#nefarious skull

[volterge1st-critical]

Very huge disclaimer, because I know people will start assuming things about me despite not knowing who I am, I'm not a Rebornica/Volt defender, nor am I a Volt hater, I'm just simply putting out facts because it's fairly obvious that the term that is being used by you all is tossed around without looking at the definition.

So, as we all know, there has been circulation in the Five Nights at Freddy's fandom, saying the Rebverse FNAF is public domain because someone having a debate with the then-teenage Volt/Rebornica on their designs had said so, and because that person said "Oh! Vincent is public domain because he is a popular fanon design," that means you guys should believe it because the person just said so, right?

Well, it is rather unfortunate that I need to say this to a whole fandom and community built around Volt's content, that is not how public domain stuff works, because the term is being completely misused.

"Oh, but random person on the internet, how can you say that when the characters so obviously are because a random person said it?"

Well, my dear Rebverse FNAF fan, you can't claim something as public domain if the person, or people, still hold or currently hold the rights to the characters, and are their property, which goes against the actual definition of what public domain means, which is right here in this image.

Now here's the key takeaway, no one can ever own something if it is public domain.

While you can argue that Volt/Rebornica doesn't "own" the characters anymore, persay, that doesn't mean that the guards or old designs are public domain. Infact, Volt doesn't own the characters anymore because they sold them to different people who now own the night guards, including Vincent.

Then there is also the argument that Vincent is public domain because he's a popular version of the original Purple Guy/William Afton, and he's fanon, but that doesn't fall into the definition of public domain either, nor it is proving a point, because Vincent as a character has been sold to another person, therefore, Vincent is not public domain.

Adding to that, Mike, Fritz, Scott/Phone Guy, and Jeremy (including their Pilot designs,) are not public domain either, as Volt has sold the designs to other people, and the characters are owned by the people they were sold to.

Just because they are popular and fanon, it does not equate to being public domain. It is very obvious a high majority of you haven't done any research on the topic of what the definition even is, and it is very likely the person who claimed it used the term incorrectly.

I am BEGGING you all to genuinely do research before you believe something like public domain stuff. With that being said, I believe I can confidently say that the claim/rumor/belief of Volt's characters being public domain, is completely false, debunked, and was a way to excuse stealing Volt's intellectual property at the time, which a lot of you are still doing, and very likely ignorant to it, even if the character designs are no longer Volt's.

Do your research people, it'll help you out greatly instead of leaving you in the dark.

[rebornicartchive]

Hi there, just call me FT, and welcome to my archive blog dedicated to Rebornia/VOLTERGEIST's content on tumblr. Their OCs will be tagged, but fandom related stuff with be tagged as "#others."

I also run a blog that is meant to be a rewrite of the now cancelled Pilot Webcomic, where I am trying to mold it into something that could be potentially likeable, as well as another blog that's a genuine critique blog.

This is not intended to be hate blog, nor do I support Volt for their actions over the years. The reason why I am saying this is because Volt has been demonized by the FNAF fandom and most of their ex-friends for acting the way they did, when they were going through an incredibly shitty time period, and while I don't support Volt's actions, I can understand they were in a bad place mentally and physically.

Onto the topic of the hate/"critique" blogs, there is very obvious transphobia, acephobia, racism, along with other stuff. I do not support any of the blogs that "criticize" or those who demonized Volt over the years by misconstruing information about them, as they are no better themselves for sending threats, doxxing, ableism, and sending real life gore images.

(Rewrite Blog: @re-pilot-info)

(Critique Blog: @volterge1st-critical)

[re-pilot-info]

what about backstories for the characters? are they different?

Almost, especially with the main protagonists!

Taizo - Mostly the same with some major key differences to suit the story more.

Skippy - Same, but with some minor changes.

Greeze & Countdown - Not really much I know about Greeze, but in the rewrite, these two have losta history.

Artman - The same, but again, huge key differences, because he's not a sex depraved freak like in the original.

Pilot - Ohhhh boy.

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

this is unrelated but i am SO jealous of jared masion for being both a writer and a voice actor and working on ieytd2...... he gets to write a plot point in which he gets impersonated and then voice act his own impersonator?? what the fuck? if i was a writer and a voice actor i would get impersonated literally every game. ieytd would become a 'freak of the week' style series where you just have to find out who is impersonating the handler and when

[mcskullmun]

Cossack and Hunter

Yassen and John

Ash and Piper

[cubone-i-guess]

Many much more eloquent and experienced people have written about what makes a horror movie good or bad. Idk anything about all that, but I know that all I really want a horror movie to do, is trust me

[katakaluptastrophy]

The ships … the ships were still full of people. I reached our hand out into space. I extended. I struggled. He said, I bit through the sun first. It’s human nature. That started things going.

Imagine being on those ships (and remember, not everyone in those ships was a nefarious trillionaire) zooming away from earth.

Maybe you've watched mushroom clouds blossoming across the face of the earth as you pulled away, the lines of communication fizzing out and going dead.

Watched...something...happen to the earth. Watched the sun flare and then flicker out.

I sliced through Venus, Mercury, Mars … by that point a couple of the tugs had already launched through the Kuiper. I had to kill Jupiter and Saturn in a fucking hurry. I reached … they blinked away from me … all I could do was hope that they’d watched what I was doing and all died from fucking terror. You and I went full fucking Hungry Caterpillar. We took Uranus … Neptune … crunched down Pluto … found every satellite and craft, reached in, crunched up all the humans, moved on.

You try to make contact with the installations as you pass - the small city on Mars, the helium-3 capture facility at Jupiter, the mines on Saturn's moons, the skeleton crew constructing the shell on Uranus, the Kuiper platform. Maybe the comms are eerily quiet. Or perhaps, you make contact for just a moment, enough time to witness what happens when god doesn't kill people "clean".

As you speed away, the rings of the gas giants burst asunder and the planets seem to desaturate, the readings go haywire as their magnetic fields suddenly destabilise. And something, oh god, something seems to slip away from each one, some absolute acid trip of horror, like some kind of writhing, fleeing ghost.

The moment I found the fleet spinning up to enter FTL, it was too late … I could only grab one of them … and you and I held it in the palm of our hand. I was in there with them. All those frightened people. All those runaway rats.

And then something physically stops one of the ships. Alarms are going off, sparks are flying, lights are flickering, and there's a horrifying sense of presence (if John feeling Alecto's presence was unremitting screaming inside his head, what does the presence of the newly combined John and Alecto feel like? Because I don't think that invovles less eldritch psychic screaming, somehow).

And then you break free, and spin off into some kind of warp of time and space, with the knowledge that you are the last humans left alive in the universe and that something truly terrible lurks on the husk of the earth.

Imagine 5000 years of that tale being passed down through humanity (that's equivalent to the time that passed between the stone age and the present day), as civilisations rose and fell across planets and systems.

And then imagine, one day, being the ship that encountered something they'd never seen before. A ship, of an entirely unfamiliar design, bearing an unfamiliar symbol: a skull. The whole ship is covered in bones. Sleek, designed, inlaid bones. Human bones.

When they hail you, you see humans, but not like you've seen before. They're dressed in strange outfits: military uniforms and robes that look like something from a textbook of the most ancient history. They're carrying swords. Swords! Many of them seem starved and sickly, as if their bodies are consuming themselves. They speak of their empire and their god in strange, archaic words - an impossibly ancient language from the earth that was - of the resurrection of the dead, of the Lord over the River, of necromancy.

And you realise that however horrifying the tales of the earth's death in fire, there are things worse than death.

[izzystizzys]

Ever since touching down on Triple Zero, both a military and quality marker for the planet in his mind, Marshall Commander Fox had become intimately acquainted with the biting pain of headaches and migraines.

This, however, feels like it’s going to make his skull cave inside out.

“I can hear voices, Thorn”, Fox hisses, wide-eyed, breathing harshly through his nose. His bucket sadly lolls around on the pavement from where he ripped it off in a panic, unable to breathe all of a sudden. But even exposure to the open air hasn’t helped much - now, Fox just feels like a fish drowning in water, desperately breathing in the air but unable to keep it in his lungs.

“I mean, we all hear voices, ori’vod, that’s really less concerning than if you couldn’t -“, Thorn begins, hands stretched out towards Fox like he’s trying to approach a rabid beast. “Voices, Thorn!”, Fox repeats, whisper-screaming over the strange sensation of all his blood pooling in his head and ears popping. “In my kriffing head!”

Thorn’s mouth opens to gape, then closes again immediately, countenance turning decidedly more alarmed than before. Fox crumbles to the ground, head clutched in his hands, moaning in painpainpainpain-

The only thing like this he’s felt before is after one of his private meetings with the Chancellor, the one he never lets anyone else have and Fox never remembers. It feels like there’s something else in his head, worming around his thoughts and bouncing off the insides of his skull-

“- is kriffing losing it, Thire, I don’t know what to do -“

“- keep position, help is -“

“- kriffing RED ALERT, what the -“

“- do you mean a karking Venator exploded over Coruscant?!”

“- call it the Zillo Beast - it caved in the side of the ship, apparently, and is making for the surface -“

The pressure inside Fox’s head increases, warmth dripping over his cheeks and from his noise, swelling until he thinks his head really will explode, and then - stops-

Fox looks up, gasping, at the shadow that has fallen across his and Thorn’s patrol, into two massive, glowing eyes. The thing tilts its head, and chirps. It sounds like a greeting.

Silence. Then -

“You’re right”, Fox says, in a daze, “we should kill the Chancellor.”

“WHAT”, Thorn screeches.

———————————

Fox wakes an indeterminate amount of time later to a gentle breeze and nebulous feeling in his head. This is strange for several reasons - one, Guard HQ are both insulated and airconditioned like ass, thus the temperature is always wrong and the air constantly stuffy, and two - he hasn’t woken up not in pain since touching down two years ago.

“Stabby gave you the good shit”, his own voice says, and yeah, that would explain that.

“Stabby is a little bitch”, Fox tries to say, which comes out more like a warbled gurgle. “You’re welcome”, a third voice replies, sarcastically. Fox pries open his eyes with great difficulty. Ah, yes, that’s Stabby looming across the room - and Stone, next to his bedside, lounging in a chair next to a passed-out Thorn, whose head is tilted across the back of his chair at an angle that will definitely put a crick in it.

And, behind them, where the medbay wall used to be, two gigantic, glowing green eyes, tilting along with the rest of the eldritch face floating next to Fox’s bed.

“Hgngndndnsndnfnfffhhh”, he vocalizes, and Stone shrugs. “Yeah, been there the whole time. Do you remember anything?” Fox frowns. Stabby snickers somewhere from his far corner, quietly bustling around and probably concocting something nefarious to make Fox sleep or “take a break”.

Stone’s eyebrows rise incrementally. “Really? Not even when you mounted the space monster, took a joyride through half of Coruscant, crashed through the Senate Dome and battled a lightning-launching Chancellor?”

Fox blinks. The Zillo Beast chirps cheerfully. “Huh.” A sense of strange, deep satisfaction spreads through Fox’s chest, raising goosebumps. “Did we bite his head off? I think we bit his head off.”

Stone chokes, and Stabby races over to thump him on his back, Fox watching warily for any sharp objects. You never know on that one - one second he’s checking your pupils for dilation, then you’ve got a needle sticking out of you and boom, ten hours gone. Or suddenly you’re spitting out decaf - ew - at five kriffing in the morning, being lectured about heart health and some other banthashit.

Something that feels strangely like a chuckle titters across Fox’s mind, and when he looks over, the Zillo Beast is blinking innocently at him.

“Yeah, your little friend did actually bite off the Chancellor’s head” Stone confirms, once he can breathe again. Thorn slowly stirs, until he jackknifes to awareness all at once, and then Fox has a lap full of hugging vod’ika.

“ - took twenty years off my kriffing life, goddamn, ori’vod, you’re giving me grey hair -“

“It’ll match your old man bones”, Stabby murmurs, making Thorn screech indignantly into the top of Fox’s head. The Zillo Beast trills mournfully, aiming a sad look at the medic, who shakes his head and brandishes a hypo at the thing. Fox wonders if he’ll have to intervene - he would try to hypo an eldritch space monster, the absolute lunatic. “Absolutely not - we talked about this, no scritchies until we can be sure it won’t bust more of Fox’s ribs!”

Fox’s mouth opens, and Thorn snickers mercilessly. Stone, far too dignified for it, buries a grin in a datapad. “It’s imprinted on you, Fox’ika”, he says instead, the traitor. “Tried to gte to you in the Jedi temple, but it wouldn’t fit - which is when we brought you here. The interior design was so butt-kriffing ugly it wouldn’t matter much to tear it out.”

“Imprinted?”, Fox asks, not even willing to touch on anything else that’s been said yet. An image flashes across the inside of his skull - him, tossing a space-tennis-ball into the air, and the Zillo Beast slithering off after it. In reality, it perks up and mrows hopefully at Fox God, he wishes he was still insensate. Thorn snickers again, and the desire increases tenfold.

“Yeah, like in that one holoshow, whatchacallit - with that one blonde chick, the Mother of Krayts - you know, the one that made Hound cry when they killed the loth wolves so we had to ban it in barracks?” Thorn’s eyes light up. “Wait, does that make you the mother of Zillos?!”

“Oooh, mummy Fox!”, Stabby screeches, the absolute traitor. Stone breaks out into barking laughter, and Thorn sounds like he’s actively asphyxiating. Fox hates them. Fox turns to the Zillo Beast.

“Please, please eat them.”

[peachdues]

THE BITTER & THE SWEET (PART 1 TEASER)

RENGOKU X F!ICE HASHIRA SECRET PREGNANCY AU

A/N: the second most-voted teaser option from my 2K Milestone Event is here!

A sneak peek of a scene in Part I in which the Ice Pillar suspects something might be off about her health lately (hmmm I wonder what it could be?)

CW: 18+ • not super explicit smut, but still descriptive • things get hot and heavy • Reader’s eggo is preggo but she doesn’t know it yet

Enjoy equally horny and protective/worried Kyojuro in this, you fiends!

She’d felt the beginnings of another blasted migraine the moment she’d opened her eyes, groaning at the incessant brightness of the afternoon sunlight that beamed through her window.

Like all of her previous head pains, it had started as a dull ache on the right side of her skull. Y/N had assumed that she’d only need to drink water and eat something small in order to prevent the headache becoming so severe that she could not rouse herself from bed.

Kyojuro had already been in the process of dressing, humming merrily to himself across the room as he shook his uniform shirt free of any wrinkles. He’d noticed her wince as she sat up from her spot on the futon, clutching the blanket to her bare chest.

“Is your head causing you pain again?” He’d asked, frowning as the Ice Pillar nodded, her eyes screwed shut as she leaned forward to brace her head between her knees.

Kyojuro pursed his lips, though Y/N knew precisely what the Flame Pillar was thinking, because it was what he’d been telling her for weeks.

Something was wrong.

Y/N had never been so persistently exhausted in her life. It was a given, in their profession, that the frequency with which their bodies were pushed beyond the limits of ordinary man meant that there would be times when she would eventually crash and be forced to rest, but this wasn’t one of them.

She’d hardly taken a mission in the last few weeks. Rather, the Ice Pillar had been spending the majority of her nights on patrol, keeping a practiced ear and eye trained for signs of anything nefarious, of which there had been little.

And even those patrols had been wearing her out more than usual, with Y/N hardly making it through the front gates of her manor before crumpling against the Flame Pillar as he waited for her.

But Y/N did not want to concern her lover, as she knew that Kyojuro was especially sensitive to threats of illness, given everything he’d endured with his mother as a boy.

“Perhaps I’ve been over-exerting myself,” Y/N said lightly, stretching to conceal her wince as she felt another sharp stab in her temple. She added, slyly, “After all, we didn’t get quite as much rest this morning as we likely needed.”

Kyojuro raised his eyebrow at her, a smirk forming on his sensual lips even though his cheeks tinged a faint pink at what she implied. For despite all of exhaustion she’d felt upon arriving home earlier that morning, Y/N had not protested when her flame-haired lover stealthily entered through her slightly-open bedroom window to slide into her futon beside her. Nor had she any complaints when she felt his lips begin to trace up her bare spine, his hands tugging the blankets away from her hips as he promised he’d do all the work, before sliding into her from behind.

