I'm back with more bullshit this time I'm finally giving some lore of my OC after so long LMAO
the fact I was more willing to write about Killer's relationship with August first before any backstory oh her own says a lot about how down bad I am but here we go
The relationship between August & Killer
This is the breakdown of the relationship between TMFTS and my OC. Some aspects of August’s canon lore have been changed to fit my narrative, you can find August’s canon lore through the creator’s TT.
The Man From The Shadow belongs to Danila_PodPivas.
For some crucial context, by the time Killer crosses paths with August she is already the head of a conglomerate organization’s military, widely feared for her mysterious, intimidating presence and her nature as an angelic being. Her job is to capture, investigate, study and eradicate anomalous and monstrous beings and she leads an entire army who fight against these sort of threats that regular unadjusted humans wouldn’t be able to tackle.
August by this point has already lived through a great deal, from a childhood of ritualized abuse at the hands of his father, work violence, toxic masculinity, his marriage to with Eleanor that he destroyed with his own hands, isolating, controlling, and ultimately killing her in a jealous rage and, in the aftermath, a slide into hiding as a security guard at an abandoned hospice, where he began kidnapping and killing women in a failed attempt to recapture what he'd felt for Eleanor.
He is in every sense a monster wearing a human face by the time Killer finds him.
Killer arrived at the abandoned hospice while investigating anomalous entity sightings in the area. August was frozen the moment he saw her approach, as he knew exactly who she was and what she was capable of. Killer by contrast was cheerful and composed, almost as if she was simply out for a stroll. August viewed Killer as what she was, a threat that could end his life in an instance, figuratively or literally. He was very hesitant and highly alarmed around her, even if he never physically showed such, he calculated any way to get rid of her, either run away somehow, or kill her, both of which seemed impossible as Killer was not like the ordinary people he easily manipulated and killed when he grew bored. She was sharp, observing, and quick. She could’ve easily tracked him down if he were to flee. He was already under so much paranoia from the idea of his crimes surfacing and getting caught, so he naturally believed that Killer was likely there for him.
That left him with no option but to simply give her what she wanted. August ended up giving her a tour of the grounds. Killer’s demeanor remained unsettlingly still. She made small talk in her own strange way. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to ease the tension August felt little by little the more he indulged her. By the time she left, August realized something-
-that hasn't happened to him in years since the murder of his wife; someone was genuinely interested in talking to him. The time they spent together didn’t seem like much, but it was enough to make August want to see her again.
Kira is naturally drawn to humans, she loves them and wants to be like them. But with August specifically, she also senses something else—a lack of humanity behind his eyes that reflected her own. She sees him as a kind of mirror, like another isolated being longing for human connection despite lacking the qualities needed to have one. Both of them want an ordinary human life. Neither of them possesses what's required for it, each in their own way. August due to his broken psyche, and Killer due to her not being… well, human in the first place.
Killer begins secretly returning to see him, running unauthorized solo "missions" and using anomaly hunting as her cover story. Over time they learned more about each other and grew closer—close enough that August even admitted everything he’s done of his own volition.
When he told Killer about his wife and what he did to her, he expected harsh consequences, such as her completely leaving him and never coming back. Or worse, taking him to the police, or even killing him herself. Instead all Killer did was laugh out loud in his face at the absurdity of the situation, much to his confusion. Given Killer had a hard time understanding humans, morals, emotions and alike, she thought August’s extreme measures were very unusual, and her interest was piqued, viewing his behavior as something new that she didn’t know was possible before when she had studied humans.
However, much to her dismay and August’s concern—as her corporation’s "killer machine" tasked with eradicating dangerous anomalies and threats, August, an active serial killer, was squarely within Killer’s jurisdiction. She considered killing him. On more than one occasion, she wanted to. She kept hesitating instead, because he had become valuable to her.
