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sometimes its easy to forget but every time i think about orv i remember that to live you must want to live. its not enough to live by inertia. you must have a reason for going through the motions even if that reason is something silly like a book premiere or writing or having picnics. and there's no reason too small because there's no person that's unimportant. each and every reason is the entire world to someone and that someone is the entire world to someone else, even if it's hard or impossible to believe. you mean the entire world to someone and it was worth it to know you despite how long or short your time together was. it's just. it's easy to forget and im not even sure what im trying to say
#im crying bro how does this book keep hitting so hard#this is incoherent but that's bc this book scrambles my brain#orv#my property#kei talks#when i say im crying im not exaggerating there's motherfucking tears in my eyes#orv meta#omniscient reader's viewpoint
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Even if TWSA had finished without the world ending, KDJ would have been okay
#orv#omniscient reader's viewpoint#ysa#kdj#orv meta#Mei talks#bangs head on floor repeatedly. she’ll never understand but she takes his hand anyway. ysa the friend of all time#feeling normal about her#she’s not hsy or yjh#there’s no cosmic fate drawing them together#they won’t meet in every universe#they just happened to do their job interview on the same day. happened to be coworkers#and what a miraculous thing that is#to have a friend
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we could have so many better conversations about pre-apocalyose han sooyoung
was she medicating for “sleep walking?” was she considered narcoleptic? did she have a chronic sleep disorder that affected her because of the timeline shenanigans?
was she unmoored, unnerved, and a little scared when, suddenly, her disabilty slowly started getting more manageable after the world ended?
“how do you sleep at night, knowing you’ve killed many for your own sake?” yoo sangah asked once.
“like a baby,” sooyoung snarks back. like a baby. 8-10 hours that actually feel like 8-10 hours.
when sangah points out that kim dokja seemed more alive after the apocalypse, the implications of having been waiting for this moment his whole life, what about sooyoung?
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I just realized why ORV puts such a focus on "hey all trauma is trauma, it's never minor" in such a way we all remember it.
This is the story for Kim Dokja's fragments. And some of his fragments will live happy lives. Some will lives just as dramatically unhappy as his. But many will live different kinds of tragedies, have different kinds of traumas. And we can't just go and say "well some like Kim Dokja have it worse", all trauma is trauma. And we all deserve the same kindness and understanding of that that Kim Dokja eventually gets from his companions.
#braincell posting#orv#orv meta#kim dokja#ough sooyoung youve done so much for us and yet... and yet...#orv spoilers
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Can we talk about the fact that 999th turns’ Lee Hyunsung successfully Secretive Plotter’d himself. Like he became an Outer God and then pretended to be his own past self’s sponsor for a while and nothing bad happened. rip to SP but he's built different
#if i was sp i would kms cuz when HE tried it he accidentally destroyed 999!yjh’s life#while 3rd!lhs and fake master of steel were frolicking n shit. absolutely humiliating for SP#orv spoilers#orv#lee hyunsung#omniscient reader’s viewpoint#sometimes i have thoughts abt lhs. hes an underrated character ok#orv meta#<-maybe#my posts
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The thing about ORV is it's a perfect deconstruction of stories
It's about how the Author loves and resents the Reader and Character but also lives for them. Lives to feed the Reader the story and to give the Character life because he carries the story
The Reader lives for the Character and needs the Author, loving them both in different ways but he also envies the Character and is demanding of the Author
And the Character lives for the Reader and because of the Author and loves and resents them both at the same time
And they are constantly orbiting each other in this intricate dance always yearning and dependent on each other but never truly touching
It's a tragedy and a love story and a story of obsession and yearning that defies labels and also pain and resentment and guilt and it's beautiful
This why ORV has consumed me
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A friend requested that I post some ORV thoughts on Tone and Themes from discord. I have edited the messages for better organization and clarity below:
There are a lot of quotes that you could argue are the culmination or distillation of ORV. You could also argue that ORV itself is not reducible to a single quote because of the sheer enormity of it, and how that size is a component of the story itself. But if I were to convey the specific melancholy of ORV-- my most fundamental read on the Feeling of ORV-- I would choose one quote to do so.
