Archived fic rec - Heat and Despair

[sakura_no_miko]

Title: Heat and Despair

Author: An Anon on sherlockbbc-fic

Fandom: Sherlock

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: gen, unless you want to read Sherlock/John into it

Warnings: allusions to child abuse, abandonment, and alcoholism; major character injury, war

Other notes: hurt/recovery, religion, kink meme fill, character study

Length: unknown

Summary: When John was a child, his mother would often pet his hair and say in a low voice, when everything goes wrong, John, you must pray.

 

This fic hits me on a deeper level than some fic does. I admit, I tend to read fic for an emotional reactions–for comfort, for arousal, for a sense of righting the great wrongs of canon.

Other times, I’m just sitting there in awe of authors who have a writing style or an insight into a character’s mind that just stuns me for a moment with the sheer perfection of it, the why-didn’t-I-think-of-this.

This is a fic about John, who has no faith in religion, being surrounded by people who do, and how he tries to cope with it. This fic walks the fine line of supporting both sides–the faithful, and the faithless, neither taking the moral high ground, neither being proven “right.” John sees things one way, the people he interacts see them a different way, but, in the end, there’s a bit of truth to both points of view.

It’s complex and doesn’t offer an solid answers either way. A good thinking fic to reflect on.

Also, I’ve noticed that the folks who preface their stories with “English is not my first language, so sorry for mistakes” tend to have fairly good grammar. Sometimes better than people who presumably are native speakers. That, or their English mistakes are completely adorable.

 

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Originally posted on tumblr on 08/30/12