#what does that MEAN FOR WAYS OF SURVIVAL AND ORV??????? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

always-a-joyful-note · 2 years

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Okay. I'm trying not to overly spam the tag with my ORV reading but I HAVE to say this.

Asuka Ren? She's such a BRILLIANT character and I just need to talk a bit about her. I'm not sure if she appears after the small people arc (which is where I'm at), but she's just brilliant.

She's like a love letter to the small creators whose works never get noticed or get noticed only by a few people. She's like a representation of people who make weird worlds or create things that are perhaps not good (in the broadest sense of the term). Her character tells those creators - small, talented, not talented, all unnoticed by the mainstream public - that their work still matters.

I mean, Ways of Survival itself does that, but Asuka Ren is the first time we see how the simple act of creating - whether for yourself or even just one person - is SUCH a beautiful, meaningful act in of itself. Creation is valuable because it was created, and I LOVE that so much.

#before i start yelling spoiler warning....#anyway WHAT DO YOU MEAN ASUKA REN AND HER WORLD BECAME INDEOENDENT FROM EACH OTHER #this novel IS HURTING MY BRAIN #WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE AUTHOR DESCENDED FROM THE POSITION OF CREATOR #what does that MEAN FOR WAYS OF SURVIVAL AND ORV???????#BUT ASUKA ENJOYED READING IT SHE THINKS EVEN IF SHE D9DNT REMEMBER #stop that makes me CRY #even for ONE person...and that person who would have loved the manga was HER #she was an author character AND reader of Peace Land and its so bittersweet and AJDGEJDJFHDJ #goodbye everyone note has died from overthinking about a stupid side character #(i have a lot of brainrot for the mcs too but its easier to focus on sides when im just 23% in)#i am deceased #fandom spamdom #note's nonsense #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv spoilers

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orphiclovers · 16 days

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Ya ever think Pre-Scenarios Yoo Joonghyuk went to church / ya think Yoo Joonghyuk has catholic guilt?

You would never get asked questions like this on any other site. Gotta love tumblr. And of COURSE I have thoughts on this that I will ramble on in great detail.

In general, I always try to be careful to not accidentally project my western understanding onto things with a different cultural context. Especially in regards to things like Christianity, since it’s not universal and…idk it would feel inaccurate to ascribe it to characters who wouldn’t realistically encounter it themselves? Not that you can’t, but I personally try not to. That's irrelevant with ORV though, they literally made the biblical Garden of Eden be a place YJH has been shirtless in. So I’m just going to go ahead and assume that all the Christian motifs I find are intentional and fair game lol

I’ll start with your second question: KDJ’s the one with the catholic guilt, not YJH. YJH has something much more sinister going on.

He gets two main monikers in canon - ‘Pilgrim of The Lonely Apocalypse’ and ‘Puppet of The Oldest Dream.’ In ORV your moniker basically reveals what your ‘story’ is all about. These two names are supposed to show what Yoo Joonghyuk represents, and my thoughts there are…

1. Puppet of the Oldest Dream

He’s the incarnation of the all-seeing and all-knowing god that created the world.

What I’m saying is, he's a Jesus figure, alright? HEAR ME OUT. He is cursed to walk the world and suffer eternally to bring salvation to one man - at the end it's revealed that he willingly chooses to bear this burden (talking about 0th here). It’s that classic scapegoat story, bearing the sins of the world to save everyone else, but he's also choosing to do this, despite knowing it will be awful.

At the end of his regressions, when he breaks free of his chains, stops being a puppet, he finds himself lost and missing their weight. He had a terrible purpose in regression - without it, he's meaningless again.

2. As Pilgrim of the Lonely Apocalypse

He's literally called a ‘pilgrim’ - someone who goes on a journey to find god. Catholic guilt is about thinking you deserve to suffer for some perceived sins, but Yoo Joonghyuk already is in Hell. ‘Hell of Eternity’ specifically, which manifests with the Christian imagery of fire and brimstone. His ‘journey to find God’ takes him through a world of unimaginable pain and cruelty that he has to somehow find meaning in. (Both YJH and SP have different answers on what that meaning is in different points in their life. )

Needless to say, he has A LOT of imagery associated with religion.

On a more personal level, YJH is motivated by this ceaseless search for the meaning of his own existence. There's the extra layer there that he knows instinctively he was put on this earth for some grand reason, only no one ever tells him what it is. He’s cast into the world without memories and has to stumble through life blind, just like the rest of us. He desperately seeks someone who can tell him what he’s supposed to do, parent, god, prophet or anyone else. (Basically, he's an edgy atheist teenager.)

That’s why he never reaches his ‘▪️▪️’ - the cruel thing is that he can’t ever truly find his purpose, because he is driven by having an unreachable goal.

To answer your first question: Pre-scenarios Yoo Joonghyuk is busy trying to survive his shitty job and taking care of Mia. He doesn't have time for church or having a life or anything. All he can do is daydream of one day finding whoever created him and gave him life. He puts all his hopes on getting enough money to hire a private investigator and keeping this single goal in mind for years.

He will meet his parents and they will tell him what he’s supposed to do right? The really fucked up thing is, he does eventually get there.

The investigators give him an address, which he visits but finds only an empty house. On the way back, he has a little bit of an existential crisis and starts really thinking about it all. even thinks the classic YJH ‘who am I?’ Then, not even one second later, THE FUCKING APOCALYPSE STARTS. THERE’S HIS ANSWER I GUESS!!!!!

#when i'll die i'll have to answer to God for making this post. its gotta be blasphemy or herasy or something #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #asks #yoo joonghyuk #yoo mia side story #orv spoilers #my posts #i never know how to format my posts. should i put 'read more' for a post of this length? i decided not to this time but lmk #sorry that it takes me 10000 years to respond. i have to reread all of orv every time someone asks my opinion on something

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vyph2001 · 8 months

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hey does side story have Kim Dokja in it?

📌【Q&A about ORV side story #5】

Q: What is the ORV side story about?

The ORV side story follows Lee Hakhyun, the author of ORV from another worldline. He transmigrates into "Ways of Survival" with other readers. What would happen when every transmigrated reader knows the true end of this story? Although its labeled as a "side story", it could be seen as a continuation of ORV.

Q: How many chapters does the ORV side story have so far?

It's got 2 seasons and 126 chapters released so far. The expected length is around 200-300 chapters.

Q: How much does it cost to purchase both seasons of the side story?

1 chapter = 120 won = ~0.1 USD 100 chapters = 12.000 won = ~9 USD

Q: How do I purchase and read the side story?

Guide for buying ORV side story (SlothfulCreator) [ORV side story ss1] En fan translation (vapolunes) [ORV side story ss1+2] En fan translation (Lime)

Q: Wait, so CEO KDJ, Snowfield KDJ, and kkoma KDJ are all Kim Dokja? Does that mean he's finally awake?

Yesn't.

Q: Any JoongDok hints in the side story?

Yes.

Q: Who are Lee Hakhyun and Cheon Inho?

Lee Hakhyun is the MC of the side story, and the author of ORV from another worldline. He first appeared in Chapter 549 of the webnovel. Cheon Inho is a minor villain at Geumho station. In the end, he was eliminated by Jung Heewon. His first appearance was in Chapter 17 of the webtoon, and Chapter 16 of the webnovel. Lee Hakhyun is currently possessing Cheon Inho's body.

