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supersoakerfullofblood · 2 months

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Point of View: the Biggest Thing You're Missing!

Point of view is one of the most important elements of narrative fiction, especially in our modern writing climate, but you rarely hear it seriously discussed unless you go to school for writing; rarely do help blogs or channels hit on it, and when they do, it's never as in-depth as it should be. This is my intro to POV: what you're probably missing out on right now and why it matters. There are three essential parts of POV that we'll discuss.

Person: This is the easiest part to understand and the part you probably know already. You can write in first person (I/me), second (You), and third person (He/she/they). You might hear people talk about how first person brings the reader closer to the central character, and third person keeps them further away, but this isn't true (and will be talked about in the third part of this post!) You can keep the reader at an intimate or alien distance to a character regardless of which person you write in. The only difference--and this is arguable--is that first person necessitates this intimacy where third person doesn't, but you still can create this intimacy in third person just as easily. In general, third person was the dominant (and really the only) tense until the late 19th century, and first person grew in popularity with the advent of modernism, and nowadays, many children's/YA/NA books are written in first person (though this of course doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't write those genres in the third person). Second person is the bastard child. Don't touch it, even if you think you're clever, for anything the length of a novel. Shorter experimental pieces can use it well, but for anything long, its sounds more like a gimmick than a genuine stylistic choice.

Viewpoint Character: This is a simple idea that's difficult in practice. Ask yourself who is telling your story. This is typically the main character, but it needn't be. Books like The Book Thief, The Great Gatsby, Rebecca, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Sherlock series are told from the perspective of a side character who isn't of chief importance to the narrative. Your viewpoint character is this side character, the character the reader is seeing the world through, so the main character has to be described through them. This isn't a super popular narrative choice because authors usually like to write from the perspective of their most interesting character, but if you think this choice could fit your story, go for it! You can also swap viewpoint characters throughout a story! A word of warning on that: only change your viewpoint character during a scene/chapter break. Switching mid-scene without alerting the reader (and even when you do alert the reader) will cause confusion. I guarantee it.

Means of Perception; or, the Camera: This part ties the first two together. If you've ever heard people talk about an omniscient, limited, etc. narrator, this is what they mean. This part also includes the level of intimacy the reader has with the viewpoint character: are we in their heads, reading their thoughts, or are we so far away that we can only see their actions? If your story is in a limited means of perception, you only have access to your character's head, eyes, and interpretations, where an omniscient narrator sees through all characters' heads at once. (This doesn't eliminate the viewpoint character--most of your writing will still be in that character's head, but you're allowed to reach into other characters' thoughts when needed. You could also be Virginia Woolf, who does fluidly move through everyone's perspectives without a solid viewpoint character, but I would advise against this unless you really are a master of the craft.) Older novels skew towards third person omniscient narration, where contemporary novels skew towards first person limited. You also have a spectrum of "distant" and "close." If omniscient and limited are a spectrum of where the camera can swivel to, distant and close is a spectrum of how much the camera can zoom in and out. Distant only has access to the physical realities of the world and can come off as cold, and close accesses your character's (or characters', if omniscient) thoughts. Notice how I said narration. Your means of perception dramatically effects how your story can be told! Here's a scene from one of my stories rewritten in third-person distant omniscient. The scene is a high school football game:

“Sometimes,” he said. “Not much anymore.” “It’s not better, then?” She shivered; the wind blew in. “A little.” His tone lifted. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be better, though.” She placed a hand on his arm, stuttered there, and slipped her arm around his waist. “Did it help to be on your own?” He raised an eyebrow. “You were there.” “Yes and no.” “And the guys, the leaders.” “Come on,” she heckled. “Okay, okay.” Carmen sighed. “Yeah, it helped. I don’t think—I don’t know—I’d be me if they’d fixed it all.” She grinned. “And who might you be?” “Oh, you know. Scared, lonely.” He fired them haphazardly, and a bout of laughter possessed him which Piper mirrored. “Impatient.” “And that’s a good thing?” “No.” He sat straight. “Gosh, no. But I don’t want to be like him, either.” He pointed to the field; Devon recovered a fumbled ball. “He’s never been hurt in his life.” She met his eyes, which he pulled away. “You don’t mean that," Piper said. “Maybe not. He’s too confident, though.” The cloth of Carmen's uniform caved and expanded under Piper's fingers.

With distant-omniscient, we only get the bare actions of the scene: the wind blows in, Piper shivers, the cloth rises and falls, Carmen points, etc. But you can tell there's some emotional and romantic tension in the scene, so let's highlight that with a first person limited close POV:

“Sometimes,” he said. “Not much anymore.” “It’s not better, then?” Frost spread up from her legs and filled her as if she were perforated rock, froze and expanded against herself so that any motion would disturb a world far greater than her, would drop needles through the mind’s fabric. A misplaced word would shatter her, shatter him. “A little.” His tone lifted. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be better, though.” She placed a hand on his arm, thought better, and slipped her arm around his waist. “Did it help to be on your own?” He raised an eyebrow. “You were there.” “Yes and no.” “And the guys, the leaders.” “Come on,” she heckled. “Okay, okay.” Carmen sighed. “Yeah, it helped. I don’t think—I don’t know—I’d be me if they’d fixed it all.” She grinned. “And who might you be?” “Oh, you know. Scared, lonely.” He fired them haphazardly, and a bout of laughter possessed him which Piper mirrored. “Impatient.” “And that’s a good thing?” “No.” He sat straight. “Gosh, no. But I don’t want to be like him, either.” He pointed to the field; Devon recovered a fumbled ball. “He’s never been hurt in his life.” “You don’t mean that.” She spoke like a jaded mother, spoke with some level of implied authority, and reminded herself again to stop. “Maybe not. He’s too confident, though.” Piper felt the cloth of his waist cave and expand under her fingers and thought: is this not confidence?

Here, we get into Piper's thoughts and physical sensations: how the frost rises up her, and how this sensation of cold is really her body expressing her nervous fears; how she "thought better" and put her arm around his waist; her thought "is this not confidence?"; and how she reminds herself not to talk like a mother. Since I was writing from the close, limited perspective of a nervous high schooler, I wrote like one. If I was writing from the same perspective but with a child or an older person, I would write like them. If you're writing from those perspectives in distant narration, however, you don't need to write with those tones but with the authorial tone of "the narrator."

This is a lot of info, so let's synthesize this into easy bullet points to remember.

Limited vs. Omniscient. Are you stuck to one character's perspective per scene or many?

Close vs. Distant. Can you read your characters' thoughts or only their external worlds? Remember: if you can read your character's thoughts, you also need to write like you are that character experiencing the story. If child, write like child; if teen, write like teen; etc.

Here's another way to look at it!

This is a confusing and complex topics, so if you have any questions, hit up my ask box, and I'll answer as best I can. The long and short of it is to understand which POV you're writing from and to ruthlessly stick to it. If you're writing in limited close, under no circumstances should you describe how a character other than your viewpoint character is feeling. Maintaining a solid POV is necessary to keeping the dream in the reader's head. Don't make them stumble by tripping up on POV!

