#i love you hsy 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[caorl]

literally can't stop thinking about rockstar!hsy send help

[nomairuins]

also its so dumb that one of the arguments ppl have against a sims 5 is that theyve already invested too much money into 4. like yes its fucking scummy that ea charges so much for dlc and its Ludicrous the amt sims 4 costs if you have all the dlc and its going to keep getting more and more expensive but . to be honest . why are you paying for sims packs. im sry

[phillysimmer]

🗣️📢It's another sim dump y'all!

Gerty | Brooklyn | Ameer

Hey you guys! Can I just say thank you so much for all the support and love I appreciate it fr fr 😭. I've gotten a few requests to do another sim dump soooo meet Gerty, Brooklyn, and Ameer! Hope you enjoy them 😊(just don’t claim as you’re own plz 🥺) and @ me if you use them I would love to see your posts! AS always a big ✨TY✨ to all CC creators involved and I will link each detail and cc I used individually to respect all creators TOU.

Details under the cut

Defaults: Skin | Eyes (Opal Eyes)

Skin Details: Skin Overlay | Face Details | Freckles | Kijiko Remove EA Lashes | Lash Filler

Sliders: Eye Size Slider | Eyebrow Slider | Eyelid Slider | Pouty Lip Slider | Mouth Scale Slider

🐸Gerty: Hair (PamelaPuffs Large) | Eyebrows | Lip Gloss | Glasses (BG) | Outfit (HSY) | Shoes (Throwback Fit kit)

🏙️Brooklyn: Hair (V3) | Earrings (BG) | Lipstick (Mocca) | Hoodie (HSY) | Skirt (Urban Homage Kit) | Shoes (Incheon Arrivals)

🥗Ameer: Hair (V1) | Eyebrows (04) | Beard (BG) | Sweater (Growing Together) | Pants & Sneakers (Incheon Arrivals)

(Each sim only has the outfit pictured above. Every other outfit is nude 🤭)

Available on the Gallery! (ID: PhilStone215) *make sure to check "Include Custom Content"*

*Disclaimer* I play with a ReShade so my sims may not look the same in your game...

[florwal]

yeah some people are just mean cause they can, you've done so much and you don't owe anything to anyone

+ i'm so happy you've been enjoying jut playing the game for yourself, i've just cleaned all my mods folder (don't ask how.) and planning to fell in love again with the game that i've been loving since i was 10 😭

if you wanna share some pics of what you're doing i'm super curious, but if you dont: just fuck them all 💋💋💋💋💋💋 kisses and hugs

i’ve been trying to play the complete opposite of what i normally would but i’m actually enjoying it a lot! i just cleaned my mods folder too it was A CHORE

the dad erik is a construction worker and he’s into all the outdoorsy stuff. he goes fishing a lot. he has the goofball trait and tries to be “the cool dad.” because in my head the parents were in the grunge/alternative scene when they were younger

the mom vivienne is a freelance writer and to make things easier for me she has the family oriented/neat traits because erik is a slob and makes the house dirty as fuck and i feel bad cuz she is ALWAYS cleaning up after him but their marriage is going great and they never fight so ? she seems happy to do it i guess lmao

they have a teenage daughter named bristol that’s super angsty and has the live fast aspiration from hsy so she sneaks out and gets into trouble at school a lot. she has a crush on her best friend marjane who’s been having a stay over at the house for a sims week so i’m like 👀 waiting to see if any autonomous romance will happen with them BUT bristol also has a crush on another girl from school so idk which one i want her to go to prom with and it’s stressing me out!!!

[ekanatsume]

Keeping these here bc istg finding doksoo people is like seeing kdj not sacrificing himself

I dont really ship ship them but like the potential they have as a couple i-

If youre a doksoo person, please lemme know bc like i can n o t for the love of god find people who ship them. I just wanna cry about them like 😭🙏

[ID: Tiktok screenshots of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint fanart of Han Sooyoung and Kim Dokja overlaid with captions about their relationship. The art featured is by more than one artist, but predominantly by BlackBox. The captions read:

1. han sooyoung once said "me, waiting for someone for decades and decades... you think such a thing is even possible? you crazy fool,"

and then we are told about her endless waiting in kaizenix arc, and how she was fighting her best to stay awake for 13 years in the epilogue, for one person, for someone she thought she never waited for, and then it was revealed that she, again, waited for 4 years for certain someone to wake up from his sleep. she diligently visited him every day during his time in the hospital, making sure he's still alive and well even though his soul has scattered away.

2. orv ebook spoiler?

during kaizenix arc kim dokja wrote a love letter to han sooyoung where he told her "write a'story that's for me andme "alone." little did he know that han sooyoung Would do anything, LITERALLY anything to write a story for him alone. why aren't you by her side when she writes a story for you?

3. kaizenix arc shows how much kim dokja means to han sooyoung. she spent 50 years, literally a lifetime, waiting for him. she hold onto the promise kdj told her, where he said he would find her as soon as possible before they got thrown to kaizenix.

she fought her hardest not to forget him. fighting for 50 years, ALONE. for 50 years, she believed kdj would save her. and she believed kdj would one day read her book to save her. and she never blamed kdj for the 50 years she spent. God. it's a pity we don't talk enough about her struggle in kaizenix.

4. This has to be one of the saddest passages in the entire novel.

I will never shut up about doksoo and their captivating interactions. and how astoundingly excellent Sing Shong's writing is: the emotions, permeated the text, and picturing that particular moment visually came with it naturally.

