This can't possibly go wrong at all...

[nineveh_uk]

I have just seen a rec for a fic with the following summary:

Ireland, 1920. There's a war on, but no one seems to be playing by the rules. John Watson, injured and unemployed after his time at the Front, joins up with the special forces sent over to keep the peace, but when he meets Sherlock Holmes, the second son of the local lord, he begins to lose track of which side he is on.

It is difficult to believe that it is going to go well. Maybe the author has done an absolutely brilliant job and successfully avoided the many pitfalls involved in setting their c.120,000 words fandom AU in another country during a war that has numerous rumbles extending into the present-day. If so, good for them! But on the balance of probabilities, probably not.

To some extent I sympathise with the author, having been involved in a recent discussion on FFA about the total lack of fandom activity associated with The Jewel in the Crown*. But even less than my qualifications to write TJitC fic that isn't prequel or future-fic for Sarah Layton set in England, is the chance of success in, for example, writing a Sherlock AU set in British India during WWII with Sherlock taking the role of Ronald Merrick.**

It's not that I think there is material that fandom shouldn't touch. I do think that there is material that if fandom touches it, the chances of doing it well are probably quite small for lots of people. Especially when they lack personal engagement with, or high level academic study in, the subjects concerned.

[ETA: There's something to be added here about genre, ambition, the genre-tourism element potentially involved in AU (tropey or otherwise), comedic licence, the nature of the original canon, and how they all complicate things.

Also, I am now imagining a wide variety of ludicrous crossovers with TJitC. Merrick is definitely one of Crowley's successes. It's practically canon. Barbie has probably met Aziraphale.]

*Challenge number one, it's long and dense.

**I am suddenly imagining a Jewel in the Crown bakery AU, in which Merrick is the son of a corner shop keeper who has risen to regional manager in a supermarket chain and who can't stand their bread sales being challenged by an upstart Polish version of Greggs.

Comments

sorry I seem to have accidentally tl:dr because Ireland

[lilliburlero]

Erk. That summary doesn't bode entirely well. Those 'special forces sent to keep the peace' (phrasing which I find offensively inaccurate, by the way, and which will make most Irish people incandescent) are paramilitary Auxiliaries to the RIC. They weren't peacekeepers, they were counter-insurgency forces, mounting ambushes and raids against the IRA. The Auxies were former officers, distinct from Temporary Constables ('Black and Tans') though the term 'Black and Tans' gets used for both. Watson might join the Auxies, I suppose, but it seems a probability stretch on a couple of levels: they were effectively the Millwall of that war ('everybody hates us and we don't care'). The regular army loathed them for indiscipline, the RIC found them intractable loose cannon, effectively independent of the police command structure, and they committed most of the atrocities generally and loosely attributed to the 'Tans'. Of course, as individuals they weren't all monsters, and Auxie!Watson could be a very interesting compromised sort of character. His injury raises another question: if it's serious enough to have got him out of the regular army, it's I think pretty unlikely that he'd be packed off to Co. Cork or wherever he's meeting Anglo-Irish!Sherlock to participate in guerrilla counter-insurgency campaigns: the Auxies were poorly disciplined, brutal, frequently disorganised, but they were also élite fighters and despite facing all the imaginable disadvantages on the ground often still had the IRA on the run. OK. I'm not quite sure what to make of 'when he meets Sherlock Holmes, the second son of the local lord, he begins to lose track of which side he is on'. Quiet sympathy for the IRA among Anglo-Irish gentry families wasn't too uncommon: the Republicans were after all often their tenants, former employees, &c. with whom they had long-standing relationships. And the reactions of gentry families to the regular army charged with protecting them were comically awkward cf, The Last September, fr ex. Auxiliaries weren't gentlemen, even if they were officers, and the Anglo-Irish for the most part despised them. So I can see that there might be all sort of interesting conflicts of class, nation and loyalty there, but it would need careful handling. I'd be wary of trying it myself, but then I'm no expert on the period, I just live here.

