#also this parallels lee sookyung really well…

[dreadark]

orv epilogue talk

initially the explanation behind the fourth wall bothered me a bit because I was fine with it as is… a literal fourth wall the dokkaebi king isn’t really much of a character so like why should I care about this idk…

but then I realized. the point isn’t what it is but rather why

the dokkaebi king only became the wall because of han sooyoung’s wish to protect kim dokja. during orv the [fourth wall] skill saves his life countless times, but at the same time it dulls all his emotions so he can't fully connect with everyone else

that’s just the literal events that happened. symbolically, han sooyoung’s wish was expressed through her writing twsa for him, and by escaping into the fiction of that world, kim dokja was able to survive. at the same time, using fiction to cope with reality like that has him feeling disconnected from the world and everyone else in it… and that’s what led to him making the 49/51 decision he sees his place as just a reader—an outsider to everyone else's story. because that's how he survived

so maybe han sooyoung’s desperate wish to save him back then also doomed him..? but that really was all she could do then...

[your--isgayrights]

Outside of Lee Seolhwa and Lee Sookyung, do you have plans for any other character outside of Kim Dokja’s primary companions (like Gong Pildu or Han Doonghoon) for your soulmate fanfiction? Constellations like Persephone or Uriel or Sun Wukong probably wouldn’t make sense to exist in real life but maybe characters such as Han Myungoh/Han Dareum or Jang Hayoung could fit? If I recall correctly, Jang Hayoung in particular is the one responsible for the title of the fanfiction, right? I feel like she alongside the Unidentifiable Wall and the Fourth Wall would be so thematically appropriate but I couldn’t imagine how you would do it if at all. I also want to say that I’m impressed how you managed to seamlessly incorporate so many references to the original ORV into your work. It must have required you to reread and recheck the wiki.

Yess, I'm glad you asked this anon bc literally I just threw in a little reference to Han Doonghoon and Lee Sungkook in the 4.4 update and got worried people would think they had to remember the characters well to understand the surrounding plot point better than Kim Dokja does. But I think I should trust the reader a bit more lol.

Unfortunately my inclusion of Aileen and Jang Hayoung isn't going to be as big as the other kdjco members, but they're sort of already set up in the fic and have a role in chap 5. I think JHY doesn't appear directly bc to me the relationship between her and KDJ is harder to make 'real,' though I have some ideas depending on how much I decide to include in chap 5. In my plans 5 will have a gaming tourney featured, so other big 'wos players' may be referenced further there as well.

Of course like you mention the fic title and many of the chapter titles are coming directly from the mouth of Jang Hayoung, so in that way she is constantly being referenced, haha.

Han Myungoh and his daughter are referenced earlier in Chapter 4. It's sort of a drive by.

I do make use of the wiki (bless the editorsn🙏), though mostly just to check dates, numbers, and spellings of names. I like to think of myself as someone with a pretty decent memory tho, so a lot of the more specific story references are definitely just me pulling in stuff I remember from my novel read throughs. Like I might have to look at the wiki to remember Han Dareum's name, but I'll never forget Han Myungoh's entire Male Pregnancy that he had like that was a crazy random W to me on my first ORV read through I was like hello??? Also that being around when JHY was being confirmed trans haha. I think I was only out for like a year or so before reading orv so the little gender fucky moments really stuck out to me.

Sometimes rereading my old work I also remember things I forgot happened in ORV. I think part of the reason I'm struggling so much with chap 4 and onward is that now that the wall fic characters have sort of developed to where they are some of the scenes I had in mind are less 1 to 1 with the OG. For instance, I'm trying to rewrite a scene I have of YJH and KDJ having a rooftop chat that like parallels the one back before the seoul's strongest incarnation arc in the novel, but it's a bit difficult. At first I wanted to include a lot more of KDJ interacting with the rest of YJH's team, but the rooftop Scene makes more sense to put a cap on the themes explored in chap 4. But when I first wrote this scene it was less specifically addressing that theme, because it was in the outline of like right after I wrote chapter 1, so it was kind of just the OG ORV scene with the flavoring of my AU on top. A lot of the little things they do and say in the OG novel would have to be quite finagled to fit anymore, so reworking it is the big task rn.

