#{cactus posts}

[cactusjuiceisquenchy]

My favorite thing about Kim dokja is his blatant favoritism.

dokja is ride or die for people he likes and ruthless or cold to the people he doesn’t. He would doom the world for YJH and go to hell and back for SYS but could barely bring himself to care about that poor Russian girl and offed KNW in the first five minutes because he just, didn’t like them LOL.

[cactusjuiceisquenchy]

Guys sae only agreed to the U-20 match to check to make sure it was a good environment for rin. You can pry good brother Sae out of my cold dead hands.

[cactusjuiceisquenchy]

I feel like no one talks about how Kim dokja goes through a reverse character arc by the ending of orv. Every other character has gotten better and has grown into a stronger character by the end, but Kim dokja… well. Spoilers ahead.

We see the character growth of kimco directly during the group regression where kimco is literally able to create the perfect turn together.

Meanwhile Kim dokja, the guiding light of the series, the strongest incarnation who took all of them under his wing and protected them to the end, has concluded the series at his LOWEST point.

The part of the epilogue that intrigues me the most is the aspect of role reversal. Most series begin with the protagonist getting saved until they are strong enough to save themselves. Kim dokja begins the series strong enough to protect everyone, becoming stronger as necessary but he ends in the position of needing to be saved.

To put it simply, his arc doesn’t feel finished. He has spent the entire series behind a wall, and only now at the very end has it come down. Only in his final moments do we see his greatest weaknesses and insecurities on full display. It takes over 500 chapters to get him to the starting line of addressing his issues.

I don’t think I can get over the last broken fragments of his story knocking on the train car door for kimco.

Makes for a great set up to the side story ig LOL.

[cactusjuiceisquenchy]

Thinking about Kuroo and

And

AND HOW MUCH THIS MUST HAVE MEANT FOR HIM

It goes to show just how much thought Furadate put into their futures and who they would end up growing up to be because— of course he becomes a sports promoter?? After Highschool where he got two of THE MOST seemingly disinterested players into admitting they like volleyball and had fun because of HIS efforts,, mans turned that into his entire job. It is such a fitting end to his arc I’m gonna cry.

[cactusjuiceisquenchy]

Rereading tlt, good soup harrow

[cactusjuiceisquenchy]

Harrow the ninth is a book that just begs you to reread it because the first time around you assume the 2nd person perspective means you are seeing out of harrow’s eyes—you are harrow. And it means you feel the confusion and disorientation right alongside her. And then it happens and suddenly you realize no, the 2nd person isn’t to be read like you are harrow but like you are talking TO her and that slight mindset change transforms the entire experience.

[cactusjuiceisquenchy]

So I was thinking that the whole introduction to nagireo felt vaguely familiar. Like, I’ve seen this play before! But I couldn’t remember why,, until just now!

Compare this to

(I can’t remember the actual chapter’s panels but episode Nagi flashes back to it)

In the Original beta version of haikyuu, kageyama finds hinata exactly the same way reo finds nagi, wandering around school wishing they had a better partner and then BOOM crazy human feat followed by immediately pressuring this random guy to join their sport. The parallels are crazy. I like to think the spirits of og kagehina live on in nagireo, it’s very amusing to me.

[cactusjuiceisquenchy]

You wanna know why the oldest dream revelation hurts so much? (Orv spoilers) Kim dokja has spent almost 30 years of his life alone with no one around who loved or cared about him. And suddenly the apocalypse comes along and he meets So. many. People who actively love him. He secretly hates himself and doesn’t believe he’s worthy of love but little by little this found family chips away at his defenses.

Then he meets the oldest dream and oh. That’s why. The world was designed for him, everything from the sticks to the rocks are programmed to love him. So while he loves kimco, how much of their love is real? Isn’t he more of a shackle chaining them to himself? Wouldn’t it be better to just, disappear?