TA'AVEREN 1/2: TALES OF THE RONIN
---
by John Walter Biles (rhea@maison-otaku.net)
 and Jeremy Blackman (loki@maison-otaku.net)
---

***

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
    The Story of the Fic So Far

***

Ok, ok.  I ripped off our chapter-heading format from the actual fic,
because this particular post is intended to get stuck on the beginning of
the fic itself in archives, eventually.  ^_^;

Well, some people on this list may be familiar with Ta'averen 1/2...  but
for those who aren't, here's the history of one of the more heavily
procrastinated fanfics in existance. :) 

Several years back, John Biles and myself were chatting, sleep-deprived,
online at around 2:00am.  (This was so long ago, John was still at UMD
instead of UKansas.)  We we discussing Robert Jordan's fantasy epic, _The
Wheel of Time_.  John was tired, and typoed 'Rand al'Thor' as 'Ranma
al'Thor'. 

A lightbulb went off over our joint consciousness, flickering though it
was.  (Hey, it was 2:00am.)  We began to come up with conceivable
character casting:  Ukyou as Min, Ranma as Rand, Cologne as Moraine Sedai,
etc.  By the time we'd finished our casting, we had a basic concept of the
story through the entire first book and possibly beyond, and so we decided
to sit down and write it. 

It was a horribly spoofy fanfic; many tongue-in-cheek references, odd
little asides, or sarcastic tones, and was written when and where we could
snatch the time. 

And when we posted the first chapter, we were completely unprepared for
the reaction we got.  We were flooded with commentary; several other
people wrote WoT/Ranma crossovers (I think it's become a small sub-genre
in the three or so years since T1/2 was originally posted).  In fact, as I
understand, our own White Wolf got hooked on anime as a result of trying
to figure out what the Ranma 1/2 part of T1/2 was, after someone posted it
to a Robert Jordan newsgroup.  Heck, John took 'Ranma al'Thor' as his nom
de plume for a while. 

We got through the first three chapters... and then I dropped the ball on
John. 

I was supposed to write the next chapter, but my job went through
restructuring.  I was retrained, instead of a multimedia engineer, as a
database engineer.  When that was finally done, I didn't have the time for
writing for a while.  By the time I -did- have time again, I only had time
to do the very beginnings of a draft before the place I worked laid off
some of the interns, including me.  I found another job which I nearly
burned out at (100 hours a week while still in school will do that), quit
6 months later, and came to work at the video game company I've been at
for almost a year and a half now.  (And I ain't leaving!) 

Somewhere in all that, T1/2 got lost and I never really found the
motivation to restart it.  Every few months, someone would send me a note
asking if it would ever get done (usually White Wolf) and I'd give them
some sort of brush-off.  I got a bit creative at the brush-offs.  (White
Wolf also got creative with some of his threats, as I recall.)

Finally, I decided it was time to sit down and rewrite the fourth chapter. 
I really don't like some of what I have as the draft right now, so I'm
tossing part of it.  I'm hoping to have chapter 4 finalized within the
next three weeks or so, pending proofreading by Biles in his position
as coauthor.

Additionally, I went back and rewrote chunks of the first three chapters;
I corrected all the places I could find that the originals had mistakes,
cleaned up some of the scenes in the second and third chapters, and
changed John and my e-mail addresses to current ones (albeit not ones
we're on the list under).  When I post chapter 4, I'll post the revised
editions of the first three chapters, as well.

I figure if Kimagure Orange College can lurch back to life after
God-knows-how-long between episodes (wasn't that originally considered one
of the signs of the apocalypse?), I might as well *finally* get the next
part of Ta'averen 1/2 out.  (Stop gloating, you two.  And you know who you
are.)

So what the heck.  After all, sooner or later, the story of the Ronin
Reborn must be continued, and it might as well be the original minstrels
that tell it. 

  --Jeremy 'Loki' Blackman