#I read a few arcs of ORV a few years back so I am at least loosely familiar with the characters and premise.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

ORV is about enduring the horrors in real time.

(for @everyonesfavoritebastard)

[lizhly-writes]

Where is Asmyung? ಥ⌣ಥ They're already having child together

ngl my first instinct is to go "oh you are FUCKING with me HOW ROOD" but upon further thought this is exactly the reason why i wrote an indeterminate amount of words shilling kdj/bihyung, so if i can do that, there is really not much stopping me from doing this.

in regards to your question, i seeee... one nsfw fic on ao3 where that's the main ship. oh man. do you ship this? because if you do, you are one deprived motherfucker. my condolences.

But anyway. Back to it. Disclaimer, I haven’t read orv in the longest time, so bear with me.

Here is what I remember from the fun and exciting possible romance arc of Han Myungoh. He runs off after getting hit with Asmodeus's curse… and then 3 years later, we see him in the demon realm. As a demon. With a kid.

...You know, I squinted so hard at this that you've actually forced me to reread the chapter that explains this shit. Good job.

It turns out it is strikingly similar to the formulae that otome isekai and similar stories I read use. Let's, for the sake of convenience, call Han Myungoh 'FL' and Asmodeus 'ML'.

Our brave FL, after experiencing certain dealings with our ML, gets knocked up. She runs away, but in the process, gives birth to a child, who she loves with all her heart. But, at a certain point, she realizes she can no longer protect her child, so she turns to the only person who would have interest in doing the same thing: the other parent. Indeed, the other parent is interested in their child, and they form a contract: the FL is rewarded handsomely with status and protection in exchange for the child. The FL, in a weak position and having little other choice, accepts the contract, but resents it. She would do anything to get the child back, and does, in fact, do anything that the ML tells her to do, and...

And that's Han Myungoh. I fudged a little, but that's actually the canon plot for this guy in orv. I really didn't think much of this ship, but seriously, when I look at this way, it really does look like a standard otome isekai romance with a bastard male lead. I'm crying, this is hilarious. Is this what you saw, anon? This is so funny, I'm dying.

See, here's the thing, if this was an otome isekai, I could then tell you how this would go, which is this: while the FL resentfully does tasks for the ML, the ML grows to have a certain respect for the FL due to competence reasons, and the FL grows to appreciate ML for dispensing certain kindnesses (hey, stockholm syndrome!). Eventually, we get to a point where they're probably resentfully attracted to each other, but they both refuse to admit it, because FL still thinks ML is evil and ML thinks FL is beneath him. But then! But then something dramatic happens. Either FL's life or ML's life is threatened. Perhaps the child's life is threatened. Maybe all of the above. But anyway, there's some lifesaving going on, where FL/ML is so touched that the other saved them/had such concern for the child and then they declare their love for each other and then they officially get married and then it's a happily ever after and then I hurl my book across the room, probably.

I'm paraphrasing, there would probably be a bit more room between the lifesaving and getting married bit. Probably self awareness into the fact that they're in love and then an awkward "sorry I took your kid or whatever, let's go on a date" kind of dealio.

But I digress. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

You could totally just write a canon divergence fic where everything I've just said happens, and it wouldn't even be hard. Sure, you'd have to nudge a few things over, but Han Myungoh does actually save Asmodeus's life once, even if is, you know, mostly related to Asmodeus being in his daughter's body, and Asmodeus briefly contemplates "is this what love is like?" or, you know, something like that. That actually does fit into the structure I've outlined above and I am banging my head onto my desk because of it.

This is so funny anon I am dying.

[bytedykes]

[ID: Four stickman memes. They are: a crying stickman laying on its back in a pool of tears, hands over its face. A stickman grabbing another's cheeks and screaming in their face. A stickman biting its own arm bloody. A red-eyed teary stickfigure grimacing and holding up a thumbs up. /end ID]

^ just finished twatf moodboard. my thoughts under the cut

genuinely so good. i am sick. i am wailing. i am going to throw up.

ok i lied it wasnt like, groundbreaking, but i did enjoy it! and it did give me new kinds of mental illness. im not typically into the "overpowered protagonist" trope at all but i feel like in this case it was more of a vehicle for the philosophy of the novel than the actual. point? im not a literature analysis person haha

i doubt i would have read this novel if it weren't by singshong. it is just generally not my thing. but im glad i did! i liked the character and i thought it was quite clever and funny, the world building was interesting (despite how overly complicated it is) and some parts made me so. oughhhbg. tearing my hair out

i also really enjoyed looking at this from a "how it compares to orv" standpoint (that's also the main reason i decided to read it). i liked seeing the "prototype" ideas in here that resemble parts of orv that were more developed/refined. and i liked the most specific messages that resembled orv's! there were a few bits regarding walls and connection that made me want to erm shrivel up and die

i guess i didn't really understand the ending but i don't think it was awful. those last 3 chapters are honestly what was worst to me, if i had stopped reading on chapter 244 i might have been happier with the openness of it. seeing all of jaehwan's friends dying and sirwen being left alone in the world was depressing as hell and didn't really feel necessary

orv is known for having everything in it and managing to pull off the most unhinged plots and details so i enjoyed seeing that same principle in twatf dsdjskks it threw a lot of things that i didnt expect at all and a lot of them were absurd but all together i think it made it work

goddd some parts just hit very close. maybe not the overall themes but some specific sections made me put my phone down and stare into space... the fall of time arc... the conversation jaehwan has with the long lived race after he's figured out the unclothing... what andersen tells him before she chooses to fight myad... many such cases

some of the criticisms for it that ive seen online are about the bad translation which is fair but i dont think that necessarily reflects the quality of the actual novel? idk the crappy translation and many typos did make it harder to read but i was still able to mostly understand what was happening and i got used to it pretty quickly. i do wish that the side characters were more developed, i was really interested in them and it felt like a lot of their development was dropped or forgotten, but i did love what growth was shown

i liked jaehwan!!! he is such a sopping wet silly guy. guy who is in the horrors forever. guy who is a billion years old but not actually but yes he is. guy who is so autism eyes incarnate. i liked him as a character and i liked following his journey even with his at times repetitive ideas and simple op solutions to everything. it was fun!

i enjoyed the characters in general, karlton grew on me for some reason lol... i liked anderson and runald a lot also... i liked how despite his identity as a lonely existence that works alone, jaehwan did actually forge so many bonds with people he met and did reciprocate them! him and yoonhwan, him hiring claire and meikal for govt positions when he became master of gorgon, him training with chunghuh, his care for runald and anderson, him verbally calling the fallbringers his friends when they reunite, even eventually his friendship with beastlain! i wasn't expecting him to make so many connections because of how set he is on doing everything alone, so i was really happy to see that he does consider them friends and isnt just coldly moving through the world alone, despite what his actions say

really liked the whole lore about [clothes]. i thought that was really cool. did not like the repeated instances of sexual harassment and pervy lines throughout the book

ive been telling people to read orv left and right, but in contrast twatf is a kind of novel that i dont think i would necessarily recommend to anyone (especially not to anyone who wasn't already an enjoyer of this genre and/or more "out there" plots in general) but i did enjoy reading it myself. however i would say that it provided some cool/valuable/fun insight into orv and singshong's writing in general so maybe i would recommend it to someone who has already read orv and wanted to expand on that

overall i did like it!!! i dont think ill be rereading it any time soon but i had fun reading and stewing over it :)