World of Imagination
Welcome to the temporary home of the introduction to the World of Imagination. No, you FFAA people, this is something different. The name just fit so well, that I had to use it. This will-be separate site is dedicated to the very world which myself and my circle of authors have created for the World of fanfiction. But first, a little history of this whole concept. This also happens to be a history of my writing in general, as the two go hand in hand, so bare with me...
Spring, 1999 - By complete luck and mishap, I stumbled across a link that took me to a site that I had never heard of before, Icy Brian's RPG Page. I had very little idea what I was getting into when I clicked on that link, but I can honestly say it has changed me as a person since that day.
It was here that I began, for the first time, reading something called fanfiction. It was a pretty simple concept. People took the world of a video game or something similar and wrote a story taking place in that world, most normally involving characters from whatever world the story takes place in. I didn't even realize at this point that the authors on Icy's page were ranked, but through a series of events, I stumbled upon the works of a guy named Nanaki.
Damn, this guy was a genius. I really couldn't put it any other way. I must have spent every bit of free time I had reading his story, The Origin/Aftermath of Mount Woe. I mean, he came up with a remarkable story about what happened in Zeal before the game, and I became totally immersed. This fanfiction stuff was amazing.
Summer, 1999 - After a short lived failure with trying to write a Final Fantasy 7 fiction, I started work on the now semi-well known The Planeswalkers. I was still a relatively inexperienced writer, but I had ideas, and boy howdy, was I gonna put them on paper. So I started writing, and writing, and sending the chapters to Icy. I had something new up for each update (as that was the advice which Nanaki had given all aspiring authors, and he was basically a God in my eyes at this point).
Apparently, the connections in my name and my story title from Magic: the Gathering had attracted some people's attention. It was when I had only one chapter of The Planeswalkers written that I received mail from Nanaki. I nearly hit the floor. Nanaki was mailing me, telling me that I had promise and expected to see me up on the rankings around Cain in the future. I didn't even know there were rankings.
I was motivated. Before I knew it, I slowly crept up the rankings back when they were based pretty much on amount of work you had posted and how often you sent work to Icy. By the time I had about 12 chapters up, I had made the Top 20 of the active authors. By the time I had 15 chapters up, I was in the Top 10. People were reading my work and telling me that they liked it. I couldn't believe it myself.
Winter, 1999/2000 - I was getting ahead of myself with ideas at this point. My mind was overflowing with concepts and theories and all sorts of stuff. I knew my series (which I was sure it would become) would eventually leave the world of Chrono Trigger and so information about the Lavoids began to overwhelm me. Still, though, I basically looked back at the work of Nanaki as the absolute 'truth' of what had happened pre-Zeal. Earlier, I had asked Nanaki if I could borrow some concepts from his fiction, and being the extremely cool guy he is, he said yeah. This eventually developed until I considered myself writing in same 'faniverse' as he was.
After all, I was basically writing a story heavily based on some Zealian history. I already considered Nanaki's story as what had actually happened, so this worked well. I not only conformed to the game of Chrono Trigger, but to the fiction of Nanaki. Being friends with him also helped me fit in with the group of Icy's authors, as I started going to the IRC meetings there, around this time. That's another story, so I won't get into it, but the fact that people like Jerm and Cain knew who I was was also astounding.
Spring, 2000 - It was around here that I met a guy by the name of Nightsong in the forums at Icy's place. Nightsong was running an interactive story group known as the Fantasy Finale Arts Forum, and wanted to know if I would drop by. As a matter of respect, I give anyone that's read my work a chance, so I did. While the people there were certainly different from Icy's folks, they were cool none the less.
Nightsong was somewhat struggling at this point, fed up with his lack of readership. He was a good author, it's just that it was becoming harder to get your work read on Icy's page. Remembering back to how I had been treated by Nanaki when I was getting going, I took it upon myself to be nice to the guy. I'm not sure how it happened, but we ended up becoming pretty damned good friends.
Summer, 2000 - At this point, I was totally writing in Nanaki's world, using the Finori and direct references to The Origin/Aftermath of Mount Woe in my writing, including the actual fic itself, which made an extended cameo as the history of Zeal (which I took it for) in my story. Nightsong had read my work and Nanaki's work as well, and knew that were wrote in the same world.
Me and Night ended up talking about all our ideas and feeding each other spoilers to our fics. At this point, I was starting to solidify my ideas about Chaos and the Origins of the Lavoids, and in a very odd turn of events, I found he shared many ideas. Actually, our descriptions of 'Chaos' (and he even used the same word) were practically identical. He adopted the world that I was writing in, and we began to work together to really flesh out this faniverse. At the same time, I continued to write within Nanaki's faniverse, and so all three of use were kind of writing in same world, even though Nanaki and Night had never met.
Icy re-formatted his site so the fanfic listing was the Top 15 authors, and then the rest of the authors, listed alphabetically. My self-esteem soared, my place in the Top 15 secure. Night's hopes of being read on the page dropped. The Fantasy Finale Arts Forum became, for the most part, the Fantasy Finale Arts Association, and Night, with me, planned to build up a site separate from Icy's where readership would be easier to find for all up and coming authors.
Fall 2000 - I began writing like a mad man, knowing that finishing Planeswalkers was in site (I was originally shooting for the upcoming Christmas Break), and the ideas flowed onto the paper. My own ideas in the faniverse became apparent as the Farilii and Chaos and the Epitorum and the Planeswalker were finally introduced and explained. I lost contact with Nanaki for awhile in this time, but I was assured that he was still reading. Myself and Night had really begun to flesh out a faniverse which we had decided to completely merge. We bounced ideas off each other and our concepts grew. The two of us founded the Storm Knights Guild, his idea for a collection of elite authors.
Winter 2000/2001 - I finally completed The Planeswalkers in late January. All the chapters were sent into Icy, though I had already sent out copies to all my close author friends. Icy didn't update till mid-march, though, so the rest of the world would have to wait before they could finally see what happened.
Spring 2001 - Icy site is updated. The world sees the completion of The Planeswalkers. Later that month, I get an e-mail from Nanaki saying that the concept of the LEA had inspired him. He planned on using it in his stories. It was the biggest compliment I had ever received. Now I was actually inspiring Nanaki, the person who, in part, motivated and inspired the entire book in the first place. Our one difference in writing, our theories of the origins of the Lavoids, differ, but he quickly comes up with an explanation to this, and our worlds are completely meshed.
Nightsong has been writing Dark Angel now for a good time, and it's shaping up to be a damned good novel, and the first extended Xenogears fic I've ever seen. He's been writing with Nanaki and my concepts, too.
Nightsong and I get our web pages up, housing our own work, and what would be a collection of the ideas of our faniverse. Inspired by Xenogears: Perfect Works, we speak of writing a culmination work of all of our ideas, placed on the internet, a guide to our faniverse. I speak to Nanaki about contributing and getting a chance to go into the biology of the Lavoids and he agrees.
I get mail from NeoKefka saying that he wants to use the Farilii in an upcoming fic. The continuum of many of our worlds are meshing together. Multiple authors, and well known authors, are beginning to take on this world which we write in. It's a growing circle, and it seems that I'm certainly near the center of it. It is then when it becomes clear what Night and I must do.
The entirety of this faniverse needs to be documented. All of this information needs to be put in one place, with graphics and text to back it up. We (well, I, actually) give it a title. The World of Imagination. It's only a matter of time now. Two years of work are finally coming together in a project which will be an incredible culmination. Stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen, as this is going to be serious stuff. This is Mox, singing out...
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