I’d fall back on, “In a world turned upside down, where monsters were rampant, we still had to clear the snow.”
Throughout the immense battles of good vs evil or gods and demons, ORV remains a story about people doing the things they have to in order to continue living.
And there is a distinct melancholy to that: the grief stricken “is it just this forever,” everyone being a regressor, and the mundane tragedies of struggling on in a world that will build a narrative around you regardless of your input or desires. However, all of these things are part and parcel to ‘surviving’ in a ruined world
It's about taking those small steps forward, regardless of cataclysmic tragedy and world-rending stakes. You still have to clear the snow. You still have to take care of the people around you. You still have to cook dinner. You still have to live.
It's the melancholy of a 'nevertheless', and that's a hopeful kind of melancholy. Reaching out and trying again and again. Leaving a mark on the wall because someone might read it. Regressing so that one day you won’t have to. Iterating and changing and trying again and again. It’s about making attempts.
It's about finding ways to survive, even if you've forgotten a few.
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ORV EPILOGUE SPOILERS.
Okay so I made a random ramble thread on twitter about my ORV Epilogue headcanons/interpretations and it's become apparent to me that. Uh. My perspective is somewhat unique so here:
ORV Epilogue is a huge callback to the Disaster of Floods, and a certified Disconnected Film Theory™ moment.
When the system starts to regain power and reactivate, one of the first things said (by HSY), as the stories start to reform is "Disconnected film theory?!" and my IMMEDIATE thought was this:
This phenomenon was activated because we, aka a Kim Dokja of a different timeline, have met him through our reading of the story, and through this, KDJ regains his memories. The parts of ourselves that came directly from KDJ such as loving this story and the characters, or perhaps our own "memories" of him that were formed by the act of reading ORV.
Because why else mention DFT specifically? The fact that the systems have restarted and the storytelling is continuing were enough to signal that Kimcom's efforts could have worked, that they've successfully gotten the story out, and KDJ's fragments to wish for his return...
But DFT being mentioned naturally made me think back to its introduction, where it is most prominently utilized: the Disaster of Floods, where the two Shin Yoosungs started to have their memories, their 'films' mixed up...
Kim Dokja used his First Person POV skill at this point, and viewed the world through 41st Shin Yoosung's eyes.
DFT's initial stake in this scenario is that it's there so that, when active, if you killed one timeline's version of a character, the other one would also die, thus the party's dilemma as to whether to spare the child Yoosung. And later on, it activates when he meets the Oldest Dream...
But THIS film-related memory-fuckery also stuck out to me. Not only that... I feel like it might be implied that this happens because of an outside force: Kim Dokja.
Are you still with me. Okay. Two more things:
Why call back to the Disaster of Floods? If not to also remember how, in this scenario, the wishes of the Constellations [thus, readers] wrote the ending?
Aren't we, the reader, a fragment of Kim Dokja, the outside force in this situation?
Haven't we been using the same skill as Kim Dokja the entire time?
also, Disaster of Floods happens relatively early on, so it just scratches my story structure itch if it comes back as a bookend.
tl;dr basically. We brought him back. And we gave him back his memories.
Through the combination of 1. our imagination, our wish for KDJ to wake up, and 2. our own memories entangling with KDJ's through disconnected film theory.
