The cast of the webnovel Note
Ham Dan-i, a regular girl whose hobby is reading the webnovel "Law of Insomnia" suddenly wakes up to a webnovel like world where she is placed in the position of the Heroine's best friend turned enemy out of jealousy. Determined to leave the webnovel world and back to reality, Ham Dani is determined to not make an enemy out of the protagonists of the romance webnovel that she wound up in.Except that things aren't as simple as Dan-i grew to form friendships with the characters of the fictional world and the lines of what is her reality and what is her fiction starts to get blurred.
"My Life as an Internet Novel", or known as "Inso's law" is a webnovel written by Yuhan with a webcomic adaptation illustrated by Ahyun. The series began in 2015 and started out as a novel at Kakaopage before being adapted to a webcomic, which can be found in Kakao
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The webcomic adaptation is localized by Tappytoons in English in 2019 and can be found here. The original webnovel has been translated to English in the Webnovel app under the title The Law of Webnovels
Warning: A good portion of the Tropes elaborated here contains spoilers from the completed Webnovel. You have been warned.
My Life as an Internet Novel contains the following tropes:
- Amnesia Missed a Spot: In the Wham Episode, despite Dan-i being temporarily forgotten when she is forcefully brought back to reality, traces of Dan-i's presence and existence are still present. Jooin saw Dan-i's phone number registered in his contacts and his photographic memory lets him realize that something is amiss. When Dan-i is later Ret-Gone from the memories of the main characters due to the author's actions down the line, the emotional impact that Dan-i had on them didn't leave and they end up feeling like something's missing.
- Becoming the Mask: For as much as Dan-i claims to not be attached to the cast of the fictional world, the Wham Episode shows that Dan-i is far more attached than she lets on and truly see the characters of the fictional world as her friends.
- Big Eater: Discussed Trope when Dan-i saw Yeoryeong eating plenty but Never Gets Fat as one of the things found in webnovels.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: Discussed by Dan-i when she mentions about tropes that can be found in a romance webnovel and then played straight when she meets the four potential male leads who will interact with Ban Yeoryeong. Even support characters aren't exempt from this such as Lee Ruda and Yeoryeong's brother, Yeodan.
- Childhood Friend: In the fictional world, Dan-i is set up to be a childhood friend of the original heroine Ban Yeoryeong who eventually got jealous of her. One of Dan-i's objectives of survival and hopefully returning to her original world is to stay as Yeoryeong's childhood friend and best friend than to follow her supposed role in the fictional world.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Dan-i briefly dated with Yeoryeong's brother, Yeodan but this was later deconstructed as Dan-i later realized that she doesn't romantically like him as much as she thought and dated him because he's in close proximity with Yeoryeong, and Yeodan eventually broke up with her when they both decided that they're Better as Friends.
- Dude Magnet: The longer Dan-i stayed in the webnovel world, the more Dan-i started attracting romantic interests from several characters from Jiho, Chunyoung, Yeoryeong's brother (Whom she briefly dated with at one point before breaking up) and Lee Ruda.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The ending of the webnovel has Dan-i eventually choosing to stay in the fictional world, but it took a hell lot of turmoil to get there.
- Generic Cuteness: Dan-i is considered to be rather plain looking, but she's rather cute overall. This is, however, something of a subtle plot point: Her looks were improved by entering the web novel and before she actually had issues with her complexion and so on whereas now she's just not a breathtaking beauty. Even a side character needs to have a certain level of attractiveness, apparently.
- Genre Deconstruction: Of the Trapped in Another World variety combined with Media Transmigration. To note:
- In these stories, the protagonist often have enough knowledge of the setting they are in and use the knowledge to properly advance the scenario so they can quietly leave and return to their original world. Dan-i, however, has no knowledge of how the media transmigration happened due to actually being alive unlike the other protagonists of the similar genre, and only managed to move forward for as long as she did out of Genre Savvy-ness. Then the Wham Episode hits and it's revealed that Dan-i is always thrown back to her original world every March 2nd if she starts thinking that the people in the fictional world are real and had to persistently think and remind herself that she is in a fictional world out of fear that she'd leave the new friends she made in the new world behind so she is torn between wanting to stay in the new world or return to where she originally came from.
