Weekly Progress Update [4/APR]

A day late on this, woops!! Hope everyone had a good start on their week tho ✨

I'm happy to say I surpassed my 15k words goal for March and made it to 18k words by the time of writing this post. My goal for April will be 25k words, so hopefully by the end of it I will have finished all the LI route opening scenes and be up to ~45k words for the chapter!! 

Progress so far

I've finished the first draft for X's opening scene and am halfway through their romance scene, but I've noticed my focus doing a bit of ping-pong with all these scenes. I totally forgot to post another preview for their route last week as well, so here it is instead:

“Why do you have that dagger?”

You turn to look at $aname, taken aback by how stunned $athey appears. “$xname gave it to me.” 

“$cxthey gave it to you?” $aname repeats incredulously, glancing back down at the dagger in your hands. “Did $xthey tell you who it originally belonged to?” 

“It belonged to someone else?” You assumed $xname was the only one who owned it, but looking at it again, despite its well-cared for state you can make out subtle signs of wear and tear. Little scratches along its sheath, the edges of pearl looking a little worn along the handle. “Whose was it?” 

“$cxtheir mother’s.” 

Your fingers tighten around its sheath in shock, then twitch with the urge to put it away. “$cxtheir mother’s? Why would…” You look down at the dagger in complete disbelief. “Why would $xthey give it to me?” 

In case you forgot about the dagger, it's time for it to make a little reappearance! Lots and lots of juicy moments in X's route, I've been having tons of fun with it.

However, as I said, I've been going back and forth between various scenes because there is SO much I want to get to, so I also made a good start on R's route for this chapter as well. That one is less juicy and more painful 😭

Your hands reach for $rthem, but then halt and hover in mid-air, uncertain of whether you should even touch $rthem while $rthey’s in this state.

“It’s alright,” Perjin speaks quietly from beside you. “You can hold $rtheir hand, if you wish. Your magic won’t cause any problems.” 

You take a slow, deep breath, calming yourself as you sit down on the edge of the bed and gently take $rname’s hand in yours.

“$crtheir fingers are cold.” Alarmed, you rub $rtheir hand, feeling how clammy and cool $rtheir skin is. You turn to Perjin. “Why does $rthey feel cold? What’s happening to $rthem?” 

Neither R or the Crown are having a good time at the start of this chapter, RIP.

I also realllyyyy wanna get to A and D's routes, but I'm exercising a modicum of self-control and forcing myself to book some progress on X and R's first, or I'll keep swinging back and forth on these lol.

Aside from the LI routes, though, I'm also very excited to get to the meat of the plot developments and the Crown's continuing development as both a ruler as well as their inner conflicts.

Those seemingly flavor text choices in CH6 and CH8, relating to how the Crown is dealing with their grief? Yeah, they're about to get very relevant in CH11. The pressure on the Crown has been building ever since they arrived in Marabad, and now, with the political stakes getting higher and higher, it's a very tense position to be in both mentally and emotionally.

The water spirits may or may not be involved! Who knows 🤐

That was it for this week!! Take note of the updated schedule that's pinned for Patrons! I've planned all the content out up to and including August now.

Until next time 💖