http://www.kekkai.org/sabina/NnY/fiction/hikago/proofbycontradiction.htmlIt's a great shame to me that the Hikaru no Go fandom seems to be mostly dead. Granted, the series is nearly ten years old by now. But all the great fanfiction is dated for at least three years ago, and mostly more. This piece was written in 2006.
It hits so many of my buttons that I think my mind exploded. I am going to cry. Seriously, what a total mindfuck. I finished reading it and now am in a total stupor of amazement. Seriously stylish.
But. The hng fandom is dead. This is old. And no one reading my journal is a fan of hng. So, while being fandom related, this is sort of a personal entry for myself, so that I will have this story put away in my Inspiration Box.
Though I am somewhere around five years late, I felt I had to write a review, and so left this comment:
"This, I have to tell you, is technical genius. It is all so painstakingly laid out, so planned and polished and perfect. Every line is placed in just the way it should be; there are pauses just when a pause is needed; the sections are so clean, so well-contained. The speakers are captured perfectly, from the formal tone in writing (Ashiwara) to the very natural-reading flow of personal interviews.
But just as great as the technicalities is the emotional power. The mood is a punch to the gut, all-encompassing. There is not a moment that does not fit with the tone. Even the silly parts of Hikaru's videos are captured with perfection, because precisely they are videos, mere recordings, echoes.
The stringed pieces tell just enough for me, and leave out just enough for me-- the general air of mystery is so very congruous to the facts, even. For instance, all the mentions that the Sai project is something Akira did alone, or especially Ashiwara's email. These all look at the Sai project from the outside, which is exactly where the reader should be, on the outside just as the researcher is. The reader is the researcher, even, and so the reader is pulled in and dragged along with the whole fic. So the information left out-- Akira's ultimate fate, Kouyo's last game --really only makes it more real. As you say, what is missing is what defines the piece as a whole.
The entire thing is pieced together just right. Some writers know about technicality, and some writers know about emotion, and you, ma'am, know about both, and that is amazing. I finished reading this and fell into some sort of contemplative stupor. I think my brain melted or something of the sort. The piece is so very inspiring."
Okay, you know what, I find it VERY difficult to leave long reviews. I hate reviewing in fact, because I am naturally a critical, analytical person. If asked to give a long, honest review, I will most likely spend the time pointing out the flaws in the writing, and that almost always, for the author, overshadows my one or two lines about the fic being enjoyable nonetheless. Because I don't know how to convey rightness as well as wrongness, I suppose.
So no, I don't leave long reviews. Often I leave no review at all, even if I enjoyed the fic a lot.
But this. Jesus. THIS. Is greatness. Some of my favorite themes in any sort of fiction are obsession, artificial intelligence, and loneliness. This fic has those three themes, and then presents it so beautifully. It is heart wrenching, heartbreaking. I feel like I can grow as a writer just from reading this.
[/slobbering rant, sorry]
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