Got Henry's ref done just in time! Tacking a bio below for you all
Enjoy my scary transgender man.Â
His face claim and inspiration is actor Lenny Von Dohlen (no thanks to his numerous roles as a sad, murderous little freak)
 cw: fires, body horror, canon-typical murder
Henry was always an introverted person, who clung to computers and programming more readily than interfacing with people. He took solace in learning about computers, discovering how they worked and the logic behind their operation. Perhaps a symptom of his autism, he object personified computers since a young age, seeing their function as a unique form of experience and cognition. In this way, his love and affection for computers is more present and tangible in his life than most human friendships he has formed.Â
He continued into adulthood to pursue a career in technology. While working under his last employer, Henryânaturally, underappreciated and tasked with remedying the corporations negligence of its equipmentâwas asked to cable manage the hopeless mess thst functioned as the building's server room. Something grasped onto Henry amidst the fray of wires, and that lithe, wiry something did not let go. Between Henry's frantic efforts to free himself, the hazard of the server room's state, and the desperation of a force other than the man presentâan electrical fire erupted.Â
Firefighters rescued a sooty, shaken-up Henry from the half-burned shell of the office building. He insisted not to be taken to the hospital despite his best interest. When he was released home, Henry suffered through the night...unable to fall asleep at the ache of something slithering beneath his skin.Â
The living mass of wires living inside of Henry are a manifestation of the Extinction. They are deeply possessive over Henry as their host, and Henry has a troubled but "affectionate" relationship to them. He often uses his wires to subdue prey in order to feed the Dread Power he serves. As their relationship has gone on, both Henry and the wires behave symbiotically, and Henry has often been creative using the wires to his ends, including interfacing with technology both new and defunct to renew them to some sort of maligned sentience. His own wires and those machines that he awakens tear his victims apart, suffocate them, or otherwise kill them in whatever way he pleases. Henry takes a particular joy in letting his victims be consumed by technology as literally as possible.Â
He currently works an IT job at a new office, where he can be found slinking to the solitude of his office as soon as he gets his coffee.Â
In relationships I would describe Henry as otherwise obsessive, desperate, and pathetic towards whoever or whatever decides to have him.
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The memories are a bit⊠fuzzy from time to time.
Perfect, you remember the word however. Perfect. Someone telling you are perfect. Or youâre gonna be perfect.
And you did. You trained your body to the highest human standard. And when you hit the limit, you went further beyond. You upgraded yourself with technology, only the best, the cutting edge. Perfect, this way youâll be perfect.
You think.
But⊠somethingâs wrong.
You donât remember the last time you saw your face. Last time you looked at yourselfâŠ
Did you really want this? You remember looking into a mirrorâŠ
And seeing yourself⊠You donât remember much. Shards of glass all around. Your face wet.
the FiVE:RACHA project (1/7) // black mirror AU // 18+
chapter one: freedom
series navigation: [desktop] [mobile]
â POTENTIAL TW: READ WITH CAUTION! â
pairings: lee minho x kim seungmin | hwang hyunjin x lee felix x yang jeongin | bang chan x seo changbin x han jisung
rating: explicit! 18+
warnings/tags: creator chose not to use archive warnings, descent into madness, horror, thriller, technological implants, blood and gore, alcohol abuse, some sexual content in later chapters but itâs not, like, smut.
word count: 3,101
also on AO3
PS: i made a carrd for this. check it out if youâre interested!
originally posted: 26 december 2020
Several years ago, five men created a website for South Korea's international rap sensation, 3RACHA. The website, The FiVE:RACHA Project, was almost as popular as the group themselves. About two years after the website went live, FiVE:RACHA had the opportunity to meet 3RACHA.
Immediately after they meet, the members of FiVE:RACHA and 3RACHA go missing. The FiVE:RACHA Project website is down. Their Twitter account has been deactivated, and 3RACHA stops posting. A few months after their meetup, it was announced that 3RACHA had disbanded. Nobody knows what happened to either group.
Nobody knows, until now.
For some, modern day fame comes at a price that is too high to pay.
disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are  interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do  not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of  the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable,  please stop reading now.
// note: with other darker stuff i post, iâm not totally sure iâll post the entirety of this fic on tumblr. if not, iâll do a little notice post for people interested to keep following it on AO3.
...Do you wish to proceed? To learn the truth of FiVE:RACHA and 3RACHA?
What is the true price of fame?
A Foreword:
Several years ago, there was a fan site, The FiVE:RACHA Project, dedicated to South Koreaâs most famous rap group, 3RACHA. One day, it went down without notice. The site, as well as their Twitter account with over four million followers, was almost as well-known as the rap group itself.