Of course, his demonstration of care and consideration for her comfort had only made her need for him grow with every lovingly deep push of his hips against her backside. And so, the moment she’d felt Kyojuro’s hot seed spill across her lower back, she’d flipped them over, effortlessly sheathing him back inside her heat as her walls still pulsed with her previous climax, and began to ride him.

Really, she shouldn’t have been surprised that she was a little dehydrated after the morning’s activities.

Her words apparently struck a chord, as Kyojuro slowly approached the side of the futon, his eyes simmering with a heat that made her thighs clench together. “Then perhaps I should stay at my estate tonight,” his voice was low, almost a purr, as he knelt on the soft padding of her bed, his hands braced dangerously close to where she lay beneath the blankets, still nude. “After all, I don’t want to be the reason the Corps’ beautiful Ice Pillar is unable to tend to her duties.”

His eyes were pools of molten ore as they raked over her. Kyojuro’s nose brushed against hers, and Y/N found herself tilting her face up, the anticipation of his kiss sending tingles down her spine.

“Is that what you want, Y/N?” He murmured, and he ducked around her waiting mouth in favor of grazing the underside of her jaw with his nose, his lips just ghosting over the exposed length of her neck, as he inhaled her scent. “For me not to come to you tonight?”

Her eyes slid closed as she felt Kyojuro’s lips skim over to the hollow base of her throat, where he pressed one, gentle kiss, chuckling gently against her skin as he felt her pulse quicken beneath his mouth.

Y/N found it was easy to forget the piercing pain in her skull when Kyojuro made her whole body thrum with want, as he shifted over her, his considerable, strong thighs braced on either side of her hips. He fell forward, careful to keep most of his weight off her as he caught himself, his arms coming to rest on either side of her head, as he rolled his groin once against hers.

Y/N gasped at the contact, for even between the layers of his hakama pants and her blankets, she could feel the warmth of his desire for her, against her thigh.

Still bracing most of his weight on his arms, Kyojuro lowered himself, push-up style, to graze his lips against hers, pushing himself back up when she tried to deepen the kiss, a teasing smirk tugging at his mouth as she let out a frustrated little whine.

Fine. If he wanted to play, then so be it.

“It might be a good idea,” she pretended to concede, relishing the way his eyebrow rose in surprise. “After all, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to sleep alone, stark naked, and with every window and door of my manor wide open-“

Y/N did not get to complete her taunt as Kyojuro’s mouth slanted harshly over hers with a low growl, his hips pressing firmly down against hers as he pinned her beneath his body. Moaning against his lips, Y/N squirmed beneath him to let her thighs to fall open to him, allowing him to settle between her legs as he pressed his hardening length right against where she needed him most, and ground once.

“Careful, my flame,” Kyojuro exhaled against her lips as he broke their kiss for air. “Do not start what you cannot finish.”

Kyojuro moved to press a slow, open mouthed kiss against the side of her neck, his teeth grazing her pulse point and making her whine as he pushed his stiffened cock right against the most sensitive point between her thighs.

Y/N whimpered as she bucked her hips up into his, desperate for him to relieve her of the bubbling fire he’d stoked between her legs. She was about to reach for his belt and demand he take her rough, and quick, when he pulled back, his weight disappearing from her entirely as he rose off the futon.

A warm finger curled under her chin and tilted her face up towards him, as Kyojuro answered her indignant glare with a smug grin of his own. “Because you know how I like to take my time with you.”

Y/N threw the futon covers off her naked form, and a part of her was pleased at the way the Flame Pillar’s stare darkened at the sight of her breasts and bare core, her lover firmly turning his back to her as he continued to get ready, though she could see the tips of his ears were bright red.

Without the distraction of Kyojuro’s lips and body, the throb in her head amplified once more, and Y/N had to press her hand against her mouth to fight off the sudden wave of nausea that slammed into her as the room began to tilt. She closed her eyes taking two, steadying breaths before opening them again, the walls around her thankfully no longer moving.

Y/N finally stood, shrugging one of Kyojuro’s yukata’s that laid on her futon over her shoulders to cover her bare form before moving to seek out the stash of medicinal tea Shinobu had made for her to help combat particularly bad migraines. But the moment she’d fastened the belt around her waist, the pain in her skull had amplified, going from a dull, nagging ache to a sharp, blinding pain, that made her stumble.

Kyojuro’s attention snapped to where his lover stood near her bedroom door, swaying precariously as her hand raised to the right side of her head, clutching at it weakly. With a tiny oh! Y/N’s knees buckled beneath her. She would have dropped to the floor had Kyojuro not lunged across the room to catch her, ensnaring her safely in his arms as he lowered them to the ground, Y/N’s full weight supported against him.

“Y/N!” Kyojuro’s hand found the side of her face, now flushed and warm as her teeth ground against another dizzying lash of pain. Warm hands gripped under her knees as the Flame Pillar maneuvered her across his lap, so that she was braced bridal-style against his thighs as he knelt on the floor. “Can you hear me?”

She realized that her eyes were still tightly shut as she panted through the stabbing sensation behind her eyes, a dull ring echoing in her ears. Y/N didn’t trust herself not to scream if she relaxed her jaw, so she only nodded, her fingers fisted tightly in her hair.

“I’m taking you to Kocho’s,” Kyojuro’s voice had an authoritative severity that she’d only ever heard him use on lower-ranked slayers, or in battle with demons. “I will carry you there myself-“

“No!” Y/N gasped out, her other hand coming to fist his weakly at the front of his uniform shirt. “You have other duties that need your attention — I can go myself, I’ll be fine.”

The hand Kyojuro had braced at her waist tightened. “Duties be damned,” his voice was harsh, even though the hand that cupped her face was not. “You are my priority.”

Though the splitting pain in her head muddled most of her thoughts, it was not enough to dull the weight of his words — what it would mean, for them both, if Kyojuro showed up to the Butterfly Mansion with her in his arms, wearing his yukata, and having to explain how he’d managed to catch her before she’d wiped out on her bedroom floor.

Why he’d been in her bedroom at all.

But the throbbing in her skull was so strong, had rendered her so weak, that Y/N found herself about to concede and allow him to expose their secret to the Insect Hashira — and thus, to the Corps at large — when a piercing shriek sounded across the room by her open window.

“CAW!” Both Pillars winced at the cry of the crow from where it sat perched on the window sill. “Lord Rengoku! Your presence is urgently requested in the North!”

“Fuck,” a rare curse fell from the Flame Pillar’s mouth, as he turned his attention back down to his lover, “It can wait, you’re more important —“

But Y/N was already shaking her head, planting her feet against the floor as she began trying to rise unsteadily. “It can’t, and you know it.”

Her legs shook slightly as she stood, Kyojuro rising with her, his arm locked securely around her waist as he helped lift her up.

Y/N swayed slightly, her hand returning to clutch her head as she fought to maintain her balance. Kyojuro kept his hands on her, warm and steady, but firm. Though her eyes were closed, Y/N could sense the war that waged within him, torn between his duty to the Corps, and his devotion to her.

The ache in her head had eased somewhat, and weakly, Y/N lifted her hand to his, Kyojuro’s clasping tightly around hers.

“Go,” she said, and when his eyes lifted to hers, she saw the anguish roiling within — and the slightest trace of fear for her. “I’ll get to Kocho’s just fine. I promise.”

A tortured look passed over his face, but he nodded. Kyojuro brought their joined hands to his mouth, his lips pressing hard against her fingers.

“I will be back as soon as I can,” he promised, lips whispering against her hand. “If I have not returned by the time you’ve seen Kocho, or if anything changes, send a crow.” His hand squeezed around her in pleading. “Promise me, Y/N.”

She nodded, rallying her strength to give him a faint smile. “I promise.”

Kyojuro exhaled slightly as he ducked down, brushing his lips twice against hers. “If you need me, I will be there. I will cross any distance,” he vowed. He kissed her hand where it was joined with his once more before he pulled away. “I’ll see you soon.”

LIKES/REBLOGS/COMMENTS ALWAYS APPRECIATED!

[estrogenblast]

to this very day, mike is controlled by the nefarious skull

[volterge1st-critical]

Heya, just call me F.T, this is just a blog I made to see others' critiques on Voltergeist/Rebornica. Unlike the other critical blogs related to Voltergeist, this isn't a hate blog that nit-picks on almost every miniscule thing.

And as much as I do not like the other blogs, who have had incredibly immature mods who are racist, transphobic, acephobic, ableist, hatewatchers, doxxers etc; there are indeed some valid criticisms, but they are overshadowed by blind, very obvious hatred for a person who has been treated horribly, and ended up treating everyone else horribly back as a result, and that person is Volt.

I do not support or condone the harassment of Volt even if they've done bad things as a result from how they were treated as a child, nor do I support the other critical blogs that have genuinely been a way to basically squash and tear them down. Nefskullcritique and Pilot-Critical are no exception, as they both are nitpicking blogs, and they are not innocent from their own consequences as much as Volt isn't.

Regardless, do feel free to submit GENUINE CRITICISM, keyword: GENUINE. This is not a hate blog, nor is this a fan/support blog, please keep this in mind at all times, and try not to make this a negative environment for others, this is supposed to be a neutral blog.

[cerealmonster15]

jamiazu / ashenviper week day 2: potionology!!!

Ummm teacher why isn’t their nefarious concoction’s smoke cloud turning into a skull and crossbones like the rest of ours 🤨

[stxrvel]

i don't wanna live forever (1)

summary: reader couldn't stop having deaths in her life ever since the Supersoldier serum came into her life. no matter how hard she tried to stay sane, it seemed that life didn't want to give her a break. until, one afternoon, she learned that one of her old friends was alive… (you guys know im bad at summaries, but please give this one a chance)

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

words: +4.5k

warnings: angst, major character deaths, canon deaths¿?, bad words, english is not my first language! thoughts of revenge and death, this is like an introductory chapter, so the buckyxreader interaction is low, but it'll get better, i promise!

note: holy fuck guys. i just spent like five hours writing and editing this and i fucking love it. its been a while since ive been this proud of a work, im actually scare the emotion will disappear, but i really want to rejoice in this one. i wanted to write something a little different from my usuals, maybe a little common in the fanfiction world, but i started and i simply could not stop (or maybe just approach this bucky fic from another perspective). so this is the first part and i'll try with all my heart to keep this going because it was fucking insane, at least for me. i really hope you all like this as much as i do! feel free to leave any comment! thanks always for all the support!! see you next time <3

part 2 ; part 3 ; part 4

When you went into the Supersoldier serum project with Steve, you thought you were going to change the world. Of course, at that time when technology was relatively new any invention felt like the beginning of a new era. That's how it was all sold to you and it was how you expected everything to turn out… Until you realized that it was all really a waste of effort and time.

They were just propaganda for war. Not to stop it, to promote it. To motivate it.

You tried, on several occasions, not to think too much about it. You tried to stay out of it as Steve sometimes asked you to, even though even he didn't want to, as Bucky asked you to when you lay on his shoulder to cry in the little time you had free between trips. It was a great burden of guilt and helplessness.

Until you and Steve, with the almost imposed help of Peggy and Howard, rescued Bucky from the evil hands of Johann Schmidt and his nefarious organization, HYDRA, that, unbeknownst to you, would haunt you for a long time to come. It was only after that, after spending several sleepless days on edge thinking about what might be happening to Bucky, that you and Steve were finally able to go out and contribute something. Destroy HYDRA and the Red Skull's plans.

Of course, you realized that not everything could go right when, the one mission you couldn't attend, Bucky didn't return. And then Steve didn't come back either.

“Do you think this will ever end?” you had asked Bucky the day before his last mission.

“Of course it will,” he had answered without hesitation, moonlight illuminating his clear eyes, squeezing your hand as if it was all he wanted to do for the rest of his life. “And after that we can begin to live as it should be.”

But there was no after that, because you never recovered from losing him. From losing them both.

“Are you okay?” Peggy approached, in the middle of the afternoon when the sun was streaming through the stained glass windows of the church, illuminating the spot where Steve's empty coffin had been, because they didn't even find his body. They didn't even think there was any of it left.

You barely moved your head to acknowledge her presence, moving the prayer slip they had recited throughout the mass between your hands. Your eyes were crystallized, in tears that no longer even made the effort to flow, because you had already spent too many days and nights crying. Peggy had been on the other side of the church, sitting next to Howard while the priest spoke, because you had refused to be near them in those moments. You didn't want to be near them.

“As well as one can be,” you slurred, finding that it had been a long time since you'd last used your voice for anything other than cursing and crying disconsolately.

The people had already left, probably an hour or more ago. The empty coffin had already been brought out, all the flower arrangements had been picked up, and the priest was preparing for the evening mass. You knew you had to leave, you knew Peggy and Howard were there waiting for you, but you felt stuck at that moment. You didn't want to leave, you didn't want to get ahead, you didn't want that life if it had to be this cruel.

You heard Peggy's sigh, before she took a seat next to you, a short distance away, averting her gaze to look at Christ on the cross.

You didn't know if you were selfish to be so closed off to your friends at this moments, because they must be grieving as much as you were, but you didn't know how to deal with the future possibilities. Bucky and Steve, great men and soldiers, one even with enhanced abilities, had not been able to make it through the punishment of war. What if Peggy and Howard were the same? What if they too had the cruel fate of dying at the hands of injustice? Could you deal with that? With everyone gone?

Maybe you could open up to them a little more because if not, who else? Turning away from them was not going to ensure their survival in this hate-filled society. Maybe you could protect them, like you couldn't protect Steve and Bucky. Maybe you could make a difference, because you had the chance to.

“You know,” Peggy spoke again, rearranging herself on the bench and crossing her legs, “Steve always knew this was how it would end.”

Her wistful, mournful, fragile voice sent a shiver through your body. Peggy didn't consider herself someone to show herself vulnerable in front of others no matter how close they were, even in those things that hurt her the most, in those things that affected her personally and made her eyes water instantly, she always tended to shut down. And at that moment you didn't dare interrupt her because you knew it would probably be the only time she would talk about Steve in a long time.

“Sometimes we'd talk, between tour trips, and he would tell me that wasn't what he wanted to do, even when he had to convince you otherwise,” her clasped hands would occasionally squeeze between words, blinking rapidly to fight back the tears. “He didn't know if he'd made the right decision.”

You could almost picture him, backstage at the foot of the stairs with that notebook he carried everywhere and wouldn't let go, Peggy at his side nostalgic, as helpless as the others. It reminded you of the times you'd had similar conversations with Bucky, desperate to find a purpose, a way through so much fog.

“The first time I saw him so sure of himself was when he asked us to help them look for Bucky,” she mumbled his name, as if trying not to scare you away by saying it too loudly. “Ever since then it seemed like he'd found that spark…”

“Until Bucky died,” you whispered, the words cutting through the cold and silence, Peggy shifting on the bench contritely.

“He lost something of himself from that day on, it wasn't hard to tell. The next time I heard him so sure after spending days lost, it was on that call from the plane.”

Peggy paused, raising her hand to cover her mouth as her voice faltered. You turned to look at her, wishing you could rip the pain from her soul and leave it in yours. She was trying to contain her emotions, breathing deeply, and in that moment you wondered what life might be like from now on, with the specter of grief following you around, waiting for the next time the dead knocked on your doors, unexpectedly, without allowing you to say goodbye.

“He had told me he wouldn't die in peace until he could get it all over with. And he took it all with him. And I hated him so much for it…” Peggy sobbed, her labored breathing standing out between words. She kept looking straight ahead at the stained glass windows, the expression on her face hard and scowling despite having tears rolling down her cheeks, as if she were trying to blame something for what had happened. Her reproachful eyes fixed on the Christ.

Her wails echoed through the walls of the church, the father on the dais sending them a look of sorrow. He had offered you water, thirty minutes after everyone at Steve's wake had left, when they kept walking, and you stood there.

Another empty casket.

“Ladies,” Howard's voice reached your ears amidst all the physical and emotional numbness. You could barely notice Peggy wiping under her eyes with the pocket square that was surely part of Howard's suit, as she took breaths to get up. “We should go now.”

You heard him walk, his slow, careful steps stopping just behind you. There, on his feet with his chest tight, he rested a hand on your shoulder and gave it a squeeze in support. He knew it was the most you would allow him at a time like this, deciding not to pass up the opportunity to let you know he was there. You sighed, feeling a heaviness take over your body as you stood up.

