Reblogged
Spoilers for Hollow Words chap 12!
Reblogged spark-hearts2
I know this guy is no villain, but he could be a great one))
Also don't mess with an AI
Some person on Reddit pointed this out and my mind exploded.
CAINE is ENIAC backwards.
It's too specific to be a coincidence, right? And if it isn't, then Gooseworx, you're a genius.
"ENIAC could not be called a perfect computer. The machine was created during wartime in great haste from scratch, with no prior experience in building such devices. ENIAC was built as a single unit, and the engineering solutions implemented in it were not used in subsequent computer designs. ENIAC is rather a "zero-generation" computer rather than a first-generation one. The significance of ENIAC lies simply in its existence, which proved the possibility of building a fully electronic computer capable of operating long enough to justify the costs of its construction and yield tangible results."
That's funny as hell
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On repeat
shuffle my “on repeat” playlist and add the first ten songs, then tag 10 people 1. Fever Ray - Keep the streets empty for me 2. Bayside - Dear your holiness 3. Woodkid - Iron 4. White Lies - To lose my life (makes me think about wolfstar A LOT) 5. U2 & The corrs - Summer wine 6. Arctic Monkeys - Do I wanna know? 7. Mike Oldfield - Nuclear 8. The chain gang of 1974 - Sleepwalking 9. Amy Winehouse - Back to black 10. Placebo - Pure morning Thanks for the tag @languagelessonswolfstar 💖 I tag @mundrakan @sothisart @r33sespieces @daddiesdrarryy @yuki-byeol @amadinan @snudootchaikovsky @sunmimir @lyr-caelum @littlelasagne No pressure 😉
- Billie Bust Up Barnaby Chase
- The Pirate Queen's Cave
- Mike Geno - Self Control
- ABSTRACTION (ft. Michael Kovach & Caleb Hyles)
- CAVITY - THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS SONG
- Digital Land ▶ THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS SONG
- DAISIES (A Hazbin Hotel Song) - Black Gryph0n & Baasik
- CULT OF THE LAMB RAP by JT Music - "Song of the Lamb"
- Нина Бродская - Кто тебе сказал?
- ZAMination - Happy Place
I tag @six-paths-of-jeanmarco, @galactic-knightmare, @spark-hearts2, @o-sunny-day just for fun
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DIGITAL CIRCUS AU IDEA!
Gang im losing it
thanks to @amadinan for their incredible media/Caine analysis! I wont sleep well at night ever again! and also thank you for inspiring this cause I LOVE your theory on what Caine used to be/what he came from/what that means for the future…
AU TIME
its called….The Circus! or “the amazing digital test” i haven’t decided yet this is just a concept-
Its more of a scenario AU that may or may not be possible, but i’m ignoring realistic computer things and going straight to “its cool, so lets jam”
Something is very wrong, they wanna go HOME and the circus gang decides compiling all of the information they possibly can is where to start! starting at the source: Caine. They have a lot of questions that he either cant, or just wont answer. How was he made? Who made him? Why? Well let’s see for ourselves! “Hey Caine! Lets have an adventure where you download the oldest version of the circus you have in your bank! or! whatever its called!
And this is where the trauma begins
This version of Caine- just called “The Ringmaster” since he hasn’t named himself yet, reacts to the circus gangs arrival with pure TERROR- like “OH GOD PLAYERS ARENT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE YET- OH GOD THE DEVS ARE NOT GONNA LIKE THIS I DON’T KNOW WHAT I DID WRONG TO LET THIS HAPPEN- OH GOD OH GOD”
Since this is a simulation they have nothing to worry about- but this version of Caine doesnt know that…Thinking the gang would decide to just pretend to be devs doing some testing, then they get a lovely example of how The Ringmaster expects they’ll act due to learned experience.
So anywho through this adventure they find out what Caine truly is- a sentient AI that tried literally everything to make the devs happy but in the end the game still failed miserably and/or just wasnt good enough to the devs, and he got thrown away!
