#genuinely orv has helped me so much with this

[happyfanofeverything]

are you really a fan of orv if you haven’t dedicated all of your time during a certain (ongoing) period of your life to desperately trying to keep one person alive as their sole/primary support materially/financially, socially, mentally, and emotionally, all from a distance with your only contact being digital

trying to convince them that the world failed them and it’s not their fault, that you want them alive, that good things can happen to them, and wondering if they really know how powerful and how powerless you are, if they know to blame you when they should, if they know that just because you’ll never be able to do enough doesn’t mean they deserve to suffer like this.

knowing that you are in a position of power over them, telling them the story of what this world deems they should be given, and you can’t do it right by them, but no matter what, you want with your whole being for their story to continue another day.

wanting to tell them that reading their story has saved you, and you’re so sorry for when you’re unable to do anything for them but read it

btw their venmo is Webwil1240 and their cashapp is $Daunderdogg and their gofundme is https://gofund.me/bed23894 and she’s dying without money for her medications yes this is about me please help us ✨

[m1ckeyb3rry]

A

LMAOOOO yeah lowk it was still more funny than embarrassing for me catching that typo here but if I found it after I sent it to someone else I think I’d be a goner

(Also wait speaking of I forgot to mention you’re seriously a trooper for reading all of orv…I followed the comic for awhile but I have a friend whose obsessed with it and like summarized the entire novel to me in like an essay (I’m still confused as hell because I lost track of the details) but after hearing it all from them it’s truly a ride…)

NOOO I SAW!! Ofc it’s sae LMAO classic itoshi scenario…yk maybe Karasu nation will come in clutch last minute…(I’m ngl I’m kinda glad none of those characters are on there oops LMAOOO I also don’t think they’d have much to do with aiku and honestly there’s so many works of them all) Ok I still kinda feel like it’s a win tho bc Karasu and Barou in second and third???

FRRR the edits are gonna go so hard…just imagine the Barou stripping scene LMAOO (the dudebros glazing Barou are everywhere omg)

I love how ���the white haired dude” is an archetype of its own it’s so funny but so real…(gotta confess Im usually in the white haired dude fan section like somehow I end up gravitating to them too)

IM CRYING THE PARENTHESES it just goes on“or fifth…sixth……15th…” LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO

I’m crying your writing has made MY standards too high but honestly so real…even seabird sae is already better than like…a good majority of the population out there this is lowk sad

LMAOAO THE SELF HELP BOOKS I see the vision the purple green was also perfect for him

OOOOH I guess we’ve just gotta see what tiktok audio pops up on your fyp LOL but I’m excited I was leaning towards chigiri or Barou I was looking cooking way more for their ideas

LOL it’s ok that Nagi requester will get Nagi content from oaeu too!! I’m actually so hyped for the series

LMAO I plugged them into a generator and got Karasu!! I guess it’s the universe telling me not to stray from Karasu nation….lowk almost forgot that he’s essentially my namesake I got too desensitized to it so the generator really said remember your origins

OHHHHHHHHHH wait that’s kinda stupid on tumblrs part wdym the creator can’t see the results unless they vote??? SHDHS thats actually so annoying your rant is so valid (also just generally feel free to go wild ranting or venting it’s all good w me) im ngl if you want the next time you make a poll i can just vote early on and keep you updated on the results if you don’t wanna have that option there for people to screw with…but BRO YUKI AND OTOYA???? I know they generally still lag behind Karasu in terms of popularity s2 please save them

LMAO nah it’s perfectly reasonable and valid like some people don’t have the brain development for proper impulse control ig like damn

Ok well in the time I was writing it ig it’s over now good for you sae fans good for you (BOOO TOMATO TOMATO /j)

- Karasu anon

HAHAH our freaks are so matched i don’t even blink at 90% of your typos we truly are the same person LMAOAO

omg i LOVEDDDD orv i read it on my phone in the summer of 2023 when i had nothing else to do and it was genuinely so so good like the novel is PEAK i never read the webcomic version because i’m attached to the translations in the novel even though they’re not “official” but genuinely the novel is probably one of if not THE best things i’ve ever read like it actually changed my brain chemistry fr (it’s a long build but the ending arc is peak fiction)

