maayacolabackup

Title: Across a Bridge of Magpies
Pairing: Jin/Kame
Rating: R
Summary: Kame has never been too good at figuring out what he wants, but maybe it's time he learned how.


Originally written for Remix over at jentfic_remix


Part One|Part Two|Part Three|Part Four


Notes: ~31,000 words. (omg)
There are two timelines: Mid to late 2012, and movie-time (1853/54.)

If you have any interest in history, the movie-verse is excitingly(!) full of nerdy history jokes and asides. Some of you maybe have heard of the film "The Last Samurai," which was a grossly inaccurate film about the time period that heralded the end of the samurai. Well, the character in that movie played by Ken Watanabe, Katsumoto, was loosely based on the real historical figure of Saigou Takamori(西郷 隆盛). Coincidentally, his name and Jin's name share a character--the "nishi" in Akanishi has another reading, and it's "sai." Jin's movie character is based on the life of Saigou Takamori, who is rather legendary in Japan-- his ideals and etc have been made into many stories, the most recent of which was Tom Cruise's efforts to remake "Dancing with Wolves." (I love the movie, btw. I mock because I care.)


The poems are all from the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, a famous anthology of classical Japanese tanka compiled in the thirteenth century by Fujiwara no Sadaie, whose real first name was Teika. He was a member of the royal family, the Fujiwaras, who star in everything from "The Tale of Genji" to Murakami novels, referenced in metaphor and parable alike. If you know me, I'm a classical Japanese translator. Some of these translations are my own, and some of them were done by the fabulous and talented Ono Keiko, who was a professor of mine many moons ago, and who I worked on this translation project with for quite awhile. Some of them were also done by the amazing University of Virginia team, who I think are quite possibly my nerd-heroes. I hope you enjoy the poetry. It's listed by Author, and then by number. :) (The poems are officially numbered, 1-100)

All clothing is referred to, in movie verse, by its Japanese name. Normally, I would use English, but I feel like there is no easy equivalent, and the terms can be read as exoticisms.

Thanks to Peri bellemelody, who wrote the original: The story of the brave Samurai and his beautiful Geisha...

AND, to liliths_child, who pre-read this before it even made it to being what it is now, and told me I wasn't crazy for having parallel story lines, and who received Ryo/Shige in compensation.

Most importantly, thank you to my Greenpig, teghostshi, who read this...I don't know how many times, and told me things like "Jin might look like he has seven hands, but he really doesn't, Maia-ssi," or "What is this word you made up here that doesn't actually exist in the English language?" or "Maia, this is worth continuing," without whom I could not have completed this project.

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