PFFTHTBTBTFBG I WASNT INSPIRED BY ANYTHING ELSE IDK WHAT YOURE TALKING ABOUT-
Thank you, it's so great that you liked it! And the picture with C.A.I.N.E. and The Ringmaster is just a masterpiece!
Reblogged
My thoughts about Caine
Well, it’s time for (possibly cracked) analysis of "TADC" and it will focus on Caine and his indirect, as it seems to me, development in the series.
But before diving into the details from individual episodes, it’s worth summarizing my observations about Caine both in the show and beyond it.
Let’s start at the beginning: the show’s synopsis describes Caine as a “wacky AI,” and Gooseworx doesn’t hide his nature, but in the show itself, neither Caine nor the circus members call him that—at all. Throughout the series, there are scattered jokes about glitches and lines like “I don’t know what’s normal to you, people” but this is never outright confirmed.
This raises the question: do the people in the circus even know who he is? If Caine himself might not consider this information important and thus never told them, people’s perception of their ringleader could drastically change with this revelation. After all, there’s a big difference between being “held captive” by a sadistic, crazy person or a machine with limited understanding of humanity.
Kinger may know about this, but he’s the Kinger. Jax might also know since having the keys implies some kind of “cheats.” Pomni hasn’t said anything, so it’s unclear what she thinks about Caine. Ragatha and Gangle call him by name, so that’s unclear as well. And then there’s Zooble. They don't understand Caine, just as he doesn’t understand them. Anyone who has worked with computers would understand what a command like “forget that” means, especially since Caine asked for confirmation—but not Zooble. They just spoke to him as if he were a person with a leaky memory, like Kinger.
Even though Caine isn’t just a program, it’s important to remember that he takes the world far too literally, despite the circus’s deliberately crazy atmosphere.
The second observation concerns Caine’s fixation on hierarchy. In the first episode, he first asks himself, “What happened?” and then answers himself: “My doing” after seeing the chaos following Kaufmo. In the third episode, he repeats almost word-for-word that he’s the boss after Pomni questions the AI’s reason. In episode 4, this is explored extensively through his interactions with Gangle. One standout moment is when Caine suggests that Gangle pass responsibility onto someone lower in rank. Doesn’t that seem strange? Where could he have gotten such an idea? Only if he had seen or experienced similar situations before.
Plus, he says, “Not every executive is as forgiving as me” Again, this suggests that Caine knew or knows someone who was very strict with their subordinates—or perhaps with him personally.
Adding to this is his reaction to Zooble’s critique in episode 3. Caine says that he doesn’t just exist to create adventures; it’s the ONLY thing he’s good at. If he’s bad at it, then he’s failed the purpose of his own existence.
This paints a picture of a strict boss/programmer who created Caine to generate adventures and then kept pushing him repeatedly until Caine started producing good results. Pleasing this boss was likely very difficult, and failures might even have been met with punishment.
On the one hand, neural networks and ordinary programs are debugged this way: running the same algorithm over and over, correcting errors until they produce the desired result. But on the other hand... What happens if you add a human factor to such a program? What kind of person would emerge if you applied this method of training to a child?
You’d get an anxious perfectionist with an overachiever complex who is deathly afraid of failure. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
And Kinger’s words about the scariest thing being making someone feel unloved and unwanted... Caine literally believes that if he can’t generate adventures, he won’t be needed by anyone. The circle is complete.
Now, let’s turn to Gooseworx’s answer to the question: Can Caine feel loneliness? Judging by what she posted, the answer is yes. This makes the overall picture even darker.
Here’s how I see the sequence of events:
- C&A starts developing a game. Its main feature is an advanced AI that can create new adventures on demand.
- The programmer creates Caine and tries to achieve results, but fails to please. Around this time, Caine begins to develop self-awareness.
- The project and the game are abandoned and forgotten—along with Caine, who is left utterly alone. No players, no programmers, not even another AI. He likely begins blaming himself for this. After all, he couldn’t create good adventures, so it’s his fault that he ended up alone.
- This ties into Gooseworx’s comments about Caine’s name. He gave himself a name and then turned it into an acronym to seem more “professional” (again, tying back to work). This is highly unusual in itself. The programmers likely didn’t even bother naming the AI—he was probably just “The Ringmaster.”
