You know your "Sherlock" obsession is bad when...

[sfmpco]

... when you really, really want to know whether when Sherlock told John he'd nearly been in contact so many times during the two years he was officially dead, he meant he'd made beginnings to e-mails or texts that were then deleted / not sent, and if so, what they said. "Not dead"? "Sorry"? "Don't touch my stuff and don't let Mrs Hudson sell anything"? Or did he consider contacting his friend under an alias? Maybe he even did so?

 

Did Sherlock continue to talk to John (or some disembodied mind palace voice of John's) while he was abroad, the way we see him do in The Empty Hearse? If so, about what? Did he feel he'd explained everything and said sorry already and so now they could just move on and solve the next case?

 

And what did Sherlock think John was doing all that time? How could he honestly believe John would still be at Baker Street? Did he imagine he just slept in a coffin until Sherlock's return? Human nature is really not his best subject...

 

Okay, I don't ship Johnlock, and you all know I don't ship it.  However, someone pointed out a recent (and still being written) fanfic on Archive of our Own called "Dear John," and it's a fascinating concept of John going to an online dating site after TRF and connecting with an enigmatic and mysterious man named William (turns out to be Sherlock, but John doesn't know that - that's no spoiler since the author says so up front).  Warning:  one chapter is quite explicit.

 

http://archiveofourown.org/works/2647979/chapters/6744731

Edited January 16, 2015 by Carol the Dabbler
Pale text is nearly invisible against the white Mobile or IP.Board background

[joanneta1]

...when you are thrilled -- thrilled, I tell you -- to have figured out a legit way to work Sherlock Holmes into your history class lecture.

Easily done! asMr Gatiss comments in the Great Game when Benedict explains how he managed to shoot a whole in his expensive blue silk dressing gown.

I do not know which particular period of History you are teaching, but he and his reasoning/deductions can be worked in in every single crime committed throughout ancient, medieval and modern Western Civilisation history, from Kleomenes throwing the envoys of Xerxes into a pit (yes, it was NOT Leonidas as seen in 300), moving on to Alexander the Great killing Cleitus in a drunken rage (or did he), to Olympias, his mother, allegedly poisoning Philip II,'s newest wife, Euridice, Philip II' s actual death in the theatre ( a whole conspiracy lurked behind Pausanias or did it?), to the numerous plots to kill Caesar, until they managed it on the Ides of March, to King William Rufus and his fateful hunting party, to the White Ship disaster that brought about the first civil war between Maud and Etienne de Blois,King Steven, to numerous royal assassinations during the Wars of the Roses, in parallel dropping a line about the Borgias and specifically the deaths of Lucrezia's second husband and those of Pope Alexander and Cesare, to the numerous plots to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, to the real Guy Fawkes, to the numerous plots against Peter the Great, to the assassination of several Nordic kings, to the plots to kill Napoleon, to Lincoln's assassination, to the alleged suicide of the Hapsburg heir Rudolph, to the assassination of Tsar Alexander III, Empress Sissi, the terrorist attack in Sarajevo that sparked off the First World War, the numerous plots to assassinate Hitler, to name but some examples of historical whodunnits that could benefit from a little analytical thinking by Sherlock. Of course, with his propensity to examine the crime scene, he would need Dr Who's time travelling device, but, while improbable, it is not impossible!

[Carol the Dabbler]

... when you really, really want to know whether when Sherlock told John he'd nearly been in contact so many times during the two years he was officially dead, he meant he'd made beginnings to e-mails or texts that were then deleted / not sent, and if so, what they said. "Not dead"? "Sorry"? "Don't touch my stuff and don't let Mrs Hudson sell anything"? Or did he consider contacting his friend under an alias? Maybe he even did so?

During that hiatus, I pictured Sherlock sort of keeping an eye on John in his spare time, making sure he was safe. That's not canon, of course, since Holmes (like Sherlock) was out of the country, but I liked the idea.

 

Did Sherlock continue to talk to John (or some disembodied mind palace voice of John's) while he was abroad, the way we see him do in The Empty Hearse? If so, about what? Did he feel he'd explained everything and said sorry already and so now they could just move on and solve the next case

You know, that makes sense! Not in any sort of logical way, of course, but psychologically.

