Fandom: Saiyuki
Title: Senses Working Overtime and Hearts Like Flowers
Pairing: [Burial Arc] Hakkai/Gojyo
Author: Devera devikun and Oyce springgreen
Website: None
Rating: NC 17.

Why these two fics must be read together: First devikun wrote Senses Working Overtime and then springgreen wrote the remix Hearts Like Flowers, which was such a fabulous reworking of the same story that they really double the pleasure. Mostly just really good PWP, but Hakkai still struggles with finding the right balance between instinct and inhibition with regards to how many inhibitors he needs to wear to regulate his nature, and Gojyo is the lucky recipient of a certain lapse in control. The former story is written from Hakkai's POV, the latter, from Gojyo's.

Fandom: Saiyuki
Title: Heart of a Monkey King.
Pairing: [Gensoumaden Arc] Sanzo/Goku
Author: Car Jack car_jack
Website: None
Status: WIP. Incomplete. 7 parts.
Rating: NC 17.

Why this fic must be read:

Lay out the cards on this table: I'm not a Sanzo/Goku shipper, personally, so I felt a little odd and presumptuous delving through archives to find something which I thought was a well-written and quintessential representation of this pairing. It isn't that I have some of the problems with Goku's apparent young age, either. His character is over 500-years-old, easily the oldest of the entire Ikkou even in a fandom where age is measured over eons of lifetimes, since that doesn't take into account how long he was imprisoned under Mt. Gogyo before being presented to Kanzeon Bosatsu. There are many fantastic writers who ship Sanzo/Goku, so it wasn't difficult to find good stories or stories that excite readers about the fandom, and I will direct attention to some of those later. This piece is incomplete, and that's what I had a problem with in terms of presenting it as a representative sample. But ... this story is just that good.

Car Jack has the firmest grip on the characters that I've ever read. Her Sanzo is amazing, perfectly voiced: not sentimental, not noble; egotistical and crabbed as hell, but not cruel; in fact very caring in his cranky, twisted way. Goku is youthful, enthusiastic, straightforward and unabashed. The story is funny as hell, but also touching. It doesn't need to be finished in the sense that, even if it were to end where it ends now, it is still the best read I've enjoyed in this ship. I hope you will, too.

Fandom: Saiyuki
Title: Written on the Skin
Pairing: [post-Even a Worm Arc] Hakkai/Gojyo
Author: Louise Lux louiselux and Eleanor K. emungere
Website: Consequence Free.
Rating: NC 17.

Why this fic must be read:

Both Louise Lux and Emungere are accomplished authors in their own right, but together they have one of the most successful collaborative writing partnerships in the fandom. They ship Hakkai/Gojyo and capture voice and character detailing perfectly, an accomplishment because it is very easy for writers to go over-the-top with elements like Hakkai's inherent instability or Gojyo's impaired judgments. In this story, Gojyo's impaired judgment turns unexpectedly lucky and he ends up with a special tattoo.

Fandom: Saiyuki
Title: Wrath
Pairing: [Burial Arc] implied Ukoku/Koumyou
Author: rroselavy
Website: none.
Rating: PG 13, reference to violence and sexual relationship.

Why this fic must be read:

Although Ukoku's culpability is never implicitly stated in Minekura's original manga, there are certainly enough hints that some, if not most, involvement in Koumyou's death can be inferred. Author, rroselavy interweaves these hints with how Ukoku couches his rashest emotional reactions in cold Darwinian reduction, to draw this cameo of him as someone not only destined for wrath in its meaning as divine chastisement, but now in the full experience of it. With strong, spare keystrokes, she also reveals how Ukoku's objectified consciousness, so dissociative as opposed to unifying and which, as he starts crumbling and withdrawing into his persona as Dr. Nii, is of emptiness seemingly without end, even places the means to his own redemption at a distance in space too far for him to grasp, the reality of what it means to win at all cost.

The sun referred to in this story is Kouryuu, Koumyou Sanzo's ward, later to become Genjyo Sanzo.

Fandom: Saiyuki
Title: You Speak My Language
Pairing: [Gaiden Arc] Goujun/Konzen
Author: Sleeps with Coyotes, ciceqi
Website: Slash City.
Rating: R

Why this fic must be read:

It is amazing how much experience and emotional content can be conveyed when communication is nonverbal. Here is a rich, textured story of a post-coital moment in Gaiden between Konzen Douji, the nephew of the goddess of mercy, and Goujun, King of the Western Seas---two characters who, because they cannot relate with ease and depth in spoken language, and both of whom tend to hold others at a distance in any case, default to something more primal and revealing. The story also illustrates how written words can reveal more than they actually appear to say.

The author's deliberate choice to change pronoun usage to "se" and "hir" with reference to Kanzeon Bosatsu's hermaphroditic physiology isn't how the goddess is referred in official translations and it does scan awkwardly, but the tale is still beautifully rendered.

Fandom: Saiyuki
Title: Can of Worms
Pairing: [Burial and Gaiden] Hakkai/Gojyo, past Tenpou/Kenren
Author: Helena Handbasket, hhandbasket
Website: Handbasket Holidays appears to be defunct.
Rating: NC17

Why this fic must be read:

From the moment Gojyo, without the slightest trace of irony, told his post-Centipede demon/post-Banri room-mate, Hakkai, "I just want the guys to know you like I do," I was hooked by topnotch comedy writer and satirist, Helena Handbasket. Her stories string one side-splitting moment after another, and this tale, where Fu, a jovial and artistic OC drunk military comrade from the Western Army in Gaiden, drops into Gojyo's favourite bar one night and inadvertently wipes out his status as a ladies' man for all time, is exceptional. The tussle which leads to Gojyo's moment of truth is believable, and there's enough of a tragic bite from Hakkai and Gojyo's history to stop it from dissolving into complete schmoop. It takes a good humourist to keep the bitterness in Saiyuki from overpowering the sweetness. hhandbasket knows her œuvre.

I'm delighted to drive the anime/manga fanfic rec van this month, which features mangaka Kazuya Minekura's exciting adventure story, Saiyuki. I hope the recs will inspire you to look up her beautiful artwork and storytelling.

Cheers,
Phae

Fandom:: Anime/Manga, Saiyuki
Title: One Bird to Sing: Origami Remix
Pairing: Genfic.
Author: Oyce springgreen
Author Website: none
Rating: G

Why this fic must be read:

When reincarnation is one of the main themes of Saiyuki's overarching story, leitmotifs arise, and for Goku, one of the main recurring ones would be of a bird; for 500 years, the only creature that came to visit him was the single bird which flew through the bars of his cage, its ability to fly bearing the weight of all his formless desires. The freedom of flight, itself, becomes another leitmotif in the form of folded paper airplanes, those that Sanzo Koumyou made for his young charge, Kouryuu, which later became the carriers of Go Dougan's curses. Both the birds, origami paper cranes and the paper airplanes would meet through sensitivity and teaching skills of Field Marshal Tenpou or in their more vulgar "crumpled ball of paper" form. Oyce's story --- a very original take on two drabbles (sadly, friendslocked) by tadity --- wheels through Saiyuki with the lazy ease of a paper airplane flying over many of the subplots, many manifestations of the same characters, many ages and periods, accumulating all sorts of meaning, but remaining light as air.

Here is the Saiyuki overview and character analysis compiled for those interested in Saiyuki anime and manga fanfiction.

Many thanks to whymzycal for her beta skills and fact-checking. I couldn't have done it without her corrections and support!

Some scanned images from AnimePaper.Net, some screencaps from Saiyuki Reload and Gunlock Gallery.

( WARNING: Spoiler and Image Heavy. )