#orv rant

[runningoncaffeine]

Just thinking about how happy Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung will be when they find out that in all other universes, they live close to Kim Dokja

A lot of the of the No Scenario AUs have the kids as Kim Dokja’s neighbors or kids who live near by and have strangely taken a liking to him

And I think SYS and LGY would love that if they knew, that in those other possible universes, their Ahjussi/Hyung is still there and they can talk to him about bugs they found in the park, a neighbourhood stray cat or dog they feed, discuss homework with, talk about things at school with Kim Dokja not really understanding cause he’s in this late twenties thirties and basically being his unofficially adopted kids

I just think it is lovely

#orv virus #orv #omniscient readers viewpoint #kdj #kim dokja #lee gilyoung #shin yoosung #Kim dokja and his kids #orv rant #lying on the floor staring at the ceiling

[emmiechilelli]

I've been thinking about ORV movie adaptation and I have a really deep internal conflict TwT

Like

Part of me wants the movie to be a great adaptation: the characters' acting all nicely, good CGI, seeing my favorite scenes on a big screen and all, a nice and faithful script

B U T

Part of me wants it to FAIL MISERABLY

Like, some fans were discussing that the actors are being casted by popularity and all to gather more poeple who would watch the movie for the actors themselves and all

AND WITH THIS THEY JUST SCREW THE WHOLE SCRIPT AND CREATE A BRAND NEW PLOT. IMAGINE, LIKE, THEY PULL A FUCKING YAOI TO ATRACT FUJOSHIS. JUST ADDING A FREAKING RANDOM ROMANCE OUT OF THEIR ASSES. I WOULD DIE. I WOULD LAUGH SO MUCH. IMAGINE SEEING EVERYONE COMPLETELY OOC AND YOU ARE JUST THERE WATCHING IT ALL HAPPEN LIKE "bRO TF IS THis LMAO"

It would be a complete disaster, and that's what would made the movie epic too. Just straight up hilarious. I would piss myself in the movies. And it would be one of the best experiences of my life.

But a faithful one. WITH THE ACTING AND THE LINES. I WOULD GET GOOSEBUMPS. Amazing, epic, memorable.

So yeah. That's my rant lmao

Feel free to rant here too or share your thoughts

#orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv movie #orv rant #omniscient reader #rant post #both are good #idk man lmaoaooaoaoa #which one do you guys prefer?

[edtriestowrite]

(Orv stupid rant (it's four am. someone needs to take my phone away and lock me in a room))

BECAUSE ORV BSVREHSJESJSH.

you get that I can't show this story to anyone else. BECAUSE THEY'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND THE STORY LIKE I DO. THEY WON'T UNDERSTAND THE STORY AT ALL. THEY WEREN'T A KID THAT FELT THAT HIS ENTIRE LIFE WAS BASED ON STORIES FROM OTHERS BECAUSE HE READ AND READ AND HIS PARENTS' ACTIONS LED TO HIS OWN IDENTITY EVEN THOUGH HE DIDN'T WANTED THAT TO HAPPEN. THEY DIDN'T FELT THAT THEY COULD NEVER DO THAT ONE THING ENTIRELY AND ENOUGH PERFECTLY.

because Kim Dokja and the ORV cast in general is so important to me and I feel like if I show ORV to people that doesn't understand the characters is like betraying someone. someone that saved my life and hurts me and made me feel safe and like I could be loved.

I could talk about it all day long, about how kdj is sometimes just a child that doesn't want anything else but lock himself up in a closet, read and ignore his reality, how people underestimate how much a story can mean and do for people's lives, how ORV joined a lot of stories lovers that would dedicate days, nights, months, EVEN YEARS for a single story to end and see what happens.

but yes, orv is so silly and everyone needs to read it

#orv rant #orv #possible spoilers #is this considered trauma dumping? #all of this is so obvious

[pendwelling]

!!! Wow! So you have a favourite story, too?