SAE WON 💔 but very proud of karasu nation and barou nation for locking in and getting them so close to sae that was def unexpected!! and yeahhh that’s the vibe i was getting too like there’s no way for them to realistically be involved w aiku so it wouldn’t make sense for them to be there PLUS i don’t like them that much so i can’t cook up an idea to involve them w aiku the way i did w nagi 😰 speaking of which i think i have the idea for yukimiya HAHA basically aiku is like “okay we’re the two oldest blue lock members let’s be best friends 😄” and yukimiya is like “thanks but i already have a bestie ☺️” and ofc aiku is like WHAT and has to do some heavy recon (he probs recruits niko too LMAO atp niko is an honorary wingman just because he’s consistently aiku’s sidekick) and that’s where he finds reader which makes be like “hold on there is definitely something romantic going on here” so he tries to get yuki and reader together in order to finally have a soccer playing bff who’s also relatively normal (@ barou)

the craziest thing abt dude bros glazing barou is that he’s physically their ideal but in every other way he is NOTHING like them!! like that man respects women, cooks and cleans, is willing to accept his mistakes and work on them, hates people who are mid…he would think they’re goofy asf 😭

KDJDKSSJ i normally don’t really go for the white haired characters but nagi is an exception…my other top favs have been eren from aot (brown hair), megumi and yuta from jjk (black hair), and shinah from yotd (blue hair??) HAHA honesty karasu and rin are very in line w the kinds of characters i typically like physically but idk smth abt nagi appeals to me the most 🙂‍↕️

FBKDDNSJSN luckily it was NOT shidou!! i’m going to repost it so i’m sure you’ll know by the time you read this but i got chigiri 🤩 which honestly i can actually see but specifically his actual canon miraverse characterization NOT his overly feminized fandom self 😭 apparently they originally thought nagi which slay but they came to the same realization i did a while ago which is that as much as i love him the two of us are too similar in some ways and too different in other ways so we would actually not work out irl 😓💔 honestly chigimira wasn’t one i was necessarily expecting but it might be what i needed (idk if i could muster up a long fic idea for chigiri…maybe?? we will see #tbd)

LMAOAAO me when a man slides into my dms but he doesn’t buy me plane tickets and an expensive sandwich 😒 abt to start telling everyone i have a bf or smth HAHA because unless a man is miraverse bllk men level he’s simply not replacing nagi or karasu or sae or whoever 🥱

HELPP i’m glad the vision comes through i rlly like this cover!! i think i’m going to put the character’s name where it said “masterlist” on the masterlist so it’s easy to tell who the individual oneshot is abt 🤩 don’t want people to start reading expecting an aiku fic (at least until the last part which actually is for aiku)

i just got a barou request HAHA so it’ll def be chigiri or MAYBE bachira depending on what i feel inspired for!! agreed it’s time to open tik tok and feel the vibes out for what i want to write next…maybe watch some edits too while i’m at it for further assistance 😏

HAHA no fr stay true to your origins…i’m going to write all of them eventually anyways so it’s not that deep but i just wanted to figure out where I should start since all of them have such good premises that i can’t decide!! rip otoya and yukimiya though…hoping s2 + oaeu converts more people 😰

for now i think it should be okay like it’s nbd since so many other people do vote as well it’s just like a personal pet peeve HFKDJDSJS we all have smth that makes us tweak i suppose…i’m just in my isagi on field era 😩 i don’t do polls that often so it shouldn’t be a huge issue but expect me to have at least a paragraph in our convos crashing out over that whenever i do end up making a poll 😭

sae nation is too strong…they’re inevitable fr KFJDKD honestly proud of karasu and reo for hanging on for a bit that’s impressive 🤩 in the end though an itoshi bro is basically a guaranteed win (unless like i said kaiser or MAYBE isagi are in the running too)

