aspecex

I wonder whether Super 7 will ever put out more of their Dungeons & Dragons (cartoon, 1983-85) action figures. Take a look.

On the one hand, it would seem to be a good sign that they are and have been sold out of all their D&DC merch (except the $300 16"x20"x20" Tiamat). On the other hand, there hasn't been a peep out of them about a second wave of figures going on two years after the first wave (plus the bonus invisible [transparent] Sheila), even though they email me ads for all kinds of other figures. And early last year they communicated that they unfortunately had to cancel numerous projects and lay off numerous people due to the tariffs situation, though they didn't specify which projects. (I don't think they would have been affected by the perceived "failure" of the D&D movie at the box office, but that's a possibility, too; TPTB could have yanked the license.)

brightknightie

Beloved Saturday-morning cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian (1980-1981, but reran for ages) recently got its very first comic book incarnation.

Knowing that the comics were coming, and looking forward to them, on New Year's Eve, at Half-Price Books with my annual gift card from my sister, when I curiously looked over four old paperback volumes of Lin Carter's 1970s "Gondwane Epic," I was primed to be struck that they must somehow have influenced the creation of Thundarr, which I'd known to be a child of Jack Kirby's genius and the network's desire to cash in via a "Star Wars + Conan" mash-up, but... such similarities! A distant future of leftover science and emergent sorcery; a destroyed moon and devastated earth; a barbarian, a sorceress, and a non-human as three adventuring companions; even a sub-plot that the barbarian doesn't have ordinary human emotional reactions (which has been my head-canon for decades). It couldn't be an entire coincidence, right? Well... ( Read more... )

brightknightie

Last night, I bumped into another imperfection -- and solution -- in playing the The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (HD) without motion controls on Switch 2 with a Pro Controller. The internet at large was not tremendously helpful, because of course most chatter is from when the game first came out, on different hardware and presumably before patches. The internet's advice was to quit without saving, sacrifice progress, reboot, and redo getting to this point, thus reloading the room ... which didn't work for me. The solution is simpler!

TLDR, no spoilers: Playing without motion controls, I've found that the "Move object" action is always and only to push. But when I toggled settings to motion for the controls only -- not the camera, not switching to joy cons -- pull became available in the place where it was needed. :-D You're welcome.

(Going forward, I'll try this on everything that looks like a port glitch.)

brightknightie

I'm playing The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (HD) on Switch 2, docked, with a Pro Controller. Last night, I ran into an "I must be doing this wrong" frustration that turned out to be a known glitch, apparently affecting most folks playing without the motion controls for which the game was originally designed on the Wii. The most accessible advice on the internet is to "just" switch over to joy cons, turn on motion controls, calibrate, complete the puzzle, switch back to the pro controller, and switch back to button controls. ;-) Happily, I found an alternative tip -- to "flick" the right stick in a certain way -- and it worked!

I'd like to share, in case this helps anyone else: ( Spoilers for which puzzle has this issue, the glitch, and how to proceed without motion controls )

The possibility that I'm doing something wrong in a game is always first and foremost. :-) In this case, though, it's an actual known imperfection in an otherwise very impressive port.

brightknightie

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

Spotlight: As a gift, I received a "Collectible Crime Classics" copy of The Benson Murder Case (1926) by S.S. Van Dine. I'd never heard of the author and barely of his detective, Philo Vance, though they'd apparently been tremendously popular and influential in their day (12 novels, dozens of radio serials and movies). So I settled in to enjoy the first in this "classic" series... and soon discovered why I was not familiar and why no one is remaking these today. ( Read more... )

Ficathons, fests & communities

Create & engage
- marchmetamatterschallenge is in progress. Locate, preserve, and create fannish meta (essays, timelines, concordances, maps, etc.).
- bethefirst, the annual challenge to write the first story in a fandom, is open for both sign-ups and submissions through 4/20.
- worldbuildex, an exchange focused on worldbuilding, has nominations through 3/10, sign-ups through 3/21, due 5/16.
- rehome-your-fic ("Shelter for Abandoned Fics") is a project to "re-home" abandoned WIPs from an author who will never finish them to one who will. You can surrender a fic or foster a surrendered fic.
- 40daysofdrabbles is posting daily winter/spring-themed prompts through Easter.
- retrowrimay is a month-long challenge to write tropes, tags, and formats that have fallen out of style.
- unsent_letters_exchange, the epistolary exchange (need not literally be letters, much less unsent), has sign-ups through 3/09, due 4/25.
- domaystic is the annual May-long promptfest for domestic stories.
- fkficfest, the annual Forever Knight event, is on for '26, with a summer due date to be announced.
- pokepodproject, the event to create a fic+podfic for every pokémon, is holding an "Unown" mini round. Sign-ups close 3/08; stories due 3/17.
- allbingo's March theme is "crafting."
- trope_of_the_month's March theme is "mirror universe."
- pinchhits is a community for posting needed fills for exchanges. For example, traumaticexperiences and au5k are currently seeking pinch hitters.
- whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
Enjoy & share
- fancake (themed fanfic recs); March theme: "siblings"
- gensplosion (gen fanfic recs)
- het_reccers (m/f fanfic recs)
- fanart_recs (fanart recs)
- recthething (fanwork recs)

