Author's Afterword: Reflections After Completion
While uploading the completion afterword as Chapter 15 and going through the Plus review process, I got a call from a Nobelpia staff member about the content rating. Just to clear up any potential misunderstandings, the staffer was kind and perfectly reasonable in their explanation.
I'd thought 15+ just meant avoiding specific sex scenes or descriptions of certain body parts. But they informed me it's essentially no different from all-ages guidelines. So I decided to dial back the spiciness way down from my original planned storyline.
I could have gone with a 19+ tag, but since it's not straight-up smut, slapping an adult rating on it felt like a shame. Now that it's finished, it ended up as a completely different story from what I'd initially envisioned. Part of me thinks tagging it 19+ might've been fine after all, but I don't regret holding back—plenty of readers enjoyed it as is.
That said, my own limitations meant I couldn't express a lot of things properly, and I'm truly sorry to anyone who had a disappointing experience because of that.
The biggest surprise during serialization was this: I'd intended for the situations Vivi gets put through to be the turn-on, but the reactions were mostly about how Vivi himself was hot. Discovering an unexpected strength like that made writing it a real joy.
Thank you all for loving this story up to the end.