on being nerdy about nerds

quick updates

2012-04-18T01:40:58Z

aaaah! so extremely busy.

Well.

Good fandom news - the fantastic Higuchimon, who had announced her retirement from the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom (to focus exclusively on GX) last year, just published the first chapter of a Seto x Otogi fic. YES. Title: Unarmed and Extremely Dangerous.

Personal news: I am beyond busy, but the current love of my CW life has been updated last weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to hammer out another 8000+ words chapter in May. Title: I Don't Know Where The Caged Bird Sings (puppyshipping, angst/drama/family/coming of age/slice of life/ROMANCE and all those good things).

Contest news: I'm working on a short 2000+ words crime/suspense ficlet for Round 4 of the YuGiOh Fanfiction Contest (the one on the ffnet forums). The pairing is bribeshipping (Rex Raptor x Mai) and turns out my muse thinks it's a really versatile pairing. Out of the many plunnies I had I chose one set in a Second Industrial Revolution setting, in AU!JacktheRipper!London. Never written this genre before, but I'm all about improving, so here goes. It'll be up on Thursday evening.

... That's it for now.

-Milly

tristan x otogi x shizuka

2012-02-20T23:52:36Z

So I've just posted a crushshipping fic for the YuGiOh Fanfiction Contest (Round One) and, as my icon lets on, it's creepy. I couldn't help myself, I knew the minute the pairing was announced that I had to write something profoundly disturbing. I was pretty happy with it (five lovely, rapid reviews from unacquainted readers certainly helped) until I read this other amazing entry by a fellow contestant. It cruelly reminded me of the invisible glass ceiling sufficating my muse - my ESL handicap. It is achingly well written and does the pairing justice.

My entry: The Good, The Bad and The Pretty (4500 words)
Other contest entries: Round One

Season 10, Round 1

2012-02-14T17:39:18Z

It's this time of the year, ladies and gentlemen! The Tenth Season of the now reasonably notorious YuGiOh fanfiction contest has started!

Many big names in the fandom are in, a few of which I am quite excited about: Azh, Chicary, Ziven, Higurazel, darkrunner, Jonouchi Katsuya and Duckie... Many new names which are also quite promising. I can't wait to read everyone's different takings on the selected pairings from our moderator, Ryou VeRua!

The opening pairing is Honda x Otogi x Shizuka, which I find very promising and inspiring - I already know how my entry will start. But do I know how the protagonists' story will end? I don't, not yet, and perhaps I never will...

AU Master List

2012-01-03T03:29:41Z

For reference.

RECURRING AU's / COLLECTIONS

1)
Greener Pastures
Slice of Life/Drama. Atem, Mahaad, Bakura, the Ishtars and the Kaibas (Seto, Kisara and Noah) are teenagers caught between their immigrant parents, the hardships of adapting to a new country and choosing a lifestyle of their own. Rock, meet hard place. Can they lead their lives as regular teenagers? Seal, Xeno, Unnamed RishidxKisara, Citron.

Containment : Sibling Chivalry
Truce? : Diplomatic Immunity
Détente: Defrost
Rollback: Thief King of Apathy

2)
Shinjuku Ni-chome (新宿二丁目)
Crime/Drama/Supernatural. Otogi and Mai are self made tycoons of the sex trade. It's a grim world out there, but life goes on. Polar, Minor.

The Girlfriend Experience
The Host
The Guest

3)
Ukiyo (The Floating World)
Uchronia, Horror/Angst. Tokyo is corrupt beyond repair, and the Ishtar's are amongst those who rule its underground world. Power doesn't equal freedom, and even the purest individuals must be capable of 'moral flexibility' in order to survive. Fear, Wall.

Loveless
Godless

the iwl dot me gadget

2011-12-22T17:18:09Z

So there's this fun thingy on the internets that tells you who you write like upon submission of a few paragraphs of your writing. I did so and got one author I didn't know of.

Being a scientist at heart, I knew one sample wouldn't suffice. So I submitted many different snippets from my various fics, and eventually, started submitting whole fics altogether. (Should I be afraid that the thingy steal my writing? I think not. Feel free to steal my fan works, dear.) While this is in no way 'rigorously scientific', I did my best to incorporate older and more recent fics, longer descriptive prose and clipped drabbles, and various chapters from a multi-chapter WIP I'm writing on another account. Each chapter got a different author, by the way.

