Johnlock Fic Rec

isitandwonder:

ancientreader:

pennypaperbrain:

ellipsicalelle:

I’ve been having a Time Of It over the last four months. Hit rock bottom, etc. And now that I can just begin to glimpse the barest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel I wanted to share the fics that helped get me through one of the darkest periods of my life. I was talking with a friend earlier this week about how it seems like so many of us found our way to fandom in our darkest hours and I have to say that THIS is why fic matters. It is at once an escape and a refuge, it is a revelation and a mirror, it is somehow just as transcendent as it is grounding, and it manages to be both comfort food and haute cuisine all at the same damn time. Thank you to the authors who share these works of art with us. I really cannot ever repay you for what you’ve done for me. I am always a little !!!! with my love (I often imagine people saying, “Oh, there goes Elle again.”) but, BUT, I just needed to send my squee out there into the universe as I try and stagger move forward. (warning for tl;dr) Without further ado, here’s a peak inside my id :)

Greywash/ @fizzygins

Gins has a special place in my heart. Not only is she my favorite fic author of all time, but she also helped me through a very tough situation. She is, in other words, a lovely person on top of being a wonderful writer. Please read everything she has written, but especially:

build your wings

        My number one top fic. Candy crack scorchingly hot intimate sex with the most nuanced emotional arcs I have ever come across. I think Gins’ tags say it best when she describes this fic as psychological edging porn, but it is SO MUCH MORE. It’s about Sherlock and John trying desperately to give each other what they want and need in their own limited and dysfunctional ways. It’s about the ways we are broken and the things we cannot give and about the fear that binds us. They just make you ache, bone deep, in that way that John and Sherlock seem to have, where their endearing, fumbling miscommunications make you want to scream and tear your hair out. One of my favorite chapters is chapter 26 where neither of them comes. That’s right: NEITHER OF THEM. And it wouldn’t be going too far to say it’s one of my favorite sex scenes ever. Another favorite is chapter 39 where they just kiss for hours. And I think the proof of Gins’ skill, in terms of both pacing and tension, lies in exactly that fact alone.

(Obviously you should also read: the masterpiece that is the good morrow, as well as: In Practice, The New Year )

breathedout/ @havingbeenbreathedout

HBBO is the other half of the Gins and HBBO show. She is, incidentally, also a kind and wise person who has helped me tremendously, but lets talk about her writing. I think her tag: Lies and the lying liars who tell them sums things up rather nicely because what HBBO does excruciatingly well is capture the pathos of her characters. ALL of her characters. Even the ones hovering on the periphery. She is able to reproduce the feeling of each time period with deft and poignant skill. She writes the human condition with searing precision, with stunning psychological arcs, while simultaneously mastering the historian’s attention to detail. And it all feels effortless. Isn’t it so wonderful to put yourself in an author’s hands and let them take you on a journey because you trust that they’re going to execute it perfectly?

How the mouth changes it’s shape  (genderbent femlock set in the butch/femme scene of post-WWII London) Oh, oh my heart.

Unreal Cities (1920′s Sherlock and John with the Bloomsbury group + best Irene Adler I’ve ever read, complete with illuminating back story + case fic set in Paris starring Sherlock’s cousin who you will worship by the end.)

@hiddenlacuna

Lacuna is more dear to me than I can express. She is, quite simply, the truest of hearts. She picked me out of the gutter when I was at one of my lowest points. She agreed to be my beta and made me believe that I could write again. She is such an amazing gift to this fandom and to this world in general. She is also a wonderful writer and I absolutely adore her fic I Am and You Are. It’s a first time, first person, stream of consciousness ficlet in Sherlock’s voice and it is just achingly sweet. Her deliciously hot An Hour and a Half to Midnight is also a must-read, as is her epistolary soul-mates AU fic, Good for The Soul.

Thank you Lacuna for being a truly wonderful friend to a stranger in need and also someone who makes fandom fun to be in.

Candle_Beck

Candlebeck was the first Holmes/Watson fic that I read and I started with Mistakes of Our Youth. Did you all just cringe and flinch collectively? Yeah, MoOY crunches your bones. It sucks out your marrow. Wrings out your heart. Wow, what a recommendation huh? I mean, you need to read it, but be careful with yourself please.

