This has happened significantly before. Notably, SMG3's text color has permanently shifted since the moment he was taken into the mirror in It's Gotta Be Perfect, never reverting, while Tari and Meggy's colors have changed since Western Spaghetti to seemingly reflect a change in intensity (for example when Meggy was blinded in the Matrix Sim for a good while, her colors were drained, like she was foggy, but when she got angry, the standard splatoon orange would become almost a vivid red-orange instead.) Tari here becomes a dark blue when angry at Clench, so something is definitely going on with the Meta Runner in her. The box she appeared on in Western Spaghetti was the same computer her AI was held in the show, Clench doesn't remember what Meta Runner is, and Wren had access to Meta Runner technology in SMG4's SM64 universe when that's functionally impossible. Based on how Tunnelvision seems to think these people's lives are expendible, what we'd guess if there is anything to this is that she's heading into another self-discovery arc, but more like the Typhon from Prey (if you know, you know.) She knows she's an AI in a robot body, but now she's yelling at her own hand. She might have some loose logic to reconcile. Our overall theory (we came up with this after Spaghetti, but WOTFI 2023 helped a lot with Tunnelvision's face reveal) is that Tunnelvision uses the spectrum of light (aka color) in the closed captions to control the behavior of characters in the plot. He can turn the contrast or saturation up and down, and it changes the fundamental personality and behavior of that character. So taking something away, for example (SMG3, the one who has had not only the longest lasting change of color but also the most significant behavioral shift, immediately complained, after waking up from being beaten out of SMG3??? by Mario and Meggy, that he "can't remember" something, before getting distracted by SMG4 and never elaborating on it. This is also the first time he spoke with the new color, which lends to the idea that since the new shade of purple is now much more muted, that Tunnelvision took something from him, and he still hasn't given it back since this change has been constant while Tari and Meggy are unaffected intermittently) is as simple, at least on his end, as turning down a dial. Making people anxious or fearful, or angry and powerful, is just a few clicks on the desk monitor. So these color shifts are when these "nudges" are being applied. And think of SMG3's edit like a dev cheat like in Stellaris or The Sims. Basically he just "set rememberXYZ false" and hasn't reverted it since. Another thing to note: the TV advert music can AND will appear when you don't expect it. In WOTFI 2023, the TV Advert jingle is heard as the notebook is thrown wildly through the air due to Mario hating pineapple on pizza, with SMG3 singing the "No, wait, stop, my notebook!" line as this happens. The way that the jingle is incorporated into the rap makes it easy to breeze past, but it makes it blatantly clear that Tunnelvision threw the notebook. The notebook flew FAR, all the way into the roulette tables, too far for a simple bump of pizza to do even with wacky GMOD. Tunnelvision basically yeeted the notebook harder just to see the chaos when everyone ran for it on the other side of the room. Of course, this is all subject to change. But nothing wrong with brainstorming, right? -🗻/🖊️/👑
