Hello, everyone. This is Byulbulkkot.
…There’s so much I want to say in this afterword. I don’t even know where to start.
So I’ll just let my thoughts flow as they come.
It might end up all over the place…
But there’s just so much I want to tell you, the readers. Please bear with me.
Hmm, should I start with how I came to write this novel so casually?
It wasn’t anything special.
I just wanted to read a story where the protagonist had this kind of ability.
I thought it might be unique if the author and the readers built the story together.
I wrote it because I wanted to turn those small, random sparks of inspiration into something.
There wasn’t any deeper reason.
The reason this novel is a pure romance? That wasn’t anything special either.
My previous work was no-romance, so I debated between making this one pure romance or yuri.
In the end, I just went with pure romance.
Maybe in another timeline, it could’ve been a yuri story.
After hearing this, some of you might be thinking:
Wait, so what happened to the plot?
There wasn’t one.
From the prologue to this afterword, there was never a plot.
When I wrote the prologue, I only had two things decided:
One, the protagonist is a TS female lead who uses threads from clothes, is mistaken for a mastermind, and is possessed.
And two, she would converse with the “Author-nim” to create the story.
Yes. That was it.
I didn’t know what kind of ability Yu Siwoo had, who the Author-nim was, or how the two of them would even connect.
Amelia, Dorothy, Hayul, Laira, Spira, the club president—none of the many characters were planned.
I started from a completely blank slate.
All that existed at the beginning were Arte and Author-nim.
This reminds me of a famous line from Director Bong Joon-ho’s film, *Parasite*:
“You know what plan never fails? No plan at all.”
That’s right.
I didn’t intend it, but that’s exactly how it turned out.
I couldn’t even decide on the protagonist’s name until chapter 1 or 2. That’s when I settled on it.
I remember taking the name from Tiresias, the prophet from Greek mythology—the first TS character, perhaps?
That’s what he’s famous for, right?
He killed a snake and became a woman, and after living as one for a while, two gods came to him.
Zeus and Hera.
The two gods asked him: between men and women, who enjoys sex more?
And Tiresias answered:
Hngh, women’s pleasure is at least nine times better than men’s, ohhhh!
Arte Isis is an anagram of that prophet’s name.
Tiresias.
Arte Isis.
Haha.
I once thought about using this as a foreshadowing clue, but in the end, it just stayed as a motif. A bit of a shame.
When Hayul asked if it was a prophecy…
That was the only time I ever used it. A little disappointing.
Of course, if I was still thinking about the protagonist’s name while writing, it makes sense I couldn’t decide on the pure romance lead’s name either.
In the end, I went with the most generic male lead name everyone uses: Yu Siwoo.
I also decided on the Ability impulsively. Pure intuition.
Did the Author-nim compare their Ability to Schrödinger’s cat?
Maybe that’s why I chose it.
I don’t know. Since I just wrote down whatever came to mind, I can’t quite remember whether the Author’s Ability came first or Siwoo’s did.
But one thing that won’t change is the fact that a being close to a god was eventually slain by Laplace’s Demon.
The Author-nim’s character is a bit of a sore spot for me.
She was always getting cursed at.
“Min-ppong.” “When are you gonna kill her?” “Goguma.” “That’s a fertilizer net.”
I’d aimed for an annoying but cute character.
But since all she ever got was abuse, I often wondered if I’d messed up her design.
The whole reason I started writing the novel was because of the Author’s existence, so changing her wasn’t an option.
In the end, I just went with it, and fortunately, there were quite a few people who found her cute.
As for Lira… well, her name comes from Lira in *Descendants of the Sun*.
“Feel the new sun, the glorious light.”
She’s a disgusting 5★ 3/5 unit.
Don’t know? Doesn’t matter.
Miracle Priestess… You did amazing… Ugh, my head.
But I only took the name—there was no real motif behind her.
…Yet, the truth is, she was the branching point of this entire novel.
You might have already realized.
