Lately I fall into fandom rabbit holes at odd hours, tea cooling beside my laptop and the cat hogging the keyboard, and Mycroft fic is one of those indulgences I never get tired of. A huge strain of modern fanfiction takes the BBC 'Sherlock' template and leans hard into Mycroft as the hidden protagonist: slice-of-life or domestic-espionage stories where he's the one doing emotional labor behind the scenes. Authors love the quiet, authoritative Mycroft and flip the spotlight onto him—diary entries, leaked memos, or POV chapters that show his loneliness, his tiny rebellions, and the rare moments he lets his guard drop. Tags you’ll see constantly? ‘hurt/comfort’, ‘political intrigue’, ‘found family’, and a surprising amount of healing-from-abuse arcs that try to humanize his bureaucratic coldness.
Other adaptations play with genre more wildly. Cyber-AUs recast Mycroft as a tech CEO or shadowy sysadmin controlling city-wide surveillance; Victorian-tinged retellings emphasize bureaucratic satire; and crossover fics pair him with characters from 'Doctor Who' or spin him into a noir detective lead. Romance and queer interpretations are common too—pining, negotiated consent scenes, or gender-swapped Mycrofts (which open up new sibling dynamics). What I adore is the imaginative variety: some writers keep him almost monolithic and cerebral, while others smudge the edges and let him be tender, reckless, or quietly subversive. It’s like stumbling into a boutique that sells the same coat in a dozen colors—each author’s texture and stitch changes everything.
On my commute I scroll through short Mycroft fics like a guilty pleasure, and the modern scene is such a mixed buffet: there are the tender microfics where he’s unexpectedly soft over a sibling’s broken mug, and the darker long-form epics where he masterminds geopolitics from a shadowed office. People love to AU him—tech mogul, retired spymaster, gender-swapped sibling—and each AU highlights a different part of his character, from vulnerability to menace. Meta posts and headcanons have made ‘Mycroft as caretaker’ just as popular as ‘Mycroft as puppetmaster’, which makes for fun contrast when you read two stories back-to-back. What sticks with me is how writers keep experimenting—sometimes he’s the villain, sometimes the therapist, and sometimes the person quietly making tea at three in the morning—and I keep saving the ones that surprise me for rereads.
I get hooked on analysis mode when reading modern Mycroft-centric fiction. A lot of contemporary takes interrogate power: how intelligence, surveillance, and familial influence can be both protective and suffocating. In many fics inspired by 'Sherlock' and shows like 'Elementary', Mycroft is reimagined as a corporate or governmental power broker whose moral compass is ambiguous. Writers often set up ethical dilemmas—do ends justify means, and at what human cost?—so you’ll find thoughtful slow-burns that make you question whether sympathy for Mycroft should override the harm his choices cause.
There’s also a noticeable trend of recontextualizing his solitude through found-family tropes. Authors use quiet moments—forced proximity on a train, a repair shop at 3 a.m., or stolen tea in a huge empty office—to soften him without stripping agency. Fanworks do interesting things with medium and voice: epistolary formats (emails, text threads), unreliable narrators, and meta posts that explore fandom’s own fascination with control figures. And of course, slash and femslash communities continue to expand the relational possibilities, examining consent and negotiation in power-imbalanced pairings. Reading these pieces reminds me how fanfiction can be both therapy and critique, a sandbox where Mycroft’s intellect meets messy human feeling.
2025-09-03 21:58:52
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Reborn as the villain's obsession [MM romance]
Bluebutterflywrites
10
5.3K
Adrian died with fury in his heart, hating the tragic ending of his favorite novel.
The villain deserved better.
But the story was never written for happy endings.
Betrayed by everyone he trusted, feared by the entire world, and ultimately destroyed by the plot itself—Cassian Nyx, the infamous Demon Lord, was never meant to be saved.
Until Adrian woke up inside the story.
He didn't reincarnate as a harmless bystander. He woke up as Prince Elian Ashford—the tyrannical prince destined to destroy Cassian.
Worse, a cold, ruthless World System instantly locks onto his soul, forcing him to keep the original tragedy on its "correct" path.
[MISSION: MAINTAIN STORY STABILITY]
Failure Penalty: Immediate Death.
Trapped between a lethal penalty and his own morals, Adrian chooses a dangerous path: pretend to follow the plot while secretly rewriting the villain's destiny.
But there’s only one problem.
The more Adrian tries to save the villain, the more the dangerous, obsessive Demon Lord begins to love him.
Cassian Nyx is a monster feared by the entire kingdom. He trusts no one. Until Adrian. For the first time in centuries, the scarred Demon Lord begins to hope for a future where someone finally stays.
Now, the original hero has arrived, and the System is forcing the final execution. Every choice Adrian makes pushes the world further into chaotic plot deviation.
Adrian must make his final choice. Will he obey the System to save his own life? Or will he destroy the entire story itself just to save his villain?
