What have we become – commentary
Jlocked:
Right, so how did What have we become? become what it did? For me it started with getting Netflix. It didn't take me long to become hopelessly addicted to BBC shows. Or more specifically: Sherlock, Doctor Who and Torchwood. The problem with following these shows, I found out, after rushing through all the old episodes, is that there's a lot of waiting involved.
So I went online, looking for any kind of behind-the-scenes stuff or other trivia to carry me through. And then I stumbled upon fanfiction. I read some really good stuff and I read a lot of really bad stuff. So, at some point I thought: I can do better than that, and began writing. I must admit I was more than a little surprised when I started getting my first reviews. People actually wanted to read my silliness.
I was of, course, still on the hunt for good fics and one night, while struggling with writer's block, I came across a small, OOC and rather poorly written Johnlock piece. What caught my attention was the note at the beginning, saying something like: this just happened on Omegle. So I thought: 'What is that?' and off I went. I had a few interesting chats about the merits of Benedict Cumberbatch and why we all want to move to Cardiff, but what I was really looking for, was the kind of roleplaying I had seen in the fic.
I was about to despair, which resulted in me starting a conversation with the single word: 'Bored!' To my great surprise the stranger answered: 'Then do something, Sherlock.' I just sat there staring for a moment. This was it. My chance to try Sherlock roleplaying. So I metaphorically closed my eyes and jumped in with both feet.
I can't remember how long we played, but I think it was several hours. At the end I was practically falling asleep at the laptop. But we got the story to a point that seemed like a logical point to end it and began saying goodnight. But then I had an idea and asked if it was okay I turned it into a fic. We exchanged emails and I got to work.
That roleplay is basically the first chapter of WHWB.
The Lady of Purpletown:
In my memory, that chat happened very fast though. The way I remember it, it was less than an hour. I was bored that evening (or didn't want to do more useful things, more probably). And then what is better to chase boredom than going to Omegle for a roleplay? I think that at that point I had even forgotten that people can as well go to Omegle to just talk and not rp, so my reaction to the word "Bored!" was only logical. Not that I do it that frequently, and most of the time you don't find a writer who really goes along with what you have in mind. Even if you get to exchanging e-mails in the end, the collaboration hardly ever lasts. So I must admit that I had never expected that it would become a whole story of respectable length. (And then another, and another, but more about that later.) For me it was just a bit of fun before I went to do something else.
I'm sorry to hear that I was so boring that you were falling asleep at your laptop, Jlocked ;)
Jlocked:
Yes. That was what I said. You were so boring I decided to keep on writing with you.
Anyway. The fic was put online and got a pretty decent response. Then one of us (I can't remember who and can't be bothered to go back and check, though I do in fact still have all the old emails somewhere) suggested that we could continue the story. So I wrote the beginning of chapter 2, which was really a breach of protocol since it's really John's pov, but let's not dwell on that. The Lady of Purpletown (okay, there's no way I'm writing that every time, so from here on in you're just 'Lady', sorry about that). Anyway: 'Lady' suggested that one of them should get hurt and that would take them to a new level, and we decided on it being John. And then things just sort of took off. Every now and then one of us would suggest that this was a good place to end a chapter, and we'd start a new one. I'd piece the story together, we'd both proofread and then I'd put it online.
TLoP:
Writing continued and actually became even more fun as we went. Then Jlocked went to London.
Jlocked:
Someone objects to being called 'Lady', so I'll be nice and use TLoP, though it does sound rather odd when said out loud...
Anyways: I was standing on a street in Camden, smoking (which, kids, is something I very rarely do and you definitely should not). I was wearing my long grey coat and purple scarf and feeling extremely Sherlocky. Then I looked up and right into the eyes of John Watson. Okay, it was actually a poster for The Hobbit on the side of a bus going by, but I think you know what I mean. So, I thought: we should put this in our story: Sherlock and John seeing each other across a busy street. But in order for it to be significant it should be after having been apart for some time. So I went back to the place I was staying, borrowed some wifi and sent my idea. And then we got to work.
TLoP:
Anyone who isn't a dog would object to being called 'Lady'!
I remember I was nagging about the smoking :P A true John, yes indeed.