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #when the third wheel strikes back #전지적 독자 시점 #전독시 #서브 남주가 파업하면 생기는 일 #섭남파업 #ORV #TWSB #kim dokja #jung eunseo #orv x twsb #twsb x orv #crossover #kdj and subway stations where you continuously watch trains come and go in a neverending loop #eunseo and her favourite chair designated for her at the dining table where she rants and eats with her brothers on the daily #READERS AND THEIR BELOVED STORIES SOBS......... #my art #twsb fanart

[rusquared]

the love is stored in the orv rant. if u even care.

#polycule that saved my life fr fr fr #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #han sooyoung #kim dokja #yoo joonghyuk #orv spoilers #orv fanart #my art #WHEEEEEEEEE #i wont think TOO much about how han sooyoung would feel about our love towards her story #but i did also rant for 30mins to a new friend about this story #so i think she would get so embarrassed she'd come and punch me #id in alt btw

[lialox]

Writing fics with Kim Dokja's POV

I feel the need to YELL INTO THE VOID with this.

I'm writing a fic where my goal is to get it to feel as 'canon' as possible and to do that I'm studying the way KDJ perceives the world.

And his overall tone is just so tired.

All the time.

He uses a lot of words like 'I knew as well', 'it wasn't strange for _____', 'obviously.....'.

Reading the novel the second time around and imagining the narrator as some guy who's been sitting in a subway for a while makes so. much. sense.

He's also pretty self deprecating, but in a way where its not obvious. Like he'll compare himself to his companions and be like 'this person is so amazing, but instead, I'm _______'. and its phrased in such a way where the reader is like !! Wow yes this person is so cool! But when reading it again, I'm like... wow you hate yourself, huh??

I opened up the novel and in almost every chapter he says at least ONE bad thing about himself. Try it. It's like playing where's waldo.

" I lived so far to make my lies a reality." - 359

"However.... to think, they willingly spent an item on me that they could’ve used on themselves. For some reason, I felt guilty about it." -433 (At this point its like past scenario 90 and he STILL feels bad about his companions using an item on him like whAT you have known each other for literal YEARS)

ALSO!! The fourth wall doesn't just offset shock.

IT OFFSETS HAPPINESS TOO.

⸢Kim Dok-Ja watched all these happen with a quiet smile.⸥

[‘The 4th Wall’ is gradually getting thicker.]

⸢As if, he was looking at a spectacle happening in the distance.⸥

(Chapter 433 ^^)

TURN OFF YOUR SKILL KIM DOKJA AAAAAAAAA

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE SOMEONE WHO TRIES TO FEEL NOTHING.

I THRIVE OFF EMOTIONAL WRITING BUT I HAVE TO PLAY BY THIS GUY'S RULES

WHY U SO BLAND KDJ WHY

WHYYYYY

*banging head on laptop*

#omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv #rant #writing his POV is like trying to cook hot pot with water as a soup base #yes i can throw everything in there #yes its easy #but do I feel like something is missing? #100% all the time #and thats his emotions all the ones this unreliable narrator is trying not to feel #kim dokja #kdj

[cum-villain]

Do you ever think about Yoo Joonghyuk's timeline? Because, the beginning of Kim Dokja's end is the end of Yoo Joonghyuk's beginning. Kim Dokja's epilogue is Yoo Joonghyuk's prologue.

The World of Zero is, of course, his beginning. He's a man who has little backstory, few answers as to how he lived a human life. Then, a calamity strikes, and he's just a normal human man. But a strange Constellation favours him above all others, and throughout his horror, the life that he has more tangible memories of than his normal life, he's guided through it. He has his companions, his little sister, his greatest friends, his wife who he adopts children with, they all make it to the end, they all live a happy epilogue.

Except, this Constellation is still different. This Constellation not only knew so much, but he's still not on earth. He's still far away. One of Yoo Joonghyuk's companions, the one who showed him how to keep the rest alive, he isn't there. So of course Yoo Joonghyuk wants to meet this person, to repay the kindness of saving his world by meeting, and possibly saving, the person who can never exist in his world. And, of course it's worth it. One day, he'll meet this person, and the almost two-thousand lives he's supposed to live in the future will be worth it.

