Fanfiction
Feb. 10th, 2005 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirLowell House, on the Feast of Ste. Scholastica
I wrote a Hikago ficlet. Furthermore I wrote a sentimental ficlet, for Valentine's Day. >_> A prefatory note, on how this got written: today, the microarray slides I analyzed were clear and beautiful; the fluorescent green spots were perfectly symmetrical and aligned in their neat little blocks. I looked at the rows of circles and felt inexpressibly happy. I do not kid--it was a moment of simple bliss. (Maybe I'd been staring at the computer screen for too long?) When I left, still in the good mood, I walked outside into a snowfall and thought, "I must write this scene into a fic." (You see, I have very little imagination. Half the descriptions in my fics come from real life, which is one of the many reasons why I can't write about kisses.)
The following is a letter that Touya writes on Valentine's Day, but never sends (hence the title). I think it says a lot about me that the first love letter I've ever written is for a fictional character to another fictional character. Also, even more telling is that the "muse" which inspired me was a DNA microarray. Doesn't that pretty much sum up Tari and her weirdnesses in two sentences? (Warning: what's ahead is...kind of sappy. Forgive me.)
Unsent Letter
Ostensibly for Valentine's Day
To Shindou--
Do you remember that time when we played into the night in my father's go salon? You were in a pensive mood and played a complex, winding game, its strategy as intricate and many-layered as an old embroidered kimono, the ones you see enshrined in dusty museums. I picked out a careful path within the treacherous territory with its deceptive boundaries, and in yosei I thought I had walked it to its end: to you, or rather, that part of you that remains beyond my understanding, even so, even now. But one last hand, and I knew that it must be true when they say that learning another person is like losing yourself in labyrinths: the goal is not to escape the maze but to let yourself be drawn deeper into its dead ends and endless circles.
That night--how late was it when we finished? I only know that it was dark outside--the salon was quiet as we put away the goban and goke. The soft fluorescent light seemed to hum loudly in my ears as we tiptoed past Ichikawa-san, whose mouth drooped open as she dozed in her seat, but otherwise, the place was silent. We walked down the narrow flights of stairs, past the dentist's office, past the pet store, and finally past the restaurant on the first floor. The sudden din of voices raised in conversation and the wave of raucous laughter, of clinking glasses, of silverware, of chairs sliding against the floor enveloped us as we walked to the door. We did not talk for we would not have heard each other over the noise.
You opened the door, looking behind to see if I would follow, and walked outside into flurries of snow. The door shut behind us, and with it ceased the noise. You and I stood on the empty street, and toward us blew a cloud of fat white flakes, suspended by the wind, although the air felt so very still between us. Without speaking, we watched them float lazily, leisurely toward us, settling on our coats and gloves, on my hat and your uncovered head. For two seconds I did not breathe and then exhaled softly in a puff, and you smiled at that, your eyes oddly solemn. We walked through that quiet, floating snow, brimming with unspoken conversations, and when we parted at the station, I imagined taking your hand in mine and standing there forever, while the snow settled on our shoulders.
But then, how would we play go again? How would I ever walk again with you on a cold February night, thinking of hands? Instead, I said goodbye, as a solitary car drove past, and we turned to go our separate paths.
Sometimes I wonder if whether one could write letters in hands of go: shinogi in the upper left territory, hane to your tsuke, keima from the center right hoshi, a response with classical joseki, a bold hand at tengen. But these hands, in isolation, are meaningless without the framework of a game; so too, I fear, are words without the framework of half-coherent thoughts. How does one read what another has written and understand without knowing the writer? Am I as unsolvable and irresolvable to you as you are to me?
I lay my words on the lines of the goban in black and white, and so open and bold is each and every sentence that I grow afraid at times that you will read it aloud to the watching audience. But I also hope that you will remember it and whisper it again to yourself, when you replay each game at home--do you replay each one of our games like I do? That night, I had a thought that I could not comprehend, even now, only play out in stones on the goban, and even now, I am trying to articulate that moment, in hopes of pinning it down into words. Where is the meaning of a game finished in forgotten hours, of a walk in silence through curtains of hanging snow? Do you know how to find it, Shindou?
--Touya
2005年 2月 14日
END
Yours &c.
I wrote a Hikago ficlet. Furthermore I wrote a sentimental ficlet, for Valentine's Day. >_> A prefatory note, on how this got written: today, the microarray slides I analyzed were clear and beautiful; the fluorescent green spots were perfectly symmetrical and aligned in their neat little blocks. I looked at the rows of circles and felt inexpressibly happy. I do not kid--it was a moment of simple bliss. (Maybe I'd been staring at the computer screen for too long?) When I left, still in the good mood, I walked outside into a snowfall and thought, "I must write this scene into a fic." (You see, I have very little imagination. Half the descriptions in my fics come from real life, which is one of the many reasons why I can't write about kisses.)
