221B Recs

Title: Law Like Love
Author: PlaidAdder / idairsauthor
Pairing: John/Sherlock, John/Mary, Harry/Janine
Length: 50K
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: Six months after Sherlock didn't go off on that mission to eastern Europe after all, all is well at 221B Baker Street. Little Rachel is just beginning to sleep through the night. John and Sherlock are sleeping with each other. Charles Augustus Magnussen is alive and unwell and just about bankrupt. And Mary is nowhere in sight. Obviously the events of "His Last Vow" were not what they seemed. What really happened? How did we get here from there? Well, we're going to find out. Backwards.

Reccer's comments: "Dear Moftiss: I used your underutilized female characters for you. They were awesome. It wasn't that hard. Love, me." This is one of the author's end notes, and it's so true. Janine and Harry in particular are fantastic, but Lady Smallwood and Mrs Holmes have important parts to play as well. It's very much an ensemble piece as everyone works together like cogs in a clockwork machine to bring the plan to fruition that is at the heart of this fic: getting Baby Watson to Baker Street with John and Sherlock, and taking care of Magnussen - who just won't stay dead - once and for all.

As we know how it 'ends' - we're shown in the first chapter and it tells us in the summary anyway - and we know most of what came before from HLV, you'd think there wasn't going to be much in the way of suspense, but you'd be dead wrong. The fun - and it is a great deal of fun - is in the systematic reveal of how the plan came about, who contributed what, who was faking it and who was being genuine, and, finally, why it had to be done this way. (Spoiler: love. It was for love.)

At the same time as the machinations are gearing up, we follow back the thread of the main characters' relationships. (There is vaguely referenced infidelity but nothing is made explicit.) Janine/Harry was a delightful surprise to me, and I really liked the fact that John struggled with his feelings throughout. It is never easy for him to make a break, even when he finds out … what he finds out about Mary.

One of the most powerful aspects of this story for me, though, was the exploration of Magnussen's and Mary's characters, just what a psychopath is, what they feel (or don't feel), how they see others, and what, in the end, they actually want. Fair warning: Mary doesn't come off well in this story.

( Excerpt... )

Title: The Same River Twice
Author: PlaidAdder
Pairing: John/Sherlock, Harry/Clara, Molly/Lestrade
Length: 151,177 words
Rating: Teen
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: A pair of stories based on Sherlock, beginning a month after "The Reichenbach Fall." All casefic, combining elements from more than one case. All Johnlock, though other relationships may creep in. Plot and character-driven, though not entirely devoid of other pleasures.

Reccer's comments: Yes, I've recced PlaidAdder twice before. But those were both fics based on the original ACD stories, so I feel justified in bringing something from this author to those in the fandom who don't read ACD fics. Also, this rec is really mainly for the second story in this series, The Young Men Carbuncular, but as you do need to read the first story to understand what's going on, the whole series is getting the rec. But I'm really only going to talk about the second story. :)

( See the rest of the rec... )

Title: The Beast of Baskerville
Author: Mildredandbobbin / mildred_bobbin
Pairing: Sherlock/John, Harry/Clara, others
Length: 74,550 words
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Character death
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: 15th Century/fairy tale AU. An invalided John Watson comes to the isolated village of Baskerville seeking shelter with his sister, only to find himself embroiled in a grisly murder. As the villagers point to a local werewolf legend, the odd but brilliant friar, Brother Sherlock, disagrees, and soon he and John are on the the trail of a very human murderer. As the killer takes another victim, fear and suspicion grips the village, culminating in the arrival of Inquisitor, Friar James Moriarty, who proves more terrible than any supernatural beast could ever be.

Reccer's comments: mildred_bobbin has written several great fics in this fandom, but this is definitely my favorite so far. It's a medieval AU which is a melange of the first two series of Sherlock, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Janet Lewis's The Wife of Martin Guerre and the 2011 Red Riding Hood movie. It's a tightly plotted, well-paced ensemble piece, veering away from the usual main supporting characters of Lestrade and Mycroft to give larger parts to rarer characters such as Harry, Clara, Henry Knight, Robert Frankland, and Louise Mortimer. Irene as the Mother Abbess is a pointed provocation, and Molly and Moriarty shine in their respective roles as midwife and Inquisitor too, but the real stars are, of course, Brother Sherlock as a keen-eyed Franciscan friar and Master Watson as a peasant foot soldier recently returned from Granada (not only a nod to Granadaverse, but also a real war waged in the late 1400's).

The driving force of the story is the series of horrific deaths plaguing the small village of Baskerville. A werewolf is the supposed culprit, but Sherlock sees a mortal hand and sets out to gather his evidence, with John's help.

( Excerpt contains mild gore... )

One thing I thought the author did really well was to make use of the beliefs and superstitions of the era, especially the quotes from the Malleus Maleficarum at the start of every chapter. There are also nice period details for flavour, but it's not so overflowing with references and research that it feels like reading an academic treatise.

The secondary plot is the relationship between Sherlock and John. Due in part to Sherlock's vows and in part to the societal attitude toward homosexuality, it's obviously not an easy road, but I thought the author handled it with respect and not at all in a sensationalist manner. I thought it was a brave move to cast Sherlock as a truth-seeker and rational thinker who nonetheless takes his vows seriously and does try to adhere to the good core of the Church's teachings. He is in fact a heretic for the time period, but not because he is actually an atheist or humanist (or at least his character didn't come across that way to me).

Finally, the story has been illustrated throughout by some very talented artists: kikislasha, BlueStoneArcher, and khorazir. The art alone would be worth a rec.

In addition to the character death warning (neither of the two leads, but multiple canon characters), there is torture, gore, and mention of non-con. I also really want to add a special warning for
the murder of unborn children
because I think it could be quite upsetting for some readers.