So, he regresses. And he forgets. And he's in the nightmare again, but this time, he has no loving guide. Only question marks as a cold, unresponsive sponsor. And his companions die, his beloved ones die. So he regresses again, to save the world he thinks. And he finds the woman he loves, he has a child, but she dies. The child dies. All he love dies. And he dies too. And his sponsor is silent.

One turns to two, two turns to three, turns to 10, to 14, to 41, to 999, to 1862. And he regresses. Again. He dies, and it will not last, he must return to that subway. That god damn subway. And his sponsor is silent. But then, the 1863rd turn.

In one worldline, it's yet another turn with a cold sponsor. Where he refuses to regress again, and searches only for that cold sponsor, for an end to the regressions, so he may finally have an end. If he can never have a happy ending, at the very least he wants an end to his existence.

But in another, a strange man appears. He has lost everything, a strange woman turning everyone against him, leading him to give in and accept an eternal epilogue, a neverending sleep. But this man, with a frail body, who clearly doesn't belong on this worldline, who he has never seen before in any regression he remembers. He speaks. He speaks of the worlds which nobody around him remembers. He speaks words of hope, of scorn and sympathy, of acknowledgement. He has a guide, not of how to survive, he could do that well enough. But a guide on how to live, how to make it through, how to continue.

So, he regresses. And he forgets. He forgets about that strange worldline where everything was different, he forgets about the strange man who gave him the courage to live. He forgets which regression he's on, believing himself to be so much younger than the many-millennia old existence he is. But still, he is older than the 28-year-old pro-gamer he was when he went through his first scenarios. And here is a strange man, who speaks words of provocation, fearful and arrogantly fearless, who knows of a future even he cannot remember. And maybe this voice is one he's heard before. Or maybe he's so desperate for something new that will save the world. And so, this strange man becomes his companion.

But, this strange man becomes a Constellation. But he's not like other Constellations, he can be spared for the time being. But, this strange man read his life like a story, he's worse than a prophet, he's someone who took the pain of his life for entertainment. He's a true Constellation. But he did so to survive, and he requires this man's help, and something makes him care about this arrogant Constellation, his Life and Death Companion.

But, this man was once the Oldest Dream. His alleged sponsor. But this sponsor was a child, and Kim Dokja never intended this, Kim Dokja, put the sword shard down, this doesn't need to end this way.

And along the way, he's realized something, on some level. This man is arrogant, this man pisses him off to no end, this man's existence serves to relentlessly mock him. And yet, there is no happy ending, no world Yoo Joonghyuk wants to save, that doesn't have him in it. So, he saves Kim Dokja.

But he doesn't know until later that he's failed. That Kim Dokja is gone, at least half of him. And right before trying to recover the rest of Kim Dokja from beyond the wall, he remembers. He remembers what he was fighting for. For all this time, for all these millennia, it was all for Kim Dokja, it was all for his sponsor who showed him how to survive, how to live, how to be happy. All this time, his purpose was to recover Kim Dokja from beyond the wall.

And as he finally reaches beyond it for the second time, this time knowing his purpose, this time knowing exactly what he wants, what he came here for...

Kim Dokja crumbles into the wind. And they both have reached an irreversible end. There is nothing left for either of them now.

#this was meant to be a shorter thing but then i ended up spending an hour ranting about yoo joonghyuk. fragment moment i guess #i could have gone on longer but i was going to go to bed right after writing a 'short' post and i really do need the sleep #braincell posting #orv #yoo joonghyuk #orv meta #joongdok

[rikan-oo]

Out of yoohankim trio, I find Joonghyuk the most difficult to draw.

Sooyoung is a pretty girl, so it's easy, Kim Dokja is "just a guy" with beautiful eyes and then here is ✨️ Yoo Fucking Joonghyuk ✨️ Mister Handsome, Goddamn Unit of measurement for beauty in orv universe.

