| Welcome
to The Goat Pen. It's a highly misleading
name, I know. We don't have goats, nor
do we write any of the site in pen! It's
all done on computer! Can you believe
it!? A website done entirely on computer!
But enough joking around. The majority
of the site is related to the Final
Fantasy game series. It's a series
I grew up with, starting in the 90s with
Final Fantasy 6 (or Final
Fantasy 3 as it was renamed in the
States, but we're pretending that never
happened).
==========
What About Bob?
My Video Game Origins
==========
My first gaming
system, ignoring my parents' Atari, was
the Super Nintendo. I started playing
when I was eight-years old and started
with Super Mario World. I often
rented games from either Blockbuster or
a local store called Video City. Yeah,
no Gamefly in the 90s. Back in the day,
to rent a game you had to first convince
your parents that they need a
movie from the video store and perhaps
groceries. And for your company to the
grocery store, well heck, maybe while
they're at the video store, they can rent
you one of those damned-expensive video
games.
I rented a
lot of games, but my Squaresoft addiction
started pretty early. My first game, if
I recall correctly, was Secret of
Mana, or Seiken Densetsu 2
in Japan. This was a great two-player
game that I played all too many times
with my older sister. I think we rented
it once, then bought it. It was our first
step into role-playing games, and a good
one at that since it was a nice midpoint
from action/platformer to RPG. It had
active fighting, but level-ups and a decent
story, basic as it may be.
I then went
based on creator and tried out Final
Fantasy III, which I'll from this
point refer to as Final Fantasy VI.
If there was ever a game that piqued my
interest, it was this one. What a
game! This quickly shot up my
list of games I wanted. I'd probably have
sold my soul for this game (not anymore,
sorry, Satan). Unfortunately, nobody
sold this game! Nobody!
For at least a couple years, whenever
I wandered into a store with a video game
section, I checked for this game. I wanted
it so badly!
I must've
rented this game about ten times. I played
the beginning so many times.
I had time limits for how long I could
play video games each day, and based on
my restrictions, I found that it was typical
to reach the Floating Continent in that
5-day rental period (Remember: SNES games
save on the cartridge, not a memory card).
Most games ended near the Floating Continent.
Once I rented it back-to-back and continued
further, possibly beating the game (I
honestly can't remember, but I think
I did...). I once rented a cartridge
of FF6 that had this mega-glitch that
wrecked the save system. You could
save, but once you turned off the
SNES, your game had a 90% chance of being
erased... Do you know how many
times I've played the beginning of this
game!? Seriously, I didn't care! I still
loved it, even if I could only get
as far as the fight with Kefka in Narshe!
Another game
I was dying to own was Illusion of
Gaia (Squaresoft? No, but Enix!),
but Final Fantasy III was probably
the biggest tragedy of my young life (yeah,
not a lot happens to me). Even the guy
cutting my hair one day that recommended
Secret of Evermore (which I bought
and am glad I did so) could not get me
through these dark times. So dark... My
soul forever stained...until! Angels
decended and spoke to me.
"The best
game in the world is here," the angels
said.
"Somewhere
has Final Fantasy 3!?" I
reply with wide-eyed excitement.
"No.
Better. This, is Chrono Trigger."
Now, keep
in mind that my soul is still stained
by the loss of Final Fantasy VI, but
now I had Chrono Trigger! If
you were to ask me what my favorite game
of all time is, I'd point you
to this game. I rented it, loved it,
and "bought" it (kids don't
buy things. They just hope a birthday
or Christmas is on the way). If you are
curious, Tyrannodome. That's about where
most people get in a 5-day rental period.
Anyway. If you'll notice a theme
here. I was very in love with Squresoft.
RPGs in general, too, but Secret of
the Stars and Breath of Fire
II (to name a couple) just weren't
the same caliber as Squaresoft RPGs. Not
to say there weren't flops along the way
for Squaresoft, but I digress.
From here,
I probably took the course of the typical
Final Fantasy fan. I loved FF6,
so I had to put Final Fantasy VII
on my Christmas list. My older sister
and I were so psyched when we got this
game. Mom pulled a psyche-out on us when
we didn't get it for Christmas, but we
got it a couple days later from my grandparents
(who obviously let my mom do the shopping
since they'd never think to buy us Final
Fantasy VII and Mortal Kombat:
Mythologies). And so, we
played it. It. Was. Amazing. I still remember
a bunch of our first-time thoughts of
the game, like when we believed we would
get Cait Sith in Wall Market because he
was a big kitty-thing and was in the instruction
booklet, and Wall Market has a statue
of a cat! It must be him! It
wasn't until we were a good ways into
Shin-Ra HQ that I realized it just wasn't
happening...
And so, my
Final Fantasy love continued
on for years to come. Final Fantasy
X was and still is one of my top
favorites of the series, but after that,
things went downhill. Enix came in and
Square just hasn't been the same.
