I love good guys

I thought that you might want to know about these developments, too:

A few weeks ago, I saw an article discussing how mass-market paperbacks are on their way out, that the last large publishers/printers of them in English will soon cease production of that cheaper "pocket size" book format that has dominated my lifetime. That market has apparently fallen to a combination of e-book readers and non-readers. Also, grocery stores and drugstores and other such grab-and-go places for which mass-market paperbacks were made don't give books as much shelf space as they used to, as you may have seen first-hand. The future of new books is trade paperbacks and hardbacks, apparently, though I imagine used books will circulate as long as the pages cling to their glued bindings. Anything and everything that puts books out of reach for anyone, yet especially the young and the poor, is tragic. (Subscriber gift link to take you, and anyone you share it with, through the paywall for free: "So Long to Cheap Books You Could Fit in Your Pocket" by Elizabeth A. Harris, New York Times, February 6, 20026.)

Yesterday (Valentine's Day, no less), I saw an article reporting that Harlequin/Mills & Boon, the romance publisher powerhouse, will discontinue its historical romance line entirely in English, after having previously pared all historical eras down to just Regency and Victorian. (Medieval, Old West, US Revolution, and many more were all actively published at various times.) I'm not a big romance reader and I don't buy new Harlequin, but... it's always been there. I've read it from time to time from the library, and bought used from library sell-offs or bins outside bookshops, and while too many of the ones I've read were at best ephemeral candy, and a few were absolute wrecks, an equal few were genuinely good or clever or inspiring and have stayed in my imagination. I am a big reader of historical fiction... I can't feel good about history being a fading interest. (This site allows 3 monthly freebie views: "Harlequin to Discontinue Historical Romance Line" by Sam Spratford, Publishers Weekly, February 13, 2026.)

If at least 5 people total want to play this year, I will run fkficfest, the annual Forever Knight (1992-1996) fic event, again. I'll put up a poll soon, probably next week.

I've got a few more real-life events and obligations than usual this spring, and it looks like we've very unfortunately lost everywoman as a summer event, so I'm thinking perhaps June or July this year, instead of the traditional May. (May is the anniversary of FK's finale and premiere both; FK was a mid-season replacement series, making it actually half a year older than HL.)

I am still, very personally and individually -- and I say this here on my own journal, not in the community -- feeling rock-bottom alienated from the dominant preferences of the broader surviving fandom at this point. (This doesn't mean any individual fans; it means approaches and interpretations.) So I will try to take it easy on myself and dial back my own engagement in ways that shouldn't affect anyone else. I'll sit in my corner and muse quietly on old-fashioned takes, like that Nick is right and Lacroix is wrong, vampirism is a metaphor for evils like addiction and abuse, and selflessness is better than selfishness.

Fi is the spirit of the sword in The Legend of Zelda. The Master Sword looks like a European blade, but TLOZ is a JRPG. A fusion of J.R.R. Tolkien's novels and Shigeru Miyamoto's boyhood in rural Japan, the story gave its fantasy sword a spirit, somewhat as traditional clay-tempered Japanese blades have. Down through all the ages of the story, the sword selects its wielder. (I've deleted my digression on sword spirits in TLOZ. For now. ~grin~)

According to my Switch 2 app, I'm 475 hours into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I've completed every side quest, beaten every shrine, collected every memory, maximized every inventory stash, upgraded every armor/outfit, filled all but five slots in the compendium, and hung the "Champions Ballad" reward picture in Link's home.* At this point, the only things between me and the story's final chapter are the "Trial of the Sword" and completionism (finding every Korok, every chest, etc.). I'm a "story-ist," not a completionist.

The "Trial of the Sword" is a three-stage DLC that powers up the Master Sword for each stage you complete. There's microscopic story gain, really just a gantlet** of increasingly difficult monsters in increasingly challenging environments, which you must conquer all in one run per stage, or be sent all the way back to the beginning to do it all over again. No saves. I really enjoy the conceit of stripping Link of all his weapons, armor, and resources, being left to muddle through on cleverness! Eventide Island, ahoy! But I do not enjoy gantlet-style at all. I've been trying to get through just the beginner stage of the "Trial of the Sword" on and off in my hobby time for weeks. I almost gave up. There's no more story, right?

But. Story got into my head. As it does. How would Fi feel about Link skipping this challenge? All of BOTW's present-day has been about Link rebuilding himself as the legendary hero, regaining his memories, his strength, his mission -- his sword. Isn't this Fi's equivalent journey? Perhaps she even influenced the creation of this darn gantlet for him! So I kept trying. And trying. Finally, Saturday night, after dinner, the third time I've ever managed to make it all the way up to the twelfth level -- and only after checking the internet to confirm that the Hinox with greaves is indeed the last of this phase and I should therefore "leave it all on the field" -- my Link beat the beginner stage of the "Trial of the Sword." Yay!

So: that's enough. The real (fictional) Link would bring Fi all the way through the next two stages! But I am calling this for myself. Next up, perhaps next weekend, it's straight to Zelda to beat Ganon and watch the full end credits in my own game (instead of on YouTube).


