Archived fic rec - At the Bottom of the Pool

[sakura_no_miko]

Title: At the Bottom of the Pool

Author: philalethia

Fandom: Sherlock

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Sherlock/John

Warnings: explicit sex (lesbian), jealous/possessive behavior, possible dubcon,

Other notes: alternate universe, genderswap, emotional constipation, get together

Length: 18k

Summary: In which Sherlock and John are female, John admits she would sometimes rather get off than chase after murderers, and Sherlock responds… oddly.

 

Ah, I think Sherlock occupies the most space on my ‘read later’ list, and probably comes in second or third on my 'fandoms I need to rec more fic for’ list. Because there is a lot of brilliant Sherlock fic, and I, for some reason, haven’t been reading it much lately.

I saw someone rec this and, on a whim, decided to actually read it instead of bookmarking it for later. Now, I have to ay, the thing I like about this fic is also the thing that bothers me somewhat: female John and Sherlock act almost exactly like their male counterparts. On the one hand, that’s great–you still get all the dynamics that draw you to the original characters. The author doesn’t gloss over Sherlock’s eccentricities, or even some of the negative aspects of their relationship–Sherlock is emotionally stunted and tends to get possessive, which, in most cases, would be a big turn-off, but, um, it is rather par for the course for this pairing. At least here they discuss it, and John lays down the rules for Sherlock to stop being as much of an ass. The sex is certainly hot, and I adore that John is very adamantly bisexual and willing to lecture Sherlock on it.

At the same time, though–sometimes it did really feel like I was just reading another Sherlock/John fic? I can’t quite put my finger on it. People will argue over how to write female characters. We agree that they should have as varied and dynamic a range of personalities as men, but at the same time, you don’t want to just take a male character and make him female (although Alien did remarkably well by doing just that). It’s important to realize that female characters do have a different perspective of the world. In that case, I did find all the period talk pretty interesting. That’s one of the major things I encounter–when a woman says “cramps,” to another woman, you just nod knowingly. But I would hesitate to complain about the same thing to male friends. Discussing the possibility of sex while on your period, and knowing to put down a  towel–again, things I would discuss with other women, but probably avoid with a man.

So it comes back to me wondering: am I just not accepting that John and Sherlock could be exactly the same as women as they are as men, because of my own underlying ideas of what female characters are? I just can’t pinpoint why I kept forgetting they were women in some scenes. I do think they read exactly like their male selves, so maybe that was just my own failings. I—okay, I admit that I’ve totally read lots of books where I never actually realize what a character looks like, or their gender. It’s a weird quirk I have. I remember personality traits, dialect patterns, words–but I’m not good with images. So, something like the Night Vale podcasts works perfectly with the way my mind works–I can tell you all the details of the characters except what they look like. and here, I just keep going back to my (male) mental image of Sherlock and John.

Come to think of it, keeping the names probably didn’t help. At least when I read 'Joan’ I think of Lucy Liu.

But, meandering on female characters aside, this is a really nice read, with tons of hot female-on-female sex.

I should write some of that, some to think of it. I’m always hearing “we need more femslash in fandom,” and I’m certainly capable of writing it, but I’ve always written slash. Should do that.

 

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Originally posted on tumblr on 08/14/13