In addition to calling yjh kdj's simp, it also seems like there are many times when they switch stuff up between them, so it looks as though it's something one of them does but is attributed to the other.
Oh anon. You're pointing at the elephant that everyone in the fandom is pretending not to see. But it's okay, I see you. And I see the elephant. So let's talk about it.
Because you're so very right, this happens constantly, and the reason it happens is both in a way fascinating and also genuinely frustrating and I think about it approximately three times a day (no but I'm dramatic).
So here's what happens, over and over: Canon gives Kim Dokja a trait. Canon gives Yoo Joonghyuk a different, often opposite trait. Fandom looks at both of them, then says "actually i think this one belongs to him" and they hand KDJ's trait to YJH and YJH's trait to KDJ. It's like watching someone do laundry and just. Swapping everyone's socks for no reason??? And then everyone agrees the socks were always like that.
canon: Kim Dokja is the one who cannot share. Not in the loud, aggressive, "you belong to me" way people like to usually write possession as. In the quiet, structural, "I have made you the center of my existence and I don't know how to be otherwise" way. He has spent over a decade hoarding this knowledge like a secret treasure no one else is worthy of.
His entire modus operandi is invisible control. He doesn't announce it, he doesn't take credit, but he is directing Joonghyuk's path from the shadows. Not because he wants to own him, because he needs to be part of his story, and this is the only way he knows how.
This is not healthy. This is not romantic in a simple way. This is a man who spent his formative years unable to attach to real people, so he attached to a fictional character instead, and that attachment became the architecture of his entire personality.
fandom: Yoo Joonghyuk is the possessive one. He's jealous of anyone who gets close to Dokja, he's physically intimidating, he growls "mine" at every dust mote flying too close to KDJ.
His desperation in the late game—the chasing, the refusal to let Dokja die—gets recoded as possessiveness rather than what it actually is: grief and terror of loss.
canon: KDJ measures every person's beauty against YJH. Not once, not twice—every time. A constellation from the Underworld (hello Persephone hi) looks into his soul and concludes that the form he most wants to see is YJH's face. A child (aka Lee Gilyoung aka the best boy) observes him for a few weeks and concludes: "Hyung likes a man." When he starts a nebula, he starts it with YJH. When he chooses a coat, it's the one that matches YJH's. None of these are grand declarations. All of them are choices. Hundreds of small decisions, all pointing the same way.
fandom: YJH is the obsessed one. Did you see how he chased KDJ across worldlines?? Did you see how he refused to let him die? Did you see the three years?? The mid-day tryst??? He's literally incapable of letting go, what a simp.
Joonghyuk's desperation is visible and dramatic. It's the kind of thing that makes you go "oh boy he's not okay about this at all." But here's the thing—KDJ's desperation is not visible, it's structural. YJH's obsession is a fire. You can see it from across the room, you can feel the heat.
KDJ's obsession is a foundation. You don't see it because it's under everything, the whole building is resting on it. You only notice it's there when it cracks and the whole thing starts to collapse.
YJH spent a few years chasing KDJ across worldlines.
KDJ spent over a decade chasing a fictional character across pages. One of these is louder, one of these is not necessarily more.
canon, the entire epilogue: KDJ plans his own erasure from the story with the kind of meticulous attention. He doesn't tell anyone. He doesn't ask if they want him to stay. He just removes himself, like he's correcting a typo.
canon, also the entire epilogue: YJH, who has spent 1863 regressions sacrificing parts of himself—his voice, his vision, his limbs, his humanity—takes one look at what KDJ has done and says "absolutely fucking not." Not because he doesn't understand sacrifice. But because he understands it too well. He recognizes it. He knows exactly what KDJ has done because he's done it himself, over and over, for millennia.
canon: YJH's sacrifice is a wound, it bleeds. You can see it. Each loss is a scene, a chapter, a moment the text invites you to mourn.
KDJ's sacrifice is an absence. You only notice it when you reach for him and he's not there. Kim Dokja's sacrifices are invisible. Not because they don't happen—because he designs them that way.
fandom: Yoo Joonghyuk is the tragic, stoic self-sacrificing hero, look at everything he's given up, look at what it's cost him. Kim Dokja is the one who needs to be saved from his own self-destructive tendencies (which he does, but not in they way fandom loves to portray it).
