#this was originally 50% written around last christmas for a 'present' prompt if you would believe it

[presumenothing]

in a box (to the left)

also on ao3

“What’re you doing here.”

Minamoto – and it is still weird not thinking of him as President Minamoto even in the space of Akane’s own head – smiles, with every appearance of obliviousness to the starry-eyed looks being thrown his way. That much hasn’t changed. “Why do I need an ulterior motive to come congratulate you on your graduation?”

Well. That one’s easy, at least. “Because you’re you.”

Minamoto raises one shoulder in a half-shrug; fair enough. “Maybe I came to see if the school was still standing. And what do you know, it is! Excellent job indeed, President Aoi.”

Ah, so Minamoto’s here as a visceral reminder of the record time in which he can rile Akane up like nobody else. “Not any more the president than you are now, I finished the handover ages ago.”

Akane’s once-vice-president is a perfectly normal human, only remarkable in the way her penchant for organisation rivals his own. The mundanity of it is staggering.

Minamoto appears to be thinking along the same route, judging by the faint smirk that surfaces along with the familiar urge to punch it off his face. “And you, too: a hundred percent human again. C’mon, give.”

Akane eyes the outstretched hand with distaste. “What, you really came back after a year just to retrieve a pair of glasses?”

Minamoto doesn’t even have the grace to look abashed. “You don’t need them anymore. Perfect eyesight aside, it’s actually a hazard more than anything, now that you’re no longer in this school with its background supernatural infestation.”

How he manages to say this school like someone else would say radioactive cesspit, Akane has no idea. “Scared I’ll attract flies?”

“Of the non-fruity kind,” Minamoto says, deadpan, like he’s ever productively spent an hour of kitchen time in his life. (Akane still isn’t sure how he passed home economics without bribery involved.) “I haven’t actually got all day to wait around, Aoi. Buy another pair if you like being bespectacled so much.”

“Maybe I like the look of this specific pair,” Akane retorts, but it’s mostly on reflex, because he’s suddenly caught by a terrible idea. “I’ll hand them over, on one condition.”

Minamoto raises an eyebrow in a manner that Akane imagines would look cooler to someone who hadn’t learned to associate it with promptly being dangled from the ceiling. “And what would that be?”

“Reverse the current enchantments so I can see supernaturals. And give it back to me afterwards.”

“That’s two conditions,” he points out, ever the pedant, but – miracle of miracles – doesn’t actually quibble over that for once. “I wasn’t kidding about an enchantment potentially attracting supernaturals, Aoi, especially one cast by me. Which is fact, not hubris, before you say anything.”

“Wasn’t about to,” Akane says, honestly. “And that’s still better than knowing they’re out there but going in blind. I’ll take the risk, if it’s all the same to you.”

He’d forgotten how quiet Minamoto could get, head tilted with that shrewd look in his eyes. “Is this about Akane-san?”

“None of your damn business,” Akane snaps back without even meaning to, and yanks his glasses off with enough force that the frame creaks. “Either do it or get out of my face, I’m already running late.”

Minamoto flicks his hand over the glasses with a faint furrow in his brow, but it doesn’t feel any different even after he draws back. “That’s the current enchantment gone. I’ll need some time to work out the new one and gather materials. You remember where our house is?”

Akane puts the glasses back on; they still feel no different. “Unfortunately.”

“Come by this weekend. Evening, preferably, so there’ll be more supernaturals to test on. Though I’ll be just as happy if you never show.”

“Bet you’d be,” Akane mutters only half under his breath. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily, President Minamoto.”

“Not any more the president than you are either, Aoi. See you this Saturday, and bring food!” he calls over his shoulder along with a dazzlingly fake smile, and sallies off into the adoring crowd before Akane can even say anything.

Asshole. It’d only serve him right if Akane turned up on Sunday and empty-handed, see if he didn’t.

[slaaneshfic]

Conclusions and sorrow

I've nearly finished editing the three books. I'm slightly overdue with submission, but it is what it is.

Underpinning most of my PhD research has been my ongoing relationship with the two elderly Staffordshire bull terriers that my partner and I adopted right at the start of it, around Christmas 2016.

