I love good guys

We had 20 new Highlander stories in hlh_shortcuts this year. Find them all on the AO3.

Here are some that I, personally, subjectively, enjoyed most:

"Moondance or A Series of Extraordinary Events" by hafital
G, gen; ~19K words
Joyful. This story wraps a final sci-fi Gathering apocalypse -- starring Richie and Methos -- around many independent but threaded shorter missing-scene stories from throughout canon and beyond -- starring Richie and Angie, Richie and Tessa, Richie and May-Ling, Richie and etc. -- and not only delivers a happy ending at the last, but is again and again joyful and uplifting throughout. Each of the embedded stories would be lovely on its own. Yet they're strung like pearls on a necklace, progressing in a line, in a circle, in an orbit. It's more than its parts.

"Duo" by jasmasson
G, m/m; ~3K words
Amusing. A sensible outsider perspective delivers grins as it clashes with not-at-all sensible run-a-day HL canon in the persons of Duncan, Methos, and a hunter. The narrative packs satisfying, appropriately worded, canon references that fly over the head of the perspective character straight to the audience.

"Guests for the Weekend" by Annavere
G, gen; ~8K words
Unexpected. I was taken by surprise by how well this combination of characters -- Amanda, Anne, Richie -- came together in this off-to-the-side whodunnit romp of a mini-vacation for Anne, where the stakes are set by thieves so incompetent and security precautions so lacking that Amanda feels embarrassed and Richie plays the bait.

"Holy Ground" by merriman
G, gen; ~2K words
Historical. Have a Darius-lives scenario, with Methos and early Icelandic history. You're welcome. Bonus: Rumination on how the "Light Quickening" did and didn't do the work of reforming Darius, which he must have thought on often, and which I have opinions about.

Richie & Connor:

"In Good Company" by Teratornis
G, gen; ~6K words
Cathartic. Structured mostly as an action scene, a dojo workout, this piece has Richie process some of his many emotions in the wake of Tessa's death, his own immortality, and his encounter with Annie Devlin.

"Cousin's Retreat" by Sharpest_Asp
G, gen; ~1K words
Companionable. Richie gets to train with Connor for a while, as the audience gets to enjoy comparisons and contrasts between our two MacLeods, and the conviction that Richie is an adopted son of this clan.

Randi:

"The Pitch" by havocthecat
G, gen; ~2K words
Constructive. This piece worldbuilds around Randi across a decade, keeping her consistently canonical as it kneads and stretches her more realistic first-season world until it merges seamlessly with the more fantastic late-season canon, landing her as if fated in Joe's lap as he works to reform the Watchers.

"Behind the Story" by coralysendria
Unrated, gen, ~2K words
Transporting. Step into the heart of second season with the groundedness of first season. Tessa's murder is news; it's part of Randi's job. Tessa is also someone she knew; it's emotionally jarring, and emotion is not something Randi is particularly good at, so she gropes through the culturally prescribed motions until she finds her way to Richie, grieving, stunned, alone. We see Tessa through both of their eyes, Richie in that moment through Randi's eyes, and the world that was canon in those days as it must have been.

hlh_shortcuts has now released 18 of its 20 total 2024 stories. See the list. I expect that tomorrow, Monday, will bring the final releases, to be followed by the event’s traditional author-guessing game.

To my surprise, I’ve received a second story for my fest request this year: “The Pitch” (G, gen, ~2K words). (For a completely spoiler-free reading experience, follow the link now and come back later for the rest of this post.) It stars Randi, supported by Joe, with cameos by Duncan and Methos.

Riding the wave of Randi’s conviction that Duncan could be the biggest story of her career, this piece sweeps from Randi spotting Joe near MacLeod & Noel Antiques, through a decade of dogging the literal and paperwork footsteps of Duncan and his friends, to Joe offering her the biggest story of her life... with one little catch.

