Revealed fic: Impure genius

[marysutherland]

The authors of the 221b slash fest fics have now been unveiled: my fic, Impure Genius starts at http://community.livejournal.com/221b_slash_fest/4913.html  and continues at http://community.livejournal.com/221b_slash_fest/5204.html. It is, of course, the longest piece in the fest, but that's because it includes everything and the kitchen sink. (The kitchen sink turns up about halfway through part 2). It also includes insomnia cures for chemists, careful scrutiny of a topless Sherlock, syllogisms, a burly man in a cassock, the details of John's most embarrassing date ever, the Houses of Parliament rifle range, and right at the end, some clinically inadvisable sex. There is a double dose of hurt/comfort, bucket loads of angst, a happy ending and the most sympathetic version of Sherlock I've managed to write so far.

Comments

[fengirl88.livejournal.com]

I commented briefly on it at the fest page, but I wanted to add that this is my favourite of your fics (even though I'm now very fond of your Mycroft and delighted with how Sacrifices turned out). I love John in this particularly, and as you say this is definitely your most sympathetic Sherlock. it's a great pleasure to see how things unfold between them here. think my favourite moment may be John's ability to read Sherlock's back and Sherlock's reaction to realizing that he can. still on the theme that good mental health is sexy, it makes me very happy that Sherlock has decided therapy is a rational course of action (so the curse of the syllogisms is lifted). feeling a bit sorry in advance for his therapist but that's outside the frame.

[marysutherland.livejournal.com]

I have known one or two men who combine rock solid self-confidence with genuine sympathy for those with emotional problems, and this John was heavily inspired by them. And it was easy to draw on my own experience to give Sherlock the kind of intellectual's insecurity that would resonate with a lot of my likely audience (who appear to be over-educated to a woman). The problem is that I know that neuroticism isn't sexy in real life, and especially not neuroticism when it's got to the stage of self-harm. So to get a realistic happy ending involved an incredibly long detour into shoring up Sherlock. Though I was pleased to have thought of the boot camp, because it's more interesting to write about than just talking therapy, and it fits quite nicely with the basic premise of cutting. Sit-ups, after all, are really the socially acceptable way of making your body hurt so much that you don't have time to worry about your mental trauma. (As well as giving Sherlock abs, which is a nice thought).

As for the therapy, I did actually get one version of Sherlock (in Resume (http://marysutherland.livejournal.com/3991.html)) undergoing rational-cognitive therapy, which is supposed to be good for depression/insecurity, and whose underlying premises of accurate observation of others' reactions would probably appeal to this Sherlock as well. (I didn't find RCT helpful, the one time I had it, but I'm Not Sherlock).

[shehasathree]

I am in love with this story the way Sherlock is in love with death (and, later, with John).

[pennypaperbrain.livejournal.com]

Wow, I love the way you've written a properly human Sherlock. It does bug me when he gets away endlessly in fic or canon with utterly falling to eat/sleep/generally self-maintain and signally fails to suffer any ill effects. Much as I love the series it does have the side effect of ramping up the self-hatred because I'm not as clever/beautiful as the MC. Which I recognise as Very Silly. But... well, I am a model member of your likely audience. If incredibly slow to have discovered the series.

Anyway, more about the fic. Sherlock's italicised syllogisms are HILARIOUS (the humour of recognition, rather than funny ha-ha). John is wonderfully credible as a real bloke; and I'm assuming you went to Oxbridge because o fuck yes.

Fic thoroughly saved for rereading as a counterbalance to some of the more conventional and less healthy aspects of fandom.

[marysutherland.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear that Sherlock is causing an inferiority complex. I thought the writers were actually quite clever in using ACD to show Sherlock's limits of knowledge and in casting BC, who's at once beautiful and very odd-looking.

I don't normally write Sherlock as neurotic (canonically he looks more to enjoy being a pain in the arse), but the prompt was a neat way of writing about some of my own past insecurities. I probably make John a bit too good to be true in this, though I have met a few men who are both mentally very robust themselves *and* sympathetic to the depressives among us.

My first degree was at Oxford (and if you find the right one of my fics you might even work out which college), another at Cambridge. And yes, I realised fairly early on that if I couldn't learn to cope with friends who were impossibly brighter than me I'd expire in a puddle of envy and despair. I found the same when I first got into fanfic as well - it took a long time to adjust to people who were simply better writers than I was. (More resigned to it now, as I've learnt to accept my own strengths and weaknesses as an author).

[pennypaperbrain.livejournal.com]

Oh the writers are clever at showing Sherlock having limits. I just have no sense, in a depressive sort of a way. I got treated as a child prodigy for some years from the age of nine, so 'I should be cleverer than everyone else or DIE' got pretty much written into my character. Not healthy.

Fortunately for me I also have one of those mentally robust men you are talking about, though he doesn't comprehend absolutely everything. Life has got way better since he turned up.

I guess your John is a tiny bit too good to be true overall, but that's fiction for you; wish-fulfilment is one of the artistic functions of fanfiction in particular. In Sherlock Is Neurotic fics I very seldom see Johns which aren't slightly idealised. Yours has multiple points of realism and is definitely a *Bloke* in his 30s, which is the key thing.

I've seen you talking about mental health fics in other people's comments so if you have any good recs I would love to know.