The Middle Distance

The Veil Dodger

Rating: Mature
Pairing: Mrs Hudson/Madame Tracy
Characters: Mrs Hudson, Madame Tracy, Jim Moriarty
Tags: Canon Fake Major Character Death, Canon Real Major Character Death, Discussion of Suicide, Grief, Seances, Spiritualism, Ghost Possession, Femslash, Dark Comedy

Summary: In the aftermath of what certainly appears to be the suicide of Sherlock Holmes, a grieving Mrs. Hudson has a lot of questions, and she will stop at nothing to get answers. Including answering a very dodgy ad for a psychic medium. The answers she receives don’t match the questions she asked.

Chapter 1/6: Solitude

This is a fairly lighthearted story really, but CW for grief and discussion of suicide. We know Sherlock isn't really dead, but Mrs. Hudson doesn't.

So it looks like my sort of creative constipation is starting to break up.

In April, I co-ran the 221B Consolation Fest. This is a little fic and art fest on Tumblr and AO3 for people who aren't able to go to 221B Con and are sad about it. Because the con was cancelled, this year that's everyone!

I wrote 4 221B drabbles (two Sherlock, two Good Omens - yes I kept the 221B format for those too since it was a Sherlock-based fest)

Drawing the Wrong Conclusions (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, rated M). For qtheallpowerful, who wanted Book Omens, A/C, jealous Aziraphale, wingfic, Renaissance.

Intervention (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, rated T) (for bluebellofbakerstreet, who wanted Aziraphale/Crowley, medieval, blasphemy) CW for disease/plague/Black Death

Riding the Storm Out (Sherlock, Sherlock/John, Bone-Fiddle-verse, rated T) For discordantwords, who wanted TBF-verse Sherlock and John caught in a rainstorm.

Silence Louder Than Bombs (Sherlock, Sherlock/John, rated G) for write_out, who wanted Sherlock and John on the Tube. This one got a little angsty.

***

I've also begun a Bone-Fiddle-verse drabble series based on the "traditional" (apocryphal really) names for the full moons. It's part of the larger Bone Fiddle drabbles collection, and it starts here with "Wolf Moon" in January. Five so far. All Johnlock, rated T through M. (Haven't earned an E yet in this series but I probably will eventually)

Signups are open! We'll keep them up until the 28th or the first 100 people, whichever comes first.

(I can say we've had them open 2 hours and already have 15, so...don't snooze)

https://go-exchange.dreamwidth.org/236877.html

Mark me down as scared and horny

A Susurration of Serpents
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: E (not that explicit by my standards, but weird enough I erred on the higher side)
Word Count: 666
Warnings/Tags: Xeno, Shapeshifting, Weird Anatomy, Masturbation, Crowley Is a Very Snaky Boy

Aziraphale wanders in on Crowley having some quality time with himself, as only he can. Thankfully he's Good, Giving, and Game.

Inspired by this thread at fail_fandomanon, which had me gasping and wheezing and cry-laughing at work.

Another one for the 666 Fics Fics Fics challenge!

Well, it's official, I received the acceptance notice a couple week sago and I sent off the contract today! The Art of the Blood WILL be in Carnation's upcoming queer ACD-style Sherlock Holmes anthology. (This is a different book from the ACD H/W novel I've pitched - this is a multi-author short story collection.) I've been running around gleefully in circles once in a while ever since. I can't wait to read the other stories.

This isn't gonna make me rich anyway, but I've decided that since it was a charity auction fic, for Fandom Loves Puerto Rico, if I wind up making any royalties I'll donate them to the same cause. Don't feel right profiting from it for anything other than my ego.

IN OTHER NEWS went out to Rockford this weekend so, as is only fitting, quantum_witch and I could watch the Good Omens miniseries together. We were both absolutely ecstatically over the moon with it - it's better than anything we hoped for. To celebrate, we're finally taking the stories from our old locked LJ comm, switchythings, that never made it to AO3 before, and sprucing them up and posting them.

I never dreamed that we would get a TV adaptation that was as faithful to the book as it was, and so true to the spirit of the thing in the material it added. I never considered myself to have left the fandom at all, never will, but I had backburnered it. It's screaming for my attention now.

So...we finished Year Fourteen of the Good Omens Holiday Exchange! You know, just sticking with something this long is a reward in itself. The new TV series will change this fandom a lot (oh please Someone no purity wankers we do NOT need or want that), and I think it will bring in a lot of fresh blood and a lot of new takes on the characters, and that's going to be exciting to watch from the ground up.

But not that the fandom needs that help. For a fandom for one book published in 1990, it's still extremely healthy, from my POV.

Here's this year's Reveal/Masterlist. 46 brand-new works!