[blorbou]

i wanna make a long long post about why spn fans should read orv but theres genuinely so so much stuff to go over and so many similarities i genuinely don’t even know where to start. But like if you like the concept of subverting heroism, masculinity and whatever those two words tied together hold you’ll like it. If you like to see how grotesque love can be in a ruined world, how insufferable one becomes because of “family” you’ll like it! If you also love to see how this family Becomes the reason the characters begin to GROW into better people and help each other even in a ruined world you’ll like it. What it means to a god to be a “character”, what it means to have free will, to choose to love someone, to choose to be kind. there are also Gay people in it i think that is also a big thing Ok. ALSO i see many ppl are interested in meta And let me tell you orv has an extremely well written metanarrative!!! Also very heavy on cycles (of every kind) (isn’t that so insane). In addition here is a presentation pf dean and sam seeing dokja in the wild

[lee-hakhyun]

i actually came over here to link this specific post that i saw on twitter;

https://twitter.com/vapolunes/status/1658101956131315712?s=46&t=Cde4OpD2xlZu6xnf8K2qSQ

it actually made me hit the pause button, in that writers are so often readers themselves; but this post postulates that hsy is trying to work this from the angle of an author as she so often has, which also leads me to this other post from someone else;

https://twitter.com/orvbookclub/status/1658942059850665984?s=46&t=Cde4OpD2xlZu6xnf8K2qSQ

and. think about it this way; lee hakhyun adores kim dokja like a reader, so it could be speculated. so he. he sees it from that angle, right? he’s come to love kim dokja as a reader, holding his thoughts and his struggles close to his heart. han sooyoung has loved kim dokja as both a character (being close to him, fostering a friendship that way) and as an author (writing for the reader, writing for ONE reader).

but i suspect, maybe. if hsy tries to force an ending by reducing the people in lhh’s turn to mere characters, it’s not going to get her the ending she wants. but lhh would be coming into this from a different perspective from hsy, wouldn’t he?

and. going back to yjh’s cameo in world after the fall’s revision, the protagonist being saved by a character from a different story entirely. ‘there are some things you cannot accomplish alone’. sometimes you need outside help. sometimes you need a different perspective.

and lee hakhyun has the perspective of a reader, is getting first-hand experience with the perspective of a character, and… is an author with radically different writing preferences in comparison to han sooyoung. and his writing might not be crowd-attractors like hers is, HOWEVER

1) there’s still something genuine in his narration. something very loveable and distinct, untried as it is, enough that he has a reader that loves his writing and was upset that orv wasn’t quite the same. still writing from the heart, when you think about what he’s been etching into the snow garden

2) ‘ways of survival’, the story that kept kim dokja alive, was never a crowd-attractor. it was the opposite of a crowd-attractor, in fact. it could be argued, of course, that han sooyoung was specifically writing to please ONE reader, but. think about some of the paragraphs in wos that get mentioned, the ones that catch kdj’s attention. ‘the you reading this will survive.’ yoo joonghyuk declaring that he won’t give up until he reaches the end of the scenarios… so ‘you’ shouldn’t either. when aiming to reach just one reader rather than a mass of people, doesn’t it sound like she’s speaking from the heart? desperately begging kim dokja to stay alive, she puts her heart into it - which i think is why it was able to touch his heart so much, up until he grew older.

but does hsy have that perspective now? and have kdj’s tastes remained the same or has it perhaps changed with him as a person at the end of the scenarios? all things i feel will be explored in time. in any case, lhh is having to write in the middle of the scenarios with all the desperation of a guy who’s trying to survive and is grieving over all the deaths going on all at once, so he is being as genuine as it gets while he’s writing this ‘side’ story. he isn’t really in the position to fake it out otherwise. it could be argued that the story kdj is now reading is a ‘sequel’, but… it’s not just a sequel to orv, but a sequel, or continuation, of star writer. worlds colliding into something new.

on that note, i feel like kdj, had he been in the right headspace/time for it, would have been a loyal reader of lee hakhyun’s previous works. he’s probably becoming a fan of star writer right now, since he’s watching lee hakhyun’s story loyally.

but i suspect, maybe. if hsy tries to force an ending by reducing the people in lhh’s turn to mere characters, it’s not going to get her the ending she wants. but lhh would be coming into this from a different perspective from hsy, wouldn’t he?