- Later on, Dan-i is revealed to be at risk of being erased from the memories of the fictional characters due to meeting the author who wind up in the fictional world as well, as she told Dan-i that not only was Dan-i not supposed to be there, the author's "editor" can still influence the story to a degree. Unlike the rest of the cast and contrasting similar stories where a person who reincarnates as an extra in the original story end up becoming part of the major narrative on their will, Dan-i is at risk of being axed and doesn't have the same plot protection that Yeoryeong and the boys had.
- Genre Savvy: Dan-i, due to her avid reading of webnovels, is savvy and recognized at least some of the tropes and cliches in a common Korean romance webnovel. However, that doesn't mean that Dan-i is always 100% savvy, such as when she mistook Lee Ruda for being a girl in disguise when the other characters knew that Ruda is a boy.
- I Choose to Stay: The end of the webnovel has Dan-i eventually choosing to stay in the fictional world due to her growing attachment to the characters whom she start to see as real people and her friends and her love for Jiho.
- Lady Looks Like a Dude: Discussed Trope that is ultimately a Defied Trope. Dan-i assumes that Lee Ruda is this trope but he actually wasn't.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Due to Dan-i being Genre Savvy, she would often note and lampshade tropes that are commonly found in Korean romance webnovels in her own inner narratives.
- Metaphorically True: The closest to the truth that Dan-i can tell her new friends of what plagues her early on is telling them how she had a dream every year about being in a world where they don't exist. Though what happens was the opposite, it still remains the closest to thing that Dan-i can tell her new friends in the fictional world without compromising them with even more existential crisis about how they're fictional and that Dan-i wasn't supposed to be here.
- Morton's Fork: The Wham Episode reveals that Dan-i's existence runs in this trope. If she gets attached to the fictional world and it's characters, she'd get sent back to her original world, but even after she starts consciously making the decision to think that she's stuck in a fictional world and had to get back to her original world, it would leave her stuck in the fictional world. No matter the decision, Dan-i ends up suffering from it emotionally and mentally.
- Never Gets Fat: Discussed at one point by Dan-i as one of the "rules" of webnovels when she looks at Yeoryeong eating a lot and doesn't get the repercussions from the action.
- Next Life as a Fictional Character: Dan-i starts out being placed in a typical webnovel scenario. However, unlike the common examples in this trope, Dan-i is not only still alive, she was later revealed to have been sent to the webnovel world by accident due to the author's Reality Warper powers.
- Reality Warper: The author of "Law of Insomnia", No Ari, has this power and this is why Dan-i ends up trapped in the fictional reality, as she accidentally magicked Dan-i and herself to the fictional world that she created.
- Trapped in Another World: Essentially, the story starts with Dan-i waking up in a world that would better fit a romance Webnovel and try to leave and return to reality. But things aren't as simple and Dan-i was stuck in the fictional world for years.
- Uptown Girl: Gender-inverted. Due to the boys being rich and having a higher social hierarchy, their romance with Ban Yeoryeong and Dan-i would come off as inter-class romance.
- Ship Tease: Two of the characters that Dan-i has heavy Ship Tease with over the story is with Jiho and Chunyoung with Jiho ultimately being the one that Dan-i fell in love with. Meanwhile, Ban Yeoryeong has Ship Tease with Eunhyung.
- Wham Episode: A year after getting used to life in the fictional world, Dan-i was forcefully returned to the real world and realize that her sense of reality is getting blurred. While Dan-i disappeared, everyone in the fictional world forgot about her until she comes back half a day later. The incident forced Dan-i to have to remember that she is stuck in a fictional world and if she started to see any of her new friends as actual people rather than characters from a fictional work, she'll disappear and be forced to return to reality.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Played for Laughs regarding Dan-i's assumption of Lee Ruda's backstory. She thought Ruda is a crossdressing girl who had to enter the school as a boy to protect herself, but in reality, he is male. The misundertanding ends much later.
