#orv peace land

[orv-random-quotes]

day 12

"Hero who saved Peace Land.

His name

It isn't Dokuja

Dokja

Ohh it is Dokja."

[orphiclovers]

Hold up. For what reason did the webtoon change Asuka's hair design from silver curls to a straight red bob?? This is anti white haired anime girl propoganda and I will NOT stand for it

[insomaniacat]

this hurts

[featherxs]

been thinking about asuka ren a normal healthy amount ever since she debuted in webtoon and now i realize tumblr is better for compiling all my thoughts on her. so here… are some thoughts, for sure!

first of all… we know so little about her :( the main things are basically: japanese mangaka, creator of peace land, and was present in the group regression in epilogue. mostly she serves as hsy’s foil throughout the peace land arc, and she briefly shows up during the enemy of the story scenario to support kimcom.

but there are a lot of small details that add up to her character, in my opinion… for example, her constellation sponsor is “master of the niten ichi-ryu,” who cannot be anyone but miyamoto musashi himself. this is kind of funny considering how she is unfortunately a wet sock for most of peace land arc except for that scene (…where she doesn’t even use a sword!). what’s even funnier, though, is that miyamoto apparently did ink paintings as well. sometimes i think singshong just gave asuka some random big-name japanese sponsor to cement her status as a leader among them, and sometimes i think about this coincidence. because… is it?! (incidentally, she is mentioned to have/use a katana, but it isn’t specified if she has two. tsk… what’s your dual blades stigma for if you’re not gonna use it, girl?) in addition, her physique and strength were both level 55 during peace land arc, which were pretty high when you compare it to michio’s mid-20 stats. a twitter user got the idea of her being from a family that runs a kendo or judo gym and was going to inherit the dojo someday before she declared she’d become a mangaka, and i haven’t stopped thinking about it ever since.

as for her personality… well, we’re told she’s a leader among the japanese incarnations, but… honestly, does she act like a leader to you…? from what we see of her in peace land, she can be cowardly, easily shaken or attacked, and she put the small people’s lives over her companions’… in short, she’s a little bit pathetic (fond). but then again, that was in peace land, so i guess you can’t blame a girl for being a little shaken up after being confronted with choosing between killing her friends or killing her creations. but we also see her argue with hsy a little over clichés and tropes, and we also see how she spoke out against yamamoto when he declared he’d kill the small people, so that adds up to her being decisive and true to her morals. (also, tangentially related, she calls michio by his first name without honorifics, which is as intimate as you can get. this is cute, personally, because in the ebook he mentions he was a college student before the scenarios, so he could be anywhere from 18-22+ years old, while asuka… is 31. that’s, like, her little brother.)

definitely the most interesting part about her is peace land and her relationship with it, though. because, of course, a creator must have a relationship with their creations! she must have resented her work at some point because of all the critique it got and how it ended up getting canceled so early in its serialization… i wonder how long ago was that before the events of orv, if peace land was her debut manga or her most recent work. if it was somewhere in the middle, then i want to know if she went back to making mainstream content after peace land’s failure just to earn money and if she resented that, too, or if she was prideful enough to try and make more unorthodox manga like it but kept getting shot down anyway. did she lose confidence in her craft… could she no longer find the same joy in creating no matter what she made…

then when tls123 apparently contacted her about it — how cruel must it have been to unknowingly have let someone borrow your setting, thinking your words may have finally reached someone, only to later find out the characters and setting you had put your heart into were turned into cannon fodder for your colleagues. to destroy your own work in order to move forward… what if she considered it for just a moment… after all, if anyone had the right to decide what happened to these people’s lives, it should be her, the one who made them in the first place. but after seeing them with her own eyes, in that panel where the small people are looking up at her, it must have really cemented her decision then. to them, she’s just another disaster here to kill them, but they don’t know she’s technically their god… (maybe that’s also partly why she seemed so agitated when questioning how hsy won over the people’s loyalty so quickly, because who is she to them?)… they don’t know she must have really loved them as she wrote their story. and even if they knew, maybe they would only resent her for bringing this torture upon them anyway… the guilt and resentment and frustration of a failed work but still, still that creator’s love and pride throughout it all. because after all, a writer truly can’t help but love what she has created…