Eventually Killer gives August two options: face the consequences of his action and be executed by her hands, or work a position within her division so that he’s closely monitored by her personally. Due to all the personal time they shared, August had nearly forgotten who she really was. Killer’s reasoning for her second offer was simple, his violent, fearless nature made him a natural soldier for that kind of job, where one would’ve had to be a little insane with a few screws loose to be bold and courageous enough to face such incredible dangers on a daily basis without any regards for their own life, and thus the pay was far beyond anything else available to him. And to someone like August who had nothing left to lose in life, there was nothing better out there for him. So without much of an option, August accepted the position.
In truth, both of them mostly just wanted an excuse to be near each other.
— New life in the corporation and the shaping of the relationship
With Killer as his commanding officer and August as her right-hand man, the two of them carried out missions together. (Corporation is still unnamed lmao) became the perfect outlet for his violence. His ruthlessness, cruelty, and efficiency made him stand out among his peers, and he rose quickly to the rank of sergeant.
From the very start of their meeting there’s also been a glaring, lingering imbalance of power dynamics. Killer was an unsettling, unbothered entity who "helped" a broken man by giving him the illusion of everything he's ever wanted—closeness, affection, romantic and “sexual” intimacy, a stable job, an escape from his spiraling depression, all without making him feel like an underdog. Where the illusion breaks is that it isn't one-sided. Killer’s feelings are genuinely reciprocated, not manufactured or strategic. At least later on it wasn’t.
The real manipulation wasn’t in the affection itself, it was in her favoritism. As they spent more time together, she began to single him out, treating him less like a subordinate and more like a friend, and the effect that favoritism had on him and on their relationship became increasingly glaring. She was, without realizing it, replicating the exact structure that shaped her own upbringing; closeness and approval handed out selectively, contingent on being chosen. She thought she's giving him something he never had. In practice, she was handing him a more seductive version of the same trap that already broke him, love that had to keep being earned.
Beneath all of it lay August’s real, unfillable hollowness—the yearning for a family, children, a loving wife, something no amount of bloodshed or rank could satisfy. He's spent his life watching other men have it all with envy, and the one time he had it himself, he destroyed it. After missions, other soldiers are greeted by waiting families. August had no one. And yet without fail, he saw her every time running up to him after missions, pulling him into a tight embrace, praising his work. Their interactions might’ve been breaking professional boundaries but at least for once, he felt loved.
There’s a crucial distinction here; August has loved before—he loved Eleanor, after all, even though he killed her. But he had never fallen in love himself until Killer. That distinction becomes the new consuming drive of his obsession.
— Killer’s unnamed feelings
Killer did love August back. She just never recognized it as love.
Neither of them were ever taught love as something freely given. August’s father taught him that love had to be earned through flawless discipline and the enduring of pain. Killer was raised inside a corporation that valued her for composure and performance, and efficiency. Approval was always tied to usefulness, never simply given. Neither of them have the emotional vocabulary to recognize gentle, unearned affection as love. What Killer feels for August got filed away in her mind under something else. Loyalty? Fascination? Some form of fondness, she really didn’t understand. Maybe what she was experiencing was the same human feelings and emotions she’s yearned to feel for years, and yet despite getting what she’s been asking for, she was terrified of going through with it because of how unfamiliar it was.
As things between them deepened, Killer's self-destructive pattern reasserted itself: she isolates herself, and pushes people to the point of breaking, usually without meaning to. She started pulling away from August bit by bit.
August, whose entire framework for love is "it must be earned and can vanish the instant you're not perfect," reads this withdrawal as exactly what destroyed his marriage, proof that he was being discarded. And although Killer had no separate "human life" for him to resent as a rival, his paranoia turned on the work environment itself. His fellow comrades and coworkers fighting in their own ways for the attention and approval of their superior drove August to also fight for her attention through disobey orders or escalating his violence in the field, all as a way of forcing her to engage with him directly.
It built toward a direct confrontation. Cornered by his own spiral and convinced she's already gone, August does (or at least attempts to) what he did to Eleanor; trying to control or hurt her outright. Unlike Eleanor however, Killer cannot be overpowered—and because he can't be controlled or reasoned with at that moment, it's Killer, the person who loves him, who is forced into a position where she has to either pick him or her job.
