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points at you dramatically

Hot take about ORV, go!

ooooo ok this is a little difficult because i feel like i've been very loud about my hot takes so im not sure if i have many untold ones. hmmmmmmmm. recently i've been really pissed off about people calling orv 'basically a bl' because orv has one of the weirdest relationships with queerness ive ever seen and id love to see it talked about more. like orv is so much weirder about being gay than your average queerbaity novel of this genre because it is in conversation with its genre and its fans so you get this. simultaneous mocking and validation of queerness throughout it? sing shong clearly knew that people would ship joongdok and as they often do with various expected reactions by the readers they turn to the camera and provide commentary on it through the constellations or specifically uriel. uriel is a prominent member of the constellation gang who kim dokja values which represents fujoshis being a prominent part of the fanbase who sing shong value. so there is that validation of queer fans who see themselves in these characters (which is explicitly what uriel is and who she represents).

but she also spends so much of the book being mocked and derided and that in my opinion is also sing shong turning to the camera and saying 'yes you are valued readers and your relationship with this story is as valid as any other. that gay stuff is still kinda freak shit though'. which is. complicated! it's complicated! and normally when i see fans call webnovels which are not bls 'basically a bl' or 'gay as hell' or whatever i do not care but i feel like when orv is so obviously actively discussing those fan reactions there should be a little more nuance surrounding them. like idk i very much understand the impulse to ignore homophobia in our favourite stories and just have fun. and i think you can have fun sometimes but it does have to go hand in hand with an understanding and critique of sing shongs attitude towards queerness otherwise you are losing chess to a dog which is actively mocking you for doing so. also theres so much fucking transmisogyny in that book like i see so few trans women in the fandom and its for a good fucking reason and no amount of headcanoning yoo joonghyuk as a trans woman is ever gonna make that go away as much as we can try. like theres a reason the queerbaity moments got removed in the ebook edits and not the transmisogynistic ones and thats because theres so little discussion and backlash about it when there really needs to be.

so idk if this really counts as a hot take but i think orv is weird about being gay in a really unique and interesting way and it would be a lot better if we discussed it more as a fandom rather than sweeping it under the rug. and also if the official english translation keeps in the pink kids as villains i am blowing up the publishing company.

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What is your favorite orv headcanon (if there is one)? Or just a not widely known fact from canon

i know it is a basic answer (and god we really do live in a blessed world where i can say that because i remember the orv fandom 5 years ago and it was such a different time) but yoo joonghyuk is so transfem to me its not even funny. genuinely such a perfect headcanon with so much canon basis that elaborates on orvs themes excellently. it works so well in the narrative as a metaphor for her escaping the oppressive system around her and the toxic role it put her in. it fits wonderfully with her character and personal struggles. and ultimately theres the plain old fact that when in punisher form she looks 'more like herself than ever before'. its a headcanon that genuinely works so well and adds so much to her character. its my favourite by far

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yoohankim is kim dokja laying in bed thinking god im a dogshit human being and soon these two will figure it out and leave me and han sooyoung laying in bed thinking god im a dogshit human being im so lucky that ive managed to find these people willing to be with me and i will never let them go and yoo joonghyuk laying in bed thinking well we might have enough onions for that onion soup i wanna make tomorrow night but i should probably stop by the store in the morning and grab some extra just in case. also if either of these people leave me i will kill myself

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ahem ahem. What if sp x 1863 hsy!? Can you see the toxic vision!?

I want to so BAD you have no IDEA. SP and 1863!HSY are my favourite characters, yoohan is my favourite ship, this should be perfectly tailored to me, right? And YET, I've never gotten farther than "someone should make this a thing...."

But I'll try for you.

They do have some canon interactions going for them. Namely, we know that SP made a covenant with her to do some unspecified thing in the 1863rd regression.

It's not certain how many of the messages he sent to KDJ's channel were actually him personally, and how many one of his kkomas, and while I think a couple of them in the important moments was actually him, I headcanon he spent most of his time watching the alt-1863rd round. For Han Sooyoung I imagine he was a cold and distant figure who sent few indirect messages but whose attention was always hanging over her head. She had to rely on his satisfaction with the way she ran the world for him to hold up his part of the deal and give her a new worldline.

