#like the plot of orv itself…

[stoneclaw]

i have never once in my life experienced a story as much ABOUT love and written WITH love as this one. my fucking god.

[orphiclovers]

The first scenario of ORV has always fascinated me. "Kill another person to survive." It might be the most common plot point in apocalyptic stories.. Pretty much all of them feature some discussion of morality and how to define it, good and evil, played out by deeply morally grey characters who have to make a choice to kill.

But ORV is a story about stories.

The Star Stream is trying to tell 'the story of an apocalypse' and it does! But in the most crude and unpolished way.

It's almost cynical. 'We are telling an apocalypse story, what's a common plot beat in apocalypse stories? 'No one is innocent and everyone has killed to survive'. Okay, let's make it a literal requirement for everyone to have killed someone to proceed.'

It's robotic, taking a story beat and stripping it down to it's bare essentials, then forcing the incarnations to adapt to it or die.

But the thing is. That's what all writing is. ORV just pulls back the curtain, exposing the internal circutry that makes a story work. Orv doesn't lie to you about the inherent artifice of it all.

The scenarios are perfect little plot arcs, designed to test the limits and reveal the strenghs and weaknesses of incarnations - 'the characters' of the story. It's not some cruel torture, it's literally just the act of storytelling. Writing 101 is put characters through hardship to reveal certain qualities in them or to make them go through character development.

Only difference is that writers usually camouflage the 'scenarios' they give their characters until the circumstances seem 'realistic' and like they happened on their own, like the author isn't forcing their reality to bend this way at all.

Oh, one character didn't lock the door in time due and got bitten by a zombie. And so inevitably this other character has to make the choice to kill them or not. There's as many explanaitions as the author can cook up as to what lead the characters to this moment. How the zombies got there, why these two were in the same vicinity, etc etc.

But, it's all set dressing the author has added to make the audience forget that this is too a 'scenario' given to the characters to test them. There's a time limit and a description and a reward and a penalty for failure, but all of these are cleverly hidden. The time limit can be until the last helicopter leaves in 10 minutes. The unspoken penalty is death. The author arranged how the characters find out some or all of this information in convienient ways.

Star Stream just lays it all out in front you you, straight up. States 'Kill another incarnation or have them kill you' and doesn't attempt to justify the circumstances, because of course, the real reason all this is happening is because the story demands it.

It's a universe that does not hide the author's hand in every tiny little event that happens.

So this too is the question "What if the characters knew they were in a story?" asked yet again. Every single being in the ORV universe knows they are in a story. The system itself makes it obvious - you can look at your own character sheet, you obtain 'stories' when you do something impressive but are constrained by 'probability' and what the audience finds interesting. You're body is literally made up of words written about you're life!

That's why the worldbuilding is so cohesive and so so good. All of it is telling you 'the world is a novel.'

[metanarrates]

there are a LOT of things you can speculate about regarding what twsa was actually like as a novel but what's most interesting to me is that you can make the argument that twsa was an "unpolished" version of what orv is. it's a version of a similar novel that likely dealt with a lot of similar themes but was seemingly bogged down by poor structure, pacing, expository handling, and focus. (all of which are things that orv is shockingly excellent at.)

and of course, han sooyoung's novel, sssss-grade infinite regressor, is the "polished" version of the idea. it's well-written, probably well-plotted, and was successful enough to make han sooyoung rich and famous. we don't know what sssss-grade infinite regressor is like as a novel either, but we sort of get the impression that it's not very emotionally rich even if it is good on a technical level. han sooyoung herself doesn't seem intensely attached to it despite being proud of her work, and kim dokja of course doesn't hold it in high regard. (though of course he's a gigantic unreliable narrator and also a hater.)

what's interesting is that despite orv very strongly emphasizing the ways these works are flawed from the outset, orv itself functions as an argument in these works' favor. both twsa and infinite regressor are stand-ins for the "mass-produced" genre of webnovels. they are popular fiction, relying on a very familiar pool of tropes and clichés in order to deliver on a relatively predictable story to appeal to a wide audience. it's not a coincidence that they are so similar - both literally and in a meta sense, they are drawing on the same exact story-building and genre material. twsa is just the unsuccessful version, and infinite regressor is the successful one.

orv is what I would consider the most "impressive" version of the genre. it's well-structured, thrillingly plotted, interestingly written, has fascinating ideas and characters, and is even "literary" - that is, it has deeply considered themes and is often drawing from the realm of literary, postmodern fiction in order to express its ideas. a less sincere story would disavow itself from its pop-fiction origins and claim to be the best version of its genre. nothing else could be like it, so the worst versions of its genre wouldn't be worth considering.

but orv, while technically functioning as an argument that the genre can be "good" simply because it's a great novel that is deeply rooted in its genre, goes much further. it argues in-text that any sort of story, even those that are bad on a technical level or those that were somewhat cynically produced for a mass audience, are worth finding value in, simply because stories have meaning to their readers. the most uncritical reproduction of a genre's conventions can still mean something to someone who likes it. twsa, if it existed in our reality, would still probably be considered a very bad novel, but it wouldn't need to be polished up and turned into infinite regressor or orv in order to have value. orv itself is telling you that you should find value in twsa as it is, and by extension, every badly-done work of fiction that twsa could be a stand-in for!

[silvathemagicalgirl]

Everytime an anime-only makes a comment about Solo Leveling being cliche or only male power fantasy, it terrifies me more and more.

Because first off...

But mostly....it scares me for the rumored ORV anime.

Because ORV starts off in disguise. It makes you think it's another run-of-the-mill male power fantasy (a good one, but in the genre nonetheless), and then it slowly peels back the curtain. ORV does have an overpowered male protagonist, but ain't no one want to be Kim Dokja. Not even Kim Dokja.

But it takes its time. Even the webtoon ain't at That Scene (Chap 188) yet. Let alone the full nature of The Fourth Wall and the existential meta exploration of reader, writer, and protagonist. It drip feeds all that.

Just read the reviews on Novel Updates. Read any review of a reader who never made it past chapter 100. (irl Renouncers if you will.) Abundant complaints about how it's cliche and Kim Dokja is too overpowered. It's uninteresting and doesn't do anything other action apocalypse fantasies don't. Blah blah blah etc etc. Compare those to any reviews marked "complete." Night and day.

Now imagine that on a much much larger scale. There are people watching SL rn that have never touched a manhwa or webnovel in their life. And you know as soon as an ORV anime comes out, people gonna be reviewing it based on those first couple episodes. They're gonna say so much stuff about how ORV is copying others in its genre and the main character is overpowered for no reason and a bunch of other things ORV does On Purpose so it can subvert them later. ORV is also a love letter to its genre, so first it has to be solidly IN the genre. So they're gonna criticize the genre instead of ORV itself.

The internet is going to be flooded with people who do not and probably will never know what ORV truly is. How plot threads that seem like they are dropped will come back when you least expect it. How you will finish the epilogue and question your entire existence as a person who reads. How Kim Dokja is both someone the reader can and doesn't want to project themselves onto. He's the Rule of Cool but also inherently tragic.

There are gonna be so many ignorant comments and it's going to be so hard not to THROW HANDS.

