fic recs: not trying to give my life meaning by demeaning you

[jessie_menken]

Canon suggests that Sergeant Sally Donovan has an irrational dislike of Sherlock. She's presented as an unsympathetic character, and made the target of one of Sherlock's particularly cutting remarks in A Study in Pink. Fandom, however, has produced more nuanced views of Sally.

Comments

[mellifluous_ink]

I can see where Sally is coming from, especially having seen the episode again, and the unaired pilot where she's a bit gentler--but I still hold to my impression that she's a bitch. Certainly I have my own backstory on why she has it out for Sherlock, but she displays coldness toward John as well, for no real reason, and even though she disguises her rant about Sherlock as concern for him, she doesn't move to help him even though he's got a cane and a long way home, or anything that would--to me--signal she's got a bad history with Sherlock. She just comes off as a bitch--especially with all the assumptions she makes

[jessie_menken]

I think your view is perfectly fair. This list is something of a reaction to reading one too many dismal fics in which Sally is nasty to Sherlock just because she's a horrible, horrible human being without any other motivations.

I like fandom for its possibilities. I'm willing to accept a characterization of Sally as narrow-minded and prejudiced as one such possibility, so long as she's not one-dimensional.

[mellifluous_ink]

Yeah I see your point on that and agree entirely--even bad people, even reprehensible people, have motivation for doing so and think they are in the right. You must preserve that verisimilitude or else the badness is forced, is simply bad... writing.

My Sally is, it is true, a rather terrible, bitter human being; but she's a human being.