i never really thought about asuka beyond a really stupid fic idea i had for her and hsy, but seeing her in webtoon following the ebook’s revisions really made me appreciate her character more. her feelings towards her work are so complex, even if we don’t see a lot of it, and even worse is that she forgets all about making peace land in the end. she doesn’t just become a character in a bigger story: her narrative has also completely escaped her hands now. but in a way, maybe she’d be happy to know they’re separate from her as she is separate from them, because that means they’re moving forward in their own world line… and not bound by such mortal restraints as the manga serialization being canceled.

man this got long, and this doesn’t even include all the delusions i have for asuka/michio and asuka/izumi. well then, my final message:

[metanarrates]

I only know the rudimentary basics of japanese imperialism in south korea but i am finding the way the novel handles it interesting 👍 orv clearly is a novel very interested in and concerned with the history of its country, and I like how frequently korean historical figures and conflicts show up in the text, since it does push me to learn a lot more about a culture and history I've never known much about. I'm curious how this stuff ends up reading to korean readers - is it a normal and even inspiring level of national pride, or does it end up reading as a little nationalistic? given sk's history of facing horrifically violent imperialism, I really would understand a novel writer's urge to invoke a sense of pride and importance in their country's historical figures, but idk enough to say much one way or the other

[clownsnake]

THIS PLACE IS CALLED *PEACE LAND?????????????* ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

[leafyloveslaughing]

webtoon explain yourselves

[fallloverfic]

There are two versions of ORV: the original serialized version and the revised version, and the revision is what the manhwa is based on (it's the same for singNsong's other completed novel, The World After The Fall, which was revised after publication, and it's the revision that's being used for the manhwa adaptation of TWATF). One of the ORV arcs that was most heavily edited for the revision was the Peace Land arc. But the manhwa also adds/removes things as it goes because that's kind of the nature of adaptation.

The popular English fan translation of the novel is the unrevised version. As far as I'm aware, no one has fully translated the revised version into English. It's one thing people are wondering about with Yen Press' upcoming English translation: are they translating the revision or the unrevised version? It would make more sense that they'll do the revision because that's what singNsong have apparently said is their ideal version of ORV, and it's what's used for the ebook version of ORV.

Hi! I hope it's okay to ask, but I really want to read ORV and I'm.. a bit confused about something? How or where exactly do I read it, and which version of ORV is the one people usually recommend? Is there even a difference? I'd appreciate any and all help!

no worries! redirecting you here

as far as i know there are two versions? one is translated (the one i am directing you to) and the other is an edited version which may not be translated? and may or may not be the base for the webtoon? with some scenes added and removed? take whatever i say with a grain of salt though, i got handed the file in a dark alley by an ill meaning friend. she was out for my blood apparently.

[lunaxstrange]

Can we talk about love in orv?

[SPOILERS]

Okay so, I am aware that Kdj loves the "story" but I really wanna point some things out individually because it's 2am and ORV is on my mind.

Kdj had the easiest way out of the 1863rd turn. The most perfect turn (at the time) but he really went I'd let the world burn for Yjh? Yeah, everything is "part of his plan" but let's talk about the 73rd Demon King arc. My man would do anything to make sure Yjh finishes his story. Apart from this, it's the fact that while everyone else dislike any other version of Yjh (even he hates himself lol), Kdj loves every. single. one. I mean 3rd turn (1864th) Yjh? Yes. Hsy's 1863rd turn? Yes. Frickin' Secretive Plotter? Got off to a rough start but yes. You simply cannot make Kdj hate his beloved protagonist. I mean, this man risked his whole existence to make sure the 0th turn is actually the most perfect one. He didn't want Yjh to regress but became his sponsor anyway because it's what Yjh wanted. He would do anything to see Yjh happy. This type of love isn't romantic or platonic or anything else, it's the most inexplicable form of love. Love in its purest form. I'd like to take the time to compare it to Achilles and Patroclus because while we can fight over whether these two were gay or not, we cannot deny the sheer love they had for each other. No strings attached. Kdj is in awe of Yjh.

