no one will ever be what Mammon from obey me is. the dumbest sweetest silliest goodest he is the second most powerful and also the only one gentle enough to trust to watch the new fragile human exchange student despite also how unreliable everyone seems to find him. no one talk to me
my danger sense is completely broken lmao. but also at the same time it’s totally fine. anyway all i can think about whenever sung hyunje is onscreen is how hot he is
the lessons hit you in places specific to you, with no regard for where you think they “should” become real. i didn’t understand that i was self isolating and making it hard for people to show me love until romancing sebastian in stardew valley, the dozens of times i missed the short window where he goes outside and so i couldn’t speak to him for days. if i literally don’t go outside, don’t go where people can find me, then of course they can’t. i didn’t understand how much hating myself, devaluing myself, not sharing my burdens with others could hurt the people i love until i watched kim dokja do it over and over and over, and felt the emotions of both the person on the inside and the outside perspectives, KDJ company angry and upset at him unilaterally deciding everything, at him never telling them anything about what was going on with him, saw how grief and love can turn a person into power and into a world-ending apocalypse. i didn’t know what it meant that you can start over, every day, what it meant to feel true regret over actions that have hurt people, that redemption is there for every person, that it is not an external journey of doing anything you have to do to be forgiven by those u hurt, but instead an internal one, where you confront the reality of your actions and you commit to becoming different, to doing different, that to truly repair a hurt you’ve caused comes with also seeing yourself clearly, granting yourself grace too, because if you always rely on shaming yourself to be different, then the repair is left unfinished — then i played disco elysium, and i got clocked as the sorry cop, and jesus, a genuine apology is a meaningful thing, not to be cheapened with apologizing over every little movement, every little breath. and the wonder of the world, that breaks through in the worst fogs, the worst clouds. that it’s worth staying alive every day, that it’s worth BEING alive and PRESENT in every day, because perhaps the giant stick bug is real, and you’ll be the one to catch a glimpse of it… and at any rate, better to lose yourself in the pursuit of something new and beautiful than to stay trapped fighting a solo war for decades after the conflict ends.
i don’t know, i don’t know. words mean more than words to me now. gradually you experience things in the world that ascribe depth to the words, and “my dead friends” by mary howe isn’t just a beautiful and moving poem but a litany to spill forward into the messy new day, a hand to hold when the losses feel too much, when the fear creeps in.
wow! it takes years to realize how little truth i let loose. then im sitting at work and pondering whether or not i was the reason i drove someone away and realize how much i squash my impulses to show openness, excitement, love, care, warmth towards other people. i show it about the things i love but go rigid and hide when i like someone — in any way, including just having admiration or respect for them — until i feel totally sure its okay to express or totally safe or i have a “more compelling reason” to share than simply because i like being around them. so silly. something as simple as smiling when i see someone i like to be around has become high stakes.
every autistic character is so special to me, specifically. they’re in my head and they’re telling me there’s better ways to be. it doesn’t have to be like this. get off your knees, unbend your back, you can be real. you can be a real person, too.
punch drunk love really gets me because they’re both projecting soooooo hard onto the other, but in the most weirdly wholesome way. it shows in such a natural way how much our interpretations of things are colored by our own experiences and expectations, and how unaware of this we can be — the depth to which we lie and delude ourselves. and it does this with the funniest fucking misunderstandings and silly goofy behavior ever.
[what the fuck. there were like 600 words here of evidence and analyzing taemoon and seonwoo. wtf tumblr. sobbing.]
anyway i love punch drunk love, i love how completely shameless seonwoo is, and i love how much taemoon deludes himself into thinking he’s not into seonwoo, that seonwoo was out to hurt him, how much of a limb he goes out on to justify needing to “punish” seonwoo by… having incredible sex with him and continuing to spend time together and also kissing him, buying him new expensive clothes, and sticking up for him. they’re such an odd couple in the first read but the more i actually reflect on them & their characters in this second read, the more i realize how wonderfully and perfectly suited for each other they really are.