yeah. lhh sacrificed himself for his readers. i haven't talked much about this yet, but one of his readers died in front of him (this is how we found out the readers become kdj kkomas). and after that, he's been really intent on keeping everyone in his group alive,,

i did type this out before but i think i deleted it so i'm saying it again, but hsy was seeing yjh as a 'concept' rather than a character. she didn't see yjh in the same way lhh did and he definitely has different perspectives, just look at how he dealt with geumho

wos is a story for one reader, and orv is a story designed to catch as many readers as possible. but both stories are for kim dokja, fragments or otherwise

i am really happy more people are getting interested in lhh, he's clicked with me so hard i changed my url to his name. his sacrifice hit me HARD. i am using humor and constant theorycrafting to cope.

i would be happy if star writer were to continue after orv's final chapter. i'd probably continue translation too (though put in a private doc if the chapters were paid)

[ot3]

I actually think the orv webtoon pretty much fails as an adaptation. In the novel you're meant to identify with kdj and relate to him heavily, it's even written in first person for this: it's not "he did smth", it's "I did" ("You did"). This works right into the ending which wouldn't hit half as hard without it. And in the webtoon he's only a character. A protagonist. There's no identifying with him like this. The way he's drawn there doesn't help either...

i would definitely have to agree that the orv webtoon just absolutely does not have the same feel the webnovel does, and that it's much harder to get in kim dokja's head. but i would have to agree in that it fundamentally fails as an adaptation.

for starters, i think the idea that you can't identify with/project onto a character unless the narrative is actively holding your hand in doing that is a pretty baseless claim to make. there is quite literally nothing that could stop a person from looking at any kind of fictional character and saying 'wow hes literally me for real' no matter how much distance the narrative puts between you and them. it may take a little bit more active desire from The Girl Reading This but I don't think it's nearly as much of a stretch as you're making it out to be, especially as the story progresses and we get to the arcs that serve to make kim dokja feel a little more believably 3 dimensional than he does in his early epic isekai protagsweep cringe behavior.

also, even if what you were describing was true for every webtoon reader - that kim dokja is just A Protagonist, and not as much of a vessel for projection - i think that's genuinely an adaptation of orv that has a lot of merit and a very interesting meta-relationship to the source material. when you consider the webtoon's publishing schedule, webtoon readers are going to be operating on a timeline much closer to that of KDJ reading the original wos updates. He essentially is yoo joonghyuk to everyone who has begun reading it now, a sort of impossibly resilient protagonist they could choose to lean on for the better part of the next decade. and i think that's super interesting. kim dokja has never been more yoo joonghyuk than he is in the orv webtoon. that's not a bad adaptation at all! that is in fact very interesting to me!

the thing about adaptations that's really tricky is that it is 1. physically impossible to 'accurately' adapt a story from one medium into another. the medium is so intrinsic to storytelling that by necessity things are lost, changed, and gained in switching from one to another. and 2. considering the wide range of opinions people have about a source there really is no consensus about which exact things about a text have to be 1:1 translated in order for an adaptation to be 'faithful'. im very far behind on the webtoon but everything i have seen so far i think has done the best job it can translating it into a comic.....

.... except for the art style

i really do not like the way this person draws people, yeah. the same face is so rampant that it's genuinely difficult for some people to tell the characters apart. it's got super uninspired character design which i think is a crying shame that does a lot of these characters a huge disservice. i wish they had picked something less generic looking. but in many ways, generic looking exteriority fits orv. i can aaaalmost appreciate it from that angle, and im sure it's helping orv gain traction with the kind of people who regularly read webtoons (i am not one of these people) but. yeah. i find the way sleepy c draws people to be pretty ugly, if we're being honest.

[katcadecascade]

Dumplings Before this World Ends (ORV oneshot)

*spoilers up to chapter 235

Summary: 

First Murim is known for their dumplings. It's a shame that Kim Dokja mostly remembers that this place is gonna be destroyed later but for right now he'll enjoy the dumplings with Yoo Jonghyuk.