* Typical playthroughs are 50-100 hours. Most players do not complete all the optional subplots and sidequests. Also, most players are more skilled than I am. ;-D

** As you know, a "gantlet" is a "lane run" ordeal or challenge, while a "gauntlet" was originally only a stout protective glove that comes up high on the arm, but, over time, the words converged, and "gauntlet" now means both "gantlet" and "gauntlet." English is fun!

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

Spotlight: I'm four episodes into the new Marvel Wonderman. It reminds me again how much I wish we could go back to "television" releasing one episode per week, many episodes per year. This streaming model doesn't allow viewers to build relationships with characters or each other. I can't consume or contribute to any discussions yet, because I've seen "only" four episodes (in less than a week). And by the time I catch up, everyone will have moved on. Granted, I feel strongly that Disney/Marvel should have approached its TV shows, from the start, as an anthology series, a la PBS's Masterpiece or The Wonderful World of Disney. That's a familiar model viewers would have understood and known how to engage with. Retrofitting it now as "Spotlight" may be too little, too late. I'm not asking that every story run for seven seasons, of course! But a big part of what makes TV different from movies, and precious to us, is the stories' presences in our lives as we live them through time.

Ficathons, fests & communities

• Create & engage
  • halfamoon, the 14-day challenge celebrating female characters, is in progress!
  • small_fandoms has a drabble-athon throughout February. ("Smallness" here is not by Yuletide metrics, but by reasonableness and on the honor system for present participation.)
  • pinchhitbingo is a rolling challenge to help out communities and support fellow fans by filling pinch hits (that is, exchange drops and unmatchables).
  • videogamefanworks is a community for sharing assorted fanworks and fanwork recs for any video game or visual novel.
  • allbingo's February theme is "Valentine's Day" (love and loss).
  • trope_of_the_month's February theme is "Aliens Made Them Do It" (your choice of "it").
  • pinchhits is a community for posting needed fills for exchanges. For example, traumaticexperiences is currently seeking pinch hitters.
  • whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
• Enjoy & share
  • fancake (themed fanfic recs); February theme: "inept in love" (fka "idiots in love")
  • gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
  • het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
  • fanart_recs (fanart recs)
  • recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: I've begun playing Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, which is a choose-your-own-adventure visual novel murder mystery urban fantasy Greek gods retelling with full-on musical numbers that you direct and redirect as they are sung. So far, so good. Not good, it has no key to the chapter controls anywhere I can find. Three chapters in, I'm still struggling. I am not at all a savvy gamer, but this seems... not entirely my fault? A key to the controls, somewhere in the settings menus, is not an unreasonable ask, even for a multi-platform game, is it? (What is the tab sequence?)

It took a while, but I'm ready to share my own favorite stories from hlh_shortcuts '25, the annual Highlander fanfiction exchange that releases on the winter solstice (because that is Duncan's birthday). Of course your tastes may differ, so please check out the whole collection and find your joy!


"Metaphorically Speaking" (~4K words, G, gen; Riche, Angie) by argentum_ls
Please let me shout-out again the story written for my own match request this year. This story delivers a familiar, favorite concept -- Angie encountering Richie after he let her believe he was dead -- in a fresh new way at an energizing distance. Angie is in a very vulnerable place while still immensely strong; the shock doesn't go down easy.

"Orogenesis" (~12K words, G, m/m; Duncan, Methos) by Teratornis
With a gentle pace and layered metaphors, this story gives Duncan a wholly new interest -- geology -- in a peaceful time, and digs into who Duncan can be when he is not fighting for his life and the lives of those he loves. The show never did much to explore his interests. This piece is about reunion, renewal, growth, and hope.

"Closing Up Shop" (~1K words, G, gen; Joe, Rachel) by Merfilly
The idea of Rachel E. and a younger Joe meeting is a delight. This story follows close on the first movie, so we get a competent, careful Rachel acting on behalf of Connor and a cautious, careful Joe acting on behalf of the pre-Horton Watchers. I particularly enjoy the parallelism, perhaps foreshadowing, of a scene many years later in the series.

"Kastagir's Hotel Américain" (~3K words, G, f/f; Amanda, Kastigir, Rachel, Rebecca) by Pennywashburne
This setting is vibrant and an assortment of vivid characters with assorted motivations float downstream into it. Amanda is pulling off a lighter caper while others pull off a more serious operation that is not fully revealed until the end, and we get to see Rachel E. when she's an active young woman, dealing with Connor's immortal friends on her own.

"The Road Forward" (~1K, G, gen; Richie, Connor) by Havocthecat
It's New Year's Eve 1999, and Richie and Connor are celebrating and remembering. Bringing these characters together in this specific part of their experiences is resonant, with melancholic hope and hopeful regret running both directions, over and around references to all Richie's canonical loved ones. His thoughts of Tessa and Angie particularly strike home with me.


(I, of course, wrote "Hakobore" (~6K, G, gen; Duncan, Methos, Midori), in which Duncan takes his damaged katana to Japan for repair.)