I Think Post-epilogue When Kim Dokja Now Has To For The First Time In Years Exist Without The Fourth

idk if y'all remember that instance when yoo sangah decided to read all of dokja's memories, a move which made a lot of people hate her, but, here's my take on that: yoo sangah is a person who knows how to take risks, or at least she tries to know how to assess them correctly, and, you know, to have a relationship it is necessary to take those risks, especially if you want to get closer to someone else, if you want to let them know you're there for them. Then, what if the person you wanted to get closer to and so badly understand is Kim Dokja? The guy who's so deeply ashamed of himself he has to hide behind a wall, the guy who feels so proud of not letting anyone get to know him because he believes no one can nor will ever understand him so it's better to push them away, the coworker who paired up with you on your first interview, the coworker who kept quiet while you put pepper onto the coffe machine and even took the effort to move the cameras so that they wouldn't fire you, he, the one who talks to you without the intention to get something back nor seeing you as an object, and who also seems to be okay with you despite feeling so distant, Dokja, Kim Dokja, your dear friend.

And then he sacrifices himself. Over and over again. What would you do then? Yoo Sangah can't just stand there doing nothing, watching him suffer silently. She's an empath, she wants to be there for people, and he's her friend, she has to do something about it, let him know all KimCom is there for him, that she's there for him, but he's being so stubbornly distant with everyone. It is also at this point of the novel where Dokja's debating whether to tell them that they're all characters of a novel, and therefore being much more distant. What is there to do for yoo sangah? It's a desperate situation, and such desperate times require bigger risks to take in for the relationship; to read dokja's memories is dangerous, it is to overstep his boundaries and privacy, dokja may never want to talk to her again, because it is a betrayal in itself. Yoo sangah knows all of this, but she's willing to take the risk, for him. It is incredibly selfish as well, but it is the only way out for her, the only way she feels she can reach out to him beyond that wall.

EPIC: The Musical - Ruthlessness

why did he do that

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?

For context, Grian was doing wordle

Pokémon Special being Iconic

Here's one of my favs

So about that Mumbo video...

PERSONA 3 PORTABLE ON ALL PLATFORMS IN LESS THAN TWENTY FOUR HOURS

starting a collection