Few genres thrive online quite like slow-burn romance. The anticipation, the yearning — it's the kind of storytelling that naturally fuels fandom spaces and fan fiction archives. And on WEBTOON, The Mafia Nanny understands that dynamic better than most. The hit webcomic has spent nearly 100 chapters carefully building tension between its leads, Davina and Gabriel, while cultivating an intensely invested fandom in the process.

As The Mafia Nanny enters its third season on May 11, writer Violet Matter is thinking about a lot more than just romance. What started as a slow-burn about a fiercely competent nanny protecting the son of a handsome mafia boss has grown into something much bigger. Following the long-awaited payoff of chapter 98 (yes, that kiss), season 3 finds Davina stepping fully onto the offensive as the story digs deeper into the Angelini family and the dangerous world surrounding them. And while fans can expect a whole lot of action and espionage this season, they can also expect more skinship and stolen glances, too.

We talked to Matter about balancing romance with weekly serialized storytelling, how her fan-fiction roots continue to shape how she thinks about fandom and online community, and why the emotional heart of The Mafia Nanny always comes back to Mikey. Mashable has an exclusive first look at season 3's premiere chapter, "Episode 100."

It feels like season 3 marks a major turning point for the story. What feels most different about how you're approaching it now compared to earlier seasons?

Violet Matter: My understanding of the side characters has changed a lot. At first, they were more part of the fun-and-games aspect of the story. But over the first two seasons, they each developed their own goals and backstories.

So now, in season 3, it's been really interesting to think about the stakes for everyone, not just Davina and Gabriel, and what the implications are for how the rest of the story unfolds. Because you're right: This is a turning point. Davina is going on the offensive, and she's going to… upset some marbles, I guess.

I love Davina because even though The Mafia Nanny is a romance, she's also genuinely badass. With her going on the offensive this season, how do you see her place in this world evolving?

From the very start, Davina defined her own role. They had an idea of what they were getting when they hired her, but from day one, she stepped in and said, "This is how I'm going to do this job, and I won’t compromise on that."

So we're definitely bringing that energy to its natural conclusion. There are a lot of easy ways out that could've been taken that won't be. There's this deep sense in Davina that she needs to dot every "i" and tie up every loose end before this is all said and done.

She won't be satisfied with an ending where Mikey is just sort of safe or mostly safe. It's going to be all or nothing.

Protecting the charge is still the number one rule.

Yes, but she'll also have to reconcile how some of the other rules she's broken in order to preserve this rule, and how that plays out. She's been having her cake and eating it, too, for a while. I think we'll see some of those consequences as well.

You mentioned how your understanding of the side characters has evolved as the story’s gone on. Are there any other things that feel really new or exciting to you as a storyteller this season?

We get to see a lot more of the Angelini family itself. We've spent a lot of time expanding the world, especially in season 2, but now we’re going to see a lot more of the Don, and we're going to learn more about his endgame.

We know some of the things he’s done in the past that brought us to this point in the story, but we don't know all of them yet. So there’s going to be a lot more insight into his actions, both in the past and in the present, as the season unfolds.

Are we finally going to find out the origin story behind his obsession with olives?

That started as a really minor joke in the script, just a little quirk to keep the bad guy interesting. And it's evolved into something that honestly deserves its own backstory. So yes, there has to be a dark reason for all of this.

After 98 chapters, Davina and Gabriel finally kissed at the end of season 2. Did crossing that line change the way you approach their relationship?

We've had to walk a tricky line in season three because there’s still so much plot left to unfold. It's tempting to make every episode just Davina and Gabriel finally getting all their skinship and quality time together. But I do have to give the other characters screen time.

Their dynamic is only going to get stronger, especially as Davina finally starts to let down some of the last walls between them.

I love the word "skinship."

It's important visually, especially in comics. In prose, you can have intimate moments that don’t rely on physicality, but in a visual medium, the physicality is right there on the screen. So even something really minor can feel like a huge moment.

You've said before that you didn't necessarily feel confident writing romance. How do you approach those scenes now?

It's still very difficult for me. I feel like I could write fantasy or humor all day long, but when I get to romance scenes, I stop and overthink everything. I have to outline even really simple interactions because it feels like there’s so much politics at play between two people. There are so many things you can get right and so many things you can get wrong.

Everyone’s experience of love is so specific and unique. What works in real life for my husband and me is such a narrow experience compared to the whole spectrum of love, so figuring out how to portray romance in a way that feels emotionally accessible to a broad audience can feel intimidating.

So I think all you can really do is focus on what these characters need emotionally and where those needs meet in the middle.

You also come from a fan fiction background. How did that experience shape the way you think about character and romance?

It definitely influences the way I approach romance because I sometimes hesitate to commit too hard to romantic content. There’s always a little voice in the back of my head going, "The fans will write that part."

The fan fiction writer in me is always thinking: "Create a cool world and let other people play in it."

Sometimes I worry that if I make something too canon, I’m cutting off avenues for fans to imagine other possibilities. But the reality is, if fans don’t like something, they’ll just remix it anyway, and that’s beautiful.

