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우리 다시 만나자...

🥳🎉 HAPPY KDJ DAY 2023 🎉🥳

posting this now instead of continuing to update my tumblr cause the last thing I posted on here was my Yjh bday drawing 🤭

Hope you like it! 💖

Major orv spoilers discussing the Oldest Dream that quickly veers off-course into an investigation on Kim Dokja's age

I was thinking about the confrontation with the Oldest Dream. Kim Dokja doesn't look anything like his mother, so does he look like his father? An image of his father appeared once in the text but I forgot if his details were described. An uncertain amount of time over 13 years ago, his father might have been in his late 20s or early 30s. Having both come at that young boy with a blade, the similarities are really painful to think about

Imagining a world where he is so much more (powerful, adored, charismatic, courageous) than he is, maybe he felt like that other version of him was better off living instead. But he still didn't believe any version of himself had the right to exist happy and whole. Even so, he wanted someone to stop him from destroying and cutting off parts of himself. His frail, shameful past did not wish to be shorn off so callously

As a side note, I think the song Lion's Teeth fits him

Side note 2: I like to think he was 10 or 11 when his mom went to jail, 15 when he discovered WOS (canon), and [EDIT SEVERAL HOURS INTO WRITING THIS: EVERYTHING PAST THIS POINT HAS BEEN DISPROVEN (???) IN A REREAD OF CERTAIN SCENES (details below)*] 17 or 18 when he was seen at the train station (to account for the breadth of his knowledge of WOS. Sure the fixation could have settled in immediately but we don't know how far those first few chapters covered so im giving him a few years. Also imagining the scene where the outer god kings are holding him up in a human chariot with a big red arrow pointing at him like "South Korean Citizen of legal voting age" is funny.)

Okay because I just went into a research rabbit hole I'm breaking up the paragraph:

1. 18 is the age to vote in Presidential and National Assembly elections. 19 is the age to vote in legal elections (link, paragraph 1).

2. As of June 2023, South Korea has written their Korean Age Based on the New Year out of law (link, paragraph 2) so it's possible that when KDJ said "I'm 28 years old" in 2018, he was using his Korean Age. His International Age (age calculation system used by the entire rest of the world) would have been one year younger (thankfully he was born near the beginning of the year or else the age difference would have been close to 2 years). More evidence supporting his use of Korean Age instead of International Age: he said he was 15 in 8th grade. 15 is the age in Korean Years that kids attend 8th grade while their International Ages are 13-14 (link, section: School Grades).

3. If 8 in Korean Years is the age that kids enter the 1st grade, and his Korean Age is about 13 months over his International Age (did I do my math right???), he would have been on the older end of his grade level, at 7 years old in International Years among 6-7-year-olds. None of this has much to do with my original post, but it is interesting to note when thinking of his relationship with his peers and how small he seemed.

One more thing: South Koreans also age out of foster care at 18 so he would have REALLY needed the 999gang at this point. BUT: 1. I don't think bouncing around relatives counts as being in the foster care system and 2. Didn't he move out on his own early? I think I read that somewhere. I remember thinking that was way too young.

AHA

Chapter 408:

"I recalled the day I left the relatives' place for lodging in a hostel. I was seventeen back then."

THAT IS WAY TOO YOUNG. HE WOULD'VE BEEN 16 IN INTERNATIONAL YEARS. HE WAS PRESSURED BY HIS RELATIVES TO LEAVE AND SINCE THIS ISN'T PART OF THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM HE DIDN'T EVEN GET ANY SEVERANCE PAY. ON TOP OF THEM HAVING STOLEN LEE SOOKYUNG'S MONEY I WISH THEY HAD SURVIVED THE APOCALYPSE JUST SO HAN SOOYOUNG COULD RIP THEM APART

Here's an additional passage from chapter 534 supporting my idea of when he became the Oldest Dream:

"Kim Dokja, 16 years old. 17, 18.

He'd consume this story and grow older, and eventually, become the 'Oldest Dream'."

Meaning he became the Oldest Dream AFTER turning 18 in Korean Years, 11th or 12th grade, 16-18 in International Years. He was still wearing a high school uniform so he'd have been 19 in Korean Years AT MOST.

[*Details from after rereading more scenes:

Chapter 285:

"During middle school, I even drew charts in the corner of my textbook."

Chapter 513:

"A thin, small-statured child who might have passed off as an elementary schooler were it not for his school uniform, was sitting on that bench. As if he was trying to memorise English words, he was busy scribbling something like a chart on his notebook."

SO. His uniform was NOT described as a high school uniform. He was small enough to be mistaken for an ELEMENTARY SCHOOLER, and he was doodling charts. This all points to him being 15 at the time they meet him on the platform.

Caveats: we still don't know how much was covered in the at most 11 months he's been reading WoS. It might be enough to get a basic understanding of power balances but it has nothing on adult KDJ's 13 years of reading. Also, the line from chapter 534 does not support the idea that he was still 15 when he became the Oldest Dream.

Maybe an 'oldest dream' is just a dream that's been held onto for a long time, instead of being a snapshot of a particular version of Kim Dokja at a particular age. Maybe all of him ever since the moment this dream germinated on that train platform has been the Oldest Dream.

This is ridiculous. Kid discovers a book he really likes and the first time he thinks "man I wish I could help these characters out alongside them" a future version of himself (who may or may not look just like his dad) pops out of a train and tries to kill him and then himself. And then his favorite characters also come out and lift him up, though it's uncertain if he's even read up to the 999th regression yet. I mean 1/13 of 1863 is 143 so if WoS were evenly paced no he would not have read about them yet. But WoS was NOT evenly paced so we can't tell.

Writing a letter to a fictional character because I'm delusional

I came to know that it was kdj's birthday 2 days ago? (15th February,2023) so here goes nothing.Happy Birthday kdj, i hope you're happy. That's all I hope and pray to god for,Your happiness. whatever it may be and however you may find it. The thing is, You're nothing but a character in a novel that I read and maybe by this time around next year I wouldn't even remember you but that doesn't change the fact that the present me would die for you in a heartbeat. For a certain period of time too short to be relevant, too long to be not, Your story was the reason I'd be grateful to wake up every morning. Your story gave me Something to look forward to every day, something obsess over and something to cry over. Sometimes I'd wish you were real but then would this world let you be the YOU I like you for? Would you be happy here? I'm not sure.Other times I'd wish I was character because You can be a real jerk sometimes and all I'd wanna do is jump into the novel and beat some sense into you but I'm pretty sure if that ever happened I'd just end up bawling my eyes out for as cliche as it may sound watching you breathe would be too overwhelming for me. (P.s dude stop dying so much, it's so not cool)When I first saw the total number of chapters in the novel I immediately thought of giving up but I'm so glad i didn't, who knew by the time I'd reach chapter 500 I'd desperately hope the author would release just a hundred more. My mind was constantly conflicted between recommending your story to every person I came across and keeping it as my own, afraid to share it with anyone afraid they'd never love it as much as I do.My mind was constantly conflicted Between reading the conclusion of the story as soon as possible but also not reading another word scared It would be the last.There's honestly so many things I wish i could tell you, and i love you so fking much being on top of the list. Live long be happy kdj, you deserve it.

- from one reader to another