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Late Spring is finally over!
Given the nature of the material, I figured it might be hard for you to leave comments, so I'm planning to ramble on about things you might be curious about, and things I want to say. It's probably going to be pretty long. Not many people read author's notes anyway, so please bear with me. Lol.
Ah~ This translation work was really tough. I started translating Late Spring shortly after finishing The Eye That Touches the Abyss, and because I translated the previous work so passionately, my health was already pretty bad... I ended up getting seriously sick while translating the main story of Late Spring.
On top of that, the original Korean drafts for the main story of Late Spring weren't in good shape. Originally, the writing order was Late Spring → The Eye That Touches the Abyss.
If we're talking about narrative completeness, I overwhelmingly put more effort into the latter.
As I've mentioned several times, Late Spring is a very unrealistic story. In contrast, The Eye That Touches the Abyss is also unrealistic, but I created various past narratives for the characters to give it as much plausibility as possible.
I did put Dohyuk's past at the very beginning of the main story in Late Spring, but that alone doesn't explain why Heeyeon would get turned on and seduce Dohyuk just from hearing her dad moan once. Why would a young Heeyeon throw away all other men to seduce her older dad... Yeah, no matter how I think about it, the plausibility just doesn't make sense here. Lol.
I subtly hinted that 'Heeyeon only met bad guys in her past relationships' and 'Dohyuk is a dandy, handsome middle-aged man'... but come on, it's still not convincing.
Before posting it on AO3, the Korean drafts for the main story were just typical smut fics. The sentences were just a mess. They were the epitome of "Tell, Don't Show," so tearing them all apart to fix them, and then translating that, was really no easy task.
Ironically, while the main story was in a really bad state, the Afterstories—which I started writing because I felt unsatisfied after messing up the main story—were in much better shape. So translating them into English was easier too.
For the main story, I had to fix the sentences one by one while translating... I revised as much as I could, but I still feel like its completeness is relatively lower than the Afterstories. Honestly, if you only read the main story, it probably just looks like simple incest smut. I'm not thrilled about that, but what can I do? Lol.
Something I realized while translating into English: if the Korean drafts are in good shape, the English translation is smooth too. Conversely, if the Korean drafts are total shit, the English translation is twice as hard. I guess you could say the higher the quality of the original, the less it gets ruined during translation...
In that regard, The Eye That Touches the Abyss was definitely much better to translate.
The initial motif for The Eye That Touches the Abyss was 'a man voyeuristically watching a woman addicted to masturbation,' and Late Spring wasn't much different.
The original motif was a story I saw on the internet. "My dad is a voice actor, and one night I accidentally heard him masturbating, and his voice was sexy."
I don't know if it's true or not, but for some reason, that story really turned me on. Lol. I thought it would be delicious to write a proper incest story based on it. So, to increase the narrative completeness, I technically should have attached a backstory explaining 'why Heeyeon was inevitably drawn to Dohyuk' to the main plot... but then the shock value of 'a daughter getting turned on by hearing her dad's moans at night' would fade. In the end, I decided to abandon plausibility and just take the titillation of smut. Lol.
For reference, I also briefly wrote a mother-son incest story, but no matter how I spun it, it could never develop into a psychological drama like Late Spring. It never goes beyond an angst smut fic.
Thinking about why the mother-son story couldn't develop into a psychological drama like Late Spring, I think it's because men are inevitably portrayed as the stronger party in traditional sexual dynamics (since women face the risk of pregnancy and are physically weaker).
In Late Spring, Dohyuk is a full-grown adult, so he could suppress his desires. But the son in the mother-son story is young and immature, so it didn't really make sense for him to hold back his desires. The older mother would have to be the one suppressing herself... which means the son would be the one lusting after his mom first, and then it just turns into rape... I really hated that kind of cliché progression. I prefer consensual sex.
To briefly explain the plot of the mother-son incest story I wrote: a mother catches her son masturbating, gets turned on, and somehow they end up fucking. The husband finds out, but the two mock him for having a small dick, and eventually, it's a smut where the husband miserably jerks off while watching the mother and son have sex. Later, the son feels pity for that pathetic dad and even graciously fucks him... It was that kind of bizarre smut. Should I post that too if I get the chance? Lol. The hit count would probably be crazy high, though it has zero narrative nutritional value.
But once I actually finished writing the main story of Late Spring, I wasn't really satisfied. This is it? It's a freaking incest story! Lol. Does it make sense that they commit incest and just live happily ever after? It was that kind of feeling.
Personally, I don't have an aversion to incest itself.