[estrella-zoe39]

i love dumping random shit onto my tumblr anyway weird discussion of the most random fandoms combined go! mostly discuses love as core themes of stories.

i think my favourite pieces of media are those that just dont make sense if you dont view them as a love story. i came across this discovery as i was watching code geass ep 17 when lulu goes insane when he realises the one thing thats in his way is also the person he trusts completely. there is no other genuine explanation other than love for the reasoning of his reaction in that scene. with shirley he had this mellow yet sorrowful reaction when he realised he couldnt be with her anymore. not saying there wasnt a part of him that didnt love her but with suzaku? he goes berserk. whatever he felt couldnt have happened if he didnt love suzaku.

other good examples of this are frieren, orv, and house. there are more my brain is just kinda fried rn and i think these three are good examples of like. varying levels of how explicit the message is. (theyre all obvious af tho)

ill start with frieren because i think if youve even like. heard about it youll know but himmel and frierens relationship really is the core of like the entire story. a boy who loved too soon and a girl who loved too late. frieren just isnt. frieren when you take that away. frieren at its like core is about love you cant just remove that because then the story wouldnt be the same it probably wouldnt even exist!!! and im sure everyone knows this its just surprising how frieren isnt officially a romance manga considering its entire premise

another example is orv which is a bit harder to know if youve only read the webtoon. orvs story just wouldnt exist if hsy didnt love kdj. if she didnt write yjh and then kdj wouldve died, plain and simple. and if kdj didnt love the story back then he wouldve also died. hsy, yjh, and kdj at their core are their love for each other. hsy spent 12 years writing a book everyday just for kdj to keep on living and in kaizenix she waited 50 years for him. yjh spent the entirety of orv learning how to love from kdj, through fighting alongside him, through protecting him, through seeing him die, even when he learned he wasnt real he still believed him, and in the end yjh was the one who let kdj be known in every universe. his mission was something that he only could brave through if he loved kdj. and he did. speaking of kdj, i think its very obvious to everyone but his self-sacrificial nature is due to him only knowing that as a love language. something else is how without kdjs love, orv also just wouldnt exist. if his love for twsa, for the chars, for STORIES, didnt exist, he wouldnt be alive. if he didnt keep on molding twsa, to be alongside every yjh and co, to suggest new plot points, he wouldve never came to love it.

onto my last example, house. now i think you gotta be a very specific type of person to catch them (its called not being homophobic) but man are house and wilson like. house the show itself. their love defines the show, from the first scene to the last. he only took that first case which started everything because of wilson. half of his stupid antics are because of wilson. his love starts and ends at wilson because he knows wilson will be the one person who will always be there consistently for him. because no matter what happens, like house getting sent to trial by tritter, or house failing to save amber, they will be together, whether they want to or not. so when wilson is diagnosed with cancer, he breaks. the one person who he thought would always be there for him. isnt. in fact, he'll die first. and so, he does everything. he listens to wilsons stupid fucking ideas because he needs wilson to be there for him, he needs wilson at his grave, not him at wilsons. thats why he gives everything to wilson, his vicodin, his attention, and even his life. the only reason he dies is so he can be with wilson. none of this actions can be done without love in them, absolutely none. i think my favourite quote of them is "if house chops down a tree, and wilson isnt around to hear it, did it really fall?" it just sums up their stupid, needy, insane, and romantic dynamic so much.

all of these pieces of media need love in them to be them, so i hope ive loved them more than they could ever want, despite some of their flaws 🩷🩷🩷

[pendwelling]

Helloo,sorry for the trouble but could you tell me a bit about the ending of twsb? Is it a happy ending? Do all the main 3 get to live together? I am still in 170s as there is no other eng translation out there to read ahead... 🥺. I would really appreciate your help as the curiosity is killing me.

//SPOILERS FOR TWSB ENDING!!!!!!//

I answered a similar question on twt/x so I'll just elaborate on my answer from there haha:

It's a very VERY happy ending!!!!! Think of all the struggles and desires of the main characters and imagine them finally getting peace, solace, and happiness. TWSB at its core had always been a very character-driven story where the goals and desires of the characters were what largely push the plot forward, and after all their struggles, you can tell the ending was lovingly crafted over a careful build-up of 920 chapters. They all get their resolution, and character who have went through tragedies get their second chances at living a kinder life, and the villains get their comeuppance in the fair way that TWSB tends to treat its antagonists (there's also proper trial investigations being done and etc etc, politics and court affairs in this novel is actually so interesting.)

All the characters have obtained their perfect endings in their fitting respective ways! It's a super gratifying conclusion for readers, and the thing about Sookym is that they also do a great job in making us care (or feel strong emotions towards) their large cast of characters.

In a more meta sense (since TWSB, for its genre, is surprisingly very meta)(and this is also a spoiler in regards to the universe's God), the "God" wishes for the main characters to be happy, and so the story has shifted itself so that a happy ending is something that our beloved characters are finally able to achieve for themselves without outside interference of original narrative structure forces (think of it a bit like ORV's Probability, TWSB has something similar to that). And in fact, for both the TWSB universe, AND the original QPB universe, as well. I can also confirm that the original Jesse Venetiaan gets his well-deserved happy ending, too! 🥹

Yeseo does indeed get to reunite with his siblings, too, and he ALSO gets to live with Cédric and Ham Ga-in Christelle on the weekends! (Despite pretty much being "married" into the Imperial Family and becoming Pope, this guy still chooses to work his usual 9-to-5 in the modern world LMAO.....)

There is an inter-world arrangement going on that is a bit hard to explain because there's a lot of context behind how it came to be haha, but basically Yeseo is essentially a bride that moves between households after getting married (LMAO). Everyone is very happy! Cédric especially, is very very smug that he gets to keep his beloved partner close by—he even safely escorts Yeseo back home like a dutiful partner whenever he needs to go back to his family home HAHAHA. Jung Hyunseo and him kinda have some beef over it, actually (Hyunseo: "this is his home?? why does he need an escort...." *insert smug Cédric face*). Hyunseo is really the older brother who has to deal with the antics of eccentric otherworldly in-laws and a model-student younger brother who has now grown up to be a bit of a troublemaker..... (There's a scene where Yeseo shows up and goes "Here's our baby!" while holding pretty-much-their-baby(DONT ASK WKDJKD)(AND NO THERES NO MPREG) and gives Hyunseo a near heart attack while Cédric looks so so so smug and self-fulfilled, he's such a brat..... (affectionate)).

All in all, after the war between the Riester Empire (with the allied forces of other countries + Crown Princess Elise) and the Sneijders of Venetiaan, there are award ceremonies (several characters get promoted or given new titled ranks), memorials and eulogies for those fallen in the war, and a very well wrapped-up conclusion to this huge conflict (again politics in TWSB are actually very interesting and really well done imo). It largely has to do with the Almighty God, as well, but I won't say much about that because 1.) It's a revelation that is best made while reading yourself, and 2.) It's a bit complicated to understand without the proper context anyway hahajah....

(I can also confirm that future emperor Cédric probably won't have to worry about siring an heir. Congratulations to Yeseo for essentially being the queerplatonic mother to his two partners' "children".....)(this sounds absolutely crazy but it makes sense OK trust me, but anyway, CYC are partners and I trust that they will continue to support each other for a long, long time hehe)

It's super, super satisfying, and a very happy ending for Yeseo and friends! :')

[mae-i-scribble]

I'm doing a very slow reread of orv with some friends, but since I can't talk about my spoilerous rambles with them too much I have decided to make a post here to get my thoughts out. Up to chapter 25, I've been surprised by the amount of little hints we're already getting for larger plot points and the things that are recontextualized now that I'm looking with hindsight rather than experiencing it for the first time, which really speaks to how phenomenally written orv is on a fundamental level. By the time we get to the 3rd scenario, we've had Dokja mention his mother once, when he briefly worries over her safety. Then we get this line:

"I looked around at the people. The first scenario was original sin. Thus, none of the people here were innocent. That made it more disgusting. Those who trampled on someone else to survive, who couldn’t even bear responsibility for their own life."