#writeblr #writing #writing advice #fanfic #writers on tumblr #writing questions #creative writing #bookblr #writerscommunity #booklr

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gffa · 5 months

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I never meant to fall into this fandom, but seeing these really stunning pieces of characters in trench coats and got supremely curious. It took approximately two days to fall ass over teakettle into OMNISCIENT READER'S VIEWPOINT hell, because it has absolutely fascinating characters, interesting worldbuilding, a beautifully drawn webtoon, thoughtful plot elements on the nature of stories and the relationship with the audience and--most importantly--it has the kind of character dynamics you immediately want fic. I'm barely past chapter 40 and I was already spoiling myself for the overarching plot because I desperately needed post-canon fic that offered resolution, because everything was already so deliciously intense that I couldn't stand it! So, here I am, having a bunch of knock-out fic to go with the absolute god-tier art that's in the fandom and desperately trying to drag more of you into this with me because it's so good and I think you'd like it and I don't want to be throwing up feelings everywhere and not have you all understand how much these characters mean to me (especially the main character, he is such a skrunkly little asshole whomst I would die for!!!!) even after just forty chapters! Joinnnnn meeeee!!! (p.s. This is primarily a Joongdok recs set, but give me time and I'll love all the characters!)

OMNISCIENT READER'S VIEWPOINT - POST-CANON IS WHAT I'M REALLY HERE FOR: ✦ [Message from the Universe: Kim Dokja Must Die] by jarofclay, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj company, NSFW, post-canon spoilers, 27.2k Six months after returning to his original world-line, Kim Dokja almost dies (again). A tragicomedic Final Destination-esque story featuring one dreamer in distress, his personal hero and his rightfully anxious family. ✦ world's end rhapsody by wakerife, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & han sooyoung & kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 11.6k another post-epilogue fic, wherein kim dokja may or may not need a bigger hospital bed ✦ Unburying Kim Dokja by stingerra, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 21.3k Kim Dokja is back and left to ponder such things like fitting in and making amends. None of this proves easy. He was dead for too long and it's common knowledge that resurrection is a lengthy process. Especially because Kim Dokja was someone who buried himself at the age of 15 and didn't hope for anyone to care. ✦ “You are loved,” said Yoo Jonghyuk. “This is a threat,” said Yoo Jonghyuk. by IceBreeze, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & han sooyoung & kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 13.3k Kim Dokja doesn't really know when he began collecting time travellers like stray cats but it's not so bad, he guesses. He just wishes there was less crying. ✦ show me proof you hear my sound by grdenofavalon, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 30k Kim Dokja has two goals in his life: figure out why he can't recall anything from before that "apocalypse" everyone and their dog is traumatized from, and finally finish the renovations on his newly (if six years old could still be "new") purchased book-and-breakfast cafe. It's... a work in progress. But now he has a third goal — find out what Yoo "former-terrorist-turned-civil-worker" Joonghyuk wants from his life. Or maybe he just wants his life, to end it himself. Kim Dokja is starting to think that might be the case. ✦ The End Of A Story by mellllting, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj compnay, NSFW, post-canon spoilers, 22.8k Kim Dokja wakes up, and the most shocking part of all that has happened was probably finding out that Yoo Joonghyuk loves him. ✦ white house, white rock by beforedaybreaks, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj compnay, post-canon spoilers, 12.1k “Big family?” the grocery store clerk asks, as he makes his way to the front of the checkout line. The clerk motions toward Kim Dokja’s baskets. Kim Dokja laughs as he loads the ingredients onto the conveyer belt. “I guess you could say that.” After the Scenarios, Kim Dokja moves into a big house with everyone.

✦ unwind the world, is your nightmare gone? by Scribblurri, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj compnay, post-canon spoilers, 9.9k He learns of lots of things that these people say his older self has experienced in the apocalypse: kindness, companionship, strength, family, love, sacrifice; all things they say the older him has provided to them. (He's not sure he believes it.) ✦ Revelation by 1864_9158, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj compnay, post-canon spoilers, 2.1k Kim Dokja realizes he's in love with Yoo Jonghyuk a month after he wakes up. Post-Canon ✦ Will you share your soul with me? (Unzip your skin and let me have a see) by Maru_Chan, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj compnay, NSFW, post-canon spoilers, 19.9k Noticing my gaze, Yoo Joonghyuk looked up from where he was polishing his sword. “Kim Dokja, what do you want?" My eyes shifted back to the System Notification I had been making a valiant effort to ignore ever since it had appeared a few minutes ago. [I w■■t to b■■■ him ■■ half a■d ■■■■ him wi■■■ an inch ■f h■s ■■fe] Uhh... (Or: KDJ might read both books and minds, but he can't read the room to save his life.) ✦ you used to be my satellite by Karelyon, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 3.4k Yoo Joonghyuk in his first regression, with all his memories from the 0th round, meets one Kim Dokja. ✦ The Scars of Dreaming by Gotcocomilk, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 6.5k Or: two dreamers speak. Neither are monsters. ✦ today's prophecy: you will receive love (this is inevitable) by kdj_225, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 2.6k “Kim Dokja!” Han Sooyoung yells first. “What the hell is this, huh?!” “You’re asking me? I’m just as confused as you, Han Sooyoung.” “This is related to you, this—huh?” It seems she hadn’t fully read the status window before she barged into his room. Her eyes, initially squinted, turn wide when they read through the lit-up words on the floating window. With a growing smirk, she teases, “A kiss? You wanted a kiss?” ✦ the false last act by younglegends, kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 8.6k Living in a big house with everyone was convenient, most of the time. But there were other things that couldn’t be avoided. Or: The end. ✦ Pretty Fool by jokebear, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja, post-canon spoilers, 1.4k Kim Dokja is pretty. That was the undeniable, factual, and conclusive verdict Yoo Joonghyuk had reached after days of gazing at the other man. ✦ missing person report by lorilanda, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 9.7k Kim Dokja opens his arms. "Okay, okay." He takes a deep breath. "Okay. C'mere. Give me a hug." To his absolute horror, Yoo Joonghyuk actually does. Kim Dokja returns. ✦ you made a deal, you traded daffodils for a kingdom of ash and bone by venividivici, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj company, post-canon spoilers, 21k From infancy to adulthood, Kim Dokja has had a hard life. He copes.