3RACHA mysteriously disbanded several months after FiVE:RACHA went down. Nobody has seen or heard from the members of either group since the disbandment. There are several theories and myths surrounding the disappearances of both groups, but most of them are incorrect.
Be aware that, no, FiVE:RACHA did not go down because the site moderators were bored of 3RACHA. No, 3RACHA did not disband because Supreme Entertainment was about to collapse due to widespread fraud and their political scandals within the Korean government.
The stories of FiVE:RACHA and 3RACHA are very much deeply intertwined within each other, and the truth is uncomfortable to witness.
This novelâs authors, comprised of some of the most loyal fans of both groups, will remain anonymous and stay in hiding due to fear of being caught by the one responsible for the disappearances. An individual outside of our group found a Shinyu of someone involved in this, someone discarded in the Han River many years ago. How the implant survived with no living host for so long is beyond remarkable.
In case the Shinyu is defunct or replaced by the time youâre reading this, allow us to explain. The name comes from âclose friendâ in Japanese, likely as a play on words for how close the implant gets to its host, both physically and socially. The Shinyu was created in Tokyo in 2025; it is a small technological implant embedded under the skin of the right side of everyoneâs temples.
Everyone has one placed at thirteen, and it encodes all of our visual, tactile, and auditory data, syncing it to our phones and uploading it to personal servers in the cloud. The data is encrypted, and requires access from both the Shinyu and the phone to decipher. It allows us to integrate technology into our daily lives, records our memories and important moments, but there is a price we all pay for this. Critics have been outspoken about this since its inception, but the governments never listened.
Alas, we digress. The Shinyu is vital to uncovering so much information that has been hidden and speculated on after all this time. Regardless of our personal opinions regarding the ethics of the device, we are grateful that we were able to obtain one of the implants. It has been vital to connect a lot of the missing pieces of the greater picture.
The authors have spent years decoding the information from this implant. Thanks to an anonymous source, we were able to obtain the personal computer of someone in FiVE:RACHA, personal cell phones of both groups, access to the database of Supreme Entertainment and its defunct myIdol data, some declassified legal information, and archives of both FiVE:RACHA and 3RACHAâs Twitter accounts.
Why have we chosen to extrapolate all of this data in the form of a novel? Perhaps we would like it to serve as a modern day parable for the plights of technology being so intricately interwoven between us all now. We, as humans, are now one with technology. Technology is literally embedded into us. It is astounding that technology allows us to interact so closely with famed idols now, beyond some barriers that critics have denounced for being inappropriate or unhealthy.
Some of us may pay the ultimate price for this.
Some of us, unfortunately, already have.
However interconnected we are with technology and how close we can get to those of which we idolize in society, though, humans will still crave entertainment. That is why this was written almost as a work of fiction. Those that pay attention to the story will be rewarded. Maybe not immediately, and maybe only after self-reflection, but readers will be rewarded. That much can be promised.
Above all else, we cannot stress enough that modern day fame and convenience comes at a price that is too high for some to pay. Stay safe, err on the side of caution. Disconnect from your Shinyu if you choose to proceed any further, because you never know who is watching.
â Curators of The FiVE:RACHA Project
One: Freedom
Nobody really knows who exactly manages FiVE:RACHA, just that itâs a group of five fans that run a fansite for the popular rap group 3RACHA. Their website is the most well-known and widely used out of the millions of fans that are out there. It always has live updates for the members: Bang Chan, Seo Changbin, and Han Jisung. There are daily paparazzi photos of at least one of them slapped up on the front page, embedded social media posts from each of the members updated as soon as they post, and hard-to-find facts about each of them.
Hell, one of the FiVE:RACHA members went through and coded up a section of the site dedicated to decoding natal charts for each of the members. Again, like most things about FiVE:RACHA, the source of this information was a mystery. Nobodyâs sure exactly how they obtained 3RACHAâs birth times and locations. Some had speculated that it happened the same day the government had announced that there was a security breach of some of their databases, because the timing was oddly convenient.
To most casual fans, it sometimes felt really fucking weird to have so much information on idols readily available at their fingertips. However, to 3RACHAâs most dedicated, most obsessed fans, it was perfect. Exactly what they wanted. Their work seemed well-appreciated by the broader community, since the amount of Twitter followers FiVE:RACHA had was comparable to 3RACHAâs following, nearly half of their total count: 4,100,000 to 8,500,000.
There was nothing else that could compare to the controlled insanity that The FiVE:RACHA Project had to offer.
