Nightsong's
Splendiferous Origin Story!!!! (Night's
title, not mine -Mox)
It began, as much as such things have a set beginning, in the summer of
1999. I came across Icy Brian's
site in June or so of that year, looking for fanfiction after having read Cain's
Chrono Continuum story on another site (I wouldn't know the guy personally till
later, but that's a different part of the story).
I was something of a 'writer' myself, having attempted about a year
earlier to write an FF7-based fic (it ran fifteen pages and three chapters; not
a good combination. Also, I didn't
have the internet at the time, so I had no one to show it to).
I was impressed, needless to say, with the caliber of work on the site.
One of the first authors I read was Nanaki, with his Origin/Aftermath of
Mount Woe story. It was incredible,
especially for me. Here I was
writing amateurish works (and I use that in the broadest sense of the word),
while this guy was writing things on a professional level!
I felt inspired to start over with the fanfiction thing.
What came of that was a rather abysmal, and also short-lived, CT story
called Split Infinity. That's not
why I'm here today.
Also as a result of Icy's page, I came across a little delphi forum
called the Chrono Trigger Interactive Story Forum.
It was interesting, to say the least.
Basically, there were a number of authors here all participating in group
stories. How this worked was that one person would write a page or two
on a storyline (based, in this case, around CT), and then someone else would
pick up where he left off, and continue to develop the plot.
For me, a person who'd never written anything over fifteen pages, this
was incredible. I could throw out some of my writing ideas, and not have to
worry about them dying due to me losing my drive to write for them!
So I started another CT-based fic. Again,
not so much important, but it did introduce me to Cain, one of my now-fellow WoI
authors and good friends.
Due to my positive experiences in this forum, I created my own, Final
Fantasy-based, group story forum in August of 1999.
I did not, however, have any story ideas, and no one else ever really
showed up. It laid dormant for about six months. This was almost certainly due to the fact that my computer
was on the fritz from mid-october till well into January of 2000.
When I finally managed to get back online, after a good six month hiatus
from the forums, something strange had happened.
I'm still not certain what it was (though I feel sure it was partially
due to a video game RPG script I'd written in that interim), but I was suddenly
about one hundred percent better at writing.
I was starting to be able to use detail, and avoid monotony.
I wrote a flurry of short stories in that time, finally getting things on
Icy's page that warranted reading.
This is notable because I received a bit of fanmail from a guy named Mike
Collins, who is now better known as Sonicblade.
He had enjoyed my short Vengeance, and wanted to tell me so.
Well, this was the first piece of mail I'd ever received regarding my work, and I was stupified.
I immediately sent him an invitation to the FFIS, which I'd been trying
to revive with a couple of reworked FF stories (one based on FF6, the other a
heavily rewritten piece of my first FF7 fic).
It was a good thing I did. This
guy came in and immediately rezzed the crap out of the forum, working on both of
those FF stories (the FF7 one was, unsurprisingly, short-lived, though), and
starting a few of his own. I was
relieved, as his presence caused several of the authors from the CTIS to come by
and start writing.
And then, in the Spring of 2000, I met up with Mox here.
I'd recently read his Planeswalkers story (what of it there was at the
time), and had been very HIGHLY impressed with it.
Ironically enough, I came across him for the first time in the old Icy
Brian forums, which I had been frustrated with due to their rather annoying
layout. I posted something praising
his work (though it was Selphie that started the thread doing so), and later
emailed him directly. I invited him
to the forum a... couple of times, and kept up contact with him through other
things as well, such as emailing him my various compositions, and asking him
things about his story. Through
some strange twist of fate, we ended up becoming very good friends, and my
writing hasn't been the same since.
Why, you ask? After I got
AOL Instant Messenger, I started talking to Mox on a semi-regular basis, about
fanfiction in general. See, I'd
had, in various forms, my idea for a Multiverse for about five years.
Things such as Lucent Mazer, and Chaos, and stuff like that had been
running through my head without a story to anchor them in for a long time.
It was surprising, to say the least, when I found out how similar my
Multiverse was to Mox's own universe for PW.
We even used the same name for Chaos!
Needless to say, through swapping ideas and such, we eventually became
enmeshed in each others' writings, and started vaguely talking about combining
the two faniverses into one larger one. I
was thrilled at this, because Mox's writing was already
set in the same faniverse as Nanaki's, and the very thought that I could
influence stories like that was simply
staggering.
And then, in late August of 2000, I started Dark Angel.
I'd had the barest idea for a story relating what happened 10,000 years
before Xenogears, with the creation of Deus, the origin of the Wave Existence,
and all of that. I had been of the
opinion for a long time that Deus was an artificial lavoid (a spoiler to
Dominion, but oh well), and thought that two short fics would nicely express
that idea. Initially, Dark Angel
was set to be about 15 chapters long, with a culmination in a battle with my own
lavoid, Grendel. I borrowed various
terms from Mox and Nanaki, and of course set it in my own Multiverse, and wrote
a prologue. I then forgot about the
fic for about three months while I wrote on a short-lived CT fic (I use that
term broadly, as the story did run about 60 pages; a first for me at the time).
But then, in November, I hit a block on the CT fic, and started writing
on Dark Angel like there was no tomorrow. The
plot kept expanding itself before my eyes.
The ideas of the Seekers, an organization I'd never pictured when I began
the fic, showed themselves to me, as well as the importance of Darrell's
parents, something I'd never thought
would be emphasized. And I started
making references to the LEA. Of
course, my own fic took place thousands of years after Mox's series, so the
organization no longer existed (there are hints of a calamity in my story which
I'm not allowed to speak of), but it was obviously set in one of the same
dimensions (naturally, if my guys were there, it kills all the fun for Night,
but fear not, as they’re only gone in about half of the resulting timelines –Mox)
And then, after having submitted the story to NeoKefka, I was highly
complimented. My own story had
actually inspired another author, and a highly regarded one at that, to write
something! Kef emailed me telling
me about his ideas for Kama Trigger, a lavoid war story that sounds like it's
going to be absolutely incredible. I was overwhelmed, of course, by the very thought that my
writing could inspire anyone. I
kept on writing Dark Angel, as the ideas expanded it from a 15 chapter story
into one I feel sure will run at least 40.
And it continues to grow. The
idea of the World of Imagination faniverse here has finally taken shape, thanks
to Mox's dedication and hard work. I
recently received official sanction from Nanaki to use the finori and stuff, so
I'm not just running on Mox's permission for term usage, and have actually
received compliments from everyone who's read the story about it.
My ideas for a sequel to the story continue to flow in, and Dark Angel's
shaping up to be one of the longest (and hopefully best) Xenogears stories ever
written.
Most amazingly, though, is the fact that mine's just a tiny facet of the story. There are a million other angles to things, and a number of events I skipped along the way (I wanted to leave some things to Mox here, as most of the information regarding how this whole page came about relates to the both of us). It's an incredible feeling to know that your work can influence others, and one I don't plan on losing anytime soon.
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