Whumpril Day 6 - Distrust

I am suddenly very interested in reading someone’s fanfiction in which:

Kim Dokja’s Fourth Wall goes into overdrive when he has a panic attack, blurring him so much that he’s either entirely invisible or only a hazy distortion in the air

He endures this a couple of times alone when no one is looking for him

When he panics during an important moment, though, the others notice his absence and look for him

And one of two things happens: either 1) KimCom finds him and is able to protect him well enough for him to come back and be loved on, or 2) only Han Sooyoung finds him, and she uses her writer’s mind to comfort him, tie him back to reality, and help him reconnect with his sense of self rather than dissociating by describing what he looks like, piece by piece, painting a picture of him with her words as if he were a character (just like he tries to be when he copes alone), until he’s there, on his knees in front of her, tear tracks staining the corners of his eyes

I think it’s pretty clear which of those two scenarios I find more compelling, but I think the other could be fleshed out enough to hit pretty hard, too

Basically I want Kim Dokja to feel seen and real and like a meaningful part of the physical world

Butch4Butch Sangsoo... 2!!! This time featuring their post-canon designs :]

we failed

i personally love when kim dokja fixes his problems with suicide. he puts a gun to his head and im clapping and cheering along.

Kim Dokja had the chance to give himself a happy ending to his story. At the beginning of ORV, there would've been no happier ending to his life than being alone reading TWSA without any bodily needs or any responsibilities forever. The end of ORV was a book ending for Kim Dokja's character arc.

But he didn't take it. He didn't take it because he loved his companions too much. In the 9th scenario, Kim Dokja referred to love as being the farthest thing from him. By the 99th scenario, he's been so loved and he's loved in return. And so, that love corrupted his ending. His perfect ending was no longer perfect because of the 50% of him that had been irrevocably changed from his time in the scenarios.

It was that 50% he just needed to cut out of himself. He was quite literally half a man before he became Kim Dokja of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint. If he had simply cut out that part of him and gave that to his companions, he could've returned to who he was at the start of the scenarios. He could've been happy and content with being the Oldest Dream. And eventually, he would have been found and picked up Secretive Plotter and the 999 crew. We know this, because we saw it.

But he didn't do this. Kim Dokja could not let go. To properly be the Oldest Dream, he had to only love one particular story. But Kim Dokja had more to love than just one story. He loved so many more stories. He loved THEIR story where he had existed with them. And, selfishly, Kim Dokja held onto a little bit more because he did not want to forget his companions. He didn't want to forget his friends, his children, his relationship with his mother, his adoptive parents, and the life they'd had.

And in doing so, he unintentionally created ripples in the happy ending. He poked a hole in that story. Because 49% was not 50%. 2% of a difference meant that the Kim Dokja that the others kept was never going to survive, as he was still an avatar and could not live without Star Stream. And Kim Dokja in the train could not be content in his isolation because he longed for those he could no longer see even as he denied himself his own omniscient powers to look in on them whenever he wanted.

The Fourth Wall berated Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk for ruining the ending of the story, but that wasn't entirely true. It was, as everything was, Kim Dokja's fault in the end.

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint's greatest tragedy is that Kim Dokja was loved. Because without that love, he could've been the ideal god of that world, and eventually everyone would've been granted the "happiest ending" (even if, as we saw with World of Zero and with Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk's discontent, that's not necessarily true). But because he felt love, Kim Dokja could not be a god. He was just a human.

i think more modern aus should commit to trying to translate yoohankims batshit neuroses about each other to a non-apocalyptic scenario. i love an au where kim dokja was yoo joonghyuk's first watcher when he started streaming with han sooyoung as his mod and han sooyoung makes yoo joonghyuk stream every night to make sure kim dokja keeps watching and doesnt kill himself and theyre both doing it for him but of course they both get in simultaneous dramatic car accidents that gives them both amnesia so they forget kim dokja was their first watcher. but he stays a fan for 13 years (and gets into internet beef with han sooyoung in the meantime) and then they all meet dramatically. so kim dokja manipulates the shit out of yoo joonghyuk to make his twitch channel blow up even more 'for his own good' while also engaging in psychosexual mind games with han sooyoung until he fakes his own death and runs away with his biological daughter (via bihyung obvs) and han sooyoung and yoo joonghyuk (who have forgotten each other too but realise their shared backstory over the course of the journey) have to hunt him down and confess their love. and its a coffee shop au btw

NOTICE: As more and more fanfic writers are using generative AI for their works (you uncreative dweebs), I hereby swear on everything I hold dear that I have not and will NEVER use generative AI in ANY of my written work. Everything I post will be organically and creatively my own.

Y'know, the funny thing abt kdj being the symbolical ideal for both hsy (the perfect reader, her target audience) and yjh (the perfect witness, the reason for his existence who he wants to meet more than he wants to meet his own creator) is that for them to get to that point at all, they were first enamoured with his humanity

1st of all the went from enemies to frenemies. And then,

They first saw the cocky guy who became a guiding light. They saw the frail kid who needed someone, anyone. THEN they understood what they represented to the reader

Whumpril Day 7 - Restless

Also on ao3

Sleep was always a funny thing after regressing. The clock had rewinded, and Yoo Joonghyuk knew he had began everything anew, yet his dreams lingered on his deaths. His dreams also had some unwelcome visitors, a certain prophet crawling through the gap in his normally so sturdy mental barrier.

That was where he found himself now, trapped in a dream, that woman standing above it all, looking down at him as he struggled. He chose not to acknowledge her, as this was not the first time. She seemed to come only to watch him, to see him fail.

In this dream, he was fighting the battle that caused him to regress, something that had occurred this time due to a foolish mistake.

It was a simple scenario, typical find-and-kill the monster mission. But one of his companions, his young protégé, had found themselves in bother, which led Yoo Joonghyuk to look away to check on the girl. She was fine, just a surface level cut on her arm, and as she raised her head she waved over to show she was okay.

This was too big of a distraction. He had repeated this enough times to know she survived that fight. He had repeated enough to learn to never lose focus during an exchange of blows. The death was quick the first time.

The next times were not so much. How cruel was it to have a Stigma that made you repeat everything, in addition to unceasing night terrors that begged of him to go back, that begged him to never had made the mistake in the first place.

He awoke with a jolt, and the pain of a claw in his torso. The nightmare had twisted it so he watched his student be torn apart, with him following shortly after.

He did not fall asleep again that night. He reflected on the mistakes he had made. He continued walking along the lonely path.