Blind Go fic, the completed version

[petronia]

Uploaded to my website:

A Proof by Contradiction (Eight Primary Sources)

Implicit spoilers for the entirety of the series (if you didn't read it already as part of blind_go). Lightly edited and about 600 words longer than the version posted to answer_key. Part V was the first section I started writing, and the last section I finished writing; it was like pulling teeth. ^^;

Author's Notes:

The HnG fic I always wanted to write. Or rather, the HnG fic that encompasses everything I wanted to say about the series at the time I first read it. ^^; All the (mostly male) HnG fans I knew offline as well as many of those (mostly female) I knew online were inspired by the series to start playing go, and some of them became quite serious about it. Probably as a reverse psychological reaction, I never learnt to play. XD Instead I read online white papers about go-playing programs, and their implications for the field of artificial intelligence. I found it fascinating that you couldn't rely on full-board lookahead, and instead had to implement pattern recognition heuristics loosely based on those of the human brain. "Sai playing net go" was virtually the definition of a ghost in the machine, only the real explanation was much simpler. So I came up with the idea of an alternate Sai: "a computer program, capable of playing go at the level of a 8-dan or 9-dan, that by virtue of being such is also able to pass the Turing Test with ease." A Singularity story, in other words, where Singularity = Hand of God.

I couldn't figure out a way of writing it with the actual HnG characters, though, because none of them would/could program anything of the sort. Unless (I kept thinking) Hikaru got hit by a Mack truck or something, and Akira decided to create a virtual version of him so they could keep playing and attain the Hand of God. [1] But why the heck would I voluntarily write a story in which Hikaru gets hit by a Mack truck??

orz

When I was gently peer-pressured into signing up for blind_go I needed a fic concept - any fic concept - pretty badly, but it was obakesan's Anti-OTP Challenge that made me dust this one off. I couldn't submit it to both but the idea was there. Mind you "one half of the OTP gets hit by a Mack truck" is a crude response to the challenge of defining "anti-OTP", but then I thought, the reason people write gratuitously angsty deathfics is because they're proof by contradiction, innit? In lieu of a straightforward proof in which the characters get married and have babies and live happily together until they're 100 years old, you show that without the OTP, things fall apart. Also, "proof by contradiction" would make a great name for a band title for the fic itself ahaha.

I still didn't know how to write it until the interview format came to mind (I only had the one nebulous scene in mind, Ashiwara's, plus a lot of jumbled essay bobbins on evolution etc.), and then I wrote it very fast - Monday to Friday of deadline week, at an average of 1000 words a night. ^^; It was meant to be SF but the characters themselves threw me for a loop: as I wrote I realised most of them did not believe, at all, that this virtual!Hikaru was a computer program, or else considered it irrelevant. XD So in the end I left the metaphysics wide open. The canon is a supernatural series, though I tend to forget the fact.

Sometime after I finished I realised I'd written two other interview/epistolary fics in the past six months that dealt explicitly with the same themes, and that I was going to write another in short order. I've lost count of how many people I know, both online and offline, who've had deaths and medical emergencies in their families this past year (including my own), and suspect it filtered through as a fictional preoccupation.

Thanks once again to everyone who commented and said kind things, as well as to the organisers of blind_go who gave me the excuse/opportunity to squeeze this out. It was always the story I should have written, but very unlikely that I would have, otherwise. ^^;


[1] It had to be Akira because Hikaru isn't good enough at math. I'M SORRY BUT IT'S TRUE.

Comments

[fyredancer.livejournal.com]

This one, of all of them, stayed with me the longest. It was absolutely wrenching.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it! Or that it made an impression at any rate. ^^;

I think I'm not so much working on technique, these days, as I'm working on feeling.

[card-mistress.livejournal.com]

You've probably heard this a trillion billion times... But I love this. I really do love this. And yeah, it does give you this aching, lasting impression. The philosophy bits, Platonic ideal, was a brilliant additon. A pat on the back with tons of <3 for providing the fandom with such an incredible fic. :)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

No problem. ^^ And I'm v. glad you enjoyed the story.

[dijeron.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that you forget that HikaGo is a supernatural series. XD I tend to be the opposite (maybe because I'm go blind? Srsly, I suck at go). Even so, it rather resonated for me, and I do wish I had written it. (I'll think about it for a while, and see if anything rattles out in response....)

[two-if-by-sea.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, Sabina. That took me like, four times to realize what was going on (plus a reading of the author's notes), but oh my god. Ashiwara's part just slays me.

[issen4.livejournal.com]

It had to be Akira because Hikaru isn't good enough at math. I'M SORRY BUT IT'S TRUE

Hee.

This was so good. I started out a little dubious by the script format, then I just kept reading it, amazed and a little scared by the conclusions I was drawing, and then felt like someone had hit me from the inside of my head when I got to the end.

You really brought out the supernatural aspect of this series, and making it metaphysical at the same time? Beautiful. I love the idea of a Go computer program like the one you described--wonderful and eerie at the same time.

