Round 15.5: Eliminatee Review and Predictions
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 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.