I am a sucker for first times and Candlebeck delivers in each fic. Her Victoriana is spot on; her prose marvelous; her Holmes and Watson damaged and stumbling their way towards each other in every iteration with all the attendant angst of the time period. My top three, although I contend that you should read them all, are:

(descriptions taken from AO3)

The Narrator (Watson is a degenerate gambler, a reluctant romantic, and the least reliable narrator in the history of the written word)

The Greek Problem (The brainless things people do for love)

The Other Way of the World (A long night in a vicious city)

Katie Forsythe

Her Holmes/Watson magnum opus in my opinion is what I’ll refer to collectively as Birds to a Lighthouse. All of these fics are in the same narrative arc, but if your don’t want to read them all I would say #1, #2, and #4 (and #7) are required. This is canon as far as I am concerned. Or, rather, it is how I would have liked canon to have gone and I will accept no substitutes hereafter. Her characterization reaches previously unplumbed depths. Her Holmes is so utterly lovely in all his faults and brilliancies and empathy and in the vulnerability that he works so hard to mask with his cold aloofness. Her Watson is so devastatingly steadfast and true. She nails the way that Watson is such a mystery to Holmes in that Watson loves Holmes in a way he cannot comprehend himself being loveable, and that Watson is good in a way that Holmes cannot see goodness in himself. She gets bonus points for her utterly delightful Mycroft and Lestrade who I came to love so ardently through her writing of them that they are a large part of why this fic affected me so deeply. Here are her other works, which I would also highly recommend.

Let’s play synonyms, yes? Oh won’t you, won’t you, give me a synonym for genius?

Minor Interludes on the Solo Violin

Hallowed be Thy Name

The Violet Elephant

Birds to a Lighthouse

The Lucky One

The Presbury Letters

A Hymn to the Endlessly Falling

@bendingsignpost

Ben is best known (I think) for his utterly wonderful Phantom of the Opera AU Bel Canto. Or maybe for Stranger at the Gate. Or MAYBE for his Watches Verse. According to AO3 it’s his scorcher Just Browsing, which, who am I to argue with the masses? It’s pretty hard to pick a favorite, but I’m going to try.

Cooperative Principle 

This is an alternate meeting universe where John and Sherlock meet at Bart’s. John is a professor and Sherlock is himself. What I really loved about this story was John’s emotional arc. I think it was one of the best representations of PTSD and trauma I’ve read. I loved watching John grow over the course of the story. I also loved Ben’s Sherlock. He is different in the story in that he pursues John relentlessly for a relationship, but otherwise his characterization was spot on. The end is very angsty (it definitely had me in tears at one point) but it ends on a hopeful note with, of course, John and Sherlock back together in 221B.

@holyfant

The Speed of Objects in Motion

This fic devastated me. Mostly because it hit very very close to
home. I related to holyfant‘s Sherlock so deeply. This is a fic about
the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves and the past. It captures that saturated
quality of dissatisfaction that comes with relationships over long
periods of time. How little things build and build until the molehill becomes the mountain. How even though we love one another, sometimes it just
isn’t enough to make a relationship work. It’s about how we want our
partners to respond to our needs. How we want to be needed in return.
It’s about how hard it is to change ourselves and change each other in
order to be better partners and whether or not it feels worth the
ordeal. (This is the cross-roads I
am currently at which is why this story felt especially poignant and
why it tore me apart)

In the end Sherlock and John decide it
is worth it. In fact that is the one thing they continue to come home to
throughout this fic is that it is worth the struggle. I loved every
heart-wrenching word of it.  

Do you sense a theme here? Yeah, redemption arcs ftw \0/

Also, I would be remiss without adding these fics to my list, but I feel like this is getting really long so thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart to you wonderful authors for these fics which are forever lodged in my heart and my brain as well:

CWB/  @conversationswithjohnlock

Where Else Would I Be? >>> Most brilliant fluffy retirementlock. I like to snuggle with it in bed.

@watsonshoneybee

carrying up his morning tea >>> Oh the angst!! So so well written. (WIP) Heed the tags with this one.

@withoutawishsh

White Tulip >>>> Most painfully in character Sherlock fic I’ve ever read. It hurts, but god what a stunning feat of literature. HEED THE TAGS.

NoStraightLine

Trying to Find the In Between  >>>Best Post-Reichenbach Sherlock redemption arc.

@pennypaperbrain

Four Corners of the Western World >>>> Brutally realistic bi-polar Sherlock with wowowow BDSM. HEED THE TAGS.

@lbmisscharlie

Three-syllabled and starry as the smile >>>>My favorite Johnlockary ficlet. SO WELL WRITTEN.

If anyone else feels so moved, I’d love to hear about a fic(s) that helped/moved you. After an emotionally tough week for the fandom this is my way of trying to spread a little love. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 All ships welcome!

Breathe in the old-skool squee!

Reblogging to add everything by Chryse, TSylvestris’s The Thing Is, and  Thursdays and Tallow Stains by tepidspongebath. This is just to pick three marvels out of my bookmarks and therefore to slight a few dozen writers whose work has meant the world to me. All John/Sherlock, all with happy endings, because God do I love a happy ending.

Honestly, read everything from greywash / @fizzygins! It’s some of the best fics I’ve ever read. Mindblowing. True works of art! Very special! Poetry and truth!