BBC Sherlock Feelings Post
Apr. 5th, 2012 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kasihyaI was going to do this in my last post, but that would have gone off-topic, and I like to keep the writing separate from the feelings unless they're really really relevant. Which I guess they are, but this is a longer thing.
Warning: self-indulgence ahead.
Okay. So. The thing is, I over-identify with Sherlock, and I don't want to actually admit that because of how pretentious that sounds. Yeah, you identify with the dude who's super-smart and cool and looks down on other people for not being geniuses.
Um.
Yes.
In all honesty, it’s not particularly the intelligence thing with which I identify, and one of the things I like about the show is that yeah, Sherlock is cool and all that, but as a character. If he were someone I knew in real life, I would almost certainly hate him for being more intelligent than I am, and wonder what the hell John sees in him. We get to see other people not reacting well to his tactlessness and not finding it endearing. SO. Skip over the intelligence thing, and let’s get to the fact that it makes him different from everyone else. That is something I feel, acutely, all the time, for a combination of reasons including not visibly fitting into a binary gender, being introverted, and not having a ton in common with very many people besides my dad. And, yes, in academic settings I’m always ‘the smart one’, so not that it makes it any more acceptable to me, but I can relate to being annoyed with people for not ‘getting’ it. (Or, more often than not, for not even trying to get it. What are your parents paying for, anyway?)
But, I think, most importantly, is the relating-to-other-people thing, and that's where I get really passionate and horribly involved. (Hang on to your hats, kids.) While I am not quite so hopelessly awful as Sherlock, I do not have any friends. I have never had a proper 'best friend', and I don't understand why other people do this and I can't. I'm getting better at interacting with other people, but it doesn't come naturally. It is the opposite of naturally and it makes me uncomfortable. I can be difficult to live with, as my freshman roommate can attest to - when I get frustrated, I throw things, trash the entire room and clean it from the inside out; I have an irregular sleeping schedule and I am absolutely shit at expressing myself when something upsets me or bothers me, as my former friends can attest.
So, here I am, a socially awkward, out-of-place person, and then here comes a show where the driving force is the relationship that develops between someone like me — only worse — and someone whose flaws are complimentary, who is able to mediate between Sherlock and the real world. Seeing Sherlock's relationship with John playing out on-screen, it makes me feel better. Like, look, this character is even more screwed-up than you are, and he can have meaningful relationships and a best friend who will put up with him and try to help him, even like him. He can be asexual and be part of a couple with his friend, which has always been sort of my end-goal where, conventionally, I am supposed to see a sexual marriage as end-game.
It's also not super-helpful, because this is television, right, how realistic is any of this? No, really. Please tell me, because I have no idea. How realistic is this? Should I expect to find someone who is willing to put up with me, or should I see this as pure wish-fulfillment and keep on trying to interact like other people? What are the actual odds of finding someone who will live with me and be my partner, but not expect any physical attraction besides patting on the head or hand-holding? Yikes! This is complicated. But I still can have this fantasy in my head, and now it’s not just in my head: there are hundreds of thousands of people who are now also seeing this goal of mine as something viable and interesting, unorthodox but tenable. Success!
This is, also, the reason I cannot read the vast majority of Sherlock fic, no matter now marvelously plotted it is: so many people try to relate to Sherlock by making him sexual. I get it - that's the whole point of fanfiction, totally respect that. It doesn't change the fact that it makes me upset that here, I have a character I can identify with, who is canonically asexual, and everyone insists on changing that, and not allowing for asexuality and biromantic heterosexuality and the grey areas that I need to exist. (Don't even get me started on that Steven Moffat quote regarding asexuality being boring, because that was just, ugh. Ew. Fuck you, Moffat. Fuck you.) I know it shouldn't upset me as much as it does, which is why I just avoid the whole issue and stick to my own writing and one or two others' who have similar enough thoughts on the matter.
Take, as a counterexample, the sensation of falling as you hit sleep, which I saw recommended everywhere. I got into it far enough, and I was delighted by the whole plot, but after a certain point, I was just thinking, 'ugh, fuck romance, fuck relationships, why are you doing so many other things right and getting this important thing horribly wrong stop with the sex already' and it took away the enjoyment I had been getting from the conversations and the awesome plot and Moran, holy crap that was a brilliant maneuver. So I stopped reading, which is sad, but I will live. I will live in my bubble where I only go into stories when I am reasonably sure that they will handle relationship issues in a way that makes sense to me, and for the love of all that is good and holy, stay away from Steven Moffat’s twitter account because that was deeply upsetting.