Q: Lee Hakhyun is ￭￭% fragment of Kim Dokja!?

Lee Hakhyun is a fragment of Kim Dokja, but he is also a unique individual and should be treated as such. Let's respect and accept him for who he is now!

==================

Thank you for taking the time to learn about ORV side story ❤

Support me a coffee if you love my artwork!

#TYVM Kursi & Snail <3 <3 <3 I appreciate your help!#pinned post #orv side story #orv spoilers #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #kim dokja #lee hakhyun #cheon inho

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your--isgayrights · 4 months

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You have written at least 1 No Scenarios AU before, so what do you think would happen to ORV KDJ if the scenarios never happened? In your wall fic, KDJ gets a stable job and a still ongoing story about YJH but at around the same time in the novel KDJ is about to be unemployed while WOS is coming to a close. Do you think ORV KDJ would be able to find another job (maybe like in your wall fic) or stay in contact with YSA or be fine without WOS? I’ve seen others say that KDJ might contemplate suicide again, or that he would never come to terms with his mom and his past in a No-Scenario event. What are your thoughts on the possible differences between this KDJ and your wall fic’s KDJ?

Hmm that's a good question... I think most important to whether or not Kim Dokja contemplates suicide again is whether or not WoS ends in the same way it does in cannon and how he reacts to it without the scenarios. My feeling is that when Kim Dokja survives his first attempt, he goes online and searches something to the effect of 'How to survive in a ruined world' and stumbles across a page publishing WoS, and he follows it for all these years because he is still looking for an answer to that question. I think a lot of people can relate to that drive for media consumption that is like... 'please, I just want to feel different after this, I want this to mean something.' WoS is a story about what happens to a man forced to survive the apocalypse over 1800 times and this is analagous to KDJ who endures the sisyphusian burden of being a regular guy with no friends every goddamn day lol. KDJ has been waiting for WoS to tell him what it has all been for. An important part of WoS's construction is that HSY knew KDJ's future while writing it. In this way, WoS was like a promise to KDJ, 'please just keep living, we're coming soon, the people who love you will appear, please just wait for them a little longer..'

In a world where this future doesn't come to pass, the original ending of WoS would lose a lot of this meaning. we get a bit of a preview of this reality in the sort of... Oh... That's it? Moment KDJ has after reading 'the end' at the start of ORV and then there's his messages with the author. So with this as the starting point I will say I find it likely KDJ could work himself up to another attempt just based on the ending of 'surviving 1863 times was for nothing because reality is limited and there are no true heroes' bc his internal just like YJH moments would end up depressing like 'doing all this work for nothing in the end...' but like you say there's more fun options if you get our ORV ladies involved. For instance, I could see KDJ disbelieving the ending or wanting a better conclusion for YJH and messaging the author about such things. Imagine that as One True Author HSY is fading, 26(?) Yo HSY wakes up to see she has a weird alternate account she's typing on? What? And looking at her computer history she realizes she sleep wrote this novel? Wow her genius knows no bounds...

I think for an author like HSY, having a single dedicated reader to converse with who takes the story to be as important as it is in your head is a really big thing, and her popular web novels never have anything like that. So when she has this account that's this one way channel with KDJ she's like oh haha fuck this guy what a loser he likes this webnovel that doesn't even have a good ending like mine did... I could write so much better of an ending awake than I did asleep... So she starts writing extras at KDJ's behest. Except her style is totally different and very fanservicey, except she doesn't understand the fan she's serving very well yet?

On KDJ's end I think maybe YSA takes concern after he reveals he doesn't have a position lined up after his contract ends and starts sending him any and all opportunities she sees around. At first he awkwardly thanks her and doesn't pursue them right away, but while WoS is ongoing again in this weird new direction, he starts applying around. He either gets another office job or honestly I could see him working at a convenience store or something (maybe he has a system where if there's a fly in the store a certain bug net carrying kid can catch it for candy rewards...).

While HSY is writing WoS extras, KDJ is constantly complaining and it eventually shakes down to a long one on one conversation between the two of them about why WoS and it's ending matters so much to KDJ. He wants a happy ending that he can Believe, not just a 'happy ending' standard formula, because those exist for a different Type of person than YJH (KDJ) is. So HSY doggedly works at writing and revising it until KDJ could possibly be satisfied... But maybe comes to the conclusion that there's no way WoS could end and satisfy KDJ so they decide to write a sequel that only HSY snidely sees as a KDJ self insert fanfiction of the original work so HSY is writing RPF of random guy who read her sleep-wrote novel ending up in her sleep-wrote novel and that's ORV. I like to think that somehow ORV would become popular even though WoS itself would remain in obscurity like people would think it was made up just as the premise for ORV and not look for the actual novel lol. Then I think HSY and KDJ could be very Established online friends and maybe even meet up in person to talk shit. As for his mom, she'd get out of prison but I don't think she and KDJ would meet up again unless maybe HSY coached him or his mom reached out first. I have some more specific ideas about how it's going to go in Wall fic I wanna keep close to the belt for now.

But yeah without WoS or any of the IRLs' intervention, KDJ's story is def one of that passive suicidality that comes from not even being able to imagine a future worth surviving for. Without a driving motivation to keep living, KDJ becomes unemployed, food becomes scarce, he might drift through some systems for a bit before reaching the end. I don't know if he'd still take action himself, but he'd definitely be another person just sitting around waiting to die. Of course, even for such a person there are avenues to keep living. Like I said, low level job at a convenience store or something could be pretty okay. It's a close knit team with a small group of customers and he doesn't have to care too much about the job to get it done. He could do little niceties for people like he likes to do and just have it taken as good customer service. But he would still definitely be Waiting for whatever next thing would come along, be it a new novel or like a robber coming to kill him lol. I could imagine him getting held up and being like... Do it. Take the shot. I'm a 30 yo working at a convenience store do you think I have something to live for. And maybe he'd get promoted to manager.

#sold myself on that little KDJ as a convenience store manager moment at the end there bc tbh one of the things i relate to KDJ on is having #trouble planning out the future bc of the executives disfunctioning and sometimes i dream about working in #fast food again and being able to go home and have a life instead of school or planning for the future i guess #thanks for the ask its been hard for ne to do creative stuff recently ive bren waiting to feel like my life has Plateaued again #ask #anonymous #orv #orv spoilers

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lee-hakhyun · 1 year

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the final lines of chapter 614

oh dear god. 'does this make me a little more like him?' kdj kinnies are dangerous

some notes

earlier, he tried to write a sentence that could persuade hsy, but he didn't have enough probability. so he instead wrote this end for himself. this was the only way to get what he wanted, for his readers to have a chance of survival

stories without sacrifice do not exist.

his debut work was a short story that won him a newcomers division award, 'the origins of memory'. (yes, this is the same award as the one from star writer. star writer is also brought up as another novel lhh wrote!)

'the origin of memory' is a story about a writer who fabricates his childhood to sell stories and give lectures. sounds familiar.

his fraud is later exposed, with the main character's reaction being something like 'no one is harmed because i have such a past. doesn't everyone have the right to their own story?'

