do you think that the side story is trying to tell us: we, fragments of kdj, are also ourselves like despite being a small percentage of kim dokja, we also have our own identity and thats okay, that doesnt make us less important to the story? like we are still part of them and we are also important and we, too, should dream about ourselves too...... like it's trying to tell us eventho you are not special, you are still important idk

ok, i was going to answer this expanding on my thoughts i put in tags on one of your posts, but i overestimated my energy for longer posts. i will (probably) make a clearer post rewording this to not be.. all this, but here's a whole rant i went on in discord relating to your ask

text: i mentioned this before but i'm like pretty sure the the side story is meant to reach out to us (not for the sake of saving another, but to save you, personally) i'm planning on cleaning this up in a tumblr post but here's just a VERY disorganized early ramble

everything kinda clicked for me yesterday. the ask ru sent me about the open-endedness of orv got me thinking about the purpose of the side story because yeah, orv has the perfect ending. so why would there still be more? from what i'm seeing. orv will get a clear 'good' end. no more open-ends. and for a good reason. 'omnisicent reader's viewpoint' is over, this is reiterated so many times throughout the side story. but it goes on, which means the story still has a reason to continue. as singshong said, this isn't a story for just that one kim dokja anymore, but it's still a story about kim dokja. and the 'kim dokja' in the side story, it's the orv readers. the kim dokja fragments. as in,, us. if orv had to continue, THIS would be the perfect way to truly complete the story. as much as orv is a story about tragedy it's also about love. orv has saved people even, with an uncertain ending, because the story is about surviving, to have someone live on. and it's supposed to be meant for YOU, you are supposed to dream of a happy ending because you deserve a happy end. but that's not enough for some people, even when everything pointed to kdj waking up, there were still two portals in the end. there were still some people who thought kim dokja, and subsequently themselves, couldn't be saved. so the story continues on, because it hasn't truly reached everyone yet. (1/2 i hope you see where i'm going with this)

so what i think is going to happen, the side story is going to absolutely burn in the message that YOU deserve to live, and leave on an ending that cannot be misconstrued for anything else. because if kim dokja lives on, then so will we. because we are kim dokja. so he NEEDS to live in the end. we're not even close to the end of the side story and this message is already being pushed so much through lhh. he refuses to ignore anyone, 'extra' or otherwise. he wants everyone to survive. just. see his talk with ye hyunwoo. telling him to survive no matter what, that this was his response as an author to his readers, that if he needs to use 'i am kim dokja' then do so

(there's so much about lhh i could theorize on but i can't word it right now)

i'm gonna cut this off here because i will start repeating myself but if an open end was enough to change some. it wouldn't be for others. orv needs a clear happy end to reach anyone that didn't get it the first time around.

it's this ask that changed everything for me. orv's end may have been clear to me, but not everyone thinks the same way

just. urgh. something about this story going so far to reach out and say you deserve to live

can't believe a show based on a videogame (usually games adaptations are notoriously bad, which isn't the case here tho) gave me the beauty and the beast/twisted mirrors/enemies to traveling companions/ruthless antihero+optmistic but still badass heroine who takes none of his shit/age gap but make it sexy dynamic of my dreams. as much as i love maximus and i think he deserves the best writing ever because 1. he's a clever deconstruction of the aspiring Knight bro who's actually a bit of a loser and, as much as lucy, sees the world in black&white at first and then doesn't get what he thought he wanted but what he needs (or at least i hope he'll eventually get it), and 2. he's a cutie and i want an epic love story for him too, it's very funny how they tried to give us a puppy kind of romance and the tumblr girlies still fixated on the "toxic ~she bites his finger off and he cuts hers off and sews it on his hand in what we'll pretend it's a symbolic marriage rings exchange or whatever~ asshole who used to be a nice guy/good girl™ with a lot of spunk and hidden anger but unshakeable morals" kind of relationship.

what the hell happened to role playing? we used to be a community…it’s a shame. ai could never emulate that experience. if anyone wants to role play i’m 100% down i’ll be your ellie williams.

Honestly hate how Annabeth doesn't get to keep majority of her items (ie. Daedalus' laptop)

A Casual Indictment of Clive Rosfield

Thinking about how Clive swore to kill the one who killed his brother.

Thinking about how he told Cid that once he'd done so, "whatever happens, happens", and how Cid then chided him for being a slave to fate.

Thinking about how, according to the Ultimania, Clive made Joshua the core of his spiritual identity...and how he began training to be his Shield since the tender age of 6.

Thinking about how, when fighting Ultima in the end, he did so as Joshua's Shield, and nearly every exchange he had with Ultima was drawn from Joshua's last words. But when the fight was done...his high idealism of humanity seemed to fade. Because it wasn't his own. It was Joshua's.

...Thinking that the "Logos" presence that Ultima picked up on in the Interdimensional Rift and in Origin was not Clive--it was Joshua. Joshua, who'd picked up the power of creation. Joshua "with my light in your heart" Rosfield, who occupied Clive's being so much that Ultima could not. (In short, Joshua benevolently "stole" Mythos out from under Ultima.)

