SPOILERS: This chapter and further chapters contain spoilers for Academy M - Mistake 7.
198.)
"Oooh, this is an early story, huh? Maria is commenting about the term Candies for candidates. And I agree it's super cute!"
"Yeah, well. Since Judith is the first Candy, it makes sense that it takes place first in the timeline." Actually, I wanted Academy M to be the earliest and the latest. I wanted it to span the whole length of all the other stories so far. But I would have that conversation with Blossom after she was done with the chapter.
Blossom only made it a few more lines down before she broke out in a smile. Maria was going through the filing cabinet that made an appearance at the end of Academy I.
"Oh hey there, that's my girl Ai's file you got there! Oh, and Kione's too. Gosh I love these little manifestos; it's like a blurb on the back of an old action figure card."
Then Blossom was quiet, because she simply couldn't stop herself from reading. Her mouth was open just a little bit, and her eyes were glued to the screen. Because, near the end of the chapter, Maria met Ai for the first time. Nana met Ai, and the beginning of the Academy Works series replayed from Maria's point of view.
"Holy fuck."
"What do you think?" I asked.
"I think this is the coolest thing ever! Babes, your fans are gonna love this. You did exquisitely well with the reveal too! Was this always the plan?"
"Yeah. I mean, actually..." I leaned back on the sofa and pulled one of my legs up under me. "Originally, I wanted a few chapters at the start. Then, I wanted to tell the whole Academy I and Academy B stories from Maria's perspective. Then I would have a few chapters at the end to wrap stuff up. But the stuff with Judith took a lot longer than I thought. And I'm starting to realize that the stuff with Judith is going to keep taking a long time. So... should I be time skipping through this stuff? Academy M is already very long..."
"So, we talked about this last time. Personally, I like a well-used time skip. It helps move things along. There's only so many ways you can write a wetting scene, right? Or a messing scene? After establishing the downfall, skipping forward to the next downfall is more rewarding to the reader than rehashing the same one."
"So, it's like retreading the same territory..." I said, trying to reword Blossom's advice. "I thought it would be cool to see things from Maria's perspective, but her story is so much bigger than I imagined when I came up with this idea."
After everything with Judith so far, Ai felt so tertiary to Maria's character. Was it really fair to spend a half-dozen chapters talking about Ai? It was Judith that Maria wanted to get back to.
"I think it's super cool to see some stuff from Maria's perspective, but you want to be strategic about it. Big moments for Ai might not be big moments for Maria, but sometimes they could be. So quality over quantity I think, or you end up like one of those writers who does the same wetting scene a thousand times, just to pad their word count thicker than Ai's diapers." Blossom smirked.
"Good point."
What was important to Maria? Was Ai important? Not really. Not until the end, anyway. So maybe I should time skip?
Either way, it didn't matter right now. It was already pretty late, and my eyes were hurting from staring at my computer screen all day. Plus, I didn't get a ton of sleep that morning.
"Do you wanna get dressed up all cute?" Blossom asked.
I thought about it, but in the end I shook my head. I think part of declining her offer was self-harm; I felt like I didn't want to even try to be happy, or to try to break out of this spell I was under. But the other part was just a lack of energy. If I started to feel any kind of Little, would I be able to follow up on it? Would my apathy leak into my Little space? It felt too risky.
So Blossom and I spent the entire weekend together without either of us wearing a single diaper. It sucked.
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