'기원' is used here, which has different meanings depending on the hanja (my korean isn't that good though please forgive me if i made a mistake 🙏)

기원(起源) origin 기원(冀願) wish

the story the protagonist of that novel wrote wasn't his origin, but his wish. so it was still his story.

and as a reader of lhh's works points out, almost all of lhh's works have similar themes of lies and 기원. the only one that doesn't fit lhh's style was orv.

(edit: somehow i gave an explanation of 기원 and still messed up the quote. it would probably make more sense to be walked toward his 'wish', not 'origin'. i feel like it's also meant to be a double meaning word though, but that can't really be translated.)

#i'm a little devastated.#orv #orv side story #orv spoilers #...i had a feeling something like this would happen when he managed to secure extra probability by breaking his arms before #i *really* love lhh. you can see how this destroyed me #star writer was mentioned in orv too godd i need to read the rest of it

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yoyoyo-idk · 7 months

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Current 'mysteries' in ORV and my theories so far

Kim dokja's blurry face. i know it's probably going to be for some stupid reason and not matter That Much, i just really want to know. why is he blurry. is it because he's outside of the novel and like ~reading through a screen~ so pixels and all that?

Secretive Plotter. this one's funny because at the beginning i didn't care at all and now im desperate. i thought it was the writer at the beginning but i don't think so anymore because at some point they described him as like. someone who wants to see the storh but cannot imagine it? or smth and i was like... that sounds like a reader. but there's only one reader in orv so. yk. my wildest theory is that using the avatar skill kim dokja at some point like. does the thing they were talking about (50/50, who is the real one?) and SOMEHOW becomes an outer god and that's why he can't read his attribute page (i can't remember the name rn) without receiving massive damage. i don't believe it too much tho because why would his name be secretive plotter. one that's way too god a name for mr 'yeah my nebula's name is just my name wdym' and two it doesn't fit with like. a reader. sure HE's a secretive plotter but he also gets more involved than current secretive plotter. (oh also. idk how the star stream would deal with two existence. like? it's one person so it'd crash, no? but it survived the avatar skill so hmmmm)

^ again, kim dokja not being able to read his attribute page. first theory is above, second theory is that it'd put him too 'much' into the novel? i don't believe it too much tho. so yup really curious about that one

the wall. WHAT IS THE LAST WALL TELL ME STOP TEASING ORV. since its 'fragments' are so different and spread so while im really curious! i mean. it's not like it only protects, and it's not like it only exists for kim dokja so it somehow exists in the novel's universe, while kdj influences it. hmmmm.

id love more nuances/info on ◻️◻️ (not on pc so i can't do it properly but.) eternity? final chapter? yeah the final chapter a story exists forever but what does ◻️◻️ represent? i really want to know more it's so cryptic.

#orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #beryl more or less live reacting #beryl speaks

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trashideas · 1 year

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Returner Kim Dokja AU! But also a Solo Leveling crossover

A small excerpt concept between Joonghyuk’s first meeting with Dokja’s shadow

Regression #???? Takes place many failed regressions after the original plot of ORV

No spoilers!

...

Joonghyuk meets Dokja’s Shadow first.

He sees the familiar white coat on the top of a rooftop. Joonghyuk assumes the worst. That Dokja doesn't remember them, nor did he start the Scenarios on the train car. Which led him to the thought that Kim Dokja was on the roof to kill himself.

Joonghyuk scales the rooftop in seconds after seeing the white figure. The figure hasn't noticed him, but this is not Kim Dokja. It's a crude caricature of the man that seemed so unstoppable.

“Who are you?” Joonghyuk demands. His sword is drawn, brandishing it at the fake Kim Dokja.

Kim Dokja was still staring out at the horizon, watching the sunrise and waiting for a meteor to fall. He turned at the voice. “Yoo Joonghyuk?” he asks, hopeful.

Joonghyuk was taken aback. His name wasn't known as much as it was last round. In fact, he hadn't told anyone his name this round.

Was this another case of Apostles?

Hope surged in his heart, “How much do you know of Ways of Survival?”

Dokja laughs, “I will admit, I don't know as much as I used to.”

“So do you know of the Apostles?”

It took a moment for Dokja to respond, scouring his memory for the name. “Oh- the Apostles. They read the novel too, yes?”

“I am asking you.”

“Well you could say I know of them.”

“Does the name Kim Dokja mean anything to you?” Joonghyuk finds himself asking.

Dokja laughs again, this time hearty and loud, “I would sure hope so,” pitch black feathered wings sprout from his back in a wave of power, “Seeing as I am him.”

[Incarnation Yoo Joonghyuk has activated skill “Lie Detection”]

[”Lie Detection” has proven your words true]

Joonghyuk’s grip on his sword loosens and it drops to the roof’s gravel with a clatter. “Kim Dokja,” he steps forward, arms outstretched, “you idiot,” he growls as he brings the other into what he thought would be a crushing hug.

Instead, a poof of shadows envelops them and Joonghyuk finds himself hugging himself rather than Dokja.

“Kim Dokja, what happened to you?”

“I-... Joonghyuk I died.”

Joonghyuk’s eyes glaze over in grief, but they quickly flash with anger. “How- who killed you?”

Dokja’s bright eyes would've filled with tears if they could, but alas, his eyes were nothing but a burning glow, “I did, Joonghyuk.”

Joonghyuk reaches out again, this time much more gentle. And this time, the shadows stay firm, a solid presence against Joonghyuk’s warm hands. Joongyuk’s hands guide Dokja’s head to press against his own, “Kim Dokja,” he says quietly, such a quiet whisper that Dokja isn't even sure he heard it.

Dokja leans into the touch, happiness overwhelming him at seeing the Regressor after so long.

[Activating Shadow Exchange]

In a blink, Kim Dokja is gone. In his place, is another man.

#kim dokja #orv au #yoo joonghyuk #orv omniscient reader's view point #joondok #snippysnippet #Returner Kim Dokja #solo leveling crossover #imagine getting cockblocked like that #no spoilers

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joongdokshitposting · 11 months

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So uh remember when I said I wrote an essay on orv for my Communicative English assignment? Well here it is people, in all it's flawed (?) glory (cuz again English is not my first language (it is but it's a little more complex) so my vocab is weird sorta ig) (I literally just copy pasted my assignment btw so if it sounds like an assignment I wrote on at half past 2 in the night,, just look over it please 😭)

Communicative English - Speech Script

Topic: Review of the novel “Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.”

I am somebody who has never read a web novel, I’ve only ever preferred regular novels. However, I do read webtoons often, and that is how I stumbled across this masterpiece of a story. What started off as curiosity quickly turned into obsession as I spent almost every moment not working on reading this seven thousand page monster of a book. And, see, truthfully, such a huge number would’ve absolutely had me running the opposite way. At least, that’s the case usually. But the prose and narration in this book is genuinely so intriguing that it had me hooked from chapter one. While it does have a slow beginning the wait is very much worth it as the plot constantly keeps moving forward without lagging anywhere. Not a moment is wasted, every single scene contributes to fleshing out the world and its characters and through it all we, the readers, find ourselves falling deeper into the thematic story beats.

But I’m getting carried away aren’t I? Let me step back a little. For starters, what is a web novel? As the name suggests, they are novels published directly onto the internet and can be both free to read or paid to read. The difference between regular/physical novels and web novels would be the publishing aspect. Web novels, unlike the usual novels, are written, edited and published by the authors themselves. Additionally, they can be both ongoing, where the author publishes a chapter on a timely basis, or fully published once completely written.

