This is my official blog for my universe Linkage! 🔗🖇
I use this blog to post art, talk about the characters in the Linkage universe, and answer questions about whatever you're curious about! I do regular text responses and occasionally respond with art showing in-character reactions to asks.
(Be sure to check the list of content warnings listed below the "keep reading")
I thought it might be helpful to make an introduction post for those who find me, whichever way they do. My content has gone through quite a bit of changes over time, so I figured it could be useful. So strap in! There's gonna be a lot of explaining here. I'll get into myself, the YouTube channel, the stories, and the characters.
If you're new, hello! My identity has become pretty loose over time, so if you want to call me anything, you can just call me "god" lol. I have a character I use to represent myself as the creator sometimes, but I don't consider him to be an accurate representation of who I am because he is pretty self-important and obnoxious :' ) But I'll get into him more later lol
I am a black disabled artist in my 20s, and I pretty much always work alone. The art I post, the characters and their designs, the stories, and the videos I upload are all done by me. I may not be the best at it all, but I do what I can </3
I deal with a plethora of issues, both physical and mental, so writing and drawing are both big pastimes me. I've been using my characters and their stories to explore myself and my experiences (as well as the behaviors and minds of others) for about fifteen years now; they are incredibly important to me. I am very passionate about my characters, and sometimes I really like sharing them with others! So that's where my Linkage platforms come in. I've had some not-so-great experiences with telling people about my characters in the past, so I do get a bit nervous at times, but my passion for them is strong enough for me to want to push through it! So I'm doing my best for now
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Starting off with some background, if you don't know, this all started as a low-quality ASMR roleplay series I made on YouTube back in 2020. It was lowkey a joke at first, but then I got attached to my own story and decided to continue it bc I thought it'd be fun to play around with LOL. As of right now, my old videos are unlisted (some removed entirely) because I started revamping the story with a different style of storytelling (think audio drama with an animatic sort of video), and I wanted to make it easier and less confusing for newer fans discovering my content. The revamped story is called Starting Anew (StAn for short), and that is what I consider to be my main content at this point.
This is my playlist for my StAn episodes.
StAn is a story about an optometrist named Kira Haru told from the perspective of a self-insert referred to as "the Viewer." The Viewer is a patient of the main character who has known him since he was still a student shadowing other optometrists. Kira grows attached to the Viewer, and the story showcases his struggles with his morals, his mental health, his past, and his attraction to the Viewer.
Some potential content warnings for the series as a whole (as well as my art): anxiety, depression, delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, intrusive thoughts, trauma, bullying, violence, domestic abuse, relationship abuse, death, blood, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and overall symptoms of poor mental health
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With the basic summary out of the way, let me introduce you to some of the characters you're likely to see on my platforms!
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As the main character and primary focus of my channel, you're gonna see a lot of Kira. He has been the star of the show since the beginning. Back in 2020, I had an ongoing joke that my "type" in characters was one or more of the following: wore glasses, crazy, blue haired, and a doctor. So I ended up with him lol.
He suffers from a few different disorders, though he has never seen a professional to get help before. He is somewhat unaware of his symptoms and goes through episodes of being delusional, anxious, paranoid, and depressed, though he sometimes forgets these phases after they pass. He knows something is wrong, but he is hesitant to look further into it, especially because his symptoms fluctuate in intensity, and he doesn't believe he deserves help. He thinks his problems are his own to manage, even if he doesn't know how to do so.
Kira was raised with neglectful and abusive parents that didn't take the best care of him. Most of his issues and struggles went unnoticed, or they were dismissed as him being difficult and trying to start conflict. His problems really picked up in middle school, and they only worsened with age. After a failed relationship in high school with another boy named Janice, he was regularly bullied by other students for things that were outside of his control. He was framed as unstable and weird, and rumors even spread about him being an addict because of how erratic his behavior could be. This led to a number of fights between him and others. He wasn't able to escape the harassment until he finished undergrad and went to optometry school.
