#bc now i just can barely function

[pretty-ichor]

i feel like i should be over it by now but im not

[erinravenseeker]

Just had a middle-of-the-night “ohhhh” moment as I just figured out that Kim Dokja needs the Fourth Wall not because of the scenarios but because it was essentially his survival mechanism for life.

Now I have only read the novel once so I could totally be forgetting stuff & way off-base but this is what I remember. Inane rambling under the cut, major spoilers included.

We know he’s generally antisocial, placing himself outside of society like a reader, and he internally smoothed over Sangah’s rough points even before the scenarios, making her into a ‘character’ (a caricature of herself) that fit into an archetype.

Dissociating from reality & viewing himself as a reader is his coping mechanism & “WoS coming to life” provides a convenient excuse to keep ignoring that fact.

This kind of ties in with an idea I’ve been forming about the Fourth Wall, which is that KDJ is fundamentally incapable of believing that “The Characters” (read: everyone) can experience growth as a result of his actions. He exists outside of the story, he is in the audience beyond the fourth wall, so he cannot affect the characters.

Hence the paradoxical nature of the Fourth Wall. For as long as he is a Reader, the Fourth Wall is maintained. And as long as the Fourth Wall is maintained, he will continue to be a Reader.

(Warning this is where it gets incoherent and messy.)

Kim Dokja fundamentally NEEDS the Fourth Wall to be maintained. Not just because of the OD stuff, but because it’s the way he’s learnt to cope with existing. It’s also why dying is so easy for him—we know he cannot deal with the guilt of making people he cares about suffer, but if he’s just a Reader, that means he can’t really have any meaningful impact on their lives, so it’s fine for him to just… disappear.

Kim Dokja is not actively suicidal, he’s just invested himself so far into the worldview of himself being a Reader that to him, his temporary deaths no longer register as dying. More like… stepping out of the theatre for a bit.

It gets complicated when we hit OD. Because then we realise the KDJ we’ve been accompanying is essentially a self-insert OC. So we can ascribe the way he thinks to OD, including all the coping mechanisms and self-distancing. But where OD manages to escape the narrative along with SP, at the same time the KimCom Crew escape the narrative, KDJ actually kind of… doubles down?

Like, OD does what any Reader does and learns from the book. When KDJ says “I, someone of no redeeming quality, could be loved by the others.” It’s not just him learning this lesson. It’s actually kind of the opposite. OD is Reading this lesson so he learns that he’s allowed to accept the mercy of SP & the 999 crew. So they escape the narrative.

KimCom also manages to escape the narrative but KDJ… can’t. He comes to the conclusion that he was actually backstage all along. But that means he’s still not ON stage. A Character can’t feel for the Script Writer or Director or Stage Manager. So he doubles down on his separation from them, stepping into that role. And then then KimCom comes banging on his door backstage because they’re not just characters, they’re the Actors now, and KDJ disappears because he can’t deal with that, because he fundamentally cannot exist on the same plane as them.

I think that’s why I’m hopeful at a post-epilogue ending. KDJ The Reader exists at essentially a higher tier than the people around him, and so he believes he cannot be loved in a way that has a lasting impact on them. But he DID spend years being affected by WoS, by Yoo Joonghyuk. If he becomes the Character, and them the Readers… maybe, just maybe, he can actually accept that love.

[hauntedwoman]

as badly as i want to avoid my mom she is making it extremely difficult

[bunnihearted]

☁️🌷

[freefolkfightorflight]

Making soup.

I put away some laundry

Answered a phone call.

Need to go to dmv 🙄 dreading it bad. Need to just try to make it happen tomorrow but it’s iffy with everything closing. Gotta get the kids by 11 from school.

I know this sounds like nothing but it’s a lot for me right now. I’m overwhelmed and weepy and struggling somethin fierce. But god damn this broth is exquisite.

[dreamlogic]

2024 year of charlie gets a fucking break (hopefully. maybe. tbd.)

[samuraisharkie]

not going to be online all that often anywhere (or if I am it will be sporadic) for a bit due for mental health/physical health reasons but dw im getting some help and I have people supporting me, just need to focus on recovering for a bit. doesn’t mean I’ll be unreachable or that I’ll never be online while I’m recovering just that I’m officially declaring that this is something I need to do for myself in order to actually make progress getting better

[anastacialy]

on that last rb's note: some of these boycotts are not easy. a majority of my already-few safe foods are on the list. grocery shopping has been hard — it's already hard for me on a normal day — and it's only gotten worse as the boycott list grows. but i am still doing it. and you should still be doing it. you should still be trying, even when it's hard. free palestine.

[warriorsatthedisco]

Man I used to sympathize people with chronic illness, but now I can really empathize. This shit sucks and it has the worst snowball effect too.

[candyriku]

finally getting a chance to work on chapter 15 today :-)

[asfarion]

every time i think abt how unschooling affected me i just get so sad lmao. everyone i can possibly think of has had such a drastically different life experience and i cant relate to anyone because of it. no matter how much i try to explain it, nobody actually gets it. i barely even feel like a human.

[fishingmaster69]

kindof losing my mind bc uhhhh. how am i supposed to like. afford to live.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[vaugarde]

so sad watching someone go through each episode of a multi season show and they just get more and more exhausted as the seasons just get worse

[bunnihearted]

🐰🩹🧸🏨

[toytulini]

.