I'm in the course of re-reading and re-editing '100 Waifus' for the 39th time, and in doing so I had a flash of inspiration to fill in a plot hole that had been left bare until now -- Mavis had barely gotten any lines or scenes anywhere in the book, despite what an intelligent, beautiful and resiliently cheerful angel she was. As always I relied on Chapter 55 to get things right:
* * *
"Mavis, originally you were a war commander, not a scientist, so would you like to be reassigned to the military? Now that I've created all these rival planets we might need you." I inquired.
"If you're so certain we're going to end up at war with them, why did you choose such nearby star systems? MOMO could have used spacetime folds to put them on the other side of the universe." Mavis interrogated me in return.
"I guess there's a naive reason and a cynical reason." I replied.
"How very Zeref of you, always of two minds." Mavis giggled.
"The cynical reason is I can't rely on MOMO's powers forever, sooner or later we'll all die of old age, but there will always be more people we need to exile, so their communities have to be within arm's reach. But I like the naive reason more: Someday I hope the people of those planets will apologize and admit we were right, and on that day I want to be near enough to hear their honest pleas and bring all my lost children back into the Galactic Empire, as proud colonies no different from the others." I explained.
"I miss August too." Mavis looked at her bare feet despondently. "I'm sorry I let you down, I never noticed anything the entire time he was growing up."
"People change. The man you loved turned into a world menace, the son you gave birth to tried to kill you, it doesn't always turn out the way one hopes, and it's nobody's fault but the people who changed themselves. Everyone ultimately chooses their own course in life. Look at our eight other children, they're nothing like August chose to be, so how can it be our fault?" I reached out to hold her hand and stroked my finger back and forth over her wedding ring.
"If people can change, they can always change again." Mavis let her green eyes meet mine with a hopeful quiet smile. "So let's bet on your naive reason. However long it takes, however long a history of failure they need, to learn life's lessons the hard way, since we couldn't impart it to them the easy way, we'll always be here waiting for them. We're immortals, before and now, so waiting is nothing new for us."
"If we're going with naivety, I guess you don't want to prepare for war." I smiled back at her.
"I consider this our afterlife. After we died in each other's arms, we showed up here together out of the blue, celebrating the wedding we never got to share, starting the life we should have started long ago. God put us through a lot our first time together so she felt sorry and reunited us in heaven. Every day we've spent together on this aptly named planet, in this aptly named town, has reaffirmed my initial premise. This is heaven, and there are no wars in heaven." Mavis squeezed my hand confidently.
Like usual my suggestion went unheeded.
* * *
Of course Mavis deserves more. All the waifus deserve more. In an ideal world the book would be infinite in length and do nothing but show off how great all 100 waifus are from every possible angle and in every possible way. But if I can at least get across some of Mavis' qualities and the depth of her feelings for her beloved, that's victory enough. With this added section she goes from one of the least explicated relationships to around average, it's a huge change. And as a bonus it fills in another plot hole, where I mentioned at the very beginning of the book that MOMO can warp things through space but then chose not to warp any starships when I had the chance. I'm sure some people were wondering why I either a) mentioned this capacity or b) didn't use it, it's a mistake one way or the other. But as you can see it wasn't a mistake, it led up to this conversation with Mavis, so it all fits together perfectly.
The 39th edition of '100 Waifus' leaves no plot hole unfilled. By the time I'm done it's going to be perfect.
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