#[lying in a pool of blood] man. orv is soooo fun isn't it haha

[kimdokjas]

[major orv epilogue spoilers]

i was rereading the webtoon the other day and i had to Stop for a sec thinking about sys & od parallels. do u guys see my vision. okay listen hear me out

the way kdj was already living in a ruined world before the apocalypse even began. the way the words he typed all those years ago in a cold and lonely hospital room were "how to survive in a ruined world". how he was just a child clinging onto the one and only life raft he had found. and so he dreamed.

and then the scenarios begin and he looks at sys who feels unworthy of living for just trying to survive. and she's just a child and it's not her fault so he extends forgiveness to her as easy as breathing... but he's incapable of extending that same forgiveness to himself. so he takes up his sword in that subway and charges at od as if it was the only possible conclusion—and then he leaves. he stays behind and his eternity is his own form of atonement.

"your death has no place in the ending i wish for", he tells sys. and he means it. what he doesn't say is that he himself isn't part of that ending. because he never saw himself as part of the story at all. his salvation was always meant for others, not himself, and the most cruel and tragic kind of love is a hypocritical one.

and while kdj is hypocritical in his love with all his companions, the parallel between sys and kdj is especially poignant because they were both just kids who felt guilty for simply living. and they both felt responsible for dooming the world. sys realizing her 41st turn version would cause mass destruction, and kdj seeing od in that subway. they both felt the same despair and self-hatred so why wouldn't they be worthy of the same forgiveness? their bond is special because they understand each other at their core, but the tragedy is that kdj could see himself mirrored in sys and forgive his reflection but he could never in a million years forgive himself.