Application for Mayfield (wip)
Name: Hils, or Ari - whichever you prefer!
Personal LJ: mustakrakish
Contact Info:
- AIM: musicsdyslexkia
- E-MAIL: deanpants[at]gmail.com
Preferred Housing: This is a strange request. Sherlocks stick together? Kenzi from Lost Girl (onteamdyson) is an aspiring apper as well (her app should be in shortly), and we were hoping to set them up in a house together, if at all possible. Barring that, randomization is totally fine!
Character Name: Sherlock Holmes
Character Series: Sherlock (BBC)
Character Age: Early to mid-thirties (estimated: 32?)
Background: Personality: I'm going to apologize in advance, because this isn't even a personality section, this is like a freaking essay, so bear with me, OH GOD THIS IS SO LONG.
At first glance, Sherlock Holmes does not have a very attractive personality - he's cold, calculating and precise; he's rude, he's arrogant, and he has little to no concept of how humans or emotions work, and certainly not how they'd be put to practice. Sherlock is incredibly intelligent and, as such, that intelligence is both a bridge (in cases, in his work) and an inhibitor (in emotional situations, in social interactions).
The first glance is not wrong, if perhaps oversimplified. It's too often that people resort to rudimentary terms when referring to Sherlock's atypical behavior - "mildly autistic" has been tossed about; "psychopath" has been mentioned more than once canonically - for someone who is, quite candidly, just weird.
Sherlock is incredibly hyper intelligent, well educated in a number of areas which are involved in his work (i.e.: anatomy, chemistry, forensic sciences) and is able to induce copious amounts of information from a seemingly minute set of details. The way he describes it, while most people merely 'see', he takes things a step further - he 'observes'. As a self-invented consulting detective, Sherlock is able to recognize patterns where "normal people" are unable, and has a tendency to make everyone else feel incredibly stupid along the way. Sherlock's arrogance isn't unfounded - he IS smarter than everyone else, in the sense of knowledge and logic - but it's still a source of endless frustration to those around him.
Consequentially, Sherlock is remarkably stunted insofar as social interaction. Not only does he have a very limited, next to nonexistent, understanding of pop culture (he refers to the cinema as 'dull' and 'predictable' on one occasion; he fails to recognize a rather popular television personality on another), but also of tact. He is constantly belittling those around him ("You're an idiot. No, don't be like that, practically everyone is."; "Look at you lot, you're all so vacant - is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing."), if not just because he's so academically exceeded so many of them. He has a thirst for proving his intelligence, and while he doesn't go out of his way to do so, he never misses an opportunity to deprecate.
What Sherlock lacks, in addition to his intellectual prudence, is empathy, and this is an area where the "psychopath" implications come into play. At the time, Sherlock immediately corrects "psychopath" with "high-functioning sociopath," insinuating a marked absence of remorse or guilt, and incredibly shallow emotions. Speculatively (and more likely), this was merely a throwaway comment, perhaps even Sherlock's own, strange brand of joking. While Sherlock's personality undoubtedly echoes several markers of the condition, antisocial personality disorder is more likely a misleading diagnosis - perhaps one that he would rather the police believe, out of convenience and a need for solitariness; perhaps even one to which he aspires, in a way.
People are comfortable with assuming Sherlock is, very simply, insane. He's received a plethora of colorful descriptions in regards to his character - "melodramatic," "arrogant sod," "this freak" - despite some being more endearing than others, albeit accurate - "an idiot," "not decent," "in [the] way." Sergeant Anderson regularly refers to Sherlock as if he should be committed ("our favorite psychopath"). Sergeant Donovan has a bit more of a brusque approach, saying that Sherlock "gets off on" these cases, and warning John that, one day, Sherlock's like to be the cause of the very murders they solve right now.
Despite his failings (using a young doctor's attraction for him in order to gain access to otherwise inaccessible evidence, sacrificing an old woman's safety for the sake of gaining an edge on an opponent, and failing to realize why a woman would be sensitive about a stillborn child more than a decade after the incident; all amongst them), Sherlock is far from being remorseless, much as he would like to be. He's helped an old school friend who was in need with a case that might not have been otherwise promising, and looks noticeably numbed after the realization that he's quite possibly gotten the aforementioned victim in a case killed after his prolonging her capture.
