And here I thought that all the high school AUs I was reading were so recognizable because the high school experience was just that universal. But now I have this hypothesis that when American fic writers try to write British secondary school AUs, they essentially end up writing what amounts to the typical Canadian high school experience (unless they really like doing research). In all fairness to Americans, when Canadian fic writers try to write British secondary school AUs, they probably also end up a lot like the typical Canadian high school experience. It actually makes a lot of sense, since the typical Canadian high school experience basically seems like American high school stripped of everything but school work, the ubiquitous teen angst and insecurity, and an extremely vague sense of social hierarchy. The blandness of your average Canadian high school makes it the perfect blank canvas.
Canadian High School: the school that isn’t like anything!
This amuses me.
(Admittedly, I really have no idea what the high school experience of Canadians from Quebec eastward is. It probably is a bit different, particularly in Quebec. And we do have a few expensive private schools with uniforms and such, but they’re very much outside the norm.)
Complete personal opinion here. YMMV. To each their own. One man’s junk is another man’s etc. etc.
There’s a fic I’ve been reading which I will not mention by name, but it’s a long fic, and the premise is that Sherlock suffers from horrible mutant migraines. And I’m not sure why, but this fic is bugging the heck out of me. I usually enjoy Hurt/Comfort as much as the next person, but this just feels really over the top. Like, let’s just exult in Sherlock’s magnificent pain for 70,000 words. And I don’t really get any enjoyable feels from that.
There are definitely kinds of hurt that, in a fictional context, can be emotionally enjoyable: a sprained wrist, a wound that needs stitching, a nasty cold that leaves the afflicted kitten-weak, even a gunshot. But this is really missing that mark for me.
I think there should be an Injury/Doctoring trope tag. That’s usually the kind of H/C I like best: “You are hurt. I will keep my shit together and patch you up. Then, once I’m sure that you’re on the mend, I will have feels about the whole situation.” The proactive brand of H/C.
Though I guess I do have a weakness for stories where John is hurt and Sherlock completely loses it – dramatizations of the whole Three Garridebs You-Hurt-My-Watson plot. But even there, it’s a sudden intense hurt accompanied by sudden, intense helplessness and emotional flailing. Then, cut to Hospital, and everything’s okay. A hurt/comfort firework, as opposed to a hurt/comfort parade.
- i should just start titling my posts with numbers
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amyhit- January 27th, 17:47
2013-01-28 02:02 am (UTC)
(You know what I find weird? How our high schools -- in BC, at least -- are usually called "Such and Such Secondary School" but we call it "high school.")
this just feels really over the top.
How does it compare to, say, your typical Mulder!torture story?
2013-01-28 02:39 am (UTC)
We lack the coolness, but even if American high school is half as intense as the fictional stereotypes make it look, I would never, ever want to have gone through it. I am clearly Canadian, because I genuinely like that we're, on the whole, a fairly bland, non-descript sort of people. Ambition is massively overrated.
How does it compare to, say, your typical Mulder!torture story?
Well, I never read a lot of reallly intense Mulder!torture. I definitely read a lot of stories where he suffered epic emotional pain, usuallly due to something bad happening to Scully. But I didn't read many fics were he was actually physically tortured or beset by some major, disabling physical illness.
But this Sherlock fic is...as far as actual physical pain that's not caused by torture, this is definitely the worst, and longest thing I've read. So far it's literally been 35,000 words of crippling pain and cognitive problems associated with his condition. And no real prospect of anybody finding a treatment or a cure. Like, John just stays with him 24-7 and feels terrible. So far there's no "Must. Find. Cure." plotline or anything.
2013-01-28 02:47 am (UTC)
I will say that I desperately longed for a John Hughes-type high school experience. The closest I came was going to a party in the wealthy part of town and feeling just like Molly Ringwald in "Pretty in Pink" (but without her awesome wardrobe). It was not fun. After that, I was content to be in the massive middle, neither reviled nor popular, and left alone.
2013-01-28 03:01 am (UTC)
Did you have jocks and popular sports events and pep rallies and cheerleaders and grad dances and fancy proms and cool kids with cars and such?
