sorry mom, i can't be all the things you want from me. on my knees, begging please, tell me what's wrong with me. sorry mom, can't you see i'm not who i used to be? on my knees wondering, what's wrong with my head?

keller kang, a fandomless original character with horror-adjacent themes. all lore located here. warning for themes of suicidal ideation, self harm, and attempted suicide. proceed with caution. found on sorrymcm.

on my knees, begging please, tell me what's wrong with me..

  name.    강광호 (kang kwangho) / keller kang
  age.    24
  race.    korean
  birthday.     august 18
  astrological sign.     leo
  gender.     trans man
  pronouns.     he / him
  sexuality.     bisexual

  height.     6'3" / 190 cm
  hair.     black, wavy, usually a little long. rarely dyes it, but gets it permed every now and then
  eye color.     brown
  face claim.     yoon sanha
  notable features.     scars one stretching from his inner wrist to the crease of his elbow (left) ; piercings ears (lobes + industrial) ; tattoos wildflowers “growing out” of his scar, red string of fate tattoo on his right hand, matching with jae

  job occupation.    ghost hunter, student
  birth place.   wonju, gangwon province, south korea
  family.     kang daerae (mother); kang jinseok (father); kang haewon (elder sister); kang namgil (elder brother); kang hyunjung (elder brother); kang youngmi (younger sister); adrian kang (cousin)
  marital status.     married to jae

  personality.     keeps a very upbeat attitude, on the surface seems a bit, well, dumb and socially awkward, but well meaning. bright and easygoing, keller is someone that most people would assume doesn't have much of a care in the world. however ... that's not really the case.falls easily into self doubt and wants so desperately to be useful that he puts himself into dangerous situations. avoids vulnerability like the plague, but it's whatever! he's fine. keller's so, so fine and no one needs to worry at all.also makes having a husband part of his personality. if you follow him on social media, it's rough out here.positives. compassionate, very empathetic, and optimistic; he tries to see the best in others and the world, and he believes second chances are important, never trusts his first impression of people because there’s always more than meets the eye.negatives. craves praise and validation almost excessively, and can sometimes lose his way in an attempt to get this validation. he can be a bit shortsighted and desperate to prove his usefulness and has a hard time pulling himself out of his depression at times.

— moodboard.

pure vibes.

  d&d alignment.     chaotic good
  mbti.     infp-t
  major arcana.     strength
  temperament.     melancholic
  likes.     video games, ramen, dogs, hot former priests, photography, fiction books, memes, animal crossing (he is after all, the real kk slider), guitar
  dislikes.     personal conflict, half of his professors, loud noises, formal wear, most of his family

• pinterest board.
• visage tag.
• musings tag.
• aesthetics tag.
• threads tag.
• blog.

— headcanons.

headcanons.

headcanon one. keller is an avid gamer and loves ffxiv. he has an elezen dark knight (originally a paladin, she changed classes for lore reasons, okay) and raids weekly with a group of friends. sometimes static bails on him because they have lives or whatever, so then he spends designated raid time gposing his goth elezen to his heart’s content. and, yes, he does have mods, but not the weird ones! cute nerdy gamer boy, mainly likes rpgs and mmorpgs, very passionate about his favorite characters, definitely has a few genshin keychains and stickers scattered around among his things.
headcanon two. he can play the guitar! he doesn’t do much with it, but sometimes he likes to sit on his bed and play a few chords to his favorite songs. he’s never tried his hand at songwriting, but he loves playing

more trivia.

fun facts.

headcanon three. in his main verse, he wants to work in book publishing and has aspirations of becoming an editor, though he has shown some interest in marketing tactics for books as well. reading has always been an escape for him, and he loves books and everything about the process of publishing them.
headcanon four. loves to cook, but specifically likes to cook buldak ramen. he loves trying to elevate it and make new, interesting recipes … sometimes it’s not the most successful, and things can occasionally taste a little gross if he gets too creative, but it’s fun!
headcanon five. all of the kangs have english names, but keller is the only one who uses his regularly! however, calling him kwangho is perfectly fine! he just thinks keller makes him sound quirky.

