brightknightie: At dawn, a white knight raises her lance (Default)
[community profile] snowflake_challenge: Icebreaker: "Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it."

I'm Brightknightie, a middle-aged fan who loves Dreamwidth and wishes we could all spend more time playing fandom with each other here. I've updated my Dreamwidth profile. I won't repeat here those profile points of who I am fannishly; most of you here know them already.

I will say that the fandoms that I'd most love to discuss these days are The Legend of Zelda (all incarnations) and Dungeons & Dragons (cartoon, 1983-85), and those are what I expect I'm most likely to write fic for this year, myself, give or take exchanges. I'm hoping for a solid year in the MCU; we shall see. I occasionally post about comics; I'm looking forward to the inaugural Thundarr the Barbarian run launching soon. I lost my Journey to the West touchstones when I left Twitter and still miss that; it's too bad they don't do Dreamwidth. I'm happy to reply about Trek, Who, HL, FK, B5, Buffyverse, Pokémon, Robotech, Sailor Moon, Ruroni Kenshin, Zorro; the works of Lois McMaster Bujold, Sherry Thomas, Rex Stout, Alexandre Dumas, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins; and many, many more; I'm not highly likely to post about them myself.

For most of its run, this journal was specifically about Forever Knight (FK); that's changed. I've been bringing more diverse subjects to it in recent years and it is now generically fannish. I rarely post about real life -- this is my fannish space -- but I think most here know that I have a full-time job, fence (foil and rapier-and-dagger), and am Catholic (please don't leap to conclusions; ask if you want to know).

Why am I doing the snowflake challenge? I'd like to help support the vitality of our Dreamwidth community! I hope to engage and be engaged with more here all year round. I'd love to find more folks who want to chat about The Legend of Zelda and Dungeons & Dragons (cartoon), of course! And I'd love to find more new and missed and discovered fannish things to delight in with you. ♥

brightknightie: At dawn, a white knight raises her lance (Default)
The "Shakespeare Network" YouTube Channel has posted a "restored" 4K version of Patrick Stewart's 1999 TNT production of Dickens's A Christmas Carol, free to watch (#EducationalVideo #Exclusive #OpenLearning). They've been partnering with Stewart since the pandemic, when he shared a video a day of himself reading a Shakespeare sonnet. This isn't Stewart's famous one-man-show version of A Christmas Carol, based on Dickens's own script, but it's an excellent and faithful adaptation of the novel, which he produced as well as starred in, with supporting cast including Richard E. Grant and Joel Grey.



season length

Tuesday, December 9th, 2025 06:54 am
brightknightie: Nick and his remote control (Remote Control)
Just curious: Are any television shows that you would consider worth watching currently being produced in old-fashioned US-network-sized seasons of 22-26 episodes, promoting long-running relationships between the audience and story? Or is everything being produced now in BBC-sized/streaming-sized seasons of 6-12 episodes, including not only dramas and comedies, but the kinds of cartoons that used to run on weekday afternoons?

I sometimes witness younger folks getting happily wrapped up in old shows -- from TOS to Murder She Wrote and beyond -- and find myself wondering if it's not only because they're good and of course everyone should watch and enjoy them them, but simply because there's enough there...

Just a thought. I hardly watch any new TV* anymore, I think? Likely largely because the seasons are so short and the wait between them so long. On the other hand, the best of the PBS/BBC collaborations, I still turn up for on Masterpiece every Sunday night through fall and winter, and they're still the 6-12 episodes they've always been. I have one episode of ST:SNW yet to watch before the series goes dark for me for who knows how long again (I have no interest in what looks like the Trek 90210 show they're teasing now).

I saw a thumbnail for a video, which I haven't watched but wholeheartedly agreed with the thumbnail, that said: "I'd rather have worse effects and longer seasons." The graphic was TNG Picard and STW Pike side by side.

* I do watch a lot of YouTube. It seems to be where all the fandom discussion went. Though I did discover an old-fashioned blog discussing TLOZ the other day; the authors call themselves "Zelders" (Zelda elders).

brightknightie: Magda thanking Nick in the precinct (Thanks)
As this US Thanksgiving weekend draws to a close, I'd like to tell you, my Dreamwidth community, how very thankful I am for you. ♥

You are my fannish air and breath. You are a refuge. You are a delight. I look forward to what you share with me. I love what DW gives us, this text-driven, words-rich, open world of connections we choose.

I wish there were more of us. I wish we all had more time and spoons to play here with each other. I wish fandom still practiced certain customs that it doesn't seem to anymore.

