Yesterday evening, YouTube recommended an excellent The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom hand-drawn animatic fanvid that hit me from three separate directions. First, here's the vid:

Watch on YouTube

"Would You fall in love with me again - Zelink Animatic" by IcySoups (53 seconds)

Drawings. On level one, we have a hand-drawn animatic that flashes through many Zeldas and many Links -- maybe all of them? I didn't count -- a drawing effort allowed to blip by in less than a blink, to achieve its effect subconsciously rather than consciously. How amazing of the artist, to employ that timing, to let all that work rush past the viewer as it rushes on the characters. Of course what it's doing is implying the whole descent of the characters -- via heritage or reincarnation or time travel or fresh start -- through ten thousand years to each other again. Hylia and her chosen in every age; yet unique and independent and new. Nice work, creator. (But, again, even knowing folks can choose to watch at .25 speed... that speed feels bold.)

Song. On level two, what's that song? I didn't know, but I looked it up, and now I'm acquainted with Epic: The Musical, a concept album adaptation of The Odyssey that's been releasing one act at a time (Wikipedia page). Epic dropped its final act, "The Ithaca Saga," late last month. This song, "Would You Fall In Love With Me Again," is Penelope to Odysseus, on his return home after twenty years. Now that I know about Epic, I'll be listening to it. I have thoughts about how to apply these lyrics between Penelope and Odysseus, who after all represent the values of an entirely different historical culture -- and also, over and over, the values of every era that re-translates the epic, which gives this song a meta level that I love. Regardless, the lyrics are spot on for Zelink interpretations in TotK. Good choice. (Also: Fast turnaround! And this is not the only fanvid to this song up on YouTube already, which of course I know because it is now recommending them to me willy-nilly, regardless of fandom, because: algorithm.)

Book. On level three, I coincidentally happen to have just recently started rereading The Odyssey for the first time since college. I've been meaning to reread it for a while, and finally got in gear when (a) my best friend gave me the hardback of Emily Wilson's translation for Christmas, and (b) I heard about Christopher Nolan's upcoming '26 The Odyssey movie, which reportedly adapts only the second half of the epic... the half on Ithaca. ("The Ithaca Saga," if you will.) And -- here's the kicker -- literally just a couple of hours before I saw that video recommendation, I had been reflecting on a comparison/contrast of Link and Odysseus. (Of course Odysseus's biggest traits are being formidably clever and silver-tongued, neither of which come within a country mile of Link! And Link is an uncomplicated hero as we, today, see heroism, while canon Odysseus is so not. Nevertheless, there are story elements... TLOZ is frequently a stew of global folktale, fairy tale, myth, and literature.)

I'm still laughing over this 30-second The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom video after 24 hours, so I decided to share. The comic is by Atmavs (Tumbler) and the animatic dub is by GabaLeth (YouTube).

(If you're somehow still unspoiled for the trailer for the new game, watch the trailer first!)

( embedded YouTube video & link )

Signal boost to switchbladeeyes's post:

Kristin H. has shared good quality copies of almost all the color Forever Knight press package promo photos, including two I hadn't seen before. See her archive on Facebook. I was able to download copies even though I don't have a Facebook account. (They raised memories of the very few Starlog issues with articles about FK, which I read at the public library.)

FK images, whether promo stills or episode screenshots, are much rarer online than they used to be. I imagine that this is mostly due to age, but partly also to the passing of DVD drives attached to computers. If there's a way to screenshot streaming, I don't know it.

I contributed 6 D&DC recommendations to fanart_recs in November. If you're interested:

• "When they were happy..." by Manzanachan (G): Recommendation | Image
• "Dungeons and Dragons Crew" by Gndagnor (G): Recommendation | Image
• "Venger" by Manzanedo (PG-13): Recommendation | Image
• "Tiamat" by Cavalcanti (G): Recommendation | Image
• "Sheila from Dungeons and Dragons - Redesign" by Robson M. (G): Recommendation | Image
• "Dungeons'n'Dragons - Girls" by Tidi-Lebre (G): Recommendation | Image

Maybe I will do more sometime.

By a curious quirk of the show's age and the internet's age and the licensing of reruns, almost all the D&DC fanart online is by artists who live in the southern hemisphere (mostly, but not exclusively, Brazil). I understand that Robson M. (appears once in the list above; could have supplied all six slots) actually made the leap to pro illustrations for Wizards of the Coast.

I gather that the show is running on the new DnD channel/linear-streaming thing now. (I have the "red box" DVDs and haven't looked into that, so don't know details.)

This month, I'm signed up to recommend Dungeons & Dragons cartoon fanart on fanart_recs. The other signed-up monthly reccer (doing Baldur's Gate 3) already posted today, so I'll wait until at least tomorrow to post my first rec (min 4, max 8, in a month; I have 6 planned).

If you're interested in D&DC and/or fanart, come play!

(Of course I'll post a round-up here when it's done, too.)

Addendum, Thursday morning: My first rec for this project is up.

My new default userpic icon is a variation on the banner graphic on my journals, a stylized blue-and-black-and-white Toronto skyline (circa 1992-1996), plus the moon that somehow seems always to hang full over FK. I've had this icon on my hard-drive since at least 2011, I see, in my giant file of miscellaneous attempts at crafting userpics.

