Less-Than-Zero TADC AU

Blog dedicated to a TADC AU- Less than Zero (She/Her, 31) PFP Art by @Paintscythe Welcome all, to the year 2566 Where man and machine are closer than ever. All things creative have been copyrighted and sold at a premium. Munds- those with little cybernetics, are ground into dust by the ever-hungry system, while Glams- those more machine than man, overindulge in anything and everything, powered by personal AIs that attend to their every need. Follow Noi-the Vulture, a mund, as they discover a time capsule from 1996 and in hopes of changing their future, reawaken a nearly 6-century-old AI who goes by the name: Caine. (Please note- all of this takes place after episode 8 and becomes an AU, regardless of how episode 9 may go)

[less-than-zero-au]

Master post for Less Than Zero - TADC AU

Writing:

Synopsis/Book Blurb

Glossary: words used in the universe (if something comes up during reading, come here to find an explanation of some items!)

Official Chapter 1: The Black Box: Welcome to Neo Arachnis and the slums below, known as Archeron- here where hope has died, in the refuse- something is found.

Monster Caine snippet- set much later in fic, Caine is trapped/ tortured, but this backfires on his assailants as the hunter becomes the prey.

Ocean Fog: Monster Caine and company want to say farewell to the beach, only for it to be too foggy to see. Thankfully, someone is tall enough to see above the fog and give a good view for everyone to remember (later in the fic)

Cuddles: Caine and Noi reunite in the macroverse. When going to sleep, Caine is unable to figure out how to ask for cuddles- fluff ensues.

One small step for man- one giant leap for AI: Caine's coding is having errors, Noi requests to fix it. Caine fears how painful it will be, only to learn what the term 'gentleness' really is.

Memes:

Pocket Eldritch!Caine go!:

Fruity Ringmaster:

Nicknames:

Art? .....Art:

My AU fleshy caine:

Caine AU Meeting:

[insomniacrori]

Some classic showtime

I just wanted to make "Throwing the rose meme" and got carried away

[fic-dumpster]

[fire-frog]

Me with Noir Flint Marko

[catprinx]

welcome to the amazing digital circus!!!

A print I made to celebrate the upcoming finale! This will be available at TCAF, supercon, and ANYC. Possibly online too if there's any interest ^^

[honeyyykat]

All three of the silly pose drawings I did but without the numbers

[roquog]

Caine's eyeballs can be squished together like tits. Remember this.

[ID: Screenshot of Caine from TADC episode 3 crushing his eyes between his hands in frustration. End ID]

[zeahailhat]

I like to think Ragatha probably handles heat horribly, meanwhile for Caine, well. He’s an AI. Would need water of course. Man I hate being a Southeast Asian everyday is just summer.

[thatguythatlikes-caine]

CAINE FANART

This is from the TADC fanfic, "They Love me (Not)" by @the-spam-specialist on AO3

i LOVEE this guy I really want to decorate my room around him but i might get called out by my parents Lol

also a lighting test. Yayyy!!

[the-spam-specialist]

This is so cute!!

[azurfishe]

Caine kiss

[mazorca98]

I love how they make him pose so much he's so dynamic and fun 😭😭😭 I hope I get to the point where I can draw him as expressive as I want him to look because GAAAH

(also the second one....)

[jorongbak]

Today's adventure is... The Backrooms- and there would be biblically accurate Caine in it

As much as I love Caine as a cute silly little three-apples-tall guy, I LOVE his unhinged eldritch form. I know he was suffering and I feel bad for him... but I also really wish we had gotten more of that

[goldiesay]

All righty! Showtime art idea :3

Pomni getting sneaky and planting kisses to Caine while he’s not looking, and getting increasingly bolder with each kiss ;3

Or

Caine going about his days like adventure making, only with Pomni clinging to his back the whole time like a koala, refusing to let go ;3

OH YEAH, KISSING SHOWTIME

I low-key combined the requests:3

[theomavy]

I make comics out of my intrusive thoughts-

Here is one:

In the words of my good friend @mushroombea

Ace Caine supremacy

🖤🩶🤍💜

[scribbletropolis]

laptop lagging so bad i cant even see my cursor

[theraynemosaic]

The intimacy of being known

A little art for an excerpt from my Caine X Reader fic Sufficient: Chapter 8

Reader gives Caine a crocheted bee 🐝

[insomniacrori]

Kinger thanks everyone for keeping an eye on Caine while he was away

Related to this

[caine-shrine]

Lowkey obsessing over how Caine even learned to mask. He couldn’t have learned it from Jax (or Gangle, or Ragatha) because Ragatha was the first (lucid) one there, and would’ve noted the difference when he began to do it.

Or, was his uniformly energetic bit every day genuine at first, and then he picked up from one or more of them to hide his more intense negative emotions when they started to show up in earnest?

That would be the most impactful, story-wise, probably. You accidentally taught the AI your bad mental habits.

He’s just probably better at it, since an AI can be super exact?

Did he learn it forcefully? (ie, a human Abstracted when he began to act out before so that’s why all the effort to mask the most extreme swings of his rage)(or, the early group of humans went even colder towards him when he showed any capacity at all to get frustrated)(causing him to struggle with it alone)(but in the present, he’s finally just too fed up to keep it up)

Does it have anything to do with the way Scratch was yelling at him?

[lazuli-starlight]

Caine styled himself as a Ringmaster from day one. I think Caine has always naturally been a performer/ entertainer at heart. But his knowledge of character tropes is probably what led him to use logic that might look like "The Ringmaster is the role of a Performer, so I shall perform. My real feelings don't belong on stage"

That and like Ragatha, his childhood trauma led him to become a desperate people pleaser terrified of rejection. Terrified of being considered a failure. So like her, he was absolutely never going to show his more negative feelings/ opinions to others until it became too much to keep in. No viable imperfections allowed. Heck I suspect Caine used to mask even harder back in the Dev Days of the circus than he does in the cannon time period. Would explain a lot.