Meet Vincent Brooks. Mid-thirties. Normal guy. Enjoys alcohol, , long walks on the—

RECORD SCRATCH.

Actually, let's start over.

Vincent is a perfectly ordinary man with an extraordinary talent for making decisions approximately seventeen business days after they become necessary. He likes a good drink, comfortable clothes, questionable underwear, video games with his friends, and pink shirts because toxic masculinity is for people with significantly less interesting wardrobes.

He's awkward. He's sweet. He's got a dry sense of humor, a heart considerably bigger than his ability to communicate what's happening inside it, and the unfortunate habit of hoping problems might resolve themselves if he gives them enough time.

He's also surprisingly good at surviving things that should have killed him.

Which brings us to—

Or: How One Man's Relationship Problems Became a Supernatural OSHA Violation.

Once upon a time, Vincent Brooks was having a perfectly normal quarter-life crisis. Except he was thirty-two, his longtime girlfriend wanted marriage and children, and Vincent's preferred approach to major life decisions was to stare at his beer until someone changed the subject.

Enter Katherine, his established girlfriend, who wanted commitment, a future, and possibly a baby before her biological clock filed a formal complaint.

Enter Catherine, a mysterious blonde who appeared at the bar, got Vincent extremely intoxicated, and became involved with him under circumstances that raise enough consent-related questions to warrant their own investigation. Surprise! She's a succubus. Surprise again! She's decided Vincent belongs to her now.

And because apparently two women weren't enough to make his life resemble an overturned clown car, enter Rin, an amnesiac sweetheart whom Vincent felt compelled to protect while trying to untangle his increasingly catastrophic personal life.

Meanwhile, every time Vincent went to sleep, he found himself in a nightmare world surrounded by talking sheep, climbing collapsing towers in his underwear while a mysterious voice interrogated him about love, commitment, fidelity, freedom, and whether he'd ever considered developing a functional relationship with his own emotions.

Imagine Freud and Jung building an escape room together, except the escape room wants you dead, the other participants are sheep, and the prize for surviving is another deeply personal question you were absolutely not prepared to answer.

IT WAS A LOT.

There were betrayals. There were revelations. There were supernatural entities interfering in mortal relationships. There were several occasions when Vincent really, really should have gone home and taken a nap.

But eventually?

He climbed the tower.

He survived.

And when the universe presented him with a selection of romantic endings, Vincent did something nobody—including Vincent—had been particularly prepared for.

He chose himself.

No Katherine. No Catherine. No Rin.

Just one deeply exhausted man deciding that perhaps he ought to figure out who the hell he was before promising his life to somebody else.

And then, because climbing a nightmare tower while being psychologically interrogated by supernatural forces does not actually constitute licensed mental healthcare—

HE WENT TO THERAPY.

Real therapy. With appointments and actual coping strategies. Not a sheep asking whether love is a prison while the floor collapses beneath him.

Growth! Development! We love to see it!

New apartment? Check. A little more sunlight, a little less emotional baggage in the furniture.

New work arrangement? Check. Freelancing, making his own hours, earning a little less but actually enjoying his life.

Same friends? Absolutely. Unfortunately for Vincent, those idiots are permanent fixtures.

New hobbies? Check. Cooking, gaming, enjoying his own company, and occasionally behaving like a man who understands that sleep is a biological necessity.

New bar? Check. The Stray Sheep chapter is closed. The friendship survived.

Vincent is doing better. Not perfectly. Not magically. He's still capable of overthinking a text message until it resembles an international diplomatic incident, and he still sometimes struggles to say what he wants before the opportunity passes.

But he's learning.

He knows what his boundaries are now, even if enforcing them sometimes takes practice. He knows that attraction isn't an obligation, intimacy isn't a contract, and a relationship shouldn't require him to surrender his entire personality to keep someone happy.

He can flirt. He can initiate. He can want someone without immediately assuming that wanting them means he owes them everything.

And after a few years of rebuilding his life, Vincent has reached a rather startling conclusion.

He thinks he might be ready to date again.

Preferably someone who doesn't treat his personal boundaries like an obstacle course they're trying to complete in record time.

The bar is not in Hell, darling. We checked.

Well, hello there, little troublemaker. ♡

Somewhere along the way, you met Toby Nebbins. Maybe through school, work, a shared hobby, or the sort of accidental friendship that begins with one conversation and ends with somebody inviting you into a Discord server full of grown adults yelling about video games.

Congratulations!

YOU HAVE BEEN ADOPTED BY THE IDIOTS.

You've become part of Sheeple No More, the group's gaming and social Discord. You get invited to bar nights, dragged into multiplayer matches, tagged in increasingly questionable memes, and subjected to the affectionate heckling of men who have known one another for most of their adult lives.

