Round 14: Rendershipping (Jou x Kaiba x Pegasus)
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...
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...