Kim Dokja is a bit ashamed to admit that he has never been asked out for dinner.

As a man in modern society that clings to traditional (heteronormative) relationships, Kim Dokja attempted to ask out a few women in his life. They all declined to no one’s surprise.

It didn’t discourage him to purse romance. It just reinforced his daily solitude to keep reading Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse.

There wasn’t much else in his life to emotionally invest into.

So majority of his life is spent diverging into the words of a fictional world.

Then to everyone’s surprise, Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse became real. There is a lot to unpack there, the whole reality shaking knowledge of trying to understand how any of this is possibly and how so far Kim Dokja has not been dead.

Like permanently because he promised to his companions that he’ll come back.

Kim Dokja is still trying to make his way to them, currently preparing for the Demon King Selection. His plan right now is to get the Breaking the Sky Sword Saint on his side by shoving Yoo Jonghyuk back onto First Murin against the protagonist’s wishes.

It’s a good plan right?

So far, the only kink in the plan is the unexpected invitation to the Gourmet Association.

Oh and the fact that the Breaking the Sky Sword Saint forces Yoo Jonghyuk and Kim Dokja out of her temple to go have dinner.

[The constellation ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire’ is ecstatic of these turn of events]

A bit dumbfounded, Kim Dokja tried to refuse all of this but instead Yoo Jonghyuk simply started walking to the town district and said one thing as if everything was normal.

“Are you coming or not?”

Kim Dokja could’ve just go back in the temple, pretend that Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t just ask him out for dinner in the rudest way possible, and remain as a dateless nobody he has always been.

After all, who would ever ask out Kim Dokja?

But this is Yoo Jonghyuk, a protagonist that he has followed and practically knows like the back of his hand.

Kim Dokja accepts the invitation and starts walking by Yoo Jonghyuk’s side.

First Murin’s nightlife is a pretty scene to witness in person. No amount of written words it has been described in the novel matches the way Kim Dokja is feeling. He feels otherworldly for stepping into this supposed fictional world, a real tourist in actuality, but as much as he enjoys the scenery is can’t help but morn.

Both he and Yoo Jonghyuk await the fated destruction of First Murim. This place of forsaken tradition is simply not to be. One day this place will fall as depicted in the original novel.

But before then, dumplings.

Yoo Jonghyuk leads them to a hole in the wall restaurant. The restaurant perfectly matches the one in the book, a small place filled with many people and yet the power of the protagonist guarantees a table in the corner for them.

A server quickly gets their order for the all-you-can-eat dumpling special and thus leaves Yoo Jonghyuk and Kim Dokja in silence. Obviously, Yoo Jonghyuk opted to stare out the window rather than the awkward shape before him.

As mentioned before, Kim Dokja has never been asked out on a date and he’s hesitant to even call this one a date. He will always be an introvert at worst and yet with Yoo Jonghyuk he feels weirdly comfortable, sort of.

Any time they’re together it was only to barely make it past a dangerous scenario.

Right now, the biggest danger is probably making it through this night with Kim Dokja’s dignity intact.

“So,” Kim Dokja idly traces the condensation on his glass of water, “how’s earth?”

What he really meant was how the others was but he already asked that back in the Demon Realm. If Kim Dokja knows anything about Yoo Jonghyuk, and he does, then small talk is the last thing the protagonist will indulge in.

Yet this is Kim Dokja and he’s known to annoy Yoo Jonghyuk.

“I wouldn’t have to tell you if did not die.”

“Look, I was fated to die.”

“By the one you love most.”

“Do you have to remind me?”

Yoo Jonghyuk’s eyebrow twitches. “I killed you.”

“It was a group effort.”

“Do you have any idea,” Yoo Jonghyuk begins hotly but like a star it dies out fast with a muttered, “…never mind.”

“Huh?”

Before Kim Dokja could question further, a server delivers them a big amount of steamer baskets. Yoo Jonghyuk wastes no time to take off the lid, releasing a puff of hot steam of the most delicious smelling dumpling ever created in a once fictional world.

As much as Kim Dokja wants to copy Yoo Jonghyuk on just happily eating the dumpling, he wants something else first.