— s & w.

strength chart.

though he's incredibly well-meaning, keller tends to ache for approval and validation so intensely that he'll disregard his own wellbeing. it's a misguided attempt at proving that he's useful, and the more he doubts himself, the harder he forces himself to do better and have a positive outlook, which isn't healthy. still, he's dedicated to trying to better himself, as difficult as it's proving to be. he's trying his best, he's just a bit misguided.

— abilities.

powers & skills.

keller's abilities in this area are very weak. generally, he can only see ghosts and entities if they're more powerful, and has limited communication. his biggest fault is that he has difficulty discerning whether he's speaking to a ghost or a living person. unlike the rest of his family, he is also very susceptible to spiritual manipulation, including possession and other attacks.to combat this, he's discovered a camera that, when focused on a ghost, will expel or hurt the entity before it can reach him, depending on its power. think fatal frame. he's still learning about the origins of the camera and what it can do, but surely it's fine to use...no one he's spoken to has heard of it, but it's definitely old — probably older than his parents, even. what he's been able to find written about the camera is barely comprehensible, and there aren't many records of people using it long term. but it's fine! it's working for him now and that's what matters ... right?

— traditional methods.

old school stuff..

these methods are used in different ways, but primarily to effectively communicate both with the deceased and those tied to the spirits, as that may provide insight into what has been occurring. sometimes different approaches are needed with particularly stubborn or powerful entities, but there's a whole slew of rituals that can be employed here.keller has never been particularly skilled at most of these, but he does have mild talents in palm reading and tarot, though they've never been nurtured well enough to be particularly useful. he understands in theory how these things can connect you to the spirit world and enhance your awareness, but he has little luck making that actually happen. note that this isn't all-encompassing for what they do! this is just intended to give a bit of an overview.

— modern methods.

what the normies use.

keller is entirely unsure how effective the technology paranormal investigators use is. but since he has such a hard time figuring out where spirits are and not being able to sense ones that aren't very powerful, he's giving it a shot. if he gets inspiration from watcher and paranormal files, leave him alone. he's trying his best here.

the kangs come from an extremely long line of mudang, and as generations have come and gone, their fame has increased. on his mother's side, he has had both mansin, northern mudang traditionally possessed by deities or ancestral spirits, and sesŭp-mu, eastern and southern mudang that specialize not in possession but spiritual mediumship. as such, the current abilities of the kang family are rather diverse, and each individual tends to be more powerful in certain areas rather than all around.his mother, however, is very different in this aspect. kang daerae is incredibly well known even internationally for her all-encompassing abilities, and is often called on to assist in hauntings, possessions, and the like. other members of the family may choose more casual approaches, such as fortune telling, communicating with the dead to help them move on, etc., but daerae has always been exceptionally talented at dealing with even the most stubborn entities. at this time, she has only failed to contain one entity.

given her notoriety, there's naturally high expectations for her children, which is why the lack of ability on keller's end is not only puzzling, but downright embarrassing.on keller’s twenty-fifth birthday, he will get into a life-threatening accident that leaves him in a comatose state for about six hours. in this time, his spirit will essentially be knocked loose from his body. he won’t remember much of what happens, but when he finds his way back to his body, it feels as though only minutes have passed.his awareness of the spiritual world increases a great deal, and he’s suddenly almost overwhelmingly aware of the supernatural world around him. where before he couldn’t tell the difference between living and dead, everything is so vividly clear as if all the power he had been previously missing suddenly fell into place. his power will almost rival his mother’s, though it’s so overwhelming and new, it’s unlikely he’ll really know what to do with it.

i've been trying to pretend i'm fine.