Here's the story that was written for me: A Man Upon the Land by Lilyaceae (Aziraphale/Crowley, other characters, rated T). The author combined two of my prompts - something nautical-themed, something inspired by folklore or fairy tales - and gave me a fantastic romantic high seas adventure, with Pirate Captain!Crowley and Selkie!Aziraphale. Beautiful, so very exciting and sweet and so much fun. (Also...Crowley's ship is called the Bentley. And it burns! Pirate Captain Hastur's ship is called the King In Yellow. I mean....!!! being that perfect should be illegal.)

Here's the story I wrote for Staubengel: The Other Thing With Feathers (at AO3; A/C, rated T) (original post at DW: https://go-exchange.dreamwidth.org/234735.html). I also combined two prompts - something involving bodyswap and something with a lot of focus on WINGS!! In the aftermath of an unfortunate bodyswap incident, Aziraphale and Crowley discover some things that still need some recalibration - including the nature of their relationship. Wing-grooming, yo.

Huge thanks to all the participants, and the other mods, and all the beta-readers and pinch-hitters, all of whom make this possible and still a joy after all these years.

Dreamwidth only this year: https://go-exchange.dreamwidth.org/201411.html

Can you believe I've been in this every year since 2005? Huge thanks to everyone who's been on the journey so far. This year lunasong356 comes on board as co-mod, with some BRILLIANT programming that looks to make everything so much simpler and smoother, and I could not be more thrilled.

The fandom is going to be changing for sure, what with the upcoming Amazon TV adaptation - we'll be here, barring apocalypse.

Now it can be told! My fic for the Good Omens Holiday Exchange 2015!

(Fest masterlist is here - check it out, 30-some new pieces of GO fic and art!)


The Reason for the Season

Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: NC-17/E
Warnings: None really
Summary: Adam and Pepper, now married with children of their own, worry that their kids might be losing some of the magic of the season. Adam calls in a little favour from some old friends - with a nice little bonus that's in it for them. Established relationship A/C, a little fluff, a little comedy, a little Bentley smut.

Written for AJ Crowlor in the 2015 Good Omens Holiday Exchange

It's official. That Bilbo/Thorin/Beorn thing I'm working on is now a 10,000-word PWP.

Your word for the day, should you choose to accept it, is baculum. (That word doesn't actually appear in the story. You can't just throw Latin around in Tolkien fic. The concept certainly does, er, come up.)

GOOD OMENS EXCHANGE 2015 IS OPEN FOR SIGNUPS!!!
I have co-modded this beast for 11 years now! Tendy-one! Which is much to short a time to spend among such excellent and admirable fans. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

I can't isolate a good excerpt from "Honeypot," the Bilbo's Raging Bear Kink fic yet, since, like I said, 10k PWP.

So have an excerpt from "The Ginger Bush League," which is a Sherlock AU heist caper sex farce (with Sherlock/John as the brilliant detective and his bodyguard-cum-lover-cum-sidekick and Irene/Mary as the brilliant criminal and her own.)

***

“Wait a minute,” Mary said. She had thought the matter of Irene’s duplicity had already shown all its layers in this instance, and found herself exhausted, furious, and yet a little relieved at the revelation that there might be another revelation still. She rather peevishly found herself wishing that Irene might stop revealing things that didn’t involve taking off her clothes. It was getting on towards bedtime. “Our real object? Wasn’t that the--”

“Yes, and we’ve that well in hand, you can be sure. But I found that the hound on our trail was no ordinary mutt. You might have heard of that detective who’s gone all viral? A Mr. Sherlock Holmes?”

“The one with the hat?” Mary said dubiously.

“Rather more than meets the eye. Not that what meets the eye is objectionable,” Irene said, arching an eyebrow.

Well, Irene had never claimed to be a gold star lesbian. Tin star, perhaps. Possibly zinc, or a nickel-plate alloy.

“You think he was getting close?” Mary asked incredulously.

“Oh, I know for sure he was,” Irene said. “He got quite a bit too close. And he’s very close even now.” Irene took Mary’s arm, and led her down the hallway to her windowed playroom, and pointed through the glass. Mary gasped - there was a man in there, bound quite thoroughly to one of Irene’s deluxe leather chairs (for their was no reason for her very well-paying victims to ever be uncomfortable in ways they didn’t wish to be, not when Irene’s art depended so much on very specific discomforts). But this one? A client, or a prisoner? He was a thin but well-built man wearing nothing but pricey black pants, artfully - and effectively bound - black ropes, and a black hood over his head. He had pale skin and long limbs, and absolutely none of the tell-tale signs of the terrified.

“How much does he know?” Mary asked.

“Oh, I would imagine nearly everything at this point,” Irene said.

“So . . . then, shall I?” Mary asked with a little sigh as her muscle memory started to shape the gun that was not in her hand.

Irene huffed and rolled her eyes. “Oh heavens, Mary, sometimes it’s so tedious that you’re a former assassin. You keep turning into that hammer that thinks every problem it sees is a nail.”

I've been writing fanfic for 12 years, and this was my most prolific year by far!

I wrote 14 different stories - several different fandoms and three pieces of original fiction.