Anyway I'm really appreciative of people like you who take note of these small details <3. it's kind of helping me remember and appreciate a lot of the parts of me that were behind a lot of Wall fic originally if that makes sense? I am like reintroducing myself to him and giving him a hug instead of running away cringing just because it's me lol.

[braininatankwithalaptop]

Okay, you're right that Zorian's thoughts about Zach as a protagonist would probably be more boredom or apathy than anything else.

Oooh, I really like your pitch of Damien being the writer. I'm also not certain if Zorian would have the same *type* of internal issues that Kim Dokja has, but there are other ways to write Zorian's internal struggle that would make his need to lose himself in a magical world make sense. Maybe we increase the dysfunctionality of the Kazinski family and make Zorian crave a world with found family and people that are able to overcome differences. And all of this would complicate his relationship to Damien even further since the story is being written with real!Damien specifically knowing, and trying to make up for, his own "failure" in being a brother.

But then again now that I'm writing it out it may be that Daimen is more the Lee Sookyung equivalent. Someone with an already personal/familial connection before the narrative and connected to the source of the protagonist's trauma/internal struggle.

I could possibly see Spear of Resolve or Silverlake being the writer as well, due to their own plotting nature and the complicated relationships Zorian ends up having with them (A crack part of me wants to make the author is Kirielle, making the "original" work a comic book or something similar). I think maybe if we fleshed out Tinami's character way more she'd be a great fit.

I also agree with you that Red Robe would be a bad fit for the writer. He's more like Nirvana Moebius imo.

I'm also trying to figure out who the Hades/Persephone equivalent would be. Because I think we can all agree Zorian deserves to be adopted like Kim Dokja was but there isn't exactly a power couple in MoL that fits as far as I can tell. Zorian ends up having temporary parental connections with Imaya and his mentors, but none of them quite fit how the underworld couple function in the narrative. Ah! The parallels, the characters! I think there is a lot of potential in connecting these two works. They're similar but have different enough themes that it can really change their stories by combining them.

Okay, yes I'm sorry I have crossover-itis, but just stick with me here. The framing of Mother of Learning is pretty clear that Zorian's presence in the plot is akin to a rounding error in fate. Zach was chosen and Zorian stumbled into it. What if we take that meta-insertion of Zorian into Zach's plot and make it more literal?

Because I think taking some of the ideas and story beats from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint and projecting them onto Mother of Learning would work very well.

I'm not sure on the specifics of how this would work (whether Zorian is from the "real world," whether there is a leveling system, who is the Han Sooyoung equivalent) but I do think that there are a lot of interesting themes and parallels overall to have fun with.

First of all, I think it'd be funny if Zorian's and Zach's dynamic is sort of like an inverse of Kim Dojka and Yoo Joonghyuk. Zach isn't Zorian's favorite, actually Zorian kind of hates the guy. He's way too extroverted, not very academic, and way too morally uptight to take the actions that Zorian thinks would solve the problem (maybe his favorite character is Kael? idk). But when Zorian finds himself in the story he thinks "aw beans, I have to stick to this asshole don't I?" Meanwhile Zach is very up front and clear about his interest and care about Zorian. Zorian can't understand it! Even when Zorian told Zach straight to his face that he's a work of fiction and that Zorian thinks his character arc is middling at best, he won't stop being super kind to him! It's frustrating! But none of that matters to Zach, because Zorian is (overall) a good person and has all his memories when Zach is stuck in a time loop. Besides, Zorian is like his opposite in all the good ways.

There are other elements that parallel kind of nicely and otherwise work well together. Zorian's empathy and Dokja's fourth wall. The way both those things have allowed them to understand others to a greater degree while also increasing the distance between them and people. The way both protags sacrifice themselves (at least to others) and the way it causes their friends distress.

There's a lot here, but there's so many moving pieces and liberties with both works that need to be taken to work I just wanted to broadly gesture at the connection instead of doing anything more.