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Jan. 7th, 2010 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fenrisrangerOkay. After sleeping on this, I'm no less moved by it, so it's getting the epic epic review I promised on Twitter. Problem is, I don't want to ruin any part of it, but the main premise is introduced all of 30 seconds into it, so I think I can get away with that.
Vagueness over.
First, this is a different fic than the one I'm talking about above, but just to make sure it gets seen, I actually went back and edited my post of "A Fool's Game", the Holmes/Watson fic I posted the other day to link to "Partings" by Daylyn. I read that last night as well, and if I didn't know better I might have thought hers was for the same![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sherlockkink prompt as mine, if not mine having actually been written as a prequel to hers. It's exactly how I imagined the morning and days after my telling of Sherlock's actions on Watson's wedding eve, and therefore highly recommended.
And now, the other one.
I don't often remember the first fic I read in a fandom.
What I do remember is the first fic in a fandom to make me really cry.
In Harry Potter, it was Mapmakers (Making Moony Laugh: The Suicide is Painless remix), which I cannot recommend enough, because it still manages to make me cry every time I read it even though it's been probably 5 years.
In Sherlock Holmes, it was "Living With Ghosts". I'd read fics that gave me a sniffle, maybe even a tear or two, but this was the first Sherlock Holmes story that really, truly made me cry.
"Living With Ghosts" is an end-of-life retelling of the entire span from Holmes' return post Reichenbach Falls until Watson's death. It takes a premise done not-infrequently in post-"Friend In Need" Xena fics--one living partner, one dead one that follows and assists as spirit/ghost--and, just like in Xena fandom, manages to make it instead of campy or farcical, extremely sad. Holmes and Watson had never expressed anything deeper for each other--never had the chance--pre-Holmes' untimely death at the hands of Colonel Moran, the air-gun bullet having found its target in the wax bust but Moran pulling a knife in the ensuing struggle and Holmes exsanguinating in Watson's arms. We follow Watson through his grief; assuming he's mad when Holmes reappears; the joy in solving cases again together and keeping Holmes' memory alive by fictionalizing the cases into ones solved by a corporeal Holmes with Watson assisting; the frustration and utter tragedy when they finally realize their feelings for each other and can't touch; and the all-encompassing, heart-wrenching, soul-squeezing grief when, after Watson is injured by Killer Evans, Holmes decides he can't lead his partner into danger anymore and disappears for the rest of Watson's life.
I'm a sucker for end-of-life type stories as a whole, because they're sad, but in a happyending type way because THEY GET TO BE TOGETHER AGAIN YAY. Pure angst I can read all day long with no problem, but this entire thing was so beautiful--hopeful in the middle part of the interspersed ghost!Holmes and Watson solving mysteries together, but the happy was tempered in your stomach by the fact that you know that Holmes is really dead, and they can't touch, and Watson can't talk to him like he'd like to for fear of being shipped off to Bethlehem Hospital, and Holmes is pressuring him to get on with his life, to get married, and then Holmes leaves and you know it ends with Watson dying alone from the bordering and intermittent snips of him in hospital, and it's so. . . *tears*.
If you want to know the ending before you start, the quote I've blacked out below is, I'm sure, the line entirely responsible (you know, in conjunction with the PMS, but I'm still not easily weepy, so don't take that as any kind of a diminishment of the beautiful tragedy that is this fic) for the fact that my weepiness persisted a good 10 minutes after I finished it. And the resurgence of heavy-blinking to dispel eyewatering just now when I tried to explain this fic to my sister. I mean. . . oh my god. I cannot, cannot cannot recommend a fic more than something that makes me cry just thinking about it the next day. That, my friends, is writing.
This line is probably not nearly as powerful if you haven't just spent the last 30 pages in the emotional wringer that is this fic, but nevertheless:
I fear that my review is not nearly as eloquent as I would wish to do justice to this magnificent work. I've been working my way through all of the http://www.excessant.com/HI/authors.htm fics more or less systematically, and I haven't stumbled across a bad fic yet. Indeed, most are worthy of my bumbling praise, but this one has the dubious honor of being one of the few that I have a feeling will stick in my mind for a very long time to come. Read it. Have tissues handy.
And in case anybody was curious how I did the blackout thing (as I had to look it up):
Vagueness over.
