[identity profile] pyjamapants.livejournal.com
Title: No Bangs Without Foreign Office Approval
Author: Reckonedrightly
Pairing: fem!John Watson/fem!Sherlock Holmes
Length: 217,621
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: It’s 1942, and while London’s nights are no longer interrupted by air raid sirens, the war still rages and not all of it is fought openly. From its headquarters in Baker Street, the Special Operations Executive plans to set Europe ablaze with its networks of spies and saboteurs in Nazi-occupied territory. Joan Watson knows what it is to keep a secret, but she isn’t expecting to be recruited into the clandestine world of SOE. Nor is she prepared to meet Sherlock Holmes, a former private detective who has by her own admission ruined her own life at least three times over—and who has a murder to solve in Occupied France.

Reccer's comments: I’m a sucker for historical AUs admittedly, and I’m pleased to add this one to the rec list here. I am quickly running out of time to slide in this last rec and cannot do it adequate justice. ReckonedRightly’s prose is lush and gorgeous without being heavy-handed. Both the historical context and the training program Joan and Sherlock undergo are well integrated with the plot, and Joan and Sherlock as English-trained saboteurs for the French Resistance is so fitting to their characters that this feels more canon than AU.

This spoiler-free excerpt from Sherlock's point of view stuck with me when I read it:

Now? Now, blessedly, there was no point thinking about how she felt about it, or thinking about anything which had happened three years ago. Not now, when she finally felt that she was making headway in the case.

It was like lifting her head after a winter so long she had forgotten the taste of sunlight. It felt much too clean and all-pervading to be anything so unpleasant as emotion; closer to photosynthesis than happiness, she thought, and all the better for it.
[identity profile] holyfant.livejournal.com
Title: Vespers
Author: peevee
Pairing: fem!Sherlock/fem!John
Length: 2,805 words
Rating: E
Warnings: underage
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: Sherlock reads Sappho, and Joanne listens to bats.

Everything was quiet. Sherlock let her eyes drift shut, let her breathing slow. Joanne shuffled close to her and tangled their fingers together, gazing up into the leaf-shadowed sky. Sherlock’s skin felt electrified where they touched.

Reccer's comments: As always, anything and everything peevee has ever written will turn me to mush. But this little ficlet is one of her works that is most dear to me. Teenage Sherlock and Joanne go out camping together. The tension between them is so thick in this piece you can almost taste it, and the way they discover each other is so true of teenage exploration and so full of insecurity, tenderness and affection it makes me want to cry. I also love the tiny little cameo Mycroft has and the way we get a little bit of insight into Sherlock's life as a young girl. And of course, the biggest selling point is peevee's glorious, lush, beautiful language. Porn and beauty. Never mutually exclusive when it comes to peevee.

Excerpt )
[identity profile] peeveee.livejournal.com
Title: How the mouth changes its shape
Author: breathedout
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John(nie) Watson
Length: 132,500
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Genderswap, brief depictions of sex between minors
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: 1955. Under the placid veneer of suburban playparks and middle-class conformity churns a hidden London: femmes and butches dancing close in basement bars; clandestine love between women. To Sherlock Holmes, struggling private detective and mistress of disguise, it’s a realm she renounced years before. To Johnnie Watson, daredevil ambulance driver turned auto mechanic, it’s become a little too familiar. But when someone is murdered in the washroom of the city’s most notorious lesbian club, the investigation will lead both women to reconsider their assumptions about themselves, each other, and the world in which they live.