There's just all these high school tropes that seem to come directly out of popular American fiction, and while I can't imagine they're nearly as intense in real life, it's still strange, because they're not things that feature in Canadian high schools. I mean, I'm sure there are some huge high schools in the big Canadian cities that have cheerleading teams and maybe some people actually show up to the sports events, etc., but my high school didn't really have any of that stuff. To this day I have no idea what sports teams our school actually had and which ones it skipped altogether.
By the eleventh grade there weren't even any cliques in my year. Groups who hung out with each other, sure, but none of them really cared who joined their groups, and none maintained an image of any kind.
The closest I came was going to a party in the wealthy part of town and feeling just like Molly Ringwald in "Pretty in Pink"
Hahaha, that is an awesome image. Shame it didn't turn out to be any fun.
2013-01-28 03:04 am (UTC)
Oh god. I did. Okay, so they're called stereotypes for a reason.
2013-01-28 03:14 am (UTC)
Oh, and at least one of my high schools had regular pep rallies. I'm not sure if the other two did, but I never bothered with school spirit-type stuff when I was attending them, so I don't know for sure.
2013-01-29 12:35 am (UTC)
Wow! I think of all the high school tropes that none of the schools in my area had, pep rallies always interested me most. The whole concept of "Lets get together and rile ourselves up about being awesome!" is either really fun and cool, or really obnoxious, depending on how you look at it.
2013-01-29 12:57 am (UTC)
2013-01-30 06:16 pm (UTC)
OTOH, they did turn out the whole school to cheer our Speech and Debate team off when we got on the bus for the state competition, so that was nice.
2013-01-30 06:30 pm (UTC)
For my school:
"jocks and popular sports events and pep rallies and cheerleaders and grad dances and fancy proms and cool kids with cars"
1. Yes, though my circle of friends (Smart, but Weird) included one of the star basketball/volleyball players and a track/cross-country runner.
2. Sort of. Our football and boys' basketball teams were mediocre, so girls' basketball and running got to spread out the attention some.
3. Yes. Vile things with mandatory attendance, but only happen one or two times a year.
4. Yes, though one of my friends was on the squad and not a horrible, stereotypical, plastic blonde.
5. A few dances every year, primarily homecoming in the fall and Prom (for 12th graders and their dates only). I attended none of them (by choice).
6. RICH kids with cars, yes. Cool is, of course, relative. I went to a college-prep private school and they certainly existed. A few of my friends had terrible old cars.
2013-01-31 03:57 am (UTC)
That sounds like a pretty good group. I liked my small main friends group, but there were definitely times I wished for some variety.
Vile things with mandatory attendance
Oh jeez, no wonder you hated them. Compulsory pep? That's almost Orwellian.
2013-01-31 05:50 am (UTC)
2013-01-28 03:21 am (UTC)
So far it's literally been 35,000 words of crippling pain and cognitive problems associated with his condition. And no real prospect of anybody finding a treatment or a cure. Like, John just stays with him 24-7 and feels terrible.
Oh, god. That doesn't sound pleasant. (To put it mildly.) At least with many of Mulder!torture stories I read, it was so ridiculous that it bordered on parody and therefore couldn't be taken too seriously. But that... that sounds really depressing.
2013-01-29 12:45 am (UTC)
*g* That's so true.
But yeah, this is dead serious, and kind of...IDK, obnoxiously reverent or something? Like, imagine if Mulder's brains had been permanently scrambled and he was left in constant pain after the events of TSE, and then there was a fic that was 70,000 words of Scully's anguish at having to helplessly watching the tragic violence done to his beautiful mind.
Like, the reason TSE is awesome is because she goes to freaking AFRICA and digs up a freaking SPACESHIP trying to make his brains not be scrambled anymore! If she'd just lamented it wouldn't have been interesting at all.
2013-01-28 02:28 am (UTC)
I am 100% down with your Injury/Doctoring trope tag, though.
2013-01-28 02:47 am (UTC)
You did, but I'd already been planning to read it at that point anyway. And there is absolutely zero call to apologise. I love getting recs from people I know, and it's inevitable that not every rec is going to work for every person.
it didn't read as gratuitous to me at the time.