Here are the results:

James Joyce (4)
Stephenie Meyer (2)
Cory Doctorow (2)
David Foster Wallace (2)
Stephen King
Raymond Chandler
Arthur C. Clarke (for a Steven Spielberg's Avatar fic, the only non-ygo story of the bunch)
Dan Brown
Margaret Atwood (for the only horror story of the sample, interestingly enough)
Chuck Palahniuk (for a romance)

Most of these authors I've never read; some of them I had never heard about. I think it's interesting that a good portion of them seem to be science-fiction writers, and all the pieces I've submitted are slice of life, romance, drama, angst, coming of age.

Now being an ESL writer, which means I've been schooled in French literature and have very limited knowledge of English literature, I've had to wiki James Joyce (the great winner) in order to know more about him and more specifically, his writing style. Of course I know of the man, I've heard of him like anyone else; but I've never read any of his works. So this is the sentence I find most relevant to my interests amidst what wikipedia has to tell me about this great literary figure: Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominently the stream of consciousness technique he perfected.

I wonder what the whole range of actual writers this test encompasses. And more crucially, why aren't there more female authors in the bundle of my results? Why do the genres not seem to match at all?

yllimilly @ 2011-12-14T20:20:00

2011-12-15T01:20:34Z

Oh! Happy Bday dear! :D

I MADE IT

2011-11-27T21:16:05Z

Finally.

I have completed a multi-chapter fic.

All previous attempts had resulted in a few abandoned chapters, dropped fics and a sense of powerlessness.

But I have proven myself wrong. I can finish a fic and I will do it again.

BRING IT, MUSE.

I have glorious news, puppyshippers!

2011-07-02T18:36:23Z

The multi-chapter that may very well be the very best piece of yaoi fanfiction ever written on this planet, Fixation by the_lost_ogg, is readable again!

It has everything - complex and dignified protagonists, a careful and savory build-up, instrumental OC's that rock your socks, fascinating insights from the police world, a wholesome plot to die for and few but amazing %%% scenes!

Go read or re-read it here: http://ygo.adultfanfiction.net/story.php?no=600101830

Any active mixi users out here?

2011-06-09T02:00:00Z

Title self-explanatory.

Season 8 is dead, Long Live Season 8,5!

2011-06-04T03:17:57Z

So I'm planning on writing about the YuGiOh! Fanfiction Contest for a bit longer, but from here on my posts will shift toward *squee* and away from, erm, 'informative'. Why?

Because I'm part of it, too! :D

Still an elimination based challenge, but with a fixed number of rounds and a whole new voting system! No more rounds, but tiers, and we are offered a range of three pairings (almost all of them echoes from Season 1) that we get to choose in advance. Here they are; my picks are italicized.

Tier 1 - Due June 17th
Prideshipping (Seto Kaiba x Yami no Yuugi)
Peachshipping (Yuugi Mutou x Anzu Mazaki)
Polarshipping (Katsuya Jounouchi x Mai Kujaku)

Tier 2 - Due ?
Angstshipping (Malik Ishtar x Ryou Bakura)
Conceitshipping (Yami no Bakura x Mai Kujaku)
Wishshipping (Katsuya Jounouchi x Yuugi Mutou)

Tier 3 - Due ?
Casteshipping (Thief King Bakura x Pharaoh Atem)
Kiddyshipping (Mokuba Kaiba x Rebecca Hawkins)
Mystshipping (Isis Ishtar x Anzu Mazaki)

Tier 4 - Due ?
Fragileshipping (Yami no Yuugi x Ryou Bakura)
Crosshipping (Yami no Malik x Yuugi Mutou)
Wallshipping (Rishid x Shizuka Kawai)

Tier 5/Bonus Round - Due ?
???

That's a lot of het for me, considering how I was a puzzle, then tender, then puppyshipper when I first entered the fandom almost ten years ago. I'm growing more and more interested in YuGiOh het, and Wallshipping seems especially intriguing and challenging.

But the best part is, two of the authors that I am most excited about this Season - sanada_tomoyo(aka Ziven) and darkrunner (also darkrunner on ff.net) - happen to have picked have picked almost the same set I did! It'll be exciting to compete alongside these two brilliant writers on the same turf (I picked Ziven's exact same set without knowing, and darkrunner had picked myst instead of kiddy).

Now excuse me while I go about frolicking in the park with my nascent plot bunnies!

Rounds 15.5 and 16: The Best of Higuchimon's Entries and SEASON FINALE!

2011-05-31T04:39:12Z

This is a blog entry about the eight season of the YuGiOh! Fanfiction Contest, an elimination based creative writing challenge hosted on the ff dot net forums.