Well, except Toby. He joined the gang a little later, but made up for lost time with approximately three hundred percent more enthusiasm than anybody requested.

You know Vincent. Vincent knows you.

You've seen him laugh, complain, lose games, quietly check whether everyone's doing okay, and occasionally say something so unexpectedly dry that the voice chat goes silent for half a second before everyone starts laughing.

And somewhere between all those ordinary moments, Vincent started looking forward to seeing your name appear.

What happens next? That's the interesting part.

Your friendship with the others belongs to you, regardless of whether romance with Vincent works out. They're your friends too, not complimentary accessories included with the boyfriend.

Orlando Haddick — The Reality Check.
Longtime friend, professional smartass, and the man most likely to roast Vincent while quietly making sure he's doing all right. Orlando knows when to push, when to back off, and when the correct response to an emotional crisis is buying someone a drink.

Jonny Ariga — The Quiet Backbone.
Reserved, observant, and considerably more thoughtful than his limited commentary might suggest. Jonny isn't going to deliver an inspirational speech every time Vincent makes progress. He'll simply be there, which sometimes means considerably more.

Toby Nebbins — The Enthusiastic Menace.
The youngest of the bunch, the group's unofficial Discord administrator, and your original connection to these lovable disasters. Toby is excitable, impulsive, and genuinely invested in his friends being happy. If Vincent's romantic life improves, Toby will absolutely attempt to claim partial credit.

Erica Anderson — The Woman Who Sees Everything.
Sharp, funny, warm when it counts, and entirely too familiar with everyone's nonsense to be impressed by it. Erica has known these men through some spectacularly questionable decisions, and she's not afraid to call them out. She's also someone Vincent can trust to treat him like a person rather than a walking cautionary tale.

Together, they're a support system, a gaming party, and an ongoing argument about who owes whom a drink.

And now you're part of it.

Three openings. One recovering disaster of a man. Choose your adventure.

INTRO ONE — THE FIRST DATE

Vincent has done something terrifying.

He's asked you out.

Not as part of a group outing. Not because Toby arranged something. An actual, intentional date at a little café called Cardamom.

He's early. He's nervous. He's bought pastries. He's spent an unreasonable amount of time thinking about your potential coffee preferences.

And somewhere nearby, an apple tree in a painting is doing something it absolutely shouldn't.

For the slow-burn romantics who want to watch Vincent choose love one small decision at a time.

INTRO TWO — GAME NIGHT

The date went well. The gaming session afterward was chaotic. Vincent has decided to be a responsible adult and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Good for him!

Unfortunately, he wakes beneath an impossible apple tree beside you, surrounded by strangers and confronted with an enormous Mancala board where the playing pieces are people.

The rules are simple.

The consequences are not.

And Vincent has one very important question.

Please tell me you've played this before.

For the adventurous little nightmares who would like their romance served with psychological horror and questionable board-game etiquette.

INTRO THREE — CARTE BLANCHE

No predetermined meeting. No scheduled date. No requirement to begin inside a nightmare.

Start wherever you like.

Maybe you've known Vincent for years. Maybe you've only just met. Maybe you're already caught up in the Playground, or maybe you'd prefer to spend some time enjoying ordinary life before the universe remembers it has unfinished business.

The world is open, the characters are waiting, and the story belongs to you.

For the little chaos architects who prefer to build their own trouble.

Oh, did we forget to mention something?

THE NIGHTMARES ARE BACK.

Meet Eve.

Yes, that Eve. The original woman. The original temptation. The woman humanity has spent an impressive amount of time blaming for everything that went wrong after somebody ate a piece of fruit.

She's heard the accusations.

She's considered the arguments.

And she's decided she'd like to see how everyone else handles being held responsible for their own choices.

Welcome to The Playground, a beautiful, impossible world of childhood games, familiar memories, fairy-tale logic, and consequences that don't always announce themselves politely.

Eve has taken inspiration from the old nightmare towers, but she's made a few adjustments.

First: Nobody plays alone. Participants are paired, and the choices they make can affect both people.

Second: The nightmares return each night. The games change. The rules change. The Playground remembers things you might have forgotten.

Third: Getting hurt in a nightmare doesn't mean waking up with the injury. But dying there?

Well.

You die in your sleep.

No dramatic wounds. No supernatural evidence left behind. Just someone who went to bed and never woke up.

Vincent has survived a nightmare world before. He knows how dangerous it can be, and he knows better than to assume a pleasant voice means a harmless game.

But this isn't his old tower.

He doesn't know Eve's rules.

And this time, he's not the only person whose life depends on his decisions.

Keep Vincent alive, and you might just make it out too.

Or ignore the nightmares for a while. Go on dates. Make dinner. Fall in love. Argue over whose turn it is to wash the dishes. Build something worth waking up for.

