oooooo please tell me (who knows nothing on the subject) about orv swap au

hehehe. hehehehehehe. hehehehehehehhehehehhheheheh <- guy who is so normal

the premise of orv swap au (name has yet to be finalized) is this: what if kdj and yjh swapped narrative positions (reader <-> character) but very little else? what if a video game player enters a time loop to save his favorite character from dying over and over again and also to end the apocalypse?

admittedly it's not super fleshed out yet (a lot of the changes this premise would introduce are still not hammered out yet) but here are some points under the cut (novel spoilers ahead!)

orv swap au starts with pro gamer yjh who feels :/ abt his job, but hey, it pays the bills. despite (or maybe because of) his relative popularity as a pro gamer and networking with the agency/sponsors/people to impress, he's kind of isolated in a way that's detrimental, a facade of someone he's not whenever he's on camera

something to play around with is the idea of agency? maybe this yjh doesn't feel like he has any and has his hands tied between the lifestyle and being under public scrutiny and not having enough of a support system to leave everything behind. maybe he doesn't know what else he would even do. maybe he's aimless and drifting with nothing to hold on to.

his favorite video game is what i've been thinking of as World's Hardest To Play Indie Game (not based on difficulty but just on the experience of consuming it) a boring, exposition heavy, player-hostile, poorly designed, slightly buggy mess of a barely-playable game: twsa, a game that was not finished upon release and experiences with sporadic updates every now and then.

the ending tree to this game is so convoluted its insane. also theres no save states so if you die (very likely) u restart babeyyy.

twsa (video game) does have multiple endings, all of which happen when kdj, your main character, dies. some are farther into the apocolypse than others, some paths require meta knowledge of future events or character actions or items or whatever. the "true ending" is either analogous to the original 1863: kdj makes it to the end at the cost of everyone he loves, or hsy's modified 1863: kdj makes himself enemy of the scenario to secure a way out for the kimcom remnants.

there's branches on the choices tree where everyone dies and everything sucks and is bad forever and theres choices to make where kdj gets to make a family and they don't really get to settle down but they can get pretty close to it among the ruins of the apocalypse. through all his testing, yjh finds that these endings are nice but peter out - to get to the end of the apocalypse yjh has to claw his way there inch by painful inch, through betrayal and sacrifice, and he still cant fully get past it

i originally wanted to finagle a yoohankim 3 way swap but i couldn't figure it out. swap aus are a lot easier to work with when they're even numbers, at least to me, so this au features a ysa who is a video game company employee by day and by night she really has become god this time (and also a terrible indie dev). and this is how jungdoksang can still win !!!!

also yjh's coworker from Real Life hsy :) i haven't decided if she's like an employee for the same agency, or if she's someone else in the gaming circles that yjh interacts with sometimes (in my heart theyre in like some sort of discord server together), or something like that but she's around. whatever she does she is twitter cancelled for something. to me.

the only other character swaps are lsk and yma. yma is yjh's estranged sister (in broad strokes there's a vague bad parent situation going on here) (they used to be close until they drifted apart and slowly started hating each other [there is an abyss between them that neither of them can bridge]) (he feels that she betrayed him and threw him under the bus so he left [maybe he gets kicked out]) (she feels that he abandoned her to whatever situation they have going on [he didn't even try to take her with him]) and he has to find her when the apocalypse starts. yjh older sibling to yma gives us a whole different little dynamic to explore from kdj ysk (there's different levels of responsibility and guilt and blame when you're talking siblings that are soooooo interesting to me. sorry that i see any set of siblings and immediately try to figure out how to make them worse)

lsk is kdj's mom who appeared into existence at some point with kdj and they were both just adults. that's weird isn't it. oh well. i guess she can become a transcendent later too for funsies

everyone else stays in the same configuration of Real Person vs Character to me this is a very important aspect

this point has no precedent with the swap, nothing particular that would change to cause this, but it would be so funny if lgy was a little gamer boy who is an avid yjh hater. hates that guy. shows up to competitions to boo him. tunes into yjh's silent no-mic speedrunning streams to mald in chat but yjh +mods don't ban him bc its kinda funny.

anyways the apocalypse starts when yjh and his coworker/fellow gamer hsy are on a train to twitchcon and lgy is also there (also headed to twitchcon) and he brings bugs because he likes them but also to sabotage yjh specifically. its just funny if this happened. you understand

instead of having reader-related skills and abilities, yjh's skills are video game player based! he gets flavor text insight on people, location, and items, things like that. notably, he has the ability to reset, to bring himself back to the beginning of the apocalypse

orv swap proper follows yjh as the Player of the Game (Consumer of the Narrative) who lives hundred of lifetimes in this ruined-world-become-reality "replaying" [read: time looping through] the game to reshape it to save his fave character from self implosion (kdj with no dissociation is very prone to dying. all the time.). to revisit the idea of playing with yjh and the idea of agency, of creation, the only way to get past the apocalypse is to go off the beaten path, to choose options that weren't even there in the game. when in space, at his darkest point, yjh becomes a writer. in this story, at his darkest point, he has to become a creator too

please do not ask me how the epilogues go i dont know how the epilogues go (i don't want to throw yjh back into a train for milennia after he Just went through a thousand resets so i'm sending kdj for that but i havent fully planned how or why)

anyways, hope that helps!!! :)

the poetics of sp's involvement in 1863rd is just ... there's no words to capture the how retrospectively tragic it is. sp is the oldest being in the story. his tragedy has stopped being told but the story was still continuing off the page, years and years and even more unending years of being trapped without resolution, blocked behind the wall. he wants to die but cannot.