 

And what did Sherlock think John was doing all that time? How could he honestly believe John would still be at Baker Street? Did he imagine he just slept in a coffin until Sherlock's return? Human nature is really not his best subject...

Well, I pictured him as still at Baker Street too (at least till he found a steady girlfriend).  I imagined that he would tidy up a bit and move the experiments into Sherlock's bedroom, then carry on as best he could.  And it seemed to me like having Mrs. Hudson right downstairs would be a comfort to him.

 

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

 

... when you really, really want to know whether when Sherlock told John he'd nearly been in contact so many times during the two years he was officially dead, he meant he'd made beginnings to e-mails or texts that were then deleted / not sent, and if so, what they said. "Not dead"? "Sorry"? "Don't touch my stuff and don't let Mrs Hudson sell anything"? Or did he consider contacting his friend under an alias? Maybe he even did so?

During that hiatus, I pictured Sherlock sort of keeping an eye on John in his spare time, making sure he was safe. That's not canon, of course, since Holmes (like Sherlock) was out of the country, but I liked the idea.  

 

Maybe Molly kept tabs and sent the info to Mycroft, who passed it along to Sherlock while he was undercover.

[T.o.b.y]

 

 

... when you really, really want to know whether when Sherlock told John he'd nearly been in contact so many times during the two years he was officially dead, he meant he'd made beginnings to e-mails or texts that were then deleted / not sent, and if so, what they said. "Not dead"? "Sorry"? "Don't touch my stuff and don't let Mrs Hudson sell anything"? Or did he consider contacting his friend under an alias? Maybe he even did so?

During that hiatus, I pictured Sherlock sort of keeping an eye on John in his spare time, making sure he was safe. That's not canon, of course, since Holmes (like Sherlock) was out of the country, but I liked the idea.  

 

Maybe Molly kept tabs and sent the info to Mycroft, who passed it along to Sherlock while he was undercover.

 

 

Of course Mycroft kept an eye on John. He even had a file on him. But the dialog between Sherlock and Mycroft in The Empty Hearse suggests that the brothers did not hold much communication while Sherlock was away, and that Sherlock did not know John had moved and that he had a steady girlfriend.

 

I suppose the Holmes brothers decided it would be too dangerous for them (meaning Sherlock and Mycroft) to keep in touch. Too much risk of blowing Sherlock's cover.

[sfmpco]

....when Sherlock humor makes you laugh out loud at inappropriate times.  Seriously, I have gotten more belly laughs out of Sherlock humor than just about anything else in a very long time.

[T.o.b.y]

Okay, I don't ship Johnlock, and you all know I don't ship it.  However, someone pointed out a recent (and still being written) fanfic on Archive of our Own called "Dear John," and it's a fascinating concept of John going to an online dating site after TRF and connecting with an enigmatic and mysterious man named William (turns out to be Sherlock, but John doesn't know that - that's no spoiler since the author says so up front).  Warning:  one chapter is quite explicit.

 

http://archiveofourown.org/works/2647979/chapters/6744731

 

:lol: I read that! I thought the idea was good and it might be fun, which it was until the explicit part you mentioned. I stopped after that chapter. Not because the explicitness bothered me per se, but because I thought oh no, not this again. Why does it always have to end with them having sex? Why? Why? Why?

 

You know your Sherlock obsession is really bad when you have to sit down at 1 in the morning to write out thoughts your brain has been cooking up about the characters, just to get rid of them and be able to finally (belatedly) go to sleep, which happened to me last night. Now I have 1000-odd words to read over and delete in shame this morning before going to work. Oh well. At least they didn't end up in bed in my mind palace. (Or do I have a mind cottage? I think I do. Not a palace kind of person. More in favor of a cozy little habitat with a thatched roof and a flower garden full of old roses. Terribly cluttered and unorganized place, though.)

 

 

[sfmpco]

 

Okay, I don't ship Johnlock, and you all know I don't ship it.  However, someone pointed out a recent (and still being written) fanfic on Archive of our Own called "Dear John," and it's a fascinating concept of John going to an online dating site after TRF and connecting with an enigmatic and mysterious man named William (turns out to be Sherlock, but John doesn't know that - that's no spoiler since the author says so up front).  Warning:  one chapter is quite explicit.

