Sooooo we're finally done?

And everyone deserves an explanation because... Honestly? This wasn't supposed to happen. And it's the least that I owe you all.

If anyone feels like the ending feel a bit choppy or abrupt or just weirdly put together, then I am with you on that. Because originally, the plan was different.

Arc 3 was supposed to have 4 chapters and 2 extras.

Part 11 was going to be their pre-wedding ceremonies and Part 12 was going to be the wedding. Extra 1 was going to be the YeonBin sidestory and Extra 2 was going to be an Epilogue of 5 years later. Then I decided to just do 4 chapters of Arc 3 by combining the original Part 11 and 12 into one and the Epilogue as the part 12. Except even that didn't work out...

While I was writing, honestly, I struggled a lot with Arc 3. I was just not in the right headspace? Established relationship is not my forte of writing and I suck at it. I also don't like to read it much (I'm more of the type to read abt the pining) so it was like trying to stay afloat without knowing how to swim or something. I just... didn't enjoy it. But I also wanted to wrap up this story because, well...

Royally Screwed is a failure of a fic.

Ok, that sounds a bit dramatic, and I swear it's not like I hate this fic or anything (I quite like it actually). It's just that the final outcome is nothing like the original plans. There were things and ideas I wanted to convey through this fic that I just failed at.

For example, one of the main purposes of writing this fic was that I wanted to write an accurate arranged marriage fic? I see a lot of people having this misconception that arranged marriage is a forced marriage. Which, people can have misunderstandings especially if their culture doesn't really have arranged marriages. But mine does, and it's really not a forced thing. (Most of the time–)

But for plot purposes, that was totally sidelined and then forgotten, lol. I also wanted RS to be a little complicated and interwoven but I'm absolutely no good at that. My brain is too simple and I don't do mystery very well, hm...

The other thing I wanted to have through this fic was marriage. Rather, a wedding that is similar to my culture and religion. I always saw weddings in fics usually happening the Christian way (or the western way? I don't know what it's called) and I wanted to write a wedding that has all the events and ceremonies of my own culture. But when I got to Part 11, I just couldn't write it because I kept thinking that it's too boring? The wedding scene is not driven by any plot and no one would want to read that. So I just scrapped the whole thing and just... wrote an epilogue.

Honestly, the epilogue ran from me TT The characters basically just did their own thing and I'm not very sure about that ending because Taeseok was supposed to end up as their kid but instead they agreed to take time which wasn't quite the original plan (like I said, my characters ran away from me) so now the ending is open. You can honestly just imagine it whichever way.

But the way I had planned it was that Taehyun would feel comfortable with Taeseok eventually. Yeonjun and Soobin, after clearing the politically charged air of the Fire kingdom for the most part, would want Taeseok to be the heir. They don't want to raise any children in the Fire kingdom because weeding out a possible coup is not something that can be done in a few months. It would take them years. So TaeGyu would adopt and raise Taeseok and eventually give him the choice to just live like a normal person or to be the next Fire king.

So the conclusion of my rambling?

Thank you for reading this fic! Even though I am not 100% satisfied with it, Royally Screwed is the longest fic I have ever written. I grow tired of my own fics super quick so longfics are hard for me to write. The fact that RS lived in my head for more than a year and that I could write and finish it is a miracle in itself. I'm happy with this fic even though it's not what I had planned.

I will be over the moon if it has ever made you smile or laugh or feel anything. That's all I have ever wanted in response to my fics. I just want to make people happy ♡

Thank you to the people who commented on this fic and gave me the boost to finish this. When I first started this, I gave up midway through the first chapter. At that time, my friend read through it and hyped it so much that I excitedly wrote the whole Arc 1. In the break that I took after Arc 1 while I had my exams, the friend and I had a huge falling out. After that, it was a bit hard for me to get back to this fic but I did it eventually. However, my enthusiasm for it dwindled down by a lot, so you might feel a difference in the style and overall feeling of the arcs. At that time, the comments kept me motivated and going so I really want to thank every single person who left even one comment saying they loved this fic.

Thank you also to the silent readers, who left kudos and bookmarks! (like, SO many bookmarks) (no seriously, more than half of those are private and I'm actually scared about why they are private) (I'm such a nosy person, so please make them public, I'm curious–)

And thank YOU, if you stuck around to listen to me ramble about this fic. (Because I have no one to ramble to hahaha~)

It's time to say farewell after well over 50k words; if you enjoyed, you can definitely check out my other taegyu fics (ranging from drabbles to around 15-20k in size) or if you are here for just this ride, then farewell, my lovelies :D

I hope our paths cross one way or the other ♡