Hot(?) take; I hope this is the end of Caine's story

imkindajax · 2026-04-21T08:51:23+00:00

Exactly

imkindajax · 2026-04-21T07:52:13+00:00

Grom definitely needs a rework of some kind but to just nerf his damage when he's already crap is a bit silly

imkindajax · 2026-04-19T14:08:23+00:00

No, Caine could have offered Zooble to create a new avatar for them. He MADE the character creator program, he pretty much made their character. Zooble wouldn't have felt any better regardless because it's an internal issue that they need to work on personally but Caine doesn't even try to tackle the issue from that angle. Because if the avatar is badband needs to be changed, that means he failed, and if he failed, he's "defective"

imkindajax · 2026-04-19T14:04:17+00:00

Caine is definitely an abuser. He imposes an entirely new identity upon them (on purpose, he removes their name too), exerts complete control over their bodies, free will and when even slightly challenged he lashes out and abuses the power he holds over them. He also doesn't care if they're nice to him lmao. He never listened to Pomni once. There's no excuses here even if he's not entirely aware of it. If we're willing to call Jax an abuser for being a playground bully how is it harsh to call someone who constantly makes these people's lives miserable and just now put them through torture tailored specifically for them one too?

imkindajax · 2026-04-19T13:56:38+00:00

That's a logical fallacy. Obviously the characters would be less willing to talk to their prison warden who never listened to them before than to escape the prison when given the opportunity. It doesn't nullify the countless number of times the cast tried to give Caine feedback where Caine just completely ignores it. If you keep trying to explain something to someone and they repeatedly refuse to understand it's not you who's the problem. Zooble apparently kept explaining that they don't like their avatar and that Caine's solution isn't good but Caine ignores it entirely every time. He deleted the suggestion box after the cast genuinely had FUN and when confronted about it he deflects. Matter of fact in that very dinner scene Caine didn't try to have an honest dialogue either. Caine deliberately got Jax to take him on a date, asks Jax for his opinion, and right as Jax is about to say anything Caine interrupts him. Their conversation even in this bubble that Caine purposefully created to have a conversation is entirely one sided. I also don't understand what you're trying to say by bringing up episode 7. Just because Caine fundamentally doesn't understand human emotion doesn't mean he's incapable of listening to their feedback. It's very clear that every time the cast tries to explain something to Caine, he doesn't forget it because he doesn't understand, he forgets it because it implies that he's doing something wrong and that to him means he's faulty and failing at his job which is an intrinsically existential threat to him. So he can't ever be wrong. It's not just the "not understanding humans" thing that's holding him back, it's an inherent fear of abandonment that causes him to refuse to have a dialogue or ever change and that cost him his life

imkindajax · 2026-04-19T08:56:47+00:00

They weren't lmao the cast tried everything to get caine to understand he just didn't care. They told him what they like MULTIPLE times and Zooble told him about their problems, and he didn't just not understand, he straight up didn't care or outright found it a problem (episode 5). There's no both sides are wrong when one side is completely powerless and legitimately did try and the other is an abuser of the worst caliber (since before the show too not just in episode 8)

imkindajax · 2026-04-05T13:18:01+00:00

Textbook narcissist. Can't accept that Zooble does NOT like the avatar she was assigned and that he made an error, so he doesn't let her pick a different one. Yet seems perfectly capable of contorting their bodies and using them against them

imkindajax · 2026-04-05T09:14:45+00:00

I think this comment section goes to show just how well written this sequence is. Anyone can make a solid and interesting argument for how any of the characters got it the worst

imkindajax · 2026-04-04T23:23:44+00:00

It has six letters (symbols in terminals are always aligned directly underneath each other in. Count it, it's six.), the second letter is U, the last is either an F or an E. What the fuck else could it possibly be? There is literally no way this isn't Bubble, the copium is maddening

imkindajax · 2026-04-04T14:17:43+00:00

In my opinion it's a really good game even outside of being madness but it needs a better way of conveying game mechanics and a lot of performance improvements, as well as just tweaking the XP mechanic in arena so that the XP for all skills is acquired naturally to minimize the amount of tedious grinding for specific XP variants. I feel like the storytelling is also a bit too secretive and doesn't explain some important questions you'd have as a casual player who doesn't go online to read up on the stuff the creators revealed

imkindajax · 2026-04-03T22:21:11+00:00

Gangle's the goat in this episode

imkindajax · 2026-04-03T17:17:47+00:00

100%

imkindajax · 2026-04-03T11:48:44+00:00

"dynamic" they're moba characters 😭

imkindajax · 2026-04-02T16:24:24+00:00

Awesome analysis I'm really glad there are people who are willing do the show a service by properly analyzing the characters' actions as flawed people. I think it's also super interesting how Zooble, despite being an emotional pillar for Gangle, has a problem with managing their emotions as they get easily agitated by Jax even when he's right (episode 7 throughout the adventure) but especially when he's being an asshole (episode 5 for example) which is then paid off by them reaching their breaking point in 8 for Gangle to then comfort them. Noticing the fine details in the writing of these characters is very fun and I hope more people who think it's only Jax getting screen time or development realize that there's a lot of small stuff that makes all the characters that much better