But that's okay. I have you. And I'm truly grateful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

brightknightie: Midna, in imp form, and Link grin at each other (Zelda)
The main plotline of the video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) alone -- with no sidequests, exploration, minigames, or collections -- takes ~50 hours. So, roughly, 2 old-fashioned US TV seasons of 22-26 episodes or 3-4 epic Peter Jackson movies. Here's that plot, summarized:

Massive spoilers )

brightknightie: Midna, in imp form, and Link grin at each other (Zelda)
([personal profile] batdina, this is to your address. ~grin~)

I realized today that when I started engaging with The Legend of Zelda (TLOZ) in a fanfic kind of way, and mentioning it here, I did it with no overview or explanation, as if you all either necessarily already knew or wouldn't care to know. Please let me remedy that now! :-D

The Legend of Zelda is a Tolkien-inspired Japanese RPG video game franchise with 21 main-series games and many spin-offs since it appeared in 1986. I played the first game on a relative's console in, I think, '89. A live-action movie is coming in 2026; I'm anxious. (At least it must be better than the regretted '89 cartoon.)

The different games tell different tales. They combine puzzle-solving, combat, and exploration gameplay to unfold a story and theme. To grotesquely and unfairly oversimplify, Ocarina of Time is about nostalgia and loss and consequences; Majora's Mask is about fate and loss and meaning; Tears of the Kingdom is about community and loss and rebuilding; Twilight Princess is about identity and loss and choice; Link's Awakening is about reality and loss and truth...

The usual setting is the kingdom of Hyrule and its surrounds. The usual leads are Link, the hero, representing courage; Zelda, the princess, representing wisdom; and Ganondorf, the villain, representing power. The most important macguffins are the Master Sword, aka the sword that seals the darkness, and the Triforce, a sacred embodiment of the energy of divine creation balanced as courage, wisdom, and power. Most Hyruleans are ordinary humans, if usually with pointy ears, dividing themselves into sub-groups by region or culture. There are also several other sentient species. This universe has technology, magic, divinities, and demons.

While some of the games are direct sequels to others, most happen hundreds or even thousands of years apart, and so are both fully-functional standalone stories and intricate parts of a complex canon web. The games have not come out in chronological order. The timeline is controversial; it begins in unison, splits into three AU lines, and then those three lines eventually reunify.

The various Links, Zeldas, and Ganondorfs -- and other recurring characters -- throughout the games may or may not be reincarnations or descendants of each other even within the same timeline. All Zeldas are descendants of the goddess Hylia (Skyward Sword). We have had blonde, brunette, and red-haired Zeldas. Only one Link is known to be a descendant of another Link (Twilight Princess); we know of once that there were two Links alive at the same time (The Minish Cap). We have had blond and brunet, tall and short, child and adult Links. Every Ganondorf so far has been born to the Gerudo people, at least one century apart, with a similar build and coloring.

All* mainline TLOZ games are well-regarded in the gaming community, nominated for or winning awards as well as usually selling well. A few are universally considered masterpieces. These days, most fanficcy fans are into Breath of the Wild, its sequel Tears of the Kingdom, and their two non-mainline spin-offs, Age of Calamity and Age of Imprisonment, which wrap non-TLOZ gameplay around TLOZ story cores.

Thank you for joining me on this tour. I appreciate it! :-D

* Okay, okay, maybe not so much Tri Force Heroes, Four Swords Adventures, Spirit Tracks, and Phantom Hourglass. But I think that Spirit Tracks is underrated.

brightknightie: Midna, in imp form, and Link grin at each other (Zelda)
I have not seen this lore theory anywhere, but it occurred to me within the past week or so, and, and surely -- surely! -- I'm not the first to think of it. Before Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment drops on Thursday, let me ask:

Could Rauru be a Link? That is, in the era of the founding/re-founding, could Rauru be the embodiment of the spirit of Hylia's Chosen Hero?

He's certainly done the work of Hylia's Chosen. He is courageous. He's defeated the monsters, brought peace to the surface peoples, supported (and loved and married) his era's blood descendant of Hylia who carries some fraction of her sacred power... and gave his life to bring down the Demon King in his era, passing on his wisdom and power to a future Link to finish the job in another era.

He sure looks like a Link ... in every way but being a Zonai named Rauru rather than a Hylian named Link, and not bearing Hylia's sword (or any sword; he's a magic-user). But not every Link gets that sword. And, until 2017, every Link could be renamed by the player.