And okay, yes. YJH has sacrificed enormous things, no one is denying that. But KDJ didn't sacrifice his voice or his vision, he sacrificed his existence. Not parts of himself—all of himself. And he did it so quietly and carefully that the people who loved him most didn't realize what was happening until it was already done.
People often turn his sacrifice into a moment—a single, dramatic cinematic beat, because that's easier to romanticize than the truth: that Dokja has been planning his own disappearance since before the story began. That his love language is self-erasure. That he doesn't believe he's allowed to exist in the story he spent his life reading.
That's not beautiful. That's not dramatic in a satisfying way. That's pathology. And fandom would rather make Joonghyuk the hero than sit with what Dokja actually did.
Novel, basically any conversation where someone says something sincere to Kim Dokja in a nutshell:
"You're not dying this time, are you?"
"Are you worried about me?" (feat. a smile that makes people want to choke him)
And this is not him being emotionally open, this is him deflecting. Someone reaches out with genuine feeling and KDJ catches it, turns it into a joke, throws it back. He's been doing this his whole life.
Novel, basically any interaction where YJH feels something strongly: he shows up, he doesn't leave, he waits, he grabs KDJ by the collar. He doesn't know how to say "I need you to exist" so he says "don't die" and hopes it's enough.
fandom: Yoo Joonghyuk is the emotionally repressed one. He needs to learn how to express his feelings. Kim Dokja is the emotionally open, vulnerable one. He wears his heart on his sleeve.
YJH is not really repressed. He feels things at full volume and then renders them into the only language he has: action and refusal to leave. It's not a failure of emotion, it's a failure of vocabulary.
Meanwhile KDJ has vocabulary. He has all the words. He just doesn't use them. Not for real, not when it counts. He talks around his feelings, under them, over them, through elaborate narrative frameworks that keep the feeling itself at a safe distance.
YJH can't say it, so he shows it.
KDJ can say it, so he doesn't have to show it.
Fandom sees KDJ's fluency and calls it emotional intelligence, but fluency is not the same as honesty. Moreover, being fluent in a language only helps you to lie better.
And now: again, the simp discourse, the whole cursed fucking business. Canon, the entire novel's structural orientation: we are in Kim Dokja's head. The story is filtered through his perception, his interpretation, his devotion. Yoo Joonghyuk is the object of that devotion. The text is literally, structurally oriented around Dokja looking at Joonghyuk.
canon: [incarnation Kim Dokja will be killed by the one he loved most]. The person who killed him was Yoo Joonghyuk. The text does not state "Kim Dokja loves Yoo Joonghyuk most." The prophecy states it. It could be about the TWOS, but there's no TWOS without YJH. The universe, through its own narrative logic, looked at Kim Dokja and determined: this is him. This is the one.
fandom: Yoo Joonghyuk is the simp. He's the one who can't function without his person. He's the one whose entire existence revolves around Kim Dokja. Have you seen how he acts?? Have you seen the desperation??? Yada yada.
And I'm tired of repeating it, but, again.
YJH's devotion is acquired overtime. It exists because KDJ loved him first. It exists because he spent 1863 regressions alone, and then someone showed up who knew him—actually knew him, not the protagonist mask, not the regressor, not the weapon. YJH didn't start here. He learned this. KDJ taught him, across 500 chapters of pursuit and retreat and sacrifice and refusal to stay dead, KDJ taught YJH what it looks like when someone refuses to let go of you.
KDJ's devotion is original. Well, in a way, considering that the ORV timeline is not a line at all. You know how that goes.
The 0th round: Yoo Joonghyuk, in his first life, is guided through the scenarios by a constellation that no one recognize. That constellation is the Demon King of Salvation aka Kim Dokja.
The 1863rd round: Yoo Joonghyuk, after millennia of failure, learns that a worldline exists where everything is better, filling him with hope that a good regression is possible. He wants to live. He regresses one more time.
(then insert sp rant for his part cuz I won't be doing that but yk)
Every origin contains another origin behind it. Han Sooyoung writes TWSA because Kim Dokja needs to read it. Kim Dokja reads TWSA because Han Sooyoung wrote it. Yoo Joonghyuk regresses because Kim Dokja guided him. Kim Dokja becomes the Oldest Dream because Yoo Joonghyuk regressed.
Cause and effect are looped. You cannot locate a singular "beginning." And yet. The loop has to be entered somewhere. And the text, over and over, places the point of entry in Kim Dokja.
