(note: this is as much a rec post as it is a way for me to try to get down my [brain go vrrrrr] feelings about orv in a coherent way that i can actually use to talk to people about it without sounding absolutely unhinged. it will still sound unhinged, because me, but at least it’ll be ORGANIZED)
what is orv?
orv, or omniscient reader’s viewpoint, is a korean webnovel written by author(s) sing-shong. it is currently complete at 551 chapters, and currently has an in-progress webcomic of the same name that’s in its early arcs.
what’s the plot about?
orv is about kim dokja (kdj), a 28-year old social maladroit who works as a contracted drone for a gaming company and spends all his free time reading webnovels. specifically, he’s been hyperfixating on an extremely long, deeply unpopular apocalyptic survival game webnovel for over a decade, to the point where he is the only reader who’s still reading the ongoing 3000+ chapters as they update. the story begins when the author announces the end of the novel and the beginning of the epilogue, and as a reward for being the only reader to make it this far, gives kdj a text file for the entire novel.
this file comes in handy when the apocalypse actually happens in the exact same way as it did in the novel, and kdj is the only person who has inside knowledge of what’s going on. to survive, he must make alliances with the ‘characters‘ from the original novel, and get through the survival games in order to reach the unwritten epilogue.
okay, this sounds cool, but i think i’ve seen a lot of other works with similar premises - what makes this one special?
you’re not wrong! orv’s plot initially starts off as a sort of reverse-isekai/dungeon crawl webnovel, a genre which has grown very popular in east asian media in the past few years. for the first few arcs, there’s a lot of worldbuilding, game mechanics, and a protagonist who gets overpowered skills as a result of his epic gamer reader skills. if you start orv and specifically enjoy the first seventy or so chapters, i’d recommend searching up other manhwas/mangas in this genre!
however, past the first few arcs, orv takes a hard turn into more complex themes and narratives, delving into more meta elements and grappling with so many plot threads that it would honestly make this post unreadable if i tried to organize them. suffice to say, while the first few arcs are fun and in-line with other works of this genre, it becomes more of a interrogation of its own genre and of webnovels and the act of creating media in general as it goes on. if deconstructing tropes, metanarratives up to your nose, and 4D chess-style time and multiverse shenanigans are your thing, orv is probably right up your alley!
that’s fine and all, but you’re neglecting the most important part - does orv have good characters?
oh, my sweet child. of course orv has characters! BOY DOES IT have some characters. orv has one of the most richly filled and developed casts i’ve seen in media in a WHILE, and nearly every character (of which there are a LOT, this is 500+ chapters, remember) has some kind of arc. there are some characters that are done with less justice than others, an inevitability of having a cast that large in a story that weighed down with shit that needs to get done, but even they usually have some sort of development. rarely does orv have one-note characters.
another note i want to make on this is that there are A LOT OF COOL GIRLS in this book, and pretty much all of them get their arcs in unique and interesting ways! orv tends to introduce characters in terms of tropes or stereotypes (the nice girl, the innocent child, the hardened warrior) and then slowly builds onto those foundations in ways that make them immensely interesting and complex. i’ve agonized about how to talk about the characters without going into a long spoilery spiel, but suffice to say that they are EXCELLENT.
okay, and what about their relationships?
i want to start off by saying that orv does NOT have any romantic relationships within its main cast, so despite whatever you see in the fandom, don’t go into it expecting romance! what we do have is a massive cast of complicated relationships, often completely separated from their relationship with the main character. the main relationships in orv are platonic ones, and much of it is spent on ruminating on found families and rebuilding broken relationships.
this being said, the emotional core of the story is built upon the (ambiguous) relationships between the trio that makes up the three main characters of the novel: kim dokja, yoo joonhyuk, and han sooyoung. their relationship is not stated to be romantic in any directions, but their interactions are what builds the backbone of the story’s themes, and they serve both as interesting individuals with interesting relationships with each other as well as points of analogy within the larger themes of the story. i will say that there is romantic coding in all of their relationships at various points, though i WANT TO REITERATE THERE IS NO EXPLICIT ROMANCE NOR LOVE TRIANGLE BULLSHIT HERE.