Ergo, henceforth, and in conclusion: Sherlock hits an unnerving number of chords that are really sensitive to me for a bunch of reasons, and I am utterly bowled over by the fact that a television show has such an effect on me, because I have never had quite such a gut reaction to fiction before.
Warning: self-indulgence ahead.
Okay. So. The thing is, I over-identify with Sherlock, and I don't want to actually admit that because of how pretentious that sounds. Yeah, you identify with the dude who's super-smart and cool and looks down on other people for not being geniuses.
Um.
Yes.
In all honesty, it’s not particularly the intelligence thing with which I identify, and one of the things I like about the show is that yeah, Sherlock is cool and all that, but as a character. If he were someone I knew in real life, I would almost certainly hate him for being more intelligent than I am, and wonder what the hell John sees in him. We get to see other people not reacting well to his tactlessness and not finding it endearing. SO. Skip over the intelligence thing, and let’s get to the fact that it makes him different from everyone else. That is something I feel, acutely, all the time, for a combination of reasons including not visibly fitting into a binary gender, being introverted, and not having a ton in common with very many people besides my dad. And, yes, in academic settings I’m always ‘the smart one’, so not that it makes it any more acceptable to me, but I can relate to being annoyed with people for not ‘getting’ it. (Or, more often than not, for not even trying to get it. What are your parents paying for, anyway?)
But, I think, most importantly, is the relating-to-other-people thing, and that's where I get really passionate and horribly involved. (Hang on to your hats, kids.) While I am not quite so hopelessly awful as Sherlock, I do not have any friends. I have never had a proper 'best friend', and I don't understand why other people do this and I can't. I'm getting better at interacting with other people, but it doesn't come naturally. It is the opposite of naturally and it makes me uncomfortable. I can be difficult to live with, as my freshman roommate can attest to - when I get frustrated, I throw things, trash the entire room and clean it from the inside out; I have an irregular sleeping schedule and I am absolutely shit at expressing myself when something upsets me or bothers me, as my former friends can attest.
So, here I am, a socially awkward, out-of-place person, and then here comes a show where the driving force is the relationship that develops between someone like me — only worse — and someone whose flaws are complimentary, who is able to mediate between Sherlock and the real world. Seeing Sherlock's relationship with John playing out on-screen, it makes me feel better. Like, look, this character is even more screwed-up than you are, and he can have meaningful relationships and a best friend who will put up with him and try to help him, even like him. He can be asexual and be part of a couple with his friend, which has always been sort of my end-goal where, conventionally, I am supposed to see a sexual marriage as end-game.
It's also not super-helpful, because this is television, right, how realistic is any of this? No, really. Please tell me, because I have no idea. How realistic is this? Should I expect to find someone who is willing to put up with me, or should I see this as pure wish-fulfillment and keep on trying to interact like other people? What are the actual odds of finding someone who will live with me and be my partner, but not expect any physical attraction besides patting on the head or hand-holding? Yikes! This is complicated. But I still can have this fantasy in my head, and now it’s not just in my head: there are hundreds of thousands of people who are now also seeing this goal of mine as something viable and interesting, unorthodox but tenable. Success!
This is, also, the reason I cannot read the vast majority of Sherlock fic, no matter now marvelously plotted it is: so many people try to relate to Sherlock by making him sexual. I get it - that's the whole point of fanfiction, totally respect that. It doesn't change the fact that it makes me upset that here, I have a character I can identify with, who is canonically asexual, and everyone insists on changing that, and not allowing for asexuality and biromantic heterosexuality and the grey areas that I need to exist. (Don't even get me started on that Steven Moffat quote regarding asexuality being boring, because that was just, ugh. Ew. Fuck you, Moffat. Fuck you.) I know it shouldn't upset me as much as it does, which is why I just avoid the whole issue and stick to my own writing and one or two others' who have similar enough thoughts on the matter.
Take, as a counterexample, the sensation of falling as you hit sleep, which I saw recommended everywhere. I got into it far enough, and I was delighted by the whole plot, but after a certain point, I was just thinking, 'ugh, fuck romance, fuck relationships, why are you doing so many other things right and getting this important thing horribly wrong stop with the sex already' and it took away the enjoyment I had been getting from the conversations and the awesome plot and Moran, holy crap that was a brilliant maneuver. So I stopped reading, which is sad, but I will live. I will live in my bubble where I only go into stories when I am reasonably sure that they will handle relationship issues in a way that makes sense to me, and for the love of all that is good and holy, stay away from Steven Moffat’s twitter account because that was deeply upsetting.
Ergo, henceforth, and in conclusion: Sherlock hits an unnerving number of chords that are really sensitive to me for a bunch of reasons, and I am utterly bowled over by the fact that a television show has such an effect on me, because I have never had quite such a gut reaction to fiction before.
