[Fic] Spirited Away: Becoming
Spoilers: For the entire movie
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: In which dragons and boys both must find their own tale.
Notes: Written for Hikario for Yuletide 2009. Many thanks to
edonohana, who did an extremely quick beta and helped me brainstorm the ending.
(Me: It's such a typical fic for me!
Her: Pretty prose, Asian mythology, and food?
Me: Oooh, I should add food...)
Read Becoming
Series information
Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi/Spirited Away is one of my favorite Miyazaki movies (as a side note, I love that AO3 puts the original language transliteration first, then the English translation). Ten-year-old Chihiro and her parents find themselves in a magical world, and Chihiro must find work in order to save her parents, who have been turned into pigs. She ends up in a bathhouse that serves spirits and gods. I love the movie for the imagery and for Chihiro and the daikon radish spirit and the river god and everything, and I was delighted when I got it as my assignment. Then I was absolutely terrified, because damn it's hard to live up to Miyazaki.
Commentary
The recipient wanted something with a lot of mythology, which she loves, and since I do as well, it's no big problem. The only bad thing was that because of finals, I wrote this with extremely limited research. As such, the mythology is mostly what I know off the top of my head (tengu, kappa, kitsune, tanuki, the yuki onna, Amaterasu, etc.), with a few bits added from the Wikipedia article on Japanese spirits. The mokumokuren are originally spirits that take up residence in holes torn in shoji doors that I adapted for the gilded sliding doors in the bathhouse (there are shoji doors too, but I love the gilded doors), and kasa-obake are basically abandoned umbrellas that end up growing a leg and eyes. I made up the spirit of the mountain, the long snaky arm beneath the river, and the fish that turns into a kimono-clad woman, although the last was based off the crane wife story. This particular incarnation of the ame warashi I stole from xxxHolic.
The interesting thing was, the request was specifically for Haku, though after I rewatched the movie on the airplane, I really wanted to write a what-happens-to-Chihiro-after fic. So... I kind of squashed that in too. But it's very difficult to think of future Haku without having Chihiro in there in some way as well!
The winding cobblestone street is from a little shopping district in Kanazawa, and the strawberry and cheesecake crepe is from a crepe store in Kanazawa. I sadly have not gotten it anywhere else... you'd think Taiwan would start putting cheesecake in! They are so tasty!
I'm so happy so many people liked the story! I tend to write in extremely obscure fandoms, so having so many recs and comments was really different and nice.
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Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: In which dragons and boys both must find their own tale.
Notes: Written for Hikario for Yuletide 2009. Many thanks to
edonohana, who did an extremely quick beta and helped me brainstorm the ending.
(Me: It's such a typical fic for me!
Her: Pretty prose, Asian mythology, and food?
Me: Oooh, I should add food...)
Read Becoming
Series information
Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi/Spirited Away is one of my favorite Miyazaki movies (as a side note, I love that AO3 puts the original language transliteration first, then the English translation). Ten-year-old Chihiro and her parents find themselves in a magical world, and Chihiro must find work in order to save her parents, who have been turned into pigs. She ends up in a bathhouse that serves spirits and gods. I love the movie for the imagery and for Chihiro and the daikon radish spirit and the river god and everything, and I was delighted when I got it as my assignment. Then I was absolutely terrified, because damn it's hard to live up to Miyazaki.
Commentary
The recipient wanted something with a lot of mythology, which she loves, and since I do as well, it's no big problem. The only bad thing was that because of finals, I wrote this with extremely limited research. As such, the mythology is mostly what I know off the top of my head (tengu, kappa, kitsune, tanuki, the yuki onna, Amaterasu, etc.), with a few bits added from the Wikipedia article on Japanese spirits. The mokumokuren are originally spirits that take up residence in holes torn in shoji doors that I adapted for the gilded sliding doors in the bathhouse (there are shoji doors too, but I love the gilded doors), and kasa-obake are basically abandoned umbrellas that end up growing a leg and eyes. I made up the spirit of the mountain, the long snaky arm beneath the river, and the fish that turns into a kimono-clad woman, although the last was based off the crane wife story. This particular incarnation of the ame warashi I stole from xxxHolic.
The interesting thing was, the request was specifically for Haku, though after I rewatched the movie on the airplane, I really wanted to write a what-happens-to-Chihiro-after fic. So... I kind of squashed that in too. But it's very difficult to think of future Haku without having Chihiro in there in some way as well!
The winding cobblestone street is from a little shopping district in Kanazawa, and the strawberry and cheesecake crepe is from a crepe store in Kanazawa. I sadly have not gotten it anywhere else... you'd think Taiwan would start putting cheesecake in! They are so tasty!
I'm so happy so many people liked the story! I tend to write in extremely obscure fandoms, so having so many recs and comments was really different and nice.
Comment | Read Comments (
) | Link