Higuchimon, who was eliminated last round, did not only bow out of the contest, but of the DM fandom entirely, causing indefinite but massive numbers of fans to lament the loss of their favorite author, secretly resent YuGiOh GX for stealing her from them and/or consider watching the whole series for the sole sake of enjoying her stories. Because she is such a big name in the fandom, and because her corpus is so vast, I will simply list here what I thought were the best of her Season 8 entries.

Higuchimon has submitted a total of fifteen (15) pieces for Season 8; I am showcasing seven (7) of them.

Title: Prizewinner
Pairing: (barely veiled) sealshipping (Atem x Maha'ad)
Why you will love it: It's a slow-cooked, sensuous and elegant UST.
Atem aimed his spear and Mahaado's gaze drifted unbidden across the smooth arc of his muscles and the way the light gleamed on his golden skin. He truly is a son of the Gods. Only the gods, or one chosen by them, could be this perfect.

Title: Place to Begin
Pairing: (barely) xenoshipping (Rishid x Isis)
Why you will love it: Short, delightfully canon, understated.

"You don't have to call me that. Just Isis will do." They were family after all. She didn't want her brother to call her by anything but her name. Either of her brothers.

Title: Catch Me If You Can
Pairing: conflictshipping (Mai x Jounouchi x Valon)
Why you will love it: She writes flirt like it's a game. A game your opponent wants you to win.
Jounouchi's hand struck Valon's side instead and the other biker seized onto it, making certain Jounouchi stayed steady. Some might have missed just how tightly their hands folded around one another. Mai wasn't one of those.

Title: By Blade and Blast

Pairing: bananashipping (Malik x Honda)

Why you will love it: A delibarate treat to the Malik and Honda fangirls; a subtle treat to the reader who can read between the lines.
Honda hadn't cared about the scars. Everyone else had. Even Isis and Rishid had. The few other lovers he'd had, all of them had in some fashion or other. Only Honda was different.

Title: Through a Glass Darkly

Pairing: gemshipping (Ryou x TKB)

Why you will love it: The dark, sensual and nebulous retelling of a man's descent into madness.
"Of course. What did you expect me to do to them?" Again that smile, that slash of lips and teeth that bespoke only nightmares and horror for those who crossed his path.

Title: How Do You Date?

Pairing: shadowshipping (Shizuka x Yami no Yuugi)

Why you will love it: One: so genfic it hurts. Two: a loveable, dice flicking protagonist.
The dark theater hid Atem's smile, but Otogi heard it in his voice nevertheless. "It was my pleasure. But you should really thank Jounouchi for it, not me. He was the one who fought his way to the finals because of you."

Title: Exactly as Planned

Pairing: trackshipping (Yami Bakura x Shadi)

Why you will love it: Crime thiller meets boy on boy sex meets witty humour meets surprise ending. What's not to love?
Shaadi shook his head. "I've never taken advice from a criminal before and you have nothing that's going to make me start now."

.

Round 16: Grand Season Finale

Velcroshipping (Thief King Bakura x Insector Haga)

"Bakura…"

With wide eyes, he looks up. "How do you know my name?"

"I'm from the future," he says, and instantly feels dumb for saying it. Lines like that don't impress anyone, least of all the child self of an older man Haga has only met once, or so he thinks.

"Then tell me your name."

"Haga," he says. "Don't forget it, because we will meet again."

"In the future?" he asks.

"In…your future. It's my…present." The revelation shocks him, moving so swiftly and suddenly that he is completely unprepared for it.

In Backlash Waltz, a story with a title as ludicrous as the pairing she is trying to make sense of, My Misguided Fairytale effortlessly brings Insector Haga, a much neglected minor comic relief, to life, all the while making the romantic aspect serious enough for this shipping to be freed of its ‘crack’ label. From damp city evenings to bright white desert days to ashen ruins, we are being expertly lead by the third person narrator through different epochs featured in the canon and experience them at an incredibly fast and pleasant rate through Haga’s eyes. Time travel artfully mirrors the paradox of the Bakurae and the complexity of the Thief King, by far the most human of the three. There’s canon, there’s a proto duel monster, action and a bit of fanservice, but I really was in for the wild ride... and enjoyed it.

.

A delicious but incredibly short, post-canon piece is laid out before me in the ff.net alerts clogging my gmail inbox, prompting me to think that Higurazel either doesn’t give a damn or is a genius, pure and simple. (I’d readily bet a little bit of my money on both.) Let me explain: in a contest where the average entry lasted somewhere between 4 and 5 thousand words, a 2 thousand word long season finale may look somewhat anticlimatic to the veteran contestant reader. But our lovely gore aficionado has always done things his own way and The Scarab of Kul Elna is no exception.

"Are you one of that Dartz's lackeys? Is he still sending people out after all this time?"