Yjh. The regressor. The protagonist. The person Kdj loves the most. Yjh had everything (0th turn) but he really gave it all up just to meet Kdj. Suffered the "Hell of eternity" just to see him. Bro didn't even love Lsw the way he loves Kdj. Tbf, 0th turn Yjh didn't know what the real struggle of passing the scenarios without help was but I'm sure he got the gist. Okay, sure, you can call it "curiosity" that led to Yjh keeping Kdj alive during the 3rd (1864th) turn. But my guy didn't choose Kdj to go to Peace Land because he had "someone he loved" like bro, YJH!? THE COLD REGRESSOR??? HE DID THAT FOR KIM DOKJA! Not to mention the fact that Yjh didn't even care that his whole life was a mere novel. He just despised the fact that Kdj chose the 1863rd turn over him. I'm gonna cry. Bro wanted Kdj so bad that he kept fighting the Secretive Plotter. Not only this, he gave up the 3rd (1864th) turn for Kdj too. Went from Supreme King to terrorist just to save Kdj. When everyone else - even Hsy - gave up. After all, what is a protagonist without a reader? The whole astronaut ordeal might've been to "find his purpose" but we can't ignore their connection. He gave up everything he could ever ask for twice (0th and 3rd/1864th turn) for Kdj. The attachment these two have with each other is insane.

I could go on about them for eternity but we have another person to talk about - Hsy. This woman spent 10 years exhausted, stuck in a world-line and body not her own for one person. Even if it's only Hsy with half her memories, she gave up her perfect world-line because she missed Kdj. Just like Kdj loves Yjh, Hsy also loves every version of Kdj. She wanted to meet him, no matter what the world-line. My girl had only a few hours where she was in control and decided to use off all those hours to write TWSA - a story she herself disliked. Hsy wants to see Kdj happy, every part of Hsy loves Kdj. There is nothing a writer could love more than an avid reader who loves their story. And let's talk about the fact that Yjh and Hsy absolutely hate each other. He is literally her creation (more or less) but their relationship is questionable. Why? Because a protagonist has no value without a reader. Kinda like Asuka Ren and Kyrgios Rodgraim. They have no special relationship despite being creator and creation. Since there is no reader, Asuka and Kyrgios are as distant as two people can be. Alternatively, what brings Hsy and Yjh together is Kdj.

I just can't get enough of the way ORV relationships are written. If I had to describe love as a writer, I'd cite ORV as an example.

[writeronartblock]

A play-by-play of my reaction to reading ORV ep/chp 220 (it's 2 AM, I wrote this at fucking 2 AM)

THE FACT THAT THE OPENING SCENES OF THIS CHAPTER HAS ZERO DIALOGUE AND HAS FIVE OF THE GROUP MEMBERS CRYING BEFORE DOKJA AND JOONGHYUK START TRADING BLOWS

JOONGHYUK'S FACE, ANGUISHED AND MAD AND SAD IN AN EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED WAY

HIS GONNA GET KILLED BY THE SWORD THAT THEY BOTH HAVE! THE SWORD THAT THEY MADE WITH EACH OTHER

"I hopes that the moment when I have to use this would never come."

"Likewise. Though, not anymore."

DON'T AGREE WITH HIM, PLEASE?!