hsy's plan was to make 1863 yjh sleep forever. while it is not true death obviously, it will have been the closest to death any yjh has ever gotten (besides 0th who still turned away from it). not death, not regression, but sleep. it is only the domain of the dreams that will let him escape the cruel reality of his unreality and the silent god who will continue to watch over him forever so long as it was this man, yjh.

an important recurring symbol/motif in orv is dreams and there are several important themes linked to dreams i want to discuss.

first one is pretty obvious: dreams as escapism, as a way to desperately wish for a better life, wanting desperately to be saved from a ruined world. ala 1863rd yjh's wish for death and the oldest dream's wish for the characters to become real, to save him. as such, dreams represent a desperate plea for salvation.

and this might be a reach but i would still like to argue that it is the character's belief of their own hopelessness that lead to dreams but also perpetuates an unending cycle. wanting to be saved but also not being able to believe that you're worthy of being saved, that nothing / no one would / should save you. this duality is what leads me to the second theme: in their endless cycle being trapped and neither dead nor living, dreams are but another form of regression.

kdj becomes the oldest dream, the willing lonely god who could only ever dream of everyone's happiness but his own. he had seperated himself from ever reaching out and watching 1864th worldline where all his loved ones are and where he knows he would have been tempted to return. so symbolically, he interferes with 0th yjh and, as his stardusts falls away, he watches all the regressions and yjh. always yjh. his dream. in the end, the train that traps him is himself.

but a final point i want to touch on is this:

it is only when they get off the train and reach their epilogue, does sp finally achieve liberation, does the oldest dream finally end (become free). the dream has ended and into the waking cruel world, they become characters no longer having found each other at last. this was sp's ■■. and that's what i meant by the poetics of it all. the happiest, gentlest of epilogues: the ending of the oldest dream.

ORV Characters Ranked by Least to Most Likely to Commit White Collar Crime

You guys said you wanted my ORV takes, and I try not to say things unsolicited, so I'll drop the good meta-analysis and literary criticism that I'm known for. For comedy purposes please pretend that ORV is American.

Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint characters broken down by likelihood to commit white collar crime, least to most:

Lee Hyeonseong: he's convinced that he's never committed a crime in his life. Intentionally, of course not. Unintentionally, he takes shopping for groceries extremely seriously, and is sometimes so wrapped up in the fruit inspection experience that he'll leave without paying. Due to his innocent face, bulk, and sheer confidence, he's never caught. In an economically thrifty maneuver, KDJ always sends him on snack runs for parties and texts him math problems while he's there. He insists it's like couponing. It's not couponing.

Jeong Huiwon: similarly, of course she would never choose to commit a crime. Also similarly, when KDJ says, 'Hey, wanna commit a crime?' she always participates. Since the crime is normally targeted at rich people, KDJ can usually morally justify it to her. She calls this harm reduction. It's not harm reduction.

Lee Jihye: would love to commit a crime in theory, almost never in practice. She has an idealized image in her mind of the ideal high school experience and it involves grand theft auto. However, the worst she ever gets is breaking & entering and trespassing, mostly because she didn't stop to wonder if the building was abandoned or not. She can't even shoplift from Claire's.

Shin Yuseung: the kind of kid who sets the dissection frogs in the school laboratory free. Looks up illegal exotic animal trading on the deepweb and sighs in longing. But exotic pet trading isn't very Animal Rights of her, so she just leaks information to the CIA and busts the rings. Lee Gilyeong convinces her to track down shady sellers on Craigslist and bust their kneecaps. Neither of them view this as significantly different from the dissection frog liberation. KDJ gets her a rescued exotic cat for her birthday as a reward.

Lee Gilyeong: self-explanatory.

Han Suyeong: she's been pirating media since she was eleven and has never stopped. World-class expert in pirating everything. She's the unsung hero who rips the CDs and games and puts them online. Runs the pirating websites. Has never paid for a webnovel or manwha or manga in her life. Despite this, she insists that pirating books is immoral and that people should support small authors. The FBI knows she exists and has been trying to catch her for years. She brags about this constantly.

Yoo Sangah: has committed tax fraud before, will commit tax fraud tomorrow, is currently committing tax fraud. Embezzles her company's embezzlement. Insists that she's only committing victimless crimes, mainly because she doesn't view business executives as people. Her ability to evade the IRS is mythological and it's how KDJ got a crush on her.

Yoo Junghyeok: does not understand adult life well enough to knowingly commit any sort of white collar crime. He is this high on the list because he enables and helps KDJ in literally everything he does, especially using his clout as an influencer. This is because KDJ has convinced him that these things aren't crimes, and he doesn't understand adult life well enough to figure it out.

