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brightknightie) wrote2026-01-08 07:54 am
brightknightie) wrote2026-01-08 07:54 am
My HLH_Shortcuts '25 story: "Hackobore" (G, gen; ~6K words; Duncan, Methos; sword repair)
The annual Highlander fanfic exchange, ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hlh_shortcuts, author reveals came early this week. Check out the collection. A trend this year was longer stories. I'm not yet done reading all I want to, so I'm not yet making a general recommendations post.
But the story written for my prompt, "Metaphorically Speaking," which I gushed over during the anonymous period, turns out to be byargentum_ls. Thank you, Argentum!
And the story I wrote, for Merriman's prompt, is "Hackobore" (G, gen; 5.6K words).batdina, thank you for beta-reading! The title is the Japanese word for a nick in the sharp edge of a blade that is deep enough to threaten its structural integrity. Merriman expressed interest in sword repair, and I therefore damaged Duncan's katana and sent him to an expert to learn what could and couldn't be done. This gave me an opportunity to learn a lot about traditional Japanese swords, pivotally that it is not the smith who sharpens them, but a separate specialty craft, the togishi, the sharpener/polisher.
It also gave me the opportunity to rewatch "The Samurai" by Naomi Janzen. I feel that I perceived Midori with new eyes this time, that I'd underestimated her before, perhaps because her honor code conflicts with mine. I came away with much increased respect for her and was delighted to be able to revisit her in this story.
I didn't offer to write Methos this year; he seems always to get plenty of stories, and some other characters seem always underrepresented. The match was Duncan and Richie only. But Methos is far and away Merriman's favorite character, so I settled down to include him. At first, I worried that he'd be a terrible for a sidekick slot because he would know too much more than the audience. Imagine my surprise when he volunteered to have last visited Japan at the advent of wet-rice agriculture! :-)
The video game Methos plays in the story is, of course, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which will not surprise you at all. Its weapons durability mechanic, plus the lore of the Master Sword, influenced this story idea greatly. I also managed to sneak in a reference to The Journey to the West by casually dropping the name of the Monkey King's Ruyi Jingu Bang (compliant golden-hooped rod, as-you-will gold-banded cudgel) alongside Excalibur and Mjolinr.
After the author reveals, I added endnotes to the story, including links to the most important works consulted. And I mentioned that one thing I learned was that a decoratively carved hilt, like Duncan's dragon-head hilt, would be, in real life, not just rare, but not meant for battle. A standard wrapped wooden hilt would serve better. For this story, I embroidered liberally on the idea of a metal substructure inside a carved exterior to try to bridge the gap between real-life vulnerabilities and fictional centuries of constant use.
Thank you for reading!
hlh_shortcuts, author reveals came early this week. Check out the collection. A trend this year was longer stories. I'm not yet done reading all I want to, so I'm not yet making a general recommendations post.But the story written for my prompt, "Metaphorically Speaking," which I gushed over during the anonymous period, turns out to be by
argentum_ls. Thank you, Argentum!And the story I wrote, for Merriman's prompt, is "Hackobore" (G, gen; 5.6K words).
batdina, thank you for beta-reading! The title is the Japanese word for a nick in the sharp edge of a blade that is deep enough to threaten its structural integrity. Merriman expressed interest in sword repair, and I therefore damaged Duncan's katana and sent him to an expert to learn what could and couldn't be done. This gave me an opportunity to learn a lot about traditional Japanese swords, pivotally that it is not the smith who sharpens them, but a separate specialty craft, the togishi, the sharpener/polisher. It also gave me the opportunity to rewatch "The Samurai" by Naomi Janzen. I feel that I perceived Midori with new eyes this time, that I'd underestimated her before, perhaps because her honor code conflicts with mine. I came away with much increased respect for her and was delighted to be able to revisit her in this story.
I didn't offer to write Methos this year; he seems always to get plenty of stories, and some other characters seem always underrepresented. The match was Duncan and Richie only. But Methos is far and away Merriman's favorite character, so I settled down to include him. At first, I worried that he'd be a terrible for a sidekick slot because he would know too much more than the audience. Imagine my surprise when he volunteered to have last visited Japan at the advent of wet-rice agriculture! :-)
The video game Methos plays in the story is, of course, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which will not surprise you at all. Its weapons durability mechanic, plus the lore of the Master Sword, influenced this story idea greatly. I also managed to sneak in a reference to The Journey to the West by casually dropping the name of the Monkey King's Ruyi Jingu Bang (compliant golden-hooped rod, as-you-will gold-banded cudgel) alongside Excalibur and Mjolinr.
After the author reveals, I added endnotes to the story, including links to the most important works consulted. And I mentioned that one thing I learned was that a decoratively carved hilt, like Duncan's dragon-head hilt, would be, in real life, not just rare, but not meant for battle. A standard wrapped wooden hilt would serve better. For this story, I embroidered liberally on the idea of a metal substructure inside a carved exterior to try to bridge the gap between real-life vulnerabilities and fictional centuries of constant use.
Thank you for reading!
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I'm really glad it all landed :)
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I really enjoyed it, especially Angie refusing to do the conventional story thing and let herself be talked into not recognizing Richie. Angel, ghost, or hallucination are more likely than that she would not know Richie when she sees and hears him.
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I agree. Richie also knows better than to try to gaslight her.
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And I don't think I mentioned in my comment, but it was wonderful to see more of Midori. I'm always curious to see which guest characters will be revisited during Shortcuts, and she was a good choice.
I enjoyed this glimpse behind the scenes immensely.
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I'm glad you enjoyed seeing more of this Midori. The more I think about her, the more I realize she's an excitingly template-resistant character of a kind we don't see often enough, imo, after first season -- a mortal in the present day who is important to both plot and theme and doesn't know or find out about immortality.