[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' is Despairing]

ME TOO URIEL, ME FUCKING TOO

[The Constellation 'Prisoner of the Golden Headband' is Sighing Deeply]

ME TOO WUKONG, ME FUCKING TOO

THE SWORD NULLIFIES THE EIGHT LIVES ATTRIBUTE SO HE WON'T GET REVIVED AGAIN

PERSEPHONE IS WATCHING

THE CONSTELLATION WHO HAS NOT BEEN NAMED GIVES HIS FIRST STIGMA TO HIS INCARNATION AND IT'S CALLED "SACRIFICIAL WILL"??????

OH YOOSUNG BABY, OH NO

AND HE'S THANKING THEM

[The Incarnation Kim Dokja will be killed by the one he loves most.]

AND THEN IT SHOWS HIM READING TWSA ON THE TRAIN FROM WORK, LIKE THE START OF IT ALL

SECRETIVE PLOTTER IS WATCHING

WHEN THE PROPHECY SAID HE'D BE KILLED BY THE ONE HE LOVES MOST IT DIDN'T REFER TO ANY ONE PERSON. IT REFERED TO THIS STORY, TWSA

URIEL IS WATCHING

SUN WUKONG IS WATCHING

ABYSSAL BLACK FLAME DRAGON IS WATCHING

GENERAL YI SUN-SIN IS WATCHING

THE SEQUENCE OF THE CHARACTERS????

WHEN DOKJA FIRST MET THEM AND THEIR BIGGEST DEFINING MOMENT????

HELLO????

TWSA BECAME HIS STORY! HIS!

TWSA FELT LIKE A STORY SPECIFICALLY MADE FOR HIM, IT'S SINGULAR READER WHO READ IT TILL THE END

AND NOW IT'S A STORY THAT HE CLAIMED FOR HIMSELF BECAUSE IT'S FILLED WITH STORIES THAT HE HELPED CREATE AND HIS PRECIOUS COMPANIONS UEUEUEUEUEUE

WHEN EVERYONE STOOD BY HIS SIDE AND HE LOOKS TO FIND JOONGHYUK IN FRONT OF HIM?? AND THEY ALL JOIN HIM??? SANGAH AND SOOYOUNG ALSO LOOKED AHEAD!!!!

THE SMALL CONSTELLATION FROM PEACE LAND IS WATCHING

ALL THE CONSTELLATIONS OF THE KOREAN PENINSULA ARE WATCHING

JOONGHYUK HOLDING HIM UP BY HIS SHOULDER

YES, IT'S BEEN A WONDERFUL STORY! BUT PLEASE!!!

THE WAY ALL HIS STARTING CONSTELLATION SPONSORS DIDN'T WISH FOR HIS DEATH

THE WAY URIEL BEGGED HIM TO NOT DIE

JOONGHYUK GRIPPING HIS SHIRT ONLY FOR IT DISINTEGRATE, REACHING FOR HIM AND SCREAMING HIS NAME

YOOSUNG RUNNING AFTER HIS DISINTEGRATING FORM WHILE CRYING, THAT'S YOUR INCARNATION!!!

THE WAY EVERYONE OUTSIDE THE CASTLE REJOICED AT BEING LIBERATED FROM THE SCENARIOS

THE WAY HIS MOM AND THE GRANNY JUST STANDS LOOKS AT THE NOTIF SCREEN

LITERALLY EVERYONE IS CRYING

BIHYUNG!!!!! ALL THE DOKKAEBIS LOOKING IN SHOCK

[Your Modifier is 'Demon King of Salvation']

SHUT UP! FUCK OFF! DON'T COME ANYWHERE NEAR ME!

[orv-random-quotes]

day 15

[The new story 'Kim Dojega's Legend' has been created on Peace Land.]

...I hoped they would at least get my name right.

[orphiclovers]

LINES THAT HIT HARDER ON A REREAD HELLO??? 'Never ending' novel huh.....yes!! that's han sooyoung's thing, but she isn't even major character at this point!

"People who can't be summed up in a few pages!!" We knowwww. Ugh the recontextulization on a reread is crazy

[pttucker]

Okay, so, I've been thinking about some of my more recent posts and have started to combine them with some of my older posts and think I've come up with another theory that I want to throw out into the wild while we've still got like 40% of the novel left to go.

