#jhw the woman that you are

[orviposition]

[phyreunavailable]

Finished Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint today. Just now. Like, the web novel. God. Goddddd. Spoilers all the way to the end rant below.

I. Can't actually begin to say how much I liked this story. I couldn't put it down. It wrecked my sleep schedule the past week. I'd wake up, read, go to work, slip in a chapter or 2 over lunch, head home, keep it up. I was completely taken with the world, and it never felt weird or out of place for the events happening. A piece of fanart that I saw and thought was just something silly made me incredibly upset reading it happen.

OK actual spoilers from here. I'm putting the tag but some people are silly. THIS IS THE SPOILER. FOR THE WHOLE BOOK. DO NOT GET SPOILED. GETTING THIS BLIND IS THE IDEAL WAY. Holy shit I love time paradoxes and loops and shit. The last 51 chapters were just me with my hand to my mouth going "no fucking way" as each reveal made SENSE. Chapter 513 made me take a walk around the room. Everything past that had me seated, reading without stopping to figure everything out. Holy shit. What a good fuckin story.

HSY you are the woman ever. Anytime I needed common sense to be said to ppl you came in clutch. I only started looking at comments on each chapter after like, they emphasized in the story the comments and that was how I learned that (where I read it at least) ppl did not like JHW and I was like... whaaaaat. She's got fire and a wack mortal compass what is there to hate here. Me personally I liked basically every character. Got mad at the characters I was supposed to. Because. You know. I got really into it.

This is so long to say GOOD STORY. GOOD GOOD SO INCREDIBLY GOOD OF A STORY.

I've also learned that there is a very strange theme to stories that suddenly shoot up to top 10 in my favorites. This is the second "reader gets absorbed into fantasy world and has to make a story of their own" that I got stupidly invested in. First was School for Good and Evil. So like. Wow.

I've heard tale of sidestories and man if anybody knows where to find those in English,,, hmu,,,,,,,,,

[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.

[just-a-fragment]

Orv reread dump

potential tw(suicide/sa)

CHAPTER 1

I am ok :)))))

hmm is this dokkaebi king or hsy?

CHAPTER 2

more foreshadowing ughh it hurts

Unreliable narrator moment?

Sangah felt comfortable enough to talk much less be close to him. She's either really close with dokja(and we didn't realize until the later chapters) or dokja never made her feel uncomfortable. As a woman she has to constantly deal with the harassment she receives from men, and I don't think the coffee incident is enough to justify how she started talking to him after she was just harassed in this scene, there's more to their relationship whether it's romantic or kdj is just a feminist.

CHAPTER 3

so you say :))))))

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 8

foreshadowing? or am i reading too much into this

CHAPTER 10

from the start he never liked the star stream so even

CHAPTER 11

such a huge oversimplification damn kdj

remembers the theory that he's smiling cuz he finally met kdj. head in hands

kdj didn't have any info on any previous regressions before the 3rd one so he assumed that all of those were failures but we knew that 0th turn was the most perfect one. Also "never made a real companion" but he chose the same ones EVERY SINGLE TIME. The ones he made it through the end(whether it was at his own expense or not) was when he was with his companions

CHAPTER 13

so heartwarming to see the 4 simps develop from this to supporting kdj purely cause they loved his story

CHAPTER 14

i cannot believe we were robbed of topless kdj

CHAPTER 16

thinking about that one post from ot3 and how this parallels to Jonah surviving for only 3 days bc he's a true prophet while kdj took 4 days cuz he isn't actually a true prophet

Interesting, even though we didn't see any other constellation messages its implied that most of them feel angry at how they're distracting kdj and only uriel and maybe sun wukong are angry for heewon

CHAPTER 17

After seeing glimpse of the side story, I think this is kdj's way of criticizing how heewon's backstory is not inevitable, even though ss handled it really well, we can still have a conversation whether its necessary or not

CHAPTER 18

and he didn't TT. Still feel like he could've had more moments though

or a hurt inner child...

CHAPTER 20

feminist kdj, also ugh the way kdj treats lgy makes my heart hurt, its how he wanted to be treated ughh

really wish we couldve gotten more lgy moments

CHAPTER 22

we stan a queen who knows her worth

CHAPTER 23

SP's comments are lowkey funny once u know who he is lmfao

CHAPTER 25

It doesn't say that the 4th wall skill gives him a charisma ability, and we know that he didn't copy the incite skill until the 3rd scenario. So I think this shows that he's naturally charismatic.

jhw evolution moments never fail to make me cry TT

and that's it for now, imma try to read 25 chapters next week. Idk how ppl read this in 3 days or a week like damn

[coolguyoninternet]

Short version:

Person they devote themselves to (yjh/Carmen)

Person that devotes themselves to them (hsy/Benjamin)

Self-deprecating (Ayin's whole finale of the Seed of Light plan is literally using how much he hates himself/kdj's final stretch on trying to kill himself on that train)

Self sacrificial (train, Seed of Light)

Became the thing they swore to destroy (Lobotomy Corporation, Demon King of Salvation)

this one is insane THEY BOTH SPLIT THEMSELVES TO CREATE A VERSION OF THEM THAT DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE A CLONE

They didn't break the cycle, in the end.

LONG VERSION, WHICH INCLUDES LORE EXPLANATION FOR PROJECT MOON:

THIS RANT WILL BE LONG. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

In Project Moon, the setting is Apocalyptic. All of humanity has gathered into one small, small city. This city is divided into 26 districts, and named after alphabet letters (or numbers but it's unlikely). In the middle of all, the highest on the throne, The Head in district A. They create Arbiters, who are law enforcers. In district C, they create the Claws, which are like the weaker henchmen of the arbiters. Forgot what district B does. But yeah they're the government and they are a "you can do anything just don't do stupid shit" type of government and they do it horrifyingly well.

In this place, there are the Nest and the Backstreets. Backstreets is like a lawless place, murder theft and cannibalism all come in harmony. Backstreets also have people where the others call "Rats", and more often than not are involved with shady deals. The nest, however, is the closest one can get to a normal life. But the problem is that the Nest is extremely expensive to live in, and most Rats are dying to get in. Literally.

I'm sorry if you're reading this, understand a lot of things Ayin do are based on background context.

In every Wing, there is one big corporation that controls everything. Their names start with the district they're in, such as R district having the Rabbit corps or W district having the WARP train. All wings operate under the Head and the Head doesn't really care unless you do something stupid over it.

Carmen collects a bunch of colleagues. They go to outside the city, called the Outskirts, and they proceed to make a lab there.

Here comes Ayin and Benjamin who one day finds Carmen passionately yelling in the backstreets about changing the world. Ayin walks up to Carmen and goes "What do you, a nester, understand? You don't understand the pain a rat goes through." (paraphrased) and Carmen shoots back "We go through our own type of pain too." (paraphrased again) and Ayin immediately goes Well Shit You Have A Point and joins her. Her ideal is to plant a seed of light in everyone and let them stop being violent. Ayin completely devotes himself to her.

kdj devoting himself to tls123's writings and yjh after a good impression... how lovely.

Carmen befriends one of the fixers (a work occupation, common in the city for quick bucks). A COLOURED fixer. (Colour fixers are the highest ranked fixers). Guess what? Red themed powerful woman. Doesn't that sound familiar? Yep, jhw. Passionate, loving and caring under a murderous appearance. That's Kali btw.

Carmen finds two children. One of them, Lisa, the other, Enoch. Yes, they look like sys and lgy. Except sys acts like lgy and lgy acts like sys.

Yes, they both have two children, one blond girl and one brown hair boy

Skip a lot of details. Here's where the bs begins.

Sometime later, everyone is stressed out without the presence of Carmen and some dies.

