Wholocked wrote:

Hrm. Not sure my explanation as to why I say I don't ship it but still read it warranted a lecture but whatever. If I hated it, I wouldn't read it. I just skip over parts that are over the top to me.

I find I am coming around to the Johnlock relationship thing. Just find it intriguing that in some stories, the relationship barely exists except for sex. So yeah I stick my head in this thread cause there are some decent fics. Happy to hear recommendations for less pornographic fics ;-)

Sorry I seemed to be lecturing. I started this thread, and I don't think I'm exactly rational about this subject. Sick of being misunderstood and judged, I guess (I don't mean by you! I mean in general), which has made me more sensitive. Apologies.

Some mature-rated fics are pure porn, but they should be rated as PWP (Plot? What Plot?)-- they only exist *for* the sex. But I think those are relatively rare. I think most slash authors want to tell a story, how their guys made the Big Decision, why they made it, how they consummated it, why they decided NOT to consummate it, etc.

My point was, it's a big, huge fandom, 1000s of stories out there, whatever someone's persuasions are. It can be way hard to find good ones, which again is why I started this thread. I just hope most of the folks who visit us here in the Johnlock-Land portion of the forum realize what they're wading into here! *smile*

... and after all, this is just ONE thread in the whole Fan Fic chapter of this board.
fic recommendations - non-slash is here and would enjoy some more suggestions:
http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=1862

But I also stumbled into scenes I didn't wish to read, due to poor warning tags.
While archiveofourown.org is quite reliable and detailed, some others are less.

Btw, AG, do you know why the term "slash", and what exactly does it mean?
Funny, I read so much already and still don't know the exact meaning.

Last edited by Harriet (September 28, 2012 1:13 pm)

Harriet wrote:

. I also stumbled into scenes I didn't wish to read, due to poor warning tags.
While archiveofourown.org is quite reliable and detailed, some others are less....

Some authors overcompensate and label their stories too much, too minutely. Others don't use the warnings they should use. But we're all free to close up any story and just leave it behind. Just as if we'd gone to the library and picked up any novel on a shelf to read-- if we got a few pages in, and it wasn't doing it for us, we'd just return it and pick another. And the same goes for reading fan fic.

BIg fat thanks, Ivy, for recommending the author days_of_storm.
What a terrific reading! 

To think I used to avoid the Johnlock stuff like the plague until I discovered this thread a few days ago and decided to give it a chance. Of course I expected the stories to be awful. Ok, I was wrong. They’re lovely. I really like the romantic PG-rated short stories like "Scrutiny" . (Not so much the explicit stuff, I’m not used to that.)
And now I’ve started to write such a story myself. That’s a bit strange. I’m known for being able to change my mind very quickly but this complete turnaround within three days is a miracle even for me.

Last edited by QuiteExtraordinary (October 2, 2012 6:33 pm)

QuiteExtraordinary wrote:

To think I used to avoid the Johnlock stuff like the plague until I discovered this thread a few days ago and decided to give it a chance. Of course I expected the stories to be awful. Ok, I was wrong. They’re lovely. (...)

Same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Weird, isn't it? Lots are lovely. And I didn't even read romance stuff before.
Probably we should transfer now to the You Know You Are Obsessed... thread 

Neither did I. But by now I'm ready to expect anything. 

QuiteExtraordinary wrote:

Harriet wrote:

And I didn't even read romance stuff before.

Neither did I. A bit of fan fiction, yes, but that was very different and long ago. I didn't expect my Sherlock obsession to go in this direction but I think I'll have to get used to being surprised.

ACD wrote about a deep and unusual friendship between two extraordinary men-- their friendship shines throughout all the Sherlock canon. Then when TPTB cast "our" Sherlock, they did it with much skill and caring, IMO-- Ben as Sherlock (presumably the only person they ever wanted for the role), and then finding Martin as John-- could it get any better? Dark and light, tall and short, eccentric and everyman, one who is single-minded and sharp-tongued to a fault and one who is a multi-tasker and sensitive to the needs of others. Lovely, the both of them, and together? Absolutely incendiary. From their foundation from the pen of ACD to today, in this modern incarnation, Sherlock and John, John and Sherlock, what would we have if we didn't have both?  Not such a big stretch, IMO, for them to come to the same conclusion, is it, in our fan fiction? To me, fictional Johnlock is no stretch at all, not set in 2012 as they are. Not at all.

Last edited by ancientsgate (October 2, 2012 9:51 pm)

QuiteExtraordinary wrote:

ancientsgate wrote:

Happy that you've taken the big step to the dark side, as it were. *smile*

It doesn't look very dark, this side. There's lots of love and romance and kisses and so on ... I don't see how that could be bad.

From their foundation from the pen of ACD to today, in this modern incarnation, Sherlock and John, John and Sherlock, what would we have if we didn't have both?

Well, they're forever, they belong together. Can it get any more romantic?

Oh, well, you just haven't seen it yet. Slash is considered dark. The major fandom I originally came from? If it was slash and there was *any* physical contact, it had to be labeled as adult-rated. I kid you not. M/F shippers definitely think M/M or F/F is dark. I never said bad. To me, dark, at least in this case, is the stuff of intrigue....mmmm.

And yes, IMO, romance is romance. I prefer the forever kind, but a little angst along the way (as Shakespeare said, the course of true love never did run smooth) makes it even better.

QuiteExtraordinary wrote:

I really don't know much about this genre or how it is classified by others. I usually read and write horror stories. That's what I would call "dark". To me, that expression doesn't seem to apply to these fluffy love stories. Ok, I know, there is also porn, but one doesn't have to read what one doesn't like, right?

Right. As I said, there are lots of kinds of dark. As for slash being dark, here in the US, a large segment of the population is still unenlightened about and suspicious of anything gay. And the very idea of writing or reading gay romance, for fun??? Eeeeek. Dark. *rolls eyes*  Yeah, it's pretty silly to consider gay romance as dark, just because of the bits they use in their intimate moments, IMO.

Nope, we don't have to read what doesn't do it for us. Not in this or in anything else. I think it's sad when people throw away the idea of Johnlock, like the proverbial baby with the proverbial bath water, without seeing that there are all kinds of Johnlock stories out there. But oh,well, ya can't win 'em all.