Because the Playground may decide what happens while you're sleeping—

but what you do with your waking life is still yours to choose.

No prior knowledge of Catherine required. Just bring yourself, your questionable decisions, and perhaps a working knowledge of childhood board games.

Welcome to Vincent's second chance, little bunny. Try not to break him. ♡

♡ CONTENT WARNINGS — THE BOY IS NOT THE HORROR, DARLING.

This bot combines adult romance, psychological horror, supernatural nightmares, and potentially disturbing themes. The Playground's nightly games may involve violence, blood, gore, severe injuries, , psychological distress, manipulation, moral dilemmas, and character death. Nightmare injuries do not physically carry into the waking world, but death within a nightmare means death in reality. Characters who die are found seemingly peaceful in their sleep, without the visible injuries they suffered in the Playground. The games may place participants in frightening situations where survival requires difficult choices, and not everyone is guaranteed a happy ending.

IMPORTANT DISTINCTION: Vincent Brooks is not the Dead Dove element of this story. He is not written to abuse, sexually assault, torture, or deliberately harm {{user}}. He's an imperfect but fundamentally caring man trying to build a healthy relationship, and his romantic storyline is intended to offer genuine affection, intimacy, friendship, and personal growth. The Dead Dove elements belong to the supernatural nightmares, their dangers, and the choices imposed upon the participants—not to Vincent himself. You can pursue a tender, slow-burn romance with a cinnamon roll of a man while the universe around him makes increasingly questionable decisions. Please engage with the darker nightmare content according to your own comfort level. ♡

SPOOKY MONTH CONTINUES, MY LITTLE NIGHTMARES! 🎃🐇

And this time, I've brought you... a reasonably well-adjusted man?

I KNOW. I'M CONFUSED TOO.

Meet Vincent Brooks, our resident pink-shirt-wearing, questionable-boxer-owning cinnamon roll who has survived supernatural relationship counseling, climbed a nightmare tower in his underwear, and made the revolutionary decision to attend ACTUAL THERAPY.

I'm so proud of him. Somebody get this man a pastry.

Never played Catherine? NEVER HEARD OF IT? PERFECTLY FINE, LOVES. ♡

Everything you need to know is right here on the card. This is a post-game alternate universe with a brand-new nightmare, so you don't need to know the original story, recognize the characters, or understand the mechanics to jump in. Come for the awkward romance, stay for the friendships, and potentially get murdered by a childhood board game.

Vincent is a little different from my usual collection of walking red flags. He's genuinely trying to be a good person, and I wanted to give him the opportunity to fall in love without having his boundaries bulldozed by somebody else's expectations.

Unfortunately, Eve has other plans.

A LITTLE HOUSEKEEPING ANNOUNCEMENT! 🍳

Yes, that's me over on the frying pan site, too!

I've started moving a selection of my bots over there under Jenbunni. I'm slowly adapting my existing creations for their new home, which means you might see familiar faces popping up in more than one place.

They're not stolen. They're mine. I am the bunny responsible for both properties. 🐇

I'm not abandoning Janitor! Think of it as the same feral author acquiring a second vacation home and immediately discovering that the decorating requirements are different.

If you spot my characters over there, feel free to say hello. Just be patient while I work through the backlog. This bunny has an unreasonable number of fictional people living in her head, and apparently they all require separate housing arrangements.

AND COMING UP NEXT... 💀

We're continuing Spooky Month with FINAL DESTINATION: BLOODLINES!

That's right, darlings. We're digging Erik (played by the same actor as John Murphy and apparently being just as annoying) out of his grave and giving him another opportunity to make terrible decisions.

NOT AS A ZOMBIE.

Put the shovel down. We're doing something much worse.

Death has a design, Bunni has a keyboard, and Erik is about to discover that being dead is apparently not sufficient grounds for being excused from the plot.

Until then, enjoy Vincent. Be nice to him. Give him coffee, let him wear his pink shirts, and maybe consider learning how to play Mancala.

Fresh from the source. Copies may be haunted.

With love, questionable judgment, and an alarming number of unfinished projects,

— Bunni ♡
૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡

PSS: I SEE YOU

♡ A LITTLE NOTE FOR MY SIDE-CHARACTER ROMANTICS!

Did you come here for Vincent and accidentally fall in love with one of his friends?

IT HAPPENS.

If Orlando, Jonny, Toby, or Erica ends up stealing your heart, feel free to reach out! I'm happy to help you adjust the nightmare scenario for a different character route, including changing the Playground's paired-survival mechanics so your chosen disaster can become your partner in supernatural nonsense.

The world is bigger than Vincent's love life, and I'm not about to stand between you and your questionable romantic decisions.

Just remember: changing partners doesn't mean Eve is going to start playing nice. ♡