Waiting To Be Distributed

Hello folks and happy Friday! We’re back, and this time @likingthistoomuch interviews @ohaine (aka, me) so I’m jumping straight into the interview because it’s awkward af to introduce yourself.

Trigger warnings: here be brief discussions of grief and mourning, and because it’s me, there’s also some bad language. Sorry.

OhAine: She arts, she fics, now you can add witty limericks to her repertoire for she is truly an accomplished young lady; because when the question of how to introduce me for this interview came up likingthistoomuch chose to write a poem.

It goes like this:

She is smart

She has sass

Thinks her writing isn’t good

Someone get her head outta her ass.

  Charming. And as that isn’t massively helpful to anyone reading, I’ll flesh it out a bit for you. My name is Áine (yes, my pseud is that imaginative), I’m Irish, married to a tall, curly haired Brit (no, not *that* tall, curly haired Brit). I’m a professional doer of double entry (that means I’m an accountant not a p0rn star, get your dirty minds out of the gutter), an amateur writer who is obsessed with Sherlock and Sherlolly to a point that isn’t dignified. I’m the mod of this interview project, and also of the MaybeItsJustMyType Collection on AO3, a double SAMFA winner (yay me!) and I also won a Community Games gold medal when I was eight ( @hobbitsdoitbetter will know what that is, but she’s literally the only one of you who will) for a picture I drew in crayon of a cat jumping over a skipping rope (although if I’m honest I think everyone who entered the competition got a prize so I really don’t know if I should brag too much about it.) Currently I’m in the market for someone who’ll do a better job of my eulogy than I’ve done with this intro, so maybe it’s best if I stop talking now and we just move along with the questions… Ahem… Gee it’s back to you.

likingthistoomuch: I’m going to start with Kat (aka satin_doll, aka @ashockinglackofsatin) who’s submitted a few reader questions if you’re ready.

  OhAine: Sure. Shoot.

satin_doll: The Fate of Glass is one of the most beautiful and touching stories I’ve ever read dealing with grief and the aftermath of the death of a character. It also illustrates perfectly Molly’s relationship with Sherlock from her side. We know you were dealing with your own loss when this was written. How much of your writing springs from your own real life emotional experiences?

Written for International Women’s Day 2018 with @waiting-to-be-distributed, based on a prompt by @likingthistoomuch , this little ficlet was originally posted to Lu’s The Little Things but never shared on tumblr, so… happy IWD 2019.

Warning! Mentions of lemony goodness. Sort of.

TW! Mentions of canon typical case violence.

*

“I really don’t understand what you’re asking for, Dear.” Said Mrs Hudson, sipping at her tea as she sat in John’s chair, throwing a narrow eyed filthy look at Sherlock, who sat opposite her.

The world’s only detective gave an impatient little squirm, fighting to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head. Putting his own tea cup down, he went over it again for his seemingly oblivious landlady.

“It’s really quite simple. I need a woman to accompany me to a BDSM club and pretend to be my Domme so that I might surreptitiously observe the other submissives, thereby identifying which of them has been leaving a trail of disembowelled and quite dead FinDommes hanging in elaborately staged shibari suspensions across London. You are a woman. One of sufficient intelligence for the task. And I know for a fact that you have leather bondage gear in that trunk under your bed—”

Mrs Hudson frowned at him, but didn’t deny it.

“—you know how to use both a leash and handcuffs, you’re familiar with the,” he crooked his fingers into air quotes, “ ‘scene’ and you’re rather handy with a gun. Surely all that time you spent swinging around poles in your youth taught you something about rigging. You’d play the part of my Domme admirably. What’s there not to understand?”

“For one, Dear, I’m twice your age.”

Sherlock pressed his hands to his cheeks and formed a perfect O of fake surprise with his lips. “Martha Hudson,” he said, “dare I say it, but that’s spectacularly ageist of you.”

Mrs H gave a weary and exasperated sigh worthy of the Holmes brothers. “We’d hardly be believable as a couple. You have lots of friends your own age, why not ask one of them to go undercover with you?”

Sherlock huffed, “Because it has to be a woman so John, Lestrade or even – heaven forbid – Anderson are of no use to me. That leaves you and Mary, and she’s busy incubating Watson: The Sequel. Eliminating the impossible, what remains is you.”

The old dear arched her brow, giving him a knowing little smirk. “Or Molly Hooper.”

Sherlock puffed out his chest. “Doctor Hooper and I are….well, it wouldn’t be proper. For her I mean. She’s got a reputation to uphold.”

“And I don’t?”