“Yeah, let's go.”

The next few months passed in a blur. Maybe too fast, maybe too slow, you weren't sure anymore.

Peggy continued to work at the Strategic Science Reserve for a couple of years, calling you from time to time to help her with some jobs. You kept a low profile, practically a fugitive from the state, while trying to live a halfway normal life in Europe. A lot of it thanks to Howard really.

Life had become a rather monotonous routine when you stopped getting so many calls from Peggy and Howard several years later. You knew they were fine, but not being able to return to the country filled you with anguish every day. And trying to lead a normal life became too complicated when you looked in the mirror and it seemed like not a single day had passed since you were in that capsule of Dr. Erskine's with Steve.

Until Peggy called one day asking you to come back. She told you that it was safe, that there would be no state officials waiting for you at the airport, but even if that had been the situation, you wouldn't have hesitated for a second to buy the first plane ticket and fly to see them again. To Howard and Peggy, to melt into an embrace, longing for the lost years.

You had thought that contributing to the fight in World War II had earned you a ticket to at least be recognized in the military, but all you gained was the government with their mad scientists looking for you to try to recreate the Supersoldier serum. Peggy didn't want to risk you and Howard gave you no choice by giving you a plane ticket to Finland with your bags packed.

You wasted many years not being by their side, unable to keep the promise you had made them in your head to be close by to protect them, to watch over their safety.

But when you left the airport there was only Peggy, and maybe that should've told you everything.

Her hair already looked gray, the effects of gravity and time present on her face. You hated to think that you shouldn't have looked any different from the way she saw you last time when she waved you off at that same airport. Her warm gaze was the same, raising her arms with held back tears to encircle you in a big hug. She tried hard not to sob against your shoulder, you felt the choppy movement of her breath against your chest.

She looked so different and the same at the same time.

You walked to her car a moment later, her trying to carry your suitcase and you telling her you were perfectly fine carrying it on your own. Amidst a smile, she walked into the driver's door and you frowned as you saw the empty passenger seat.

“Where's Howard?” you spoke as you sat down, after stowing the huge suitcase in the trunk of the car. The way you moved to buckle up, you didn't notice the way Peggy froze in place, her hands clenching the steering wheel so tightly that her breath hitched from the effort.

“We're going to see him,” was all she said, but she was very good at hiding that something was wrong. Only for a little while.

During the trip, even though you tried to ask things about them, about what they had been doing during this time, you didn't miss the way her shoulders were tense or her eyes very alert. Something bad had happened and Peggy was trying to hide it from you.

When she pulled up in front of a church, you already knew what had happened without her answering a single one of your questions.

Howard had died.

You two had sat next to Howard's son Tony, his spitting image, in complete silence as the prayers went on. At that moment you didn't know what had happened, hoping it had been a quiet and peaceful death, because you didn't know if you would be able to endure another violent death.

Peggy gave you all the details when the mass was over, after the coffin was taken away, and you hadn't felt such fury in so many years. Not since the deaths of Bucky and Steve had that adrenaline rush of anger returned to run through your body as violently as it did at that moment, when Peggy told you that he had been murdered along with his wife. All to steal some prototypes of Dr. Erskine's serum. The damned serums with which everything had started.

This time there was a body in the coffin, but there was also a culprit. Someone to point the finger at and take it out on for years of anguish and pain.

You were at Peggy's house, staying for a few days, when she told you that wasn't all.

Peggy had a suspicion that HYDRA hadn't disappeared when Steve crashed that plane into the ice. Her suspicions generated panic in you, because Bucky and Steve had died for that, now apparently Howard, only for it all to have been for nothing. The feeling of carnage that ran through your whole head made you nauseous, years of helplessness and pain pent up in such a small body had to find its way out somehow.

“It was a man, according to the information I've been able to gather,” Peggy spoke, taking a seat across from you in the dining room of her living room, after pouring you a glass of lemonade. “He didn't die from the crash. He had a concussion. He was hit in the head. His wife died from asphyxiation.”

“Does Tony know?”

“No,” Peggy shook her head quickly, one hand over her heart as if the mere thought caused her physical pain. “It didn't even occur to me to tell him something like that.”

“And he was looking for the serum,” you recalled, a bitter feeling planted in the back of your throat, the memories of the disastrous times during the war coming back into your head like a blinding flash.

“He took them. We don't know who he is or who he works for, but whoever they are, they must have been following us for a long time to know about them.”

“You mean years,” you arched an eyebrow, your fingers touching the cool exterior of the glass seeking some reassurance.

“Possibly. That project isn't recent,” Peggy nodded, drinking her lemonade with a grimace. You stared at the liquid almost finished from her glass, a wrinkle forming between your brows with each passing second and you kept wondering why.

“But what the fuck was going through that asshole's head?” you spat angrily. Rage at already the amount of lives that serum had taken with it and at Howard's recklessness. Rage at the reaper who seemed to be following in their footsteps for some reason, rage at that damn man and whoever his damn boss was.

“It was the only option, Y/N,” Peggy turned her gaze, meeting your eyes with a strange glint.

“What do you mean?” you were almost afraid to ask, your friend's gaze suddenly turning evasive. You watched her run her fingernails over the glass of the tumbler, lost for a moment in thought. The way her shoulders slumped forward in defeat caused a pressure in your chest that made it hard to breathe. Peggy shouldn't be going through these things at this point in life.

“Howard was working with the Pentagon, as a contractor or something. They had found you. Howard felt cornered and they made him sign an agreement.”

With your incredulous look on her face, Peggy didn't dare look back at you for a few seconds. So much had happened since you had left and it seemed that you had only been told about the things you weren't going to care about so much. But if you had known that you wouldn't have cared much about giving some of the state officials their comeuppance. You would've liked Howard to trust you enough to tell you, not live in as much fear behind his back as the last few years must've been. You didn't like the way Peggy's lips curved downward, as if she, too, would've preferred to make another decision had she known this was how it was going to end.

“Howard assured them that he could recreate the serum, and told them he would as long as they left you alone.”

“Fucking asshole…” you closed your eyes, scrubbing your face with your hands. The rough skin of your hands rubbed against the delicate skin of your face, years of combat and mistreatment foreseeing a harshness that reminded you every day of what you'd had to go through to get to that moment.

“I only found out about it after it happened. I didn't see it for like a whole week,” Peggy shook her head slightly, her eyes glistening in the pain of the memories. You shook your head hard, a more violent reaction than you could have anticipated.

“That stupid… stupid asshole! What the fuck made him think I couldn't defend myself?”

“He was trying to do the right thing,” Peggy finally searched your eyes, meeting the red rims that told her you were holding back too hard breaking in front of her, only using that pain mixed with rage to keep you sane.

“And look how that turned out!”

Peggy stretched her hand across the table, with a pleading look asking you to lower your voice, averting her gaze to the hallway. You followed her gaze, for a second forgetting where you were, forgetting that her family was with you behind the doors where you were plunged into darkness. It was past midnight.

You took a second to calm yourself, trying to drown out the uncontrolled emotions and taking deep breaths to calm your fluttering heart.

“And if what you theorize is true…” you regretted the moment those words left your mouth; you didn't even want to finish the sentence.

“Do you think it is?”

“I don't want to,” you shook your head instantly, closing your eyes, the thought sounding illogical inside your head. Your hands on your chest trying to contain the storm of feelings that was making chaos inside your head. “That would mean that everything we did, everything Bucky, Steve and Howard did and sacrificed, was in vain. It will all have been in vain.”

You spent several weeks with that thought in your head, working hand in hand with Peggy, and the organization you barely knew as SHIELD, to track down the whereabouts of the killer of Tony's parents and the one responsible because the Supersoldier's serums were, surely, in the wrong hands.

And yes, it was many years of fruitless missions and dead ends, with you running every field mission and Peggy calling the shots from the New York facility. Every time you felt close to discovering something, it seemed that the enemy rejoiced in your failures and still couldn't understand how they were always three steps ahead.

However, you had to leave the missions when Peggy became ill.

The silent, lethal Alzheimer's.

During the first months in the hospital, she still recognized you. She also recognized her husband and children. But after the first year, she frowned every time her children walked through the door. After a year and a half, her husband had to remind her that they had been married for about forty years.

After two years, she was still only remembering you, Howard, Steve and Bucky. Her whole life during her time in the army was all you talked about, sometimes you would tell her how much more time had passed than she remembered and always, without fail, she would ask you how much you had done in Europe for so long by yourself.

She cried every time she remembered Howard's death. She cried every time she remembered her children. Out of her mouth came a thousand apologies that no one would accept, because there was nothing anyone could do to prevent what had to happen. You wished she had been a serum test subject instead of you.

For several years, missions to find Tony's parents killer were sporadic because you spent more time around Peggy than at the SHIELD facility. She was the only thing you had left of everything you'd ever had, of when you held the world in your hands. She was the last thing keeping you tethered to that reality, keeping madness from flooding your reason. How could you have so many years ahead of you when that was all you had to live for? A life full of the dead, full of pain and suffering. What kind of karma were you paying for?

You were leaving the SHIELD facility, after another failed mission, when Nick Fury stopped you in front of the exit. You almost rolled your eyes right under his watchful gaze, tired of having to meet him anywhere, and exhausted from his comments about this vengeance project or whatever he wanted you to be a part of.

You still didn't know how, being such an exemplary agent, Coulson had fallen into his nets.

“Miss L/N,” the man stopped you with his words, his hands behind his back and a tense stance that caught your attention.

“Fury,” you nodded in his direction, hoping he'd be quick because you were running late for your weekly visit with Peggy. “Do you need anything?”

“I'd like you to come with me somewhere,” Fury approached tentatively, his one eye fixed on your wary expression, which shifted to boredom the moment you thought you knew what he wanted.

“If this is about that project, I've told you a thousand times-”

“No,” he interrupted you, moving forward and removing his hands from behind his back. “It's not related to that. I really want you to come with me.”

“You look agitated, but I need-”

“I'll take you to see Peggy myself after this.”

You didn't like that he knew your routine, even though you weren't doing enough to hide it from the other agents. But Fury looked nervous, even though he was hiding it very well, trying to keep his cool as he looked for ways to convince you.

You figured it wouldn't be a big deal for you to go off the deep end for once. After all, Peggy never remembered you were going to see her.

You set off in Fury's armored vans, not quite sure where you were going, but sure that it was urgent, because he had taken it upon himself to let his driver know that you had to get there as soon as possible.

You took that time on the trip to come up with a new strategy for the next mission because what you were doing up to that point wasn't working and you felt too close to throwing in the towel, figuratively speaking. You could spend years following a ghost, but you wouldn't give up on finding Howard and Maria's killer.

Before the car pulled up to one of SHIELD's secret sections, they passed the giant, imposing Stark Tower. You never saw Tony again after that time at his parents' funeral, not even during his visits to Peggy because you always made it a point not to cross him. You didn't think you'd be able to look him in the eye while you knew his parents had been killed without being able to tell him. You had promised Peggy in her lucid moments that you wouldn't tell him anything until you could find the culprit. You didn't want to initiate that pain if it had to be kept repressed, as yours once was, and probably still is. You had learned, some time after the funeral, that he was living with Edwin Jarvis, and you were glad to know that he would have good companionship to keep him company in such hard times.

Fury, a handful of agents and you entered the vans through the entrance to what appeared to be the parking lot of an old warehouse. Upon entering, the first thing you noticed was the number of armed agents that seemed to be guarding the place, not at all discreet to how SHIELD used to do things. You weren't sure if Peggy would authorize something like that, but you couldn't question the Director's decisions. It wasn't your place.

“What's going on here?” you frowned, watching as every meter there was another agent and another agent. You got out of the car without waiting for an answer from Fury, moving directly toward the entrance where most of the agents were concentrated. You barely noticed their looks in contradiction, running their eyes over you and then over the man trying to catch up to you, dubious as to whether or not they should move. “Move.”

“Wait,” Fury's voice stopped the command in the agents, who turned back to look at you as you sent Fury a confused look.

“What's all this mystery, Nicholas?” the man startled almost discreetly at your tone of voice, the agents stirring uncomfortably, but kept the serene expression that was getting on your nerves. “What the fuck did you do?”

“We got a call from the Arctic.”

“From the Arctic?”

You tried to ignore the way the hairs on your neck instantly stood up, your body alerting you to something your mind still couldn't comprehend. You felt like a deer face to face with a predator, expecting the worst.

“The Colonel informed us of something that might interest us,” Fury's cryptic voice echoed in your ears, drowning out the flicker of uncertainty vibrating from your head to your toes. “They found a plane.”

You didn't even answer him. Your heart began to pound wildly, cornered, ready to have your head bitten off. The tension in your shoulders intensified, with the involuntary movement of your hands as you broke into a cold sweat. The mere implication of his words caused an emptiness in your stomach, a sense of longing and fear you hadn't felt before.

You looked at Fury, trying to find in his gaze the gleam of a lie, but there was nothing there but assurance. There was nothing but recognition and understanding in his gaze, but that didn't make the emptiness in your stomach and the tight chest go away. It didn't make the feeling of being outside your body go away.

You barely remembered to move in the direction of the door, the agents instantly moving out of your way, pushing it so hard that one of them flew out. You moved your eyes around every corner of the room, the cream-colored walls generating a great repulsion in you. And there, in the midst of all the confusion and the storm, a confused and disgruntled face looked back at you. A face you never thought you would see again.

Steve Rogers was standing a few feet away from you, barely comprehending what was happening around him and instantly recognizing you. Your chest compressed once again, the tears you held back for so many years even in your loneliness making their own way into your eyes, endangering to end that mask you wore everywhere you went.

Steve was actually there, looking back at you with his eyes shining in recognition. You didn't know if he was as surprised as you were to react or you looked so bad that he didn't know if he should approach you or not. You just knew it was him, it really was him right there in front of you. He wasn't dead. Steve wasn't dead. He was alive. Ah, he was so alive.

The broken sob that suddenly left you was loud enough to make your friend shed his stupefaction and stride over to where you were. You barely managed to cover your face, between sobs, wails and disbelief, feeling your knees give out, surrendering to the weight of the pain, when his strong arms grabbed your shoulders before you hit the floor. Preventing your fall, as you had wished so many times before.

You cried against his shoulder, when feeling him against your body you knew there was no doubt it was true. You moved your hands away from your face, wrapping them around his waist as tightly and lovingly as you hadn't hugged anyone in so long. Surely the last time you hugged someone like that was when you saw Peggy on your way back from Europe.

Steve wasn't far behind, his arms around your shoulders just as tightly, his chin against the crown of your head, moving from side to side trying to hold back the loud sobs that shook your body.

You couldn't believe it, but it was true, he was right in front of you.

Steve was alive. He had come back to your side. You didn't even want to ask why.

And there was nothing else you could think about for the rest of your life.

