This fic, despite everything I had planned for it, is now officially canceled. Many of you might've already assumed this: I half-canceled this fic, not too long ago. I posted a single chapter, then went radio silent.
For the longest time, I've merely put it off, saying that I'd always return to it, just brush off the dust and keep going. I had so much planned for it, with a sequel spanning into the Megadimension canon. An exploration into the universe of a unique setting such as Gamindustri.
I wanted to explore what it meant to be an outsider within a system not programmed to understand you, yet find your way through regardless.
Unfortunately, what inspiration and hope I had for the setting simply does not exist any more.
I began writing this fic as a far more idealistic person, with far more hope than I do now. For this reason, my SI at the time was idealistic and full of hope, and as my current self stands, I cannot fully relate to them any more. This makes it incredibly difficult to write as a result.
But that is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.
Instead, there are two simple issues, which run deep. One is preachy, and one is not.
The non-preachy issue is that the way I framed the fic is restrictive. Though I could change bits and pieces here and there, and flesh out the setting doing so, I could not deviate from the path. I was telling someone else's story, and only retreading what was already done. Sure, I could elaborate and detail things further, but it was exhausting to do so.
To anyone who fully completes an expanded story conversion of a game or movie, I fully salute you, for you are a stronger person than I.
The more preachy one, one that I've recently come to terms with, is that I no longer agree with the themes of the setting, not in the slightest.
In the world of Gamindustri, the CPUs serve as benevolent force, spurring innovation as they butt heads and force the world forwards. It's an idealistic setting where the good guys win, and there's nothing they can't overcome.
In my own current, corrupted mindset, a realistic take instead would be a land of passionless demigods, content to merely watch as the land around them burns. Those that are not actively malevolent retreat to rigidity. It's not to say there isn't beauty in it, but it's a land of fear: any mistake, any misstep, and misspeaking is seen as a grave sin, one to be lashed out at and torn down.
Roving packs of thugs ravage the land, picking upon those too weak to defend themselves, inducting them into their gangs, with deals with the devil those signing could not ever hope to escape.
It's a dying land, still so full of beauty, but fundamentally rotten to the core.
Is it not understandable then, that I have lost that spark, the hope that drove this story in its beginnings. If I were to continue, I'd be forced to pivot from that joy, towards a sense of parody, of 'what if things were better', or 'what if in spite of this'. I'm not ready to do that.
And I do not believe my own capabilities are enough to pull it off.
I thank absolutely everyone who followed this story from the beginning, and I am truly sorry that I could not see it to its end. Perhaps…
No, I won't even go so far as to leave the possibility of it coming back open. I am happy with what I have done, and I hope to use what I have learned from it to write better stories in the future.
I have begun writing other stories, for other settings, striving out for more flexible frameworks and sandboxes to try and make something new within. Perhaps, some day, I'll cross-post them to Fanfiction Net.
Goodbye, Gamindustri… I truly do hate to leave a game like this unfinished.
-Shattersoul (TheViciousJoltik)