#Machiwrites Bonus Content

[machiroads]

Oooh, can I ask about your The Way of the House Hero WIP?

Ah yes my Aizawa Gets To Retire AU (because I simply do not have it in me to believe that he would still be teaching high school full time after all the Everything)

I'm here today (and every day) to talk about CATS. Everyone has their own cat headcanons for him I'm sure, but these are mine :]

Their names are Kuroo and Tsukki because I am not done stealing names from Haikyuu. Canonically, Eri names them.

Kuroo is a black tripod.

Tsukki is a one-eyed ragdoll.

Shinsou finds both of them on the side of the road (not at the same time) and was like "hey do you want this fucked up cat" and Aizawa was very much a "dads who do not want pets" at the start (cross-referencing Vigilantes here) but he's retired now and Shinsou is very good at manipulating him

[machiroads]

For the WIP folder game, The Way of the House Hero?

Since my last post on this WIP, the series has actually ended, and I have drawn my line in the sand that The Way of the House Hero will be A) post-canon divergent and B) probably a hydra with many heads. More of a miniseries than a single fic. Predominantly because I refuse to believe that Aizawa would continue teaching high school full time once his current batch of problem children graduates.

Regrettably I don't have any of my latest brainrot written down yet, but my own headcanon now is that in this particular version of the universe, Midoriya is not Aizawa's colleague, but his replacement. Aizawa still subs from time to time, which is arguably a much funnier role for him because the student population gradually forgets he exists and he gets to haunt them anew every time.

Post-canon-finale, I am also having brainrot about Eri's grandfather coming back to try to rebuild a relationship with her and it leads to the most tense conversation of all time between him, Aizawa, and Nezu because the grandfather is still in touch with Overhaul, and ultimately ends up with Nezu planting the seed that Aizawa could petition the court to legally adopt Eri.

neither of those are WIPs so have a conciliatory WIP with a loose scene after Nezu tells Aizawa to adopt Eri

[machiroads]

2, 5, & 17 for the ask game!!

5 and 17 answered in a previous ask :)

2. talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “fuck your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.”

It's the Only One Bed scene from ch24 of 9L. The clandestine middle-of-the-night visit was planned. The “Fuck you, I was going to let you sleep in the bed tonight, but now I’m having second thoughts” was very much a case of Character Writing Themselves.

Not that I think anyone had a problem with that... ;)

[machiroads]

I wanna ask ALL the questions, but I had to restricted myself. So 5, 11 and 17!

5. have you ever made a playlist about something you were writing as an elaborate means to procrastinate when you could have been actually writing and if yes drop a link, son

Nine Lives has its own playlist that I use as Vibes Music while writing, and it's approximately 95% music from Spiritfarer, Fruits Basket (2019), and TAZ Balance. It's a private playlist in YouTube music (because we pay for ad-free YouTube), but I have previously shared screencaps of the tracklist in this previous ask meme :D

Naruhata Noir also had its own writing playlist that was mainly moody jazz but it was significantly less used than the 9L playlist. As in I am currently on a plane and just listened to the 9L playlist to nap to. IT'S A GOOD PLAYLIST, WHAT CAN I SAY.

11. what’s something neat you’ve learned while doing research for something you were writing? also, how much do you worry about doing research in general?

I learned all sorts of wild and wacky tidbits (perhaps too many tidbits) about the human body while researching for 9L, the first thing that comes to mind is that the cross section of a tibia is teardrop-shaped (not circular).

For my canon-verse fics I lean towards overdoing it on research (whether its reviewing the source material or technical research on the topic at hand). I'm slightly more relaxed about AUs, except for the mer-pirates one where I spent a shitload of time researching the kinds of ships pirates used and then absolutely none of it made it into the fic orz. But I think research helps to ground a story in reality, even if the subject matter is slightly fantastical.

17. what is your favorite line you’ve ever written?

YOU'D MAKE ME CHOOSE A SINGLE LINE???? OUT OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF WORDS?????????

Honestly, A lullaby for insomniacs from ch16 of 9L was poignant enough to name the entire series after, so that's probably up there.

[machiroads]

Tag Game: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six

Rules: Give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

Thank u for the tag @blinkeasy 👑

One - Fic with the most hits: Nine Lives (46,495 hits). This is just a silly silly number but I think big long multichap fics lend well to hit counts so I don't look at this number too closely.