OMNISCIENT READER'S VIEWPOINT - BUT I WILL HAPPILY TAKE MID-SCENARIOS FIC BECAUSE IT'S SUCH GOOD TROPE FODDER: ✦ Fire on Fire by alodienr, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja, NSFW, 2.7k "What are you doing?" He hissed in pain and shock and confusion. Their faces were dangerously close. He could see golden under the dark irises in front of him. The kind of golden that was warm, intimidating, and seemed to want to devour Kim Dokja at the same time. Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes glinted with longing, hunger and want. "Push me if you want me to stop." Yoo Joonghyuk stared right into Kim Dokja's eyes. There was a bit of gentleness in his tone. ✦ The Reader's Lost Hope by bobacrane, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja, read the tags, 5.2k Yoo Jonghyuk is thrown into the past right when teenage Kim Dokja makes an attempt on his own life. He must learn about the past of his companion in order to return home. ✦ Taking Action to Contain a Hopeless Squid by gayboy_advance, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja, 1.2k It started out innocent—just some minor actions to ensure the slippery man’s safety. Yoo Joonghyuk made sure to check on Kim Dokja every time before going to bed, specifically when the other was already sleeping soundly. He figured it would be less explaining if caught, as well as less likely that the man would up and leave once he had actually taken the time to fall asleep. Unfortunate or not, it was not enough to settle his worries as time progressed. ✦ proof of love by Maven_Fair, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja, NSFW, omegaverse, 3.6k “Yoo Jonghyuk,” a low rumble, “bad touch,” a soft huff of breath, teeth scraping, “ooh - ah, bad touch,” a tongue, softly caressing that sensitive bundle so slowly that he just wanted him to bite already - “VERY BAD TOUCH, YOO JONGHYUK - ” An indignant bite is the only response he gets. ✦ i crave death by exocara, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja, NSFW, 2.2k Kim Dokja would say that he had no idea how he got into this situation, but he would be lying. It wasn’t as if he wanted to be in this situation (except he did, it was his idea and he was the one who had to do the convincing) but Yoo Joonghyuk needed to be put in his place. Which was under him. Also with his dick up Kim Dokja’s ass, but that was neither here nor there. ✦ speak no evil by cvrely, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja, NSFW, 2.9k The same hands that encircled his throat at their meeting, held the blade that pierced his body during the Demon King selection, now hold onto him as if afraid to let go—what defenses does he have against Yoo Joonghyuk when he’s like this? What defense does he have against Yoo Joonghyuk at all? ✦ My Star by TeaFlowers, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & secretive plotter/kim dokja, NSFW, 3.6k ⸢K im Dok ja th in ks: I wa nt him to cr ush me⸥ Shut up, I didn’t want this to happen. He weakly refuted. ⸢K im Dok ja is a li ar⸥ One of the Plotter’s gloved fingers tapped Kim Dokja’s cheek, bringing his attention back to him and his smug smile. The hand tilted Kim Dokja’s chin toward him as he murmured, “Thinking of others while I’m here? That’s not very polite of you Kim Dokja.” ✦ you got me starstruck by virotutis, yoo joonghyuk/kim doka & kdj company, 3.6k Kim Dokja is a man who has rather clear priorities after his favorite novel comes to life—unfortunately for his companions, informing them about his former idol career is not one of them.

OMNISCIENT READER'S VIEWPOINT - AND THEN MAYBE SOMETIMES THEY DESERVE A HAPPY ALTERNATE UNIVERSE: ✦ the tidal pain of wanting by aryelee, yoo joonghyuk/dim dokja, omegaverse, alternate universe, 14.7k “Kim Dokja.” The sound of his name makes his breath hitch. His eyes burn with oncoming tears. He hasn’t cried in front of another person in years. It’s mortifying. He doesn’t understand why the sound of his name from Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouth hurts him, why it hollows out the inside of his chest, why it aches with a loneliness he thought he got used to living with. “Kim Dokja, allow me to know you.” ✦ How To Be A Husband by cymbelione, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja & kdj company, 9.3k Being a good best friend involves comforting your friends when they're sad, eating their unwanted vegetables and remembering their birthdays. Last time Kim Dokja checked, the description didn't include "pretending to marry them". He'd think that he would recall that part. ✦ you can't skip the tutorial by cvrely, yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja, royalty dating sim au, 4.1k (Yoo Joonghyuk wakes up in a dating sim. It goes as well as expected.)

#lumi.txt #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv #kim dokja #yoo joonghyuk #han sooyoung #joongdok #yoohankim #fic recs #orv fic recs #long post

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yellowocaballero · 8 months

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Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint: YJH Commits the Improbable and Reads a Webnovel

Don’t be weird. Don’t be weird about this, Dokja. I hurriedly went back to the novel myself, reading it next to him. Reading a novel next to somebody…that was like reading it together, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t together. But it wasn’t separate. It was a strange and obscure connection, one where you said nothing but were linked by a shared experience. It meant something when two people experienced the same thing. Especially this.

Somebody else experiencing this…it was like they were experiencing me. Why had he sat down next to me? Why had he stared? Why did he talk to a stranger like this, ask questions so intently? Why would he go so far as to ask about the book, read it beside me? Did he like it?

With a strange and obscure wonder, the man said, “This isn’t even good.”

Well. That was a natural reaction.

When I'm trying harder than usual to nail a difficult character then I write a lot of side shit in order to try and lock them down. Obviously everybody in ORV is hard as fuck to write, so I decided to write a quick scene as a character study for KDJ & YJH to try and nail their voices. I think this was written right after the divorce arc.

Super short 3k encounter under the cut.

I noticed the man sitting down next to me immediately, but it took far longer to notice he was staring at me. He hadn’t even turned on the computer - he just stared at me, completely shamelessly. It was another few minutes before I finally worked up the courage to fully turn my head to look at him.

I had noticed from the corner of my eye, but he was an unrealistically attractive man. The punk black shirt, canvas pants, and dangerous black boots suited him well. It made me want to forgive him for staring at me. I didn’t quite forgive him.

“Is there something you need help with?”

Maybe he had seen me here several times and mistook me for a library expert. I was, in a few ways. Mostly not. You’d think that guys who spent as much time as I did at the library would be some sort of well-read genius. I just read webnovels on the computer. It was my ideal location, since there was a computer and it wasn’t home. My webnovel and isolation was all I asked for. I didn't know who I was asking, but there had to be somebody.

The man somehow hadn’t anticipated the question. He wasn’t big on blinking or moving, which wasn’t a great trait in creepy library men. He took a long few seconds before answering. It wasn’t a tremendously difficult question. I knew it: the more attractive a man was, the stupider he became. Maybe that explained myself?

“What are you reading?”

Question with a question. The man had a deep, bassy voice, but there was an awkward wobble to it. I hurriedly switched tabs to a news site. “Nothing.”

“You seemed intent.”

“Why would you notice that?” I asked flatly. I could play this game too. “And why were you staring?”

“I wanted to know what you were reading.”

He didn’t seem that curious. Maybe the question was a nicety, meant to open me up towards selling me sharp knives or something, but anybody who would say a nicety like that wouldn’t stare at me for ten minutes first.

“Just a webnovel.” I knew I sounded defensive, but you could only hear the exact same thing for so long. “Fantasy. It’s not fanfic or anything.” I paused a second. “I don’t know what fanfic is. By the way.”

The man’s eyes skittered away, the nervousness blooming. He stared at my suddenly banal computer screen instead, as if I was stupid enough to show my cards and flip back to Ways of Survival. “What’s it about?”

I couldn’t help but perk up a little. Was he seriously interested in that? This was beyond bizarre small talk. Better keep the explanation to two sentences. Play it cool, Dokja.

When was the last time somebody had actually asked what it was about? That girl in high school, maybe. When she was pretending to ask me out to get a giggle out of her friends. That reverse counted.

“It’s a post-apoc regressor fantasy,” I said. Really cool. Wait. This guy was way too attractive to be a nerd. “Oh, a regressor’s a genre. It’s when the main character goes back in -”

“I know what a regressor is,” the man said tersely.

So he was a nerd? That seemed improbable. Attractive people didn’t have to become nerds, and nobody was a nerd voluntarily. “Sorry. Yeah, but it’s about a regressor who has to save the world from gods and demons. And a lot of other stuff. It’s mostly action. For a male audience.”

The man looked a little pained. Crap. I failed. C- in social interaction, Dokja. “Audience, huh.”