An experiment gone wrong leads to Enoch's death (the sys-coded lgy), which leads to Carmen's suicide. Ayin, being first to find her body dead in the bathtub, develops depression. He also proceeds to pull out the entirety of Carmen's nervous system, unaware that she is alive.

Does this sound familiar, with kdj being the first and only person to see yjh's tragedy to the end? And isn't it just kdj using yjh for himself? Unaware that this... thing in front of them is a living being.

Here comes the twist--

One of the other children that Carmen adopted, Michelle, snitches on the entire lab and tells an Arbiter. An arbiter storms the lab. Cue Garion, the arbiter. Kali defends the place until the end, and dies with Garion.

To put it short, everyone except Benjamin and Ayin dies. Ayin extracts Garion's brain and finds out the only way to finish this Seed of Light project is to become a Wing.

The only way to help Yoo Joonghyuk is to become a constellation.

And become a Wing he did, with Benjamin causing a war for him so there's a vacant spot in the Wing. And he snatches that place for himself.

Can't stop seeing hsy in Benjamin i'm real. Also, causing a war so there's a vacant spot? Man. That sure sounds like kdj killing the serpent so he can become a constellation.

Ayin then proceeds to use some real high tech to create a brainmap of Carmen and create Angela, an AI. This already broke the law that the Head set up, where there shouldn't be any AI within the city.

kdj creating 1864 yjh out of his selfish desires, something that should not exist anymore.

He then creates a clone of himself without memories (Otherwise known as the player, or X) to run the Wing, Lobotomy Corporation. Angela will accompany him, along with his revived colleagues in this time loop.

Wow ok are you telling me this isn't actually just kdj trying to keep his friends and family alive by any means

Then, he traps himself into the Keter department-- the last department to be unlocked, which meant that he lived in isolation during the 100 years that they were kept down in.

HELLO THIS IS JUST FUCKING 49/51. NOT TO MENTION THE ONLY THING DOWN THERE IN KETER DEPARTMENT WAS CARMEN'S NERVOUS SYSTEM. LITERALLY KDJ AND TWSA ON THE TRAIN.

In the end, his plan caused Angela agony and hatred, and X became a completely separate person from A. He had lost all his self hatred which was required for the plan to work (Ayin wanting something like hating himself for his past actions so much, then doing something about it, i think? Don't remember too clearly), and they both basically ascended into the Seed of Light as part of the plan, sacrificing themselves.

I'm sorry. Is this just not 49/51? IS THIS JUST NOT 49/51? Mein gott. They both die at the end. Literally 1865 ending. Literally kdj trying to create a happy ending for everyone.

Angela then proceeds to keep some light for herself out of her selfish desire, and Ayin didn't calculate that Carmen went insane during the 100 years in that vat of liquid...

Angela mirroring yjh in being selfish so they can be happy for once. Ayin mirroring kdj for not calculating human feelings into his plans.

Carmen, now mentally certified insane, creates more violence in the city by encouraging people to accept their most present desire. Yes, Nirvana style. It's called distorting where you turn into an inhuman thing. Angela, now certified traumatised, creates the Library, which only let out more violence.

None of them truly broke the cycle. Kdj only initiated another round of TWSA, Ayin only found himself back onto the track for violence again.

Very, VERY respectfully do you want to hear me talk about why Ayin and kdj are the same person...

I've been yapping over these two for a loooong while in private now and they share a few similarities...

OMG YES! Please, I would love to hear your thoughts on Ayin and KDJ. After receiving that ask, I looked a bit into lobcorp's lore, and the world building of that series is actually quite interesting; I would love to get to know more about this character!

[leefi]

Lee Jihye breaks the lull in silence at the dinner table one day when she turns to KDJ and HSY and says "you guys are technically our parents." Chaos ensues

[porcelaintoybox23]

YJH: I mean, haven’t we all thought about being the opposite gender?

KimCom: No.

JHY: kinda? I’ve always been a girl, it’s just that society didn’t perceive me that way.

YJH: I’m not a woman, it’s that sometimes, I just really don’t want to be a guy and being a woman feels less wrong. Not often. C’mon, no one else feels like this?

HSY: So, is Loki still alive? Do we know any other constellations that change gender?

YSG: uh, there’s someone in Olympus, but I don’t want to say their name. It’s a little offensive.

YJH: forget I said anything. I was joking.

KDJ: You have never told a joke in your life.

YMA: he’s right, Oppa. Should I say, unni?

QDS: Joonghyuk, gender can be a very personal and complex thing…

YJH: No, no, no—

NGMY: Breaking the Sky is something only women can learn. You achieved the true peak of swordsmanship when you were fe—

YJH: I will kill everyone here if you finish that.

HSY: I’m pretty sure the only person who doesn’t know you were the punisher is “dumbass in denial” over there.

KimCom: Who?

HSY: y’know, Loki stopped our ex-terrorist from being nuked by the star stream by making him a woman. Didn’t you guys see who won the martial arts tournament?

KDJ: now wait a minute. There’s no way Joonghyuk is the punisher.

QDS: my child, you are incredibly dense.

YJH: *face turning black from rage*

LJY: Master, you carried the baby? Not Ahjussi?

Biyoo: I have a sibling?

KDJ: There is no child! Joonghyuk, tell them they’re crazy.

YSA: I saw Joonghyuk transform. Dokja, you need to accept that you find Joonghyuk attractive as a man or woman.

KDJ: I’m not gay—

LGY: bisexuality and pansexuality exist, hyung.

QDS: sexual fluidity does run in the family.

YJH: *being restrained by Uriel, Sun Wukong, and Minyoung*

JHW: *dying of laughter*

LHS: what is going on???

QDS: I know my son quite well. The only person he finds more attractive than Joonghyuk-ah is the punisher who is Joonghyuk.

KDJ: ABFD, please kill me.

[istherewifiinhell]

reading progress: chapter 279

reading highlights: This is the story of a reader. At the same time it is the story of Dokja...

268 bihyung existential crisis

269 4th wall shaking about yjh in danger

calling on the asmodeus favour, literally a deal with a devil

yjh sponser "this guy always did the same thing. he watched yjh suffering from death. he placed the soul of a hopelessly broken man back into the world line of the past"

yjh thoughts "I can't die" "I'll never die here"

are they, you know, life and death companions [there is a pictogram of a hand bent at the wrist]

"I couldn't help laughing. Now we really would live together or die together"

HMO savig his daughter aww

LHS first to stand up "I was waiting" -> do i even need to say it

the old constellations coming back... crying... even god of a small planet

(cheok Jungyeong carrying kdj) great section for men being carried by other men

one day you will get to whip ass SWK i know you will...

uriel lol

sword girls!!! hell yeah! (ljh & jwh)

272 "The transparent shape of Uriel appeared behing Jung Heewon" -> sick. that fucking jjba shit

uriel has a fucking potty mouth

kdj listening to yjh thoughts cause he cant speak (🥺)

"Can't guarantee anything, maybe they all will die" "Let's go"

Giant story of 73 realm starts talking

273 beeg train..

omg its the subway [im riding in front seat of train car.....]

LHS can open the door cause he was the one who did it the first time

kyrgios and Sword saint!!! (kdj visions blurs -> you crying bro?)

274 "I lived in that world alone, I entered the minds of countless characters and became different beings again and again... Therefore I was a regessor who had never regressed... A returnee who never returned... Maybe I was a reincarnator"

HSY -> kdj shadow.

