#idk what happens to kdj but what i really want to happen is for him to escape the story

[jankillbride]

ginko 🤝 killy 🤝 the soldier from angel's egg 🤝 hopefully kim dokja: being outsiders/alone, even among any groups of people they join.

[astranauticus]

orv 🤝 asteroid city

stories about stories that left a surprisingly large impact crater in my brain

anyway some more (frankly far too extensive) thoughts under the cut for an au i dont forsee myself drawing for again (cw: mention of suicidal thoughts and lots of talk about death)

for anyone reading this who hasn't watched asteroid city: it's a movie documenting the making of an in universe fictional play called asteroid city written by conrad earp (kdj) directed by schubert green (hsy) lead actor jones hall (yjh) who plays augie, very emotionally repressed guy whose wife (lsh, kinda) just died and is trying to figure out how to tell his children about it. anyway jones shows up at conrad's house for auditions and the two fall in love, then conrad dies from a car crash 6 months into the shows run and jones is left to play a character mourning the death of his wife while irl mourning the death of his lover and it drives him up a wall trying to figure out if he's doing conrad "right" (hence 'i still don't understand the play')

anyway for this au like everything that happens in the movie also happens i think but the character motivations are a little bit different like in the movie conrad earp writes the play before he ever meets jones hall so we don't really know why it's Like That but i think in the au kdj is either like. having suicidal thoughts or just fully believed he wasn't gonna live for very long in the like cptsd symptom kinda way lmao. so like it's not really that he wrote the play to help yjh process his own death (i think if that were the case the message of the play would be way different lmfao) but it's more like he just had death and grief on the brain and was also writing stuff. and like the answer he arrived at was that he didn't actually arrive at anything in the end. sometimes tragedy just happens and there's no meaning to it you just kinda have to live with that. like i know this is not how the process of play production works but if there's one change to the original movie plot in this au i want to make it's that kdj still dies by car accident but before the script is 100% finished or after he's been talking about rewriting the ending or something because i think he also doesn't figure out an answer he's satisfied with in the end about like death and grief and mourning. like you just know that in kdj's ideal world his loved ones wouldn't mourn him at all if he dies because he doesn't want them to be sad because of him and maybe he still hasn't fully 100% internalised that he has people who would care if he dies. anyway i think yjh kinda understands like subliminally that kdj was trying to Say Something with the play he just isn't sure what because he's looking for An Answer like some kind of meaning to everything that's happened but the point is there isn't one and if there is kdj hasn't found it either lmao. and like i think hsy understood immediately like as soon as she heard the news of his death she's figured out what kdjs thought process behind the play was and like she's absolutely not holding it together as well as she appears but she also sees yjh driving himself insane every night trying to find The Meaning or whatever and like whether or not she even agrees with kdj aside this is the only way she can think of to help him get out of that hole bc she can't exactly tell yjh like 'the point is that there is no point you just have to live with The Everything' so she's just trying her best to make him understand on his own. idk i just need someone who's watched asteroid city to see this and tell me if ive gone completely insane LMAO

[mae-i-scribble]

orv spoilers below

i think the reason secretive plotter and kdj content doesn’t really appeal to me is because the resolution both of them seek will never be found in the other. while secretive plotter’s existence is a knife that digs ever deeper into kdj’s growing guilt/despair over having loved WoS, and the two do share some very pivotal scenes, the two really only serve to push the other towards their true paths

like yes secretive plotter has a large role to play, his existence is a testament to kdj of everything he’s done wrong, but while sp is the spark for a lot of the more intense feelings of guilt/self hatred, these emotions were there from the getgo, not because of sp, but because of our yjh. kdj doesn’t need to be forgiven by secretive plotter like oldest dream was because that is not the yjh who has been the most affected by kdj. our yjh takes that spot, the man who traveled across worldlines on the promise of happiness kdj gave him, the person who kdj has fought alongside with, who kdj has encouraged and changed on a fundamental level, who has refound his faith in humanity this round. and just as sp forgives the oldest dream for reading his story, our yjh forgives kdj for reading his story, and that forgiveness is enough for kdj to push forward, because that’s the forgiveness that matters. (also cause sp is still too upset(tm) to be anything less than a bitch to kdj)

