Perfect

Dear unknown author,
do you know one of the things I love about the secret santa? It's my birthday on the 10th, meaning I can enjoy a fic specially written for me as a present and that became very special and dear for me.
Oh my, I just had the most lovely evening reading this wonderful fic, getting seriously grumpy at the kids demanding attention and thus disrupting my reading flow. I'm sorry that you have real life issues and I got you struggling with my requests and prompt. Let me assure you that this story had such a natural flow of telling a wonderful story that there was no struggle to be felt, quite the contrary.
And the first lovely little detail: from the whole of southern France your story began in Montpellier! Let me tell you as a little aside that 16 years ago my hubby, our first babygirl and me lived there for four months! And we travel the area regularly in our holidays, so Beziers is also familiar to me.
The beginning was already capturing: cleverly combined casefic and Johnlock in the problematic times of the 19th century sucked me in right away. And what a nasty criminal you came up with straight away! I luked that he made a little return at the end of the story, thus giving a sort of " criminal frame". The short hot scene in the train....oh my! Little did I know it was only a prelude to their night together! Hot, but in a very careful manner and leaving more for the imagination. Thank you for that.
I must admit that I had to read about the Cathar as background information but see: something learned at the end of the day. Extra kudos for the idea using this historic background in a battle with selfproclaimed saviours of the world, i.e. churchmen... What a nasty example you draw here.
My favourite piece of the whole work would be the exchange between Sherlock and John in their guest room. Heartbreaking, warm and tender. Plus what I would wish for our BBC heroes: able to just TALK, christ sake!
And my last kudos must be for your whole use of language. What an impressive skill to let the Victorian times come alive like this, though I always had our boys before my inner eye.
I' m sure I left out a couple of things that I found deeply touching but now I feel that I have to process this rich story for the next days and I just want to say thank you very much for the effort and love you put into my fic.
Thank you.

Last edited by mrshouse (December 11, 2016 9:37 pm)

Please, dear members, may I remind you that everyone should read and comment as many fics as possible? Getting one is fine but commenting is also part of the fun and I am sure the authors do appreciate as many comments as possible. 

Perfect

Dear uknown author, this was a magnificent story. Very well written, I felt transported to the Victorian times with Holmes and Watson immediately. Yet the characters were easily recognizable. I loved the language, the references (although I probably didn't get all of them). And I sniggered at "ejaculated", lovely little reference!

The story was great, I loved that they were already a couple by the start of the story. This is actuallly the first Victorian Johnlock I've ever read. And it was a really good one. Loved the case, the characters, the Cathar bit - interesting take on Sherlock, that! 

You managed to create a mysterious and belivable atmosphere, I loved it!

The Holiday

This was a fun story. I enjoyed the setup of how John tried to get Sherlock on holiday and it was funny how Sherlock later acted like it was his idea all along
I enjoyed the case, too.
Like John, I was surprised by Mycroft's behaviour towards Sherlock at the end, but it allowed for your ending with the tie pin, bringing us back to the beginning, with John's offer given to himself.

The Holiday

Dear Mystery Author, wonderful Secret Santa,

Thank you so much for this excellent story and truly lovely gift. It contains all the elements I like in a Sherlock story, which you cleverly enumerated for me. The fic brimmed with the Sherlockian humour and quaintness I so adore, full of those scintillating details I so admire in the series.

Mycroft fixing John's CAPSLOCK problem mid-text had me LOL as did John's subtle suggestion of proper holiday destinations and Sherlock's display of his capacities as a 'consulting chemist'. "Thank you for your kind offer, Mr Holmes."

The case itself was very cleverly concocted with the right amount of mystery and deviousness. A locked suitcase mystery, very interesting deviation from the locked room mystery and just the thing to pique Sherlock's interest and set his brain churning.

And well, tons of true affection lie hidden beneath those thick crusts of resentment we're constantly shown on screen. Let's never forget the loss of Sherlock would break Mycroft's heart  and he's always been there for Sherlock.

All in all I couldn't have wished for a more perfect gift for Christmas and I thank you, dear MA, from the bottom of my heart.

Merry Christmas

DT

The Holiday

I really love how we have an abundance of case-fics this year and The Holiday was a beautiful one. Hilarious too. The very introductory scene of this little gem made me chuckle and I admired how you managed to convey both John´s and Mycroft´s personalities only via their electronic messages, dear unknown author.

