Guessing games

[brigdh]

You know, I wanted to play the yami_valentine game and post my guesses on who I think wrote each one, but I realized that there's no way to do that without giving away my own.

So instead, I steal an idea from boniblithe. Which one do you think I wrote? ^^


And also: everyone should go and read the story I got, because it is THE BEST THING EVER OMG NOT KIDDING.
This Unique Distance from Isolation. It's so good it hurts me.

Comments

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I am dying to talk about This Unique Distance from Isolation, because it's pretty damned amazing, and also, I'm afraid I may be misreading it horribly. I can't wait until people start saying things beyond, 'wow,' so that I can get a sense of how everybody else saw it.

I've been reading without thinking about who might have written what, and I've only managed to glance at the last two to be posted. (I feel bad about that, because I'd hoped to be able to read everything before names were attached, so that it would be clear that any comments I made were made without consideration of what those names might turn out to be. And now it looks like I'm not going to. But then, it may turn out to be less of an issue than I'd feared, because everything I've read so far has been astonishingly good, and I've been commenting on everything. So now, instead of worrying about it looking to writers as if I might just be commenting because I like them, I worry that it'll look like I'm just commenting on everything whether I really like it or not -- neurotic, much?)

But if I had to choose among the four I've been able to read? I'll go for Memory Loss. So, if you didn't write it, I hope to God you didn't hate it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I am dying to talk about This Unique Distance from Isolation, because it's pretty damned amazing, and also, I'm afraid I may be misreading it horribly.

Ha, you too? I'm nearly certain that I know who wrote it, and I do this with all her stories. I feel like I have to read them several times, and then I'll finally notice the one little detail that's the key to the whole thing, and then I suddenly, finally get it, and it's like a lightbulb going off. Which- if you're reading this, oh author- is not a bad thing at all. I adore how subtle they are, and the way that all the little details and lines that I thought were irrelevant fit together so perfectly once I understand it. I like that it takes me so long to figure them out, because then they get stuck in my head and I find myself thinking about them again, weeks and months later. And besides, the imagery is so lovely that it's not like I mind rereading them.

I've been reading without thinking about who might have written what, and I've only managed to glance at the last two to be posted.

I've been trying, but it's hard. 'Isolation' is the only one I feel at all sure about; the others I've taken wild guesses at, but I'm not sure. It's a fun attempt to see how well you know others' styles, though.

And ah, comment anxiety. I understand that all too well.

So, if you didn't write it, I hope to God you didn't hate it.

*grins* Don't hate it. But I'll be mysterious and won't say if I wrote it or not until after the official reveal.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Ha, you too?

Definitely me too. And since there are two of us, I'm going to go ahead and ask whether I'm the only one who found this story absolutely terrifying. What jumped out at me in reading it was the pattern of images of rot -- the overblown roses, the decaying plums, and the mildew are obvious; and other images have something of the same tone of decay, even when they're not explicit, like the ancient baseball game on television, the bad radio reception, the stagnant air, even the rain, which has a certain grey and soft quality that feels almost moldy in context. That, and the silence: Tsuzuki and Hisoka do speak, but everything they say seems curiously muted. It really feels to me like the land of the dead, and not the cheerful die-young-stay-pretty land of the dead, either.

But, is this just me? I hate hot and humid weather every bit as much as Hisoka does; maybe I was just overreacting to the vividness of the story's invocation of a particularly vile August day?

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

I always feel strange talking about my own stories -- I guess I don't think my interpretation is more valid than anyone else's. But I can't resist saying that having someone pick up on the sense of wrongness, the unnatural quiet of Meifu I was trying to create has made my entire week. I was resigned to having the significance of the ballgame overlooked. And yes, I hate humidity with a passion, so I also wondered if anyone else would get the feel of rot and stagnation I was hoping it would hint at, or if that was just a private quirk.

Really, I can't say how much I appreciate hearing your reactions. I post these things with the hope that they might have meaning and impact for someone besides myself, but of course I'm afraid that no one will -- I don't know -- react to or maybe even notice the subtext and implications that I've tried to build into the story. So, um, this really means a lot to me.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I post these things with the hope that they might have meaning and impact for someone besides myself, but of course I'm afraid that no one will -- I don't know -- react to or maybe even notice the subtext and implications that I've tried to build into the story. So, um, this really means a lot to me.

Oh no, I love your stories. The subext is what makes them what they are. I know that I haven't always been the best at sending you feedback, but it's often because I need time to really find everything in them, and they're so complex that I don't want to guess wrong. You put so many layers and meanings into everything you write that I'm in awe.