It is with overwhelming heartbeat that yesterday, after I visit from the mobile vet, we discovered that Lea has a late stage inoperable growth. The vets are returning tomorrow and we will be saying goodbye to lea. I don't have the words yet to address the feeling of loss, or the anxiety of this ongoing 48 where I with lea at every moment to make sure she is as comfortable as possible. it's a lot. And I need to keep writing things in order to occupy my mind. So this is a draft (since edited, but that's in InDesign files I can't access from my phone) of the potential lines beyond the PhD, including the thing I worked on for a year regarding dogs, but couldn't emotionally deal with even prior to this last illness.

I could not have done this research without my relationship with Buster and Lea. The concept of care which I've addressed is as much drawn from this relationship as it is from Sedgwick. How to care for someone across the lines of different bodies and senses and desires. The concept of play as emergent collaboration equally comes from learning to play with dogs who had suffered neglect at the hands of their original owners, and then a year recovering in the noisy RSPCA kennels before they were well enough to be rehomed. I love you lea.

Conclusions and exits.

The structure and methodology of this PhD Output consisting of three approaches to a central area of art practice, and within each approach multiple overlapping attempts through the various documents, turns the issue of a conclusion into a challenge. 

Rather than attempt to draw books and documents toward a unifying conclusion, erasing the differences between then, I have offered conclusions in the documents individually. Some of these are clearly labeled as such, some are more demonstrative, and some left as provocations. 

Throughout the three books are indications of where future paths could proceed. For continuation of creative research and the application of concepts developed, these indications are generally placed at the end of documents.  Paths which are more tangential, or areas where the research could be reinforced through engaging with a separate discipline or practitioner appear in endnotes. 

In place of some kind of ending for the PhD Output as whole I will raise three of the avenues of future research not already mentioned in individual documents, that will be pursued at its end. All of these examples incorporate work already commenced, that for practical reasons has not been addressed in documents.

The Incomplete Object.

Archeologist Chantal Conneller has produced a large amount of research focused Star Carr, a Mesolithic site in Yorkshire (Conneller, 2004, 2011; Little et al., 2016; Milner, Conneller, & Taylor, 2018a, 2018b). In particular, Conneller has provided a framework for examining some of the objects recovered from the site, and through this reassess the historic inhabitants of the area’s relationship to animals and objects. The objects, twentyone of which were found during the site’s excavation by Professor J.G.D. Clark between 1949 and 1951, consist of the “uppermost part of the skull of a red deer, with the antlers still attached” and are referred to as “antler frontlets” (Conneller, 2004, p. 37). In offering an interpretation for the frontlet’s use, Clark “suggested they could have been used either as hunting aids, to permit hunters to stalk animals at close range without being seen, or as headgear in ritual dances” (Conneller, 2004, p. 37). This interpretation resulted in an impasse between a “‘functional’ and a ‘ritual’ analogy” and has according to Conneller, meant that “in the intervening 50 years they have been ignored” (Conneller, 2004, p. 37).

Conneller’s research breaches the impasse of an animal derived object needing to be either functional or ritual by use of philosopher Gilles Deleze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari’s work in “A Thousand Plateaus” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). Firstly, Conneller outlines how in Deleuze and Guattari, “animals come to be seen [...] as an assemblage composed of a number of ways of perceiving and acting in the word” (Conneller, 2004, p. 44). In this view, animals are not singular fixed entities, and the objects derived from them are therefore not limited to being symbolic of the animal whole or else be understood only as practical material. Animals are here understood as collection of “affects” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 253), and the objects derived from them convey those Affects to the user in a manner which outside of the binary of ritual and functional. From this point Conneller proceeds to “examine the specific ways in which different things are seen to modify or extend the capacities of people in particular contexts” (Conneller, 2004, p. 51), bridging Deleuze and Guattari to theorist Donna Haraway’s concept of “situated knowledges” which replaces a fixed epistemological view with “webs of differential positioning” (D. Haraway, 1988, p. 590). The use of animal objects becomes simultaneously a process of taking on capacities as well as the ethical/epistemological/affective engagement with the world from another position.  

These observations from archeology are useful not because they set some historic precedent for how art should function, but because they articulate processes which are important to art from another perspective. In the documents in this PhD Output which examine artworks I have consciously treated both the processes deployed by the artist and those of her characters in the same manner. In the art I am interested in, things are not easily split between the practical and the ritual but form processes across these lines to perform different things. 