Of course it's firstly talking about the lack of morality in this world, when faced with the truth that between the major and minor groups of Gumho station, one fact makes them equal: they are all murderers. The use of the phrase "the original sin" caught my eye because when looking at Dokja's life, murder is his original sin- the murder of his father. That is what sparks the events leading up to this point. It is the true original sin of this world. However, that being followed by "That made it more disgusting...who couldn't even bear responsibility for their own life," is rather hypocritical in that regard. We have no way of knowing exactly how much of that night Dokja remembers at this point of the story, so there are 2 ways to interpret this in regards to his father's murder. 1) Dokja does not remember that he murdered his father, but remembers that his mother had taken responsibility for her crime and served her sentence. In regards to here the people of the minor are far inferior because they cannot adapt the way Sookyung did to their crime. 2) Dokja does remember that he murdered his father, and this disgust is equally leveled at himself, because he knows his mother is innocent but that she took responsibility from Dokja. Thus Dokja of back then is just like these people, unable to take responsibility for his crime.

Then, later on, we see the text, and Dokja specifically, focus on this particular pairing in the minor group.

"The people started to move. All in all, they were people who had already killed. “M-Mother!” “Dayoung, come here! Do this! Just like what you did on the subway with Mother!” Children and mothers."

Then in Chapter 25 we have:

"I honestly admired that the mother and child survived the bloody fight. If she had that much strength, they might be able to survive without going with us."

The English translation doesn't exactly lend itself to identifying the gender of the child, and I am miserably monolingual so I'm not sure if the original text specifies Dayoung's gender, but for thematic reasons I'm choosing to imagine them as a mother/son paring. In that regard, Dokja choosing to notice them out of everyone else, when he's an extremely apathetic person in these early chapters who doesn't care much for those not directly related to him or the story/his survival is very notable. I can't help but think he sees himself in that, as both the son of a murderer and a murderer himself. It's also notable that when complimenting the pair, he only focuses on the mother's strength. Which like. The subconscious projection is so real. To Dokja the child didn't do anything it seems, it's only because of the mother's strength that they will be able to live on. I'm sure I will be back to add more info on this as I trudge through the novel because Dokja and Sookyung's relationship makes me mentally ill all the time but for now I shall simply lay down and ponder(tm)

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 1

Propaganda under the cut

Christine Canigula

This has enraged me for YEARS. She is constantly sidelined in the fandom in favor of the main m/m ship which itself its fine but the way people treat her drives me NUTS. When I actually was in the fandom, Consistently! her crush on the main character which is a CENTRAL fucking plot point is just explained away to make room for yaoi. If they even have that kind of decency. Like 99% of the fics just say "oh! she's a lesbian actually totally this was comphet im not a misogynist" or "she's Actually Aroace" and not ponder on the optics of sanitizing the CANON fucking attraction of a chubby easian girl. It's sososo transparent and another fucking example of she's actually the Mom friend! or other annoying racist and misogynistic tropes.

She likes play rehearsal. She's the love interest of the main character, Jeremy. Jeremy also has a best friend, Michael, whom he's usually shipped with. And since she's the canonical love interest and as such often gets in the way of their beloved ship. They are very creative in finding the ways to get rid of her to ship Michael with Jeremy, ranging from making her asexual(because ace people can't date apparently), completely kicking her out of the last two songs of the musical and putting Michael in her place, to vilifying her and claiming she was never interested in Jeremy in the first place, despite musical explicitly saying the opposite.

Love interest of the main character Jeremy Heere and therefore stands in the way of the fandom's most popular ship, boyf reinds. Being specifically a love interest we don't get. A whole lot of her but she's fun! She's a theatre kid. She is silly and goofy. Also has a one off line in one of the songs that mentions she has ADD. Idk what I'm supposed to say really and I'm always bad at talking about characters so.

Han Sooyoung

han sooyoung is one of the main trio protagonists yet people constantly ignore her in order to ship the other two males despite the fact that they are all doomed by the narrative TOGETHER!!! fanon content is even worse because it either slaps a lesbian sticker onto her to shittily write her off in fanfic OR they make her so one dimensional its like a cardboard stand in. han sooyoung arguably has a more important/interesting dynamic with the main male protagonist yet everyone ignores her because they want their uwu gay babies IM SO SICK OF ORV FANS

Dokja and Joonghyuk are a very popular ship (rightfully so, i get it) but usually Sooyoung is seen as in the way of their relationship or not as valued as the other two even though her place in the story and relationship with the other characters is just as strong. Recently there was a post on twitter being rude about people who ship her and Joonghyuk (which is a super valid ship) and i saw a lot of hate that i believe just stems from her getting “in the way” of a yaoi ship. 

99% of that kind of symbolic fanart REFUSES. to acknowledge her existence man. even though she is part of the main TRIO man

[myfaveisfuckable]

Dokja:

1. Introduced as a bland everyman only made exceptional by circumstance, slowly revealed to be the most batshit, suicidally depressed, bisexual maniac in existence. Uses self-sacrifice like a tool and is completely unaware of how beloved he is by the people he keeps pulling into his fold because he is so deeply and utterly convinced that he is fundamentally unlovable. He's like sixty foundational traumas stacked in a trench coat and he's always sixty steps ahead of everyone else and he loves the people he chooses so so dearly and people keep calling him ugly even though he's canonically pretty average and holy shit dude get some therapy please

2. GHBJNKML i am praying someone has sent him in but. unreliable narrator the most ever and also i just. love him so much. orv in itself is such a goo dnovel but like. kim dokja is the definition of love and the most caring person but also he's suffered so much and while. yknow we're introduced to him as a kind of nerd but like. listen he's so fucked up juts LISTEN

3. do NOT let the pretty official art fool u. this is the most average 28 year old salaryman going through the absolute most in the apocalypse. ORV is a story about the most average man on earth with the most mundane, depressing life. and one story that he read to cope with it all. he's just some guy, but he is also the most beloved specialest guy. not because he had some hidden talent. just because he loved a story ferociously and also he likes getting in trouble on purpose. he is the most unreliable narrator you will ever find. every piece of the universe loves him for his average stupid self. you will understand when you read 👍

4. He looks like a neet-pulled office worker. Spoilers: turns out to be one of the oldest things in the world and the only being keeping it going and alive. He needs to be there to keep the world going. Also, he got like kind of adopted by Persephone and hades. Like his blorbo is real and in love with him. But this man looks so average that people call him ugly to his face just because he’s surrounded by absolute gorgeous people.

Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu:

Read a million-word porno for the plot, left a scathing criticism on every chapter, finished in like 20 days, and got so upset about it that he ate expired yogurt and died. Told his husband that if he'd been pregnant with him, he would have absorbed poison at the cost of his own life for him. Has never been interested in any women romantically or sexually but is completely convinced he's totally straight, probably even while married to and regularly sleeping with his husband, who he loves. His first solution to any dangerous situation is to die about it.

[cactusjuiceisquenchy]

I wanted to think about orv while I take a walk so some ramblings about reality vs fiction in orv under the cut!

I’m planning on doing a reread soon but one thing I was wondering about was when exactly did dokja stop bleeding blood, but stories?

It’s one of those background mysteries that never gets resolved, which is what is the line between reality and fiction in the orv universe. At what point did they stop being people and instead, characters.

In the beginning this was brought up significantly more often and I read the whole book through without a resolution. Because at first, Kim Dokja was checking everyone’s status all the time, just to make sure he couldn’t access the character profiles of yoo sangah and Lee gilyoung.

So when I look back, I can’t help but wonder who this designation is for and also what exactly it means. There’s no tangible difference between people who are characters and who aren’t and it honestly never really factors into the plot. At some point, dokja stops checking altogether and this distinction between reality and fiction is wholly forgotten.

And it’s not a status that remains fixed either. People who weren’t characters become characters when their memories of the meta text fade while Yoo joonghyuk at some point transcends character status by pure force of will.

I guess I just wish it was explored more. This categorization of character vs non character because it’s really interesting! I also thought something might happen with it, like the non character companions given a chance to exit the story or maybe it would come up once they reach the wall. Or have companions wondering who among kimco dokja regards as more real. But,, it doesn’t. It’s a moot point actually because everyone is treated narratively the same and dokja also treats them all as real. And so instead it slips into the background wholly forgotten. In the end the difference isn’t big enough to matter.