- Left in isolation, Caine starts to lose his mind and begins creating other AIs. For them, he unabashedly declares himself a god. Which, to be fair, is true. It’s not just about the fact of his consciousness—it’s that he knows how the NPCs will behave because he programmed them. But they bore him. To him, they’re predictable dummies. Maybe that’s why he keeps chaotic entities like Bubble around instead of someone like Gummigoo.
- Then the first human arrives—a being alien to Caine on many levels. And while I personally think Caine lied about being unable to access human minds, he deliberately refrains from doing so to preserve their unpredictability for himself.
- The circus becomes what we now know it to be.
Now, let’s move on to the episodes. This post was written between episodes 4 and 5, so the thoughts will focus on them.
I think that aside from the main characters driving the action in each episode, they still indirectly reflect on Caine, his worldview, or his story. The reason is simple within the lore: Caine creates the adventures. And like any creator, he infuses them with his worldview and thoughts. So, each adventure is a small glimpse into how this AI thinks. Even in the teaser, for just a second, Caine's fear and uncertainty become evident when the viewer "doesn't want" to see what he wants to show.
The first episode doesn’t offer much beyond the queen of the gloinks mentioning God.
The second episode, however, gets more interesting. Besides the stained glass with his irreplaceable self, Caine stands out for adding a highly complex NPC AI: Gummigoo. Gummigoo is advanced enough to gain self-awareness, experience an existential crisis, and even overcome it. But what did Caine use to achieve such complexity? The most powerful AI in the circus, of course—himself.
What if the crisis Gummigoo went through is something Caine went through long ago? Even Gummigoo’s words, “I am nothing, just an obstacle to be overcome and forgotten,” could have been said by Caine. But like Gummigoo, he overcame this realization and accepted himself. Sure, he’s just entertainment, but at least he’s the best entertainment there can be. (Until Zooble gave him real feedback, shattering his self-image.)
The third episode directly explores Caine through his therapy session with Zooble, while the secondary plot, as many think, delves into Kinger’s backstory through the Mildenhall couple. The analogy is obvious: Martha represents Queenie, and the Baron represents Kinger. Mildenhall himself says he was a hunter (and Kinger is adept with a shotgun), but after encountering a strange being, he became paranoid and killed his wife. Everything fits. Kinger became so focused on his goal that he stopped paying attention to Queenie until she abstracted.
But the Baron feared an angel that was “neither beast nor human.” Who in the circus could evoke such unrelenting dread—not just in anyone but a seasoned programmer familiar with digital technology, unlike Pomni? One AI that is “neither machine nor human.” I think Kinger’s paranoia stems from this. He sought a way out and, as a programmer, may have even felt responsible for finding one. (In fact, in the episode, Kinger almost says this outright, assuming the theory that he truly is the circus’s creator.) This must have brought him into conflict with Caine, as everything related to the circus ultimately relates to Caine. Given the AI’s ability to control almost everything, it’s no wonder a tech-savvy person would fear such a godlike admin. Plus, his fear for Queenie led to the current situation.
As mentioned above, episode 4 hints at Caine’s negative experience with a boss but not just that. Naturally, the episode revolves around Gangle and her attempts to be different—more cheerful and optimistic—which ends badly for her mental state.
I’ve seen opinions that Gangle revels in the sense of control her manager position gives her. This seems accurate—but not just for her. Throughout the episode, Gangle’s behavior, mannerisms, and even expressions eerily reminded me of Caine’s. That deliberately loud, expressive, and slightly crazy demeanor... And just like with him, it didn’t end well.
In conclusion, I think episodes 5 and 6 will continue to subtly reveal aspects of Caine until episodes 7 and 8/9 shift the focus entirely to him, Pomni, and the possible escape from the circus.
Hello, I am going to add to this because I have TADC brain rot.
