Exeuntes, a Story Based on Final Fantasy XV

Introduction

Hi there everyone! Welcome to my story. Since I'm in the middle of publishing edited chapters onto Wattpad, I thought it'd be good to write an introduction to better explain the background of Exeuntes. 

I started this story in late May of 2018. It started off being written by two people (including me) before it increased to three briefly. Now, the previous co-authors of the story have become my editors/proofreaders instead but I still greatly appreciate their work. If you're looking to join my "Editors' Council", I would be happy to have you on board!

This story was originally published on Archive of Our Own (AOW) before being moved to here and finally onto Tapas (tapas.io/series/exeuntes). In order to treat my readers fairly on both platforms, I will be putting different extras on both platforms but chapters will, of course, be the same.

I started editing chapters in late March of 2019 up until the very end of June. They've all been posted onto Tapas and I am now in the process of re-publishing them onto Wattpad (20 July 2019). 

Now you're probably going to ask... when are you going to finish this story? And to answer that truthfully, I have no clue! I am currently hoping to end it in June of 2020 but we'll see how the story progresses since I only have a rough outline anyways.

I think I've covered everything that I need to at this point! If you have any comments, questions and/or concerns, feel free to DM me or comment on this paragraph.

Dila signing off!

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Added on 30 June 2020

I've just read the previous version of this introduction and realized I only focused on the background of this story rather than the story itself! So to address some questions and concerns I've received, I've decided to add onto that in this section. 

Firstly, a common question I receive is: do I need to have an understanding of Final Fantasy XV and its lore/original story to understand this story? The answer is pretty simple and that is a no. I will always try to explain new concepts and words in the story, either explicitly (I have and plan to add a mini "glossary" section at the end of some chapters) or implicitly (in the text itself). Regarding the story, this book will have a different ending than the original story and has some new characters and characters that are not really present in the original story. However, if you do have an understanding of the video game's lore/its original story, it will help in understanding the story more though quite insignificantly. That is because the main idea/storyline of this book is different and does not follow the same one as the original story. With that being said, don't expect this story to not have any elements from the original story at all—it definitely does!

Another question I receive is: is this story fanfiction? Well, the answer to that is... kind of. Like I said in the previous paragraph, this story has a completely different main idea/storyline and does not try to alter the original's (the main characters of this story are original/made up by me and the Editors' Council and thus different). However, it does have many elements and ideas that are in the original and does include some characters and all the locations and names of the original. But the order and specifics of incidents and events are different which deviates from the normal definition of "fanfic". In short, the answer to this question really depends on your definition of "fanfiction" and what it is to you. Personally, I think it isn't though even some members of my own Editors' Council disagree with me! In the end, I don't really care what you call it, so as long as you enjoy the story!    

And finally, a question I've received recently is: has this story changed from what you envisioned in the beginning? And the answer to that is most definitely. The current complete draft of this story ends much earlier than what I expected since we've added a lot of plot points that were not even there when both of us (Muhammad and I) first began writing this. I attribute this partially to the fact that we never had a clear outline and plan going into this but also to the fact that sometimes what we write forces us to go in a different direction than what we originally planned (the characters usually have other ideas).  Am I happy with these changes? Well... this is the first story I've actually put a lot of effort into and the first I've published (online). It definitely isn't perfect and I really did want the ending to be what I planned in the beginning. But this story in its entirety is already over 75,000 words so I thought I'd end it before it just keeps rambling on and on... no one wants a story that's just filler, right? The Editors' Council unanimously approved me ending this where it is and we eventually came to an agreement on a new ending. Besides, I plan to continue this story's "universe" and developing it even further...

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Update (30 June 2020): Hi again, everyone! I'm proud to say that we (the Editors' Council and I) have finished the first complete draft of Exeuntes! We will now be spending the next few months going over the entire draft and re-publishing each chapter until we've gone through this entire "book". Another note—we won't be uploading the final chapter until we've all gone through it at least once. I had hoped to have finished this by the end of this month but since we've all been dealing with this pandemic, we're probably going to be pushing the upload date to some time in July. 

We're also in the process of updating the description (summary/blurb) of this story so be sure to keep an eye out for that as well! We sincerely hope that you'll enjoy the newly edited chapters and eventually, the second complete draft of this story!