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Sherlock Holmes
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basics
Edit
Added by Just PiName: Sherlock Holmes
Age: Late 20s, probably ~27.
Birthday: January 6th
Series: Sherlock (BBC)
Canon Point: Post 1x03, "The Great Game"
Initial Loss: The ability to communicate his deductions to other people.
Room Number: 1802
Journal: workaphilic
Player: Pi
historyEdit
LATER
personalityEdit
Sherlock Holmes is a proper genius.
He is the only consulting detective in the world (he invented the job, you know), and he runs his "business" out of 221b Baker St, in London. Basically, if the police stumble upon a case that is both too jumbled for them to solve and too interesting for Sherlock to ignore, he steps in and puts the puzzle together for them. There isn't a single member of the force alive who likes it, but Sherlock sees pieces that other people don't, and without him there would be a lot more criminals going free.
To say he makes a living from it, though, is stretching it just a bit. The truth is, Sherlock could (and often does) solve crimes for free; but not out of any sense of altruism or justice or even a desire to keep criminals off the streets. He isn't a vigilante. He's there to solve the puzzle -- nothing more, nothing less. (Though if he gets a chance to remind everyone just how much smarter he is than all of them, well, that's fine too.) He doesn't care about murder victims any more than he'd care about numbers in a word problem, and it's that detached, clinical clarity that can be disturbing to outside observers.
His mind is a delicate piece of hardware, one he's been fine-tuning for the better part of his life. It runs on speed and efficiency, and so there's absolutely no room for clutter. Any information Sherlock deems irrelevant to his work gets promptly "deleted" -- basically he forces himself to actively forget it. This creates a bizarre contrast of absolute brilliance and hopeless ignorance; Sherlock Holmes can tell you your entire life story with a glance, but he couldn't tell you if the Earth goes around the sun or the moon or rolls around in the bottom of a barrel.
The most important thing in his life is his work. He needs his brain hardware to be running, constantly; he's embroiled in a constant struggle against boredom and idleness. Most of the time, "running" means "thinking" and he slakes his need for puzzles with his consulting practice. But the world isn't constantly overflowing with crimes that Sherlock Holmes deems interesting enough to solve, and dry spells often involve bouts of sulking, temper tantrums, and bizarre experiments set up in his kitchen. As such, he tends to revolve around two emotional states: on a case, and pumped with energy and excitability, or idle, and a storm of black temper.
(In the original Arthur Conan Doyle canon, Sherlock Holmes occasionally indulged his need for mental stimulation with cocaine. As of now, the BBC version has only shown him using nicotine patches to help him think, but it's been heavily implied that he used harder drugs at one point, and may or may not be keeping a stash of them in his flat.)
Sherlock classifies himself as a "high-functioning sociopath," which is a decent assessment, in some respects. He's very adept at mimicking emotion (e.g., he can cry on command) and often does so to get information or work around rules when he's on a case. However, he's also excessively rational, and occasionally his logical pattern of thinking will override what he knows about people, making it difficult for him to read and understand complex emotions in others. (A particularly egregious example being when, in a moment of frustration, he demanded to know why a woman would possibly still be upset over the death of her stillborn child after 14 years.) This, combined with his calculating nature and the detached, almost callous way he treats the crimes he solves, creates an image that many (including even Sherlock himself) perceive as lacking emotion and empathy.
But the truth is a little more complicated than that. He's certainly capable of human emotion -- Sherlock is insufferably arrogant, prone to dramatics, has a childish rivalry with his older brother, and once expressed real panic when someone close to him was threatened. He just cares about his work and only his work, and as such has isolated himself from anything that could potentially cause distractions. People who can't keep up with his thought processes (which is basically everyone) slow him down, and so aren't worth investing time in. He's not incapable of meaningful interpersonal relationships, but he doesn't have any need or desire for them, and doesn't give people any reason to try to break through the shell.
It takes essentially a planetary alignment for him to form any sort of attachment (to date, the only person who could feasibly be called his friend is Dr. John Watson), but it's possible, which indicates that Sherlock has a bit more empathy than he gives himself credit for.
