I love good guys

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. ♥

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).

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 )

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.)

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.