The following is a letter that Touya writes on Valentine's Day, but never sends (hence the title). I think it says a lot about me that the first love letter I've ever written is for a fictional character to another fictional character. Also, even more telling is that the "muse" which inspired me was a DNA microarray. Doesn't that pretty much sum up Tari and her weirdnesses in two sentences? (Warning: what's ahead is...kind of sappy. Forgive me.)
Unsent Letter
Ostensibly for Valentine's Day
To Shindou--
Do you remember that time when we played into the night in my father's go salon? You were in a pensive mood and played a complex, winding game, its strategy as intricate and many-layered as an old embroidered kimono, the ones you see enshrined in dusty museums. I picked out a careful path within the treacherous territory with its deceptive boundaries, and in yosei I thought I had walked it to its end: to you, or rather, that part of you that remains beyond my understanding, even so, even now. But one last hand, and I knew that it must be true when they say that learning another person is like losing yourself in labyrinths: the goal is not to escape the maze but to let yourself be drawn deeper into its dead ends and endless circles.
That night--how late was it when we finished? I only know that it was dark outside--the salon was quiet as we put away the goban and goke. The soft fluorescent light seemed to hum loudly in my ears as we tiptoed past Ichikawa-san, whose mouth drooped open as she dozed in her seat, but otherwise, the place was silent. We walked down the narrow flights of stairs, past the dentist's office, past the pet store, and finally past the restaurant on the first floor. The sudden din of voices raised in conversation and the wave of raucous laughter, of clinking glasses, of silverware, of chairs sliding against the floor enveloped us as we walked to the door. We did not talk for we would not have heard each other over the noise.
You opened the door, looking behind to see if I would follow, and walked outside into flurries of snow. The door shut behind us, and with it ceased the noise. You and I stood on the empty street, and toward us blew a cloud of fat white flakes, suspended by the wind, although the air felt so very still between us. Without speaking, we watched them float lazily, leisurely toward us, settling on our coats and gloves, on my hat and your uncovered head. For two seconds I did not breathe and then exhaled softly in a puff, and you smiled at that, your eyes oddly solemn. We walked through that quiet, floating snow, brimming with unspoken conversations, and when we parted at the station, I imagined taking your hand in mine and standing there forever, while the snow settled on our shoulders.
But then, how would we play go again? How would I ever walk again with you on a cold February night, thinking of hands? Instead, I said goodbye, as a solitary car drove past, and we turned to go our separate paths.
Sometimes I wonder if whether one could write letters in hands of go: shinogi in the upper left territory, hane to your tsuke, keima from the center right hoshi, a response with classical joseki, a bold hand at tengen. But these hands, in isolation, are meaningless without the framework of a game; so too, I fear, are words without the framework of half-coherent thoughts. How does one read what another has written and understand without knowing the writer? Am I as unsolvable and irresolvable to you as you are to me?
I lay my words on the lines of the goban in black and white, and so open and bold is each and every sentence that I grow afraid at times that you will read it aloud to the watching audience. But I also hope that you will remember it and whisper it again to yourself, when you replay each game at home--do you replay each one of our games like I do? That night, I had a thought that I could not comprehend, even now, only play out in stones on the goban, and even now, I am trying to articulate that moment, in hopes of pinning it down into words. Where is the meaning of a game finished in forgotten hours, of a walk in silence through curtains of hanging snow? Do you know how to find it, Shindou?
--Touya
2005年 2月 14日
END
Yours &c.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 05:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 12:41 pm (UTC)Thanks a lot for posting this *_*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 04:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 06:28 pm (UTC)By the way, I snuck a peek at some of the art in your journal, and it's really beautiful! I was particularly tickled by the rock band incarnation. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 06:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 06:34 pm (UTC)(Thanks for the link, as well!)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 06:38 pm (UTC)I normally have trouble writing about love--never having really experienced it--so I thought that perhaps I could approach it by this approximation instead. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 07:20 pm (UTC)i really don't think this is sap. sap implies something oozing with sentiment, crystallized or underdone. this is just about right and very lovely and still; i applaud you for being able to use go terms correctly and for giving touya the kind of inherent dignity he seems to have (WHEN NOT PLAYING HIKARU).
and i love to think of hikaru scrawling a note along the lines of
HEY TOUYA
I'm good, ain't I? But just for today I'll admit you're better.
