I love good guys

hlh_shortcuts de-anonymized over the weekend. Many correctly guessed me in the guessing game, which is fine; except for temporarily witholding full endnotes and not commenting on quite all the stories before reveals, I didn't at all try to hide! I hope that my easily identifiable writing habits are benign. (If not, hey, take me aside and gently help me improve them, please. Seriously.)

"Promises and Promissory Notes"
G, gen, ~6K words
Duncan & Amanda; with OCs, Joe, and MethosPassing through Gilded Age San Francisco, Duncan runs into Amanda and tries very hard to avoid getting sucked into her latest shady scheme.

I've added the full endnotes. I'd like to thank dlyt and chelseagirl for brainstorming with me! And celli for encouraging me! And very much havocthecat for beta-reading, most specifically for identifying rough spots in my Amanda depiction and the balance of loose/tied plot threads!

( A long-ish chat about writing the story )

hlh_shortcuts, the annual Highlander fanfic exchange, has begun releasing. As usual, it starts at the winter solstice (Duncan's birthday) and continues as long as the stories last, unveiling several per day. You can follow the releases on their DW community or in this year's AO3 collection. Currently, 4 stories are live, 19 are in the collection, and a few pinch-hits or extensions are outstanding. (Naturally, HL is too big for Yuletide.)

While folks were waiting for the new stories, havocthecat posted links to all the past years of the exchange (2007-2022), including the LJ years in which folks emailed their stories to the mod for her to manually post anonymously on the community, and then manually edit in the names after reveals, because an important part of this event's tradition is the author guessing game, and there was not yet an AO3 ready to handle that kind of functionality directly in the happily better way that leaves the posted stories fully controlled by their authors. In addition, Havoc asked for recommendations from past years, and folks have recommended 13 stories so far! Read the recommendations.

I do have a story I've written in this year's collection. Many thanks to those who brainstormed and/or beta-read with me!

I look forward to reading the new stories...

In the unlikely event that anyone here doesn't yet know... hlh_shortcuts, the annual Highlander fanfic exchange, is on! New mod, same fest. Minimum 500 words. All iterations of Highlander. Hand-matched from DW sign-ups. Posted on the AO3 (though I'm confident they'd allow DW posts for those who don't use the AO3). Anonymous releases over a week or so, followed by an author guessing game and reveals. Get the details and sign up.

Schedule:

• Sign-ups: End October 22
• Assignments sent: no later than November 2
• Stories due: December 15
• First story released: December 22

Come play with us...?

The 15 new stories in this year's hlh_shortcuts will surely all be someone's favorites! For example, I must admit that, after a few paragraphs, I backed out and chose not to read Killa's no doubt outstanding "Pleased to Meet You" because it's a crossover with Lucifer, with which I'm personally not super comfortable. We all like different things!

Here are a few stories that appealed to me, myself:

"The Jaded Journalist" by Hafital
(G, gen, ~10K words) (Randi, Duncan, Tessa, Amanda, the De Valincourts, Methos)
I already recommended this while it was anonymous. Read my recommendation. This is the "What happened to Randi?" that I've been waiting for. It starts with a missing scene from "Band of Brothers" and then runs forward, always intertwining with canon yet never changing it, with the focus always on Randi and her career. Well-written, canon-rich, unique, perfectly voiced. Fantastic!

"A Credit To Her Teacher" by Malinaldarose
(G, gen, ~5K words) (Amanda, Michelle, Duncan, Joe)
I love "What happened with Michelle?" takes, and this one is the first I recall wholly from Amanda's perspective. It explores how taking on Michelle as a student connects to Amanda's memories of Rebecca and Kenny and ensures that Amanda succeeds -- that her canonical return with no on-screen mention of Michelle just means that Michelle is doing fine and Duncan knows all about it. Rebecca would be proud.

"To Be Useful" by Adabsolutely
(G, gen, ~3K words) (Methos, Duncan, Joe, Amanda, Amy)
The main appeal in this dialogue-heavy approach is the charming conversations in familiar voices. There's also a charming throughline of helping a very confused, homeless, new immortal, and other side-quests of helping various people in various ways. Lovely theming.

"Wintersong" by Black_Dwarf
(G, gen, ~2K words) (Amanda, Methos)
If Amanda is a favorite, maybe check this out. It's an on-point Amanda voice blending flippancy and insight. Methos takes time to miss who he was when he was with Alexa and Amanda pulls him back to the present.

"The Crane and the Pine" by Mackiedockie
(unrated, gen, 13K words) (Duncan, Methos, Amanda, Joe, Mai-Ling, Connor, others)
A pleasantly sprawling modern western fully of that comfortably familiar genre, with some action, some history, and a lot of connecting. It's a crossover with Longmire, but, not knowing that series, I still had no problem reading it as pure HL.

I love the annual hlh_shortcuts exchange, which brings us fresh new HL stories every winter. Read this year's works. I've been reading in the event for many more years than I've been writing in it.

I worry, though, that its author guessing game can sometimes discourage newer players who couldn't possibly guess its effects, and might feel hurt while relatively few comments and kudos come in through the posting period and guessing game. Newer players might interpret this as their stories being rejected by their fellow players. I hope and believe that's usually not what happens.

Here's what I think I understand about what happens in this exchange, which makes it different from most events:

Back before the A03, the writers emailed their stories to the moderator, who then posted them herself, one by one, on the HLH_Shortcuts LiveJournal community, anonymously. People read the stories and commented (and you could comment on your own story there). At the end of posting, the community made a game of guessing who wrote each story. Then the moderator edited each LJ post to add the author's name and announced the winner of the guessing game.

When the AO3 came along, and then DW, the exchange moved. When you post your own story on the AO3, you can't comment on it or kudo it [per comments below, we can comment on our own AO3 stories! I never knew]. So if you choose to comment or kudo on all the stories except the one you wrote, you've revealed which story you wrote, by process of elimination. So folks who want to play (or just support) the guessing game will deliberately not comment on all the stories -- indeed, they may particularly choose not to comment on stories that they hope others will think they wrote!

This should all come around to a happy ending with folks coming back to comment and kudos on more of the stories after reveals. Often they do! Sometimes, though, this approach can seem to encourage less total interaction than an otherwise similar event might earn during an equivalent play period. No momentum.

Anyway, that's just what I think, myself. Many of you may know more; I could be misguided. I just would like everyone to know, in this exchange, silence may actually mean folks hope to be mistaken for you!