are there any caveats you have about reading it?
definitely! i don’t like to make recs without acknowledging the shitty aspects of a media, and orv definitely has places where it falters. here are a few trigger warnings/general irritations i had with the book:
while it’s not a romantic novel, there are some teases about romance between characters that are obviously not here for romance in ways that can get pretty eye-roll-y at times.
there are some implications of sexual assault in the early chapters that seem to serve little purpose beyond it’s affirmation of the early arcs’ grimdarkness. it’s not prevalent and gets dropped later, but it’s an aspect of its genre that i dislike
there are so many arcs in the novel that explore so many different genres that i’m pretty sure that everyone will have an arc that they’re not as interested in
the translations that are available online are of varying quality, as there was a change of translators in the middle of the novel. this means that some names and terms will change in spelling out of nowhere, which can be pretty jarring
if you’re not used to the prose of webnovels or translated east asian novels, it can take a few chapters to get used to the different style.
this is a big one: there are some transphobic elements in the novel - specifically three characters/bits that stand out particularly egregiously. there is a villain that is implied to be genderfluid that is treated pretty shittily by the mains, a group of minor villains that fall into the predatory transes stereotype, and a character that is a trans woman who, by a mix of bad narrative framing as well as translation error, is misgendered for a while. while the transphobia does drop off as the novel goes on and the trans woman, rocky beginning aside, has one of the best character arcs independent of her gender identity in the novel (as the authors realize that transphobia might not be great), it’s still perfectly valid if these portrayals turned you off. it certainly made me, an nb, annoyed when i was reading!
all of this sounds really interesting, but why should i allow orv to rewire my brain?
okay, if the past few paragraphs didn’t make you perk up already, here are some more miscellaneous things that made me read this stupid book three and a half times:
the book’s VERY fun to read. like, it gets heavy, and there’s a lot of complex themes in it, but it never gets bogged down in them, and it’s always a delight to just, sit down with it.
it’s really funny. like, EXTREMELY hilarious in both expected and unexpected ways. there’s a reason why the fandom tag has so many memes in it
the pacing is super brisk in a way that i internally refer to as ADHD catnip, and you never feel like the book really overstays its welcome on any particular arc. it’s why the book is so bingeable, despite its length
most if not all of the book’s arcs and themes, both character and plot-wise, are resolved in satisfying ways. i’ve read this book multiple times, and i’ve never felt like the book really missed any steps on what it’s trying to say. a great accomplishment, considering just how much it has to say
a reverse of one of my caveats: the book is so long that there’s almost certainly going to be some arc that you dislike, but similarly, there’s also almost bound to be an arc that you LOVE. do you like survival games? this is that! murim novels? has that! scifi? yep! historical fantasy? got it! this is a sampler plate of genres, people.
the book never takes itself or its plot mechanics too seriously OR too lightly, somehow managing to strike a perfect balance in tone that’s both self aware of how ridiculous it can get at times, and never undermines the emotional stakes of the characters
for all its darkness and tragedy, it’s never CYNICAL. orv feels like a distillation of how much FUN consuming media can be, and is a love letter to every person who’s ever loved a story. it rejects cringe culture and gatekeeping, and is an affirmation that every work of art that you’ve ever loved is valuable, if only because of the fact that you love it.
tl;drpsych! this WAS my tl;dr of how much i love this novel. please read it i am on my fourth reread and going bonkers
For those worried about the crew having to do a whole job just for one person, flight staff only get paid for time they’re in the air; if he’d cancelled, they wouldn’t have gotten paid for zip.
So in other words, he gave them an easy day where they can spend most of it on break, and also airplane staff should unionize.
Also the plane likely has to get to NC somehow so you might as well have fun with it
tfw you escape from a giant mass of creamed corn because you dove into it’s butthole and almost half of the friend you’ve had for less than a day are dead so you have to take out your gun in school and shoot the scroll controlling these corn demons so you can save yourself and what remains of your new friends. relatable, amirite??