Reccer's comments: When I last wrote a rec for this fic, it was only half way through and I was already in love with it. With the vividly painted 50's setting, with the enigmatic Sherlock, with fabulous, fabulous Johnnie. It starts with Sherlock feeling her way through school, and these chapters have to be some of my favourites. Sherlock is sharp, odd, and the explorations into her fumbling teenage sexuality with 'Vicky' Trevor are tenderly and realistically depicted. The way we follow her character as she develops from oddball young girl into a Sherlock we can recognise is wonderful, and I think my favourite scene in the whole fic is the moment Sherlock discovers her skills in disguise. Seeing that hint of canon Holmes is brilliant.
The 'meat' of the story begins with Sherlock and Johnnie becoming flatmates and beginning to investigate a murder at a local lesbian club, and the way that breathedout weaves mystery, romance, action and intrigue is just masterful. The blossoming feelings between Johnnie and Sherlock are perfectly realised inamongst thrilling action and adventure, and it's really just everything I could have wanted in a story. Immensely satisfying, full of emotion and heart, and rich with historical details and settings. Read this fic. You won't regret it!
[identity profile] augustbird.livejournal.com
Title: everything you say has water under it
Author: [livejournal.com profile] electrumqueen
Pairing: pre-Sherlock/John
Length: 764
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: None given (genderswapped cast)
Reccer's comments: There are some fics that I can’t describe properly, fics that I just sort of have to push someone into reading and when they’re done, grin wildly and be like “get it?” My feelings about this author’s writing style is very much like that. It’s a fantastic mosaic of stream-of-consciousness, fragmented moments, and lyrical sentences that I can’t quite pinpoint how to describe. She absolutely does justice to her characters, gives them depth and complexity in a tiny amount of space. Absolutely beautiful. <3

Title: all the lace and the skin in the shop
Author: [livejournal.com profile] electrumqueen
Pairing: pre-Sherlock/John
Length: 872
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: None given (genderswapped cast)
Reccer's comments: I think of this as a companion to everything you say has water under it, since that one was from Joan’s perspective and this one is from Sherlock’s. Once more, I am absolutely astounded by how effortlessly the author manages to weave in so many details and revelations about the character in such a short space. Between a number of lines that capture Sherlock absolutely perfectly and everything that the author left unsaid but we get to understand anyway, I cannot describe how much I’m in love with these two fics. Gorgeous. <3
[identity profile] dessieoctavia.livejournal.com
Title: Astronomy
Author: parachute-silks
Pairing: girl!Sherlock/girl!John, girl!Mycroft/girl!Lestrade, Harry/Everyone (but not very successfully), 'Anthea'/Irene Adler
Length: 8,729 words
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: Everyone is female, for one thing. No, I don't know why I wrote them all as girls either, except possibly as a slightly desperate reaction to this show's female character problem. Um. And they go on holiday. And there is also A Scandal in Bohemia but with lesbians. And snakes. Look, I don't know why you're asking me, I'm just the writer.
It had been Harry's idea to take Joan on holiday. It had not, however, been Harry's idea to bring Joan's deranged flatmate, her equally alarming sister, a skull, two snakes, a box full of blood samples and a senior Scotland Yard official.
Reccer's comments: I'm particularly fond of genderswap fics, and BBC Sherlock has a lot of good ones. I chose this one to rec because everybody in it is female, and it's well written, and because it's got some nice humor in it and of course features Irene and Anthea, two of my favorite characters.

Note: Can I get a tag for anthea/irene? Thanks!
[identity profile] unovis.livejournal.com
Hi!
Just a few words on our tags and tagging your recs.

Tags are useful search tools for grouping the recs by categories: by pairing, genre, content, and sources for the stories or other fanworks.

We ask that reccers attach tags that are relevant to the works they rec. You don't have to add everything that applies-- for example, not a character tag for everyone who might appear in the story, or every theme or content. But if Molly has a significant cameo, say, that you think people searching for her might appreciate, then by all means list her in a tag. Likewise if you think this is the addiction story people should read, then use the content: addiction tag.

The required aspects to tag are pairing (if it applies), relationship genre (i.e., gen, slash, or het*), and verse (the source: ACD books, Sherlock BBC, Granada, etc.).

The easiest place to see all of the tags available is in this list of tags.

Tagging is enabled only for the author of the post and the mods. Only the mods can add new tags. We have a beginning list up now, anticipating likely categories and characters. We'll add more as recs are made, if characters and pairings, for example, aren't covered already. You can request a new tag to be added by commenting here or by contacting one of the mods. Keep in mind, again, that we'll be adding character tags as additional characters appear in recs.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson have been abbreviated as SH and JW in pairings and some other places (e.g., content: sick jw). Since this recs comm is open to all versions of Sherlock Holmes, it seemed the simplest way to identify the characters. Lestrade, Gregson, and Dimmock are listed as "inspector" following ACD book canon, and Moriarty is listed only once by his (their) surname alone. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is abbreviated throughout as ACD.

*We won't add a category for "slash-if-you-squint" or similar invitations for the reader to see subtext in a story. If the author hasn't labeled her work as slash, then it's genre: gen or genre: friendship.

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