Author Notes 01: Timelines and Wutai
- Shizune Mai
- Feb 4, 2016
- 3 min read
FOREWORD
This will likely be the first in a series about various behind-the-scenes notes, doodles, thought-processes behind certain decisions, and little wiki-worthy bonus extra content thingies regarding this fan fiction on the original Turk characters invented by myself and my friends in Second Life for the Midgar Role Play there. I'll try to go into some detail about these things and the fictional world/situations I am crafting for this tale without spoiling anything. I make no guarantees about the soundness of logic of the tidbits detailed here, and it will likely read like a grocery list of the insane. That is all. Enjoy.
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ABOUT THE DATES/TIMELINE
Prior to getting started on this fan fiction, I looked into the official timeline and year-numbering system employed by the canon Compilation of Final Fantasy 7, but that was confusing as all hell, and I personally couldn't stomach repeatedly writing "μ" or "εγλ" in a story that I knew was going to rely quite a bit on jumping back and forth in the timeline between flashbacks and present day. So, for the ease of all of this, and because I suck at math (unlike Shizune), I simply used the Gregorian numbering system and make each of the story timelines 5 years apart, which led me to the convention of labeling everything as "Discs."
REGARDING "DISCS"
After getting to about the third official episode of the main series, I began to realize that the dates alone (2005, 2010, and 2015) were not really that indicative of the main story timelines I was working with. There are three distinct timelines in this story, and as such, I thought that labeling each of these chronological zones as "discs" would be not only helpful, but also a callback to the original PS1 FF7 format. As such, I decided to designate the timelines as follows:
DISC 01: (2005 and prior) Prior to Shizune entering the Turks. This primarily includes her time in Alpha Company and everything leading up to her actually entering the Turks organization.
DISC 02: (2010~2015) The five years during which Shizune was a Turk, her time as the Head of the Research and Logistics Division, and everything leading up to the day that she and her R0-414 unit members were exiled from Midgar.
DISC 03: (2015 and onward) This timeline includes everything that happened after the exile event. It covers all of R0-414 members' activities in hiding, as well as all current developments leading up to whatever it is that leads up to because I can't tell you yet, HA!
REGARDING WUTAI AND BANSHU
In the original game, Wutai is portrayed as some amalgam of Japan and China. I would say "East Asia" but certain Korean elements are conspicuously missing. In any event, as many of you may have gathered, I have based my portrayal of Wutai primarily on Japan.
In real life, I initially came to live and work in Japan in 2003 to teach English to Japanese high school students through the JET Programme. I ended up enjoying this so much that I stayed in Japan teaching English for a total of 6 years. After that, I went to graduate school in Japan, and at the time of this writing, I am celebrating my 11th year here in this fascinating country.
Obviously, most of how I portray Wutai in general is somewhat removed from how it was in the game, where there was only one major settlement and the rest of the blade-shaped island continent was a deserted wilderness of monsters, desolation, and bridges between cliffs. The Wutai my story is set in is much more like a less-populated version of Japan. There is a dynastic history which borrows elements from the Sengoku mythologies, as well as much more prefecturally delineated (and populated) areas. In the File 03, for example, Shizune takes the train from Banshu to Aoyama to visit a shrine. If only there was a train in the Wutai of the original game...
Much of how I portray the sleepy coastal town of Banshu, where Shizune is hiding under the cover of cafe proprietess Rei Kashiwabara, is based on three things in particular--1) the first rural town I lived in when I started living and working in Japan, 2) Okinawa, and 3) some essence of Ghibli countrysides. I hope that I have done any of these things justice in the narrative. If anyone of you ever visits a Japanese countryside during the summertime, please let me know if it matches up at all.
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