Yjh rushing to grab falling kdj [when they are all falling from the sky]

abyssal black flame dragon... damn

↳275 horror movie shit [taking out constellations in the cover of dark one by one]

kill with a borrowed knife -> about hankim... mwah

sword master held osu in her mouth -> oh like pupby

278 "Good... It was a word used by Yoo Sangah"

LHS demanding to be let out from med ward cause hes all better now

lgy... he so baby... baby boy. [finally getting to see kdj hugging him and crying]

HSY note "Anyway, that's it... Well goodbye, idiot. See you when you come back to earth"

Krygios and sword saint rivals over their disciples

persphone dances with ysa (as ysa??)

Jhw whistles "Ysa is cool"

277 ◼◼ story of the end -> different word for everyone

hsy nightmare. heart complicated at seeing kdj. sees him stabbed. Woof...

hsy and lsk interation... i am thinking about the milfhunter hsy post

kdj ◼◼ 'the final chapter'

ysa "you looked happy after [the scenarios started]" yes girl interrogate him

278 oh shit angel time

Gabriel calls uriel ◼ (i wanna know which insult so bad)

LHS LGY & SYS all get gifts from kdj and are so normal about it (they are being goofballs)

kdj looks tired as hell

↳ gives jhw a suit -> it will be more comfortable (ill bet lol)

jhw things ysa/kdj is a thing (Ljh thinks hes gay)

hmo prosthetic leg -> wow i thought they might just hand wave that. good for him

Jhw "when the epilogue comes kdj won't be alone"

red cosmos and a lily...

kdj ◼◼ isn't final chapter? was he just saying shit?

279 uriels door says URIEL⭐

uriels usb of handcrafted artisanal AMVs

red cosmos jophiel lily gabriel?

JHW oh yeah what the fuck is she supposed to do...

'LHS sitting like a big dull dog. LGY and SYS like baby cats. All watching KDJ' literally perfect fantastic love that.

and also. i wrote down everything the giant story "said"

The story stated on a train. There was a soldier who wanted to be righteous. There was the strongest loneliest man in the world. There was also a woman who hid herself for others. The sword demon wounded after losing a relationship was met. A child born in the gap between past and future wept. There was the strongest small person in the world. The world of the strongest giant was saved. Finally there was a man who knew the ending of all these worlds. This is the story of a reader. At the same time it is the story of Dokja. Only this story... The woman who woke up from a tigers crouch and laughed while holding a sword to destroy evil. The boy who lost his mother and held the insect in his hand cried. The man who built the castle roared for the family that wouldn't come back. The woman who built up the truth by lying gladly became his shadow.

rotating: very clear on this one. fucking finally. I'm thinking about how kdj did all that to keep yjh alive. how he convinced him, and the sponsor, not to regress, how he tried to shove him healing items he couldn't swallow. He had to use ORV to hear yjh thoughts, cause he was too injured to speak. Grinding a pill into a paste so he could swallow it. I'm thinking about all that.

also. holy fucking mana from the gods. tho thats not a good phrase to use in this story. finally. finally. hsy... there she is. the loaded gun, the last resort. The one who works in parallel but behind the scene. The borrowed knife. The person having nightmares seeing KDJ, seeing him get stabbed. Like how she stabbed him. Hello Han Sooyoung, there you are, there's your motivation, there's your internal self.

[lee-hakhyun]

2/2

sacrificial will. that goddamn stigma. kim dokja tells lee hakhyun to trust him. with the breath attack coming?? lhh slowly gets up. there's a system message. your understanding of yoo joonghyuk has increased. the mad soldier yoo joonghyuk story coordinates with incite to increase its power, and,

"Kim Dokja, I'll kill you."

incite affects him, and lhh starts questioning and threatening kdj. while continuously yelling 'i'll kill you!!!', he's able to somehow dodge the breath with the yjh incitment. but incite ends there. lhh can't move a finger. and kdj says that's perfect. the light of sacrificial will flows out of his body, but he doesn't have any companions around, as kim dokja laments that yoo joonghyuk isn't here. but-

jung heewon comes running in.

//

jung heewon remembers the first time she met that man at geumho station.

"Heewon-nim... I love you... really..."

who says strange things,

"There's a character named Jung Heewon in the novel I wrote."

babbling on with a shameless face.

"She looks very strong on the outside, but she's actually a soft-hearted person. She's so strong that she doesn't shy away from fights, which is why she breaks so often."

someone who has risked his life to save her over and over

"I left my home when I was in high school. Didn’t I tell you?"

and the person who had her open up about her family for the first time.

"Jung Heewon. Are you curious about the 'Original Story'?"

the woman in the white coat. and the story from a novel that she told. the jung heewon there was similar to her, but a little different. strong on the outside, yet soft on the inside. someone who had to become stronger every time by squeezing out more courage. jung heewon wondered. why did she have to become so strong?

did she want to become strong?

"I can't let you go! Don't go alone again! Please!"

the jung heewon in that world called out a name many times.

"Dokja-ssi!"

a name she's never called before

"Kim Dokja!"

is it family? someone she loves? she doesn't know. but the jung heewon in that novel seemed heartbroken. and even though she knows this is just a story from a novel, when she thinks of that name, she feels anger, sadness, grief, heartbreak.

and she was feeling those same emotions toward that man now. she gets up, wielding her mikazuki munechika, repeating.

"youcan'tdieyoucan'tdieyoucan'tdie."

her madness is aided by sacrificial will, and her power increases. as she rushes toward the monster, she sees the man's surprised face.

strangely, the moment she saw him, jung heewon felt that she had found something she had spent her her whole life searching for.

//

lhh can't focus on the swordsmanship in frotn of his eyes. he doesn't know if even yoo joonghyuk could do that. jung heewon's sword, so far it can't be seen, completely overpowers the dragon. lhh calls out to jhw, but she just repeats "youcan'tdie" over and over. he asks kdj what's wrong, and he... hesitates, before saying that he doesn't know either.

jhw lunges at the dragon, and lands the killing blow on the dragon. she lands back next to lhh in almost an instant, and collapses. congratulatory messages and coin sponsorships rain down as lhh raises jung heewon. she looks up at him, and says one thing before passing out.

"don't die."

it was only then that lhh realized what kind of stigma [sacrificial will] was, and what kim dokja did.

"You, you're really—" — A bad person.

kim dokja would have known from the start, what would happen to his companions if he used sacrificial will.

"I..." — Didn't you want to be Kim Dokja?

what is it like to be kim dokja? lhh is becoming less and less aware of what it means to be kim dokja.

gradually calming down, kdj tells lhh to check the rewards. there was a fragment near where the dragon fell. but its shape was strange. it looked like... a little doll, with its left arm and right leg missing. smaller than he remembered, but unmistakable.

a kim dokja kkoma.

reaching out with trembling hand and picking up the doll, it slowly opened its eyes and looked at him. no, not him,

[The constellation 'Demon King of Salvation' is looking at his fragment.]

the kkoma trembled. maybe it was crying. but it wasn't crying because it was scared.