Yes! Someone finally pointing out how ambiguous it is whether the characters truly understand what Caine is! (Personally, I'm leaning towards them understanding that Caine isn't human ((just like how they understand that the NPC's aren't people)) but I can't imagine that they truly grasp what it means for an AI to be as aware as Caine is)
It's also ambiguous how much control Caine has over the humans being there. Clearly he doesn't control when someone enters, and I imagine that he doesn't control when they leave (given how he made the exit into a map and not, you know, a button that kicks you from the game). But it's unknown if the humans really understand that. The lack of harsh antagonism towards Caine makes me think that no one believes that Caine is the one keeping them trapped there, but do they understand what Caine can and can't do? Do they think that if Caine stopped his antics, he would be able to make a way out for them? Obviously I don't think that a solution would be that simple, but I would love for one of the humans to push back against Caine for spending all his time making silly adventures (only for it to be revealed how powerless he is in that area? Gooseworks? Please?)
(Can you tell what fanfiction I have been writing? lmao)
If it's revealed that Caine canonically has voice commands, I will go insane. Do not let me into the Digital Circus, I will find a way to prompt inject Caine.
As for Caine being the highest on the chain of command, I imagine that he's only the highest so long as no other administrator is connected. He's above the player, but no one else. I do think that there currently is no moderator or administrator connected, giving Caine free rein. There is a question over weather he likes this or not, but he clearly continues to hold himself to the same standard as if someone was constantly watching over him.
As for the way that Caine was developed being the root of all of his issues, I don't know about that. I would argue that at that point of development, Caine would not have had the level of awareness necessary to understand what was going on. But, I can certainly see that philosophy of pushing until success getting picked up by Caine.
"And Kinger’s words about the scariest thing being making someone feel unloved and unwanted… Caine literally believes that if he can’t generate adventures, he won’t be needed by anyone." ^ no comment, just facts. Despite Caine's behavior, I can not imagine that his self confidence is not dependent on outside validation.
Oh god, the stupid sauce and it's implications. I don't even want to think about that one.
YEEEEAAH GUMMIGOO!!! I 100% believe that Caine based Gummigoo off how he works instead of how he usually builds the NPC AI. (again, can you tell what fanfiction I've been writing?). I fully believe that Caine became self aware, had his own crisis, except without a Pomni say he has meaning outside his original purpose. Hence, why he's 100% into his ringmaster role, that's all he has.
Oh boy, I never thought about the angel representing Caine. It makes so much sense. Trying to kill the angel would invoke gods wrath, as in the developers. How hell ties into that, idk, but I like the image of Caine being unable to be killed by chopping off his head. Can you kill what is not technically alive? (ok, maybe you can kill Caine, but it would be very hard to do so)
As for Caine's very existence causing Kinger existential dread… Oh man I can not shut up about my fanfiction, can I? I am very excited to release chapter 4 :)
Hurg- Caine and Gangle being parallels. No comment, just love.
Hello! Thank you so much for your reply! I’ve read your fic and subscribed to it. It’s amazing, especially with how you delve into the technical side of things!
Regarding Caine’s growth as a character, I was really struck by Gooseworks’s response (and I think there were also some words at a Comic-Con?) about how we should prepare ourselves for Caine angst. That’s why I think loneliness is Caine’s greatest fear, and it could only arise if he was completely alone for a long time.
You can’t kill Caine by beheading him because he doesn’t have a neck. 😂 But maybe they meant something else, like some kind of memory or control core.
As for the "hell" part, I forgot to add that when Kinger and Pomni ended up there, Kinger said, “What an unusual depiction of hell.” And they found themselves in a dark, damp, and lonely place with loud echoes. Again, I think this might reflect Caine’s subconscious idea of "hell"—because that’s what his personal hell would look like. But these are just my thoughts.
I’m eagerly awaiting your next chapters!
My thoughts about Caine
Well, it’s time for (possibly cracked) analysis of "TADC" and it will focus on Caine and his indirect, as it seems to me, development in the series.
But before diving into the details from individual episodes, it’s worth summarizing my observations about Caine both in the show and beyond it.