Finally, when I contacted Conneller in 2019 she was continuing to examine the frontlets of Star Carr in terms of how they function as “unfinished things”. Conneller has already observed that the frontlets were “broken up as a source of raw material” (Conneller, 2004, p. 46), but is now considering how this occurred concurrently with their uses. A framework for considering art objects which do not reach a fixed state, but are continually re-worked, and drawn from while being used is relevant to a number of documents in this PhD Output. It is relevant to the analysis of artist Tai Shani’s works (SHANI, 2019) which undergo edits between redeployments, or the ongoing work “sidekick” (Price, 2013) by Elizabeth Price. Going forward, I would consider how unfinished things connects to the writing practice of William Burruoghs both through the “cut-up” technique to “cut oneself out of language” (Hassan, 1963, p. 9), and the process whereby his novels were re-edited in subsequent editions. Burroughs is also relevant to the other side of unfinished things whereby these things are not just refined, but are a source of material for future things. I am also interested in the process by which computer software is updated via “patches” (Fisher, 2019) as another model for an unfinished thing.

I’m interested in the political implications of objects which refuse the linear transition from raw material to finished commodity, but is instead part of processes which cross that distinction. To borrow the image from Karl Marx’s Capital Vol. 1 (Marx, 1981), what would it mean for “coat” to remain functioning as “ten yards of linen”, to be always in a process of being woven/unwoven/rewoven into different forms? I feel there is something here to be pursued via the concepts of Incomplete Provocations, and the improvisations and departures which are centred in Tabletop Role Playing Games. 

Divination Storytelling

The second exit is far more practical and straightforward. During my research I have used and developed methods for creating parts of narratives based on sortation systems such as card decks and dice rolls. In 2018 I produced an artwork entitled “The Sodden Gates of Vulnerability” which borrowed a mechanic used in multiple games whereby the space in which play takes places is procedurally generated. A hypothetical example of this mechanic would be a game which takes place in a derelict spaceship, the interior rooms and corridors of which is represented with cardboard tiles. When the players reach the exit of one room, a new random room tile is placed at the exit from the first, so the spaceship is configured, and unpredictable, with each subsequent playthrough. In The Sodden Gates of Vulnerability I combined some of the lore from Games Workshop’s derelict spaceship exploration game “Space Hulk” (Games Workshop, 1999) with their subsequently released rules for randomly generated spaceships (Hunt, 2013), to randomly generate prompts for a narrative built from a fictionalised version of my own past. 

As a result of the cessation symptoms I was experiencing while coming off antidepressants I found memories returning that medication use had suppressed. In addition, there were physical cessation symptoms which mnemonically triggered some often confused memories of spaces in the town centre of Luton where I spent my teens, frequently from times in the early hours of the morning after leaving a club or a party. I reconstructed these fragmented memories, and the bodily feelings which connected them to the present, and any emergent feelings and noted them down as prompts on index cards. Some memories were so abstract as to not describe a place but just a sensation, or an action. These abstract memories, combined with some other images and thoughts were written up in a list and labeled 1-20.

The Sodden Gates of Vulnerability was produced as a single take spoken performance to microphone. It began with a short reflection on the different ways in which physical geography and brain chemistry are both modulated by chemicals. After this I shuffled and dealt an index card, describing the derelict spaceship/ 4am Luton Town Centre space it represented in the manner of Games Master setting a scene for players of a Role Playing Game. I then rolled a 20 sided dice and used the corresponding entry from the list as a prompt for what the player (the audience to whom the work is addressed) did in traversing this space. A partial transcription of one room follows;

“You stagger out of the thickening fog into the area where escaping heat from the many times kicked in door makes a dim pocket at the edge of the street. Banging on the door that feels like it should have given in by now and it is finally opened by someone inside. You roll in, and so does the fog, and the door opener is already turning the corner ahead into the living room so you guess you will follow them, remembering to shut the door behind you.

The living room is thick with dust and hair and ash over the brown carpet and old sofas. No one has their feet on the floor, all bunched up to keep warm or to manage some symptoms of intake.

You just want to buy, but that isn't how this is going to work out. It never does.

Everything slips. Someone makes you take a music cassette and in lock-eyed intensity tells you why you will like it and when you will die.

A man takes you to one side and rapidly ages while sharing with you a one sided conversation about how he has lived his life. He has little ears like fins and catfish whiskers and it's clear from the way he holds and interacts with the portable stereo he cradles that he has a relationship with Fabio and Grooverider which is both more beastially physical and more vapourusly transcendental than you will ever understand.