While he is in optometry school, he begins shadowing optometrists at a specific office. This is where he meets the Viewer as a patient. It doesn't take long before he gets attached to them as a regular visitor, but his love for them doesn't fully develop until he graduates optometry school and begins working as an assistant at the same office. By the time he is officially a doctor, he's incredibly into them and sees them as his favorite person. He sort of gives them special treatment and is extra kind with them. He remembers everything they tell him and even begins making special trips to places he knows the Viewer visits in hopes of coming across them in public. Despite his passion for the Viewer, he is very shy and has incredibly low self-esteem, so he doesn't see himself as worthy of their attention (especially as their doctor). StAn shows his development as he comes to terms with the different realities he has chosen not to acknowledge.
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Sherbet is Kira's (only) friend and roommate. In college, Kira would see Sherbet outside at night while walking home from the part-time job he had at the time, and Sherbet would always give him an enthusiastic hello (which he was never receptive to lol). He took Sherbet in as a "stray" while he was still in college, and they've been living together for roughly four years. Overall, not much is known about his background. He doesn't remember where he came from, so all he knows is his time living on the street before Kira came into his life.
Sherbet is an enthusiastic silly guy that just likes to have fun and eat good food. He spends most of his time either napping or walking around town. He's notorious for taking walks at night only to push the button on his tracker to wake Kira up so he can get picked up and not have to walk home. He's a very unserious person and just wants to hang out. He occasionally volunteers in random communities in town to help out and be social, but he doesn't have a paying job.
Although he doesn't know all the details about Kira's past, he's learned a lot about how Kira functions by being around him so much. He might not fully understand why Kira is the way he is, but he has been by his side long enough to know how to overall manage Kira's fluctuating mental health. He does his best to take care of Kira and watch over him so he doesn't get hurt. Sherbet has seen Kira change over time, and he's happy that Kira is able to enjoy the little things more than he used to. He loves spending time with Kira and respects him a lot.
As of the beginning of StAn, Sherbet knows nothing about the Viewer, and he isn't aware that Kira has any feelings for anyone.
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Leo is a side character who doesn't come up often, but he's around enough that I wanted to give a little info about him. He's the receptionist at Kira's job. The first time Leo was ever shown was in a simple short comic I did in 2021. For some odd reason, people got interested in him based on the one small interaction he had with Kira, so I drew him a couple more times after that lol. He was only ever mentioned once in the original series.
Not much is known about Leo's personal life because Kira goes so far out of his way to dodge conversations at work, but his personality shines bright whether you want to see it or not. He's a very sociable and fun guy to be around, and he loves making friends. He has been interested in Kira since he was still a student shadowing optometrists, but he didn't get the opportunity to talk to Kira directly until he officially began working there as an assistant. Leo regularly tries to talk to Kira and invite him out to eat with his other coworkers, to which Kira always declines (but that doesn't stop him from asking again in the future). He can tell Kira isn't very outgoing, so he doesn't expect him to accept his offers to hang out, but he also doesn't want Kira to feel excluded or left out. He hopes one day Kira will be willing to have a legit conversation with him. Leo may or may not have a little crush on Kira.
Kira has mixed feelings about Leo and isn't sure what to think of him. While he appreciates Leo's kindness and desire to include him, he finds Leo's nature to be a bit annoying and immature at times. That on top of his general introverted nature makes him not mesh well with Leo, and he avoids him when he can (just like everyone else at his job). He is oblivious to Leo's occasional hints at flirting.
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Dr. Haru is where things get a little confusing. He's basically an AU of the original Kira story that I decided to make once Kira started becoming more of his own character and stepped away from the "yandere" trope. I have a habit of making yandere characters then lowkey making them less horrible people over time, and Kira was no exception to that lol. So I wanted to come up with a character concept that was closer to what people were probably expecting from Kira at the beginning before his story started getting more developed. Dr. Haru is an incredibly possessive yandere who actually commits crimes, unlike Kira in canon.
This is my playlist for Dr. Haru videos.
Given he is an AU of the original Kira story, he is the exact same person as Kira (but his eyes are red instead of orange, also he has a tongue piercing lol). They both technically share the same name; however, Dr. Haru refuses to be referred to as "Kira" by anybody. To him, "Kira" is a pathetic weakling who is long dead. Although Kira is referred to as Dr. Haru at work in canon, this character in particular is only ever called Dr. Haru and nothing else.