Well, actually it's not really a new theory for me per se, but I think I've finally cemented it whereas in the past I've had vague suspicions. Which has resulted in another giant post.

tl;dr: there are three stories in the novel, with the novel itself being Dokja's story and I think by the end Dokja will realize that he's inside ORV itself in a sort of Neverending Story kind of way, the Fourth Wall is between him and our world (and maybe also him and TWSA), and that the true Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint belongs to us.

So, anyway, I recently made a post about Han Sooyoung being the author of TWSA and overall I think this current arc we're going through right now is another major allegory / foreshadow for how the characters relate to TWSA, just like the Peace Land arc. But thinking on it some more, I think this arc (and possibly also Peace Land) is also showing how they relate to ORV itself.

Like, I actually even specifically said that certain passages relate to the overall plot of ORV such as this one—

Regrettably, there was no guarantee of the work ending up as a success even if the author did an excellent job. – Time to start our attack, Yoo Joonghyuk. Because the ones to complete the story were the 'Characters', not the author, that's why.

—and I think by taking that just a tiny step further, in combination with other clues, ORV itself will end up being almost a Neverending Story type of deal. Not necessarily with Dokja trying to talk to us like Sebastian and the Childlike Empress, but literally just realizing that he's a character in a novel.

Which is something Dokja has technically already realized, and maybe even unconsciously accepted, not only because of the above passage where he lowkey calls himself a character but also because he's seen that he's listed as a character when he messed around with the Fourth Wall (more on that later) and we have no idea if he recently became one or if he's always been a character and didn't realize it.

Unrestrained questions flooded my head. Why did I get this story here? What was the relationship between that story and being called a character? Was I now a character or was I still a reader? I… Was I still able to change the future?

However, I think the big reveal for Dokja is going to be not that he's a character but that the novel is not TWSA but instead ORV.

In fact, I know I've been using "TWSA" as kind of a shorthand for the world that Dokja is now in, with the scenarios and Joonghyuk and such, as compared to the "real world" he was in before as a company worker, but technically speaking TWSA is not Dokja's story. He is not inside TWSA. TWSA still exists as a completely separate text that he has access to and every time he looks at the revisions of TWSA they are still Joonghyuk's story. They go all the way up to the 1863rd round, and while Dokja is in the TWSA revisions, that's because Dokja is a part of Joonghyuk's story in the third round.

And speaking of the revisions, I kind of breezed past this in the tags of another post but Dokja got the Final Revision immediately after thinking to himself that he wants "an author" to tell him that he did good, that it's all going to work out in the end, that he's made the right choices. At the time I thought that perhaps Sooyoung could be the author of the revisions but now I don't think so anymore.

Going back through the text, the First Revision appeared when Dokja was dying in the Industrial Complex and he wanted to read TWSA to try to figure out if there was any sort of hope to fix things without having to ruin his story by killing innocent people. (And honestly he wasn't in any shape to kill people even if he wanted to at that point.) The Second Revision came after he abandoned Breaking the Sky Sword Saint to fight the outer god alone and felt like crap because of it (to be fair she shoved him through the portal while he was still trying to convince her to come) and he and Joonghyuk had a mini-conversation about what to do after and all Dokja could think of is to just keep struggling as best they can.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that all of the revisions have come when Dokja is at an extremely low point, floundering, trying to have someone tell him what to do, tell him that he's made the right choices, etc. Except not once has he actually said anything to anyone in the story around him. He didn't actually end up asking Sooyoung if he did the right thing; he wanted her to tell him it's going to be okay but he only thought it. Just like every other time the revisions have appeared. Almost like they came from someone else who can see what he's going through right then and knows he needs a little help...

Also, back when Sooyoung's version of the story first appeared, I was a little confused by the (First) after it, thinking that maybe Joonghyuk only had the first part of the story, but then later we see that Joonghyuk has 『Han Sooyoung – Records of the 1863rd turn (Last)』.