Kim Dokja: has done every white collar crime under the sun. I can't emphasize enough how much crime he does. He's currently blackmailing SYS's college tuition out of a US Senator. HSY makes the shell companies and launders so much money with him. Alternates between running a pyramid scheme and a ponzi scheme depending on the month. Started a cult that one time but we don't like to talk about that. Runs the betting ring for YJH's esports games. Fixes the games. YJH does not know he does this, but KDJ splits the profits and Yoo Mia also needs a college tuition so he decides not to think about it too hard. Big into crypto and runs every crypto scam you can possibly think of, which is normally where the the ponzi schemes come in. Steals YJH's identity often. Somehow everything he does is technically legal. The only crime he does not commit is pirating. Exclusively targets the wealthy and ultra-wealthy and has never stolen money from a poor person. Sugar daddies all of his friends and pays all college tuitions. Anonymously yet obviously sponsors huge amounts of money to YJH's Twitch streams, mostly in apology for the ID theft. Would really rather be living a quiet life in a big house with all of his friends, but that big house ain't gonna pay for itself.

What trope would you put Joongdok in?

i honestly think that when it comes to joongdok it would be much easier if i answered with the tropes i WOULDNT put them in 😭😭

oh boy here i go! let's start with two of the most obvious first:

1. matching outfits with opposite color schemes, and 2. opposites (leo & aquarius) attract (<- attract as in lowkey bordering in codependency)

yin & yang - not only are joongdok aesthetically yin&yang but narratively too (i mentioned in a previous ask that they're sky & earth too)

star-crossed - (if you believe in orv's sad ending)

life (and death) companions - is probably a trope on its own considering the meaning of the title. not only does it mean (i ran the term through a thesaurus so yall don't have to 👍🏻👍🏻) "a romantic partner with whom one is exceptionally or uniquely compatible or has a special connection" but the synonyms are also of the romantic variety ranging from (but not limited to) life partner, best friend, soulmate, spouse, true love, one's promised, significant other, love of one's life, beloved, heart's desire etc (long story short, pretty sick tbh. no wonder kr dudebros threw a fit in singshong's comment section over it. i get it) and what makes it infinitely funnier is that it started as crack being treated seriously 😭😭😭😭

anyway, continuing where i left off, Soulmates - kdj is the reason yjh exists. yjh is the reason kdj lives. (hsy wrote both of them in a way that they became each other's salvation hence their position of reader-protagonist gets switched in the epilogue and both of them have admitted that reading about the other's story has saved their lives)

everyone ships them/everyone can see it - uriel, gabriel, ljh, hsy, jhw, lsh, anna croft, persephone/hades (the third eligible candidate to marry kdj was yjh and you will never be able to convince me otherwise. also if you have an answer other than yjh ur wrong), yma (if webtoon dares not to draw the "oppa looks happy when thinking about that ahjussi" you'll see me on the news) the wenny king. heck even gong pildu, upon some consideration and by method of elimination, deduced that theres no way kdj has enough rizz to pull neither ysa nor hsy therefore who was left to be the one who helped kdj birth his "child" (kidified sp) ??? yjh obv 😭😭 and why would he question the possibilities of mpreg when hmo is right there anyway. heck hmo even told kdj that he should try it.

when one is hurt/dying/dead, the other rages, panics, is extremely distressed - (maybe there's a shorter way to say this like "who did this to you" but joongdok have ascended past cheesy romances 😝) disaster of flood arc, aftermath of dark castle, the fight with surya, 1863, aftermath of sp's kidnapping etc

hates everyone but you - sure yjh doesnt hate All constellations but he for sure hates all demon kings. (mini fun fact about me, up until joongdok rebranded my brain, i didnt like this trope)

aloof x low self-esteem = both emotionally constipated 🙄🙄

derogatory term becomes a term of endearment - fool/sunfish (bastard)

bickering like a married couple - is this a trope? well it is now

denial of attraction/closeness - just two men who most definitely never lie when it comes to their feelings

identity theft - without malicious intent (i hope!! *stares at all the atrocities kdj has committed using yjh's name*)

masterchef x disaster in the kitchen - very, very, very simplified version of the trope. wouldnt call kdj a disaster but definitely a worse cook than yjh (subtrope would be [pro-gamer x game tester])

famous x fan - lol "famous"

annoying x annoyed - (kdj: breathes. yjh: ugh drop dead. kdj: drops dead. yjh: wait no-💢)

A thinks B will be happy without him / B doesn't know how (doesn't want) to live without A - 51kdj seeing 49kdj leave with yjh and the others, thinking that he and yjh will set on a journey together to find tls123 / museum fight

will sacrifice everyone/everything for the other - *cracks knuckles* when 41st sys tries to give yjh a 2nd chance to save himself and his old companions and all he had to do was say that kdj isn't his companion. when kdj admits that 1863rd hsy's plan to see the ending of the scenarios is smart and well-thought out but because that world doesn't need yjh he doesn't cooperate. (side story spoilers below, but when you think about it long enough the side story came to be because yjh spread orv to lhh's worldline. all the deaths happening because yjh needs to collect a fragment of kdj's soul from that world)

speaking of lhh, reincarnation - now hear me out. not your typical reincarnation but bcs we know that 49kdj's wish was to reincarnate into someone that doesn't have anything to do with kimcom -> subtrope: doesn't want to be found / is found

amnesia - 0 is also not your typical amnesiac

god x god's favorite

age gap - theyre both the same age and simultaneously have age gap(s) make of that what you will

important symbol - (object) pocket watch

glucose guardian - listen!! listen!! sp/kdj and 0/51 exist okay

harem - sorry i couldnt help it

maybe before he regains past memories normal fan knw is in dire straits and confusedly and accidentally uses the story “mortal lover of death” and whatever else it does it makes kdj and yjh immediately have the urge to kill. neither of them know that the feeling is ‘my parents are seriously dating someone my age for possibly mostly sex reasons? bad’ so it just goes straight to murder

where the hell is this au going.

