#hd:au

the door to the won's house was always pretty wide open. something about how they had to be welcoming to everybody were her father's words, but she just thinks it's becaus they can't seem to say "no" to anybody. need a place to rest? they'll let you sleep for a night. need some food? here's some tteok.

did mihyang love it? not really, but it's not like she had any say in what goes on in the won household.

despite all that, however, this is a new experience for herself. when she heard a slight rustle toward the attic of her home, mihyang thought it was probably a bird building a nest or a stray cat. what she didn't expect to find was a person. she thinks she's seen him around town before, but she can't put a name to the face.

she doesn't even get the time to think either because there's ruckus toward the gates of her home. she looks down and signals for him to stay quiet before heading out. "what may i do for you?" she offers them her warm smile as they explain that they're chasing a thief. ran off with something of value—the words are muffled in her ears as all she can think about is that there's a very high chance the man in her attic is very much this so-called thief.

"i haven't seen anybody like that around here. i suggest you try looking around the square? there are many paths with dead-ends," she suggests. a sigh of relief leaves her lips as she watches them walk away from her home.

IT ISN’T PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT TO FIND LEE BOBAE. in a room pulled taut with hollow gestures, vain repetition of the most nauseating of platitudes, the way bobae holds herself seems to saturate the entirety of her being in a crown of her own light. a halo of warmth. ring of petal. ryu yeonhee once heard her older brother call bobae the wildflower of the season. and now, wading through a crowded room with him in tow, anticipating the amicable curve of her smile, well. yeonhee is inclined to agree. “miss bobae,” she begins crisply. there’s something of a smile at the corners of her lips. “my brother has asked me to escort him over. i’ll have you know he was quite insistent.”

following this introduction, yeonseong dips his head into a sheepish bow of address. “yeonhee’s words often favor exaggeration, but her claims are not unfounded. i have been wanting to find you.” when he lifts his head, the arc of his mouth softens. “i’ve gotten word that your friend’s previous match was a bit… generous with his affections, bobae. she isn’t too disheartened by it, i hope?”

The pavilion had recalibrated itself by dawn by the groan of unseen gears. They now overlooked a valley where the plum blossoms were less like flowers and more like a collective gasp of pink silk against morning frost. Jehwan stood on a cantilevered balcony, looking less like a nobleman and more like a beautiful architectural error. Below, the Spring Social Season was in full, suffocating swing. The elite of Hanyang moved in a synchronized ballet of choreographed bows and sly smiles, their auras blooming in a sickeningly sweet palette. It was all so curated, a high-stakes performance of "harmonies" that felt hollow to his eyes.

FT. @hdmiru & @hdminah

naimara's laugh shatters it wide open, wild above gangnam's neon pulse. the moon hangs low enough to taste, a sugar pearl stuck between the city's teeth, and she's upside down on her broom again, hair streaming like a comet, eyes full of trouble. the traffic below looks like a thousand sleeping dragons in red and gold; she tips her broom so close to the rooftops that the tip of her boot kisses a billboard for bubble tea. "come on, slowpokes!" she yells, splitting the clouds. "what's the point of being witches if you're scared of a little turbulence?"

she flips [actually flips] one leg hooked around the broom, the other kicking free, sparks trailing from her heel as if the night itself were clapping. a startled pigeon bursts past, squawking like a chorus line. somewhere behind her, she can hear mirai and minae close behind her and that means she's absolutely going to try again.

written for takada mirai (@hdmiru) 🔮

when the circle finishes burning itself into the floorboards, the air is static, sweet, a little like ozone before lightning. then he appears, and suddenly the rooms smells like old pennies and rain. smoke first, then boots, then a grin that could convince a saint to reconsider. seungho, half-daemon, all bad idea, steps out of the sulfur glow with his hands in his pockets and a look that says he knows exactly who called him and wishes he didn't.

