brightknightie

Tonight will be one week from when I got my Switch 2. I'm enjoying Echoes of Wisdom very much -- with all its exploration and puzzles and side-character dialogue changing every time you accomplish something that affects them, so ~~you need to~~I choose to run back and re-interview all of them to catch the tidbits. The folks who felt grumpy because it stars Zelda instead of Link because she's a conjurer instead of a fighter, well, they can go enjoy some combat-heavy game while I enjoy this one. I'm perfectly happy dodging and hiding while my echoes fight for me; this is what mage and cleric characters naturally do, right? And it's why they team up with fighter characters when they can. (Folks who were grumpy because you play as a girl character were just sad and silly and making themselves miss out, of course.)

Last night, I pretty much finished the Gerudo Desert portion of the game, including killing the two giant sandworms causing the sandstorms. All that remains, that I know of, is the mango mini-game, which I keep losing at the second level, and the not-yet-unlocked quest for the soldiers who are too busy practicing spear-work to talk to me (there has to be a quest there, I'm assuming). Oh, and to come back and (minor spoiler) talk to all the cats when I later unlock that ability.

That I've come this far in a week reminds me that I need to pace/ration myself. As nice as it is right now to go hide out in Hyrule, I must not let this take over all my hobby time! With the in-game map and quest log functions, you don't need paper game journals in the old way, but I'll nevertheless be starting one for time played (to keep it reasonable) and a minimum number of potential fanfic observations/ideas generated per session before I will let myself play again.

Do you put time limits, or level limits, on your play-time...? What have you found works well?

I'd like to recommend against the "Welcome Tour" game on the Nintendo Switch 2. Judging from the first level only, it's not worth its modest price. It's not worth your time.

It's not fun.

That should be the mic drop, but I will add the key detail that it doesn't seem to have a track for people wholly new to the ecosystem. It seems to presume that the user is already familiar with the Switch 1 and wants to know what is better about the Switch 2.

fkficfest '25 has concluded! We had lovely, diverse stories, and lovely, kind interactions, all around. Forever Knight fandom has always been such a jumble of approaches, with its mishmash of genres and themes attracting wildly dissimilar approaches and interpretations. It's touching and heartening that we can play together at all, much less this successfully. Thank you.

Some years, I feel that being the game's moderator should block me from making story recommendations, and I hold my peace. This year, I feel that it's okay to go ahead and point out a few stories that happened to offer particularly distinct elements to me, personally, subjectively, as a reader and not moderator.

"A Duty to Serve" by Calliope24 (G, gen, ~2K words): Set during the tumult of "A More Permanent Hell," a uniformed Tracy tries to serve while her father orders her off the streets, and Stonetree steps in. I found the efforts of all the characters to endure and serve the common good during this civilizational collapse powerful, and Stonetree's measured optimism -- not just about the ultimate end, but faith in people -- invigorating. I also admire the imagination and depiction of this canon bubble; of course the third-season characters lived second-season, and of course Stonetree knew Commissioner Vetter.

"Unpacking" by SwitchbladeEyes (T, gen, ~11K words): Set immediately after "Sons of Belial," Nick's reaction to the demon incident brings all of Natalie's undealt-with feelings about Richard's death in "I Will Repay" roaring to the surface. I found this story's cadence, tone, and voice so resonantly third-season that it felt -- for better and for worse, for familiarity and for discomfort -- like it could indeed have been the next canonical episode after "Sons of Belial," if such continuity had been a thing in those days, and also that it could then have broken third-season's fall and climbed back up onto a more promising path by dealing with pain and not only piling it up.

"Daylight" by Nicholas_Lucien (T, gen, ~2K words): This songfic goes around and around, like the verses of a song with a refrain, in a way that made my brain react to it more like poetry than prose. It makes an interesting choice, to call Nick/Nicolas/Nicholas by those different names as it shifts through Nick's, Janette's, and Lacroix's perspectives regardless of the historical era, creating prism-like views on each situation. The reader may interpret the cyclical structure to indicate that Nick will never win. I choose to interpret it, for myself, instead to indicate that Nick will never stop striving.

