#yes this is about orv

[zxrysky]

something to be said about engaging in media that falls just shy of Good so it becomes a sandbox for you to play in. because if a media is so good it wraps up by itself i feel like there’s no space / latitude for me to mess around with the creatures. it’s just there like a perfectly wrapped present with a bow and everything and i can’t ruin that. now a sloppily wrapped present. with the ribbon tangled and tape all over the floor. box half-opened. now that i can work with.

[mx-yip-yip-hooary]

i am trapped in a eternal dilemma (i want to write a fic but also don't want to mess up the incredibly complex characterizations of the characters)

[murderbot]

tbh i am constantly confused by people who take characters with the most unique and distinct dynamics and put them in AUs that completely destroy that. like what is left of the characters if you make them into a generic coffee shop au. what is there if they're not, let's say, a reader and the fictional character that literally saved their life by having their story there to read and then the book came to life.

i'm just saying. if there's no fourth wall dynamic and that complicated relationship in part of that, and they're just two normal human people then like. what is the point. especially when the reader is a socially awkward freak who can't talk to anyone and only reads a webnovel everyone hates. why would it happen. why is he somehow suave. why is the main character but here always a human paying attention to him. why is the reader paying attention to the main character for that matter. it's nothing. you've made this so fucking generic that they're not even the same characters anymore

[composeregg]

edit (10/23/2024) now that the poll is over: Original version, with 10 questions, from April 2023 here

And, given that the original is from April 2023, that means I can very easily say:

No, this was not an ISAT reference!

Just because I use parentheses and 2nd person pov and love the same concepts of what a time loop can do to a person doesn't mean it's ISAT

(Yes, I like ISAT, the original poll is why I was recommended the game! But if you look at the original, you can see all the origins of the options to choose from, including what spurred me on with the moss option from the replies)

If I were going to make something for ISAT, I would never be so vague, you can simply look at my ao3 for proof of that

[metanarrates]

thinking once again about how kim namwoon is happy in the underworld and thanks kim dokja for sending him there because it's better than his previous life. like genuinely, actually thanks him, in the sincere and oblivious way only a kid could. thanks him for sending him to this place where he's fed regularly and there's no school and the work isn't too hard and he gets to build a cool robot. what if you just thought hell was a pretty cool place because you weren't used to anything that was genuinely pleasant and you just don't notice the absence of anybody caring about you because you've never had that to begin with. what if, in a world of killers, the actual crime you've been found guilty of is not attempted murder, but the crime of being too unsightly for god to care for you.

[orphiclovers]

Rereading early ORV and I have some THOUGHTS on Kim Dokja. In typical me fashion, they are unpopular. So if he's your absolute favourite character and seeing him be criticized will ruin your day, maybe skip this post, ok? Peace.

-

What is so novel and interesting about Kim Dokja is that he GENUINELY doesn't really have a knee jerk emotional reaction of outrage and empathy when seeing injustice happen. He sees something immoral and bad, but doesn't FEEL horrified and disgusted. Emotions don't drive him to attempt to fix the situation or save anyone.

Instead his moral compass is based on the simple logic that 'bad things happening should be prevented if there is an opportunity to prevent them.'

This philosophy is the most apparent in his actions in Chungmuro on the WHOLE, with the food and marginalized group and etc. But I will point out this moment in particular as an example of what I mean.

They see women be driven to prostitution to survive. Jung Heewon has an instinctive, human reaction of outrage and disgust, wants to rush in and save them and damn the consequences, while Kim Dokja is calm and rational, holding her back and saying those woman will starve if they try to help right now.

This lack of empathy (feeling strong emotions) is definitely due to childhood trauma stunting his emotional development but... that doesn't change the fact this is a legitimate part of his personality now.

Usually, when a character is 'cold and ruthless', it's because they are repressing their true feelings and forcing themselves to be unfeeling for some goal. Like Yoo Joonghyuk, for example.

But we are IN Kim Dokja's head and get to see the way he thinks, and being 'unfeelingly rational' IS what comes naturally to him.

Before you say anything, I know the Fourth Wall represses some of his emotions in certain situations and certainly helps him deal with pain and horror. But we are ALWAYS TOLD when it's active, and it isn't in these moments.

Blaming all of Kim Dokja's less than moral thoughts and behavior on the 4th wall even when there's no indication that it's influencing him at that particular moment, is not something I want to do as it feels like an attempt to scrub away his moral greyness. I choose to believe that his narration, in moments when he's not wrong or biased or 4th wall-ed, is a basically accurate representation of his character. I think the authors didn't make his narration totally 100% unreliable all the time, with no possible indication of where he's wrong or right. Because that would mean there is nothing a reader can latch onto and draw conclusions about KDJ from.

If they wanted to write about a faceless self insert with no concrete personality traits and flaws, a person you can headcanon to be anything, they wouldn't have written ORV.

