(no subject)
-YOU-
Name: KATYA
Email: against.stars@gmail.com
AIM: headshotpromise
LJ name: confictionery
Munhead or previous character journals (optional):
Timezone: central
-THEM-
Character name: Sherlock Holmes
Series: Sherlock (BBC)
Character history:
Not much history is stated explicitly for Sherlock Holmes, but a great deal of his backstory can be inferred from other characters and his relationships and dialogues with them, and what can't has been shamelessly fabricated by myself.
The only family shown in-universe, and therefore the only insight into Sherlock's childhood that isn't Sherlock himself, is Sherlock's seven-years-elder brother Mycroft. In the novels it's stated that Holmes learned everything he knows about deduction from his older brother, and he still possesses but a shadow of Mycroft's deductive ability - the only reason Sherlock appears any better than Mycroft is because in both canons, Sherlock is the only one of them willing to put in the "legwork" and actively pursue cases with which he can challenge his intellect. (Also according to Mycroft, when Sherlock was tiny he wanted to be a pirate, which provides little substance but is SUPER PRECIOUS, PICTURE BABY SHERLOCK WITH A PAPER PIRATE HAT AND A WOODEN SWORD.)
Still, it's not hard to work out (or... guess) a likely background for the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes from the hints and inferences dropped in the series. Sherlock and his brother most likely came from a very wealthy old family, the kind of boys who went to public school and ought to have both become influential and well-off, rather than just Mycroft, and somewhere along the line, Sherlock fell thoroughly off of that grid.
An off-hand and apparently unintentional comment on the commentary of one of the episodes has both the actor and one of the main writers referencing Sherlock making an uncomfortable deduction about his father at a young age - probably an affair, given how likely that sort of thing is. It may be that this is what drove the initial wedge between Mycroft and Sherlock, for if Mycroft is so much better at deduction, he surely would have known about it already, but he kept it a secret. How could Sherlock's older brother, from whom he learned everything, whose word is probably gospel in the mind of a young child, hide such a horrible thing from their mother (who they both obviously still adore even as adults, if their mutual blaming of each other for causing her stress is anything to go on)? Sherlock may have decided right then and there to prefer blunt honesty over such sneaky underhanded behaviour like his brother's and father's. (It's obvious at least that even in the series he finds "ignorance is bliss" to be one of the more useless English phrases, evidenced by his tactless but honest way of pointing out to Molly that her boyfriend is gay, or that Lestrade's wife is having an affair, or that Mrs Hudson's new boyfriend is already married. Better to have the truth than live under the delusion of a lie.)
It's also revealed that he was already trying - and failing - to work with police as early as when he was a young teenager, twenty years before the series starts, as he tells John of a young boy's accidental drowning he'd been convinced was anything but accidental, though the officers on the case refused to listen to him. Who would listen a squalling scrawny boy barely in his teens, probably dropping as many insults as deductions, when older and more experienced detectives had already dismissed the case?
We're told from one of his old university schoolmates that even in college Sherlock did his "little trick," deducing the activities of those around him from what he could observe and, apparently, not keeping his deductions to himself (a skill he more or less refuses to learn until John Watson bursts into his life). According to his schoolmate, everyone hated him. Considering this is still pretty much the case even now that he is a brilliant and fairly well-established detective (see also: everything Donovan and Anderson have ever said to or about him), it's likely that this has always been the case for Sherlock -- his overbearing and obnoxious need to prove himself the cleverest person has done both that and driven everyone else to despise him.
At some nebulous point before the show it's heavily implied he fell into drug addiction -- "I'm CLEAN!" -- like his novel counterpart, probably during college as well, since that's as good a point as any for a budding addict to find a few easy hits. He tells John he uses nicotine patches to help him focus ("Impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days."), probably as a replacement for the cocaine he used to use instead, as in the novels. Swapping one crutch for another, cocaine and morphine for crime scenes and nicotine.
