LadySilver's Fanfic

In the early days of the bantering and brainstorming that would become Highlander: the Agent, Tornis had given in to the pull of the muses and started writing scenes from a casefic. As much fun as it was to have near-daily additions to the story to look forward to, I started to feel guilty about not contributing anything of my own. In order to ease myself into the universe, I decided to write a story capitalizing on one of the recurring jokes we'd developed.

( The cat )

As all Highlander backstories need the Reveal Scene, that's also what I wanted to do: The one where we get to see how the family dealt with the news and what put the first pieces into place that would lead to the Matthew that we met in "Manhunt."

( From here to 'Manhunt' )

And thus was born:

Title: Reconcilable Differences
Word Count: 8750
Characters: Matthew, Original Characters, Corwin the Cat
Rating: T (I think there's a swear)
Summary: The year is 1989, and Matthew has been happily married for almost two decades. Recognizing that his lack-of-aging is catching up to this life, he realizes it's time to have the talk with his family.

This also marks the first of the extras that I wrote, and the first one posted on our new schedule of releasing extras on Wednesdays.

Our Highlander spin-off series continues this week with the start of the second "episode":

Dead End

Summary: While investigating a gruesome case in a tiny Midwestern town, Matthew must contend with unexpected challenges both from the attitudes of the locals, and from his own unquiet memories.

This one is 9 chapters and ~35K total, with one chapter posting weekly.

We also posted the first "extra" last week, a one-shot:

First Case

Summary: Matthew's first case with his new partner doesn't exactly go as anyone hoped, and his own investigations lead to an encounter with an old acquaintance.
Characters: Matthew, Duncan MacLeod, Thomas Powell, Francesca Talbot (OC)
Word Count: 4500

With all that's been going on in the country, I have been extremely negligent about sharing my fic, so here's what's been keeping me sane.

Highlander Shortcuts

For Shortcuts this year, I received the most incredible, insightful fic about Gregor and Richie from brightknightie, in which we see post-canon Gregor's struggle to find meaning in life again.

As always with Shortcuts, the stories went live right in the middle of finals week, which is when I'm buried under scores of essays and research papers that the university seems to think I can grade in a couple days. (I can't, in case you're wondering). I did manage to carve out enough space to read the fic when it first posted, though it took a couple extra days for me to close my mouth and sort out my thoughts enough to say anything coherent. The story is that good.

As has now happened more than once, BK took one of my standing prompts and interpreted it in an entirely different direction than I'd imagined, with the result of managing to write me a fic that is exactly what I didn't know I wanted. It's such a delight, every time!

Title: Garbage and Flowers
Word Count: 4772 words
Summary: Gregor has started a new life. Getting the hang of feeling again is harder than it looks. And when he drops by Alec Hill’s house to make amends, he learns that Alec is dead and Richie is the one who killed him.

Meanwhile, I was matched to karrenia_rune, who requested a slew of Movie characters, as well as Methos, Joe, Amanda, and Duncan. She also indicated interest in What-if AUs, and slice-of-life and missing scene fics.

I wasn't really interested in writing a Methos & Joe fic (I feel like I do that too often in exchanges), and I didn't have any ideas for other groupings of the series characters, so I decided to venture into unknown territory and write something movie-based.

The movie isn't really my fandom, which necessitated a re-watch and deep thinking.

In the end, I wrote:

Title: Forging
Word Count: 1151 words
Summary: To survive as an Immortal, Connor has a lot to learn, and Ramirez can't do it alone.

Fandom Trees

This year, I didn't sign up for fandomtrees, and wasn't really planning to participate at all. But, then I saw that one of the needy trees had a request for Henry Danger, and I felt uniquely poised to take it on.

For Tellmewhatyousee, I took a dive in the early days of the show when Dan Schneider (::spit::) was still the showrunner and the writing still focused on the civilian lives and relationships of the characters (::yay!::) and wrote:

Title: Blow Up
Word Count: 1676 words
Summary: When a photo from Henry's past resurfaces, Piper voices her objections.

Tellme also received a podfic of a Henry Danger drabble collection -- which, happened to be my drabble collection. So, although the podfic wasn't for me, it feels like I got a gift of my own.

Peasina did a fantastic job transforming my collection Junk 'n Words, a set of four drabbles that I'd written for the FFFC Fandom Battle a few years ago. (She can podfic anything of mine, anytime she wants!)

Title: Junk 'n Words (podfic)
Time: 4 minutes
Summary: Four drabbles, two pre-canon and two post-canon

And thus ends my exchange participation of 2024.

Another Shortcuts is in the books! This marks my 12th year participating.

This year, I was assigned to pennywashburne, who took one of my long-standing prompts for a Psych crossover and went to town on it.