I was moved to tears by her assumption that it was her fault that he started crying and her quick actions to comfort him because she didn't want to keep seeing him cry

Not to mention how Kim Dokja expressed his emotions, which is as uncommon as him not sacrificing his life for KimCom.

All he wanted was some reassurance; to be told, that he's done the best he could the whole time through

Hsy mghtve comforted him for the wrong reasons, but that completed the job nevertheless.

5. when you realize kim dokja's ■■ is "epilogue" and "eternity" while han sooyoung's ■■ is "neverending story". and towards the end we find out about hsy making a promise to kdj that she will write the epilogue, a story, for kdj until the end of time, for eternity, if that's the only way she could save him…

6. how did you read orv epilogue and think han sooyoung and kim dokja are platonic bc i genuinely thought they were canon after hsy's sacrifices for 13 years, and kdj openly saying he loves her story more than anyone else.

orv theme is basically your story = you

7. the fact that kim dokja had actually fulfilled his promise to read han Sooyoung's "boring" novel that has over 3000 chapters even before they both made promise with each other.. he kept his promise for over than 13 years, without both realizing that fact until hsy regained her memories as tls123, and kdj as od.

8. han sooyoung had seen kim dokja's life at its lowest when she first saw him almost lifeless at the hospital she held his hand, feeling the warmth of the hands that had given up of his life, and she cried. and the first thing. she thought of was how to save him. in mere minutes she decided to damn the whole world for him to live and survive she would never let kim dokja to be in that state ever again, not when she is there for him.

9. the whole twsa is a love letter from han sooyoung to kim dokja. she told him to never give up (ch533), encouraged him to find companions (ch75). described so many disgusting foods as delicious so that he could eat them with ease, and not to mention the whole reason why twsa existed was for him to have a reason to live and survive for another day. she wrote all of this for 13 years, so that he could live BEFORE and AFTER apocalypse. she saved him before anyone else could do it. her love is eternal. End ID]

Thenks to @princess-of-purple-prose I DIDNT KNOW HOW TO ALT TEXT AAAAAA. Thenks for doing this ^^

[skylark325]

Omniscient Readers View Point Read Through

Ch 53-73

Beginning: Ch 1-10

They knew the prophets would gather here and decided to use this opportunity to wipe out those who stopped reading early.

>thats… dark

[The constellation 'Abyssal Black Flame Dragon' is looking at the black flame dragon.]

>…dude stop looking at his black flame dragon

"I really thought you were dead!" "But I survived."

> sigh

"In some cases, people need to be killed…" "Don't worry. I'll kill them for you."

>i need a Heewon in my life 😭

The head rolling like a toy was covered with a cloak with '1' on it. It was the 1st Apostle.

>HSY MY LOVE

You have to hold hands with me to defeat Anna Croft and the Zarathustra!"

'I am different! Yoo Joonghyuk, hold hands with me.

>hsy REALLY wants to hold yjh’s hand huh

"He was a mouthy bastard."

>GASP Joonghyuk LANGUAGE

This jerk, he must think he was so cool. …Honestly, he was a bit cool.

>Dokja you fucking simp he just squashed a head like it was grape

"Then try it. Is your sword faster or my tongue faster?"

>kinky

"Writing is so difficult… writers are great…"

>couldn’t agree more

>the way the story distinguishes between characters and ‘real’ people is so interesting. And kind of tragic when you’re the only one who will likely stay aware until the end

The quality was so bad that if it was serialized in Textpia, it would've bombed. But that didn't matter right now.

>lmao this is why y’all need ao3

–I see. I feel an unknown wall with hyung. I can't explain it well but I like the feeling.

>like…the fourth wall or a tsundere wall?

He says that any beautiful or handsome man and woman will become concubines, while any ugly people will be killed or become slaves."

Jung Heewon frowned. "If Dokja-ssi is caught, you will become a slave."

>Lmao i adore their friendship

The character and I needed to be thinking about each other at the same time.

>does that mean yjh was thinking about kdj back when kdj was using the skill to be in his body?

…that sounds wrong

anyways

"Yoo Sangah-ssi. You will be disruptive if you keep acting like this."

>Oof why did that hurt me

>ok see this is what i meant in my post about kdj’s difference when describing the other characters and when describing yjh. he’s literally talking the king of beauty that leaves everyone spellbound and the best he could manage was ‘outstanding beauty but not his type’ and ‘objectively as beautiful as Sangah’? dokja you gay ass

However, the future that Lee Sungkook knew was only near the prologue. The evolution of the current scenario surpassed the information he knew.

>how long was that prologue for this guy to have his memories till CHAPTER 62?

[The character 'Min Jiwon' shows a weak liking towards you.]

…All my thoughts collapsed at this absurd message.

>honestly relatable

[…There is a lingering attachment, please understand.]

"Gyebaek, let's meet in the next world."

>what is this old man yaoi.

"…Won't it happen one day? If I give birth to a child, I will surely tell them what happened today."

>is…is dokja embracing the mpreg

What was this? I looked up and found that my limbs were tied up with magic power. It was a chrysalis-like appearance. Yoo Sangah's face was completely red.

> …right. Not gonna ask what’s currently going through Sangah’s head.

Everyone is the book is either kinky or gay like damn

[The character 'Cha Sangkyung' has discovered that you are a demonic enemy that shouldn't be touched.]

>Damn the foreshadowing

"Oh, I haven't introduced myself yet. I am Han Sooyoung. I am Cha Sangkyung's assistant."

>MY GIRL BOSS IS HERE

"There is someone. Someone is killing the kings!"

>my little murderous bean i missed you

A furious voice rang through the battlefield.