DFT, in turn, activated because 1. we are him from a different timeline and 2. met him through the story that 3. kimcom busted their ass to deliver to us <3
#orv#orv spoilers#orv epilogue spoilers#orv meta#omniscient reader#omniscient reader's viewpoint#kim dokja#kdj#i'm not crazy right. like. this tracks right.#i have only read orv once and only skimmed the relevant passages so. shrug!!!!#not art
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uhh so..i started reading the book hsy talks about (barthes' mourning diary) and i'm going insane. it's a collection of notes the author started to write the day after his mother died. in short, it's a book about processing grief through writing. and... is this not what hsy have been doing during the years kdj has been in coma
i'm not even halfway through the book so i'm sure i'm gonna find even more parallels but- ugh. orv man. unbelievable. how can every single tiny thing in orv be crafted with so much care and love. how am i supposed to get over it
#cursing at the skies DAMN YOU ORV.....DAMN YOUUUU...BEAUTIFUL STORY.....#hsy is INSANE to reccomend thiss to her students so they can analys webnovels#dealing w my own grief about my mom this bookjust punched in the guts multiple times#ok usual tagging cause if i suffer everyone has to suffer too#orv posting#orv spoilers#orv analysis#hankim#orv meta#orv hsy#doksoo
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Me: [having an orv-induced existential crisis] Kim Dokja’s relationship with the story of Yoo Joonghyuk is a direct metaphor for how he comes to terms with his trauma. This implies that their companionship is akin to a psychological—
Me two hours later: [writing my latest romcom fic] MAKE THEM KISS.
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I was joking a while back that the actor they have playing KDJ for the orv movie was too handsome for him and a friend who's read orv was like "KDJ is actually secretly attractive!!" And I just felt my soul leave my body right then
SIGHS...
Okay. Buckle in. I'm gonna finally actually address and explain and theorize about this whole...thing.
I'm not gonna cite any exact chapters cause it's like 11:30 and I've got an 8 hour drive in the morning but I'll at least make an approximate reference to where certain things are mentioned. Also, this post is just my personal interpretation for a good bit of it, but it's an interpretation I feel very solid about, so do with that what you will. Moving on to the meat of things:
There is one (1) instance in the web novel that I know of which describes specific features of Kim Dokja (especially ones other people notice). This takes place when members of KimCom are trying to make Kim Dokja presentable to give his speech at the Industrial Complex (after it's been plopped down on Earth). This is when they start really paying attention and focusing on Kim Dokja's appearance since they're putting makeup on him; I still don't think they can interpret his whole face, but they can accurately pick out and retain more features than usual. If I remember correctly they reference him having long eyelashes, smooth skin, and soft hair. These features can be viewed as (stereotypically) attractive.
Certain parts of the fandom have taken this scene and run with it at a very surface level, without realizing (or without acknowledging at the very least) that this scene is not about how Kim Dokja looks. This is, in part, due to not realizing or acknowledging why Kim Dokja's face is "censored" in the first place, and what that censoring actually means. I think it's also possible that some people are assuming the censorship works like a physical phenomena rather than an altered perception.
I'll address that last point first. The censorship of Kim Dokja's features is not something as simple as a physical phenomena. It's not a bar or scribble or mosaic over his face. If that were true it'd be very obvious to anyone looking at him that his face is hidden. But his face is not hidden to people. They can look at him and see a face. If they concentrate on his eyes, they can see where he's looking. They know when he's frowning or grinning. They see a face loud and clear. But what face are they seeing? Because it's not really his, whatever they're seeing.
No one quite agrees on what he really looks like. And if they try and think about what he looks like, they can't recall. Or if they do, it's vague, or different each time. We notice these little details throughout the series. Basically, Kim Dokja's face is cognitively obscured. Something - likely the Fourth Wall, though I can't recall if this is ever stated outright - is interfering with everyone's ability to perceive him properly. This culminated in him feeling off to others; and since they don't even realize this is happening, they surmise that he is "ugly."
Moving on to the other point about what the censorship means: To be blunt, the censorship of his face is an allegory for his disconnect from the "story" (aka: real life, and the real people at his side). The lifting - however slight - of this censorship represents him becoming more and more a part of the "story" (aka: less disconnected from the life he is living and the people at his side). The censorship's existence and lifting can represent other things - like dissociation or depersonalization or, if you want to get really meta, the fact that he is all of our faces at once - but that's how I'd sum up the main premise of it. (The Fourth Wall is a larger part of the dissociation allegory, but that's for another post).
