love my spiral. #myspiral

Where would you say we are in the story so far, and how many more arcs do you have planned out? How much of this plot has been outlined?

I have an approximate outline for Part 1 of 2, with a vague idea for Part 2 that I’m sure will become more solid as I write. I’d say we have at least 8-9 arcs left to cover in Part 1. I don’t think Part 2 will be as long as Part 1. It’s hard to say exactly how long this will end up being.

For reference, as of finishing Arc 4, there are about 250k words in this story.

Do you plan to publish this story officially?

Yes, eventually, definitely as an e-book. I’m not sure how printed copies would work; it might be best to do “novellas,” one per arc.

I also have plans to make epubs for each arc available on the website, but it's been put on hold due to lack of time.

Can I print the story and bookbind it myself?

Yes. I’d love to see the final result if you do!

Please include an appendix/page that lists the titles/proofs/skills of other characters

Now updated on the website.

Is this the author’s first story/piece of fiction?

No, my hobby has been writing stories since I was a kid. Quite a few of my current readers and commenters know me from previously published fanfiction, which I’ve written on and off since high school.

However, this is my first published original work. It’s exciting to finally share one of my original works with the world.

How much do you think the settings & tropes that you're playing with are influenced by East Asian fantasy webnovels/stories, compared to Western ones?

When it comes to webnovels, I read almost exclusively translated East Asian ones. This story is heavily influenced by transmigration academy webnovels, along with a few other genres, such as Saintess romantic fantasies and “transmigrated as a villain into an Otome game” webnovels.

Who did you think the fan favorite will be? How do the actual results compare?

My prediction was that Eunseok would be the most popular, because the main character of a story usually is. This turned out to be the case.

I wasn’t sure who the second favorite would be, but in retrospect, I shouldn’t be surprised that it was Veric. We’ve spent a lot of time with her, after all, and people have been extremely supportive of her since the start. That makes me very happy.

What’s YOUR favorite character?

My favorite character is Eunseok, or else he wouldn’t be our main character. But I have a lot of love for everyone else, too. They’ve all got their own stories.

As for my favorite character excluding Eunseok…? Hmmm. That’s a secret.

Who is your favorite character to draw?

Eunseok because he’s my favorite. But I give everyone designs that I will enjoy drawing.

What do you do for work?

I work on enterprise software as an engineer. Things have been quite shaken up lately due to AI.

So I’ve been contemplating whether to leave my job and try making a career out of writing… The benefits, of course, would be that I would have a lot of time to write. The cons are that, to really make a career/living out of webnovel writing, you’d need a rapid update schedule (1.5-2.5k words per chapter, 5-7 times a week) that would definitely degrade the quality of this story. I don’t know if I’m willing to compromise on that.

A possible compromise would be a Patreon with short updates 3x a week (such as sharing the next scene), whereas the publicly available chapters are published with the same schedule (once a week, with a pause any time I need to finish the next arc).

How are new worlds/frames discovered? Is there any logic behind their internal rules (ie, are there common rules among them?)

The entrance to a Fantasm World will occasionally spawn in Kosmonymia according to the Tripartite’s discretion. They’re usually just found by someone stumbling across the entrance unexpectedly.

The historical period of time that loops in an unsolved Fantasm World usually: 1) is of historical significance, 2) is related to the original world’s ultimate fate, and 3) showcases the potential of that world’s power system or technology. Not every Fantasm World contains an apocalyptic disaster, but if it doesn’t, it usually shows a node in history where the end could have been prevented.

Fantasm Worlds tend to share common geographic features or biomes with the place where they spawn, such as the mild coastal weather common between Fulsgate and KP-04. This is not a hard and fast rule.

If you solve a Fantasm World, then the Tripartite judges you as being capable of handling the disaster that led to its end. For example, since KP-04’s visual disaster was resolved, then it’s fine to release KP-04’s frame to Kosmonymia because you can avoid the same ultimate disaster. It is also then your responsibility to prepare successors who can handle the dangers introduced by a new frame.

Whether this philosophy actually holds up in practice is a different question.

Any juicy frames that you'd want to reveal before they're brought up in-work?

No. They are all surprise tools that will help us later.

Is there a romantic subplot between Acacius and Luka?

There is something much more sinister going on between Acacius and Luka (and also Eunseok and Luka).

That said, I am deliberately following in a very long tradition of transmigration webnovels having weird and kind of gay relationships between the transmigrator and “original protagonist.” So please feel free to read as much or as little into their relationships as you want.