The non-tl:dr version: it could actually be brilliant. But why do I suspect it's not? I'm going to have to read it, amn't I? Dammit, I was hoping to avoid that.

Re: sorry I seem to have accidentally tl:dr because Ireland

[legionseagle]

Here's a quote:

Though he never asked, Sherlock suspects Lord Holmes’s fit of nationalist pique had something to do with the Rising and a pulling away from the lilt-tongued wife who gave him his title, his land, when he was a mere second son in England.

I do not think this woman has quite grasped how the aristocracy works.

Re: sorry I seem to have accidentally tl:dr because Ireland

[nineveh_uk]

Quite. The concept might potentially be interesting, but the way in which it's expressed pretty much guarantees that it isn't, because the language just screams that the author might have a few pieces of information history but no understanding of the context. No-one who understands anything about C20 Irish history at all could possibly write "special forces sent to keep the peace" with a straight face. I checked their bio, and they live in the USA. I would guess that they know there's a war going on (perhaps they watched Michael Collins), and have some idea of John as a plucky British soldier down on his luck, going off to fight another war, and having his preconceptions changed by the plucky Irish and by his noble boyfriend of [unidentified religious and political affiliation].

You missed out the idea of war being "played by the rules" being expected by a soldier who's been in WW1 ;-)

Re: sorry I seem to have accidentally tl:dr because Ireland

[lilliburlero]

^^^blither based mainly on assumptions made from the summary (always a bad idea). Ignore!

[legionseagle]

I've managed to get about three chapters into it. John is, indeed, a Black and Tan, there's a guest appearance by a (significantly de-aged) Eva Gore-Booth, and her brother-in-law is described as "a socialist" which I suspect would come as a surprise to Count Casimir Markiewicz

[clanwilliam]

Catholic Anglo-Irish gentry sending their son to Belvedere?

Not really, IMO. If they were keeping him in Ireland, they'd probably have gone for Clongowes (Mummy is a factor in keeping him in Ireland), but far more likely to have sent him to, well, Ampleforth. *g*

[nineveh_uk]

Thank you for tackling it so we don't have to!

Casimir Markiewicz was from eastern Europe, of course we was a socialist.

[sir_guinglain]

There is nothing I can say which has not been exceeded by those who have already commented; what a historically naive idea for a story. Still, it wouldn't be the first.

[nineveh_uk]

I suspect that it is destined to join the ranks of that select handful of fics whose concepts ring down the ages as a bad idea.

[legionseagle]

Oh, holy fucking wanking Mother of God:

She takes a short breath, and in the moment before she begins to speak, Sherlock says, instead, all in a rush: “You worked as a journalist during the war, but gave it up shortly after Armistice, possibly because they wouldn’t allow a woman to cover political issues anymore, more probably because you became more active in your various causes. You’re older than Eva but come from more modest circumstances; this is her family house you’ve made your home in, after all. Your poetry is middling but popular with your political set, and you often wish you could attend more to it than to all of this.” He gestures to the muckraking papers spread throughout the room. In the pause, Charlotte opens her mouth to respond, but Sherlock continues after a mere breath.

“Given Eva’s previous associations, you both no doubt engage in some activities more, shall we say, active in the current troubles than poster-making and strikes. You wish, at times, that a compromise would be found, for the longer the fighting goes on the more you find that you prefer peace to an absolute Irish victory. Eva feels much the same, but you both retain too much guilt to abandon your comrades — and family — to their fate.” Closing his mouth, Sherlock rocks back into the sofa. Charlotte has gone a bit pale.

This fucking travesty is supposed to be Eva Gore-Booth and Esther Roper. Who were very conspicuous pacifist socialists based in Manchester and engaged in Trade Union activities during the period in question.

[nineveh_uk]

No wonder Charlotte has gone pale.

