#HEY ITS MORE UNKNOWABLE KIM DOKJA!!!

[everyones-least-favorite-bard]

The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous.

[malt-rants-and-stuff]

hey... hey psst. psst. kim dokja. i keep thinking about him because he really seems like the kind of guy i like. time loop guy with a dissociation metaphor thing going on??? and also a play on the self-insert trope?? that's all i REALLY know i think. i dunno how you feel about these kinds of questions but im curious to hear ur thoughts on him. i might never get into orv because the length of it alone requires a grindset of some sort even if you end up in the hyperfixation trenches i feel like, which is something i've been going through with MY game but like. it looks more intimidating when you're not already into it i think. in any case would u ever wanna talk about him...

KIM DOKJA OH MY GOD

you don't even know what you're doing to me rn. if anything I have Too Many thoughts about him it's actually insane.

idk what level of detail I should talk about him at since you said you aren't sure if you'll get into orv but like. ouuughhh kim dokja. need to study him in a controlled environment so bad.

okay but here's the thing about him. it's not really a time loop or at least that's not exactly the biggest part of the angst here though it is partially. especially its about yoo joonghyuk (protagonist) regressing every time he dies and one day kim dokja (reader(orv mc)) shows up and changes the timeline and makes things go better than they ever had but also he won't stop dying because he so desperately wants what he thinks is the Best Ending and that ending had yoo joonghyuk and everyone else happy and away from the apocolypse but that ending never included Him and it's so fucked.

yoo "you fool, if I regress will I meet you again?" joonghyuk and kim "it was a good story, wasn't it yoo joonghyuk?" mother fucking dokja. they need to be stopped. but then they can't just have me be insane over them because here comes han "this story is for that one reader" sooyoung who will do Anything to save kim dokja even when he won't let her and the THEMES oh they are delicious. yoohankim make me so sick it's crazy

the never ending cycle of sacrifice turned self-sacrifice, I was made for you I made you I was made for you, the truth of omniscient reader's viewpoint was that it was never going to end well no matter how desperately they wanted it to happen.

Kim dokja will never let himself be saved, yoo joonghyuk will never stop searching for him, han sooyoung will never stop trying to be his savior. Kim dokja doesn't see himself as worthy of their love he doesn't think he is necessary but when he's gone they just fall apart. Mr. International Terrorist and Ms. Interdimensional Mass Murderer. That one reader who they did all of this for. who they spent thousands of regressions, hundreds of years, unknowable numbers of timelines trying so hard to save. and even after all of that, after the pain and the memory wipes and the separations and the death and just. everything. it will never be enough. Because this is a story for that one reader and he will never stop reading. he will never come back to reality. Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is a trap of yoohankim's own desperate making. their collective failure to save each other like they saved everyone else is actually astounding.

Kim dokja is everyone we are all kim dokja etc etc, on his deathbed (one of many) he once made the one that he loves most kill him and everyone had just spent multiple chapters fighting to figure out who it was and it was so clear all along that it was painful. the usage of reading skills to tell the story of orv is so cool, the way that you can feel the foreboding energy through every word leading up to it, i fall apart over this book istg. you can clearly tell I have no coherent thoughts on them from this lmao.

also the themes around suicide and healing and regression (haha) and forgiveness and unhealthy love that burrows into your skin and wraps tightly around your bones and death and life and also there is a scene where kim dokja litterally says "eat the dirt yoou joonghyuk." and yjh does and I felt like I needed to be put down like a dog because I was laughing so hard while also crying over literally everything else going on. there is a point where the novel subtly changes from first to third person to signify the effects of something and when I realized it I literally broke down sobbing but it's so amazing like this story really takes advantage of its medium to tell the story it wants to tell. the story for that one reader. also the fourth wall is a actual character in this and its literally amazing, sassy shit who calls kim dokja out on his bullshit while also helping him. they go to a library and I kid you not I have never felt so heartbroken over two characters in my life than I did when one of the children kdj took in as his own acknowledged that he had become a side character type at one point in the novel and that kdj didn't love him as much as the other kid bc he was right it was true he did get pushed off and no one said anything because that's just expected when these types of long books have a pretty decently sized main cast but like in context the usage of this trope only to use it for character writing later was just evil and wrecked me.

the real kim dokja was the diagnosis I got along the process of reading this damn novel