The thing was, we were only somewhere around chapter 12-13 at that time. That means we had a lot of building-up to do. After all, our boys were perfectly happy together at that point. No way of separating them with all the fluff that was going on. So, evil as we are, we needed a way to put them under stress. Therefore we needed a nice, complicated case.
Jlocked:
Lady was actually my name for you in the beginning. Not anymore though.
And yes, I remember the nagging too.
Before we got onto the case though, we also decided that Sherlock being hurt and forced into inactivity for a prolonged period, was a good place to start. And so Harris came into being. But as Sherlock slowly recovered, we found the boys were getting way too cosy, so we needed something more. Mycroft was mentioned and then The Case (or The Bookcase) began forming.
TLoP:
Yeah, I can imagine that 'The Lady of Purpletown' isn't the easiest name to think of someone. 'Locked' on the other hand works fine.
It actually was my turn to think of a case, and somehow I really couldn't come up with anything. All I could think of, was "something with old books". Very helpful. But to Jlocked's brilliant mind, it turned out it was enough, and she started on working out a whole book code, meanwhile giving me the tip to watch The ninth gate.
Jlocked:
I was not too fond of that brilliant mind though, when it became time to describe how Sherlock broke that bloody code. Gave me quite a few headaches.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because once we'd settled on the case, we also had to figure out how they should solve it with Sherlock still recovering. The answer was obvious: doing a 'the hiker and the backfire' bit with John going into the field and Sherlock working from home. Then the idea for the professor was born and soon Ian followed. I was actually surprised that only one reviewer caught on to what we did there: yes, I admit it, he was based rather heavily on our favourite 'tea boy', Ianto from Torchwood. I can't remember how his crush on Sherlock came about though. But it was probably my idea, because I kind of have this thing for... Second thought, let's not go there.
TLoP:
*clears throat*
I had quite some fun writing Owain. Apparently the quirky old man role suits me well, but of course he had only a small part.
The Latin in our story on the other hand had not. And it was a bloody bitch :P After a few remarks that the Important Old Book in our story should have a name, Jlocked eventually had the - once again brilliant - idea to call it Abscondita in aperto - 'hidden in plain sight'. Not a reviewer who thought of translating the stuff :P
Jlocked.
I know. Why do we even bother being so terribly clever, when nobody notices? Oh, I know. Because we enjoy being terribly clever.
I was actually being a bit self-indulgent there. My first attempt at a Johnlock fic was originally called Hidden in plain sight, because it's just such a brilliant Moffaty line. But then I found out that I was far from the only one to have had that idea and I had to change it. Here was a chance to finally use it, no way was I going to pass up on that. And in the end, it ended up fitting both the subject of the book (which was decided upon, at the very last minute and with very little thought put into it) and the way the code worked.
Actually, forget what I just said: the title of the book was based on careful consideration of its intended effect on the story, its subject matter was a clever reference both to the code and our way of writing and the whole thing came together in a well-planned and -executed symbiosis.
And then of course there was the layout of Gryffydd Hall...
TloP:
You're not referring to the horrible "drawing" I used to write John's avoid-the-sensor scene, are you?
Jlocked:
It was not horrible. It was a sketch. And it was very helpful.
TLoP:
Well, thanks, I guess. I'd rather call it proof that proportions and straight lines mean nothing to me.
Jlocked:
Right. Where were we?
Owain and Ian. Gryffydd Hall... Oh yes, right. When we thought up the case, we had decided that the book had disappeared from a locked room that was impossible to break into. Why else bring in Sherlock Holmes for a missing book, right? But now, it fell to us (i.e. me) to find out how the theft actually happened, so Sherlock could explain it in the end. That nearly brought the story to a halt, I think. Sometimes I suspect that John and Ian were really sent to Belfast to buy me more time to figure out how the thief had pulled it off.
Maybe I should not be admitting that...?
TLoP:
Hmm, I don't actually remember. Would we ever dare to do such a thing?
Miss Leia also was a lot of fun though. She was so wrong in every possible way. And she was good at making our dear Ian blush.
Jlocked:
Yes, too bad we couldn't keep her around, but it really wouldn't have made any sense.
