#zaffrefic

[ID in alt text]

I contacted one of my old colleagues who worked on the paper with me and they luckily had a copy of the original pdf.

(Of course Dean would comfort Cas when he admits that he doubts the point of existing anymore)

Title: Goodnight Bunker

Writer: zaffre

Original title, author & illustrator: “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown, Illustrated by Clement Hurd

Content/TW: none

In the great Lebanon bunker

There was a telescope

A warded dungeon

And a Batcave full of –

A table with lovingly-carved initials

And a silver blade belonging to an angel who stayed

And a golden spear

And a fridge full of beer

And a motor pool with a black car

And a trunk with a rocket launcher and crowbar

And a massive glowing map

And a moose taking a nap

And thousands of dusty books and a red-haired witch and some ancient kitsch

And a squirrel in a dead-guy robe who was saying, “Son of a bitch!”

Goodnight bunker

Goodnight table with lovingly-carved initials

Goodnight telescope

And the warded dungeon

Goodnight blade

Goodnight angel who stayed

Goodnight spear

Goodnight beer

Goodnight black car

Goodnight crowbar

Goodnight glowing map

Goodnight moose taking a nap

Goodnight books

Goodnight witch

Goodnight crossroads demon-turned-king

Goodnight kitsch

Goodnight to the squirrel in the dead-guy robe saying, “Son of a bitch!”

Goodnight Heaven

Goodnight Hell

Because everyone likes to discover writers that they might not be familiar with (never too much good fan fiction, right?), I thought that it would be nice to introduce one here that some of you might have missed out on.

 StillTheAddict (on AO3) has thus far posted only three stories, but each one is well worth reading. I feel sure that a brief look at each of her stories will whet your appetite to read them yourself.

 First up is Overheard, a cute and fluffy 221B that works perfectly within that restricted format. It also falls nicely into another favourite trope of mine, The Yarders Find Out.  Lestrade comes to Baker Street one day looking for help with a  case. Instead, he accidentally overhears a cosy domestic conversation between Sherlock and John and realises the truth. Short, sweet and delightful.

 StillTheAddict’s second story is entitled Storm Front. Unusually, in this tale one of the secondary characters, namely Sally Donovan, plays an unexpected role in bringing Sherlock and John together. This is one of the stories that follows the idea that season 4 never happened. After a rather disastrous end to his entirely disastrous marriage, John is now back at 221B. Sherlock’s happiness at that development, however, is tempered by his conviction that their time together is limited. He estimates four months before John will start dating again and probably not long after that before the next Mrs Watson appears.

 During a pub evening, Donovan tries to talk some sense into Sherlock, but it is not until  an incident of homophobia hits the pub and BAMF John sets things right that Sherlock begins to hope a bit. To think that just perhaps things might not be as dire as he had believed.

 Some lovely sentiment follows, as well as a nicely written first time sex scene. As seems appropriate for a story entitled Storm Front, there is the added delight of another one of my personal favourite tropes, the boys being caught in the rain. I can’t be the only one who finds that very romantic, can I? All in all, Storm Front is as immensely satisfying tale.

 And now we come to the third story.

 The title of this one, Tea With Irene, gave me a brief pause, because Ms Adler has never been one of my favourite characters. But StillTheAddict did not let me down. As in the previous story, Overheard, this terrific tale is propelled forward by an overheard conversation. This time, it is John who eavesdrops on Sherlock having a cosy tea with an unexpected (and possibly in John’s view unwelcome?) guest, namely one clever dominatrix.

 Clearly, our boys are lucky in their female acquaintances, because this time it is Adler (like Donovan earlier) who precipitates the truth finally coming out. What at first, at least to Sherlock, seems like a disaster, turns into something quite different. Adler even has the pleasure of shaving Sherlock and getting him dressed for what he is convinced ‘is not a date.’

 I will say no more about what sure looks like a date to me, except to assure you that Angelo’s is even more romantic than ever with dozens and dozens of candles.

 This is a wholly engaging story and one that I would label a must-read by all the romantics amongst us.

 Although as I said at the beginning, StillThe Addict has posted just these three stories so far, the good news is that she is working on more right now. I think we will all want to look out for her next project, which is an Omega ‘verse story entitled The Right Alpha. Having been lucky enough to get a sneak peek recently, I am definitely very keen to see the rest.

 I suggest you might want to check out StillTheAddict on AO3 out sooner rather than later.

