Much belated Blind Go aftermath post

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus

I promised both aishuu and ai_ling that I'd have this post up ages ago, but what with end of exams and moving out and coming back to Cambridge for Senior Week events, I haven't had the time to sit down and finish my write-up. Like last time, I put up my guesses in a private post, which is now unlocked and can be viewed here.

Ever since the first round, after people had seen the notorious "punctuation chart", I knew that I wouldn't be able to rely as heavily on punctuation and formatting choices as I did before. Guessing this round was also much more difficult given that I wasn't as familiar with many of the participating authors. A lot of my gut instinct depends on authorial voice, and no matter how much you go back to read through people's fanfiction archives (which I did), it really takes time before you really develop an intuitive sense of how the author writes.

The first fic I guessed was [kanmuri] for issen4. It helped, of course, that she had left a comment to aishuu about having referenced "Schizophrenia" in her submission, as well as her hint about a missing scene. I would like to think though that I'd have been able to guess correctly even without those clues because I did think while reading the fic that it sounded like Luce or Aishuu, and I figured Aishuu wouldn't have reused a previous idea.

Another somewhat "unfair" guess was [kirin] for harumi because it just happened to be the fic submitted before mine in the inbox, and I had noticed from her LJ post that she had submitted in the morning a few hours before deadline, like me. I felt justified in my guess because harumi is very good at writing elaborate AUs (e.g. her epic work-in-progress, "Hikaru's Phoenix").

The final guess where I had a key hint was [kujaku] for akira_chan. I chatted with akira_chan on AIM about a week after the reveal, and she had not only linked me to one of her first Hikago fics but also told me that she had used a theme set metaphorically in her fic. I had a bit of an unfair advantage here: although she didn't tell me which theme set she used, I did know which authors explicitly listed the themes that they were including in their submission. There were only two fics that used themes in a metaphorical fashion ([mizugame] and [kujaku], and after comparing the style with her previous work, I could quickly figure out that she had written [kujaku].

I guessed [fuuchou] for ai_ling because I noticed that ai_ling likes using <hr> dividers, and I figured that she wouldn't have known to disguise them (since she probably hadn't seen my post on guessing for the first round). She told me afterwards though that she did know about my previous guessing post and that she had tried to stump me by using two types of dividers. I should probably say that it's not so much how many different dividers you use as whether or not you use uncharacteristic ones. Asterisks and hyphens are pretty common, but horizontal rules and special characters stick out like a sore thumb. The best way to keep me confused would be to either use the most common divider styles or use ones that you have specifically never used before. ai_ling also often includes author's notes at the end (another clue), and I knew from having read some of her previous fic and from noticing her answer to a poll about maybesparrows that she was fond of classic science fiction and fantasy, which I thought made her a good candidate for writing such a detailed magic AU.

(I'm sure that last part makes me sound like a stalker, so let me hasten to add that I wasn't intentionally searching for clues when I looked at the poll answers. I do however automatically tend to file away small details about people if I think it reveals something about their personality, and I especially pay attention to what sort of books people like.)

Many authors went around leaving feedback with their pseudonyms, which was also, haha, really useful in matching up commenting styles. [ite] had left a long comment on my own fanfic, so I suppose I unconsciously started noticing her feedback to other fics, and for some odd reason, when I saw a comment by viridian_magpie in kifu_archive, it immediately reminded me of [ite]. So I went back and did my usual punctuation check and noted down spellings like "out-manoeuvred" although I didn't really feel sure until I had gotten down more matches.

Another serendipitous moment came when I was rereading [karasu]. room101 happened to have left me a comment that made a reference to the fic she wrote for silvermuse89 in a game of Truth or Dare, where there is mention made of eggplant!Touya. ^_^ When I came across a similar line in [karasu], I instantly put down room101 for the guess. (If I hadn't gone to read room101's fic then, I may never have gotten it right.)