==========
The Goat Pen
What It Holds (Hint: Not Goats)
==========
With such
a wonderful selection of games at my disposal,
I introduce The Goat Pen. It is a collection
of various works, though the majority
of them are centered around the Final
Fantasy video game franchise. The
Final Fantasy games have such
great characters and themes that are so
dang fun to use in fan fiction. The site's
original hit series was Bugging
Sephiroth (2002). It is a humorous
story about Sephiroth and his odd attachment
to his mother, Jenova. It takes place
after the events of Final Fantasy
VII, though follows no continuity
since characters are all revived for some
unexplained reason. It ended in late 2008,
only to be picked back up in 2009, now
taking place after the events of Final
Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Again,
it makes no sense. Good, mindless fun.
If you're
looking for my devotion to old Squaresoft
(*sigh* and Square-Enix) games, look no
further than The
Amazing Final Fantasy Race. This is
a cross-over putting Final Fantasy
characters in teams of two to race through
different Square worlds and compete for
one-million gil. I love CBS's The
Amazing Race and thought it would
make a great format for a fan fiction
series. It originally started as a spoof
of the show using the Final Fantasy
characters, but quickly turned into a
thrilling and epic race, despite being
centered around humor. It has so far had
three seasons: Season
1 (2005 to 2007), Season
2 (2008 to 2010), and Season
3 (2010 to 2011) and will begin its
fourth in late 2011/early 2012.
The
Squall Online Experiment (2005) started
as a quirky storytelling through false
e-mails to the completely anti-social
Squall from various Final Fantasy
VIII characters. I eventually realized
it was a golden opportunity to open my
site up to some guest participation. This,
in conjunction with the site's Forum
started turning The Goat Pen into a more
interactive experience; not just your
average fan fiction site (or is it?).
Because of
the successes and failures of The
Squall Online Experiment, I decided
to open up a new concept for the readers
and contributors of my site with a livejournal-based
role-playing game. It became too time-consuming
for me to update every Squall Online e-mail
that was submitted individually, so I
created the world of Mallboro
(2005) where different players could maintain
in-character journals that could be posted
with zero involvement from yours truly,
so no more "waiting for Bob to post
my e-mail." In this world, all Final
Fantasy worlds intersect, all characters
are live and well (I guess), and since
all of the worlds are saved, the characters
of those worlds have moved on and are
now living in a world where the only jobs
available are in a shopping mall owned
and maintained by FF8's NORG. It's a kooky
premise, but it's been great fun and even
though the number of players is limited,
it has a lot of mini-games and interesting
things to read and write about.
YKAD
(2010) is my first real-world writing
forum. It stands for "Your Kids Are
Dumb," and it is a general retelling
of my experiences as a substitute teacher.
Despite the title, it is not just me making
fun of kids. It is a humorous look at
the terrible world that is substitute
teaching and is mostly my way of explaining
how students react to a substitute teacher
and a general introduction into the ugly
world that is Californian education. It
also focuses on teachers' abilities to
prepare for a substitute and interactions
with staff and parents. No names are used
because, believe it or not, I respect
everyone's confidentiality.
At the end
of 2010, the site saw a few changes. A
small segment called True
Cast (2010) grew in popularity and
moved from the Extras
section to its own section, as did the
Reviews section.
The Extras section
accumulated all the old portions of the
site that some people still enjoy reading,
even though most of it I feel is not that
great. There are, however, some unique,
non-Final Fantasy works in that section
if you're tired of reading all things
Final Fantasy.
And that's
the extent of the site. I still actively
work on the site, though I lose a lot
of time to real life. I truly appologize
if a series you want more of takes me
long periods of time to update, but I've
just run out of time anymore. I got married
in 2009 and have been working hard (or
hardly working) to make a living and stuff.
But I do love working on the site and
update whenever I can.
==========
The Future
Now Featuring the Past and Present!
==========
I enjoy writing
all this Final Fantasy fan fiction
for two reasons. For one, I love putting
my work out there and finding people with
common interests. Not only Final Fantasy,
but my sense of humor, too. I highly
enjoy situational humor, sarcasm, and
self-mockery, which isn't common for fan
fiction on the whole. I'm really a hypocrite
on fan fiction; I don't enjoy a lot of
it because it either takes itself too
seriously or the humor just isn't my style.
My favorite
thing about fan fiction (this is reason
number two) is that it's a great platform
to learn how to write. My writing skills
aren't top notch, but if you read through
something like Bugging Sephiroth or compare
The Amazing Final Fantasy Race's Season
1 to Season 2, you'll see that my writing
has gotten better. Some is just because
of the practice, and some is the response
I get from readers who are helping me
to perfect my writing abilities. With
this, I eventually plan to write some
of my own works some day. Will they get
published? I'm not sure. Probably not.
But I love making up stories and writing
fan fiction is great practice. Squaresoft/Square/Square-Enix
has given us some great characters and
settings, and by using them instead of
my own work, I can get past my shortcomings
with descriptions and use existing characters
and worlds to practice writing.
And hell,
if this site wasn't Final Fantasy
fan fiction, would you have ever
found it? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Having the criticism and help has been
wonderful and hopefully this site will
one day be my springboard into something
else. My skills in writing, website design,
and computer graphics are so much more
than they were. Thanks for checking out
my site, sorry you had to read so much,
and I hope you enjoy the site!
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