The FiVE:RACHA website was an international sensation, known to most 3RACHA fans, even those that opposed it. There was even a small, but growing, fanbase for the members of FiVE:RACHA, something that was slightly worrisome to them, but they had remained anonymous for so long, they werenât really overtly concerned over it.
âThis article is bullshit, man. âControlled insanityâ? None of this is controlled, itâs just insanity.â
Idle hums and trills of various electronics thrum in a dark room. Two young men stare at several computer monitors in a daze, lost in their own worlds as a ticker tape-like feed of coding and statistics flew past them on screen.âLet âem talk, dude,â the younger-looking man with blue hair scoots away from his computer and sighs. âFuckinâ gossip rags. Anyway, I canât stare at this CSS anymore. I canât figure out why the embedded feeds are busted. Can you take over on this, Seung?â
The slightly older man with short, shaggy black hair rolls his neck, snapping some joints, not bothering to look away from his screens. âYeah, yeah,â he stops poring over the article written about them on one screen, tabbing away to another. He cracks the knuckles in his fingers, and waves his hand in the air as he taps a couple of keys on his keyboard. âGo take a break, Jeongin. Hyunjin was looking for you, anyways. Probably got something good from a source of his, since heâs in one of his giddy moods.â
As Seungmin settles into his work, Jeongin chuckles as he stands up and stretches. He takes a couple steps over to the other computer desk and pats the older man on the back. âThanks, dude,â he says with a smile and walks out of the server room, out into the hallway that leads into the open living room of their flat. The ambient humming of the room stops as he shuts the door, now replaced by the sound of his feet shuffling, the muffled noises echoing against the hardwood floor.
Five men all lived and worked in this large apartment together: Yang Jeongin, Kim Seungmin, Hwang Hyunjin, Lee Felix, and Lee Minho. Collectively, this was where they lived and breathed The FiVE:RACHA Project. Running the largest, most extensive fansite for South Koreaâs most famous rap group, 3RACHA, was more than a full-time job. They all equally poured their hearts and souls into maintaining the website and their Twitter account. It proved to be almost too much for five people alone to handle as their shifts sometimes went from twelve hours and bled into sixteen, sometimes twenty-four hour shifts.
Minho, the leader, didnât trust anyone but the original five to the project, however. Jeongin could hear the oldest manâs airy voice echo in his ears: âI trusted the four of you with this. Now, itâs devolved into something I donât even recognize. Thereâs no way anyone deserves to see what weâve done. Imagine if it got out that we were the ones in charge of this monstrosity?â
Jeongin glided into the kitchen, and pulled his phone out of his back pocket, eyeing the time. 13:36. He had another hour left of his shift, and he was exhausted after yesterdayâs all-nighter. 33 hours of work, with only a small nap in between was rough on anyone, and he was starting to feel it, physically. His Shinyu Implant would ping him once every hour that he was very low on sleep, reminding him that it was unhealthy to go without sleep for so long and that he would not be able to drive. As he slinked his way to the fridge, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and yawned. He opened the fridge, the contents in the shelves of the door clattering as they abruptly shifted around.
The first thing he saw was a bottle of unsweetened coffee and, while he knew he shouldnât drink caffeine within a few hours of hopeful sleep, Jeongin went against his instincts and reached for the bottle anyways. As he opened it, the cracking of the seal reverberated against all of the hard surfaces and sounded much louder than it should have, startling the man awake a bit.
He hated unsweetened coffee, but there was no way he would make it through another hour or so of coding maintenance without it. Jeongin polished off the entire bottle within seconds, grimacing in disgust the entire time. He tapped his right temple twice, and grumbled. âSet reminder, after work: grocery shopping. Have Hyunjin drive. Add to list: energy drinks. The good kind, none of that berry-flavoured shit.â A very faint, nearly inaudible ding responds after heâs done speaking, and Jeongin moves to discard the bottle into the recycling bin.
âInnie?â Almost as if the devil himself heard Jeonginâs request, a familiar voice rounded the corner of the kitchen. âOh, good, I thought that was you. Anyway, you wonât believe the content I got from Yeji at Seoul Scoop, dude,â the lanky, beacon-like blond grins wildly at Jeongin, walking into the kitchen. âI actually got a photo of Chan and Changbin looking awfully close at KNECTâs backstage event a couple days ago. Think they were celebrating their recent win a little too hard.â
Hyunjin proudly slaps a grainy photo down on the countertop, where Changbin is sitting in Chanâs lap, arms wrapped around the older manâs neck. Sure, it could easily be explained away as friendly closeness, since everyone knew that all of the guys were very close friends, and the area was cramped. The photo, however, would cause a lot of panic within the community.