Maybe tomorrow you won't be--hahahaha but who cares? We'll still play, right? i'll be the strongest rival in the world.
*scrawl of what is meant to be Touya in pigtails*
*giant scrawl of something lumpy with circles, labeled 'hand of god' getting ready to squash the first scrawl*
and near the bottom, almost like an afterthought--
it's more fun because of you.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 07:49 pm (UTC)And hahahahahaha, Hikaru would so do that! XD (And obsessedstalker!Touya would crumple the note after reading it, then carefully smooth it out when no one's looking and put it into his Box of All Things Shindou Hikaru at home.)
(Excuse me now while I go squeal, "Aki commented on my fic!" in private.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 10:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 10:45 pm (UTC)(Hey, it was snowing like crazy here yesterday, did it snow in Cambridge too? Mr. S said it was just raining when he left Cambridge.. We had giant clumps of wet snow falling. They were a lot more visible than the loose kind, and a lot more picturesque because they seemed to fall a bit slower, I guess because of larger surface area or just because your eye has more to focus on... Anyway, how fitting! ^_^)
I liked it. ::sniffle:: Even though it made me sad. The last bits especially. But I like sad fics. ::sniffle::
Anyway, I did not think it was too sentimental. I liked how nostalgic-y it was. I do not remember *that* much about HikaGo anymore, and less so of go techniques, so I am afraid some of your details escape me, but I have to agree with what someone said, Akira does seem like the type to think of things in terms of go. Heh.
Er...I am a horrible feedback-er, which is why I guess I do it less often than I should... >_>
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-11 11:35 pm (UTC)For one, it was not as eloquent as yours (although I have no idea what you are talking about, *lol*), but it was doomed to fail anyway *laughs*
Wow, it's really hard to type internet comments in English, I've gotten too used to the German keyboard...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-12 01:48 am (UTC)Aw, I didn't intend it to be sad, but then again, you like fics that make you sniffle, don't you. Anyway, you're not a bad feedback-er at all, you're my security blanket, and if Tryo-chan doesn't say anything, I start to doubt myself. <3
(Don't tell anyone, but I had to look up all the go techniques at Sensei's Library.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-12 01:51 am (UTC)This love letter is ::cough:: a fanfic, which is why it's probably hard to place in context--the anime series the characters come from is about go, the ancient strategy board game, and it is surprisingly complex and fascinating (the anime, I mean; the game is too, but that's a given). I know, you're thinking, "Wait, aren't fanfics supposed to be about sex?" after all the conversations with R. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-12 01:54 am (UTC)Heh, true enough. >_
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-12 02:38 am (UTC)Ah! Gomen! I meant to comment earlier, but LJ has been an assnut recently.
Yay! I am glad to be your security blanket, though I am not sure how good I am. >_>
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-12 04:30 am (UTC)And I wouldn't be typing in German exactly...it's more that I don't know where my asterisks are *gg*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-12 04:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-12 04:47 am (UTC)I'll be adding this to my memories. :D Thanks so much for writing, and I hope you write more soon. Your writing is wonderful. ^^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-12 05:07 am (UTC)and Hikaru. ^_____^(Oh, and I've been feeling a little guilty because it seemed that you friended me for the Hikago fic, and sadly I don't write fic very frequently. >_> Anyway, hope this makes all the scrolling worth it! ^_^;;)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-12 07:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-13 12:35 am (UTC)I have been interested in learning about and participating in the sport, but I'm unsure where to start. I just moved across the country to a little town near Richmond, Virginia and martial arts school are much more scare here than they were in California.
Anyway, to get to the point, would you mind telling my what to look for in a kendo class/school and what exactly I will be getting myself into?
Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-13 04:19 am (UTC)My favorite is how you match Touya's feelings towards Hikaru with his feelings for Go; I think both complement each other very well. It's very fitting that he views his opponent through that lens.
My favorite lines:
How would I ever walk again with you on a cold February night, (without?) thinking of hands?
It's a bit awkward (the placing of the last phrase) ... but I really do love what it implies. *G*
And this phrase:
That night, I had a thought that I could not comprehend, even now, only play out in stones on the goban, and even now, I am trying to articulate that moment, in hopes of pinning it down into words. Where is the meaning of a game finished in forgotten hours, of a walk in silence through curtains of hanging snow?
Tis perfect. The meaning of a game finished in forgotten hours .... wow.
I also like the incredible details you ALWAYS have in your fic and how you use them too, to set the mood instead of just to set the setting. Like this:
The sudden din of voices raised in conversation and the wave of raucous laughter, of clinking glasses, of silverware, of chairs sliding against the floor enveloped us as we walked to the door. We did not talk for we would not have heard each other over the noise.