However, I am well aware that 99.9% of real-life incest involves sexual assault including the grooming of minors + coercion by power. In other words, my stance is that while incest itself isn't a sin, the secondary elements that accompany it are factors that inevitably harm others.
Stepping away from all that, I wanted to write a story about consensual incest between adults + a case where the father, who holds the power, is actually the passive one + a story that does not romanticize their sin until the very end. It's hard for that to exist in reality. Probably 0.01%?
Most incest stories just gloss over it by saying, "We love each other, we have no choice," and they go off to a foreign country and live happily ever after.
I absolutely hated that. Incest is a taboo for a reason, so does it make sense for them to live so comfortably without a care? I thought.
I set it up so that Dohyuk and Heeyeon in Late Spring don't feel guilt over social morals, but rather guilt over failing to keep their moral obligation to their dead wife/mother. And I think that's right.
It's not a matter of whether they are socially condemned; if the dead wife were alive, she would never have forgiven them.
Of course, I like Dohyuk and Heeyeon. They are characters I created, after all. However, I felt it was only right for them to pay a fair price for what they did. I just believe that when someone harms another, they shouldn't get to sleep soundly. Guilt might dull over time, but losing it completely makes a person worse than a beast.
Things got a bit heavy there—
If there were an afterlife and the two of them ran into the dead wife, what would the wife have done? Lol.
She probably would have grabbed Dohyuk by the collar and beat the shit out of him. She'd kick Heeyeon out, saying she can't stand the sight of her. Lol. As for Dohyuk, well, he deserves to get beaten to a pulp. What excuse could a father who fucked his daughter possibly have?
But eventually... since he's the husband she loved and Heeyeon's her own daughter, she probably wouldn't be able to cast them away entirely. It would probably end up as some fucked up ending where she and Heeyeon set a schedule to share Dohyuk, right? Lol. Wow, that's truly fucked up.
I guess it's better for those two if there is no afterlife!
I wanted to portray Dohyuk as a dandy, handsome middle-aged man who looks great in a suit, but I'm not sure if that came across well. He's a very unrealistic dad. In the end, aside from the fact that he committed incest, isn't he almost a unicorn of a dad? Even the incest itself, considering Heeyeon's seduction + his lack of contact with women for a long time + the situation where he only relieved himself through masturbation...
As you know, Dohyuk never resents Heeyeon in any situation. I set him up so he couldn't. The moment Dohyuk blames Heeyeon, he ceases to be Dohyuk.
Would a dad like this exist in reality? I don't think so. Especially when you think about the majority of criminals who insist, "My daughter seduced me, so I'm innocent!"
Of course, even if not a criminal, humans are animals that survive this harsh world by rationalizing their actions... so it's hard for someone like Dohyuk, who consistently never shifts the blame to the other person and just shoulders it all himself, to exist.
Why did Dohyuk become like that? I don't know. Lol. Late Spring definitely lacks plausibility when it comes to the characters. If you think about it case by case... there's no answer. The Eye That Touches the Abyss is much better in that regard.
Well, still, shouldn't there be at least one character like this in an incest story? A story where a dad freely rapes his daughter and feels no guilt is too cliché.
The same goes for Heeyeon. Heeyeon's depth is somewhat shallower compared to Dohyuk, but I still wanted to portray her as a character who shares the guilt equally.
Yujin is a truly great friend. If you had a friend like this in real life, it's something to be grateful for for the rest of your life.
The character Yujin was absolutely necessary in Late Spring. Without Yujin, these two would have remained as unrealistic characters typical of common incest stories. But because Yujin was there, I think I was able to shed a little light on just how precarious and abnormal their relationship is. Of course, it's still unrealistic, but with Yujin there, it adds at least a bit of realism, don't you think? Lol. There has to be someone who says, "You guys aren't normal, I don't get it." In reality, they would have cut ties and then some. I was a bit annoyed because run-of-the-mill incest stories rarely seem to have that.
Heeyeon in her 20s is a somewhat immature girl, but middle-aged Heeyeon understands Dohyuk's heart and has become a slightly more mature version of herself.
And Dohyuk too—in the main story, he said, “Alright… As long as you’re okay… I am too.” But in the True Ending, he became a wonderful old man who could honestly confess, "It was a choice… filled with conflict, anguish, and pain."
It's a common theme in The Eye That Touches the Abyss as well, but psychological depictions where they say "I'm okay" on the outside while actually not being okay at all keep getting highlighted.
I think everyone probably noticed that the main story forms a bookend structure of 'Dohyuk masturbating alone' at the beginning and 'Heeyeon watching Dohyuk masturbate together' at the end. Yes, that was a somewhat intentional design while translating it into English. Lol.
