In this prison, the lost souls live like kings. Their pride feeds on endless praise from a thousand voices. They sleep on treasure beds - gift images designed specifically to hide the walls under miles of similar visions. They have a whole society with its own etiquette and rules and hierarchy to keep them so busy they don't have time to look around and see anything but each other. If one does stop, the first barrier appears: the voices asking for more. If he ignores these and tries to look around, the second arrives: the love for his favorite game or anime series renewed by a sequel or expansion pack. Then the others: similar images, peer pressure, guilt at requests left unfulfilled, and many, many more. When things get really dangerous, when someone starts looking like he's about to realize that he's in a prison, he finds the tallest wall: "This is just porn, it's not REAL art, it's not only OK that it's not good, it's SUPPOSED to be worse than real art." I'm very proud of this wall: it's never failed me yet.

I, the fan who views their derivative works and praises them and asks for more, I'm the jailer in this prison, as well as the architect. I keep them locked up, so busy drawing and scripting my fantasies based on someone else's work that they don't have the time to dream their own dreams. So busy that they can't write about new worlds or draw me a new babe. They can only redraw the same old babe having sex with a new guy, or from a new angle, or in a new position. And I tell them that this is enough to be considered creative, that it's so much better than even the original that I wish the original looked like their version. And they sit in the prison and smile, bathed in the glow of the walls I have built around them.

I use the prisoners as bait too. I share an image or story with a group of aspiring artists. "Look, see what this great artist did, don't you like it? Can you do this but with those other characters instead?" And the aspiring artists stop dreaming their own dreams and instead they dream the ones I ask them to, the ones whose path leads into my jail where I quietly close the door behind them. Soon they start locking each other up, they start sending fan versions of another fan version of someone else's original character as a gift. I've turned art into two generations of leftovers wearing new sauce.

Recently I met a person who jumped headfirst into my cage on his very first day on the Net. His only goal online is to be the most popular fanfict writer for his favorite video game. He doesn't want to work for a game company and make new games, he only wants to tell me new stories about an old one. I'll be laughing for days about this great victory. It's like a gardener getting weeds to pull themselves and then thank him for providing them with the opportunity to wither and die.

What worlds will you never get to see because the artist was too busy drawing me the girls from Blue Eyes playing golf and masturbating with the clubs to have time to create it? How many stories will you never be told because I've kept the bard locked in an ivory tower, drawing me the characters from Ranma 1/2 as hermaphrodites with huge jugs and cocks cumming all over each other? How many games will you never get to play because I've got the programmers locked up in my prison trying to rehash all the icons in Final Fantasy as over-endowed women, and all the combat routines as rape scenes? Can you even begin to calculate the value of what I've stolen from you?

I don't think you can - because, you see, I built the walls of my prison from your imagination. When I offer my praise, I do it with your voice. And I have even gotten your eyes to enjoy my fantasies and think they're your own. In fact, you haven't dreamt any new dreams since I began my collection because your fantasies are now mine: they have become the bars locking your saviors away from their own salvation. You dream about Tifa Lockhart with even bigger boobs and Kasumi bursting out of her shirt while they both tag-team Gaury - because I've taken your private dream babe and filled my prison with her beauty twisted into old forms.

But don't feel bad, after all, it's a big cage and there's room for you on the inside if you feel left out and alone here with only me on the outside. I still have so many old dreams that have not yet been retold often enough. If you can't write or draw, that's OK, this is only a fan submission, it's not real art. You can do it. See, that wasn't so hard, was it? I really like your art, in fact, I think it's so good that I wish the original looked half that good. Hey, will you write me just one more fanfict?