I stared at him blankly. “All stories are for an audience.”

“What about a story nobody reads?”

“So can I help you, or…?”

“Can’t a story be just for you?” The man suddenly seemed a little urgent, as if this conversation had tilted into an area that actually mattered. I thought I was the only one… “What about a story that you tell to yourself?”

I stopped and thought about it. I had thought about the topic before - a Dokja found it hard not to - but the thoughts usually walked a tired track of self-pity. But the man spoke sincerely, and some topics deserved a serious answer. The man waited for me to talk with growing impatience. Pushy.

I decided to give the answer I had when his eyebrow started ticking. “People tell themselves their own stories when they’re trying to create an ending they want. As if framing your life as a romance means you’ll get married at the end. Life doesn’t really work that way, though…”

The man leaned forward a little, his urgency only growing. “What if it did?”

“That’s a hypothetical,” I said. “So it’s fictional. You just made fiction out of making fact out of fiction. That’s fiction at the end of the day.”

“If fiction was real, would it become reality?”

It was a question that was both very banal and very odd. “That only happens in isekais.” The man stared at me blankly. How did you know about regressors and not isekais? “You know. Americans call them portal fantasies. It’s a popular genre, there’s all kinds. Regressors, Returnees, and Reincarnators.” A little awkwardly, I added, “That’s, like, genre canon. See, my novel explains it.”

I opened up the webnovel tab, navigating instantly towards the line I was thinking of. It was pretty early in the book, while Yoo Junghyeok explained to Lee Jihye and Kim Namwoon that he was a regressor. As usual, the narration had to step in to explain the basics of the worldbuilding. It was always nostalgic to read the beginning of the novel: back when the worldbuilding wasn’t insanely convoluted.

“ ‘In the cruel star stream, there are only three ways to survive’”, I read out loud, before something occurred to me. “Oh, the star stream is kind of like an evil apocalyptic Twitch stream. Gods and demons watch scenarios - that’s a sort of game where a bunch of people die - and then they watch people die, it’s a gory -”

“Like a Twitch stream,” the man said tightly. This guy was a huge fan of repeating what I said.

I just shrugged. “It’s a metaphor. The novel’s about the entertainment industry and exploitation of -” the man’s face was becoming increasingly stormy, so I went back to the novel. “Right, here: ‘In the cruel star stream, there are only three ways to survive: bear regression, change into a returnee, or accept reincarnation. These are the strongest people. In this new and dying world, the weak will not survive.’” I looked back at the man, almost forgetting the casual act. “Cool, right? There’s lots of isekai elements - I guess you could say that there’s a sophisticated nature to it sometimes, this metatextual aspect? - but the story itself doesn’t really hit those isekai beats. MCs are meant to be relatable everymen, but you can’t really call Yoo Joonghyuk relatable. Oh, that’s the MC. He’s really morally gray, it’s that kind of story. He’s the kind of hero who always does his best but who’s constantly fucking up. He’s, like, on his 945th regression. Not great at the -”

“945th?” the man asked. If he was strangled before he was dying of asphyxiation now.

I got it. “He’s a sunfish,” I said sympathetically. The man seemed like he was in too much pain to understand the reference. “That means he’s super easy to kill. But that’s mostly at first. He gets super badass later. One time he decapitated four -”

“This is funny to you, isn’t it?”

I stopped short. I couldn’t read the man’s face at all, but I felt very judged. And a little like I had disappointed him. “It’s not exactly a comedy,” I said awkwardly. “It’s just cool. It’s fun.”

“You didn’t look like you were having fun while you were reading it.”

Damn. Caught. I looked away, rubbing at the back of my neck. “Uh…yeah, I’d read that section, like, five times. It’s just comforting, I suppose.” For some demented reason, I felt the need to add, “You read it in class and you can pretend Yoo Joonghyuk would beat up your bullies for you. Or that he’d stand up for you against your - that kind of thing. He’s a hero. It’s not about watching the hero suffer. It’s about cheering for him when he wins. Um, I shouldn’t admit this, should I?”

But he didn’t look like he thought I was cringe. The man spoke quickly, as if he needed me to know before anything else. “He used to threaten his sister’s bullies. That’s the sort of thing he does. Did. As a child.” He paused a beat. “It’s why he started working out. They weren’t very intimidated. Or so it seems.”

I nodded eagerly, suddenly excited beyond measure. “That’s totally him! He just hides it behind that cool murder guy exterior. You really get it. You know, maybe you’d like - uh, nobody likes it, but it’s oddly compelling -”

“Sure,” the man said. I quietly exploded. “Pull it up on the computer.”

And for the very first time in my entire life, I sat next to somebody as they read Ways of Survival. I was practically vibrating. I couldn’t stop sneaking glances at his face, trying to suss out if he was enjoying it or not. He had skipped forward a few chapters, so maybe he wasn’t that interested - but he looked so intense - but he always seemed a little intense - another human being on this Earth was reading Ways of Survival! Was this a dream? I didn’t want to wake up.

With a strange and obscure wonder, the man said, “This isn’t even good.”

Well. That was a natural reaction. I wasn’t offended.

“I don’t like to call stories good or bad,” I said philosophically. “Every story has something for everybody. Ways of Survival is a great story if you love it enough.”

“It could have at least been good.” The man leaned back, exhaling like he had run a marathon. “All of this…and it couldn’t even be good?”

This was basically expected. “The characterization is good,” I offered weakly.

“Of course the people are good,” the man said irritably, as if this was a foregone conclusion. “But the book itself is embarrassing. The writing is awkward and choppy. The plotlines seem rushed and convoluted. And the regressor is completely unsympathetic.”

“Are you kidding? How can you be unsympathetic to a man with so much inner pain?” I had to roll up for my bias. If Yoo Joonghyuk had a million fans I was one of them, if he had one fan then the fan was me - he did literally have one, and it was literally me. “If I’d seen my loved ones die a million times I’d act cold too. He just loves people too much, so he pushes them away. It’s really deep. And he’s cool.”

The man looked away from the monitor, eyes flaring, and I had to fight the urge to retreat against that intense look. “How can you love a book that’s so faulty?”

All I could do was shrug awkwardly. “It’s pretty easy when it’s all you have.”

“There’s other books.”

“None of them are mine.”

The man’s eyes narrowed a little, his face tightening. “It’s a public book. What makes it yours?”

“I’m the only person who reads it.” This person was getting a little intense. It should have been awkward and uncomfortable - and it definitely was - but somehow I could only care about the fact that he wanted to read my book. It didn’t even matter that he didn’t like it. That had never happened before. “I suppose it’s the author’s too. But a book belongs to the audience, you know. The author can have every intention they want, but the people who read it decide what the book really is. No offense to the author or anything.”

“What if the book doesn’t have an audience?”

Nobody had ever looked at me like this man looked at me. He was looking straight through me, as if I wasn’t even there - but he was looking at me as if there was nobody else in the world. It wasn’t comfortable. But it wasn’t uncomfortable either. Maybe that was just the nature of true things.

“That’s a little sad, isn’t it?” I asked. “Every book deserves a reader.”

“Could be a crap book.”

“Is a reader not allowed to enjoy a crap book?”

“What about a crap person?” the man asked urgently. “Does a crap person deserve a reader?”