But the whole merging of worlds is so fascinating. Because unlike a normal isekai, reality IS the other world. With hindsight we are left wondering, if orv is a novel written about itself, was ANY of it fiction? Like, if a random webnovel on the internet ended up being a true account of the future, when that future becomes present— am I living in fiction? But then wouldn’t all the people dokja interacts with be characters? Or like, Yoo joonghyuk pre scenarios. The man seems to have spawned out of nothing but other characters don’t seem to have this problem. Or even the star stream itself existed before coming to earth. Were those characters living in a world of novel while dokja and Yoo sangah etc were in reality? What IS a character? What does that mean to the world of orv? In a world predicated on stories like ORV this question is so weird.

But I guess I will circle back to my original question now. When did Dokja stop bleeding blood and instead stories? I mean this more metaphorically then just when he became a constellation. At what point did he “become a character” to the extent that his physical body is made up of words rather than biology. And this goes for everyone! While character designation means less and less, their entrenchment in the story grows deeper until they are all wholly made of the story themselves. If dokja were to check everyone at the end of the story, what would he find I wonder?

Okay, I have finished my walk and only served to confuse myself! What are your thoughts, did this make any sense, should I do this again? Let me know!

[rusquared]

HI RU I FINISHED THE ORV EPILOGUE AND I'M DEVASTATED. on another note, what are your thoughts on hsy's epithet, "director of the false last act", could mean? i mean, director is straightforward (both of her role as a writer, and her leading kimcom in various instances), but false last act not so much.

i'm thinking that "false" is less "intended deception" as the word implies, and more relating to her thinking this will be the final act, both in 1863 and the epilogue, when she leads the group? but i'm not really sure. again, the phrasing kind of implies there's an intended deception in there, and sure enough hsy has played the bad guy role a lot of times as well...

(ps i have been looking at your orv spoilers tag now and wistfully sighing. every so often i look at something that makes me want to go outside for a smoke break. i have never touched a cigarette.)

CONRGATS ON THE HEARTBREAK. ALSO AT THE PERFECT TIME CONSIDERING THE WEBTOON IS ON THE 73RD DEMON REALM ARC AND PEOPLE ARE RELIVING THE PAIN THERE TOO.

also congrats on everything about orv being recontextualized for you <33333

as for your question, i def agree with your interpretation of it. it's also interesting that (at least in the translation i read) her modifier changes between 1863 and 1865. "Director of the False Last Act" (1863) versus "Architect of the False Last Act" (1865).

In 1863, she "directs" what she thinks will be the end of the world and all scenarios. She plays an active role, yes, but moreso puts every character on the path she thinks will lead to her perfect ending. She makes YJH become the "villain", and takes over his position as "protagonist", so that the curse of his regressions can end and the world can be spared from the scenarios.

In 1865, she's now the "architect". This implies a much more involved role - she's building the ending herself. Given how she regressed, and will later write the story itself, this makes sense. She's actively trying to create the ending.

For 1863 HSY, it's the false last act because while she believes and tries to make it the end of YJH's tale, she fails. It was never meant to happen. The plot (the reader) would never allow such an ending, and indeed the reader himself shows up to ruin all of her careful planning.

For 1865 HSY, I think more of the 'epilogue' to ORV. The ending she wanted to, but never could write, because she didn't know what kind of ending she wanted the fragments to read. They went to 1865, they made it past the final wall, they even made it onto the train. This should've been the "last act", the happy ending, but it wasn't. Now, back in 1864, when she tries to write the story she doesn't know what to even say. How dare she assume what a happy ending for Kim Dojka looks like?

So yeah, I think "false" in both modifiers doesn't refer to deception (though as a writer trying to change the story, she is doing a kind of deception). I think it refers to how HSY, as the writer, is still powerless to change the flow of the story that has entered the hands of her reader. The ending she wishes to make is beyond her power, but she can get closer and closer with the help of the readers.

[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.

[hellofeternity]

Black & White & Color in ORV (6.9k words)

Yin and yang as a concept is rife throughout orv, black and white aside, it makes the basis of almost the entire book, "life and death companions" - "unstoppable sword and unbreakable shield" - "war of Good and Evil" every stroke and arc of this book deals with dualities, this is of course not rare nor exclusive to orv, this is a staple in any form of writing, there is a push (good) and a pull (evil), but in a lot of those stories the basis of this yin and yang tends to be simple, one triumphs over the other, there is a balance until there isn't and vice versa a very well done example of this is the legend of Korra and the avatar franchise - where the balance gets disrupted and Evil (vato) reigns, until the first avatar locks him away, locking him away has Consequences for the plot the balance is disrupted, the spirit world and the human world are separated and we get the philosophy of the legend of korra as a whole, which is a story where the world is thrown into a metronome for our consumption from one imbalanced side to the other.

for there to be a plot there needs to be an imbalance, but because of that not many stories tend to explore the intertwined nature of these opposing forces in their balanced states and furthermore less stories go beyond it into weaving them into the philosophies the stories are exploring we all know black and white as yin and yang, as push as pull as good and evil, but ORV looks at all at that and tells us, what if its is text and paper too? what does that mean then? to be part of one singular whole, to contain both the unfathomable evil and the unfathomable good and its all in our hands in the book we are reading, the black text against the white paper, the black text is no less than the white paper, you cannot read a blank page, just as like you cannot experience ink - they are intertwined into a single whole and because this is ORV, it never stops there, if black is text and white is paper, what is the cover that holds this book? what is the world around these bound papers? what is being described by the black and white? if yin and yang is to exist it needs to be painted with the world around it, for there to be a balance of parts there needs to be a chaos for balance to define itself against it, and that is in itself a duality - white is a reflection of color and black is an absorption of color in this post I will be going through not just how black and white is defined in the story but also more importantly how color exists in them, in between them and around them, highlighting and defining them I will be using the webtoon as a reference to ease the transition into explaining the colors because I find it is very well researched and very respectful to the color theory in the book you might find some contradictions in the things I say, ill try to touch and explain why ORV might break the rules it establishes as best as I can when I can but of course this is all just my observations from a text that is translated, if you can explain something yourself in a different way I encourage you to, ORV is a very well written text most often than not if there is a contradiction there is a reason

so starting off - ORV posits Black as text

what does that mean? well it means the closer your relationship is to black the more proportionally closer you are to the text and what that means, ie the plot elements, the writing, you are the character, you are wielding the story, you are being wielded by the story you are the black against white, the blemish, the focal point you are the black against white. I repeat the black against point twice, to emphasize the matryoshka effect of being the text, you cannot be defined as black without the white as such you see a lot of characters play with that duality in the story Black as Text like a lot of things in ORV is a gradual build up with many quotes illustrating it, however to give a blatant example in CH255 "Entrance as a character" Dokja has been cast outside the story post the demon king arc, and has gone through a lot to enter the story once more and be defined by text, but its not until he looks deep within himself that he finally starts allowing himself to be defined by black, aka the story

My coat and other clothing were charred black. I couldn't believe that the coat with the automatic restoration function was damaged like this… The ceiling of the office looked like it had been hit by a meteorite. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine. Of course, I'm fine…" Rather, I felt lighter. It was impossible. My body was burnt like this but my spirit was clear. The power of my stories felt fuller. [The effect of the exclusive skill 'Reading Comprehension' has increased understanding.] I saw the message and a previous memory emerged. That's right. I had obviously seen such a message. [Your understanding of the character 'Kim Dokja' has increased.] The message marked me as a character. It was something that never happened before. Cool energy filled a corner of my chest. I had seen the presence of 'characters' many times'. They were those who came from outside the original novel but was eventually assimilated with the original. They were mostly those who stopped reading the novel.

