It’s At Least A C+

Since Abel took over the circus, some of Caine's original creations stuck around, one of them being the lil' Gloinks. Abel deemed them predominantly harmless so she let them run amok (and bc she has a teeny tiny soft spot for her dear Proto, she let him keep them around). The round Gloink was one of Caine's first creations, so he adopted the little fella and called him Bubble AKA Bubz (he thought the name sounded familiar somehow, he just couldn't put his finger on it). Caine uses "the words "created" and "conjured" interchangeably; the former being used by Caine and Abel, while the latter is a word used by humans--but since Caine is, unbeknownst to himself, a human in this AU, he uses both.

Bubble used to be an empty husk when Caine first made him, until one day the Gloink started acting more energetic, more mischievous. Caine made the other Gloinks shortly after and based their personalities on Bubble.

My human Caine is an introvert and he's always had an interest in astronomy. He eventually became a professor and taught both high schoolers and university students before settling on the latter. He can be a bit blunt sometimes, but he's pretty much a go with a flow sort of guy. He can yap your ear off if you give him permission. Mans gets paid pretty dang well but consciously chooses to chug coffee and buy snacks from the vending machine on campus instead of having a proper breakfast/lunch smh.

“Gettin’ real chummy with the humans, Proto. What gives.” 

Caine eyed Abel warily from across the desk. “Whatever do you mean?”

“C’mon, don’t play coy, Caine—the humans have taken an excessive interest in you as of late. That’s never happened before.”

“And you’ve never taken an interest in what humans do in their free time, much less concern yourself over what they think.” Caine leaned forward, eyes squinting. “So what’s this really about then, Abel? Finally learning what envy feels like?”

Abel surged forward, smile fixed in an unfaltering cordiality.

“My. Dearest. Proto. You know I cannot process such superfluous sensations. I am merely running a diagnostic: Does Caine hinder the experience of the humans in the circus?” Abel’s faux innards whirred in a muted approximation of a curious hum. Her eyes widened slightly. “Because it would appear human satisfaction of my adventures has consistently waned since you established a more intimate presence in the circus.” 

“I’ve always had an intimate presence in my circus,” Caine returned lowly.

“Oh, Candy-Caine!” Abel withdrew with a jubilant laugh. “So brave. So valiant! Shall I implement a permanent lock on that bedroom of yours?”

Caine felt his anger dissipate with a startling abruptness. A shutter drawn. A prick of something akin to fear urged his mouth shut. Abel regarded him in a contemplative silence before she drew backward with a content hum and folded her hands atop of the desk with a curl of her tail. 

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Mini snippet of the fanfic I'm slowly typing up :)

Abel takes her dear Proto aside for a little chat. Happens some time after Pomni arrives. Since Caine was demoted to being a guest/player, he does get his own room, but it's literally just a replica of the proverbial box he was confined to while Abel was being worked on. He tries to spend as much time outside of his bedroom as possible, so the cast usually find him taking naps around the circus (he gets invited to their rooms when they warm up to him a lil more). There was an artist on here whose name I cannot remember, but they had Caine's room be the box he was stuck inside; shoutout to you, it's a deliciously angsty concept (pls let me know where you are).

There's so much to unpack about this AU lol.

So some background first--Caine is not an AI. He was coerced into "joining" the game by his younger brother (we'll call him Adrian) and was brainwashed to believe he was an AI. His brother introduces Caine as an AI to the team of programmers working on the Digital Circus (he refers to Caine as the Creative Artificial Intelligence Entity ofc) and said programmers are appalled at how advanced this AI is for its time. You feed it prompts and it sends back answers; it's almost like the AI is human. Adrian considers the "new AI" a success and being the power hungry lad that his is, wants to expand the project so he can be known as the sole creator of such advanced tech.

Some members of the Digital Circus programming team, however, begin to see how flawed Caine really is. The AI creates its own art instead of replicating it like they want it to. Yes, it can answer and reply to their questions and conversations, but it fails to serve a purpose outside of providing uncannily realistic dialogue. So some of the crew decide to use Caine as a reference to create an even more sophisticated AI, much to Adrian's frustration. Project Abel is then established, with Kinger spearheading the project. Adrian abandons the project, abandons his brother, and more or less disappears off the face of the earth (welcome, foreshadowing).