"Kim Dokja…"

I smiled and waved towards him. A large black flag flew behind the person heading towards me.

"You came…"

>adorable

"…Kim Dokja!"

Yoo Joonghyuk was chasing after me at a scary speed.

>YJH: i just had such a cool entry, PAY ATTENTION TO ME

> yjh really loves saying kdj’s name huh going KIM DOKJA! every three sentences

>god the little sister is just as grumpy as her brother

It was because there wasn't any king in Seoul who had more coins than me right now.

>kdj: you may be op but you forgot the power of INVESTMENT MUHAHAHAHA

The flying Yoo Joonghyuk hit a barrier, bounced in the opposite direction and hit another barrier and landed on the ground after repeating this ping-pong action five or six times.

>I…dokja what the fuck 💀

———

Next- Ch 73-92

Prev: Ch 32-52

Beginning: Ch 1-10

[pendwelling]

You can’t tell me the first thing priest Dokja does when transmigrated to TWSB isn’t locking himself in the royal library and refuses to come out

(Crown prince YJH and Priest KDJ is the funniest image, and obviously HSY is in the background causing problems)

Meanwhile poor Yeseo is on the verge of a panic attack in ORV

(Yeseo trying to parse through his sisters tear filled rambles about her favorite book and therefore being the weirdest prophet know to man while Cedric and Christelle are just there wondering what is up with him)

OOOHHH KDJ locking himself in the Imperial library would be so KDJ of him to do HAHA, tho the main obstacle for that is to first get permission from the Crown 🥲 which, sadly for him.... would mean cozying up in some way to either whoever is the Cardinal and/or Empress/Emperor in this AU (it could range from Persephone and Hades, to Namgung Minyoung, or to even Kyrgios [but I think he fits Johann's role more], etc etc)

((Unsurprisingly I'm gonna go off on a tangent bc anything TWSB related makes my Freak™ show—)) (I JUST LOVE SOOKYM'S WORLDBUILDING SM.... IM SORRY I CANT HELP IT.....) 😭😭😭😭 but libraries—or rather books—actually have a rather important part to play in TWSB, or at least, in showcasing a noble family's strength, power, and prestige. In the Divine Kingdom of Venetiaan, the general populace has an incredibly purposefully low education and literacy rate (due to Queen Lilianne's plan of using the population's dumbification to manipulate their blind curated religious beliefs into having them conscript for her war), so owning books is seen as a symbol of wealth and high education, and the more wealthy a family is, the bigger they would represent that in their family's library. The Riester Empire is different in that education of the common folk is NOT something that they purposefully deprive them of (in fact, we've actually seen the Imperial Family invest in academies for different sorts of talents/skills that could accept even commoners as students), but the significance and importance of books and libraries is something both countries share!

ANYWAY, small tangent over wkdjdkd But all that is to say, a diplomatic hostage like Jesse Venetiaan (and KDJ in this AU) would not have casual permission to use something as precious as the Imperial Library sadly :')...... Which is unfortunate for our Reader bc in a lot of Fantasy AUs the library is a place that KDJ commonly escapes to WKWKKWKWK (IT'S ONE OF MY FAV TROPES NGL...... 😫😭 library lurker KDJ who eventually catches the eye of [usually Crown Prince or Duke of the North] YJH who is entranced by the peaceful figure KDJ makes, backlit from the light of the window and focused on whatever trashy novel he's reading......)

But assuming KDJ knows his chatacter's original fate in the original story (dying during the Riester-Venetiaan war), just like he does in ORV, I bet he would be the type to know exactly what to do and what to avoid, and how to achieve the perfect most "ideal" ending for the story. He's a scheming lil bastard and I trust his survival abilities (well..... until he dies. but he'll come back like the rat he is LMAO...) But considering his personality (at least with The Audacity that the Fourth Wall allows him to have), I think he'd head straight to scheming his way into the good graces of people that he could benefit from (and gaining access to the Imperial Library for some good reads def feels like an essential benefit wkwkwkk) with as much liberties as his complex position as a diplomatic hostage could allow him.

AND OHHHHHHHH YEAH..... POOR JUNG YESEO...... It's such a sad sad SAD image to think about, but also....the though of him frantically trying to organize hundreds of chapters of a repetitive regression scenario story VIA his little sister's tear-filled incoherent hyperfixated ramblings is. kinda funny in a very mean way (LMAO). CedChris would ask him/wonder if he's actually a prophet but when compared to /actual/ prophets like Camille Bacary, they'll kinda look at his sweating face and go "🤨😐 right... prophet huh....". Though it should be said that Yeseo is actually crazy smart when he wants to be/when the situation requires it, so I trust he could do his best to help his companions in an apocalypse with any valuable information he has absorbed thru osmosis via his sister. (And in the case of the "Acciddentally-took-Eunseo's-phone" scenario—canonically, Yeseo managed to get through all 302 chapters of QPB's part 1 in a few days, but it was mostly skimming haha but you can assume he'd be somewhat of a quick reader....... though the stress of scenarios would definitely make him a zombie over Eunseo's phone.) But regardless, considering the personalities of these kids, I still feel like an orv!TWSB(or rather QPB) would be more lighthearted(as lighthearted as it can be) to reflect its targeted Reader: Eunseo! Think of an Action Fantasy Regression novel with a persevering main character like Ham Ga-in Christelle who gets through difficulties with as much stubbornness and cheer as she can (though this would naturally dim throughout regressions, but the core of her character is still important). Idk how far into TWSB you are so I don't want to say much wkdjkdkd but yeah..... KDJ's relationship with TWSA and Eunseo's with QPB are SO similar and yet so different, and that difference can partly be traced back to the type of people they are, which is reflected in the type of genre their favourite respective novels are (which also reflects on the characters in said story too) TT