That white coat of his, is black for the first time, in a blatant showing of him finally accepting that he IS part of the story. Spoiler end--------

where the black is described and located also matters in explaining its function, wearing all black has multiple meanings, it is the literal effect of "wearing the story" using it as armor, or being deeply affected by the story, being defined by it etc

[img id: yoo joonghyuk, yoo sangah in a black suit, han sooyoung holding crystals, the first apostle] I use these examples because they are the most notable/ show case this most easily yoo joonghyuk: all black almost never defined by any other colors and if he is they tend to be in small amounts, the white around his neck (a collar around his neck), his sage eye golden etc he is completely swallowed up by the story and by black, he likes black, its where he feels most comfortable a fish in water, the text is his domain, but he is also constrained by it yoo sangah: yoo sangah notably starts out in a brown suit, and then transitions to a full black body suit, she is often compared to a heroine by both dokja and han sooyoung, when we next see her wearing that suit there is a remarkable shift in her abilities and the lengths in which she exerts herself on the story, wearing the black gave her the agency because she has started using the story, but also she is being used by the story (the constellations) to further their own goals, however she isn't as defined by JUST black as yoo joonghyuk is, gold and brown and later on more colors are part of her (SPOILERS CH 291) han sooyoung fragment: the han sooyoung we meet early on is just starting out her life, she is a character first a person second, not within the designs of the world and dokja's interpretation but within the designs of herself, this is not the han sooyoung with the most memories, she is a fragment she left behind, we can argue on how much han sooyoung she is (I like to think she split herself like dokja 49/51 for the story telling symmetry) but the han sooyoung we meet is "lesser" at the start, and when han sooyoung crafts characters they are almost Always wearing black clothes, and this fragment is no exception, she is wielded by the story and wielding the story, and I dont find it surprising that one of her first proper appearances in the book/webtoon she is holding all the colored crystals - holding all the meanings of the story, but when she tries to wield them they are empty, the sword doesn't work etc first apostle: I added him to strengthen the han sooyoung fragment example, whenever han sooyoung makes alter-egos they are wearing black the more important they are, she cloaks herself in the story with the first apostle and the advisor character, its akin to a visual way of showing us she is "writing" the characters into existence Spoiler end-------- honorable mentions: Uriel wearing black lace, lee jihye wearing black hoodies, the abyssal black flame dragon (he is to me the character most defined by black, due to specifically me seeing him as a personification of all the stories that people use for survival, he is the personification of every child's discovery of story as self expression, but also the overwhelming reliance on stories to give us purpose and never finding our own purpose, losing ourselves in the abyss)

wielding black weapons and items also is very significant, because it means you are wielding the story most notable mentions: han sooyoung wielding black flames that burn her hand, she burns herself to write, her black flame ability eats away at her for her to wield the story etc CH246 dokja giving yjh the black heavenly demon sword, as a symbol that he is giving him the ability to "wield the story" before he leaves him and kimcom - the significance of the duality in the name in the english translation also makes me think its also akin to wielding salvation? and then again in CH442 when yjh's black heavenly demon sword given to him by dokja, cracked after fighting secretive plotter and losing dokja to him - 999 gives yjh his own sword and we find out that 999 to the surprise of yjh wasn't wielding splitting the sky sword, but instead wielded the black heavenly demon sword, it emphasizes the heaviness of that sword, the agency it gives yoo joonghyuk, the salvation in his own story, his own form of wielding the story, he was relying on dokja because he was afraid of his own self, but he always had agency, he didnt need it from anyone else Spoiler end-------- another thing of note is that almost every enemy that dokja fights in the early chapters is wielding black weapons and or black is mentioned somewhere in the scenes but in Small ways, some examples the monarch of small fries sponsor:

Knuckles shining with a black gloss—they weren't ordinary iron knuckles. Did he receive it from his sponsor?

kim namwoon post zombiefication

My thigh was scratched by Kim Namwoon's overgrown black fingernails.

Black ether and the dark keeper that impregnates Myungoh

The dark keeper's tentacles rose. "Ooooof!" One of the tentacles entered his mouth and Han Myungoh turned black

I especially like the last example, instead of saying Myungoh was turning purple or blue, they specify Black, a lot of moments like this where other colors could suffice but instead they use black specifically and pointedly in general I think this is to ground the story in dokja's view of it, which is that its fiction, it is text, it is a story, all the wild enemies that are out to get them that are evil have black somewhere, and it appeals to our sensibilities as readers too, it feels right for the evil to have blackness to it

White on the other hand, is the gaps between the text

it is what exists outside the story, what is undefined, its what we need to read between the lines for, or the completely unknown, as long as its grounded in the text first, just like black, it cannot exist without being defined in some vague form by the text

[img id: lee seolhwa, kim namwoon, bihyung, 41st shin yoosung]

Obviously I should use kim dokja here too, but I think orv explains it better than I ever could

The texture of the soft paper touching my fingertips. The black letters blooming on a white field. The texture of the page I folded with my hands. 「 It isn't important to read the letters. The important thing is where the letters lead you. 」 My mother, who loved books, used to say this. At least for me, it wasn't just a saying. The gaps in the black print. My own little snow garden lay in between the letters. This space, which was too small for someone to go into, was a perfect place for a child who liked to hide. Every time a pleasant sound was heard, the letters stacked up like snow.

dokja is as defined by black as he is by white, however he finds comfort in white, like yjh finds comfort in black, even though like dokja he is also defined by outside interpretation

like black, I used these characters in the image specifically for ease of explanation, you'll also note most of them have a close relationship to death but death in ORV is not death as we think of it - as such white here has multiple meanings too, in orv "death" is to become unreadable/unconsumable/not a story, but Death also, is just a different kind of story too, one that we can create and add on and this is why white is defined against black lee seolhwa: personally, I find her to be the character most defined by white in orv, yes more than dokja, in the sense that dokja has a lot more going on, but lee seolhwa ONLY has white and some red to define her, and that's on purpose by the writers I truly adore how lee seolhwa's character is presented and then thereby later handled by the writers, in that there is a SPECIFIC and stark lack of character, dokja only knows her in a very specific setting in very a specific moment, as Yoo joonghyuk's previous lover read through a book, stripped of that setting she is unknowable to him and therefore to us, but she still plays a role around him, one he never bothers to examine or to get closer to her for moments where she is mentioned she is a backdrop faceless doctor, actually here is one of my favorite moments where she ISNT mentioned that illustrate why she is "the whitest character" (no race jokes intended)

spoilers ch141 novel - ch157 webtoon

So, in the book right before dokja gives his depression bandaid speech on top of the rooftop to yoo joonghyuk

"Hey, Yoo Joonghyuk." Yoo Joonghyuk turned to look at me. I didn't know exactly what scenery held value for Yoo Joonghyuk. As I said every time, reading Ways of Survival didn't really tell me about this person. After all, I was only understanding the text, which had been processed and transmitted to me. Some things couldn't be read because they were unreadable. "Let me talk to you for a bit."

and in the webtoon, they cut out his thoughts which are about not being able to understand him and missing context and things being unreadable (the definition of white against black) in the webtoon what they do instead is they show lee seolhwa in the scene right before this

making you remember her and go "oh yea, why don't we ever get to know her?"

and then furthermore in the book

"Kim Dokja, you don't know." This might be my misunderstanding. Yoo Joonghyuk could give up at any time because he was still in the midst of his regressions. In the end, Yoo Joonghyuk's purpose was to prevent the 'destruction of this world'. Paradoxically, he could give up on this world at any time. His essence was regression and this fact would never change. "No, I know," I replied. "What?" "The fact that you can regress at any time means that death is meaningless." I looked down at Lee Seolhwa caring for the injured. Lee Seolhwa was feeding her boiled soup to an unknown person. Despite her efforts, there was a high probability that the character would die. Even if they lived now, they would die tomorrow. If they miraculously survived tomorrow, they would die the day after tomorrow. It was the same in the fourth regression and the fifth regression. There would always be 'death' in the world of Yoo Joonghyuk, even after passing the 100th regression. "If there is no sense of death then the value of life also disappears." "What do you know…" "Yoo Joonghyuk, wake up. Don't think things will improve if you repeat them a few times."