Now that that’s cleared, let’s move on. The book I’m currently so emotionally attached to, goes by the title “Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint” and is a Korean fantasy web novel. The story follows the life of a 28-year-old contract worker named Kim Dokja (Dokja, meaning both only-child and reader. This also contributes to the greater narrative of both the plot and the character.) whose only hobby is reading web novels.

The setting is as such: He’s lonely, he’s had a not-so-great childhood (as we find out eventually), and his current part-time job contract is ending, meaning he’s knee deep into leading a pathetic life where he has to work hard to survive and afford at least the bare minimum every single day. Through it all, the only salvation for this man is a web novel by the name “Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined world” (it has multiple abbreviations but the most agreed upon is TWSA) that had been running for ten whole years, him being it’s sole reader past the 120th chapter as most people gave up on such a lengthy (hitting an insane 3149 chapter count) and apparently terribly written novel (this further highlights his whole “reader” identity as we will see pretty quickly).

Now, our story begins when the web novel that Kim Dokja has been reading for ten years, becomes the new reality one day while he is riding the subway with his coworker. This dramatically shifts the supposed “genre” of Dokja’s life from “realism” (as stated by him directly) to “fantasy” thereby completely changing his life (and I mean, COMPLETELY) to the point where he becomes an irreplaceable aspect of the story and the characters we follow.

Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (ORV for short), despite its dystopian and violent setting, is a book filled with love. And by that I don’t mean romance, god no. If anything, this book has absolutely nothing to do with that genre. No, this book? Oh no it’s not talking about rose tinted cheeks, shy confessions or tragic love declarations. Well, let’s keep that last part because it happens a lot actually. Just not the way we expect it. As mentioned, this book in itself is a love letter to readers and touches on the topic of interdependence between authors and readers. How inevitably one cannot exist without the other. This is most evident in the three main characters of ORV and their roles/powers.

Both thematically and as characters, they’re so intimately interwoven that one quite literally cannot exist without the other two. Kim Dokja the reader, Yoo Joonghyuk (the original hero of TWSA) the protagonist, and Han Sooyoung the writer. Part of what sells their need to depend on each other comes from the fact that all three of them cannot stand one another. At least, initially. Their dynamics are literally just verbal insults, attempts at murder and pathological lying. They genuinely cannot go a minute without feeling the urge to strangle each other. But guess what? While their fiery rivalry and banter remains, it slowly develops into one coming from a place of affection rather than weariness. In that sense, ORV is also a slow burn. The characters take their time opening up, and are more often than not, extremely human. Almost all the characters (and there’s a lot by the way, many surprisingly or not, non-human in nature) always have their very own completely valid and plausible reasons for doing what they’re doing. And sometimes we find ourselves sympathizing with them.

The core of this novel, from what I can understand, is about love. Both in terms of deserving and expressing it. Dokja, despite loving the characters/people in his life so much that he willingly sacrifices himself, not once, not twice, but multiple times, firmly believes he’s not worth saving. It’s heartbreaking, watching this 20 something year old who spent his entire life in isolation, deny himself of love he deserves just as much as anybody else just because he hasn’t received it for so long that he is accustomed to living a life without it. He constantly tries justifying him putting a wall between him and the world; he says it’s his job to be a “dokja”, a “reader”, someone omniscient, someone who supposedly exists outside the story, outside the narrative, and therefore should not be the point of focus at any given time.

Time and again the others tell him, they remind him of his humanity, saying how they wouldn’t have survived without him. But he counters by saying it’s the opposite and that he wouldn't have lived for thirty years if not for the characters and therefore he is only repaying. He speaks of how the ending of the story he wants to see is one where nobody dies. For that, and that alone, he dies again and again and again. And you, you have to sit there watch this mess of a man so unabashedly full of love throw himself death’s way and not be able to do anything because he won’t listen. You feel helpless, just like the other characters, including Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk, and only pray to all things divine that this man also gets the happy ending he’s so desperately fighting to give the others.

This book has genuinely impacted me in a way no other has. And that is saying something because it’s so easy for me to jump from one interest to another. It has been two weeks since I finished this book and yet it refuses to leave my mind and heart. It stays there adamantly with the same stubbornness with which Dokja denies his well deserved love. Every moment not spent working, I spend thinking about stories and readers and writers and heroes. I look to the stars and think of all the stories in the world I don’t know, stories written with such tender love that only certain readers can ever truly embrace them. I think of how, perhaps, this is how humans are too. I think of how maybe we’re all made of stories waiting to be read with love by others the way Dokja read TWSA thereby giving life to Yoo Joonghyuk and purpose to Han Sooyoung.

Sooooo is this still enough to encompass my thoughts on orv? Absolutely not :D

#long post #orv #orv analysis #??? i think #Bro idk I'm just constantly thinking about orv okay

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pttucker · 7 months

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However, there had been a 'crack' in this plate since a few years ago. Through that crack, whole information of the future came through. "A strange hole occurred a few days ago…" The hole that occurred a few days ago caused a problem in the probability that couldn't be overlooked even by the Star Stream. Information that shouldn't have been passed on crossed through that broken hole without damage. Bihyung still had a headache when he thought about the work at that time. Strange strings had emerged through the hole for a while. 『 Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World. 』 The name seemed like the title of a book and the constellations of the Star Stream fell into chaos. –What is Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World.txt

I was right! 😲

Dokja messing with the Fourth Wall really is causing TWSA to leak into the world!

Oh man, but this is making it seem so much more than just that.

The hole in the plate of revelations is very obviously the exactly same hole that Dokja put in the Fourth Wall, not to mention this plate has apparently been shaking for a few years now, in other words, shaking either since Dokja first appeared "in TWSA" or since he started messing with the Fourth Wall, and freaking Sangah is literally able to talk directly through it to the outside world. And when she does, she literally says, "Well, I think I became a god."

Dokja really is the author of TWSA isn't he?

Or, perhaps, he's not he original author of TWSA but he's the master of this version of TWSA because it's the one that now lives inside his head. I mean, after a person reads a book there's now a version of that story that's only theirs, right? Their interpretations, their favorite scenes, their memories of what happened, etc.

Oh boy, this plus Joonghyuk knowing he's a character...things are finally starting to come to light but we still have over 200 chapters left and this is ORV so I can only imagine it'll get more confusing before everything finally becomes completely clear.

#orv #orv spoilers #orv novel chapter 354 #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv liveblog #kdj #the fourth wall

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demonlikejudgeoffire · 1 year

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crashes through your wall wait i got another one opal are you up to writing some Pygmalion and Galatea flavored yoohan

solca you know that I am Always up to writing yoohan and the Pygmalion myth has been bouncing around my head for months (tho I'd originally planned on doing it as a sketch lol)

(vague ORV epilogue spoilers below the cut, though this is an AU)

Writing Ways of Survival takes more out of Han Sooyoung than she'd ever expected going into it. It had been a pet project that had begun sometime in her (very) early teens, scrawled in the margins of her notebooks and handouts. She cringes sometimes, thinking back to those early chapters, written with the confidence of a child believing that they were going to be the next bestselling author—she'd been right, of course, but that had come with time and practice.