HAA.......... Somehow, I think I end up writing way too much in response to my Asks sometimes, but ANYWAY WKFJKDDKDKD

Thank you Anon for feeding into these AU thoughts, they're always fun to think about and hear what others have to say!!!!!! 🥹 SORRY THAT I KEPT GOING OFF TRACK. CERTIFIED TWSB YAPPER HERE....... 🥲

[macchami]

Orv novel spoiler ⚠️

Let’s talk about orv plot twist/identity reveal

Does anyone were able to guess SP identity before the reveal? like not RIGHT before the reveal, maybe at the 1863 arc, anyone was able to know his identity? BECAUSE I DID NOT. I knew SP wasn’t going to be a future dokja BUT DID NOT EXPECT it to be a literal another version of yoo joonghyuk ( in fact the OG) and like i got spoiled from tiktok about sp identity😔 I feel like SP identity plot twist is a good one but I also found some readers who were able to guess his true identity far before the reveal so like how did yall even figure it out??

On the other hand, i knew the author was gonna be han sooyoung because the cover gives it away imo😭 just the fact that hsy herself didn’t know she’s the author until the past present thingy. Yeah i couldnt predict that. I couldn’t predict how someone who doesnt even know she’s the author, is actually the author. It’s like this phrase i read somewhere about how you need to trick yourself before tricking everybody else.

I also like how young dokja is the oldest dream, i feel like a lot of people were able to get this right before the reveal because it was hinted a lot. Like the author deliberately gave us hints about OD and even dokja himself admitted that he would sometimes have the same thoughts, about how OD is probably his young self. But the concept oldest dream, how it relates to readers and their imagination. I like it a lot.

But…. My fav fav orv plot twist will always be how orv itself is written by han sooyoung. Yoo joonghyuk came to this world to give orv and even the author of orv ( ss, a married couple ) made an appearance in the novel. And also how all of us the readers is included like a finishing touch to orv. Like damn, i play a role in this story???? Damnnnn i love orv sm guys.

[orviposition]

What trope would you put Joongdok in?

i honestly think that when it comes to joongdok it would be much easier if i answered with the tropes i WOULDNT put them in 😭😭

oh boy here i go! let's start with two of the most obvious first:

1. matching outfits with opposite color schemes, and 2. opposites (leo & aquarius) attract (<- attract as in lowkey bordering in codependency)

yin & yang - not only are joongdok aesthetically yin&yang but narratively too (i mentioned in a previous ask that they're sky & earth too)

star-crossed - (if you believe in orv's sad ending)

life (and death) companions - is probably a trope on its own considering the meaning of the title. not only does it mean (i ran the term through a thesaurus so yall don't have to 👍🏻👍🏻) "a romantic partner with whom one is exceptionally or uniquely compatible or has a special connection" but the synonyms are also of the romantic variety ranging from (but not limited to) life partner, best friend, soulmate, spouse, true love, one's promised, significant other, love of one's life, beloved, heart's desire etc (long story short, pretty sick tbh. no wonder kr dudebros threw a fit in singshong's comment section over it. i get it) and what makes it infinitely funnier is that it started as crack being treated seriously 😭😭😭😭

anyway, continuing where i left off, Soulmates - kdj is the reason yjh exists. yjh is the reason kdj lives. (hsy wrote both of them in a way that they became each other's salvation hence their position of reader-protagonist gets switched in the epilogue and both of them have admitted that reading about the other's story has saved their lives)

everyone ships them/everyone can see it - uriel, gabriel, ljh, hsy, jhw, lsh, anna croft, persephone/hades (the third eligible candidate to marry kdj was yjh and you will never be able to convince me otherwise. also if you have an answer other than yjh ur wrong), yma (if webtoon dares not to draw the "oppa looks happy when thinking about that ahjussi" you'll see me on the news) the wenny king. heck even gong pildu, upon some consideration and by method of elimination, deduced that theres no way kdj has enough rizz to pull neither ysa nor hsy therefore who was left to be the one who helped kdj birth his "child" (kidified sp) ??? yjh obv 😭😭 and why would he question the possibilities of mpreg when hmo is right there anyway. heck hmo even told kdj that he should try it.

when one is hurt/dying/dead, the other rages, panics, is extremely distressed - (maybe there's a shorter way to say this like "who did this to you" but joongdok have ascended past cheesy romances 😝) disaster of flood arc, aftermath of dark castle, the fight with surya, 1863, aftermath of sp's kidnapping etc

hates everyone but you - sure yjh doesnt hate All constellations but he for sure hates all demon kings. (mini fun fact about me, up until joongdok rebranded my brain, i didnt like this trope)

aloof x low self-esteem = both emotionally constipated 🙄🙄

derogatory term becomes a term of endearment - fool/sunfish (bastard)

bickering like a married couple - is this a trope? well it is now

denial of attraction/closeness - just two men who most definitely never lie when it comes to their feelings

identity theft - without malicious intent (i hope!! *stares at all the atrocities kdj has committed using yjh's name*)

masterchef x disaster in the kitchen - very, very, very simplified version of the trope. wouldnt call kdj a disaster but definitely a worse cook than yjh (subtrope would be [pro-gamer x game tester])

famous x fan - lol "famous"

annoying x annoyed - (kdj: breathes. yjh: ugh drop dead. kdj: drops dead. yjh: wait no-💢)