I think it's okay to acknowledge Kim Dokja's first reaction to seeing a woman about to be raped is not 'oh my god...those bastards...! I have to stop this...!' but '...she might be dangerous or a hinderence in a future...'

We don't need to make excuses here and try to justify this. A moment later he catches himself thinking like this and 'shudders with disgust at himself.'

His first, instinctive thoughts that he can't control don't necessarily make him a bad person. What matters is his second thoughts and what he actually chooses to do, which he CAN control. I ALSO don't think he's wrong to feel disgusted at himself for having low empathy. His guilt is justified.

I genuinely like him even more for always picking the 'moral option' in every scenario now, than if he did it immediately with no hesitation. Because it makes empathy and compassion a constant choice he's making, and putting in the effort reflects well on what his values are.

Kim Dokja legitimately can't help but weigh everyone he meets on a scale of how 'useful they potenially are' first and foremost. He does this with strangers and also with all of kimcom too.

"Who should I save because they would be useful in the future? I wasn't Yoo Joonghyuk to be thinking about these things." At this point, chap 74, he thinks Yoo Joonghyuk is wrong and doesn't want to be like him at all and mostly calls him a psychopath. He thinks 'acting like him' is wrong and undesirable.

He has a mini arc about Yoo Joonghyuk later, goes from 'he's a bad person, I know it because I know everything about him' in chap 81 to 'maybe I don't know him at all' in chap 82 but this is before that.

Seeing people as tools and deciding who to save based on future knowledge is a thing BOTH of them do. Yet Kim Dokja critisizes Yoo Joonghyuk for it, it's his least favourite character trait that YJH of TWSA has.

And in typical Kim Dokja fashion, this similarity between them is exactly what he despises in Yoo Joonghyuk - but now we find out it's not because he finds it amoral ("I'm not a humanist" - he doesn't care about that part) but because he sees it as a mirror reflection of himself. He's projecting, as always!

In early ORV, he hates the part of Yoo Joonghyuk that is the most similar to himself. (even tho they're sort of the polar opposites too. Yoo Joonghyuk is a deeply emotionally driven person, he feels empathy and the desire to save everyone but chooses to repress and ignore this and act like a ruthless 'psychopath'. KDJ disagrees with this choice, as Kim Dokja IS an unfeeling psychopath (low empathy) but does his best to act like a decent person and not an edgelord.)

[lifeof-pink]

i think the way the book became 3rd person pov when kim dokja got off the train is one of the most fucking genius literary moves ive seen in years

[auuwmk]

do you know how insane it is that you and your other self in an alternate dimension with different personalities and circumstances fell in love with the same exact guy

[nutcasewithaknife]

Shoutout to the blorbos who are absolutely infuriating. The ones who keep making you want to shake them by their shoulders. The ones who repress and self-sabotage so hard they doom themselves. The ones who think they're saving everyone but doom them in a whole other way instead.

[bidokja]

do you ever think about how we absorb little bits and pieces of everyone we have ever been close to? how it echoes. how heavy and wonderful that is? how we still remember inside jokes with people we no longer talk to, and the favorite wild tale of an ex-lover, and how we say that word a specific way because a friend did that and...and, anyways, totally irrelevant, but ever think about how kim dokja just happened to take in the story fragments of a swordmaster and a dragon.

[sleepyminty]

A character you hate not because they are a piece of shit. A character you hate because you love them so much it hurts when they didnt see themselves that way, you hate that character because they dont know know how much you love them, you know how many sacrifices and sins they made but they always undermine what they do, you know they did it for love but the love is hurt so much it like a stab in your heart, a character who didnt see themselves as how we see them, we cry, beg, crawl out of blood for them to stop doing this to themselves but they pursue into the flames. You know how much suffering, how damaged and broken they are, you just wanted to help them but oh how ironic it is that they forfeit themselves such luxury. You hate the smile that they made eventhough they felt like dying. You hate that character because it’s hurt to love them. You hate that character because it was them who orchestrate this damn ending that they didnt deserve and it shouldnt have ended that way, but who else make such an unfair, cruel choice for such a beloved character other than themselves? You, who paint yourself as a devil in the name of all ,the salvation was there, why cant you accept it?

[astranauticus]

inspired by this post by tumblr user @orphiclovers. the lines are direct quotes from the novel but the scene itself isnt a redraw of any specific novel scene, i just really wanted to draw black coat 1863 x white coat 1864 HSY lol

[aslyran]

Happy birthday Kim Dokja!

[tls123]

learned a few months ago that apparently the name position in ship names indicates who's top/bottom???? i thought, okay that's probably a new thing but now i'm wondering......

is this a new thing or have i actually missed a crucial naming convention for ships for more than a decade

[orviposition]

yoo joonghyuk so loyal one smile from kim dokja was all it took 😞😞

[metanarrates]

hey kim dokja why does the protagonist you identify heavily with and who is foundational to your identity have so much transfem coding. why did the character you invented to put into the story literally become a trans girl while you weren't looking at her. come back here I have more questions for you