Most telling is his relationship with John Watson. Where he was flippant and dismissive with Molly Hooper's advances ("I was wondering if you'd like to have coffee." "Black, two sugars, please - I'll be upstairs."), he chooses to turn down John more carefully and politely when he thinks the doctor is propositioning him ("John, I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work, and while I'm flattered by your interest, I'm really not... looking for any..."). Similarly, he has a strong protective urge when John is involved - he hides evidence of his being potentially fatally attacked on two separate occasions - and is visibly rattled, distraught even, when John is captured and put into harm's way because of his own doing. John is also seemingly the first person to whom Sherlock has referred as a 'friend'.
More likely than remorselessness is that, due to his work, this is a mindset that he has observed - 'Caring takes too much effort, too many emotions, so I must quell it for a moment so I can get things done' - in order to do his job more effectively. Emotions are wasteful in a logical setting and only serve to haze an otherwise clear insight to a situation. They're useless while he is on a case.
However, this is all unclear canonically - this analysis is pure conjecture on the mun's part.
Overall, Sherlock is his own person, unapologetic to a fault for his personality and his actions. He's incredibly fast-paced, constantly craving mental and adrenergic (and more often than not potentially self-destructive) stimulus ("All that matters to me is the work, and without that, my brain rots."). He chooses his own cases as they come to him, only flocking to the most difficult and intellectually engaging, and as a consequence, he often has long periods between them that leave him depressed, lethargic, and, most dangerously, bored.
He's been shown flopping about on his couch in pajamas, playing dissonant and crude chords on his violin, irritably nitpicking small details for the sake of argument, shooting smiley faces into walls, and even keeping bits of corpses in the fridge and the microwave, all in the name of boredom - generally relying on the excuse, "It's an experiment." Sherlock can sometimes go for days without eating, without sleeping, without speaking because of these episodes.
He's also an observed drug addict, most likely flocking towards the nervous and emotional stimulants (enactogens such as MDMA [ecstasy] or hallucinogens such as mescaline, though a preference in the novels leaned towards cocaine). These were likely employed in the case of such aforementioned boredom, in attempts to keep his mind stimulated and alert. Though he claims he's clean, he also shows a notable avoidance of admitting his flat is drug-free, and is more than likely to experience relapse, should desperation call for it. Similarly, he's also a heavy smoker (upwards of two or three packs a day), forced to quit because of a twenty-first century stigma involving cigarettes. He relies on nicotine patches canonically, multiple ones at a time ("Helps me think.").
Sherlock is merely difficult. Difficult to understand, intellectually or emotionally; difficult to get along with; difficult to live with. He has little sense of personal space and social stigma, often asking probing questions and making blunt observations that put people immediately on the defensive ("[That was] quite extraordinary." "That's not what people normally say." "What do people normally say?" "'Piss off'."). He has a wealth of knowledge, little tact, and is a force with which to be reckoned.
TL;DMFR: He's a too-smart, emotionally stunted, crack-addled asshole and John Watson thinks he's the bee's knees. Sometimes. The end.
Abilities: He's brilliant. Plain and simple. He has a wealth of knowledge over a wide array of intellectual areas, with access to obscure trivia involving chemistry, geology and forensic sciences. His memory is extraordinary, and likely - if he wasn't born with one, that is - he's trained himself to have an eidetic one. Sherlock's able to "maximize his visual memory," and recall small details and exact wording of a plethora of observations.
Sherlock is also incredible at solving puzzles, and finding otherwise hidden links between seemingly insignificant details, all in his head. His attention to the particular is extraordinary (the novels describe him as "fluent in detail").
Despite his smoking habits and his poor sense of self-preservation insofar as sleep and nourishment are involved, Sherlock is very physically fit. He was able to run for miles on end, over obstacles and rooftops, with less noticeable signs of exhaustion than a trained army soldier. He's also able to hold his own in a fight against an angry client - the client was armed, with a sword; Sherlock was not.
Overall, Sherlock is still very human, at least physically, and, as such, is obviously limited insofar as powers.
Sample Entry: A pre-written sample is there, though it's for another comm. Other examples include Dear Mun posts!