Brightknightie's 2025 Fanfic Year in Review

[brightknightie]

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.)

Comments

[argentum_ls]

I'm sorry your FK story was a disappointment to you, and that you no longer feel at home in the fandom you've worked so hard to build and sustain.

Here's to hoping you're able to find what you're looking for in other fandoms. <8

[brightknightie]

Thank you! ♥ I hope that folks will stay willing to hang out with me here as I explore other fandoms.

My fellow enjoyers of stories of choosing the hard right over the easy wrong didn't cease to exist; most just moved on from FKdom. Surely they're all out there enjoying stories elsewhere.

[argentum_ls]

I hope that folks will stay willing to hang out with me here as I explore other fandoms.

Well, I will :) I can't speak for anyone else.

With as poly-fannish as my "resume" is, I'm in no position to do anything except encourage fandom-exploration.

[greerwatson]

I'm sorry you found the FK Fic Fest experience last year to be disappointing. To me, it was clear that Natalie did decide (however reluctantly) to abide by Nick's decision; and that he had, so to speak, chosen death over dishonour—or some such—which is not quite the same as suicide (!) but quite in line with his knightly career.

If Natalie had gone against his wishes, I had assumed that it would be with a transfusion of a blood substitute, available in the hospital for other people who refuse transfusions of blood itself. That was, if I recall, not quite clear in the story. However, that he did not get blood was quite unambiguous.

[brightknightie]

I accept that I wrote poorly. If I had written well, I hope, no reader would have construed the story as advocating suicide. Probably, the story needed a side plot or flashback to concretely set out the real-life human metaphor of declining extraordinary and/or unethical medical interventions.

Yet the audience is also much changed. I feel that it used to be that most FK fans would assume that self-sacrifice was heroic and selfishness villainous. Today, it seems to be the other way around. And that hurts every time I encounter it, whether in fic or meta.

I'm very tired of being told that Nick is foolish and Lacroix wise, that virtue is foolish and viciousness wise, that hope is foolish and nihilism wise.

[senmut]

That's a goodly bit of fic!

[brightknightie]

Thank you! By my personal trends, it is indeed, and the early part of last year was really a delightful run; I want to figure out how to further such delight. :-)