I like Showtime but in the sorta-toxic way of it being one-sided at first and then blossoming into a parade of gross, mixed feelings. Caine is infatuated with this newcomer whom he knows virtually nothing about, his obsession kinda riding the line between love and hate. But then Pomni, much to her dismay, comes to find him endearing as she accepts she’s stuck in the circus, realizing he’s just as trapped as her. Their personalities are also just fun to mishmash, without a doubt.
I don’t see their dynamic in a typical romantic light? Just because of the circumstances, I think it couldn’t exactly be counted as just romantic- moreso on Caine’s part- but also not. Idk. just Something Worse™️ … he’s a computer program with abandonment issues, so .
I like how the jester & king dynamic plays into it. He’s obviously jealous of the way people are drawn to her and not him. And especially after ep 8, she’s the only one emotionally and intellectually collected enough to really get under his skin and challenge the core of his beliefs. Sure, characters like Zooble do too, but the way in which she does better understands how to deconstruct his logical fallacies. Like a true court jester, she entertains but also criticizes him freely.
If we go the happy route, I can see this ending in them being kind of a vague co-force in the circus, her kind of being his crux to create better adventures that don’t make people hate him, and him giving her a sense of stability as he is the circus, despite also being imprisoned by it (this is obviously prone to not holding up if we learn anything more about abstraction or possible escape routes by the end).
NPC Pomni theory coming true (not likely) would make this ship 10 times more fire BTW
And as for her, she really does have every right to hate him. So becoming enamored by this temper-tantrum riddled slightly psychotic ringmaster challenges the core of her character, pitting their polar opposite ideologies against each other. She has a good heart, so is it wrong to yearn for the embodiment of what has trapped her to this hellscape? She brings people together through her caring nature, and he divides people through what he thinks caring is. Assuming she can’t even escape, what does it even matter, right? It would honestly drive her even more insane.
In addition, the way her and Caine experience trauma parallels each other in a really interesting manner. She doesn’t seem to have any prior trauma, her trauma is the circus. Likewise, Caine’s trauma is also the circus, being tied to it since his inception. I think in this way, she can essentially “walk a mile in his shoes”. After the torture sequence, it’s pretty obvious he envies and loathes her ability to even emphasize with other NPC’s, but still not him. This is a large core of that love-hate obsession, it’s like she’s the embodiment of everything he’s doing wrong in the circus. She starts out as this puzzle he needs to crack (haha) to finally get what he wants- approval- but realizes something much scarier in doing so, which is what actual unbridled, raw human love entails.
And again, I don’t blame her for hating him. But give it enough time, for better or worse, I think she’d fully come to realize that the only way to stay sane here is to give into the insanity a little bit. Juxtaposed to that, however, the way to bring Caine down is to actually pull him out of the insanity, by treating him humanly.
It would be a kind of maddening comfort, that the person who could best understand her here is the one that torments her the most. This isn’t in a “Oh you’re trapped here so you’re expected to be with him” way (reeks of heteronormativity). Rather, she chooses to start trying to understand him better, as this is all she’ll know now, but this is all he’s ever known. But even then, her path to doing that is… not certain. Anyone would rightly be traumatized after his bullshiiit. But he’s so much more nuanced than just being “evil AI”, which is why I think there’s that ugly sweet spot of weird power over each other they have. 
TFW to keep your friends from killing themselves you gotta be nice to your boss who actively pushes them to but then you start fucking liking him 😒
All this really makes their toxicity interesting to me. It essentially subverts what you would expect to come out of their power dynamic. Caine would definitely try to use his abilities to get her to like him romantically (let’s try platonically first, buddy). ICL he’d probs do so mainly through the form of cheeky adventures (Hello my flaccid pancake-batter muffins! Today, we’re going to switch things up. Instead of simply embarking on this adventure by your lonesomes, I shall be joining you in the “Tunnel of Love: Confess Your True Feelings About Caine or Be Sent To Shrimp Town!”)
As they bond, Pomni starting to view him more humanely would probably make her view his antics in sillier light, too. Kind of like Jax, she’d become numb to the daily violence they undergo. When the person at the helm of your torture starts to create a fuzzy feeling in your chest, maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome, or maybe you realize you just like being hit by giant demonic soul sucking cartoon mallets or whatever BS he’s chosen that day.
However, I think- not counting ep 8 crash-out Caine- her relentless, innate ability to foster peace not only matches his sense of control, but is more powerful than it, in some regards. Love beats hate or whatever. Really though, whatever the hell he has going on isn’t so simply defined as hate- it’s him being designed to be cold, but trying to feel what humans feel without having the crucial understanding of the basics of morality, which is often largely unspoken to us, because we just get it.
His control over the circus does innately put him at an unfair advantage still ofc, which is why I think the role she plays in comparison to him is what really makes it works so well. I’d like to think he wouldn’t like force her to like him or something, like “Oh if you don’t fuck me, I will feed you Ragatha!!” The way he’d try to express his feelings- which I doubt he understands well- I’d imagine just be his typical wacky pestering. It’s moreso just the circumstances itself that create that friction.
Again, this can all just be summed up by “TFW when to keep your friends from killing themselves you have to be nice to your boss who actively pushes them to but then you fucking start liking him 😒”
All in all, they’re some of my favorite characters in the show (Ragatha #1 always tho 💪) and I think being the literal protagonist and antagonist(?), there’s a lot to pull from their thematic juxtaposition. I see so much of their relationship as riding this really weird line between typical digital goofy fluff, genuine mutual understanding & trauma bonding, and uncomfortable power dynamics that push each other back-and-forth. Live Laugh Showtime!
