30/8/25 Update

So... there's no getting around it... I'm burned out. My mindset has fallen into 'get chapters out' instead of 'enjoy writing chapters', in hindsight this arc has been hard for me to write. Jumping around to so many POVs, not really feeling it enough to stick with Lori for very long, in hindsight this was definitely me getting fatigued. Right now, the only one I want to right is Karina, and even now I'm not confident I can do it in a way that will be story-relevant.

I'm not having as much fun as I used to, and as a result I feel that the writing is getting bland. I couldn't even finish the Patron Exclusive I promised you guys in time. I'm still working on it, but... yeah, if I can't even write Mikon degeneracy in a timely manner, then I'm definitely in trouble.

So I've decided to take a month off, and get my head together, go back to the drawing board and make an outline for the story (haven't re-outlined the story in the while, which might be part of why it's suffering), see if I can't write a few small snippets to make me like writing again, all that good stuff. To that end, I'm going to pause billing so you guys don't have to pay for nothing. If I write anything worth posting, you guys should still have access to that. Hopefully you still find it marginally entertaining.

Sorry guys. I really wanted to just power through everything LIKE A MAN and go back to being able to write 4 chapters a week like I used to (even Maria has suffered), but it looks like that's not in the cards right now.

So at the moment, the plan is as follows:

• finish the Patron Exclusive I'm trying to write now, because I promised you guys, even if it's not going to come out when I said it would. I already know what I want to happen, as always the problem is getting from where I am to where I want it to go. This is a known problem, I can solve it. The mood I'm in has made it take longer than it should but I WILL get it out to you guys.

• start writing random crap not related to main Demesne storyline to destress, write ideas I've thought of, figure out how I'd actually write a tsundere paladin, find new ideas to steal, stop being a coward and write those Demesne isekai fanfics that sometimes pops up in my head to touch base with Lori's personality, and basically have fun writing again.

• write Maria again, because it's been too long.

• stop procrastinating and draw Lori.

• learn to parry with a greatsword.

• Write my other ideas and see how they grab me.

And in the currently-not-unlikely scenario where a month isn't enough to fix all this (though at the moment I hope that's just the burnout and pessimism talking)... well, I can keep pausing payment, or you guys will cancel, and I'll just have to work hard to get you back again when I return. After all, your patronage is an honor I earn, not a right I deserve. I forget that, it doesn't matter how well I write.

Ideas that have been on the backburner that I'll be poking around with are:

• Medieval/Early-modern setting 'basically SCP Foundation/Federal Bureau of Control'. The idea mostly amuses me because it would let me put in an expy of Castlevania and Silent Hill in the same setting, while letting me write 'soft' magic. Will basically be a 'magic apocalypse' setting as a kinda-mundane setting suddenly finds itself being filled with random, dangerous magical artifacts.

• Magical Girl Mecha Pilots. The basic idea is sound, I have the setting and magic system all worked out, I just need to write an interesting start. Common sense and convention tells me to make the protag a naive newcomer who will learn to magical girl and therefore give plenty of opportunities to exposit to the audience, but the protag I want to write is the FIRST magical girl, the first one to unlock this magic and has to navigate the immediate kaiju-apocalypse setting while other magical girls awaken and... do what humans do with power.

• Back to 'Flipping Haunted Houses', picking up where it left off.

• Nightmaerangers. So close to the end... so close. In Elden Ring terms, I just need to fight Godfrey, and then I can fight the last boss and finish the game, that's how close to the end I am...

• Mariareign.

• Magical Girls V Cultivators. That's still a thing.

• Tsundere Paladin. This is the least developed. I have no setting for it, no story in mind, not even a real idea for a character idea except the mental image of some of my favorite tsunderes wearing plate armor and looking paladin-y (currently in the lead is Hasegawa Chisame, Tohsaka Rin is second). But I still want to write it!

• A dungeon delving/clear the impossible god-cursed dungeon (basically Orario's Dungeon) story, but in reverse. Instead of entering the ground floor of some tower and trying to climb to the very top to beat the final boss or starting at ground level and slowly descending down into increasingly hellish Dungeon levels, our protag finds themselves on the very top of a stupidly high tower and needs to find a way to the ground to escape. The protag is motivated by the fact they have no food, no water (they're above the clouds, so they don't even get rain, and it gets stupidly cold at night), and basically no resources. So they need to go down into the cursed tower (which does not believe in game balance or escalating difficulty), and try to go through it to escape... except this isn't a LitRPG setting with levels and such, so there aren't any 'cheat powers'. Who they are, who put them there, why they're trying to escape... well, we can come up with that later, but my current idea is 'princess imprisoned in the tower'.

• A 'backrooms' kind of story, crossed with the Ikea Store SCP: in the backrooms, survivors have managed to set up a functioning, actually living town for long enough that people have been born there, and the number who remember 'the outside' is a very small minority, usually new people who have found their way in. A slice-of-life story of what it would be like to live a normal-ish life in the 'backstage' of reality. Apparently my muse has decided that that's my thing.

Yeah, writing that list has been the most exciting writing I've done all week.

Now, about Demesne specifically. Currently, I have a few storyline ideas that veer wildly enough from what's currently happening to maybe be interesting to write:

• Karina Gaiden. Basically, a full Karina sidestory, which will help flesh out everything currently happening, lets me stick to a single and familiar POV who will be where the action is (let's face it, nothing's really happening in Lorian beyond Lori digging rocks and Mikon getting laid, and neither of them are really doing it in an interesting way or doing anything new with it), and lets me explore the story's Strong Female Friendship.

• Pirates Storyline. Basically, drop everything familiar and write about pirates. Not really all that enthused about this. It currently has some 'writing it because it needs to be written' vibes. I'll see if anything fun comes to me.

• Charismatic!Lori AU. Basically, go all in on the 'Charismatic Lori' alternate universe and see what happens when I play every protag cliché super straight. None of it will apply to the main Demesne story, but it might be fun.

• Violent Rebellion Arc(?)/AU(?). I write what everyone keeps saying will happen when someone meets Lori: the wizards decide they want to kill Lori, and write a whole heist/thriller story about how they conspire to murder her. It will probably make someone happy.

• A prehistoric story about those first settlers, because that might be the only way I'll be able to bring out certain setting details that have no way of actually being revealed in the story otherwise, because they've been lost to history.

• The Saga Of Shana the Evil/A Young Woman's Dungeon Binder Record. What? It sounds amusing.

The rest of the ideas basically devolve into self-indulgent fanfic crossovers from there, so I won't list them.

Anyway, once more I apologize for the schedule slip, the declining quality of the work, and the current hiatus. Hopefully over the next few weeks I'll be able to post little stories or at least report progress. I still like this story and have a lot more of it to write, it's just... well, the faucet is clogged, so I need to get it cleared up again.

So, let me get my head on straight again, and hopefully we'll get back to our regularly schedule Demesne. Or maybe something new. One or the other.