So now I don't think Sooyoung is writing the TWSA revisions, even if I do think she wrote the original TWSA, and I think that her story is also getting revised as she changes it because she is also a character in which "the ones to complete the story were the 'Characters', not the author" applies.

And speaking of the stories, I kind of went off on a sort of three, three, three tangent in the Sooyoung post, but I realize now that that can be taken even further. There's three unknown beings still left in ORV (Secretive Plotter, Oldest Dream, TWSA's Author), there's three protagonists in both TWSA and ORV, there's three people involved in a novel (Reader, Writer, Character), and there's three ways to the survive the apocalypse. Which, TWSA lists those ways as Regressor, Returnee, and Reincarnator.

But, technically, aren't we also seeing three ways to survive the apocalypse right now? Joonghyuk's way in TWSA, Han Sooyoung's way in her diary, and Dokja's way in ORV itself. Not to mention, now that I think about it, we have Regressor Joonghyuk, Returnee Dokja, and now Reincarnator Sooyoung...

Three separate stories, all sort of TWSA but not technically, more like they're all different versions of the same story. And the dokkaebi's have recently started talking about "which story will you choose" (talking to Bihyung btw, who's been helping Dokja all this time...) and everyone else in ORV keeps going on about a Single Story and how they're all vying for their true story and ending. And how maybe the true story/ending has finally come. Because this particular timeline is going through Dokja's story...which is ORV.

And too when I had the post about the "failed stories" I wondered if maybe it was foreshadowing for ORV ending in tragedy (and maybe that's still true) but also now that I think about the "failed stories" and how both Sooyoung's story and Joonghyuk's story could be considered the "failed stories" in a loose way. Granted, we don't currently know how those stories actually ended since ORV started off with Dokja waiting for the epilogue and the 1863rd ending was disrupted by Dokja, though Dokja has been pretty heavily implying that at least TWSA ended in tragedy up to the epilogue. And with the Single Story it's possible that all three of them will end up combined in the end of ORV itself.

Especially since we don't know what happened to 1864th Joonghyuk. It's possible we may see him again at the end of ORV. Also, I just realized that Joonghyuk stopped being a character when he moved past what was written in his personal story but, atm at least, he's also past ORV's story since we haven't seen him since and Dokja has no way of knowing what's going on with him.

On the topic of endings and epilogues, Dokja has been less and less willing to read TWSA as he starts living his own story and has finally outright said that he doesn't think his epilogue will be in the file. And, yeah, if Dokja's story is ORV then his epilogue would be ORV's epilogue. And ORV does have one. Even though I don't read the chapter titles ahead of time due to spoilers, I did notice when I looked to see how many total chapters ORV has that the last one had the word "epilogue" in the title.

And that's not even getting into Dokja casually stating that the novel is a lie. Which is very interesting.

And of course, there's the infamous moment where (while Dokja is sleeping I might add) the Fourth Wall starts telling the 1863rd Joonghyuk Dokya's story and it literally starts reciting the opening passages of ORV itself. And I'm pretty sure that when Sangah shoved him into it, he once again saw Dokja's story (ORV) just due to the fact that he zeroed in on not just Secretive Plotter, who doesn't appear in TWSA, but specifically all the things Secretive Plotter did in regards to and with Dokja.

In fact, as Dokja messes around with his Fourth Wall more and more, it becomes more and more sentient and present in Dokja's story (ORV) and he starts seeing things that perhaps he, as a character of ORV, was never meant to see, such as the fact that he's a character or that the Fourth Wall goes from simply blocking mental attacks to narrating Dokja's actions, reflecting his thoughts, etc. Just like ORV does for us readers.