You slip out and it's dawn and you have the cassette and you don't think you bought anything but now do not think you need anything so maybe you bought it and weren't paying attention during intake or maybe someone else was in charge of your body.

You roll out with the fog and luckily town is down hill but my god you would never be able to find this place again and my god you would probably never want to because all those people would want to check how closely you been following their advice on how to live.

Oh yeah the plot twist is you're a rabbit”.

Going forward, I would like to explore the mechanics of procedural narrative based on sortation systems, both as an improvised Rendition, and as material which is subsequently cut up and deployed in other ways, possibly as a development of Diagramatics. I’m looking into how I might produce these works for a platform like YouTube, possible using a split screen where half the image shows the face that speaks, and half shows the sortation system such as tarot-style cards.

Dog Mod

Running throughout all three books of this PhD Output are dogs. When I started this PhD in 2016, I soon afterward began living with Lea and Buster, two elderly Staffordshire Bull Terriers. The importance of this relationship to the research is something I have attempted, and failed, to articulate on many occasions in the last three years. As much as the majority of the documents in this PhD Output are underpinned by a desire to understand my own trans* non-binary gender identity, they are also a response to learning about what Deleuze and Guattari would call dog affects, as well as negotiating my emotions towards Lea and Buster particually during the sadly increasing points where they have become unwell. 

In mid 2019 I sketched an outline for what I called the “Dog Mod”. In the language of games, a mod is something added to the game which alters part or all of its systems in some way. Mods are often produced by a third party, and can range from something which simply adds some different functionality (such as the campaign generator for Space Hulk referenced in the previous section) or completely reorientate the system, such as the mod “DayZ” that reconfigures military sim “ARMA” into a zombie survival game and spawned an entire genre of video games (Davison, 2014).

The aim of Dog Mod was to produce a document which could provide a means to reconfigure the rest of the PhD Output through its unspoken focus, dogs. Dog Mod is something I decided was both conceptually and emotionally too overwhelming for me to be able to complete in time for submission, but I remains as a point of departure for my future research. It connects the Becoming-Animal of Deleuze and Guattari (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; Stark & Roffe, 2015), philosopher Patricia MacCormack’s expansion of this into animal rights discourse in the Ahuman (MacCormack, 2014), with other ideas around, animals, play and care (Chen, 2012; D. J. Haraway, 2016; Massumi, 2014; Vint, 2008). 

Bibliography

Anckorn, J. E. (2019, October 24). Does The Dog Die?: A Not-At-All Comprehensive Guide to Stephen King’s Canines. Retrieved 26 November 2019, from We Are the Mutants website: https://wearethemutants.com/2019/10/24/does-the-dog-die-a-not-at-all-comprehensive-guide-to-stephen-kings-canines/

Chen, M. (2012). Animacies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Conneller, C. (2004). Becoming Deer: Corporeal Transformations at Star Carr. Archaeological Dialogues, 11(1), 37–56. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1380203804001357

Conneller, C. (2011). An archaeology of materials: Substantial transformations in early prehistoric Europe. New York: Routledge.

Davison, P. (2014, April 30). Bohemia Interactive Tells the Story of Arma and DayZ. Retrieved 30 December 2019, from USgamer website: https://www.usgamer.net/articles/bohemia-interactive-tells-the-story-of-arma-and-dayz

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Fisher, T. (2019, December 17). What Are Software Patches? Retrieved 30 December 2019, from Lifewire website: https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-patch-2625960

Games Workshop. (1999). Space Hulk Rule Book (4th Edition). Nottingham: Games Workshop.

Haraway, D. (1988). Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066

Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.

Hassan, I. (1963). The Subtracting Machine: The Work of William Burroughs. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 6(1), 4–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.1963.10689760

Hunt, C. A. T. (2013). Campaign Generator Geotiles. Games Workshop.

Little, A., Elliott, B., Conneller, C., Pomstra, D., Evans, A. A., Fitton, L. C., … Milner, N. (2016). Technological Analysis of the World’s Earliest Shamanic Costume: A Multi-Scalar, Experimental Study of a Red Deer Headdress from the Early Holocene Site of Star Carr, North Yorkshire, UK. PLOS ONE, 11(4), e0152136. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152136

MacCormack, P. (2014). The Animal Catalyst: Towards Ahuman Theory. A&C Black.

Marx, K. (1981). Capital: A critique of political economy (B. Fowkes & D. Fernbach, Trans.). London ; New York, N.Y: Penguin Books in association with New Left Review.