— Yes, can you see me?

the cry of someone who has missed for so long. kim dokja soothes the doll, and it closes its eyes. kim dokja calls out to lee hakhyun. grab a sword.

what?

a crack breaks through the air, and a black hand appears through the torn space. the same hand that appeared when jung moonho died at seoul station. it had taken moonho away, but this time-

— Now!

at kdj's signal, lhh cuts the hand reaching toward the fragment. as it touched the blade, it crumbles into dust, and there's a cry of pain from beyond the crack. and then it closed. kim dokja speaks. he thinks there are others who are collecting fragments besides them. lhh thinks of asmodeus, but kdj says it's not him. these guys.. may have been the one who killed 'him[kdj]'.

catching back up (1/2)

with a single attack, lee hakhyun slices off the 5th grade monster's head. he can see bang cheolsoo and the rest of geumho station cheering in the distance, as a message appears with his time: he has 30 seconds left. lee hakhyun thinks that it wouldn't be too bad he if died like this.

kim dokja asks. you don't really want to die, right? he thinks about feeding himself to htten again, but it refuses to eat him. kdj is heard looking around, then directs lhh to the monster's head. there was the monster's core, and... a clump of letters. a story fragment. 'a dokja has a dokja's life.' lhh is instructed to feed it to htten, and,

「"It's fine, Yoo Sangah-ssi." "Pardon?" "Even if you tell me the app, it won't be any use." The genre of my life was plainly 'realism.' "It's because a Dokja has a Dokja's life, you see." And in this genre, I wasn't a protagonist but a 'Reader'.」

it eats the story, and he's given a day to live. a day!! better than nothing. so.. why did this dragon have a kim dokja fragment? ...did this monster eat readers?

kdj says the 4th grade has a larger fragment. if lhh can get that he can live longer. jhw fights the monster alone, and she's doing well, but the dragon suddenly gets in a hit in. the aura of judgment time and madness still flow through as she still has the will to fight, but her body isn't in a state to fight. there's no penalty for fighting, so-

kdj tells lhh to kill it. the dragon that even jhw couldn't take down? but the stage transformation is still there. there's a chance. kdj tells lhh to fight to death if he really wants to be 'kim dokja'. bang cheolsoo and dayoung's mother run up just in time, and lhh hands off jhw to dayoung's mother. jung heewon's eyes are open, and her lips are moving, but lee hakhyun smiles at the group, and tells them to leave gwanghwamun. the stage is weakening, and as lhh prepares incite, kdj reminds lhh that reproducing the same scene won't be as effective since the constellations won't be interested. he can't be the kim dokja who hunted yamato no orochi.

but even if the story has the same content, if the protagonist is different, it becomes a 'different story'. he begins to incite as yoo joonghyuk, as the 'mad soldier yoo joonghyuk' story fragment he has resonates along with him.

It wasn't easy. Even when I used all my mana, I still felt a long way away from reaching Yoo Joonghyuk. — I am! 'I am.' But at least now, I wasn't alone in shouting out these words. — Yoo Joonghyuk! 'Yoo Joonghyuk.'

he fights the dragon, giving everything's he got. the dragon falls to the ground, and so does lee hakhyun. this is as far as he can go. the stage transformation ends, and the dragon... gets back up. it prepares its breath attack. following the incitement, yjh is still affecting him. he thinks that he can't die here, that he has to protect the people...

and kdj tells him good job. his sponsor's power spreads through his body, and he obtains a new stigma. sacrificial will.

[lizhly-writes]

ageswap au, youngest-to-oldest in the kdjc: ysa, kdj, lhs, and yjh are 10, jhw is 11, hsy is 16, ljh is 26, sys is 27, lgy is 28. 

Lee Gilyoung has learned to read Kim Dokja’s face.  It’s a necessity, in times like this.  He doesn’t know what kind of skill this child has that gives him such omniscience, but he does know that Kim Dokja won’t actually communicate with actual human words to indicate whether a situation is good or bad until it’s too late.

When the woman offers the blanket to them, Kim Dokja looks… well, the best way to put is pensive.  Wary, but they all have to be at least a little careful these days.  The important thing is that Kim Dokja isn’t actively on guard.  It’s a good chance this woman, this Shin Yoosung, isn’t a threat to them.  

“Thanks,” Lee Gilyoung says, and accepts the blanket.

“That woman might kill us all in five days,” Kim Dokja says thoughtfully, only few minutes later.

Damn it.

“You brat,” Lee Gilyoung says, too tired to work up anything more intense than mild exasperation, “couldn’t you have said that earlier?”

Kim Dokja looks politely, innocently confused.

“Why are you so good at looking innocent?” Lee Gilyoung grumbles.  “I know you know what I’m talking about, why can’t you be as obedient as you look?”

[luxaofhesperides]

workout buddies.

they deserve to be buff friends. but also jhw is absolutely buffer than yjh in a no scenario au. i know this to be true in my heart. also on ao3.

. . .

Jung Heewon has just finished stretching when Yoo Joonghyuk arrives, duffle bag over one shoulder and a scowl on his face. He always looks like that in the beginning, tense from… whatever it is that he stresses about but never speaks of. 

Everyone else at the gym avoids coming anywhere near him in fear of pissing him off even more, but Jung Heewon is used to this by now and doesn’t hesitate to get up and clap a hand on his back in greeting.

“You’re late today,” she says as he drops his bag and sits down to stretch. 

Yoo Joonghyuk just grunts and rolls his shoulders out. 

She leaves him to stretch and grabs her phone to make sure it’s on silent mode so it doesn’t distract either of them. 

The rather vigorous stretching she did to pass the time until Yoo Joonghyuk showed up has her warmed up already. She pulls her sweatshirt off and tosses it onto her bag. The air conditioning feels good against her skin. She’s so glad she wore a tank top underneath instead of forgoing a shirt entirely. 

Someone behind her starts coughing loudly. They sound like they’re choking, actually, which makes Jung Heewon look back at them, concerned. 

Another woman, besides a treadmill, hastily wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, clearing her throat after choking on the water she drank. She meets Jung Heewon’s eyes and quickly looks away, coughing even harder. 

Well, it happens to the best of them. Jung Heewon looks back to Yoo Joonghyuk, waiting for him to finish so they can get started.

As regulars to this gym, most of the other people leave the weights as soon as they arrive. It’s nice not having to wait for people to finish, but Jung Heewon is still a little unnerved by all the stares they get when they start lifting. Yoo Joonghyuk is used to it, as someone who is often in the media and easily recognizable from his gaming streams, and has told her not to think about it. 

It’s just staring, so it’s nothing bad, but still uncomfortable until she can distract herself by counting reps. 

Yoo Joonghyuk sighs as he stands up, shaking out his legs. 

She drops her phone back into her bag. “Done?”

“Done. Do you want to start or should I?”

Jung Heewon gestures at him to go first, standing off to the side as Yoo Joonghyuk puts 55 kilograms on each side of the bar. He goes beneath it and settles the bar across his shoulders. With a deep breath, he lifts it up and steps back, lifting the barbell out of it’s rack. He holds his position for a moment, stuck in a half-squat as he fixes his posture, then slowly pushes himself into a standing position. 

His teeth are clenched hard enough she can see the tension in his jaw. But he’s not shaking from the strain yet, so Jung Heewon stays where she is, watching him go back down, then repeat the process. 

She catches sight of some people stopping their own workouts to watch Yoo Joonghyuk. They don’t look judgemental. Mostly just awed. A few are ogling his chest and thighs. 

She really hopes they look away when it’s her turn to lift. 

Yoo Joonghyuk keeps the reps up for three and a half minutes before he steps forward and sets the barbell back into its stand. His face is flushed and sweaty, and he pants for breath as he steps away to get a drink. 

Jung Heewon double checks the weight already on the barbell, then adds five more kilograms to each side. She hears a few people muttering as she gets the barbell ready, only catching an incredulous, “Is she serious? That much?” before the voice dissolves into unintelligible murmurs. 

Then she sets the barbell on her shoulders, takes it out of the stand, and easily stands up straight with the weight bearing down on her. She goes down slowly into a squat, feeling the burn of her thighs are the drawn out movement, then holds it for a second before standing back up. Jung Heewon counts each of her reps, trying to keep her breathing even as she passes thirty reps. 

It’s at fifty that Jung Heewon sets the barbell down, then slowly stretches out her arms and shoulders. She’s heaving for breath as she walks off to her bag to grab her water bottle, then downs half of it in one go. 

