#kdj would rather die than self-reflect

[papplebees]

would

hes got something going on

[ID: Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint fanart. Kim Dokja shrugs casually and says, "Yeah I feel no connection to my name and barely recognize myself, honestly I feel like an intruder in my own body lol." Han Sooyoung stares at him with a thought bubble of the trans flag. Yoo Joonghyuk scowls at him and thinks "god he is just like me fr." Yoo Sangah looks worried and thinks of the Wikipedia page on dissociation. End ID]

thank youu @nebulations for the ID :]

[metanarrates]

SOME MILDLY DISORGANIZED KIM NAMWOON THOUGHTS BECAUSE I HAVE ADHD AND IM TOO TIRED TO WRITE A PROPERLY FORMATTED POST

- it's really notable to me that both of the young boys kdj has met so far have significant parallels to kdj himself. i was going to write a longer post about this, but lgy has a Lot of parallels with how he conceptualizes the world as a story and asks if a protagonist exists. meanwhile, knw is a chuuni teenager (hello, teen kdj declaring that he is yjh) who clearly is not coping well with his domestic circumstances. guys who reflect kim dokjas past

-on that note, kdj claims that he's hated knw the entire time he's read twsa, but it's also really apparent that he recognizes something of himself in him. i think it's brilliant that knw being established as a huge threat who then dies in the first few chapters works wonderfully to establish the tone and direction of orv, but that we later meet knw and realize he's just a kid. and, more crucially, realize that kdj let knw die because of that self recognition and self hate. knw is a critical part of the story of tswa, and thus part of kdj himself, and kdj wanted that part of himself to die for the new iteration of the story. oldest dream moment. works wonderfully to establish kdj's character flaws too.

-changing the story changes the characters! knw, once a threat, is now a relatively harmless ally now that he's died. this never would have been possible in tswa, but it's possible now. love kdj's guilt over it and how that's contrasted by knw being grateful to him since knw likes being in the underworld. real juicy internal conflict for our beautiful protagonist

-on a less Overarching Plot level, i love that knw doesn't give a shit that kdj killed him because it means he gets to Build A Gundam. you get a very strong sense of his character in his first underworld scene and it's delightful! rather than an insane mass murderer who would kill grandmas (hes kind of that still but he's chilled out lmao) he's just some weirdo kid who thinks mechs are cool. kdj says a lot of shit about chuunis in apocalypses in the first few chapters and he's not Wrong exactly but it's really nice to show that the situation is way more complex than kdj initially described it as.

-you know, thinking about it, it's notable to me that this iteration of knw, distinct from his various iterations in tswa, is not a killer. yes, he absolutely would have been one if given the opportunity, but he was prevented from it in this timeline. in the last arc, there was a lot of talk between disaster of floods sys, kdj, and yjh about not condemning others for actions they took in another timeline. I like that that lesson is catching up to kdj here, since he DID treat knw as a full blown mass murderer in the first few chapters, and killed him for it. again, yes, knw was attempting to kill an old lady in his first appearance, but that's a little distinct from already being the joker, you know?

-idk i have a lot of inordinate fondness for this kid despite him being kind of mega evil lmao