Tres Hombres Y Quatro Quesos Dos Fritos (5690 words) was the result.

Most Highlander crossovers seem to start with the crossover character(s) witnessing or discovering a Challenge. This one starts with a body disappearing from the morgue. Specifically, it's Richie who gets up and walks out, which leads to Shawn & Gus being hired to find out where the body went.

The story nails the character voices, gets everyone into and out of their mess in the most satisfyingly inconclusive way possible, and manages to sneak in a stealth crossover. Check it out. Based on the comments, knowledge of Psych isn't necessary.

---

Meanwhile, I was assigned hafital, who has so much to work with in her sign-ups that I knew exactly what I wanted to write.

I did not, however, write that.

There's been a lot going on here, which probably contributed to the theme of the story that did happen.

( Do you want background on the story? Because this is where you'll find it. )

Written for kalloway, as part of the Fic or Treat event

Characters: Richie Ryan
Word Count: 969
Rating: G
Summary: Newly Immortal, Richie has a lot learn.
Link to Ao3: Sticky Fingers

( Read more... )

Title: Something Called Honor
Fandom: Highlander: the Series/Highlander: the Raven/Forever
Rating: T
Word Count: ~89,000
Characters: Richie Ryan, Liam Riley, Henry Morgan, Jo Martinez, Methos, Mike Hanson, Joanna Reece, Original Characters, Other Canon Highlander Characters
Tags: Crossover, Case Fic, Clan Denial, Accidental Child Acquisition (Subverted), Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Typical Violence, Food
Summary: Between her immortal boyfriend and her Immortal friends, Jo's world view is expanding in new - and sometimes painful - ways. But when a young child is the only witness to a brutal beheading of a known Immortal, Jo has to learn how the Game really works in order to find out the truth, before it gets her killed.
Notes: Something Called Forever story #5

Link

Create something.

Not sure if this counts as creating, though there's certainly creation involved...

Recently, a discussion with some Highlander fans on Facebook led me to realize that Sandra McDonald's classic Richie story, "Tough Guy," was not easily available online anywhere. As she and I happen to be FB friends, I reached out to her about sharing it. One thing led to another, and now Sandra's work will be moving to Ao3.

For anyone who cares about permissions and protocols, I want to make it clear that Sandra fully authorizes this account, chose the username, and has the password. However, she gave me permission to upload the stories on her behalf because I have them in digital form and I have the time.

The plan is to post her stories slowly, so as not to completely flood the tag. As I am not rereading them first (because if I did that, we'd be here for years), any information about characters/relationships, ratings, tags, and summaries is either coming from old notes, my memory, or any info that other people are sharing with me. Thanks are already due to several members of Cranky who have helped format the stories and supply additional information. Corrections are always welcome!

With that, I'm happy to say that "Tough Guy" is now back online!

Sandra McDonald's fanfic

The final exchanges of the year were, as they usually are, yuletide_admin and hlh_shortcuts.

Unfortunately, I went into Yuletide unmatchable. That seems to be a theme of the year. While the mods did what they could to help me find an assignment, the one I ended up with turned out to not be workable and I made the hard decision to default.

Somehow, though, I received not only a gift, but a treat too! And both in the same fandom: My Babysitter's a Vampire.

My gift was Just Call Me Up (Whenever there's Trouble) - 3738 words - by karrenia_rune. She took one of my prompts, which was for either a bodyswap or powerswap of the two main characters, and ran with it.

I also got a delightful treat from reeby10: It's All in the Smell - 1287 words, who took one of my other prompts about one of the characters trying to learn to gain control over his visions. It's exactly in the feeling of the show, too.

Shortcuts was an entirely different story (ha!). No matchability problems here, nor any trouble generating a story idea.

My gift was Once (or Twice) Upon a Time - 6535 words - by carenejeans -- who it turned out was also the person I wrote for. My signup for this event has a lot of options thrown in, both for characters and tropes. Normally, I receive a Richie-centric story (which, let's face it, is always wonderful, and in no way am I complaining). This time, though, the flavors got shifted around and I got a Methos-centric story! About time-travel! If you haven't already read it, you should.

For her, I wrote No Present Like the Time - 4366 words - No matter how old an immortal gets, some birthdays must be celebrated. And some gifts ... well, Amanda and Methos are there for Duncan when he gets his.

( BTS Discussion )

Title: A Hill to (Not) Die Upon
Fandom: Highlander
Characters: Ceirdwyn
Word Count: 1491
Tags: Raccoons, Slice of Life, Mentions of Cory Raines
Summary: Ceirdwyn's quiet night at home is interrupted by an unwelcome visitor.

Link