So Belfast and then Blackpool. And then, right in the middle of the fight with Fitzroy, I go: 'hey, I know: let's have him impale himself on the knife while John is holding it.'
It was one of those ideas that just worked. And ultimately it helped us reach the desired crisis in so many ways, that I really don't know what we would have done without it.
(Am I bragging here? Should I stop?)
With Fitzroy in the hospital we could finally get to a part I had been looking forward to because I am really a rather evil person: breaking Ian's heart.
TLoP:
Oh, don't worry about it, I'm used to your bragging ;) But it's completely justified, it did work.
Of course, I'm not really evil *ahem*, but I couldn't let Ian think that he could have Sherlock, so I gladly went along in that plan.
For a while, it seemed like Sherlock and John were almost getting too close again to get our plan to separate them to work. But of course The Evil Lady Jlocked also had an explanation for that: make them closer now, and it will hurt more when it finally happens. From that moment on, John was getting frustrated because he couldn't do much to help Sherlock with the code, a start in building the tension.
Maybe this is a good moment for Jlocked to elaborate a little on the book code?
Jlocked:
I suppose I must. See this is something TLoP is very good at: putting me to work.
Okay, as explained in the story, the differing words, when connected, form Roman numerals. The numerals are:
III - VI - V - VII - IV - VIII - IX - VII - VI - II - II - II - V - II - I - VII - IV - IV - IX - III - VI - VII - V - VII - V - VIII - II - IX - I - IX – IX
Grouped together, by the number of pages between them, and translated to Arabic numerals they are:
365 - 748 - 976 - 222 - 521 - 744 - 936 - 757 - 582 - 919 - 9
The clue as to what to do with these numbers is the single 9 at the end. When doing sums of digits, you can never really end up with the result 9, because 9 in this particular case is the same as 0. This was the clue that, along with well-timed words from John, helped Sherlock figure out the, relatively simple, mathematical technique needed to break the code.
Doing the sums left Sherlock with:
5 - 1 - 4 - 6 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 0 - 1 - 6 - 1 – 9
He had no idea what to do with this, until John once again came to his aid and pointed out the 'punctuation'. He added that and ended up with:
51.4686 and -0.1619
And those are (according to the internet) the coordinates for Westminster Abbey.
Okay, that's enough of me being a complete geek.
Care to explain the Latin?
TloP:
Who doesn't like geeks? ^^
To get to the code, we had to give an example of how Sherlock found it in the book. Like you all remember, he observed that here and there in the two copies, words were different from the other version. To make that stand out, the two different sentences had to be slightly nonsensical, but if you take one of the changed words from each, it should form the actual sentence and make sense. In this example, the structure had to be: same - changed - same - same - changed. (Yes, I just copied that from your mail, Jlocked. Putting you to work and being lazy myself. Who is actually the evil one?)
In the first version, the Latin phrases didn't really have any grammar. And since we (well, Jlocked) had worked so hard on the book code, I thought that it was a little strange if our Latin suddenly hadn't gotten any attention, so I decided to correct it. Only, it appeared that the time when I had Latin at school was longer ago than I realised and I simply had forgotten everything, so it involved a lot of looking up, changing things that made the whole sentence change and thus also the two others, et cetera. All in all it took a lot more time than I had foreseen. But it was worth it, of course :P
I'm not going to give you the whole explanation of the grammar or you'll all fall asleep. Just the meaning of the sentences, then:
Quoddam verba habent multos fines. = 'Some words have many endings/purposes.'
Quoddam inventa habent multos sensos. = 'Some inventions/discoveries have many meanings.'
Quoddam verba habent multos sensos. = 'Some words have many meanings.' (or Quoddam inventa habent multos fines would have made 'Some inventions have many purposes.' - But that wasn't so telling for what we were doing here.)
By the way, I am aware that the verb would come last in the sentence if we really wanted to do 'proper' Latin, but then it wouldn't have worked for our code, because the last word of the sentence would always have been the same.
Jlocked:
A lot of work for something that didn't really take up that much place in the story, but I think both of us write better if we know everything that's going on and that we're doing it right.
