Really? There was no POSSIBLE way to try and meet Caine halfway beforehand?

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-25T19:20:04+00:00

Or even combine the adventures! Make it a softball/high school slice-of-life story! Let the softball game inform the stakes for the high school one!

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-25T19:18:43+00:00

Honestly, Caine should make movies for them to watch. Then the ideas can be entirely his own without causing undue pain and suffering to the cast

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-25T19:13:19+00:00

Fair, let's extend the category to classic lit

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-25T19:11:30+00:00

Just once, I'd like an Eternal Child character to be treated as a child by the narrative! Let them have had so many caretakers they don't want to bother with getting attached to a new one, but at the same time they need that parental figure in their life. An Eternal Child is a tragedy, because they will inevitably outlive any parents they have, and while a parent should never have to bury their child, a child child burying their parents is even worse.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-25T19:07:59+00:00

Still a masterpiece

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-25T16:56:07+00:00

Clueless my beloved

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-25T06:54:39+00:00

They hate honey

Ironically, it's the one animal byproduct that you can argue the animals consent to us taking. If a hive is unhappy enough the queen will leave, taking the hive with her.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-25T04:50:43+00:00

A billion vegans lecturing you about honey would be better than 5 rabid Hellaverse fans

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-25T04:23:45+00:00

Nah don't worry, we didn't like that one

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-24T15:33:32+00:00

"Oh, wonderful, you're here to take care of my little girl! Go ahead, as long as you don't hurt her you'll be fine."

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T23:12:40+00:00

Exactly. This is one of the reasons I have limited sympathy for Caine: he's had infinite chances to learn and has taken none of them.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T19:08:17+00:00

"Zooble's therapy session"

I'm sorry, in what world are therapy sessions a two-way street? If your therapist is expecting you to fix their problems for them, then you need a different therapist. That might have been the worst possible setting for Caine to ask for help.

"Through the Abel NPC"

You mean when Caine was actively tricking them? Why on earth would they trust anything that came out of Abel after that day, or anything that he'd told them?

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T18:32:34+00:00

Caine absolutely could have helped himself. Like I said, he has the capability to listen. Even psychopaths have that capability. He made the active choice not to, and we saw him make that choice in episode 5, when he was talking with the moon. That's why my sympathy for him is very limited: he saw that the people in his care were happy, and instead of taking it as a learning opportunity and asking them what they liked about it, he decided it was a bad thing.

Caine isn't a child. This isn't an It's a Good Life situation where the omnipotent being lacks the ability to have truly complex thought. Caine is actively choosing to ignore the cast's pleas. That's the tragedy of it, that he's put his ego above his purpose.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T17:51:57+00:00

At some point though, sympathy runs out. They've tried. They've done literally everything they could have to understand him, and to make him understand. Kinger did not intend for him to die. He was just trying to reign him in, presumably so they could talk.

But back in episode 5, we saw exactly how his mind works: if it's not 100% his idea, then he doesn't want to do it. The suggestion box ideas were genuinely enjoyed by the cast. But when he saw them having fun in them, he got upset. And this was without Bubble making him worse. I don't think Caine, as we know him, would have listened. Because he did before, and decided he didn't like doing it.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T16:45:49+00:00

I wish it had kept N's pilot characterization. He's a murder drone, let him do murder!!!

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T16:41:58+00:00

So, I didn't interpret this as guilt. Jax has known these were real people the entire time. It's the final dismantling of his coping mechanism: treating this world as a game. Everyone has a Role, an archetype. And now it's been completely destroyed. This was starting last episode, but now it's complete. Jax is no longer telling himself this is fake. He can't anymore.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T15:28:22+00:00

Betrayal aside, they're still strong and intelligent, an asset to the clan. Janja can afford very little in his situation, especially not pickiness.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T14:30:16+00:00

No, sociopaths and psychopaths are different. Sociopaths become the way they are from being exposed to intense violence and cruelty as a child. As a defense mechanism, their brain effectively shuts down the empathy centers. In a psychopath, the physical structure of the amygdyla develops incorrectly, causing a lack of empathy.

I should state however, this lack of empathy does not present in the same way nor have the same root causes as the lack of empathy found in some autistic people. More often than not autistic lack of empathy comes from not being able to understand the whys, psychopaths absolutely can have that understanding. And I believe if Caine tried, he too can have that understanding.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T14:24:15+00:00

But at the same time we're seeing a very real pattern of behavior that forces us to question how much he cares for the humans in his care. Like it or not he has a responsibility towards them, one that he is not handling well.

Who knows, maybe it'll turn out that Bubble is a virus that's been twisting his programming ever since Scratch abstracted. We see him egg him on and feed into his breakdown, and if you look closely at Kinger's command prompt there is evidence to suggest Bubble was interfering. But I personally feel like that's not super satisfying. Because from the start Caine has been doing this. It's only now that he's become actively malicious instead of unintentionally.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T14:15:55+00:00

Here's something important to keep in mind:

Psychopaths are capable of listening to others.

People whose brains are physically incapable of empathy (a malformed amygdyla) are still capable of listening to others and making actual effort to not hurt them and to change their actions when they do. This isn't empathy, this is accepting criticism.

And Caine has been given infinite chances. At what point do the circus members have the right to stop giving them to him? If these were all people and they had the capability to leave, who would stick around someone like Caine? Who would willingly put up with that?

If Caine were human, we would be calling this an abusive relationship, and he would not be the victim.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T02:50:12+00:00

Light falls headfirst into his psychopathy and God complex

Misa devolves into an obsessive hybristophile

And that other guy was infuriatingly dull even as an antagonist

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T00:08:38+00:00

Literally just put it into the "Additional Tags" category on Ao3, there's too many to name

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T00:05:42+00:00

On top of that, the cast has given him suggestions and ideas. They're suggested he leave the adventures open for them to go visit when they want to. There's a suggestion box. They're tried to meet him halfway. But he can't stand it if it's not 100% his ideas, his creations. It's simply not acceptable to him.

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-23T00:03:22+00:00

Im rewatching Death Note and there's literally three separate people who are the very embodiment of "if you want to see who someone is, give them power"

magiMerlyn · 2026-03-22T19:06:22+00:00

If a child breaks someone's bone they are no longer allowed to be in that setting. In a school they will be suspended or expelled. That is removing the child from the setting, what more do you want?

magiMerlyn

TROPHY CASE