I don't plan on writing any more Afterstories for these two, and the reason is... it makes me, the author, uncomfortable.
I like happy endings. I really love narratives where the characters I create go through all sorts of trials but ultimately become happy.
But Dohyuk and Heeyeon carry the original sin of having done something unforgivable to their dead wife. They are people who have no choice but to live with guilt for the rest of their lives. So, while I tried to make them as happy as possible in the True Ending, it ultimately ended with them holding hands in the resting place and saying, "Don't forgive us."
It makes me uncomfortable that I can't make them happy without any reservations, so I don't want to write any more Afterstories.
They fucked nicely until they grew old — honestly, what more could I ask for as their writer? Lol.
Because the main story ended too much like a crazy smut fic, I had to really detonate their guilt in the first Afterstory, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That was the only way to revive the narrative a bit.
Since the atmosphere of this series was so gloomy, for my own change of pace, I included light works like Face-to-Face for Three in the middle, and also threw in pure smut like A New Taste...
But even while translating, I found myself caring more about the IF endings, which had a lot of effort put into the narrative, rather than the smut.
I wonder how everyone read the IF endings. When I wrote them, I didn't necessarily intend to justify their incest, but after writing them, I came to the conclusion that 'if not for this, there was no answer for these two'...
No, I just wanted to portray how lonely of a patriarch Dohyuk was! Lol. I just wrote impromptu, wondering how Dohyuk would act in this situation, and it ended up like this.
The Fugitive of Dawn For this IF ending, I intentionally wrote it to an extreme because I was so offended by AIs treating Dohyuk like a sex offender whenever the topic of incest came up. I was like, Dohyuk was this decent of a dad! Lol. Slapping his own face yet still getting turned on thinking about Heeyeon—I think that's somewhat natural for a man who hasn't been touched by a woman for a very long time and has only relieved himself through masturbation. Even knowing she's his daughter, Heeyeon is ultimately a woman, right? Dohyuk is too harsh on himself, but I think that's also his charm. This heartbreaking paternal love where he loves his daughter so much that he doesn't even allow himself to say the words... Sob.
A Prison Called Dream This is the one I put the most effort into regarding narrative completeness among the Late Spring series. I'm not sure if that resonated with you all. It's a plot I conceptualized while taking a leisurely walk... Even here, Dohyuk foolishly cannot resent Heeyeon. Heeyeon knows this all too well, so she begs him to please hate her, but... The ending with Dohyuk's death at the end might seem unnecessary, but I felt so sorry for Dohyuk in this IF ending. So I thought, let's just kill him off(?) Take the kiss you couldn't have while you're dying(?) That kind of vibe. Lol.
A Hollow He Cannot Name I wrote this one just lightly, but strangely, AIs say Dohyuk looks the most pitiful in this ending. Do you all think so too? To me, holding back desires you're already aware of seems more miserable than living without knowing them at all, so I think he's more pitiful in A Prison Called Dream. If it had gone this way, Dohyuk probably would have just kept masturbating until he died, right? Thinking deeply about it, even if Heeyeon hadn't seduced Dohyuk, I don't think Dohyuk would have been very happy.
How was the True Ending? Actually, I feel like I skipped over too many things in the Afterstories, but Dohyuk and Heeyeon probably put in a tremendous amount of effort to maintain their relationship.
People around them would have thought it bizarre for a fully grown daughter to remain unmarried and live alone with her dad for decades, and the more that happened, the more solid their social status had to be to avoid those questioning gazes.
And the setting of Dohyuk getting a vasectomy... I thought that was a given. When he first had sex with Heeyeon in the main story, it was an unexpected situation, so he inevitably came inside her. But since Dohyuk had no intention of meeting any woman other than Heeyeon anyway, he would have gotten a vasectomy right away for the sake of their mutual peace of mind. Heeyeon would have agreed to it, too.
Incest inevitably carries the risk of passing down genetic diseases, and even if it's not a genetic disease, having a child would inevitably expose their relationship.
Thinking about it that way, shouldn't Junho from The Eye That Touches the Abyss also get a vasectomy? You might wonder... well, let's think about that in the Afterstories for that one. Lol. Unlike Late Spring, I do plan on writing more separate Afterstories for that one.
After trying so hard, the two supposedly lived well into their old age. They probably still had sex... enthusiastically even in their old age, right? I did think about writing about their sex life in old age, but unfortunately, elderly sex isn't really my taste. It doesn't turn me on. Lol. It might have a unique flavor of its own, but I'm not tempted enough to put it into words. Like, go that far...? They probably fucked enthusiastically on their own.
