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The Train/Setting

•Just like Caine’s adventures, the cars aren’t circus-themed. It’s more a theme surrounding the outside and the engine.

•This is a digital/magic(?) hybrid, the same way the train in canon seems to be combining machinery and magic(?).

•Passengers do not lose their names, but they are given an avatar along with a number upon boarding. (I don’t have a good reason for passengers to be wearing normal clothes over their avatars, it’s just something I wanted.)

•This AU could’ve been an everybody thing, and there’s a lot of potential for it, but I like making things about showtime Caine.

• (To be clear, this isn’t a “showtime AU,” I just like adding hints of it everywhere. Romantic and platonic content can be made with this AU, it’s subject to my whims at any given time.)

C.A.I.N.E

• Caine is in One-One’s role

• He does have a back and forth “glad” and “sad” side, as shown above. (Inspired by Caine’s fight with himself in the void from episode 9.)

• Bereft of his former power (hence the outfit), abandoned far back in the train, and amnesia’d. He does not remember what his function is, nor what happened to him.

• He’d like to remember his purpose, and he finds his buried programming is giving him the desire to help Abigail. With that as his first clue in a while, he continues to assist her, hoping to come closer in remembering his place on the train.

• The “unfinished” car does bring up some of his forgotten feelings, both about himself, and what happened to him.

• ”MISS ABIGAIL” <3

Pomni Abigail

• Kind’ve in Tulip’s role, but more her own thing. (She’s still 25 btw, not Tulip’s age.)

• I don’t have a range for her number, probably not too high.

• Her outfit design was a whim. I did think it would be fun to put her in slightly watered-down versions of her jester outfit colors, and it is. What’s the deal with the pants chain and the moon and star charms on it? Just fun. I wanted to evoke Caine’s office doors. (She’s already got the red and blue thing, I’m allowed to take even more liberties.)

• We genuinely know nothing about Pomni, so thinking of a flaw or trauma that would be her ticket to the therapy-train has been a struggle. Now the series doesn’t act like this is a flaw, but she was fatally sympathetic to Jax to the point of being enabling, so maybe that can be her train problem? Reminds me of Jesse.

(I’m not saying she knew Jax outside of the train, or that she will even meet him; just the idea that she’s been in, and mishandled, similar scenarios.)

Gumigoo

• He’s not royalty, but I thought he’d be good in place of Atticus. We need him for that humanizing of denizens/NPCs aspect.

• He may be turned into a monster later, but this is still a far better timeline for him than in canon. Friends? A real mother? Not dying?? What more could he ask for!

• He’s also free from the identity crisis here, there’s not really a catalyst for it.

• Joined the party to take down Bubble the steward.

Who is in Amelia’s place as the false conductor/ringmaster? I’m thinking Queenie/Destiny.

I know the turtle theme was supposed to be random, but I love the idea that Queenie’s attempts would keep accidentally making bug denizens.

This also means dead Grant, oops :(

Anyway Jax and Simon are super similar, especially in their respective approaches to the strange worlds they’ve been thrown into. I’m not saying I’ll make any content of him, but Jax gets a Simon ending. I consider this an episode 9 fix-it.

Bonus Caine thoughts: since the train exists to help people; Caine, even if he can’t help in the way he’s meant to, is compelled by that need, to help the passengers. (Abigail is the first he’s come across since being usurped and abandoned.)

As conductor/ringmaster, his role would’ve been making endless new train cars all day. (I’d say it’s similar enough to Caine’s adventure-making in canon.)

The act of helping a passenger jogs something in his memory, it at least brings up a feeling, but he’d only get small hints of the creation/creativity side of his purpose. Until getting back in power, the unfinished car incident is probably the closest he’d get to actually remembering.