Right. I'm cracking my knuckles. I am going to start ranting.

There is precedent for Hades having mortal lovers. Minthe, for example, who, depending on the version of the myth, was... either torn to pieces or trampled underfoot by Persephone or Demeter out of jealousy, offense, what have you. For the sake of having an intact protagonist, we'll say it was both Hades and Persephone who went for that hot KNW action.

Leuce was abducted and lived out her years quietly in the underworld, her body turned into a white poplar in the fields of Elysium once she died. This is, incidentally, something she has in common with Minthe. The whole... turning into a plant thing after you fucking die. From our astounding two (2) cases, we can logically conclude that turning into a plant is just what happens as a mortal lover of death.

... Of course, this makes for a spectacularly underwhelming attribute, so let's keep going.

Let's assume some kind of marriage took place, because we can't actually really call Kim Namwoon's anyone's stepdad unless there's some sort of legal(?) bond.

The marriage of Persephone to Hades made Persephone the Queen of the underworld, and therefore, a goddess of death. A chthonic deity, if you will. While I'm not saying that's the kind of power rank up that Kim Namwoon is going to get, because that's ridiculous, especially since he doesn't have immortality, he is going to get something out of this.

A marriage of some sort puts him under the chthonic umbrella and should give him some power in the court of the dead, considering that Hades and Persephone, in some myths, share equal control of the dead. Since he's not a god, there's no way he's getting equal control, but I will say he will have advantage in dealing with things that are dead are undead, and also some very limited control, not unlike a DND player who can cast Animate Dead and Speak With Dead. He also gets a powerup in underground areas, like subway stations and, uh, the Underworld.

I'll also say he's got the ability to enter and leave the Underworld at any point, much as how Demeter Chthonia and Hermes Chthonios refer to Demeter and Hermes, in some way, entering and leaving the underworld.

Now, I did have the urge to give him more things -- for example, control of buried artifacts/machinery -- but I think we will stop there, because if I do not, we will go straight into god territory, and we did specify mortal lover of death in this ask. This is enough things! He can control zombies and teleport, what more could he possibly ask for.

Oh, and yes, he will turn into a plant after he dies, because that's what fucking happens when you're a mortal lover of death.

Now, I have a question for you:

is this the urge to kill your parents or is this the urge to kill your parents' infant of a lover considering knw is actually a decade younger than kdj and yjh.

Tumblr is blessing my dash with ORV posts again today and I just… I feel like there is something to be said about my never-ending AFTG obsession and the fact that, on an unrelated note, I also sat down and read the entirety of ORV in a massive binge at some point and genuinely loved all of it. I might be insane for this, but these two very different things are actually a very similar flavor of story in some ways. Actually I have an incomplete list:

-Literally neither of these stories should work, except they do. Both have an absolute batshit plot that, in a lesser story, would make you shake your head and nope out, except not for this one. The execution of the premise, no matter how convoluted and improbable it gets, actually works and feels exactly right for this one (1) piece of media even if in any other context it would be too over the top.

-Which means: both AFTG and ORV is prime obsession material that simply cannot be encompassed by a plot summary because a plot summary can and will make you look absolutely insane for liking it. A summary of what happens simply cannot reflect what it is about the story that makes it so damn GOOD. These two stories will absolutely make some people look at you weird if you ever try to explain them and then the same people will seriously question the quality of the media you consume or judge your taste to be abysmal. All because they never sat down to experience the full glory of it all for themselves.

-Found Family in SPADES and they’re all amazing!!! Platonic relationships that are MEANINGFUL and IMPORTANT!!! Depending on what you ship there’s even an OT3 option available but that just as an aside

-The main character is a horrible, scheming little bastard who claims he is ‘trying to survive’ then turns around and does the most suicidal shit you have ever witnessed in an attempt to protect his friends. They’re also both incredibly smart yet incredibly stupid and have the grayest morality I have ever seen (affectionate). Also absolutely shaking hands over “people somehow think I’m a better/more innocent/moral person than I actually am” (KDJ even deliberately feeds that narrative whenever he feels it will benefit him to). Ofc there’s a lot of (fundamental) differences between them, as well as a clear difference in maturity due to age (28 and counting vs 18/19) but yeah,,,, I think there might be a Type there

(That said, no matter how bad KDJ is every time he goes off to blackmail or bargain with people for some shit— can you imagine what would happen if anyone ever let Neil Josten loose on the starstream? I’m head in hands just thinking about it.)

-Very dark and tragic shit happens but you still hang on to hope as you keep reading because you couldn’t fucking bear it if they lost dammit, these traumatized little bastards deserve everything, everything

-Anime vibes.

-The emotions,,,, the emotions in all the character arcs and the GROWTH and the THEMES just,,,, end me.

