dear_mun | Characterization frustrations

Entry tags:

canon: sherlock holmes

Characterization frustrations

Mun, this is really starting to get annoying. If I wanted a vapid weepy civilian, I would've put a call out for one. I want my army doctor. I want my army doctor who knows what PTSD is and how it's actually treated. I want my army doctor who's first response is not to coddle me. I want my army doctor who giggles at crime scenes and doesn't clutch his proverbial pearls at the thought that I have a good working relationship with people on the far side of the law.

Either you fix this problem or I will. And believe me when I tell you that you and your overly compassionate heart will not like the way I fix it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sounds like your mun needs to be more open about what they're looking for.

Oh, she won't do that. She's all about using the storytelling process as a teaching tool. [And he's oh so thrilled about that, can't you tell.] She'd rather gently and lovingly train up a character in the way that they should go, which means inflicting environmental stressors on them until they straighten up or wash out. Mostly, I think it's because she's a coward.

I can understand doing that because they don't want to hurt someone's feelings. Still, it's better in the long run to be straight with people.

That's why I'm inconveniencing myself by giving her the opportunity to correct her behavior before I indulge in a well-deserved display of schadenfreude. If she doesn't do what I want and quickly, I'll simply compel her to write fanfiction, thereby exposing her to the criticism of an entire internet full of people for as long as a single copy of her work exists on somebody's archive somewhere. [He smiles, relishing the thought of that.] She should know better than to try me. It never yields pleasant results.

Well. I hope she listens, then.

Masterful manipulation. I'd say your mun should give me a spin, but, well...

I fear for her mental health if she were to make the attempt.

As utterly tactless and willfully blind to social niceties as usual, Mr. Holmes. I fail to see how your mun could do better.

She and I are alike in that manner, though she is unfortunately too thin-skinned to be truly ruthless.

No, she seems rather fond of hiding behind thin pretenses. I'm surprised you abide by the obviousness of it at all.

Yes, well, sentiment will get you in the end every time.

Yes, I can see exactly how well sentiment is getting you in the end.

Oi, now.

I've got my own treatment plan for PTSD, thank you. And if you didn't need coddling, then Mrs. Hudson wouldn't need to be up in our flat every other day. Just...look, if you're so bored that you're taking it out on people, maybe you might want to reconsider that knitting class Lestrade mentioned.

[Like that's going to happen.]

You don't want to let me loose with a bunch of knitting needles. I'll have a catalog of deadly uses for them within a day.

Isn't that what you did with Mrs. Hudson's spice collection and any sort of gift I've receive for Christmas?

This is what you do, Sherlock. It doesn't cause me trauma.

[He pauses as he remembers what it felt like to have a friend like that, but that was three years and many thousands of miles ago, and sometimes he thinks he's not even Sherlock anymore but some sort of animal or machine with a genius brain and an overactive survival instinct.]

No one in their right mind should say that.

Say what?

That I don't need you to sort out my PTSD? I spend my time sorting out you, I don't need you to sort me out!

And I don't need my mun to know psychology to "fix" me! I'm perfectly capable on my own.

No, no one in their right mind should say that they aren't traumatized by a flatmate who spends his spare time filling his head with different ways to kill people. I never said a word about sorting you out or fixing you. [He turns away to retrieve a cigarette from his coat pocket.] If I thought you needed fixing that you couldn't do on your own, I wouldn't waste my time with you.

Oh, well, I'm sorry for wanting to be around you. I don't know why you think I don't already know that.

[he makes no comment about the cigarette, though there is obvious disapproval in his voice.] Your comment to your mun about PTSD. What else could you possibly be talking about?

[He considers the cigarette for a moment, then decides he's better off holding off on it for a while and puts it back in his case.] There was a situation. It wasn't being handled properly. I was venting my annoyances about the things she had chosen to overlook that I wasn't willing to. One of them was an utter lack of sensitivity toward my own diagnosis. [Well. One of them. In all fairness, the other diagnosis was handled with more care and attention than he himself could muster for it.] If I could control my own dissociative episodes, I wouldn't have them.

What diagnosis? Did someone finally label you up as "Aspbergers" and I couldn't be enough of a bleeding heart for your liking? I'm sorry, Sherlock, it's fairly obvious, and always has been.

[A snort at the last comment] That's very self-aware of you.

[He sneers at him and decides to light up that cig after all. He's going to need it to get through this conversation.] Actually, some bleeding heart let slip that I've autopsied people alive before, and your basic response to that was that now that I wasn't in a place where I had to torture people to survive anymore, I could just find my happy place and stop doing it. But anyone with the slightest bit of military experience or medical training would know that it doesn't work like that. [And that was the final straw, really. He could deal with being a walking biohazard. He could even deal with the fact that he turned into a monster when someone triggered him. But he couldn't deal with the Walt Disney response to such a serious problem.]

Wait---what?

You've been murdering people? You?

I don't think so.