Next two identified were [kajiki] and [ryouken]. Yeongha/Yashiro has become fandom's newest favorite crack pairing, but it was clear that it had to have originated from somewhere. (By the way, the first anonymous comment on the support thread to mention Yeongha/Yashiro was me. ^_^) Now, I first became a fan of the pairing after reading doumeki's submissions for the last round of blind_go, so I thought at first doumeki might have written it. But I also noticed she wrote Saeki/Ashiwara as well--which is not so much a crack pairing but is rarely written--so I wasn't sure which of them she might have written. When I went back to look through different authors' fic archives, I found that chaineddove had also written Yeongha/Yashiro before, and if you look at those fics, the way she characterizes the pairing is instantly recognizable. By that point, I wasn't 100% sure that doumeki had written [ryouken] but since [kajiki] was clearly written by chaineddove, I thought [ryouken] was the most likely bet.

I was starting to get a little frustrated because I hadn't recognized aishuu's voice in any of the fics, and I usually do, because her style is pretty familiar to me. I think I was also thrown off because I was partly expecting her to write about a minor character, and I definitely wasn't expecting her to write AU or smut. But then I finally systematically went through each of the remaining unmatched fics and asked myself, "Could Aishuu write this?" (as opposed to "Would Aishuu write this?"). By which I mean, I stopped looking at genre and character preferences and looked for stylistic marks. For example, long fic that was well over the word count limit, and a certain sound to the dialogue (Aishuu's characters usually sound like "real people", by which I mean they actually use colloquialisms and never sound stilted unless the conversation itself is supposed to be awkward). I think in retrospect what really clued me in was the Akira POV, which Aishuu does very well. Anyway, I knew that Aishuu had written sex scenes before but it had been a while since I read them so I went through her archive and looked for all the R-rated fics just to be sure that she did write smut like that. That was what clinched my guess because no two people really write sex scenes the same. For example, there was a particular line of dialogue--when Hikaru tells Akira, "You're the sexiest thing"--which pops up as "You have the sexiest voice" in a different fic.

I realized in similar fashion that ladyseishou was most likely to have written [ro]. I knew from her AU series for 31_days (which you all should read) that she had a fairly detailed knowledge of Japanese history. Of course, I didn't know for sure if there were other authors who had a similarly extensive knowledge, but there's also a matter of preferences, and I didn't think (at least from my perusal of fic archives) that anyone else was likely to write about Shusaku. It was also clear that meitachi had written [tate]; not only does she obviously like the pairing but she also has a particular way of portraying their dynamic that was familiar.

I guessed sivillunen for [hebi] because of characterization and, of course, dividers. I find it hard to explain, but there was a quality to the dynamic between Morishita and Touya Kouyou that matched the dynamic between Mitani and Kishimoto. (Something especially about the way that Touya Kouyou and Kishimoto were both very seme characters, I think.) Also, sivillunen uses a single asterisk for a divider. I also guessed ungalad for [koto] based on her use of dividers (three en dashes, which is very unusual). [saidan] had a very strong authorial voice (in addition to being in first person all the way through) and a certain style of humor, so after reading through several fics, I thought takewing was the best bet (and luckily I was right).

As the fics narrowed themselves down, the process started getting harder, depending on whether I was familiar with the authors or not. I had about five fics left, and it was here I started making mistakes. I assumed that mmmdraco wrote [uo] for no other reason than that she writes great smut, and that turned out to be wrong. I initially put down trixie_chick for [mizugame] but I kept second-guessing myself, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what epigrammist wrote, so I changed my guess because I knew epigrammist had written Waya/Isumi before, and [mizugame] was the only Waya/Isumi fic left. In retrospect, I should have stuck to my original guess. I mean, I loved the use of go metaphors, and surely I should have known...but anyway, I guessed molly_commas for [usagi] partly because of her meme answers to "Five Fics I Almost Wrote for blind_go", but of course, if someone almost writes Irish revolutionary AU fic, their actual submission is probably going to be completely different. And then I realized I did something wrong because that meant the only person I had left for [iruka] was verloren1983, and it definitely didn't match up in many ways (the punctuation, the characterization, the whole premise of the fic), but I was rather tired at this point so I gave up and just sent my guesses to silvermuse89 as is.

