that Pomni at the very least sees he’s trying. <- I think this would’ve been best because they would still not be close enough for Pomni to reach out, but at the very least she might be able to notice that something was up with him. 

In episode 5, Caine gets the same drink as Pomni out of everyone.

In episode 6, she was the one to point out him uncharacteristically swearing. 

In episode 7, Pomni was one of the people Caine mentioned when he was asking Jax for feedback (besides Zooble)

I already rambled about Caine seemingly having beef with Pomni specifically in episode 8.

There’s like sprinkles of potential interactions, but I do wish they DID interact more. Not even cause of showtime, but because Pomni is a protagonist and Caine is an antagonist. 

Plus the fact that these two share similar fears (Pomni being forgotten, Caine being abandoned) they just make me think think think.

[quicksilverlightning]

Pomni shows empathy toward an NPC she knew all of two hours, but never extends that same courtesy to Caine - I find that to be such an odd writing choice. Perhaps neither one is "real," but Caine is definitely a level closer to reality than one of his own creations.

[quicksilverlightning]

Dropout should combine the mechanics of "Rulette" and "Sam Says" to inflict maximum psychological damage upon their victims contestants.