“Show off,” Yoo Joonghyuk says as she finishes drinking.

“You’re just jealous I can lift more than you,” she smirks, nudging him with her elbow. 

Yoo Joonghyuk rolls his eyes, but she can see that he’s already starting to unwind after lifting weights. 

“Want to head to one of the back rooms?”

He’s standing with his duffle bag tossed over his shoulder before she even finishes asking. Not that she’s any better, seeing how she’s also got her bag zipped up and ready to go. 

They leave all the other gym-goes behind and hear the sound of machines moving again as they go back to getting through their own workouts. She really will never understand why they have to stare at her and Yoo Joonghyuk when they’re around.

The backroom they reserve an hour in has thick mats on the floor and two punching bags in the back; one of the walls is lined with mirrors, a few places smudged from the last person in the room who refused to clean up properly. Jung Heewon drops her bag along the wall and pulls out her padded gloves. Besides her, Yoo Joonghyuk does the same, then walks to the middle of the room as he pulls them on. Jung Heewon straps on her forearm guards before she gets up to meet him. 

“What do you want to focus on today?” he asks, idly tugging his gloves to fit more snugly against his hands. “Upper or lower?”

“Lower. I feel like my kicks can use work since I haven’t actually practiced kickboxing in months now.”

Immediately, Yoo Joonghyuk drops his weight and is ready to receive her attacks. Jung Heewon gives him another second to prepare himself, then brings up a leg in a strong front kick. He blocks it easily. Jung Heewon doesn’t waste a moment in twisting her standing foot to the side, turning her hips to turn her front kick into a side kick, knocking solidly against his forearms. 

She brings that foot down and spins into a roundhouse kick with her other leg. 

She loses herself to the movement quickly, focused on continuing her barrage of kicks, testing the limits of her flexibility and carefully keeping from adding too much force. 

Yoo Joonghyuk dodges to the best of his ability, lessening the impact of her kicks with his arms and constantly moving, forcing her to keep up with him. 

Once she feels like she could use a break, Jung Heewon steps back, then raises her hands up, ready for him to attack her. It’s routine by now, switching silently so they don’t lose their focus. 

Yoo Joonghyuk starts throwing punches at her, making her block and deflect each one with her hands and forearms; uppercut, hook, straight, he cycles through all of them without much rhyme or reason. 

Her arms are sore, no doubt red from the repeated hits. But the pounding of her heart, the strain in her body, all of it is addicting, sweeping away any tension she brought in with her when she got to the gym. 

They switch three more times after that, then get into their usual competition of “who can do more” as a way to cool down from practicing their punches and kicks. They go through push ups, sit ups, planks, and crunches; Jung Heewon wins a majority of them, as she usually does. There’s nothing like a little competition to get them both pushing their limits.

Unfortunately for Yoo Joonghyuk, who spends most of his time sitting in a chair in front of a camera, Jung Heewon is incredibly active when she has time, and enjoys pushing herself just to feel the burn in her muscles. He never really stood a chance against her when it comes to athletics. 

Once they’re both sufficiently exhausted and laid out on the floor, catching their breath, Jung Heewon asks, “Wanna run?”

“Let me refill my water bottle, then we’ll go.”

Grinning, Jung Heewon forces herself up long before she actually wants to get up, the reaches a hand down to pull Yoo Joonghyuk to is feet. 

Every time she does this, she thinks about how easy it is to pull him up. She wants to know if she can carry him and toss him at their friends, just to show off. He’d kill her for it, but it would be worth it.

She doesn’t, of course, because she wants to keep her gym buddy; having Yoo Joonghyuk with her drastically cut down the amount of annoying men who thought they could teach her how to do things they barely know anything about. It was either Yoo Joonghyuk or murder, and keeping herself out of jail seemed like too much of a hassle, so she asked Yoo Joonghyuk to go to the gym with her and the rest is history. 

Once they’ve refilled with water bottles and tossed their bags into her car, Jung Heewon puts on her headphones and starts up her playlist. Energetic music fills her ears as she starts their cool down run through the park next to the gym. Yoo Joonghyuk keeps besides her, setting their pace as they go a few laps around the relatively large park. 

They slow down gradually with each lap until they’re walking back to her car. 

The cool air outside is a relief against her heated skin, cooling the sweat on her. Yoo Joonghyuk wipes the sweat off his forehead and lets out a deep breath, getting his breathing back under control. 

The satisfaction that comes after finishing another good workout has her feeling light and happy. She’s tired in a pleasant way and can look forward to falling asleep quickly instead of being wide away in bed at 2AM. 

They don’t speak as they get in her car. They don’t speak as she drives Yoo Joonghyuk back to his apartment, the radio filling the silence between them. The rest of their friends had wondered why they got along so well when they barely talk to each other, but there’s really nothing they need to say. Three times a week they went to the gym to compete against each other while working out. That’s it, that’s the extent of their friendship.

Jung Heewon can easily say that Yoo Joonghyuk is one of her closest friends. Yoo Joonghyuk has said the same. 

People who beat each other up for fun every week have a bond between them that no other compares to.

They are, as Han Sooyoung likes to say, peak wlw/mlm solidarity.

Jung Heewon pulls up in front of Yoo Joonghyuk’s apartment and unlocks the car doors so he can get out. 

“You’re still coming on Sunday, right?” she asks as he undoes the seatbelt and opens the door.

He makes a face. “The pole dancing class?”

“Yeah.”

“I still don’t see why I should go. I’m not interested in that sort of thing.”

“It’s hard work that requires a lot of strength and flexibility. If you’re afraid of me showing you up…” Jung Heewon trails off with a grin as Yoo Joonghyuk scowls at her, the competitive spark in him lit up again.

“You better not be late.”

“I’ll see you there!”

She leaves, laughing before he can say anything else. The way he slammed the car door shut says all she needs to know, anyways.

As she drives to her own apartment, Jung Heewon thinks about the sorts of stretches she’ll need to do for the next two days to do well at the pole dancing class. 

It’s not a competition, technically, but she still wants to win. 

Like hell is she ever going to lose to a gamer.

[generallypo]

[   Constellation ’Director of the False Last Act’ is looking at you.   ]

------

dark academia!hsy, yeeee! the white coat is fantastic, but unlike kdj and yjh, she doesn’t really switch up the color scheme. no, her bum-aesthetic purple hoodie does not count. i think she’s super hot. i yell about how much i love her under the cut.

------

yo han sooyoung is actually amazing, incredible, powerful, witty, drop-dead sexy... what makes her so irresistible? let me explain

1) yeah, kdj takes the kdj company to end of the scenarios, but please. how many times does he have to kill himself to get there? not to mention his intentional (and unintentional) kill count? 

sure, he does the job, but damn is he kind of inefficient about it. say what you like about hsy’s methods or personality, but the 1863rd round far surpasses the 1864th in terms of the lives preserved while still managing to take the team to the end.

without the benefit of cheat-like knowledge, skills, and resurrections, hsy almost single-handedly orchestrates the events of the 1863rd round to a satisfying finale. kmw, problematic as he is, survives and becomes an admittedly better person, yjh finds a timeline where he can rest in peace, and the rest of the cast have their eyes set on the hopeful end of all scenarios. all this, while only being HALF of a person (hsy originally split off into two after misusing her avatar ability). do her actions lead to the happiest ending? no. but it’s the one that sacrifices the least and saves the most. for the greater good, in other words. 

hsy may be an intrinsically selfish person, but unlike kdj, she has the ability to grasp the entire picture and avoid tunnel-visioning into a crappier, more convoluted and self-sacrificial solution. ironically, it ends up saving more lives. perks of being a talented writer, i guess. 

and the 1864th hsy emerges as a leader in her own right as well. the epilogue arc shows her assuming roughly the same role as her 1863rd self in kdj’s absence: yjh breaks off from the main group (AND BECOMES A TERRORIST AKFDJDSLKSL HAHAHA) to assume a similarly antagonistic role to the remaining members of kdj company. as a result, she’s the most powerful lawful incarnation remaining, and once more the incarnations circle around her for direction.