The space of silence there really works.
Heee. You are really very awesome as a writer, and it made my day to read this!!! ;) Heeee. Happy V-day to you too!
here's hoping, as always, to read more!
-muri ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-13 02:24 pm (UTC)Hm, so what's kendo like? Basically, you use a bundle of wooden bamboo slats, assembled to resemble a sword, called a shinai, and learn how to make four key strikes with it (to the head, to the wrist, to the side, to the throat) plus variations thereof. You wear armor as protection (although it still hurts getting hit), but you probably won't immediately start off wearing armor until after you've learned the basics. Ah, a warning: kendo equipment is pretty expensive, especially the armor, so be prepared to spend some money.
Kendo isn't a martial art you should take for self-defense because it's so specialized, but it is definitely a whole body workout and even more importantly it teaches discipline. On the other hand, I think it's very important to go into kendo not because you are attracted by the glamor of swordsmanship but rather just a sense of sheer obstinacy. There are lots of repetitive drills at the beginning--it takes a long time to absorb the basics before you get to put on the armor like everyone else--and often people grow frustrated because it seems like you're doing the same thing over and over again. I think you really need a perfectionist streak to stick with kendo.
But despite all these warnings, it's really worth it, in so many ways. I think kendo really teaches you focus, endurance, good posture, good judgment, strength, etc. And of course, once you do get to the point where you put on your armor and you get to really spar with people, you finally do get to approximate what it must have been like to duel with swords.
My captain is on LJ, and I'll try to see if she's willing to offer more concrete information as well, since she's more experienced than I am. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-13 02:38 pm (UTC)The line about the hands was intended to be the way it was written there (no "without"), and yes, the phrase was kind of strange, because I was trying too hard to be clever and wanted to make the pun. ^_^;; I shall try to make it sound less awkward if I ever stop being lazy and get around to editing. >_<
Anyway, I am so happy you liked it. XD I'm afraid you give me too much credit as a writer (I still feel that I'm simply a dabbler playing around with words), but your compliments definitely made my day. ^_______^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-13 04:22 pm (UTC)I'm actually looking into kendo because, well I think Japanese swordsmanship is the most beautiful and I've always wanted to be involved in a martial art. Mostly because I know I need dicipline, as well as something to get me up off my ass.
I looked up schools in my area, and this Koryo Dojo (http://www.auskf.info/mainpages/Federation%20schools/seuskf.htm) is the only one I found within a reasonable distance. I'll have to check it out once I can go to town. I looked at the prices for equipment, since you mentioned it, and was a bit surprised. I might have to work on getting a job before I get into kendo. ^_^
Again, thanks a whole lot for taking the time to give me this information. ^_^
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-13 05:11 pm (UTC)but this koryo place looks good, too, esp. since they're AUSKF. another place to check out is UVA (once again there's the problem of practices possibly being only for students and affiliates). their club is technically kumdo, which is the korean incarnation of kendo. it's slightly different on the beginner level (much more physical, possibly less technical), but once you advance far enough, the differences are all academic, really.
also, everything "tari" (wow, i'm not getting used to calling her that, am i...) is certainly true. but dont' worry so much about the pricing of things for now. when you start out, all you'll really need is a shinai and comfy, loose clothing. later you'll get your hakama/dougi, which will come out to like $40, maybe. your bougu is a whole other issue. it's totally possible to practice kendo for an extended period of time without having armor. you'll just be working on your basics more which is ALWAYS a good thing.
so i recommend you contact koryo about joining them, and ask them how to proceed. specifics for beginners can vary from dojo to dojo. but they'll probably even have shinai for you to borrow at first, and can help you order your own eventually. feel free to ask me stuff, too, i'm always happy to blab about kendo, hehe.
and have fun! you're in for quite the awesome ride :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 04:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 01:00 pm (UTC)I actually have written a couple of short Hikago ficlets and drabbles, although nothing substantial. They're mostly archived here. I'm afraid my writing is mostly plotless--the first and last time I wrote fanfiction with a plot was for Gundam Wing, and the results were rather embarrassing. >_>;;
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 01:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 11:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-03 10:12 am (UTC)Your story was one of the inspirations for Traces of Distant Days (http://hostilecrayon.livejournal.com/71701.html), one of the pieces I cherish the most, even after writing at least fifty others.
In other words, I find it to be truly inspiring. <3
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-03 11:46 am (UTC)I just clicked on your link, and the emotion in your story is truly moving. Thank you for sharing it!