secretive plotter wants to find the person behind the wall, the orchestrater of his tragedies so he can enact his righteous vengeance for the hell they put him through. he thinks he’s gotten one step closer with dokja, a singularity amongst all the worlds, holding a piece of that final wall. only instead sp becomes enthralled by kdj’s story instead, then in turn seeks to purposefully try to push kdj into impossible scenarios, scenarios to show kdj just what exactly sp- what yjh- has been through, what happens to the forgotten stories. But through all of this, even all of this, the person sp should really be trying to push to the brink is not the kdj of our story, but the oldest dream- of that 15 year old boy, to get exactly what he wants. The kdj secretive plotter meets, especially by the time sp first makes a contract with kdj, is not the same person who read about yjh for the first time. Secretive plotter needed to meet the oldest dream to ever find any sort of peace. anything he does to kdj, anything kdj does to try and make it up/ punish himself for his “crime” means practically nothing because kdj and oldest dream, while originating from the same source, are not the same.

idk idk its 3am and i know im not being coherent but i guess i just kinda see kdj and sp as two parallel tracks alongside each other, they collide for moments, each pushing the other to re-examine himself, and then fall back onto their tracks with the people who can actually give them absolution

[powerpolyculeshowdown]

I JUST WOKE UP AND THEN RUSHED OVER HERE WHEN I SAW FHE TIME . ORV !!! PLEASE … THEY ARE SO ??!?!?!??!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING PPL…. WHY R YALL SO DISASTROUS…. WHY R YALL SO BISEXUAL ….. WHY R YALL SO OBSESSED W EACH OTHER….. their dynamic is so funny too idk, they’re like a comedy trio. idk how to express how funny they are, they r idiots… idiots in love but like they’re idiots… i don’t know how to explain. they are just??? they’re just silly okay. they are goofy and silly. they are idiots and fools and love each other so much.

they always seem like they’re attacking each other BUT they are just a mess it’s fine. it might just be kdj misinterpreting yjh’s actions once again bc kdj thinks he understands but at the same time he really doesn’t if that makes sense, and hsy is just too emotionally constipated in the “i don’t care about him, no not at all, yes i do hate kim dokja. why am i trying to save him? well. fuck you. you can’t question me like this” way like girl why are you so defensive abt it it’s okay you can care about someone like i’d say yjh is at least a smidge better bc he at least tries to make it clear that he DOES care abt kdj (the fool) (btw i find it funny that kdj just ends up with extremely important bonds w two emotionally constipated losers and he’s like “god these two need to confront their feelings more” as if he isn’t also as emotionally constipated just in a different way)

ARGHH i had this whole rant for yjh and kdj’s relationship but i realized it might ruin a part of the novel bc their relationship is just so integral to the story?????? just note that yjh cares so much for kdj, kdj affected and changed yjh so much. kdj loves yjh, it’s important, impersonal, he understands yjh and he doesn’t understand yjh, it’s sacred and ordinary love. if i try to explain why or how it’ll ruin part of the plot but just,, know. it is that. the barrier between protagonist and reader. (also this extends to hsy too, kdj just creates this barrier between himself and others in general and it annoys hsy and yjh SOOO much) hsy and kdj’s relationship is also important so idk how much i’ll say on that topic but like, what if lonely selfish people came together what would happen. and also i’m not actually finished with the novel so i’m not qualified to talk abt yoohan.

in conclusion: what if yoohankim was people saving each other over and over. what if they were each other’s salvation and couldn’t have survived and lived without each other. what if they were each other’s demise, the reason for this tragic cycle. what if they cared, so. so much that they would sacrifice anything and everything for each other. what if their relationship as a whole was so important to them. what if they were each other’s comfort. what if they gave the world to each other. what if. is it so wrong for them to want? is it so wrong for them to just want to hug and find such an ordinary love within each other? is it so wrong for me to want that for them? why are they so devoted to each other it makes me SICK in the head.

