↬

[audient]

scattered stardust.

mars has been blessed/cursed with the gift of mediumship — specifically, spirit channeling and clairaudience. he is, however, completely untrained and uneducated in spiritual discourse, so his “gift” mostly just disrupts his everyday life as he hears voices of the dead at the most inopportune moments. due to his lack of knowledge in spiritual protection, mars is highly vulnerable to spiritual coercion where he is compelled to follow the orders of a particular spirit that has latched onto him. this has also been known to affect those closest to him but only if a strong bond is present, such as familial or romantic love.

mars began hearing the voices of the dead at age fourteen, mere whispers at first but swiftly escalating to screams and commands. his parents, unbeknownst to him, were affected by his sudden connection to the dead, causing his father to unexpectedly commit suicide due to spiritual coercion. two weeks later, his mother suffered the same fate. mars was shuffled into the foster system where he spent the next four years bouncing from home to home. the first time he told anyone about the voices, he was locked in a room for three days with a priest who tried to perform an exorcism on him, then promptly booted from his home. the second time, he was referred to a doctor and prescribed various medications, all of which he had allergic reactions to. after that he stopped confiding in people at all.

at sixteen, he began camming online for way more money than his minimum wage fast food job earned. by the time he turned eighteen and finally aged out of foster care, camming was his biggest source of income and he’d built up a steady clientele that paid him to do whatever they wanted on camera, ranging from sexual acts to mukbang sessions. he began to do in-person visits to make ends meet, and it was during one of these visits that he met a client named dara who he eventually started a (secret from dara’s family) relationship with that lasted for a year. close to mars’ twenty-first birthday, dara abruptly committed suicide. when dara’s family discovered their relationship, mars was barred from attending his funeral.

it’s been four months since dara’s death and mars’ realization that his spirit problem will eventually take away anyone that he forms a bond with. the spirits talk to him with increasing frequency, sometimes leading him to uncover secrets of those long dead and sometimes attempting to coerce him to commit harm to himself or others. he wears a cat’s eye necklace that only works to protect him from weaker spirits, but desperation has compelled him to seek out more potent solutions despite the fact that the world of the supernatural is the one thing he fears most.

OTHER THINGS.

— works at a handmade candle shop run by a blind woman he suspects might be a witch.

— has a modeling contract with a super shady company, but money is money.

— obsessed with his self-image. has horrendous eating habits. claims he's into intermittent fasting when it's really just starvation.

— usually has a faded dusky pink color in his dark blond hair.

— loves people and is a natural at connecting with others, but is really trying not to get anyone else killed. lonely af.

— lives in a complete shithole, is constantly on the verge of eviction, and is always cold.