Still, even with that self-awareness, Han Sooyoung is proud of the long nights and the years of work she's put into her novel. She's always loved her story, and it's that love that has sustained her through everything that's happened since. It's the reason she updated it regularly, even though her other novel, the one actually written under her name, was the one that everyone liked. It's the reason she kept writing even though only one other person was interested in it. But…it's not the only reason, nor is WoS the only thing she loves.

When she writes Yoo Joonghyuk, it feels like he truly does come to life, like he's the one making his own decisions. There are so many times when a scene turns out differently than she'd plotted it out, and she has to change everything accordingly. She writes, and it's like she can see his face in front of her.

And then, he is. In front of her.

His hair falls perfectly on his forehead as he looks around her room, brows furrowed. His lips slant into a frown, and his hand (broad, calloused, scarred) falls to the hilt of his sword. He asks, "A new scenario?"

His gaze sharpens when he sees her. In the blink of an eye, his sword is drawn and pointed at her. Mouth dry, she stares up the length of the blade and finds his face dark; confusion and anger war in his expression. "You. Who are you?"

"Me?" Han Sooyoung can't help but laugh, disbelieving, even as his eyes narrow. "I'm the one who wrote you."

Before she can say another word, his hands are clenched in the front of her shirt. She hangs in the air, her feet kicking uselessly. She scrabbles against his grip but is powerless to break free.

"You're the one behind the scenarios?" Yoo Joonghyuk asks darkly.

"Let me—let me down and we can talk," she gasps.

He scrutinises her face, then looks her over. Likely deeming her not to be a threat, he lets go of her shirt. Han Sooyoung grunts as she falls to the ground. "You could have done that more gently," she complains bitterly, rubbing her butt as she stands. "That's probably going to bruise tomorrow, damn it."

He ignores her grumbling, of course. Her protagonist was supposed to be an asshole, especially in the latter scenarios, and particularly towards people who weren't his companions.

He sheaths his sword, but that hardly means anything when she'd just seen how quickly he could draw it. Glaring at her, he says, "Talk."

What else can she do but talk?

The explanation goes something like this: Han Sooyoung created Yoo Joonghyuk. She wrote his life into being. Every miserable event and death was because of her. Every regression was because of her. It was a painful story, but it was one where the protagonist always survived. He had to survive.

"Why?"

Han Sooyoung hesitates here. Less verbosely, she tells the story of a lonely boy.

Yoo Joonghyuk is silent for a time afterwards, hand clenched around the grip of his sword. Then, he asks, voice quiet, "Why me? Why am I here?"

The original outline for this scene had been vaguest here. She'd struggled to fill it in, before giving up and starting to write, thinking she'd figure it out as she went, the way she always did. That hadn't happened. Han Sooyoung bites her lip.

"You're here," she says slowly, "because your story has ended."

His brows draw together. "I'm still alive," he replies blankly.

"You—you were never meant to die," Han Sooyoung exclaims quickly. "Your story isn't the same as your life. Even after books end, the characters live on. Maybe the pages are finished, but that doesn't mean that they cease to exist, right?" She doesn't even realise it, but she's halfway to pleading as she says it. "Your story ending doesn't mean that you're gone. But I didn't want—I don't want to stop writing about you. And—" she searches his face "—you wanted to see who was behind the curtain, right? To find out why you were destined to regress and struggle through the scenarios. I finished the epilogue but it felt cruel to just. Leave you there. This was just supposed to be like, a fun extra. 'Character meets the author' is a pretty popular trope nowadays, and I thought that guy might like it and—"

"Answer the question," he says, cutting her off. "Why me?"

"Because you're you," she says, before her brain can catch up to her mouth. "I mean. Uh."

Yoo Joonghyuk's still holding his sword. She squeezes her eyes shut and says quickly, "You're my favourite character."

Silence. She cracks open one eye and peeks out at him. His expression doesn't look too murderous, so she continues hesitantly. "I don't mean it the way the constellations do, I swear. I just. When I first wrote you, I was just a kid, you know? You were supposed to just be some OP power fantasy protag. I thought I'd write a few chapters and move on to some other WIP. But I loved writing you. You were so—you never gave up. Even when you had nothing, when you lost the people important to you, you had the strength to try again. You were everything I needed to inspire me to keep writing, just. Rolled into one character. How could I not fall in love with you?"

"But I wasn't...real," he says.

"I wanted you to be. Desperately. Even if it meant that every horrible thing I wrote actually happened to you, seeing you here, in the flesh—" she's shaking, she has to be "—it's like a dream come true."

Maybe this is a dream. Maybe she's finally collapsed from overwork the way her editor is always fussing she will, and this is some exhaustion-fuelled hallucination. Still, it had hurt when he dropped her, so maybe...

She reaches out. His skin is warm under her palm. His eyes track her movement. She steps closer, then closer still.

"I should kill you," he murmurs. "Why don't I hate you more for what you did?"

She laughs, dizzy and giddy all at once, and drunk on the feeling of it. Her fingertips find his cheekbones, his mouth, his tongue when his lips part. Closer. She needs to be closer.

"Every act of creation is one of love," she whispers. "How can that creation not love its creator?"

#orv #orv spoilers #yoohan #han sooyoung #yoo joonghyuk #opalwrites #solca #opalanswers

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mae-i-scribble · 2 years

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Random thoughts on the orv epilogue part 4/??? AKA: why I will forever believe orv ends happily.

You see a lot of different interpretations of what happens after that hospital door opens, and rightfully so since that’s literally what the authors intend for us to do as readers. After scrolling through all available pages of fanfic for kdj/yjh I noticed that you tend to see imaginings that lean towards that happy ending, even with struggles along the way. Every now and again you’ll see a sort of “bad ending” fic that just dives head first into that depressing what if of kdj never coming back, or coming back but never to be the same. While these are fine and dandy, power to those who write them, personally a happy ending where kdj does come back (if not whole nearly enough to say he truly is whole) and lives his life happily with everyone in the end just fits better with the emotional strokes of orv’s writing.

Orv is about a lot of things, its incredibly fast paced giving us a convoluted plot and numerous characters to meet and watch grow or impact the narrative, its a meta thematic novel on epic proportions. But to me, really and truly, orv is a story about love and is in it of itself a love letter to every story. From the get go orv is a celebrator of stories and their importance to people, the hope and love and power they give people. It’s a narrative paying homage to any and all narratives before it, for their flaws and their triumphs. Beyond stories though, orv is about the love between people, no matter what label is applied, involving each and every one of the cast.

