August Newsflash #2

As you'll see from the numbers on this one, I haven't been doing much new writing, or much work at all, as I've been on holiday!

What I've done on the game itself is do an update including a few fixes/tweaks/clarifications as well as reframing the asexuality choices in Chapter 2. What I've done outside of Honor Bound is start another small character study; right now I've written ones for Savarel, Korzha, Raffi, Danelak, and the one I've just started is for Matia. I haven't quite figured out what I want to do for Fiore yet.

Current wordcount: 181374

Fortnight's wordcount: 1062

Average playthrough wordcount: 47515

Behind the scenes:

Is anyone playing Baldur's Gate 3 or Stray Gods?? They both came out while I'm away and not able to play them... but I have some mighty hankering. Liam, the co-founder of Summerfall Studios, is a dear friend from my teenage years, I had the pleasure of giving feedback on a very early version of the game, and I cannot even say how proud I am of the whole team for making such a wildly inventive and gorgeous game. But I cannot play it yet!! As for BG3, BG2 was what introduced me to interactive writing via modding during my teenage years (I was an extremely cool teenager), there are a bunch of people who worked on it who I massively admire, and I am so excited to return to a world that's brought me a ton of joy. And I cannot play it yet!!

I have, however, been reading some incredible books. Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane is an Iliad story in which Achilles is a trans woman and the gods are grotesquely alien. I absolutely loved it. Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo is a Southern gothic about a student literally haunted by his best friend and trying to solve the circumstances of his death while steeped in generational and personal trauma. I literally had to keep reading! Both of these were fantastic books about queer people who were absolute hot messes.

In other news there is a pig field near where I am staying. I snuck into said field to pet the pigs but although they were keen to be petted, they also started menacing me trying to chew my feet and herd me into the hedge. I escaped with my shoes intact but as my child said, "the pigs know you now, they either want you to stroke them or they want payback". Here they are, now safely on the other side of the fence.