A World of Imagination
By Nightsong
Okay, calling this thing an 'editorial' would probably get me flamed to death, despite the rather clear warnings I put at the bottom of all features for The Freezer. So I won't tell ya any lies; this is basically a look at something that I feel is unique to the world of fanfiction, and something that you may not have noticed as of yet.
Throughout Fanfiction, there has generally been little consistency. Authors wrote in their own little universes, which rarely - if ever - coincided with other authors' universes. Of course, they all originally took place in the same universe but... my head hurts. Nevermind that. The point is that most fics directly contradict each other, and make no effort to have any sort of continuity between them.
The key word, of course, is most. Recently - a relative term, as this has built for a while - there has come about a consistent 'faniverse' of some of the best authors available on this site (and me). This is, as the title would suggest, the World of Imagination. What it is should be obvious from my last few paragraphs, but I'll spell it out anyway: the World of Imagination is a universe - or, rather, a Multiverse - in which several fics all take place. They all draw from each other, and make use of the same basic concepts in their 'worlds'. The current members of this faniverse are none other than (in order of their entrance) Nanaki, Mox Jet, me (how I pulled that off, I'll never know), Cain, and soon to be Neo Kefka. We've all contributed our share to the faniverse, though some have done more than others. Naki, with his brilliant Origin/Aftermath of Mount Woe fic, introed the concept of the lavoid race as an intergalactic threat. Oh, he also pulled the concepts of the lifestream, WEAPONs, and other such things into Chrono Trigger fanfiction, and did it well - a first in such fiction at the time it was written. Mox Jet expanded on this with his theories about the "Winds of Magic" (which have since been expanded further by myself and Cain), as well as the other lavoid-related beings; most importantly, the Planeswalker. And nevermind the LEA, which is referenced to everywhere in my own work. Cain, after he opted to incorporate Chrono Continuum into the faniverse, managed to bring in his Order theories (a natural opposite to Chaos, which I could've mentioned with Mox, but for the fact that both he and I thought of that one simultaneously... and separately), as well as contributing the Mystician Empire with Starcrossed - which may not be up on the site yet. And I added a few things myself, in my pre-Xenogears story: The Sol Dominion (you may have noticed this referenced to in Mox's work), the Planetary Union, the Shi Kari, the Multiverse.
We've gone even so far as to incorporate a rough timeline as to when our works take place in reference to one another (my own Dark Angel takes place in 5000 AD Elosia time, whereas The Planeswalkers takes place in and about 2000 AD Elosia time), and think about history and other things that don't directly connect to our current stories. You can find that, along with a ton of theory papers ranging from the origin of the Multiverse to a race description for the Planeswalkers at the World of Imagination site: http://members.tripod.com/worldofimagination/.
I personally find the entire thing very exciting. Two years ago, when I was first getting into this site, I never would've dreamed of the possibility of writing with authors like Nanaki. To be quite frank, I never would've even dreamed of the possibility of any group of authors teaming up for a consistent universe (I mean, Naki vaguely crossed over with Keith Adams' the Shadows at the end of O/A, but it's just not the same as what I'm talking about), and it's quite exciting. So spread the word! Tell your aunt, classmates... hell, tell your dog about WoI.
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WARNING: Nightsong is quite fond of such phrases as "Booyah". If you do not care to hear such phrases, you should probably not send him flames. This is also applicable advice if you don't like being lauged at and/or ignored.
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