PAPER FLOWERS ( k. bakugou )

PARTING MESSAGE

; to everyone who made it this far
- i love you.

▪ it's done. finally.

▪ i will never ever get tired of saying thank you for all the wonderful experiences i had the pleasure of going through because of you. thank you for the never ending support, appreciation, and the time to time humor that never fails to bring a smile on my face. i wholeheartedly appreciate it.

▪ plastic flowers was supposed to end that way. with a cliffhanger. with the supposedly never-ending question of what happens next? but then i realized that i had so much to do, so many holes to fill, questions to answer and characters to develop. i didn't want to waste potential from kaede to kohaku. they got their chances to shine here hence paper flowers was born.

▪ writing a sequel is very difficult since by the time there is already a second book, the readers are already familiar with the characters and you guys are all perceptive people so you'll notice the moment i write someone out of character. i've already established personalities and backstories and the world is set up, i remember that it was only a matter of expanding every single one of them. and i hope i did a good job.

▪ now kaede, mizuki freaking kaede is so hard to write because she's borderline your redundant bloodthirsty oc who's trying to change her ways for the better because she saw light, somebody triggered that desire and now she wants it. she's volatile and angry at the world. she's selfish, prideful and self-centered and oh god, it was so difficult to find ways to make her go over into the light. the only person she trusts is tomoe, the only person who she thinks she can trust is tomoe so when tomoe did what he did and told her all those things, the world stopped spinning for her. partner it with the pain of the memories and the what ifs and the things that could have happened if only she chose herself, i think that it was the trigger for kaede.

▪ i mean, she could force herself to stop the memories, but it's those things that power her quirk, and kaede's power hungry so that wouldn't be her. she's selfish too and you could look at it this way, now that tomoe is gone and no one on this side is going to be close to me the same way with him, where do i go now?

▪ i drafted two endings and the course of the endings relied on chapters 36-40. the result of the operation would determine kaede's fate. in the first ending, that is the ending we have now. i'll call it true ending. here, the backlash of kaede's time manipulation quirk or tempus will be that it shortens lifespan and slows down bodily functions so the whole plot will expand to the enigmatic moriyama's (the family of kaede) and she will be rendered quirkless cause she won't be allowed to use it anymore. ( note: the counting habit has decreased. compare it with the first chapter of plastic flowers and you'll see. so she's still quirkless. it is just not emphasized).

▪ second is my favorite. kaede will die. in this ending, tempus' or kai's quirk's backlash would be making bodily functions slower (regeneration, etc.) so the spike that hit her would be more fatal and her body would make it difficult to heal. in this ending, kaede will call yuko and tell her to write some letters as dictated by kai. these letters are adressed to every single character she holds a bond with. and it'll be a shitload of tears. then that's it. your lie in april or something of the sort. but kaede is not sentimental, and it would take a whole lot of contemplation on who should receive the letters.

▪ i chose the true ending because the whole point of paper flowers is that even though it can have damages and creases, it is still paper and you can still create beautiful flowers with it. redemption.

▪ now i'll have to admit this isn't a perfect story since it does run on a lot of overused tropes, but i still love it and i really appreciate all the love it's getting from you. maybe in some stroke of faith, i'll edit this, but for now, it's this ruined thing.

▪ all of us can be ruined at some point in our lives, so please please remember that we may break, fall or shatter in the face of hardships, but we can still carry on. we are human and we are capable of enduring every single thing the world throws at us. we might ruin things, become ruined ourselves, but we will still endure.

▪ for the last time in the artificial flowers duology, thank you so much i love you and no matter how pretentious this sounds, you guys mean the world to me, you rocked my world and lit it up with colorful fireworks that light my way so thank you so damn much uwu and goodbye!

- kylalily, 2018