Separately, the story that I contributed myself is "Reconcilable Differences" (T, gen, ~5K words). Thank you,

batdina, for beta-reading! Set early in the long hiatus between the first and second seasons, it pokes at the trope of Natalie treating a badly injured Nick by dosing him with the blood that she otherwise insists is the barrier to all his hopes. Both Nick and Natalie, of course, want Nick to both live and become human, but when something happens to make Nick believe that he can have only one or the other, he and Natalie are not necessarily in harmony on which and why and how. The story addresses the game prompt "I’m going to tell you something you don’t want to hear;" I think that it goes both ways between them. I definitely found it easier to put Nick and Natalie into this mess than to get them out again, but I like to think that I did so in the end.

Here are some recent fannish things I've happened to see and would like to share!

Spotlight: With strict scrutiny and nervous caution, wary that perhaps it was only nostalgia and rose-tinted goggles after all, Overly Sarcastic Productions brilliantly examined "The Lost Art of Marvel's Phase 1." ( Spoiler: Phase 1 really is as good as we thought it was! Yes, even that one! )

Ficathons, fests & communities

Create & engage
- fkficfest, the Forever Knight challenge, is in progress revealing its stories (one per day).
- justmarriedexchange is an exchange for marriage tropes. Nominations through June 10; sign-ups through June 22; due August 17.
- epidemfic is an exchange for illness themes and depictions. Sign-ups through June 8; due July 6.
- beauty-beast-week is a week-long open celebration of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Posting is August 18-24.
- trope_of_the_month's June theme is "time loops."
- pinchhits is a forum for pinch-hits in exchanges. For example, whumpex is seeking pinch hitters.
- whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
Enjoy & share
- fancake (themed fanfic recs); June theme: "female relationships"
- gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
- het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
- fanart_recs (fanart recs)
- recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: This spring, I posted one recommendation in recthething (for "the gears of time turn on" by LadyHoneydee (TLOZ:BOTW)). I used to have a recommendation-of-the-month project for FK fanfiction, long, long ago. I've been thinking of getting back into recommendations, via such communities, perhaps with mirroring in my AO3 account, definitely no longer limited by fandom. I'm wondering whether and how people really use recs these days. Would it be a good use of my time for others?

We're at the halfway point of

fkficfest 2025. Six stories are available to read; six remain to be revealed. You may have noticed that the cadence is (very roughly) short-short-long this year.

I've posted promos to

fandomcalendar and

fandom_on_dw. I'm posting a promo with the new reveals to forkni-l every third day.

Please feel free to promote the event in any appropriate forum! Or of course on your own journal.

Whew! The schedule is made and locked.

fkficfest '25 starts releasing tomorrow (Monday, May 26).

Gold stars to the community for collectively loading every story successfully with no help from me! If that has ever happened before, it's not leaping to mind, and this is our sixteenth annual game. I'm impressed!

To build our schedule, of course, I got my annual modly sneak peak into our stories, and while there are many trends and uniquenesses of all kinds -- which I will not spoil -- one meta curiosity really nabbed my attention. Of the 10 authors, only 4, including me, chose to hold the reveal of their chosen prompt for the story's endnotes. The other 6 chose to state the prompt up front in the story's preface. Intriguing! Different strokes for different folks.

Probably this has been done, of course, but I just now thought of this The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess post-canon story possibility, and maybe it would be worth writing someday:

Up to a certain point near the story's climax, the audience and the characters all believe that the bulbins are monsters/demons, and nothing else. But in that particular scene, we see the Bulbin King speak -- literally speak, and in Hyrulean! -- for himself and make a different choice, and reveal his motivations, showing that at least he, and probably all his people, are, well, people. Not monsters, like all the monsters that cannot speak and cannot choose. At the very end of the game, we see the Bulbin King and a couple of other bulbins riding around, possibly hunting, possibly raiding, iirc, but definitely targeting animals, no longer people.