"mirai." he drags her name lacross his teeth. "you always had a flair for drama, but a summoning circle? really?" the flames behind him dim to a dull pulse, tethering him to the floor like a lazy heartbeat. he looks around the dorm room, the candles, the salt, the angry energy that still tastes like her perfume and spite.

🪞 HYDE FACULTY FILE: "my wings that will change the world, towards you I fly."

🕯️ SECTION I — Identity

Name & Age: jophiel naya’il, also known as soteria / salus in her ancient form from the time the first child uttered it's first cry, jophiel has roamed. perhaps not in this physical form, but her spirit has lingered. she appears as a young, 25 year old woman to those who call to her.

Species: daimon, spirit of safety, salvation, and deliverance

House Affiliation: 🩸daywalkers --- jophiel holds no alliance with good nor evil in a traditional sense, she views all humanity as her children worthy of her protection, hence why she finds herself amongst the darker individuals as their protector.

Role (Student, Prefect, or Professor): professor of defensive and protective magic; her very existence is meant to ensure the safety of the world's beings, so she naturally took on the role of using her abilities and wealth of knowledge to teach her children to protect themselves and others.

🕸️ SECTION II — Aura & Style

Aesthetic / Monster Fit: jophiel exists as a sea of contradiction: her eyes pitch black with the light twinkle of the galaxy if one finds themselves staring into them, her long and unnaturally blonde hair flows down her shoulders to her chest, her size large and intimidating as she towers over the average human being. because of this, her fashion can't truly be defined as... fashionable. if you were to look at her, you'd think she'd just stepped out of a time machine. she's often adorned in pure white, flowing garments made of silk. they're typically worn as if they were wrapped and tied around her figure including her neck, much like a baby is swaddled at birth. sandals that look as if they've never even heard of dirt are laced up to her knees, mimicking the silky white of her garments. if one was to look at her in the sun, they might be blinded (though, she'd take the time to heal their eyes). her body is covered in a wide range of scars --- all shapes and sizes littered across her pale and glowing skin. beyond that, she's mostly bare. jewels and other adornments have never appealed to her, as material things typically don't fit her due to her size but also because she exists outside of time, space, and reality as others know it. her wings, much like her, are large and feathered pure white like a dove to evoke calm onto all that gaze upon her.

Powers:

FLIGHT: her wings aren't just for decoration --- jophiel is able to take flight like a missile. she isn't burdened by physics in the slightest, able to take off at her top speed at will.

DIVINE HEALING: as the spirit and embodiment of safety and salvation, jophiel is able to heal others by taking on their pain. it is a sacrifice she can make to completely heal someone of any pain they face --- both physical and mental --- through her tears should they call upon her. it has to be by their will, even if she wants to do what she can for them; if they do not call upon her, she must accept their wishes. should she choose to take on mental scars, she strips the individual of their memory and instead takes it for herself for all eternity. physical injuries become scars upon her and she is forced to carry the pain and burden upon her body and isolate herself outside of her physical form until she's healed herself, but it always scars. her healing period ranges and, should the injury be bad enough, she may have to discard her physical form and live as her spirit form until she is well enough to create a new body.

SHAPESHIFTING: as mentioned, she's a spirit and therefore can go between physical and spirit forms. her spirit form is a giant silhouette of pure light. when in this form, she can't make physical contact with objects and cannot speak in a traditional sense. she is only able to communicate by speaking with people through their minds. she can also change her size, though she struggles with it on occasion, mostly because of her wings.

SILVER TOUNGE: with just her words, she's able to put someone in a state of intense peace and euphoria. it's used to help make people feel more comfortable and safe through their transition between life and what comes after. she helps people "see their life flash before their eyes", allowing them to avoid fear and uncertainty in death. it can also be used at any other time, but she'd rather not (unless it's to get her students to attend class.)

Weakness:

BOUND BY HUMAN(OID) WILL: jophiel is bound to the will of those she means to help. this means she cannot act outside of the demands of humanity (and those on it's outskirts). as a spirit, she cannot act upon her own will because she has none (in a traditional sense). no matter how much she wants to do something, or not do something, if she is not called upon for it, she cannot act.