Genre: BL Fantasy Romance / Transmigration
Tropes: Obsessive Demon Lord ML × Reincarnated Prince MC, Saving the Obsessive Demon Lord / Destroying the Plot for You, System Missions, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Angst with Comfort, Soul Bond.
Cursed, mated, and in for the fight of their lives…
Warlock Nate Hawthorne just wants a cup of coffee. Is that too much to ask? Apparently. Because instead of precious caffeine, all he gets is cursed by a pack of werewolves who want to use him for his magic. Now the only way to fix the damage is a mate bond to a grumpy and oh-so-sexy alpha in the rival pack, who happens to hate him. This is so not how he wanted to start his day.
Ian Armitage never intended to take Nate as his mate. The Hawthorne family can’t be trusted. Ian knows that better than anyone. The fact that he’s lusted after the way-too-gorgeous man for years? Totally irrelevant. Ian’s just doing what is necessary to protect his pack. This whole mating arrangement has nothing to do with love and never will. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.
Nate and Ian will have to work together if they have any hope of staving off the pack’s enemies and averting disaster. That’s assuming they can stop arguing (and keep their hands off each other) long enough to save the day…
The Alpha’s Warlock is an explicit M/M paranormal romance featuring a snarky warlock, a brooding alpha werewolf, knotting, enchanted socks (long story), and a guaranteed happily ever after. This series does not contain mpreg.
Artist Selena Chase unintentionally did something unforgivable to Dr. Cassandra York. That intimidating woman wanted to hear nothing from her but one No or two No's won't stop her.
She knew how to get her attention and that was by booking an appointment! There was no way that the doctor would refuse a 'patient'.
What she thought would be a normal session turned into a steamy one and nothing remained the same after that.
After four years of marriage, Liam Burrey found himself shouldering all blame without complaint. Instead of gratitude, he was met with a divorce agreement. Despite his four-year relationship with Serena Lloyd, it could not withstand Liam's apparent mediocrity.Serena was a renowned and esteemed CEO, but little did she know that everything she achieved was intertwined with Liam. The moment Liam signed his name on the divorce agreement, he made a decision: if he weren't going to choose modesty anymore, then the entire world would have to bow down at his feet!
“Spread your legs for me, printsessa. Show me how desperate that pretty pussy gets just thinking about my cock.”
“My pleasure, sir…”
*
Trixie waited five years for Zahar to come home.
One weekend is all it takes for everything to fall apart. One look from him. One touch. One quiet groan of her name, and she’s on her knees, begging for the man she was never supposed to want.
He’s her father’s best friend. Her childhood crush. The man who stopped pretending he didn’t feel the same the second he saw her again.
It’s wrong. It’s dirty. And neither of them is backing down.
“Mas..ter…pleas…e
Bryce moaned. In pain, accompanied with pleasure.
**
In a world ruled by four supernatural families, pain is power,
and pleasure is often the weapon. Domino, cold-blooded and cursed, leads the most feared family of all. His rule is brutal, his throne unquestioned… until Bryce arrives.
Bryce is no warrior, just a street thief with dangerous secrets and a face too soft for this cruel world. When he forces his way into Dom’s lair, demanding to join the family, no one expects him to survive. But Bryce carries something. Sacred, forbidden, and powerful enough to break curses… even the one Dom bears.
Dom is drawn to Bryce in ways that defy everything he’s known. Their connection is electric, obsessive, and violently tender. As initiation turns to torment and lust gives way to longing, Bryce finds himself unraveling the monster behind the mask, while Dom begins to crave the very boy he once wanted to destroy.
In this dark, twisted tale of dominance, destiny, and devotion, love blooms beneath chains, and salvation comes soaked in blood.
He entered the Master’s house to save himself… but it’s the Master who can’t let him go.
Honestly, if you’re hunting for novels that put Mycroft front and center, the pickings are pretty slim compared to the avalanche of Sherlock pastiches — but there are some real gems you can sink into. The most widely known novelistic treatment that actually makes Mycroft the protagonist is the co-written pair by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse: start with 'Mycroft Holmes' and then follow up with 'Mycroft and Sherlock'. Those books deliberately pull Mycroft out of the background and give him agency, voice, and the kind of dry, observational intelligence that the canonical snippets always hinted at. I love how they take the elder brother’s cerebral nature and build a Victorian world around his investigations; it feels like someone finally asked, “what would he do if he were the lead?”
Beyond those novels, most material with Mycroft in a starring role tends to be short stories, anthologies, or media tie-ins. For example, Arthur Conan Doyle’s original shorts like 'The Greek Interpreter' and 'The Bruce-Partington Plans' are essential reading if you want the canonical Mycroft, even though they aren’t novels with him as the lead. If you don’t mind branching into other formats, there are comics, radio plays, and modern YA series like Nancy Springer’s 'Enola Holmes' novels where Mycroft is a major figure (he’s not the protagonist there, but he’s central). If you want more recommendations or a reading order mixing the Abdul-Jabbar novels with canonical shorts and a few fan-favourite pastiches, tell me the vibe you want — cerebral Mycroft, action-tinged, or character study — and I’ll map a list for you.