I love good guys

havocthecat asked a question that made me realize that the casting news for the upcoming live-action The Legend of Zelda movie may have flown fully under the radar last year, for people less obsessed than me, because the studio very deliberately cast virtual unknowns:

• Bo Bragason plays Zelda. Her IMDB entry.
• Benjamin Evan Ainsworth plays Link. His IMDB entry.

These two were announced last July. No others have been announced, but an unconfirmed leak strongly indicates a certain third character. Perhaps interestingly, that leak, which happened in November when someone took sneaky unauthorized video footage, was successfully drowned out for virality when the studio responded by releasing three official stills of the leads in costume, in character, on set: a portrait each of Zelda and Link, and one of the two of them together looking out across Hyrule (as played by New Zealand).

This IGN article has all three official photos, the story of the leak and official release, and a link to the spoiler leak footage. Here's the Zelda portrait:

I posted 8 fanfiction works in 2025, which is a lot for me these days (though one was a poem and two were drabbles, which can skew such assumptions). I found tremendous joy in several, and early in the year felt full of enthusiasm and creative energy for fanfic. But then something went awry; I lost that for a while. I'd very much like to find it again. The HL exchange at the end of the year is often refreshing and reassuring that way! I'm hoping it will be again coming into this new fanfic year.

Last year (2025), I posted:

Dungeons & Dragons (TV, cartoon, 1983): "Muscle Memory" (G, gen, ~1K words). A little "returned from the Realm" glimpse of Erik as an adult still equipped with skills and insight from his long-ago adventures. I've thought of maybe doing a set of these, one for each of our gang. (Comment threads: 6.)

The Legend of Zelda (BOTW/TOTK, video game): "The Water in Which We Swim" (G, gen, ~2K words). A lore explanation of why this Link cannot swim underwater, set on a family visit to Zora's Domain a decade or so post-canon. Inspired by EOW's Zelda being able to swim underwater perfectly well. (Comment threads: 5.)

The Legend of Zelda (SkSw, video game): "First Comes Choice" (G, gen, ~500 words). Poem. A glimpse at the moment the spirit of the hero freely chooses Hylia, rather than Hylia ordering the spirit, aka my headcanon on the metaphysics of free will, self-sacrifice, and love in TLOZ's cycle. (Comment threads: 2.)

Forever Knight (TV, 1992): "Reconcilable Differences" (PG-13, gen, ~5K words). Written for FKFicFest. This experience proved dispiriting. I wrote this Nick and Natalie action/drama poorly; readers found it to say something I never intended. I'm afraid that FK fandom experiences are like that these days for me. I do not fit. It is no longer home. (Comment threads: 10.)

The Legend of Zelda (BOTW, video game): "Reasons to Visit the Library" (G, gen, 100 words). Drabble. Post-BOTW, Link shows Zelda her father's hidden study in Hyrule Castle's library. (Comment threads: 2.)

The Legend of Zelda (BOTW, video game): "Even the Smallest Possibility" (G, gen, 100 words). Drabble. Revali scoffs at Link for taking the legendary Minish seriously. Inspired by the concept artwork from when the developers thought the Minish could be in BOTW. (Comment Threads: 3.)

The Legend of Zelda (BOTW/TOTK, video game): "Gerudo Spirit, or Three Last Untold Tales (Before Age of Imprisonment Arrives)" (PG, gen, ~2K words). A set of three sequential, but independent, ficlets. Each mini-story explores a piece of my headcanon for the Gerudo Civil War and Imprisoning War, posted just before Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment came out, as I expected the new game to thoroughly "joss" my ideas, as we used to say. In the event, my guesses held up fairly well (except that I never saw coming that Ganondorf would stay resident at Hyrule Castle after the pledge of fealty and before Sonia's murder!). (Comment threads: 0.)

Highlander (TV, 1992): "Hakobore" (G, gen, ~6K words). Written for HLH_Shortcuts. The title is the Japanese word for a nick in the sharp edge of a blade deep enough to threaten its structural integrity. Inspired by the exchange prompt, I damaged Duncan's katana and sent him to Japan to get it fixed, enjoying learning tons about traditional sword construction and maintenance. Methos and Midori appear. (Comment threads: 18.)

Picked up from argentum_ls:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 126.
3. The 6th full sentence is your life in 2026.

"Of course there'll be a lot of people." -- All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot (1972)

snowflake_challenge: Pets of fandom: "Loosely defined! Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!"

I unfortunately must take the show-your-ID antihistamines when visiting furry pets. Few characters are similarly afflicted! So some thoughts on just a select few of their pets...

I won't count horses or similar as pets for this purpose, categorizing them as full partners, so that omits Uni (D&DC) and Epona (TLoZ), along with all pokémon, dragons, etc.