"I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure who you mean. You see thi-"

"Dartz. Suited man. Heterochromia. Orichalchos cards. Anything ringing a bell?"

The stranger's tone suddenly changed. He seemed wary. "You know of the Atlantean?"

"If that's him, then yes. Do you?"

There’s dark, dry humour, there’s hot sand and insects and gold and not much else besides an abrupt ending that’s brilliant if you’re a fan of this thing called ‘irony’... like I am.

.

At the moment of posting this entry, only one vote has been submitted; I am suspecting that a lot of contestant voters are planning on voting strategically, waiting to see who their peers will be going for: the exceptionally dedicated Season 7 runner up, or the quirky, eccentric rookie?

Fanficcers! We have our own advice animal meme, at last!

2011-05-25T03:02:08Z

Just a quick escape from my hectic RL to pimp this fandom-relevant and fanfic-related tumblog I found indirectly via animom - it's one of those meme tumblogs with 'FUCKYEAH' in their url.

(story of my life)

For you ladies and gents, 48 lovely YuGiOh! icons

2011-05-15T04:02:32Z

Total Icon Count: 48

Teasers:

001

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003

004

005

006

007

008

009

010

011

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016

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028

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030

031

032

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046

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048

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055

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057

Table created with accio.nu's icon table(less) generator

My very first batch! <3

Source: dA user TSUTAYA07's amazing fanart. Do check her out!
Software: irfanview
Image Host: picfu

Feel free to snag, credit, concrit, and drop a line~!

(sorry to those who follow yugi_icon for the doublepost!)

Round 16: Startleshipping Mazaki Anzu x Bandit Keith

2011-05-13T03:52:32Z

This is a blog about the YuGiOh! Fanfiction Contest run on ffnet by the godmotherly Ryou_VeRua. You can sign up for its friendly, short and summery Season 8.5 here.

I didn't know what to expect. I don't think any other reader knew what to expect either from Higuchimon, My Misguided Fairytale and Higurazel. They managed to make us smile, grin and sometimes pout with their completely different, refreshing pieces on the surprisingly plausible Anzu x Keith duo.

Keith licked the outside of her ear and she kicked forward, meeting only air. He chuckled. "You're kinda tough, little girl. I like that."

Anzu wasn't certain what kept her stomach from unloading itself on the floor. Perhaps it was just the fact that none of it would've hit Keith.

That clever economy of words has become Higuchimon's trademark for me. Anzu lovers and snark amateurs will rejoice at the girl's rich inner dialogue: it's like Kaiba's contempt was distilled and served on a silver platter with a side of well seasonned first-wave feminism outrage. This fic reads like a stern warning to all the Anzu-bashers out there, a reminder that the leader of the friendship squad does more than wet her panties at Yami's sight and deliver friendship speeches. She can also fight, and unidimensionnal villains are her target of choice.

Dangers of the Dance caught me having one of those "why on Earth did I skip the disclaimers I wasn't mentally prepared for this" moments, and I love the author all the more for it. An efficient piece to shake the most jaded readers off their lethargic state.

"Well, it always leaves me guessing. I mean, the fact that you never let me pay for anything means you're alright for money, yet you never tell me where it is you work. Plus it's only since we met that you started... y'know, looking after yourself..." She trailed off.

"Cogs in motion?" He asked.

"I'm thinking you're either a drug dealer, a gigolo or Batman." She stated, her voice low. Keith laughed loud enough to get stared at by a few of the diner's other customers.

This might be the closest that Higurazel's ever written to romance. It's rough around the edges. It's elliptical at its best. It has this dirty feeling but manages to remain classy, gentlemanly at all times. I'm talking about the fic of course, but Keith is indeed a much nicer guy in Click Numer Five than he is the previous entry. The usual gore and grit actually serves the fic rather than the other way around. The ending is deliciously Darren Aronofskiesque. The piece feels solid, whole, tightknit. I'm going to call it a 'full blown understated romance' and thank Higurazel for it.

</div>

Keith separates the pasta onto two separate plates, wondering the whole time why he's even doing it in the first place. He can't remember the last time he's used a real plate—real plates mean he has to wash them—but he does, and sets it on the small table. For good measure, he adds a fork, and a spoon, and before that a knife joins it, all set out in the proper plating arrangement.

My Misguided Fairytale cooked up something akin to a peaceful still life this time. Closer to real life, to these little everyday details that make even extraordinary destinies ordinary. The tales of a pro children's card game slash gambler and that of an expatriate Japanese ballet student on a scholarship never felt so relatable and realistic.