Massumi, B. (2014). What animals teach us about politics. Durham: Duke University Press.

Milner, N., Conneller, C., & Taylor, B. (Eds.). (2018a). Star Carr Volume I: A Persistent Place in a Changing World. https://doi.org/10.22599/book1

Milner, N., Conneller, C., & Taylor, B. (Eds.). (2018b). Star Carr Volume II: Studies in Technology, Subsistence and Environment. https://doi.org/10.22599/book2

Price, E. (2013). Sidekick. In K. Macleod, Thinking Through Art: Reflections on Art as Research (1st ed., pp. 122–132). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203819869

SHANI, T. (2019). OUR FATAL MAGIC. London: STRANGE ATTRACTOR PRESS.

Stark, H., & Roffe, J. (Eds.). (2015). Deleuze and the non/human. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Vint, S. (2008). ‘The Animals in That Country’: Science Fiction and Animal Studies. Science Fiction Studies, 35(2), 177–188.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hello lovely, I am incredibly bored as of late. And would greatly appreciate the best darn johnlock fan fics you have. Thank you

Hi Nonny!

Well, I’m currently working on a “Fave Fics of All Time” fic rec list (which may have to be broken up… there’s… A Lot™), but you know what I haven’t done in awhile? One of my “Last XX Bookmarked Fics” Lists! I think I’m due! 

Here are my last “Bookmarked” fic lists:

Top 20 Fave 40K+ w. Fics (April 2017)

I-J’s Last 50 Bookmarked Fics (June 2017)

Last Bookmarked Fics July 2017 

Now, here’s all the newest stuff I’ve bookmarked in the last few months, in word count order, as always :)

I-J’s Last 30 Bookmarked Fics (November 2017)

Whispers in the Dark by coloured_ink (G, 833 w. || Bed Sharing, Anxious Sherlock, Anxiety, Caring John, Spooning, Little Spoon Sherlock) – Sherlock has anxiety attacks. Good thing John always knows what to do.

Ex by Itsallfine (T, 1,248 w. || Love Confessions, Coming Out, Exes, First Kiss) – One night, in the midst of their post-case high and on the cusp of something more, John and Sherlock run into John’s ex. His ex-boyfriend.

The Cure for Snoring by Goddess_of_the_Night (G, 1,278 w. || Bed Sharing, Cuddling, Fluff, Domestic, Platonic / Sleepy Cuddles) – Sherlock and John spend the night in Scotland after finishing a case. The sole Inn in town only has one room left…one bed. This would be fine - if not a bit awkward - if Sherlock hadn’t developed a habit of snoring loudly. John suffers through many hours of sleeplessness before he discovers that skin-to-skin contact stops the noise. Part 1 of Dreamscapes

Caught by Salambo06 (E, 1,859 w. || Frottage, First Time / Kiss, Bed Sharing, Wet Dreams, POV John, Masturbation) – A hotel room. They’re here for a case, hadn’t planned to spend the night and ended up sharing a room. No, sharing a bed. Suddenly John is very much aware of his own hand closed around his hard cock and the ragged breathing next to him. Closing his eyes for the briefest second, John dares to turn his head just enough to confirm what he already knows. Sherlock, on his side, watching him.

Your love it feels so good by Hotaru_Tomoe (E, 2,843 w. || Gay Club / Gay Bar, Lingerie, Stripping, Anal) – Sherlock is last at a quiz night and is forced by Anderson to perform in a gay stripclub. John must be with him, because he will have to record the performance. Sherlock takes the task very seriously. Part 20 of The English job

Stay by msdisdain (M, 3,561 w. || First Kiss / Time, Angst / H/C, Bed Sharing, Nightmares, Blow Jobs, Anal) – John’s nightmares are nothing new. Sherlock’s inability to ignore them, however, is.

Christmas at Holmes Cottage by johnlockedstarkid (G, 4,295 w. || Christmas, Fake Relationship, Love Confessions, Holmes Family, Pining, Kisses, Fluff, Allusions to Mystrade) – Sherlock doesn’t want to have to deal with his mother’s wishes for him to find a partner when he goes to visit them for Christmas, so asks John to pose as his boyfriend. Little does he know he’s not the only one who wishes that the relationship could be real.