Exactly. They’ll just write a "fix it" fic. Do you feel like writing fan fiction made you better at writing serial storytelling?

Absolutely. It made me comfortable writing serially and just starting without being afraid. With my first project, Forever After, we really didn't have a solid plan. They basically let me run wild with the plot.

The Mafia Nanny was more structured because crime and action stories need tighter plotting. We approached it with a more deliberate system for weaving threads back together and making the pacing feel really tight. But at the end of the day, it's still serial storytelling. I almost never follow my outline.

How far ahead do you outline?

We have kind of a vague mountaintop in the distance that we think we’re heading toward, but usually, I only have the next chapter or two outlined. After that, the characters kind of do what they want.

I was so happy to see Mikey get such a beautiful emotional moment in chapter 100, especially with his mom. I think it's easy to forget sometimes that he's still just a little boy who lost his mother. So how do you approach writing grief through a child’s perspective?

It was really important to me from the beginning not to villainize Mikey’s mother. It would've been easy to make her cold or awful because that’s often the first thing stories reach for in this kind of setup. But I didn't want to make commentary about her character beyond the fact that she was Mikey's mom and he loved her.

From Mikey's point of view, she was a great mom. And losing her is devastating, regardless of who she was. When I write him processing grief, I think about my own toddler and the way children narrate situations to themselves. They often get details wrong or invent explanations that help them make emotional sense of something.

Mikey has a little bit of that happening. And for him, it really hasn't been that long. The whole story takes place in less than a year.

How does Mikey's journey this season shape the decisions Davina and Gabriel make together?

One of the major themes this season is family. Hopefully, the story centers on the family these characters are building together, even with all the action and intrigue happening around them. Mikey is absolutely the heart of that family. He's symbolic in some ways because all of these characters are working toward a better future, and children naturally represent that. But he’s also incredibly specific in what he needs to feel safe and happy.

This season is really about the family staying together and realizing their potential.

Are there any other major themes this season besides family?

Probably compromise. A lot of the characters are going to have to make decisions that are less than perfect. I don't think the ending of this story is going to go completely one way or another. It'll probably end in an imperfect compromise.

The Mafia Nanny is built for vertical scroll, which is such a unique reading experience. How does writing for that format shape the way you build tension or emotional payoff?

The artists are much better at using the medium than I am. I try to leave space in the script for them to take advantage of the format because they constantly come up with visual ideas I never could. But it has been fun to experiment with things like pacing panels vertically and thinking about how tension evolves as you scroll.

There was a really cool moment in season 2 where the producers figured out how to embed a GIF effect into the comic. As you scrolled, the words moved while the image stayed still. I still don't know how they did it.

There are so many possibilities in this format that I don't think anyone has fully unlocked them yet.

You've said before that you read the comments, and Webtoon readers are obviously very engaged online. How do you navigate that feedback loop while still protecting the story you want to tell?

It's a delicate balance. I love reading the comments, but it can be tempting to engage too directly. Because I came from fan fiction spaces, I learned early on that fan communities are sacred. Even though the fan in me wants to participate, I think there needs to be some distance. I never want fans to feel like the writer is invading their space or pulling ideas directly from them in a way that feels murky.

So I mostly just read comments, enjoy them, and occasionally like particularly clever ones.

It's really cool that you've publicly embraced your fan fiction roots instead of distancing yourself from them.

I can't really walk away from them because fan fiction is literally why I have this job. A producer read my fic and reached out asking if I'd ever considered writing comics. I genuinely thought the message was spam.

Fan fiction is such a powerful way to find community and practice storytelling. It's not the writing I'm most proud of, but I'll always proudly claim it because I loved writing it. And honestly, fan fiction just gives me so much joy.

I was trying to explain to a friend recently why I love fan fiction, and I realized there’s almost no logical explanation besides: why wouldn't you?

If you approach it as a form of creative transformation, then anyone can understand that. Why is SNL so popular? They're taking stuff in culture that's real, and they're giving it a new spin, a new lens. That's all of humor. That's a ton of fairy tales and fantasy, the things we come back to again and again.

The Mafia Nanny really works as a slow-burn romance. Did you ever feel pressure to speed things up?

There's definitely pressure from readers who want the kiss immediately, preferably in episode 1, and then every episode after that.

But honestly, I think that pressure is a good sign because it means readers are emotionally invested. Slow burn storytelling is difficult in a serial format because the biggest danger is that readers get bored week to week. You don't want it to feel like constant teasing without payoff. So if the characters aren't together yet, there has to be a believable emotional reason why.

Personally, I love the yearning.

Me too. Sometimes, if characters get together too quickly, the tension disappears.

What are you most excited for fans to see in season 3?

There are a lot of really fun things coming up. Season 3 leans more into an espionage vibe because there are now so many characters with conflicting motivations who are all lying to each other. I'm excited to see readers theorize about which characters are secretly aligned and which ones are working against each other. There's going to be a lot of intrigue.

I love seeing different characters take center stage at different points. It creates opportunities for so many subplots and emotional dynamics.