“I don’t know.” I could only shrug a little helplessly. I wish I wasn’t so helpless. This man was clearly looking for a certain answer, but I couldn’t parse it out. “It’s not about deserve. People are allowed to love crap people. Readers are allowed to like crap books. It’s not so different, I think…”

“It’s bad taste, though.”

“Isn’t that somebody’s own choice?”

The man was silent.

The air had grown awkward. I went back to the novel, abandoning the man to stare blankly at his own computer screen. I didn’t know why my own personality and a webnovel gave him so much to process, but Ways of Survival incited a lot of deep thoughts about the universe and the nature of humanity in me too.

I was on chapter 1,452 before the man finally stood up. He carefully pushed in his chair, reaching to straighten a nonexistent collar before letting his hand fall.

“Thank you,” the man said. “This helped.”

He seemed sincere, and earnest sincerity was something one ought to accept. “You’re welcome. I don’t really know why, though.”

“Let’s say I needed closure on some things. The turnaround was worth it.” He glanced upwards, as if he was speaking to God. “But I’m not thanking anybody.”

“If somebody does you a favor it’s polite to say thanks.”

“I would strangle that bastard before I thank him.” Bizarre sentence, but the man paused for a second anyway. “I Googled the top pro gamer in South Korea.”

I was caught off-guard by the subject change. “I don’t keep up with esports?”

“I didn’t recognize the name.”

“Neither…would I?”

“It was a relief.”

The man turned off the computer and stood up, as if the non-sequitur was the final and most important thing to say. I was still stuck on what esports had to do with anything.

Wait. Something finally occurred to me. “You never said your name.”

The corner of the man’s lips twitched upwards. “Kim Dokja.”

“That’s not funny.” It was actually pretty creepy. How long had this guy been staring at me? “Hey, how do you know my name?”

“I know everything about you,” the man panned. “All of your secret fears in the dark. All of your love and hatred. I know you, therefore we are comrades.”

I stared at him blankly. “But I don’t know you at all.”

“That’s another story.” The man stuck his hands in his pockets, easily turning and walking away. “Until next time.”

Until next - “Hey! What does that even mean!”

But the man ignored me, and when he turned a corner and disappeared out of sight he may as well not have existed. I was left alone in that library, abruptly alone and lonely. In a lifetime of isolation I had never felt so abandoned.

Desperately, insanely, I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled as I could. “Come back! Nobody ever sees the mysterious stranger again!”

I wanted to see him again. I wanted more questions, more answers. I couldn’t allow this man to be a flash in a pan, a blinking light in the night before all grew dark.

I wanted him to be a different sort of mysterious stranger - a friend you hadn’t met yet. One that kept his distance and could never come nearer until he eliminated all threats to his life. Some romantic stalker that loved me from afar. Even foreshadowing or a Chekov’s gun, a story where every element has its own meaning - one where strangers always reunited, and nobody disappeared forever.

If I wanted that story badly enough, would it happen? I was just Kim Dokja, a reader who would never write his own story by sheer nature. I had always been content with that. But in that moment, for the very first time, I wanted to create the story.

No - I wanted to create the narrative. But that wasn’t achievable outside of fiction. Not for somebody powerless like me. The loser only grew powerful in fiction. Real life didn’t work like that. You had to have power to become powerful. Only powerful people wrote their own stories. And somebody like me could only become powerful in a shitty isekai.

For a long time thereafter I wondered if I regretted that wish or not. Something as simple as regret ought to be easy to determine. But regret was one of those insidious little things, a sour thread that ran through every happy moment and curled around the sad ones. An emotion that stayed present in happy or sad circumstances, when you failed to obtain something you wanted or when you were never satisfied with what you had.

But Yoo Joonghyuk had always made a pretty shitty mysterious stranger.

#this is what my practice looks like I guess?#my writing #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv #kim dokja #yoo joonghyuk

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opportunityarose · 3 months

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the title alone of omniscent reader sound very interesting. can i.... hear about it? :)

okayyy yessss. im specifically referring to the webcomic here but omniscient reader's viewpoint is based off of a massive beast of a novel thats like thousands of pages and is not very well translated. if you want a good start to orv i'd start off with the webcomic available on webtoon! its very accurate to the book and you have the bonus of looking at cool art.

the general plot of it is the main character, kim dokja, a hashtag average guy in a dead end job, get transported to the world of a post-apocalyptic story called the ways of survival he's been reading for the past 13 years. the world works like a video game which you might know from other similar webcomics. where it gets interesting is:

a) the meta and narrative of author vs story vs reader. kim dokja has been reading this updating online webnovel for the past thirteen years ever since he was a kid. he fell in love with the world, stories, and characters, and as he goes on in this world the line between him and this fictional reality begins to blur. it goes a lot into how you can never really know the true reality of a story but rather only your own interpretation of it, and then said well what if you replace stories with people? its a really interesting theme that's very well done but takes a while to properly dig into.

b) what gets most people including me into it: the relationship between kim dokja and the original protagonist of the ways of survival, yoo joonghyuk. joonghyuk is a regressor which means whenever he dies he gets reset back in time, and this happens to him thousands of times. hes a textbook brooding protagonist and dokja is very aware of this. but also this is a guy dokja has been obsessed with for the past 13 years. he very much Wants to Be Him and Looked Up To Him. when dokja gets shoved into the novel and they meet, joonghyuk is on his 3rd regression. and he also just chokes him out over a bridge. dokja is like wait hold on im uhhh a prophet i can help you let me be your Companion (the word companion comes up a lot in this story) and then joonghyuk tries to kill him because he can't accept the offer like a normal person. he keeps running into dokja and being surprised that he's alive and they start a weird rivalry that devolves into obsession and then full on passionate declarations of allegiance and THEN it becomes "i cant tell where you end and i begin." no one is doing it like them. also one of them wears white and one of them wears black

^ me and the bad bitch i pulled by being doomed by god

anyways read omniscient reader's viewpoint its good and might make you cry.

#sorry for the day late response haha #sam answers #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv

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cum-villain · 5 months

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that "no love is wasted" quote really helps me put things into perspective when it comes to my 'useless' fandom hobby.

watching stranger things years ago led me to extremely analytical communities, where i began to do critical analysis of what i watched. now im able to more easily theorize and grow to love coming up with new ideas. the community has changed nowadays, so thats changed more to growing up, of realizing that what i saw in the past doesnt exist anymore, and being able to come to terms with that and simply be grateful for the time i had.

watching sk8 the infinity led me to learning japanese, and i ended up quitting, but i can read most hiragana, and some katakana and kanji, when a lot of people dont even know the difference between hiragana katakana and kanji. it also led me to embrace my strange interests when i was disdained for liking adam, and to learn that i need to find my own communities instead of changing for others. it taught me to learn about the cultures of foreign stories, and in some ways shaped my culinary interests through learning about japan.

reading scum villain led me to learning more about analysis, about the importance of finding sources for claims, and why it's important to make references as to where exactly the quotes can be found in a specific text. it also led me to learning more about chinese culture. i dont know much hanzi, and i have difficulty with tones and sounds in mandarin, but i've been able to make attempts and can at least try to make more similar replications of chinese than i could a year ago. in learning about chinese culture, ive learned about various foods like congee, which is becoming a staple when i feel unwell. i learned about the beautiful hanfu in historical cdramas, and i'm learning more about where different styles and patterns come from as a current hobby.

and all of the fandoms i've been in, all of the stories i've read, have shaped me as a person in some ways, these are just examples. everytime i love a story, it shapes my own. i wouldnt be the person i am today if i wasnt in the above communities, if i hadnt read orv and tgcf and 2ha and pjo and all those other stories i didnt mention.

omniscient reader's viewpoint taught me that there's value just in being a reader, in loving a story. and i cant help but agree. reading stories has turned me into the dima of today, and i cant help but be happy to be reader, because i love the person that stories made me. and i cant wait to see how the next story i read shapes me too.

