DOOMED SIBLINGS AND DOOMED LOVERS

Please I’m so confused bro

im sorry brace yourself because this is extremely long there’s A LOT of details so i can’t explain most of them without this being a full danmei novel. here’s the background of them first:

- we have four main characters who are all connected. eunjae (human with spiritual affinity), san (goblin with blond hair), 704 (reaper), and geumsun (blue haired goblin)

- the story starts off with eunjae going about his daily life dealing with depression, and how he’s been sexually assaulted by a otherworldly being almost every night since his parents died

- on the night he was possessed, he was supposed to die but saved by san. this puts eunjaes name on the death record while he’s still alive, making the gap between his body and soul very fragile. because of this geum tells san to be the guard/gatekeeper of eunjae

- eunjae and san don’t get along at first until eunjae realizes how much effort san puts into making him feel comfortable and safe. at the same time he learns that in order for goblins to survive, they must intake yang energy or else they’ll die. they can get this through ingesting reaper blood (extremely dangerous if overdosed) or have sex (ingesting the pleasure). because of this they both start having a mutually benefitical relationship as eunjae uses sex as an outlet and san uses it to live. however unlike eunjaes past sexual partners, san is gentle, caring, and attentive to his pleasure which makes him open up more/become vulnerable. hence why they both started falling for each other

- on the other hand 704 and geum have a very complicated relationship- you can tell there’s underlying care under all the surface hatred. they have a fwb situation where geum is confusing, readers can tell he’s keen on keeping 704 safe yet leaves him in the dark/treats him coldly

to sum up the plot: yama (king of the underworld) as well as the four main characters have a plan to catch the ghostly monster. the entity is gravely injured but grooms humans with strong spiritual affinity to become vulnerable and kill/eat them to heal. it does this by killing the people or things they love most and isolating them and the stronger their affinity is, the more it heals

we learn over time that all four main characters have a past with hwan that dates back to royal era (joseon i think). eunjae and 704 are half brothers, whose family works closely with the king as the military figurehead. their father was possessed by hwan after losing his wife and caused many calamities in the kingdom by tricking the king. but the true target hwan was after is 704, however eunjae made a deal with hwan promising that he’ll do whatever hwan wants as long as he spares his brother. while this is happening, a family of shamans are banished from the palace after hwan convinced everyone they were the cause of the calamities. only one member survived, and was in possession of a family heirloom- geumsun, a golden fan. the fan comes to life as a goblin after yama feeds it his blood and geum starts to grow into his full form the more he understands his power. during the course of this time, he meets 704 and they both become attached and eventually have deep mutual feelings for each other. going back to eunjae, hwan of course lied and planned to hold eunjae hostage in order to get BOTH brothers as meals. the plan fails, and as a result 704 loses his life and eunjae is left barely alive. hwan attempts to escape, but is left severely injured by geum and the shaman (they sliced his throat)

the brothers meet yama separately in hell, where 704 begs yama to let him take on his brothers sins (abiding in the calamities). because of this, the punishment is working as a reaper until the sins are cleared. mind you, reapers are stripped of their memories and forced to always deal with heavy deaths. eunjae finds out about this but is convinced by yama to let the older brother take responsibility as it’s already been set in stone- so his best gift to the brother would be to reincarnate after the sins have been repaid then live happily

and going back to the modern days: we find out san was a victim of hwan, and his family has a history of members with strong spiritual affinity (think of eunjae as 1/100 but san is 1/100000). because of his run ins with hwan, it left him with strong yin energy and as a result of this + his affinity he was able to see 704 with the mask- making 704 believe he was a dead human. thinking he was already a lost soul, 704 lead san to the underworld when he was alive which erased his existence in the world!! however what he didn’t know at the time was that it was a carefully crafted ploy created by yama and geum because they originally planned to bait hwan with san + kill the both of them. but because sans existence was erased, so were all of hwans memories of him! so san is actually not a goblin but a human, and the reason why he has the marks + powers of a goblin is because geumsun shares his power with san as a facade. then, by his own request all of sans memories are also taken away and he agrees to be part of geum and yamas initial plan to die with hwan

but the plan changes: for san to gain back his memories (geums power as a goblin lets him manipulate memories) so that hwan can posses him while san forces him into the underworld. during the battle geum loses an arm, but they are able to not only save san but also imprison hwan. sans plan was basically suicide still because he was supposed to be erased after the ghostly monster was captured, but he was given the chance to stay alive. so everyone should be saved. however, it’s assumed that hwan took both 704 AND sans memories of their lovers hence why they cannot remember the past involving both eunjae and geumsun. 704 gains access to all his old memories, but geumsun is not in ANY of them. in addition, san has NO recollection of the deep and intimate relationship he’s had with eunjae and he’s been trying to cope until he has his little run in with san- which is the start of season four :)

Blessings to you