ROBINN'S BLOG

Episode 1

The episode unfolds almost the same way, but in this case: it is Ragatha who gives Pomni a tour of the circus and Jax who creates the adventure specifically to spite Zooble.

Pomni is also warned not to obsess over the exit, because if she thinks about something too much, the program interprets it as a desire and tries to materialize it, even if it can’t actually create it. She is told about Kaufmo, how he fell into depression after accidentally creating and finding doors that led nowhere.

Since the players can deal with the abstracted by themselves, they almost forget Pomni in The Void, giving her nightmare in the next episode some credence.

Kinger also shows an uncanny expertise in the digital world by curing the glitching caused by the abstracted Kaufmo.

Episode 2

Like the previous episode, it unfolds almost identically. The adventure is Ragatha’s, and the biggest change comes at the end: it’s Jax who blows up Gummigoo. The other circus members explain to Pomni that they don’t mingle with the NPCs because, for some reason, the program makes them way too human; if they forgot they were NPCs, they wouldn’t be able to tell them apart! The possible implications creep them out: are the NPCs too human or are they NPCs? Would they find their own models in some hidden room of the circus?

They would rather not think about it, therefore, NPCs aren’t allowed within the circus grounds.

Episode 3

The adventure was a joint effort between Jax and Ragatha to try and get Zooble to join in and socialize. I hope it’s clear who is responsible for each door: Ragatha was trying to give Pomni a chill adventure after the fiasco of the previous one, and Jax was mocking Zooble’s “serious and mature” tastes.

Zooble, just like in the original, still refuses to go on the adventure and for the same reasons. Although no one is happy with their avatars, they have the hardest time accepting theirs. However, unlike in the original, they have a moment of introspection in their room.

They try to change their avatar or create a new body through conjuring, but the program only offers them boxes with new parts to swap with. They become frustrated and confused: why isn’t it working?

As I mentioned, if someone dwells on something too much, the program interprets it as a desire… even if it’s something bad: hence Kinger being taunted by possessed Pomni. He doesn’t want to forget his wife, so he thinks about her constantly, and thus, the program “asks” him about her.

Otherwise, the episode follows the same beats of the original episode.

Episode 4

Almost identical: Zooble supports Gangle’s choice of adventure from the beginning, and it’s Jax who falls into a hole because he was the one refusing to go instead.

Gangle suggested a more “realistic” adventure, as the previous ones had been more fantastical and had only traumatized Pomni.

Here, Kinger takes on Caine’s role as the boss. Although the players know that Kinger is more lucid in the dark, Gangle doesn’t open up about the problems the mask and adventure caused her. The office, after all, is too brightly lit for Kinger to be a good listening ear.

Episode 5

Since adventures are becoming a point of contention among the players, they decide to have a discussion about whose adventures to prioritize.

Just like in the original episode, they do a speedrun of the suggestions they currently have, but there is no intermission, and they talk enough at the bar that Pomni can’t ignore the fact that she really doesn’t know these people, she’s been caught in the middle of a drama that’s been brewing for years, and there’s no easy way to mediate between them all when she doesn’t have a complete picture of the situation.

They’re creeped out by their evil counterparts. If the program can create a copy that is the opposite of them, could it create a perfect copy? What would that mean?

Episode 6

Ragatha can’t ignore the rising tensions, so she suggests a trust exercise/game to try and bridge the ever growing gap between all of them. Jax, of course, shoots her in the face.

Upon respawning, she immediately changes the game into the battle royale from the original. Pomni tries to convince her otherwise, but Ragatha doesn’t want to hear it and pairs up with Kinger.

Zooble and Gangle don’t see much of an issue with Ragatha snapping and believe it would be a good opportunity for her to let off some steam. Just like in the original version, they also pair up.

With no other options left, Pomni pairs up with Jax. She doesn’t embrace the evil persona for the game, but she still listens to Jax talk about his opinions of the circus and the others. She wants to get to know them better, since, for better or worse, she’ll be stuck with them forever, and it’s getting quite obvious that any conflicts between them are getting increasingly personal…

Ragatha still loses and confides with Kinger; however, instead of expressing concern about having “failed” Jax and Pomni, she shares her fears: the increasing number of arguments reminds her of her own home and she worries that, having failed to be the “better person” in the trust exercise, she’ll eventually become like her mother.

If the circus members were to organize The Favorite Character Awards themselves, they would take it as an opportunity to criticize each other.