“You were gonna say something.”

Stubbornly, Yoo Jonghyuk ate a dumpling in silence. In retaliation, Kim Dokja did the most suicidal thing he could ever do (discounting all his previous deaths of course). He stole the next dumpling Yoo Jonghyuk was aiming for.

The protagonist glares at the reader munching on the savory dumpling. It’s very good. A part of him melts at the sheer taste.

Before Kim Dokja could pick out another dumpling, Yoo Jonghyuk says something that shakes the constellation to his core.

“They miss you.”

Kim Dokja remains frozen for an impatiently long time, long enough for Yoo Jonghyuk to grab the next basket for a new set of hot dumplings.

“Bastard, why are you shocked?”

“Because I am.”

If there was another curse in mind, Yoo Jonghyuk doesn’t say it. He just studies how Kim Dokja is currently working his brain in overtime.

Truly, he is shocked because this would be the first time he has ever heard that sentiment directed towards him.

(Did his own mother ever say that to Kim Dokja?)

The concept of someone actually missing Kim Dokja has never occurred to him. It is a genuine surprise to a person lonely and new to friendships. It’s a strange detachment to reality for the reader, especially since he techniqually ‘died’ before them all.

So not only do they miss him, they have grieved for Kim Dokja.

It really is a strange idea to think about, especially since it’s Yoo Jonghyuk presenting all these facts.

Kim Dokja know that Yoo Jonghyuk can’t ever know if anyone has ever grieved for him because the moment he dies, it’s a new timeline. Meaning his friends forget all about the scenarios and sufferings, they all endured. Besides, they usually die before Yoo Jonghuk.

It’s harsh to suggest that maybe Yoo Jonghyuk and the others should get used to Kim Dokja’s death. However, Kim Dokja doesn’t think like that. Instead, he still trying to comprehend the idea that people miss him.

He who is out casted and unremarkable. He who prefers the words of a lonely book. He who has made friends in the first time in his life.

Kim Dokja died for them multiple times already with no regret… well except for this new one.

A ringing ache settles onto his heart, still struggling against these new feelings of something soft and precious.

“I’m going to see them again.” He swallows down a lump of that weird feeling, “I promised them.”

“I know,” Yoo Jonghyuk glares, “You better keep your promise.”

Kim Dokja forces a smile, ignoring the present jumble of emotions trapped inside, “Did you miss me too?”

“You bastard.” Yoo Jonghyuk’s glare is harsher than ever.

The man’s insult is a relief to Kim Dokja. This blunt rudeness is more familiar to him than the warm guilt-ridden idea that his friends miss him.

He orchestrated them to kill him. It’s a bit difficult to remember it.

Kim Dokja will die by the one he loves most.

In the end, Yoo Jonghyuk did the last blow.

Kim Dokja thinks Han Sooyoung will tease him about this ‘poetic’ event.

“I miss them too,” he finally says.

Yoo Jonghyuk stops glaring and nods.

Under his breath, Kim Dokja adds, “That includes you.’

He stuffs another dumpling in his mouth.

It took a lot of boldness to breathe that out. Kim Dokja can’t look at Yoo Jonghyuk.

Yet over Omniscient Viewpoint…

[He missed me?]

If Kim Dokja looked up from his food, he would’ve seen the smallest of smiles on Yoo Jonghyuk.

[…that bastard.]

Eventually the rest of the dumplings are gone but that warm feeling remains inside Kim Dokja.

[your--isgayrights]

i keep forgetting that i wanted to ask you these SO HERE. N, R and V for the fanfic ask game u_u

Hiii exe <333

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write or finish for you?

Yes and no to this first one aasdsf. Obviously when I'm in a slump I have moments of wishing the chapter of my WIP was done already so I could just post it, but I'm the kind of guy who's really meticulous about certain things, so I honestly can't imagine trusting someone else to write the story Exactly how I want it to be you know?