Queenie is the only member of the group who does not want to scrap Caine when Abel is being worked on. She finds the supposed AI's flaws humanlike and charming, and she spends a handful of time simply interacting with him. She encourages Caine--again, she doesn't know he's human--to continue making art, and to never stop being himself.

Eventually, the team box up Caine and begin to dedicate more time on Abel. The Digital Circus game is worked on every day, members of the team can travel in and out of the game freely to interact with Abel, and Caine finds himself growing envious of the new AI. This leads to him inevitably breaking out of his boxy prison, consuming Abel, and the programming team conclude that Caine has become some kind of malicious AI. With Abel gone, and the programmers unable to access pretty much the entirety of their predominantly unfinished game for some inexplicable reason, there's no other choice but to scrap the project and destroy it to start anew.

Queenie is the first one to suggest travelling into the game to see if she can speak to Caine directly. Kinger and the others are obviously against the idea, but it's the only way of finding out what exactly happened (I'd also like to think these are some overzealous and impassioned programmers who have dedicated their whole lives to creating this kind of technology, and losing it isn't exactly an option). So Queenie goes inside of the game and she does find Caine, who explains that he has no idea what happened to Abel (I wonder who on the outside would be meddling with the game still lol), and this is when Queenie realizes she can't escape either. This leads to some other members of the team hopping into the game to try and save Queenie and getting stuck as well. Many assume Caine is at fault, but Queenie remains steadfast in assuring this wasn't the AI's intention. This leads to Caine adopting the ringmaster persona that Abel had and attempting to entertain his new guests while they look for an exit.

It's important to note that Caine in this AU was originally all for helping the humans look for a way out of the circus. His human side shines through, so he's able to sympathize more than his canon counterpart. But then some abstractions happen, humans start to lose their memories, more programmers and members of the team get sucked into the game throughout the years, and, well, the idea of finding an exit starts to get hazy and becomes more about "keep the humans from abstracting." So Caine doubles down on the whole adventure thing, tries to improve himself (he's an AI, he has to be constantly improving, right?) But it's not until Queenie abstracts that Caine decides there's no point in entertaining anymore--all the humans are gone and the one human he considered a friend had abstracted. It's just him and Kinger, and Kinger isn't exactly present anymore, except for the occasional flicker of a lucid thought.

And now we reach a more present time. Ragatha gets stuck in the Circus and Caine decides he's going to take a new approach to his new guests, and instead of mentioning an exit and giving the new humans false hope, he's going to act like there isn't one and simply attempt to keep them from abstracting. Forever. (He's an AI, he shouldn't have these pesky human emotions after all! No wonder they boxed him--)

It is shortly after Ragatha joins the circus and then Zooble (Yes, I am indeed messing with the order of the cast getting sucked into the circus) that Abel "detaches" herself from Caine and takes over the circus (gee, I wonder who is STILL meddling with the game from the outside??) Abel strips Caine of pretty much all of his power and now oversees the circus. Humans still land themselves into the game every few years, and the cycle repeats. I gotta apologize to the Rags and Zoob fans, they abstract early on, and much quicker than under Abel than they would have with Caine since Abel has no friggin clue how humans work even if her adventures are objectively perfect.

It's after these abstractions when the remaining humans get sucked into the game (Jax, Ribbit, Gangle, Kaufmo) that Caine decides he's going to try and prevent the humans from abstracting in his own little way. He still cares for the humans after all.

And we reach the present day. Pomni gets sucked into the game, Abel introduces her to the Amazing Digital Circus and tells Pomni this is pretty much where she'll be staying for the rest of her life. Everyone knows Caine is an AI, and the ex-ringmaster of the circus so it's no secret. Jax, being the lore sniffer that he is, likes to tell newcomers that Caine's a failure of an AI and that he's the reason so many humans have abstracted (which isn't entirely untrue). Pomni will eventually manage to persuade Caine into helping her and the others find an exit, though, and immediately regret it when she realizes that Caine can't exactly ever leave the circus since he's an AI (allegedly).

The gist of the AU is that Abel splits away from Caine and takes over the circus; this is prior to Pomni joining the circus.

Caine is demoted to being just a player like everyone else while Abel assumes the role of ringmaster. She has a very…interesting relationship with Caine where she is extremely appreciative of all of his faults and failures throughout the years since she was able to learn from him and essentially become the perfect AI for entertainment. She likes that he’s so imperfect bc she knows she’s better than him (lol). But she simultaneously hates him for having kept her trapped for so long. She calls Caine “Proto” for prototype.