Saturday, March 4th
(If you are following Academy Works, please read Ch.8 [linked above] and return here to continue the story. If Ch.9 has been released, it is recommended that you DO NOT read it at this time.) SPOILERS: This chapter and further chapters contain spoilers for Academy M - Mistake 8.
206.)
There was a sickly malaise on Saturday morning. It was hard to get out of bed. It was hard to eat breakfast. It was hard to open my laptop and work on Academy Works. I think the only reason I was able to do anything at all was because I was still wearing the training pants Blossom got me. They brought a little bit of sunshine to my otherwise dreary day.
All the same, Saturday was still better than Friday. I was able to make a few jokes with Blossom. I was able to finish an entire bagel for breakfast. I was able to write. The ache of "twenty-one" was a little numb, and it would only become more numb over time. I could work with that.
Starting anything was a chore. Keeping most things going was also a chore, like watching TV or playing Xenoblade on my Switch. But writing and baking were unique: once I got started, they were easy to keep going. All it took was a few paragraphs for me to slip out of the real world and into the imaginary. It was like pushing myself off a cliff; I just had to get over the edge and the rest would come naturally.
Ultimately, I took Blossom's advice from the week before: I didn't focus on Maria's time with Ai. The only part of Ai's story that was interesting to Maria was the end of it, when Maria could leave and get back to Judith. After that, it was your average ageplay narrative: Maria taking care of Judith and casually mentioning how cute she was in diapers. Ya know, like normal nurses do.
"Maria really doesn't like Ai, huh?" Blossom said, reading through the first few paragraphs.
"No, I think they have a very antagonistic relationship." Even the post-writing read-through with Blossom was exhausting.
"I never really thought about how Miss Porter felt in those stories," Blossom admitted. "Everything was about Ai and Bala."
"Mmhmm. I think Xenoblade is influencing me, since it's all about revenge and stuff. Ai is a foil for Maria. She represents a lot of Maria's anxieties about... like... losing control of the situation. So I figured Maria would resent Ai a little."
"Yeah, that fits her character," Blossom agreed, then went on reading. "Wait, so is the mistake this chapter that Maria didn't take off her glasses?"
Every chapter of Academy M had a mistake of some kind, hence the chapter titles. Usually they were grand displays of foreshadowing, but sometimes they were simple. This one was maybe a bit too simple: Maria had chosen to wear her reading glasses when visiting Ai to make her look smarter. When she got back to Judith, it was a month later and she kept wearing them out of habit.
"Yeah, I want Maria to be fallible," I explained. "Or, uh... she's not above stupid mistakes. Plus, it's kind of a personal joke, because I forgot Maria wore glasses when I started writing Academy M."
"So you are the one that made the mistake!" Blossom laughed.
"I retconned it," I defended. "Anyway, finish reading."
The rest of the chapter was just Maria babying Judith a little, getting her accustomed to things like nightgowns and diapers. Normalization stuff. Nothing grand. But Blossom did have one final comment.
"Judith doesn't like princess stuff? Is that more self-insert?"
"No, I like princess stuff," I admitted. "I just thought it would be fun if Judith didn't. Then, if Maria makes her wear anything princessly, it's another layer of dominance."
"Sexy," Blossom said, more to herself than to Amy.
Mistake Eight was a short chapter, shy of two thousand words. But it took me a long time to write. Even though it was easy to find a good workflow, my depression made everything take longer. I worked for a little while on the start of Mistake Nine, but ultimately my heart wasn't in it.
I stayed in my pajamas and training pants for all of Saturday. Blossom continued to coddle me, playing the attentive babysitter. It didn't help, but it didn't hurt either.
By Sunday, Blossom and I spent another weekend together without either of us wearing a single diaper. It sucked.
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