kuritical thinking

Me, reading ORV: In what way? Because he is merciless and calculating? Because he is insane? Because he has lost all hope and doesn't care for his companions?

Like. Imagine you've been stuck in a loop—nothing changes if you don't change anything, you're exhausted, you're mentally falling apart but you have to appear in control because if you don't, everything falls apart. And then this random guy who's never been in any of your previous cycles shows up out of nowhere. He knows things about you that you've never told anyone, he's messing up the events in ways you can't predict, he makes you feel uncertain and anxious when you're already barely holding it together, he's playing you like a puppet, pulling strings you didn't even fucking know existed. You can't figure out what he wants, because he's not like the others who just want power or survival, he's doing something else entirely, and you can't tell if he's trying to save you or destroy you.

KDJ wasn't just some helpful stranger or a damn saint saviour. He was a variable. An unpredictable, terrifying variable that showed up and immediately started rearranging everything YJH had learned to rely on. And mind you, the guy was already on the edge, already so fragile underneath all that tough exterior bullshit. That was a "this person is either a threat or a god, and neither option is good" kinda situation for him. And people have the audacity to paint YJH as some red flag toxic abusive motherfucker for being suspicious and overly aggressive to him??? He had every damn right to be. KDJ was being very cruel at times, not maliciously, but extremely carelessly. He was so focused on his own plan that he forgot YJH was a person, not a character, and he treated him like a puzzle to solve instead of a person with his own fears and needs.

51%

[This story is for just that one reader.]

6.6 haikaveh

SLAY THE DEMON KING, an ORV visual novel, now has a demo available on itch!

STDK is a free joongdok fangame inspired by Slay the Princess by Black Tabby Games.

You can play the first THREE LOOPS right now!

DEMO LINK: available on Itch.io

During scenarios KDJ only dies to achieve something. To save someone, to fulfill a condition, or to outmaneuver the story. His death is the final move in a plan, it's the button he presses after exhausting every other option. It solves something because he made it solve something. People like to downplay those moments because they're reading it from the outside, but if you were actually in those situations, you'd probably make the same call (if you were clever enough to figure out how to get back, which is another thing people like to downplay about his character). KDJ also spends time preparing his companions for his absence when he knows it'll be the outcome of his plan. He makes sure they'll be okay without him.

YJH's deaths are different though. He doesn't die to fix a specific problem. He dies to escape, to try again because he couldn't make this round work, but he never learns because the trauma just keeps stacking. His deaths are an admission of failure, a way to abandon the timeline and all the people in it and start over. It doesn't solve anything. It just leaves everyone else to deal with the aftermath of him being gone, which is textbook suicidal behavior.

Super ironic that the guy the fandom made into the "he likes to die cuz why not lol" actually uses death as a controlled and meaningful tool, and the guy who genuinely treats his own life as disposable and has killed himself more times than anyone can count barely gets talked about in this aspect (because it's not as funny I guess?? or just because this fandom obviously doesn't like him as much??). Meanwhile the "sunfish" nickname is right there in the text, constantly and directly pointing back to YJH's self-destructive tendencies.

The fact that people miss that while making KDJ the dramatic suicidal one is impressively unimpressive.

That is, the over-emphasis and moralizing of the idea of someone choosing to suffer or ‘self-sacrifice’ as something selfish.

…

It’s definitely an idea ORV explicitly touches on, and we see protagonists in many stories engage in self-sacrificial behavior to the great consternation and emotional agony of their loved ones. Plenty of stories push into having a character get hurt or killed for the sake of saving others and then those others being really really hurt about it. It causes big emotions for us readers, too, so we feel it alongside them. Then, I see readers turn around and make “that guy is being bad for not even considering how this would make their loved ones feel! Not looking for other options!” … and then they make it into a central character trait (see: FLAW) for all subsequent fan portrayals.

Which… what I’m saying is, I see where it’s coming from, and it’s got big feels attached to it. That’s especially true for a story like ORV where the ending note of the song results from yet another KDJ sacrifice that punches everyone in the gut.

The thing I’m trying to GET TO from saying that is… it’s kind of, really, in a way, not a super interesting or nuanced take on an incredibly interesting and nuanced story. For some people, the moral that “sacrificing yourself can actually be not good and you need to communicate instead of suffering or consider that others maybe won’t want you to do that” is probably really important to learn, so I don’t want to overlook that or belittle them. I just feel yucky when I see this theme, this lesson, this whatever, get turned into something to a) make fun of a character for, b) make all of a character’s history and personality revolve around, c) turn on that character and beat them over the head with guilt and shame about choosing the only&best&secure option (??!?), or d) ignore how incredible or cool it makes the character. It’s like the character gets turned into a sick weak little bean who just helplessly dies or smthn (like a sunfish! Who said that?) instead of an agent with distinct choosing power and powerful motivation who is filled with love and will use every hidden piece they have at their disposal to protect that love.

During scenarios KDJ only dies to achieve something. To save someone, to fulfill a condition, or to outmaneuver the story. His death is the final move in a plan, it's the button he presses after exhausting every other option. It solves something because he made it solve something. People like to downplay those moments because they're reading it from the outside, but if you were actually in those situations, you'd probably make the same call (if you were clever enough to figure out how to get back, which is another thing people like to downplay about his character). KDJ also spends time preparing his companions for his absence when he knows it'll be the outcome of his plan. He makes sure they'll be okay without him.

YJH's deaths are different though. He doesn't die to fix a specific problem. He dies to escape, to try again because he couldn't make this round work, but he never learns because the trauma just keeps stacking. His deaths are an admission of failure, a way to abandon the timeline and all the people in it and start over. It doesn't solve anything. It just leaves everyone else to deal with the aftermath of him being gone, which is textbook suicidal behavior.

Super ironic that the guy the fandom made into the "he likes to die cuz why not lol" actually uses death as a controlled and meaningful tool, and the guy who genuinely treats his own life as disposable and has killed himself more times than anyone can count barely gets talked about in this aspect (because it's not as funny I guess?? or just because this fandom obviously doesn't like him as much??). Meanwhile the "sunfish" nickname is right there in the text, constantly and directly pointing back to YJH's self-destructive tendencies.

The fact that people miss that while making KDJ the dramatic suicidal one is impressively unimpressive.

They made me play yaoi chess in my open world game bruh