Remember the early scene where Lira almost died at Arte’s hands?
I agonized over that part for a long time after writing it.
Should I kill her or spare her?
I ended up sparing her, but…
If I had killed her, the ending might have been a bad ending or a normal ending instead of a happy one.
Maybe the bleak parts would’ve been much longer.
It was a scene that could’ve completely changed the story’s direction.
And then there’s Spira.
She was originally supposed to die too.
The reason I kept the snake alive was because of the Tiresias motif I mentioned earlier.
According to the name, Arte should’ve killed the snake, but instead, she spares it, and through its words, everyone realizes the truth—that the dolls were actually people.
That was the idea I had.
In the Bible, the serpent gives Eve the fruit of knowledge, right?
That’s where I took the motif from.
There’s actually a theory that the forbidden fruit was the fruit of knowledge.
So the snake (Spira) gives the fruit of knowledge (the truth that they were all human), and Eve (Arte) eats it and realizes the truth.
That was the thought process.
Well, looking back now that it’s finished, that idea died along the way.
If I’d taken my time and fleshed it out, I could’ve developed Spira’s story too.
That’s a regret.
It was an accident caused by not outlining the plot.
Hmm, talking about it like this might make it sound hopelessly disorganized.
But honestly, I think that lack of planning is what made it fun for me.
It felt like I was the captain of a ship called *Silnunheukmak*, sailing into the vast, uncharted ocean with all of you as my crew.
And the result… well.
As you can see.
Some crew members left along the way, some joined later, but in the end, we made it safely to shore.
That’s a relief.
…Of course, it wasn’t without hardship.
Writing while working a day job was harder than I expected.
Even now, when I’m encouraged by readers, I still take breaks because it’s exhausting—so back then, I got a lot of harsh criticism.
“Why is this a TS story?”
“This gives me a bad vibe, so tag it properly.”
“Are you gay?”
Hmm…
Now I’m used to hearing stuff like that, but for a while, I was so on edge that I even reported people on Novelpia.
There was even a time when I was so fed up that I screamed, “Help me, PD-nim! PDemon—!” at my editor.
I can only be grateful to that PD-nim.
If I’d really lost my mind back then, I might’ve snapped my pen in half.
But since I managed to finish the story, I guess my mental fortitude was stronger than I thought.
Just having someone listen to me, even if all they did was give me the same old advice…
Sometimes, just knowing someone’s there is enough to make things feel okay.
Other than that, there weren’t any real hardships.
Occasional writer’s block, maybe.
That’s just an occupational hazard for authors.
Hmm.
I’m not sure what else to say.
There’s so much I want to tell all of you…
But if I start, I might never stop.
So maybe I’ll talk about my next project instead.
Fortunately, I already have a rough plot in mind.
It’s another Academy story, but this time, the protagonist isn’t a student.
They’re a teacher.
Not the kind who teaches, though.
Huh? Then how are they a teacher?
Don’t worry. A teacher stationed in the counseling office is still a teacher, right?
In *Silnunheukmak*, a lot of people said they were uncomfortable with Arte killing people.
So for the next work, the protagonist is a good kid? …Well, I do like good protagonists.
But just a regular counseling teacher might be a little boring.
…Alright. What if we add a dash of hypnosis?
A kind-looking teacher, always warm and gentle to the students.
Students who trusted and followed them.
But then—what if their secret hypnosis ability is exposed?
Students trembling with betrayal.
We always trusted you, relied on you, our kind and caring teacher…!
Teacher, you wouldn’t… use hypnosis on us…!
You get the idea.
Doesn’t that sound good? …I think it’s great.
Of course, something like that needs proper buildup, so it’d only come up later in the story.
But for that scene alone, I feel like I could write several chapters.
Yes, so.
From now on, you can look forward to *I Became an Academy Counseling Teacher*.
Though now it’s a counseling teacher… with hypnosis.
When’s it starting?
Someone once told me,
“You sleep when you’re dead.”