...Coming to the conclusion that Clive ultimately did fulfill his original vow, coming full circle: To kill the one who killed his brother, and then let whatever happened next, happen.

Which means...if we agree with Cid's perspective, Clive was not free. He did not fight for himself, nor against his fate. He did not try to save himself after Joshua was gone, even when so many others wanted him to. (Irony of ironies, Clive committed what was one of Ultima's chief sins according to his brother: He refused, in the end, to honor the faith and will others had for him to return, even those he most treasured.)

If one person makes their relationship and duty to another person their whole identity, can that person truly be free willed, on a spiritual scale?

No...I don't think they can be.

Free will (I think) demands some sense of inherent worth, independent selfhood/ personhood--a sense of identity that allows for the value of others' input, but does not require them to validate or qualify it.

Whether he triumphs or fails; whether he lives or dies, I would very much like to see Clive fight for himself--to find out who or what he is to himself when not defined by his role or duty to another person.

I'm still not over what the genshin fandom (specifically meta players) did to dehya tbh...

if you could, would you have wanted for 0!yjh to meet dkos even just for a short nice moment (besides the canon one at the very end)? even if he would forget about it all in the end? vahdhv jgdjk how would that even go in your head 🤣

though i know he didnt suffer the way 41!yjh did it'd be so funny to see his reaction since 41 had such a.. memorable one XD i love them dearly. i want them to lose their shit and be down bad for a man they never met lol 41 had not even had an inkling of kdj's existence before yet fainted at what. happiness?? lol. and imagining 0 who knows kdj and has been getting help from dkos seeing his face and talking to him makes me scream

oh. ohhh man yeah ive thought about it although very briefly cuz with the way the 0 storyline is structured leaves a lot of room for imagination but also makes it clear that kdj cannot descend. but let's just say it's not the case, how it would go. maybe they'd meet during constellation banquet. yjh would be invited as seoul's representative, although he has (maybe) no story to inherit and no regression restrains at the time.

in walks kdj. yjh notices. hes rather young and much inexperienced, not exactly hardened by regression depression and still has that light-in-his-eyes so to speak. for yjh I'd say the first meeting would be bordering cute-awkward angle. this is still the guy who was paying for their private midday tryst all the time btw (yes. even during 0th turn) surely there must've been a few dms outside the context of scenario revelations that the two of them shared

for kdj, on the other hand, he'd feel probably sad, maybe even silently cry a little. he misses his own yjh and his own companions too. while 49 was busy having existential dread, 51 was having the time of his life with 0 after all. he succeeded in making him happy regardless where that happiness lead him.

gonna be talking abt side story now

oh 41yjh is still so... the human personification of "the tip of the iceberg" we know nothing about that guy. kdj knows nothing about him. hsy has no idea who he is. kdjs narration about him is both at fault and not at fault at the same time. cuz the og 41st turn isnt even written in twsa to begin with. nor is the 40th turn written either. kdj saw the one short paragraph of 41yjh shutting off his heart during that turn and using his companions for his benefit and ran with it and you cant even blame him cuz thats the only thing tls123 wrote of that turn. hsy mentions at some point during the epilogue that she and yjh (1863rd turn) did talk about events of his past regressions so twsa is not all "hsy's imagination" and yjh also mentions to biyoo that he doesnt remember the 41st turn so what if it was 1863yjh the one who told hsy that exact paragraph?? thoughts like these keep me up at night

and contrary to kdj's narration and lhh's fears, 41 isnt actually a monstrous existence. he cares for people and helps them. he loves people and people love him in return just as much. he is confused this time around though I'll give him that much. there are strange people around him. people who know him and the scenarios. people who keep mentioning this guy named kim dokja so much even he gets curious about him. most importantly his "archenemy" of the previous round is *gasps* not evil anymore. he knows something is going on just is far away from finding out what exactly.

Restorative or Transformative?: Homoerotic Subtext, The Closet, and Ciphers in Pop Culture. The nature of commercial art is that it’s sometimes bad and inconsistent. Notably it’s also misogynistic. One way in which audiences try to reconcile massive plot holes or gaps in character motivation is by reading secrets or hidden information into a plot.

Commonly, male characters are interpreted as closeted gay or bisexual to reconcile the absence of women from commercial narratives with the generally stunted and poorly-written male characters that form the focus on said texts. This reading has become especially common among a non-heterosexual milieu. Rather than transforming the original text into some radically different new form, this closeted interpretation seeks to make the original text stand on its own as a story rather than a Swiss cheese of dumb writing decisions.

This interpretation only works for a specific type of pop, usually genre fiction. Any story in which tortured male leads eschew women in favour of male-male bonds (because female characters are constantly killed off, written sparsely, or written out, because the production team keeps casting their male buddies, because actors demand to keep having scenes with their bros, whatever) can become a sounder structure if you put one of them in a closet.