Big time of the drawing process is just looking at art and thinking, "Is he handsome enough? Could he slap original yjh cheecks? Are his eyes beautiful jewels containing all the misfortunes found in this world? " and then understanding that "No, I failed. He's not as handsome as he should be. I need to redo this"

#orv #my rants #i never thought i would want to draw a handsome man #me: *screaming in the head “you're not handsome enough”* #it's probably kdj fragment in me #omniscient reader's viewpoint #kim dokja #han sooyoung #yoo joonghyuk #yoohankim #yjh

[lizhly-writes]

laying facedown on the couch. au where kim dokja's dad realize he's being a terrible human being and 1) gets sober 2) actually makes an attempt at parenting.

that's too early of a change. kim dokja grows up with two present parents and a far more emotionally healthy childhood than his canon self. imagine that! a childhood where neither of your parents were murderers; a childhood where you were never called a son of a murderer; a childhood with no murders involved at all, not even your own.

there's no reason to find any ways to survive a ruined world if your world was never ruined, you see?

at this point... that's a completely different character, isn't it?

kim dokja was his mother's child, and in his childhood, he learned from her example.

here, this is how you read a book. here, this is how you show love. see, it's fine, sweetheart. It doesn't matter what happens to me as long as the people i love are fine. i know it hurts, but that's love. this is the only way i know how to love at all.

it's true that i haven't read this story in a while. i've forgotten some things by now. still, i think he learned the art of self-sacrifice from her.

it's that tragic backstory he's got. there are some characters whose every action bears the shape of their past. that's kim dokja. what is he without tragedy?

his father never dies. his mother never leaves him alone. this is a different sort of love than he should have learned. he grows up decently liked and decently treated. an average korean man, by all standards. it never, ever occurs to him that he should protect people he loves by throwing himself headfirst into the fire.

picture this: two identical men turn twenty-eight. the first man has at least two messages from his parents congratulating him and perhaps mentioning going out for a birthday dinner, and possibly some friends he made in high school. the second man doesn't have any messages from a real person at all, because no one has fucking bothered to remember his birthday except for those automated "get a free <item> on your birthday!" promotion deals.

come on. there might be some nuance there, but it's not hard to decide who's living the happier life.

knowing this, you have to wonder: why?

in some alternate timeline, kim dokja has a much more well-adjusted life. why is that? why was it that this kim dokja's father decided to sober up, for once? what changed?

it's hard to say whether that timeline is better than what actually occurred. without his mother's example guiding him, without the lessons beaten into him as a teenager, would kim dokja have reached the end to the story he'd wanted? would it still be worth it after everything was over?

still, you have to wonder: why was it that timeline and not this one? "why was it you and not me?"

you can come up with a thousand reasons, driving yourself mad trying to figure out why. did your father love you more there? were you a better child in that world? somehow, were you more worthy of happiness?

...that's enough.

kim dokja lives a happy, normal life. you don't need to see anymore. this isn't a timeline you need to watch. doing so makes you... unhappy isn't the word.

whatever. it doesn't matter. let those windows flicker off and away, glimpsing into some other possible past and future -- this is only one worldline out of many. it's not even one you need to watch. it's unimportant. it's not the story that you loved - love -- so much.

go on. forget about it. you've forgotten so much already. one more story doesn't make a difference.

that kim dokja could never be you.

#orv #liz rants #something something about whether or not a character remains the same without a tragedy #complete word vomit

[kawaiigardensong]

Personally I love mapping joongdok onto ivantill. It works so well. But I also disagree with most people's take on it.

From what I've seen, most people map Joonghuk onto Ivan and Dokja to Till. I don't agree with this sentiment. I think Joonghuk fits better in Till's role (despite the color pallet) and I also think Dokja fits well into Ivan's role.

Explanation 1. Dokja has read and stayed devoted to a man he thought he'd never meet for thirteen years. That's dedication. To him, that dedication and loyalty was not something that could possibly bare fruit. He just wanted to see the end of the man's story.