(sorry this is so long, it’s taken me over 2 hours to write this and it is still incomprehensible. i think orv just makes me so sick in head in general. help me. i feel like that one thing like girl help im an orv fan, we’re insane.)

girl help i never read orv and im becoming insane about them

[istherewifiinhell]

reading process: chapter 196 (damn)

reading highlights: now with new and improved features

178 Yjh hesitating to fast ball special this weird little dude: pls dont die. kdj: look at me. bitch

179 Gah. can an author make a story so big even their monster cant eat it

180 I knew the 4th wall was gonna eat but i forgot IT HAS TEETH

shaking the no no can at 4th wall

gah okay yeah jesus lee sookyung [song accompaniment love run by the amazing devil]

the narrative will make you apart of it (threat)

181 '4th wall also isolated me from myself' DING DING DING

overall evaluation ⬛⬛... -> mood

gonna twach the sentient dangerous trauma response some... morals? interpersonal skills?

↳cant handle direct interaction, eats and sleeps. yea

↳im gonna take a nap right here

LJH: arent you and kdj.... yjh grimacing as being ask about his love life by his teenage ward

kdj funeral -> song accompaniment welly boots by the amazing devil (just because I left doesnt mean I'm not still there)

YJH sponsor -> praying for his fate eh?

182 [sponsors lhs 100 head pats]

SYS is literally your daughter 🥺. kdj dad who hates dads moment

183 lhs wants to be on kdj team :((((

I WOULD LIKE TO SEE LHS IN THE DRESS

(did hades make it??)

184 feeling differently after talking to 4th wall yeah pretty sure you had a break thru about dissociating there

yjh: looking with eyes not seen in TWOS -> kdj facial expression blindness trutherism

185 YJH: cause you know me sooo well kdj: starting to think i dont know this you that well

yjh thoughts: there have never been so many ppl who made it to here

"continue to live kim dokja now you have to save this world"

kdj u cant take your own medicine (yjh scheming)

LSK contemplating abt what shit is up with her son

Something lives IN THE WALL

186 other people feel pain with no wall. YES!

"I told him there is no such development [yjh death] in the ending i want"

'yjh desperate face' thats crushing to even read

187 hsy type cast as murder friend sorry bestie

god some classic kdj asshole moments -> guilting lhs and everything

"see the sight of a bearish man weeping" i would like to

jhw T.T oh my murder woman

188 making sys and lgy do this. your KIDS! -> generational Something or other

kdj to yjh: you cant change whats already happened -> this may be an unauthorized use of radical acceptance

your stigma is Literally self sacrifice based... DUDE

get killed by the narrative. your loved ones but also the story... for the story. AH

yjh im so sorry... this is devasting

Uriel... lol shes sweet ig

Demon king of salvation. so juicy (unionize hell lol)

189 LHS LGY YJH boy grief party

yjh widower era

min jiwon and han donghoon! yay

yoohan bonding?

190 Bihyung aw!

[I will pull all of you down from that fucking heaven]

191 a soul can't belong to anyone!

"I will destroy the world of the fucking dokkaebis"

192 ur still a jerk kdj. drama kid

193 yeah fuck the state jhw

do they all share a house 🥺

LHS is back with the army... okay putting a pin in that

yjh stayed in his room like a broken person... bruh

jhw was a bartender? did i know that? it makes so much sense tho

kdj ur story is told bc they love you!!