The gay interpretation is the natural consequence of shoddy misogynistic writing from ventures like Supernatural, Naruto, all the biggest hits. It’s also the natural consequence of more benignly misogynistic writing like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or The Lord of the Rings, where women aren’t necessarily rejected but are simply absent from the worlds of the protagonists. When the emotional crux of the story falls on male-male interactions, this reads as romantic because society at large priorities (definitively heterosexual) romance as the pinnacle of human connection. Two forces are in conflict, the primacy of heterosexuality (read as: romance) and the primacy of men.

Anyway. All that is to say that the typical gay or bisexual reading of male characters in pop fiction comes from a very real place. But, in some places, that’s the default interpretation. Angst, insecurity, secrets, double lives, fatigue, disappointment, restrained passion, stunted personal growth, anyone living in the closet can tell you that it impacts and defines your whole life to know that you live in a way fundamentally incompatible with The Proper Way that life is structured around down to tax law and superstore prices (which assume a heterosexual nuclear family unit). Characters in fiction also tend to have personal problems because that makes them interesting and tasty.

If you’ve grown up on stories with the specific type of misogyny that can be papered over with a closeted interpretation of the male leads, carrying this interpretation over to any male character will make sense more often than not. Even a bit of angst or insecurity? Well of course that makes sense if a character is closeted.

Except that’s hurt a normal part of fiction, and sometimes the closeted interpretation takes away from the point of a character. If a male character is on another axis of marginalization, the closeted interpretation imposed by the slash reading community downplays or trivializes the effects of that marginalization in the plot by overwriting it with another type of marginalization. Alternately, sometimes a character’s heterosexuality is a part of the story. There are some sorts of critiques or investigations of misogyny or masculinity that don’t work if the character has an ‘opt out’ of the cisheteropatriarchal perspective. Not that gay/bisexual men aren’t except from misogyny, but misogyny masculinity and heterosexuality are so tightly linked that it sort of defeats the point if you interpret that character outside of heterosexuality.

All that is to say—the closet interpretation is a quick and easy spice to apply to the weaker parts of action-adventure genre fiction to make it taste better. It draws from a large enough sample of art that it’s pretty widely applicable. Because of that, it’s part of some people’s [my] default interpretation package just because the semi-dull macho show at least gets less dull if you imagine there’s a reason for there to be no girls besides simple hatred. That then forms its own problem where the interpretation that works with your average genre work gets then blanket-applied to all genre works and obscures the places where the closet interpretation doesn’t fix the work, and actually makes it less interesting.

A while back I saw sm1 saying tsukasa expresses emotions like it’s his first time experiencing them & while it’s very funny and true I think it’s also worth noting that unlike tv/movie actors, stage actors have to really exaggerate their body language/expressions so that their emotions are readable for everyone in the theatre. On screen you can easily pick up the micro expressions on an actor’s face because you’re like 5 ft away at most and the camera often zooms in on their face. From the back of the theatre you can’t read subtle expressions so the actors need to over emphasize and use their whole body. All this to say: given that u cannot take the theatre kid out of tsukasa I feel like his acting just bled into how he expresses his emotions.

Emu also does the body language thing but it’s harder to tell as she’s normally expressing a smaller range of emotions than tsukasa (she’s naturally joyous and whimsical creature & tsukasa is usually given ample reasons to express annoyance). I think that’s more of a result of her exaggerating her happiness so that other people are also happy rather than an acting thing though. Gestures at her refusing to show negative emotions. Entertainer/clown (actual clowns, not the insult) vs stage actor. Really good examples of them doing this is the clip of rui imitating tsukasa & the clip of nene imitating emu.

I do think the “chat is a 4th person pronoun” post is dumb for all the same reasons people have already posted about but also because it just straight up isn’t a new thing. Like yes it’s equivalent to saying “guys” or “y’all” or “gang” but also even the fact that people use it when no discernible “chat” is present. It’s the same as using any other subject to present a thought. If you’ve ever said “God, I’m tired” or “man, this is good” or anything like that you’ve done the same thing. Is god a 4th person pronoun? Is man?

Going from dead/non-updating media to technically-updating-but-games-take-years-to-make media to qsmp is wild. From nothing to “the link is still missing where is missing link<-(it’s been a year)” to “do you remember,,,, QSMP,,,, it’s been decades<-(it has been five days. It is coming back in another five days. You people are fascinating(pos))”

the daily life of walking around pondering main story

you

you get it

(talking about Azure)

stop it! i’m blushing! 🥰

This month's bonus book is super long and it seems the reason for that is because the author spends like a paragraph doing world-building or unnecessarily over-explaining reactions between each line of dialogue -_-

I think Bonnie’s expression arc would be so much better to me if Shane was played by a woman…

one thing about me is that i am so good at hunting down items. show me a random tiktok of a musical clock from 2013 and i can get you a sku and the cheapest ebay listing in 30 minutes