This Randi is properly tenacious and perceptive. The story compellingly suggests how very much her interests, talents, and drive converge with the commitments and needs of the Watchers, to the point that it set me ruminating on the meta level where Randi and her local TV station may well have been a certain kind of unwitting structural first draft for Joe and the Watcher organization. (But why not both? ~grin~)

More comments on the story itself, of course! Take a look? Or, if this is not your personal HL flavor, try one of the others!

hlh_shortcuts began releasing on the Winter Solstice, Duncan's Birthday, as is traditional, and will continue releasing a few stories per day until they're all shared. Many thanks to our new moderator team for all their efforts! Thanks to them, and to everyone who wrote and beta'd! Time to read:

• Check out all the 2024 stories.
• Revisit out all the stories from all the AO3 years (probably not the LJ years)

The story written for my '24 fest match released on Sunday: "Behind the Story" (~2K words, gen). The anonymous creator chose not to use archive warnings and not to supply a rating; with no disrespect to those choices, I'd rate it "G" and No Archive Warnings Apply. If you're an HL fan, you're unlikely to find anything triggering here; this is what the show is about, I've always thought.

"Behind the Story" follows Randi McFarland in the days after Tessa's murder, how and where it touches her work and her conscience and her heart, culminating in a Randi & Richie scene I never knew I needed. There is so much Tessa here, through their eyes, and I love it. The story briskly opened long-shuttered second-season rooms in my imagination, and, in passing, dropped at least two bonus story ideas on the side.

I shared a longer comment on the story itself. You can read that for more on what in it caught my attention. Or ask! And of course there are many other stories to choose from, if this isn't your personal flavor of HL.

The 2018 HL exchange authors have been revealed on the AO3! So I can now share my own tiny annual round-up:

• "The European Occultists"
  beta by skieswideopen, for Merfilly, in fkficfest
  crossover between Forever Knight and Nick Knight (~4K words, G, gen)
  Jul. '18 to date: 146 hits, 10 kudos, 7 comment threads


• "Halcyon"
  beta by skieswideopen & batdina, plus a note from senmut, for killabeez, in hlh_shortcuts
  Highlander (~2K words, G, gen)
  Dec. '18 to date: 191 hits, 26 kudos, 9 comment threads

2018 AO3 statistics (total 105 works in 12 fandoms):

 36 Kudos
 16 Comment Threads
  0 Bookmarks
337 Hits

I wrote only three stories in 2016, I'm afraid:

myoldfandom 2016 Exchange: "The Wand of Siora the Wise"
beta by Skieswideopen; for DesertVixen
(Dungeons & Dragons (1983-85); ~9K words; G; Sheila, Eric, Hank, Bobby, Diana, Presto, etc.)

   This was my first writing in this lifelong-loved fandom. I tried so hard to fulfill the prompt and be episode-like that I may have overdone it. Yet I learned about the characters as you do only when you're writing them, and found much delight in them and their universe! I want to write them again, and read them more.

fkficfest 2016 Exchange: "The Time Will Come"
beta by Batdina; for Merfilly
(Forever Knight; ~3K words; G; Janette, Alma, Aristotle, the Enforcers)

   Late summer and all fall are lost to me in a haze of overwork. I don't recall just how this concept found me, only that it felt important to stake FK's claim on an open future. I learned more about Canadian security than the story needed, not to mention Syrian brutality. But the story, I think, I hope, is finally full of hope and determination — first-season-style, today.

hlh_shortcuts 2016 Exchange: "Ships in the Night"
betas by Skieswideopen, Celli & Sholio; sounding-board-ing by ArgentumLS & Skieswideopen; for Idontlikegravy
(Highlander; ~1K words; G; Richie, Michelle, Angie)

   I almost didn't sign up for this fest. And then I almost dropped out. HLdom often seems to me as monolithic as FKdom is diverse; I worried and fussed. The kind people listed above helped me through. I do love HL dearly, for all that I'm lost in HLdom. I hope that I did right by it and by the other players, and maybe they won't mind me playing again someday.

( Still-unfulfilled fanfic IOUs )

( Still-unwritten fanfic just for me )