Two - Fic with the second most kudos: Naruhata Noir (358 kudos). Shinsou Shpinoff my beloved 💜

Three - Fic with the third most comments: When the Battle's Lost and Won (84 comment threads). This is equivalent to approximately 17 threads per chapter, on average. GOOD JOB REGULARS 🫡

Lullabies for Insomniacs Top 3 sweep 💛

Four - Fic with the fourth most bookmarks: A Tumultuous Sea, You and Me (89 bookmarks, 50 public). Mer-pirates, my beloved 💙

Five - Fic with the fifth most words: A Tumultuous Sea, You and Me (again) (6,825 words). I honestly forgot it was this long, yknow when you just spit out 7k in a fever dream of a weekend because you got so obsessed with paizawa, haha me neither

Six - Fic with the fewest words: Dwelling Units of the Ancient Gods (2,197 words). I am back on a FE3H kick, so I am including this little drabble written for the Felannie Spring Fling 2022, an incredibly thrown together drabble from my unhinged Land Development AU.

I am going to be lazy about tagging ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[machiroads]

⭐️ + Nine Lives for the director’s cut ask game!!

DEALER'S CHOICE YOU SAY

I'm gonna take a moment to yap about the rooftop confession in the penultimate chapter because almost all the comments I get on it are just people flailing incoherently. Which is appreciated of course, but I crave specificity~

Mic has just like. Speedrun the 7 stages of grief vis-a-vis Aizawa joining the final battle, so Aizawa finally getting his head out of his ass the night before armageddon (or even having any reciprocated feelings at all) is a Complete Surprise to him.

The name change from family names to given names was targeted with laser precision for maximum impact.

This is not Mic's first kiss, but it is Aizawa's, and he's pretty bad at it. But he's a quick study :^)

And lastly: it's Fruits Basket. All the way down. 14 years later, and Kyoru is still The Confession of all time. (Spoilers for a series that has been in circulation since 1998 I guess).

I alluded to this in the endnote, but so many of the emotional beats in Aizawa's confession are borrowed directly from the Kyoru confession, from Aizawa's point-blank asking if Mic is in love with him, to Mic getting overwhelmed and running away, to the emotionally dense Aizawa being the one to awkwardly try to confess his feelings. I'm pretty sure I had Desires Arise As Long As We Live from the 2019 soundtrack on repeat writing this, for extra reinforcement. (even though it's a little too sappy for most scenes, it still gets to live on my Lullabies for Insomniacs writing playlist because I will be needing it again for Kintsugi >:)))))))

Anyway, spot the similarities under the cut lolol

[machiroads]

For the director's cut, will you talk a little bit about Aizawa and Ennoshita reuniting in chapter four of When The Battle's Lost and Won?

Ennoshita, my beloved. Their reunion was something to come out of the Post-Kuroboro-Death-Rewrite, and originally it was going to go with the rest of Aizawa's reunions with his students in Chapter 3, but that proved to be Too Many Reunions for one chapter. So it got punted to Chapter 4, where it makes slightly more thematic sense now that the kids are not in immediate peril. In my list of "reunions with everybody", it somehow came out ahead of like. Tokoyami, who is also there, but I can't write Tokoyami. Sorry buddy.

It was one of the trickier scenes to write, trying to strike a balance between genuine mutual gratitude, Ennoshita's pathological need to provide continued care even after Aizawa has graduated, and Scary Teacher comedy. I rewrote it a couple times, and I actually ended up finishing the second half of it in Word Sprint and I was getting lapped on word count so it was like "y'know what, good enough, let's keep it moving".

[machiroads]

hit me with 7 and 11 for the fanfic ask game bestie

#11 If you had to pick a single trope to read for the next seven-and-half years, which trope would that be?

Probably like. Slice of life? As much as I love h/c and angst and [REDACTED] I really do just enjoy stories about blorbo from my shows like. going to the grocery store.

#7 Share a line or paragraph you’ve written that you don’t think will ever actually be posted in anything! (Or, if you don’t hoard cut sentences and passages like I do, share anything you want that has yet to see the light of day!)

JUST FOR YOU I also got you a tidbit from the now defunct version of When The Battle's Lost & Won where Kuroboro lives, and he is discussing Mic's uh. Complicated feelings with Aizawa.

"I think Hizashi is mad at me."

Shouta shrugs. "Probably."

"Are you mad at me?"