2) independent, confident, competent (hot and kinda shameless about it). this woman has the most delightfully unrepentant attitude towards life -- how to defeat the man with the strongest defensive ability without dealing a single blow? summon a horde of your naked dancing clones to terrify his innocent sensibilities, and then cackle at his helplessness. the fact that her sponsor is literally the chuuni-est cringefest in the entire galaxy and she gives no fucks about him is just additional comedic gold. her undisguised disgust for what should otherwise be a highly respected/feared entity is a clear indicator of her supremely dominant position over everyone else, and i admire her consistent irreverence of everyone and everything.

hsy is the only character who can consistently bully kdj, brush off his deflections, and bully him again. 1863rd round hsy gives kdj about 50 migraines in the span of 5 minutes of conversation before confirming her superior wit. jhw comes close, but unfortunately, she actually respects the rat bastard. i wish i could mention yjh, but let’s be real: he -- and just about every existing version of him -- has been whipped for the guy for at least 250+ chapters now. 

hsy, on the other hand, has no regard for anything except herself... man, i respect that so much. what a queen. 

and i won’t lie! i didn’t like her in the first fifty or so chapters. plagiarism? homicide? kind-of-in-general-just-being-an-obstacle-to-kdj’s-plans? yeah, i almost fell into the trap of disliking her purely because she didn’t cave immediately in the grand scheme of kdj’s plotting -- thereby denying me the power rush that came with seeing kdj bulldoze his way through the puny attempts of small fry characters. she’s neither a friend nor a despicable foe, but rather someone who acts independently and in her own self-interest, WITH the ability to thwart major players if need be. aka, the one who frustrated kdj’s plans -- and me -- the most. 

going by my previous isekai/power-fantasy trope experience, i figured she’d get pegged into the sexy-but-sassy harem candidate, or get killed off if that didn’t work out. in hindsight, i’m just pretty fucking dumb, but honestly, i can accept that with gratitude -- 

-- because in fact. the whole ‘she-gets-in-my-way-so-she-either-goes-into-the-harem-or-dies’ trope in light novels/webnovels and the like, is, frankly, misogynistic and boring as hell. i had some admittedly low expectations for ORV, which consequently blasted my ass to the moon and left me there sobbing for 42 years as i mourned my stupidity and paid my respects to its incredible ending and character development. hsy is a particular delight, especially in her meta awareness of these tropes -- blatantly stating she isn’t obligated to kdj for saving her life and declaring the damsel-in-distress cliche as ridiculous, for example. 

and it really is, because suspension bridge effect aside, you’re not gonna want to bang a total shady stranger in the middle of the apocalypse. it’s the little statements of self-awareness, self-worth, and frankness that build up hsy’s charm. as ORV progresses, these little windows of her personality bloom as her presence takes stage center -- and then BAM! you really get to know how strong she is, how hugely capable of love she is, how subtly but wonderfully she expresses it, how she leads and protects those close to her, and how damn good she is at it. hsy is amazing. we stan an iconic queen -- no, black flameS EMPRESS. *kneeling*.

3) writes an entire EPIC, just to keep one lonely, broken fifteen-year-old alive. like. at that point in ORV, i knew. i knew. hsy is the fucking GOAT. seeing her spend the rest of her life on WOS, making sure it reaches completion because it’s the only thing that will sustain kdj until the advent of the scenarios... that hits too hard. inadvertently, it also damns the rest of the world to the terror and tragedy that the star stream brings.. but that’s the call she makes in order to save kdj’s life. 

obviously, there’s no precise beginning to the timelines -- ORV is so neatly crafted in its cycle of writer, protagonist, and reader -- but i’d have to argue that hsy holds the greatest power in the trinity. creating the existence known as ‘yoo joonghyuk’ and granting life-changing hope to an otherwise forgotten boy.. is pretty powerful. yjh, for the most part, is a slave to the scenarios (until he breaks free in the 1863rd and 1864th rounds, in particular), while kdj (unwittingly) admits it himself: he’s truly the most powerless god in existence. i forget exactly where he mentions it, but it’s in response to lgy’s reverent commentary that, with all his knowledge and presumed confidence, kdj seems like the protagonist of story or a god to him. kdj’s inner monologue, of course, is appropriately self-deprecating and scarily accurate.

in a lot of ways, WOS -- and ORV itself, really -- is a love letter to readers. it’s a two-way connection, writer and reader, between someone who creates with all their passions and someone who consumes and responds with equally sincere feelings. Ways Of Survival -- the story of a man who defied death and grief and great powers far beyond his being -- is a fictional guide to surviving in a ruined world. but to a battered, bullied, and ostracized boy, it’s not just escapism, or wish fulfilment anymore. WOS is the map to navigating the hell of his reality. there’s a certain power in the right words being spoken -- or in this case, written -- at the right time, even if it’s only for the temporary burst of endorphins upon reading an especially delightful chapter. even if it’s forgotten the next day, you’ve managed to connect. you’ve touched another person’s heart. you made them think about questions they’ve never considered before; maybe, you made them smile. 

what can i say but the honest truth? ORV, without a shadow of doubt, has most certainly reached me. i’m a goner for this story and its excellent characters -- long, long gone. something has changed, something that wasn’t there the previous day. 

the mark has been made on the reader -- small as it is, it’s irrevocable. behold, in all of its little magnificence: the power of a writer, and their story.

[sasusaku-on-the-brain]

going through my orv stuff again because AAAAA I HAVE CAUGHT FEELS & MAN I HAVE MISSED THEM SO MUCH

and lol, this one is so hilarious. it’s literally:

hsy shitting on lhs for being so gone on jhw, and be disgusted by how smitten he is and then she is like.

but, yeah. it’s understandable. that woman is unbelievable. & basically goes off about how amazing and unreal jhw is and bees all smitten. which is. exactly what she was shitting lhs on and THE EXACT MOMENT THAT JHW APPEARS

Hsy is like, urgh. this woman. and acts like she most certainly does not like her. despite how the whole reason she had started a fight with Lhs was because she had been trying to grab a date with her but it’s been unsuccessful because of him. it always turns into a three-thing which she had. enough. of. and the whole thing where she rushes over when she’s done with her classes to catch jhw

you can see my jhw-bias a lot here, dhfjkff. but ITS TRUE JHW IS SO AMAZING AND LOVELY AND PERFECT WHO WOULDNT BE SO IN LOVE WITH HER

[istherewifiinhell]

reading process: chapter 177 (I have been putting off this post cause i can tell im in the good shit and its all so thematic and delightful but if i dont make it now i never will and it will be a super segment next time)

Reading highlights (i cant read my own writing edition!)