First, this is a different fic than the one I'm talking about above, but just to make sure it gets seen, I actually went back and edited my post of "A Fool's Game", the Holmes/Watson fic I posted the other day to link to "Partings" by Daylyn. I read that last night as well, and if I didn't know better I might have thought hers was for the same
sherlockkink prompt as mine, if not mine having actually been written as a prequel to hers. It's exactly how I imagined the morning and days after my telling of Sherlock's actions on Watson's wedding eve, and therefore highly recommended.And now, the other one.
I don't often remember the first fic I read in a fandom.
What I do remember is the first fic in a fandom to make me really cry.
In Harry Potter, it was Mapmakers (Making Moony Laugh: The Suicide is Painless remix), which I cannot recommend enough, because it still manages to make me cry every time I read it even though it's been probably 5 years.
In Sherlock Holmes, it was "Living With Ghosts". I'd read fics that gave me a sniffle, maybe even a tear or two, but this was the first Sherlock Holmes story that really, truly made me cry.
"Living With Ghosts" is an end-of-life retelling of the entire span from Holmes' return post Reichenbach Falls until Watson's death. It takes a premise done not-infrequently in post-"Friend In Need" Xena fics--one living partner, one dead one that follows and assists as spirit/ghost--and, just like in Xena fandom, manages to make it instead of campy or farcical, extremely sad. Holmes and Watson had never expressed anything deeper for each other--never had the chance--pre-Holmes' untimely death at the hands of Colonel Moran, the air-gun bullet having found its target in the wax bust but Moran pulling a knife in the ensuing struggle and Holmes exsanguinating in Watson's arms. We follow Watson through his grief; assuming he's mad when Holmes reappears; the joy in solving cases again together and keeping Holmes' memory alive by fictionalizing the cases into ones solved by a corporeal Holmes with Watson assisting; the frustration and utter tragedy when they finally realize their feelings for each other and can't touch; and the all-encompassing, heart-wrenching, soul-squeezing grief when, after Watson is injured by Killer Evans, Holmes decides he can't lead his partner into danger anymore and disappears for the rest of Watson's life.
I'm a sucker for end-of-life type stories as a whole, because they're sad, but in a happyending type way because THEY GET TO BE TOGETHER AGAIN YAY. Pure angst I can read all day long with no problem, but this entire thing was so beautiful--hopeful in the middle part of the interspersed ghost!Holmes and Watson solving mysteries together, but the happy was tempered in your stomach by the fact that you know that Holmes is really dead, and they can't touch, and Watson can't talk to him like he'd like to for fear of being shipped off to Bethlehem Hospital, and Holmes is pressuring him to get on with his life, to get married, and then Holmes leaves and you know it ends with Watson dying alone from the bordering and intermittent snips of him in hospital, and it's so. . . *tears*.
If you want to know the ending before you start, the quote I've blacked out below is, I'm sure, the line entirely responsible (you know, in conjunction with the PMS, but I'm still not easily weepy, so don't take that as any kind of a diminishment of the beautiful tragedy that is this fic) for the fact that my weepiness persisted a good 10 minutes after I finished it. And the resurgence of heavy-blinking to dispel eyewatering just now when I tried to explain this fic to my sister. I mean. . . oh my god. I cannot, cannot cannot recommend a fic more than something that makes me cry just thinking about it the next day. That, my friends, is writing.
This line is probably not nearly as powerful if you haven't just spent the last 30 pages in the emotional wringer that is this fic, but nevertheless:
“After all these years you waited to come back to me at my death?” I did not know if I was grateful or resentful of that fact. I just knew that I wanted him close to me.
“You held me as I died, Watson,” he murmured as he reached out to stroke my face. “I felt that I could do nothing less than return the favor.”
I fear that my review is not nearly as eloquent as I would wish to do justice to this magnificent work. I've been working my way through all of the http://www.excessant.com/HI/authors.htm fics more or less systematically, and I haven't stumbled across a bad fic yet. Indeed, most are worthy of my bumbling praise, but this one has the dubious honor of being one of the few that I have a feeling will stick in my mind for a very long time to come. Read it. Have tissues handy.
And in case anybody was curious how I did the blackout thing (as I had to look it up):
