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enby-denby · 5 months

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Seeing as there are three days left of my little TADC poll, and knowing full well that a majority of the votes have already been cast and the winner has all but been chosen, I'd like to give a deeper summary of each to both hype up those who've voted already for their choices and to give people seeing it for the first time a more informed choice. I meant to do this sooner, but I was doing the Dead Colonizers feast with my family for the past two days. Anyway, here are your fics:

Chess Gang Flashback: This fic would begin in the development crew at C&A noticing that their first playtester wasn't exiting the game on schedule and sending in a (way too) elite team of administrators to rescue said employee. As admins, they default to a form reminiscent of the Admin icons on their work laptops: chess pieces, to be precise. Kinger tries to lead the way, even when he no longer remembers the plan, Queenie will make power moves until she realizes how powerless she really is, and Bishop tries to do good by his Lord only to be corrupted by the divinity of the digital world. And the others? The rook, the knight, and the lost pawn? They may not outlast the others, but their actions will have lasting impacts.

Hotel Staff AU: Exactly what it says on the tin, really, t1he circus is instead a hotel that everyone works at. Pomni is a Valet, Caine is her manager that is friendly and supportive (when he makes himself availible, that is), Ragatha is a Front Desk Auditor that helps her a lot with paperwork, Jax is a porter that never does more than his job description and screws around with his coworkers, Gangle is a bellhop who puts on a happy face for guests only to duck into the bell closet to cry about getting stiffed on tips, Zooble is a bartender at the hotel bar who doesn't talk much and leaves as soon as their shift ends but sometimes brings Pomni water or soft drinks, and Kinger is the property manager for this (and several other) hotels whose gone a little crazy from being run ragged. The main six work the same night shift schedule, dealing with all sorts of weird guests, requests and personal stresses (including some not so digital, not so doomed yuri).

Pomni is a System and Ragatha is queer: I envisioned these as not one fic but two intertwined stories; both would share a single canon and events from one would effect the other, but could be read in either order. One half of this series is Pomni's traumatic first day resulting in her splitting into a system. Below is an illustration of the colorful cast of characters this story would feature, all within the colorful character they all live in, inside-out style:

The other half focuses on Ragatha, her sewing skills, and the wonderful and horrible "personal project" that she keeps grafting to herself to cope with circus life/past traumas around her femininity. I am trying to talk around tumblers censors, so just know this: it's one part spicy fantasies, one part skin-crawling descriptions of the reality of what this sort of fabric-surgery would entail. The inflection point of these two narratives is that Pomni and Ragatha would confide their coping skills with one another and bond in the process.

One Shot where Pomni Meets Bishop: this one will make more sense after the Chess Gang Flashback, but it doesn't neatly fit into that narrative. Instead, this story finds Pomni lost in another distant courner of the circus, a land claimed by an exiled zealot. The former wants answers about the circus, the latter wants another convert to his ideology... or otherwise manipulate her to play the role he thinks is needed to be played. All told it would be a clash of chaos and order, of logic and belief, and is going to be full of emotional (perhaps even literal) bombshells.

Toy Story AU: this I came up with on a complete whim when making the poll, but I have developed the idea some what. I'm honestly torn between making Caine a human (controls the games, comes and goes as he pleases, unaware of the suffering he is inflicting on his toys, etc) and a toy in the position of Woody (lays out the rules of being a toy, his design, bringing Pomni back when she strays) but I know I want Pomni to be confused and resentful of her existence as a plaything. Her idea of an exit is the toys leaving the bedroom and forming a society out in the woods, but the other toys are skeptical of her plans. One cool thing about this story is I can call out the darker aspects of Toy Story's premise, like the fact that freezing up seems to be an involuntary reflex on the toy's part.

New person joins the circus: this would be the introduction of another oc, this one a living stuffed animal named Totes. Initially believing the circus to be a big silly drug trip, they seemingly shrug off the weirdness of the circus and embrace their half weasel, half tote-bag existence with ease... until they sober up, and Pomni finds herself having to navigate a role similar to the one Ragatha had for her when she first arrived. This is definitely one of the narratives that leans into the circus being a grim and endless cycle, and thus this fic represents an inflection point of Pomni reflecting on this shared, miserable experience.

Zooble Theseus' Ships Themself: another "throw it in" idea, but a wonderful thought experiment to explore that I imagine they have done at some point. This fic would explore the nature of a being that can swap out every part of themselves, except for an intangible piece of sapience that is not transferred to any one piece. This is proven when the reformed Zooble tries to make a second self with the swapped-out pieces, and fails.

Descendants Style story: Somebody has to do this, and in a sense many fans on Tumblr have laid the groundwork with their fan kid designs. This would take place after a sort of "balance patch" to the game that would allow the humans in the circus enough autonomy to have children in some capacity or another, and rather than going on many small adventures Caine sends a group of said descendants on a grander adventure as a sort of coming of age ritual. There will be goofy enemies, fun dynamics between the circus kids, deep existential questions on the humanity of said children, and what their future might hold being trapped in the same world as their parents.

Pomni becomes the "New Old Guard": this is the natural conclusion of the "Circus as an inescapable cycle" line of stories, with no concessions made with whimsical twists or pretense of escape. And we rip that bandaid off harshly with the first chapter detailing the abstraction of Ragatha coinciding with yet another new arrival, the combination of which triggers some horrendous PTSD and survivor's guilt. If she can make it even a quarter of the time Kinger had made it-- or even through the next week-- it will be a miracle.

Good/Steak Dinner ending: if the above was a True Bad ending, then this is the opposite. A few years after escaping the circus, the main six have gotten physical and mental therapy, as well as justice. But not much money, just enough to cover their bills and a single very nice meal for their troubles. The story of their escape and the aftermath of their stay is told as playful reminiscing over drinks and appetizers, their lasting anguishes carved out of porterhouse and ribeye entrees; as the night winds down and the humans start to return to their old lives, the second oldest member of the circus and the last victim of that digital hell get their just desserts.

So, there's the loglines for each. And as necessary I will make more art as I develop each idea/feel like I need to. But as you can see, there's a reason I am so indecisive about these ideas that I am putting these fics to committee. I think up/mentally expland upon these fics faster than I can write them, and the data I am getting from Tumblr is giving those brainstorms a direction to consistantly burrow in. Get out the vote, my fellow TADC Tumblerites!

#tadc #tadc oc #tadc ragatha #tadc jax #tadc pomni #tadc kinger #tadc zooble #tadc gangle #tadc caine #I'm trying not to spoil the current results #but the current data tells an interesting story #about the order I might tell these stories in #will probabl post about this again when the poll ends #note to self: next time #we only need one day for a poll like this

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