Saturday Devlog (January 28)

Hi everyone, hope you're staying safe and healthy!

The edits progress healthily apace, and I've managed to cobble together an update that's mostly satisfactory. I say mostly in the interest of transparency, because there's one scene that won't work itself out, and at this point I'm mostly convinced it's better to rework it entirely. And I don't mean only to rewrite the scene, per se, but to also set it up elsewhere in the story, where the mood and flow better accommodates for it. That scene is the kick-off to the Yu-F polyamory, which I've written probably four or five different versions of by now. I've tried to make it happen in the Jiasei arc; I've tried to make it happen after the Eli-F spar; and I've tried to make it happen here. It's never come out quite right, and I'm sorry to say that this attempt has so far been no different.

I'll keep cracking away at it for the rest of January, because there's not much else I can work on without throwing the plot into another big arc and necessitating a cut-off for the update in parts where it doesn't make sense. I've basically got everything else finalized; I just need to figure out if this scene can work, or if I need to cut my losses and figure out a new gameplan. There's a lot of fun ideas I have for when the 'yufpoly' boolean variable has been set to 'true', and I can't wait until I can properly cross that bridge to the other side. It's the thought of this (and no small amount of spite, if we're being honest) that keeps the polyamory route alive. I'll finish it one way or another, even if it takes a hundred rewrites!

But realistically, I don't have another hundred rewrites in me right now, which probably leaves us with an update somewhere in the realm of 25k--basically the size of our regular updates. I'll release it this month nevertheless, but Patreon charging will suspend for an additional month. February will be another full-sized update of roughly the same size, though it'll just be the weekly devlogs and sneak peeks until then! I hope the art released this month--including one last batch of artworks coming out around the 31st--will tide you over in the meantime.

We're close enough to update day that I feel a full-sized sneak peek will be redundant. Instead I leave you with a small passage from F's day-off scene, which is probably the single biggest character-specific scene in AMR thus far. I may have gotten a bit carried away with its lateral variation, but I'm very proud of how things came out! Said passage under the cut.

***

"We could've been amiable this whole time, opposed though we may be to the other's views," F says. "The fault lies with me for picking a fight the whole time."

"It's good that you're able to admit it," you supply.

"Had to start sometime," they reply. "I've few enough friends as it is. I shouldn't have such an appetite for making enemies."

"For what it's worth, I don't think of you as an enemy," you say, and laugh when F looks at you as if you lost your mind. You have to admit, the words felt silly even as they left your mouth. You press on regardless. "I mean, my situation can't be helped right now. If I'm going to follow Tahlia's orders one way or another, I might as well do it without you glaring daggers at me the whole time."

"You sound awfully light-hearted about all this."

"Would you rather I brooded?"

F groans. "Please don't become Plague."

***

Fun times.

And that about wraps it up for this week's update. I'll see you again on the 31st! And as always, thank you for supporting the development of A Mage Reborn!