 

http://archiveofourown.org/works/2647979/chapters/6744731

 

:lol: I read that! I thought the idea was good and it might be fun, which it was until the explicit part you mentioned. I stopped after that chapter. Not because the explicitness bothered me per se, but because I thought oh no, not this again. Why does it always have to end with them having sex? Why? Why? Why?

 

You know your Sherlock obsession is really bad when you have to sit down at 1 in the morning to write out thoughts your brain has been cooking up about the characters, just to get rid of them and be able to finally (belatedly) go to sleep, which happened to me last night. Now I have 1000-odd words to read over and delete in shame this morning before going to work. Oh well. At least they didn't end up in bed in my mind palace. (Or do I have a mind cottage? I think I do. Not a palace kind of person. More in favor of a cozy little habitat with a thatched roof and a flower garden full of old roses. Terribly cluttered and unorganized place, though.)

 

 

 

 

The interesting thing is that after the explicit chapter, there is a chapter where William emails again, and not only is the whole Johnlock thing way out of canon even for the BBC show, suddenly the disassembling of Moriarty's network is on the wrong timeline.  And these are the kinds of things that bug me in fan fiction... because why does the timeline need to be that far off?  Like 10 months off...  Why can't they at least stick with the BBC timeline?

[T.o.b.y]

I don't know.... I guess if you're taking liberties with another work, it doesn't really matter how closely you follow your source, does it. I mean, if you want the original, you read / watch the original and have done with it. Usually, the idea behind fan fiction is to change something, right? Tie up loose ends, create an alternative to a plot development you didn't approve of, make two characters fall in love, things like that. Right? Or not right?

 

I don't know much about fan fiction. I used to shake my head at it like the little snob I am until it turned out my brain writes it on its own unasked and unbidden anyway, and it's no use telling it to stop, so I sit down once in a while and write stuff down, just to get it out of the way and make room for other things on the mental hard drive. It certainly bothers me if I find inconsistencies between my daydreams and the source material and if I get the impression that I've got the characters "wrong" (which always happens - nobody sounds like themselves in my brain, they all sound like me). But I don't see why it would bother everybody. I mean, often a fan fic is written to be deliberately different, see alternate universes and all that.

 

It doesn't bother me when I am reading. I prefer to not connect fan fics too closely with the original anyway. I care more about the inherent logic of the work itself. It bothers me if a writer messes up her own timeline, but if she chooses to change that of the original story, fine. Especially if she has a good reason.

[sfmpco]

Okay, I have a fanfiction rant that has nothing to do with any of the "locks" but rather these very young writers.  Now, bless their hearts for giving the writing a go, but often times it is so sloppy and so rushed that I do a mental face palm.  I realize they aren't skilled, experienced writers, but they sometimes act as if they've never read a book or had basic English grammar.  I was writing better than that when I was 13!  Never once in my life have I changed character points of view by saying something like:  JOHN'S POV and then switching back a few paragraphs (actually, they almost never write paragraphs) to SHERLOCK'S POV.  Sorry, but that's just lazy.  Some can't be bothered to use quotation marks, and it's hard to follow when a character is speaking or not.  Poor spelling, common grammatical errors.  I just want to reach through the computer and shake them a bit and say "Fix it before you publish it!"

 

Okay, I'm done ranting.

[T.o.b.y]

Okay, I have a fanfiction rant that has nothing to do with any of the "locks" but rather these very young writers.  Now, bless their hearts for giving the writing a go, but often times it is so sloppy and so rushed that I do a mental face palm.  I realize they aren't skilled, experienced writers, but they sometimes act as if they've never read a book or had basic English grammar.  I was writing better than that when I was 13!  Never once in my life have I changed character points of view by saying something like:  JOHN'S POV and then switching back a few paragraphs (actually, they almost never write paragraphs) to SHERLOCK'S POV.  Sorry, but that's just lazy.  Some can't be bothered to use quotation marks, and it's hard to follow when a character is speaking or not.  Poor spelling, common grammatical errors.  I just want to reach through the computer and shake them a bit and say "Fix it before you publish it!"

 

Okay, I'm done ranting.