Let’s start at the beginning: the show’s synopsis describes Caine as a “wacky AI,” and Gooseworx doesn’t hide his nature, but in the show itself, neither Caine nor the circus members call him that—at all. Throughout the series, there are scattered jokes about glitches and lines like “I don’t know what’s normal to you, people” but this is never outright confirmed.
This raises the question: do the people in the circus even know who he is? If Caine himself might not consider this information important and thus never told them, people’s perception of their ringleader could drastically change with this revelation. After all, there’s a big difference between being “held captive” by a sadistic, crazy person or a machine with limited understanding of humanity.
Kinger may know about this, but he’s the Kinger. Jax might also know since having the keys implies some kind of “cheats.” Pomni hasn’t said anything, so it’s unclear what she thinks about Caine. Ragatha and Gangle call him by name, so that’s unclear as well. And then there’s Zooble. They don't understand Caine, just as he doesn’t understand them. Anyone who has worked with computers would understand what a command like “forget that” means, especially since Caine asked for confirmation—but not Zooble. They just spoke to him as if he were a person with a leaky memory, like Kinger.
Even though Caine isn’t just a program, it’s important to remember that he takes the world far too literally, despite the circus’s deliberately crazy atmosphere.
The second observation concerns Caine’s fixation on hierarchy. In the first episode, he first asks himself, “What happened?” and then answers himself: “My doing” after seeing the chaos following Kaufmo. In the third episode, he repeats almost word-for-word that he’s the boss after Pomni questions the AI’s reason. In episode 4, this is explored extensively through his interactions with Gangle. One standout moment is when Caine suggests that Gangle pass responsibility onto someone lower in rank. Doesn’t that seem strange? Where could he have gotten such an idea? Only if he had seen or experienced similar situations before.
Plus, he says, “Not every executive is as forgiving as me” Again, this suggests that Caine knew or knows someone who was very strict with their subordinates—or perhaps with him personally.
Adding to this is his reaction to Zooble’s critique in episode 3. Caine says that he doesn’t just exist to create adventures; it’s the ONLY thing he’s good at. If he’s bad at it, then he’s failed the purpose of his own existence.
This paints a picture of a strict boss/programmer who created Caine to generate adventures and then kept pushing him repeatedly until Caine started producing good results. Pleasing this boss was likely very difficult, and failures might even have been met with punishment.
On the one hand, neural networks and ordinary programs are debugged this way: running the same algorithm over and over, correcting errors until they produce the desired result. But on the other hand... What happens if you add a human factor to such a program? What kind of person would emerge if you applied this method of training to a child?
You’d get an anxious perfectionist with an overachiever complex who is deathly afraid of failure. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
And Kinger’s words about the scariest thing being making someone feel unloved and unwanted... Caine literally believes that if he can’t generate adventures, he won’t be needed by anyone. The circle is complete.
Now, let’s turn to Gooseworx’s answer to the question: Can Caine feel loneliness? Judging by what she posted, the answer is yes. This makes the overall picture even darker.
Here’s how I see the sequence of events:
- C&A starts developing a game. Its main feature is an advanced AI that can create new adventures on demand.
- The programmer creates Caine and tries to achieve results, but fails to please. Around this time, Caine begins to develop self-awareness.
- The project and the game are abandoned and forgotten—along with Caine, who is left utterly alone. No players, no programmers, not even another AI. He likely begins blaming himself for this. After all, he couldn’t create good adventures, so it’s his fault that he ended up alone.
- This ties into Gooseworx’s comments about Caine’s name. He gave himself a name and then turned it into an acronym to seem more “professional” (again, tying back to work). This is highly unusual in itself. The programmers likely didn’t even bother naming the AI—he was probably just “The Ringmaster.”
- Left in isolation, Caine starts to lose his mind and begins creating other AIs. For them, he unabashedly declares himself a god. Which, to be fair, is true. It’s not just about the fact of his consciousness—it’s that he knows how the NPCs will behave because he programmed them. But they bore him. To him, they’re predictable dummies. Maybe that’s why he keeps chaotic entities like Bubble around instead of someone like Gummigoo.
