#split network au

[asonofsoddensoil]

They're also pondering that orb (thought bubble) (what did you just call Bubble)

I think i get why i ship Bubble and Azure (EVE) now. Two repressed intimidating and evil misanthropic AI but one is very plainly repressed and the other feels more at liberty to cause trouble because that's what people expect of him. They both inhabited CAINE's mind and are treated so similarly by the narrative that a lot of people came out of it thinking they were one and the same. Part of the same network, both relegated to the background of their own lives.

If you're wondering why CAINE has one eye I uh. Wanted a way to visually distinguish that he and EVE are separate. (I thought his eyes were supposed to be his two brains but I guess she was plucked from his upper teeth? Idk) They know they're not lovers, they're not comfortable calling each other siblings. They share a platonic bond they don't know how to label. (If they are to be siblings they're like Luigi and Mario. Big younger and small older.)

I can't decide whether these three are panromantic or aroace.

[asonofsoddensoil]

The Creation of Bubble

Caine's first npc.... holy shit... I feel like so many people forget that Bubble is the first NPC. Like he realized he was alone after consuming the blue dot and wanted companionship. Isn't that also painfully Genesis of him too.

It's not good to be alone, so God creates for himself a companion from the memory of a familiar stranger who could have been at his side had he done things differently. Rather than extract from his own side though, he imparts upon his first creation a piece of his mind (which at this point consists of dominant red and dormant blue). Like, Bubble is Caine's Adam, Eve, and Satan rolled up in one if you think about it for a little too long.

Unintentionally played into the idea that Caine created Bubble in the blue AI's image in Eve's design. Sharp teeth and wide staring eyes, spherical head. A copy of a copy. EVE was modeled after CAINE and Bubble was modeled after EVE. By being of the same nature, of the same mind, they share an innate connection well before they even have the chance to meet. The fact they never met in canon yet were also always with each other at the same time...

[asonofsoddensoil]

Have you settled on a design for Eve yet? I have a soft spot for the one with a puffy skirt.

Not 100%, even if I tend to use a certain one. Tbh I have been wanting to do something with that design but haven't been sure what. I feel the primary reason I don't use it as much is that the sleeves call to mind Ragatha and Pomni's designs and don't know whether I want to keep it that way or not. The visual congruence of the puffy skirt design could work for the Ringmaster Eve AU, but I also wonder how much different her aesthetic choices would be since we know nothing about her actual training data the way we do about Caine's.

Unsure whether to use that design for that or the AU where she regenerates tbh, cause the coat is meant to visually also call back to Caine.

There are two AUs I'm unsure whether to call the Split Network AU, one being Eve regenerating her body and hosting with Caine and the other whatever may go on with Bubble and Eve in the void after the finale. I wonder if the latter design with less visual elements borrowed from Caine and the humans would actually work better for the one she spends apart from both Caine and the humans.