194 idk i was the only person reading this 1000 chapter work and when i left a comment some stuff changed

syswitz industrial complex... run that by me one more time

damn human life is just like hell, ive been saying this

195 demon trains? i know all about those

complete ur scheme. say somthing cool. pass out. kdj ur self parody at this point

rotation: recency bias is a hell of a thing. i want to partially tie up the parenting stuff with noting how often the constellation incarnation relationship was considered parental, how kdj views them (and indeed how weve seen quite a few be) really cruel, or exploitative, and well thats fitting for him to see that as parental isnt it. but then also. he has kids in his own care, and one is literally his incarnation. frankly im interested in both how attacking and dethroning gods is gonna impact his own godhood deal, his own parenting, and his view of his mothers job of parenting him

im not sure if i have any particular takes here but let it be know kdj is a bastard and a scoundrel and i shall not miss him. not from this distance. no but god that was a classic really jerk move level manipulation. need to re-calibrate the dials. whats worse is at this point i think he can fully understand how much emotional damage hes putting his loved ones through.

Also did you know we live in a society. this one is pretty nascent so far but the breaking of the Seoul dome is reminding us of normal human society, and its flaws, and with the demonic realm, blatantly stated, we live in hell on earth.

[uriel-is-best-girl]

-Orv pokemon au-

I'm sorry, but hear me out: gengar! Kdj. All the gengar pokedex entries are about it being evil except for one, which says that it was once human itself and looks for a traveling companion and tries to make one by stealing the life force of humans. Now imagine a recently deceased kdj who only remembers bits of his human life, only remembers how lonely he was, waking up alone in as what he assumes in a ghost (he doesn't figure out what happened until people point at him and scream that hes a gengar). Kdj is sad, he wanders around in shadows, and hes still so lonely, but hes also bored. So he learns how to manipulate shadows, how to make them laugh and move. Kdj will sometimes pretend those shadows are real people, his friends... Not many things attack kdj, but as all things go it does happen often enough (ussually trainers) that he learns how to fight, or how to run away if a trainer tries to capture him. He avoids capture becausehe doesnt want to be someone's pokemon + hes also afraid of hurting someone he might care about (ie: if he started caring about a trainer), he knows what the people whisper about gengars, how they steal the life force of humans just by being around them. And he doesn't want to risk hurting a naive kid who just wanted a cool looking pokemon.

Ok, time to cut to the part I care about, gengar!kdj meets child!yjh who is lost in the woods and the yjh has scraped knees and seems to be looking for something. Kdj hasnt seen anyone in a hot second and, agaimst his better judgement, decides to try and lead the child outfit the forest. But when kdj steps out yjh's eyes light up and he points at kdj and shouts "I CHOOSE YOU!" no pokeball, the kid (hes like 11 btw) just walks up to kdj, grabs his hand/paw and starts dragging him somewhere. Kdj is so shocked (all reactions hes gotten in the past have been fear or hatred) that he just lets the kid pull him.

K, so some background for yjh. His parents are both gym leaders (maybe of the same gym) and he rarely sees them, with them having a place to stay at the gym when they have extra work or just don't want to go home. So yjh was raised more by sitters and himself than them, but, he thinks maybe if he becomes an amazing pokemon trainer, like them, theyll be proud of him or want to see him more. Essentially, he thinks he's the problem. So when hes finally old enough to choose a starter pokemon lets say he couldn't choose one for some reason, maybe they were all gone when he got there, or he needed a signed permission slip and couldnt get it signed in time, whatever. Yjh goes home and cries just a little (a lot) in that empty house. The next day yjh is determined again. If he cant get a pokemon from the professor, then hell just go find one. So he goes out through the forest (hes wearing those shorts and a t shirt you see the kids wearing in pokemon games) and the first pokemon he finds that doesnt run away is kdj. (Yes, this does mean that that yjh shouted 'i choose you' at many other pokemon and they ran away).

So like just imagine yjh who had no plan other than "get pokemon" dragging kdj back home with a sense of satisfaction.

