Update Blog - (July 21, 2023)

Hello, hello, hello!

Another update blog from yours truly regarding UTF and its future development. There's quite a lot to unpack so do bare with me!

Chapter 10 is still going through editing and Chapter 11 will also be being reviewed at the same time, meaning I'll have two new chapters incoming. I won't be releasing them together, but rather a week from each other in order to keep you all excited for future chapters with a defined time frame of release.

Next up, while it isn't quite confirmed just yet, I may in fact be going back through each and every existing chapter and editing them a bit. The main reason this may take place is that, as I've mentioned before, I want this story to feel like its still part of the MLP universe that everyone here knows and loves, but with a slightly more mature twist. In doing so, I want to pull back on most if not all blood, gore and swearing.

For the sake of the violence in UTF, I understand that fight scenes are naturally... violent. However, the show portrayed those scenes without the need for all that stuff, like sometimes somepony would get shot by a magic beam and suffer nothing but a slightly burnt flank, and so I feel like it's right for me to go back and tone back on the descriptive nature of those scenes in UTF. Even if there's a scene with, say, a sword battle, if somepony gets stabbed, I don't need to go into detail about where they were stabbed, what the wound looked like mid stab or anything of that nature to get the point across that said pony got stabbed. I think I focused too much on being descriptive and elaborate in my writing that I neglected the fact that not everything needs to be explained bit by bit. This is mainly pertaining to Chapter 3, but could definitely affect future chapters to come.

And as for swearing... yeah, I don't think MLP - FIM even referenced vulgar at any point in the show, so in exception to perhaps a few select scenes here and there, I think swearing is gonna disappear from UTF.

Now then, for the next big announcement and one that I'm actually really pleased to announce, I will be adding illustrations to UTF! I plan on adding around 1-3 hand drawn images for each and every chapter, preexisting and yet to be released, as well as updating the cover art for UTF and character portraits that can be accessed in the description of the story. Unfortunately I have none ready for display, as the final touches to character designs are being made as we speak, but I will have some for display in the coming weeks. Once I release a couple via blogs, I will then implement them into the story.

The illustrations in question will be still frames of certain events taking place in the story, each of which being described before their appearance for added context. I do believe that these additions... and my drawing capabilities, will add some more enjoyment to the story as a whole. They won't be affecting the release dates of chapters, but rather they'll be made alongside them. I might start with releasing a new chapter while also adding illustrations for previous ones, but eventually I'd like to have them caught up with the chapters themselves and release them together.

And that sums it up. Like I said, lots of news, but hopefully good news to you all. With that said, I won't use up any more of your time. Have an incredible day and I look forward to seeing where this project goes in the days to come.

Peace,

-MCX