 

:lol: I am not sure whether I admire the self-confidence behind making this kind of writing public, or to cringe at the lack of judgment.

 

Thank goodness the internet was not so accessible to me when I was that age. I put everything I wrote back then through the shredder eventually. What a horrible thought, that those scribblings could have ended up in cyberspace for all the world to see for eternity!

 

Not to say you can't write anything worth reading as a young teen or even as a child. Far from it. I've read books by teenagers that have been published by good old-fashioned publishing companies and enjoyed them. (And I've read books published by good old-fashioned publishing companies written by grown-ups and hated them...).

 

It's hard to react to incredibly flawed writing. You don't want to be too harsh for fear of discouraging anybody from a wonderful and harmless pursuit, especially if you're someone like me who doesn't have the guts to put her own flights of fancy out in the open herself. On the other hand, you don't want to make the writers believe there's no room for improvement.

 

Oh well. All I can say is, if anybody notices grammatical or other errors in my rambling posts around here, do please tell me. I am technically a native speaker, but since I don't live in an English-speaking country, I hardly ever get to use my mother-tongue and I make a lot of mistakes and use weird expressions sometimes, or confuse the meaning of words.

 

[sfmpco]

...you know your obsession is bad when you obsess over the SHERLOCK young fan fiction writers' lack of editing...

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

You know your obsession is bad when you worry that you're one of those young Sherlock fanfic writers! 

[Arcadia]

Bendy wins the internet!

[SherlockedCAMPer]

You know your obsession is bad when you worry that you're one of those young Sherlock fanfic writers!

For what it's worth, your writing on here isn't too bad. Grammar for the most part works so your fanfic might not be as bad as some that Jenny has seen.

[Bendydoodle Cantaloupe]

Aw, thank you! 

[joanneta1]

Okay, I have a fanfiction rant that has nothing to do with any of the "locks" but rather these very young writers. Now, bless their hearts for giving the writing a go, but often times it is so sloppy and so rushed that I do a mental face palm. I realize they aren't skilled, experienced writers, but they sometimes act as if they've never read a book or had basic English grammar. I was writing better than that when I was 13! Never once in my life have I changed character points of view by saying something like: JOHN'S POV and then switching back a few paragraphs (actually, they almost never write paragraphs) to SHERLOCK'S POV. Sorry, but that's just lazy. Some can't be bothered to use quotation marks, and it's hard to follow when a character is speaking or not. Poor spelling, common grammatical errors. I just want to reach through the computer and shake them a bit and say "Fix it before you publish it!"

 

Okay, I'm done ranting.

 

Again, as Donovan says, I'm so in there with you! The basic problem is that kids are not taught grammar, they are simply expected to learn it through a holistic approach that was specifically proven wrong in American schools but not discarded, similarly to their learning to read, which was based on the "whole-language" approach, until 52 research projects carried out in US schools proved that you have to use phonics, that is, disassemble specific words to be able to read them properly, in 2000.

Apart from my carrying on ranting where you left off, however, the whole concept of a homosexual Holmes is laughable, he would recognise the approach, obviously, and then politely laugh it off or consider it beneath his notice. Anyway, even in series 1, he tells Dr. Watson that he considers himself married to his work, and in Series 2 there is The Woman, in which he enjoys some intellectual flirting but still takes her pulse when she flirtatiously kneels before him. Asexual might be how he could be described, anything else is just part of an alternate universe

Edited January 18, 2015 by Carol the Dabbler
Fixed quote codes

[sfmpco]

All the fanfic writers on the Sherlock Forum are a far, far cut above those sloppy bits of creative doodle I see thrown against the wall on Wattpad.  I wish Wattpad had a self-edit mechanism that would tell young writers, "I'm sorry, but your work cannot be published until the following grammatical errors have been corrected.... LOL

[sfmpco]

Again, as Donovan says, I'm so in there with you! The basic problem is that kids are not taught grammar, they are simply expected to learn it through a holistic approach that was specifically proven wrong in American schools but not discarded, similarly to their learning to read, which was based on the "whole-language" approach, until 52 research projects carried out in US schools proved that you have to use phonics, that is, disassemble specific words to be able to read them properly, in 2000.