[unearthly-calm.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed reading your story very much. It made me think as well as feel, which is rare for fanfiction.
I'm also very curious about the research you did on the story. Are there any academic papers or articles available online that you found particularly interesting? I would be most interested in reading them.

[qem_chibati]

XD @ footnote.

I just wanted to wanted to come by and thank you for posting the explanation as well. I'm glad that I wasn't way off with working out what happened.

I greatly enjoyed the fic; I was iffy going in, but had my breath taken away by the time I came out. =D

[flonnebonne]

Just re-read the fic, and it's like being hit by a Mack truck all over again.

Thank you for posting these author notes--it's quite a trip to find out that you've been building up to this fic for so long and that there was so much thought and research and personal feeling behind it. Also great to find out that such a fantastic fic can grow out of Hikaru being hit by a Mack truck. :)

I've been trying to figure out the identity of the interviewer (call me obsessed), but with no success. I think I've identified all of the interviewees (Akira, Waya, Tsutsui, original character, Touya Akiko, Ashiwara, Akari, and Hikaru), but who is MH? An original character?

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

this fic makes me want to cry. ;o; I need happy hikago fic, stat.

[sesame-seed.livejournal.com]

*woes at you* You know I can't read this, right? It sounds absolutely brilliant and fascinating from what I can glean off this post -- and I'm not exaggerating a bit -- but AKIRA.

*woes some more*

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Great compliment coming from you. ^^

I think because, after a given point, it's much more naturalistic than yr avg shounen manga? No Secret Fiery Wuxia Go Techniques, no junior high extramurals playing at genius professional levels (explicitly not, in fact). Real tournament titles, real physical settings. Emotionally naturalistic as well: Sai may be a ghost but the way Hikaru reacts to him, etc.

Basically for me it's a wave-the-wand-once story: introduce one element that's out of the ordinary and watch the repercussions. DN is exactly the same (when I think about the two series I keep getting hit on the head with parallels).

[canis-m.livejournal.com]

From a position of HikaGo iggernance I thought it was completely brill. I was able to follow enough that it trampled on my little heart. Am reassured to hear that the Mack truck business was all lies, though. I mean I didn't think a Jump series would end like that, but. XD;

[bell]

Leave it to you to make a concept this crazy work.

Akari's section was definitely the sadest.

I'm feeling confused and yet it all fits? If that makes sense.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Wimp! XD And after making me sink my whole day into that monster epic, too.

[angrybabble.livejournal.com]

kurse you and your awesomeness! (Yes, I got bored and May's comments in # re: fic were intriguing so I read it even though I have no idea what was going on, but I can SENSE that it was, uh, good. And stuff. Yeah. >_>)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it (and ha, that my rambles made some sense out of the four-year history of this fic in my head XD)!

The interviewer (Miguchi) is an origincal character, yes. It seemed the best way to get the interviewees to deliver the kind of background information I needed them to.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Thanks muchly. ^^ I was consciously trying to ease the reader into the fic, I think (insofar as I make any kind of conscious judgment call when I'm writing that fast), because much of it is so, well, talking-heads.

P.S. I really loved Just Add Water. ♥ (I found it startling, as someone else remarked on the anon thread, that there were so many stories in which Hikaru disappears, or the universe is such that he and Akira never meet and fall into their rivalry. Precisely because I was thinking of it in terms of 'proofs by contradiction'. XD)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

*pats* Sorry I couldn't warn for it. XD

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I think I wrote so much for the Author's Notes because I have no real idea how comprehensible the story is. XD;; IT MAKES SENSE IN MY HEAD.

(Uh, apart from the fact that I'm not actually too sure what happened to Akira. Hopefully no one will ask hard questions lalala.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

*scratches head* I was intentionally going for an effect of "Oh yeah, definitely Sabina, no one else is this insane," and it seems to have worked. XD

(Like the last fic I wrote in this infodump style - the Yukikaze one back in March - I can only hope that it all makes sense to people other than me. ^^;)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

The canon covers some of the same ground, truthfully speaking (otherwise a story like this'd be pushing it regardless). At the same time it's one of the sunniest, gentlest shounen manga around. Like, um, Death Note's non-evil twin.

(This is really... I don't think I've ever gotten this much feedback for one of my fics. Certainly not within a week-long period.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

P.S. I think you're one of the people who guessed me right, if I'm not mistaken, which entitles you to a drabble request as long as you don't mind getting it in November. ^^;v

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

sabina, I've been marathoning hikago fics all day long, all because of you. >:0! I'm rereading all my favorites and I've whipped through the blind_go submissions, and I'm considering steamlining the anime, as cathy burned it for me before I left for college. This would all be peachy keen, except for the minor detail(s) that I have a 5-page paper due this thursday, plato's republic to slug through, a chem exam, a calc quiz, and a formal lab report due next monday. LOOK WHAT YOU DO TO ME. I miss fandom and fanfiction so goddamn much.