Anyway, there you have it, my whole guessing process in excruciating detail. >_> I found this round especially difficult thanks to all the new authors who signed up, and I suspect my guessing percentage is only going to continue going down in future rounds as people get better at disguising themselves. ^_^

As you know by now, I was [gaka]. Well, the theme behind my blind_go writing playlist was "road trip" (which is probably not obvious, given the actual lyrics, but all of these songs inspire wanderlust in me for some odd reason), and of course, the plotless premise for There and Back Again was "Hikaru and Yashiro go on a road trip to Hokkaido". Why Hokkaido? I don't really know, other than that the Japanese post-doc who joined our lab is from there. For the record, I've never been in Japan, much less Hokkaido, so I had about seven different WikiTravel pages open while writing the fic. Did you know that you can only reach Hokkaido by air or rail? I ended up looking up flights from Narita to Chitose just to figure out how long the flight would take. I also found a link to a Victorian woman's travel diary while she was traveling in Hokkaido and read a few pages of that as well, but ugh, it's so impossible to get a sense for a place you haven't visited. -_-

aishuu told me that she thought the fic was not my usual style because it was more direct than how I usually write. Although I think the key is to distinguish how I write long fic from how I write short fic. I tend to get very impatient when I'm writing long fic, which usually means that I rely almost only on dialogue to propel the story forward. The token exposition is usually inserted at the beginning of a scene when I guiltily remember that I ought to provide the reader with some orientation for the scene. I guess people don't usually think of me as a dialogue-heavy writer but the first fic I wrote for this fandom was all dialogue, and my last blind_go submission was mostly dialogue too. That isn't to say I'm good at writing conversations...I just write a lot of them to make up for the total lack of storyline. Also, whenever you read a slice-of-life fic that depicts such ordinary moments that nothing exciting or unusual happens, and the whole fic is so placid that it makes you wonder why the author bothered to write it...yeah, that's probably by me. ^_^ Anyway, a few people did ping me correctly in the official guessing thread, so I suppose something of my style is recognizable after all?

The alternating chronology (another favorite tactic of mine for long fics) was confusing, I know, for two main reasons: the changes in POV aren't sharp enough and the structure isn't consistent. The trip itself (except for the actual return) is supposed to be from Yashiro's POV, while flashbacks were from Hikaru's. I know limited third person is very popular these days, and almost everyone seems to write it, but I realized while writing this fic that I don't actually write a good limited third person. It's not even as if I write a good omniscient third person either; that requires a strong narratorial voice, which I don't have. Anyway, the problem is that there's no real difference to Yashiro's POV and Hikaru's POV when it comes to actual narration style, and there ought to be. I think--I hope--I didn't make the same mistake when it came to their actual dialogue voices. Also, you may notice that the alternating structure would have necessitated that I put in two more flashback scenes before and after the overheard phone conversation. Why didn't I? Because I was writing at the last minute and got lazy. How I justified it to myself: well, the phone conversation is supposed to function like a poetic "twist" so changing the structure at that point would alert the reader to the importance of the scene. Yes, I know, who am I fooling? -_- I think I also had intentions of trying to make the alternating chronology transition more smoothly by using linked imagery, like the seafood ramen and the dragon, but that is yet again an example of how execution fails to bear out intention.

