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I've recently started writing another fic, still with a Johnlock pairing but such a slow burn... 74 pages in and John and Sherlock cannot sit together on a bed.
Quite angsty as well, it makes me worry about my own state of mind. So angsty in fact, that I can't seem to get to write in Gambit part II which, although a tad less fluffy than part I, still has the potential to give anyone cavities.
I feel guilty about this since Gambit is a large piece and we're on chapter 8 out of... 10-ish. I mean, the end of that part is near. Priorities, man!
As for the angst in that new fic - how is it that I cannot write Sherlock without giving him... a arduous youth - with, apparently, very vivid descriptions?
I am now going to reflect on that while practising the violin. Got to make up for that day where I was Not Good and even this did not appeal to me.
Quite angsty as well, it makes me worry about my own state of mind. So angsty in fact, that I can't seem to get to write in Gambit part II which, although a tad less fluffy than part I, still has the potential to give anyone cavities.
I feel guilty about this since Gambit is a large piece and we're on chapter 8 out of... 10-ish. I mean, the end of that part is near. Priorities, man!
As for the angst in that new fic - how is it that I cannot write Sherlock without giving him... a arduous youth - with, apparently, very vivid descriptions?
I am now going to reflect on that while practising the violin. Got to make up for that day where I was Not Good and even this did not appeal to me.
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Date: 2019-01-19 06:42 pm (UTC)From:Interesting question—made me think. I think that we (fans) have always wondered how adult Sherlock got this way, for whatever version of Sherlock Holmes we're thinking about. I mean, that was one of the early questions that Moffat/Gatiss took up back when they were still doing show ep commentaries, admitting that they had had to look at that in order to compose the adult. And it's something that Cumberbatch clearly considered in crafting his portrayal (even though a fair number of fans found so much of what he said he felt about the character to be laughably out of touch with what they saw). So to some extent, looking at the man's character just has to include considering how he grew up, what went into this remarkable character as well as what costs he bore for his abilities.
But I do think that this speculation, this backgrounding, took a real turn as we got into the s3-4 AU of s1-2, in which Sherlock was gradually revealed to have been a victim of some degree or other of abuse by virtually everyone he ever met (or, at least, whom we ever met). If the endpoint is to stay compliant with the picture of Sherlock we have post-s4, it's hard to imagine getting there in any non-traumatic way. And even if we choose to write about s1-2 Sherlock, about whose background we have only small hints of trouble (that issue with Mummy, the drug past, why is his brother his arch-enemy), we still have to deal with how he came to be such a generalized, emotionally-stunted (-rejecting!) asshole which, again, isn't easily imagined to have arisen from a happy and supportive childhood.
So I guess I'm never surprised with the ways writers make that youth difficult because the character himself seems to demand it. While Sherlock Holmes's story is not actually a tragic one, I've never felt it had enough room to be an entirely happy one, either.