Ragatha would apologize to Pomni for snapping at her earlier, and Pomni would ask about her side of events.

Episode 7

Subconsciously, they all yearn for an exit, to finally escape each other. Perhaps they even wonder what did they do to deserve this, how did they end up there?

… they, driven by their collective desire to leave, conjure an adventure by accident.

This episode remains virtually the same, with the exception that Jax no longer needs to distract Caine. Abel tried to exclude Kinger still because Kinger knows the truth, doesn’t want to leave, and doesn’t want to remember anything from the outside world except his wife and friends. In other words, the adventure is also tailored to Kinger’s “wishes”.

Just like in the original, Jax presses the wrong button, and to their horror, everyone realizes it was all an adventure: the exit wasn’t real. They went through the same thing as Kaufmo and Pomni, only on a much larger escale.

And then, Kinger drops the bombshell. He suddenly remembers that they were brain-scans, so escaping the circus was never possible to begin with. Their foreshadowed fear of being NPCs? It was true.

The episode ends.

Episode 8

Everyone is quiet. Kinger breaks the silence by lore dropping: he is one of the programmers that coded the circus.

The company hoped to create a self-actualizing virtual reality, and the brain-scans would serve as the basis for immersive NPCs. He doesn’t know how the program traps and keeps trapping people, but confesses that he was deliberatelly making himself forget the truth because, once his friends discovered it, they soon abstracted, and he didn’t want that to happen again.

That was the last straw; it was too much in too little time, and the circus members explode at each other.

Zooble, as in the original, accuses Jax of sabotage. Jax rightly replies back that, since he didn’t want to escape, he isn’t responsible for conjuring the existential nightmare they went through. Gangle argues they wouldn’t have wanted to leave if it weren’t for him. Ragatha is frozen in place, her mind far away, back home with her screaming mother. Pomni tries to intervere in her place, but the others barely let her speak: why does she care? She would rather be buddy-buddy with the NPCs than them.

It doesn’t take long for the argument to escalate even further, and they begin conjuring against each other.

The personal nature of their attacks means the program would soon have trouble pulling out things from its dataset. The more it tries to materialize things it doesn’t have or understand, the more it corrupts.

Kinger and Pomni notice the glitches, and decide to come up with a plan. Kinger needs a console and a stable place to fix the circus, so Pomni takes him to the offices (nobody is pulling props out of the boring offices to attack each other). They also bring Ragatha along so she can clear her head; they need her for the next step of the plan:

Deescalating the conflict between Jax, Gangle and Zooble, while Kinger works on a patch. Ragatha would know better how to mediate between them; after all, she knows them better than Pomni.

However, the other circus members aren’t in the mood to listen and Pomni can’t help but grow frustrated by their interpersonal drama: they have been stuck together for years, how is it possible that they are unable to get along?

The mediation attempt fails, and they begin throwing each other, and themselves, into the torture scenarios: Jax confronts Gangle about what she did to him during Spudsy’s adventure and accuses Zooble of being too self-absorbed to participate in other people’s adventures. Gangle and Zooble put Jax through the same thing he put his friends through. Ragatha is sitting with the others at the table, presided over by her mother. And Pomni… she feels like her potential friends are tearing her apart.

Their excessive conjuring is causing problems for Kinger, who can’t keep up with the pace at which the corruption is spreading. In the end, he can’t prevent the circus from deteriorating.

With a loud bang, the players find themselves falling back into the circus, which is losing its color and disintegrating.

Kinger solemnly informs them that the program got corrupted and it’s no longer working…

———

I’m not going to do episode 9 because it hasn’t come out yet and, if I haven’t proven my point by now, I don’t think I should even bother.

If abstraction is an allegory for suicide and the abstracted are the closest equivalent to death in the circus, why does the narrative treat putting the abstracted down in the cellar as something more inhumane than putting them in an aquarium?

Both are dark and have water, however:

In the first case, the characters held a funeral for the abstracted, so I can’t help but see it as if they were burying (down the cellar) and mourning their deceased loves ones.

In the other case, it feels like they exhumed their loved ones, had them stuffed and put their corpses on display in their living room. How is that any better and not creepy as hell??

If abstraction is NOT an allegory for suicide, but a mental breakdown, the fact that the transformation is irreversible leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Hit rock bottom? That’s it for you, your friends and family will treat you like a pet from now on.