Since Dohyuk was so pitiful, I wanted to make him happy somehow, but I think the current True Ending was my limit. Heeyeon was bad! Lol. If she hadn't seduced her dad in the first place, none of this would have happened! Actually, if Heeyeon were a truly good daughter, she should have introduced Dohyuk to a remarriage partner. Then Dohyuk would have remarried and lived well, and Heeyeon would have met a good man on her own, right? But then this story wouldn't have started...
I'm only now realizing, but all my writings deal with 'characters who relieve their loneliness through sexual desire'. Both The Eye That Touches the Abyss and Late Spring are like that. The stories I write in the future will probably continue to be that way too.
I haven't thought deeply about the dead wife. I didn't even give her a name. What kind of romance did Dohyuk have with his dead wife? Did he even date before that? A handsome man who looks great in a suit couldn't have completely lacked dating experience... I don't know. Please imagine it yourselves. Lol.
I feel sorry for Dohyuk and Heeyeon, but I prefer working on stories where I can imagine more freely. No matter how I imagine it, these two carry their original sin—they just can't be purely happy.
I hate writing more Afterstories because of that burden. Well, still... maybe someday I'll change my mind and really write about their sex life in their old age?
However, I don't think I'll be able to write various smut fics like the The Eye That Touches the Abyss Afterstories I've conceptualized in many ways.
Unlike Minji, who repeated one-night stands and even ate shit, Heeyeon is just an ordinary college student. Their level of sexual experience is completely different. Lol. At most, the light BDSM shown in A New Taste? And even that wasn't much, aside from binding her dad to turn him on...
Since they are ultimately father and daughter no matter how far they go, I can't make them do anything too extreme... As for smut, truly, if you take away the title of 'father and daughter,' they're honestly pretty tame. Lol.
Which means I'm currently brainstorming even more fucked up smut for The Eye That Touches the Abyss from various angles! Though when I'll write it in Korean and translate it into English is unknown.
Sorry, Dohyuk and Heeyeon. Lol.
It's just my writing style, but originally it was just a simple smut fic, but because I wasn't satisfied with just smut and tried to give it plausibility somehow, it turns into all sorts of psychological dramas. Because the smut I imagine isn't just ordinary sex but leans towards the extreme... when I think, What kind of psychology must one have to reach such an extreme situation?... it ends up like this. Lol.
It would be great if I could design it intricately from the start and then write, but unfortunately, I'm not that type... I just write whatever turns me on, and then add things when something feels lacking. Because of that, there are many parts I have to fix later because the beginning and end don't match up.
My writing relies entirely on the intuition of 'this character would act this way in this situation'... That's good sometimes, but it's a bit of a shame sometimes because it's not a precise design.
I'm sure there are many contradictions in Late Spring that I haven't noticed, but I don't plan on fixing it anymore. Since their relationship itself already lacks plausibility anyway. Lol.
Ah, but I really can't write ordinary smut fics. The sex scenes between Heeyeon and Dohyuk in the main story were truly hard to write too. A New Taste was a bit easier to write, but even then, because it lacked narrative substance while translating... honestly, I was a bit half-hearted while reviewing it too. The English there might be a bit more awkward. How on earth do you write ordinary smut? Please let me know. Lol.
Anyway, now I've completely run out of stockpiled Korean drafts. To be exact, I do have some left, but the sentences and progression are such a mess that translating them into English as is is impossible. And it feels like it would take too much time to revise and then translate them... so I'll probably be quiet for a while. I have to live my real life too... I probably won't be able to post a new work for about two years.
Still, I might be able to post an Afterstory for The Eye That Touches the Abyss here and there... and I might be able to post about one chapter of the next work I mentioned in the End note. Though I won't be able to finish the next work entirely right away because of real life.
I want to be good at English! Lol. Since I use AI to translate every sentence I post on AO3, I think about how great it would be if I could speak English fluently and write novels directly in English. That'll be tough, but... I look forward to further advancements in AI.
For narrative descriptions, I have AI review them at least 5 times, and for dialogue, I cross-check them more than 10 times. If that effort showed even a little, I'd be truly relieved, and thank you sincerely for reading.
I didn't know this, but AIs informed me that due to the nature of the incest subject matter, it would be hard for you readers to openly leave comments or hit the Kudos button. So I tried my best to scratch the itch on parts you might be curious about on my own. How was it? There was probably a lot of unnecessary chatter, but feel free to skip it. Lol.
Still, if you have any questions, please leave a comment, and I'll always answer them earnestly. Kudos, Bookmarks, Subscriptions, Comments—thank you so much for all of them, and a huge thank you to everyone who simply read as well.
I hope to see you in another work. Everyone, stay healthy. Thank you!