157 now in a dad spotting mood. kdj encouraging sys about her grades

yoo mia(!!!) teasing yjh about kdj. yjh facial expression truther (looking happy when speaking about kdj)

the 3 fates use big data?

kdj WILL be killed by the person he loves most!!! (mostly wrote that down to indicate my gleeful cackling)

158 LGY baby boy baby. kids and breaks!

Kdj and Jhw are such bitches to each other i love them

reinheit.... von lohengramm yeah okay got it buddy

oh ur 800 years old it would be some bullshit like that

rvd is sooo handsome. at least 2 yjh

a permanent institution cannot exist. yes kdj i love u kdj

161 kdj doesnt date. fateful meetings ONLY. okayyyyy

jhw emotional sword moments. kdj famed peptalks

LGY: dad ABANDONED US LJH: uh. okay -> sibling mischief ensues

162 ACAB

Hankim girls trip weekend

(this note is atemporally placed) KIM DOKJA LOVE

164 the absolute good constellations are cowards

kdj peptalks Always come in clutch

165 oh to be carried by ysh as she descends like a beautiful woman

167 The kids!!! stay strong!

breaking the sky sword this was the road of the sword that broke the sky -> kuzcos poison

168 crying at this wounded monster and also themes and metaphors

yjh and kdj are the same with there cryptic plans (this was nearly illegible)

168 kdj moral rethinking disease (yjh has it)

AH! AH! Double identity stuff. name sharing. doing something nice for the guy that has scrambled your brains.

169 jhw describing ysh beauty -> smth you would like to share ma'am?

lgy the good child he is being like. hey. non het romance love exists. hell yeah little dude. poggers as they say

-> (crying because he cant think of a reason kdj should love him) NOOO his emotions are too big for his little body

yjh: i do not want to find out the answer to this question GOODBYE

ah. the speed run dress. i see

170 if you read it again. it will definitely be a different story. god. okay. okay. jesus. okay

hsy power: you cannot create the semblance of a human without it in some way. being human

ah. his mom again. it just could be that way

"its the most complicated relationship in the world" cheers bitch

172 just rolling in kdj and his mom fight

i could have sworn you used up that sky disk 100 chs ago but whatever

173 Gasp. garlic eating

"i let u die to save ur dick bro!!!"

20 years. jesus

OH FUCK MEET THE PARENT TIME. oh my god

yjh: kdj will be my compainion mom: arent you like a horrible person? Yjh: why is your family like this

double whose gonna kill our guy twist

175 yjh: i guess you mother doesnt like me. -> is that a JOKE. are you cracking a (gay tinged) joke to cope buddy?

176 "It was a distance that could be crossed, but I could never reach her. It was the same in prison and even now. this had become our distance"

guh. hes gonna listen. even if it hurts. even if it changes him

IM GOING TO ATTACK AND DETHRONE GOD

dohyuk moments against a backdrop of cthulu ass boss fight

kdj can look cool as hell when he wants to i guess damn

Cheok Jungyeong: Solidarity Forever 🎶

"i wont let you die" AHHHHHHHHH

rotating: oh god i specifically was trying to group this segment for parental vibes and themes and now my brain is mush. i need a second notebook maybe... (rereading a bit) okay something like. obviously. goes without saying. kdj is the most unreliable narrator in the world. and clearly there is more to the story, she was literally about to say it before... god stuff. but ill just note out the things i was grabbing so far. the question of how to raise a child in the apocalypse. clear with lgy and sys (like extra extremely so). and lesser with ljh. often kinda. throwing them into the fire. (or a hole. with no explanation. thanks yjh). but also supporting them (literally the incarnation stuff. cant remember where line about 'one persons gaze can mean live or death' but yes. yeah). contrast. kdj mom with the childhood environment and the tone. i think its like. kdj is almost mad about the wrong thing. but its the hurt he has. not the one he may about to have. even if hes wrong about what his mother did (i literally dont know!!) well. it has to be said.

oh also the mother constellation! theres a fun parallel there. i mean. this is of course the novel of fun parallels but still. its um. weird ctuhul twitch stream version of making a deal with the devil (in the pale moonlight -> star trek ep that also has a guy get a guy to kill someone for the good of a state. huh)

also there was dokkaebi preschool. that just seems worth mentioning. and even dokkaebi egg sys

[istherewifiinhell]

reading process: chapter 196 (damn)

reading highlights: now with new and improved features

178 Yjh hesitating to fast ball special this weird little dude: pls dont die. kdj: look at me. bitch

179 Gah. can an author make a story so big even their monster cant eat it

180 I knew the 4th wall was gonna eat but i forgot IT HAS TEETH

shaking the no no can at 4th wall

gah okay yeah jesus lee sookyung [song accompaniment love run by the amazing devil]

the narrative will make you apart of it (threat)

181 '4th wall also isolated me from myself' DING DING DING

overall evaluation ⬛⬛... -> mood

gonna twach the sentient dangerous trauma response some... morals? interpersonal skills?

↳cant handle direct interaction, eats and sleeps. yea

↳im gonna take a nap right here

LJH: arent you and kdj.... yjh grimacing as being ask about his love life by his teenage ward

kdj funeral -> song accompaniment welly boots by the amazing devil (just because I left doesnt mean I'm not still there)

YJH sponsor -> praying for his fate eh?

182 [sponsors lhs 100 head pats]

SYS is literally your daughter 🥺. kdj dad who hates dads moment

183 lhs wants to be on kdj team :((((

I WOULD LIKE TO SEE LHS IN THE DRESS

(did hades make it??)

184 feeling differently after talking to 4th wall yeah pretty sure you had a break thru about dissociating there

yjh: looking with eyes not seen in TWOS -> kdj facial expression blindness trutherism

185 YJH: cause you know me sooo well kdj: starting to think i dont know this you that well

yjh thoughts: there have never been so many ppl who made it to here

"continue to live kim dokja now you have to save this world"

kdj u cant take your own medicine (yjh scheming)

LSK contemplating abt what shit is up with her son

Something lives IN THE WALL

186 other people feel pain with no wall. YES!

"I told him there is no such development [yjh death] in the ending i want"

'yjh desperate face' thats crushing to even read

187 hsy type cast as murder friend sorry bestie

god some classic kdj asshole moments -> guilting lhs and everything

"see the sight of a bearish man weeping" i would like to

jhw T.T oh my murder woman

188 making sys and lgy do this. your KIDS! -> generational Something or other

kdj to yjh: you cant change whats already happened -> this may be an unauthorized use of radical acceptance

your stigma is Literally self sacrifice based... DUDE

get killed by the narrative. your loved ones but also the story... for the story. AH

yjh im so sorry... this is devasting

Uriel... lol shes sweet ig

Demon king of salvation. so juicy (unionize hell lol)

189 LHS LGY YJH boy grief party

yjh widower era

min jiwon and han donghoon! yay

yoohan bonding?

190 Bihyung aw!

[I will pull all of you down from that fucking heaven]

191 a soul can't belong to anyone!

"I will destroy the world of the fucking dokkaebis"

192 ur still a jerk kdj. drama kid

193 yeah fuck the state jhw

do they all share a house 🥺

LHS is back with the army... okay putting a pin in that

yjh stayed in his room like a broken person... bruh

jhw was a bartender? did i know that? it makes so much sense tho

kdj ur story is told bc they love you!!

194 idk i was the only person reading this 1000 chapter work and when i left a comment some stuff changed

syswitz industrial complex... run that by me one more time

damn human life is just like hell, ive been saying this

195 demon trains? i know all about those

complete ur scheme. say somthing cool. pass out. kdj ur self parody at this point

rotation: recency bias is a hell of a thing. i want to partially tie up the parenting stuff with noting how often the constellation incarnation relationship was considered parental, how kdj views them (and indeed how weve seen quite a few be) really cruel, or exploitative, and well thats fitting for him to see that as parental isnt it. but then also. he has kids in his own care, and one is literally his incarnation. frankly im interested in both how attacking and dethroning gods is gonna impact his own godhood deal, his own parenting, and his view of his mothers job of parenting him

im not sure if i have any particular takes here but let it be know kdj is a bastard and a scoundrel and i shall not miss him. not from this distance. no but god that was a classic really jerk move level manipulation. need to re-calibrate the dials. whats worse is at this point i think he can fully understand how much emotional damage hes putting his loved ones through.

