Reborn Again - About

Reborn Again is a Breath of Fire fanfic I began back in 1998. I was barely 19 then (seems so long ago ;.;) and my inspiration struck with a combination of Breath of Fire 2 and Michael Swanwick's The Iron Dragon's Daughter.

I wanted to write a grittier Breath of Fire world, one that parallels the real, modern world but with magic and unusual races alongside the technical advances of our time. I wanted to shake people's expectations, so I wrote the story from Nina rather than Ryu's point of view, and I made this Nina a princess... of the slums. She cursed with every sentence, couldn't give a damn about dressing pretty, and was filled with bitterness from the losses and abuses of her childhood. She was Nina Winland, the Fourth Destined Princess, and she was also a bit of me.

I made Nina a 17 year old college-age girl, trying to make that awkward transition from adolescence to adulthood. I was a couple years beyond that, but the difficulties of transitioning into college were still fresh in my mind, along with all the heavy responsibility that came with it. Nina, of course, was living on her own, but her money for tuition came from the Royal Treasury, and the hefty weight of responsibility came from her unwanted Destiny.

Through her, I excised some of my own inner demons. That was the original intent of Reborn Again, and why, for several months at least, I was able to write it so fervently and obsessively. But time went on... RL responsibilities got heavier... relationships distracted (and ultimately worsened my emotional state)... inspiration slowly died. By the time I was forced to move back to my parents' place for health reasons, the story had already ground to a halt, at Chapter 44.

Contrary to popular belief, it seems, I never wanted to leave Reborn Again at that. Sure, it's sat around for years and years, but I still think about it -- I still plan for it. Reborn Again is still very much a part of my life, and it's changed in some ways since I first conceived it. At the same time, though, a lot of it has remained the same... only my ability to articulate it has improved.

So now I'm hoping, with some time and inspiration and a little bit of that elusive motivation, to rewrite Reborn Again the way I envision it today. That's what this new site is for, to help me focus my thoughts on planning and actually pounding out new chapters. I won't make any promises, but I can say I really do want to see Nina's story told in full, no matter how many more years pass in the process.