(Or maybe Rauru is a male Zelda and the source of Hylia's blood in the royal line, but that's a very different and less likely lore/timeline theory.)

brightknightie: Nick looking up. (Nick)
I imagine that several of you will be interested to learn that there's a new [community profile] vampiremedia community, devoted to "all things vampires." It's currently running a recommendations event. :-D Enjoy!

It's not for me, of course. Each to her own! I don't want to yuck your yum! Please skip the rest of this post if it bothers you that not everyone enjoys vampires.

I hope that it's okay to say, here in my own journal, that I personally find no appeal in vampires as a trope. As a metaphor, sometimes! But, mostly, it's just not for me. I love Forever Knight for its complex interplay of history, mystery, and metaphysics, with what I continue to insist, against all fandom opposition, are its beautiful and rich themes of choosing the hard right over the easy wrong, self-sacrifice over selfishness, salvation over power. And I love Dracula by Stoker as B-grade imperial-panic Victorian literature that tapped into our common humanity at a depth it had no right to yet absolutely owns. I appreciate Carmilla by Le Fanu as literary innovation and accomplishment... BtVS and AtS, of course, for their early excellencies that you know well... the UK version of Being Human... a nod to Tanya Huff... and that's it. That's all. You may notice that none of these stories try to suggest that vampirism is a good thing.

(I opened Twilight once and retreated before the acute adverb poisoning. I'm pretty sure that I was too born too old to enjoy Twilight.)

brightknightie: With Hank and Diana in the lead, the children confront Tiamat. (Other Fandom D&D poster)
[community profile] sunshine_revival '25 Challenge #2: "Write about anything you feel sentimental about..."

One thing I'm perpetually sentimental about is the cartoon Dungeons & Dragons (1983-1985; three seasons, the last one shorter). It was on the air before and after a significant event in my life, making a kind of continuous bridge through that, though of course I didn't know at the time that this was part of it imprinting itself on my imagination, as much as its superior writing (once you get past the first episodes that go out of their way to explain themselves to TPTB), voice acting (Diana's actress won an Emmy for her role, and of course Eric's actor is renowned), storytelling invitation to imagine yourself right into the scenario, and its sneaky continuity and deep lore in the days before continuity was permitted or lore wanted. And these were the days of bargaining with one's siblings over which Saturday morning cartoon would be viewed when on the one TV in the house, negotiating away blocks of the day to ensure you got the one half-hour that mattered.

Of course while the show was a huge success in the ratings, TPTB never stopped being nervous about it, in that age of moral panic about supposed cults and such supposedly using D&D to recruit/hurt kids, which looks like a pretty quaint worry now, but was indeed quite real (that is, not a real threat, just a real moral panic). That affected the show in many ways, most sad, but one incredibly good. TPTB lived in such fear of the Parents Television Council about this specific show that they mandated that our heroes must never use violence or offensive weapons. What a beautiful challenge to put in front of the writers! Surrounded by shows firing assorted colored lasers from guns, our heroes had to use their brains and empathy to solve puzzles and reconcile misunderstandings! And their very personally symbolic totemic enchanted weapons were highly defensive and evasive -- no swords in our heroes' hands! -- with even Hank's energy bow and Bobby's club aimed always at inanimate obstacles, never at people. (That was one of the mistakes the recent revival comics unfortunately made. They ditched that key constraint and gave Hank and Eric swords, showing they did not really understand.)

The recent D&D Honor Among Thieves movie (which was a good movie and deserved more audience attention) made use of widespread nostalgia for this show with a few background cameo tributes, which led some toys to finally come into existence for the show as cross-marketing with the movie, so many decades after we original viewers would have played with them. Though I'm not a collector, I snapped up the action figures and they bring me delight; the Diana figure is standing at the corner of my monitor right now, and the others are on a shelf I cleared for just them, even buying clear acrylic risers to display them better.

You can find the show on DVD (I have the "red box" version from the 25th anniversary). It ran around the clock on Twitch for an event leading up to the movie's premiere. I believe that it's not officially anywhere streaming now [Correction: It's on Amazon's "live" Freevee "Dungeons & Dragons Adventures" channel in the US! See comments!], probably because of complex rights issues (Marvel and Sunbow made the '80s cartoon; Hasbro now owns D&D; Paramount made the D&D movie; Disney now owns Marvel; etc.). Unofficially, it's on YouTube in both English and Portuguese, and many of the scripts are available online, most of them personally posted by the show's most prolific and daring writer, Michael Reaves, who died in '23, and loved the show as much as we do.

brightknightie: At dawn, a white knight raises her lance (Default)
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.

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brightknightie: At dawn, a white knight raises her lance (Default)
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