Forty-four by jamlockk (E, 4,415 w. || John’s Birthday, Fluff, PWP) – John turns forty-four, gets some advice and the best birthday present he could’ve ever hoped for.

a violent flash of purple by hudders-and-hiddles (E, 4,749 w. || Sex Toys, Friends to Lovers, PWP, Love Confessions, Porn With Feelings) – When Sherlock accidentally drops his towel, he ends up revealing a whole lot more than he’d intended.

Every Little Thing by the_beekeeper_of_sussex (E, 5,066 w. || First Time / Kiss, Fluff, Frottage, Come as Lube, Embarassed Sherlock, Porn With Feelings) – When Sherlock walks in on John making tea wearing nothing but a tight pair of boxer-briefs things get a little heated…physically and emotionally. 

Adjacent by weeesi (E, 5,711 w. || Bed Sharing, Fluff and Smut, Pining Idiots, On a Trip, Frottage) – Sherlock and John spend the night at a hotel in adjoining rooms, and keep finding excuses to visit each other’s rooms, until WHOOPS they’re sharing a bed.

Just a Touch by MissDavis (E, 6,248 w. || Bed Sharing, Masturbation, First Time/Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Sharing a Room) – John has trouble falling asleep these days. There’s one thing he can do that always seems to help, but he’s stuck in this hotel room with Sherlock and doesn’t think he’ll get the chance. How will he ever find relief and a good night’s sleep?

C. sapiens by patternofdefiance (E, 8,813 w. || Tentacles Porn, Magical Realism, Bottomlock, Anal / Tentacle Sex, Pheremones) – “A few weeks ago I would have thought you were impossible,” Sherlock begins, walking into the kitchen in his blue robe, and John – not quite catching on – wants to scoff and argue, No, actually, you are impossible, but then Sherlock continues: “But now I’d say you are improbable.” John thinks this might be flattering, if he could wrap his head around it, but he can’t – Sherlock is standing near, steaming his sun-baked-clean-sand smell, like the beach after rain, an alive smell, an other smell. It’s intoxicating, and John has been studiously avoiding it, but he can’t shift away now it’s so near. Now Sherlock’s so near. And then Sherlock ruins the probable-loveliness of his words and the definite-beauty of his presence by saying: “And by ‘improbable’ I mean ‘not yet scientifically acknowledged.’” Part 1 of Gifts from the Sea

Faerie-Touched by Blind_Author (T, 9,283 w. || Faerie AU || Fantasy, Magical Realism, Pining Sherlock) – In a world of sorcerers and magic, Sherlock is a Faerie-born and John, lacking any kind of magical talent, often seems a bit out of place. But he has a gift all his own…

Better Than One by Innerspace (E, 14,760 w. || Clones, Selfcest, Frottage, PWP, Threesomes, Clone Sex, Slight Dubcon, First Time) – Sherlock has created a clone; said clone is annoyed at Sherlock’s lack of progress with John and proceeds to rectify the situation. John is just going with it.

Everlasting by cypress_tree (M, 16,884 w. || Magical Realism, First Time, Immortality, Angst & Fluff) – Most lives end. A Tuck Everlasting fusion, in which the Holmes brothers have lived for a very, very long time.

Pleasure to Burn by scullyseviltwin (E, 17,863 w. || Firefighter AU, Firefighter John / Arson Investigator Sherlock, Slow Burn, Pining, Case Fic-ish) – “If you’d kindly stop knocking about in there and destroying all of my evidence, it would be most appreciated!” John groaned and for a moment rested his head against the side of the truck. Of course he was the only captain left on the scene, which meant he would have to be the one to deal with the arson investigator.

A Life Well-Lived by Kate_Lear (E, 20,121 w. || Original Male Character, Sherlock Woos John, Jealous Sherlock, Reluctant Bi-John, Past Abuse, Insecure John, Reassuring / Caring Sherlock, Protective Sherlock, Understanding Sherlock) – Written for this prompt on the kinkmeme: ‘John got scared off men by an abusive past relationship. Sherlock has to try and woo him while not scaring him off with protective possessive rage.’

Ghost Stories by SwissMiss (M, 22,256 w. || Pining, Holmes Family, Christmas, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, First Time) – Sherlock’s parents think he and John are a couple. They might be onto something.

The Midas Touch by flawedamythyst (E, 32,231 w. || Magical Realism, John has a Magical Cock, Dub Con, Healer John) – John Watson has a medical condition that means everyone he sleeps with is instantly healed of all illness and injury. This causes complications when Sherlock breaks his arm, and even more complications when Sherlock falls in love with him. Yes, this is a story where John has a literal magic healing cock. It’s a lot less cracky than you’re probably imagining. Warning: Contains complex issues of sexual consent, although not between Sherlock and John.