And then it was time for the part we called: 'we really don't want to do this, but it's for the story': The breakup.
We had been working towards it for a very long time by then and suddenly it was just... there. And I know for my part, I almost backed down thinking: we can't do this to these poor boys. They've been through so much already.
But as I already told you I am a very evil creature, and break them up we did. And then, just to make things worse, I decided to send Sherlock to Cardiff, right into the arms of Ian. I must admit I was pretty chuffed about the response we got on that bit of the story. I think we both were. So thank you to those of you who took the time to write long and emotional reviews around that time. It was very much appreciated.
But Sherlock was, of course, never going to go through with it. He didn't need a fawning pretty-boy. He needed John. So we started on the part we had been looking forward to: bringing them back together.
TloP:
Meanwhile, John had gotten a job, since there was no Sherlock to lend him his bank card. I intended to tell some things about his job, so hmm, why not about his boss? Making her a Sarah type would perhaps help to get him over it... (Not.) The decision for her name was made within seconds. "Look at the panic in our fans' eyes if we call her Mary (Morstan)." Jlocked, as the evil thing she is, agreed immediately of course. But John was never even going to date her. Just like Sherlock, he just wasn't ready for someone else (and never would be).
The first time the boys saw each other again, would be by accident, in the way Jlocked had thought of in London. That had to be the breaking point in their thoughts; from that moment on all they wanted was to have the other back in their life. And in John's case, maybe to make them quit smoking :P
Jlocked:
Again with the smoking. Do you guys see what I have to work with?
So they see each other and immediately they can think about nothing else. But of course they're both too stubborn/confused/scared/emotionally obtuse to act on it. So fate, in the form of Harris, intervenes.
We had planned quite early on that they should get together for a case, but the nature of the case was settled on, I believe, at almost the last minute. We wanted a chase, a fight, lots of adrenaline and a shared look. And then of course, the tree-thing happened...
TLoP:
How could it not happen, with all the adrenaline we had managed to put in?
Of course, they hadn't talked about anything and that was the moment for embarrassment. A lot of it. We didn't really plan beforehand how things would be once they were both back in Baker Street, so we discovered it along with the boys. Sherlock had the very clever idea to sneak into John's bed and there they were; the location for the Talk was chosen. You've all seen that it turned out pretty well.
Jlocked:
And then the end was upon us. We had a list of elements that we wanted to squeeze in before the final words, and as we passed through them, it started dawning on both of us that not only the story, but the work with writing it, would soon be over. None of us were too happy about that, I think.
So we did the logical thing: we started planning our next story.
TLoP:
Yes, fortunately. I really didn't want to stop writing with Jlocked, we had far too much fun together.
So we started thinking what our next story was about - would we just continue with a sequel on 'What have we become' or would we look at other fandoms we had in common? A few ideas passed, and in the end we settled on a Torchwood/Sherlock crossover. The result can be found in When their paths crossed (( s/9261323/1/When-their-paths-crossed)).
Jlocked:
I too was very relieved that we could continue working together. It isn't everyday you find someone you just click with on so many points.
And as it turns out, our new story is actually only part 1. Part 2 is already on the way (as soon as we figure out some minor points. The plot, for example...)
But now, WHWB is over, and we hope you have enjoyed reading it, as much as we have writing it. Thank you to everyone who took the time to favourite and review.
Did we miss anything?
TLoP:
That's how we work. The details take hours and the plot is something we decide in seconds on the last moment :P
We did miss something though. Let's not make them as frustrated as Sherlock and tell something about the journal.
Jlocked:
Right, we don't want anyone else splitting up over this. The journal has of course been destroyed, as Mycroft said it would be, and its true contents will never be known. The writer was a young girl who might have been the illegitimate offspring of someone of royal blood. Fitzroy believed that the journal contained proof that his bloodline, and therefore himself, was the true heir to the British throne. Mycroft just knew that whatever was in it would stir up old things that might cause problems or embarrassment for the royal family. And Sherlock will never know, but he got John back, so he doesn't care...
TLoP:
With that, I think we have said everything we wanted to say. Come along, my dear Jlocked, let's go write another story.
Jlocked:
Certainly my dear. You start.