#braincell posting

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halfagone · 7 months

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DID YOU SAY THAT YOU READ WEBTOONS? What uh.... What are your favorites? 👉👈 I'm still trying to wean off reading manga, and the only webtoons I've read are Queen Cecia Wears Knickerbockers and Wayne Family Adventures 😂

Yes, I have read quite a few Webtoons in my day (Why do I sound so old right now?) I have not heard about the Queen Cecia Webtoon, but Wayne Family Adventures is a very good choice, in my totally unbiased opinion. 🤣

If you want more DC Webtoons, then there is Red Hood: Outlaws and there is Zatanna & The Ripper. I haven't caught up with either of them, but if you do love those characters or want to see more from them, I definitely commend checking those out. There was also the Vixen: NYC Webtoon, but unfortunately that one seems to be cancelled now. 🥺

If you're interested in completed Webtoons, then I have a few offerings. I love Siren's Lament, it's a wonderfully complicated Webtoon even if it does hurt my heart sometimes. Gourmet Hound is more of a slice of life with some drama for added effect, but I really did adore that Webtoon that the art was just so cute!! Flow has some incredible worldbuilding mechanics and it's just so tasty. If you want more hero Webtoons, then there's I Don't Want This Kind of Hero, although that one does contain some distressing themes at times so like... beware. And then there is one of my ultimate favorites, which is called Gepetto, which is inspired and based on the Pinocchio tale but more futuristic and dystopian, if that's your fancy.

As for ongoing Webtoons, there's Marry My Husband, which is one of those time travel Webtoons where the MC dies and comes back to life sometime in the past and tries to fix their future. The main story is done, but they do have side stories which have been super cute to read.

There's the ever famous The Remarried Empress, and you'll probably see a lot of references to characters from this Webtoon if you read other Webtoons with a similar premise of- arranged marriage, terrible consort, attractive male lead that is decidedly not the husband, but don't worry he will be.

There is a newer Webtoon called I am the Villain, which is part of the Isekai genre, I would say. It's a beautiful Webtoon, the art is just stunning, and I have no idea what's going on but I'm having a great time.

For more action-based Webtoons, there is Eleceed and if anything happened to my boy Jiwoo I will kill everyone in this room and then myself. And apparently I've done a poor job of that promise because this boy has gone through it, but he still a sweetheart and I love him for that.

There's also the Omniscient Reader, which was actually originally a webnovel called Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, but has since been turned into a manhwa and it's so long but it's so good. I love my sunfish man and ugly squid king (bonus points to anyone who knows that reference).

Here is a Webtoon I have complicated feelings about: Tower of God. This was actually the first ever piece of media I published fanfiction for. It's this really incredible, complex, mind-bending fantasy Webtoon. It is very long, it currently stands at 581 chapters and counting. Unfortunately, the fandom ruined the experience for me, and I pretty much quit all of my fics and that's how I found myself here in the DPxDC fandom! There is an anime for it, currently just Season 1 is out but fingers crossed on Season 2! 🤞But definitely read it first before you watch because the pacing is a little fast for the anime and you don't get that same sweet, sweet tension. I am lucky enough that I do still have one beloved friend that I can talk about Tower of God with, or else I think I probably wouldn't have put it on this list at all.

Eleceed, Omniscient Reader, and Tower of God are all manhwas, which are Korean manga for a shorthand explanation. So if you want to wean yourself off those forms of fiction then... maybe stay away from these because they can suck you in.

Speaking of beloved friend, @midnightenigma recommended to me the Like Wind on a Dry Branch Webtoon, and I am still so upset about it because I will never be the same. 😭 The worldbuilding for this Webtoon is amazing and I adore the slow building romance and plot, and the exploration of grief and just- I am not okay.

I have more things I could recommend but that's... probably as much as I should offer now. lol I hope you find a treat to read from the bunch, though!

#halfagone replies #webtoon recs #never thought i'd get to do this

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aspiring-holistic-otaku · 3 months

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Season 3 Ramble#1 - New Year New Worlds ver.2

This is another one of those episodes where I almost feel like I’m betraying the name and purpose of the podcast, as this month I won’t actually be talking about manga or even anime for that matter.

The first time I did this whole New Year New Worlds thing was in Season 2 Ramble 1, where I focused on isekai manga and manhwa since I’d never really given the genre a chance before then. This month, again, I wanted to try something completely new to me and so I focused on Visual & Light novels.

Now my regular ramble format is to talk about top new reads on a particular topic/theme for that month, then give top reads I had on the same topic/theme before then. Seeing as this is an entirely new media format for me, there’s no way that format would work. So how this episode is gonna go is I’m gonna do a very quick once over of my top 3 isekai from last time, then get into this month’s media starting with Light Novels, then wrap up with Visual novels.

Lastly, before we get into it, I thought it would be useful to actually define these media formats, so everyone listening would be on the same page, veterans and newbies alike.

So…

According to wikipedia, Light novels are a type of popular literature novel, native to Japan, usually classified as young adult fiction targeting teens to twenties… In other words they’re books. Taking wiki at their word, light novels, or LNs as I’ll probably refer to them from now on, tend towards the YA novel variety you’d find in the west. The biggest difference being that they’re usually a bit shorter with an average length of less than 300 pages, but a crazy dense publishing schedule of 3 - 9 months between installments… crazy…

And visual novels, according to masterclass dot com, are text-based adventure games that combine interactive fiction and traditional anime or manga art styles, to give the gamer the experience of reading a novel in a visual format. The site goes on to describe different types and targets, along with 5 key characteristics of which I thought the first was really key and worth mentioning. Namely, Advancement; In visual novels, or VNs as I'll probably call them going forward, players do not guide a character the way they would in a traditional video game. Instead, they advance the story by clicking in targeted regions to refresh the text. Sounds kinda lame but trust when I say it’s the opposite. At least as far as my experience so far leads me to believe.

Getting right into it

A quick recap of my top 3 from Season 2 Ramble 1

#3) Loner life in another world - The ultra quick summary is in the name, as a lot of isekai tend to do for some reason… anyways, a loner gets transported to another world. Really it’s him and his classmates but he prefers to move alone. I thought it was pretty fun as far as isekai goes, mostly because it’s very lighthearted, doesn’t take itself too seriously and for the most part, at least from what i’ve read so far, it really felt like kids being kids. Which I really appreciated cause isekai always seem to go off the deep end.