keller was born as the youngest son to daerae kang, one of the most well-known spiritual figures in the world. his siblings before him demonstrated the same great power their mother had. keller was intended to be the last child in the kang family, but …by the time he was eight years old, he showed no signs of any amount of power at all. so … youngmi was born in the hopes that there would be enough kang children with the gift that keller wouldn’t stand out as much.it had the opposite effect. he grew up as an outsider in his own family, only gifted enough to see ghosts, and even then, he wasn’t entirely sure if the person he was speaking to was dead or alive. no matter how much training he went through or how hard he tried … it was never enough to come anywhere close to even his younger sister’s level of power. so … he became the black sheep.

cast aside and deemed a disappointment, keller was always considered his mother’s greatest failure, though he doesn’t think she knows he’s aware that’s how she feels. her frustration was always evident, and the dismissal that followed … left its mark. he was useless, her biggest mistake. she loved him the way any mother would love son, but his shortcomings always overshadowed any fondness she had for him. she loved keller, but she wished he was so much more than he ended up being.since so much of the family dynamic involved their mother teaching them how to use their power … keller tended to fall to the wayside. no one seemed to really notice or care aside from namgil, his eldest brother.even as their mother’s social circle looked down on him for being incompetent, there was always namgil. that would end up saving keller’s life, honestly.

always being left out of everything took a heavy toll on keller, but he still wanted so badly to be his family’s version of normal and acceptable. … at any cost. he was tired of being the failure, the family disappointment who never did anything useful or worth paying attention to. so, so tired of not being enough.his father tried to bond with him, to show him that it wasn't so bad to be on the more normal side of things, but the great divide between keller and his siblings and mother wore on him more than he knew how to say. what would saying anything even accomplish? it wouldn't change that keller was a stain on the family name.the extended family often avoided talking to him more than necessary, because even in these modern times, they all know that their power is their birthright, so something had to be wrong with him. why was he the only one to be so useless? it had never happened before in their family, so why now? why him? truth be told, he's often seen as only barely being part of the family, tragically too similar to his mundane father (who, for the record, has no family to speak of, so it's not like there's another side keller can claim).

such a bad liar, i'm just wasting my time.

TW: ATTEMPTED SUICIDE. the day keller’s life almost ended was relatively normal. his parents had taken the rest of his siblings (sans namgil, who had too many obligations he couldn’t get out of) to another country to assist in one of the worst haunting cases their mother had ever seen.keller, despite his insistence, was left behind and told that he should focus on school since he wouldn’t be useful anyway. nineteen at the time, he was struggling to make sense of the constant rejection he faced, and it … hit him hard. hard enough that he didn’t see any point in continuing on.if namgil hadn’t come home after an exam, he wouldn’t be alive now. it’s only luck and excellent timing that he is, honestly. otherwise …the rest of his family doesn’t know, but is that really for the best? neither of them is entirely sure, and no one wants to be the one to find out what the reaction would be. shock? horror? disappointment?keller doesn't like wondering about that. so, he doesn't. instead, he puts on a smile and says everything is fine, because it has to be. he can't be even more of a disappointment than he already is.

in a misguided attempt to relate to his family and show he can be useful in his own way, keller is now something of an amateur ghost hunter. since he can see the dead, he thinks he might be able to help them in more … unconventional ways.including a camera he found once in an abandoned, haunted factoy that has the uncanny ability to repel ghosts and even some demons. which, really, he should be doing more research on, but it's not like it can hurt him, right? he's just trying to help!this has varying degrees of success and he tends to scare himself more than anything, but he’s hoping one day, he’ll prove he’s worth something more than a black stain on his family name. he’s worthy of his mother’s legacy, and he’ll do anything to show her that.little does he know that he has more power locked away inside him than most can comprehend. unfortunately, it'll just take a near death experience to bring him to a place of true harmony with the spiritual world.