[rose-morose]

I was just thinking about the Gravity Falls 'Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons' episode and it got me thinking about what D&D 5e class each of the characters would be

(spoilers under the cut if you still haven't seen this show)

(just go watch it, seriously, watch it)

Grunkle Stan: this one is pretty obvious, the man is a rogue thief, even though he relies highly on charisma checks, he rarely succeeds as it is his cunning and sleight of hand that serve him best, and his penchant for burglary and spotty criminal record are an added bonus

Ford: a warlock with the incomparable Bill Cipher as a patron, it was a deal he struck with Bill that gave him the knowledge and skills necessary to complete his project, all the while Bill manipulated him into furthering his own agenda

Gideon: another warlock with the same patron as Ford, the nefarious Bill Cipher, and although Gideon can perform magic on his own, it was his partnership with Bill that made him a major player, but nevertheless he may have multiclassed into another caster, most likely a bard judging by his flair for the dramatic

Wendy: some type of ranger, her natural instinct, rural upbringing, lumberjack training, and survivalist skills make her an ideal candidate for the ranks of rangers defending the fringes of civilisation, her aptitude for nature would serve her well in the hunt

Dipper: probably a wizard, he relies on his intelligence as he wasn't born into the arcane, he must instead study it alone, he is not granted power by a patron, a deity, or an ancient bloodline, he built his skills up overtime with research and training to manipulate the power already around him

Mabel: definitely a college of lore bard, she reacts to every assault with cutting words, and with a creative and flamboyant personality coupled with her affinity for stagecraft (puppet shows), she fits the narrative of the bard perfectly

Grenda: could not be more barbarian coded, with the rage, the muscle, the intimidation, and the ability to inflict physical trauma she's got it all, you can't get more barbarian than that, be cautious when approaching, lest your skull be caved in with a sofa

that's all I have for now maybe I'll do more later

[hellowoolf]

on strawberries and masonry: chapter v

series summary: you atone for your sins, now, in a jackson garden, learning to care for soft things and yourself. joel miller is a lethal sort of similar, and misery loves company

OR

you live in jackson and meet joel and you’re both damaged little babies and fall in love (but i’m drawing this shit out🫶🫶)

warnings: angst, age gap (reader late 20s/early 30s, joel 50s), maria is pregnant, the dinner party trope™️, joel picks reader up (but its actually been foretold that he can hold any weight ever, so don’t even worry about it), jealous!joel, possessive!joel, SMUT !!!!!, fingering, oral (f and m receiving), unprotected piv, breeding kink (don't...even start), creampie, FEELINGS !! (as always, let me know if i missed any !!)

word count: 7.9k

authors note: an epilogue will be (probably) on the way but this is our last full chapter !! gag !! this is my first ever series and i'm so elated i decided to write and release it. this last chapter drained me mind body and soul and i don't know how i feel about it but i really hope you enjoy <3

series masterlist | masterlist

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the realization of your feelings for joel, that against all better judgment you’re tumbling somewhat unceremoniously in love with him, nestles itself between your ribs to scratch at your bones. it’s a tolerable ache, at first, and because you refuse to give into anything, you let it remain while joel fucks you on his tongue and fingers. you let him cover your skin in his spit and your slick and the marks of his fingernails, and inch closer to the doom of loving him, believing yourself capable of handling it, willing yourself to handle it. and you do. mostly.

what comes first is a need for him you’re unequipped for. his refusal to fuck you properly again (a promise he has continued to hold himself to) becomes increasingly unendurable, and you’re pushed beyond even the lust for him you’d fought against months earlier. you need him, daily, at least, pulling him behind the stables or coming to slam on his door so you can live another day. you want to please him, to mend him, to save him, even though you know you are incapable, and you try what becomes embarrassingly often to get on your knees for him, but he always denies you. yes, this is the first symptom of your almost-love, a wanting that reaches your innermost self and expands beyond the edges of you.  

the second symptom is anger, a nefarious deviousness against him, a spiteful resentment for the small ways he rejects you. you are less cautious with him, nipping at him on patrol or in the dining hall with your own sexuality, constructing heavily unsubtle innuendos and whispering them in his ear. you’re looking to punish him, so irrevocably that he’s compelled to kiss you again, to fuck you again, but until now you’ve failed at ensnaring him fully. you barely recognize yourself this way; you have never been one for this wild sort of flirting, the obvious kind, but you succumb to it regardless. 

the softness of him is the worst part. you skim your hands up his thighs and pull on the loops of his belt to tempt him to you in the ways he still refuses to give, and he’ll deny you orgasm as punishment, but still he materializes on your porch, or sits you next to him in the aftermath of the pleasure he does allot you, wet with your arousal, and lets you tell him about your life, leaves you breadcrumbs of his. he likes that spot he found on your neck that night when you cut the strawberry, wraps his palm around the base of your skull to feel the warmth of it, and with his callouses circling your skin you know that this is the most awful thing, the most terrible. it’s shameful, really, that he should show you this kindness when you’re this close to complete devotion to him.

“what d’you think, little wolf?” 

little wolf. maybe this trumps even his hand on your head. last week, with three fingers in your dripping cunt joel had stilled his hand in you, let you thrash against him while he smiled into your hairline, and you bit hard into the flesh of his shoulder, leaving the marks of your canines there. easy, little wolf, he’d grunted into you, and he felt you pulse when he said it, so he’s kept the name, uses it often.

“hm?” you lift your head from his thigh, bare legs curled up along the couch while he sits back on the cushions. he’d tugged you from your walk to your garden into his home, licked into you while you pulled on his hair, made you come on his sofa like he’d savor the stain. his hand comes from around the back of your head to your face, thumb sweeping across your chin and along your bottom lip. you take it in your mouth and suck, eyes on his as his own mouth drops open.

“bout the jam. you want me to show you how to make it?” he repeats, voice low and broken as you swirl your tongue along the pad of his thumb. you’d brought the strawberries up again, how many you have and the white fuzz they grow; noah helped you remove the heaters from inside the greenhouse as temperatures rose outside, but a chill remained, and so your plant began a slow death. you’re left now with a small batch you like the idea of preserving in sugar and heat. you like the idea, too, of joel teaching you things, of him watching you learn. you nod slowly. “when?” he tilts his head as he asks. you pull from his finger and trail little unhurried bites along his palm, down the inside of his wrist. you want to suck his blood.

“tomorrow? evening?” 

he nods, eyes hooded over as he watches you. slick drips between your thighs and sticks them together, wetting over the dried come he’d pulled from you minutes ago. you smile against his skin, teeth grazing his pulsepoint. 

“you a good teacher?”

he grins and grips back at your head, tilting your chin up to his face as he leans down to you. “a real delight, i swear it.”

your noses bump and you want to kiss him (the whole of it is you’d like to suck his tongue into your mouth and hold it there, feel behind his teeth, let him spit onto your tongue), another vice he’s denied you since that first time. he sees it in you, this wanting, so he threads his fingers through your hair to hold you in place. the tug at the roots makes you rub your thighs together and he inches closer, close enough to whisper onto your lips “go home, little wolf,” and pulls himself off the couch. he’s practically limping with how hard he is, the strong outline of his cock casting shadows as he walks away from you, and it only serves to make you wetter, but because you’re certain he won’t let you help him (you tried in the stables this morning, hay softening your fall to your knees, but he’d hauled you back up with a gruff quit it) you pull your pants back on and retreat to your home. 

stepping down his porch you bring a hand to your stomach, joel’s refusals of you burning green and orange there. the flames heat your skin and lick through your fingers, and the warmth indulges the part of you that hates him, but the rest of you (the part that loves him, lord help you) bends under the pressure. you drop your hand as you approach your house and find tommy leaned up against the fence post. panic seizes you for a moment, but you tamp it down sharply; surely, he can’t know where you’ve come from, surely he can’t smell him on you.

“isn’t this a little past your bedtime?” 

he looks up at you with a smile as you come to stand fully in front of him. “yeah, well, i figured you’d be comin back from the garden right about now.”

something sparkles across your cheeks and you hope he doesn’t notice. “mhm. how’s maria doing? she’s in the, what, second trimester now?”

tommy nods, that boyishness and the pride of fatherhood puffing his chest. “that she is. she’s a wonder, i tell ya. don’t know how the hell she’s doin it. but the nausea’s gone away now, so she’s just restin up.”

“i’ve been wanting to come by and visit, but i didn’t know if she’d want me there.” it’s the truth; you’ve seen very few pregnant women in your life, and the magnitude of it frightens and delights you. besides, as little as she seems to enjoy your company, you suspect it’s a lonely existence, cooped up by the windowsill growing little arms and fingernails, and you’re self-aware enough to know you owe yourself to her. 

tommy scratches the back of his neck. “well that’s what i wanted to come ask about, actually.”

you tilt your head. “me coming to visit?”

he hums. “maria’s been wanting some socializin, some…” he waves his hands around, looking for the word, “interaction. i figured you could come over for dinner.”

“just me?” you can’t help the surprise in your voice.

“...no. noah, too. and my brother.”

your throat dries out and you stifle a sputter. yes, indeed, dinner by candlelight with your most long standing existing friends, of which you have only two, a pregnant woman who sees you as you have been (a knife, with a girl on the end), and the man you’ve been fucking but not fucking (and you think you may be in love with him, also, but you try to keep this bit irrelevant). yes, yes. a fantastic idea! what a delight!

“i don’t…i don’t know, tommy. maria’s never been my biggest fan.” please, don’t make me come.

“come on, don’t say that.”

“i don’t mean any offense, i just don’t want to disturb her.”

“you ain’t disturbing her! i’m telling you she’d like it if you came!”

“tommy-”

“she barely tolerates my brother as it is, at least you’ll be there to occupy him. please?” and he asks with such sincerity, such unknowing of the things you’ve done to joel, and you know there is no way out.

“yeah, okay. okay. i’ll be there.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“so you’re goin to this…what is it? dinner party?” 

joel’s halfway through a bite of something red and meaty when he asks, and you clamp on his moving jaw with your palm.

“don’t talk with your mouth full, sting, it’s not very southern gentlemanly.” he flips your hand away with a grunt and you bite your tongue between your molars to keep from smiling. “yes, i will be there.”

he shakes his head and leans back in his chair, looking out at the milling people filling the dining hall. “i still don’t understand the point of it anyway. the hell we playin family for?”

“joel, you are family.” his eyes flit to yours. “tommy’s family, i mean,” you clarify. he nods, some sort of relieved, the disappointed sort, you feel. you do your best to shake the stick of it, of that feeling, off.

“then why are you goin?”

“well, as it happens, i was invited. besides,” you snort, an unattractive thing but you let it pass, “i think your brother hopes i’ll keep you entertained.”

“entertained? you bein serious?”

you’re golden and beaming with how he looks at you, so incredulous and muscled and stiff with restraint from touching you, you can feel it. “i think his exact verbiage was occupy. he wants me to occupy you.”

“jesus.”

“buck up, cowboy, i’m a delight.”

“uh huh.” you think it’s meant to jab at you, that little grunt, but one end of his mouth turns up as he says it, an imperfect cover of his grin. “he ever do this kinda thing before? before i came?”

you bite the inside of your cheek and look to the ceiling. yes, he did, once. he’d been patrolling with pete mcneilson (a scrawny thing, squirrelish and panicked, but as young as you are) and decided you were fated to be wed, worked his hardest for weeks to set you up. he’d planned the dinner in hopes it would serve as a first date, but your halfway abnormality and owlish inspection of him—tommy’s words, really; he said you looked straight through the poor thing—had frightened him, you suspect. you consider lying, though these days such attempts rarely come out right with joel. you sigh. “yeah, once. maybe two years ago.” joel raises his eyebrows, urging you on. you sort of mumble, “it was a ploy to set me up, really.”

he drops his fork onto the plate, lets it rattle, and you nearly flinch. you’re somewhat surprised to find yourself expecting him to be angry, not that he’s under any obligation to be. really, you might like him to be angry, but he chuckles, instead, biting and smug as he is. “set you up with who?” 

“don’t laugh.”

he raises his hands in surrender, grinning, still. “i ain’t, only askin for a name, baby.”

how often he uses it hasn’t dulled the sharp spasm of want that word seizes you with. “no laughing.”

“what did i just say?” he leans closer. “gimme the name, darlin.”

“pete mcneilson.”

joel does not keep his promise. he chokes on his laughter, heaves with it, tenses his ribs to keep it in the box of his chest, but it tears out between you anyway. oh, how gorgeous he is this way. “christ almighty, pete?” and then, shaking his head to himself, he adds “he’d be fuckin helpless.”

you scoff. “the fuck you mean by that?”

joel continues eating again, self-satisfied with some glorious victory that lays itself over his face. “helpless with you, darlin. you’re too damn vicious for him.”

you think for a moment. “little wolf, and all that?”

he clears his throat, laughter dead in the back of his throat but eyes still pinched a little in the tension of his smile. “somethin like that.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you think it’s a mistake, going to this dinner, as you walk out your door, smoothing your jeans down your legs. you know it’s a mistake when you walk in and see them all, the whole lot, milling about tommy’s home, your varying degrees of relation to each clashing violently. tommy rushes through the kitchen, mashing boiled potatoes and checking on meat that pours steam from the oven when he vents the door, and maria watches his frenzy with a pleased sort of smile. you know she’ll tense when she sees you here, and so you allow her another moment of secluded safety with her husband, and look around for joel; you’re almost embarrassed at how desperately you search for him, but all of it drains from you when you find him standing next to the dining table with noah, being what could only be described as talked at. you’re filled instead with a gripping warmth, pink and new, at the sight of him, so big and disinterested. he may remain mostly secretive of his feelings with you, but joel is intrigued by you, this much you are certain of, and the picture of him this plainly un-intrigued makes you feel singular, selfish, important to him. yes, tonight is a mistake.

“i can’t believe my eyes, the town ghost has appeared,” noah calls out from across the room. you give him your best attempt at a grin, eyes pulled like gravity and lust to joel but working to keep them ahead.

“in the flesh,” you dip your head in a bow, and noah pulls you into a hug. over the slope of his shoulder you see joel, hip cocked and brittle, and you both have the same thought simultaneously, that he’s never held you like this, not once. for all his increasing softness, he has never held you like this. he’s already angry, you think, gnawing on the figure of you in noah’s arms. you pull away and position yourself between them, nodding to joel, mainly for show. “i haven’t seen you in ages, noah, how are you?” and your sincerity is barely there, so slippery with joel so close, but enough to convince noah.

“haven’t you heard? i’m a mentor, now,” he smiles with sarcasm and a little pride, too. “been showing jesse how we run the patrols and all.”

you’re trying, so hard you are trying. joel is watching you precisely, hawkishly. “so i’ve been told. you started on our patrol route your first day, i think,” and you gesture to joel, but you can’t look at him, knowing you’ll twitch too damningly in his direction.

“ah, yeah, yeah that’s right.” with a playfulness he continues, “of course, we’ve moved onto much harder routes now.” 

in the compendium of near-family you’ve concocted in jackson, noah serves as the spirited sort of brotherhood you imagine was normal decades ago. when you met, skittish and cut open as you were, noah found great joy in poking at you; your hardness grated against the easy youth he’s clung to, and you think he liked the challenge of it. as you melted more into the jackson scenery, though, became more earnestly open to friendship with him, he learned instead to lend you this ease, the sarcasm and good humor. there’s something lovely about taking it up when you speak to him, though it’s difficult now, what with the distraction at your side.

you cross your arms. “oh have you? you’re that good a teacher?” 

joel coughs next to you, nearly chokes, and you feel the gentle thrum again of a shared thought between you, of yesterday on his couch, of his thumb in your mouth, of the jam (oh fuck, that was meant to be tonight). noah pays no mind, a sweet thing but dull around the edges. “you know it, baby.”

with a squeak of his boots and a grunt under his breath, joel storms into the kitchen and out of sight. you and noah watch him go, your stomach leadened with his absence, and you pull a breath in to lighten the weight, but it’s no use. baby, baby, you know it’s baby that’s driven him away. you feel noah step a little closer to you.

“speaking of, how’s your patrol been? i can’t believe maria finally let you do it.”

you shift: joel, his hands, his voice, the man you killed for him. “they’ve been fine, i guess.”

noah bumps his shoulder into yours. “details, details! you spend every morning with the big bad wolf over there, i mean how does that feel?”

you tilt your head at him. “noah,” you scold.

he brushes off your tone, craning his neck to get a look at joel in the kitchen, continuing, “he seems fucking scary to me. doesn’t he scare you?”

you huff and shove him back, but he looks back at you like he really means it. you’re startled with the sudden urge to tell him the truth, blood and spit and all. it rises in your throat like bile, but you swallow it all back down. “no, not anymore. not…not really.” your voice is heady with the history you and joel have carved with lips and tongues, and you wonder how gory it would all become if you had indulged yourself fully, let the acid of your feelings spill out. as you think it, noah scans your face, looks through it, and you worry for a moment you’re caught, that the whole of it is spread plainly on your features, but tommy comes barreling out of the kitchen with food cradled in his arms, maria in tow, and you’re spared from any further investigation. tommy laughs out your name from the head of the table.

“jesus, i didn’t even see you come in, come sit down!”

you nod, give maria a smile, glance at the globe of her stomach. she’s glowing with it, hand along the curve of her tummy, and she does her best to smile back at you, as soft as she is capable of. noah pulls the remaining empty chair next to him out from the table and you sit, finding joel across from you, biting on his tongue and furious, quietly, desperately furious, looking between you and him. fuck.

like the love, joel’s fury fissures you in two. you are, most viscerally, delighted that joel should be so angry at noah’s arm around the back of your chair. he watches the space between you, daring it to close further, shoulders strung taut like you’re his to fuss over. your heart expands and knocks on your ribcage, arteries singing with the pleasure of it, and arousal pools between your thighs and sticks there.

toe to toe with this delight, though, contends your own boiling rage. how desperately his gaze claws at you serves as a reminder of the ways he denies you of him, of his cock and his tears and his lips on yours. you would gladly give him this, let him bark and snarl like a wild animal in some unhealthy possession of you, if he let you possess him back. but, as it is, the edge of his eyeline cuts you irreparably, marks you with an indictment of you as a lover and him as something less. it makes you fucking furious.

