#theemptyquarto

[thisisartbylexie]

Though two weeks later when she came and sat in his lap one evening and said, "Though talking of morality there is something to be said for being hanged as a sheep rather than a lamb," it became quite difficult to remember exactly what his objections had been.

x

Lexie’s Follower Celebration: @theemptyquarto requested something from the lovely fic that she wrote for me some time ago. There’s a lot I love about this fic and I was happy to make something. :) 

[missdaviswrites]

theemptyquarto replied to your post “This last prompt fic might not be ready today because they are just...”

lololol. I once got a drabble prompt that turned into a 40,000 word rewrite of s4 so I feel you even though it is totally my fault.

This could easily be a 35K fic but I’m just summarizing like two weeks worth of events in the beginning instead. It’s a very good prompt!

[youknowmymethods]

Content Creator Interviews 2019: Master List (Complete with gratuitous gif of Sherlock looking hot, just because)

As some of you know, early this year a group of people in the Sherlock and Sherlolly fandom got together to conduct a series of interviews focusing on fan content and its creation. The result was twelve interviews, posted over three months, where writers and artists talk about their work, the fandom and show, and their own processes. I’ve finally gotten around to doing a master list of them to make it easier for anyone who’d like to read through them. Check out the links below:

OhAine interviews likingthistoomuch

 Likingthistoomuch interviews OhAine

 theleftpill interviews kstewmanipulation

 thisisartbylexie interviews writingwife-83

 ellis-hendricks interviews geekmama

 geekmama interviews ellis-hendricks

 ashockinglackofsatin interviews sunken-standard

 vermofftiss interviews mizjoely

 writingwife-83 interviews artbylexie

 OhAine interviews ashockinglackofsatin

 lilsherlockian75 and mrsmcrieff interview each other

 theemptyquarto interviews hobbitsdoitbetter

[mizjoely]

theemptyquarto

  rip molly whore hooper rip molly whore hooper rip...

I’d read the hell out of number 2

I have this whole vision in my mind now, of Mary being an Enemy Agent with orders (From General Magnussen) to cold-bloodedly seduce Sherlock (Moriarty was supposed to destroy his rep and make him look like a traitor but he failed) but it’s too late - he’s fallen for a lowly Comfort Girl so she’s ordered to kill him instead but surprise! She’s fallen in love with Captain John Watson and so she just shoots to wound instead of kill.

Um, I might have given this AU waaaay to much thought. Also Molly totally is the reason Moriarty failed.

[maeskitchen]

1. The ice cream maker. Probably haven’t got that one out in ten years. 2. I have a rack that covers the entirety of the door to the pantry. Which I’m pretty sure was originally intended to be a coat closet. 3. This was tough! But the little rotary Parmesan grater! Based on the combination of frequency of use (the garlic press is more frequent) and fun (the apple peeler/corer is more fun)

The neglected ice cream maker and improvised spice coat check apparatus tells me you strive to be the ultimate host but despite your ambitious plans, your event dinners are a kind of co-ordinated chaos with half the ideas you had left on the chopping block. However, the parmesan grater tells me that your guests have a lot of fun and never suspect a thing because you wield that implement with the flourish of a seasoned upscale restaurant veteran.

[luminoustico]

@theemptyquarto asked for Sherlolly and “porcelain”.

“Kintsugi,” he says one day, shoving an article at her, and, unfortunately for romantic gestures, Molly peers at it over the rim of her cereal bowl and thinks at first it’s to do with a case; she makes a non-committal sound, curling her foot up to her chest, swaying it slightly to the beat of the music playing on Radio 2.

“It’s an ancient Japanese art,” Sherlock says, pressing, “They fix broken things with gold.”

She catches the understanding with a swallow of cornflakes.

“You’re a sap,” she says, tilting her head up at him, reaching up after a moment of silence, and cupping his cheek, during her thumb over the arch of his cheekbone. 

“You’ll ruin my reputation,” he teases, turning his cheek towards her hand, his hand covering hers as he kisses the soft pink flesh of her palm.