Cause and Affection, a heavily researched tale of dance, budding romance and mythology, does not disappoint. It is sometimes sweet, sometimes sour, sometimes delirious. Anzu, like a minor, indie Oracle, seeks thrills and wrestles homesickness. Keith is a good sport about not being the big shot he once was or could have been. And Yuugi... well, misses his best female friend, crush or girlfriend - it is up to the reader to choose.

In the spirit of establishing a fun tradition here in this blog, a hint on the Season 8 Finale Pairing, courtesy of our hostess Ryou VeRua: it's a 100% human pairing, in contrast to Season 7's finale previously unnamed, DuelMonster-only Kashipping (BEWD x Diabound).

Round 15.5: Eliminatee Review and Predictions

2011-05-01T16:16:47Z

This is a blog entry about the ongoing 8th Season of the YuGiOh! Fanfiction Contest run by Ryou VeRua on fanfiction.net, an elimination-based, pairing contest in which writers have to submit a oneshot each. The pairing for Round 16 was announced yesterday. Read more below.

Round 15 Elimination

A short-lived but intense voting round, in which the three writers who made it to round 16 got three votes each - only one ahead of the eliminatee’s word count! It is interesting to note that the only two votes the trackshipping entry Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground got, and which sadly didn’t suffice in keeping her in the contest, were cast by fellow active contestants Higurazel and My Misguided Fairytale (1). It is reasonable to deduct that her rivals wanted to keep her in the race. That in itself speaks about the notoriety of the contest’s latest casualty: Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker.

Duckie’s participation in the contest dates three seasons back, she won Season 7 and she is appreciated and respected by the readers and the writers of the contest. Always pleasant to interact with, she was also one to put her creative writing academic background at the service of her rivals:

“Okay, so on the first day of my first writing class in college, my professor read us a list of 'do nots.' First on that list: no stroding. Nobody strodes. How does one strode? Get rid of it. So we all immediately jump on that whenever someone puts it into a story, so I got hung up over the stroding for a good few paragraphs after the fact. I don't know, its probably not that important, just... no stroding, when moved or walked will do.(2)“

Now what is Duckie’s secret? What made her win last season, what made her last so long in this one?

One. Reliability. Many of us struggled with deadlines, writer’s block, RL, and more than once submitted an entry that we loathed, cursing our inability to come up with something better, more complete, less rushed. Duckie never failed to deliver a solid oneshot that had a beginning, a plot, an ending. Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground did lack some of that solid structure she had us expect from her over time. It is possible that Duckie’s inexperience (this season) in this type of shorter, more whimsical entry ultimately proved to be a weakness. But it was a great entry nonetheless, with touching and pleasantly those-little-hairs-on-my-neck raising moments, and I salute her for challenging herself to something so radically different from her previous, recent fandom works.

Two. Reliability. Few authors on the forum can be said to have such a distinctive style. Fewer authors claim to love “hidden-treasure, secret-organization, gun-toting, page-turning thrillers(3)”, a genre that certainly isn’t found too often in the Deep Sea of Angst that is the written YuGiOh! fandom(4). While not all her entries were suspense or adventure stories (notable mention for the great supernatural romance Like a Flower to the Sun http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6307047/3/The_Domino_Effect, whose plot strangely resembles that of Japanese movie Air Doll), they had that little something that made them feel slightly more dynamic than most of the other submitted pieces.

Three. The Moretum / Morendo / Maison de la Rochenoire trilogy. I am a huge fan and thus, biased on this one. A few authors (MMF did with her Season 7 danceshipping and her Season 8 sealshipping) have referenced previously existing stories and AUs in their Season 8 fics, so cross-season self-referencing isn't anything new, but still a rare occurence. Moretum was originally written for the hilariously implausible morishippping (Hiroto Honda x Yami Bakura) pairing for Season 6, Round 10. The subsequent Season 8 installments, Morendo (Ryou x Honda, slightly plausible) and Maison de la Rochenoire ('Blackstone House'; Yami Bakura x Dark Necrofear, perfectly plausible) were neither a prequel nor a sequel, rather the last pieces of the complex puzzle that make up this dark and tragic trilogy. I highly recommend this poignant and creative rewrite of the canon.

Lastly, Duckie’s recurrent and almost always impeccable use of the French language, which is definitely the best among all the contestants and thus notable-mention worthy.

There is so much more to say about Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker and her work. I will end this elegy of sorts with my best wishes for her future (non-fan)fiction endeavours, and my hopes to see her again in Season 9.