Explanation 2. Joonghuk is... well Joonghuk. He isn't someone I see as emotionally perceptive of others. Besides, he also rarely pays Dokja much mind, (especially in the beginning) outside of them constantly bickering. He only started looking at Dokja more after he sacrificed himself for Joonghuk (Ivan who?).

Explanation 3. Have you seen the way Dokja looks at Joonghuk? Also the way Joonghuk stares at Dokja?

Dokja has a deep admiration of the man. He holds him in such high regard over him, despite their bickering. He's never truly angry at the man. He's just enjoying whatever part of his presence he can get. (Let's be honest here, he looked up to Joonghuk for thirteen years. What you do in that situation?)

Meanwhile it's clear Joonghuk is left with emotions he hardly understands. Jealousy he can't explain, longing he doesn't know where to place, regret he doesn't want to feel.

Ivan knew what he was feeling, he knew, but he chose not to act. Till only noticed after Ivan was dead in front of him. After he finally realized what he meant to the man.

Maps well, doesn't it?

#ivantill #yoo joonghyuk #joongdok #kim dokja #orv #alnst #alnst ivan #alnst till #angst #alnst au #garden rants #sorry not sorry #i'm not crying you're crying #i swear im normal #i'm not blasting cure into my ears i promise #actually i might be #we're all traumatized here bitch

[clara-licht]

my brother finally read ORV and he got so excited about the story, so he went to talk to me (bcs I'm the one who recommended it). the thing is,,, when we talked I had my DKOS doll with me. it kinda went like this:

Bro: "wait, why does he have horns? and wings?"

Me: "uhh.... what's the latest chapter again?" *checked the manhwa* (it was chapter 201 btw)

Me: "oh. hm. shit."

Bro: ".......is this a spoiler"

Me: "........wait a couple more chapter and you'll find out."

Bro: *screams*

#hmm yeah a traumatizing arc #he's right in that damned arc lmao #im so not ready for dkos tbh #the PAINNNNNN gonna be amazing #clara rants #clara reads manhwa/novel #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #omniscent reader #kim dokja

[runningoncaffeine]

I’m just gonna go on a fucking rant, might make zero sense but I have to get this out of my system.

Fourth wall right….let’s all gather and sit around, head bowed, hands under our chins, deep in thought about this shit right here

KDJ says that the Fourth wall makes it so that he perceives reality as separate from fiction of stuff that was mostly related to TWSA.

Yeah, makes sense.

Just think of this…we know that 4thwall protects him from the effects of ‘fiction’, grounding him in ‘reality’ and helping him make calm, sound, rational decisions. We also know that the Wall shakes and thins when faced with said ‘reality’

Now, here’s another thing we know about Dokja—he likes to see everything through a reader’s eyes, viewpoint if you will

One of the first things we find about him interacting with others is with Sangah and he immediately puts her into a story and gives her a role. He’s been doing this shit since before the scenarios and the apocalypse and all. So we can assume that he’s done this like almost all his life, being the ‘reader’ and seeing others essentially as characters—until they interact with his little bubble.

As it would happen, the people who interact with him and his bubble aren’t exactly very welcoming or nice most times but that aside, here’s what I’m rambling about

If you think about it, the first attributes and skills people get are related to what they were already good at and stuff

So fourth wall is essential a powered up version of KDJ’s dissociative tendencies. It’s a coping mechanism.

Him being a ‘reader’, not intervening in anyone’s story, only reading and forming opinions

Because the last time he played a major role and defeated the villain, the consequences weren’t pretty and he didn’t get the happy ending. Even after his mother ‘reread’ it to him, the ending wasn’t one he liked

The pre-apocalypse version of 4thwall (and his generally tragic life) kept him from being anything more than a ‘reader’ to other people’s lives

But this is not going to be satisfying at all —we know it, Dokja knows it, 4thwall knows it—Dokja craves to be something more than a ‘reader’

But his life is realism, he prefers fantasy novels. His story is a bore compared to the other ones he sees

And “it’s not too bad, being a reader”

Can’t we say that the 4th wall was protecting him from reality than fiction? In his mind, he’s always seen life as stories, whatever genre they were, they were always stories and the fourth wall kept them as stories….