Alright yjh doesnt put kdj in a pokeball because he doesnt have any. Also yjh isnt really training kdj, he just plays with him. Imagine yjh dragging kdj out for adventures or pulling out board games they could play. Eventually yjh gets a second controller so kdj can play videogame with him (kdj doesn't really have thumbs i think so the controller is on the floor and he leans down to move the sticks and press buttons). One day yjh tells kdj that theyre companions, "in life and death" and yjh smiles at his own joke (bc kdj is dead hahahahhaha). Oh yeah, and when they have to name their chatacters in a video game, kdj names himself "kim dokja" and yjh takes note that thats his name.

Ok, but ofc now its time for angst. So after like, idk a couple weeks or months yjhs parents come home, see the gengar and freak out. Yjh is all excited to show his parents that hes going to be a pokemon trainer too and arent you proud of me? And then his parents both throw put their pokemon. Like, idk a growleth and gardivor. And kdj is expert at running away by now, but he only pretends to run away, he comes back and hids in the shadows because he's worried for his only friend. Kdj watches yjh's parents yell at him once they find out he brough kdj in, saying things like "you know what those things do when wild right? They suck you life force out, even tamed ones are still dangerous and evil. At this rate youll never be a good pokemon trainer" and other hurtful shit. Kdj is super hurt, especially when they say he had been sucking the life force of yjh. His worst fear is coming true, and he thinks yjh must hate him by now. There goes his only companion. Afterwards kdj cant bring himself to leave yjh so he waits in the shadows and hes also worried for yjh after the thing with his parents and he wants to protect him. Kdj figures so long as he's not in yjh's shadow then the whole life sucking thing won't happen bc he doesnt really know how that works.

Yjh ofc doesn't believe that kdj was hurting him and starts to feel disillusioned with his parents. And so he runs away with some money and buys pokeballs and becomes a pokemon trainer for real (after unsuccessfully trying to find kdj). Yjh is sad about kdj for a long time, until, he realizes that kdj is following him. It takes months, for him to both notice and realize the shadows moving out of the corner of his eyes are kdj. It offers him some consolatiom to know that kdj is still here, but it also hurts not being able to see him and that he hides. So yjh continues on, with kdj right behind him, and set on proving his parents wrong. On the way he builds up his team and makes friends, and kdj watches from the distance. Kdj doesnt know if he was lonlier before, when he had no one, or now, only able to watch from afar.

Ok so but obvi yjh isnt just going to let kdj stay in his shadow forever. Hes constantly on the search for information about gengars, he reads all the dex entries he can find and learns that gengar are rumored to have once been people and it makes all the more sense: kdj having a human name, his literacy, and yjh wishes again that he could see kdj again. Ok so I figure is also yjh hunting down ghost type trainers for more information/starts trying to figure out how to bring kdj out. And imma say that kdj cant hear whats happening while in the shadows so he has no idea that yjh still cares about him. And ofc all yjh's friends know that yjh is looking for someone(?), he doesn't tell them all the details but some of them figure out more things (like that its a pokemon, it was a childhood friend, excetra) but in bits and pieces. All of them are in favor of him finding this person though because sometimes he just looks a little sad, when he looks at the shadows or talks about kdj. And kdj knows none of this. Blah blah this is years later, yjh is now an adult cool.

Ok I've got a two options for how kdj is brought back up, and one of them involves han sooyoung being a gengar.... (yjh defeats idk like ysa or smone who is the champion and she's all like ok what do you want, and yjh is like I want to know how to get this gengar thats been following me around to come out of the shadows. And han sooyoung is ysa's gengar that she sends it into the shadows to get kdj to come up. But I dont like that one as much)

Option 2: yjh ends up finding hsy who is like a spirit medium (she uses things the dead tell her as inspo for her writing). And so hsy is all like yeah I can help you, but itll cost you blah blah money. So hsy does wooo woo magical talk to ghosts shit and manages to get kdj out of the shadows. Ok Im finally running out of steam for this so bassically yjh takes kdj's hand (btw gengar are like 4'11 according to the pokedex) and tells him "stay" when kdj seems like hes going to disapear. And then yjh drags kdj home and makes him play video games and kdj is introduced to all of yjhs friends just by always being with him and kdj makes friends with all of them. No one but hsy saw the smile on yjh's face when he saw kdj again (kdj was looking away). And the end, they live happily ever after, yjh prospers despite his shitty parents and kdj has friends and feels more alive now than when he was actually alive.

