All Those Withering Lilies is an interactive fiction story inspired by puella magi madoka magica, neon genesis evangelion and 2000s magical girl anime like tokyo mew mew and shugo chara. It follows lilies, children and young adult raised in artificial dream machines, granted powers through a desperate wish, and tasked with suturing invisible wounds across the world. Sent alone to different cities, they fight magic no one remembers and live lives no one sees.
This is a story about manufactured purpose, buried memory, and the quiet rebellion of those who were never meant to survive. It explores intimacy, identity, and the slow cost of obedience.
Lilies work alone. They always do.
It has been eleven years since you bloomed. Eleven years of service to humanity. You have closed wounds no one else could see, stitched the world back together in silence. No one has ever thanked you, except maybe your handler, the woman who has given you missions since you were a child.
You are a soldier, a spy, a witch. Something unknown that blends all three.
For eleven years, you have lived in the same city. You move through life with a cover story, a fake family who took you in without knowing what you were. You have colleagues who smile too wide, who try too hard to include you. They do not know why you're really on this earth.
Lilies work alone. Teams are only created when a single lily is no longer enough.
Yet now, three lilies have been sent to the same small town.
Liseron is quiet, distant, and forgettable. The wounds should not be frequent enough to justify a team. Something is wrong.
You are one of these lilies, and all three of you have entered your eleventh year.
Lilies always wither after twelve.
You have one year left to live. What will you do with it?
⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪choose the name you use as a cover, your gender, the type of wish you made, your appearance from the color of your hair to whether you have freckles or piercings!
⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪rebel or obey. be a good lily and die quietly or learn the truth behind it all.
⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪choose between four romance options, as the famous song goes: "kiss kiss fall in love"!
RHEA/RAPHAEL (f/m) ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ if they were a trope, they'd be rivals to lovers.
You weren’t supposed to get along, and you don’t. R is volatile, proud, and impossibly skilled. Every interaction is a contest, every glance a challenge. But when it matters, they’re always by your side, teeth bared and ready to burn the world down. Maybe it’s loyalty. Maybe it’s something messier. Whatever it is, neither of you can stop.
LUNE/LYSANDRE (f/m) ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ if they were a trope, they'd be tragic devotion.
They are always there. Quiet, steady, careful not to take up space. You have lost count of how many times they stepped in without being asked, how many times they chose your safety over their own. They never ask for anything in return. But sometimes, you catch it. A glance that lingers too long. A silence that stretches into longing.
SERAPHINE/SAMAEL (f/m) ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ if they were a trope, they'd be forbidden love.
They are not supposed to exist. You were never meant to meet them. And yet you do, again and again. In places no one should be, in dreams that do not belong to you. They speak in riddles, vanish without warning, and pull you closer every time. You know you shouldn’t trust them. You do anyway.
XIAOFAN (f/m) ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ if they were a trope, they'd be single parent romance.
They have something you were never meant to touch. A home. A child. A reason to live beyond the work. They should keep their distance, and at first they do. But you feel it, the way they soften around you, the way hope creeps back into their voice. They know how dangerous this is. They let you in anyway.
I figured I should share my MC here! She's going by the name Daylily at the moment, she's very much someone using her ego to hold onto whatever she has in life, she's keeping people safe and that means she's clearly above others, right?
I wanted her to be very doll like so hopefully that shows in the design.