Will there be an identity reveal?

Yes, but due to my tastes, it’s probably far more diabolical than whatever you’re thinking of.

What's your process for brainstorming & plotting important events? Do you tend to plan/outline arcs in detail, or more like just write as you go?

I don’t have a very detailed outline. However, I have a bullet point list of events I want to cover and information that needs to be revealed. These bullet point lists are most detailed for the chapter I’m about to write, when I have the greatest sense of what information needs to be conveyed. They tend to be less concrete for things that are far off in the future, though I have some lynchpin events that I know I want to occur.

When it comes to planning an arc, I often start off with a “feeling” of what I want to happen. Arc 3, the Fantasm World, started with me wanting to cover the classic plot of “school trip gone terribly wrong” as well as introducing Kosmonymia’s “dungeon” system. So I knew I wanted this feeling of desperation, layered schemes, and just barely scraping your way through by the skin of your teeth.

What gave that arc a concrete direction was combining it with a different thought I had, which was, “It’d be kinda funny to force the guy always paying attention to how others perceive him to literally only be able to see the world through other people’s eyes. And then he has to adjust his acting by referencing what they see.” Then I combined that with the butterfly eye spot motif. Connecting together things that you find fun and interesting will take you in novel directions.

So I have a pretty clear direction of where I want to go with a story arc and where I want it to end. I usually have scenes that I want to hit, too. For example, in Arc 1, I had a very clear mental image of Eunseok looking behind Cynara to see the moon path realm losing control, then turning to run; in Arc 2, I had a sense of Linden’s dramatic challenge to a duel. If I can vividly imagine a scene like that, I make sure to write with purpose in that direction.

When making characters, are they typically made to compliment another character, or to explore a certain character concept? What’s your process for character creation?

I tend to start with a trope (“transmigrated as the villain”) or core motif (ex. The Hunt) that I find interesting, and then I build on that by complicating the trope and/or adding additional themes. I like thinking about the personality and motives that drive their actions as well.

Sometimes the trope/motif someone starts from is a “narrative role,” for example, the heirs of the Six Noble Families. Those people needed to exist, to be part of a system of power, and to be important. So from that, I knew they had to be students we see semi-regularly, and they also need backstories/personalities that have them invested in upholding the system as it is. From there, I thought about geography and cultural influence for each family’s “specialty,” and then imagined the kids who might come out of those traditions.

For every character, I also like coming up with an interesting “complication” of their surface-level impression. I like characters who aren’t single-note or straightforward to understand, and I like writing strange people. So that’s how my characters turn out the way they do.

How did you come up with Eunseok & Acacius's characters?

Warning: This section contains statements that may influence your subsequent reading of the story.

My idea for Eunseok started from all the mediocre villain transmigration webnovels I read where someone would transmigrate into a petty villain with a bad reputation and bad deeds under their belt. Then that transmigrator would immediately own up to and apologize for wrongdoings, rectify the past, and wipe the slate clean.

I thought that was pretty boring. After all, if someone has a history of hurting you, would you really be so quick to believe them or forgive them if they said they’d change their ways? Personally, I wouldn’t be convinced. So I thought it would be more interesting to have a transmigrator who was, for one reason or another, invested in keeping up the persona of the villain whose identity they’d taken. It’s only if they’re invested that it feels satisfying for other characters to catch that slip and start digging for answers.

Eunseok was also inspired by a transmigration webnovel where the main character was assumed to be from mundane, modern-world Korea… only to reveal 700 chapters in that he was actually from a Hunter / Tower dungeon world, so he had some extra abilities. That was really funny. But I didn’t want to wait 700 chapters before revealing my protagonist had something else going on, so you get hints that something is off from the start. Like that, his past becomes an important part of the story.

As for Acacius, I knew he had to be a “villain” for Eunseok to transmigrate into. But I thought it would be more interesting if he was a “villain” who knew the future that was coming for him, tried to escape it, and in trying to escape it only changed the trajectory by which he arrived at the same end. By the end, he understood exactly why he’d been that kind of person in the future he saw. I don’t imagine he was very happy about that.

Since Eunseok was going to be someone invested in keeping up a facade, I knew I had to make the separation between him and Acacius clear. Many transmigration novels have the transmigrator inherit the memories of the person whose body they take, while also switching names clearly. I went in the opposite direction of that… Though I have a reason for writing this novel in first person instead of third, where the usage of the main character’s name would be required.

I want to physically bring out this story and use it as a chew toy.

It’s an honor. Chew away!