“Deprecation is like a polite warning saying, Hey, this function had its glory days, but now it's heading towards retirement. But don't worry, it's not like it'll stop working immediately. No, no, it'll just linger around, potentially causing future headaches, gently nudging you to change your ways before it finally breaks your entire project in the next big update.”
Just dumped about half a chapter of the start of volume 2. It just wasn't working. I have been struggling with it. Last night I bit the bullet and decided I needed to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new beginning.
The new one is flowing better. A good sign I had it wrong the whole time.