Also did you know we live in a society. this one is pretty nascent so far but the breaking of the Seoul dome is reminding us of normal human society, and its flaws, and with the demonic realm, blatantly stated, we live in hell on earth.

[leefi]

Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah

omg. women ❤️

Sexuality Headcanon:

HSY: biphobic bisexual etc. Etc. She doesn't think she's straight and she doesn't think she's gay. She straight up just doesn't think about it but she does have this inexplicable hatred towards bi people also poly people because somebody's definitely gotta be jealous of somebody else in this situation and ppl are definitely being left out and she just thinks they should stop lying to themselves and just be in couples like normal peopeb

YSA: I don't have a strong hc for her - I've gone from seeing her as bi to lesbian to aro and none of them really stuck in my head as "yes, this is her". I have to write her more to figure it out!

Gender Headcanon:

I think it's very funny when HSY is just a fucking cis girl and has absolutely no gender going on. I ALSO think having her present more masc or express some degree of gender fluidity is very good too. WRT the "cis girl" thing I think this could be a case of like with her sexuality where she just straight up never Thought about it because she grew up so isolated from other people. If she's gf (gluten free) she definitely transes her gender later. same applies to kdj tbh.

A ship I have with said character:

HSY - sangsoo had me in a chokehold for like the first 200 chapters of orv i was vacuuming up those crumbs like a cordless dyson and i think even wit yhk they do kiss occasionally to maintain their sisterly bonds you understand. and jhw is there too ofc ofc. And of course yoohankim ❤️ three bottoms in a trenchcoat. destined soulmates because they ❤️ chose kdj every time and ❤️ are responsible for the deaths of millions for each other and are two sexy people cursed by some guy's dick and yeah. it's good. I'm a very firm believer in not separating them but doksoo is of course phenomenal and 1863rd + 1865th yoohan has me in a fucking chokehold. 1863rd HSY throws her life away for all of eternity and damns millions for the sake of just one man's life and is doomed to never meet him and reconcile that. Screams. HSY was also the first person SP made a covenant with (which says all you need to know about SP's personality LMDJSJSJ) and the way she is the arbiter of YJH's destruction in 1863 and the way they tiptoe around each other in 1865-onward??? god God god god there's so much they need to acknowledge about each other.

Ok now that I talked about how enamored I am with toxic horrible 1863rd yoohan it's time to talk about my other favorite 1863rd ship HSY x Lee Seolhw (a train blares past me at this mom

wrt sangsoo - I love it and I think it's more than just dog girl/cat girl gf syndrome. I think there's a lot to be explored wrt how YSA grew up around fake rich people and she meets this woman who gives absolutely zero shits about any decorum whatsoever. HSY grew up around no one and YSA grew up around So Many but never felt Loved. And then this very short hissing cat hisses into her life and wow this is the exact opposite of what she expected love to look like. But it's Genuine.

YSA - me <3, sangsoo, yooyoohankim but not really. Like. My feelings about this are very conflicted but I think she's the most adjacent to them if that makes sense. Like if anyone was gonna be their fourth it would obviously be her but I just can't see her being romantic with any of them WHEN they're a unit (including hsy). Like. I think the three of them fight over who gets to be her date to public functions. Like she's the main character of their breakfast table gossip. This tweet describes best what I'm going for here I shan't elaborate further

Bonus OT3 - one of my Twitter mutuals brought up the possibility of YSA/JHW/LHS where the two of them basically amicably share JHW and I think that's super cute . Give her a boyfriend and a girlfriend .

A BROTP I have with said character:

YSA- YOOYOO YOOYOOOOOOO YJH YJH YIH YJH YJH YJG THERE'S SO MUCH POTENTIAL FOR HILARITY AND NOBODY UNDERSTANDS. NOBODY UNDERSTANDS THE LEVELS OF COMEDIC DUO AND #GIRL SOLIDARITY THESE TWO COULD GLHAVE TOGETHER AFTER HE TRIES TO KILL HER 84 TIMES ONE DAY ILL WRITE A DISSERTATION ABOUT THIS. Yooyoo is that character dynamic where one person takes a rivalry SUPER seriously and the other is extremely oblivious about it but of course YSA isn't oblivious about anything. She's extremely pleasant to him for the express purpose of pissing him off more. I think after joongdok are solidly a thing he stops being a freak towards her and then we get the powerful #girl friendship, because I believe that a lot of his initial dislike towards her stems from the fact that she seems to intuitively understand kdj so much better than he does. and of course because I have to make even brotps poly add LHS for <3 yeeyee <3

also YSA/SWK. I want them to work out whatever the fuck is going on there. Like...Did YSA adopt any of her memories? Did she keep any tics,mannerisms from her body's previous owner? Does her laugh sound different now in a weirdly familiar way? There's so much to unpack there...I want them to sit down and talk things out.

HSY - on the topic of brot3s HSY/JHW/KDJ. please don't ask me to elaborate. but do take this

also doksoo. of course. yes they're together. yes they're also bros . i also think it's very funny when yjh third wheels This dynamic

A NOTP I have with said character:

Honestly HSY/JHW?? though disclaimer when I say NOTP 90% of the time I'm not using it in the way most others do - very rarely does a ship genuinely BOTHER me. Like I'll read HSY/JHW fic and enjoy it, if you wrote me a good pitch you'd probably get me fully on board with it, I just think that TO ME their relationship is better as (this is gonna sound so "they're not gay they just have a brotherly bond!" im so sorry) two very different people who did NOT get along in any sense and still pushed that all aside and cooperated for the sake of something bigger than them both. And then grew to love each other like family out of it. I think adding a layer of sexual tension to that detracts from the genuine distaste they had towards each other - and not in the "but she's still so sexy way". they just straight up did not like each other, but they did love each other. does that make sense? probably not. but maybe one day they looked at each other after sharing a laugh, and each privately thought to themselves "hey? maybe she isn't so bad after all." and that was the start to a very slow-budding, but eventually unbreakable friendship. but of course first hsy said something stupid to break the mood and jhw nearly killed her

for YSA? none really I am open to anything.

A random headcanon:

HSY - hsy doesn't understand why she does things. she is incapable of self-reflection. she just acts. this was what kdj meant when he compared her to yjh. sorry to insert men into women's spaces but I'm gonna make this about KDJ for a second - he's really good at self-analysis but has zero emotional intelligence. Like he can objectively recognize trauma but has no idea how to guide himself through it and thinks that recognition is sufficient. hsy and yjh are the inverse of him where they are more emotionally intelligent (granted, not by much...) But aren't as good at self reflection

YSA - I kind of mixed this with opinion see below. Oh another one! I think that she and JHW taught the kids how to drive together :)

and sometimes I wonder if she misses her friends from the library :( we never heard from them again...were they still stuck inside kdj's head after thousands of years or like

General Opinion over said character:

YSA - meow meow meow meow :) meow meow. Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow. Meow meow. Meow meow meow meow. Meow <3 😙👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻👩🏼‍❤️‍👩🏻

I love nice characters who are more than just their niceness! When they're optimistic and it's compelling! I firmly believe that YSA was KDJ's closest confidant - and therefore technically the most "complicit" in his constant self-endangerment - because she believed with him in possibility of a happy ending. And if he needed to do what he needed to do to get there, she'd support him unequivocally along the way.

HSY - I would straight up hate her if she was a real person that I knew. Like I would fucking despise her. Adore her as a character though she's my war criminal wifey <3 I've said this before but I have like. A very strong conviction that 1863!HSY is the most tragic character of ORV and whenever I think about her too long I go absolutely insane. A mutual on twitter mentioned how the original sin in orv is actually love...