So don't worry about being too subtle; you're probably my very favorite author in all the fandom, and I wouldn't want you to change. *grins*

And I've made my own guess at interpreting 'This Unique Distance from Isolation in response to p_zeitgeist at the bottom of this thread.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's one of the nicest things anyone's ever said about my writing. Seriously, it's going in my text file of kind remarks I save to counter the inevitable periods of frustration, discouragement and self-disappointment.

And I don't know why you should feel bad -- I love the feedback you send. Of course, there is no such thing as too much feedback ^^

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Aww. I'm glad.

And it's just that I feel like I should send more, or say something deeper. I think 'Mutability' sat in my inbox for months while I tried to figure out what I wanted to say to you about it (mainly that it's the only Muraki/Hisoka fic I have ever been able to stomach), and I think I eventually just gave up.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

Well, you certainly weren't alone -- that fic didn't get much feedback. I try to take it as a compliment -- it left people speechless XP

But more seriously, I can't hold it against anyone. Hiraki is just... so wrong. It's one of the few things I just don't read.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I think too that it might have fallen between the cracks- it's too dark to appeal to people who like Hiraki, and people who don't are likely to avoid it just from the summary.

But, well, I adore it. And really, it's all about me.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I can see that. But the Hiraki fics that really squick me aren't the dark ones, but the stories that romanticize rape, torture and murder, presenting them as anything other than the sadistic product of a deviant, psychopathic mind. To me at least, the implications of fluffy Hiraki are much more, well, disturbing.

But don't mind me -- this topic always has me reaching for my soapbox


And really, it's all about me.

Word.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yes, same here. Ironically, the dark ones are the only ones I don't have trouble reading. The romantic make me roll my eyes and hit the back button- well, that or worry for the state of humanity, but only if I'm having a bad day. It's the ones that eroticize the rape that give me nightmares and make me so furiously upset that I've started avoiding anything to do with the pairing at all.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I may be an unreasonable optimist, but I tend to think that more readers than you'd think do notice and react to everything that you've put into a story. It's just that most of them will react aesthetically and emotionally, and when they re-read, they want to be able to respond to the art on a visceral level, without analysis getting in their way. It's like, you can fully appreciate the scent of a garden on a fine day even if you can't, or don't want to, break it down and say to yourself, 'that's citrus blossom, that background piney-yet-flowery note, and that's jasmine on top of it, and cut grass, and lavender; and hey, the person who designed this garden did this on purpose, how cool is that??'

I agree with you in theory that the author's interpretation of a story isn't necessarily more valid than anyone else's. (After all, that pattern of images of decay would be there even if it had turned out that you'd meant this as a cheerful story about the pleasures of quiet domesticity.) But the author knows what she was trying to do, and I always think it's interesting to know whether I as a reader have gotten the writer's implicit instructions right -- and whether I've managed to completely skate past something that's also there in the text, and is important, but that I hadn't picked up on. And in this case, of course, it makes me utterly happy to know that I was right to find that baseball game peculiarly horrible and significant.

Not to mention how happy it makes me to get to read work that both demands and rewards this kind of close reading. (And once again I find myself thinking: YnM fandom, how I love you . . . really, it's amazing how spoiled a reader can get here.)

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

I had to think about this a bit (in part because it touches on my long-standing preoccupation with hermeneutics). And to simplify a long, diffuse series of ruminations: I agree. In fact, I'd go one step further. When a writer really succeeds, the reader isn't analyzing the story at all, just experiencing it. It's like CGI work in movies -- if you're sitting there going wow, what a great CGI shot, it obviously wasn't good enough; likewise if you're reading a story and your reaction is the way this author uses figurative language to associate restraint with sterility and freedom with disease is really nifty -- but you don't feel anything -- then I'd say the author failed. I'd go as far as to argue that the greatest stories resist analysis -- no matter how much you dissect them, there's always something you can't quite pin down; something that can't be explained, only experienced. But I think I'm getting a bit carried away here.

The Yami fandom always surprises me when I remind myself of the series' relative obscurity. And it's such a nice, civil fandom -- I love how respectful people are, especially since YnM has so many love triangles and that tends to bring out the worst in shippers.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I'm going to go ahead and ask whether I'm the only one who found this story absolutely terrifying.

No, me too! Though I didn't notice the rot so much as all the images of isolation- the rain is a moth beating against a window, a lost stranger, it sounds sad and longing. And also the songs on the radio: in the morning it's a woman with a broken heart, and at night it's a waltz, "the kind you slow dance to when you're very much in love"- but Tsuzuki turns that one off. And all the communication problems between Tsuzuki and Hisoka add to that sense. Tsuzuki keeps thinking things, but he doesn't say them; instead their conversation is described as "nudged across the space between them".

And the very end (though maybe I'm going too far with the interpretation here), where Hisoka's breaths blur into the wind and rain, could be read as losing Hisoka- and therefore the relationship- to the decay of Meifu.