It’s about how kdj, through all his bluster and unreliable narration, can barely remember what it is to give or receive love, or what it means to be genuine, that he’s left fumbling constantly, met with problems his emotional intelligence cannot parce out. About how jihye and the kids become a trio of their own, all them far too young in a world that has made them adults, and how jihye fights to preserve the small spark of innocence those kids have. About how when hyunsung has to save heewon from her own demon he says that he will bear her wrath on behalf of the world, even if it means literally melting as he pushes through her flames to cover her with his steel shields. It’s Jung Heewon falling into despair as kdj leaves her behind again and again because loving a person who values themselves so little is a wound that keeps on growing, pain made all the worse by the fact that kdj means none of it, and would rather nothing happen to heewon, and she knows this, but cannot accept it because that is what her love means. It’s Sangah sacrificing herself over and over again to get their group more information on the future, to protect them in kdj’s place and make sure they all survive. It’s the entire group coming together to teach the kids important skills. It’s kdj waiting at yjh’s bedside after the reveal of ways of survival, for the first time willing to lay everything out on the table and just *talk* to yjh. And when yjh leaves, kdj accepts yjh’s anger and is more than willing to take it all without fighting back until hsy steps in between them. It’s jang hayoung tells dokja that even if you can’t reach at other person, to try anyways, because even the act of reaching out has value, even if it isn’t seen, even if it isn’t heard until it’s too late, it matters. It’s how lee sookyung loved kdj with everything she had, and how that love hurt him more than anything else in the world. About how even when kdj doesn’t consider lee sookyung to be his mother, he still loves her and wants to understand her. It’s how the adoration han myungoh has for his daughter makes him a fundamentally different person. How hades protects persephone until his last breath while persephone plays the ode to their love.

About how kdj saw a world where everything was nearly perfect, everyone was happy even the people he couldn’t save, and couldn’t accept that world because it was one where yjh was unhappy. It’s about hsy taking one look, one fucking look at kdj in that hospital stretcher and realizing that no, he never was lying when he said that ways of survival saved him, and that in turn she had to do whatever it took to make sure he kept living, the world be damned. About how kdj dies at the hands of the person he loves most after fighting yjh over which one of them will be the one to save the other. It’s the way that the 999 round companions travel the worldlines all for the sake of meeting the man who loved them enough to sacrifice everything for them. About how yjh first reacts with betrayal and hurt after finding out that kdj had read about his life, asking kdj why, when yjh is right here in front of him, is kdj still reading. About how yjh then goes on to say that he is the only one who can pass judgement on kdj for enjoying ways of survival, and he has long since forgiven kdj because that is how kdj lived, and yjh accepts that part of him. It’s about how secretive plotter, upon meeting the oldest dream, reacts not with violence but with understanding, and he and the 999 rounds are finally able to be at peace because of it. It’s the way that countless people, not just kdj’s company, went back for another life because they all had things they loved and wanted to save.

It’s about the way that even as kdj is dooming himself to a life of endless dreaming, he wants the people he loves to be happy.

There’s so much love in this novel, such care and loving detail put into describing its many facets and complexities. My rambling here only scratched the moments that I remember most clearly, and even then it wasn’t all of my favorites. In a story so full of love that centers around a protagonist who cannot, for the life of him, even imagine himself living in such a world peacefully, of course I want him to have his happy ending.To love without sacrifice, to love mundanely, simply, and to have all the time in the world to learn what it means. And for his companions, who traveled time and space to bring him home and spent years grieving him, to finally get that chance as well.

Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | ... | Part 5 (upcoming)

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orphiclovers · 1 month

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Do you think the MIA side story is actually the "original timeline" cause if not, I'm thinking about what would have happened if kimcom (well sys & lsh) didn't intervene

i actually have so many thoughts about this jahdjkdh STRAP IN LONG POST AHEAD

first lets talk about what the 'original timeline' is. the simplest way to define it is the story written of in the original 'Ways of Survival' 3149 chapters, that happens without Kim Dokja's (or hsy's) direct influence. ergo, Secretive Plotter's 1863 regressions, but also the unrecorded history of his life as an outer god.

that leaves round's 0, alt-1863, 1864, 1865 as worlds that were directly influenced by kim dokja and part of an 'altered' timeline, and I would make the claim that they happen to a different, alt!yjh too.

if the 'original timeline' is written by 1863!hsy in the novel 'Ways of Survival', lived by the Secretive Plotter and brought to life by the Oldest Dream; then the 'altered timeline' is written by 'our' Han Sooyoung and 1864!Yoo Joonghyuk (+kimcom) in 'Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint,' lived by Kim Dokja and brought to life by us.

for me, all confusing time paradox, alternate universe stuff makes sense in the context of these two timelines.

Secretive Plotter, when he becomes an outer god and starts observing his own past regressions, mistakenly starts to believe that he can intervene in his own past because he seemingly successfully did in the 999th turn- but actually, that was the only way it could have ever gone, because that was what was written in WoS and what he had already lived. it was an exception and the only exception.

(the alt!1863 world-line was always different from his own past 1863rd regression, unlike with 999, because he would have remembered it if it had happened to him; he only decided to intervene in it bc the alt!3rd turn existed, which in turn was created because he intervened in the alt!1863 turn etc etc the end result devours the cause etc we get it)

SP knows the universe is a closed loop intellectually but he doesn't ever comprehend it fully- because he is a character, he cannot see past the fourth wall even when he learns of its existence (he very literally cant break past the Final Wall). but his story wasn't about that. as all Yoo Joonghyuks do, he wondered about the meaning of his existence, and the conclusion he eventually arrived at was that he existed for the Oldest Dream- he accepted this answer, made the oldest dream a reality and went off to live in domestic found family bliss with little kdj and 999th turns outer gods. thats the way he escapes being a 'character.' (good for him)

on the other hand 'our' yoo joonghyuk / alt!yjh is on a totally different trajectory than Secretive Plotter.

his story starts (as much as anything has a 'start' in orv...) at the end of the alt!1863 world-line when he chooses to live / regress to meet Kim Dokja. he only knows to do that because he literally sees his own story written on the Fourth Wall- hes already very locked in to the truth of the universe from the get-go. then, he sacrifices most of his memories to create that world he saw, the quote 'world-line above the Wall.' he does the impossible and escapes from being a character with his own fervent willpower.

and this YJH is the one we read about in ORV, whose fundamentally different from SP in various ways but most importantly in his...complete self-awareness of the fact he is a character in a novel, not intellectually, but like, existentally?? he is constantly not breaking the fourth wall exactly, but seeing the edges of it intruding on his experience of reality in cosmically horrifying ways (he reminds me a lot of that one tumblr post about eldritch madness).

ANYWAY WE HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED AT YOUR QUESTION JESUS THIS POST IS LONG

yma side story yoo joonghyuk is the alt!yjh through and through baby!!!! he is:

directly impacted by kim dokja's existence (through kimcom)

living through events not described in WoS (but that are described in ORV)

existentially aware of a (fourth) wall dividing reality in two (to the point of madness/psychosis- he literally sees this wall in a psychic vision!!)

and to answer the second part of your question...its hard to say what SP thinks about his pre-scenarios life, but I think it might be along the same lines as every other character does. he knows he was a pro gamer, can vaugley reminisce about it, but it isnt relevent to the plot so he doesnt think about it very often. (heck, he might even assume he has parents and a childhood!)