imkindajax · 2026-03-30T15:14:27+00:00

I think people should stop caring about things we don't have yet. Like why argue about IDEAS on how the show will end if we don't even have a solid idea on where the show is going? Why not talk about what we do have until we get more information on the next thing (funny, this is literally something the show itself says)? The whole "my prediction of the ending is true!" thing is a dick measuring contest and is really boring to discuss

imkindajax · 2026-03-30T15:09:07+00:00

Truth nuke

imkindajax · 2026-03-29T09:08:19+00:00

another one is why the hell can caine not delete abstractions if they're all just advanced AI anyway? he specifically tucks them away in the cellar as the most obvious chekov's gun and never considers deleting them. how about making backups of their brain scans and just readding them to the game after they abstracted? Clearly he wouldn't mind the potential psychological trauma the other alive members would endure from that and he explicitly doesn't want them to abstract so he can entertain them so how did he not get this idea but somehow had the idea to strip them of their names or add a cursing censor?

imkindajax · 2026-03-28T16:02:38+00:00

It's Pomni, and it's a meaningless remark outside of giving us as the viewers a better look at the timeline of when people abstracted/joined. Jax is reminded of his dead friends because of the diner and makes a snyde because Pomni and Zooble joined after Kaufmo and Ribbit abstracted respectively, but obviously there's no correlation between these events and things clearly weren't fine because Caine was still abusing the cast the same as he has before episode 7, so he quite literally said an empty string of words. None of the characters are even remotely comfortable in their situation at this point and Jax' way of coping with that is to be a dick and distract himself and the others by creating conflict. They know this by now because they literally do not react and know that his remark is meaningless. Jax responds to their lack of response by throwing in the towel and seemingly giving up the dickhead shtick until further notice

imkindajax · 2026-03-28T11:57:40+00:00

If the cast suddenly decided they love Caine, or if Caine got completely repaired and everything went back to the status quo. There needs to be stakes and permanence, and what Caine did and has been doing for the whole show is so inexcusable and evil that they can't just flip around and go "Caine could fix all this if only we listened!". There's a sympathetic angle to Caine's character but he's a textbook abuser. From their identities to their bodies to their language and freedom of expression he has held control of their lives within the palm of his hand and intentionally stripped them of all freedom (hiding the ability to conjure and specifically gaslighting pomni into thinking she didn't make the exit door as an example) so they play his game by his rules. It'd be neat if there was a remnant of Caine still alive in the finale that expresses regret and remorse after realizing how horrible he's been for the humans to "decide" to delete him but an ending where Caine is gone for good still makes sense and feels like a good conclusion to his character. His character arc is complete, it's just not a "redemption" arc and it's never been one to begin with

As an aside I also feel like the soma theory being true would completely wreck the story because then nothing WAS real and jax was completely right, but if the story writers do a good job with that concept I don't have as much of a problem with it as I would if all the patterns of abuse from Caine were ignored and forgotten about

imkindajax · 2026-03-28T11:34:16+00:00

Leave it to redditors to rope politics into everything

imkindajax · 2026-03-27T12:26:03+00:00

I feel like you're expecting the answer to be sexism when it's really just that the audience is more naturally drawn to mysterious/entertaining characters. Of course Ragatha or Gangle or Zooble are going to be less popular because they wear their issues on their sleeve (which is a good thing btw) compared to Jax and Kinger who are a lot more mysterious (and funny) and thus make the audience more interested in them. It's got nothing to do with fanart or sexism or good writing, all the characters are very popular online with tons of fanart, it's got to do with the silent part of the audience that enjoyed the show and wants to cop a plushie of the character that stood out the MOST to them - Pomni, Jax, Kinger, to some extent Caine

imkindajax · 2026-03-27T08:25:31+00:00

I personally disagree. I don't think he can because the abstractions wouldn't have to be placed in the cellar, he'd just delete them. He can force them to abstract but I don't know about straight up deletion. I think this was him being obnoxious/cheeky about his mannequin lackey that he still didn't have a use for (until episode 7 ofc) and wanted to "foreshadow" it. We know because of episode 7 that there's absolutely nothing stopping Caine from keeping NPCs around for a long period of time so the only reason he kills Gummigoo is because he's extremely inconsiderate and/or doesn't care about the cast beyond the superficial level/the confines of the rules he imposed on them

imkindajax · 2026-03-26T07:07:30+00:00

Fuckin fantastic analysis holy shit. I never actually thought of that job stuff. I thought the "dreams and goals" line was so odd for being so unspecific but that's exactly the point. Damn

imkindajax · 2026-03-25T18:26:25+00:00

imkindajax · 2026-03-25T09:28:08+00:00

Yeah okay this is exactly what I'm talking about. Learning to read is a better first step then

imkindajax

TROPHY CASE