#2) Murim Login - Again the ultra quick summary is that in this world, there’s the typical dungeon crawler aspect where special humans called hunters, protect the rest of humanity by going into special gates and closing them by defeating the boss monster inside. The MC is a low rank hunter that one day finds a VR game in the trash that actually sends him to another world. That’s the very basic premise but if i’m being real, the reason I dug it was because of it's heavy ancient chinese martial arts type vibe. The story has been enjoyable as well, split into two with his life in the real world and the one in the game, the one in the game so far being far more interesting… go figure.. but yh… I definitely have a martial arts bias so slight grain of salt there ig..

#1) Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint - This was my fav read that month and honestly I see it being my fav isekai for a long time. The story here is that the MC is a big fan of Light novels and happens to be the only person in the world to have completed one called Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse. Lo and behold the events of the story start to unfold in real life. Now I know that screams boring story overpowered MC red flags, as he clearly has a certain edge over literally the entire human population,, but TRUST. TRUST! it’s all handled really really well.

If i’m being honest, the really real reason I brought these up is probably because I saw some announcements earlier this month that two of them have started production for anime adaptations. #3 Loner life in another world and #1 Omniscient Reader’s viewpoint. Not that something getting an anime speaks to any inherent quality of a manga besides profitability, but in any case, if you liked the quick summaries, anime announcements or even just the names, I recommend actually listening to Season 2 Ramble 1 - New Year New Worlds, or reading its transcript for more structured descriptions and takes…especially on Omniscient Reader… so so good..

Now onto the stuff I actually got into this month, starting with Light novels... I say Light Novels plural and though I technically did read more than one, they were all from the same series

Durarara!!

I’m a big fan of durarara!! Watched the anime like ten years ago, and even back then I really wanted to read the source material but couldn’t find it anywhere, the source material being the LNs. I pretty much gave up.. but still 2 years ago I read the manga for Season 1 Ramble 12 - Delinquency and still enjoyed it. Finally. Finally. I’ve gotten my hands on the light novels thanks to a 7 year old reddit post. Thank you reddit.

Durarara!! is a story written by Ryohgo Narita with illustrations, like the cover and a few more for emphasis on certain scenes, done by Suzuhito Yasuda. In total there are 13 volumes which started publishing in 2004 and ended in 2014. Of these 13 I’ve read 4 so far. This is the third time now I’ll be speaking about durarara!!, the first time was Season 1 Ramble 8 - A is for Anime (solo reprise) then Season 1 Ramble 12 - Delinquency. Of course I encourage you to check those out but seeing as I clearly love Durarara!! I don’t mind giving the synopsis again.

Durarara!! Is the story of Tokyo’s downtown district of Ikebukuro and the people who live there. There are three central characters who the story mostly revolves around and a few more that make up the full main cast. The main three are mikado ryuugamine, a kid from the countryside who’s tired of the normal everyday life and so, invited by his best friend, moved to Ikebukuro to get closer to all the excitement. Mikado’s best friend who invited him, Kida Masaomi, is the second of the three. A rowdy, dye haired playboy who’s lived in Ikebukuro for a while and serves as mikado’s guide. Last but definitely not leat there’s Anri Sonohara, a plain girl who lost her friend on the first day of school.

There are others like the strongest in ikebukuro, shizuo, the most dastardly in ikebukuro, izaya, the random black Russian sushi store employee simon, and etc., that all affect the story one way or the other but there’s one more character that probably brings the central cast up to four and that’s celty sturluson, a dullahan, aka headless horseman, looking for her head that’s been stolen.

Not sure if you can tell from that not so short synopsis or the fact that there’s thirteen volumes of this thing but ALOT is going on in this story. For comparative reasons I'll bring up the anime here that has two seasons, the second being split into 3 cours, and they cover about 6 of the light novels. I say about, because I've only read four of them but I know for sure that season 1 covers the first three, and the fourth novel lines up with what happened in season 2 cour 1 so that’s where my assumption comes from.

In any case if it sounds like i’ve said a lot without saying anything, i’m aware and I hate it but it’s kind of a mystery story so i’ll give myself a small pass and hope you all can forgive me., Like this is one of those stories it’s hard to speak on without spoiling some aspect. I will say though that delinquents, katanas, superhumans and the yakuza are involved so… yh… Lastly the narration is great as almost every chapter is from a different person’s perspective and sometimes this goes back and forth through time so the story comes together in a very neat but crazy exciting kaleidoscope. One thing the anime had over the Light novel is that along with this changing vantage point, the narrator would change independently as well which I thought was really cool and really solidified the feeling that nothing goes unseen, whether on accident or by design, but the Light novels gave a bit more depth to the character's train of thought so I guess it balances out a bit.

Not much more to say but having watched the anime, read the manga and now the light novels I think it’s obvious that I definitely and holistically recommend durarara!!

Now onto the Visual Novels

The order I’m gonna mention them in is just the order I played them in, usually I’d do some sort of ranking but If you know anything about visual novels, and I guess story heavy games in general, it’s that they tend to be on the longer side of things so sadly I only finished one.

1) Steins;Gate

Released in 2009, developed and published by MAGES & Nitro+ with an approximate playtime of 44hrs. This was the only VN I actually got to complete a playthrough of this month.

I watched the anime 10 years ago and though I don’t remember much of the intricate episode to episode details, I do remember time travel being involved and it fucking with my emotions in the last half. In fact I went to check old tumblr posts I made back then to see if it would jog my memory but there was only one post and all it said was that the last 4 episodes were feels…

In any case back then I had no idea what VNs even were so I pretty much thought that was the end of it, but as the helix of time would have it, I’m back here again.

For those who have no idea, Steins;Gate follows a rag-tag band of tech-savvy young students who discover the means of changing the past via mail, using a modified microwave. Their experiments into how far they can go with their discovery begin to spiral out of control as they become entangled in a conspiracy surrounding SERN, the organisation behind the Large Hadron Collider, and John Titor who claims to be from a dystopian future.

Yes i know it’s kinda crazy that technical time travel was stumbled upon with a microwave but one it’s fiction, and two the series really doesn’t ask you to suspend your belief all that much otherwise. Getting into it, I really like the VN way more than the anime, the time difference is probably a factor but I don’t recall the anime being as thorough in explaining the science of different theoretical time travel mechanics and how they may or may not work. In fact the VN was way more thorough in general, from individual characterization to the overall settings, but to be fair to the anime, they have a limited time to work with and there’s no way they could fit everything in there. No reason to either as they told their own story and to be clear the anime was great and obviously having things moving about is a strength that the VN could never touch, but as a person who really loves the specifics of things, as well as a healthy interest in time travel, the VN just wins out.

Moving clear of the anime now, the VN playthrough is actually multithreaded, with several branching routes and independent endings which plays into the whole time travel, chaos theory, cause and effect type stuff brilliantly. Especially because the choices generally aren’t very obvious or with clear impact or storyline segmentation, besides the split in chapters which is independent of your choices. In my head, going into VNs I thought it’d be like you’re presented with a situation and there are some obvious choices with obvious impacts like do you want to be evil yes or no? But in steins;gate, you’re really just advancing the script almost unknowingly and the only choices you make are to answer a text or not to answer a text and the preset choices only present themselves when you choose to answer a text but i swear to you they are almost always about the most unimportant things that have absolutely nothing to do with the task at hand of trying to complete successful time travel and escaping a future dystopia.