“If anything, Mrs Hudson,” Sherlock smiled and tipped his head to her, “making an appearance at a fetish club with a collared submissive half your age, would only enhance yours.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” his landlady admonished, “I don’t know why you can’t just admit that the reason you’re asking me not her is that if Molly Hooper was to put you on a leash and occasionally whip your plump backside you’d be too high on endorphins to get anything else done.”

Sherlock folded his arms over his chest.

“If I was to ever allow Doctor Hooper to put me on a leash, it would first have to involve protracted negotiations, it wouldn’t be for a case, and would be in a setting and situation of her choosing, not mine.” Then he grumbled under his breath, “Not that she would ever choose such a thing.”

“You make it all sound so complicated,” she said. “And if you don’t mind me saying, you seem a tad bitter about it too.”

Sherlock harrumphed, “I am complicated and bitter. Not to mention stoic. It’s one of my many charms.”

“Oh Sherlock,” Martha tittered like a school girl, “I don’t think you know what that word means. Or how to count.”

She stood and straightened out her pinny, gathering the used tea things onto a tray for washing up. “Give Molly a call. I have a feeling you’ll be glad that you did.”

“Fine,” he said, relenting with a sigh. “But if she agrees she may need to borrow some of your accoutrements.” He said the last in a flawless Parisian purr.

In the third part of this series it’s @ohaine ‘s turn (*waves*) to pick @ashockinglackofsatin​ ‘s (satin_doll’s) brain about inspiration for baroque and larger than life OCs, what poetry has to do with fanfiction, and how a chance encounter with a masked swordsman kicked her down the path to fandom and fanfic writing. 

(My apologies if the formatting looks a bit weird to you. This looks fine on my desktop, but a bit crazy in the mobile app. Not sure what’s going on or how to fix it, so…)

                                   “He drapes the black cloth carefully. He doesn’t want to disturb more than necessary. As he works, he murmurs to them, softly, ever so softly. Periodically, he pauses and stares into the distance, as if he’s watching for a visitor. No one will come now. Not out here. Not for him.”

-Telling the Bees

If you read enough, if you pay enough attention, every now and then you’re rewarded with a fanfic author who not only truly understands the character they’re writing, but who also truly understands writing itself. They’re a gift. Not only to their readers but to other writers who take inspiration from them, who learn from them, who aspire to be as good as them.

On a sunny Saturday morning in April 2016 for the very first time I opened satin_doll’s page on AO3 and read her first Sherlolly story, “Telling the Bees.” I cried fat, ugly tears for Sherlock, for Molly, (inconvenient, not to mention embarrassing as I was in a public place) but I smiled because I’d found one. A gift. It was the beginning of a love affair with her work, the beginning of a masterclass in writing and understanding, but maybe even more importantly it was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. And it began with the same first words I’ve used to introduce her here.

It’s a joyous thing to be given the opportunity to talk to her about her writing. Whether it’s a revelatory character study, like “Down and Shaking When I Think I Lose,” the heart-wrenching romance of “Doubt,” even the so-perfect-it-could-be-canon world of the “Dark Company” series, satin_doll pulls you down a rabbit hole, into Sherlock’s world in a way that makes you understand him better, and teaches you something about yourself in the process.

 Funny, clever, insightful, she’s my number one writing crush, I love her to bits. 

Over Christmas 2018 satin_doll (@ashockinglackofsatin here on tumblr) was kind enough to answer my fangirling questions about her writing and characters. I hope you all enjoy reading what she had to say as much as I did.

I would like to recommend some writers who are really lovely and talented. I’m a bit shy, but I didn’t want to let this day go by without giving them some love.

siriushiddenlawyer@ao3 Stranger Than Kindness. It’s beautiful Sherlolly all the way. Get tissues, but I promise a happy ending.

Beautifullyobsessed@ao3 Of Magic Moonlight and Miracles. Doctor Strange and her original character, Teyla. Teyla is such a pure, lovely soul and her love for Stephen Strange is heart melting. Stephen is so sexy and wonderfully sweet as he falls in love with someone who sees his heart.

Waitingtobedistributed@ao3. Three Little Words. It’s a post TFP Sherlolly story that is very special to me. This writer is so talented and her emotional stories tug my heart strings every time, always.

Basorexia by waitingtobedistributed is gorgeous with it’s poetry. It’s Sherlolly and kissing. Yum!

August 21st is fan fiction writers’ appreciation day, and in honour of the wonderful women who write for our beautiful ship I thought I’d compile a fic rec list focusing on older works (because it’s such a thrill when someone shows love to an old story) that you may have read a while ago and lost track of, or were never lucky enough to read when they were first published.