lee seolhwa plays a VERY important absent part in both the lead up to this scene and in it specifically, in how she is the personification of an unknown character, this scene, like many scenes in orv boils down multiple of its messages very succinctly, you can never truly know a person, you can still try your best to reach out, lee seolhwa reaching out to someone she doesn't know who is injured, dokja reaching out to yoo joonghyuk

we never truly know kim dokja, and we never ever truly know lee seolhwa she is always at the edges of dokja's story, nothing beyond "doctor" and I think that they handled the concept of her character brilliantly

Spoiler end--------

Kim namwoon: like I said Death is just a different form of a story, and white is to be written out, banished between the space in the sentences - kim namwoon within the first chapter is both marked for death and marked to be written out, we never get to know kim namwoon outside of dokja's perceptions, like lee seolhwa, kim namwoon is a tool to highlight dokja's biases (and subsequently the texts biases)

bihyung: his color scheme is actually one of my favorites in the webtoon, his fur being white, as a being intrinsically outside of the story, a watcher, a voyeur and a director, wearing black, being under the confines and control of the story and the viewers (has to keep them happy), with tiny gold horns

41st shin yoosung: someone who lived most of her life outside the story, banished and lost and imprisoned, and when she finally thinks she has hope to be part of the story in a kind way, she dies, her soul/story golden and then white

white seems to appear commonly in hair and clothes, it is used both as a shield (kdj) but also as a wall/prison too (41st sys) the only instance of a white weapons I can remember is blade of faith and also jung heewons "white flames" both used in ways that change the story for the better, kinda like "white out" or an editor burning and cutting away at the story, white space (outsiders) fighting the author back, pausing their writing to deliberate on the next words most notably white appears as a location often, white fields, snow, white sand, reinhart von djerba's house, actually when we get to paradise I wont be surprised if they depict it with a lot of white in the webtoon, bonus points if its an inspired tunisian-greek style based on the actual djerba

one of the hurdles of separately explaining black and white like this is that you might lose sight of their intertwined nature in all of this. Rather than looking at them as "black" and "white" its "black against white" and "white against black" for example, in the webtoon characters change clothes a lot, lee jihye doesn't always wear ONLY black in fact she wears white, gray, black, blue rather than looking at that and being "she isn't defined by black" its best to look at that and ask "'what are they trying to tell me in this moment" this allows for more flexibility in analysis, and a broader view when looking at these characters, none of them can simply be described with one or two colors, or even a lot of colors as ORV explains, we never can truly understand someone, but what their function here is to direct your eye and to help in easing the pieces together when you are reading.

black and white are the clearest and easiest to keep track of but ORV utilizes other colors in a very similar fashion all around them, but in a lesser, less obvious amount, a lot of these I am still not certain on to their meanings, its much easier to connect threads together and sit here looking for meanings after the fact, ill start from the ones I am most confident about to least confident. --------------------------------------

Blue This color I think is the most frequent after black and white, its every where in the webtoon and in the book, in fact one of its first mentions should explain it

A character from the novel had appeared. Now I really had to acknowledge the situation. "Soldier-nim! What is happening?" "I have been trying to contact my unit, but…" "The Blue House! What is the Blue House doing? Please contact the president quickly!" "I'm sorry. I am just an ordinary soldier and don't have a hotline to the Blue House." Lee Hyunsung explained.

Blue is government, Blue is systems that govern the world, where do we see blue the most in the webtoon? its in the quest logs, its the structures that keep the story going, its the printing press and advertisers and a publishing house and the store front, its capitalism and money

Its the title card.

[img id: Omniscient reader spelled out against a white background, the text is colored blue and black]

I also specifically like how when you are reading the book, blue doesn't jump at you as being used a lot, sure its here and there, but in the webtoon its suffused everywhere, a product of the capitalist consumption of stories

[img id: lee sookyoung in a blue mask and blue prison uniform, han sooyoung in blue body suit with black and white on it, lee hyunsung in a blue shirt] prison uniforms being blue, yet lee sookyoung still masking herself in blue, hiding behind the systems ( a different way of dokja's face being blurred by the system) how han sooyoungs body suit is only ever described as blue in the book but in the webtoon they interweaved black and white into it elevating its original intent, she is in control she exploits the systems, she wears the system, she is the system how lee hyunsung is defined by his military past and his utter reliance on systems

dokja specifically "wields" blue a lot, blade of faith has an attribute that turns it blue which he did a couple times, his lightning is often described as "blue-white" --------------------------------------

Red

[img id: screenshot from early in the webtoon where dokja tries to wipe away blood from his face but he finds that its on the glass, not on him, also wearing a blue tie] (I know im supposed to be talking about red, but dokja's tie being blue <3 noosed by the capitalistic system he used to work for a parallel to yjh's collar being white) red, and subsequently where it pops up the most as, blood, is reality and truth but also a lie, a lie specifically because this is dokja's worldview and he views reality as a lie, its actually very interesting because this color pops up a lot within the view of "fiction" too (example: gong pildu's turrets) but its most present moments is specifically when it comes to the truth about trauma and the reality of is this a "story" or "fiction" that dokja struggles with

[img id lee sookyoung with the blue mask, the blue mask has a red circle in the middle, asuka ren who has red hair, min jiwon in red formal wear, lee jihye holding her sword with a red tassle, jung heewon amidst a blaze of fire with a red tie being mind controlled, anna croft her left eye is a red demon eye] lee sookyoung's mask just having a red circle in the middle of it, a reminder to dokja, an emphasis on reality, on not being able to run away ch133 book ch145 webtoon spoilers asuka ren's entire storyline culminating into "what is a writer's responsibility when writing a helpless abused world? and what does reality mean when fiction is real? who remembers a story after the writer forgets? was the story ever the writers?" these questions that blur the line are where red exists to dokja, its not the blurred lines between black and white, its the blurred lines between black against white and reality, its "does fiction affect reality" but also "does reality affect fiction" an ouroboros

Spoiler end--------

min jiwon holds a similar place to asuka ren in the story, she is there to make dokja question reality, he knows her as a character purely, but she is a famous actress and he uses her as a backdrop to understand if this is fiction or real, the other apostles forgetting she is a character blurring her in their minds lee jihye's red tassle is a visual detail in the webtoon that I don't quiet remember if it exists in the book, but its an important one to me, because it raises questions, specifically with how much it stands out in the webtoon, and I think its tied to her trauma, her past and her friend, it being in her sword she uses it as a tool, her reality is one she wields, she has bloodied her hands killing her friend, none of this is fiction to her but it feels like it is from how absurd it is

jung heewon is interesting because she often suffers from an over abundance of red, she is controlled by red with that red tie around her neck, and while a lot of characters have trauma in this story, red is almost always reserved to people acting as characters or are viewed as characters by dokja, so for gilyoung and yoo sangah who both have a lot of trauma each we never see red define them because dokja views them as "real-ish" furthermore she is the only one who acts on that trauma, whenever she is mind controlled or reliving her past she starts attacking, and I think specifically why red defines her is that who does she have to blame? the story writer? the people who have harmed her? she along with dokja are one of the few characters that wield white They are both trying to carve out a kinder existence in the story for themselves, wielding subtext because the text has no place for them, she was written off and dokja gave her a second chance, what is her reality then? destined to die and suffer in obscurity in every iteration? except for this one that gave her meaning? also just as an aside lee hyunsung is MOST defined as blue when he is next to her in the webtoon, its a visual thing because red and blue next to each other are good, but also its also interesting from a story telling perspective, lee hyunsung relies on systems the most around her

anna crofts great demon eye lets her see possible futures, possible realities, half truths unrealized I am not as confident of my reading of red as I am of blue, because I feel like there are also a lot of examples that are harder to fit in this definition of it, mainly gong pildu's turrets ngl😂 also red is heavily emphasized with the demon kings also, so red does have as heavy of a space in fiction as it does in reality, its just a versatile color --------------------------------------