UNABLE TO FEEL: she cannot love in a traditional sense. all of humanity are like her children who she works to protect and keep safe, so humans aren't exactly her type. when it comes to other creatures, while the same sentiment doesn't necessarily apply, she cannot express emotions like love or even like in a romantic sense. she also can't express things like anger, fear, or dissatisfaction. she's rather one note -- only able to feel what she embodies.

MORTALITY: jophiel is immortal --- but not in the typical ways. her physical form can be killed and she can be forced into her spirit form for extended period of time, even centuries. she is able to come back, eventually, but the longer she spends as a her spiritual self, the more disconnected she becomes.

Personality Shift (are they darker, softer, weirder?): jophiel, unlike jumi, is full of compassion to a self-sacrificing degree. the passion within jumi cannot exist within jophiel, for she is only here to serve and protect others. maternal in nature, jophiel takes on all the pain and suffering of the world, without expressing any of her own. she holds a warm smile upon her face, the universe in her eyes, and the world upon her shoulders. she embodies what jumi wishes she could be -- someone who feels at home amongst others, and jumi embodies what jophiel (unknown even to herself) wishes she could be; her own person.

Motivation (blend in, burn the world down, protect someone, seize the stage): she exists to help others --- literally. she is the embodiment of safety, salvation, and deliverance; born from the first cry of an infant. to keep humanity safe and when she can't, help them pass on in a way that eases their pain and worry. as long as their is pain and suffering the world, she will be there to make it all go away.

🕷️ SECTION III — The Blackout Effect

Do they remember the original HYDE? Or believe they’ve always lived here?: jophiel holds the memories of many others --- hyde feels like those. distant, painful memories that others wanted nothing more than to forget. she knows she's lived many lives across many centuries, but never as a mortal being. perhaps she's begun to merge the memories of her worldly children with her own in an attempt to better connect with them.

Any glitch-visions / lingering memories?: there are moments she feels a particular twinge in her heart when she recalls them, and sometimes she finds herself gazing in the mirror at a version of herself that looks back with a hardened expression that she wishes she could heal. she reaches her fingers towards the mirror, hoping to connect with her and take her suffering, only to be met with the cold glass.

the shore was nothing new to aria. frankly, she has a feeling that she visits this place more than she can actually remember. sometimes, she'll wake up with sand in her shoes even though she can't recall ever visiting the ocean in those shoes. however, whatever it was, aria preferred to brush it off. she could never handle a thousand thoughts in her head at the same time anyway.

"god, i love the smell of the ocean. it practically feels like home to me." she's not completely wrong, but it's been forever since she's really treated this place like home. it was more like a playground to her.

written for 𝐤𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞 (@averyxhd) ♡

chaéline d'amour is NOT (i repeat NOT!) the kind of girl who gets flustered after a battle. normally. but her cheeks are pink and her lip gloss is smudged (battle winds, not nerves, she swears), and she's trying very hard not to twirl a strand of hair around her finger like some ditzy luvdisc. she's lounging against the white stone fountain in the middle of the island's town square, pretending to look at her pokégear but mostly just replaying the moment he smiled, no, grinned, in that crooked way researchers do when they know too much about fossils and too little about flirting. it's unfair, honestly, how irresistibly awkward they are.

"i feel like you let me win," she mutters into her wrist, where valentino the jigglypuff hums a sleepy tune from inside his heart-shaped float. "or you're just bad at battling. but like... hot bad."

she kicks a pebble with the toe of her glittery boot and it skitters across the cobblestone. her sundress is still damp from the spray of his mudsdale's stomping tantrum and her perfume definitely wore off three turns into the fight. but he looked at her like she was legendary, and now she's spiraling. "ugh," she say, "i'm going back to the beach. if you follow me, that's not my fault.” she pushes off the fountain with the elegance of a pokéstar actress on her day off and flips her hair like a challenge. if he really is a researcher, he'll know a rare opportunity when he sees it. and if not?