Sidelight: Nintendo is suing the US government for full tariff refunds plus interest. The Switch 2 console premiered last year; shipping and stocking worldwide were affected as Nintendo raced to get units into the US for launch day before the tariffs took effect (not to mention Nintendo's profits being affected all along). As reported in TechCrunch, IGN, Polygon, etc.

brightknightie

One of many fun aspects of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom featuring Zelda, not Link, as the playable character, and Link, not Zelda, as the one in need of rescue, is that we get to hear NPCs tell Zelda about this Link's life and personality. The EOW NPCs relate his boyhood tragedy and heroism, his self-given mission to save everyone else from similar fates, his unusual abilities, and how helpful he is in every way, right down to cutting the grass (pause for laughter from TLOZ fans). Everyone in his village misses him. We even hear the villain say that Link has long been a thorn in his side.

In other games, played from Link's point of view, what we learn about his personal life and behavior is what we can see inside his home. Occasionally, we get to meet a relative or two in those homes, and sometimes friends talk to him from their knowledge of him, but gleaning clues from his few possessions -- subdued environmental storytelling -- is usually the order of the day.

In Skyward Sword, we get an especially rich clue to Link as a private person. This Link's room at the academy shows that he is a woodworker: a carver of wooden statuettes of animals. In addition to his study desk with an open book on it, he has a table with tools, blocks of wood, and in-progress carvings. His bookshelf has two similar finished and painted wooden statuettes on it, one a bird and one the cat-like species native to Skyloft. We know that this is a personal hobby, not classwork for a carpentry course, because all the other student rooms similarly reveal hobbies (bug collecting, knitting, weightlifting, etc.).

In both Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, it's an off-screen plot point that Zelda is a skilled seamstress, hand-making key items (sailcloth, Champions' garments), and of course Zelda-the-scholar is now an indelible trope. And Link has often learned a musical instrument over the course of a game. But woodworking is one of vanishingly few private, pre-game interests Link has ever been given in canon.

brightknightie

Yesterday was Pokémon Day, the anniversary of the release of the first games in Japan, and indeed the big 30^th. I felt ... nostalgically benevolent. I spent part of my evening with my favorite PokéTubers' "Pokémon Presents" responses.

As expected, Nintendo announced Gen 10: Wind and Waves. I don't think we got the new region's name -- we definitely didn't get the box-art legendaries -- but it's perhaps based on Indonesia. It looks Switch 2 gorgeous and open world. Underwater sequences mean they must have solved that physics engine problem, yay! Pokopia, coming very soon, continues to have strong buzz ("What if Animal Crossing with a dash of Minecraft, but thoroughly Pokémon?"). Pokémon GO didn't have any new news, just events in progress. Gale of Darkness is coming to NSO, which should make some folks very happy, even without Home compatibility. Check out the official summary.

Unexpectedly, Gen 10's release date is "2027." It will be the longest gap between generations to date. We do have the "Legends" games now (so it's actually not that long without a mainline game), and today's games take longer to develop (getting bigger and bigger), but it definitely threw folks for a loop. Best to wait for the game to be fully "baked," I presume! Still, the old 3-year cycle regularly targeted a new crop of kids discovering the games, correlated with the cartoon's 3 seasons per region, and I read someone somewhere say that it was supposed to take an average kid three years to complete a game (presuming parents restricted playtime). I wonder whether a 2027 launch will mean Gen 10 comes out with the expected Switch 2 Lite?

brightknightie

Thank you to everyone who shared preferences for

fkficfest this year!

The one open question for me is the date. Some folks picked two dates in a row, some far apart, some just one. I had hoped to find a pattern revealing a day that worked for everyone. No such luck. There's very strong preference for the end of July! But that would seem to leave a few folks completely out. Aargh.

Otherwise:

Let's test "Each community member may submit 1 prompt, and those prompts become the pool, no eliminations" and "Anonymous always," and see how they work for the community. (The prompts will be anonymous to me, too.) Start thinking of a prompt...? As always, prompting is not a commitment to play.
I'll release one story per day as the plan, but I'll reserve the privilege to double-up or even to skip a day if necessary, to minimize stress for myself. (I've never skipped a release day; it wasn't always simple.)

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Super 7 D&DC action figures

Lin Carter's Gondwane Epic v. Kirby's Thundarr the Barbarian

PSA: another tip for a glitch in Skyward Sword button-only controls (how to pull an object)

PSA: solution for a known issue in Skyward Sword (Lanayru Desert) on Switch & Switch 2

Fannish options & enthusiasms | March 2026

musing on: SkSw Link is a woodworker

30th anniversay Pokémon Day Pokémon Presents (spoilers)

FKFicFest 2026 pre-game poll is closed

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