#TWSA

[nutler--kleinja]

i love how orv has everything but happiness, like mpreg? we got it. trans rep? we got it. genderfluid rep? we got it. furries? we got it. self insert au? we got it. celebrity au? we got it. ancient dieties? we got it. genderbend au? we got it. dumpling shapeshifting? we got it. corossovers? we got it. alpha dynamics? we got it. reaction au? we got it.(eh close enough sp exists)

happiness? dont got it

[keakiwis]

i like to think that in some scenes that 1863rd han sooyoung added in twsa, in some part of that, she expresses some portion of desire to see kim dokja happy and to see him herself. so, she’ll write comfort and filler chapters for him, and sometimes she’ll write a scene to try and convey her longing in a sense.

[24-compass-roses]

There are three ways to survive in a ruined world and they are reading writing and living

[ninananinano]

Sometimes i think about hsy making yjh go through unspeakable horrors™️ like an average oc haver

[thefirstimagifabricator]

Y’ALL

omg this comment

it made me realize smth—hsy knows that kdj will survive the apocalypse when she writes twsa, bc she met him during the apocalypse so he’d already gotten that far and he may have gone back to his timeline BUT she survived hers with her imperfect knowledge right??? so ofc he’d survive his yk???? and god idk why this hit me so hard but it just. did—

just like. she KNOWS he’ll survive. and she knows that if she doesn’t write twsa he won’t. and smth about that. oh god idek it just. augh :’)))))

hsy my absolute beloved :’))))) <333333

[its-your-mind]

my preferred webnovel site: got some primo shit. this batch is called Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World

me: psh. too much exposition. derivative. it’s all the same shit nowadays.

5 minutes later: 🔪🩸FUCK. SHIT. IM SO SORRY BRO. THEY SAID. THEY SAID I NEEDED. I NEEDED TO PROVE MY WORTH BRO🔪🩸🩸😵

the normie lookin motherfucker (who literally until two seconds ago was just a wage worker blending into the background on the subway next to me who is in the same situation as me but is somehow calm and knows how to survive, who just saved me for no apparent reason and who i now trust implicitly and will try to follow and protect until the end), pacing: the star stream is lying to us

[cyaneyedcl]

an orv reader saying "i would survive the twsa universe" is the same as a hxh fan saying they would pass the hunter's test

[rlaehrwk21]

big fan of bad novels, which i obsess over for 10 years

[nutler--kleinja]

when the webnovel so bad it keeps you alive for 10 years, kickstarts the world’s demise makes you the deity responsible for it

[saladsfinger]

I have crafted the perfect shower routine.

I turn the water straight to the left, drowning myself with blistering hot water until my scars burn and the pain seeps itself back into the present.

I wash my body with soap.

I scrub it, roughly until the crumbs of skin tumble down the lines of my back, hoping one day I will scrub hard enough to make the memories disappear.

I wet my hair.

Lather it with shampoo and soothe my split ends with thick coconut conditioner.

I exfoliate before I shave to open every pore before slicing something sharp against my skin.

Sometimes I brush my teeth in the shower hoping to erase the taste of disgust that seems to live permanently

In my vessel.

I wash my face.

Wiping away my worry lines and the salty tears off my cheek.

When I get out, maybe I'll feel refreshed.

Maybe my legs will brush smoothly against my warm sheets and for once, i will feel clean.

But no matter what,

Never will I ever feel as clean as i did the day before you destroyed me.

[seikyoko]

[ID: panel of the Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World first revision file displayed on a phone, followed by another panel of a thumb pressing on it, followed by a picture where in the background Yoo Joonghyuk is on a rooftop holding a red rose with a melancholic expression with the caption "Kim Dokja where art thou" while Kim Dokja goes "What the f*** did I do ??" end ID]

literally the first revision

[the-only-reader]

Day 1 – New Story

I found a new novel today! It’s called Three ways to survive the Apocalypse, or TWSA for short. The protagonist, Yoo Joonghyuk, is strong and cool… It’s a shame that there’s few readers for this web novel.

I was told to start writing a bit everyday by one of the nurses, although I would much rather read instead. ㅠㅠ

I’m Kim Dokja [김독자(獨)], as in that's my name although I am an only child.

[luckydrunk]

[ The constellation 'Demon King of Salvation' is looking at you ]

[reserwrekt]

Ive been avoiding commentary yt bc the community and how they always turn out, so I'm late learning about boyinaband. Uhg. Ofc.

[theofficialuriel]

I imagine her thousands of fans probably thought the same too. The most dedicated of them who hate-read the first few chapters of TWSA have the same realization and are devastated.

I wonder if Han Sooyoung thought, for just a second, that it was her novel sssss grade infinite regressor that came to life? Until something was just slightly off and she realized it was instead that weirdly similar unpopular novel Ways of Survival.

That's gotta be a little disappointing. Like if the apocalypse had to start it least could have been hers right. But nooo. Kim Dokja must be so smug (He was)

[metanarrates]

there are a LOT of things you can speculate about regarding what twsa was actually like as a novel but what's most interesting to me is that you can make the argument that twsa was an "unpolished" version of what orv is. it's a version of a similar novel that likely dealt with a lot of similar themes but was seemingly bogged down by poor structure, pacing, expository handling, and focus. (all of which are things that orv is shockingly excellent at.)

and of course, han sooyoung's novel, sssss-grade infinite regressor, is the "polished" version of the idea. it's well-written, probably well-plotted, and was successful enough to make han sooyoung rich and famous. we don't know what sssss-grade infinite regressor is like as a novel either, but we sort of get the impression that it's not very emotionally rich even if it is good on a technical level. han sooyoung herself doesn't seem intensely attached to it despite being proud of her work, and kim dokja of course doesn't hold it in high regard. (though of course he's a gigantic unreliable narrator and also a hater.)

what's interesting is that despite orv very strongly emphasizing the ways these works are flawed from the outset, orv itself functions as an argument in these works' favor. both twsa and infinite regressor are stand-ins for the "mass-produced" genre of webnovels. they are popular fiction, relying on a very familiar pool of tropes and clichés in order to deliver on a relatively predictable story to appeal to a wide audience. it's not a coincidence that they are so similar - both literally and in a meta sense, they are drawing on the same exact story-building and genre material. twsa is just the unsuccessful version, and infinite regressor is the successful one.

orv is what I would consider the most "impressive" version of the genre. it's well-structured, thrillingly plotted, interestingly written, has fascinating ideas and characters, and is even "literary" - that is, it has deeply considered themes and is often drawing from the realm of literary, postmodern fiction in order to express its ideas. a less sincere story would disavow itself from its pop-fiction origins and claim to be the best version of its genre. nothing else could be like it, so the worst versions of its genre wouldn't be worth considering.

but orv, while technically functioning as an argument that the genre can be "good" simply because it's a great novel that is deeply rooted in its genre, goes much further. it argues in-text that any sort of story, even those that are bad on a technical level or those that were somewhat cynically produced for a mass audience, are worth finding value in, simply because stories have meaning to their readers. the most uncritical reproduction of a genre's conventions can still mean something to someone who likes it. twsa, if it existed in our reality, would still probably be considered a very bad novel, but it wouldn't need to be polished up and turned into infinite regressor or orv in order to have value. orv itself is telling you that you should find value in twsa as it is, and by extension, every badly-done work of fiction that twsa could be a stand-in for!