#until the day i do a full reread of orv and go absolutely mcfucking insane dissecting it like a lab rat

[mae-i-scribble]

Hi, I hope you're having a nice day - in your author's notes for chapter 2 of The Long Way Home, you mentioned the idea that the story HSY wrote is different from the ORV that we know. I wanted to ask if you've ever written any posts expanding on that? I would love to read more about your thoughts on this (KDJ in your story's last memory being about reading that instead of WoS. Gutted me.)

Hello there! I have unfortunately not written a post detailing this (if you are the very nice anon who has asked me to elaborate on this i am very sorry, if you're not anon i am still very sorry), in large part because doing so in a way that I would be happy with would involve combing through the last 1/3rd or so of the novel. Since the major thematics about authors and characters and readers as one aren't really gotten into until that point. To be honest, I just haven't had the energy for that.

The idea that the novel HSY wrote not being ORV is one that I've always had since first finishing ORV- I can't say where exactly it originated from. Now to be clear, it's an undisputed fact that HSY and kimcom *are* writing about the events they lived through, and I do 100% both understand how and why HSY writing ORV is the more widely accepted theory (them including lines from early orv scenes, the way that it loops right back around into ORV's very meta theming, the way it would match up with the ideas of loop of fate, etc.) I just don't agree with it.

One of the greatest takeaways for me on the author/character theming in ORV is that an author will never fully understand a character they write. HSY and YJH live this out in real time, alongside HSY learning the origins of WoS vs the YJH she has come to know as a companion. In writing WoS she straight up admits that she fudges her memories of him because it isn't as if she could know everything about him- she just wrote the story she thought KDJ needed to hear. (I swear I have a point I promise). HSY as intimate knowledge in how while writing someone, you both grow to understand them intimately while simultaneously remaining clueless. With the experiences she goes through, combined with the fact that KDJ's narration in ORV is so specifically *him* with all its unreliability and the glimpses we get into his past/bits of him on his own without kimcom around, I just don't think ORV is something HSY would have written. To me, she wouldn't have tried to write from KDJ's perspective, already having far too much entanglement in obscuring people and characters with KDJ (and possily from that one scenario where she's almost taken over by the character she's incarnated into, but again, i would need to reread).

Then we reach the point where she writes this novel for the KDJ's across worldlines- or rather, kimcom does. Which I think is another very relevant point, HSY is compiling and spinning this into a narrative, but *everyone* is contributing to it and writing bits and pieces. Now that I type it out, I think that might be part of what makes me so happy with the thought that instead of ORV, HSY is writing that same story but told from kimcom's perspective, not KDJ's like ORV is. The image of everyone coming together to give their own perspective and accounts while HSY compiles and sorts those varying viewpoints into a narrative with KDJ as the focus just warms my heart. In a post I made about the epilogues, I brought up that with this interpretation, you can see it as kimcom writing KDJ as they see him, so that he can understand just why they love him so dearly- which I think is especially poignant considering this novel's true purpose isn't even to bring KDJ back, its to help everyone else heal from the trauma of losing him.

So basically, I can't really give you much of a textual basis for my argument besides for the fact that ORV doesn't straight up say HSY is writing ORV, it's more just was my first takeaway that has forever stuck with me as my preferred interpretation.

(P.S. thank you for taking the time to read my fic, I also loved writing the bit where KDJ remembers that story.)