I'm not sure if I'd call it gratuitous exactly. It's just that so far Sherlock's agony, and John's agony at Sherlock's agony, has been the entire thrust of the narritive. Like, if you're reading the story that must be what you're reading it for, because there's nothing else. So it's not really gratuitous, because it's completely relevant to the central narrative concept. It's just not one that seems to grab me personally.
2013-01-28 02:53 am (UTC)
I just read a fic earlier today and the catalyst for John and Sherlock to confess all their feeeeeelings happened right after Sherlock burned his arm taking toast out of the oven. Such a small injury, but the aftermath was fairly intense. So, pretty much the same direction the other story is taking, but much more tame in the Hurt department. I admit that was more fun to read, even if the writing was not as comparable.
2013-01-29 01:02 am (UTC)
That sounds adorable. Like, classic Sherlock fandom off-kilter domesticity feels.
Are you planning to finish it?
Um...I think it'll be decided by the next five thousand words or so. I'm at the part where he's started having siezures. If the siezures prompt things (besides yet more of Sherlock suffering) to start happening, then I'll stick it out to the end.
2013-01-31 04:21 am (UTC)
And yeah, I quite enjoyed "Sometimes Lost." The toast scene hit me sweetly, right in the feels, like pressing on a bruise. "Oh noes, John's going to leave me over dropping the toast!" I don't even care if vulnerable woobie-ish Sherlock is not a thing in canon, I will fall for it almost every time. And though mild, adorable H/C can be overdone in its own right, it definitely charmed me in this case.
2013-02-01 01:10 am (UTC)
2013-01-28 04:31 pm (UTC)
Heh, my high school had all the components you mention in comments. Also people getting expelled for sex under the stairwells during class changes. Fatal car wrecks breaking the hearts of entire classes. Prom drama (I caused no little of that by going with Leigh). Caste hierarchies within the singing groups. God, it was tedious.
2013-01-28 07:24 pm (UTC)
Seriously? I mean we had drug deals in the toilets and teachers hitting pupils and the head siphoning money off the book budget to pay for the school buses, but sex in the stairwells? That's horrible!
2013-01-29 02:14 am (UTC)
I usually like stuff about synesthesia, but in this case my interest in it was blotted out by my feeling of “Really? Sherlock is such a special snowflake that he needs his very own, fancy, non-existent brain condition to suffer from? Just disabling pain wouldn’t be impressive enough to suit his brain’s true magnificence – let’s throw a bunch of synesthesia in there too.”
Have you read the road that stretches out ahead by shinychimera and yeomanrand? I I thought the synesthesia was nicely incorporated into it, giving it a particularly lush, intense quality (though I did think it dragged on a little).
it's tediously nitty-gritty about the process of the medical stuff.
You know, that hasn’t bothered me yet – though I’m only half way through, so the medical stuff may just be getting going.
I mainly just don’t have patience for the whole “John endlessly laments the agonizing destruction of Sherlock’s beautiful mind” thing. A) That’s not a plot so much as an idea, and B) it’s not really that profound. IMO, the potential for profundity is in what you do with that idea…which in this case has so far been Not that much.
C'mon, less medical detail, moar makeouts!)
Have you seen the Fanfic Flamingo that says “The well researched Roman AU is accurate, but the sloppily researched Roman AU is hotter”?
Factual accuracy should really add to the hotness, yet there’s no substitute for lots of UST and makeouts.
Also people getting expelled for sex under the stairwells during class changes. Fatal car wrecks breaking the hearts of entire classes.
Yikes!
Prom drama (I caused no little of that by going with Leigh).
Well but that’s maybe the most justified way of stirring up prom drama ever. Like, that doesn’t even sound like your drama – more like other people’s drama regarding you.
The only drama at my grad (we did have a grad, which was a bit like a prom, except the budget for it was about two bucks) was a guy who broke up with his girlfriend. I think, short of “while they’re in labor,” “at the alter,” and “on Christmas day,” Grad/Prom might be the worst time to break up with someone. But then like four years later he came out, so I suppose he may have been feeling rather conflicted at the time.
2013-01-28 07:24 pm (UTC)
2013-01-29 02:22 am (UTC)
(No matter how decidely I don't ship Mulder/Krycek, I still think your icon is hilarious.)