A thinks B will be happy without him / B doesn't know how (doesn't want) to live without A - 51kdj seeing 49kdj leave with yjh and the others, thinking that he and yjh will set on a journey together to find tls123 / museum fight

will sacrifice everyone/everything for the other - *cracks knuckles* when 41st sys tries to give yjh a 2nd chance to save himself and his old companions and all he had to do was say that kdj isn't his companion. when kdj admits that 1863rd hsy's plan to see the ending of the scenarios is smart and well-thought out but because that world doesn't need yjh he doesn't cooperate. (side story spoilers below, but when you think about it long enough the side story came to be because yjh spread orv to lhh's worldline. all the deaths happening because yjh needs to collect a fragment of kdj's soul from that world)

speaking of lhh, reincarnation - now hear me out. not your typical reincarnation but bcs we know that 49kdj's wish was to reincarnate into someone that doesn't have anything to do with kimcom -> subtrope: doesn't want to be found / is found

amnesia - 0 is also not your typical amnesiac

god x god's favorite

age gap - theyre both the same age and simultaneously have age gap(s) make of that what you will

important symbol - (object) pocket watch

glucose guardian - listen!! listen!! sp/kdj and 0/51 exist okay

harem - sorry i couldnt help it

[ariapmdeol]

for the give me a character ask game can you do han sooyoung from ORV?

How I feel about this character:

I LOVE HER SO MUCH,, I miss hsy, I need to continue my ORV reread!! I love metafiction and I love writers and I love her relationship both with the Stories she Wrote,, I love the layers involved. Stories about readers and protagonists and writers. Stories for just One Reader. Stories written through time shenanigans, and stories written as a teenager from half-remembered dreams and time shenanigans.

I need to reread ORV because I haven't read it in years 😭 I started my reread but I haven't gotten very far yet... ill finish my reread for her

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

KDJ and YJH? I'm not too big into shipping (and I don't think I felt strongly about any ship, in my initial read of ORV). I just really like those three as a trio,, More platonically than anything else, but I don't mind YHK as a pairing!

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

I really liked her bickering with the Abyssal Black Flame Dragon,, edgy teenager constellation,, I remember finding all those moments to be really charming and fun.

My unpopular opinion about this character:

They never should have given people the words 'girlfailure' or 'girlboss' because people just use those instead of discussing her as a character... but this is my eternal struggle.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I'm actually pretty satisfied with her canon storyline! I don't remember feeling like I wanted more or less of anything. I'll need to finish my reread and think about this more

[your--isgayrights]

You're like one of the only ones that I feel like can answer my question. But anyways, do you think there is a connection between Bathes framework(death of the author ig) being so prominent in HSY's arc and how it relates to JHY's, YSA's, JHW's arcs and their experiences as a woman. Like ik there was some gender stuff goin on with HSY when she was a guy apostle. But I feel like womanhood isn't as explored in her arcs like it is with the three other characters but I feel like you can somehow make a connection 😭 sorry if this is a tall order.

Anon babe I'm very flattered and I'll try to make some connections here, but if someone who is actually woman has something to say about this please come on in and feel free to tell me to stfu 😭😭. Like obv just from living in Society I have concepts of womanhood/gender dynamics/lived experiences of misogyny but also I need you to understand that identification with and appreciation of a personal identity of womanhood is something that I as a person have consistently been repulsed by my entire life. Like the act of wanting/choosing to be a woman is something I will never be able to fully understand or experience.

THAT BEING SAID I HAVE WRITTEN A FEW PARAGRAPHS HERE IN RESPONSE TO YOUR ASK.

TLDR;

authorship is creation outside of motherhood and therefore queer.

narrative control is queer, and therefore disassociation from traditional gender roles comes with increased narrative control.

the narrative of ORV equates Barthes' framework with the "reality" of a reader that has to be challenged by the compassion and love of another person experiencing their own "reality" and authorship of a story is an attempt of that act of impossible communication.

Like ugh ok wanna be clear that I'm not like shim saimdong on the 50,000 won style trying to equate womanhood to this role via like bioessentialist weirdness, but I think that the most obvious connection with authorship and the female characters in orv is the idea of creation that like is sort of tied with motherhood via a character like LSK. Bc yeah if you look at the two big authors writing Kim Dokja's life, it's literally his mom with her prison book and then also Han Sooyoung later on, right?

This is kind of fun to me bc I have a friend whose like actually a lit/film major type person and writing an essay about queer tragedy in film and we were talking about queer narratives and ideas of artificial conception/creation ala Frankenstein, the "unnatural birth." In Western lit tradition this kind of thing has obvi been like connected to horror more modernly, but I think in like early Korean lit (me saying this as a guy who has like only read the Samguk Yusa so 🌾 of 🧂) the connection between unnatural birth and the divine is less complicated and not treated as the same kind of perversion that subversions of nuclear family models have been by narratives in lit largely influenced by a majority religion that values that structure of subservience in the West.

(example of unnatural birth that is fun fine and normal in Samguk Yusa: the first king of Silla is born from an egg and so is his wife and like she even has a beak until it falls off and like Kylie Jenner lip cup style gives her bbl lips /hj.)