“ellie helps you a bunch in the garden, don’t she?”

you look up to tommy. you haven’t been listening. “hm?”

“ellie. i’m always seein her in the greenhouse.”

you nod, grin at the thought of her. “mhm. she’s been a real help, actually, and it’s nice to spend the time with her. i think a lot of the other kids are sort of afraid of her.”

joel’s eyes gleam over for a moment. he loves her, you know, and whatever rift exists between them has persisted. noah grips your shoulder and shakes it a little, and the shine dries on joel’s brown eyes.

“sounds like a bit of you.”

tommy barks out a laugh and you push noah’s hand away. “yeah, yeah.”

maria lays a hand on tommy’s bicep. “i think it’s good for her. she needs to get acclimated here. she’s not like the other kids.”

you all look to joel. he hasn’t said a thing since you all sat down, actually. he clears his throat, and the rasp of it goes down hard. “no, she ain’t.”

“from what i’ve heard she’s got a real sailors mouth, big brother. that your doin?”

joel’s face pulls into offense. “no.”

“well she musta learned it somewhere,” noah sings. so very sweet, so very dull. joel looks like he might skin him.

“she came like that.”

“came like that?” noah repeats.

this is so very off limits. tommy and maria give each other a look, and they glance across the table to share it with you. stop him, for the love of god. you turn to noah, plead quietly, “just drop it, noah.”

“what? i’m asking him about himself,” and then to tommy and maria, “i can’t ask him about his daughter?”

what began as a wholly good hearted attempt at conversation has morphed, you realize, into the same sort of bear poking noah used to do with you. he’s calling joel’s prickliness and raising him a teasing interrogation. but for all your similarities, joel is not like you now, he will not absorb it as you did. he stares, lethal and still, at noah, elbows on the table. 

“come on, we know nothing about the man. i want to hear your stories! give me something.”

joel scoffs and you ask again, “noah, please.”

“how am i doing anything wrong here?” his words devolve into childlike mumbles, unused to being denied this way. “i’m trying to make some fucking conversation.”

voice resigned from subtlety, all desperation, you call across the table, “maria, how’s your pregnancy coming along? tell us a long story about it.”

tommy snorts with your bluntness, but all three millers soften with a breath. maria rubs along her tummy, smiling down and speaking, but you go deaf to it as noah brings his arm all the way up, slinging it across the line of your shoulders. and you know, like all the other touches and like his antagonizing of joel, that he means nothing real by it. but joel takes the world in as meaningful: all of it, including noah. you can’t bear to look at him, but even still you burn with the steaming point of his gaze, frenetic and livid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“joel, jesus, slow down,” you call out as you hurry after him. tommy and maria had let you all loose to the jackson twilight, and with a smiling salute noah pranced off home, brushed already of the dust he knocked loose from joel at the dinner table. but joel eats up the ground in front of him with large, pacing strides, muscles corded in the back of his neck. you want to ride him, punch him in the stomach.

“go home.”

you catch up to him, grip a hand on the sleeve of his coat. “i will not go home. i want you to have a conversation with me first.”

joel doesn’t stop, drags you with him through the front door of his house by the fabric of his jacket. the door slams behind you and as the sound rings out joel whips around, boxing you against the wood. he heaves, little hurricane in his chest, casting shadows on you, even in the dark. “i’m not in the mood for a conversation.”

“yes, sting, i gathered that, but you’re being a fucking asshole.”

he huffs and looks to the ceiling, praying, you think, for divine intervention, or perhaps a lightning bolt to set the house ablaze. he can’t look at you when he asks it. “have you fucked him before?”

“jesus christ, no!”

he laughs, a little insane and swinging like a church bell. “seemed damn cozy in there to me.”

“yes! i’m sure we did! he saved me from bleeding out in the middle of winter joel, i told you that.” he adjusts his stance and peers back down at you, looking almost sorry with the thought of you red and unmoving, but because your fury is insatiable you poke him in the chest, adding, “besides, what if i had? what’s it matter to you anyway?”

he grips your wrist, asks incredulously, “what’s it matter to me?”

“no really, why give a shit? i promise i’ll still let you stick your fucking ring finger into my–”

“not another fucking word.”

the diseased part of you laughs with the irony of this moment, at the anger and jealousy you’d hoped for in the dining hall this afternoon; it isn’t exactly what you’d pictured. you sag with that thought. “please, baby,” his grip on your wrist tightens when you call him that, “throw me a bone. you seem entirely disgraced by the fact that we do…what we do, god forbid anyone found out, you won’t even,” you push a quick breath from your nose, “you won’t even waste the fucking energy to fuck me, kiss me. so tell me, please, what is your problem with–”

“you wanna know my fuckin problem? you drive me fucking crazy. i am clinically fuckin insane, darlin, and it’s your fuckin fault. beggin me to fuck you, fuck your face, i mean jesus, the things you ask of me.” and then, mainly to himself, “i ain’t strong enough for this shit. the hands and the eyes and the,” he remembers you in front of him, faces you again, “and the looking, i mean what—shit—what kind of fuckin look is that? you look at me like–like–”

“like what?”

“like you love me. you look at me like you love me. do you know how fucked up that is darlin? and i’m doin my goddamn best to keep you at arms length and it’s damn near impossible but i knew that first time that i–” another heave, “that i’d fuck you again and i’d love you too. be in love with you. and i couldn’t be that selfish. how could you ask me to be that selfish?”

his fingers around your wrist have formed more into a desperate sort of hold, thumb reaching up into the cup of your palm. the weight of his admission presses through your diaphragm, that i’d love you too, but the rift in you, the love and the anger, is growing savage, and you lash with it. 

“i’ve never asked a fucking thing of you. i’ve wanted, jesus joel i’ve wanted, but i never asked you to go on this emotionally stifled quest to prove—prove what exactly? that you’re good? i mean, christ, we’re both awful!” you poke him hard in the chest. “you’re awful and i–i’m awful, and,” the momentum of your fury is slowing, you can feel it dragging its feet, “and you won’t let me get close to you. i’d let you in anywhere. and you won’t,” the loving is thawing from you, and like snow in your hands it drips into water and dirt, down your front, and you’re crying suddenly, caught up in the great tragedy of what you’re about to say. “you won’t let me do it, you won’t let me love you even a little bit. but i can’t help it.” you flatten your palms on his chest, gentle, nearly losing it at the hummingbird winged hum of his heart. “if you can’t do it, i’ll leave you alone. i promise you, sting, i will leave you alone, i won’t ask again, i won’t beg it of you. tell me you don’t feel it and i’ll go.”

he takes a stilted breath in and looks down at your fingers on his front, runs his rough hands up them slowly, feeling you here with him. “i–i…” 

you nod, tears hot and fat running lines down your cheeks, and move to pull away. you open his door behind you, facing him still, but he jerks something frantic and closes it again. his hands come up next to your head on the door, and the both of you are so silent you can hear the wood creak with the press of his palms. you wait.

it comes out with a great pain at first, a terrible ache you see in the grimace of his face, but it eases as it goes, eases as he tells you, “i love you, little wolf, i do, i do.”

and then there’s a moment of stillness, of unsureness. what do you do now? what does anyone do now? oh, but he loves you, he loves you, you have to write it on a wall somewhere, burn a forest and bottle the ashes, wreak some irrevocable havoc. he loves you. 

you drag a hand from his chest up to his face, and with a shudder he leans into the warmth of it, nods against the skin, affirming some wordless agreement, and leans down to press his lips to yours. and it’s been so long you can’t help the whimper that escapes you, squeaky and wet still with the damp residue of your tears, but he’s soft and hot against you, pulls his hands down around your waist and squeezes into your spine. you say his name against his lips and he nods again, presses harder, groaning when you pull the hair at the nape of his neck. you open your mouths to one another, hoping to suck each other’s souls out, you think, and he licks into your mouth with a moan. you’re still whimpering his name somehow, over and over, meaning nothing by it other than you like the taste of it along with his tongue, joel, joel, joel, and he replies with the heated moving of his hands along your body. 

joel grips under your ass, pulls you against his cock as he ruts you into the door, speaks gruffly against your lips, “tell me again.”

and you do, somewhere between your moans, “i love you, i love you,” and he seizes with the sound of it, ducking his head to suck marks into your neck. you hitch a leg over his hip and he takes it as an invitation, dragging his cock through his jeans again along you. 

with his face still in the crook of your neck and a muffled up he hoists you fully into his arms to take you up the stairs, and if you were more lucid you would notice you’re in the same spot you were months ago, the first and only other time he let you have him, but as it is you swirl your hips as best you can against him as he walks, biting the skin that beats with his jugular. you’re drunk on the scent of him, on the pressure of his body. he lays you down on his bed and leans over you with wild eyes as he drags the fabric of your shirt up. he mouths along the skin as he bares it, mumbling into your skin, “so pretty here, baby.”

you raise your back from the bed to pull your shirt and bra off fully and he groans, hands flying to grab at your tits, tracing a line between them with his nose. “and here.” you lift your hips and he pins them with his own, the heft of his cock dragging against your clit through your pants and you mewl with it. joel moves back up to your ear, still pulling at the flesh of your breasts and rolling your nipples between his fingers, to whisper, “i’m gonna take you slowly. can you do that, darlin?”

and no, you’re not sure you can, but you nod breathlessly anyway.

“good girl.”

that drives you fully to madness, you think, and you tilt your head back into his bed, writhing into a moan. he smiles into you as he moves his face back down, down, past your sternum, hands moving to pull at your jeans. “can i take these off?”

“yes, please.”

he nods and pulls them from you, and runs his hands back up your legs. you can feel your own dripping, the gusset of your panties soaked through with arousal, and his smile drops as he looks at it, a single finger coming to run down the fabric. you shudder, and so does he, you think, hand still on your thigh tightening as the pad of his finger wipes along the dampness. “fuck. this for me?”

you’re already nodding. “yes, yes, you, please, touch me, please.”

and with that joel is pulling them down your legs, leaving a trail of glistening slick where the fabric sticks to your flesh, and joel heaves you to the edge of his bed, kneeling with a grunt to the floor. you hum around a whine as he bites and licks up the insides of your thighs, his own moans reverberating back to you. his fingers, wrapped around the crease where your legs meet your torso, will leave bruises, you’re sure.

“joel,” you plead, but he doesn’t really hear it, heaving open mouthed around your cunt now, breathing you in.

with a long inhale he drops his forehead to your navel, squeezes you between his hands. “so good, baby, this pussy is so good.”

your eyes slip shut and you feel yourself pulse with his words. joel sees it, too, and finally, fucking finally, closes his plush lips around your clit, slurping and sucking as you all but scream into the space of his room.

“fuck joel, fuck, oh my god.”

“yeah?”

you thread your fingers through his curls and tug, and his groan makes your hole flutter. he circles his tongue around your little button, flattens it, flicks over it with the tip, and the drool of his own spit mixes with your slick as it slides from your hole to his sheets below you. you’re fucking aching now, so empty as he sucks around you, but before you can even plead for them, you feel his two fingers slip inside you, gliding in easy around the wetness he’s pulled from you and the slip of his saliva. he curls them, petting against someplace only he has ever reached, and you keen.

“that’s it, huh? there?” and it’s only halfway smug, all the rest earnest, and you pull harder on his hair. your nerve endings flare up and catch fire, his scissoring fingers within you, his taste buds on your clit, his sheets bunched at your head, it all tears at you with unbearable feeling, you feel with an intensity that blurs your vision. with the pulse around his knuckles, joel can feel how close you are, raising his lips from you with eyes hooded. “oh, you’re close, darlin, i fuckin feel it,” he rasps, and you nod again, delirious and mouth open, as he circles his thumb in the path of spit his tongue left. the noises you make would be humiliating in front of anyone else, you think, but his brows furrow with each of your blasphemous little whines, and so you let them claw out as he watches his fingers thrust in and out of you. “c’mon little wolf, let it go, let me have it.” and you do, you throw it at him, really, pulsing around his fingers and gushing down his hand, moaning wildly something that sounds like his name as he groans with the squelch of it.

he pulls his fingers away only as you relax, spine released and flat again on his bed. he drags his eyes up and down your body, spent but not yet satisfied, as he rids himself of his own clothes, and your pussy shudders with her own heartbeat again as you take him in. his cock reaches stiff between his legs, blushing and pearled with precome, and you lick your lips with finally, finally. he pumps himself once, twice, stalking towards you again, but you stand from the bed with shaky legs, sit him in the wet spot you made together. as you sink to your knees he curses and squeezes the base.

“jesus christ, baby.” but you only smile as you run your nose up the underside of his shaft, tentatively pressing the flat of your tongue along his head to collect what’s escaped him there. the salt and musk of it makes you whine and you fit your lips around him, laving along his skin and watching his hands bunch in the sheets. you smooth your lips down his head, lower, lower, and suck, cunt fully dripping again at the noises he makes. a broken version of your name leaves him as you start to bob your head, spinning your chin as you come up, letting your teeth graze the vein along the underside. 

“oh fuck, you—shit—your mouth is so fuckin good,” and he brings a hand, now, to collect your hair and wrap his fingers around it, anchoring himself more than you, “yeah, yeah, that’s it baby, fuck.” you moan into him and his hips twitch as it moves through his skin, and fuck you want him to fuck your throat. you bring your fingers up to move his other hand, clenched taut at his side, to your head, pushing it down to show him. his fingers tighten in your hair as he starts to move you on his own, pulling you into him as you gag and swallow around his head. “oh fuck, oh fuck,” he grunts, hips starting to rut up to meet your face, and your hand finds its way to your clit, rubbing in tight circles as he thrusts deeper, sputtering as he grits out, “fucking gag on it.” you hum, so gloriously pleased with yourself and the taste of him, feeling him twitch in your throat, but with one final drag of your tongue on him he pulls you off. you start to whine but he’s heaving you up by the elbows to straddle his lap, grabbing you by the jaw to bring your face to his. your tongues meet and circle, the both of you groaning at the taste of the other, and he drags his wet cock along your seam. you angle your hips so he catches on your opening and his hands tighten on your waist.

“you still want it, darlin?”

you almost laugh, maybe you do, nodding with your hands on his shoulders. “yes, yes, please.”

and when he pushes in it is not like last time. he’s slow, agonizingly so, as he lets you sink down, your forehead dropping to his as you groan in unison. you clench and throb when your thighs meet, fully seated, and he pulses inside of you, but he doesn’t move yet, brings a finger from your waist to between the wings of your shoulder blades. as you breathe together, chests meeting in full flex, he drags the pad of his finger down, your body open and seizing with feeling of him. 

“you like to touch me there,” you whisper.

joel nods. “it holds you up.” and something about it makes you wail. when his finger reaches the bottom, he bands his whole arm around your back, pulls you impossibly closer against his chest and moves his head next to yours, asks into your ear, “can i move now?”

you twitch as his breath fans over the side of your face, whispering back some sort of please, please, and he starts to thrust into you, slowly but deeply, so deeply that his tip kisses your cervix, and you both hold each other tighter as he drags back out.

“fuck, joel, so good.”

“yeah?”

“yeah.”

“you’re fuckin—ah—soakin me, baby.”

between the whispers in your ear joel takes your lobe into his mouth, biting and releasing, kissing the spot beneath it. your body tenses in his arms as his cock ruts in and out of you, still so slow and still so much, and his bicep around your back flexes to keep you in place. 

“what is it?”

“fuck me faster, please,” you whimper. you feel his little smile into your skin.

“you said you could take it slow.”

“and i—fuck—i’m trying.”

he groans, long and with the movement of his cock in you. “one more second like this, just like this.” you try to roll your hips again but his grip stills you. “you have no patience, do you?” you shake your head. without a word, he reaches up to push your elbows up and over his shoulders, and you wrap your arms down his back. he nods a little, whispers just like that into your skin, and you throb around him.

the slap of his skin on yours rings through the room as he speeds up, thrusts meeting you, and you scream like this is salvation (you think it might be). neither of you can control your noises now, not that there was much control to begin with, and joel grits out agonized moans into the arc of your ear. your nails scrape up and down the skin of his back as he pounds up into you, clawing marks and holding there. again you’re on his name, repeating it with a fever and a cry, joel, joel, joel.