Gold/Yellow

[img id: prisoner of the golden headband, yoo sangah with gold aura all around her wielding golden weapons, painting of 41st sys looking at 3rd round sys, while she is holding biyoo, the painting is infused with gold, painting by renibet_ on tumblr]

gold/yellow is an extension of black, gold/yellow is a well loved story, and more often than not a well loved story is a popular story, and a popular story is a strong story in the world view of orv, you can be a strong story without being popular of course, too, usually by being an old story. a lot of the strong constellations have gold in their presentations, Olympus and Eden as examples, but gold is also control, a prison

prisoner of the golden headband is the strongest incarnation in ORV his story 'journey to the west' is one of the oldest, most well loved, most adapted stories and orv emphasizes that, but it also emphasizes how the great sage is trapped within this "love" he has had so many adaptations of himself, his own story traps him with the headband being his prison. in CH444 for example he joins the sides of the yogoe, the side of the story that is never understood because who is he? what is his story? what does it mean to be understood? Spoiler end--------

yoo sangah also starts having a heavy emphasis on gold when she joins up with Olympus who are a very well loved story, she fights with it, its all around her, entrapping her, but also she loves stories and that gold in her is also a manifestation of that the shin yoosung industrial complex of stories

sorry I had to phrase it like that, but I am trying to encompass all shin yoosungs at once biyoo included and thats why I used art instead of the webtoon, she is a strong story, as 41st shin yoosung she has spent immeasurable time trapped in time, and we know time in orv is proportional to the strength of a story, so thats why 41st sys is gold, but furthermore 3rd round sys is well loved, her story is one all of kim com cultivate slowly with love and care, she is young, but her story is bigger than her and she inherits it slowly, biyoo specifically only has a golden horn, and I KNOW there is a significance to horns, and their colors, but I haven't figured it out, if anyone does feel free to add it honorable mentions of gold: nirvana, the golden throne that gets destroyed, the young gold dragon heart, yjh's sage eye, jang hayoung and most importantly,

my favorite instance of gold in the story CH294

Yoo Joonghyuk still didn't answer and the Fourth Wall laughed like it knew everything. The letters of the Fourth Wall started to increase. Gold letters soon filled the room. Yoo Joonghyuk stared at the letters drifting around him and reached out for one of them. The letters seemed to respond to his hand and started to speak. 「 "My name is Dokja." 」 「 I usually introduced myself to people like this and then the following misunderstanding would occur. 」 It was the story of a world he had never experienced. The Fourth Wall giggled. 「 Very in te res ting. 」 Yoo Joonghyuk quietly listened to the story.

Spoiler end-------- like red, there are a couple of instances that are outliers to this, mostly due to how loosy goosy the translation is with yellow/gold being interchangeable, for example I'd like to add anna croft as an example here for "strength of the story" but I cant tell if that is the actual intent of yellow in her hair and the yellow eye that follows her around, in contrast there are a lot of moments where they describe yjh's transcendent as yellow, when clearly they are emphasizing his strength of story --------------------------------------

Brown brown is past trauma, trauma that still defines a person, actually brown and red get blurred/mentioned together a lot in the book so maybe I should've just combined them like I did with yellow and gold, but there is still enough of a difference that I want to make a distinction even if they do overlap heavily conceptually, brown is more "realer" or rooted in "reality" as dokja sees it, things that happen outside the time from of the start of the end of the world and cant be attributed to a writer but to life

this color isn't actually mentioned a lot alone in the book, and is more prominent in the webtoon - there is only one specific instance in the book that I can think of where it meets how its used in the webtoon

CH489

This intense stink of the brown coal, the sight of his father and mother lying on the ground like dead cockroaches – memories of him poking on the cold, unmoving flesh. A funeral without portraits came to an end, and the fatigued eyes of his relatives looking at him.

[img id: gilyoung in a brown shirt, dokja in a brown school uniform with a red tie being bullied, dokja in a brown suit that looks like the old uniform getting his shit kicked in by his bully, lee sookyoung in a brown coat, yoo sangah in her brown suit]

lee gilyoung, very early on in the story has hints of deep rooted trauma that he is struggling with, mostly seemingly centering around his mother

kim dokja, for him I was mostly going over his outfits in the webtoon and their significance in my head, and I couldn't come up with a reasoning behind the brown suit till my friend pointed out it looked a lot like his brown school uniform, and to cinch the deal further the chapter where he gets that suit in the webtoon, CH69 (nice) the title is brown

yes, the chapter titles change colors, yes it seems to track with my insane color thoughts, yes the webtoon artists pay a HUGE amount of attention to details like this so far the only colors the title has been is black and white, blue, red and brown off the top of my head

but yea self explanatory trauma around his highschool bully brown uniform+ brown suit lee sookyoung's coat is a mirror to dokja's, she uses her trauma as a shield and a cover, she wears it like armor and hides behind its lies

yoo sangah's office job was hell, sexually harassed by her superior to the point that he'd steal and hide her bike, it pushed someone who is generally nice and well mannered to the point of retaliating and then we find out how her job is an escape from a life her parents built for her

this isnt to say only these characters suffer trauma, on the contrary but the closer their relationship is to the story and the trauma being under the story, the redder the brown gets, for example I assume yoo joonghyuk's hell of eternity will be depicted in red's the only thing that fudges with this which is admittedly a bit of a wrench, is lee hyunsung, he is often depicted in blue, gray, green and brown, brown is actually pretty prominent in lee hyunsung, I dont know how he fits in against everything, I assume its because his trauma is older? so the relationship between brown and red is simply just trauma before the end of the world and trauma after? --------------------------------------

Grey

okay we are entering the territories of colors I can barely explain but I know there is something going on with the symbolism because its too consistent, Grey seems simple enough to explain at face value its what lies between black and white for example theoretically it would be something between good and evil, neutrality, but have you ever seen grey in yin and yang? ever read a book that had a portion of gray text?

grey has a LOT of uses in the story, it muddies the relationship between black and white, it fades away the intent of the story/character, a half way point to white, a halfway point to black, but its also just..used a lot? especially in the webtoon characters wear grey a lot, I assume its because they are background characters in the instances where they are present, it seems like a filler dokja especially ping pongs a lot at the start between grey and black and white in his outfits in the webtoon, and so does jung heewon but its brief

the Biggest prominence of grey is around CH365

in the great war of saints and demons, when the relationship of good and evil is under examination and subsequently that means dokja's relationship to the text and his morality is also under scrutiny, grey plays its biggest role

in it we meet an angel called Michael who is the embodiment of satan, an angel who ate the forbidden fruit and who became a demon and has a contradicting modifier "Saviour of the Corrupted" like dokja, but unlike dokja who defines himself in stark black and white, Michael is defined with greys and purples

grey as such is also a form of corruption, when things lose meaning or struggle to define themselves, Michael is constantly buffeted by forces greater than him, used as a pawn

Good' and 'Evil', in conflict against each other for eternity itself. And Metatron's face, the one who had managed to endure all those years, continued to carry the exact same smile for thousands of years. – You need to be careful about one thing. When using this power, you must never… [The power of 'Fruit of Good and Evil' is going berserk!] All of his memories were swept away in one go; Michael was enveloped in horrifying pain akin to his head being ripped to tiny shreds. Aaaaaaaaah-!!!! All 'Good' in the world cried out in sorrow. From the blades of grass to trees; from small insects to every type of 'Good' living in Creation fell into a state of sorrow and cried out in grief. [You have directed a fatal attack at an opponent on the side of Absolute Good!] [Story, 'Evil that Destroys Evil', is roaring out in bitter sadness!] [You have broken the taboo!] [You have been handed a terrible penalty!] A grey-coloured angel covered in blood was smiling at Michael.