In The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Zelda has a cat, white like her horse, and all kudos to the unknown-by-me fan who first cleverly fanon/headcanon-named the unnamed cat "Purra" (after the character Purah in the Wilds games by way of the cat Purry in The Minish Cap). When this Zelda wears a certain enchanted outfit, she can speak with cats throughout Hyrule, and discovers their busy cat lives and receives cat side-quests, my favorite of which is "A Treat for my Person," accessible only after completing two other side quests, in which a cat, originally from Gerudo Desert, needs Zelda's help to give her human, a Seesyde Village fisherperson, a specific Gerudo-flavor smoothie as thanks. (Trivia: In the obscure Tri Force Heroes, Link can similarly wear a costume to talk to cats. And of course he talks to all the animals when he's a wolf in Twilight Princess.)

In Battlestar Galactica (1978), Boxy, Serina and Apollo's son, gets Muffit, an experimental robotic daggit (dog), to succeed the real daggit he lost in the Annihilation of the Colonies. This is explained as training for the robot to be a guard for soldiers on planets, and of all the children in the rag-tag fleet of survivors Boxy alone gets this privilege because of Apollo's connections, but of course the real-world reason Muffy exists is merchandising. That said, Muffy, like the CORA Viper-fighter interface, sits conspicuously, problematically, and wholly unacknowledged at a thematic core of the show. The humans fear all forms of artificial intelligence because of how it led to the Cylons. Yet they keep making things like Muffit and CORA, and a recurring character is a robotics scientist. This nagging inconsistency is likely due to the Cylons mostly representing fears of Soviet communism and nuclear war at the time, not actually social/technology fears. Nevertheless, it's a point in the story that fanfic can explore. (I admit I have a small, WIP draft poking into that; I haven't touched it since before LLMs exploded onto the scene, though.)

In Forever Knight, of course Natalie's cat Sidney is seen on screen once and mentioned on screen a second time, and that's it for the full three seasons of show. As annavere mentioned, animals are generally rarer on screen than in real life, because they're difficult and expensive to work with in acting. But Sidney figures prominently in the fandom's understanding of Natalie, firmly treated as a recurring character in his own right in fanfic. Nick's lack of pets, on the other hand, is given a tragic and fully believable in-universe explanation in the "Blind Faith" flashbacks, as -- and I'm phrasing this carefully to not spoil Annavere, who is watching FK for the first time -- Lacroix sadistically intervenes.

What do you think of pets in these canons...?

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

Spotlight: I went to Dickens Fair again this year and had a lovely time. As a fan of nineteenth-century literature and history, I find it immensely fun! It's certainly also delightful for a much broader circle than just those interests, though, and I'd like you all to know that it is a thing! The shortest description is: Dickens Fair is like a Renaissance Faire, except it's Victorian London at Christmastime. Imagine walking into the pages of A Christmas Carol, and, among the crowd, potentially running into not only the characters of that novel, but all Dickens novels and many other novels of that vintage, plus real historical folks, from Dickens himself to the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to Charlotte Bronte and Oscar Wilde. And, of course, Father Christmas.

Ficathons, fests & communities

• Create & engage
  • hlh_shortcuts, the annual Highlander exchange, released 20 new stories, and is currently in its "author guessing game phase," with reveals planned for January 5.
  • snowflake_challenge, the annual challenge to highlight what we love about fandom and our fellow fans, with prompts but no deadlines, is up and running for '26.
  • purimgifts, the annual exchange featuring characters "who are at least one of: women, Jewish, or persecuted (preferably by evil viziers)," has nominations and sign-ups 1/02-08; due 2/23.
  • candyheartsex, an exchange focused on relationships (both platonic and not), has sign-ups through January 7.
  • beagoldfish, a low-stakes "make-a-thon," runs through February 28.
  • crackthewip, a fest encouraging finishing works-in-progress (WIPs), has both sign-ups and posting through June 30.
  • inkingitout, an annual challenge to write 75K+ words, has sign-ups through January 3.
  • rewrite_a_fic, a challenge to rewrite one of your own stories, runs through November 30.
  • goals_on_dw is hosting a '26 "Fannish 50" blogging challenge.
  • comment_bingo, a challenge to comment on others' works, runs its current round until March 31.
  • allbingo's January theme is "Public Domain Day."
  • trope_of_the_month's January theme is an amnesty (wild card for any previous month).
  • whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
• Enjoy & share
  • fancake (themed fanfic recs); January theme: "crack [that is, bonkers story concepts] treated seriously"
  • gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
  • het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
  • fanart_recs (fanart recs)
  • recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: I've realized that as much as I enjoy Jed MacKay's comic-book writing -- I picked up his Nova: Centurian series sight-unseen and will give it a fair shot, though I've never been interested in Nova -- the eighteen-issues-a-year release schedule for his X-Men run is wearing me out, and I don't even read any of the other gazillion X-titles. Money-grubbing, much, Marvel? Or just bitterly regretting what you did to the line to poison 20th-Century Fox's movie well? I may drop the series when this current storyline ends in a few months if they don't cut it out. (I hope they don't wear MacKay out!)