Everything up until the beginning of college is exactly the same as the canon Kira story; how he grew up, his relationships with his parents, his past with his ex-boyfriend Janice and his mother Ms. Beckett, and his experiences in school all follow the original timeline. The main difference is his story is basically what Kira would've turned out to be like had he snapped in college and gotten into a fight with some students who were harassing him (in the canon story, Kira just runs away). Given his background, it wasn't the first time he had gotten physical with someone bothering him, but this time in particular awakened something in him. He got this overwhelming refreshing feeling from hurting other people, and he enjoyed it a lot more than he expected. From that point on, he almost welcomed bullying because it gave him an excuse to hurt people and gave him a rush he couldn't feel under any other circumstances. While students in Kira's story continued to harass him every now and then throughout his time in undergrad, Dr. Haru grew a reputation and intimidated people, which got students to leave him alone a lot sooner than Kira.
Dr. Haru's story also features a self-insert who is referred to as the Listener (as opposed to the "Viewer" like in StAn). This is because the self-insert of the original Kira ASMR videos was referred to as the Listener, as there was no visual storytelling at the time, just audio. I call the audience of both the original unlisted videos and Dr. Haru's videos the Listener to differentiate those two stories from the canon story that is Starting Anew. In his story, it is assumed the Listener is the same as the other videos; he falls in love with one of his patients and grows absurdly attached to them to the point of putting together a plan to kidnap them and keep them living in the basement of his house (the house he lives in is different from Kira's because he purposefully got a house that had a basement with the intention of forcing the Listener to stay there). The Listener is the only thing aside from violence to ever make him experience true positive emotions, so he sees them as the most important thing in his life. Without them, he has no reason to keep on living.
In Dr. Haru's story, he only meets Sherbet once by chance, but his attitude makes Sherbet uncomfortable, so he doesn't reach out to Dr. Haru the way he did with Kira. He still works in the same office, so Leo is the receptionist there too, but Leo gets a bit nervous around him because of how he holds himself and engages with people. Leo doesn't go out of his way to talk to him like he does with Kira; he actually tries his best to stay out of Dr. Haru's way.
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And lastly, we finally have Saga. He is what I sometimes use as a "persona" or someone to represent myself as the writer of Linkage. He as a character never appears anywhere in any of the stories; he is not meant to be a real character. Sometimes I like to draw him interacting with the others, but that is not something he can canonically do.
Saga is a very egocentric and flamboyant man with a bit of a god complex. He is cursed to be trapped inside a full-length mirror, but he can project himself out of it for limited time to interact with others. He likes to cause problems on purpose just to see where it'll get him. He loves messing with people that interest him, even going as far as to corrupt them if he thinks it will entertain him. Saga finds Kira to be an interesting person and likes seeing him spiral for whatever reason. He is curious to know what Kira is like when he is at his worst, which is why he created Dr. Haru as a concept. Although Dr. Haru fascinates him, Saga doesn't find him as fun to tease because he is more assertive than he is. With Kira, Saga likes to push him; with Dr. Haru, Saga just likes to sit back and watch him.
Saga as a person does not reflect how I think or behave, which is why I prefer not to see him as my persona. But I do not really have much of a way to illustrate myself here, so I tend to use him. To avoid confusion, I don't refer to myself as Saga anymore. On my main art accounts, I go by a different name with a different persona, but Saga still makes an appearance, just as a character and not exactly as "me." However, I want to keep the part of me I used to represent my more accurate self separate from Linkage for a number of reasons.
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And that's about it! Of course I could go on forever about Linkage, but that's what the blog is for in the first place. So if you're curious about the story or the characters, then check out my YouTube channel and scroll through my blog!
Also feel free to tag me in any Linkage related posts made here! I would love to see what kinds of things you have to say about the characters, and I will try to reblog any fanart I see!
one thing that does kind of suck about Kira being more developed is that he smiles WAY less than he did back when I was still writing him as "overprotective boyfriend asmr" material
I am happy with how he is now, but this bitch is never happy ever lmao
"No matter how many years go by, giving you special gifts never gets any easier. It is like falling for you all over again. My nerves always get the better of me. However, I always do my best to calm myself for the sake of giving you your presents. I never want to waste an opportunity to show you how I feel about you."
