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