SEND ME A SHIP/CHARACTER(S) AND A ONE-WORD PROMPT AND I WILL WRITE A 5 SENTENCE FIC ABOUT IT. -- No more please!

[gettingovergreta]

So Imma kick it old-school and ask you about "Dignity and Purpose." Because you jumped into AO3 with an *extraordinarily* dark premise and I'd like to know the background.

This begins, as most of my weird fics have, on the old kink meme.  This was a prompt made after TRF aired of course, at a point where we were all talking about the striking (and rather sudden) emotion of the “What do you need?” scenes.  I realized that I could use the closeness in those scenes to generate intimacy in the story...for a very bad end indeed. (Also, no lie, I was a French major and I’m sure my brain had a “La petite mort” joke playing around in there too.)  It was strange because I generally had a hard time writing Sherlock, but I wrote and edited the whole thing in one afternoon and posted as quickly as possible to avoid overthinking it.

I liked the idea of Sherlock’s colder instincts coming to bear in a crisis situation.  We know he can be manipulative, and also highly capable of justifying his own behavior to himself.  Molly offered to help, he needed her, and then he stopped needing her and she became a loose end.  At the same time, I wanted him to have that little moment of temptation, the faint possibility that he could choose differently.  Moreover, I thought Sherlock would naturally be thoughtful about creating a perfect crime scene, and thanks to his new understanding from John and Kitty Riley about how he is perceived by the public, would fold that into his thinking about the situation.

[sunken-standard]

For your “talk about” meme, let’s do number 31 and go full goth

31: Talk about what you think death is like. 

(No lie, this is almost the one I sent to you, but then I was like ‘nah, I’ll just pick the same thing for everyone because I don’t want you thinking I somehow associate you with death or anything; I overthink everything)

Behind a cut because I’m a morbid Debby Downer and I don’t want to harsh anyone’s mellow.

So I spend a lot of time thinking about death (it’s no secret, suicidal ideation has been a bosom companion to me since I was around 8 or so).  I’m also terrified of it, because I can’t imagine any scenario that isn’t terrifying and horribly painful. 

I was just fact-checking that thing about a huge dopamine release as the brain-meat shuts down, but I can’t verify that from the like five things Google just gave me.  But some of what I did just read was not as comforting as I would like it to be.  My takeaway is that the process of dying is actually like the shittiest panic attack ever, and the only consolation is that when it’s over, you won’t ever have to worry about another one. 

When my grandfather was dying, the hospice nurse was very frank in answering my questions (I made it pretty clear that there was no love lost between me and my grandfather and I didn’t need words of comfort or sugar-coating), but this was like five years ago and I don’t remember a lot of it.  I know that in the days before death, the body is like on high alert all the time, and even a light touch can cause the dying person anxiety and physical pain because of all the stuff happening in the brain as everything else shuts down.  That sounds like literal, actual hell to me.  Maybe some people get lucky and don’t know what’s happening, or they just don’t care because it’s coming anyway and they’ve made some kind of peace with it, but I also think this is probably something bystanders just tell themselves to make themselves feel less helpless in the face of it.

And that’s slow death.  Quick and violent might not be as bad, but only because it’s just not as prolonged.  It’s all still pain and terror. 

I sometimes wonder about the after; even though I’m an atheist and I know there’s nothing more, I come from a long line of superstitious Germans (with psychic powers, no less) and have had my own experiences with being “visited” by loved ones.  I can explain it away as just chemical misfires and interpreting events to suit my desires, but… I don’t know.  There’s more in Heaven and Earth etc.  Humans have limited senses, infinite alternate dimensions, we live in the Matrix, blah blah. 

So yeah.  I think death is probably pretty horrible.  But at least it’s final, so there’s that.  I mean, that fear of the pain at the end is what’s kept me alive so far (well, that and filial piety, but we won’t get into that fucked-up can of worms), and I honestly don’t think I’d believe anyone that tried to tell me it’s all peace and warmth as the lights go out.