Yeah,,, that’s about it. I feel like I have either connected the dots or defenestrated myself over this but I’m having thoughts.

ORV 16

kim dokja is that your mom. dokja. dokja. dokja is that your mo

HSY: hey should we get red grapes or gr

KDJ: are you sick in the head? are you that mentally enslaved and intellectually subservient? And intellectually molested and IDEOLOGICALLY MOLESTED

Ne dom HSY vs Ni dom KDJ. fight fight fight kiss kiss kiss

at least I'm pretty sure she's Ne dom? but I don't know if ENFP or ENTP (leaning towards ENTP for the sheer audacity). If I'm right in either case she and KDJ should be a natural match in terms of synergy, which is hilarious. That potential double T is terrifying to me though like...relax

I wonder how they're gonna end up reconciling their differences? Like KDJ I'm assuming that HSY wants to see through the ending that she reached in her plagiarized work, which is in direct conflict with KDJ's goal to create a new one entirely.

"Lycaon of the Imyuntar. Pay respects to the protector."

Lycaon's body slowly fell in front of me. First his knees touched the ground, slowly followed by his head. There was a severe shaking of his eyes like he couldn't admit it.

"Do it properly."

kim dokja is so funny because randomly he will do shit like this which makes me go king are you ok. there is some very deeply veiled and fucked up god complex somewhere in there but i unironically love it. do it more

no but actually this is fine because kdj deserves bragging rights now and forever. He's earned them tenfold and I am VERY firmly in the "kdj has done nothing wrong yet - in fact, he's done everything exactly right" camp. hsy it's too early for me to say anything (she tells kdj herself that he's got her motives all twisted) and yjh is a girlboss so he's exempt from moral discussion (I tried twice to write out my thoughts about him and got nowhere. The constellations keep referring to him as ultimately righteous but every action we've seen him take so far has been neutral at best and I think I just need to wait to learn about him more. Like with KDJ i needed to see the moment in Chungmuro with the green zones for me to go "okay, this man is genuinely a good person - more than that, he inspires goodness in the people around him as well". I haven't had that moment with YJH and it definitely won't ever be something like KDJ's - he's not a leader type - but I'm sure it'll come). Interacting with KDJ more will end up changing his tune as it has for the other characters - he's just a tougher nut to crack. And understandably so - don't tell me you wouldn't also fall into a pit of despair if the entire universe was hinged around your endless deaths and rebirths and all actions you took - whether good or bad - were ultimately rendered meaningless. I think that KDJ is really unfair to YJH for this reason especially: like, you read about his suffering for ten years????? Surely you can empathize with him a little bit? I understand that you're both in the same situation now but you have more context than him!!! You aren't stuck in an existential loop of meaningless despair - he believes that he is!! Forever!! (I'm gonna stop here because I'm missing context and making assumptions). But TL;DR Not to be like "oh my poor meow meow 🥺🥺🥺" but...the man has genuinely gone through it LMAO. I also get that KDJ can't just walk up and tell him "hey! Don't worry things will get better 😙✌️✨💖". Because at the end of the day this is ultimately a misunderstanding that needs to be organically resolved with more time and interaction between the two.

TL;DR;DR kdj is mansplaining yjh's own trauma back to him

Same anon as a second ago who was asking about Han suyeong and orv - or if you have any headcanons about yoohankim I think they’re neat

yesss lets talk about yoohankim

all i want for them after the epilogues is to write a book together. like kdj is already long overdue for beta-reading and yjh has been tricked into being an editor once and can be tricked into doing it again. any chance to correct these miserable shrews he lives with <333333 

but the thing is like hsy like completely wrung herself out writing ORV and now she wants to do something the complete fucking opposite she’s like guys. i’m sick the death of fucking themes and catharsis and shit. we’re writing slice of life. give me ideas what’s some stuff that people do

and yjh was like i dont fucking know what anyone does in their spare time.

and kdj is like. i also don’t know anything that people do. hope this helps.

and hsy is like god damn it. me neither. oh my god we are so bad at this. 

this is all definitely pre relationship because theyre stupid enough to rewrite time and space for each other but still try and friendzone about it. “yeah they threw themselves headfirst into the spokes of fate’s wheels and doomed countless lives in countless worlds just so all of us could meet, again and again, but, like. what if i’m reading too much into things?”

absolute incompetence. 

anyway hsy just starts working tossing in whatever sort of contrived high school hijinks she can think of and bouncing off yjh and kdj as sounding boards, reading them snippets of her drafts, and eventually they just end up just essentially co-authoring it with how much of the plot and character theyre giving her, theyre doing everything she’s doing except typing the damn thing up.

only at this point it’s really just a weird tangential larp of them all deciding what they imagine a fun childhood would have theoretically been like and not so subtly just making these characters live it out on their behalf. yjh still feels pretty weird about writing stuff that didn’t already happen for obvious reasons but hsy is like ‘stop being fucking paranoid this is so different this is made up for real’ and kdj is like ‘im abstaining from this conversation’ and yjh is like well i guess im probably safe from any cosmic comeuppance as long as this is a happy story. so it really is just like peak good feeling slice of life antics the whole way through

anyway obviously the main characters are Very Poorly Concealed Yoohankim Expys. i say poorly concealed but that’s onyl to people who arent them. yhk themselves are VERY convinced these are extremely original and compelling characters. 

