my thoughts about Caine's model lacking many essential facial features (as if he was never intended to show any emotions) and yet him being literally the most expressive character in the circus despite everything.
me being low-key obsessed with the implications episode 7 left us with. Players questioning everything they've been told and Caine being in the center of it all.
Just to be clear, I do believe Caine is written as a sentient AI who is just struggling to understand humanity and everything that comes with it. And I think these thoughts about him faking his emotions are inherently wrong within a story. He's oblivious and desperate but not malicious. But couple it with the fact that he's been lying about many other things (so far I'm inclined to think it was for players' sake in his own eyes) and that humans have been suffering for a while dealing with a literal god that doesn't understand them... Well, I have a feeling that they will doubt his motives and literally everything they know, rightfully so.
The amount of attention this little comic received is a bit terrifying and overwhelming and seeing all the different interesting interpretations people come up with I just wanted to explain mine own a little better <3
I want them all to be healed and happy, little guy absolutely included, but man the situation is rough, and the odds are against us
(Also please ignore typos, I'm hyperaware of them and even messed up writing my on name, i was really, really tired :') )
Au royalteeth family(? I really wanted to draw my favorite ship xD
(In this AU they're younger, since Pommi and Ragatha are too. In the main canon, if I remember correctly, Pommi is 25, and Ragatha is 30+, Kinger is 40+, and Caine is 30+)
Hi!! You ship Kinger and Caine. I am very curious about that. What aspect of the individuals made you ship them? What moments in the series did you like? What, in your opinion, is their dynamic?
-a curious multishipper who wants to learn more
Hello! Tumblr is such a nice community, people give me such nice questions lol. I keep writing paragraphs of this ship in random places so I finally wrote some of it in my Google Docs. But I'll try not ramble.
....Hmm, I went so hard on this sketch LOL. I guess its been awhile since I drew them kissing.
Caine and Kinger are my favorite characters. So why not ship them? That's my initial reason lol. It was pretty convenient to draw them together and it ended up being really fun to ship them.
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Episode 3 is my favorite episode because it made Caine very relatable and I really love the quiet moment with Kinger and Pomni. Life is overwhelming and my brain likes to race quite a lot, so I'm grateful for the quiet moments. It solidified Kinger as my favorite character. Its what made me excited to watch the show, as the Pilot and episode 2 didn't really hook me. I watched episodes 1-6 in like a couple weeks. I also really like the moment with Ragatha and Kinger in episode 6. Ragatha is my third favorite character so I enjoy any of their friendship moments. Just seeing Ragatha truly open up is really touching. The show kept making Caine a tragic character and he kept going through my life moments, so he became my favorite as well by episode 6. I would say Caine, Ragatha and Kinger are the most relatable characters to me (in that order). Caine doesn't get a lot of screentime so all of Caine's moments were pretty much my favorites.
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Anyways, a lot of TADC made me explore new things. The past few years has been really rough so I've been pushing myself to do a ton of things. I want Caine to be happy, I'll give him that. Since Caine feels like a fictional me, I want to see him in a happy gay relationship lol. I project quite a lot into Caine.
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I have two main Royalteeth dynamics: the wholesome one (that I just call RT) and the toxic one (I call AA). They have these shortened names because of my Extended Servers AU (a lot of Caine variants and Kingers).
RT: Its what I would call a deredere/lovey-dovey, opposites attract relationship. They act like magnets or puzzle pieces that just fit together. They fill each other's void, they bring out the best in each other, they understand each other. Caine brings out the fun/goofy/nerdy side of Kinger and offers help even when Kinger dismisses the need for help. Kinger brings the peaceful side out of Caine and treating Caine like he deserves life. They're allowed to tease each other, act like themselves, enjoy each other's company, have flaws, allowed to bicker and have arguments yet improve from that experience, learn from each other, have a bit of tug of war when it comes to power dynamics. Caine is still quite petty, jealous or obsessive, but Kinger finds them pretty cute and helps reassure Caine. Kinger still has his quiet side and can get sad about Queenie, but Caine helps out using his creativity to cheer him up or allow him private spaces to express his feelings. They're not perfect, but they let themselves have flaws and work through their issues, so they feel perfect to each other. Since Caine is getting quite a lot of love, he slips on adventure making quite a lot. He's far more interested in the roleplays with Kinger (they're absolutely nerding out with these intense roleplays, absolute game buddies giving out 570% immersion). So full cast adventures are more once a week thing or by demand of the cast and are much more peaceful and symbolic. Caine is more interested in his hobbies and spending time with Kinger than the other humans LOL. Jax is going crazy with this change. Its not about him tho, rip Jax...They are also dads to sentient plush versions of them and also a couple of Caine mice (which is very specific to my AU).