Until just now, I'd used the same default userpic icon on DW, LJ and AO3 since at least 2007. That previous, long-familiar, blue-and-black image of a sun's corona around a mounted knight came from the logo graphic on my FK fansite, which I must admit to not having updated at all in several years now.

It's occurred to me that I might clean up and reformat my old FK fansite for today's browsers and uses, if only I can find the time (which is always the rub!). And with that came the realization that the site's aging pseudo-3D design would have to go, but that the banner graphic on my journals might yet lend itself to a fresh look, compatible with today's design standards.

I worked a bit with the CSS for the fkficfest/fkficfest community header banner/title displays this morning. Whether you'd notice improvements depends on your browser, monitor and font library... but if you happen to notice that I've damaged something, please let me know! :-)

BTW, everyone here knows about the "immajer-FK" Forever Knight title font that JMR created back in the day, right? If you don't have it, want it, and can't download it (or don't trust strange downloads), I'd be happy to email you the file that I use myself.

ani_bester is now selling a number of her paintings and drawings at half their usual prices. Most are fan art creations (Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, etc.) but a few are original fantasy.

Her main art website, from where she sells originals, prints, stickers, bookmarks, etc., is Galactic Dust Bunnies. Naturally, it has a lot more selection than the half-off sale! She's got at least one thing from most major fandoms.

In the 2011/2012 Fandom Stocking, she very generously drew me Cassiopeia from BSG'78. I later bought a full-size print of that black-and-white illustration for myself, and I've several times bought art from her to give as gifts, including once a commission portrait of Adam Lambert for leela_cat. (By complete, bizarre coincidence, a person at my workplace has a print of one of her paintings of Luna Lovegood on the cubicle wall.)

As implied in the subject line of her post, Ani-bester is undertaking this half-price sale to help with pregnancy-related expenses.

Whenever I'm writing a ficathon story, I switch the desktop wallpapers and screensaver images on all my computers, both work and home, to relate to the new story. I like to imagine that this keeps some gear far back in my brain clicking on that task while I'm accomplishing other things.

For example, for last year's fkficfest/fkficfest, I used Google image search to stock up on images of Tuscany to nudge along that Renaissance Florence story for Batdina's prompt. For this spring's rarewomen, I found a recent screenshot of Claire Rankin and a teenager in some horror movie, and manipulated it into a rough representation of Fleur and her daughter to address FalconHorus's prompt. This summer, for this year's FKFicFest, it's Toronto.

What, if anything, do you like to do to contextualize your works-in-progress?

The 2013/2014 fandom_stocking treats have been revealed, and I'm looking forward to this weekend, when I'll be able to dig through all the stockings that requested my fandoms (and perhaps also read a few more Yuletide and hlh_shortcuts stories).

In the meantime, I came home from work fairly late tonight to the happy arrival of these goodies in my own Fandom Stocking:

• A Forever Knight Nick & the Schankes story (plus Janette, Natalie and Lacroix references!), set before the tag of first-season's "Hunters," but after the climax: "Intrusion" by pj1228 (~1,500 words, gen, G). Highly canon-aware!


• A Sleepy Hollow Ichabod & Abbie interlude story (with horses!), tucked between the looming cliffs of their adventures: "Two-in-Hand" by st_aurafina (~700 words, gen, G). A classic interlude!


• A Sleepy Hollow Ichabod/Katrina manip desktop wallpaper by tarlanx, with intriguing symbolism! Gorgeous!


• Fiction "gift certificates" of various lengths and in various fandoms from senmut, ravenela, argentum_ls and skieswideopen! Exciting! Yay, things to which to look forward!
  • 01/11/14: Ravenela just fulfilled her "pledge" with the Highlander Duncan/Tessa vignette "Acceptance," coordinating with the "Counterfeit" flashbacks!


• Recommendations with links to three Person of Interest fanmixes from somehowunbroken! This is a fairly new form of fannish expression to me: interesting!


• Recommendations with links to four Highlander pic assortments, and also to one page of Highlander filk lyrics, from alexia! (Two of the pic assortments are by JinxedWood.) Amusing!


• Happy holiday greetings and art from wendymypooh, sjh2009, leesa_perrie and twinsarein! Jolly!

Thank you, everyone! These have been so much fun!

I wrote two short stories, myself, one Forever Knight (Lacroix & Natalie & Nick; thank you for the beta, skieswideopen!) and one Highlander (Methos/Alexa; thank you for the beta, celli!). I also handed out a few fanfic "gift certificate" promises where I'd much wanted to write (more FK! more HL! someone even requested original BSG, but it didn't get tagged properly so I missed it till the end!), but couldn't fit it in. I plan to post about those on the weekend. I need to transfer the two stories from Dreamwidth comments to the AO3, and perhaps sneak in one more polish.

(I'm also reminded that I have at least two stories (both FK) from previous Fandom Stocking years that I never did move into the AO3. I meant to rewrite them, but... leela_cat firmly tells me to archive them and move on, rather than let them continue munching at the back of my imagination as unfinished.)