Given Killer’s loyalty to her organization and the people who raised her, she had no choice but to end things once and for all. And for once, Killer experiences true heart break as she holds August at gun point and shoots him dead.
This would be the last time Killer ever… well, killed someone.
(I still have like no idea what precisely leads to this confrontation but I’m too tired to think about allat this’ll do)
— Playmate and his relationship with August and Killer
As August takes his last breath, he sees a vision of Playmate—a fallen angel-entity who has secretly watched over him since childhood.
Playmate was once an angel who deeply loved humanity and delighted in spreading joy until centuries of watching humans destroy each other and everything around them wore his mind down, curdling that love into contempt. This is what led to his fall from grace. (thank you Jason for your lovely Playmate ideas I love you mwah)
Playmate's connection to August goes back to Marcus's own lonely, friendless childhood. Playmate was the one presence that stayed with him through all of it when no one else did. That history is why Playmate chooses to resurrect Marcus after death. However, Playmate is not kind to him and he tortures Marcus's mind for entertainment and treats him as a personal toy. In a way, that’s his silent revenge on August for slowly forgetting about him as he grew up into a “mature” adult and abandoning his playmate.
Playmate's resentment toward Kira runs on two tracks. The first one is old and cosmic, he loved humanity and fell for it. Killer, an angel of death, responsible for spreading pain, misery and destruction, remained praised, loved, and worshipped, on top with everything at her fingertips. He believes she's ungrateful and unfit for that position.
The second is personal, to August, Killer became something genuine and real—true companionship, replacing the space Playmate used to occupy. In Playmate's eyes, she took his only friend essentially, his only remaining faith in humanity.
Playmate believes Killer never tried to save him from his fall, that she simply abandoned him. The truth is that she did try, she just never had the chance to succeed, because Playmate was never ready to accept her help in the first place.
The resurrection is imperfect. Playmate turns August into his own toy; no longer human (putting a bsd reference wherever I can), but a shadow creature, far larger than he was in life, closer to an anomalous entity than a man. He wakes into this new existence in emotional turmoil, pain, confusion, fear at what he's become. Playmate torments his mind for fun whenever he can, and deliberately provokes his rage and obsession toward Killer, deepening it into something violent; a desire not just for revenge, but to claim and take her away, to keep her all to himself.
— The Haunting (present day)
By this time, Killer has moved on from her previous life and “retired” (ran away) and began a new life, living the average human life she always desired, working as a regular waitress and under a new name; Kira. (by now she’s met the clowns yes this is like a crossover of 6 different medias help)
Fueled by Playmate, August begins psychologically stalking and tormenting Kira—sleep paralysis, hallucinations, night terrors, anxiety, panic attacks, the whole shtick. The once undefeatable, fearless head of the military feels genuinely afraid for the first time in her life, sensing a tall shadowy man in a hat watching her.
Paranoid and fearing she's slipping into psychosis, Kira seeks medical help. The hospital visit seems ordinary, though something about the doctor nags at her, a feeling she brushes off given her unstable state. The “doctor” prescribes pills to suppress the hallucinations, insisting "he's not real," and oddly addresses her as "Mrs." despite her not being married. Even though she found him off putting throughout the interaction, she assumed this was just a registration error. Days later, much to her horror, she learned the entire hospital staff—including that doctor—had been dead for days before her visit. The whole encounter was staged, though she never finds out about the real truth behind this. August and his shapeshifting shadow henchmen murdered the real staff and took their place to deliver exactly what he wanted. The more pills she takes, the worse her psyche deteriorates, and the more aggressive the hallucinations—and August—become.
The "Mrs." was never a mistake. It was August's way of quietly claiming her as his own—his wife. As the torment continues, he refers to her that way directly, asking if she still loves him, if she's scared, telling her he won't hurt her, that "it'll be pleasurable," asking why she won't look at him, all while simultaneously insisting everything was her fault, slowly breaking her down. Kira remains entirely oblivious that this is August, since as far as she knows, she killed him herself, by her own hands.
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