[clanwilliam]

I'm trying to think of an even worse AU scenario, but my mind auto-Godwinates with John reassigned to guard duty after being injured on the Russian front and Sherlock as the local Polish nobleman's son…

On the plus side, I'm also contemplating the Michael Collins/Eamonn De Valera coffee shop AU, although with that one, it's going to turn into a pitched battle between the merits of Barry's and Lyons' tea. The sequel will involve the Tayto and King cheese and onion crisps wars, with the inevitable twist.*

*They're the same. Yes, we have sectarian crisps in Ireland.

[legionseagle]

You'll like this bit:

Not surprising, not with Casement’s trial revealing — along with so many things, suspicions and insinuations which Sherlock had, that last year at Belvedere, followed with an uncertain secrecy — the depths of the Irish-German alliance.

Was that the same Irish-German alliance who might possibly have been mentioned as "supported by gallant allies in Europe", d'ya think?

[nineveh_uk]

John is a Spanish equivalent of a barber-surgeon* on a ship with Cortés. Sherlock is an Aztec prince.

Sectarian crisp wars. I have now truly heard it all. I like your AU, though.

[taelle]

John reassigned to guard duty after being injured on the Russian front and Sherlock as the local Polish nobleman's son…

I've read a Merlin AU with Merlin as a Jew in the concentration camp and Arthur as a... I forgot whether he was the camp commandant or just one of the officers. Well, I've read as much of it as I could manage. I think the author was quite surprised when a lot of people had a lot of fits over her touching and tragically dramatic story.

[toujours_nigel]

the chance of success in, for example, writing a Sherlock AU set in British India during WWII with Sherlock taking the role of Ronald Merrick.**

I am torn between wanting to see this and being rend by anticipatory horror.

[legionseagle]

I think John should be Merrick and Sherlock should be Hari Kumar.

[nineveh_uk]

Just imagine what Loki!fandom could do with Merrick, the misunderstood woobie...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Er, quite.

But despite not having read, or seen, the original, I would like to read your JitC fic.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Thank you :-) And I strongly recommend Jewel in the Crown - I like the novels and TV series, but if you haven't seen the latter it's really worth giving a go. Terrific acting and all round outstanding production.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Also, I am now imagining a wide variety of ludicrous crossovers with TJitC

TJitC / Lovecraft?

TJitC / Jeeves and Wooster?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Lovecraft should be crossed with A Passage to India, since obviously what happened in the Barabar Caves is that Miss Quested has a vision of eldritch things beyond human understanding.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

O hai thar fellow nonnie!

Post-Mean Girls, bullying victim Ronald Merrick proves that "those to who evil is done, do evil in return."

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am not a nonnie, I am a velociraptor!

Ronald Merrick is definitely the sort of character who would go mad with a gun in a high school film.

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

Er, yeah. I've seen the various chapter posts coming up for that fic and had a lot of the same reservations as you express here. Though for me the killer is the John/Sherlock, but whatever...

Though, I have more qualms about historical periods that I know a fair bit about than those I don't (such as Ireland in the 1920s). I mean, if the author screws up the history part, I'm not going to know about it, am I?

And OMG TJinC crossovers.

For some reason, the first thing that comes to mind is sports RPF crossovers. Merrick / Sepp Blatter, anyone?

Susan Layton stars in a Chalet school crossover. [Actually, I think Susan's tragedy is that she wants the world to be like Chalet school.]

Daphne and Aunt Shalini hit the road, Thelma and Louise-style.

Okay, I'll stop now.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The impression of this fic by brave souls reading it on DW seems to be that the author has assembled some grasp of the factual historical narrative, whilst entirely missing the broader picture - sort of ironically, preventing their having qualms.
The glory of the summary is that it warns a person like me, who knows only the barest historical outline, but a lot of the context, that this is going to bizarre places. The idea of the Black and Tans as "special forces sent over to keep the peace" is sublime.

TJitC crossovers is the gift that's going to keep giving for some time. Susan Layton definitely thinks the world should be the Chalet School, and clearly this is actually what happened in the (real) lost CS manuscript, Two Chalet Girls in India.