after that, the real struggle will be deciding if he wants his mother's love once she deems him worthy of it, and if her approval will really take away all the years of pain and struggling he's faced.getting what you want can be an incredible thing. when it happens, it'll change everything for keller. but will it really be for the better?somewhere along the way in his adventures, he meets seungjae, kaede, and oliver, a trio that's basically the set up for a perfect joke. like ... a ghost hunter, an exorcist, and a medium walk into a bar ...okay, it's funnier in his head.a chance encounter with these three leads to keller finding the love of his life and some of the only real friends he's ever had. maybe ... maybe there's something worth living for that's not just his mother's approval.maybe he's worth being loved even if he's not useful.or maybe he can have both. both is good.

sleep all day so i don't know what's going on.

— sorry, mom.

the one where everything is bad.

after a tragedy ended his parents' lives, somehow, it’s up to keller to keep his mother’s legacy as a medium and clairvoyant alive. this means house calls to rid homes of spirits and help them move on, even exorcisms and trying to mediate situations between the dead and the living. people come to him because of his mother’s name, but … his skills leave something to be desired. he’s incredibly stressed and living in the shadow of someone he can never hope to compare to, but …. at least he’s alive?

— keller kang, ghost expert.

future verse.

takes place any time after his 25th birthday when he has all this power & no idea how to use it! he's not sure if it's good or bad, and tends to get bloody noses and pass out a lot ... who knew being more powerful would mean you'd get even more near death experiences?

— kang seungjae.

husband, ship exclusive.

keller had never thought much about getting married. living past seventeen was something he'd never really planned for, and who would want to marry such a failure of a person anyway? when he met seungjae, that changed. it was like keller knew when they met that there was something deeper there, that they were meant to meet. and so he spent months pining after an emotionally closed off exorcist until, somehow, things just ... clicked. it just ... made sense. chae kang seungjae is his destiny, and it seemed like jae had realized it too. what was at first an unlikely pair turned into the most married couple in existence, and keller had never thought he could be this happy or that he'd deserve to. his soulmate, his husband, his everything.

• blog.
• tag

— watanabe kaede.

friend.

keller would probably describe kaede as his partner in crime. the two tend to bounce off of each other, and kaede can read him better than most can. he loves spending time with her, and easily calls her one of his most favorite people. their humor meshes well, and they both have a great interest in ghost hunting, although for different reasons. whenever keller is craving adventure, he knows he can turn to kaede, and, more than that, knows that she has his back no matter what they're doing. he admires her bright personality and always finds her a joy to be around, and proudly introduces her to other people as his best friend. these two are sweet, but would probably get up to a little too much trouble if left unsupervised for too long.

• blog.

— oliver yun.

friend.

the final member of keller's favorite ghost hunting trio is no less dear to him than the others. oliver is easy to get along with, and keller thinks he's great company, but god does he worry about him when they encounter their usual entities. he wants to look out for oliver, who, honestly, puts himself at risk a lot, but keller's never been great at that, so he tries to just cook for him and make sure to keep an eye on him. he thinks oliver is just ... so brave and kind, and relies on him a lot. keller considers him family, and there's very little he wouldn't do for him. he finds oliver incredibly easy to talk to and rely on, and he would die for him, thank you. oliver might not like that, but keller didn't ask him, now did he? just accept the devotion for what it is!

• blog.

— adri kang.

cousin.

adri is, undoubtedly, keller’s favorite cousin. though he’s a fifty-year-old man in a twenty-eight-year-old body, he’s honestly pretty funny. despite his natural gifts being quite strong, adri prefers to mind his own business and avoid all the ghost and family drama he can. as such, he’s really one of the only family members keller feels safe around. after all, he's never judged keller for his disappointing lack of power. he often helps out at adri’s book-slash-ghost-hunting store, selling ghost-hunting gadgets in the back while adri sells teenage girls whatever the latest YA craze is. they get along well, but keller’s still banned from adri’s apartment after letting the ghosts there know he can see them. it was an accident!

• blog.