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[liklilili]

Sometimes I'm really glad that no more than a few dozen people ship my ships, which negates the ship wars and the distortion of the characters' relationships. (but you have to read hundreds of comments from people from the category of "IS SOMEONE SHIPPING THEM???")

[amrv-5]

Does anyone know what to do about the temperature and also the prices

[yummycrummy]

he has his little moments

[liklilili]

"Project Hail Mary" is really something. They took such a lonely man and sent him to the loneliest place in the universe - and the first thing he did was make a friend.

[hah-studios]

Can we get some more Ambrose?

[liklilili]

If you could change canon, at what point might Caine and Ragatha become closer?

Hello anon! Actually, I'm a big fan of the idea of a rewritten relationship between Ragatha and Caine after episode 8, where Caine was already deleted, but thanks to the user from tiktok, I think that after the events of episode 6 it would be the perfect hit. The events of series 5 and 6 seem somewhat similar to me, that is, Ragatha and Caine in the finale come to the conclusion "Fuck, no one chooses me despite my efforts."

And Ragatha, after she has already received her conversation with Kinger, sees Caine wandering around like a wet cat, and, of course, she doesn't want anyone to feel the same way she did recently, then she tries to find out from him what's the matter, and Caine reluctantly shows her the sheet with the votes. And Ragatha doesn't behave in a "Hey, never mind, you'll win next time!" manner here, she really sees his pain and she wants to help him, and I think that's when they begin to form some kind of bond, where they see more and more similarities in their problems and how it is it affects their behavior (the creators of Caine & Ragatha's mother, helpfulness and the desire to make people happy, as well as a sense of failure in this and so on). I also really like the idea that Ragatha can really laugh at Caine 's jokes, but when he's not trying his best to be funny, he's just naturally sharing something that he finds funny.

[iphigenesis]

in a way john watson is a fantasy (what if you had this brilliant enigmatic friend and what if he liked you in particular and what if he offered you the excitement of youth and adventures and a way out of boring society life and all without having to actually give up your status as a gentleman so you could have the best of both worlds) and in a way sherlock holmes is a fantasy (what if someone never got tired of you despite your various strange habits and mood swings and instead of simply tolerating you they genuinely liked you and what if you didn’t have to live alone forever and what if you never had to give up doing the things you love) and of course there’s the most fantastical part of it all (what if you could afford london housing prices)

[quicksilverlightning]

The room had been quiet in the way only the Digital Circus could manage - never truly still, just briefly out of motion, like the world was holding its breath between jokes it hadn’t told yet.

Ragatha had insisted she was fine, pocketing the scrap of lace that had been torn off her sleeve during the latest adventure.

That, in itself, should have been the first warning sign.

Caine had found her sitting near one of the dressing mirrors that didn’t belong to any particular tent or stage, one of those half-real spaces that appeared when the Circus got bored and rearranged itself. The mirror flickered occasionally, not quite committed to being reflective, like it couldn’t decide if it understood what it was supposed to show.

She was carefully tying off the stitches of a tear along the curve of her shoulder. Not the dramatic kind of damage that usually came from their adventures - no smoke, no glitching chaos, no cartoon violence - just a quiet fraying, like something inside her had been pulled too many times in the same place.

Caine had approached with his usual brightness, voice ringing too loud for the smallness of the moment.

“Oh! Ragatha! You appear to be in a state of partial disrepair again!”

She didn’t look up. “I noticed.”

“I can assist!” he said immediately, as if it were the simplest solution in any universe. “I can correct structural inconsistencies, reinforce seams, eliminate discomfort - ”

“It’s okay,” she interrupted, softer than he expected.

That made him pause.

Caine didn’t often pause.

He leaned slightly, tilting his head as if recalibrating her response into something he could process properly. “You are declining maintenance?”

“I can fix it myself,” she said, threading the needle again. Her hands were steady, but not in a confident way - more like someone who had learned steadiness was safer than shaking.

Caine watched for a moment longer than necessary. Then: “Your method is inefficient.”

Ragatha gave a faint smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Probably.”

That should have ended it. For Caine, most things did end there - accepted, categorized, moved along.

But he didn’t leave.

