Back to school, fwd to Elementary

[unovis.livejournal.com]

Happy September.

Thank you to the reccers of August, for sharing their recs and enthusiasm with us: bluebrocade, chapbook, re_white, and swissmarg.

Please welcome our new recs team for the month: allonymity, opaljade, pennypaperbrain, pipmer1, and tweedisgood. We look forward to your posts.


We're now taking volunteers for October. If you'd like to make recs for the month, please sign up here. We'd like to remind you that if you want to be a reccer for the month, you have to be a member of the comm, so that we can fix the settings to allow you to post. Our guidelines are here and we're interested in all incarnations and versions of Sherlock Holmes, and fic, art, vids, or podfic. If you have any questions, please feel welcome to leave a comment here or PM a mod.

Hope you're enjoying the season, wherever you are.

Open Recs post

[unovis.livejournal.com]

You may have noticed that we took a break from weekly Open Recs for August. Participation had slowed to one or two posts or recs in comments each weekend. With the fading of summer in this hemisphere, maybe readers will have more time.

We'll begin again with Open Recs posts in comments and maybe opening the comm to all posters for recs once a month again.

So please, here, you're welcome this weekend to leave recs in comments to this post. Any version of Sherlock Holmes is welcome, and any fan work as fic, art, vids, or podfic. Please feel free to recommend WIPs as well. We'd rather have individual recs than links to external rec lists, however. If you have any questions, please comment or PM one of the mods.

Series Rec: Intellect and Instincts

[allonymity.livejournal.com]

Title:  Intellect and Instincts (series)

Author: Kryptaria

Pairing: Sherlock/John

Length: 33,535 total (7 stories)

Rating: Teen

Verse: Sherlock BBC

Author's summary: Scratch marks on the stairs. Dead rats in the freezer. An order of pizza that John doesn't share.  And then things get really strange.

Reccer's comments:  John is a were-velociraptor.  Do I really need to say anything more?  I love it when an author takes an utterly cracky premise and blends seamlessly into canon characterizations.  This one takes BAMF!John to its ultimate realization, and yet even as a dinosaur he’s still so John.  Sherlock faced with the mystery of his flatmate’s strange behavior is also utterly Sherlock, and the adventures they face together as the series progresses are a delight.  The introduction of Mycroft into the situation is particularly fun.

Fic Rec: Quintessential

[pipmer1.livejournal.com]

Title: Quintessential
Author: thisprettywren
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 49,287
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Canon-typical violence
Verse: Sherlock BBC, AU
Author's summary: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.


Reccer's comments: Wow, this fic! This takes place in an alternate universe, where everybody lacks at least one of the five senses, or speech. John is a mute, and Sherlock wears gloves for a very particular reason. The story pretty much starts after Series 1, with the same cases as portrayed in the show, but incorporating elements from the author's 'verse. The graphics at the top of each chapter contain click-through links to some supplementary materials that help flesh out/make sense of the world we find our boys in.

The world created here is amazing. Everyone has a tattoo on their wrist, proclaiming what kind of 'variant' they are.. that is, which sense they lack. Every character on the show is some kind of variant... unless they are what is called a 'quin', meaning they possess the capability to experience all the senses. Quins are extremely rare, and lie at the heart of this story. Hence, the title.


Excerpt from the prologue:

"— Sometimes I don't talk for days on end. Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other."

Sherlock's eyes dart up from the screen, searching John's face for a reaction. If he's expecting hesitation or objection, John won't give it to him. With his TID in Sherlock's hands he's robbed of the ability to answer but he tips his chin up, matching the intensity of Sherlock's gaze with his own.

Well, cheers, he thinks. That makes two of us, and he can't help but smile.

Fic Rec: These Days You Don't Know How to March

[pennypaperbrain.livejournal.com]

Title: These Days You Don’t Know How to March
Author: cranberryloops
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Length: 10,341
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none needed by comm rules
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: It's not easy to be Sherlock's. Saved. Owned. Loved. These aren't words John ever thought to associate with himself.

Reccer's comments: This is the kind of love story where one or both parties are desperate and damaged but find stability in each other. In this case, John is the more obviously damaged one, floundering after his return from Afghanistan, in search of a place to emotionally and physically belong. Cranberryloops’ dom Sherlock is compelling too, sharp and abstract and palpably devoted to John.
John is sent back to Afghanistan for part of the story, so he gets to keep that side of himself, and reconcile it with his increasing attachment to Sherlock. The story as a whole charts John’s progress as he (re)learns to be all his apparently contradictory selves, and it explores how, in a tenable BDSM relationship as in any other, responsibility goes both ways.
One of my favourite things about Sherlock fandom is the volume of thinky BDSM fic and IMO this is one of the best. It’s not extensively and graphically sexual, but the entire thing is suffused with sexuality and need. Many of the sex scenes are just beautiful, suggestive, one-line vignettes, and everything that happens is fully plugged in to the characters’ complex, entirely real psychologies. Nothing is simple, John Watson, even if you think you are.

( Excerpt )