The act of authorship can then be seen in/equated with this unnatural birth, or maybe a better term is divine birth. Authorship/narrative control in orv is also shown to be something inherently queer bc like again if you think about LSK and HSY, there is, like you mention Anon, a conflict between the societal role of Woman and becoming an author. Like if you've read feminist lit you are probably already been knew about this but to put it in terms of a referenced text from ORV, there are foundations of an equation of womanhood with motherhood from those very beginnings of Korean lit. The bear mother is a story literally about becoming a woman and that good old neoconfucian influence can be seen in how the path to womanhood for the bear is to completely obey the instructions of a male deity without questioning or straying. She is then "rewarded" by said make deity when they wed and she becomes the mother of Dangun, the deity founder of Korea. This neoconfucian framework of 'womanhood' places emphasis on subservience to higher power and motherhood.

It is notable, then, that the act of becoming an author in Lee Sookyung's case is literally the very action that abandons her child. The act of authorship is juxtaposed from reality, as Kim Dokja's lived experience is retold transformatively and then believed to be true by others and by himself to some degree. Authorship is something that alters the 'natural' and 'real' and divests the author of their subservient societal role. (Abandoning your child #justqueergirlybossthings /j)

So then, let's look at female characters in ORV and their relative relationships to narrative control and femininity. YSA is a good contrast to HSY here, because as you note Anon, reading ORV HSY seems more divorced from womanhood than YSA, but why is that? In all likelihood, it's because YSA takes the place of a certain type of female character that often exists in the stories of this genre, a female colleague who performs her role much better in the original society than the male lead before an entry into the world of the story. Something to also note is, how, despite not being a "character" of the original WoS, YSA is particularly tasked with a role of passivity/narrative inactivity that commonly befalls female characters in the modern day but most notably is exemplified in East Asian lit by the monk Tang Sanzang in Journey to the west. A character who motivates the actions of the main character but is often thwarted in attempts to directly change the narrative and put into inert states (TSZ is told to go somewhere by bodhisattvas and follows their instructions and always gets kidnapped by demons who want to eat his hot cicada body or w/e, YSA studies languages, has her contract renewed, takes the subway when her bike is stolen, gets yanked around by Greek gods and prophetizes herself into a backroom library she can use to peer into the mind of God, etc.) In some ways, bc YSA tends to follow 'the rules,' because she appears to have less awareness and control of the narrative, she also seems to fall more easily into the societal category of "woman." Put directly in contrast with Han Sooyoung, whose perspective on the narrative as a creator leads her to show less care for the lives of those in the story and who actively kills many of said characters without remorse, perhaps contrary to the role of complete creation an comparison of motherhood and authorship might imply, narrative control is power both to create and destroy. If you're in a daoist mood, you could draw a taegeuk and equate this balance of divine birth and unnatural death with the balance of androgyny between feminine and masculine, the balanced whole then being considered a cosmic whole/the absolute/something powerful/ the author, etc. (Singshong being a couple who wrote the book together kind of also adds another layer of context to this in that like in the daoist/Confucian tradition of heteronormativity man and woman together are a complete form, if all cosmos can be divided to binary then the collaboration across that binary recreates the whole, an androgenous true state of creation)

Again, in this way, narrative control/authorship is something that inherently breaks reality and in a heteronormative world this force can be coloured as inherently queer. Thats probably why are transgender girlies JHY and YJH are so significant in that their experiences of womanhood are ones that directly defy the predestination of narrative. There is no direct reveal of YJH having been the Punisher, because it is something beyond narrative understanding, beyond the rules of the universe that Kim Dokja defines as the Reader. JHY's identity directly contradicts the design of the author/creator and reader alike, her choice in her personal gender identity directly defies narrative and in that way gives her agency outside of the realm of "character," her queerness being something that gives her transformative power and control over her reality.

In the matter of Barthes, I would say I'm a bit biased, because I find reading less interesting when the context and the intent of the author are not considered. In fact, I kind of resent that death of the author is sort of a literary standard in that a lot of modern English courses will discourage essays that use terminology like "what the author is trying to say could be" and instead encourage only the use of text, because on the whole I find it less interesting to look at words and not imagine the soul behind them. In some ways, I view death of the author as a selfish framework that emphasizes only the reinforcement of a reader's worldview and desire for escapism in text that doesn't have to be connected to the real world, a delusion. Not to say enjoying a book means one must love the author, but I feel that every reader will naturally have their own (mostly one sided, I suppose) relationship to the author within and without the text, and denying that fact denies personhood to the art form in some ways. In this view, I think one of the reasons I love ORV so much is probably that some of its themes seem to very much agree to this sentiment. Authorship and readership are often equated to this act of "impossible communication" between people. ORV views authorship, the sharing of stories, as this way to impossibly try to understand the life of another person. Part of what gives the text of WoS and then ORV itself so much meaning in the end is the fact that we know who wrote them in the fiction and for what reason. Knowing the author is actually phrased within the text as pivotal, foundationally important, the only understanding that can lead to the salvation of the reader in the end, his knowledge of the person he can recognize in the author's words being himself and the fact that the author's understanding means that he is in some way loved and and known by others who love the same story. When the HSY who wrote WoS is shown to literally cease to be, trying to reach the reader and failing to be seen, it's a scene that makes one cry, a tragedy, a loss. Death of the author is not a preferable frame of analysis in ORV, only connected by a morose sense of inevitability defined by a consumerist literary world that holds said framework as truth.

But again, if death of the author is "reality, " then the ending of ORV is one where radical joy can be found in the breaking of said reality. It's pretty notable from a queer framework that the "happy endings" in ORV all occur in non-nuclear family structures, the 999th turn adopting the OD, KdjCo wanting to live in a house together, etc. Also notable that, because that is a dream that KDJ cannot see as "real," the absolute power the reader is given to determine the world keeps it from happening. In this way, death of the author and absolute power of the reader is the final boss of ORV as HSY and the characters batten down the hatches and scream into the void "YOU ARE NOT ALONE, YOUR REALITY IS NOT THE ONLY ONE, LOVE THAT EXISTS FOR NO PREDETERMINED PURPOSE CAN BE YOUR SALVATION."