what the hell that's so pretty!!!!! I love that design, also the cover name "Daylily" is so cute and well... definitely on theme lmao
I definitely think you got the doll vibe down!! Love the drill hair, it makes me think of old-school "ojou-sama" type characters~
ALSO WAIT I JUST NOTICED the skirt is meant to look like petals right??? that's so SMART omg
Hello hello! I just finished the demo and OH MY GOODNESS (fangirls aggressively in the background)
You had me hooked the moment you mentioned it was inspired by shugo chara (I love my magical girls but its been forever since I've consumed any magical girl content and this was perfect, gotta love magical girl+depression, my favorite genre (affectionatly), and the writing style reminded me a lot of how me and my friends used to write stories (it made me feel warm ;D) (seriously though, it made me feel warm and fuzzy and was absolutely brilliant)
Its been one chapter and im already fully prepared to ram headfirst into a brick wall if lune asked me to (they had my heart the moment they showed up, i love them so much <3)
Unfortunately, my oblivion!mc doesn't want to/bother thinking for themselves and had to follow protocol 😭 (IM SORRY LUNE FORGIVE ME)
I was wondering if we can still romance/friendship lune even if we decide to do as we were told by Helene? It physically hurt me to choose that option but the other ones wouldn't make sense for my mc (thank goodness sam stepped in but still, my heart hurts :'(
Also later on in the story, will we be able to make changes to the lily transformation outfit? Not change the outfit completely, but over the course of the story im guessing there's going to be a lot of personal development, so I thought being able to change parts of the outfit could be symbolic of that. For example, maybe an mc wearing the saint-like outfit will remove their chains later on to show that they are no longer restrained. But that might also be difficult to code into the game, so it's definitely understandable if it won't be implemented
This turned out to be a lot longer than I expected, sorry for the wall of text 😅
Im super excited for future updates, and thank you for making such a wonderful game!!
Have a good day/evening/night!
yeah you do get to romance L even if you went against them! I feel like that'd be way too punishing and not allow for character development if I just locked off a romance because you made a choice that may be viewed as the "wrong one", I don't want to discourage anyone from roleplaying as their character fully just because of a romance!
also, the whole making changes to the outfit thing is such a great idea!! will definitely have to see how I could implement that, cause yeah that might be a bit hard to code but like also there's only three options so that does still seem feasible and I do love that kind of symbolic choices lmao
NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR WALLS OF TEXT!!! I love love love them!!!!!
This is the first IF I attempt to make a detached MC. So when the scene with the wild lily appears and L directly denies orders. I imagine it would kinda send my mc into a spiral, because using indifference/detachment as a coping mechanism and thinking “orders are orders just don’t think about it.” I assume it piggybacks of the thought process that rebelling(or simply questioning anything) was not an option and nothing would change, therefore, don’t think to make it easier.
And so when L goes as far as destroying the earpiece and the Lilly escapes.(I’m assuming MC hasn’t been around other Lilly’s and/or they have but very little interactions) It’s kind of a shock that they are actually physically able to do that. And something actually changed by saying no.
But! Idk idk idk idk
Detached MC is genuinely an option I want to explore a lot in my writing, it's so interesting to me! And you're right in assuming MC hasn't been around other lilies much. Thank you for the message! Always love love love reading y'all's POV on the story~~
This is only the first of many commissions I've ordered of Rhea, I truly fell in love with her design. Just look at her!! This is her transformation outfit, though you can't see a lot of it lmao;;; It's inspired by taisho-era fashion!
Put my OC who's normally a vampire into this because of an inside joke that he's a magical girl, and got so happy about the sharp canines option lol! I already can't wait to romance Xiaofan ngl :') And I KNOW I will cry over any bonding activity with their child too!!!
lmaooo this is so perfect 😭😭 single parent romances are sooo good it's one of my favorite tropes XIAOFAN MY BELOVED 😭😭 (also xiaofan would totally fall in love with someone who's clearly-not-a-vampire so that's a perfect pairing dhfjg)
I'm not usually one to make playlists for my characters but I thought I'd share what song I associate with each RO!
R is A DOUBLE SUICIDE by Sheena Ringo (x)
I don’t get it
What is happiness really?
Which time was that supposed to have been?
What a pain
Shall I scatter my brains and guts all about just to show you?
L is L'OISEAU ET L'ENFANT by Marie Myriam (x)
Me? I'm just a girl from the shadows
Witnessing the evening star's shine
You, the star weaving all around me
Come light up my dark sun
Dark is the misery, men and war
Believing they hold the reins of time
S is JIGSAW FALLING INTO PLACE by Radiohead (x)
Wish away your nightmare, wish away the nightmare
You got a light, you can feel it on your back
A light and you can feel it on your back
Your jigsaw falling into place
XIAOFAN is I WANNA TELL U by Lexie Liu (x)
Love can be a simple thing
We can float and listen
No need to look for an answer
Let's just flow endlessly
Fell in love with this right away, fun but also very sad idea for a story and I am so here for it! 💖💖💖
The characters so far are all great and looking forward to learning more about them!
