#endings crossover

[readerattheend]

TCF and SCTIR focus a lot on good looks, but there's a slight difference. See if you can spot it...

Cale, seeing someone good looking (including himself): *whistles* "Nice."

Yoojin, seeing someone good looking:

Option A: *whistles* "Nice."

Option B: *gritting his teeth* "Absolutely disgusting. Horrendous. I should be compensated for putting up with this crap."

[readerattheend]

Wisdom in the Holy Trinity of Light Novels/Manhwa

I took part in a conversation about wisdom and the evidence of it, and the conclusion we came to at the time was that wisdom is evidenced as a kind of understanding of how to live.

I've seen conversation on this website and elsewhere where people talk about how we often don't know what to do because it is our first time being alive. Wisdom is the learning and experience we obtain as we continue to work and struggle through our 'first time being alive.'

In Lout of the Count's Family, My S-Class Hunters, and Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, the protagonists have been brought up in significantly similar circumstances and they end up taking significantly similar actions. Kim Roksoo, Han Yoojin, and Kim Dokja grew up essentially parentless, or at least abandoned, and through their life experiences they learned extreme hardiness and kindness, not shying away from pain for the sake of the people who are important to them.

However, their wisdom, their maturity, is on different levels. I think we partially see the differences in the amount of pain their sometimes-selfish selfless actions cause their loved ones as a consequence. I would love to hear dissent to reevaluate and deepen my understanding of the characters, but as I understand it right now, here's my analysis of the maturity of each protagonist starting from least wisdom:

Kim Dokja: He collects a family on the pretense of usefulness. He knows that adults should not hurt children, and someone has to stand in the way of the blade pointed at a helpless person's heart. Ultimately, he understands the desire of others to be understood, and he seeks to fill that void because he has seen the decay of his own life in which people constantly misunderstood him with no room for change. However, he cannot hope in anyone understanding him anymore because he hasn't had room to heal, so he fundamentally misunderstands (and therefore hurts) his loved ones, who are so desperate to reciprocate his love. They see that he has given them everything they need except one thing: the need to connect back. Instead, they are left reaching into the empty space he leaves behind, trying their hardest to squint and see the face behind the wall, because Dokja hasn't yet matured in wisdom to understand them.

Han Yoojin: He's only a little better than Dokja, honestly. Yoojin actually gets that his loved ones love him and want to make sure he lives a comfortable life. He is 30 years old and has become an expert at yearning for love, so he recognizes joy when his loved ones care for him. He loves them so much that he wants to keep being with them and continue letting them enjoy his care, too, to the degree that he does not want to die for them. He recognizes death and absence as absolute last-resorts, not as viable solutions like Dokja. However, he's still self-deprecative, still struggles with hating himself enough that even if death isn't an option, extreme agony and mental breakdowns are always on the table. He has spent a lot of time building up resentment against the people who hurt him, but when the people who hurt him were his loved ones, he redirected that resentment at himself. His lack of wisdom comes in that he can't share discomfort with others. He can't delegate agonies. He's willing to subject himself to hellfire, he hasn't developed enough security in his value to ask others to do the same. It stems from extreme outward-facing love, but lacks wisdom in that it is not sustainable with his F-rank self.

Kim Roksoo: He's got to be the best of the three. Although he's in denial about his affection for all of his dear ones, he can't help but show his love in every move and thought. He takes them in, gives them a place and a purpose, showers them in the good he never got while growing up, and reviles anything that would cause them harm. Although he lives in denial, it comes through more as an old wound that he has learned to live with rather than an actively bleeding knife wound that keeps getting stabbed like Yoojin's and Dokja's hurts. Unlike Yoojin and Dokja, he values his own comfort. He is repulsed by death and pain and only undertakes projects that will be uncomfortable for him if he perceives that the reward gets him back 100Xs the value. Because he understands that his discomfort hurts his dear ones, he avoids exposing them to it by avoiding letting it happen in the first place. A lot of accidental pain happens for them because he's living in the denial mindset where he doesn't think to tell them about things, but his choices are not made out of low self-worth like Yoojin's and Dokja's. Out of the three, he is the best at taking his lived experiences and learning how to pursue a life that makes him and his dear ones happy. He's not perfect, but he is the wisest of Holy Trinity.

[readerattheend]

LCF, GED, and the guarantee of real love

Lout of the Count's Family and The Greatest Estate Developer really took two guys from bad situations and put them in the bodies of some of the most hated young masters on their respective worlds, starting them off at -1000 in the hearts of almost everyone around them. The people who did care about the young masters, like their parents, loved them in spite of their behaviors. Then, these guys just kept being the people they had been before, working hard and focusing on their goals, and that's how, somehow, their reputations do a 180.

Lloyd and Cale start out as people who are hated with extreme prejudice, and that makes it certain when opinions change that the love they receive from those around them over time is directed at them because of who they really are. That love was not available for the people whose bodies they took. That love only came after their behaviors changed.

There's no room for them to wonder, like many protagonists do: "Do people only think this way about me because of the body I took?" People like them despite the place they started. The story says of them, "You were the right person to be here," and, "You are an extremely lovable and good person."

[readerattheend]

Loving stories all by yourself, Handsome?

Good stories shatter me, and bad stories light my fires.

I'm here to forge my shattered pieces in the fires of my soul to create an archive of themes, conversations, laughs, and tears that enhance the experience of loving stories.

Stories I'm interested in:

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (ORV): Novel, Manhwa, Anime

My S-Class Hunters / The S-Classes that I Raised (MSCH/TSCIR): Novel, Manhwa

Lout of the Count's Family (LCF/TCF): Novel (part 1), Manhwa

Alien Stage (ALNST): Video Series

Greatest Estate Developer (GED): Novel (in-progress), Manhwa

SSS Class Revival Hunter (SSSCRH/SSSCSH): Novel (in-progress), Manhwa

Solo Leveling: Manhwa, Anime

Tokyo Ghoul: Manga, Anime

Vanitas no Carte / The Case Study of Vanitas: Manga, Anime

...And more to come!

My purpose in loving stories:

Engaging with themes

Exploring characters and relationships

Examining the craft of storytelling

In conclusion...

I'm Reader at the End, but you can call me Endings. While I haven't completed all of these stories, my readership is focused on following the narrative threads that weave the ending. The craft of the story, the craft! Therein lies the passion.

My personal tags:

All stories have Endings (all of my original posts)

Endings ORV (omniscient reader's viewpoint content)

Endings MSCH (my s-class hunters content)

Endings LCF (trash/lout of the count's family content)

Endings Trinity (orv + msch + lcf content)

Endings ALNST (alien stage content)

Endings Anime (any and all anime AND manga content)

Endings Crossover (content comparing media)

Endings Art (my personal artwork)

Endings Asks (answering asks)

... (more to come as I organize my posts)

My fanfiction on AO3:

Being a Part of His World (LCF) -> 28,844 words, 16/16 chapters, sickfic

Feathers Hold Memories (SCTIR) -> 6,728 words, 5/? chapters, wingfic

Yes or No, We Still Crumble (Vanitas no Carte) -> 11,304 words, 5/5 chapters, 2-work series, SH hurt/comfort

Who's Gonna Save Me? (I'll Do it Myself) (BNHA) -> 38,806, 8/? chapters, Villian!Midoriya, doppelganger

***NOT spoiler-free***

Updated 4/12/26