It's also kind of important to me outside of the text in the understanding that this story, though obviously formulated in the context of trying to appeal to a wide audience for commercial success, is also one that comes from people who experience our reality trying to tell us that love is the answer to it all. Young people today in SK are very likely to at least know someone who has attempted in the past and you know there are some pretty similar statistics if you happen to have friends involved in queer communities here in the US. Because of my own experiences, I've always felt that distinct lack of recovery narratives in fiction, as past generations tend to see it as either so outside the norm or so clearly regulated to certain situations that it's portrayed as obviously wrong choice by a weak person or the obvious right choice by a brave person and ORV is one of very few stories I've seen not try to make a value judgement on it, but rather illustrate exactly the reasons why KDJ wants to die, why he doesn't value himself, and saying please, please stay. There is so much love for you here even though I know you haven't seen it yet. And an understanding that these ideas of love and happiness are something some people in certain situations can only be shown proof of in the stories of others. And I feel like understanding of that context is what makes ORV so important to me as a Reader, even if I know very little about SS aside from that, the fact that they exist as people living in this same world is still important to my enjoyment of the story as a reader.

Ok, sorry, this became more about narrative queerness than death of the author/womanhood but again a lot of my views of womanhood exist in like, opposing it? Lol. Tho my experience of manhood also exists in opposing a lot of it, I just personally enjoy tussling with it much more than I ever would have with womanhood I think lol.

[e-102]

it’s late while i’m typing this but i wanted to get my thoughts down:

is orv written by the cast of orv?

i don’t mean is the story made by those who are it’s characters, i mean did han sooyoung facilitate the very story that you read when you open orv? in the epilogues there’s a line about a married couple who receives the story han sooyoung compiled that’s implied to be sing shong, the actual authors of orv.

so is the orv we read meant to be han sooyoungs perspective, or is it the events she compiled? i know this feels like a useless question, because whether it’s really kim dokjas perspective or han sooyoungs perspective still means the story has been narrated unreliably. but the implications are different, and that at least is very fun to consider.

did kim dokja really ever have any badass moments, or were they added to make the story more exciting? did he actually have a book in his library about his ‘sexual awakening’ or did one of his companions sneak that in to embarrass and make fun of him? did he misremember these things himself?

if you think about this too hard it might confuse you a little, i know it kind of kills me to talk like orv is real in another universe (that’s not what i’m saying 😭 i want to question what might be the intentions present based on who made the decisions to include what in a meta narrative about a meta narrative) but honestly it harkens back to concepts like square circle, it’s a paradox we have to consider both inside and outside of the book. han sooyoung and kim dokja aren’t real but their authors are. and yet, the novel either takes place from kim dokjas perspective of han sooyoungs perspective on kim dokjas perspective, as if it was written at the moment they experienced each turn. to top it all off, their authors are given the same fictional status they have, who are both real and not real, authors and not authors, as the story was given to them by yjh. square circle 🤮

during the epilogues the very nature of orv as a story begins to unravel. just as ways of survival became real at the beginning of orv, orv takes on a fictional realness by the implications of expanding to ‘our universe’.

it’s because of this that i even think to ask, who’s writing it? if it’s hsy then upon reread all the moments in which kdj is great and awful take on an endearing quality of being transcribed by someone who loves him. they might be exaggerated, fabricated, or undersold. perhaps hsy writes about how attractive yoo joognhyuk is to make fun of kdj, or maybe she includes it because she knows it’s something he’d want to read.

this interpretation of orv honestly makes it a different story every time you read with infinite reasons to analyze the text each time. and at the same time it makes our protagonist who we spend 500 chapters with, a complete and utter stranger.

[rlaehrwk-37]

<CH 554. EP 1. WE ARE BACK IN SUFFERING TOWN BITCHES.>

————————————————————

translation provided by the lovely @lee-hakhyun go follow them or I’ll beat u up <3

————————————————————

[“This is a story of unreadable despair.���]

•

Yea thanks for the heads up. Totally not an ominous beginning to this side story (sequel)! There’s also ch 553 (prologue) but it’s free so anyone can read it for themselves!

• Lee Hakhyun and his neck being grabbed caught uhh

We’ll definitely be seeing more of that heh

So Lee Hakhyun, the writer of orv and his editor, Ji Eunyu are invited to go to a fan event by a reader who goes by the name of “Representative Kim Dokja”. Totally not shady at all…

• Take note of this Chungmuro Theatre. We’ll be seeing more of it shortly.

<Kim Dokja’s Banquet> (more like it’s a fucking trap)

• Ugh I think of this convo more than you can think… LHH… you’re not gonna be left out, you’re also a reader. A reader who loved the characters and wrote a story for them. You wrote out of your love for this story. You’re a “writer” who thinks from the perspective of a reader, and that is why you’re not Han Sooyoung.

>> ‘I also laughed bitterly. “I did.”’

I wonder when he’s gonna feel that extreme existential and identity crisis. Surely it’s not his story, but can that really be said after he spent 3 years of his life writing this story? Is he really not the writer?

• HELPPP HOPE IT DOESNT HAPPEN HERE LMAO I WANNA SEE SOME SCENES—

Is this a sign that if the webtoon stops updating we’re all gonna die?