Hi! Good question! Fanfiction comes in three specific genres, with sub-genres within those. They go like this: 

1. Extension fic: this is any story that takes the given canon and extends it in a way that is meant to feel consistent with what came before it. I.e., Harry Potter is still a wizard, but now he’s 24 and working as an Auror for the Ministry, or it’s Sherlock universe, set three years after The Final Problem, so Rosie is about four, etc. John has to have a daughter because canon gave him one, and if she’s not in the story, there has to be a reasonable explanation for why not. Most fanfic which is canon-compliant is extension fic. 

2. Insertion fic: also called “missing scene”, this is an extra scene written to fill a gap, which in no way conflicts with the other given canonical material. Aka, a story set during the (minimum) six-month gap in His Last Vow, which (at the time of its writing) does not conflict with what came after. Aka, what doesn’t technically count here would be a story where John and Sherlock had sex after the Rizla game in The Sign of Three, because we saw Mrs Hudson and Tessa come with no plausible gap between the events. I’m not at all saying that it’s not on to write such a story (indeed not!), but calling it canon-compliant wouldn’t quite be accurate. 

3. Alternate universe: this is anything which diverges from the known canon, whether it’s just in a very small way (John never had a child, say, or the epilogue in the Harry Potter books was never written), where the other events of canon are largely followed, or else a large divergence: Sherlock and John have completely different careers, Sherlock and John are not human, Sherlock and John are basically themselves but in a different time period, Sherlock is an adult but John is a child, etc, etc. The possibilities are literally without limit. 

The term “canon-compliant” is generally taken to mean that it was compliant with the known canon at the time of writing. When new canon is released later, it’s not that it necessarily makes everything written before that point non-compliant; it just has to be taken into consideration when the story was written. A story written in 2011 is obviously not going to be compliant with series 3 or 4, for example. Series 3 fix-its won’t be compliant with the events of series 4. 

On a final note, what’s considered a “believable” or reasonable extension usually needs to have some solid basis in the given canon. If Mary Morstan is “redeemed”, there needs to be an event in the extension fic that explains how and why, because what the canon gives is a person who kills people for money, including a murder attempt on the title character of the series and a canonical dearth of remorse. Mary cannot suddenly just not be a murderer for hire because the author simply likes the actor or wants to have a nice female character in the story. All of the canonical evidence for Sherlock Holmes being gay cannot be overlooked for convenience. Serious and believable explanations would need to be given (he was sent to “gay healing” camp and brainwashed???) Obviously there’s a huge scope for interpretation here!! There will be as many versions of these characters around as there are people who have seen the show. That’s just how that goes. Some things are givens, though. 

And yes, for me personally, whether or not I like it, the canon is the canon, and I do my best to work with that. It’s harder now than it was after series 2 or 3, that’s for sure. As a show watcher, plot gaps are a source of dismay. As a fanfic writer, they’re usually gold mines. In this case, however, there are just so many that one cannot possibly tackle them all in one story. Slowly, slowly, I’ll address them all, or at least most of them… It’s also difficult when the canon itself is inconsistent in terms of characterisation, continuity errors (for instance, John’s blog gives the wedding date as sometime in August, yet the show itself shows the date of May 18th on the invitations. That’s a big difference!). For lots of people, canon compliancy isn’t a huge priority, and that’s fine. It is for me, and that’s a strictly personal choice, of course, but yeah - I found those things particularly frustrating! 

Hello! Thank you for the question!

At present, we do not require any writing sample from podficcers. Podfics are a lot of work, and ultimately, we decided that it wouldn’t be fair of us to review written content when the audio experience is so different! Therefore, you are welcome to podfic your own writing without submitting a writing sample.

However, we do have two caveats about podfics. The first is that if the quality isn’t up to par, we reserve the right to exclude it from the digital exclusive. Nonetheless, I emphasize that we will try our very best to help podficcers with editing and revision because we’re really, really excited about these digital fanworks especially! You have all our support and truly, we do not anticipate this being an issue. However, we have this clause in place in order to meet our projected October 2020 shipping date, on the off chance that such editing would take an unreasonable amount of time.

The second caveat is more of a reminder: if you choose to do a podfic, the text of the story will not be present in the anthology. It will only be the audio (i.e. the podfic). This is to ensure balance in the anthology design. However, podficcers can art for their own podfic if they wish and they will be featured prominently in the digital anthology, carrying the same weight as artists, drabble writers, and poets.

I hope this was helpful in resolving any confusion about podfics in general. Of course, please do not hesitate to ask if you have another question. We’re thrilled to help!