What is the journey from being perceived as monsters/demons to being perceived as just another of the diverse peoples of Hyrule? Is this a joint project of the TP characters and the Bulbin King? Zelda cannot successfully just order her people to stop hating and fearing bulbins; the Bulbin King may have the same problem with his people. Do the bulbins in the end settle in greater Hyrule and join society and maybe even produce sages someday, or do they turn out in the end to be from somewhere beyond Ordon, and return there? (Were they one of the surface peoples in the time of SkSw and became more monster-like over time? Were they monsters/demons who became people, a la what's-his-name in SkSw?)

Just thinking.

Does fandom at large still use the term "jossed," that is, having a plot theory or fanfic story in progress overtaken or overturned by emerging canon? Or do we now avoid the term because of its original namesake's revealed behavior? (Or because young folks don't get the reference?) I see that it's still on TVTropes. Just curious!

I was idly thinking ahead to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, which will surely joss its share of theories and stories, as well as supply some "I knew it!"s.

Given the scattered offers and requests for the second annual round of

saturdaymorningex (sign-ups summary), I'm concerned that the new fest

earlybirdgetstheword may have drained off enough of

saturdaymorningex's participants that it won't be able to function this year, and will die after only one round, as so many fests do. (The events are due within 2 days of each other.) Kudos to the mod for trying to pull off a second round! We shall see.

earlybirdgetstheword requires participants to make 4 offers. I didn't participate in its nominations; there aren't 4 fandoms that I can offer there (tagset).

Ah, well. There's likely to be

everywoman later in the summer.

Here are some recent fannish things I've happened to see and would like to share!

Spotlight: No, I didn't manage to snag a Switch 2 pre-order
( I did try... )

Ficathons, fests & communities

Create & engage
- fkficfest, the Forever Knight challenge, comes due May 24. (I'm the mod!)
- saturdaymorningex, the cartoon/anime exchange, has sign-ups through May 9, with works due June 20. (I'm signed up!)
- earlybirdgetstheword, an exchange for small, inactive fandoms, has sign-ups through May 14, with works due June 22. (If it didn't overlap with others, I'd like to do it!)
- allbutromance, focused on platonic relationships, has nominations through May 5 and sign-ups through May 24.
- sholio is running a May Multifandom Commentfic Promptfest. Check it out!
- genprompt_bingo's 28th round has sign-ups through June 30, with indefinite posting.
- rewrite_a_fic, a challenge to rewrite one of your own works, comes due November 30.
- lyricaltitles's "album challenge" asks participants to write a story for each song on an album of their choice.
- summerofhorrorexchange, multifandom and multimedia, has nominations through May 5 and sign-ups through May 14.
- monstersmashexchange, focused on relationships with monsters, has nominations through May 5 and sign-ups through May 17.
- justunrequitedex, focused on unrequited feelings, has sign-ups through May 9.
- domaystic, a promptfest for domestic themes, runs through May 31.
- fic_promptly is an ongoing promptfest community.
- trope_of_the_month's May theme is "gender or sex swap."
- allbingo's May theme is "colors."
- pinchhits is a forum for pinch-hits in exchanges. For example, sakuraexchange is seeking pinch hitters.
- whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
Enjoy & share
- fancake (themed fanfic recs); May theme: "angst (with a happy ending)"
- gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
- het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
- fanart_recs (fanart recs)
- recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: The MCU is on an upswing (no spoilers)

I'm happy to say that Thunderbolts*, seen in a theater last night, was much better and more appealing to me, personally, than I'd expected, with strong theming, a coherent plot, no visible executive notes, and the best post-credits scene in years.
Daredevil: Born Again is still much too violent for me, personally, so I hide my eyes a lot, but it is also still well-written and getting better and better as it leans away from its [mis]conception under the previous Disney leadership and back into being a direct continuation of the original series. I love/hate its current relevance.
The trailer for Fantastic Four: First Steps makes me feel all the feelings that the best of the MCU ever brought me, including tearing up a little at the end. Edge of my seat. Fingers crossed.

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Do we still use the word "jossed?"

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Fannish options & enthusiasms | May 2025

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