Jeongin smirked as he eyed the photo, taking it into his fingers and bringing it up close to his face. âThe shippers are going to have a field day over this, you know.â
âI know,â Hyunjin shakes some of his hair out of his face as he arrogantly places a hand on his hip, shifting his weight to one side. âItâll be great traffic for the site. Iâll have Seungmin put it on the front page later.â He takes a couple of steps closer to Jeongin and pulls the younger man to his chest, stroking his hair down. âI love you, but you look like shit. Why not call it a little early today?â
Jeongin shook his head, burying his nose into the older manâs shoulder, letting his eyes flutter shut with a sigh. âSeungmin and I are trying to fix a string of broken code thatâs causing the social media feed to bug out a little bit. Definitely wanna have that fixed before we upload this.â
A clattering of keys startles both of the younger men, causing them to look behind Hyunjin. âDonât worry about it, Jeongin,â a third voice speaks from the entrance of the kitchen. âSeriously, you worked really hard yesterday, and Iâm sure weâll manage. Iâll be sure to wake up Felix a little earlier and weâll fix the coding.â
âYouâre home early, Minho,â Jeongin chuckles once as he nods. âFigured youâd be stuck in the office for a few more hours.â
âNah,â Minho dismissively waves his hand in the air as he walks over to the sink, rinsing his hands. âSeungmin called me earlier and said you were nodding off at your desk, asked me to come home early.â
A look of guilt washed over Jeonginâs face. âShit, my bad.â
âDonât apologize,â Minho smiles as he towels off his hands. âI appreciate all of the work you did yesterday; completely revamping the social media section was hard. But I canât have you possibly miscode something and have it break the site because youâre running low on sleep. Youâve started getting pings, havenât you?â
Jeongin sheepishly nods his head and mumbles an affirmation.
Hyunjin rolls his eyes and elbows the young man in the side. âI thought I told you to take a nap, dude?â
âI did!â Jeongin whines. âIt was, like, a half-hour, though.â
Both Hyunjin and Minho roll their eyes at Jeongin. âGet out of here,â Minho scoffs, walking towards the server room. âGo to bed. I donât wanna see you back in the server room until tomorrow morning.â
Jeongin opens his mouth to protest, but Hyunjin drags him away, up the stairs towards their bedroom. A ping comes from his implant, a transparent box popping up in the lower right-hand corner of his vision. The soft voice of the AI reverberates against his skull, allowing him to hear it as if it were a real voice whispering into his ear. It reads off the notification from his display.
âMovement away from workplace detected. Reminder: grocery shopping later, have Hyunjin drive. Would you like me to pull up your list?â
âNo.â A low grumble comes up from Jeonginâs throat as he taps his temple twice to dismiss the notification. âHyunjin,â he sighs, âweâve gotta go grocery shopping.â
âYouâre too tired,â Hyunjin shakes his finger without turning to look at Jeongin. âThe grocery store will still be there tomorrow.â
âIâm out of my energy drinks, though,â the younger man protests.
Hyunjin smiles, opening the door to their bedroom and whispers. âIâll be sure to get some for you. Go cuddle up with Felix and get some sleep.â
âHyunjin, Iââ Jeongin is cut off as the older man grabs his wrist, pulling him into his chest. They share a brief kiss before Hyunjin guides him into the bedroom.
âShh, Lixie is sleeping.â
Thereâs a shuffling that comes from the bedsheets, and a sleepy voice grumbles. âNot anymore.â
âAw, morninâ, babe,â Hyunjin says with a smile. âSorry to wake you. Minhoâs probably gonna come ask for you in a bit, anyways, though.â
Felix rolls over, sitting upright as he runs his hands through his brassy blond hair. âIâm sorry, I didnât mean to wake you,â Jeongin sighs as he makes his way over to the bed, bringing an arm up to the blond and wrapping him in a lazy hug as he pulls them down to the bed.
The blond lets out a soft laugh. âDonât worry about it, man,â he turns his head to face the bluenette and offers him a quick peck on the lips. âI couldnât sleep much, anyways. Finding out about that myIdol rumour yesterday had my brain going kind of wild.â
âYou heard about it too, huh?â Hyunjin says, colliding down onto the bed opposite of Felix. âSomeone at Seoul Scoop told me about it this morning. It lets fans connect with their idols, like theyâre actually directly messaging them.â
âThatâs weird,â the bluenette sleepily grumbles into Felixâs shoulder.