Round 16 Predictions

Startleshipping is indeed a startling match - just try picturing Bandit Keith and Anzu Mazaki kissing. Unheard of! Unlikely! Unexpected! Not because it introduces yet another random, at first glance unidimensionnal minor character to Season 8, but because it looks darn easy to write a fic in which the characters will be, while not necessarily all lovey-dovey for each other, but definitely emotionally engaged and conflicted. I predict there would be a higher chance that actual romance to appear in the three fic-gems to come, but then again... Who knows? I say in all serious seriousness that Higurazel will turn Anzu into a nymphomaniac serial killer, Higuchimon will have them marry religiously and My Misguided Fairytale will make both of them humorous and endearing double agents. In America.

(1) Previously eliminated contestants from the ongoing season are also allowed and expected to vote for entries until the end of the contest.

(2) Review for Rosetta by Animom. http://www.fanfiction.net/r/6510534/

(3) Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker’s profile page. http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1935004/Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker

(4) As of today, roughly 18% of all the YuGiOh! DM entries are archived under 'Angst' on ffnet. That's almost one in five entries. Currently, there are 21 other available genres in which an author can categorize a story.

Round 15: Trackshipping (Shadi x Yami Bakura)

2011-04-28T03:15:26Z

This is a blog entry about the YuGiOh! Fanfiction Contest, an elimination-based pairing contest hosted in proxy by Ryou VeRua in the fanfiction.net forum that also happens to be the top ranking YuGiOh! forum, post-count wise.

This round has the beloved parasitic spirit Yami Bakura shipped with another ~~convenient plot device~~ intangible character: Shadi. And for once, pretty much all of the four remaining contestants collectively thought outside the box and had the contest's surprise factor reach new heights.

Higurazel posted a) first, b) something that wasn’t a snippet and c) a western. A western, ladies and gentlemen. That he paired the genre with horror shouldn’t come off as a surprise by now, but the mix itself is definitely eyebrow raising and you can trust Higurazel to make the corners of your lips raise as well as you read his creation.

Tracks was set in the same AU his Round 13 entry Pueblo del Juego and offers the reader a similar colour palette: blood red, blood red and blood red. What the entry lacked in length, it made up in intensity and those who willfully read any kind of innuendo in that sentence may skip right ahead to Higuchimon’s paragraph.

Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker didn’t quite cook up an asexual, AU crime thriller like I guessed she would. Rather, this entry was one of the rare instances where Duckie stuck to canon, weaving in her own ideas so that they wouldn’t technically affect the series’ actual plot, albeit adding in elements that would make Takahashi stir in his sleep. Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground is a a short, refreshing piece in the crime thriller anthology that her Season 8 digest has gradually become. It is a story less accessible and more personal, cryptic at times; it is perhaps more precious to the author than to her readers.

My Misguided Fairytale apparently adopted austerity measures, judging from her new uncharacteristic(ally low) word count. Standing at a good 5 thousand words below her own oneshot average, Vanishing Act and its self-explanatory title managed to keep me interested throughout despite a flat exposition and an overstated ending. The setting is definitely original and could have benefited from more descriptive content, but it is definitely fine as it is. The author herself stated that many outside influences seeped into the fic and its AU, i.e. suspense movie The Prestige, Kerouac dialogue lines, actual Duel Monsters cards and “a random parking-lot carnival, all lit up in the middle of nowhere”. As always, I loved MMF’s creative ideas and harmonious characterizations. Keep it up, Jess!

Higuchimon isn’t just your average recreational writer. She is an institution in both the YGO DM and YGO GX fandoms. When myself and another contestant expressed a desire to receive more from Higuchimon than 3-4 thousand-word, as-romantic-as-the-canon-allows already-established-pairing oneshots, she wrote just the opposite in the subsequent round... Just to remind us that she was the best at what she did. The result was zombies/soft porn/lovers suicide, and I loved it. We all loved it. We would’ve asked for more but we were too sated and/or shy to dare voice our cravings wishes, and so the author took it a little easier in the rounds after that, almost reverting to her comfortable and proven recipe.

But two eliminations to the contest finale, stakes are high, and the master took out her big guns once more for the joy of all the yaoi fangirls we are. In other words, Exactly as Planned ironically defied all my silly predictions. A saucy Bakura flirts with a crime lord and a high ranking detective at the same time; sex, drugs and not rock’n’roll but plain murder go hand in hand; the story has the potential to induce both rousing and laughter. With delicious lines such as: “He didn't think his own sanity was anything to boast about, but at least he was the only person in his own mind”, I can only applaud Higuchimon’s barely veiled warning not to underestimate her, and happily ask for seconds.