it doesn’t hit until after they write some shit where hsy has to be like ‘look this is so stupid there’s no reason these people wouldn’t have gotten together yet in this situation how can we work with such a flimsy premise of miscommunicated feelings. surely they have to know theyre in love.’

and then she’s like [brain loading symbol] oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck

and theyre like What stop being dramatic and just fucking tell us.

and shes like ‘ive figured it out im the sexiest and smartest woman alive. you guys are gonna love this’ 

and theyre like just fucking tell us we hate you so bad you act like this every time

and she’s like we need to kiss. ohhh i am so smart. 

and theyre like [dial up modem noises] oh god wait we are supid and embarrassing motherfuckers huh. wow. 

and then they kiss

[   Constellation ’Director of the False Last Act’ is looking at you.   ]

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dark academia!hsy, yeeee! the white coat is fantastic, but unlike kdj and yjh, she doesn’t really switch up the color scheme. no, her bum-aesthetic purple hoodie does not count. i think she’s super hot. i yell about how much i love her under the cut.

------

yo han sooyoung is actually amazing, incredible, powerful, witty, drop-dead sexy... what makes her so irresistible? let me explain

1) yeah, kdj takes the kdj company to end of the scenarios, but please. how many times does he have to kill himself to get there? not to mention his intentional (and unintentional) kill count? 

sure, he does the job, but damn is he kind of inefficient about it. say what you like about hsy’s methods or personality, but the 1863rd round far surpasses the 1864th in terms of the lives preserved while still managing to take the team to the end.

without the benefit of cheat-like knowledge, skills, and resurrections, hsy almost single-handedly orchestrates the events of the 1863rd round to a satisfying finale. kmw, problematic as he is, survives and becomes an admittedly better person, yjh finds a timeline where he can rest in peace, and the rest of the cast have their eyes set on the hopeful end of all scenarios. all this, while only being HALF of a person (hsy originally split off into two after misusing her avatar ability). do her actions lead to the happiest ending? no. but it’s the one that sacrifices the least and saves the most. for the greater good, in other words. 

hsy may be an intrinsically selfish person, but unlike kdj, she has the ability to grasp the entire picture and avoid tunnel-visioning into a crappier, more convoluted and self-sacrificial solution. ironically, it ends up saving more lives. perks of being a talented writer, i guess. 

and the 1864th hsy emerges as a leader in her own right as well. the epilogue arc shows her assuming roughly the same role as her 1863rd self in kdj’s absence: yjh breaks off from the main group (AND BECOMES A TERRORIST AKFDJDSLKSL HAHAHA) to assume a similarly antagonistic role to the remaining members of kdj company. as a result, she’s the most powerful lawful incarnation remaining, and once more the incarnations circle around her for direction.

2) independent, confident, competent (hot and kinda shameless about it). this woman has the most delightfully unrepentant attitude towards life -- how to defeat the man with the strongest defensive ability without dealing a single blow? summon a horde of your naked dancing clones to terrify his innocent sensibilities, and then cackle at his helplessness. the fact that her sponsor is literally the chuuni-est cringefest in the entire galaxy and she gives no fucks about him is just additional comedic gold. her undisguised disgust for what should otherwise be a highly respected/feared entity is a clear indicator of her supremely dominant position over everyone else, and i admire her consistent irreverence of everyone and everything.

hsy is the only character who can consistently bully kdj, brush off his deflections, and bully him again. 1863rd round hsy gives kdj about 50 migraines in the span of 5 minutes of conversation before confirming her superior wit. jhw comes close, but unfortunately, she actually respects the rat bastard. i wish i could mention yjh, but let’s be real: he -- and just about every existing version of him -- has been whipped for the guy for at least 250+ chapters now. 

hsy, on the other hand, has no regard for anything except herself... man, i respect that so much. what a queen. 

and i won’t lie! i didn’t like her in the first fifty or so chapters. plagiarism? homicide? kind-of-in-general-just-being-an-obstacle-to-kdj’s-plans? yeah, i almost fell into the trap of disliking her purely because she didn’t cave immediately in the grand scheme of kdj’s plotting -- thereby denying me the power rush that came with seeing kdj bulldoze his way through the puny attempts of small fry characters. she’s neither a friend nor a despicable foe, but rather someone who acts independently and in her own self-interest, WITH the ability to thwart major players if need be. aka, the one who frustrated kdj’s plans -- and me -- the most. 

going by my previous isekai/power-fantasy trope experience, i figured she’d get pegged into the sexy-but-sassy harem candidate, or get killed off if that didn’t work out. in hindsight, i’m just pretty fucking dumb, but honestly, i can accept that with gratitude -- 

-- because in fact. the whole ‘she-gets-in-my-way-so-she-either-goes-into-the-harem-or-dies’ trope in light novels/webnovels and the like, is, frankly, misogynistic and boring as hell. i had some admittedly low expectations for ORV, which consequently blasted my ass to the moon and left me there sobbing for 42 years as i mourned my stupidity and paid my respects to its incredible ending and character development. hsy is a particular delight, especially in her meta awareness of these tropes -- blatantly stating she isn’t obligated to kdj for saving her life and declaring the damsel-in-distress cliche as ridiculous, for example. 

and it really is, because suspension bridge effect aside, you’re not gonna want to bang a total shady stranger in the middle of the apocalypse. it’s the little statements of self-awareness, self-worth, and frankness that build up hsy’s charm. as ORV progresses, these little windows of her personality bloom as her presence takes stage center -- and then BAM! you really get to know how strong she is, how hugely capable of love she is, how subtly but wonderfully she expresses it, how she leads and protects those close to her, and how damn good she is at it. hsy is amazing. we stan an iconic queen -- no, black flameS EMPRESS. *kneeling*.

