Enter The Ninjaverse

Hi everyone, I'm BionicStars, the author of Enter the Ninjaverse.

Ninjaverse started posting in October of 2019. It's now September of 2021.

23 Months, 110 Chapters, 6 Epilogues, and over a million words.

Hundreds of dollars in coffee spent hunched in my corner of Starbucks, pounding away at chapter after chapter, to the point where I had to start writing at home to save money.

I published all of both Autobiography of a Legend and The Furthest Realm before I was even up to chapter 70 of Ninjaverse.

I suppose this is my chance to truly reflect on what Ninjaverse was. When I started the story, I didn't quite know how I wanted it to go. I always knew how it would start and how it would end, but the middle was a murky swamp of details. I knew it would start with the Twins taking Lloyd's power, and would end with them in a big battle to stop the Twins, but nothing between. Initially, I thought this would be maybe 40 or so chapters, enough to get through Over's world and set up a final confrontation with them after that. Then I introduced Ophiod and Prime. Then Oni. Then I went back to other worlds. Then I added on new character arcs, and soon the story had ballooned into this massive beast. Soon enough I was planning this gigantic final battle that would culminate in Prime's death, Ophiod's redemption, Oni's flee, and the Twin's final defeat. And now, the epilogues are over... and so is that massive story I let get out of control.

I've grown as a writer in many ways. I've spent so much time writing Ninjaverse that it became one of my go-to hobbies. It pushed me to think of new ways to write plots and stories. In the end, it became its own beast. I wrote the best story I could while remaining in Ninjago's realm. I did my best to pull characters from every possible source of Ninjago's cannon, making sure everyone who read it knew that I loved everything from the campy Pilots to the dark Oni Trilogy and beyond. I wanted everyone who read this to be able to sit down and enjoy the story, no matter what level of fan they were.

I think it's easy to see how the story evolved. The first 17 chapters are an intense chase fic. Then it slows down in Mage's world into a more dramatic, focused narrative about the Twins destroying this boy's home. Then Over's world dying turns the story into an intense, painful tragedy that raises the stakes. And from then on, the story gets noticeably darker, more intense, more powerful. It isn't the smoothest curve, and I acknowledge that. I think Ninjaverse clearly shows how my vision for the story shifted, while doing my best to keep the characters and the narrative consistent as it changed.

I'm not particularly proud of everything in the story. I think the spelling errors are somewhat egregious, and I simply don't have the energy to go back and fix all of them. I wish I had better set up plot points in the beginning of the story and relied less on contrivances in order to get by. Things like Harumi's Black Rhotatae were plot points I simply forgot to keep up throughout the story and some payoffs suffered for that. I also wish I'd been more confident in my worldbuilding when I first started. I flew through Lulloyd and Harumi's worlds because I was worried I had to keep the audience engaged. It isn't until Chapter 17 that I start to feel proud of the amount of worldbuilding that I put into my stories, hence why I set an entire chunk of my story in Mage's world. By the time I even got to the end of Over's world, I was struggling where to go from there. It wasn't until we meet Ophiod that I start to think Ninjaverse became what I wanted it to always be, and that somewhat shows with how the first third and the last two-thirds feel like different stories to me personally.

One of the biggest things I wish I'd done better was the characters. I think Ninjaverse, as a story, was successful because of the characters I chose. Over in particular was one of my favorites to write, even if Monty was right up there with him most of the time. But characters like Harumi and Mage, I feel, were ones I took far too long to find my niche with them. I personally believe you can feel how Prime and Ophiod had their characters set up from the start, while the others in the cast had to have their own paths roughly laid out in front of them. I think you can feel Prime's eventual downfall in his introduction. With someone like Harumi, it isn't anywhere near as clear.

I don't think I'll ever be able to fully detach myself from the story. Right now, I have no plans for a sequel. I don't think I could handle that. I think the story ended off right where it needed to. I welcome fanart, fan-stories, and especially just comments about what people think. I didn't write the story to become famous in the community. I wrote it for me, to be able to put together this weird mash of anime, cartoons and my love for simple, dramatic characters.

Speaking of those shows, I figured I should lay out my inspirations for the story outright. Obviously, the name begets where the idea began: Into the Spiderverse. It was that movie that sparked the idea for me, but it was none other than Underverse (an Undertale fan animation) that gave me the idea of instead setting it as a long chase-type story with team-building along the way. Bionicle was a huge inspiration for me as to character arcs and certain scenes. Some of the biggest anime influences I can list are Madoka Magica for Over's entire character, Avatar the Last Airbender for Mage's initial arc, A Certain Scientific Railgun and Accelerator for Harumi's setting and the direction of Monty, Rising of the Shield Hero for Ophiod's demeanor and his relationship to Skales, Darling in the FranXX and Evangelion for Prime's mecha setting and tragedy, and one of my top five favorite of all time, RE:Creators for the tone and setting of the overall story and the entire idea for the conflict with Ophiod and Prime. The final battle was heavily influenced by Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the Sword of Sanctuary was gifted its personality from the Monado in Xenoblade Chronicles, and The World Ends With You had smaller influences on things like character directions and music montages. Homestuck just in general gave me so many song choices to write scenes to. I could keep going and going, but you're likely able to find references to shows I like within the story itself, some subtle, some not. I acknowledge Ninjaverse is an original work that has dozens of powerful influences that helped me shape how I wanted to tell my story and write my characters.

All I can say to those of you that read this far into the story, after 1.1 million words, after all this time, to the ones that were there from the start to the ones that binged through it, I just have one thing to say to each of you...

Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to read this work of passion. It isn't perfect, but you read through it. It isn't the best, but you found it worth reading. The fat that you kept going, all this way, all this time, I'll never be able to thank you enough. Thank you for reading through every line of dialogue, every action scene, every moment of references and every single small detail in the story. Again, all I can say to you, right now, is thank you.

There are two small thank you gifts I decided to post as a way to give back to you. On my Tumblr, I'll be leaving a link to the documents I used to keep my worldbuilding consistent: the Universe Bibles. These are essentially gigantic reference documents that contain descriptions, history, lore, power systems, and anything else I needed when I forgot a detail. The second is one last chapter in the Universal Deviations to my story, Over vs. Monty. It's a fight I wrote out for fun, one last gigantic bout of unrelenting action as the two attempt to finally prove who is the strongest. Please check out my Tumblr (under the name bionicstars) if you're interested in the Universe Bibles and Universal Deviations if you want to see the last ever fight in Ninjaverse.

Thank you all for reading. As surreal as it is to say this, for the final time...

NINJAAAAAA-GO!