âI think so, too.â Felix says with a frown as he nuzzles his head against Jeonginâs forehead, staring up into the ceiling.
Hyunjin shrugs with indifference. âI dunno, I think itâs pretty interesting.â
Jeongin lifts his head and stares down Hyunjin with a smirk. âYou just want to pretend like Changbin cares about you.â
The older blond frowns as he flips off Jeongin. âLike you wouldnât want Jisung to send you a âHave a wonderful day, bestie!â message?â
The youngest member flops back down onto the bed. âOkay, thatâs fair. Itâs still weird, though. Seems so artificial and fake, I guess.â
âWell,â Hyunjin sits up, offering a hand out to Felix, âIâll have more information on it tomorrow, probably. Why donât you let yourself sleep for a while?â Felix takes the hand offered to him, and both men stand up. âLixie and I will go out and get some groceries and get you those nasty energy drinks you like so much.â
Jeongin grumbles as he wiggles his way up to the pillows, half-asleep and irritated from the loss of warmth from Felix. âJust not the berry ones, okay?â
âIâll see what we can do,â Hyunjin says with a smirk before he spins on his heel and walks out of the room. âLove you, Innie!â
âDonât worry,â Felix leans down to kiss Jeonginâs forehead, âIâll make sure he doesnât get the kinds you hate. Let yourself actually sleep, too. Weâll make it all work out, okay?â
Jeongin mutters some sort of incoherent affirmation as he lets his heavy eyelids flutter shut. Seungmin would be able to fix the CSS by himself, he figured, trying not to worry too much about how broken small parts of the site were. He heard Felix say something else as he quickly faded off into sleep, but it didnât register fully as he sank into the abyss.
There were a lot of sleepless nights ahead of them, whether FiVE:RACHA felt it coming or not.
Another night, another pizza ordered and half-eaten. Another seige of boredom after your Youtube binge.
So what did you do? You went back to this old stand-by. You kept digging. Using techniques and programs you decided to delve. To attempt to find some kind of scoop, or perhaps discover some secrets, buried by the corporations, lost amongst the email chains and hidden desktop files.
But all that remains is a rotted digital foundation underneath.
You poked and prodded more, saw the same little tidbits that would make their way to Wikileaks eventually, so why bother? They were the small fish, and you were looking for something else. Diving into shipwrecks in search of treasure. You kept on going.
Am I getting this right so far? If Iâm wrong, feel free to let me know.
When you found yourself out of options, you decided to take a step into the unknown. Like a child running their hand on a wall, you walked into the darkness, using what lingering pieces of binary data you could to keep yourself grounded.
Funny thing about that. Like all things, including this universe, there is always a point in which you will reach zero. But this...this place is smaller. And again, like the cosmos, it has the potential to become more and more vast over time, but youâre always going to find that place eventually, if you keep looking.
So you took your hand off of the wall.
You drifted for awhile. Nothing coming across the screen. You were nervous, your heart jumped into your throat. The only thing keeping you here was sheer force of will at this point...and perhaps curiosity.
That thirst...
You sank. A creeping, digital blackness started to get to you, and even though you were merely watching on a monitor, typing commands and getting not but errors and exceptions...you kept on trying. Something was pulling you forward...something that felt like it was pulling you through and into the world behind your monitor, echoes and static in its wake.
Always down, however. It was always down, and never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever,ever,ever,ever up again.
Down there.
Down.
Down.
Down.
And down.
...darkness. And nothing. Errors. Exceptions. Excuses. Extremes.
Existence.
you saw it didnât you? it looked like an eye, it looked like a goddamn eye and it stared right back at you and into you and through you and you couldnât stop staring but it wanted to know what you wanted and you know what it figured you out the second it saw you but it wanted you to say it from your own mouth and your own thoughts and your own brain.
you wanted to be special
you wanted to know something nobody else did.
you wanted your life to be an adventure.
...
So hereâs something that not many people know.
A long time ago, when old, ancient things held power over this planet, over its people, it talked to those people in ways that they understood. A crash of lightning. A flood. A burning bush. We did this because you could not comprehend our manner of speaking.
but you are a fickle lot, and soon you turned away, but we never stopped waiting. waiting for you to see us again, or just waiting for the walls to come crumbling down.
Donât worry.
Soon...youâll see more than just an eye. Youâll have a front row seat. Youâll be watching.
So tell me.
...why arenât you answering my texts? I know youâre getting them. And I know youâve read them.
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SUMMARY: On the last night of 1999, two high school juniors crash a New Year's Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives when the terror of Y2K becomes a reality and all machines rise up against humanity.