Aquaria fanfiction / "worldbuilding" - Looking for participants!

[Locutus]

Hello again!

As I had mentioned, or rather indicated, a few times in my "introduction" thread, I'm a hobby fanfiction writer.

So far I've been doing mostly movie related fics, my biggest piece so far being a ~150.000 words story centered around the Pixar movie "WALL-E" from 2008.

The one I've been mentioning in the other thread, with "forest" and "sun temple", is a work-in-progress sci-fi story, born from the "challenge" to make a story based on the titles of music tracks by my favorite demoscene musician Bjorn Lynne.

Lately I had been working on a game related story, which unfortunately fell dormant due to lack of time mostly on my co-author's side. It was a project to write a sci-fi/intrigue kind of story about the game "Minecraft", detailing how the game world as it is depicted came to be. We tried to take as many details from the game as possible and come up with "realistic" in-story counterparts.

As I outlined in my previous post, the game Aquaria has made quite an impact on me, primarily in a way that I feel compelled to try something similar with it than we did with Minecraft.

I find the plot as presented in the game quite appealing, and I think it lends itself very well to an attempt to elaborate a more complex world around it. I already have several pictures in my mind of how to "storify" certain plot and game mechanic elements. Ideas for story range from telling the game's progression as a story, or exploit tidbits from the cutscenes, like what happened before, what happens after, where do the characters come from, what's the background of all the stuff we see... And along with that, create an elaborate "universe setting".

The genre I feel most comfortable in is sci-fi, though I'd also like the challenge to combine the "nature" and "medieval fantasy" bits we see in the game's plot into that. It's always fun to come up with ways to try and explain what you see in a game in a realistic world.

Notice I mentioned "co-author" before. I quite dislike working on such things all by myself, but find it much better to collaborate with someone who has a similar relation to the plot being worked. That's why I'm presenting this stuff in this forum - I figured this should be the place with the biggest chance of finding interested people.

"Co-authoring" can mean a lot of things. Primarily, brainstorming about ideas for background, world, plot, characters, events, how to translate game mechanics into realistic counterparts, things like that. Actually phrasing the story is only the final step.

So I'd like to ask around here: Is anyone interested in co-authoring an Aquaria world/fanfic with me? Anyone with a vivid imagination is very welcome!

[Xiagan]

A 150k words fanfic? Quite impressive, dear sir!
I lack the time to participate in doing some Aquaria fanfic atm, but that's not a complete and permanent no.

A script for a movie would be a cool idea too.

[Locutus]

Time... You're talking about that precious resource we all seem to permanently have too few of, in these hectic times? I quite hear you.

Though I always try to take the time for stuff I like doing, and not let that hectic pace get the upper hand.

Anyway, thanks for the semi-"not no".

To elaborate, the first and overall most important kind of participation I'd need is having people to do what we tend to call "brainstorming sessions" with. That usually means we meet on an instant messenging platform, like IRC or Jabber (server resources are available - I do server-/webhosting too!) and have creative chats about the topic, throw together ideas, make plans for plot and chapters.

Most of that 150k words fic I mentioned was done this way. Since my co-author there wasn't too good at English, I did most of the phrasing work. But I'd meet regularly with him and do brainstorming, review completed parts, come up with new ideas. And he had his strong side there: He came up with a lot of very nice ideas for locations, background, plot and actions.

And that's what I'd need here too. Someone who has a firm grasp of the game's plot and details - who is so to speak "well-versed" (pun intended!) - and who feels more or less creative, who thinks they can contribute ideas, to chat with and throw together those ideas. We can take as much or few time for that as is available.

As for the movie script... Certainly, from a story something like that can stem! My idea here is not only to make a quick fanfic, but elaborate a more or less detailed "universe" in which to embed the story. The more elaborated that gets, the easier it is to come up with follow-up stuff.

To get an idea what I mean there, you might want to take a look at the Wiki I set up back then to collect brainstorming results for a fic project called Beneath Another Sky. That's the one I mentioned a few times in my "review", with the Sun Temple and forest and stuff.

Unfortunately, that project fell dormant due to lack of participants. I guess we bit off more than we could chew. So I don't plan to do something just as huge here, but check it out and you get the idea of what creative people can do together.

[Xiagan]

Yeah, you shouldn't let the hectic life get the upper hand and I try not to. Thing is, I'm a writer myself (www.xiagan.net) and I have some other writing projects I try to make time for, so adding another doesn't seem to be the best idea atm.

We have an IRC-Channel for years, feel free to drop by. It's semi-active, but there are usually 5-10 users. -> irc.esper.net #bitblot

[Locutus]

Thing is, I'm a writer myself (www.xiagan.net) and I have some other writing projects I try to make time for

Oooh, nice! Well, maybe we can do something together when our time allows!

Aside from that, I guess what I could use most in terms of getting started with an Aquaria fic, would be, if it exists, some kind of resource with as much "official" stuff regarding plot (in-game, mechanics, narrative, background, whatever the plot author had in mind) as possible. Or someone who has that kind of knowledge and is willing to answer questions. So that whatever stuff I come up with stays as much "canon" as possible.

If there's no such resource so far, maybe it'd be an idea to start out by making one. I can set up a Mediawiki for everyone to contribute their knowledge about Aquaria background!

We have an IRC-Channel for years, feel free to drop by.

Thanks, I'm checking it out right now!

[Locutus]

Well, I happened to stumble upon "False.Genesis" on IRC, and we initiated a hopefully quite fruitful cooperation in terms of plot, sequel mod and accompanying stories.

The first thing stemming from that which I'd like to publish here is my first attempt at making up lullaby lyrics for the omnipresently mentioned "verse", as Eric's mother sung it to her baby. For that I'm using the melody in the soundtrack piece "The Verse" as a basis. Here goes:

Day is done,
gone the sun,
night is falling.

Starry twinkle,
velvet crinkle,
baby sprawling.

From the sky and
from the sea the
Spirit's calling:

Hush, my baby,
for your mommy
loves you best.

Hush, my baby,
I will guard thee
while you rest.

(The words are loosely based on the actual lullabys "Day is Done", "Brahm's Lullaby" and "Twinkle twinkle little star".)

[Ender Skywalker]

I'd be interested. Though I don't have any ideas atm, I'm sure I could give it a try.

But by now I assume this project is totally dead, isn't it?