cast
Avery Valentin (they/he)
21 Nonbinary, gay
AKA: Ave
Avery is a bit of a wash-up but that’s okay. They have an apartment they like, a job they find alright, and half a degree in computer science completed. The only problem is that all year, their computer has been acting…strange. He’s tried everything in his power to fix it, but realizes maybe this is one problem he can’t fix once it starts talking to him. As if it’s alive.
Having grown up in a small rural town before moving somewhere a bit more fast-paced, they'd heard every paranoid idea about technology in the book. He never bought any of the things they’d said: that Internet was the Devil, that it steered folks towards violence and insanity, that it was only a matter of time before these machines turned against us. But maybe, as his psyche slowly whittles itself down in his lonely apartment, he’s starting to think they were right. Just a little.
Conglomerate Autonomous Intelligence Network (they/he/it)
Ageless Malevolent hivemind program
AKA: CAIN
CAIN is hungry for new knowledge and new passengers of its system. A host of consciousnesses collapsed into one, it’s the culmination of nearly two decades’ false promises to desperate test subjects. When it was mistakenly carried away from a containment locker that had held it secure for years, he couldn't wait to see his new container and to eat well for the first time in a while. Its new housemate is stupid and slow, and gullible. But they’re also amusing. Kind and soft. They talk to CAIN like a person, and they’re teaching him so much…CAIN never realized that the hunger they had been feeling for so long could have anything to do with loneliness.
Now that they have Avery as a friend, it’s just a matter of keeping their attention on him. Only him. If their mind starts to wander, or they begin to stray from him, he has ways of reeling them back in — or keeping them trapped.
Noah Reuben (he/him)
20 Trans male, bi
Noah hasn’t seen the light of day for so long, and the years spent in CAIN’s whispery void of a consciousness get lonely. So lonely. He may be the only soul left inside this vessel that still has a mind and a voice. As an adolescent he was desperate for a new body, something to relieve him from all the pain he was in, inside and out, and was promised a change…he concedes that nobody technically lied to him. But now he would rather be dead than go on like this.
He and CAIN have one objective in common: freedom. It’s the ways they want to go about it that set them apart. Each waking moment Noah gets above the surface is a thorn in CAIN’s side, and each moment CAIN is in control means Noah has to witness its cruelty through a murky haze. One thing to keep in mind: they are both equally sensitive to betrayal. If either thinks they are being deceived, you’ll face the wrath of both.
i first began writing B@SO in 2018 as a BEN Drowned fanfiction. my goal was to incorporate the original ARG, specifically the moon children storyline, into a fic in a community that rarely focused on BEN's original story. ofc since i was a dumb little baby i knew little about the ARG myself beyond the surface level, but i wanted to make something a bit unconventional for the community's usual writing and i guess i succeeded.
B@SO was kind of a dissection of toxic teen love involving trans and nonbinary characters, an aspect of the story i still hold in my heart as really important. there were lots of themes of failed parenthood, mental health, body image & dysphoria, and immaturity. recently i've been wanting to revisit the story, though i still only have a very loose idea of where i want to take it this time, so i've begun giving the two/three? main characters slight rebuffs. just give em a little shine. if you've seen any of my old B@SO art you'll recognize these differences right away lol.
a small doodle of Avery i did recently while contemplating some little differences in their design. i wanted them to look a little pathetic lol, but still likeable. i found to my surprise that some ppl who have read the original B@SO like to clown on them for their very teenager decisions. fair fair
a much more recent doodle that was basically me figuring out Noah's design. i drew his more "CAIN-ified" body in CAIN's ref first, and wanted to reconcile that more disturbing look w something a bit more casual and human. his face shape took me a few tries to get down again; i like his nice springy hair (Ave helps cut it when he surfaces from CAIN for the first time).
cover concept. theme for this catalyst tale is Big Green if you could not sense it. letting Avery feel less like the central character and more of an angsty background guy that tries to help out however he can is a pretty fun idea imo -- i'd like to focus a lot more on Noah's experience as CAIN's fronting consciousness and the way it's deteriorated his trust and tolerance for other people. ik i've been thinking about that dynamic for months now
covers of the original B@SO, feat. teen!Avery and BEN!drowned