*sighs heavily* yeah, this isn’t going out of my head anytime soon…just Dokja and his trauma….excellent…

#orv #orv analysis #orv rant #fourth wall #kim dokja #omniscient readers viewpoint #woke up with this in my head #did not help with my depression #dokja you lovely soul #why do I have so many feels about this little bastard?? #whyyy??? #kim dokjaaaaa #let’s all cry rivers and stare into voids as we stew in our orv feels

[whomstwhowhat]

I wanna say that the fact thee ORV fandom makes Kim Dokja unable to cook is such a tragedy man

Like Kim Dokja was so happy when cooked something that Yoo Joonghyuk somewhat approved of! That's such a shoujo thing!!! Practicing making the man's favourite food, and with baited breath for Yoo Joonghyuk's reaction! That's so shoujo romantic vibes right there!

Now I'm just thinking:

Just in a modern AU (no scenario), both idiots are pinning but dont know how to communicate, so they decide to impress their crush with homemade food, and they're both ass at it at the beginning but then gets better, but they're both stubborn mulls, so they try to force feed reach other, and the misconception and believing that their sabotaging one another, they're like, "Are you trying to say my cooking is worse then yours?" And "is my cooking not good enough... which is why he keeps trying to give me his own cooking...."

And they start making this cooking thing into a competitive thing in the classic jdj miscommunication

*sighs dreamily* they're so fucking stupid

Edit (additional notes):

Kim Dokja is 100% the type of cook that would forget to make a portion for himself if he was making food for more than 3 people

And I can see that he's a good cook but sometimes he puts a thing in the oven and forgets about it cuz he didn't set a timer and got distracted by his webnovel, and that's how he almost burns down the apartment

#text post #theyre so silly #theyre so stupid #theyre so in love #orv #kim dokja #text #kdj #little rant #yoo joonghyuk #joongdok #omniscient reader #i need more fics of kdj being able to cook #preferably joongdok fics #orv yjh #yjh #but this post can be applied to dokhyuk/dokjoong

[harpieisthecarpie]

how do i actually write the orv is inherently queer rant without transmitting my thoughts directly into ya’ll’s brains.

it’s finding people who understand you and like what they see after years of isolation and feeling wrong, different, on the other side of the screen unable to connect. it’s the love that transcends definition and the creation of a family outside of the typical strict nuclear definitions of what a family “should” be. it’s the pain and the distrust and the hurting each other because we’ve never been around people who we are able to hurt before, because nothing has ever felt as real as this. it’s the outside forces threatening to divide us and make us fight against each other, the onlookers who don’t understand why our suffering matters. it’s the love and the love and the love. it’s the anticapitalism and rebellion and never truly being alone. it is the legacy of countless regressions and generations and existences of suffering that has lead to us being here right now. it is finding solace in media and finding lovers and friends and fathers in characters. it’s the “i am yoo joonghyuk”. it’s the “i am kim dokja”. it’s clothing passed down and memories preserved and giving as much to people as we can while we’re still here. it’s the love and the loss and the hurting each other while trying to save each other. it’s that we’re all kim dokja’s fragments but we’re also yoo joonghyuk and han sooyoung and jang hayoung and secretive plotter and shin yoosung and lee gilyoung and uriel and oldest dream and we’re not characters at all we’re just broken people who have been told by so many that we’re wrong or mistaken or monsters and all we want is a family is to be loved in our entirety.

it’s that orv is a love letter and what is more queer than continuing to love in spite of everything?

(this isn’t the whole rant this is a rant about the rant)

#harp rambles about orv #orv #THE ACTUAL RANT WILL COME SOON #also if this is never not clear i always include ace aro binary and nb trans folks #so by love i mean aaaallllll kinds of love #not just the romantic kind

[note-boom]

I'm trying to catch up with BSD s5 now that I have time and I'm less than 2 minutes into ep 2 and already I'm going insane and shaking someone's metaphorical shoulders because, because -

"I trusted my soul."

"Actually, I had no way of knowing if they'd believe me."

