Our Little Dorm Mother

Afterword

Hi reader! If you are coming from Chapter 39, I have structured my Afterword so that you can read the explanation (because I know how curious people tend to be) first and the rest of the Afterword you can read after you have finished the rest of the book.

Take this as a warning: spoilers ahead!

When you see this symbol ~*~ please stop reading unless you want to ruin all the surprises that are still ahead of you.

If you are reading this and you have finished the book then, you are welcome to continue on.

EXPLANATION ON CHAPTER 39

So I told you all in my author's note that I will explain why Our Little Dorm Mother suddenly took a dark turn.

The best way to explain this is through Mirei's/ Nami's/ Little Umma's characterisation. Throughout the book, I have been dropping hints as to what sort of person Nami is (I will refer to her in this name). Hopefully, you have managed to pick up that she is an independent, self-efficient and stubborn person. While this is her strength, it is also her weakness.

Nami thinks that she can do everything herself and with her skills in judo, she thinks that she doesn't need to rely on anyone. As she mentioned to Chanyeol during the retreat, "I'm not a damsel in distress" which annoys him. Because of her arrogance, she ends up in a compromising situation which was chapter 39.

The idea behind that event was to show that despite her tough exterior, she was still vulnerable and that she needed to learn to rely on others. It wasn't explicitly mentioned but Nami didn't consider being in any trouble because she trusted Ryuk. However, I did hint during Chanyeol's and D.O's conversation that they were somewhat reassured that Nami was tough and that she could 'handle it'. The problem was, Nami was just human. In spite of everything, she was liable to getting hurt and her independence led to her demise.

In all honesty, I was on the fence about writing that chapter. I wanted to keep this fanfiction as light-hearted as possible but, at the same time, I wanted to show you that not everything is sunshine and rainbows. I wanted to write a fanfiction that was quite close to what could happen in reality because some of the fanfictions I've read, were so far-fetched that, I found it hard to relate with the main character.

I wanted to show you a different side to Nami too. It was the only way I could give her a more well-rounded personality. Furthermore, this event adds to another twist in the story which you will (or have already) read.

So in short, I apologise for the sudden turn to suspense thriller. I did feel pretty bad writing it but I promise you, it was necessary. Hopefully, you weren't too distressed.

~*~

CHARACTERISATION

In this part, I'm going to discuss how I characterised the EXO members and other important original characters.

Mirei

See main explanation above. The only thing I can add is that I'm sorry for the confusion with so many names. Even for me, I got really confused on who calls her what and so on. In my original draft, the MC was going to be called Nami throughout the whole book. But then I thought, "Hey, if I was going undercover, why would I use my real name?" and that trail of thought led me to invent her an alias.

The funny thing is, 'Minami' was actually a typo that flourished into an important motif. I was also playing around with her full name which was Na Mirei or Mirei Na. As you can see, Nami can actually be taken from her full name.

Also, I have a feeling that you guys might be wondering where Nami is ethnically from. Well, I was pretty vague about her ethnicity because I wanted you to decide for yourself. The only thing that is certain is that she's not Korean (despite her Korean name). 'Mirei' is just a variant of the name 'Mirae' which means 'future.' Why did I choose that name? Easy. Because of chapter 67. And it was taken from the K-drama, 'Marry Him If You Dare' (I was a Jung Yong Hwa fan so I watched a lot of his dramas back in the day).