And we know he wasn't satisfied, because when he sent KDJ there, he said "I hope you're not as disappointing as the last one." So clearly there was some kind of disagreement between them.

Despite all this fun context, I don't think they have many strong feelings about each other other than mutual dislike. Neither of them spend time thinking of the other except for when they have to interact for the sake of the covenant. They're relationship is purely business, and they don't leave a huge impression on the other's psyche or change the trajectory of their lives forever. (Unlike, for example, 1863 Yoo Joonghyuk does for the both of them.)

Only thing they have going for them is their love triangle with 1863 YJH. It's the kind that doesn't end in a thruple for once, but where they both stay feeling entirely neutral about the other corner.

The Big Issue for them is that SP gives HSY a task he doesn't actually wish to be achieved, but HSY has no choice but to do her best to attempt anyway. And when she does come up with a perfect plan to achieve the death of Yoo Joonghyuk, the thing SP supposedly wants, he gets cold feet and sends KDJ in last minute, saying he's 'dissapointed' in her. Why? The plan would have worked. But he didn't want Yoo Joonghyuk to die at that point.

What he actually wanted her to do was fight radically change the world like Kim Dokja did. (This comes up in the SP/999 fight or sometime around then.) She never could have lived up to that expectation.

And in the aftermath of Kim Dokja's visit to the 1863rd round, all their plans were ruined anyway. Maybe she neutrally told him she 'wouldn't be leaving this round' and that their deal was off. SP said nothing, since obviously everything had fallen apart at that point. I think Secretive Plotter, much like Kim Dokja, doesn't care for a world without Yoo Joonghyuk in it. That was probably the last time they spoke to each other. The 1863rd round became completely irrelevant to him, including the Han Sooyoung left there to pick up the pieces. And she was obsessively fixated on Kim Dokja and didn't have time to think about SP. That was all over and done with.

But I'm very willing to hear anyone out if they have a HSY/SP vision. I want to be persuaded on this!

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the people have complained that I haven't drawn Them in a while so here is a not so quick sketch of one of my favourite epilogue scenes <3

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one thing i rly love abt orv is how it never makes yoo sangahs kindness waver... even after the first scenarios when she learns just how hard you have to be to survive in the apocalypse, she still looks out for the young and those who cant protect themselves. Shes never presented as naïve or stupid for being how she is, she knows how strong she is and she's confident in it but she never looks down on others for not being like that.

The perfect foil to the rest of yhk at the end who put their own desire for kdj to return over kdjs own wish... she loves kdj just as much as they do and that is exactly why she cant agree with them.

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Scheherazade replied, “Tomorrow night I shall tell you something even stranger, more wonderful, and more entertaining”

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I too would read a 3000 chapter novel about this guy going through the horrors

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thought too hard and cried a little bit

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(wip) for class

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this, too, was for you

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■■■v■■■■■

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Probably interpreted the text in that last image SOOO OFF but I cannot stop thinking about the Kim Dokja-OD interaction

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To YOU it’s bad writing. To ME it’s a very nuanced piece of work that explores subtle intricacies without outright saying it. And also it’s bad writing

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dont get me wrong kim dokja would absolutely use tumblr for blorbo posting the levels of which we could not imagine BUT he would also use it to send hate to han sooyoung's account (which she started for webnovel promotion but now uses mostly to respond to this one guys hatemail). he does not do this on anon by the way he calls han sooyoung a shitty plagarist to her face. he gets a lot of hatemail from her fans but he simply does not care. han sooyoung is maybe a little bit obsessed with him. she very often leaves genuine asks unread so she can post a full rant in response to kim dokjas bullshit. i believe this would be good enrichment for both of them

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I love them so much

art drawn out of me missing them so bad

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/ orv epilogue + sp identity spoilers , cw blood

!! Please do NOT reupload my comics / works anywhere !!

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