Why he got clean is never stated -- it can't have been Mycroft, or not exclusively Mycroft, not with Sherlock's spitting animosity for him, but it may have been, of all people, Lestrade, the only character shown to know about Sherlock's previous drug problem in the first place (and willing to use it as an excuse to get into his flat, because, Lestrade is kind of a jerk.) It's easy to imagine Sherlock stumbling onto one of Lestrade's crime scenes, drawn by the flashing blue-red, strung-out and thin as a starving deer, firing off information anyone could assume only the murder would know and insulting the attending officers in the same breath until Lestrade hauls him away for questioning; thus, a tetchy and irritated but functional working relationship finds its foundations. Through that relationship, Lestrade may have used his ability to allow Sherlock in on interesting cases he'd otherwise no actual business being on as leverage to force Sherlock get off and stay off the drugs.
Six years later and we have Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, together with his friend and flatmate John Watson, solving crimes and having adventures and foiling (or failing to foil) the great criminal mastermind Jim Moriarty. At the point in canon I'm taking him from (pre-Reichenbach), Sherlock has not yet become nationally famous, but has begun to experience a surprising number of people knowing who he is through John's increasingly-popular blog.
Character personality: Sherlock Holmes is a giant whiny baby and also an annoying genius.
-SAMPLES-
Journal entry sample:
Appear to have been captured. Insufficient data yet as to whether Moriarty or Mycroft is behind this, results inconclusive.
SH
Alive, bored, and technically unrestricted. Mycroft increasingly likely.
SH
If I'm not back in three days, measure the discoloration of the teeth in the veg crisper. Comparison chart under the milk.
SH
http://beingthatclever.livejournal.com/974.html
3rd person sample:
Once it's clear he won't be getting any real information from the hospital, Sherlock shams his way through the psychological exam, affecting a good deal of resigned despair for his "new situation" - he crumples his brow in fear, lets loose a few stray tears of anguish, and then, with a well-placed quaver of quiet desperation, he namedrops his brother under the guise of reassurance - "Mycroft Holmes, my brother, is he here? If he didn't bring me here, would you know where he is? Will you tell me if you do?"
The staff, clearly trained to expect resistence, responds favourably to a lack of outright hostility, and he leaves without a fuss, laden with a government-assigned smartphone in one pocket and the key to a government-assigned flat in another. Rent won't be necessary, they say, and he's been assigned a flatmate, which doesn't concern him in the least. If it isn't John, they'll be out in a week.
If the hospital staff is remotely competent, Mycroft's name will be put through the system and he'll get back to Sherlock in - well, normally he'd say ten minutes tops, but Mycroft's clearly been getting slow lately, so maybe half an hour. Still, Sherlock stops at every phone booth he passes as he makes his way deeper into the city, hissing into the receiver, "Mycroft, you fat git, put down the Hobnobs and explain yourself."
Predictably, the line only buzzes unpleasantly at him for want of change, but that doesn't stop him.
It's early yet, so he spends the day stalking the streets and committing the island to memory, simultaneously cross-referencing the information he picks up against all known inhabitable islands, public and private alike. The smartphone they gave him - no obvious bugs, but until he can charm his way into another hospital for more tests he can't know for certain - doesn't seem to receive information outside of the island, which piques his interest enough that he files it away for later investigation and tells him the island must have its own exclusive satellite, but unfortunately means he cannot access international streams to confirm anything. It disturbs him to find that as he mentally crosses off potential locations, more questions arise than answers.
As he explores he picks a dozen pockets to scour for data and fires off several dozen texts: scathing and increasingly unprintable (Mycroft), just vague enough to be alarming (John and Lestrade), requests for information to his homeless network, and finally an unnecessary but satisfyingly rude one to Anderson in sheer bloody-minded irritation.
Five minutes later, his phone buzzes - not with a response, but a mailer daemon. None of his texts have gone through.
God, who he wouldn't kill for a cigarette now.