because kim dokja frequently completely misinterprets his place in yoo joonghyuk's mind, and also because he fundamentally misunderstands exactly why yoo joonghyuk wears so much heavy leather and so many belts, he does things like stand over yoo joonghyuk so he can look down and mockingly say poor joonghyuk-ah, shouldn't you be better than this, are you really having that much fun being below me? thinking he's ragebaiting the poor guy. meanwhile yoo joonghyuk is using self restraint level 10 (+3) so he doesn't pop a boner so big he'll pass out from blood loss. its tragic to watch really
it’s important to me that at their core. kim dokja is just a reader and yoo junghyeok is just a gamer. solitary activities, solo activities. demanding activities. it just makes a lot of sense for them obviously and makes them both feel more tangible. they’re both losers (affectionate) and i mean this in both a joking and very sincere and serious way. i like the idea that in this life, you just read books or play games, but that doesnt mean you’re not a hero in another world. or that doesn’t mean you’re not also a hero or viciously smart or, or, whatever. y’know? it’s important to me that yoo junghyeok isn’t a jock. he’s a G A M E R
i miss bato so much. genuinely it feels so much lonelier reading now, which is a new feeling to me. i have always been a person who reads for companionship and escapism and to feel less lonely, and it’s always worked. but damn if i don’t feel the loss of the comments section & the unique bato community vibe every time i finish a chapter on another site (including official sites! even webtoon, which DOES have a comment section. no other site is built to support ease of commenting & conversation like bato was, especially also how easy and fun it was to react with images — which makes total sense given it was a community that revolved around comics).
i especially miss the game i made out of finding ORV mentions & ORV screenshots in the comments. it was so silly but it brought me so much joy, so many little joys, to craft my whole account around ORV spotting & throwing out ORV SPOTTED comments left and right.
crossposted on ao3 with some minor changes to fit the format.
context, explanation, & analyzation for those interested: (ORV novel spoilers) (warning: long)
for those who are unfamiliar, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (ORV) is a korean webnovel written by sing shong (pen name for a married couple, real names unknown) and any summarization doesn't really do it justice please go read it for yourself, either the manhwa or webnovel is fine, there are free translations online for either medium.
the title "the elegy of kim dokja by han sooyoung" states three clear facts: the poem is from HSY's point of view, HSY accepts KDJ is dead, and is writing an elegy to honor him. but the tone of the overall poem doesn't really suggest acceptance, even goes as far as to insult him a few lines. it's not denial either, it reads more like a plea for KDJ to stay.
there are 14 paragraphs, originally supposed to be based on the 14 stations of the cross but ehhh i kinda got iffy using religion here so i scrapped that and just wrote whatever without a structure.
I - orpheus represents KDJ, specifically in the myth with eurydice. it's a parallel to how KDJ went to the underworld several times, and it was always in the goal of saving someone he loves. here, KDJ!orpheus is asking HSY if she has ever done anything similar, to do something so arduous out of love. HSY responds by providing the story she wrote as tls123.
II - achilles here represents YJH, who, in HSY's POV, embodies strength and heroism, but also selfishness and weakness. she sees herself in YJH, both as two people who will only ever truly love and understand KDJ's contradictory nature.
III - obligatory salvation mention. here, HSY is stating that she finds it ironic that they're [KDJ & HSY] both obsessed with each other...'s pieces of soul. literally in the sense of 49-51 with KDJ, and metaphorically with HSY's writing.
IV - similar to KDJ, HSY archetypes herself as a villain, and the only way she found to ever redeem herself, is to save KDJ. like how KDJ sees himself as "just an observer/reader" and that the only way he'll make an impact is to save others, usually by sacrificing himself. HSY speculates he does this because sacrifice is the only form of love KDJ knows, a parallel to how KDJ's mother sacrificed herself to be thrown in prison rather than KDJ for the murder of his father. and you can only sacrifice yourself if you're alive, i.e. surviving
V - two snakes eating each other symbolizes, imo, a cycle of creation and destruction, change, and infinity. which is the entire timeline universe of ORV. here HSY asks a pivotal question, to be followed up in the next paragraph
VI - here, HSY is making two clear distinctions regarding her choices, and subsequently, her identity: the original round HSY and/or as tls123 (AKA 1863rd HSY) respectively. to choose loving reverence for fleeting happiness or maddening devotion for lasting grief - KDJ makes his mark anyway. obligatory icarus reference, HSY mentions how he flies between the "blazing sun" and "roaring tides" i.e. trying to find a middle ground between your present and your past/future, and she subsequently writes how she tries to imitate him by "matching and following his footsteps." scheherazade here, represents either tls123 or OG!HSY (depends how you view the myth) asking if it's truly selflessness or selfishness, and what exactly is the point of it all
VII - this HSY answers, the point is to make KDJ see, make him hear, make him understand, the point is to reach him and remind him that he is loved.
VIII - just a continuation of VII, HSY giving credit to YJH as part of the reason why KDJ survived.
IX to XIV - the story in question is just referring to ORV itself, but HSY writes/reads it as a vow and promise. the rest is love disguised as prose and celestial imagery to at least be on theme with ORV.
oh my gdod it look like he in awe of he smile oh no ichat im so cooked i haven’t been this unwell about a fictional pairing since (ivantill, like two weeks ago) THE DAYS OF MERTHUR