So you see, them noticing his individual features isn't about the features. It's not about the features! It doesn't matter at all which features got listed. Because they could describe any features whatsoever and it would not change the entire point of the scene. Because the point isn't what he looks like. The point is that they can truly and clearly see these features. For the first time. They are seeing parts of him for the first time. Re-read that sentence multiple times, literally and metaphorically. What does it mean to see someone as they are?
This is an extremely significant turning point dressed up as a dress-up scene.
---
P.S. / Additionally, I'm of the opinion that Kim Dokja is not handsome, and he is not ugly. He is not pretty, and he is not ghastly. Not attractive, nor unattractive. Kim Dokja isn't any of these things. More importantly, Kim Dokja can't be any of these things. The entire point of Kim Dokja is that you cannot pick him out of a crowd; he is the crowd. He's a reader. He's the reader. Why does he need to be handsome? Why must he be pretty? Why is him being attractive necessary or relevant? He doesn't, he doesn't, it's not. He is someone deeply deeply loved and irreplaceable to those around him, and someone who cannot even begin to recognize or accept that unless it's through a love letter masquerading as a story he can read. He is the crowd, a reader, the reader. He's you, he's me. He's every single one of us.
#orv#orv analysis#orv meta#orv spoilers#mine#ask#there's also the meta that he is described with these (stereotypically) pretty features as they are about to try and 'sell' him to a crowd#which feels to me like a very pointed way to convey how 'beauty' is commodified. how audiences like 'attractive' characters more#note: made some edits to add in a couple of sentences my brain forgot in the moment so make sure u reblogged those if u do#tag edits for further commentary that isnt strictly relevant to the point i was making:#do i think that this face censorship was executed as well as it could have been? nah.#not that it was like. done Badly. it's followed through to a certain point. its established enough for me to make this post at least.#but i do think it is the one thing in the web novel that SS didn't capitalize on.#like. they still stuck the landing but it was not as picture perfect of an execution as the rest of the metaphorical stuff in orv#also. this (not the face censorship specifically but the 'hes just some guy' point of it all) is one of the big reasons i think that-#-visual adaptions of orv can never quite work. they can do the best that they can with that medium but a lot of nuance is lost-#-simply by virtue of it being a visual medium#i personally think the only way a visual medium could work would be one where they commit to the power move of not showing kdj's face#(until a certain point (of view) that is)#his face is always facing away or out of frame or hidden by someone or something else in the way#commit to the fucking allegory or simply perish
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so i wrote an 8-page essay about personhood and yoo joonghyuk in omniscient reader's viewpoint for my real life seminar for a real life grade that will be on my academic record forever. why? because im insane.
read "me, myself, and i: recognizing personhood in omniscient reader's viewpoint" here!
i would highly recommend reading this short text as an introduction to some of the theory and terms used in my essay; ive also included an extremely condensed version of the major points used for my paper under the cut.
narrative prosthesis: disability and the dependencies of discourse speaks on disability— and more abstractly, a deficiency in something— being a vital part of literary narratives, while also disqualifying disabled people from being perceived as human.
characters need to be missing something or deficient in some way in order to necessitate a story to be told about them, and at the same time this disqualifies them from being a "human person". essentially, disability is used because of its inherent implications: that there is a story to be told about it, and that there is a story that can be made from it. the end goal of the narrative is to either "fix" this disability/deficiency, or to "prosthesize" it with an equally narratively valuable explanation or compensation, hiding it from view.
disability and its place in literature is surrounded by a myriad of issues, such as how representations of disabled people are used to justify their abuse and exploitation. disability is viewed as the "master trope of human disqualification", automatically marking someone to be completely unrecognisable as a "normal" human, and when a disability becomes too apparent— both in literature and in the real world— a prosthetic is sought by the narrative or by social pressure in order to "compensate" for the disability, restoring it to an "acceptable" level.