Real example, a friend texts you and asks you if you want some anime frogs.., i only know this because I chose to look at the text but you’re free to ignore almost every text. In any case the options were like what tf is that? or why tf would i? (paraphrasing ofc) + even if you do open the text as I said you don’t have to answer. No idea what that or my even more insane conversations with the cat girl maid had to do with anything but somehow I ended up where I ended up.. In the end I somehow caused the MC to get stuck in the same cycle for some unknown time until his soul pretty much died and he was on the verge of turning to heinous criminal activities but ended up just leaving his time period behind at the risk of taking on extreme mental illness.. No reflection on me and my character of course, as I said the choices aren’t anything obvious like become evil or become good, it just turned out that way somehow but that’s part of the fun because the anime only had one ending but here there’s i don’t even know how many in the VN and I can’t wait to playthrough again.

Also want to mention that it’s largely from a first person perspective so even though the story could have had the feeling of being completely independent from you and just click click click powerpoint powerpoint powerpoint, that first person perspective gave it a feeling closer to that of things slowly slipping through your fingers as you desperately try to keep a handle on things… and art imitates life… great decision by the dev team there but yh… besides that the art and sound direction was great.. The character art specifically was pretty unique like I could definitely spot it in a lineup of 100 anime art styles… phenomenal story of course and though I’d say if you have no exposure to steins at all it could feel a bit slow in the beginning, like I distinctly remember having that feeling when I watched the anime back then and I’m sure my knowledge of the insane pickup had something to do with not feeling it so much now, but I feel it had more to do with the VN having less time constraints, so they were able to make deeper character interactions and with that, the individual characterizations became that much more fulsome and enjoyable.

Definitely definitely highly recommend both the anime and the VN, I think any order is fine as who says time itself is strictly sequential anyways..

2) Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen

Released in 2002, developed by AQUAPLUS, Leaf & STING, published by AQUAPLUS, DMM GAMES & Shiravune, having an approximate playtime of 35hrs.

Now I had never heard of this before but I’d asked a trusted twitter mutual for reccs and this was one of them. shout out LZ one time. Seeing as I didn’t finish I’d feel bad trying to give it a summary or overview with my limited knowledge so I’m gonna go with the description from vndb dot org, which for the record is also where I snagged the description for steins;gate.

In any case, Utawarerumono is about Hakuowlo, a man who wakes up in a tiny backwoods village near the mountains with heavy injuries, no memory, and a mask he cannot remove. After being nursed back to health by Eruruu, the girl who found him lying at the point of death in the forest, he starts to view the village as his new home. But when an oppressive ruler threatens the peaceful life of Hakuowlo and his newfound friends and family, they find themselves hurtled towards war, chaos, and a destiny far greater than any of them imagined.

Pretty simple storyline I guess but it’s all in the execution and from what I’ve played so far, which amounts to about 22hrs, they did a pretty good job. Personally they get extra points from me for justified political upheaval brought about by the consciousness of the masses due to the unjustified cruelty of the ruling class.. But i’ll digress.. Character design was pretty neat, typical anime type beat i guess, great soundtrack, loved all the wind instruments. The character interactions were neat too, definitely feel like i’m gonna do a little part 2 thing cause the more I go on I feel like there’s a few technical commonalities I wanna speak on but yh, again I didn’t finish, though I think I got pretty far, but i still I don’t wanna speak too long or hard directly on it.

Last thing on Uta is that it did have a lot of battle aspects, or at least a lot relative to my expectations for a VN, and that came in the form of a turn based tile map type beat. Think advanced wars or some megaman and final fantasy games.. In any case those were fun, i had it on easy mode cause I was more there for the story so that part was pretty much a breeze but it was refreshing coming off steins which was strictly text based + i haven’t touched any games in a good little while due to the economy™, I’d recommend this for sure, maybe not a super push but I definitely want to finish it which again implies that anything i say on this has to have a little bit more than a grain of salt.

3) Fate/Stay Night

Released in 2004, developed by TYPE-MOON & Notes Co.Ltd, published by those same developers along with Kadokawa Shoten & Kadokawa Games with an approximate playtime of 88hrs.

Just wanna start with no, I haven’t watched the anime, but of course i’ve seen the random clips on twitter, pretty much inescapable at the height of its popularity with ufotable doing undeniably excellent work on it, and i could tell that from just a few clips. But I was in my strictly manga phase back then so I let it pass. The only other exposure I had to the fate series was the gacha game Fate Grand Order which I played for a short time because of one of my twitter friends and then the fate strange fake manga because of that same friend which I will say I do enjoy and I think I even heard it’s getting an anime which would be really based. Anyways shout out jhin and I’m gonna go with the synopsis from vndb again but summarized by me cause it’s hella long, much like the playtime..

The Holy Grail War is a ritual that materializes the greatest holy artifact, the Holy Grail. There are two conditions to participate in this ritual: being a magus and being a "Master" chosen by the Holy Grail. There are seven chosen Masters and seven classes of Servants, beings akin to superhumans with incredible fighting abilities. If you wish for a miracle, prove that you are the strongest with your powers. Emiya Shirou is a high school student who finds himself engaged in the Holy Grail war as he gets attacked by a Servant. As he’s cornered, he somehow summons his Servant and manages to stay alive long enough to compete against the other Masters.

What’s crazy about this is that after playing Uta and reading the description for this I thought “oh so there’s gonna be fights and stuff” and yes there are but you kinda just watch them, well I can’t speak on the whole game but so far I’ve played about 30hrs and that’s what it’s been. Nothing bad, it’s a VN, just surprising given the nature of the VN. In any case I’ve enjoyed it so far, pretty much knew I would as most if not all the servants are famous figures from the past and it’s always cool to see clashes of famous figures across time.

I guess the bigger surprise was how much I liked the characters and their interactions, maybe they weren’t phenomenal but there’s always a certain set of folks on social media that will have certain characters as their profile pics and there’s always lewd art here and there and the trend that tends to follow from that is like the character is blown up by the fans to the point that when you actually get to the story it’s disappointing but… I get it…. Rin fans… i get it… saber fans… I get it… I only saw her briefly at the point where I got to but I’m a rider fan… Here my lawyers have advised me to mention that in the VN there is a disclaimer that all characters are over the age of 18… and i’ll just leave that there… Anywho I also dug the subtleties of the sound direction like if they were up high somewhere you’d have a light wind blowing along with the usual bgm or when they’re at a scene like lunch or breakfast there’d be the sound of plates and stuff clinking together… I thought little details like that were very cool… The art wasn’t much, typical anime stuff ig, doubt i could pick it out of a lineup but it was early 2000s so it gets a light pass ig…

Fate is a pretty big franchise at this point so I don’t think my recommendation for or against would sway anyone but for the record I would recommend it, grain of salt due to me not actually finishing it included…

And that’s it for stuff this month, thanks for sticking around to the end gotta shout out LZ again, that twitter moot I mentioned, they gave me reccs, set me up with sites and everything to get free to play, also shout out vndb dot org for the VN details, they’re doing great work over there and I would give the sites I got from LZ but loose lips sink pirate ships so i hope yall can understand… yh that’s it for the main stuff,, a little part 2 ramble is in the actual podcast if you're interested in listening but other than that, hope you enjoyed and have a good one o/

#just another day #mm..manga #writeup #light novel #visual novel #durarara!!#drrr!!#steins;gate #s;g #utawarerumono #fate stay night

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