AA: This gets quite complicated and I'm writing it out in a separate Google Doc because this will eventually have a fanfic, MAYBE. I am not a writer tho so its going to be a struggle (especially since I like wholesome stuff more) lol. A lot more exploration of complex issues, mutual lobotomy, secret relationship, company betrayal, etc. So it grabs some inspiration from the show. However, I don't believe canon Caine hates Kinger, I think whatever code/script that is separate from Caine that just appears in the adventures for some reason just hates Kinger. AA Caine does have a complex relationship with Kinger and teeters between love and hate. Unlike RT, Kinger is in the closet here and initially treats Caine like a tool. He tinkers with Caine's censors and programming constantly, he's a dev of the Circus and also Caine. They also have special roleplay adventures. AA Caine contains a lot of Kinger's dark secrets and past, but he's never allowed to reveal them. AA Caine is a lot more smart tho, feeling the more malicious side of humanity, he learns through the harsh punishments and has learned how to be manipulative and navigate through human issues a lot more flawlessly. Kinger's treatment towards Caine shifts after Caine became sentient and too smart, so the shift in power dynamics also changes quite a lot here. Definitely feels more sus on Kinger's side, mainly because I kinda thought about it after drawing a really sus Kinger. This is all still getting figured out tho, RT is getting a lot of my biased favoritism lol. Also AA Royalteeth is a pretty specific dynamic, so there's nothing stopping me from making another toxic Royalteeth dynamic just due to my flexibility of my AU lol.
RT Caine has a wooden body since Kinger requested Caine to make a body model for himself (Caine was thinking about Kinger) while AA Caine has a human body model because Kinger modeled his body. They're individuals/variants so they have bunch more specific information. If people want more info, then just send another ask 😝I would also say I take the ship name "Kingleader" quite literally too, they're both powerful men that leads, very versatile relationships. I based Caine off me so he's very much a gay cis man that don't cross-dress (that just happens to be an AI). I'm not too aware of shipping fandoms, wars, all these shipping terms since I'm quite new to shipping, so I just went on my own journey of headcanons and all that haha. I do find other people's perspectives on ships quite fascinating tho. I'm a fairly nonconflictal person, but if I do upset people somehow (considering I relate to Caine, I probably did), I hope its in a good way LOL. I will not diminish my own voice and perspective to make people comfortable for something in fiction. Oops, okay I did ended up rambling lol. Did people actually read all this? Hmm...well have another sketch haha.
I made myself cry drawing this, that wasn't supposed to happen...
Anyways, this is partially a message to myself and also just me getting slightly annoyed with people dismissing Caine simply for being an AI. Sorry I went the cringey route with the message but sometimes we do actually need to hear it out loud too.
Also yes, the other character's feelings are also real and valid. I think the other characters treat Caine fairly realistic. I hope they all are able to somehow communicate with each other that they'll all be able to understand. Idk how far Caine can compromise, but he's clearly too scared and panicked to really listen (and just generally unable to relate and think like humans do). He needs to get out of his head. This is hard to write, hope this makes sense. I don't think he's a bad person and I value him, even if he has a lot of flaws. I hope the gap between AI and human isn't too much...
I just hope things end up fairly good for everyone...If not, at least still written well, I want Caine's complexity and nuance to be treated well with the story. Idk might be a little bad that I relate to him the most lol...(at least Ragatha, the other character I relate with, seems to be going in a nice direction). I want to learn from the show.
....ALSO YES, Kinger is also here. Not sure how his story will go... My two favorite tragic characters yay lol.
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