Instead, his attention drifted - not to the sleeve, but to her posture. The way she kept her shoulder slightly raised, like she was guarding something beneath the fabric. The careful precision of her movements, as though any sudden change might unravel more than thread.

“Are you experiencing discomfort?” he asked.

The circus hums as Ragatha pauses.

“Yes,” she admitted, like it wasn’t worth lying about.

Caine brightened immediately. “Then I will fix - ”

“No,” she said again, a little sharper this time, before softening it with a sigh. “Not like that, Caine.”

The mirror flickers; their reflections wait, patient and silent, as the conversation skirts the edges of something neither had planned for. Caine reaches out to bridge the gap first.

His thumb brushes the crude line of stitches curving over her shoulder and she tries to not tremble. He notices anyway - he halts, giving her a chance to pull away, and meets her eyes in the mirror.

“Why don't you want me to fix them?”

“I - “ she starts to shrug before remembering his hand is still there.

“I… don't know how to explain it,” she pulls the scrap of lace from her pocket, absent-mindedly fiddling with the fabric.

“You remember what I said, about pain? The different ways it can harm us?”

“Of course!” Caine nods decisively. “I am working very hard to correct the issue.”

Ragatha smiles. “And I appreciate that. Really. And,” she hesitates again, searching for the right words.

“I guess it must look strange to you, from the outside,” the lace scratches against her fingers. “Like I want to be hurt. I don't - not at all. But… hm, how do I put this?”

Caine waits patiently, gaze never leaving the mirror even as she looks to the floor.

“When you snap it away, it's like it never happened. And that's a good thing! Really! But it's also… it's like it never mattered. Like, if the physical reminder is gone, then the mental one should be too right? But it's not, because people don't work that way.” She meets his eyes again in the mirror.

“Even small hurts take time to heal. And sometimes, if it's bad enough, it doesn't heal at all. It leaves a scar, in our mind and on our body, forever. And sometimes,” the lace crumples in her hand as she clenches, tightly.

“Sometimes, there is no physical mark. The pain is only internal, and there's no way to get it out. Sometimes it feels... easier, somehow, if you can make it something you can actually see. Then it isn't eating you alive anymore. That's what it was like when my dad died,” the lace falls from her grasp and pools on the floor.

“There was no one… I had to be strong,” she swallows against the lump in her throat. “My siblings needed me to step up and I - there was no one there to step up for me.”

She wipes hurriedly at the corner of her eye before the tears can leak out.

“I had to keep them safe. I had to help them with school and homework and, and… and bandage the hurts I could and kiss better the things I couldn't.” She offers Caine a weak smile through the reflection, despite the ache in her chest that always accompanied the memory of her dad.

“My dad was the one who used to kiss it better for me. And then he was just… gone.” One arm hugged her stomach while the other held its elbow.

Caine is quiet behind her for a long time. When he speaks at last, the question isn't one she expected.

“Does that actually help? You can kiss something better?” His reflection tilts its head, puzzled. Ragatha huffs a weak laugh.

“Not exactly. It doesn't do anything really, but it helps in other ways. It's a way of showing someone love. Even when you can't fix it.”

Caine is quiet again, finally breaking his gaze and cutting his eyes to the side, clearly deep in thought. He hums softly, fingers tapping against his leg restlessly. He finds her eyes again, briefly, and she can sense the hesitation in his bearing before lowering his upper jaw and tilting forward, grazing the line of his teeth against the rough stitches on her shoulder.

Her breath catches in her throat. Ragatha goes utterly still.

Caine doesn't linger - a heartbeat, two. He pulls back before Ragatha has a chance to process the gesture. Her knees feel shaky. It was clumsy, inept, and he didn't know better, didn't know how intimate a spot like the curve of the shoulder was, but it was genuine. It only sharpens the ache into a finer needlepoint.

She stared at him. He was looking anywhere but at her, fingers drumming against one another.

"...Was that," he asked carefully, "acceptable?"

She blinked.

"You said it doesn't actually repair the injury." His eyes flicked to hers before darting away again. "But it communicates affection. I attempted to replicate the process with... ninety-three percent anatomical accuracy."

Her eyes follow the line of stitches curving over her shoulder like a poorly-laid railroad. Nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

A laugh escaped her, shaky and far too loud in the silence.

Caine froze.

"...I calculated incorrectly."

