Welcome to my little slice of Hell 🔥

Finally! Pomni's persistence paid back

She witness the tiny Caine... Who decided that he wants to chew on her as sign of affection.

Caine's attitude towards his back ups in a nutshell:

I redrew this picture of the cast as the characters

"Some decisions are more complicated than others, perhaps in another life I will return to that place, but in this life, my life I decided to stay in this world with them.."

Importnat mission from Kinger

Imo, the show's biggest fumble was the Caine/Pomni relationship because like

Imagine you're in Pomni's shoes: you get trapped in the circus and it's overwhelming and disorienting but over time you get settled in and even start to feel at home there. And since you're (supposedly) an empathetic soul and all, you start to see the ringmaster in a new light too, being able to look past all his bombasity and see where he's genuinely struggling. You see how hard he's trying, how he wants to make everyone happy, and how he's just as much a prisoner here as you. And over time, the man who was once your tormentor becomes a friend, somebody you've genuinely come to care about and feel fondness towards...

And then you find out he can fuck with your mind without your knowledge or consent.

And then it's like...was ANY of that real? Were those your real feelings or something HE put there? He was willing to lie to you and everyone else about there being an exit, why wouldn't he lie about this too? In the span of a single day, everything you once held to be true has been shattered and all of the safety and familiarity you were starting to feel is gone, leaving you more paranoid than ever.

Imagine how much harder Episode 8 would've hit if Caine had actually meant something to Pomni. If he was someone she'd believed in and cared about only for him to turn around and betray that trust in the worst, most violating way imaginable. Imagine how much more raw Pomni's cruel words would've felt, knowing that she once considered him a friend and is now forced to use his insecurities against him to protect Kinger. Imagine how much harder his death would've hit, as now Pomni will never get to take those words back and has to live with the knowledge that someone she still cared about died thinking she hated him.

Buuuuuuuuut then we wouldn't get Jax being Pomni's super special best friend she'd set herself on fire for and God knows we can't have that!

Caine yumeship userboxes

⚝ Art credit: 🦷

⚝ F2u, credit not needed but likes/reposts are appreciated

⚝ Extra: They're open dw!! oh, also, sharing versions under cut :3!

Like, "he's an AI, we can't gauge how he thinks" when it comes to understanding him, BUT "why doesn't he just get what we mean??" when they want something from him.

Caine is a sentient/sapient highly intelligent AI, but he still needs clear instructions on some things. His understanding of what "relaxing"/"normal"/"mature" is could be very different from how the humans perceive it. So I consider it unfair when they judge someone who's basically an alien for having problems with comprehending real world concepts. Especially when they don't even try to actually explain it to him in a way that he could understand.

Hell, I'm an autistic human and I struggle with the same thing! If you want me to do something, don't be vague about it. I can't do what you want me to do unless you give me details!

Sure, the issue with Caine is also about him not listening to the others, but up until episode 8 he was still willing to cooperate on some things. He created a separate adventure for Kinger in ep 4, he stopped making horror stuff after Pomni asked him to, he was fixing Gangle's mask without her saying anything, he created games for them (like tennis/badminton stuff), he made a cafe that seems to only be for the humans, etc.

"Showtime Swap AU"… or something

Elaborating on this under the cut: