The Backstory

A long time ago, I had the ambitious idea of writing a decadent piece of self-indulgent, self-centric fan fiction. It was to be a melting pot of original characters, with elements, worlds, and various content from video games and other works of fiction. The story was called One-Third: inspired by a story written on DeviantArt that did something similar.

Downtown Crossover. Made for Inktober 2016.

The story's plot was that the Creator was sucked from her own world to a world within her own mind, and her spirit became trapped inside a magical obsidian pillar in the Alternate World. Three individuals--fragments of the Creator and collectively known as the Persona Trio--were brought together as a result: Zephyr, a reckless and pushy blue-clad traveler; Victoria Hearthwell, a quiet and reserved Pokémon Trainer who serves as the team strategist; and Kite Aurelius, an anxious yet good-willed individual born without any kind of backstory whatsoever (because the Creator was sucked into the Alternate World before she could begin working on it). Together, they must find a way to free the Creator's spirit without sacrificing each other's lives for the Creator to regain her physical being and be able to use her powers to return home.

They are aided in their quest initially by Eldritch, a guardian entity and the personification of the Creators good; he safeguards the Creator and her obsidian pillar from his other half, Aldritch, who in turn embodies the Creator's evil. Other supporting characters include Sylvette Marks, a violinist and recently promoted head librarian of the Crossover Library, where the trio often convene to discuss plans; and Viresco Lancaster, a wandering kunoichi-for-hire initially antagonistic to the group, taunting and hindering them, but she eventually joins them as she finds their company amusing.

Izakaya. Made for Inktober 2016. Characters from left to right: Zephyr, Kite, Tori, and Vir.

Aldritch seeks to consume the Creator's soul to unshackle herself from the binds of being borne into the Alternate World, the only thing keeping her from materializing permanently into the Real World without being forcefully sucked back into the former (as anything not from the Real World would be forcefully expunged back to where it came from). She intends to use the Creator's body and soul as a vessel to wreak havoc and plunge the Real World into chaos. Since the Persona Trio also collectively embodies pieces of the Creator herself, Aldritch seeks to consume their souls as well for the same purpose by forcing the trio through a ritual called the Union--where the souls of the Persona Trio merge to give the Creator form, but at the cost of their lives.

The malignant entity Aldritch, her imp familiar Augustus, and the Creator in the obsidian pillar.

The story took off and 17-year old me was proud and excited about the story. Sadly, it remained in development hell for the longest time after six chapters. Too many plot holes. I had no clear direction for my story and the whole thing just went kaput. Though I attempted to revive it, it was to no avail. It only resulted in me trying to force everything into a story just so I could accommodate every single idea. Think of the whole thing as an indie game Kickstarter project where the devs promise you a world that can anything you want it to be, but the only thing that came out of it was a sloppy excuse of a game that had no coherence or structure. Yeah. It's like that.

With a heavy heart, I ultimately shelved the project. I sought to create original works of fiction within my head instead, which was refreshingly liberating.

A mockup panel I drew of the second chapter of One-Third.

Parts of One-Third, though, still continue to live on, notably when you simply look around the website. The Persona Trio, after learning of their mission, left the temple the Creator was trapped in and made their way to the nearest city, considered both the hub and nexus to all worlds within the Alternate World: the city of Crossover, rightfully named given how people from various worlds could easily go from one world to another through the use of portals called Gateways.

An FTL-inspired ink poster of the Persona Trio. Made in 2015.

Crossover was meant to be a symbol of this confluence of original ideas inside my mind: ideas based on experience, what I was exposed to, the things I've learned growing up, and the games I played.

The obsidian pillar that trapped the Creator was, while a prison to her soul, also a vessel for the Creator herself. It housed the very being that brought the Alternate World, and everything within it, to life. The obsidian pillar served as the Iifa Tree to Crossover and beyond, and so long as the Creator breathed life, so too, would this world of fantasy. 

Crossover's logo.

The story of One-Third forever remains in perpetual obscurity (and the annals of my computer). It admittedly still hurts thinking how I've had to shelve it away, because it was really something I had considered close to my heart for the longest time; yet I am comforted knowing it only encouraged me to create worlds and purely original stories of my own.

The Creator lives on, and her art, encapsulated by this meager obsidian crystal you see around the site today, serves as a testament to that.