Related Tropes: Type V Anti-Hero, Motor Mouth, Heroic Sociopath, Insufferable Genius, Forgets to Eat, Nightmare Fetishist, Ditzy Genius, Tall, Dark, and Snarky, Sticky Fingers, Must Have Nicotine, Manipulative Bastard
abilitiesEdit
"Dear god. What is it like in your funny little brains? It must be so boring."
Sherlock is hyper-aware, in the sense that he observes and catalogs minute details very quickly. He then synthesizes those details together and follows them to their logical conclusions.
He has this skill down to a virtual art, whereby he can deduce a person's entire back story in the span of a few seconds. It has its limitations, though: (1) he makes his deductions based on probability, and while that means he's often right, it also means that he can be tripped up by outliers (e.g., he made the perfectly rational assumption that a person named "Harry" would be male, when in reality it was a shortened form of "Harriet"), and (2) he can't do anything without data. If people know his methods and are thorough enough, it's theoretically possible to erase traces of things he would normally look for.
relationshipsEdit
"That's a skull."
"Friend of mine. Well--... I say 'friend.'"
CanonEdit
John H. Watson » His flatmate, his colleague, his doctor, and really the only friend Sherlock Holmes has ever had. Theirs is an odd sort of partnership, but it works in its own dysfunctional way. John tethers him, keeps him human when he could very easily just dive headfirst into the work and never come back out. They balance each other, and it's come to the point where they're essentially two parts of the same whole. Sherlock is VERY attached to him, for better or for worse.
Mycroft Holmes » His older brother. Mycroft has the same gift of observation -- and is, in fact, much more adept it than Sherlock is -- but his detective prowess suffers from an unwillingness to do the "legwork." Instead, he occupies what he calls a minor position in the government (Sherlock says he IS the British government), and uses it to check up/spy on his little brother. Sherlock is frequently unamused.
Jim Moriarty » Simultaneously the best and worst thing that's ever happened to him. Jim is an archenemy in the truest sense; the only villain Sherlock's encountered so far that's not only been able to match him, but outpace him. Jim fascinates him for that very reason, because they're cut from the same cloth but are still so diametrically opposed. At first it was a game, an unprecedented sort of mental tennis, but then Jim put John in the crosshairs and that was, as they say, when shit got very much real.
ParadisaEdit
FRIENDLY
LOL
NEUTRAL
Delirium » She's a walking, talking puzzle and it's kind of the greatest thing ever. Talking to Del is like doing mental aerobics, keeps him on his toes. She mollifies him a bit.
Ray Stantz » A little peppy and eager, but helpful and at least somewhat intelligent. He's okay.
Yosuke Hanamura » Man, you try being stuck in the Insolitus with this kid for hours on end, okok. Still, he's managed to not be hateful, which is saying something, really.
James Watson » Someone actually on Sherlock's level, intellectually, which is great and sucks ass at the same time. James is interesting to talk to, but Sherlock likes being a special snowflake and definitely DOESN'T like having his methods turned back on him. Also, the "giving a shit about other people" thing is kind of grating.
Allen Walker » Probably doesn't have chlamydia. Still fun to troll, though.
River Song » She straddles the line between being smart enough to be interesting and nosy enough to be annoying. But, man, this whole Time Lord business is great fun.
Nudge » There is SOMETHING weird about this girl. He can't put his finger on what just yet, but so far it seems super interesting. GUESS WHO'S GONNA FIGURE IT OUT.
Edogawa Conan » Smart kid, and he annoys Sherlock a fraction less than most kids tend to. Nosy, though, and likes those books (you know the ones) way too much. There's something off about him, like Nudge but different, and figuring it out is one of Sherlock's pet projects.
Aziraphale » Pushy and annoying and way too much unsolicited advice, angel or not. BUT he's good at chess, and Sherlock hasn't had a good chess partner who isn't Mycroft... ever. Also trolling him is fun, so.
UNFRIENDLY
Anthony J. Crowley » HE'S ANNOYING. And not even in a fun way. He makes up for it a little by being moderately interesting, but still annoying, goddamn.
Katara » what are you doing to that poor piano, woman, jesus christ.