Shouta closes his eye and passes his hand behind his neck, rolling the base of his skull across his knuckles. "I'm too tired to be mad at you," he replies, a ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Judging from the deep smear of purple under Shouta's one visible eye, he's probably not bluffing about that.

"I think Hizashi is mad at you on my behalf," Shouta adds, his voice not betraying any emotion.

"Because of USJ," he clarifies.

"And Jaku," Shouta adds. "And the other day. He's tired of seeing me get fucked over by you guys."

He winces at Shouta's language, but really, it's his own crude assessment of what happened, he can call it whatever he wants.

When Tomura disintegrated his elbow at USJ and had a Nomu pound his face into concrete, that was him getting fucked over. When Tomura shot him with a quirk-destroying bullet, then mangled his eye so severely it had to be removed, that was him getting fucked over. When he unleashed the Sad Man's Parade on Shouta and his student the other day, that was him getting fucked over.

"I—I don't know what he wants from me," he says stupidly.

Shouta shrugs again. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"

"I don't think he wants to talk to me."

Shouta rolls his eye, exasperated. "Man with voice quirk doesn't want to talk. Yeah sure," he says sarcastically.

He leans over to smack Shouta's arm, and it's solid, meatier than it ever was when they were kids.

Shouta swats his hand away, a grin playing at his lips.

"The kind of resolution Hizashi wants…I don't think is suitable for someone that's hospitalized."

"You think he wants to fight me?" he asks incredulously.

Shouta smiles. "As much as he loves to run his mouth, he's a tactile person too."

"Kind of childish though, isn't it?"

"We were kids when you died," Shouta rationalizes.

"Seventeen isn't that young," he argues.

There's a tightness to Shouta's eyes, the creases visible even around the eyepatch. "Maybe it didn't feel young then," he says quietly. "But it does now."

It takes him a moment to remember that he's only one third of the reason Shouta is temporarily staying in Tokyo; him, Mirko the number five hero, and Bakugou Katsuki.

"How's Bakugou," he asks. Yet another piece of Tomura's handiwork, several times in the running.

"Doing better," Shouta replies. "He's always been very conscientious of his own health. An early to bed, early to rise kind of kid. He'll be fine."

[machiroads]

I Always want to hear more about When the Battle's Lost and Won, but I thiiink I asked about that one last time so BACK TO FFXII AU for the WIP ask game!!

AU for a game that came out in 2006 has a target audience of approximately 2 people but 1 of them is me and that's all that matters!!!!

Shirakumo gets to be alive in this one, here's a little moment that puts my heart in a vicegrip

[machiroads]

7 and 9 for the ask game 👀

#9 Do you prefer to read angst or fluff? Which do you prefer to write?

Angst all the way down, mainly because I have a mild aversion to pet names ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#7 Share a line or paragraph you’ve written that you don’t think will ever actually be posted in anything! (Or, if you don’t hoard cut sentences and passages like I do, share anything you want that has yet to see the light of day!)

The fun part of this is trying to find tidbits I haven't already posted as WIPs lol

Here's a fun lil tableau from the now AU version of When The Battle's Lost & Won where Kuroboro lives from Kuroboro's perspective. Trouble x3 plan an intervention to make Aizawa (who has sort of set up shop at the hospital since the war ended) go home

One night, after Shouta has left, he goes to find Aizawa's other charges. He wanders the halls until he finds Bakugou Katsuki on a nameplate, and knocks politely. A short woman with rabbit ears and more missing limbs than intact ones answers the door. The thread of a memory of Shouta telling him he had to resort to making friends with Mirko the number five hero bubbles to the surface.

Seems he's getting a two-for-one deal tonight.

"They let you roam the halls at night?" Mirko asks.

"Uh, not really," he admits.

"Who is it?" comes a snappish voice from inside the room that could only belong to Bakugou.

"It's the artist formerly known as Kurogiri," Mirko responds, still blocking the door.

"Fuck's he want," Bakugou volleys back.

"Fuck do you want?" Mirko presses.

"I'm here to discuss an intervention," he replies, for lack of a better answer.

"He says he's—"

"I fucking heard him," Bakugou interrupts, sounding more than a little tired of the charade already. "Just let him in."

Mirko turns around to waltz back into the room, and he can see that there's a game of checkers set up on the tray table pulled up to Bakugou's bed. The kid himself doesn't look too worse for wear, though if he's still here, he's still not ready to go home.