I did feel bad for the kid, but gotta follow protocol 😔 yes the kid is safe and got away with the mysterious person, but still hated scaring the kid, but going to keep playing my MC as someone who follows orders and gets the job done, this is what she's meant to do no matter what, never complains, tries to never cause problems.
I'm looking forward to drawing my MC as soon as I get the time to do so! I have so many ideas for her.
As always, I love hearing about everyone's playthrough!! Thank you so much for taking the time, please tag me if you ever draw your MC 👀
So L is a complete cutie patootie and I adore them. 🥹 How would they react if MC tried baking for them as well in order to express their gratitude, but are obliviously awful at it? I'm talking charcoal cookies, cake that tastes like mostly egg, etc.
L is absolutely the sweetest lmao they would really struggle to be honest in that scenario!! They would really appreciate it though, and would defo say something like "How about we bake together next time?" and they'd worry that MC eats that kind of food all the time, because what if they're this bad at regular cooking too... L would start giving food to MC even more often, as an act of pity sure but also just because they CARE 😭😭
That was a fun first chapter! Very interesting and dramatic as a start. I played an mc who despite finding her work peaceful? Soothing? Can't help but bristle a bit whenever she thinks about the Numen. I picked the option of just refusing to kidnap the kid for being a wild lily, and I like that Yanyu's situation, followed by L speaking up, feels like its what nudges mc to finally stop toeing the line. I guess the question of "What will you do with your final year?" in my case is "become a Problem." I'm all for it! Usually rebellious characters by default are firey and outspoken but I love how quiet this mcs rebellion feels in contrast. I didnt play a very agressive or confrontational character so I didn't feel like there was some grand declaration of intent to rebel or pent up explosion of malcontent. Just a straw that broke the camel's back and a tired "no, actually, I DON'T think I'll be perpetuating the cycle of violence and abuse today." and it's heavily grounded but still feels very powerful. I cant wait to see how poorly it all blows over w the Numen and its handlers. Lune seems on board for it, but poor R might want to buckle up. The dam is cracked now, and I don't think it's gonna hold much longer. I've never watched or read the inspirations behind this IF but I know a bit about Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Evangellion's reputation at least (I had to double check I got the order of the words right like three times when writing this lol). In the end, whether mc gets to carve out a happy ending or is doomed to go up in smoke, I'm hooked now, and I can't wait to see how crazy things get when everything inevitably comes to a head.
Man I love learning about people's playthrough and MC. Anon please come back when chapter 2 releases and tell me all about what your MC goes through!!!
Yesterday I mentioned my vgen addiction... Well yeah who wouldn't be addicted when you can gaze upon this kind of stuff 😭😭 I intend to commission this artist when I get my charadesign commission's result!! Their art is so pretty and I'm the one who told them to get on tumblr so please give them support lmao
(also their commission prices are super reasonable and the artist is very kind, go take a peek at their vgen!! and please show me if you commission art of your mc!!!)
help I have a vgen addiction when I get the ROs design I'm gonna go crazy commissioning art of them I just know it... they're literally my CHILDREN
I'm not gonna do the whole "commission the same artist everytime so the artstyle is consistent" that's overrated I want cute art, creepy art, art of all kind!!!! can't wait :)
hello!! just read the demo and absolutely loved ittt. so excited to see where the story goes.
not me immediately getting attached to R. edgy cold hearted men just speak to me
Thank you so much for the compliment!! I definitely get you with R lmao I've never read something so real... cold hearted yet hotheaded characters my beloved
WOW that one choice of directly agreeing w l abt the kid rlly tanked r's relationship w us. is it bc they saw it as a betrayal or smth?
R's reaction might certainly come off as surprising, given that in their one-on-one scene they literally talk about not caring about orders. At this point as the player it's your first exposure to a wild lily though, and MC really isn't much more familliar with them. To explain a bit:
MC is what we'll call a "keeper lily", like pretty much 90% of lilies, including L btw. Lilies trained by Numen, by their very presence, weaken surrounding wounds. So if there's a lily stationed in a city, less wounds will appear, and even those who do appear will be weaker.
R, however, is not this kind of lily. It doesn't fully justify it, but they're by far the one in the trio with the most experience in regard to wild lilies. They know how dangerous it can be to let them go free.
Oh and fyi, here's what I told someone on the forum who was worried about not being able to romance R after that choice!