ALSO THIS IS PLATONIC JOONGDOK BC IM NOT GOING TO EVEN TRY AND WRAP MY HEAD AROUND IT BEING ANYTHINH OTHER THAN PLATONIC THANK YOU.

Also if you made it this far thank you but also srry bc Im not editing this monster.

[your--isgayrights]

i Really love your take on kdj's relationship with the kids id love to hear more of your thoughts on them :]

Yessss okay. So like the big thing with SYS is that she's KDJ'S "incarnation," I think that even though she's not like he was as a kid she's the most similar to how he is now if that makes sense. Her relationship to LGY is sort of like KDJ and HSY's friendship where they argue and antagonize one another but are ultimately united by like fundamentally shared interests. So whereas when giving advice to LGY KDJ is often surprised by the outcome or LGY's reaction, with SYS his words will strike a bit more true. Idk if this is TMI or not, but as 3 & 4 explore KDJ'S relationships with his people, chapter 5 gets into his relationships to YJH's people, which will include a SYS moment where you may see what I'm talking about...

I think that the kids are really funny too. I tutored kids in highschool at my local math center and they're sooo funny is the thing, they are just little people lmao. I think that issues I have with people who write kids is that they just ascribe them the personality/role of "kid" and leave it at that. I think that works just fine when they only need two or three lines, but sometimes the caretaker role is important in an adult character's arc and for that to work you NEED TO UNDERSTAND KID PROBLEMS. Things are sooo dramatic and sooo important when you're a kid is the thing. Like half the things that are happening to you are happening for literally the first time ever and that's fucking! Dramatic! Important! Foundational!

This is also very much the influence of me 1. Psychoanalyzing myself and retaining a lot of memories from being a kid myself 2. Studying developmental psych for a while, and 3. Working with kids and babysitting, but like... The thing about kids in particular is that whenever they act in certain ways that is like... Coming from Somewhere, you know? I think ORV does a good job of showing this in how the kids start imitating KDJ'S self-negligence and try to act as grownups. I think sometimes it's hard for grown ups to see how they effect their kids if they don't put a lot of focus into being self-aware, because then they can't recognize what behaviors their kids are copying/responding to in them.

Like I have a little map of SYS's Issues I've put hints at through chapter 3 and want to get into later, but if you take LGY for instance, you see how he's overly formal and business-like at the beginning of things. That's very much him trying to imitate adults and put on the affectation of being an adult. After his parents died, it's hard for him to feel like he's a kid anymore, because he doesn't know any other kids who are going through what he's been through. Therefore he begins to act like he's an adult to normalize being on his own without a supportive guardian.

What KDJ does without realizing it is that he engages with LGY on that level that he projects, respecting his desire to behave like an adult in accepting his "sales commission." At this point LGY isn't ready to be treated like a kid by an adult again, that doesn't feel safe to him. As the bug deal continues, LGY begins to test the boundaries of this "business-like" relationship — bringing titano over, asking if Hyung has any snacks, just sitting on Hyung's couch reading comics after he's done with the bugs for the day — and since KDJ is a pushover this experimentarion leads to the attitude you see in Chapter 3 where he boldly declares to the still overly-polite SYS that Hyung is cool and doesn't care if they make a mess of his house. Without either of them really realizing it, KDJ has made his presence as a responsible adult and his home somewhere where it is safe for LGY to be a kid again. That's what allows him to become friends with SYS, whereas he couldn't connect with his cousins or other kids before, his friendship with SYS is nurtured by this environment where he doesn't have to be an adult, he doesn't feel like he's living in a different world than another kid here. SYS hasn't had the same realization and tries to be polite to every adult, and then, LGY arguing with her is where her childish side gets to show, thus it's an important relationship for her as well.

