Chapter 138: Creative Anarchy

The seminar room at Deokan Resort.

The Gatmedia employees sat in a circle, their wheeled desks and chairs arranged like school clusters. They hadn’t come to this workshop just to eat and play; they were here for a script meeting for the new sitcom, *The Chaotic Twelve Zodiacs*.

I intended to lead the meeting using the methods I had seen in Hollywood. I harbored a grand dream that if this meeting went well, I could introduce various other methods to serve as the foundation for a new Korean-style system.

“Alright, shall we begin?”

First, I distributed summaries of each episode and character descriptions I had adapted from the version of *The Chaotic Twelve Zodiacs* I saw on Gatflix. The script was originally being handled by junior writers, but I hadn’t been able to look at it properly due to my busy schedule. Therefore, our first task was to check which parts of the existing material were worth keeping.

Since the other writers were seeing this for the first time, I briefly introduced the plot and characters.

*The Chaotic Twelve Zodiacs* begins with a strange family moving into a small rural village in Korea. The observer is the only child in the village, an 8-year-old named Han Da-on. Most of the villagers look at this new family with suspicion. It was common for city people to move to the countryside claiming they wanted to farm, only to ruin the neighborhood atmosphere and leave shortly after.

Moreover, this family felt eerily strange. The villagers felt this strangeness most acutely through their fashion, behavior, and conversations.

The mother, father, grandmother, son, and daughter made up a family of five. Their zodiac signs were the Rat, Ox, Rabbit, Sheep, and Rooster, respectively. However, they went beyond simply being born in those years; they behaved bizarrely, as if they were those actual animal deities.

For example, the mother would walk around with rat whiskers drawn on her cheeks and mimic a rat by saying “Squeak, squeak” at the end of every sentence. Naturally, people couldn’t help but think she was crazy.

As for the daughter, there were eyewitness accounts of her hopping down hills on one leg or sitting hunched over on rainy days, watching giant earthworms wriggle before suddenly pecking at them and eating them.

Who would like neighbors who engaged in such bizarre behavior in a village already hostile toward outsiders? Only 8-year-old Han Da-on looked at them purely, without prejudice, as the story unfolded.

In reality, they were minor gods who served the Twelve Zodiac Deities. Taking on human forms, they were guardian spirits living among humans to watch over them. Because of this, their original animal habits occasionally slipped out. (If they used excessive power, their ability to maintain a human facade would diminish as a side effect, revealing their true forms.)

Aside from those quirks, they were grateful beings who saved their neighbors from danger and solved difficult problems whenever they arose. However, the core comedic element of the story was the friction between the villagers—who failed to realize their true intentions and instead shunned and despised them—and the guardian deities who kept trying to get closer to the people.

“Oh, the plot is really good.”

“The characters are hilarious, too.”

Hong Ju-hee and Jo Min-seong, who had joined to help with the meeting, each offered a comment.

I planned to take this twelve-episode miniseries and split it into 30-minute segments to create a fifty-episode sitcom. To do that, I had to keep the main axis—’guardian deities living in hiding who eventually grow to love humans and risk their lives to save them’—while reinforcing the character episodes and strengthening the narrative.

In a sitcom, characters are everything. If you create charming characters before trying to make the story make sense, the story will roll along on its own.

Like the character of Na Moon-hee in *Restless High Kick*, who proved her patience by screaming “Pumpkin sweet potato! Pumpkin sweet potato!” or the character of Noh Gu in *No One Can Stop Them*, who was the epitome of an old curmudgeon and created the ‘Slightly Angry, Medium Angry, Very Angry, Extremely Angry’ meme. Even the kid character Mi-dal from *Soonpoong OB/GYN*, a pint-sized “gangster’s wife” who was stubborn and beat up most the boys, was a prime example.

A well-made character was worth more than ten plots, as they allowed a writer to generate an infinite number of episodes.

“Alright, then let’s each choose a character you want to handle and brief us on how you’ll shape them.”

I asked the writers to pick the characters they wanted. Jeong Tae-mi chose the mother (Rat), Pyeong Taek-su chose the son (Sheep), and Im Seong-hee and a writer wearing red glasses both chose the father (Ox).

“Hmm. Then let’s hear from the two who overlapped first. Writer Im Seong-hee?”

“Yes. I’ll talk about the father Ox character.”

Writer Im Seong-hee presented a stable and well-developed character, starting with ‘Moo’ as an interjection, followed by habits like plowing the neighbor’s field at dawn, habitually kicking backward, and catching flies. Everyone nodded in agreement with Im Seong-hee’s character composition. As expected, a writer who had already completed a drama knew exactly how to construct a character.

I looked at Writer Im with a sense of pride. Since the father character played a significant role in the story, I felt I could trust her with it.

“Um, excuse me, uh…”

“That’s Writer Song Yu-chae.”

Seo Sun-ae, who read my mind instantly, quietly whispered the name of the writer in red glasses.

“Ah, yes. Writer Song, would you like to tell us about the father character you’ve created?”

“Yep. First off, I want the dad to have a nose ring.”

“A nose ring?”

“Yeah. You know, like a nose piercing, but the ring kind.”

Writer Song Yu-chae made a circle with her thumb and index finger and held it up to her nostrils.

“Uh, it looks like you just put your fingers in your nose.”

“Pfft.”

Hong Ju-hee, who was watching, couldn’t hold back her laughter. However, the writer in question continued with a nonchalant face.