It's such a sad story. It's almost hopeless. But I love it.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

It's such a sad story.

Well, you only requested three things and one of them was non-fluffy *wink*

Actually I felt kinda bad when I finished this -- a really, really meant to write a sex scene. Honest. 'Cause I know you go for the higher rating stuff. But then I started working out the image patterns (god, that sounds pretentious) and, well, let's say I don't think your interpretation goes too far at all.

There was even a Hisoka-POV story -- may it rest in peace -- that was my second attempt to met your reqs which had sex, but it was cannibalized by Isolation. As it turns out I'm the last person in the world you want to have writing established/sexual relationship Tsusoka fics -- but at least this time they didn't break up at the end. That's got to count as progress.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, you only requested three things and one of them was non-fluffy *wink*

*laughs* Did I? I'd completely forgotten what I'd requested, so I didn't know what to expect. Well, okay, knowing myself I could kind of assumer that Tsuzuki/Hisoka was part of it, but I didn't remember anything beyond that.

And oh, don't worry about the sex thing. I don't need that. It kind of embrasses me, actually- I worry that I'm getting a reputation as a porn writer/reader. Which isn't entirely true, it's just that explicit fic used to be so incredibly rare, and I wanted to fix that, but it's not like I *need* it.

but at least this time they didn't break up at the end. That's got to count as progress.

Oh, of course, of course. It's just implied that they're *going* to break up- if you can use that term for such a slow and inevitable decline. ;)

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Ah, this is why conversations about stories are such a good thing. I'd picked up the sense of isolation, all right -- part of me kept thinking, with some horror, 'these people are ghosts, and they're haunting each other' -- but hadn't seen the image pattern with anything like this clarity. And now that you point it out, of course it's there.

It is a painfully sad story, and I love it too.

And now, being the sap I am, I have an almost overpowering urge to go work on something fluffy, where being dead is a lot less like being, you know, dead, and a lot more like the new black.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

part of me kept thinking, with some horror, 'these people are ghosts, and they're haunting each other'

I love that! It's such a good description of the story. I think my favorite part is how it keeps getting *worse* every time you read it. The first time through, I picked up on a little sense of disquiet, but the more I look at it, the more things I see, and the more I feel the horror and sadness.

Gah. I am so grateful, b_hallward.


*laughs* I know what you mean. More of the fluffy chicken gods and less of the decay of Purgatory.

[b-hallward.livejournal.com]

I'd be blushing something fierce if I weren't busy snickering madly at: More of the fluffy chicken gods and less of the decay of Purgatory.

::snicker::

if Meifu's decaying, at least Hisoka is religious about cleaning spoiled food out of the fridge ^^

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

There have been some astonishingly good stories that have come out of this. I still can't get over how perfect the details are in "Like This." I mean, in the "five things you'd like to see" section of my request, I just listed my big squicks and then said, "Anything else is fine." How someone managed to plug into Rumi and hecubi and leatherbound volumes with attached silk ribbon placemarkers and Tsuzuki not knowing and Hisoka wanting anything but gentle and Tatsumi being so deliberate and yet so passionate.... It's like they plugged straight into the Yami part of my brain.

I've only made a guess on who wrote mine, largely based on who had been asking about Hisoka's curse marks in recent memory. I was going to guess on the others, but like you and Boni, I realized that would quickly give away which one I wrote. I'd guess you wrote "Memory Loss," too, except I know you're OTP about Tsuzuki/Hisoka. So maybe "Crossing the Line."

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

You know, I would have guessed that you wrote My Heart a Hunter, because it seemed most like your style to me, but I knew how much you liked the pairing and I didn't think you would have got lucky enough to have your recipent ask for Hisoka/Oriya.

But there all are wonderful. I'm in awe of us of a fandom.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I really did luck out. *G* And yeah, I do seem to have a rather distinct style in this fandom, don't I? I like to blame only getting the source in translation for my lack of contractions and whatnot, but...it doesn't seem to be a problem I'm having in Saiyuki. I think part of it is just the flavor of YnM to me. It makes me...careful.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Meh, don't change. I like the tone it gives to your stories a lot, and your dialogue always feels very in-character.

The translation thing always gives me problems, too. And I'm never sure if it would be better writing to try for a Japanese feel, or to go for what would be the American English equivalent.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Meh, don't change. I like the tone it gives to your stories a lot, and your dialogue always feels very in-character.

Thank you!

The translation thing always gives me problems, too. And I'm never sure if it would be better writing to try for a Japanese feel, or to go for what would be the American English equivalent.