[He wouldn't think so either, except he's done it coldly or gladly or gleefully or else watched in horror while his body went through the cold, precise motions on its own.] People change, John. Not necessarily for the better.

Don't be ridiculous.

And so---what, then? You came to me, told me what you did and expected me to just be all right with it?

[He's quiet for a moment, and then he lets out a seriously irritated sigh] Of course I'd---I'd have to be all right with it.

[He sighs heavily. He hates having the disadvantage, especially when he's defensive and vulnerable to start with.] It wasn't whether or not you were alright with it. It was the total lack of appreciation for the severity of the situation. It was the end of the world when I told him I was HIV-positive, but when Sebastian told him what I'd done, it was like it didn't even register. [He can't even think of this John and the other John as the same person. This one is far more like the friend he used to know.]

Wait. Wait. Wait. Let's back up.

First of all: You're what? Since---when?

And secondly: Sebastian---what? Sebastian Moran? One of the assassins living near our flat?

[He gives the other man an appraising look before responding.] I'm not saying I won't answer you, but just so we're on the same page, what's the last case we worked on together?

Technically---it was with Moriarty. Technically, I imagine I'd be fainting with joy to see you alive. Probably wouldn't care about anything except that.

Course, considering it's here and my mun just sort of skipped that bit so I could ask questions.

[He smiles at that, one of the first genuine smiles he's had in a while.] Add about three years to all that, and you've got me. I've been HIV-positive for about half that time. And yes, Sebastian Moran. It's a long story and nobody comes out looking good in the end.

[he looks like he might a) roll his eyes, b) throttle this man, or c) scream about all of this, but he doesn't.]

How did you end up infected?

Knife fight in Botswana. [Because of course he couldn't get it from unprotected sex like everybody else.] There was blood everywhere, most of it not mine. It was a safe assumption, but actually getting the labwork done was sobering.

I assume you've only just got the results, then? I doubt I'd have taken that very well.

[He shrugs as if it's not really a big deal. He knows differently, of course, but it's his method of coping with this particular reality.] I've known for ages. The problem was treatment. It's rather difficult get decent medication when you're a ghost. I've been on and off whatever I could get my hands on. Some countries have easier access than others. [One of the advantages of coming home: easier access to ARV's.]

Well, fortunately, HIV takes years to develop into anything that would affect your lifestyle. I don't imagine that would've affected me more than being concerned about you.

[He shrugs again.] I haven't been as kind to myself as I could've been. [Which, naturally, means he's been starving, insomniac, and getting into trouble at least as much as he'd been before.] But I can definitely tell the difference. I don't much like being a walking biohazard.

Well, luckily for you, I'm a doctor. And my mun is a scientist who works with the virus. Anything you're experiencing now is probably psychosomatic.

So what were you expecting from me---the me you were with? To hate you for it?

Oh, I don't know. But it's water under the bridge now. It's not really the virus I'm concerned about anyway -- not beyond the usual precautions, at least. I've a healthier respect for things like malaria and pneumonia, but my CD4 count doesn't affect my mind.

It's waking up to blood on my hands that disturbs me. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. I don't know which is worse, really.

Because you're a hardened killer. [Yeah, still not believing that one.]

And what do you expect from me---the me you have---in this case? Because I'm probably not going to believe you.

It's hardly relevant now. The situation is dealt with, and in any case, my mun got a horrible shock yesterday. I doubt she'll have very much time for me for the foreseeable future.

Is it? Did you speak up to your Watson, then?

Did s/he? Something happened?

The double-edged sword of passive aggression is that sometimes you get exactly what you want out of a situation. She's already been criticized both in and out of character for it, but the fact remains that it's no longer an issue and he's no longer 'my' Watson.

As for her, the upset she's feeling right now has nothing to do with petty internet games and everything to do with the fact that her wife was raped last weekend and she only found out about it yesterday. She'd been out of town and came home to the news.

Oh.

Uh.

Well, there's very little I can say to that, really. Particularly in-character. It all was pretty passive aggressive, and if I were your Watson, I can't say I'd blame them. Would you?

Hope it all works out for your mun. I'll head off back to the discard pile.

[He resists the urge to reach for the man, but it doesn't stop him from speaking.] John? Thank you. For listening. I really mean that. [He knows he's probably bound for the musely graveyard anyway, but regardless, he feels the need to express the gratitude he feels for being treated well when he really does not deserve it.]

So what you're really lookin' for is one of me, then.

[~~No, he said he wanted someone who giggles at crime scenes, not someone who causes them and jacks off to it later.~~]

I had one of you. We got along rather well, actually, but it was uncomfortably complicated. I had him evicted from the mun's headspace for getting in my way. But you... [He eyes the other man, reading his life in the way he holds himself.] You might be a suitable replacement.

Ahh, I concur with your assessment. One cannot replace Dr. John Watson so easily.

One day I'll find the one for me. I just hope he'll have me once he sees the baggage train that comes with me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Characterization frustrations

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

ugh I know the feeling

Re: ugh I know the feeling

no subject

no subject