Weekly Progress Update [27/JAN]

Somehow January has both felt like it has taken ages to pass and also as if it went by in the blink of an eye lol

I've still been plugging away at the court scenes, which is possibly why January has felt so damn long for me! The thing is, I had a whole outline planned that was very straightforward, but then my IF dev brain was like "wouldn't it be soooo cool if we added more variations" lol.

Specifically, for R and A! I think I mentioned maybe that they would also get a little court scene variation since X and D had theirs in a previous chapter, but in classic me-fashion, I am doing Too Much for it lmao. We're still early in the process, however, so if I notice that it's dragging on too much I can edit things out or shorten them considerably while going over the final draft, so we'll see.

Here's a little more details for each route:

A Route

A romancers, so, you may or may not have had a fight with A after that fire that destroyed an entire city district. Since all that has seemingly been resolved, it's all good now, right?

Wellllll, the Imperial Court has a thing or two to say about that.

I mean, a city district did get burned down, and the court will want to know what the suspected cause of it was (not that the Crown can reveal it to them lol). And some of the officials definitely noticed when A was absent right as that whole disaster took place. Sooo, there might be a bit of an interrogation going on.

How pressuring the court officials end up being depends on the Crown's standing in court: if they managed to get rid of the Office of Law, or have an alliance with Minister Awir, or have Lady Naza on their side, it will be easier to come out on top. If none of the above 3 conditions are met, however, the Crown will come out looking worse for it 😬

It's a good thing that even a Crown who had that argument with A and was in a low romance state made up with A at the end of CH12, because imagine having to deal with the political headache while A is still mad at you 😭 That would be too cruel, even for me.

R Route

R's variation won't be as dramatic as A's, since there wasn't a whole city district set ablaze, but it'll still cause a similar amount of stress. Namely, aimed at R directly.

The court will want to know why R was out of commission as the Crown's Sorcerer for several days while recovering from their coma. Especially antagonistic characters within the court (such as Welat and/or Besna) will take advantage to try and tear down one of the Crown's most important allies. In a way, it's not really about R at all- they just want to undermine the Crown's support structure.

But it will feel very personal for R all the same. Their entire character arc revolves around their self-confidence, their insecurities, and issues of self-worth. With the entire court questioning whether they are fit to be the Sorcerer, it's going to hit all those vulnerabilities for them- even worse for an R that's in a low romance state, where their confidence is even shakier and their state of mind more fragile.

I feel so bad for doing this because R is like the precious baby of the group, but also no I don't because I live for the angst 👀 It'll be up to the Crown to protect R from this. Exactly like with A, it will be easier if the Crown has an ally, but if they don't... well, it's going to be rough on R is all I'm saying 💔

How extensive these R&A court variations end up being entirely depends on how much self-control I have. But since A and R are the only two to get a divergence for the court scene (since X and D already had theirs), it'll be less work compared to usual at least!

But I do want to limit it to some extent so that I can actually finish this chapter within the reasonable timeframe of 3-4 months instead of 1.5 year again 💀 So I'll be keeping that in mind as well: if I notice that writing it turns into too much of a timesink, I'll just edit down parts so I can finish it more quickly.

It's a WIP story after all. I can always revisit it at a later date to edit it if I feel like it or if you guys give me feedback for it.

I'll be uploading the 2nd part of R's CH12 character snippet for tier 3 sometime within the next few days, and that'll be it for January!!

See ya next month 💖