“fuck, i fuckin love the sound of my name like that, baby. you sound like you’re mine.”

you do your best to nod, head bobbing at his shoulder, i am yours, i am yours, but still it’s only his name coming out. he fucks you harder, holds you harder, moves like a zealot into your softness. he brings a thumb to your clit, circles it tightly, eats up your noises with a gluttony that pulls you right there, right there. 

“i’m so close, joel,” you whimper.

“fuck, i know, i fuckin feel it. come on, darlin, come on my cock.”

again, you do, you do as he asks, pulled tight into him as you pulse and thrash, ecstasy washing over you.

“yeah, that’s—oh god—that’s it, that’s it,” he rasps, thrusts unrelenting, slapping against the wetness dripping between you. as the rigid pleasure runs through you and your body relaxes again, he picks you up, knees his way up the bed to place you down beneath him. you watch his face pull together as he forgets his plan for a moment, fucks you into the bed with a hand on the headboard, but he collects himself again and heaves you over by the crook of your knee so your stomach is to the mattress, keeping the head of his cock inside you. you hold yourself up by your knees and elbows, feel his hands spread down your back and around the globes of your ass before he picks up his pace again, hips meeting your ass in harsh bumps that make you scream into his pillows. the kick of him inside you is coaxing your body again towards orgasm, and you arch your back for him. 

“such a tight fuckin fit, ain’t it?” you whine in response, pushing your hips back against his. he pulls you up, back flush against his chest, spreads his knees a little to rut deeper up into you. with what sounds like waning sanity, he grits into your ear, “you make it fit for me, darlin, i know you do.” your bag arches off his chest as you go stiff, so startlingly close again. you’re defying your own anatomy now, gone from the confines of your body, submerged fully in a rapture that beads like sweat down your skin. “fuck me, you gonna come again?”

“yeah, yes, fuck” you heave.

he nods against your shoulder and slides the paw of his hand down your front to rub you, using the flat of his hand to press into your clit. “i’m gonna—oh fuck—you’re gonna make me come, where do you want it?”

and you know you shouldn’t, but you’re so fucking close, and you want it. “inside, joel, please.”

his thrusts are stumbling now, losing rhythm. “yeah? you want me to fill you up? fuck,” and he laughs breathlessly, “tha’s how we’ll tell everyone, i’ll fuck you full of my fuckin baby.”

the both of you vibrate with that notion, buzzing together, barely human anymore, and suddenly you’re falling into climax, a third and quick and jolted one, pulling him with you as you clench and flutter, and the pump of his warmth inside of you feels like the most wonderfully selfish thing you’ve ever done. and as his cock softens inside you, a mix of your come sliding out, he’s really just holding you, wrapped up in his arms on his bed. he kisses you in the silence, up the line of your shoulder and to your ear. “stay here, baby,” and he pulls out as you lie all the way down, wipes you both with a rag before climbing up behind you and cradling you in the crook of his body. 

night has fallen fully now, but the moonlight peers through his window and marks the wall ahead of you. joel’s hands are warm as they run up your sides, draws his name on your hip. you smile.

“sting.”

J–O–E–L. “hm?”

“will you tell me again?”

he stretches out his fingers and leans his head over yours. you turn to meet his face. and you think it hurts him, still, to say it, but he does, forehead creased with sincerity and a will to tell you anyway. “i love you, little wolf.”

“i love you, too.”

joel thinks a moment. “are you…” you sit up a little to see him fully, and even in the darkness you can see the flush of red around his ears. “do you still want me to show you how to make the jam?”

oh god, he is so tender for such a violent thing. “mhm,” you hum, but turn all the way over to situate yourself into his chest. through the hair spattered there, you add, “later.”

his thumb finds your spine again, traces it like he’s done before. in his arms here, you can admit that this, now, is your greatest achievement, the closest you’ve ever been to sacred. the puffs of his breath on the top of your head, the slowing of your heartbeats as you both drift towards sleep, yes, this is holy, a sanctified thing, the loveliest thing you’ve ever grown.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

aaah !! i can't believe this story has come to a somewhat-end !! i can't thank you all enough for the support on it. as my first fic it was fucking terrifying to put out, but i'm so glad i did 🍓🤍🤍

taglist: @koshkaj-blog @limerence4u @shotgun-shelby @5oh5 (let me know if you wanna be added or removed !!)

[dramavixen]

Love and Redemption: A Fantasy Epic About How Prejudice Destroys Worlds, and How Love Pieces Them Back Together

**major spoilers for: Love and Redemption

After wrapping up a watch-through of Mysterious Lotus Casebook, my mom had the brilliant idea that we should rewatch the work that launched Cheng Yi to fame (or at the very least solidified him as the man to hire if you need someone to spit blood): Love and Redemption. 

I’m certain she only found this idea appealing because she doesn’t remember a TV show after it’s over. Credits rolling? Aight, time for the woman to clear up space on her brain’s memory drive. Meanwhile, my life flashed before my eyes as I recalled the anguish that’s synonymous with the show’s plot. But you know how things go when your mom wants something. If she says you're sitting through 44 hours of emotional torture with her, then you plant yourself on that couch until it’s over.

Ironically, Love and Redemption fares even better on rewatch. Though other xianxias have come close to its place in my heart, I’m now concerned that my palate won’t be so easily satiated again. It’s got your conventional reincarnation, warring realms, and a star-crossed romance while throwing curveball after curveball to shatter your expectations. Complex characters, too? An endgame villain who will haunt you in your sleep? You can’t ask for more. 

Just because you didn’t ask, doesn’t mean that the show won’t deliver something extra. I like to think that nothing reflects a society’s unsightly reality like a well-done fantasy, and this one hits closer to home the more time that passes. A thinly veiled commentary on human flaws and how difficult it is to be a good person, Love and Redemption is a drama for the ages.

This is going to get lengthy, so to prepare you, here’s how I’m divvying up this piece:

Part I: All of Them Are Classist

Part II: All of Them Are Sexist

Part III: All of Them Are Racist

Part IV: Love Wins All

---

Part I: All of Them Are Classist

It’s not my intention to disgust anyone right out of the gate, but we need to talk about Wu Tong. Do you hear what I hear? Yes, it’s the distant echo of Wu Tong’s nefarious laughter, resounding between the walls of my skull.

Quite simply, Wu Tong is the worst. (Or at least he would be, if it weren’t for that other fellow named Bai Lin. That dude will get a glaring spotlight later in this essay, trust me.) But it’s not for no reason.

Coming from a background of poverty, Wu Tong spends most of his young life trying to prove himself to upper class cultivators who don’t have any interest in who he is, only in what he has to offer them. He earns his place in his sect through relentless hard work. He utilizes unsportsmanlike methods in his attempts to win the battle tournament in opening episodes. It's not just a competition to him—he's directly told that if he gets anything other than first place, he can forget about keeping his place in his sect.

When he and the protagonists first meet, his prideful personality results from his inferiority complex. There’s no doubt that he’s a powerful cultivator, but the issue is how he finds that to be his only real value. He doesn't bother to be likable, because what's the point in doing that? Being likable doesn't fill an empty stomach. But the more he disrespects others in an effort to make himself appear important, the more others look down on him, and the more he overcompensates by fighting back even more. It’s a vicious cycle—one that never ends because no one involved wants to take the first step back.

Knowing what type of person he becomes, it’s hard to pity him in any capacity. However, it would still be unfair to ignore how others mistreat him before he even turns into a true enemy.

One scene that sticks out to me happens early on, where Wu Tong nearly injures Xuanji during a 1v1 battle against Minyan. The protagonist crew insists on getting payback. Okay, I’m with it. You can’t let such reckless violence slide. I guess they’ll get their revenge in a later stage of the tournament by beating him into the ground? 

Nah. That would be too reasonable. What they actually opt for is tricking him to fall into a trap by putting up a “have you seen my lost snake?” poster with a financial reward, knowing that he’ll be fooled because…he’s poor.

Sifeng: I asked around. Wu Tong was born to a family of lower status. He lives frugally. The reason he trains so hard is because he hopes to become someone powerful one day. […] Now he needs the money urgently to buy medicine and recuperate his inner strength before his next battle. Minyan: When you put it that way, doesn’t that mean he has no choice but to come for the ten night pearls?

Sifeng…oh no. Not you too.

The way Wu Tong behaves doesn’t warrant anyone being amicable toward him. I, too, have a nonexistent tolerance for obnoxious, violent egoists. But if later episodes are any evidence, this scene foreshadows that two wrongs won’t make a right. If they want to teach him a lesson, they shouldn’t stoop so low as to take advantage of his poverty. His family background is the one thing about him that isn’t his fault, yet it’s the one thing they choose to use against him. That’s what I call “going too far.”

Now that he's been hit where it hurts, Wu Tong feels justified in going too far himself. In a fit of desperation and contempt prompted by his master abandoning him, he stabs Xuanji. Not great. Things get extremely not great when you remember that Xuanji is the daughter of a sect leader. That quickly transforms Wu Tong’s attempted murder/almost manslaughter into the evilest act known to mankind. All five sects turn against him to hunt him down and kill him. I’m no law or philosophy expert, but I’m pretty sure the punishment for almost manslaughter is not the death penalty. 

The five sects can treat him as their prey because he doesn’t have a support system to counter them. If he were the son of another sect leader, the thought of killing him would never even have entered their minds. Targeting him so relentlessly has less to do with justice and more to do with exerting power over a lower-class young man who hurt someone infinitely more “important” than him. 

That imbalance between crime and punishment is what pushes Wu Tong over the edge. He goes on the run for several years before officially succumbing to the call of evil, after which he becomes truly irredeemable. Still, you’re occasionally reminded of his struggle—is he destined to be a villain? Or is throwing aside his remaining morality just his best chance at survival? 

Do you have any idea how I survived these past several years, when you were all trying to kill me? What did I do back then that was so unforgivable? Did your sister die? Was it warranted for all five sects to team up against me, an average disciple? Was it warranted to back me into a corner over and over again, to force me to claw out of hell? Open your eyes and look at me! These past four years, I’ve already died countless times. Every time, I clawed my way back out of hell. Five hundred taels? You want to take my life with a measly five hundred taels? Don’t look down on me. Touch here. I have a fake leg. That’s what your five sects have left me with. What’s that look of yours? Guilt? Pity? I’m not telling you this for you to pity me. I, Wu Tong, survived this far because I must have my revenge.

Something my mom likes to say is if you find yourself going against someone—but especially a dangerous person—you must leave a path for their survival. It’s less for their sake than it is for yours. Should you eliminate all their options, they’ll have no choice but to bite. And they’ll make sure it hurts like hell. 

As an impetuous teenager, Wu Tong is in the wrong. He needs to be taught that his actions are unacceptable. But that can’t be accomplished by putting a bounty on his head and demanding that he be murdered. That’s how you turn a scoundrel into a monster.

Minyan, Wu Tong’s foil, similarly doesn’t come from an optimal background. An orphan, he was taken in by the Shaoyang Sect without the obvious pressure that Wu Tong suffers. Even so, he can’t escape the innate inequality that seems to exist between him and his fellow disciples. It especially affects him because he’s in love with Linglong, Xuanji’s sister but more importantly…also the daughter of the sect leader! Poor guy.

When I was little, kids in the village would surround me every day and call me a bastard child with no parents. I could only pretend that I didn’t hear them. Because if I took it to heart, they would only ridicule me more. We can’t shut the mouths of people who want to slander us. But we can choose not to listen.

He may think that he’s past it, but later episodes see Minyan being manipulated using that exact insecurity. It’s easy to impersonate his master and nudge him to become a “spy” in the enemy base because he’s compelled to prove himself worthy of the sect and worthy of Linglong. Fake Sect Leader Chu Lei tells him:

When I first met you, you were only eight years old. You were homeless on the streets, starving and shivering. Still, you clung to your family dagger and refused to pawn it. In that moment, I knew that you were a child with an iron will. That’s why I’m here to find you today.

I can agree that Minyan is really stupid to immediately believe that his master, a guy well-known for pretending to do important things more than he actually does them, would tell him to do something as reckless as invade enemy territory. However, he also heeds the impostor’s instructions because realistically, his master asking him to prove himself is something that could happen. Any good disciple would naturally want to repay their masters for their favor, let alone a disciple who would otherwise have nowhere else to go.

The contrast between Minyan and Wu Tong shoves itself in your face as you watch, primarily through their respective relationships with Linglong (well, one of them has a relationship. The other is a creep. Can you guess who’s who?). Without family backing, the two men both struggle to find their place in the world, but they’re complete opposites purely because of their upbringing. Thankfully for Minyan, he found a family amongst people who don’t treat him as “another,” even if he may think of himself as such.

Wu Tong isn’t so fortunate. You can say it’s his own doing, a result of his terrible personality, but he certainly wasn’t born like that. And now someone will pay for it.

---

Part II: All of Them Are Sexist

As a caveat, I’ll mention that the main cast really could have used a woman who isn’t some combination of foolish, lovestruck, and/or loud. But I’m willing to overlook it just this once because the writers excel in highlighting both the ladies' flaws and how we as an audience exaggerate those flaws through our own preconceptions. 

Working backwards in terms of plot importance, we can start with Xiao Yinhua. Sifeng’s snake familiar in a human form, Xiao Yinhua is like most female leads from the turn of the millennium in that her only real strength is throwing temper tantrums. She’s also like most second female leads from the turn of the millennium in that she constantly prefers using underhanded tactics and harming others to achieve her goals—in other words, a snake. Oh. I guess that makes sense.

Her affections toward Sifeng cloud her already nonexistent judgment and prompt her to make some of the worst decisions made by anyone, ever. At first, I thought I was being unfair toward her because of my own internalized misogyny. But no. I can say with absolute confidence that I would abhor this character no matter what gender or creature or object she may be. She has no redeeming qualities aside from teaching us that someone foolish, lovestruck, and loud is doomed to self-sabotage. From that perspective, she’s still a valuable character to have because now we know that before we act, we should think: would Xiao Yinhua do that thing? If she would, do not do that thing. 

If Xiao Yinhua were willing to grow up, she could become more similar to Zi Hu. Zi Hu almost acts as a parallel to Sifeng—hopelessly in love with someone who doesn’t return the affection for a literal thousand years. Also, both are very pretty. Ahem.

Zi Hu’s thousand years’ worth of experience gives her the skills to back up her unrelenting feelings for Wu Zhiqi. She’s a rarity in that her driving force is a man—a motivation that's typically a reputation ruiner for female characters—but you find her lovable instead of thinking that she lacks self-respect. The key is that her love isn’t blind and rash like Xiao Yinhua’s. Zi Hu has a plan to save Wu Zhiqi from his prison and she carries it out with intention. In other words, it’s okay to focus on love, but only if you can take responsibility for your feelings. 

Ting Nu: Why go so far? When did Wu Zhiqi ever tell you that he loved you? Your affections are merely one-sided. Zi Hu: When did he tell me he didn’t love me? Look, once I rescue him, he’ll have to be with me to thank me. 

Because Zi Hu is a literal fox, people suspect her both for being a demon and for being the demon notorious for seducing men to consume their souls. The latter is quickly debunked and becomes less of an issue than her just being a plain demon. I nonetheless find it hilarious how everyone balks when she shows them her harem of men gleefully living in her backyard. Yep, she’s a cunning vixen. You can just keep wishing you could join that harem.

Zi Hu: You're trying to shoo me away. You think I’ll storm out because of your petty tricks? You’re underestimating me. I’ve already decided, starting today, I’m going to follow you everywhere. Even if you don’t want me to, I’m going to cling to you. This old spirit isn’t going to let those thousand years of waiting be in vain. Wherever you go, I’m going with. If you dare sneak peeks at other pretty women, I’ll dig out your monkey eyes. All in all, if I’m around, no pretty woman can enter your vision. As if you could bear to leave me behind if I hang around for another thousand years!

Xiao Yinhua and Zi Hu aren’t overly victimized based on their gender within the show itself. For the better too, because whoever dares to do so would probably end up dead by a fox's claws and a snake's teeth. These two characters' existences test your innate view of female characters instead. What is it that matters to you in a female character? What standards do you hold against them?