Mirko makes herself comfortable on the bed opposite the kid and the checkers board. He takes the chair beside it.

"Did you guys know Shouta hasn't been home for three and a half months?" he asks.

Mirko and Bakugou both blink simultaneously. She turns to the kid and explains, "that's Aizawa-sensei to you, kiddo."

"I know his name, asshole," Bakugou snaps.

[machiroads]

I will always beg for more scraps for 14/32 I haven't stopped thinking about it

pilot/ATC AU my beloved, I watched a long-haul Toronto-Hong Kong pilot perspective video that's been in my To Watch list on youtube the other day because it's RESEARCH

it's been a while since I touched this one, but here's a snip about burnout :D

[machiroads]

🌝 and 😈 for the fanfic ask!

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?

Honestly I just want to write Aizawa and everyone else around him is ancillary. I get grumpy when I have to write characters that are not Aizawa. So in summary, the true answer to this question is No haha.

If I had to pick a character that I wanted to write more, maybe Shirakumo? He got a little snippet in my merpirates fic, and he gets to be an actual character in the FFXII AU and the Pilot AU, but tragically he doesn't really get to exist in my canonverse fic (for obvious reasons).

😈 Is there anything you enjoy doing that you think your readers hate?

My writing is universally lauded by all readers so no lmao jk

Idk if I had to think of something, probably that I swear a lot? But I also swear a lot in real life. It will happen again, and I'm not sorry. If you would like to read something I've written that has 0 swear words I can send you a traffic study, which you will probably wish had more swears in it.

Also if I had to think of an actual story element that I had a great time with that got like 0 reception from readers was Shinsou brainwashing Kurogiri, which was probably a shark-jumping moment for some people, but was rad and I wanted to do it so everyone can suck it

[machiroads]

Hi, Machi! For the fanfic writer ask game, can you do 1, 5, 39, and 90?

5 has been answered in a previous ask :)

1. do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

I do generally try to come up with an ending before starting the actual Writing Process, if only just to give myself a direction to move the story towards. I find that a lot of the time, the ending I had originally imagined will change as the story progresses, but that's part of the fun of writing!

39. are you an avid reader?

I am a very All-or-Nothing reader. I go between binge reading like 100k in like 3 days, to weeks on end of not reading at all. I have found that getting a library card and signing up for Libby has (somewhat) forced me to be a more regular reader because I have a deadline to return the book.

90. do you notice your own voice in your writing style?

All the time! But part of the charm of writing is that it's your own :)

[machiroads]

If you're still answering questions about the WIP game from a few days ago, I'm curious what Kintsugi is about 😊

This is how their relationship has always moved—not at all, and then all at once. Eraserhead, Present Mic, and the months beyond the war.

Kintsugi is the epilogue to Nine Lives, told from Mic's perspective. It's an exploration into the evolution of their relationship as partners, with a gratuitous helping of body worship.

Google docs tells me I started working on it on July 2, 2022, which was very much while I was still smack in the middle of writing Nine Lives, so this has been a long time in the making and I will be very happy when I can finally share this one.

[machiroads]

When the Battle's Lost and Won (my beloved) for the wip folder ask game!!

We wrapped up the last chapter drunk on a rooftop with a half a bottle of expensive whisky. Unfortunately for the boys, this has consequences.

[machiroads]

For the fanfic writer ask, 1 and 10?

#1 Have you pulled inspiration from media sources other than the property your fic is related to (a plot point from a TV show that has nothing to do with the characters/setting of the fic, a line from a book, etc.)? If so, for which story? Why did you find that media source compelling?

I borrow A Lot from the works of Hiromu Arakawa. I've shamelessly borrowed several NPCs (if in name only) for 9L from FMA (Ishikane) and Silver Spoon (Yoshino, Inada, Tokiwa, Mikage).

Arakawa's ability to pull off mood whiplash is also #goals. (Spoilers for FMA) but there's a chapter in which one character is whining about getting bamboozled by a villain with big tits, and at the very end of that chapter they become paralyzed for the rest of the series. I just think that angst and comedy should go together hand in hand because it makes you appreciate both the dark and the light side of life and that the reality of human existence is inherently ridiculous.

#10 If you could banish a single trope to live at the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again by any human eyes (or at least your own), which trope would that be?

Miscommunication for the sake of introducing drama/conflict. I'm sorry I just can't