End of July Update

Hello everyone,

Haven't been tuned into FMG this month nearly as much as I hoped to be. As such, nothing has been finished quite yet.

Rory's Breakthrough has ended up growing into a larger story than anticipated, but hopefully the end result will be enjoyable!

I am currently leaning towards/planning on adding a third part, which will be the definitive ending. Here is an outline of how each chapter will go.

(Spoilers begin here:)

Part 1

• Rory and Ciara use the serum, but it only works for Ciara.

• Ciara grows a good amount over the course of numerous workouts.

• Their mother, Ariel joins them in the basement gym.

• She absentmindedly ends up drinking multiple doses of the serum.

• It's quickly revealed that she's able to grow instantly (to whatever is challenging her) and after a bunch of push ups, does over 100 consecutive pull ups and leg raises.

• During this, Ciara realizes that the serum seems to have eventually run out of effectiveness.

• With this news, Ariel feels pressured to make the most of the remaining serum, and hops onto a treadmill Rory modified a long time ago.

Part 2

• Ariel ends up being able to run over 50 MPH sustained at a high incline

• After she does this for ~10 minutes, she gets off of the treadmill, and is now taller than Rory.

• Rory quickly yells for her to come over to the free weights

• He tries to get her to use the heaviest dumbbells they have (120 pounds)

• Despite her earlier enthusiasm, she becomes a little reluctant at growing further after seeing herself in the mirror

• Rory (and eventually Ciara) cheer her on, asking her to find out the serum's limits, and Ariel eventually agrees.

• During Ariel's dumbbell workout, Rory and Ciara set up the bench press to its maximum of 600 pounds (they don't have special barbells to go heavier)

• Not wanting to let her kids down, Ariel goes along with it and ends up bench pressing the barbell ~50+ times

• Her top starts to rip apart, but Ciara rigs a towel around her chest

• Next they convince her to do an overhead snatch with the barbell, and she throws in some squats/lunges with the weight at the same time

• The serum finally wears off

• Ariel does a huge posing session and has her ego (which was a bit shaky since she is worried about being too muscular) fed by Rory + Ciara until she feels good about the muscle.

• Ciara asks Rory about producing more serum.

• Rory explains that he can, though he can only make so many more doses. Ciara asks for all of them. Rory mentions saving a dose for their father to try, but Ciara convinces him to give it to her instead (since it didn't even work on Rory it might not work on the father)

• Rory agrees and starts making the serum.

Part 3

• While Rory is making the serum, Ciara 'sets up'. She puts on a workout outfit made of special material Rory created a long time ago (specifically stretchy fabric to withstand instant growth)

• Next Ciara sets up the gym by putting maximum weight on all the barbells they own, and planning out exactly what workout she's going to undergo.

• Rory arrives with the serum. After some last discussion and preparation (For example, she has him hack the treadmill to run up to 100 MPH, with the explicit understanding that the machine might explode at that level), she drinks the serum and starts exercising.

• Without giving everything away, Ciara basically grows as much as possible before the serum runs out!

This outline is subject to change depending on how the parts form up. It's also plausible that this will all be condensed into 2 parts, but I think that there will be enough material with the rest of Ariel's workout, plus the setup to justify three parts.

(Spoilers End)

Currently the plan is:

June pledge: Rory's Breakthrough Part 1

July pledge: Rory's Breakthrough Part 2

August pledge: Rory's Breakthrough Part 3

If you end up being pledged for all 3, then you will also receive a "Rory's Breakthrough Complete" or similarly titled, which will be a full novel/novella of the parts collected together.

Part 1 is basically done and those Google drives will be updated soon, though it may be updated again when the full novella/novel is collected together.

In the event that Part 3 isn't fully finished by the end of August, then the campaign will be paused at the end of August (with no additional charges to you) until it's finished.

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As for the AI art on this project - I must admit that it's still being worked on. Basically, I spent a great deal of time just figuring out which model/style to go with. Initially I was using various SDXL models, as the user can have a great level of control over them. But ended up preferring Bing since it can actually reasonably render characters doing stuff like lifting dumbbells or doing pull ups without an tremendous amount of finagling. But on the flip side, that model doesn't offer much control, and has very bad censorship issues. Still, some of the stuff that I have so far feels good enough to keep pushing through - though at the higher muscle levels, I've had to remove the gym background (for some inexplicable reason, that model becomes increasingly strict when women are indoors...)

Sorry for any disappointments and the general slowness. Hopefully the end result will be worth it. As always, thanks for your patience and support - hope you'll enjoy everything to come!

- Magnus