These are my personal thoughts on this story. Warning: I rambled--a LOT.

Also, this rant mentions "Mary Sue" fics several times. If you don't know what that is, or your completely surprised that I call this fic a Mary Sue, I sugest you get the truth about the subject right here before going on.

Now on with the commentary!
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So, I guess the big question is, why did I write this story? There are several different reasons. But contrary to popular belief, giving everyone the heebeejeebies was not one of them. Okay, maybe a little one.
I never planned on writing a Ronin Warrior fanfic. But I visited other web pages and read a lot of complaints about all the crappy Ronin Mary Sues flooding the net. And then I started reading some Mary Sues; and realized they had reason to complain. I'm sure every Ronin fan whose read fanfic can sum up Mary Sue cliches. Anywhere from one to five pretty girls show up with armor, they fight with the Ronins, the Ronins can't help but fall in love with their flawless beauty. Happy ending and all around ego trip for the writer.
I'm sick of people whining about the lack of originality. I'm sick of people ignoring other's whining for originality. It's like they're saying there's only one possible type of Mary Sue anyone is able to write. Partly, I wrote this story to prove that it is possible to write a Mary Sue using as little cliches as possible. Yes! It can be done! Go try it sometime, you'll be surprised!
But again, introducing Robyn was not the main reason I wrote this story. My main objective with this story was to humanize the Ronins. I wanted to portray them as real teenagers with real lives outside their Ronin duties. Too many stories abundantly show what they are, but not who they are. Don't understand?
Well, Ryo bears the armor of Wildfire and is the leader, Rowen of Strata is the brain, Sage is the flirt (according to a startling amount of zombie fanfic writers), Cye's the cook, and Kento is the bottomless pit. That's what they are, right?
What if I said Ryo couldn't tell a lie to save his life and he has a bad habit of playing with fire when he's bored. (He keeps a lighter in his pocket 24/7 you know.) And Rowen bends easily to peer pressure. He constantly worries about what his fellow students think about him and he hates being seen only for his intelligence instead of who he really is. Sage takes morbid pleasure in confusing people and staying the "mysterious" one. He also wishes the girls would all leave him the heck alone. Cye is strictly NOT a cat person and can be over bearing sometimes when you do something that really bothers him. Kento has the healthiest home life of any of them and he also has the best hold on reality.
This is the "who" part. Giving them traits that make them sound more like regular people.
Now, was I right? Maybe, maybe not. The point is that this story dared to step beyond the stereotype boundaries and made them seem like real people. They were given personalities, traits, opinions, and quarks. I wanted to give the reader the feeling these were real kids just goofing around and doing what normal teenagers do while still keeping them true to their characters.
However, I will admit right now that my Rowen is way off. We've all seen the show, a portion of us have seen the OAVs. We all know he doesn't act like that. Only in my stories he does. Rowen is my least favorite Ronin. You may not be able to tell from the story but, I don't like him much. So I changed his character into someone I do like. He fits beautifully into my story now, I love writing him, and I'm keeping him that way. So nyah.

Getting back on track here...(No I'm not done yet, sorry) I have written fanfics for almost four years now and this is the first "scary" story I've ever attempted. Where did I get the ideas for all the weird crap? Well, I've long since studied and done reports on supernatural phenomenon so I kinda know a bit about all that. But mostly, I just made it up as I went along. But I also consider this story a comedy for all the humor I crammed into it to counteract the dark parts.
This story has been the only fanfic series I have ever completed my entire "career" as a fanfic writer. I also consider it my best work so far. There are parts to this fic that really hit home for me and you'd be surprised just how much of this story was inspired from actual experiences from my life. No, I'm not referring to the demon worshiping parts here, you sillies.
But I do consider this fic sort of an ode to my home town--the creepiest district on the face of the planet. Don't believe me? My friend who moved here from out of town called it "The real-life Eerie, Indiana". It's creepy, I promise. I've lived here most of my life and it still scares me to go out at night.
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Well, for those still around now, I'm going to take some time to answer a few questions people have e-mailed me while I was writing this.
  • First off, several people have been wanting to know who Robyn gets "hooked up" with.

    My answer: I'm not telling ^.^ Unlike %99.9 of Mary Sues out there, the purpose of this story was not to have the Ronin of my dreams fall in love with my character. To keep it interesting, I tried to make it appear that Robyn could end up with any one of them. Robyn gaining a relationship with each Ronin was part of the story. Selfishly using this fic as my own personal fantasy, however, was not. But I would be interesting in hearing anyone else's opinion on the matter. Those who want to tell me who they think Robyn should/will end up with is welcome to e-mail me and discuss romantic prospects. ;)

  • Next off, some might be disappointed at how Nago, the "main bad guy", was killed so easily. Why couldn't they have a better fight at the end?

    Well, there are several different degrees of evil that affect the Ronins in this story. At the very end, we find that most of the spooky things that happened throughout the story--mainly to Sage--were not caused by Nago, but by something else entirely. Nago and all that goes with him was not the main focus of this story. He was a side plot. And who's to say that every evil thing the Ronins fight is going to be stronger than Talpa or worse? Talpa was pretty hard to kill himself. You'd really have to come up with a whopper of a villain to out do him. So once again, I tried something different.

    Oh! I swear there was another question I wanted to answer, but I forgot. Oh well, skipping to the last one here...

  • Will you be writing more fanfics later?


    Most likely. Though at the moment all my fanfic ideas are half-baked right now. I'll be taking a break from Ronin fics for a while, but I do plan on writing a sequel to "Demons in the Doorway". Don't worry, it's not going to be like the last one. I did a scary story, time to do something else. So just hang tight and come the new year, I'll probably start cranking out new stories again.

    Well, that's it guys. Anyone who wants to comment on this fic or ask questions, feel free to e-mail me. I honestly worked my butt off with this fic guys. I wanna find out what you thought about it. If there's anything I put in here that you don't agree with, I wouldn't mind hearing that either. Constructive criticism is always welcome.

    Thanks for reading guys. Love ya all! ^.^