It’s incredibly difficult to play favourites with stories and writers, but I’ve gone through my bookmarks and selected ones that have stayed with me. The list (below the cut, don’t want to clutter your dash :) comes from works posted on AO3 and is given in no particular order.  

I hope you find something you love.

Áine x

The game: go to page 7 of one of your WIPs, then go to the seventh line, then copy/paste seven sentences. And then tag 7 more writer friends.

Tagged by @likingthistoomuch , I’m not tagging anyone back, but play if you want :)

So this is actually the 7th doc in my wip folder, rather than the 7th line (which is smutty) I’m keeping it PG and going with seven-ish lines further down. From chapter 18 of an unpublished Regency era AU written for last summer’s Sherlolly fic exchange, it’s based on a prompt by @mychakk — mychakk, hunny, I promise to get back to this as soon as I’m posting again.

oOo

On her elbow now, Irene brushed Janine’s hair tenderly away from her face. “Did any of it relate to the youngest son?”

Here the girl blushed. “The pretty one? Only that he’d been forced into marriage and that the result was an unhappy one.”

Irene feigned a casual air. Though the unhappiness of the marriage was common knowledge the extent of it and particulars were not. “How unhappy?”

“Very,” said Janine a little too eagerly. “So unhappy, that the groom had never been welcomed into the bride’s bed.”

It’s been a little over five months since we sadly lost Kiki, aka MaybeItsJustMyType, aka sweet-sweet-escape. At the time of her passing many of you asked if there was something that could be done, or if there were plans for an In Memoriam type event. 

It’s taken me a while to re-engage with the fandom after the shock of her death, but as (what would have been) Kiki’s birthday approaches, I though now might be a good time to do something in her honour. So. I’m issuing an open invitation to the artists and writers of the Sherlolly community to participate in a collection of works (link here) to celebrate her 41st birthday.

The collection is moderated and open, and anyone who feels moved to do so is more than welcome to post something. Fics of any size are welcome, though I would ask that as her family will be reading that the rating be either G or T, and that the stories focus on either Molly Hooper and/or her relationship with Sherlock Holmes. Artists are very welcome too. Though there is no prompt list for the collection and the subject of works is in no way restricted, stories about motherhood or coping with loss would be particularly welcome. Works can be uploaded at any time between now and April 25th, but will remain unrevealed until that date. 

Joining is easy, just go to the link for the collection and click join - works can be added whenever they’re ready, but if anyone has any questions please feel free to contact me. I’d like to also say a special word of thanks to those who have already offered to contribute, wonderful women that you are, bless you.

As for my own contribution to the collection… Kiki’s family have been kind enough to give me permission to complete one of her Multi Chapter stories ‘A pair of pretty brown eyes.’ There are two chapters outstanding, and I’ll be completing those based on Kiki’s own outlines that she sent to me some months before she died. As they’ll be issued from her own AO3 account (in conjunction with mine) anyone who is already subscribed to her will automatically receive notifications.

If you can’t contribute (for whatever reason) I hope you’ll find time to support the collection by reading. (I’d be really grateful too if people could re-blog this post to reach as wide an audience as possible.)

Kiki was an avid supporter of the Sherlolly fandom, its writers and artists. I hope you’ll all find it in your hearts to support her this one last time.

On behalf of Kiki’s family and myself, thank you all so much.

@hobbitsdoitbetter ‘s fic — The Trap In The Honey, The Honey In The Trap

I was tagged by @sunken-standard

Rules: list nine albums you love and tag nine people!

I cut the post down, it was getting pretty long.

Seriously? I’m fairly certain nobody on tumblr has ever heard of any album I listen to, let alone love. And it’s very rare that I love an entire album; there are usually a couple of songs I can’t tolerate (which is why I was ecstatic when iTunes and iPods happened. Mix tapes were a royal pain in the butt to make.) Most of these are fairly old. Anyway, what the hell. In no particular order:

1. Blue Light Til Dawn - Cassandra Wilson

2. Livin’ In the Law - Chris Whitley

3. Walking in London - Concrete Blonde

4. Woodface - Crowded House

5. Nature - Dave’s True Story

6. Farrar - Duncan Chisholm

7. Seinn - Mary Jane Lomond and Wendy MacIsaac

8. The Courage of Others - Midlake

9. Try Whistling This - Neil Finn

 But anyway, the list:

1. Back to Black -- Amy Winehouse

2. Older -- George Michael

3. Rumours -- Fleetwood Mac

4. Home -- The Hot House Flowers

5. Hunky Dory -- David Bowie

6. White Ladder -- David Gray

7. The Seldom Seen Kid -- Elbow

8. Seventh Tree -- Goldfrapp

9. Five -- James Rhodes

THE RULES: Post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic/original/anything!) and tag as many people as there are words in the sentence. 

