Forward:

     Greetings!

     Hello, glad to have you here!  I'm Dino27, or so I've called myself online for the last decade or so.  I'm glad you decided to join us!


     What is this website?

    So what is this place?  Glad you asked!  This is a site dedicated to stories that my good friend Ruku, of https://rukusanreviewsanime.blogspot.com/ , and I have written/are writing, set in the Sword Art Online universe.
     If you're not familiar with Sword Art Online, we highly suggest you check it out if you happen to have an interest in our little stories; the original is such a quality piece, it would be an insult to it to suggest that our works could stand alone without it.  It's on Netflix in the U.S. if you don't happen to have Crunchyroll or any of the more anime dedicated streaming sites.  And it was a book series before it was a show/movie  (be aware that the show hasn't caught up to the books yet, so there are major spoilers for things yet to come in screen format.)
     Please note that Sword Art Online is TV-PG-14. The vast majority of our story falls under the same rating, although there will be a couple of chapters that earn a stronger rating.  Never fear though, we will 1: provide a content warning at the beginning and end of any such chapters.  2: Provide a more PG13 version on our sister site https://rukusanreviewsanime.blogspot.com/ because we get it, sometimes you (or parents if you're a younger reader) aren't okay with some stuff.  Do note that the truest version of the story will be found here, but only a few chapters should see any changes at all, so no need to worry about missing out on anything.  We've got you covered, and we'll make sure that if you're interested in this story, that you get to enjoy it.
     If you're dead-set on reading this for some reason without having seen or read the original, canon Sword Art Online (and you really should as the characters are nothing short of spectacular) then essentially the only things that you absolutely need to know are that it is set in Japan, starts in the year 2022, and is about ten thousand people who are the first to experience a "full dive" virtual reality video game in which their minds are transported into an artificial world.  But things go wrong, and it becomes a battle to survive, not just in the game, but in the real world too. 
     Back to SAO: Origination, I suppose you could classify our stories as fan-fiction, although it is our intention to steer clear of some of the more cringe-worthy aspects that are sometimes known to crop up in the genera.  (To be fair, there are lots of truly excellent fan-fics out there too!)
     It is our goal to create an excellent and believable story with original characters who dwell within the world of Sword Art Online, or SAO, for short.  Our characters will have very little, if any, interaction with canon characters, although they certainly know of the more famous ones.  That said, we might just have a minor character guest appearance or two for a couple brief scenes.
     Still, we have set out to tell our own stories about our own characters, and not just look for excuses for our OCs to interact with Kirito and friends; so please don't expect to see canon characters here.


     Opinions.

     I am saddened that I even feel the need to say this, but alas, I fear that it must be said now, lest it rear its ugly head later on.
     We're big fans of SAO. You don't have to be.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion, after all.  I really wish that I didn't need to say anything about this, but if this blog/story ever goes anywhere, then it most certainly will be encountered by people who hate SAO, often simply because they were told that "it's trash" and that they should hate it, without ever having even seen any of it themselves.  I have never seen another show that is so successful, so loved, and so hated all at the same time, and frankly, it baffles me
     SAO is a contentious topic in the anime community.  We get that.  We're not here to argue about the merits of SAO, (although to be honest we may be the tiniest bit defensive of it) but if you're not a fan, please don't bad-mouth something we care about on a website dedicated to that fandom.
     I would also suggest that if you hate it simply because it is popular opinion to do so, that you give it a chance and judge for yourself if it's good or bad.

     All that said, we welcome constructive criticism and reader feedback here!  Please feel free to chime in, but please keep it civil; to other readers as well as towards us.  Thanks!  We really appreciate it! 


     Background.

     Ruku and I have been best friends for years.  We met on LEGO.COM as teens and ended up as close friends in real life, where we try to get together and watch Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, Marvel movies, and a wide variety of anime a couple times a year, since we don't live nearby.   
     So how the heck did we decide to write an SAO fan-fic? Well, I guess it all really started in May of 2016, when we met up to watch Captain America Civil War, and all the Marvel movies leading up to it.  (For the umpteenth time, just for fun.)  But after we binge-watched all the relevant MCU movies and felt all the feels with Civil War, Ruku decided to introduce me to new (to us) much beloved show.  Sword Art Online.
     Now, Ruku and I can be quite silly at times.  We're so much alike, it's almost like we're the same person.  Likes and dislikes, method of thinking, personality, heck, even most of our tastes in food, etc. etc.  Sometimes it's almost scary.  Why is that relevant?  Because in spite of this, we sometimes don't expect each other to react the same way that the other one does, but we practically always react the same way.
     This was one of those times.  Ruku was just getting started watching anime, and was still in denial about being a fan of the genre, while I had yet to see any.  (Unless you count channel flipping years ago and briefly encountering Pokemon and Beyblade on TV.)   That changed when Ruku showed me SAO. It was funny, really.  I remember Ruku being very worried that I was going to hate this show and that we were going to take completely opposite views of it.  But Ruku needn't have worried.  With one day left on the trip, we knocked out the Aincrad arc and stopped to absorb what we'd seen.  I cried watching it.  I still do. (And then he "made" me watch SAO II later that year.  Then I knew what it was to cry.)
     It was at that point that two things happened.  First, I grabbed Ruku by the shoulders and demanded more SAO immediately.  Second, I thought I had a truly original and inspired idea: write a story with our own characters set in the SAO universe.
     I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised, Ruku, or me.  Ruku was shocked and thrilled that I loved the show, and I was equally surprised to find that we both really, desperately wanted to write a story set in this universe.  It was meant to be.
     And so with only one evening left in the trip, we did two things  We watched Fairy Dance  (fight me, it was great; the show is about the characters, not any one story,) and we brainstormed characters.  And out of that brainstorming session, we actually managed to come up with some concepts that have survived all the way to the current iteration of our SAO story.
   

     In closing.

     If you read this whole post, my hat's off to you.  Have a cookie.  But be warned.  This "little" project of ours will easily span 600-2,400 pages.  And if you find yourself enjoying it to begin with, well, we hope that it will be hard for you to stop reading, because we want you to enjoy reading this as much as we enjoy writing it.








     Legal Gibberish.

     Sword Art Online, and all the canon characters, locations, events, and music are the property of their original creators.  We do this for fun and make no money by doing so, and thus no breach of copyright is intended.
     All events and characters not part of SAO canon (or the games) are our original creations, and are our intellectual property.  I state this, not because we stand to make a profit (again, we do not, have not, and will not make money off of this project) but because we wish to receive credit where it's due.
     Content we the authors upload to both this, and RukuReviewsAnime, is subject to be edited as we see fit.  This story is a work in progress, although we will do our utmost to present you the reader with a quality, polished story in a timely manner.