Various Shenanigans Edition P3 Textposts

There is something to be said for comparing how Hot Guy interacts with Cute Guy generally vs how he interacts with Grian in the most recent chapter.

throughout the story both kim dokja and han sooyoung define themselves in opposition to yoo sangah. kim dokja defines himself as a reader in contrast to yoo sangah as a protagonist, and han sooyoung defines herself as a villainess in contrast to yoo sangah as a heroine. outsider vs insider, evil vs good. in doing so, they dehumanize themselves and yoo sangah. kim dokja denies himself the agency that he gives a protagonist, positioning himself as merely an observer in both his life and others to cope with his mental health issues. han sooyoung denies herself any emotional or moral complexity, assigning herself a simple role she feels most comfortable in due to her own self worth issues as a way to conceptualize how her 'genre' as changed around her.

as coping strategies, these kinda suck ass. they hurt themselves in doing so, and they hurt yoo sangah. the overlapping roles they assign to her - protagonist and heroine - make unrealistic demands of her, project a perfection that isn't real, put her in a box and ignore all attempts to escape it. they distance themselves from her and damage their relationships in the process. and a large part of yoo sangah's character and arc is her either fighting back against this dehumanization or just refusing to play ball as a way to deconstruct the heroine archetype. when she is dying she uses what seem to be her final moment to make one last escape attempt of kim dokja's idolization of her, reminding him of the pepper incident and forcing him to recognize her as not just a person but a friend. and during moments when she and han sooyoung are at odds, their different attitudes towards it are so stark - han sooyoung regards it as almost a battle of good and evil, whereas yoo sangah sees it as a more personal argument. han sooyoung's discomfort comes from a clashing of philosphies, whereas yoo sangah's comes from the fact han sooyoung is kind of a fucking bitch who has killed people she cares about and might again.

when kim dokja and han sooyoung categorize the world in this way, they dehumanize themselves and their loved ones. and yoo sangah refuses to play along, recognizing both her own and their humanity and forcing that same recognition onto them. when kim dokja and han sooyoung build a wall between themselves and yoo sangah, defining themselves by that distance, yoo sangah climbs it. yoo sangah doesn't just expose the dangers of the small box she gets shoved in, but exposes the others as well. she's an incredibly important character for orv because she does exactly that - it's an extension of her larger role in the narrative as someone who challenges roles and tropes of the genre, who reaches across the divide caused by these expectations we create for ourselves and others and says hey, im just a person, just like you. so maybe we should hang out sometime and just be that, yeah?

I hope none of you disappear in the coming days. Seriously don't do anything that can't be undone.

Alberu when Cale told him yet another batshit insane plan but it's beneficial for the kingdom:

on the topic of kim dokja canonically being an artist it would be so funny if he was actually quite famous because he's read more stuff than twsa but whenever he would post a yoo joonghyuk piece he always got comments like "oh is this your oc"

EPIC: The Musical - Ruthlessness

also the thing about han sooyoung travelling back in time to her 13 year old self's body so she can spend over a decade devoting her every moment to writing a book just for kim dokja is she explicitly says she likes doing it. she loves kim dokja so much she gets happy just knowing she exists in the same world as him, and that happiness is just made greater as he reads twsa! at heart shes an author having her work read carefully by her favourite reader in the whole universe. her writing for him is an incalculable sacrifice but at least she can wholly and genuinely say she enjoyed it

secretive plotter asks the awesome question what if you were born with a hole inside of you and you knew it was there and you did not know how to fill it so you spend lifetimes chasing the one thing that might give you just a hint of a clue of why you were made like this. and you do all of that waiting just to be told you are still too early. so you wait some more. you wait eons, alone, drifting through an endless void until finally you find - something. something that you think might just be what you were made for. but he's not for you. so you get to see the being you were made for curl up inside someone else when you know you could hold them too. and then you have to live with that!

Trying to convince my dnd friends to watch dungeon meshi...

Xisuma is forced to play hit video game That’s Not My Hermit by Evil Xisuma every day