- Then the first human arrives—a being alien to Caine on many levels. And while I personally think Caine lied about being unable to access human minds, he deliberately refrains from doing so to preserve their unpredictability for himself.
- The circus becomes what we now know it to be.
Now, let’s move on to the episodes. This post was written between episodes 4 and 5, so the thoughts will focus on them.
I think that aside from the main characters driving the action in each episode, they still indirectly reflect on Caine, his worldview, or his story. The reason is simple within the lore: Caine creates the adventures. And like any creator, he infuses them with his worldview and thoughts. So, each adventure is a small glimpse into how this AI thinks. Even in the teaser, for just a second, Caine's fear and uncertainty become evident when the viewer "doesn't want" to see what he wants to show.
The first episode doesn’t offer much beyond the queen of the gloinks mentioning God.
The second episode, however, gets more interesting. Besides the stained glass with his irreplaceable self, Caine stands out for adding a highly complex NPC AI: Gummigoo. Gummigoo is advanced enough to gain self-awareness, experience an existential crisis, and even overcome it. But what did Caine use to achieve such complexity? The most powerful AI in the circus, of course—himself.
What if the crisis Gummigoo went through is something Caine went through long ago? Even Gummigoo’s words, “I am nothing, just an obstacle to be overcome and forgotten,” could have been said by Caine. But like Gummigoo, he overcame this realization and accepted himself. Sure, he’s just entertainment, but at least he’s the best entertainment there can be. (Until Zooble gave him real feedback, shattering his self-image.)
The third episode directly explores Caine through his therapy session with Zooble, while the secondary plot, as many think, delves into Kinger’s backstory through the Mildenhall couple. The analogy is obvious: Martha represents Queenie, and the Baron represents Kinger. Mildenhall himself says he was a hunter (and Kinger is adept with a shotgun), but after encountering a strange being, he became paranoid and killed his wife. Everything fits. Kinger became so focused on his goal that he stopped paying attention to Queenie until she abstracted.
But the Baron feared an angel that was “neither beast nor human.” Who in the circus could evoke such unrelenting dread—not just in anyone but a seasoned programmer familiar with digital technology, unlike Pomni? One AI that is “neither machine nor human.” I think Kinger’s paranoia stems from this. He sought a way out and, as a programmer, may have even felt responsible for finding one. (In fact, in the episode, Kinger almost says this outright, assuming the theory that he truly is the circus’s creator.) This must have brought him into conflict with Caine, as everything related to the circus ultimately relates to Caine. Given the AI’s ability to control almost everything, it’s no wonder a tech-savvy person would fear such a godlike admin. Plus, his fear for Queenie led to the current situation.
As mentioned above, episode 4 hints at Caine’s negative experience with a boss but not just that. Naturally, the episode revolves around Gangle and her attempts to be different—more cheerful and optimistic—which ends badly for her mental state.
I’ve seen opinions that Gangle revels in the sense of control her manager position gives her. This seems accurate—but not just for her. Throughout the episode, Gangle’s behavior, mannerisms, and even expressions eerily reminded me of Caine’s. That deliberately loud, expressive, and slightly crazy demeanor... And just like with him, it didn’t end well.
In conclusion, I think episodes 5 and 6 will continue to subtly reveal aspects of Caine until episodes 7 and 8/9 shift the focus entirely to him, Pomni, and the possible escape from the circus.
I thought and thought and decided, why not?
A short animation based on my favorite TADC fic: Abstracted identity. Thank you, @galactic-knightmare!
P.S: Caine turned out a little sad :D
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so, uh, hi @galactic-knightmare
Abstracted Identity has been overtaking my thoughts and this scene has been rotating in my mind ever since I read it
I went into an animated fevered state and made this in all one go lol, and as a first 'finished' rough draft animation I think it came out alright
I wanted to get this posted before the next chapter because I feel something big is going to happen and I know this isn't canon to how it will go down this is just my silly little thought
I hope you enjoy this little animation thing I love your AU, art, and fic! :)
(p.s. have this bonus thumbnail from when this was going to be uploaded to youtube because I didn't know I could upload straight to tumblr lol, hiding it because this is getting long)