Saiyuki short-short story: Transform

[sunspot67]

Fandom:  Saiyuki
Title:  Transform
Author:  Sunspot
Rating:  PG 13
Note:  Conceived of and written on my thirty minute train ride home from my students’ commencement tonight.  Sometimes these things just . . . happen.  (ETA)  I wanted this story to be a gift for someone but I didn't know who would love it.  My inklings were confirmed:  this story is

Comments

[sunspot67]

Thank you very much! And please, it's not butting in--very happy to have you join the conversation.

Thank you very much for the further background on Gojun and both Minekura and Fandom's takes on him. Much food for thought. If this is a Gojun, it is a bespelled and er, well, transformed Gojun.

About Jeep as one of the ikkou: too often I'll be reading along in an otherwise well written and engaging story and part of my brain cannot fully commit because I keep asking "where's Jeep?" He is so very visually present in the manga--I think people may forget him in the transmutation to text because he doesn't "talk," but he's really very expressive.

I had for many years a very, very smart dog, and before her a dog I was able to take to work with me, which gives me an "in" to write Jeep (I usually write him as a "Diefenbaker" a very, very smart and slightly anthropomorphized animal, but not sentient), especially an awareness of how omnipresent such an animal is in one's life. Jeep has his moments in pretty much all my stories.

It's ironic--I have a (US) frontier AU ongoing, in which I keep finding more and more parallels with Gaiden, despite having established the take on the characters, and got the basic through line of the plot before I was able to read Gaiden. Jeep's characterization and givens now included.

Having learned about the Jeep-Gojun connection (damn you tiny low-res scans, I never saw the horns in my first read of Gaiden!) I am now really interested in what Gojun did (karmically) that led to him being reborn in a lower form (Jeep in canon does not seem to me to be sentient, hence how I tend to write him). Am needing to re-read Gaiden with this focus, as soon as I can shoehorn in the time.

Prelude, of course, to a grand and sweeping romance, that will have to feature Gojun-Jeep regaining memory and higher level cognition. Thus will probably also have a fairy tale feel. (As in folktales, not Disney. Should probably look at Chinese, but for some reason Jeep's whiteness take me to more a wintry, Russian, Firebird-y kind of place).

Thank you again, and apologies if this is over-long.

[tj_dragonblade]

I'm of the opinion that there's No Such Thing as over-long when discussing Jeep and/or Goujun. ^_^

I'm so very glad that you have those 'Where's Jeep?' moments too; he's such an integral part of the group but sadly it's always a surprise (albeit a pleasant one) when someone remembers to include him.

I like the way you write him and interpret him; it feels very 'right' and tends to turn out well. I personally do tend to view him as sentient, but I freely admit that it's probably not canon. It does make life easier in slashing him, though. Which is ultimately a very selfish reason for the choice, I suppose, but it puts my mind at ease when the bestiality question comes up. ^_^; *cough*

I must look into your mentioned ongoing AU, and search out any other Saiyuki stories you've got while I'm at it. I'm horrible about commenting at all or in a timely fashion (see how long it's taken me to answer this, ahaha), but the piece you did with Gojyo and Hakkai acquiring twin babies had me in stitches of sympathetic mirth, especially right around the milk-drunk bit. You definitely have a way with words and an excellent Gojyo voice and the thing with Jeep's toenail-carseats was just brilliant. ^_^

And as far as grand-and-sweeping romance with fairy-tale feel, I look forward to reading such a thing if it comes to pass. Also, your mention of Russian/wintry/Firebird-y leads me to point to this fic with some amusement.