I was tagged by @mizjoely

The actual last sentence I wrote was a ‘note to self’ in my idea dump document, so I’m not putting that here.

The second-to-last sentence: He smoothed her hair and cradled the base of her skull, swaying with her for a few moments before pulling back; she tipped her face up to his and he just looked at her again for a moment before he kissed her.

Yeah, it’s just as fucking cringeworthy and Vanessa-Redgrave-and-violins in-context, and probably won’t make it through the rough, but it is what it is.

Last sentence I wrote:

“Ivan looked at Toly and smirked.” 

Yeah, it’s a Sherlolly story. The Bulgarian acrobats are invading. Get ready to cringe.

The last sentence I wrote is from chapter 7 of A Kink in the Armour, which I really must get around to posting:

'The anger (at her, at himself) had mostly ebbed away leaving Sherlock with a longing so vast, so deep that at times he forgot how to breathe or how to put one foot in front of the other from the sheer pain of missing her.'

There’s a Japanese band called The Hoopers comprised solely of women that dress like men.

There’s a Japanese band called The Hoopers comprised solely of women that dress like men.

Enjoy this list of Sherlolly holidays - sometimes Sherlock is invited by Molly to go along, but mostly he tags along (thank goodness!). Thank you to @cath100 for laying most of the groundwork in her original post here. You rock!

A Birthday in Paradise by weekendwriting95 (Rated T, One-Shot) Birthday fic AO3 2015

A Song for Molly by Imogen74 (Rated M, Complete, Multi-Chapter) Molly Leaves fic, S4/TFP AO3 2017

Almost Murder on the Orient Express by cactusnell (Rated T, One-Shot) ff.net 2014

The Big Easy by bookjunkiecat (Rated M, Complete, Multi-Chapter) Fake Relationship, Post Reichenbach AO3 2017

Camping Fever by MrsMCrieff (Rated M, Complete, Multi-Chapter) ff.net 2017

City of Dreams by mrsmcrieff (Rated M, Complete, Multi-Chapter) Post HLV, casefic ff.net 2015

The Cottage by Cee5 (Rated T, Incomplete, Multi-Chapter) casefic, slow burn ff.net 2014

Five by asteraceablue (Rated M, Complete, Multi-Chapter) H/C, Post Reichenbach AO3 2013

Gone on Holiday by Sherlockian87 (Rated M, One-Shot) Post HLV ff.net 2015

Hear Her Roar by TheSapphireSky (Rated T, Complete, Multi-Chapter) Post HLV ff.net 2014

Holiday Romance by MrsMCrieff (Rated M, Complete, Multi-Chapter) Fake Relationship, Post Reichenbach ff.net 2014

Home by cactusnell (Rated T, One-Shot) ff.net 2014

La Mer by Sherlockian87 (Rated T, One-Shot) ff.net 2016

Night Train by MrsMCrieff (Rated M, Complete, Multi-Chapter) ff.net 2016

Respite by onedayer (Rated M, One-Shot) PWP, Post HLV AO3 2014

Save the Date by Mistykins06 Rated T, One-Shot) Post HLV ff.net 2014

A Little Help by catmilk (Rated M, Incomplete, Multi-Chapter) Sherlock & Molly raising John and Mary’s daughter Charlotte after their deaths ff.net 2014 

Untitled (Sherlock & Molly adopt a young orphaned teen) by Megsta95 (Rated T, One-Shot) tumblr 2014

I know there are more, anyone else have any suggestions?

Oh yes, that definitely counts, thanks! The story is:

Never Go by katybaggins (Rated K, One-Shot) MCD, Godparents, Parent!lock AO3 2017

Oh yes, I know that one (as in, I know I’ve read it but right now I can’t remember who wrote it or what it’s called). Hopefully it’s on one of these lists:

Parent!lock (# - H) - Updated 07/07/17

Parent!Lock (I - Q) - Updated 06/02/17

“No, you’re MY bitch.”

“Why does your wife have Molly ina headlock?” Sherlock asked, pulling up short when he sawwhatever was happening in the middle of the lounge in 221A.

“Tea with Mrs. Hudson turned intowrestling lessons.”

Sherlock opened his mouth, lookedconfused, and closed it again.

“Apparently George ‘The Animal’Steele was her neighbour in Cocoa Beach, something about Hulk Hogan’sgym…  I stopped listening after she started talking about doinglines with Cyndi Lauper off Brutus Beefcake’s arse,” Johnoffered anyway, watching Molly stamp her foot and reverse out of thehold.

I've died and gone to WWF heaven!!!