Multifandom Het Recs

Fi is the spirit of the sword in The Legend of Zelda. The Master Sword looks like a European blade, but TLOZ is a JRPG. A fusion of J.R.R. Tolkien's novels and Shigeru Miyamoto's boyhood in rural Japan, the story gave its fantasy sword a spirit, somewhat as traditional clay-tempered Japanese blades have. Down through all the ages of the story, the sword selects its wielder. (I've deleted my digression on sword spirits in TLOZ. For now. ~grin~)

According to my Switch 2 app, I'm 475 hours into The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I've completed every side quest, beaten every shrine, collected every memory, maximized every inventory stash, upgraded every armor/outfit, filled all but five slots in the compendium, and hung the "Champions Ballad" reward picture in Link's home.* At this point, the only things between me and the story's final chapter are the "Trial of the Sword" and completionism (finding every Korok, every chest, etc.). I'm a "story-ist," not a completionist.

The "Trial of the Sword" is a three-stage DLC that powers up the Master Sword for each stage you complete. There's microscopic story gain, really just a gantlet** of increasingly difficult monsters in increasingly challenging environments, which you must conquer all in one run per stage, or be sent all the way back to the beginning to do it all over again. No saves. I really enjoy the conceit of stripping Link of all his weapons, armor, and resources, being left to muddle through on cleverness! Eventide Island, ahoy! But I do not enjoy gantlet-style at all. I've been trying to get through just the beginner stage of the "Trial of the Sword" on and off in my hobby time for weeks. I almost gave up. There's no more story, right?

But. Story got into my head. As it does. How would Fi feel about Link skipping this challenge? All of BOTW's present-day has been about Link rebuilding himself as the legendary hero, regaining his memories, his strength, his mission -- his sword. Isn't this Fi's equivalent journey? Perhaps she even influenced the creation of this darn gantlet for him! So I kept trying. And trying. Finally, Saturday night, after dinner, the third time I've ever managed to make it all the way up to the twelfth level -- and only after checking the internet to confirm that the Hinox with greaves is indeed the last of this phase and I should therefore "leave it all on the field" -- my Link beat the beginner stage of the "Trial of the Sword." Yay!

So: that's enough. The real (fictional) Link would bring Fi all the way through the next two stages! But I am calling this for myself. Next up, perhaps next weekend, it's straight to Zelda to beat Ganon and watch the full end credits in my own game (instead of on YouTube).


* Typical playthroughs are 50-100 hours. Most players do not complete all the optional subplots and sidequests. Also, most players are more skilled than I am. ;-D

** As you know, a "gantlet" is a "lane run" ordeal or challenge, while a "gauntlet" was originally only a stout protective glove that comes up high on the arm, but, over time, the words converged, and "gauntlet" now means both "gantlet" and "gauntlet." English is fun!

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

Spotlight: I'm four episodes into the new Marvel Wonderman. It reminds me again how much I wish we could go back to "television" releasing one episode per week, many episodes per year. This streaming model doesn't allow viewers to build relationships with characters or each other. I can't consume or contribute to any discussions yet, because I've seen "only" four episodes (in less than a week). And by the time I catch up, everyone will have moved on. Granted, I feel strongly that Disney/Marvel should have approached its TV shows, from the start, as an anthology series, a la PBS's Masterpiece or The Wonderful World of Disney. That's a familiar model viewers would have understood and known how to engage with. Retrofitting it now as "Spotlight" may be too little, too late. I'm not asking that every story run for seven seasons, of course! But a big part of what makes TV different from movies, and precious to us, is the stories' presences in our lives as we live them through time.

Ficathons, fests & communities

• Create & engage
  • halfamoon, the 14-day challenge celebrating female characters, is in progress!
  • small_fandoms has a drabble-athon throughout February. ("Smallness" here is not by Yuletide metrics, but by reasonableness and on the honor system for present participation.)
  • pinchhitbingo is a rolling challenge to help out communities and support fellow fans by filling pinch hits (that is, exchange drops and unmatchables).
  • videogamefanworks is a community for sharing assorted fanworks and fanwork recs for any video game or visual novel.
  • allbingo's February theme is "Valentine's Day" (love and loss).
  • trope_of_the_month's February theme is "Aliens Made Them Do It" (your choice of "it").
  • pinchhits is a community for posting needed fills for exchanges. For example, traumaticexperiences is currently seeking pinch hitters.
  • whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
• Enjoy & share
  • fancake (themed fanfic recs); February theme: "inept in love" (fka "idiots in love")
  • gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
  • het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
  • fanart_recs (fanart recs)
  • recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: I've begun playing Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, which is a choose-your-own-adventure visual novel murder mystery urban fantasy Greek gods retelling with full-on musical numbers that you direct and redirect as they are sung. So far, so good. Not good, it has no key to the chapter controls anywhere I can find. Three chapters in, I'm still struggling. I am not at all a savvy gamer, but this seems... not entirely my fault? A key to the controls, somewhere in the settings menus, is not an unreasonable ask, even for a multi-platform game, is it? (What is the tab sequence?)

For some time now, it has seemed to me that AO3 account links on DW -- that is, < user name=brightknightie site=archiveofourown.org > -- either fail to display the icon entirely, display just the bottom right corner of it, or replace it with alt-text about the user profile. Compare:

DW: brightknightie
AO3: brightknightie

Do you see it, too, or is it just me? Do you know how to fix it? The relevant DW FAQ entry, last updated in 2023, doesn't seem to me to suggest I'm doing something wrong. (I've tried with and without quotation marks with no change.)

Perhaps relatedly, for a while, the YouTube account links (e.g. overlysarcasticproductions) didn't work, but that seemed to match up with a change in YouTube's account system and seems to be fixed now. AO3, though, I would expect DW to be pretty on top of...?