(I already posted the drawing this is a reference to/redraw of; the original was from 2021, and this is from 2026)
"I was very surprised to see Sherbet take on a task such as baking on his own. He must have worked very hard to make something without my help. It was impressive; he always has trouble with the directions.
Although he managed to bake by himself, he did need help cleaning the kitchen. I can sometimes trust him to cook on his own, but I cannot exactly trust him not to make a mess when he does.
It is the thought that counts. He is a very sweet man. I appreciate the effort he went through for something as simple as my birthday. I never expect anything, so any gesture is appreciated. He truly is a good friend."
"I know it seems pathetic, but I just can't help it. How could you look at him and not want to give him the world? He's just so cute... I would do anything for him."
"Hey there! If you've been around for a good minute, you might remember me, but if not, I'll introduce myself! My name's Leo, or Mr. Miller if you're being all technical in the workplace. I'm the receptionist at Dr. Haru's office! We don't see each other a whole lot, but I think he's an interesting guy. In a good way of course; he seems cool. I wonder if he talks about me at all?"
"I try to strike up conversations with him when I can, but he's not exactly receptive—no pun intended haha. I've invited him out to have dinner with a few coworkers after work a handful of times, but he's always turned me down. I always give it a shot, though! I guess he's a little too introverted for a night out, huh? I'm prolly a little too much for him."
"Oh, don't get me wrong; I respect that! But he's so quiet... I guess, well, I worry he feels lonely or left out, y'know? Since he always sorta dodges my attempts to get to know him, I have no clue what his life is like outside of the office. I just hope he's got something fun or relaxing to turn to after a long day at work. I know it's a tough job."
"But anyway! As for why I'm here, February 20th is my birthday! I've heard a lot of people say birthdays start feeling like any other day once you get into your twenties. But I'll always find an excuse to celebrate something! I don't really care if it seems childish; I'm just here for a good time! And I'm always down for a reason to get good food, y'know?"
"A couple others in the office actually offered to get me dinner tonight after work, which is super nice of them! I wonder if I can talk Dr. Haru into coming along... I doubt it, but I'll try!"
(obviously it isn't his birthday anymore, this was from February of 2025, but I'm still posting it dfsjkhs)
(also in case it wasn't clear, this is Leo talking about Kira, not the "Dr. Haru" character)
ik this account is still new and doesn't get much traction but still gonna make an effort to see if I can start selling merch bc I would love to So Bad I'VE BEEN MAKING LINKAGE CONTENT FOR ALMOST SIX YEARS THAT IS CRAZY
"I hope you had a good day, Dear. I, um... I decided to step out of my box a bit and dress for the occasion. It may not seem like much, but it certainly feels odd for me. I know I am a bit late, but now that the weekend is here, I have the entire day to spend with you. I hope you can forgive me for having to work yesterday. So... I am not too late, am I..? Will you still accept my gift?"
me posting a valentine's day drawing a day late sdfjkhs
💙🍓 "I cannot even fathom the idea of myself being what he is. I know I have had my moments, but reaching that level of instability..? That is absurd. I refuse to believe we are the same. He is an individual that I wouldn't dream of associating with in any way. If my breaking point turns me into living like someone such as him, then I'd rather not live at all."
❤️🪑 "Hm... What I would be like if I kept it together? Is that what he is? Hmph. He's pathetic; it's almost cute. I am impressed he's made it this far despite being so weak. I certainly wouldn't want to live on in his shoes—as ironic as such a statement might be. I may be hollow, but at least I have foundation. All it would take is a breeze just a little too strong to make him fall apart."
the idea of them meeting entertains me to no end you have no idea
"I have been ill for about a week now; it is exhausting... I promise I am getting my rest, so please do try not to get too close, Darling. I-I mean it; do not pull anything sneaky while I am weak.
Of course I miss your attention, b-but it is not worth potentially getting you sick..!"
throwback to me giving Kira a cold bc I was sick and suffering