#orv spoilers #this took me hours to write and i still have more to say but it was getting too long #omniscient reader's viewpoint #secretive plotter #yoo joonghyuk #orv meta #i love getting asks makes me feel like a real tumblr user

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jankillbride · 1 year

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[ID: three digital sketches of Kim Dokja holding Lee Gilyoung in various positions. In the left most sketch and the top right sketch, Lee Gilyoung is held in something like a princess carry. In the bottom right sketch, Lee Gilyoung is perched on one of Kim Dokja’s arms and the other arm is supporting him, as if he’s sitting on a chair. End ID]

true fact, i searched up “ben affleck.holding dog like sack of potatoes” to get this ref

this is just orv thoughts since i’m reading it for the first time and the tags maxed out on me :( so i’m moving all my predictions and whatnot here. it does exist in my annotations but i want to group them together. if you decide to read pls don’t give spoilers, i only just finished ch 50.

absolutely would die for gilyoung. each time kim dokja goes ‘this kid is cute’ i’m like yes he absolutely is. also wish i started a counter for how many times he pats gilyoung’s head/strokes his hair cause that man is fond.

also i wrote a fic where people were like. comparing one aspect to it to orv and now that i’m getting deeper into yoo joonghyuk (ish) i can’t wait for this man to go through agonies

it’d be interesting if a regression did happen and then we’d get kdj’s narration as it was in the beginning of the novel, though yjh would act differently cause he’s interested in this new prophet. also he did try to recruit gilyoung at a point, and gilyoung might’ve said yes if there was no dokja. so.

also let’s talk about bugs. because in the beginning humans were compared to insects. and that puts me in mind of the three body problem. but more relevantly, gilyoung’s ability is with bugs, and gilyoung is most definitely supposed to at least be a parallel to dokja. so it’s very inch resting

also the re-occurance of a maternal-son relationship. (maternal as in someone is fulfilling that role somehow) and how deficiencies in that have different outcomes. there’s gilyoung and the woman on the train, dokja and his mother, the mother and child at that one place where she encouraged her child to kill (i actually forget if the child was a boy but i think so), and jung heewon with her slightly younger brother (she had to fulfill the parental role (at least she had to force him to go to school) when her mother didn’t do that).

secretive plotter. so i think that they’re either a young yoo joonghyuk or some version of him. i used to think it was young/alt version of dokja partially cause he’s a reader and secretive plotter. but my friend who knows the ending said it wasn’t him. there is an author character though, so maybe it’s a version of her? or wait, one slight spoiler i know is that she was the original writer but dokja thinks she plagiarized off of someone else, and that someone else could be secretive plotter. which would make more sense considering all the scenarios follow ways of survival and so some outside force should be enacting this.

i think dokja might become a constellation in the end. i know people are conflicted about the ending and kdj possibly ends up separated from everyone but it’s happy for him? anyways becoming a constellation would lead to that. and becoming a constellation would mean he has the power to remain a ‘reader’ if he chooses, by watching the streams. but at the same time he can choose not to. he can no longer participate in this story. he can leave the narrative and i think that’s nice. it’s also part of the reason that i thought he could be secretive plotter, since there’s the potential for him to become a constellation, and perhaps in a parallel universe, a young dokja lives through ways of survival and watches orv dokja to see how he would’ve been in another world, had he had the chance to grow up and know what the apocalypse would be like. it would also serve as an additional parallel or foil to gilyoung because gilyoung doesn’t have the choice to grow up in a non apocalyptic world

#orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #kim dokja #lee gilyoung #jkb.art #orv is appealing to me so much and i love it more each time i remember that dokja is literally. dressed for work this entire time

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mintpurrfect · 11 months

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continuing off from my butthurt anon ask earlier; in the end, i’m not into the other novel, so i would not be the right person to write a crossover befitting my tastes instead. it sucks because had the crossovers not made me salty, i know i would’ve found enjoyment in the story, but that’s life. (i’ve been thinking up crossover ideas with other fandoms that thanks to this, though. it’s a fun thoughtpiece)

.

but based on what i have gathered (MAJOR SPOILERS for any passerby):

1) it’s EXTREMELY important to mark down that the entirety of orv occurs as the DREAMS of a abused, suicidal 15-year-old boy using escapism as a coping mechanism, and that has a major hand in dictating the setting mechanics.

this means you need to have an EXTREMELY good reason why c and his family managed to enter orv without getting instantly ejected from the setting for not having been in ways of survival in the first place, if you opt to take this route in a crossover.

there’s a few fics that offer legitimately interesting ideas for this; somnambulist is my personal holy grail in this sea of fuckery because the writer had c READ ORV before jumping in, ergo on top of ensuring it’s just fourth wall layered on top of fourth wall there’s an amount of understanding and kindness and sheer general appreciation. (it is so good, actually.)

another offers ‘c was in wos’, but i personally feel like it dropped the ball for several reasons, not least of which is the clear roadblock that stemmed from that writer… not finishing orv, so it hits the same roadblocks of bypassing certain worldbuilding elements without offering a reasonable explanation for it under orv’s constraints, buying into kdj’s unreliable narration and thus not reading between the lines of kdj dissociating and deriving from his own backstory when he talks during emotionally driven arcs, and. yeah

another idea could be; either kdj or someone else in kdjc read the story c was from? say that hsy read c’s novel, so kdj might not have any idea where c’s gang came from but SHE sure does. and since hsy was able to read it, that means that several others would have read that novel too - so c would be in the story because his life is ALSO a story. i’m not sure if that exists, but it would be nice if it did

2) sacrifice (and why you should not be doing it)

it’s a shared theme between the two, from what i can tell? i hear from some that c isn’t actually sacrificial, it’s just that it always looks that way because either the multiple contingency plans he’s stacked together eventually drill down to that outcome or the things he has to do (i.e healing factor) just looks really bad from the outside. i wouldn’t know that for certain, so i’d leave this to your hands

in any case, in orv it’s a result of kdj’s passive suicidality and because sacrifice is the only love language his mother ever taught him. if i recall correctly, in c’s novel it would be because his life had managed to lock him into that pattern pre-transmigration? he’d become too used to living in high-stakes situations on top of also having a miserable life before his apocalypse, so he goes overkill when trying to secure a peaceful life post-transmigration.

that could be an actual talking point; that their lives had locked them into thinking patterns that hurts both them and the people around them, one way or another. gathering plan after plan and not relying on other people to understand, struggling to connect with others because connection gets you hurt.

depending on c’s ability to gauge other people’s mental state, would he recognise kdj’s thousand-yard dissociation stare for what it is or not? c was transported into a world that was kinder to him, finally, so he’d have had more leeway to connect with the people around him too; would he be able to recognize kdj’s coping mechanism from the outset?

would kdj recognize the same in him? he had chosen to help lee gilyoung but not his aunt because he had. (but he’s also terrible at reading people for the most part… his autism levels are off the charts)

that would be interesting, wouldn’t it? for both kdj and c, their lives pre- and post-apocalypse were ‘ruined worlds’, and they adopted mindsets accordingly. it would be interesting to compare them. it would be interesting to try to break out of that passive suicidality mindset with a mirror to reflect with.

