221B Recs

Title: The Men Who Talked Between the Words
Author: Odamaki
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, brief John Watson/Mary Morstan, Harry Watson/OFC, James Sholto/OMC, Billy Wiggins/OFC
Length: @460,000 words
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: past abuse (including implied/referenced child abuse), implied/referenced suicide (not of any character from the TV show), implied/referenced drug use
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Author's summary: John expected to be a father some day; he expected to have the house, and the wife and the nice suburban job. Sherlock never expected to have children, in part because he never expected to make it past 30. As it turns out, you don't get a choice. Crammed into Baker Street with a baby, John struggles with single-parenthood and his own fears, while Sherlock treads the fine line between doing too little and saying too much.

Reccer's comments: It's hard to think of what I can say about this fic that hasn't already been said. Four years in the making, of a length comparable to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, this story took extraordinary commitment to create and the end result is simply astonishing. I've been reading Holmesian fiction for quite a long time, and I've never run across another story that felt quite like this one. There's something so authentic and keenly observed about the details. There's a realism here that reaches out and never lets me go. The characters - both the main and the secondary ones - have such distinct voices, and their lives and relationships are deeply grounded and believable.

This is a realistic parentlock fic, and it's the deliciously slowest of slow-burn romances, and that heart of the story is beautiful. But that's really not all there is to it. Odamaki doesn't allow Sherlock, John, and the baby to live in a bubble. The story is full to bursting with the many other people who know them, who affect and are affected by them. Both Sherlock and John have important inward work to do before either is ready to think about romance. It's a story about growth, about healing, about hard-fought and hard-won maturity. About friendships and familiar places that won't stay neatly unchanged, and about painful habits and histories that won't fade away without long and deliberate effort.

When I think of this fic, the love story and the family Sherlock and John make together stands at the center. But I also think of Sherlock and Molly's quiet happiness working on her research together at Barts; James Sholto walking John through his fledgling orchard; Billy playing chess in hospital; Harry lounging with her girlfriend on the couch; Greg's tiepin; the moms in John's playgroup; the voice at the other end of a helpline.

This is a compelling fic about love and family, but it's also about all those other nooks and crannies of life that too often get left out of love stories. There's a village of vivid people wrapped up in this story, and I love them all.

(Also, I should add: 1) the story is complete. It ends at chapter 27. There are still new chapters going up, but they are 'bonus material' like deleted scenes and FAQ responses from the author. 2) The story goes AU after series 3, and incorporates no elements of series 4. The baby is a girl, but she is not the canonical 'Rosie' of the TV show).

Title: Soldier, a tribute to Captain John Watson M.D.
Music Title & Artist: "Soldier" by Fleurie
Vidder: i-am-adlocked (on tumblr), a.k.a. OneAllysa (on YouTube)
Pairing or Character: John Watson
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Link: Soldier vid post on tumblr

And here is the YouTube link, if you have trouble viewing the vid on tumblr: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjQsp8TAy9w

Reccer's Comments: *deep breath* So, this is a BBC John Watson character study through all four seasons but with emphasis, I would say, on the later seasons. It offers a careful, insightful, and emotional exploration of the John Watson that angered many fans both of the BBC show and of the original Doyle stories, myself included: the angry and sometimes violent man who is, in important ways, 'not okay' and who knows that about himself. The vid touches on a host of issues - trauma, PTSD, alcohol dependency, trust and anger issues, violence, loss, addiction to danger. The vid highlights many of John's worst moments - both as a person suffering and as a man lashing out - but it also remembers his strength, his desire to heal and protect, and the hellish experiences he has been through that have shaped his emotional landscape. This tribute refuses to minimize his flaws, but nonetheless approaches his character arc with respect and empathy.

As in many well-edited vids, I was struck by a number of the vidder's visual storytelling choices. With a keen eye for parallels and a confident touch in the layering of song lyrics, dialogue, and imagery, it's a powerful work. Sometimes I find that fanvids, by condensing a narrative and developing tone, mood, and emotion with greater immediacy than a fully mounted episode, can succeed in making certain characterization or story choices work better than they do in the source material. For me, this vid does that for John.

EDITING TO ADD WARNING: The editing style includes cuts that flash briefly through a white screen. There's no strobe effect, but if you are sensitive to white flashes then you may want to avoid this one, or try it out carefully.

Title: Private Friends
Author: orchid314
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Length: 7,000 words
Rating: T
Warnings: none
Verse: ACD Books
Author's summary: John Watson tries to make sense of words and desire. Sometimes, he finds, that’s not such a simple task.

Reccer's comments: This is an exceptionally beautiful and tender love story. At times it has an almost dreamlike tone, perhaps aided by its non-linear structure as Watson drifts in and out of different precious and private memories. At moments it is imaginatively and delicately sensual, at other times it's bickering and delightfully funny - the rhyming dictionary! - and at still other times it can be shyly romantic or quietly sad. It offers up a gentle kaleidoscope of emotion and character insight as we trace the shift from friendship to romance, and the way that shift must bridge the painful gap of Reichenbach.

The dialogue is often elegantly simple and understated. The settings are vivid, etched in period detail but never cluttered. The portrait of love at the story's heart feels genuine - at times courtly, at times frustrated, at times peaceful - and on a meta level the fic deliberately plays with words. It's a gently and pleasantly ironic twist that, even as Watson comes to see the value in leaving the most private parts of their shared life unwritten, the fic itself writes these very moments with grace and power.

It's a lovely story that I hope will move you as it did me.