Wackiest Ideas: tie between Tracks and Vanishing Acts

Highest Entertainment Value: Exactly as Planned

Question of the Week:

Creative Writing or Adherence to Canon - what should a fanfiction contest be about?

Round 14.5: Eliminatee Review and Predictions

2011-04-17T05:15:41Z

This is another blog entry about the YuGiOh! Fanfiction Contest, am elimination-based pairing contest hosted by Ryou VeRua in the fanfiction.net forums. Rules can be found here.

Always a Bookworm’s lucky streak ended last round when Higurazel took everyone by surprise and snatched the last two votes of the round, effectively eliminating her. It was hard to let Bookworm go for the voters: in three different tiebreakers this season she won, over Defenestration of the Mind (now known as Mismagium), darkdragonwriter (now known as Ziven) and safa’at keruth by a narrow margin of one vote. What makes Always a Bookworm so special in her fellow contestants’ eyes?

Always a Bookworm: An overall solid performance, uneven at times

Bookworm started the contest with a bang, giving us one of Round 1’s longest entries at over 7000 words. Her Spiritshipping (Yuugi x Anzu x Atem) is a classic take on the tragedy genre: The Ballet Studio. The non-conformist storytelling she put forward in Round 2 and 3 were to me her most memorable entries: A Life of Lives, her reincarnation-themed Mizushipping, was told in vignettes and she used multiple narrators in Gossips to tell Ryou and Honda’s subdued romance. Her subsequent entries have been unequal for me, which is understandable since RL started doing her in. Nonetheless, she was able to come up with a charming, refreshing, slice of life-ish Seershipping (Isis x Ishizu), a page-turner-like thriller of a Xenoshipping (Isis x Rishid) and a short yet vivid, and slightly gory Dollshipping (Yami Bakura x Necrofear).

It’s safe to say that our lovely, upbeat Bookworm has had a solid fanbase to start with, especially in the contest itself where she is a veteran and past winner (Season 6). She earned her popularity thanks to her lively and easy to read style, the variety of the genres she tackles and her eagerness to reply in length to every review she receives. You’ve done well, Bookworm. See you in Season 9 - or maybe in Season 8.5?

Round 15 Predictions

It’s Minor Character Fest! Contest Hostess Ryou VeRua has decided that after Mako Tsunami (Spearshipping, Round 13), Shadi was the other obscure, hardly shippable goonie to appear in the contest. Due to the exclusive nature of this writing challenge (no pairing can appear more than once, not even in different seasons), and because more than fifty pairings have been used so far, more and more such minor characters will be called into play.

So Round 15 will be Trackshipping: Yami Bakura x Shadi, and will mark a sixth appearance for either of the Bakurae this season! Will you believe me when I tell you our hostess, who was and is in charge of choosing and scheduling the pairings, is a major Bakura fan? ;)

Higurazel will have a blast with those two otherworldly characters. I wouldn’t be surprised if he chose to expand on Mother, his gore-psychedelic, acid-bad-trippy Dollshipping. There’s always a way to include Shadi to any plot; his canonish nature gives him license to pretty much pop in anyone’s lives whenever he pleases. And whenever the author pleases.

Higuchimon will come up with a number of things both Bakura and Shadi have in common in the canon and present them in an elegantly disguised character analysis. Enough said.

Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker is surely dishing up a majestic AU crime thriller. Not sure whether she’ll have the two spectral dudes love each other, though.

My Misguided Fairytale might very well dab in the occult. Something dark like Orbit, her Shadowshipping entry (Shizuka x Yami), but a bit rougher. Chances are it’s going to be quite a lengthy oneshot, because these characters can have potentially good chemistry and therefore have that tendency of coming to a life of their own and never want to shut up - and because two eliminations away from the finale, the stakes a high. As high as her average oneshot word count. ;)

Place your bets!

Round 14: Rendershipping (Jou x Kaiba x Pegasus)

2011-04-14T02:32:17Z

This is a blog entry about the Fourteenth round of the Eight season of the YuGiOh! Fanfiction Contest run by Ryou VeRua on fanfiction.net, an elimination-based pairing contest in which writers have to submit a oneshot approximately every two weeks. Votes are cast by the contestants themselves.

Round 14 was Rendershipping: Jounouchi x Seto Kaiba x Pegasus. Who was this pairing supposed to please, one might ask? I'll have to say that I have no idea, since none of the five entries submitted had any romantic content in it (and no, Higuchimon, you won't make me believe that your piece, as lovely as it was, belonged to the Romance/Humor genre). Many intrigues had to do with technology, bordering with either science-fiction or the supernatural, and many also had to do with crime. Corporate crime.