(**Content warning for the below segment until the next purple break: brief mentions of sexual assault and suicide.)

And that's where we come to Linglong. Linglong is a loudmouthed spoiled brat. She's overbearing, and while she wants to protect Xuanji, her method of doing it is by crying crocodile tears and throwing temper tantrums in front of their father. No wonder she and Xiao Yinhua clash—two childish people who both have a compulsion to win arguments? Forget it.

A bulk of the drama sees Linglong’s primordial spirit being taken and held captive by Wu Tong. Wu Tong puts half of her primordial spirit into the body of a flower demon, whom he also forces to take on Linglong’s physical appearance. No other reason, he just wants to have his way with someone who looks and acts like Linglong, the person who jeered at him all those years ago. By the time the real Linglong recovers her primordial spirit, Wu Tong has done enough damage that she’s haunted by nightmares and memories of someone who assaulted her when she couldn't even fight back.

The lead-up to this arc is incredibly disturbing and takes root in the very first episode. On my first watch-through, I thought their relationship would take a classic enemies-to-lovers path. The directors and writers pull you in this direction with no subtlety, showing a smitten Wu Tong when he first lays eyes on Linglong. They then keep the scam going by having him act out in awful ways as he attempts to gain her attention. That’s right, it’s the brainwashing girls receive when they’re on the playground: “he pulls your hair because he likes you."

During their first meeting, Linglong is surrounded by a halo filter from Wu Tong’s perspective. Knowing what he’ll later do to her makes the seeming innocuousness of this scene revolting, but it's necessary. It's the first of many steps to prove that someone’s “affections” can’t be used as an excuse for harming whomever’s on the receiving end of them. 

Linglong can be an extremely annoying person. Her outspokenness and difficult temper shape her into an unlikable character, which then ensures that by the time Wu Tong captures her, the audience almost instinctively wants to say that it’s her fault. We all know the talk track: “he liked her, so why couldn’t she just have been nicer to him? She asked for it by being mean to him.”

When Linglong first offends Wu Tong, it isn’t for no reason: she’s angry because he endangers her sister’s life over and over again. Admittedly, she goes overboard in her retaliation against him. So what? Linglong being mean to Wu Tong and Wu Tong later targeting her are indeed connected events, but the former doesn't justify the latter. If we say that the five sects hunting Wu Tong down isn’t a fair punishment, then isn’t it also unfair for him to turn the tables on her in such a way? 

Essentially, Linglong isn’t the “ideal” victim. That’s what makes her arc all the more heartbreaking. To this day, society wants to find any excuses for the assailant. Any mistake, any flaw of the victim's will be used against her. As humans, maybe it’s instinct for us to hope that bad things only happen to bad people, and victim-blaming is our twisted way of making that an impossible reality. 

Overcome with depression and trauma, Linglong is unable to come to terms with what Wu Tong did to her. Men gossip about her and her “relationship” with the enemy, sometimes harassing her straight to her face. Wu Tong himself finds great delight in taunting her about her “sharing his bed,” not only relishing the memories but also enjoying how much it torments her.

Linglong: It was my fault that I was captured by Wu Tong, wasn’t it? [...] Everyone thinks so. I didn’t want to be captured by Wu Tong. But after Wu Tong said all those things, everyone thinks so. Minyan: Linglong, why care about what everyone else thinks? Just pretend that you didn’t hear any of it. Linglong: But I did hear them. Why do I need to pretend I didn’t? It’s something that actually happened, so why do I need to play dumb and trick myself into thinking it didn’t? Are you going to be like them too, and mock me?

All the accusations brainwash her into thinking everything is her fault. To Wu Tong and all the people judging her, she’s nothing but a pawn to be used for their own entertainment. And once she and Minyan leave the protection of the sect, everyone finds her an easy target to push around. Hoping that her death will mean freedom for both herself and her loved ones, she attempts to drown herself before being yanked back to life and reality by Minyan.

Linglong’s struggle is many women’s worst nightmare. It’s also a diligent representation of PTSD, something that I normally wouldn’t expect from a xianxia drama. Even after she's rescued and everyone tells her that her suffering is over, it never feels over for her. At night, Lingling is awoken by harrowing dreams of Wu Tong returning to kidnap her once again:

Nightmare!Wu Tong: You’ll always belong to me. You can’t escape.

The conclusion to her arc being Wu Tong’s death and his literal letting go of her may be quite idealistic. But I prefer to think that giving Linglong her happy ending is the writers’ way of trying to assuage our fears, of showing us that there will always be another sunrise regardless of what happens.

(**Content warning end.)

Linglong becomes the drama’s strongest woman-centric plot, and I really love that the writers did it with a character whose personality isn't the most appealing. She's the imperfect woman we can find in every corner of the world, a representation of women overall instead of the minority who are considered "deserving" of justice.

Next to her, Xuanji also gets a short end of the stick. She's constantly being pushed to marry Hao Chen. Every excuse in the book is used against her: they're a fated couple, he's the only one that can take care of her, doesn't she agree that this is a part of her duty? No matter how logically she objects to it, no one really cares what she thinks. If she objects, she’s being headstrong, and that’s the end of it. (More on Xuanji to come in Part IV of this essay.)

And aside from Bai Lin’s more obvious transgressions (we're getting to those), what really irked me is just how twisted he makes the God of War’s rebellion appear in others’ eyes. The logic turns quickly from “Bai Lin must have done something wrong” into “the God of War must have been in love with Bai Lin and grew resentful that he rejected her.” I guess it’s very believable that the God of War would want to destroy the entire universe because some guy wouldn’t date her? That’s right, you can be the most accomplished woman in your field and someone will still want to attribute everything you do to being motivated by romance.

Naturally, the next question is—why is Bai Lin such a weirdo? Why does he insist on turning his friend Luohou Jidu, a man, into a woman when creating the God of War? Hmm. I smell a waft of homophobia...

---

Part III: All of Them Are Racist

And except for a small minority, I really mean "all of them" this time. Humans and celestial beings are racist toward demons. Demons are racist back toward humans and celestial beings. If you asked both sides who started it, they'd point at the other without hesitation. "They started it. By existing."

I don’t even know where to start with this topic. Part of me believes this entire section of analysis could be extraneous—do I really need to do a deep dive when you could just click a random timestamp of a random episode and have a 50% chance of finding a character saying something incredibly racist? No case studies necessary. The drama is the case study.

Obviously, while I may say that all the different races are racist toward one another, some are notably more egregious in their discrimination than others. The five sects, being in power, are the worst offenders. Every other second, someone is reminding another that they need to wipe out demons. Just the utterance of the word “demon” makes them froth at the mouth. In their possession, they have treasure troves of weapons and magical devices whose collective main purpose is to identify and kill demons. Perhaps you know someone in real life who thinks that hating something is a personality trait—that’s the five sects in a nutshell.

Zi Hu and Ting Nu are continuously snubbed for not being human even after they’ve long proven that they’re more help than harm. Ting Nu is a doctor, but even saving Hao Chen doesn’t make them think of him as anything but a demon who is evil in his very bones. Demons can do everything right, but the high and mighty humans are too pure and innocent to associate with them…aside from killing and torturing them, of course.

Highlighted Exhibit A: Sifeng almost being tortured and whipped to death based on the mere suspicion that he’s a demon. The fact that he is one doesn’t matter. His assailants operate on the doctrine that they’d rather kill an innocent person than let a demon roam free. Every action to rid the world of a demon is a virtuous one. It's a reenactment of the Monty Python witch trial but they're being completely serious. 

Highlighted Exhibit B: the other sects band together to wipe out Lize Palace without solid confirmation as to whether they’re all demons. They’re operating on the same principle as in Exhibit A, so at least you can praise them for being consistent.

Highlighted Exhibit C: before Sifeng is revealed to be a pretty bird, Xuanji’s repeated defense of him consists of "Sifeng isn’t a demon." The main purpose of these lines is to instill further fear into Sifeng and give him more reason to keep lying to her, all while Xuanji's trust in him deepens. But is it also some of her lingering innate judgment seeping through? A subconscious understanding that her family and sect will never accept a demon as her boyfriend? Well, joke’s on them because he’s one hot bird.

So how are you supposed to survive as a demon? Lize Palace results from the humans’ desire to eradicate an entire race of demons. Just as Wu Tong is driven only by revenge, the demons of Lize Palace just need to survive for long enough to one day remove their masks and live as themselves. Humans’ endless thirst for blood does nothing but fuel demons’ fire of rebellion and keep the wheel of tragedy turning.

As for the “bad guys” of Tianxu Hall? At least when they commit the same acts of evil as the other five sects, they’re willing to admit that being evil isn’t beyond them.

Yuan Lang is an extremely successful villain for this very reason. All of us love Yuan Lang, so much that we start grinning whenever he comes on-screen with his fan and sarcastic mouth. So much that when it's revealed he's been consuming people's souls, all my mom had to say about it was: “Oh. That's mean of him.”

He plots and he lies and he murders, but he doesn’t put up a facade of holding himself to a lofty moral standard. It’s also quite telling that while Yuan Lang machinates behind the scenes, 90% of his time is spent standing by and calling others out on their bullshit. Everyone around him creates their own downfall. He just happens to benefit from their stupidity.

Man with a fan and a plan. I like. 

Even so, Yuan Lang isn’t invulnerable to emotion. One of my absolute favorite scenes is where Di Lang sacrifices himself so Yuan Lang can make a getaway. It’s the only instance of Yuan Lang being subject to the pain of caring about someone else. Those short moments contrast so starkly against the sects’ inhumanity that suddenly, a revolution doesn’t seem all that bad.

Behind the bulky mask, his despair is apparent. Man. This actor’s come a long way since his F4—I mean, H4 days. If you've never watched Let's Go Watch Meteor Shower Together, don't.

Finally, we arrive on the topic of Bai Lin. Oh, boy. I still haven’t watched Blood of Youth because seeing the actor’s face triggers my fight-or-flight response. And it’s been years.

Bai Lin, the one racist to rule them all. The guy must have a handbook on “How to Be Racist” or something—how else could the contempt that spews from his mouth, the spark of repugnance in his eyes, and the brazen obstinacy in his opinions be so immaculate?

The entire drama consists of setting the stage for the full reveal of Bai Lin turning Luohou Jidu into a weapon of war to be used against his own people. By the time all the pieces fall into place, you’ve already witnessed the tragedy created by discriminatory practices between mortals. You've seen how Sifeng is targeted and Xuanji forced to move her hand against him. You've seen how the sects use their power to harm instead of help. You've seen how demons plot their revenge for centuries. Once Bai Lin is confirmed to be the genesis of all that, there’s nothing left for you to feel but utter revulsion.

Bai Lin: Celestial beings and demons cannot coexist. How could my Heavenly Realm possibly hold a marriage with the Devil Tribe? Luohou Jidu: Celestial beings and demons cannot coexist...Then why do you drink with me today? Why are you friends with me? Bai Lin: Naturally, Brother Jidu, you’re different from other demons and devils. Out of all the demons and devils in this world, Brother Jidu is my only friend.

Can’t believe he even pulls the "you’re one of the good ones" card.

Bai Lin, practitioner of unethical tactics: his ultimate decision to trick and use Luohou Jidu results from racism-induced paranoia. He simply can’t believe that his friend will remain his friend, not unless he becomes "one of us." He thinks the God of War should appreciate that he's given her power and invested his time and energy in her tenth reincarnation, going so far as fool her into thinking that they loved each other once upon a time. Once Xuanji shows herself capable of independent thought, he doesn’t hesitate in turning against her and manipulating her to destroy her own self. He eventually sacrifices the entire world for the Heavenly Realm's survival. After all, what's the value of an entire planet's human and demon population in the face of his power?

He's the representation of what happens when those in power, those who have the best chance of righting wrongs and preventing more from happening, decide to perpetuate the problem. At the same time, he presents the predicament that those we rely on to give us justice are also victims of their own emotions and fears.

I venture to say that Bai Lin is the best-written antagonist in modern xianxia. He’s ruthless but has a moral compass, albeit one that only points in one direction—toward himself. His hubris aside, you have to admit that he genuinely believes he's acting for the greater good. The ends justify the means because he thinks he’s bettering the world.

Bai Lin makes awful decisions that involve genocide and cruelty because he operates on a strict utilitarian philosophy. "I do what I think will bring the best results, even if it means sacrificing something huge in the process." He’s the most dangerous character and the person we should also fear in real life because he’ll stop at nothing to create his definition of a paradise.

It would be easy to dismiss him as simply being a bad person. However, this show draws from reality in that every person exists in a gray area between good and bad. You can lean one way or the other, but you don’t fall completely into either. And that’s the foundation of the show's conflicts. Everyone's so busy trying to define what’s right and wrong that they’ve lost sight of basic compassion.

When he’s finally faced with the consequences of his actions, Bai Lin is driven to despair. He feels true remorse over what he’s done, but only because he’s fortunate enough to actually witness how the thousand-year conflict wouldn't have existed without him. We as people aren’t so lucky—those “what if”s will forever remain in the shrouded realm of impossibility.

Heavenly Emperor: You always thought that evil had sparked in the hearts of the God of War and Luohou Jidu. But the one in whom evil truly sparked was you. All things and happenings in this world are originally empty. From emptiness comes meaning. Yin and yang reverse; they support and restrain one another. The Heavenly Realm was originally empty. The Asura, too, was empty. If all is empty, then how could the Heavenly Realm be superior; and the Mortal Realm, Demon Realm, and Devil Realm be inferior? Your excessive concern for the safety of the Heavenly Realm prompted evil to take root in your heart, unable to be undone.

Seeing him in such despair almost makes me feel bad for him. Maybe I do have too much sympathy.

At this point, it's already too late to repair the damage he's caused, a realization that causes him further anguish. He rids himself of his divinity to show his remorse and accepts death. But he's already caused so much pain to everyone else. Who can put back together the world that he's destroyed?

---

Part IV: Love Wins All

(We love IU for her perfect song that also gave me the best possible final section title.)

As I seek to be conscious of my own biases, I once wondered: why is it that shaking my head at a female character for being dedicated to a man comes so naturally to me, but I can’t be more gleeful to see Sifeng put his heart out on a platter for Xuanji? Perhaps I’m also sexist. Perhaps I have double standards.

Then I thought about it some more and realized everyone loves Sifeng because he’s so blatantly unrealistic that you’re immediately able to sink yourself into his fictional beauty. He transcends gender norms because there is no person of any gender who would go to the extent that he does for Xuanji, nor is there anyone who could remain as levelheaded when faced with some of the most shameless people known to mankind. Forget all the people flying on swords and uttering magic spells. The biggest absurdity in Love and Redemption is its male lead. Yes, I'm a skeptic. But we're so lucky to have him.

Sifeng grew up in a bizarrely backwards environment where—instead of girls needing to cover up to not attract men’s attention—all men need to protect themselves by wearing masks and not associating with the opposite sex. Brainwashed for years to believe that Lize Palace is the only safe space for golden fire birds like himself, he keeps cautious around people while still harboring a subconscious longing for their warmth.

In my entire life, I never knew what a "friend" is. I finally understand now, the meaning of "fervent friendship."

Sifeng is established as the loyal lover extremely quickly. He's whipped—figuratively and literally—for Xuanji, his sheltered childhood leaving him defenseless against her unintentionally flirtatious mannerisms. He teaches her about her lost senses without judgment, nurtures limitless patience with her and others by proxy, and isn't afraid to question the status quo.

We love Sifeng for his wisdom and levelheadedness. He sees things for what they are and is commonly the voice of empathy and reason within a world of selfishness. The entire show is Sifeng going, "I might as well do it myself" in every situation because no one else cares, is capable enough, or both. He's the guy in group projects who quietly does everything and doesn't even get mad that you're the most useless team member ever. What a saint.

In the xianxia universe, he's distinct husband material (which isn’t saying much since the bar there is so low that you'd need to dig yourself a grave to reach it—which is also great because then you already have a place to go once your xianxia spouse gets you killed. I digress). His loyalty to not only others, but also who he is and what he wants, leaves him able to counter the complacency with hatred and evil permeating the world around him.

