#love the 999ths they make me so mentally ill

[felikatze]

i've reached orv ch487 so i am thinking abt the 999ths because they make me so mentally ill and i'm procrastinating reaching the finale

first of all the very concept of them is so so good. bcuz like, the moment when yjh vowed to not regress was when he was gravely injured and kdj treated him, right? and yjh's attitude was like 'this world will move on without me' (which is a somewhat repeating concept throughout orv) except the opposition he meets is "we dont want to see the conclusion without you" and now he doesnt want to abandon anybody ever again right

so here come the people he HAS abandoned, who saw the conclusion without him, and who just. regretted it so much. that's payoff to a great set-up right there, and shows a "worst" case what could've happened to the cast if yjh rlly bit it back then

except the 999th gang are also a great thematic mirror for kdj's character development since their whole motivation is finding yjh again (kim na-woon) and going back to how it used to be (yi ji-hye) and like

their whole reason for going on is yjh, which is already similar to pre-plot kdj who clung to wos to keep himself alive, and they're also similar in how they both enshrined yjh as a character in their minds

especially the 999th uriel is just incapable of accepting that yjh has changed. She's just so blinded by who she remembers that she's utterly convinced that her yjh was "taken away" by the person he had become.

The inability to accept change caused a Lot of conflict between yjh and kdj already so it's a neat twist to have him be the one to see how different yjh has become, especially since both he and the 999th gang are people who 'witnessed yjh's story.'

it's ALSO a great moment for yjh himself since it shows how he reconciles the current him with the past he has forgotten, and his conclusion is that all of his selves are him; the division is artificial. That harkens back to how the kkoma yjhs were when secretive plotter had his first big appearance: they were all part of him. yjh is one continuous existence, so there is no way to bring the 999th yjh back. yjh himself says the 999th is, for all intents and purposes, dead.

the 999th gang also makes me so sad bcuz what they're doing betrays everything the 999th wanted of them and for them. it's notable that only the 999th yi hyun-seong is friendly toward the current cast because he dedicated himself to upholding yjh's ideals, which include not making deals with the star stream and no going back

it's so. on the one turn yjh opens up to his companions and confesses the truth of his existence, all the agony he lived and how he doesnt want it to happen again, the 999th yi ji-hye decides that a do over would fix this? which to me is like, the worst possible betrayal at this point. and then you have to wonder how much she really understood yjh when he was still with her, and how much uriel understood him if she refuses his current self. it makes me so sad.

it just makes me sad. dammit dude. they dedicated their lives to finding someone only to realize the person he's become isn't who they want. they do get over it a little bit by giving up their positions as calamities but still it just. grhrhg. awooga.