Always a Bookworm came up with a highly imaginative plot, as usual, creating a dystopic uberurban AU for the three protagonists - and even Bakura and Malik. Sci-fi with political overtones almost a bit obvious towards the end, Times of Desperation casts Jou as the classic 'poor' eager to make fast cash to cure his sister's imminent blindness - all the while fighting the opperssion of political leader Seto Kaiba who is at war with rival Pegasus Crawford. The premise is a clever twist from the canon, and while the dynamic between the three characters seems overused, don't worry - the finale more than makes up for it. The story somewhat suffered from a low start, and protagonists have very little significant on-screen interaction with one another, but considering it was written in less than 6 hours... Bookworm deserves nothing but applause.

Higuchimon served us a tasty and thoughful slice of life, finding deceiptively canon elements to unite the imposed characters together convincingly - for example, she used Shizuka's and Pegasus' eyesight problems to build a bridge between him and Jou. It was refreshing to have these two interact without Kaiba during the first part of the fic. There is definitely no feelings of love involved in Common Ground, but a genuine feeling of gratitude and maybe forgiveness - in that respect, this entry was the one that respected the most the 'pairing' aspect of the contest, even though it wasn't quite romance.

Higurazel built on his thrilling, gritty and gory bondageshipping (round 12) to deliver us this ... snippet. Pegasus appears only briefly, Seto is deliciously snarky and Jou is the only multi-dimensional character of the show. I'd love to read more of Risks and of its AU, but with only two votes so far (two hours before the voting thread is locked), will he make the cut?

Doubleplusgoodduckspeaker always submits either crime thrillers or ingenious semi- or sometimes full blown AU's. Her rendershipping entry belongs to the latter category, and like the other rendershipping entries, it is definitely not implying that any of the triangle's characters bang each other. Jou is shipped with Mai while Seto and Pegasus are as asexual as ever. Dbl's prose is both efficient and rich with details that speak without being overshadowing the plot... which draws heavily on canon and is thankfully not straightforward nor easy to foresee. Dbl might be predictable in her habits, but her stories aren't; this is why folie à trois was satisfying and entertaining, and also felt like the only full fledged, wholly ripened submission this round had to offer.

My Misguided Fairytale, just like Bookworm and Dbl, has wildly creative cards up her sleeve. She came up with an interesting plot and was the only author to have Seto Kaiba as main character of her story (all other fics star the more relatable Jou), so she definitely deserves kudos for that. Because the ending (as was remarked by a few reviewers) was rushed, the fic felt like it lingered on a slow start, but actually I feel like MMF is slowly coming to terms with her wordiness and really this time, I felt barely any of the redundancy I sometimes felt in some of her previous fics. Rather, she built up Seto's character nicely, set up a solid atmosphere to have him evolve in, and I can only ask for seconds of the overall creepiness of the fic! My tip of the hat to Fever Dream, and may more such fics spring from that author's mind in the future.

Best overall ICness: Common Ground

Highest entertainment value: Risks

Most solid/best overall fic: folie à trois

I wonder what the next pairing will be... can we hope for more yuri? Or will another Kaiba be drawn from Rua's hat? I'm really hoping for some Mokuba ficcage...

Fandom: The RPF

2011-03-21T03:49:06Z

Seeing how you, dear reader, most likely are into fanfiction for YuGiOh, anime in general and maybe series such as BtVS, you probably are as familiar as I am with this acronym:

RPF (Real Person Fanfiction).

I have yet to read the genre, but I have just read about it just now, in this light entertaining cracked.com piece (NSFW).

In the last decade, the most popular RPF targets were members of boy bands and actors from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. According to the Internet, every single member of the previous two groups has boned every single other member and in fact is probably boning them right now. Some RPF fans have even taken their hobby further, insisting that their stories are based on reality and that the celebrities in question are romantically involved. For this reason, even fellow fanfiction writers view RPF authors as strange.

But once again, the Internet quarantine separating RPF fans from the rest of humanity not only isn't working, it was never there to begin with. For a start, there's the fact that if the celebrities in question are dead, making them bone each other is not called "Real-Person Fiction." It's called "historical drama." Somewhere, right now, there's an actor winning an award for starring in one.

Till next time.

ygo_genderbent

2011-02-21T21:53:17Z

It's official!

Following the wave started by Joey Kaiba, sanada_tomoyo , ryou_verua and sefina_bear and the lovely folk at the forum, I spent 5 ~~hours~~minutes today on creating this lovely community:

ygo_genderbent

You are most invited to post and read genderbent!drabbles and other ficcage. Adult / explicit content most welcome.