#omniscient reader's viewpoint#yoo joonghyuk#kim dokja#orv#orv meta#hahahh. hi. here it js.#i havent gotten it marked or anything so if its bad well. haha. 💜#wei.post#seriously if u wanna talk abt it!! send me a msg or ask or smn#comments are also enabled on the doc itself#also please read the recommended text it really is good as a precursor for my essay but also just as a disability studies text as well#orvposting
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you know, i don't think im still done about yapping about han sooyoung's former chronic illness, so here's more
kim dokja is kind of freaked out about the fact that han sooyoung FORGETS things when her avatars die or just in general leave her main body, because he can't fathom the idea of forgetting things about himself. he's formed his personhood around significant events in his life, whether or not he's remembering it correctly.
but han sooyoung has spent most of her life asleep or bedridden. she would be remembering and misremembering events all the time-- the mixing of two egos between her and tls123 but also the lines blurred between dream and memory, reality and fiction.
this is why she has to read and reread SSSSS-grade Infinite Regressor so much, and why she was so confused about WoS's existence as a story, but not to the point of having a crisis about her own originality and creativity, not to the point of wondering if she really ever was a plagiarist.
seeing han sooyoung as someone with memory problems to begin with makes it so her overuse of the avatar skill isn't something scary or a measure of trust in her own abilities, it's just something she's lived with for over a decade before the apocalypse
#orv meta#orv spoilers#han sooyoung#tls123#orv#omniscient reader's viewpoint#hsy#i should tag this uhh#disabled han sooyoung
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The fact that the "Yoo Joonghyuk from the 0th turn was willing to go through 1864 regressions solely to see Kim Dokja again" notion is so popular kinda irks me because of how it 1) strips YJH of any nuance in his character by reducing him to a pining lovesick man 2) kinda disregards an arguably more heartfelt reading of the scene
To clarify, I'm not gonna argue that YJH did not consider KDJ in his decision to regress, he evidently did, but it drives me nuts when people act like that's the only reason why YJH regressed.
Now granted, YJH did kinda start this whole conversation with "If I choose you as my Constellation sponsor, will I finally get to meet you?" and so I understand when people think that meeting KDJ face-to-face is the reason why YJH chose to regress despite the slim chances but I also want people to consider one of YJH's enduring characteristics.
YJH has always been portrayed as wanting to know the truth of the world he lived in and wanting to understand his origins. He seeks to reach the conclusion because he wants answers for his suffering and the hardships he went through. Hell, one of the things he says to KDJ during this scene was "Who am I?" and then he goes on to ask whether "the secret of this world lies beyond the wall, where you are?"
YJH of the 0th turn has reached a point in his life where he is happy but he says that it's because of that that he's "even more curious about what lies beyond the wall". He wishes to take the time to understand himself after achieving such happiness and this really feels like an example of someone seeking self-actualisation.
And this also ties into my second point because understanding YJH's (imo) primary motivation ultimately frames this scene as one where two individuals who deeply love each other have to separate because one of them has decided to dedicate their life to a certain goal while the other (reluctantly) accepts their decision because they understand that it would make their loved one fulfilled.
It's a different flavour of bittersweet from the popular reading because what separates them is ultimately YJH's desire to reach self-fulfillment and KDJ accepting his desire even if it he thinks YJH is a "dumb bastard" for doing so.
After spending so much time with YJH, both as a character and as a companion, KDJ understands better than anyone that this is what YJH needs to do. And so he lets him go.
Even if it hurts. Even if he knows that YJH would eventually resent him for it. Even if he thinks regressing will just make him miserable. He lets go because he knows that this is who YJH is and he would be remiss if he let his own personal feelings get in the way of respecting his agency.
And yes, this sucker punching line right here "Tell me, you fool. If I continue to regress, will I ever get to meet you again?" does imply that half of his reason to regress is to meet KDJ irl but! I also wanna point out that KDJ never really confirmed to YJH that he could meet him again. And taking that into consideration alongside YJH's final words to KDJ, "I shall pray that you may continue to exist somewhere too" and that he still didn't stop to second-guess his regression, you're kinda left with the impression that YJH would have still gone on this journey even with the possibility that KDJ may never show up again in the future. He regresses with the small hope that they will meet each other again but he doesn't move forward solely because of that small hope.