3) writes an entire EPIC, just to keep one lonely, broken fifteen-year-old alive. like. at that point in ORV, i knew. i knew. hsy is the fucking GOAT. seeing her spend the rest of her life on WOS, making sure it reaches completion because it’s the only thing that will sustain kdj until the advent of the scenarios... that hits too hard. inadvertently, it also damns the rest of the world to the terror and tragedy that the star stream brings.. but that’s the call she makes in order to save kdj’s life. 

obviously, there’s no precise beginning to the timelines -- ORV is so neatly crafted in its cycle of writer, protagonist, and reader -- but i’d have to argue that hsy holds the greatest power in the trinity. creating the existence known as ‘yoo joonghyuk’ and granting life-changing hope to an otherwise forgotten boy.. is pretty powerful. yjh, for the most part, is a slave to the scenarios (until he breaks free in the 1863rd and 1864th rounds, in particular), while kdj (unwittingly) admits it himself: he’s truly the most powerless god in existence. i forget exactly where he mentions it, but it’s in response to lgy’s reverent commentary that, with all his knowledge and presumed confidence, kdj seems like the protagonist of story or a god to him. kdj’s inner monologue, of course, is appropriately self-deprecating and scarily accurate.

in a lot of ways, WOS -- and ORV itself, really -- is a love letter to readers. it’s a two-way connection, writer and reader, between someone who creates with all their passions and someone who consumes and responds with equally sincere feelings. Ways Of Survival -- the story of a man who defied death and grief and great powers far beyond his being -- is a fictional guide to surviving in a ruined world. but to a battered, bullied, and ostracized boy, it’s not just escapism, or wish fulfilment anymore. WOS is the map to navigating the hell of his reality. there’s a certain power in the right words being spoken -- or in this case, written -- at the right time, even if it’s only for the temporary burst of endorphins upon reading an especially delightful chapter. even if it’s forgotten the next day, you’ve managed to connect. you’ve touched another person’s heart. you made them think about questions they’ve never considered before; maybe, you made them smile. 

what can i say but the honest truth? ORV, without a shadow of doubt, has most certainly reached me. i’m a goner for this story and its excellent characters -- long, long gone. something has changed, something that wasn’t there the previous day. 

the mark has been made on the reader -- small as it is, it’s irrevocable. behold, in all of its little magnificence: the power of a writer, and their story.

Ok I’m gonna talk about yoohankim now. They are good for many reasons but rn I am going to talk about how they all round each other out.

This has spoilers obvs

Kdj literally doesn’t see himself as part of this world. Like the fourth wall and everything. Hsy doesnt see herself as part of this for different reasons: stemming from you know. The false prophet thing she pulled at the beginning she thinks everyone still hates her for that. Plus she doesn’t get along with a lot of them so that only helps her feel like an outsider more.

Yjh is v interesting bc in his place, it would be easy to see himself as an outsider. With the regressions and all. But these are his friends, and I’d argue he does see himself as a part of them: that’s what causes the regression depression. He remembers everyone he thinks he let down and will never see again. Great example of this is 999 Yjh who sacrificed everything for his friends, knowing it meant he would never see them again.

PLUS there’s the obvious connection of how he’s the only ‘character’ which helps him feel more at home in this world.

Now the next part is inspired by this great post by @/wishy-washing-machine so I’ll summarize below but just go read that one next tbh.

Anyway in summary neither YJH nor KDJ are good at their emotions. Kdj ignores them and YJH suppresss them. Hsy rounds them out by being the only one to even sort of deal with her emotions.

Finally I mean. This one is obvious. Hsy and Yjh don’t get along. Personally I think it’s bc they’re very similar - I mean it makes sense as an author you put a lot into your characters even when writing a bad book on purpose. But that’s a whole other analysis. The point is there is one thing they can agree on and it’s that they both care about kdj.

And none of this even MENTIONS the whole author/writer/reader dynamic (and how it ties into the themes of points of view and impossible communication) the Hsy/kdj similarites and a bunch of other stuff. Basically if you read orv and you’re not a yhk enjoyer what are you even doing

Anyway I kinda got derailed and this went to shit at the end but whatever now I want to write a Hsy and yjh character analysis. Hope you enjoyed tbh if you read this you’re probably already a yhk enjoyer so

I'm bouncing on my heels at the "main party loses memories but the others don't" thing (OrV, I think it's called game plus one au???)

DO YOU HAVE ANY MORE THOUGHTS ABOUT IT MAYBE? sorry if asks aren't- open about that one-

Let's see, let's see. I feel like generally, I stick to stations of canon - easier that way, and generally I play around with kdj and stations of canon is kind of his thing, but this au in particular has the chance to throw things horribly off the rails, which could be very exciting if I pull it off correctly.