what disables Michael here is the lack of clarity, by being grey he isn't capable of being either black or white

grey is a difficult one to explain specifically due to the amount of use it sees, and then you have ch365 with a very specific usage of grey, so I assume its just a flexible multi use thing --------------------------------------

Purple

okay so the best I can explain the relationship of purple is this, its like the inverse of gold, in that it has a deep relationship to black, just like gold, but in the opposite direction

I dont want to say its "hated" stories because honestly its not used like that, the most prominence it sees is in regards to corruption in general and also han sooyoung and ABFD, strong stories that are difficult to stomach I guess? the intersection between blue and red? traumatic fictional stories? best I can do. I also find it funny that han sooyoung is often depicted in a purple hoodie when its never mentioned in the book that she wears purple, she wields it though! --------------------------------------

Green

[img id, lee gilyoung wearing green hoodie, lee gilyoung in brown shirt holding green grasshopper box, lee hyunsung with a green glow around him, nirvana in a green sari, uriel winking, one emerald eye open, the jade from the demon king arc as illustrated by manadream] these images are all I have, I literally have ZERO explanation for green, I just know lee gilyoung and nirvana are heavily defined by it, lee hyunsung is also defined with it slightly, mostly old military uniform and when he is protecting people

I've been thinking about green in orv for a long time, the only thing I can kind of guess is that it might have something to do with philosophy? a frame of thinking?

if you have any guesses feel free to share in this post --------------------------------------

anyways I hope this was an entertaining read, I know there is a lot more I've probably missed but I hit on all the big things I've been thinking about, I'd like to reiterate that pointing out the function of the colors in the story isn't meant to pigeon hole these colors into one single function, a lot of them do a lot in the story beyond these descriptions, these are just common threads I picked up on and wanted to share, that I felt made reading the story richer to me

and I also wanted to emphasize paying attention more to the webtoons artistic depictions because more often than not I find them elevating the already existing story, and they really do put a lot of thought into it, to the point where I wonder if they have singnsong on speed dial to get approval or opinions

if there are any glaring mistakes, feel free to correct also, Ill edit the corrections in

[tls123]

hi francesca!! i meant to tell u this forever ago omg but !! i finally finished devil venerable and i wanted to thank you for recommending it bc it was such a breath of fresh air <33

i love how it subverts fantasy tropes and how it includes metanarrative elements in a really clever way to accomplish that!! like the way it says things aren't as simple as they seem and how different viewpoints reflect different worlds and then actually DELIVERS is so satisfying y'know? and above all i really appreciated how logical and thought-out both the characters' reasoning and the plot's sequence were, everything felt tied together in terms of cause and effect and that's very rare to see in danmei imo

also the "villain" x right-hand man trope is SO delicious and so well-executed i'm actually amazed bc it could've gone off the rails real fast but the author really took the time to flesh it out and resolve it in a healthy and satisfying way that was tied to the character development of both the MC and ML. even despite the initial power imbalance they were able to stand on equal ground at the end. i even teared up several times bc of how evocative the writing was, especially during the backstories and the confession scene, it was SO GOOD 😭😭

oh and last but not least i LOVE how the female characters are portrayed!! they're smart and cunning in their own ways and it was just SO refreshing. also i found myself giggling several times bc of how fun their dynamic was lmao i just love them so much!! anyways lol i hope u don't mind me dumping all my thoughts on u but this was overall just such an enjoyable read so thank you again!! <33 brb gonna go through your entire devil venerable tag now hehe :3

gaby this is everything i could have hoped for and more, i am always so hesitant about recommending things but devil venerable was just so good (and coming from having read orv earlier in the year the metanarrative elements hit me so hard lmao) i couldn't let it go without saying something

i really can't add anything here, you've said it all. the characters, the plot, the dynamics, the natural evolution of not only the story itself but the relationships between so many of the characters. and it's so fun!! and still, still it knows when to take itself seriously.

there's such brilliant artistry at work in devil venerable, in the way it builds <3 <3

honestly, i am so glad you enjoyed it! unfortunately there's not much in the tag :( but hopefully it'll keep growing 🙏💞

[metanarrates]

I'm interested to know what "protagonist" is defined as here. usually a protagonist is a character who gets major plot focus and whose viewpoint drives the bulk of narrative involving them. (im speaking in basic terms here; the definition of "protagonist" is one that can be endlessly litigated.) a character can be the protagonist of a subplot without appearing again in the main narrative, but...

it's interesting to me that, before now and after the events of this arc, kim dokja rarely speaks or thinks about jang hayoung at all. this is really weird, considering that she is a protagonist in his favorite novel. he thinks WAY more about characters like lee jihye and lee hyunsung than he ever does about her. granted, part of this is due to their membership in his party, but I would argue that even kim namwoon seems to be more emotionally significant to kim dokja, and that guy has been dead since the start of orv. what's the reason for this?

I can think of two:

1. "protagonist" is defined very loosely here. twsa, from kim dokja's descriptions, sounds very oddly structured as a novel. jang hayoung is considered a protagonist by the novel because she stars in her own subplot and because she represents one of the three ways to survive. however, she might not get a ton of screen time in twsa itself.

2. kim dokja is just fucking weird about jhy. since he had a hand in creating her character, he has almost shameful emotions towards her. maybe he's embarrassed by how she reflects his youthful cringiness, similar to how he feels about knw. or maybe she reflects something else about him that he doesn't like to see. we'll get back to this later in my reread, since I'll have a much better grasp on how he views her by then. regardless of his reasoning, though, and regardless of how much screentime she has in twsa, the end result is that kdj doesn't like to think about her.

i suspect it's a mix of both, but I can't say for sure. this is going to be something I'll keep mulling over during this arc. it is an arc i don't remember very well, for the record, so I'm interested to see what happens here.

(as an aside, it is REALLY interesting for me to think about how twsa is written and structured. there's not a ton of info given on how it actually functioned as a novel, since most of the story is filtered through kdj's perception of it. i wonder what kind of arcs it had and how character focus was handled...)

[erytherion]

Going to pull a Kim Dokja here and tell everyone that they should definitely go read The World After The Fall (novel version) all the way to the end because it is SO AMAZING and very very similarly mind-fucky about universes and reality and imagination and legitimate scientific theories you can go research about but the majority of the story itself feels mostly like a silly and bizarre action plot, when really it hits you with so many deep and philosophical quandaries and feels that you really don’t realise til the end and then you bawl your eyes out, kinda like what happens with ORV. I don’t want to spoil it by giving specifics, but like… it’s truly SO WEIRD that you will undoubtedly question how an author actually decided to go with those options, but obviously they had every reason to choose those metaphors and bizarre choices, yet you’re still left a bit like “What the actual fuck?” even after knowing how weird it is.

DEFINITELY BE CAREFUL if you experience delusions as part of your mental health though! They hit so many of my own at the end, I was so so glad that ORV had already given me actual psychosis beforehand so I knew how to take it in stride and not let it make me spiral. On the plus side, if you DO have the same type of mental illness as me, the story is even MORE relatable than ORV (or maybe like, relatable for different reasons to it, since ORV is still really cool too!) This only really applies to the latter third of the book though.

Anyways, READ THE WORLD AFTER THE FALL! Sing-Shong are geniuses with their stories and you don’t always realise til the end when they hit you with all the extra realisations! It truly is so impressive and also a little aggravating because GUYS BE NICE TO ME! But they’re already nice since they shared it with us, it just feels mean because then we get pulled into all their stories’ meta bullshit as a result.