Tumblr won't let me make normal posts for some reason, so the update will have to be in form of an answer to this ask smh. Anyway:

Hey everyone!

This post is long overdue, I know. I’m really sorry to those who have been worried about my wellbeing, as well as those who have been waiting around for an update for so long.

I’ve put off writing here because this “update” is something I’ve been wrestling with for a long time. But I can’t keep going back and forth on it forever, which is why I’m now letting you all know that the Shadow Society is officially discontinued.

I know that this might not come as much of a surprise to anyone at this point. I’ve tried to salvage the story by remaking it into something I’m happy with through a rewrite. But I’ve rewritten the rewrite itself more than once, and no matter what I do, I’m just not happy with the result. Rewriting something that’s already published with all the coding it involves is a lot more tricky than I initially thought it would be.

This is not a case of me being needlessly harsh on myself, however; it’s simply a truth I’ve come to realize after struggling to find a way to keep going with the story. I’ll never be fully content with it, or even content enough, unless I’d be able to completely remake and rewrite everything from scratch – and consequentially, I will never find enough motivation to continue because of how unhappy I am with it.

I’ve seen some speculation about my reason for rewriting the story and my long absence, and that they’ve had to do with comparisons to other IFs (well, you know which one). This isn’t entirely the case. While the comparisons did happen and probably still do, and while they were discouraging in the beginning, I can definitely understand where people have been coming from when making them. I talked about this more in-depth in the forums right after the release of TSS.

The main reason for why I can’t continue is that it’s not a series I feel passionate enough about to work on. My tastes have changed, and so has my writing to some degree. I’ve tried to convince myself that I am passionate about it. It’s hard to admit that you’re not when it’s been in your head for so long, when you’ve tried for so long to make this work and when you know that one part is published and that some people are anticipating a continuation. But it had to be done sooner or later.

Other reasons:

-While I don’t think that my writing style has changed drastically, I feel like it is somewhat different from how I wrote back in 2018 (which is a GOOD thing). Whenever I tried working on the rewrite or second book and attempted to emulate the writing of TSS, it just didn’t sound right anymore, and that took a lot of fun out of it.

-With everything that has happened with CoG over the past few years, they are no longer a company I want to write for.

Please know that none of this has discouraged me from writing in general. I still love doing it. If anything, this has taught me a lot about what I actually want to write and the writing process in general. Whether I end up publishing anything else in the future or will simply do so for my own enjoyment we’ll just have to see, though.

I still have the idea of a shadow-like world in my head, and maybe it’s one I will revisit at some point. Maybe there will be another version of TSS someday, albeit very different from the original one.

But for now, I can only thank you all for the overwhelming love and support over the years, and apologize for any disappointment this has caused. If people are interested, I’d be happy to share parts of the rewrite and unused ideas. The Tumblr page will still stay up at least for some time, but I will probably not be answering any asks from here on out.

EDIT: Forgot to add, but if anyone wants a genuinely amazing IF read you should check out my friend's wip here: https://uroboros-if.tumblr.com/ ❤️ Play the demo here: https://mistyriousness.itch.io/uroboros

Do you mean the main group? This is an old ask so I might be missing some context lmao, but I want the reader to be able to play a manipulative MC since the setting is very much supposed to be a "choose who you trust and be careful who uses you" type of thing. One of the the things I want to do with the rewrite in general is make the relationships a bit more nuanced with more options (if I'm able to, since it'll change the current structure of the code which can get messy; it's not my current focus but it's definitely a dream I have). So yes, that's something I'm adding as an option to the rewrite in various ways. That doesn't mean that there might not be consequences for it later, though (:

Thank you for the ask <3

I really appreciate that anon, but....I have no idea who you are LMAO

Beta testing and proofreading/editing is a very important process of writing IFs and something I'm very much considering for the future, as answered in the other ask. I'm not sure yet if I'll check here for any potential interest or look for someone who isn't directly involved with TSS. Thank you for the offer all the same <3

I don't work with an editor, no. It's definitely something I'd be interested in sometime in the future because although I'm currently writing and editing myself with a VERY critical eye when it comes to pretty much every sequence I add to the book 1 rewrite and other writings as well, there will always be things I could miss myself that someone else might notice. So yeah, it's something I'm considering, and something I'll probably look into once I'm done with the rewrite. Thank you so much for the kind words <3

Update 22/6 - 2022

Hello everyone!

I didn’t realize it had been so long since the last update here....oops. But I wanted to pop in and say that a part of the rewrite (a very, very minor part, a scene in chapter 7) has been sent in. Hopefully the game will update with it soon, but I will let you know when it happens for sure! While I wouldn’t say it’s worthwhile in any way to do a new playthrough just for this scene, and while I’m generally doing the rewrite in chronological order, this is something I just had to change before continuing with everything else. It was a scene that didn’t belong in the story whatsoever and I have no clue why I included in the first place. I’m not proud or happy with myself for having done so. It’s a long time coming, but at least it has now been rewritten. I kept this particular change short for now, but it might turn out longer as I write the rest. I felt it safest to stick with a short change for the time being and update it as I see fit when I eventually get to that point.

Other than that, I’m continuing the rewrite in the ‘correct’ order, and it’s going pretty smoothly so far (: Thanks for still being patient, and sorry for the long wait. 

Update 31/1 -2022

I’ve been getting a lot of asks about the status of TSS and whether it’s being continued or not. The rewrite (or more accurately, ‘update’) is still being worked on, and though it is taking a long time to get done due to various reasons I’ve also reworked the planning around the content I’m rewriting. It’s an unfortunate truth that all the things I wish to change/update and have ideas in my head won’t actually be possible to implement without me starting TSS 1 over from scratch. 

There are also some things in the rewrite that I initially thought would improve the story in theory, only to turn out not to work as well as I’d hoped in practice, meaning I’ve written quite a bit of original content only to remove it again for the sake of the pacing and story. This, on top of making sure that the code isn’t a complete mess after all the adding and removing of text and choices, has taken a lot of additional time outside of writing itself. Though I hope it’ll go more smoothly from here on out, I sadly can’t say that this kind of thing won’t happen again as I continue.

I’ve come to accept that at this point the story won’t ever look the way I really wish it would, and that I need to focus on the smaller things I’m still able to change. The silver lining here is that this at least means that the rewrite most likely will be done sooner rather than later, though it won’t change TSS to be as drastically different as I’d hoped. Still, I’m feeling pretty good about where I’m at with it right now.

As for when it’ll be done, I really don’t know; I don’t want to set an estimate just yet, but rest assured that I’ll make another post when the update is out. I’d also let you all know if I’d ever decide to drop the story, so although my motivation for continuing has been low at times and the silence between updates might become frustratingly long, there’s really no need to worry about me silently making that decision and keep it to myself while leaving everyone to wonder. Going on Tumblr and trying to plough through the messages and asks take more time from finishing the story and can be pretty distracting, which is why I tend to go silent for long stretches of time.

As for book 2, I still have the beginning of it ready, but it won’t be worked on until I’m done with this update. Some of my plans concerning the continuation have changed, though I won’t speak about those changes before I’ve started applying them and am able to actually see whether they’ll all be for the better or not. Thanks for sticking around and for the concern about my well-being <3 and for reading through this long af post ahaha

ALSO if I repeat myself here from any of the previous posts it’s all thanks to my crappy memory