Fanfic Author Appreciation, day 1: Kat Allison

From velvetandlace, and others:



FANFIC AUTHOR'S APPRECIATION WEEK


March 6 through March 13


Post to your LJ each day at least one of your favorite fanfic authors and why you love them, their work, and why they need more appreciation.

***

As I have quite a lot of fandoms, I'll try to pick a fanfic author from a different one each day, too, though I can't promise there won't be crossovers. It's the nature of the beast. *g*

So, for my first day I'll pick one of my oldest fandoms, Highlander, and an author whom, unlike the ones I'll name in days to come I don't "know" in any way but as a reader, katallison. She mainly writes DueSouth these days, but the first story of hers I ever read, "Last Set Before Closing", hit me in a way few stories, fan or pro, ever did. I still regard it as one of the best short stories I've had the luck to read.

One of the many interesting aspects of Highlander was the interaction between immortals and "normal" human beings. The human we saw the most of on the show, Joe Dawson, played by the magnificent Jim Byrnes, is in the center of this story, old and close to dying several years into the show's future. Kat Allison deals with the painful decline of old age - with the tragedy intensified in this case because the pov through which we see this, MacLeod's, is of an immortal man who will never age and has seen this all before and knows how it will end - unflinchingly; Joe's old personality breaking through now and then through the ravages of age and loss of memory just intensifies the grief we as readers feel. Everyone, sooner or later, probably has had a relation who goes through senility, Alzheimer's or something similar. It's impossible not to connect with MacLeod here.

The other fascinating and pretty much unique aspect of Kat's writing is her presentation of Methos. Who is absent in this particular story though very much present in MacLeod's thoughts and and his and Joe's conversation. Methos is what Avon is to B7 and Spike to BtVS - an incredibly popular ambiguous character easily more beloved by a majority of fandom than the title character of the show he came from. Which resulted on galore of fanfic, of course, and he also shares another attribute with the other gentlemen - for the most part, fanfic concentrates on his positive traits. Or if it deals with his ruthless side, it does so in flashbacks, or having said ruthlessness directed at unsympathetic people. Well, not Kat Allison's stories, most of which center around him (this one is a rare exception). Her Methos is a survivor first and foremost, and that includes, in the case of Last Set Before Closing, having left both MacLeod and Joe behind in the interest of survival, Joe for good. No matter how much Joe wants to see him again. Again, this very much connects to all kind of RL issues - most families also have members who just don't want the responsibility - and is a plausible prediction, daring to show Methos' unlikeable side in a way that doesn't glamourize or prettify. It has nothing to do with Bronze Age violence and everything with the question of what kind of mentality is necessary to make it through the millennia without going insane. Don't get me wrong, by and large I enjoy positive presentations of Methos, too, but Kat's sticks in my mind in a way many of the romantic versions don't.

Of her other Highlander stories, which are here, I like "Strata" best; Methos, Duncan and the Grand Canyon, with the landscape used in a gorgeous and utterly unpretentious way to make some points about immortals. I'm a dialogue addict, and this offers some of the best between these two characters. In short, if you're either a Highlander or a DueSouth fan, and by chance haven't encountered the amazing Ms Allison's stories before, go and read at once. You might get your heart broken, but you won't be dissapointed.