With his endless empathy, he's able to understand Luohou Jidu. While Sifeng's earliest motivation in facing the greatest devil is only to save Xuanji, he later views Luohou Jidu as an individual with his own sufferings. He's the only one to truly view Luohou Jidu as himself, not someone to eliminate, not just an extension of Xuanji. To Sifeng, everyone deserves a chance to be heard before a verdict is passed over them.

Not to mention, these two’s interactions are absolutely hilarious. I wish I could've seen the extensive conversations that must’ve went on in the censorship agency over them. 

Fellas, is it gay to clasp a guy’s hands within your own and stare deeply into his eyes while reminiscing about your loving relationship if he’s technically got a woman captive in his brain? 

But perhaps what shines the brightest about Sifeng is how he suffers. He's so pretty when he suffers. Wait. That's not my point.

When his Lovers’ Curse triggers for the first time, Xiao Yinhua speaks the gospel that a lot of the audience probably has in mind: "you did so much for her, you were so good to her, but she doesn’t love you back." And it sounds kind of right? But also kind of not? Then Sifeng opens his mouth and you think, "oh, crap, I've been brainwashed by misogyny yet again."

She never asked me to like her. If someone wants to kill another just because she doesn’t reciprocate their feelings, then that person will never be loved. They also don’t deserve to love another.

Again and again, Sifeng puts himself in harm's way to keep loving Xuanji. Sure, he wants her to love him back, but that's secondary to his desire to be honest with his own feelings.

With the bright beacon of light that is Sifeng’s blinding love, I feel most viewers overlook Xuanji’s capabilities as a female lead. Her comparative passiveness in the relationship makes it seem as if she doesn’t love him enough. I attribute this to the same reason as our previous conclusions, that female characters in romance dramas have a harder time garnering the audience’s approval than their male counterparts. Are we innately more judgmental toward women, or is the standard for men still so low that we’re already impressed when a guy surpasses the bare minimum? Probably both.

It's easy to forget that Xuanji is the one who's nice to Sifeng first. When they first meet, Xuanji literally falls into his arms. Then he just…drops her. (And they say chivalry is dead.) But Xuanji doesn’t care.

The rules of his sect push Sifeng into being a bit of a porcupine in his demeanor. He puts up a wall against everyone, but especially Xuanji. After all, as an innocent boy, Sifeng needs to protect himself from evil women. Or something.

Xuanji is the one who can't take the hint tries to befriend him and tears down his wall with the gentle, graceful nature of a sledgehammer. She insists that she'll retrieve his lost mask because she knows it's important to him. When she discovers that Sifeng is punished over it, Xuanji is the one to point out how unfair it is. Her straightforwardness and sense of principle are the reason Sifeng begins to open up at all.

Xuanji: I’m the one who took off his mask. If you want to hit someone, hit me. [...] Not to mention, he almost died trying to get his mask back. So I'd like to ask you, Palace Leader, is Sifeng's life more important, or is that mask more important?

She knows no fear, so she doesn't consider emotionless rules to be worth anything if they cause pain for the people she cares about. In many ways, Xuanji is the one who teaches Sifeng to stand up for what he believes in.

That Xuanji lacks her six senses makes her the least susceptible to the prejudicial habits of her surroundings. She accepts what they believe, that demons are bad, but only because that's all she knows. Whereas most of her peers are content remaining in their ignorance, this supposedly heartless gal is curious about the world. She can easily abandon her preconceptions in favor of what she witnesses the world to be.

It takes constant practice and tests for Xuanji to completely shed her old beliefs. The introduction of Zi Hu marks the beginning of her growth. Xuanji, concerned and angry that Zi Hu is holding her friends captive, fully intends on killing the fox until Ting Nu reasons with her:

Ting Nu: Zi Hu isn’t a malicious demon. You shouldn’t threaten her life. Xuanji: But she kidnapped my friends. How can I spare her? [...] No. She did bad things, so I have to kill her. Ting Nu: [...] Zi Hu has never actually harmed anybody. She’s simply misguided by her anxieties. You should spare her life. […] If you discover that she’s actually committing malicious acts, you could kill her then, no?

If it were Minyan or Linglong in her position, you could bet that they'd ignore Ting Nu. For one, he's a merman, so of course he'd protect another demon. To Xuanji's credit, she really does give Zi Hu—and Ting Nu—the benefit of the doubt. Does she have to? No. But she does anyway.

If Sifeng’s love comes naturally, then Xuanji’s comes through determination. Who's to say that one is inherently better than the other? It takes ten lifetimes for her to understand a semblance of love. She wants dearly to understand what it means to "like" someone, even though she's already the least unafraid to show how much she cares about others.

After she successfully grows the heart light for Sifeng, I don't think anyone is more excited than Xuanji herself. Look how proud she is. Obviously, she's happy she can use it to protect him, but I imagine that she also views it as the clearest proof that she’s as human as anybody else and as capable of loving as anyone else. Sifeng may be stunned when the heart light disappears, but Xuanji falls despondent—she really wants Sifeng to be someone important to her.

People sometimes struggle to see past Xuanji’s initial naivety. They're especially harsh toward her for not seeing what Sifeng has sacrificed for her until it’s almost too late. It's true, the drama primarily favors Sifeng's perspective, so it's easy to only see what he’s done and ignore Xuanji’s efforts.

In spite of warnings from Sifeng himself to not do so, Xuanji emerges to save him from the third lash of the demon whip. You go, girl.

Love isn’t a competition. But for the sake of the discussion, let's say proof is needed that Xuanji’s effort in the relationship matches Sifeng’s. In that case, the important part is looking at what they sacrifice in a relative scope instead of an absolute one.

The things that Sifeng sacrifices are astronomical. He climbs a tower blustering with an eternal blizzard and puts on the Lovers' Curse mask. He stands right in the middle of the conflict between humans and demons even though there’s no way humans will spare him. He gets stabbed…a lot. But everything he does is a result of his own will and careful calculations—they’re all things he knows he can take responsibility for.

Sifeng's major flaw is that he's a massive liar. He's not right to lie, but he's also right to be scared about what would happen if he doesn't. As a demon, he knows what happens to anyone who isn't distinctly human. That's why he conceals his identity from Xuanji.

Then, once he discovers that Xuanji is also the reincarnation of the Star of Mosha, his fear is ignited again for her sake. Xuanji has almost always been defined by what she is, not who. She's berated for being useless when she doesn’t have her six senses. The moment she’s revealed to have the God of War's power, suddenly everyone finds her more than useful. If she's publicly revealed to be the Star of Mosha, then she'd be killed without question, and the person that is “Xuanji” will also cease to exist. Just as he doesn’t want Xuanji to view him and as anything other than himself, Sifeng doesn't want anyone else to view Xuanji as anyone other than herself. That's also why out of everyone, the one person he must keep the Star of Mosha secret from is Xuanji herself.

When Sifeng's lies begin to unfold, Xuanji is left to handle the mess he's inadvertently created. Suddenly discovering that he's a demon and also protective of the demon that possibly murdered her mother, Xuanji is torn. Her wavering faith in him isn't because of his identity, but because he lied to her.

Zi Hu: Do you dislike it that much, that [Sifeng] is a demon? Xuanji: Should I not? Zi Hu: Well, you healed my wounds. And you’re friends with me and Ting Nu, a merman. As for little Sifeng, he’s not a malicious demon who harms people. I don’t think he was aware of what went on with Tianxu Hall and Lize Palace. Xuanji: That’s different! He shouldn’t have lied to me. He’s the person I trust the most. But he even kept from me who he is. Then, all the things he told me and did with me in the past…what part of it all was real and what was fake? Zi Hu: What’s real and what’s fake? Can’t you just drag him over here and ask him? If he’s a scumbag, just kill him. But if there’s any misunderstandings, the two of you should clear them up. Resolve them and see what solutions there are. When two people are together, the scariest thing is misunderstanding one another for no reason. If you lose each other, that might be the end, forever. You’d regret that. 

And then she eventually does try to kill him. Good going, Zi Hu.

Xuanji's main conflict in the latter half of the drama is that she wants to find a solution that satisfies everyone, an impossible dilemma. Everyone starts pressuring her to lead the charge against the demons. It's her duty as the God of War, isn't it? Oh, but if she doesn't want to, it's because she's in love with the enemy. But she can't be in love with the enemy. She's the God of War, after all.

That’s the duplicitous world that Xuanji lives in. Yet, without knowing why he's been dishonest or what else he could be lying about, she still chooses to believe in Sifeng—even if it means being treated as a traitor herself and being further guilt-tripped. She's bound to her duty, family, and the expectations that come along with that. Going against them in any capacity is a challenge to her entire livelihood and the moral standards imposed on her. If you take that into account, suddenly the things that she risks don’t pale in comparison what Sifeng does for her.

As an omniscient audience, it's easy for us to say that she doesn't do enough, that she should know better. It's an interesting thought experiment to wonder what else she could do in such a situation. Her boyfriend lies to her. She believes he has a reason, believes in him when he tells her to trust him. She defends him repeatedly to people who don't even care to listen unless it's to interrupt and call her crazy. She lies to her father that she'll devote herself to killing demons like Sifeng so they'll stop calling her crazy and threatening her. Then, when she goes to rescue Sifeng from Mingxia Cave, he's suddenly getting passive-aggressive with her: “oh, what does the mighty God of War need from a lowly demon like me that she deigns to talk to me?” Bro…if I were her, I might just ditch him in a fit of rage. That's how you want to play? Have fun turning into frozen poultry in this cave, then.

Obviously, more is going on behind the scenes that Xuanji is completely unaware of. Sifeng almost dies from her fire magic that Hao Chen stole. The broken hairpin. And okay, I'll admit that her saying that she'll kill him while he's eavesdropping outside is not a great look. But come on, Sifeng. Where have your critical thinking skills gone? If you can lie, don’t you think Xuanji can too? And after all that, she still instinctively shields him from her father’s sword.

Sifeng. In this case, I do have to criticize you in a serious manner. Do you have any idea how hard it was for Xuanji to finally try to get herself stabbed for you, only for you to go “no, me” and get stabbed again? Do you have a sword-magnet in your chest?

Then Sifeng tells her that he’s never loved her and was only using her because he’s Luohou Jidu, the world's biggest villain. And she still can't bear to hurt him. When Xuanji discovers that Hao Chen has tricked her into using a so-called “Purifying Vase” to doom Sifeng to a painful death, she's furious:

Xuanji: For my own good? You want me to practice the Method of Love, but you also want me to be heartless. I can’t be so contradictory. Hao Chen: I told you to practice the Method of Love through feelings between you and me, not for you to continuously absorb yourself in your fixation on Sifeng! Xuanji, don’t forget. Our marriage is one determined by the heavens. It’s destiny. Xuanji: The heavens determine nothing. If they do, then why did they make Sifeng and I meet in our past nine lives? What a joke of the heavens. Hao Chen: So, you’d rather resign yourself to your doomed fate with that demon than stay properly by my side? Xuanji: Fate isn’t split into a virtuous or doomed one. I hate myself for loving Sifeng before, and we won’t ever be together again. But since I already gave him my love, I won’t take it back.

But of course, Hao Chen has more tricks up his Mary Poppins sleeves. He pulls out all the stops and uses his last breath to manipulate her into stabbing Sifeng. Oh my god. Look at all these trust issues, just making themselves readily available.

Her stabbing him is, how do you say, very bad. But let’s be honest, she’s seen him survive worse. I don't have a nifty conclusion is here, but basically, she subconsciously knows he'll get over it (physically, at least).

Of course, Sifeng is heartbroken. It's intensified by the tragic fate of his father. His father’s goal was always to protect Sifeng from the dangers posed by the racist five sects, led primarily by fabricated memories that his lover Hao Feng was driven to suicide by her own family. When Yuan Lang reveals the truth, that Hao Feng's fear of demons trumped her love for her husband, it’s intense foreshadowing of Sifeng and Xuanji’s relationship. Maybe Xuanji isn't like Hao Feng and she can cross the rift between humans and demons, meeting Sifeng in the middle. But finally, she still retreats, away from him. Her betrayal, now the tenth in all their lifetimes, leads Sifeng to leave behind some of the most truthful but hurtful words for Xuanji to deal with:

I finally understand why my fate turned out as it did in all my past nine lives. From beginning to end, you have always been a heartless person.

It’s not fair to ask Sifeng to keep considering Xuanji’s feelings under the brunt of her violent wrath. But just as she has no idea what he’s been doing to protect her, he has no idea what she’s been doing to protect him. Zi Hu is right again: nothing poses a greater danger to a couple than misunderstandings. And racism.

The ultimate resolution only occurs once Xuanji recovers the memories of their past lives. Congratulations, Sifeng. After a millennium of pining, your love has finally touched the heart of your beloved. Indeed, it might take a long time getting there, but love will find a way.

I love the short scenes that show the God of War and Xi Xuan's quiet but gentle relationship. Xi Xuan is the only one who cares that the God of War wants her own identity, then gives her a moment in which she doesn't have to wear her armor, just as Sifeng does everything in his power to let Xuanji be "Xuanji." Through all their lives, Sifeng is the one who recognizes her for who she is and wants to make her happy, even if she doesn't have a heart.

Activate: Xuanji, shameless mode. After Xuanji tracks down Sifeng in his solitude, they return to their days as teenagers. Xuanji acts like a fool in front of him, demanding his attention, and Sifeng only wants to get her the hell out of his house. It's not only a reminder of the times when things were a lot simpler, but also of how far they've come.

She intends on marrying Sifeng. Even if her father doesn't approve, she no longer cares. There's not enough time left in the world to hesitate about the people you love to satiate someone who can't be satisfied. Just as Sifeng upends his whole life for her, she's willing to do the same.

And as Sifeng is dying, Xuanji makes the ultimate decision to become the Star of Mosha. This isn't a reckless move done just to save him. Rather, her faith in Sifeng has strengthened into steel after all they've been through. Even if the world ends, she knows that a little bird with unshakable resolve will come get her. For two people who have spent most of their time as a pair of parallel lines, never to coincide, this is their point of intersection—a challenge that they'll face together, even if they're apart.

Sifeng: Xuanji, stop! I'd rather die than watch you become a devil for me! Xuanji: Sifeng, I can't consider all that now. I have to save you! Whether I be the Star of Mosha or the God of War, I don't care. I just need you to be okay. Sifeng. If I become Luohou Jidu, you absolutely can't forget me. Remember to bring me back! I cry during this scene. Then I immediately start laughing at Sifeng's gobsmacked expression once Luohou Jidu shows up. It just reads "but...my girlfriend..."

And Xuanji's right. Sifeng is the solution. No one else can save Luohou Jidu, the God of War, and the world by extension. Luohou Jidu's pain results from being betrayed purely because of his identity as a devil, but Sifeng becomes the confidante that Bai Lin pretended to be. The God of War's pain comes from having no self-identity, but Xi Xuan gives her the ability to seek one and accompanies her for a thousand years to help her find it. The suffering that Bai Lin set into motion would lead to a ceaseless cycle of revenge and a destruction of the world’s good due to its sins, but Sifeng alone convinces Luohou Jidu and the God of War that there's something in life worth keeping. But you have to fight for it, and persistently, because good things only come to those who are willing to chase after them.

Xuanji to Bai Lin: I won’t mess with someone else’s life so simply due to my own matters, even if that person is someone as despicable as you. Sifeng once said that using hate to obtain vengeance is an endless cycle. In this life, I already have something that matters more to me than that. I have no space to keep my hatred.

I know it can sound cheesy to say that the best revenge is living a happy life. But Love and Redemption can convert even the most insistent of cynics—me, for example. People will practice evil whether or not there’s a reason for it and whether or not those consequences will ripple out into a tsunami that will engulf the world. Only true, honest love can hope to settle the uneasy sea. It’s why Zi Hu gives Wu Zhiqi something to live for other than war. It’s why Linglong and Minyan have a reason to persist alongside one another. It's why Luohou Jidu gives his heart and life to Sifeng. It’s why Sifeng is able to save Xuanji. It's why the three realms are blessed with the chance to keep finding a reason to persist.

Sifeng and Xuanji’s story is a journey of overcoming all odds; of learning to love someone unconditionally not because it’s easy, but because you want to; of letting that love grow into a ray of hope in the world. Yes, if we let it, love wins all.

Sifeng: Your heart has become one of flesh and blood. It couldn’t bear to destroy the three realms. Because…it’s a heart that I held and warmed in my hands, bit by bit.