It was a heartwarming feeling to see Mycroft care so much for the well-being of his brother. John´s cunning plan how to lure Sherlock to Philadelphia and Sherlock´s "privatisation" of this plan was very funny and the "consulting chemist" piece brought me to laugh. I enjoyed the light touch and the easygoing narration of those scenes, kudos to you, dear author.

On the other hand, the next part of the story, concerning the body of the CIA agent hidden in a suitcase, was quite thrilling and intriguing. I relished it and was glad that even in this part of the story you didn´t let go of humour, that Sherlock was still being Sherlock (hiding evidence, LOL!) and that John was able to prove both that he is intelligent and can do a bit of his own investigation and that he is heroic, saving Sherlock´s ass once again. He definitely earned that pin at the end!

This was a very enjoyable respite from a tiring day, dear unknown author. I hope you´ll let us know about the sequel, I wouldn´t mind to read some more of Sherlock´s and John´s cheeky adventures in this style.  

Blackbeard

Dear unkown author, thank you so much for this lovely story. It was just the type of fic I was looking for. I was eager to see what you would choose as the reason for Sherlock disliking Christmas, and how John would go about changing that. And I loved how you solved it, how you blended their friends to lovers with Sherlock's feelings for Christmas.

And the puppy for Christmas, what better gift to give Sherlock? Little Blackbeard indeed. It was also nice to see Mrs Holmes play a role, she doesn't feature too often in these fics. And I really liked how you split the story into several Christmasses, starting with poor little Sherlock to give uss ome background and then showing the progression of their emotions. Wonderful idea.

Just the right mixture of angst and fluff,  Thank you again for a wonderful (pre)-Christmas gift, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Exactly my cup of mulled wine! 

Blackbeard or How Sherlock Stole Christmas

Oh, my dear author, what had you done to me? I confess I couldn´t read you story at one go. You were incredibly skillful and utterly convincing in description of Sherlock´s terrible heartbreak and that, together with grayness and joylessness of winter´s weather forced me to make a one day break in my reading. Honestly, the scene where Sherlock gets snubbed by Sebastian only to come home upon the wake of another great tragedy, then the depiction of Sherlock´s six hours return during his Reichenbach absence and finally the cruel scene of Sherlock´s first Christmas upon his return.... the effect of those three combined was absolutely murderous. My heart was really aching for Sherlock.

I admire you skill in writing, my dear unknown author. You avoided the high pathos or melodrama entirely and yet you wielded every word with killer precision, so that your every sentence pierced my heart like a surgeon´s knife. I could feel every emotion described on my own body as if Sherlock´s loss of everything he loves was my own loss.

And yet the second part of the story carried such a wondrous sense of beauty and fullfillment! The way you intersected the scene of Sherlock´s and John´s reunion with beautiful psalm was so wonderful! The feeling of elevation, the salvation from earthly troubles and contentment overflowed me like a warm flood and almost brought me to tears. (And I had to wonder how poetic the German words of your psalm were in comparison to their English counterpart - that was very suprising). The final touch with a little dog had a sweetness of a fairy-tale in it as it brought hapiness back to Sherlock. I rejoiced upon that scene.

Magnificent Christmas story and a very satisfying read. You managed to entrap the spirit of Christmas into your words, dear unknown author, kudos to you.

Blackbeard Or How Sherlock Stole Christmas

Dear author, 

thank you for sharing such a sad yet lovely fic with us.

I love the idea of Sherlock secretly spending Christmas together with John after the fall. I think the bittersweet feelings of this scene will stay with me for quite a while.

The Christmas with Mary was brilliantly done, I think. A nice interaction on the surface, uneasiness underneath, and John's hand being so close ... You nailed it!

And of course the present in the end is such a wonderful idea.

Lots of kudos to you, dear author!

Emergency! Help needed!

Is there an author who has some capacity left to help out on (extremely) short notice? One of our authors just told me they won't be able to finish the Secret Santa Fic.

There is a beginning of a fic to continue, or you can start from the beginning by yourself.

I know it is a bad time to come up with that request. I don't have anything extra this year, as you might have noticed, so I don't have an additional fic up on my sleeves. Maybe some of you have written a Christmas fic they wanted to finish anyway, or maybe somebody just has time to write a little fic over the next few days...

I really don't know how to prevent one of us to end up without a fic. :'(