3) this story is for that one reader / this story is NOT for that one reader

from what i have gathered, c read a story meant for his dead friend who opted to sacrifice himself instead of letting c die (which could be lumped into the above point, maybe); in a way, that story saved c anyway by giving him a family. in the epilogue, orv was written by hsy for kdj, but yjh was saved by reading that story regardless; reading of a man that he loved and knew and hanging on just a little longer.

why not take that to its extremes? we keep writing on flat, blank canvases (a wall) in the hopes that our messages will reach someone, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll reach the intended recipient. messages get lost in postal, people mistake it for junk mail, stories get dismissed as not being worth your interest.

but whether it reaches that one person or not, there’s always a chance that it’ll reach someone else, too. that they’ll come across the wall by chance, or have the words read out to them by someone else. that you’ll be seen by someone who you never expected.

you meet people you don’t expect to connect with; for kdj, that’s ysa, lgy, jhw, hsy. he wanted to write a happy ending for his favourite characters, but in the midst of that he connected even with people he never expected to know.

so how about two stories never expected to cross? c could perhaps be described as a post-apocalypse protagonist displaced into high fantasy, so being the unintended audience wouldn’t be the first time for him, either. to know another person, to know another story; to love and appreciate and recognize each other’s sentences in all its flaws. to save and be saved by people you hadn’t intended to. a serendipitous meeting. that’s something beautiful in and of itself, i think.

those are thoughts that i would never be able to put into motion, because i have not read c’s novel and i will not be able to until the taste of salt from when i foolishly dunked my head under the tumultuous tides of fandom has finally receded. but i offer this to you, because if you are taken with both stories yourself, i hope, perhaps, it will be something of worth to you.

sorry for the spam and the salt, and thank you for reading this far :> have a nice day henceforth

It's fine anon, don't worry! Also, since I've gotten your permission to post this one, I decided to do so. I really liked these ideas and I really do hope that someone will write at least one of these. Thank you for the ideas!

#orv #tcf #omniscient reader #omniscient reader's viewpoint #trash of the count's family #lout of the count’s family #tcf spoilers #orv spoilers #lcf spoilers #also don't worry you didn't put me in an uncomfortable situation #omniscient reader spoilers #I knew that responding to your anonymous ask would lead to a chance of someone seeing #and maybe even countering what I said #so don't worry lol #once again thanks for the fanfic ideas #I really hope someone writes one of them😔

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keiicom · 1 year

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⚠️ Spoilers for ORV [don't read if you're a webtoon only reader since I'll mention an upcoming arc and some other very spoilery stuff] ⚠️

I'd say my favorite arc of ORV is the Dark Castle arc (when he turns into the DKoS for the first time) because of all the changes going inside our mind at this point. This is where the reader finally realizes one very important thing: that KDJ is a liar.

While the title is Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, [for some other spoilers that I won't name rn], it's partly purposefully misleading because up until this point in the novel, most of us don't question KDJ's narration too much. 'Omniscient' implies that the person telling the story knows everything about everyone: how they think, why they act like they act, even how they interact with each other. But Kim Dokja is only omniscient as far as Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse goes. And even then, he's limited to his own interpretation of the novel, meaning what he actually knows about this world he is in rn is close to nothing.

But anyway. Back to the lying.

Sure, he's a liar and manipulates people sometimes, but we're always reading his thoughts when that happens! So he can't possibly be hiding things from us, right? Wrong. Bold of us to assume we're safe from his manipulation! And sure, some people may pick up on the hints that he's not telling us everything way before the Dark Castle arc, but I name this arc in particular because that's the first time in which the signs are clear as day. That's when the pin drops.

When he turns into the DKoS, and the kilIing scene happens. Not only does he minimize the feelings of the others and dismiss them with a relatively simple description of the scene (which he does a lot) but he also hides his real feelings from us. And others'. He tries to make us believe that deep down, people don't care about him; that he's just a reader, and his existence on this world is only meaningless and brief, and that these characters (because he doesn't see them as people yet) are just playing their roles of companions and fulfilling a task. Because that's what he thinks. Fool.

Even when he's attached to them, he can't bring himself to believe that they may truly care for him too. So he just...chooses not to interpret that as affection at all. Possibly the biggest hint of KDJ being an unreliable narrator is Yoo Joonghyuk's behavior during this scene and all the others. Yoo Joonghyuk cares, he cares so much about Kim Dokja, but KDJ can't accept that the character he read so much about is capable of feeling and thinking things he doesn't know about. He's even less capable of thinking that this hero, this protagonist of the story, or anyone really, could care so much about him. So he dismisses those feelings once again, but this time the reader sees them anyway because actions speak louder than words and everything Yoo Joonghyuk and the rest of the group does for him goes against what we've been told so far.

Things become crystal clear to us. Slowly, from that point on, Kim Dokja's denial starts working solely on himself. Because the readers can tell the truth from lies, they can tell when he hides stuff and tries to justify loving acts as simply ways of getting their way (cough every fucking time anyone does something for him or worries about him cough). He never stops lying to himself about that. But we change our perspective from then on. And start seeing the other characters as what they truly are, and start picking up on clues that tells us what they feel and think from what they show us, not just from what Kim Dokja believes. That's why this arc is so important to me.

This is when the readers finally differentiate themselves from the narrator's viewpoint and start thinking for themselves and seeing things through their own lense.

#orv spoilers #or maybe I'm just dense and took this long to realize lmao #does this make sense? maybe it doesn't

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lee-hakhyun · 1 year

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Hi! I really want to write a fanfic about lee hakhyun but I’m a bit nervous about characterizing him (I’ve only read a bit of the side series but I’ve be been spoiled a lot) do you have any advice ?

first of all. thank you thinking about writing lee hakhyun!!

i'm not a writer, so it's a bit hard for me to characterize him.. but i'll list a few things i noticed/think about him (clouded by my own interpretation of him, ofc)

it feels like his reactions get more intense whenever the conversation relates to his own stories (be it his older stories or orv). he clearly takes pride in his work,,

but at the same time, he's somewhat ashamed of his early web novels. they're probably not bad, seeing as he had fans.. it's just not what would have gotten popular.

he's. a genuinely good person. and by 'good' i mean he cares for people, without expecting anything back. but at the same time.. he takes this too far.. disregarding his own safety to protect others

...and with that he's similar to kdj, which is pointed out many times by his companions. but the difference is, while kdj highly prioritizes his own companions to the point of not caring about others, lhh doesn't do that, instead working to make sure as many people as possible survive.

he's gotten his success with orv, but it feels like he's still unsatisfied with life. his trauma being that he's 'empty', he's had a completely normal life, but it still doesn't feel enough for him.

his relationship with kim dokja is similar to kdj's own with yjh, to a lesser extent. he used kim dokja's story to survive, and compares himself with kdj a lot, though he disagrees on the ways he did things sometimes. and lhh also uses yjh...

he does not want to take control. his goal when he found out he transmigrated wasn't to take control like kdj, but to be subservient to kdj/yjh. relating to this, it seems like he really shows his weakness whenever he's faced with kimcom. when he meets kim dokja, he starts to doubt his own ability. when he meets yoo sangah, he breaks down and asks for help. when he meets han sooyoung and she tells him to back off, he wants to. him being okay with possibly dying to guarantee jung heewon's safety..

lies. he lies so much, be it to himself or others. he's not doing it maliciously, it just seems to be natural for him. and it's about his status as an author of orv.. it's like he can't call himself the author because he doesn't fully believe it himself. even in the original kim dokja's banquet, while ji eunyu puts her tag as [genius editor] lee hakhyun writes [■■■] instead of his actual name or title.

if you end up finishing that fanfic, send it to me. please. i would love to read it!

#ask #this might not be correct but this is how i see him right now #focused mostly on orv's lhh #star writer has him way more intense and impulsive (because he's younger)#he's still a little impulsive in his thoughts imo but he actually stops himself now.. sometimes...#orv #orv side story #orv spoilers #lee hakhyun

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