If everyone knows everything, everyone is going to try enacting all their plans at once.  Some things are going to collapse.  It’s going to be utter chaos. It’ll be fun!

I have not read the novel in two years so I am probably getting things wrong, but in no particular order, let’s have a list.

Bihyung makes a bid for Dokkaebi King early. 

Considering that dokkaebi get their power from viewership, and a lot of constellations are probably going to into still tune in into their favorite blorbos’ channel...

He’s going to shoot up in power real quickly.  And what he’s going to do with that power is kinda unorthodox.  In 1864, by the time Kim Dokja comes back from the Demon Realm, he’s started issuing rather toothless scenarios.   Exposure to Kim Dokja has granted him with a different kind of belief on how stories should go, and one of those things is “maybe killing random incarnations is bad.”  He’s gotten attached.  Scenario 1 is going to be grudgingly issued, and depending on how much power viewership is giving him, he might be to issue a scenario 1 that maybe does not involve murder at all.

Considering that, at the end of it all, he voted for KDJ’s story at the end of all things, and, in fact, was the only one who did, in his Dokkaebi Council or whatever the fuck it was... I think he’s going to play this pretty differently.

Remember all those constellations that fought against our company at the end?

I don’t!  But I do remember that 1) it happened 2) they’re probably still kind of mad.  I think maybe the only thing that’s stopping them from immediately trying to fuck up KDJC is the lack of Probability -- you don’t get that much in the early scenarios, if I remember correctly.  

I’d need to reread the novel to figure out exactly how this works out, but like... these are a lot of very powerful enemies that are now there very very early, and our main party does not know about them.

Yjh gets out of the train by grace of god.  

He has zero memories and a full train of people that remember him murdering them.  The ONLY thing that’s saving him is OD’s (and maybe also SP’s) interference.  

OD, by the way, is not happy.  Neither is SP.  Or the 999 gang.  With the reset of everyone except KDJC, OD’s back behind the Wall and his guardians want him back.  They get involved early, trying to urge KDJC forward.  Except, you know, only SP knows everything that’s supposed to have happened so I guess he’s in a role that’s very similar to what he took up in 999.  I bet it’s this weird blend of uncomfortable and nostalgic at the same time.

Anyway, since, again, this YJH has no memories, he’s not going to be inclined to like, blow up the whole carriage, or whatever he did in 1864.  More people survive this scenario than before.  Whether this is a good thing or not depends on how much I feel like fucking this up.

Also, YJH is going to start getting messages from OD, who definitely no longer content with only observing.  YJH is not aware this is strange, but it totally is and KDJ’s mind is blown.

( 

“My sponsor says--”

“You have a sponsor?”

“...Didn’t everyone get assigned one?”

“No????”

[ Constellation ■■ thinks Incarnation Kim Dokja is dumb. ]

)

On the topic of Biyoo

Sure, the disasters come.  Sure, 41!sys lands in a meteorite on earth and comes out.  Yes, she is absolutely addressing KDJ and Bihyung as parents.  Yes, she’s quite fond of them both.

This disaster concludes very amicably.    

Things on 1863!hsy’s side are WEIRD, Probably

1863 gang is not thrilled with the fact that their captain abandoned them for 1864, essentially (you could have stayed with us!  what was the point of reaching the perfect end without you???). They guilt 1863!hsy a lot. YJH is dealing with so much confusion, he’s probably getting some memory leakage from 1864.  They can probably form a pretty perfect ending, though, though, since at this point, the world is USED to following 1863!hsy’s lead and uniting against YJH.  They’re probably kind of leery of this version of YJH.  They work it out though, probably.  YJH maybe still regresses.  

KDJ LSK relationship speedrun

I imagine a lot of KDJ’s constellations are egging this on. I mean for a lot of them KDJ is their poor little meow meow.  Their annoying little blorbo.  Sure, they know KDJ and LSK fixed their relationship eventually, but what’s wrong with giving them a little nudge.  A little exposure of the truth.  Considering the sheer amount of people that LSK led in 1864, there’s probably a bit of this on their side, too, considering Cho Youngran already wanted KDJ to stop hating LSK so much. 

Actually, the moment the scenarios start, people probably almost automatically try shoving leadership on LSK who is... confused.  Really confused.  Why do so many people think she knows what she’s doing.  Why are they telling her to mend her relationship with her son.  Why do they all want her to wear this cool mask and lead them to victory.

Hey, does anyone remember Cheon Inho?

Yeah there are gonna be a lot of people who are going to want to preemptively murder this guy.  Like, so many people died or were otherwise taken advantage because of him.  He ain’t making it out of this alive unless some constellation thinks it’s really really funny.

Did I mention HMO is a demon at the moment?

This is a logical extension of the whole ‘main cast keeps their powers/xp’ kind of thing, yes.  But I forgot about this and had to realize it while I was writing this, and it blew my mind, so here you go. 

Wow, he’s probably not going to have a good time!  I don’t think he ever rose above Asmodeus’s power/authority, and Asmodeus is like.  Alive again.  So that’s awkward.

KDJ is SOOO uncomfortable

Why does everyone know so much more than him?  Why does everyone know so much about him?????????