That's how a story WORKS. The story only has power over you so far as you give it power over you. And if you are a reader or the author of a story, you have that choice to break free from the narrative that's entrapping you. It's like when we get so invested in a piece of fiction and it starts taking over our lives and we have to take a step back and go, right...this is fiction. I know what reality is because I am an individual soul, not a narrative's character and plaything and this story only have power over me as much as I give it power. The characters in BSD might be the characters of the BSD narrative, but they are not the characters of the Book. They are people. Unpredictable, beautiful people that even Ranpo - who CAN predict everything that follows the pattern of a story - cannot fully predict. Because you cannot predict a person's actions or thoughts or future, you can only trust in them

#AJGSEIOARJEIOWAJEIROJWEOIRJEWIRJWEOARIJWREW #that's just gonna be my tag rant right now #anyway wish me the ability to watch for 40 minutes #i love this story #it really is for those who needs stories to live in a way #because its also telling you maybe youre more powerful than the stories you claim to need #bsd #bsd s5 spoilers #bsd season 5 #spitting nonsense #bsd ranpo #bsd minoura #bsd spoilers #bsd musings #the orv codedness of it all too....

[mhaynoot]

so i went into orv with full shades on, didn’t even read the blurb or anything, I just saw the cover art, the bridge scene and some high school au art and was oh they’re so cute! tbh i literally saw images of the bridge scene so i don’t know how i completely missed the fact that there was a webtoon but i did and so i downloaded the epub version first and started reading with 0 expectations except maybe a shounen rivalry

ahh this is a power fantasy, first person, game cliches and all the action tropes of dungeons. i think this is similar to the other thing I was reading (solo levelling) oh huh so he’s a lazy office worker guy who only reads and is about to be laid off? not the worst backstory, i wonder what op power he’s going to get!

i was very very unquestioning of the story, i didn’t really think about much beyond trying to puzzle out surface level power stuff. like i was just fully trusting everything kdj's said in his internal narration. the protagonist is always right, yeah? he’s the omniscient reader’s viewpoint after all. just look at him explaining his acts of good with ulterior motives, look at him being cut throat and saying he's a villian.

"what a self aware protagonist!" i say obliviously.

hyprocrite he calls himself and i cheer.

orv plays into the genre tropes and cliches so well, i was completely blindsided by the gradual build up to all the revelations i just never expect for it to ever answer.

so in the beginning i’m casually rooting for him on as he beats up and outwits his abusive boss, his old bully, as every adversery bows before him in a very power fantasy way. his first death is a brush off, it is inconsiquential, he brushes it off, i say “ah this type of protagonist!”

actually lets talk about his first death for a bit. like kdj literally dies, but his own narration treats it as an inconsequential, small death. ignore it. don’t worry about it, look kdj isn’t worrying about it either! his fourth wall skill is negating the effects that’s why he’s so blase about it and that’s not totally concerning at all, don’t think too hard about it. this is just a power fantasy remember?

until the gaps between his actions and words started appearing even in my very guillable eyes.

I ask, “why do you want to save shin yoosung so much? wasn’t it just hypocrisy?”

kdj narrates:

The omniscience was a curse. Knowing someone's heart meant always deceiving someone.

my worldview starts shattering bit by bit and then the characters around him mourn each death and i startling start mourning too, grieving in a way i wasn’t able to understand for each death and each time he starts this painful cycle of violence and survival and salvation.

it takes a whole month to finish reading the novel. i laughed, cheered, smiled and cried so hard at so many different points reading. orv has become a part of me in a way i never expected.

i love this story.

#orv spoiler #orv #ha rants #i love this novel. it loves me too. it loves you too. #i wanted to analyse some joongdok scenes especially the beginning train scene and the dark castle revelation as well as the 1863rd worldlin #to show how unreliable his narration is and how good the narrative is at keeping his true thoughts and feelings buried #but this post is long enough honestly #i'll keep it in mind for another joongdok analysis #and keep this as a little rant about how much i love this story for ripping my sunglusses off