I've actually briefly contemplated in the past that perhaps the Fourth Wall isn't necessarily protecting Dokja from the elements of TWSA, but in fact protecting him from the outside world (relevant part quoted below)—

Oh man, what if that's what it means by Fourth Wall? Instead of Dokja being a real person and the Fourth Wall existing because he knows he's not part of the novel, what if he's a character and the Fourth Wall is actually the barrier between him and the real world where the author lives? In which case, the being behind the Fourth Wall could be the author (or the reader!) of Dokja's story.

—and I then later began to wonder if it might be our world and not just some random third world inside the story of ORV, and I really do think that's the case now. Or it could be both! If I'm reading a comic about Batman who's reading a comic about Spider-Man, both I and Batman have a Fourth Wall between us and the fictional world we're reading about, ergo Batman has a Fourth Wall working both ways. (Ignore past Marvel/DC Comics team ups, pretty sure those aren't considered canon lol.)

And this is not only because of the fact that the Fourth Wall is acting more and more like a narrator (or like the third-person text of ORV) but that Dokja reacts so poorly to it going down. Sure, the first time the Fourth Wall went down a million constellations tried to attack him so that caused him issues, but later when he took down a little bit of it for the giants he was in a place with only his most trusted constellations who didn't seem to make any attempt to attack him and he only opened it up a teeny tiny amount and yet he still was physically wrecked. I don't think that he would be that affected by now by the elements of TWSA, especially since he literally learned he was a character and was freaked out for a moment but didn't have this big world-ending crisis...like he might if he attempted to connect to our world. Also, Dokja still hasn't gone back to the idea of using ORV on himself...

And on that topic, I know that I've kind of joked before that Dokja is the most oblivious person ever for someone who also happens to be able to read various characters' minds and see their actions, but honestly speaking there are tons of parts of ORV that are from other POVs that Dokja has never and likely will never see. I actually started tracking them about a hundred chapters back and we get a different POV, even if it's just a few paragraphs, almost every third or fourth chapter. And they're all from the third-person POV, just like how the Fourth Wall speaks.

Meaning that the true omniscient reader's viewpoint is ours.

PS: a very weak "clue" that I'm not really "officially" including is also the fact that The World After The Fall is mentioned as a book that Dokja has read and that's a real webnovel written by the same authors as ORV. I'm not really counting that since I do understand the concept of a cheeky little cameo but it could still be fun to at least acknowledge the possibility that it's something that secretly indicates that Dokja is maybe a little more connected with our world than any of the others.

PPS: I think if I find time this weekend I'm gonna go back through at tag everything or make a list of all my posts or something. Trying to find links for this majorly sucked and I just kind of gave up at points lmfao.

[web-novel-recs]

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint Thoughts, Chapters 101-150

Likes

“–She isn’t the person I remember. I knew it. Still, I wanted to believe for a moment that the woman in my memories was still alive. I wanted to be with her again.”  - Yoo Joonghyuk about Lee Seolhwa, Chapter 82

(1)

The establishment of Yoo Joonghyuk’s belief in his companions (41st regression Shin Yoosung) and difficulty ignoring the past rounds. Yoo Joonghyuk feels tired as a character, and I think questioning whether he will actually improve if he regresses enough connects with going through the motions and giving up too soon. 

It’s also shown how quickly he trusts those he shouldn’t - Lee Seolhwa and Disaster Shin Yoosung - due to his past regressions. He isn’t seeing things as they are now, which almost killed him, and regression isn’t always useful. 

(2)

The way ORV has set up the invasion of privacy - selling one’s story like how Lee Sookyung sold her/Kim Dokja’s story - as almost an act of violence or a betrayal. I think it was a brilliant decision to reveal this part right before the Peace Land arc, especially how we see the desperation of the constellation from a small planet as not only desperation but being rebuked by Kim Dokja for the monetization of people’s lives, if only for 10 coins. It also ties in to how Asuka Ren’s story was used as an act of violence itself, going directly against her own ideas of Peace Land. 