The key word for me is verisimilitude. Which is one reason I use fewer contractions and more formal (in English) modes of language. It's likely no closer to the actual Japanese than less formal language, but the connotations and flavor are there.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

My guesses:

"Like This" = you, unless mistressrenet did "Like This" and you did "Memory Loss" (hedging bets)
"The Unique Distance from Isolation" = b_hallward
"My Heart A Hunter" = ranalore

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Wow, go you! So close. But I'm glad that you think I might have written "Like This"; it's such a lovely story that I wish I had written it.

And everyone but me seems to have guessed ranalore's right. I was thinking that one was by boniblithe.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Well, it was partly style, and partly that ranalore tends not to use contractions in YnM dialogue.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

and partly that ranalore tends not to use contractions in YnM dialogue.

Oh, I knew that! I can't believe I didn't pick up on it and guess the author. I think it was the Oriya/Hisoka that threw me off- she's writing it for stagesoflove, and does it fairly often for fuda_100, so I didn't think she'd get lucky enough to have her recipent request it.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I actually started writing Hisoka/Oriya for stagesoflove partly in the hopes of shaking something loose, because I was having such trouble coming up with a workable story for yami_valentine.

And I write Hisoka/everybody for fuda_100. *G* When signing up for this challenge, I essentially said, "I'll write Hisoka/any male but Muraki or Hijiri." I really lucked out.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I actually started writing Hisoka/Oriya for stagesoflove partly in the hopes of shaking something loose, because I was having such trouble coming up with a workable story for yami_valentine.

That was good idea! I should have done that. But hey, I have no complaints. I need you to feed my growing need for Hisoka/Oriya. *grins*

G* When signing up for this challenge, I essentially said, "I'll write Hisoka/any male but Muraki or Hijiri." I really lucked out.

Hey, I've written Hisoka/Hijiri! But I'm with you on Muraki. I have weird issues with Hiraki; I usually can't stand to even read it, there's no way I'm writing it.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

That was good idea! I should have done that. But hey, I have no complaints. I need you to feed my growing need for Hisoka/Oriya. *grins*

Just wait. I will take over this fandom one unconventional Hisoka pairing at a time. *G*

Hey, I've written Hisoka/Hijiri! But I'm with you on Muraki. I have weird issues with Hiraki; I usually can't stand to even read it, there's no way I'm writing it.

I could write Hisoka/Hijiri, but I have very little use for Hijiri, and that would come out. Since the challenge was meant as someone's Valentine gift, I figured that would be a bad thing. I could also write Hisoka/Muraki, but again it wouldn't exactly be pleasant.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

*laughs* As soon as I finished the story, I thought to myself, "There is no way anyone is not going to know I wrote this. There are no contractions!" Yet that's how I hear the characters in my head, so I let it stand.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I think I can't guess, or at least not too much, without giving my own self away! But I was thinking either you or ranalore wrote "My Heart a Hunter."

And these stories are all so, so good. I feel so lucky.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

I find myself guessing that "My Heart a Hunter" was Rana, too; and that yours is "Like This."

Only then I have to wonder: there are the two stories I haven't really read. And how likely is it, really, that the first four to be posted happen to have been written by the four writers I'd have any chance of being able to recognize from their styles and approaches to the characters?

And now I must try to go read the remaining two, before the rest of the household wakes up, and before All Is Revealed. If it isn't already too late . . .

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

It is, and you were right! Really my only doubt about Rana was that I wasn't sure we'd be writing for each other. XD

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Aaaahhh! I keep forgetting that what counts as an ungodly hour on this side of the country is actually well into working hours back east. I shall just have to trust that my admiration for the last two stories is not irreversibly tainted by knowing who wrote them.

I'm still overwhelmed by how good all of the ones I've managed to read are. Not surprised, given who the writers are, but overwhelmed nonetheless.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

10 am here, yep! It is a different experience, just coming to a story cold.

And me too. No slapdash efforts, for sure (though I did catch a couple typos on one story!). I've just got the warm fuzzies. XD

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

"My Heart a Hunter" is another one I wish I had written. It's beautiful.

And they are! This exchange turned out amazingly well.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Thank you soooooooooooooooooooooo much for such a wonderful Todha & Tsuzuki story. I had totally forgotten what I asked for so it was a doubly good surprise :) To have such an excellent story AND my favorite sekrit pairing as well.

It's gorgeous and MWAH!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

#^^# Thank you! I really reall glad you liked it; I was so worried.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

By the time I got there it had all been revealed, but I just want to say EEEOMGYOUWROTEMYCRACKPAIRING. *glomps* And so very, very well. I love Touda; his repression makes Tatsumi look positively laid back. ^_^

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*laughs* You too? Wow, Tsuzuki/Touda seems to be the secret crack pairing of, like, half the fandom.

But I'm so happy you liked it!