Hello!! This is me off of tiktok. Anyways!!---
im currently making an au called affection’s delusion and honestly it’s gotten so deep that i don’t even know where the story ends and where it starts anymore. like it’s supposed to be comforting. it’s supposed to be peaceful. but the more i work on it, the more it feels like it’s watching me back.
it takes place in a place called the garden of sloth. imagine the softest light you’ve ever seen—like it’s always afternoon, warm but a little too still. everything smells like sugar and rain, the kind that falls even when the sky looks clear. every cookie here believes this world has always been home. they smile, they laugh, they bake, they dance, they rest. they talk about memories that don’t make sense. they remember people who were never real.
they don’t question it. because the garden doesn’t like questions.
every cookie’s memory has been rewritten—polished until it shines just right. the witches did it. or maybe something worse. no one really knows. all they know is that they’re happy. and happiness is the rule here. you have to smile. you have to believe. if you stop pretending it’s perfect, the world starts to notice.
and then there’s cocoa bean cookie. she’s not like the others. she remembers what came before, even if she pretends not to. she serves the witches—or at least she thinks she does—but her real job is keeping the illusion together. she has this power, this ability to plant memories like seeds. she can rewrite anything. a friendship that never existed, a love that was never real, a life that ended too soon. she calls it a gift. others might call it a curse.
her “affection” isn’t gentle—it’s desperate. it’s the kind of love that refuses to die, even when it should. she’s obsessed with eternal sugar cookie. not in a loud way, but in that quiet, obsessive way that burns underneath everything she says. she made herself a role in eternal’s story, a place where they were meant to be together. she planted a memory of their marriage, the vows, the garden blooming around them, everyone smiling, everyone believing.
and now everyone does. they all think it’s true. even eternal does.
but memories can’t stay perfect forever. the garden’s starting to glitch. things go missing. cookies forget mid-sentence. some of them start to dream of other places—icy castles, burned forests, oceans that never existed here. they wake up crying, or worse, they wake up smiling but can’t remember why.
the garden of sloth runs on affection, but affection decays. sugar melts. and when it melts, everything underneath starts to show. there’s something buried under the roots. there’s something that doesn’t want to be remembered.
and cocoa bean knows. she always knows. she’s just trying to keep it quiet—to keep the world still long enough to protect her perfect love. she tells herself it’s mercy. she tells herself no one needs to know the truth. because the truth hurts, and she can fix that, right?
she can always fix that.
the au’s all about illusion and obsession—the idea that love, when twisted too tightly, can rewrite the world itself. it’s pretty horror, pastel dread, the kind of story that hums under your skin. every cookie thinks they’re safe, but they’re living inside someone else’s story, someone else’s memory. and the person writing it doesn’t want to stop.
there’s this soft, dreamy tone to everything—flowers that whisper, frosting that moves like fog, reflections that lag behind a second too long. the sky doesn’t shift. the clocks don’t tick. time loops if you walk too far. the garden’s “peaceful,” but it’s not alive. it’s just repeating.
some cookies are starting to remember things they shouldn’t. little details slip through—the wrong flavor of a memory, a face they’ve never met that feels familiar. the garden punishes curiosity in quiet ways. maybe your favorite flower wilts overnight. maybe you forget someone’s name. maybe your reflection starts smiling before you do.
and every time someone gets too close to the truth, cocoa bean gently rewrites it. she tells them they were just tired. she tells them it was just a dream. and she means it. she really believes she’s keeping them safe.
but the cracks are growing.
the story’s about what happens when comfort becomes control. when “love” becomes obsession. when the person trying to protect everyone starts hurting them just to keep the illusion alive. the deeper you go into affection’s delusion, the less you can tell who’s real anymore—if anyone ever was.
the au isn’t meant to scare you right away—it’s meant to lull you, to make you trust it. it’s soft colors, perfect smiles, warm light. you’ll feel safe, right up until the moment you realize the light doesn’t reach the corners. and by then, it’s already too late.
i’m still finishing up all the refs and notes, and every design ties into the theme somehow. like, small visual clues hidden in their outfits, little inconsistencies that hint they’ve been rewritten too many times. the kind of stuff you only notice once you know what to look for.
anyway i won’t spoil the rest yet (and believe me there’s a lot more—whole arcs, hidden files, maybe even the witches themselves) but i’ll start posting soon. i just think it’s funny how easy it is to fake a happy world when no one wants to admit it’s fake.
affection’s delusion isn’t about villains or heroes. it’s about the lie we tell ourselves to keep the world soft. it’s about the comfort of denial, and how even that can rot if you hold onto it too long.
so yeah. welcome to the garden. everything’s fine here.
don’t ask too many questions.
don’t wander too far.
and if you start remembering things that don’t make sense—
no you didn’t. ( I'm cringe. I know 💔)
