Incidentally, folks, consider this to stand as my rec for Many Roads to Hell, because we all like some BAMF!John and let’s face it, if you’re a John fan then you’re a little bit curious about what sort of monster he keeps locked up in the dark of his mind.
Also a rec for boxoftheskyking in general. Because J is one FUCKING GREAT WRITER, yo, and one day we’re going to see her name in lights.
Okay, so I’m publishing this response because a) PA is the nicest thing to ever nice and I am not worthy, and b) PA says a lot of the stuff I am trying to say with Many Roads, which is basically “EVERYONE SUCKS BUT THEY PRETEND NOT TOO AND SEBASTIAN FINDS THIS ENDLESSLY AMUSING IN A BITTER SORT OF WAY.”
Um. Great brain says it better than that.
MY ASK
Can I just say, your comments on my fic make me feel so warm and accepted and great. It means a lot. Because writing it has become such a chore, but that fact that you read it and think about it and talk to me .about it like it’s actually a story and not just a slapdash attempt to plug plotholes makes me feel like I’m not wasting my time. Anyway. You’re the best. Thanks, pal. -JPA’s REPLYBut J, you make it so easy! I find your John fascinating, and I love how what the story is about has so little to do with what happens in the story. From the beginning, it seemed evident that for John, the search for Sherlock was an excuse as much of anything. Even though he’d really like to find him, I feel like what John really wants, more than anything, is to not be John Watson. But he can’t manage it by himself. And while he liked the John he became with Sherlock, he’s willing to take the John he becomes with Moran. lt’s still better than the original flavor, still more alive.
And that’s Seb too, really, isn’t it? They’re both men born to be dynamic, but weren’t born with causes of their own. So they need someone to give them a direction.
And I groove on how this whole story undercuts the ‘hero’ trope. I can’t tell who’ll live and who’ll die at the end (aside from the hints you’ve given), because so far I haven’t seen anyone—John included—who’s earning any kind of good reward in this story. He’s heading down, not up. And he’s pretty happy with that, though he’s nestled comfortably in his own hypocrisy where he can pretend that’s not the choice he’s making at all. For a while, I kept being shocked by the choices John made, and wondering what the hell he thought he was doing—whether he even noticed, whether he’d decided to let the ends justify the means. But the way everybody refers to ‘Johnny Flynn’ like he’s a totally different person is a clue, isn’t it? That’s how John and all the rest of them think about it.
It makes me wonder what Sherlock will be like when we finally see him. Is he on the same level they are? Or will he be shocked to find himself looking down on John from the moral high ground when they finally meet? I can imagine so many different ways this could end, and the happiest of them is the one where everybody who’s left standing shuffles the bits they don’t want to think about back into their boxes and mutually pretends it never happened. The unhappiest…I don’t think ‘everyone dies’ is even the worst way this could go.
And maybe the reason Seb never seems surprised or concerned about any of this is because he saw it from the beginning. Yeah, now that I think of it, I bet that’s the case, isn’t it? Because the only thing that ever throws him or annoys him is when John acts like he’s somehow better. I mean I don’t know whether Seb just had John pegged or if he’s a cynic right down to the center of his soul and assumes that deep down, almost everybody’s no good (I could see it; with his life, it’s not like he hasn’t earned the right to that opinion). But from the get-go, I’ve adored his mind. I can FEEL it when I read him; it’s tangible and has a mass of its own. It feels like a rock: hard, cool, dark grey, and rough-smooth. And it’s like…maya, right? The Hindu thing, about how the reality we live in is a veil of illusion and you have to pierce through it to find truth. And it’s like Seb just…sees right through it. Maybe because he doesn’t care about it, mostly. He’s a bit like Sherlock, actually, with how he absorbs relevant facts and discards all the irrelevant emotional bullshit. But for Sherlock, it’s about the joy of knowing, and for Seb it’s a predator’s survival instinct.
I’ve got no good conclusion to this. I just needed to hurl more of my thinks at you. Also I should note that you writing Summertime just about single-handedly makes me want to watch Teen Wolf, just so that I have enough basis to understand and appreciate all the things you do with that story. Because JESUS CHRIST YOUR WRITING. You are one of the unique ones; the ones who can tease out things that nobody else quite sees and turn them into things that aren’t shaped so much like stories as they are shaped like slowly dawning truths.
You can publish this, if you’d like. It might not be a bad idea, because then you could be pleasantly surprised by how many people go “YES THIS.”