The Soul Remembers by i_ship_an_armada (E, 43,636 w. || Oblivion AU || Post-Apocalypse, Movie Fusion, Science Fiction, Action/Adventure, Angst, Dreams, Bittersweet Ending) – John Watson is the lone security repairman stationed on a desolate, nearly-ruined future Earth. His dreams are plagued by a tall, dark-haired man, and when his dreams meet reality, he will be forced to question everything he believes is the truth about his life.

The Pieces That Fall to Earth by Itsallfine (M, 49,513 w. || S4 Fix-It, Epistolary, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Parentlock, Past Abuse, Coming Out, Questioning Sexuality, Mental Health Issues / Therapy, Angst, Happy Ending) – John and Sherlock have hit rock bottom, but with all their armor stripped away, they can finally speak honestly, seek healing, and find the truths that matter most.An epistolary post-s4 fix-it fic. Now complete.(This fic is rated T except for one very clearly marked and easily skippable chapter, which is rated M.) Part 1 of The Pieces that Fall to Earth

Spare Change by Ermerness (E, 51,966 w. || Rich Sherlock AU, Virgin Sherlock, First Time, Alternate First Meeting) – The Holmes family is one of the richest and most powerful in England. Sherlock spends his time flying around the world on the family’s private jet drinking a lot and shopping at expensive boutiques as a way of trying to alleviate his endless boredom. His mother decides it’s time he settles down with someone powerful, wealthy and well connected. John Watson happens to be none of those things.

John Watson’s Twelve Days of Christmas by earlgreytea68 (M, 53,464 w. || Christmas, Holmes Family, Fake Relationship, Alternate First Meeting, Falling in Love, Fluff and Angst, Hardcore Pining) – It’s the holiday season. John Watson needs money. Sherlock Holmes needs something else.

Albion and the Woodsman by Glenmore (E, 54,437 w. || Post S3 || Parentlock, Pining Sherlock, Angst, Family, Drug Use, Depression, Sherlock POV) – Sherlock and John are devastated after Mary Morstan makes her final moves. Sherlock relapses at the crack house, John walks around the world … and a lot happens in between. Parentlock, in the good way.

You Have Drawn Red From My Hands by J_Baillier (T, 67,085 w. || Three Garridebs, Heavy John Whump, Hurt / Comfort, Pining, Heavy Angst, Case Fic/Adventure, Slow Burn, Sick Fic, Injury, Guilt & Depression, Just Talk Already Please, Medical Realism, PTSD) –  John getting injured leads Sherlock on a path of guilt and revelations.

Darkling, I Listen by You_Light_The_Sky (T, 73,254 w. || Fairy Tale AU || Loosely Based on Beauty and the Beast, Magical Realism, Suicidal Themes, Romance, Creepiness, Adventure) – No one who enters old London ever comes out. They say that the beast devours them. When his sister disappears, John ventures into the dead zone beyond the wall, and finds a brilliant madman under a terrible curse… Part 1 of Darkling I Listen + Extras, Deleted Scenes

Secrets and Revelations by Hisstah (E, 85,535 w. || Sentinel / Guides AU, Omegaverse, Aventure, Violence, Anal / Oral, Omega!John / Alpha!Sherlock, Case Fic, Politics, Mild DubCon) – Dr John Watson has some major secrets that he’s kept from his flatmate, Alpha Sentinel Sherlock Holmes. Now the Sentinel Tower is after him. Can John stay out of their hands until he can reveal his secrets to Sherlock? Part 1 of Secrets and Revelations

A Fold in the Universe by darkest_bird (E, 152,869 w. || Omegaverse / Prime Universe Crossover || OmegaJohn / AlphaSherlock, First Kiss / Time, Friends to Lovers, Established Relationship, Angst, H/C, Dub Con, Humour) – Alpha Sherlock and Omega John are in a relationship. Prime Sherlock and Prime John are not. So what happens when a freak fold in the universe switches one John for the other?

Performance In a Leading Role by Mad_Lori (E, 156,714 w. || Hollywood / Actor AU, Secret Relationship, Falling in Love, Slow Burn, Romance, Coming Out, Fluff and Angst, Pining) – Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world? Part 1 of Performance in a Leading Role