Pomni is most likely gonna have an even wilder emotional ride in ctrl-alt-del AU
And I'm using that perspective/framework to sketch out how I think things leading up to episode 7 would've gone. (Showtime shippers might find material here, but I've written it out as neutrally in my mind as possible to allow platonic readings and the readings of other ships as well.)
Cause imagine being Pomni here. You just got to the circus a few days or weeks ago (who knows really? It's hard to tell time from the inside) and your very first day was a straight up nightmare with bubble. You're also still trying to adjust and had just recently your first adventure that ended up traumatizing you via gummigoo getting deleted afterwards in front of your eyes. But at the very least thanks to Kaufmo's funeral afterwards, you've figured that you don't have to be completely alone here.
Suddenly a new guy enters the Circus, Caine. His very first day at the circus wasn't as bad as yours but you can still tell that it wasn't great either. And since you two are the newest here and kinda appeared around the same-ish time, you kinda end up latching onto him emotionally, unintentionally traumabonding and all that, despite his weirdly overly positive manners and behaviour
His first official out of house adventure happens, and it is that horror mystery manor one. You don't like horror at all, while he seems to be looking forward to it, which kinda irks you but ah well. Until he suddenly realizes that nope, that's not as great as he hoped it to be and you, him and kinger have been trapped on the scary adventure path and with the help of kinger it turns out that Caine has trouble reading people and situations (for which he apologizes a lot since here since he kinda was the reason you him and kinger ended up on that scary path in the first place).
Either way, all three of you manage to get out and you promise Caine to help him via explaining things to him from time to time (stuff he doesn't notice, stuff he is unsure about and also stuff he just simply doesn't know). You also start to integrate yourself further into the group to help him too with that. From there on you also almost always have him with you when it comes to human group and adventuring stuff, to the point that Jax calls you both jokingly codependent or something similar. (Circa 80-90% of the events are the same, just with Bubble makingnthe adventures of course).
And Caine in returns seems to be opening up more and giving his own odd insights about the environment and adventure situations occasionally. It turns out that Caine can actually verbalize the criticism you and the other's have about Bubble's adventures in a way that Bubble actually seems to be listening to?? You and the other humans wonder when or how the hell he learned to do that and eventually ask him about his backstory, which he is very relunctant to open up about and what you end up gathering and putting together so far seems to be the most horrific and sad/traumatic thing possible (Caine being autistic, having grown up in a cult and possibly having tried to escape via really getting into game development, which might also explain why he ended up at that abandoned office building you too did and put on that headset).
Jax, like in canon, is also not doing that well and is of course still on his anti social (transfem egg) behaviour, but kind of had to adapt that one around Caine, since unlike the girls and kinger, Caine with his seeming autism actually starts to fucking bite him, once he realizes that the others are more or less okay with him doing that in self defense.
Gun episode, Jax has his crash out with a different flavor than in Canon. You're worried about jax, but you can't exactly do much about it at the moment. And Caine, while having have had fun WITH the gun shooting, kind of ends up having way less fun with the awards ceremony like adventure afterwards. (None of the npcs voted for him, possibly by Bubble's design.)
Caine reminded of the last time this happened and kind of associating that result with "No one actually really likes me" ends up taking psychic damage and starting to have a meltdown in the bathroom, where of course Jax also is. You yourself have only seen Caine run away towards the bathroom, where jax has gone into and are at first worried of what if one of them is abstracting right now, but nope little later they both just come out and go back to their seats.
Some more stuff and adventures happen afterwards. Adventures that weirdly enough seem to be antagonizing Caine more and more you notice and also Bubble seems to have started to take more of an interest in Caine now.
Almost too much actually, but you can't exactly put your finger on why, especially while you are also trying to keep an eye on Jax's well being from afar, but Caine seems to be alright and more resilient than ever, so you end up prioritizing Jax over Caine for now.
Then the beach episode happens, along with Abel and the possible escape. Caine doesn't seem to convinced about it at all no matter how you put it to him, however you also figure that with what you know about Caine and his life outside, he might just literally have a really good reason for wanting to stay at the circus, so you all promise to stay with him and protect him on the outside further.
But for some reason this doesn't reassure Caine at all. The remarks Abel makes about him doesn't help either, and if it weren't for Abel literally being the only one who knows a way to get our, you would've also probably told him to get lost.
And Abel doesn't let up with those weird and vague remarks either while you, him and ragatha get the admin passes (while Jax get's the key card). You figure at this point that there was probably a good reason for why abel and kinger had a fall out in the past. But you also can't help but wonder about the name coincidences of Abel and Caine amd what if there is a connection between them too?
And of course Abel protests about sending in Caine and Kinger into the office, so you, Pomni, insist that these two go before you. You stay behind for a bit, half tempted to give abel a warning about his antagonism towards Caine in particular, but you manage to stay calm and just quietly ask him what the deal about that was.
"Caine is dangerous," is the only thing Abel says before throwing you up in the office too. Where the first thing you see is Caine partially glitching out from all that stress and oh shit, Caine is starting to abstract!
So you better hurry up and rush to the office to get y'all out into safety as quickly as possible. No time for second guessing or contemplation or what ifs, you need to do it now. You reach the console room with the two buttons. You want to rush over and press the blue button, but Caine literally puts himself betweem you and the buttons and stopps you. You have half a mind to push him aside for his own well being as he screams "I'm not a human!"
At first you think you must've misheard this, but his glitching has also stopped. Caine was telling the truth. But you still struggle to process this. If he wasn't human, then wouldn't that mean-?
"No... you're one of us."
"I'm an artificial intelligence."
"And a rogue one at that!"
It turns out bubble and abel were behind the now opening up control panel. None of this was real, this whole thing was just an adventure and bubble snips and, wait fuck Bubble is here and Caine is an AI!
But nothing happens. Bubble snips again, this time abel goes up into confetti and get's deleted. For a split second that reminds you of gummigoo and - oh shit, it's that all over again! You even scream wait this time, but bubble snips anyways.
Nothing happens again and you are glad and also confused, but fuck what are y'all supposed to do now ?!?! And - the cellar floor opens up below a pleading Caine next and he vanishes into the basement.
Where the abstractions are.
You are Pomni and have trauma bonded with Caine who has been in the circus for almost as long as you have. So of course you jump up at bubble to attack and give him a beating. You demand that he let's Caine out of that basement, but of course bubble just traps you in a bubble and you are forced to float around as bubble gives own explanation about how dangerous Caine actually was to the circus as an AI and that they all should be glad that he has contained him for all of you.
Of course everyone else too does think that this fucked up (independent of whether or not Caine was a human or not) and starts to shout and argue with bubble about that, until with a snap you all suddenly find yourself back at the circus main lobby area.
And there without Caine, the extend of what just happened and got revealed in the console room slowly dawns on all of you. Though Jax maybe starts to laugh, but not usual casual mocking laugh and more of the crashing out, I'm not fine at all variant.
Where the hell do you even start from here on?
stormborns
amandla
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
ellievsbear
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
gummygunk