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

Under the cuttttt

Hmmm... Well I write orv fic so obviously a lot of my writing recently has been influenced by shingsong and rainbow turtle's translation style. But I think one of my biggest influences for wanting to write fic in the first place was bnha fic I read by simkjrs when I was like fourteen ahshshdfg. I thought it really hit on some emotions that had been lacking in the original series, and reading it helped me process these feelings I was having about a friend at the time, which I'm really grateful for. Also their posting is what got me into orv ahshshdfg.

OH AND ALSO NARUTO. Naruto was a big influence. I mean the author I guess. Yeah the guy who wrote Naruto was a big influence. Especially back when I was writing like split pov heist fics for a different fandom before I got into orv.

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fix out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Oh ahsgajdf this is embarrassing but I think the first fic I ever wrote was fic of a fic. I won't say what it was I'm sorry 😓😓😓. Some of my aus definitely take inspiration from tropes I've seen in other fandom works, but nowadays I generally feel like you can see so much of an author in their work that it'd be hard to try and match to make a genuine prequel or sequel to a fic. I'm no Han Sooyoung I suppose agagsgfdf.

[evanescentdawn]

Highlights of today’s writing:

We’re back to ORV stuff! I felt like I was neglecting it lol ...since the rare pair is coming and all, and I really want to do it.

— +47 words to the Kdj/Jhy wip. Wow. I am really liking this ship?? Never really expected that.

—+14 words to the Height of stupidity au (yhk version) Whoo hoo! 🎉 progress has been made! Tbh, low-key want to rewrite this whole thing in first person??? Which. What.

—Started another wip??? which. I don’t even wanna talk about. I hate Yjh’s pov. So. Much. (but! besides that, really excited for the idea. which is a kind of roleswap but not really. it’s an au where hsy writes WOS and they’re childhood friends so Yjh gets to read it. he hates it a lot, but can’t help going back for some more. also! give me hsy & yjh because gosh I love them so much!!)

—What the fuck. What the fuck. The HMO/KDJ WIP?? I wasn’t happy with the first person thing so I went to reread this fic that I does his first person thing really well. And! Well. I also wanted to change the beginning because that was not great, and. What the fuck. I wrote a lot??? I wasn’t expecting at all. And how?? Easy?? It felt?? How fun?? It was?? Just. GENUINELY SURPRISED AND V HAPPY. Wow.

...You know...that post about how when you go back to edit and suddenly there’s a lot stuff added?? Yeah. It was exactly that.

—Added a whole +889 words. So the whole thing is like at 15K. Which. What. I never expected this wip to be this long... I’m so surprised. Part of this whole thing, I feel like was fuelled by the Orvcord’s warm responses to the snip I posted. And made me more motivated to work on this. I swear if it gets to 2K, im gonna lose it. There’s a lot stuff I wanted to write and add to it, but I guess that’s for tomorrow! Hopefully!

—Edited the nana/reborn wip! like cut off some parts, and shifted stuff. little bit.

—Worked like the tiniest bit on the Storm Guardians WIP. Oh gosh. Really love their dynamic but seriously...I need to think about plot for this. Or ideas on where to go with it because it’s completely up in the air right now. 100% stumped on where it’s going....

—Oh yeah! Also worked little bit on the Yjh wip. Like edited stuff, and added like! One word, lol. Haven’t made much progress though... Feel like I should do something about that. Mmh.

[ot3]

What's the core appeal of orv? I know the premise but why does it make you so hyped up?

OH BOY OH BOY....... i will try to be as concise as possible here but i could write without exaggeration thousands of words about why orv is good. But I guess here's the big stuff.

- Its funny, for starters. it is extremely funny, which is very high up on my media priority list. in orv, there will be incredibly grim things that make you laugh, and incredibly cringe and silly anime bullshit that will hurt you as heavily as any other media you’ve seen. 