I like to think that it's because in the 0th turn, YJH already considers them to be companions and even if he doesn't meet KDJ again, that doesn't mean their bond didn't exist.
Because, as he said about his other companions, "Just because I will forget about them, doesn't mean they'll suddenly stop existing".
Much like how the Demon King of Salvation won't stop existing even if he forgets him.
But like, regardless of whether my interpretation is right or not, I just think that YJH going forward for his own truth rather than just a desire to see KDJ again makes for a sweeter narrative after the bittersweet ending of the 0th turn.
Because as luck would have it, KDJ would once again guide YJH towards the end on his 1864th turn in the future/past, just like how he did during the 0th turn.
Regardless of YJH's personal motivations and KDJ's personal hangups, the two are irrevocably linked and that small hope from seemingly aeons ago finally became reality after countless lives.
Maybe this is why they are called "Life and Death Companions".
#tldr#I think there's a way to interpret this scene without taking away YJH's nuance while still emphasizing Joongdok's connection#maybe one day I will actually be concise in what I'm saying#omniscient reader's viewpoint#orv spoilers#orv novel spoilers#orv analysis#orv meta#yoo joonghyuk#kim dokja#joongdok#-gesturing wildly- as with everything orv‚ it's about the sacrifice and the salvation#The Cloud Talk
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Thinking about the 999th round. The round of the Yoo Joonghyuk who sacrificed all of himself for his companions, who gave up his life in a deal to keep them safe. And this being he made a deal with, they must be nothing good, but so long as his companions can reach the end, he can make peace with it.
But his companions cannot accept this. This man who gave up everything for them, how could they not give up everything for him in turn? In their ruined world, how can they not search for the being who ruined it? That Plotter, who schemed their beloved companion away from them, how could they not hate that person? Such an insult, that the Secretive Plotter wears his face. Because he isn't their Yoo Joonghyuk.
But he is Yoo Joonghyuk. He's Yoo Joonghyuk of the 1863rd round, who once gave up his life for his companions, and made a deal with an outer god to protect them. He himself became an outer god to search for his origin, for the one who will not allow him a demise, and he discovers that one of his own tragedies, his near-successful 999th round, was his fault. He was that outer god who destroyed himself. A being that cannot bear to be whole, so many memories that he must split himself into kkomas to stay sane.
And 999 is one of those kkomas. He's not exactly "Yoo Joonghyuk", none of them are now, but his life was in the 999th round. And those outer gods who despise the one who killed him, they were his companions, and what they despise is his future. How can he face them, when his life as "Yoo Joonghyuk" is so long gone, when he died and eventually came back as "999"?
Eventually, his companions come to accept that their Yoo Joonghyuk is gone, that the sins of one version of him do not mean that all of him must be destroyed, that there can be forgiveness of the square circle.
So, what must they be thinking when they see the Oldest Dream nearly killed by his own future?
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There's so many interesting ways you could read into Secretive Plotter very deliberately choosing to look like the alt-1863!YJH, and not any of his own turns. This is so unusual that even in ORV everyone is constantly saying their theories about it.
Kim Dokja thinks SP does it to unsettle him.
41 thinks he's either putting on a show or deliberately giving KDJ hints.
YJH thinks SP is mocking him.
…Secretive Plotter himself says he does it as some weird psychological mindfuck, since 1863rd was supposed to be him but is not—at least he can look like him if not be him. (Somehow the weirdest answer here.)
I personally think it’s noteworthy that alt-1863 looked quite bad physically - scarred face, sunken cheeks and withdrawn eyes, all of which SP replicates perfectly. Perhaps he is unconsciously trying to project his own mental state onto his appearance?
#orv spoilers#omniscient reader's viewpoint#orv#yoo joonghyuk#secretive plotter#orv meta#<-because im actually really proud of this post#my posts
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