In this case, there was a story on A03 that one of our followers had stumbled across while looking for a Parentlock fic. Note who’s tagged in the relationship in the picture below:

“What is a Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper pairing doing alongside a johnlock/parentlock pairing?”

*shrug* In the category you will see how it says F/M. Well.

You know how dictating and unforgiving the Sherlollians are when it comes to tagging. Especially if it involves them. And there are even some out there that discourage the tagging of Johnlock.

We do get that people can be tagged even if they’re just friends, but you have to do that carefully and be very strict about how and why you would tag two people in a “relationship” if you believe they’re just friends. 99% of the time, if you tag two characters on A03 in the Relationship tag, it means fics that imply those two characters are together. However, if you want to include two characters that you ship as friends, you write them in the Characters tags or Additional Tags.

But why go back on your word and tag a ship that’s not even in the fic? It’s not johnlock at all, but in our opinion it’s barely even sherlolly, going by the IC treatment of Molly by Sherlock.

[Summary: Sherlock comes to realize how important Molly is to him, but maybe he's too late to appreciate her.]

We noticed how throughout this fic, Sherlock is generally written as a dick and Molly as a woman who doesn’t have the balls to say, “Fuck it” and go after someone else who would treat her like a princess.

(How groundbreaking.)

Later on, Sherlock observes how exhausted and unhappy Molly is and tells John to cut the cake (as it’s Sherlock’s birthday) and give a slice to her, since “she has to work overtime for most probably about three days, and she’s definitely given up on her diet.”  

That certainly is in character for him to explain what he simply sees, and for the newcomer to the show, it definitely is a stupid thing to say, but for everyone who knows Sherlock, we know it’s just him stating the obvious and he means no offense. It goes over his head when he gets corrected.

But the author makes Sherlock into someone we would inwardly cringe at if he did this in the show. He notices that his words made Molly squirm and he grins, asking if he was right about the weight gain and if he should guess how much she did gain. Wow. This new Sherlock is a little shit. Molly gets up angrily, shoves the gift into Sherlock’s arms, and leaves.

But what’s in the gift?

It was neatly wrapped with a green wrapper and now bows, and when Sherlock unwrapped it there was a medium-sized midnight blue box staring right at him somewhat proudly. He removed the lid and after pushing aside all the magenta-coloured tissue paper, found himself staring in surprise at what lay inside the box.

“What is it?” John asked before he himself looked inside the box as well in shock.

A framed picture of John and Mary’s wedding day stared right into their face from inside the box.

Everyone was smiling at the camera; the bride and groom beaming happily on their joyous day, the maid of honour, Janine, smiled demurely, Mrs. Hudson’s a polite one (anyone could tell that she was somewhat disappointed that Sherlock and John were not what she thought they were) and Lestrade even looked happy, most probably for the couple (Sherlock can tell from the lines on his forehead that the detective inspector was thinking of his failed marriage). And then there’s Sherlock, also smiling, but more grim-like and with a frown on his forehead.

But Sherlock’s attention as he stared at the photograph was attracted to Molly, or rather where she was looking at.

While the others were looking straight at the camera, she was looking directly at Sherlock. Although Sherlock had always been good at guessing people’s thoughts through their facial expressions, he failed to deduce what was going on in Molly’s as she looked at him. She was also smiling, but her smile looked…sad? Her then-fiancé was not there in the picture

... Really?? This is Molly’s present for Sherlock on his birthday? A framed photo of all the happy people at the wedding - including a then-engaged Molly who looks sad? Who gives presents like that?? Oh right, people who can’t move on with their life and who still leech on to their crushes hoping that someday they’ll change. She couldn’t just throw a new spleen in a jar and give it to him to examine. She had to thrust in his face another reminder, “Look you ass, I’m still in love with you all this time, why can’t you see me and be interested?”

(Probably because.... he’s .... never.... been.... interested? Gee. If there’s one thing people don’t like, it’s when others can’t take a simple hint.)

Anyway, back to the story. Sherlock runs out and catches up with a hurt Molly, and tries to come up with an apology but doesn’t know how to say it. Molly says she has to hurry to work and leaves without looking back. Sherlock watches on, “quietly and sadly.”

The author’s ending note is this: “Like I mentioned in the tags, this was before TFP. I kinda hoped that this could somehow explain the 'bad day' that Molly was referring to in the final episode of the season.”

Nice, but it wouldn’t make ANY sense for this fic to be pre-TFP. If this scene was the reason for Molly’s bad day on that episode, she would have MORE reason to snap back over the phone about how Sherlock should damn well know she doesn’t feel like talking and then she’d really disconnect. Molly was .02 seconds from hanging up in TFP; this fic most likely guarantees that Molly wouldn’t even pick up.

(Apparently someone didn’t think that through.)

People, this is a Sherlolly fic. This is sad. Not that it’s a Sherlolly fic, but because we expected better from someone from a ship that is so devoted to Molly and have more than once proclaimed to fight for her. Why have her go through this?

But regardless, it’s not like we expect every Sherlolly writer to give Molly some dignity. But perhaps next time, you should tag your fics correctly when people are looking for a happy parent johnlock fic so they don’t get tricked into reading a story about Ms. Molly Hooper being mocked. We like Molly; we don’t like seeing her unhappy.

You can bet 100% johnlock writers have treated Molly with dignity. Try fighting that statement. Ask around.