- it executes it’s thematic arcs with pinpoint precision the likes of which i’ve hardly ever seen anything else manage to do. regardless of whether or not the themes themselves are the sort of themes you go bonkers for in media, it’s always just delightful to see something perfectly stick it’s landing in terms of the big concepts its trying to grapple with, and orv does

- it’s got fun and fascinating worldbuilding mechanics. the core concept being ‘reality now operates on the rules of a shitty novel’ means that the worldbuilding doesn’t have to function logically, it functions thematically. it’s explicitly stated in orv canon that some of the internal rules governing this new reality are objectively really stupid and illogical, but they just have to roll with it because that’s what was in the book, and i think it’s a really enjoyable way to do it. This may at first sound like a copout, where the writer is trying to excuse their own bad worldbuilding, but it isn’t. The world building is actually incredibly deeply thought out, but it doesn’t exist for the sake of rational function, it exists for the sake of, once again, furthering orv’s thematic arcs. the rules by which this universe operate do a magnificent job of strengthening the core concepts the authors are exploring. 

- it deals with morality in a really wonderful and nuanced way. there are almost no characters in orv’s extremely large cast of characters who are just explicitly morally condemnable, and almost every conflict allows you to understand exactly why the antagonists believe they’re in the right by opposing the actions of our protagonists. the central conflicts are never pure right and pure wrong; they’re always about contrasting goals, conflicting worldviews, and different priorities between ends and means. this makes the conflicts all feel so much more dynamic and engaging than those where the only stakes are physical harm. 

- the characters interpersonal relationships are some of the most interesting ive ever seen. orv is very slow burn and it takes a long time for a lot of these to come out of the woodwork, by design, but by god once they do they fucking hit. similar to the plot conflicts, the interpersonal conflicts also almost never occur where there’s one side clearly in the wrong. the characters are almost all genuinely attempting to do their best by each other, and the tension comes from the ways in which human communication is fundamentally imperfect and part of our feelings and intentions get lost in translation. it’s very heartwrenching and heartwarming to see unfold, in equal measure. 

- following from that, it’s a narrative that really meaningfully prioritizes non-romantic relationships over romantic ones as the central focus. obviously there’s shipbait and the ot3 is real and good and my friend but if you’re looking for deep complex platonic, (found or otherwise) familial, and antagonistic relationships that never get ruined with forced romantic arcs, we got em baby!

- the pacing is unlike anything i’ve ever seen before. from a purely technical standpoint, it is genuinely a fascinating case study in how to execute a narrative that is almost constantly escalating without exception. there is very little downtime or breathing room in orv, which is insane for something that clocks in at over a million words, and somehow, it still works. i’ve never felt more like a frog in a pot of slowly boiling water than i did when i was reading orv and i can’t believe they pulled it off. it’s so interesting to read something like that.

- it is a tragedy without resorting to cynicism and a very adult narrative that’s really steeped in childlike wonder. i’m a big fan of cartoons made for children cartoons made for children are my favorite things to watch because i like media that is uplifting and encouraging. but of course children’s media will always be simplified and not very relatable to an adult. orv is very much a serious and heavy adult narrative, and a deeply tragic one at that, but this is never tragedy for tragedy’s sake. it’s a very compassionate piece of media over all, that holds a lot of reverence and sympathy for the ‘naive’ optimism of children that gets stripped down over time. if you, like me, feel more like a grown up child than an adult someday, i think it’ll hit for you. 

- if you are a person who has ever gotten deeply involved in media to ignore bad things happening in the real world, which i know you are because you are reading my tumblr blog, then there is going to be a lot about orv which resonates for you. a lot of metanarrative has attempted to comment on the voyeuristic nature of media obsession and storytelling, but a lot of it does so in a bizarre way that almost seems to shame the audience for having the audacity to... enjoy the product the creators have produced for them. orv is what i can only describe as a love-letter to its own audience, and it’s really a manifesto about how engagement with media can foster genuine human intimacy, even if initially it’s something you’re using as a crutch to replace that intimacy. the closest thing to orv’s metanarrative i can think of would be undertale. if undertale made you Feel some Things, orv is gonna make you Feel some Things as well. 

- it is extremely cathartic and meaningful. i am not exaggerating at all when i say that reading it gave me the closest thing i have ever felt to any sort of spiritual breakthrough. it helped unfuck my head a ton during some very grim times and i think the perspective it offers on the value of human life is a really really good one

- its really funny i promise

- its cringe in a way that’s hype

- please read orv please not even for me do it for yourself i want you to experience what i experienced for YOUR sake not mine