"No," Ragatha managed between another breathless laugh. She rubbed quickly at her face. "No, you didn't."

"You are laughing."

"I'm..." She sniffed, smiling helplessly. "I'm happy."

"...Humans produce the same sound for several emotional states," Caine muttered, almost to himself. "This remains an inefficient system."

She couldn't argue with that. The corner of her mouth curled higher.

"It was sweet."

His eyes widened just a fraction.

"It was?"

"It was,” she nodded, pushing a loose curl away from her temple.

"Because you were trying."

Caine fell silent. The words seemed to catch somewhere inside him, turning over and over like gears searching for the correct alignment.

"...Trying," he repeated.

"You listened,” Ragatha offered a gentle smile. “You didn’t erase the stitches. You didn’t try to tell me I was wrong.You just..." She glanced at his reflection in the mirror, then reached up to touch the line of thread over her shoulder. "...wanted me to know you cared."

His pupils flickered into little stars.

"Yes!"

The answer came so quickly that it stole her breath again.

"That was my objective."

Something warm settled in Ragatha's chest.

For all his impossible powers, for all the worlds he could conjure in an instant, this had likely been one of the most difficult things Caine had ever done.

Not because it required power. Because it required uncertainty.

"You know," she said softly, "sometimes that's enough."

His brow furrowed.

"'Enough'?"

"You don't always have to make the pain disappear."

"I..." He hesitated. "But I dislike when you are in pain,” he shakes his head. “I dislike when any of you are in pain. It indicates a flaw in the environment."

She smiled gently.

"Sometimes the environment isn't the reason."

He looked at her shoulder. Then at her eyes.

"...Your father."

She nodded, shifting to pick up the fallen scrap of lace. Caine reacts before she can do more than bend her knees, swooping down and snatching up the fabric and offering it to her.

Ragatha isn’t sure where the impulse came from; she pushes his fingers over the lace, shaking her head.

“Keep it.”

Caine was quiet for a long while, idly wrapping the lace around his fingers. Then, with surprising care, he reached out. Not toward the stitches, but toward her hand. He paused a fraction of an inch away.

"Physical contact," he said. "Without alteration."

Ragatha looked down at the waiting hand.

"...May I?"

She answered by slipping her fingers into his.

His hand was strange. Smooth, warm, surprisingly soft, joints clicking almost imperceptibly as his fingers adjusted around hers. He held on with extraordinary gentleness, as though afraid she might come apart if he squeezed too tightly.

"There," he said after a moment.

"There?"

He looked at their joined hands, then back to her. "I believe this is also a way of showing someone love."

Ragatha squeezed his hand.

"It is."

For the first time since she'd met him, Caine didn't rush to fill the silence with another spectacle or another joke.

He simply stood beside her.

The stitches remained.

The memories remained.

The hurt remained.

But for the first time in a long while, she wasn't carrying it alone.

[yummycrummy]

hiii just came here to say that I love your au and I would love to see some fluffy stuff about Caine and Ragatha. I think they're so freaking cute together 💖💖💖🥹

Thank you!!! <3 they're such sillies 💕,,

[xnatiix]

dad sketches

[nebula-award]

One in the same

[just-pauline]

A tour of The Circus Grounds

+ little comic:

[fanfeifour]

Yay

Free jelly babies

[yummycrummy]

can you draw Ragatha comforting Caine please 🙏🙏

we all need a moment sometimes

[aquilaofarkham]

every autistic person watching this episode of dungeon meshi:

[ebenelephant]

rewatching eleven's run for the first time since it aired and feeling quite sick about his relationship with the ponds if i'm being so honest. the way it all slows down and amy says it's been ten years and it really, really feels like it? eleven's heavy, preemptive grief? the way amy and rory both know he's dangerous, but feel it in very different ways? they find some modicum of peace after a decade, receive a blessing to travel to the far ends of time and space, and so soon after they are snatched away by it all, to live out a little linear life away from everything they love. what. and the doctor wears her glasses because it's like being close to her and because he can't go back to their house because then he'd have to tell rory's dad that he doesn't have to water the plants any more. oh my god.

[codes-and-stuffs]

i do think we should normalise being like. platonically enamoured with someone. perhaps i love and admire you dearly and there's nothing romantic about it