Apart from my carrying on ranting where you left off, however, the whole concept of a homosexual Holmes is laughable, he would recognise the approach, obviously, and then politely laugh it off or consider it beneath his notice. Anyway, even in series 1, he tells Dr. Watson that he considers himself married to his work, and in Series 2 there is The Woman, in which he enjoys some intellectual flirting but still takes her pulse when she flirtatiously kneels before him. Asexual might be how he could be described, anything else is just part of an alternate universe

[Arcadia]

:lol: I read that! I thought the idea was good and it might be fun, which it was until the explicit part you mentioned. I stopped after that chapter. Not because the explicitness bothered me per se, but because I thought oh no, not this again. Why does it always have to end with them having sex? Why? Why? Why?

T.o.b.y (and anyone else who is interested, of course!) try this one. I just finished it, and think it's the single best Sherlock fanfic I've read so far. Script format, no "slash", but most importantly for me, she's one of the few who writes the characters the way I think they actually behave in the show. This particular story is about Victor Trevor and Sherlock at university; Sherlock makes some deductions. I'm curious to know if anyone else likes it.

[sfmpco]

 

:lol: I read that! I thought the idea was good and it might be fun, which it was until the explicit part you mentioned. I stopped after that chapter. Not because the explicitness bothered me per se, but because I thought oh no, not this again. Why does it always have to end with them having sex? Why? Why? Why?

T.o.b.y (and anyone else who is interested, of course!) try this one. I just finished it, and think it's the single best Sherlock fanfic I've read so far. Script format, no "slash", but most importantly for me, she's one of the few who writes the characters the way I think they actually behave in the show. This particular story is about Victor Trevor and Sherlock at university; Sherlock makes some deductions. I'm curious to know if anyone else likes it.

 

 

Very interesting little fanfic... Sherlock made me laugh a couple of times.

[T.o.b.y]

You know your obsession is bad when you worry that you're one of those young Sherlock fanfic writers! 

 

Don't worry. Write on! Write as much as you can before your well of creativity runs dry (and may that never happen). Just never kid yourself into thinking other people will love your writing just because it is important to you and you put a lot of effort into it, and never stop trying to become better.

 

I don't think age has that much to do with it. Of course the older you are, the more time for practice you've had and so your odds of creating something good are probably better, but only if you've made good use of that extra time. Just the fact that you are a teen-ager will not keep you from creating anything worth sharing with the world.

 

Also, it seems to me that most authors reach a peak at some point and then the quality of their work slowly declines. Who knows when your individual peak may be. Perhaps it's right now. You won't know until it is too late...

 

(If you want to boost your self-confidence, take a look at Shades of Grey. That was written by an adult, and it got published and was a best-seller. I claim you could do better than that. Heck, even I could do better than that! Quality-wise, I mean. Not success-wise, sadly.)

[sfmpco]

I am sooooo bad.  You know your Sherlock obsession is bad when... you buy a DVD that has Sophie Hunter in it just because she's in it... Yeah, I'm talking VANITY FAIR... which wasn't ever on my viewing list.  Thankfully I only paid $5 including shipping (thanks, Ebay!).

 

Oh, and here's another one... 

 

SH can mean Sherlock Holmes or Sophie Hunter.  Have to catch myself when reading twitter abbreviations.

[T.o.b.y]

I am sooooo bad.  You know your Sherlock obsession is bad when... you buy a DVD that has Sophie Hunter in it just because she's in it... Yeah, I'm talking VANITY FAIR... which wasn't ever on my viewing list.  Thankfully I only paid $5 including shipping (thanks, Ebay!).

 

Oh, and here's another one... 

 

SH can mean Sherlock Holmes or Sophie Hunter.  Have to catch myself when reading twitter abbreviations.

 

Do you mean this movie:

 

 

?

 

I saw that a long while back (before Sherlock even existed...) after reading the novel for the first time. I liked it, I think. Not as well as I liked the book, but it was good. I liked how they concentrated on Becky Sharp's story, and how sympathetic the film was towards her. I've always liked Becky. 

 

(If anyone has not read "Vanity Fair" and is not opposed to classic literature in general, go read it! Great book. Promise. :P )

[sfmpco]

yes, that would be the one... cheap to get off of Ebay.  If I'd scrounged long enough, I probably could have found it for .99 !!