“And while what Writer Im said is good, I think people will be able to predict those things to some extent. It would be better to jump beyond that range.”

After that, Song Yu-chae relentlessly poured out outrageous ideas.

‘Trimming horns that grow every night’—do oxen even have growing horns?

‘Getting scolded by his wife every time he says moo’—but “squeak” is okay?

‘Milking himself every morning’—but he’s a man?

They were somewhat nonsensical, but because they were so unexpected, the sense of comedy seemed much more alive.

“Isn’t that… too ‘trashy’ humor?”

Writer Im Seong-hee couldn’t hold back and voiced her opinion. In the end, we decided to take a majority vote. Jeong Tae-mi and Seo Sun-ae voted for Im Seong-hee’s idea, while Hong Ju-hee, Jo Min-seong, and I voted for Song Yu-chae’s.

“Considering the Gen Z sensibility these days, I think something intuitive and provocative rather than logical would be better for creating memes.”

“I agree. I think it would be much funnier if we added those to Im Seong-hee’s ideas.”

As Hong Ju-hee and Jo Min-seong added their thoughts, it was finally decided that Song Yu-chae would take the lead on the father Ox character. It wasn’t just about the ideas; I liked that Song Yu-chae didn’t back down and said everything she wanted to say. She vaguely reminded me of my friend Kay, whom I met in Hollywood.

At first, I had briefly succumbed to old-fashioned thinking that the second-in-command writer, Im Seong-hee, should take the lead. But having an open meeting like this where everyone participated resulted in much higher-quality ideas.

“Alright, next. Let’s talk about the mother Rat character.”

From then on, the meeting became even more aggressive. Since it had been proven that within this room, ranks were stripped and only skill mattered, everyone began venting their absurd ideas, criticizing and picking apart one another.

‘Yes. It’s going exactly as planned.’

Though they hadn’t grabbed each other by the collars yet, I sat back and watched the shouting match with a satisfied smile.

***

Early in the morning, Seojiwon took out some dried *bakdae* fish sent from Gunsan and gave them a light wash. She meticulously wiped the moisture off the fish with kitchen towels and made small incisions. On one side, she finished preparing the grill by oiling it in advance. After setting up the brazier on the outdoor veranda, she carefully carried out the *bakdae* on the grill.

She thoroughly oiled the fish without any seasoning and placed it on the brazier. It soon began to sizzle, and a savory aroma wafted into her nose.

“Ooh. It looks delicious.”

She arranged the *bakdae*, grilled to a golden brown on both sides, neatly on a plate. Then, she brought out the five types of side dishes she had made over the weekend one by one. Water kimchi, seasoned bean sprouts, stir-fried potatoes, sautéed seaweed stems, and braised quail eggs in soy sauce.

Just then, the pressure rice cooker gave a cheerful announcement that it had finished cooking. Seojiwon scooped a heaping bowl of steaming white rice and served a perfect Korean meal, complete with a bubbling gochujang stew.

“Thank you for the food.”

Seojiwon first took a spoonful of rice, blew on it, and chewed a mouthful. Meanwhile, she used her chopsticks to tear into the well-cooked *bakdae*, revealing its plump, appetizing flesh. She put it into her mouth without hesitation. Immediately, a savory and rich fatty flavor filled her mouth. The skin was grilled to a perfect golden brown, providing an excellent crunch. Just as it started to feel a bit greasy, she washed it down with the spicy gochujang stew—it was a truly magnificent pairing.

After finishing her hearty meal, Seojiwon washed the dishes while patting her slightly full stomach. As she wiped the plates with a dry towel and organized them in the cupboard, a momentary doubt flickered in her mind.

‘Is it really okay to live like this?’

For two weeks now, she had been spending her days as a “useless” person, doing nothing but cooking, eating, and cleaning at home without any special schedule. All her filming schedules had been canceled, there were no commercial shoots, and no requests for broadcast appearances were coming in. She was having the most leisurely time she’d had in the last 3 years.

‘Hmm.’

However, she felt strangely comfortable rather than worried. It was likely because she had lived such a frantically busy life until now. Seojiwon sat by the window with a piece of homemade cheesecake and a cup of tea she had brewed. It was good. It was definitely comfortable and nice, but…

‘Am I lonely?’

She felt quite pathetic as she constantly checked her KakaoTalk list on her phone, imagining how others were living. She felt a sudden impulse to contact Writer Lee Junghyuk first, but she barely managed to restrain herself since Jeong Tae-mi had told her he was at a workshop.

‘It’s a shame to let the day pass like this.’

She was hesitating over whether to contact a female actress of the same age she had become somewhat close to during a previous shoot when a message arrived.

– Unni! Are you busy?

The message was from Cheon Na-young.

– If you have time, do you want to go on a date with me? I’ve wanted to see you for a while.

Seojiwon had heard through the grapevine that the drama Cheon Na-young was preparing for as the lead—the one by Writer Im Seong-hee—had been canceled. She felt a sense of camaraderie, as their situations were similar. Seojiwon’s drama by Writer Jeong Tae-mi had also fallen through just as filming was about to begin.

After contemplating for a long time, Seojiwon sent a nodding rabbit emoticon. She felt a bit embarrassed thinking about how they had bathed together in Tokyo before, but she also felt that Cheon Na-young had such a good personality that she would lead the way well.

– Sure. Things are a bit hectic, but if it’s hanging out with you, I have to make time!

She didn’t forget to pretend to be busy even though she wasn’t at all. This was her final bit of pride as a senior in the industry.