Han Sooyoung's sacrifice is for him. Yoo Joonghyuk's 0th round is with him. The 1863rd Joonghyuk's final regression is because of him.
Dokja's devotion is the axiom. Joonghyuk's devotion is the theorem. You cannot derive the theorem without the axiom. But once you have the theorem, you can trace it back and see that the axiom was always already presupposed.
That's how loops work. So when I say "Dokja's devotion is first"—I don't mean chronological priority in a linear timeline that doesn't exist. I mean structural priority. The narrative is built on Dokja's devotion. Joonghyuk's devotion exists because Dokja's devotion created the conditions for it.
So KDJ's devotion predates YJH's awareness of his existence. It predates the scenarios. It predates everything except the text itself. KDJ was devoted to YJH before YJH was even real to anyone except the author.
This is not the same thing.
Calling YJH the simp because he chases KDJ across worldlines is like watching someone learn a language from their partner and then saying "wow, you're so fluent in french did you grow up speaking it?" and the person goes "no i learned it because my husband is french and i wanted to understand him" and you go "okay but you're clearly the french one actually."
No. That's not how this works.
Now. Why does fandom keep doing this shit?
one: visibility. Joonghyuk's devotion is a movie. Dokja's devotion is a book. Fandom watches the movie. It's easier. It's faster. You don't have to sit with it for 500 chapters, you don't have to read the same story over and over.
two: archetypes. Kim Dokja looks like a sidekick. He's physically weak, he makes jokes, he deflects, he narrates his own life like he's not the main character. Fandom sees "physically weak" and assigns "passive." Never mind that he's the most active agent in the entire narrative, never mind that he's been pursuing Joonghyuk since before the story began.
Yoo joonghyuk looks like a protagonist. He is the protagonist. He's tall, he's strong, he's silent, he acts. Fandom sees "acts" and assigns "pursuer." Never mind that most of his acting is reacting to Dokja. Never mind that his entire emotional arc in the second half is "I have to get him back" not "I have to get him."
three: Kim Dokja is hard to look at directly. If you actually sit with what KDJ is—a man who spent over a decade of his life devoted to a fictional character because his real life was so empty that a story was the only thing that made it bearable—you have to contend with that. It's not romantic in a simple way, and it's not cute. It's not "aww he's in love" it's pathology, it's trauma. It's a man who couldn't find meaning in his actual life so he borrowed someone else's.
Fandom prefers romance to pathology, so it takes this messy, painful, obsessive devotion and it hands it to Joonghyuk, whose devotion is newer, cleaner, framed as romantic pursuit rather than decade-long isolation. It makes Joonghyuk the simp so people don't have to look at what Dokja actually is.
four: the cost of seeing Kim Dokja. If you see KDJ—really see him, the 3,149 readings, all that "my entire life was Yoo Joonghyuk," the quiet self-erasure disguised as narrative necessity—then you have to ask yourself why you didn't see it before. And the answer is: because he didn't want you to. KDJ has spent his entire life making himself invisible, it's both his superpower and his tragedy. And the fandom, in its enthusiasm to see ‘clearly’, has obligingly looked right past him.
But here's the thing. I've spent this whole essay talking about what fandom takes from Dokja and gives to Joonghyuk. And that's the half everyone notices, because it's the half that produces the "YJH is the simp" discourse that makes readers with reading comprehension ability scream into pillows. Because the fandom isn't just taking from Dokja, they're also taking from Joonghyuk.
Let me do a step-by-step.
Step one: Fandom takes everything that makes Dokja active in his own devotion and gives it to Joonghyuk.
Step two: Dokja, now stripped of his canon traits, becomes an empty vessel. A void where his agency used to be.
Step three: Fandom, unable to leave that void completely empty, takes everything that makes Joonghyuk vulnerable and pours them into the Dokja-shaped hole.
Step four: Joonghyuk, now stripped of his canon vulnerability, becomes exactly what fandom needed him to be: the stoic, obsessed alpha daddy pursuer who saves the fragile damsel and asks no saving in return.
So, do you see it? Okay, let me just—
canon: Yoo Joonghyuk's story saved Kim Dokja's life. Not physically, not through intent. Joonghyuk didn't know Dokja existed. But a teenager alone in an empty hospital room after an attempt of taking his own life found a story about a man who refused to give up, who kept regressing, who kept trying even after failure after failure, and that story made him decide to stay alive another day. And then another day. And then over a decade more.