There’s no way our horny-for-kdj webtoon writer is gonna stop drawing that wais— *gets shot*

• I—

well this is proof that dreams are real right? *insert MoM reference*

you readers better dream your happy ending or I’ll shoot you down

• oop so they saw Cheon Inho in the line of life sized cutouts as well? yep this is definitely not foreshadowing.

• ARRGHWGEGHW I WANNA GO TOO THERES GONNA BE LIKE HUNDREDS OF FANS IM SURE

• “I’m so proud of you, Kim Dokja.”

I,,, I’m so,, soft 🥺🥺🥺 I’m so proud of you too LHH, both you and KDJ came so far…

• STFU STFU “disappeared” WHAT,,??? I read everything so quick the first time that I didn’t catch the little lines. THIS IS WHY LHH THOUGHT ALL HIS READERS MOVED ON FROM THE SERIES? NAH FAM THEY JUST GOT TRANSMIGRATED INTO ORV

There was a mention of a famous writer disappearing in SS’s first novels “How to Become a Star Writer” as well. And it was Lee Hakhyun’s story.

Surely this is not foreshadowing…

• JUDGE HEEWON MY BELOVED,,, ANOTHER BIG STRONG PUPPY MAN,, I LOVE YOUILOVEYOUILOVEYOU

We’re slowly gathering our main trio. Rereading this scene makes me giggle.

• LHH THINKING OF KDJ WHEN HE THINKS OF HOW TO INITIATE CONVO. BROTHER DO YOU THINK A MAN WHO READ A NOVEL FOR 10 YEARS TO AVOID SOCIAL INTERACTION WOULD KNOW WHAT TO SAY TO A STRANGER LMAOOO 😭😭😭 HES SUCH A KDJ KINNIE I LOVE HIM

• THEYRE SO FUCKING PRECIOUS OMG NO I— MY BABIES FUEHUSUEHFHWJJEKEKFJEJWJDJWJJDJW

• AHHHWHDHE JUDGE HEEWON BADMOUTHING CHEON INHO HES GONNA DO THAT LATER IN THE APOCALYPSE TOO WHDHWJDH WHAT A TRUE HEEWON SIMP

>> “Hello I’m Kim Dokja, and I’m the MC.”

REPRESENTATIVE KIM DOKJA EW FUCK OFF NONE OF MY HOMIES LIKE REPRESENTATIVE KIM DOKJA.

>> “It’s Kim Dokja’s birthday.”

>> “It really snowed in Seoul that day, too.”

• no shut up. you don’t understand how important this is. snow,, snow field,, a place for the reader to hide in,, in the margins between the words on the page lay his own personal snow garden. in that white space from where he supervises everyone’s suffering. white blank space. with no words. no rules. he stands alone. FUCKRHHFJFIIWJCJWJ UGH

• “tear spots on white skin” WHO MADE MY QUEEN HAN SOOYOUNG CRY??? WHAT— WHAT POINT IN TIME IS THIS HSY FROM? could she be the hsy after the end of the side story? she saw his story and now writes it for him? but I’d hope that it’s LHH himself who writes this side story ykwim? WHY WAS SHE CRYING?

alas, this is the end of the first chapter. reading this side story always makes me feel like I wanna scratch my skin off. but I’ll do it again.

[errantce]

I’m loving your story with liyah! How do you come up with such good background stories for your sims and actually keep up with them? I get such bad sims block when playing for longer than an hour. I just don’t know how to enjoy the gameplay

thank you! i actually write so coming up with stories is pretty much all i do 😭

but i find that it's easy to keep up & not get bored if you let the game just do its thing sometimes. i used to micro-manage everything & i always got bored after a while. but in 2022?? i started a save with a teen for HSY & i just basically let him do whatever he wanted. he wanted to break up with his long term boyfriend? i let it happen. he beat his bully's ass in school even though he couldn't fight? i let it happen.

the game for me is just more fun if you let sims do whatever they want sometimes (helped by mods of course). also it's a lot more fun if you have a lot of 'background' characters with their own stories too that you can then tie into your 'main' sims' life. like in lani's file, a wedding bout to happen very soon...😌

[powerpolyculeshowdown]

ok i am getting desperate so i am releasing my confusing writing sooner. a small poem (i like to pretend i know how to write poetry but actually i have zero idea what i am doing) from the perspective of hsy, talking abt kdj, vote yhk !!! -Toon

There’s something in your eyes

Your eyes that shimmer like the stars

It is you who i write for

It is you who i will burn the world for

There are people reaching out

Greedy and desperate, I am one of them

Our hands reach with love and affection and longing

You who is larger than life

You are everything, my greed, my selfishness

My reason for sin and my reason for love

My friend. My companion.

I have written pages among pages for you

Ink stains my hands as i reach for you

Selfish and hungry

There is nothing more i want as i grievously hand over the world to you

See how you are loved?

See how you are worthy of love?

I love you.

1. poetry is what u want theres rules but u dont have to follow them rules are lame

2. 😭💖

[yo0hankim]

omg hiiii~ i'm not gonna lie i freaked out a little when i saw u followed me back bc you're literally one of my favorite orv artists, you're so talented i LOVE your art and the way you draw hsy in particular is so delicious 🤲💖

hello!!!! thank you so much omg reading this makes me happy! 😭 and im glad you especially like how i draw hsy!! idk if you can tell but shes my fav orv chara.... drawing her makes me happy.. i love her so much 🥺💖

and! with twitter behaving like That i figured it's probably high time i become more active here so i checked out a few accounts and when i saw yours i immediately knew i had to follow back ahah i really love your gifs btw!! so i hope you wont mind if you suddenly find me reblogging lots of your posts! ;;