The premise for the fic was "road trip" but the challenge (that I privately set for myself) was to try to write about Akira/Hikaru as a pairing while they were apart. Not entirely successful since I did resort to flashback scenes, but the actual moments when they seem closest to each other are when they aren't together. I also inadvertently ended up bringing in half a dozen other issues in the process of writing out the story, and I don't think I did a particularly good job of keeping them coherent. >_>

Thank you to everyone who commented on and enjoyed the fic! I was surprised by how many comments I got, because I was sure people would find the story boring. (Heck, I found it boring upon rereading.) But I guess I had the advantage of being the second fic going by alphabetical order of ID. ^_^ By the way, the two readers who thought my fic was written by mousapelli or aishuu? I, uh, can't see the connection at all, but I'm extremely, extremely flattered.

Whew, that was long. Okay, I wanted to write about Senior Week events as well, but I think I should probably eat lunch and pick up my commencement cap and gown.

Yours &c.

Comments

[troisroyaumes]

I hope you don't mind me screening this comment...I felt a little uncomfortable having it in my journal.

[issen4.livejournal.com]

I am deeply ashamed of my analytical ability--the lack thereof, I mean. Fascinating explanation!

[troisroyaumes]

Haha, I think all it really means is that I spend way too much time on the guessing process. But it is very fun to guess; it's like playing Sherlock Holmes. XD

[room101.livejournal.com]

I-I'll just go to one corner and shut my mouth and not comment at being outed by Eggplant!Touya! D:

[troisroyaumes]

It was rather serendipitous for me, no? XD

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I haven't been following blind_go but I just read your story and I have to say, what really gives you away is your italics. Someone else might italicize specialized vocabulary like goban and kaya but I don't know anyone else who'd italicize sushi and ramen.

I love how often Hikaru mentions Touya -- all of his conversations seem to involve him somehow. It's adorable! ^__^ (I bet Touya's the same way.)

[viridian-magpie.livejournal.com]

Ditto. It's how I recognised her right away. The general feel of the fic added to it, but it was really the italics which tipped me off in the first place.

[troisroyaumes]

Yes, even italicizing go is pretty characteristic (I think I'm the only one in the fandom who does so). I probably shouldn't bother to italicize sushi and ramen given that they're assimilated into English, but I do it out of habit. >_> Anyway, I'm surprised more people didn't guess me correctly, although there were more correct guesses for me this round than in the first.

Whenever I think of Hikaru and Akira, I keep thinking of that line from The Perilous Gard, where Christopher explains that he didn't think himself in love because Kate is so much a part of him that it would be like saying he loved his arm. ^_^

[viridian-magpie.livejournal.com]

"out-manoeuvred"

Damn. I keep misspelling that bloody word. *sigh*

[troisroyaumes]

Still, I suspect you would have been a much more difficult guess if I hadn't picked up on your commenting voice. ^_^

[aishuu.livejournal.com]

I've already told you you're scary, right?

I'm going to assume you read my after BG post, so I won't get into it. You know, one of these days, I'm GOING to get the better of you.

Ogata fic... will be coming maybe in July since I need to rework from the top if it's going to come out.

[love_archived]

Try and get her in PoT. She's watching. ^_~

[troisroyaumes]

Well, given how it's becoming more and more difficult to guess you with each round, I daresay you're likely to succeed someday. ^_^

Oh, no worries, I'm perfectly willing to wait for fic. XD

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

Hi~
I hope you don't mind that I friended you.

I concur with the people who commented before me; you're _scary_.

And I didn't get an lj before deadlines to guess, but I thought you were aishuu as well. The amount of dialogue confused me. >>;;

[troisroyaumes]

Of course I don't mind! Friending you back.

Haha, I'm very flattered. XD

[flonnebonne]

You are, now and forever, a wonderfully scary lady. I wish I had your observation skills and your sheer determination to stalk the living daylights out of people.

It's actually possible to get to Hokkaido by one other route: ferry! I took a ferry from Sendai to Hokkaido last winter.

[troisroyaumes]

^_____^

Oh yes, I remember reading about the ferry as well! I was considering having them take that, instead of the plane ride, but I didn't have the confidence to write about a road trip through Honshu as well. >_>;;