u/GuaranteeAccurate818

(Hotel Del Luna)

Mine is Jang Man-wol. Over a thousand years of waiting, regret, and unresolved love, and it still hits harder than most. ​​

One thing that genuinely frustrates me about the ORV fandom is how blatant the MISOGYNY​​​ can get, especially in shipping spaces.

And no, this isn’t me attacking queer ships before people start getting defensive. Ship whatever you want. The issue is how female characters constantly get pushed aside, erased, or treated like obstacles the moment a fandom becomes heavily ship-dominated.

People will swear they love Han Sooyoung, call her “best girl,” make jokes about her, ship her with sangah to appear supportive, etc. but the moment discussions about emotional importance or chemistry with Kim Dokja happen, suddenly everyone acts blind.

Because let’s be honest: Han Sooyoung and Kim Dokja have insane narrative chemistry. Their bond is literally one of the emotional cores of ORV. The story itself keeps tying them together over and over again in ways that are intimate, painful, codependent, understanding, and foundational to the plot.

Yet fandom spaces constantly downplay it because acknowledging her importance threatens their preferred dynamic.

You can especially see it in fandom content like reaction videos, edits, compilations, or gacha videos. It’s almost always:

• Joonghyuk + Dokja
• Joonghyuk + Dokja
• Joonghyuk + Dokja

Meanwhile Han Sooyoung, who is literally one of the MOST important characters in the entire narrative, gets excluded or reduced to comic relief despite the fact that the story genuinely cannot function without her.

And what annoys me is how normalized this behavior is in fandom culture. Female characters are only accepted when they:

• don’t “interfere” with a popular ship
• stay non-threatening
• become the fandom’s “funny girl”
• get stripped of their deeper relationship with the protagonist

The moment a woman has undeniable emotional significance with a male MC, people suddenly start acting like the chemistry is “forced,” “overrated,” or “not that deep,” while overanalyzing every interaction between two male characters.

It’s exhausting because ORV itself gives Han Sooyoung immense narrative weight, emotional depth, and thematic importance. The fandom didn’t invent her relevance. The story did.