You can see how SYS's relationship with Yoo Mia is a lot different. In chapter 3 she does a lot to appease YMA, so it may seem like YMA is bossing her around. In reality, this is SYS trying to perform the role of an adult. To escape acknowledging her own mother's negligence, she tries to take on the role of caretaker herself. We see this in the way she looks after her pets and also the way she tries to appease the slightly younger YMA, versus the indelicate way she treats LGY who is closer to her in size and age. Then YMA is obviously imitating her brother, haha...

Oh about my age/height head cannons. I think SYS is the tallest and YMA is the shortest. Then, the way that ages work in South Korea is that all ages switch over in the new year and everyone starts at "1" when they're born. So, in my interpretation, YMA was born closer to before the new year and SYS and LGY were born closer to after the new year (in the same year), so even though they'd all be in the same grade, YMA is actually nearly a year younger. That age difference matters a lot in earlier years, so I think that SYS feels a bit of responsibility to be an older sister to YMA because she knew her from when she first started living with YJH when they were 6 or 7 (I think?) and developed a habit of being overly indulgent and trying to spoil her like she would a kitten.

Vs LGY when they're all about 10 seeing that and just thinking YMA's a bossy know-it-all taking advantage of SYS and making her more lame >:/ conflict!

Lmao yeah I could probably go on but I don't wanna keep ya too long. Thanks for your ask!!

[yioh]

Kim dokja is sooo cool! I love it when an MC is really smart and interesting and I want to kiss him even though I think I would want to fight him (I don't actually want to I'm just joking) anyways!! Hope to read your updates on the story! And I think the child is also rlly cool?? Like his ability is so cute! (Even though it's.. well but also cute!) Every part of the story is just so new I'm totally hooked. Okay! Love you have a nice day!

omg dokja is such an interesting protagonist (can we even call him that fkdjsksn) like . throughout the entire thing he really views himself as seperate from the story? all the people dying and all the fighting, its like he's watching from above and nothing is . Actually happening ??? also yknow the scene where everyone is fighting for coins bec of the survival fee and kdj goes 'how pathetic' , its like he sees himself as above them, just likw a reader would, but what he doesn't realise is that he might've been one of those pathetic people if it wasn't for the fact that he already read the novel ??? idk i found it kinda interesting how his character played out kfhdkshsksb, and the way he gathered all his crew, by looking at their stats and e.g. huiwon, he analysed her personality traits and what she could bring to him and what he can gain from her... for a guy who was just a normal office worker hes just so different from what i imagined lmao, i wanna say hes cold hearted but i dont think its that either??? like u can tell he got attached to gil yeong (the head pets r so cute dkshsksn), also the way he lies to gilyeong abt being rewarded at the end so he can stay naive and optimistic, hes always thinking about whether hes a good adult or not and he wants to protect gilyeong's childishness even for a little bit:") hes a very grey mix..... and !!! its also interesting how all the characters get used to killing people . it rly does feel like everyone is disposable characters w no real implication but the fact is that most of our cast are now murderers 💀 jdbskssg AND one last thing, HUIWON ....... SHES SO COOL OFMFNSIGSSK HER ATTRIBUTE THING WAS SO BOMB OMFG and it suits her so much ???? like the 'heroicness' of it all and omfg when she stabbed that guy who attempted to rape her,, in the THROAT ...... so fucking satisfying .......... i rly wanna see more of junghyuk so bad tho 😭😭😭😭 i have around 20 more chapters left rip

[your--isgayrights]

Have you read svsss bc the hilarious take of “I’m not gay this man is simply the most beautiful this is an objective fact” seems present in both kdj and sy. To me. Idk these are my current obsessions and I can’t stop drawing connections between them and trying to get other ppl to like them. Like how I want an orv/Hades game xover based purely on vibes and the fact that I consumed them at the same time