(3)

Speaking of…The Peace Land arc!!! Kyrgios Rodgaim is a fascinating character that I want to study under a microscope, but ORV managed to really show how ordinary people & victims become the victimizers. A lot of drama revolving around “having to make a hard decision” usually involves someone important to the person making the decision, but the people of Peace Land are complete strangers! They’re literally small and insignificant, and it would be pitifully easy to defeat them. The constellation from a small planet themself can only donate a measly 10 coins compared to the 200,000 coin compensation for [Main Scenario #6 - Abandoned World]. They have no emotional connection to the main characters. There isn’t a character or plotline highlighted to show their humanity: it’s just immediately assumed. 

It would be so easy for a lesser story to show the main character’s brutality or self-righteousness when they first appear, but Kim Dokja’s narration focuses on the people of Peace Land themselves. Chapter 121 focuses on the lives of the people of Peace Land and the brutality of the Japanese incarnations almost equally, and we see how a small person managing to inflict the smallest wound on one of the Japanese incarnations brings hope, only to be crushed by the dokkaebi Ganul almost immediately. And it’s not just Ganul being a villain - the constellations themselves are enjoying and encouraging the bloodshed. Ganul is simply giving them a story they want, similarly to how Paul forcibly turned the 41st regression Shin Yoosung “evil” to continue the scenario.

(4)

I do appreciate the instant willingness to kill a colonizer, btw. Zero justification needed; it very much felt like a “while we’re on the way to kill the snake” type thing, and I think we need more of that. I don’t even agree with punitive justice, but some stories are way to comfortable focusing on oppressors over the oppressed, and I respect ORV for not fucking with that

(5)

Han Sooyoung practically getting stereotypically isekaied to Peace Land via getting hit by a bus & Gong Pildu falling into a river. Convenient? Yes, probably. Funny? Most definitely.

(6)

Kim Dokja genuinely apologizing to Gong Pildu. It’s a small thing, but I’m personally just not a fan of stories that almost seem to justify treating certain people like shit just because they’re ALSO terrible people (which. I mean. ORV isn’t free of this sin so far, but it isn’t as bad as other similar action/genre stories I’ve read 💀 & I think it actually feeds into Kim Dokja’s characterization) 

(7)

The way the Salvation Church preached itself as “freedom from the scenarios” via the same ideas of power & “salvation” as the scenarios/constellations (stories & living in the “now”). 

(8)

Aughhh…. The way Kim Dokja being the strongest incarnation isn’t even a consideration for the rest of the cast despite being the truth… him going to Han Sooyoung of all people to kill him…

Neutral

Nirvana in general was a pretty interesting character that I want to know more about, especially with the way they were compared with Kim Dokja. I think so far the swallowing of Nirvana, albeit abrupt, makes sense narratively with Kim Dokja’s own suicidal self-loathing regarding himself, but I do want to see more of Nirvana as a symbol of Kim  Dokja’s own desire to live within his desire to die. Getting real sick of Kim Dokja killing off people who remind him of himself- I’m trying to learn about you, boy /joking

Dislikes

Rebirthing the 41st regression Shin Yoosung as a dokkaebi. 

I know others have brought it up, but I hated the way Jung Heewon being forced to relive her trauma was framed almost solely as a method of “awakening” Lee Hyunsung. Lee Hyunsung’s awakening itself was very interesting and compelling by itself - the line about reaching another heart originally being difficult (Chapter 139) & Kim Dokja offering to carry part of LHS’s burden - but it was undercut by the complete lack of agency or emotional connection with Jung Heewon. He didn’t reach her “heart” as much as just give her a hug under extremely non-optimal conditions 

The weird Iris (from Russia) hate with no explanation… I don’t think it’s necessarily out-of-character, but why… let her be a brat… what does KDJ have against mean children…

[metanarrates]

its insane how much more mentally sharp i am when I have caffeine <- guy who should probably be on prescription stimulants

[nothing-wrong-with-me]

Okay so I'm reading the translated novel of orv and wow the peace land arc is so different from the comic