(Dates given are AO3 posting dates, which aren't necessarily the first posting, especially for challenges like Porn Battle)

1. (February 6, 2014, Porn Battle) Goldengrove Unleaving (The Hobbit, Galadriel/Gandalf, E, 875 words. Hurt/comforty vibe to this one. Battle of Five Armies vindicated the hell out of this story. Score!)

2. (February 7, 2014, Porn Battle) Start Me Up (Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper/John Watson, E, 1594 words. This is the NECROPHILIA ROLEPLAY fic. I regret nothing. Neither do any of the participants. This was also my first non-AU Sherlock story. Don't look at me that way, this is NOT AU. They SO totally did that.)

3. (February 13, 2014, Porn Battle) Polar Vortex (The Dresden Files, Harry Dresden/Thomas Raith, E, 2791 words. Chicago is frozen, and it's Harry Dresden's fault. Yup, that's some incesty sex-vampire/winter-knight mutual dubcon. Also a little hurt/comforty.)

4. (February 17, 2014, Porn Battle) Darkness Alone is Worshipful (The Silmarillion, Sauron/Ar-Pharazôn, E, 968. This creepy pairing is so canon this story just pretty much wrote itself, right down to the title, which is a quote.)

5. (February 17, 2014, Porn Battle) Genetic Markers (Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes/Mary Morstan/John Watson, E, 5146 words. The Porn Battle entry wasn't over 5,000 words - I just couldn't stop adding to it, and the last chapter wound up being a birthday mathom on July 6. Poly co-parenting fic involving conceiving a baby with insufferable-genius genes.)

6. (March 29, 2014) Bear Necessity (Sherlock, Bone-Fiddle-verse AU, E, 5302. My first attempt at BF-verse porn from Sherlock's POV. He's a verbose SOB. And he likes that bearskin rug a lot more than John does. Might be cheating by including here because it had been sitting on my hard drive for at least six months.)

7. (Spring 2014) Tempestuous, original fiction, forthcoming to be included in the New Smut Project's anthology (Published under the name Evadare Volney). (Virginia Dare/Madimia Dee, E, about 5,000 words).

8. (Begun posting Beltane 2014, finished near Mabon, 2014) The Straw Man Fallacy (Sherlock/The Wicker Man crossover, Sherlock/John, E, 40,422 words. When this idea hit me, it seemed so brilliantly obvious that I couldn't believe anyone else hadn't already done it, so I wrote it super fast so no one else would beat me to it. Turns out it's also the only Wicker Man fic on AO3 at all. Really? This is the longest fic I've ever written all by myself.)

9. (July/August 2014) The Adventure of the Cluck and Balls, a collaboration with winter_hermit. (Sherlock mostly, but we think it'll also give fans of Hannibal, Welcome to Night Vale, Supernatural, and Doctor Who a good chuckle. T, 5748 words. This one had to be written fast too, before the ball pit jokes got too old. Because it's totally about DashCon.)

10. (October 2014), Lustful Cockweed (original, sort of autobiographical, 562 words). Adventures in phallic, eldritch gardening.

11. (October 31, 2014) The Terror of Rushy Hollow (Lord of the Rings, T, gen, OCs, 4106 words. This is a story idea I've had kicking around in my head for 10 years, and I finally got it written down on posted on Halloween night. Not a crossover, but it is a bit of a pastiche and fusion)

12. (December 2014) Dentata, original Lovecraftian/Cthulhu Mythos fiction, gen, 3872 words, submitted to the open call for She Walks in Shadows, a forth-coming all-woman Lovecraft anthology. Should hear back in a couple months, wish me luck!

13. (December 2014) He's Coming To Us Dead (Sherlock, Bone-Fiddle-verse AU, Sherlock/John, E, 13397 words. This was my payment to winter_hermit for that fantastic cover art for the Straw Man Fallacy fanmix - she requested a Bone-Fiddle-verse ghost story. This one is part Appalachian folklore, part The Hounds of Baskerville and the Gloria Scott, and a hot mess of angst and make-up sex. As always, I regret nothing.)

14. (November-December 2014) The Widening Gyre (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley, Historical/Literary RPF, PG-13, 5,996 words) I've been wanting to write a historical story with W.B. Yeats as a prominent character for years, so I couldn't believe my good luck when tomato_greens asked for one in the go_exchange. I had a GREAT time writing this one.


That's over 90,000 words (always going to be fuzzy since one of them is a collaboration and I wrote a few drabbles I'm not counting here)! Not a big deal for some writers, but it is for me because I tend to be pokey.

So, 12 years on, I love fic as much as ever and probably a little bit more.

Current works-in-progress for January:

1) an original story to form the framework of my mom's narrative dance (we collaborate for Mysticon every year). Loose adaptation of The Descent of Inanna with a steampunk vibe and H.G. Wells influence.

2) a Bone-Fiddle-verse 221B

3) a short Hobbit fix-it fic (Bilbo/Thorin) involving the mithril shirt and a surprisingly sympathetic Thranduil