HOW DID YOU KNOW? I, like, never talk about it but I am definitely like low-key obsessed with scum villain. Like I have the first volume in print and read fic about it allllllll the time I've read SO much fic by SO many authors it's kind of concerning. The AO3 scene is so talented and diverse... And exactly as you said I love the comedy a lot. I read it after ORV so if you read my fic and see the way I do KDJ that's me pre-reading scum villain going like "wow it would be funny if there was a book fixating on this aspect of KDJ where he is desperately loving and in love with this guy he thinks is objectively the best person in the world but he will never ever let him know on pain of death" and then some time in the interim of 4.2 and 4.3 when I was kind of switched from creating mode to consuming mode I read sv and was like 😲 hello???

I really like how sv and ORV both are really analytically subversive of the tropes of their particular genres while still ultimately fulfilling the promises they make to the reader. Of course I do think that ORV fulfills more of those promises and is very purposeful about that, but that's why I like reading SV fic more, bc I like to see what issues people had with it and what they took away from it and what they would want to change... Like SV is sooo messy and funny but obvi it's got a lot of stuff that makes you go "... Ummm?????" so seeing other people have those same reactions is comforting.

It's totally the opposite for me when it comes to ORV fic I have to admit tho! I usually only read ORV fic by my friends nowadays bc I just don't have a lot of fun in the Ao3 tag. It's one of those media properties that I have a lot of specific, positive interpretations of, so I'm not as generous in my readings of fic about it I think 😅. I was pretty much just looking for stuff that was basically letting me reread the original work, so when I felt like the author changed some idea or character motivation I would always think 😤😤😤 that isn't right!!! They don't know them like I do! What about such and such scene or such and such character motivation from such and such chapter of ORV, don't they remember??? Which totally isn't fair to the authors bc obvi they're just playing with ORV and fixating on specific tropes and themes just like I am... That's just what's the sign to me to "start writing fic" instead of just "keep reading more fic."

Anyway that's why I don't talk about SV a lot, but I'm actually really into xianxia as a genre right now because of it. I've been hyperfixating on traditional Chinese medicine for a while now (in the vein of reading research articles about neuroscience behind acupuncture theory and translations of resuscitation methods from the six dynasties period) so that interest has ultimately culminated in me working on an original comic project that might never see the light of day. Basically just one where a guy gets put into a female xianxia protagonist's body in a het romance novel so he has to Speedrun being trans lol. He's like a neuroscientist tho so his main thing becomes trying to prove the germ theory of disease while the plot happens around him. Bc the only thing I'm constantly thinking to myself while reading xianxia is "... How would that work? Like. Scientifically." Which shows how lame I am lol... THIS guy wants soft magic rules to be HARD magic rules... Also like there are a lot of problems faced in modern NS research that being able to manipulate qi would really help with on like a microscopic cellular level... Problem is that cultivators & microscopes don't coexist...

OK I shouldn't describe more of that unless it's over DM (☉_☉.)

Anyway thanks a lot for your question! The other thing you mention- that xover sounds really funny, especially with the pre-existing OT3 dynamics I think it'd be good for Yoo-Han-Kim. The funny thing would be reconciling ORV's cannon portrayal of Hades and Persephone as like fun adoptive parents with Hades the game's stellar "they are divorced and estranged and their son has to die a lot fixing them" take. Honestly it's not really a dynamic I'm super attached to from ORV cannon because while I totally understand its place as like wish fulfillment for KDJ'S self insert (himself) I just find it less compelling than other relationships, especially the one he has with his mom. Would Love YJH God of Death or HSY Fury moment like yeah sounds good to me... Who would be HSY's sisters then? Maybe other versions of herself lol... JHW would make a good fury hmmm.... What about the Olympians would they just be regular? Obvi the main themes would be KDJ relationship w/ parents and how YHK helps him with that which honestly could have Vibes but you'd have to shape all the character placements around that.

OK SORRY, LONG POST (☉_☉;;) THANKS FOR YOUR ASK!