That's not nothing. That's everything.
So when KDJ says "you saved me once," he's not being metaphorical. He's not exaggerating, he means it literally. YJH's existence—as a text, as a character, as a story that reached across the Wall and told a lonely boy that someone out there understood what it was like to keep going when everything hurt—saved Kim Dokja. That is the first saving.
But then Dokja enters the scenarios and saves Joonghyuk—from isolation, from self-destruction, from the belief that he has to carry everything alone. Then Joonghyuk, because he has been saved, learns to save in return. He chases Dokja across worldlines, he waits years, he refuses to let Dokja erase himself. He saves him.
fandom: YJH saves the tragic KDJ. That's the whole arc. Dokja's act of saving Joonghyuk gets minimized, reframed as admiration or support or "being there." The reciprocity vanishes. Joonghyuk becomes the sole savior, Dokja the sole saved.
Three savings. A cycle. Not a line.
canon: Dokja pursues Joonghyuk. Invisibly, visibly, structurally, through preparation and sacrifice and the quiet and loud engineering of Joonghyuk's success. He has been pursuing Joonghyuk since before the story began—across the reading, across the 0th round where he guided him as the Demon King of Salvation, across every lucky break and hidden opportunity he engineered for Joonghyuk.
fandom: Joonghyuk pursues Dokja.
The chase scenes, the desperation, the "I will follow you across worldlines" stuff—all of this is real. But it's reactive. It exists because Dokja pursued him first, saved him first, loved him first. Fandom strips away the "because" and leaves only the "therefore."
canon: Joonghyuk's actions are the text's primary evidence of his feelings. The novel shows you his devotion through what he does, because it won't let you inside his head. But this devotion is learned. It exists because Dokja spent 500 chapters showing him what devotion looks like. That doesn't make it less real, it makes it earned.
fandom: Joonghyuk's actions are read as simping, as obsession, as possession. His devotion gets pathologized while Dokja's—which is structurally identical in intensity—gets romanticized as if he's a school girl with a crush.
Fandom looks at two people who love each other with the same world-ending completeness and says: YJH's love is possessive, KDJ's love is shy and innocent.
canon: Joonghyuk waits three years. This is the most famous example, but it's obviously not the only one. He waits for Dokja to come back, he waits for Dokja to stop sacrificing himself, he waits for Dokja to realize he's allowed to stay.
fandom: Dokja is the one who waits. The "reader who waited for the story to continue" gets romanticized, while Joonghyuk's three years get reduced to a simp countdown clock.
Both waited. Only one gets credit for it.
canon: Joonghyuk expresses his feelings through action and physical presence. This is not a failure mode, this is his language. He is not emotionally repressed. The text never once suggests his actions are insufficient. The problem is never that he doesn't feel enough, the problem is that he has spent millennia with no one to understand his way of expressing it.
fandom: YJH is emotionally constipated, he needs KDJ to teach him how to feel.
KDJ—who deflects every sincere interaction into a joke, who narrates his own feelings in third person, who has spent his entire life making himself invisible—somehow becomes the most—and sometimes the only, depending on misinterpretation—emotionally intelligent one.
But the cruelest thing is that the novel is about KDJ finally being seen. He was invisible—a reader outside the text, loving a character who would never know he existed. Then he enters the story and slowly, painfully, the characters around him begin to see him, not as a reader, not as an anomaly. As Kim Dokja.
Yoo Joonghyuk, who spent 1863 regressions being misunderstood by everyone, is the one who finally understands him. He sees KDJ's devotion for what it is and he sees the self-erasure, he sees the 3,149 readings.
And then fandom, reading this story, looks at YJH and says: he's the obsessed one, he's the simp, he's the one who loves unhealthily.
KDJ spent his whole life being invisible, and fandom has made him invisible again.
YJH spent his whole life being misunderstood, and fandom has made sure that never changes.
Fandom keeps handing KDJ's traits to YJH because KDJ's devotion is quiet, structural, and uncomfortable to look at directly. YJH's way of expressing it is loud, visible, and fits neatly into existing romantic templates. So people swap their socks and pretend they were always this way. But the novel is right there. The receipts are basically everywhere if you're actually paying attention, and I am begging you to read the text.
(I've decided to clean my docs and accidentally deleted the source of it and had to rewrite it again off the top of my head so there's probably some parts that I forgot about, sorry (╥﹏╥))
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