#barriscowest sherlock holmes au

[fezwearingjellybananas]

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The Barriscowest Sherlock Holmes AU is so much fun to write.

There are a few reasons The Fraudulent Scientist (The Untold Parts) is set in Brighton. One, it's not exactly a joke, but Central City has a part called New Brighton, so the fic set in the past takes place in Old Brighton.

And part of it is Sherlock Holmes retired to Sussex, Arthur Conan Doyle lived in Sussex for a bit, it's a good place for a setting, and maybe a little Brighton because it gets called the gay capital of the UK sometimes, which felt appropriate. This bus is in use all year, not just for Pride weekend. If you ever go to Brighton, get the bus or the train, parking costs so much money in Brighton.

The main reason is I did not have to do much research.

The Fraudulent Scientist was a fill for Writer's Month last year that I wrote the evening before so I knew I did not have much time to write it. So I knew if I wanted to write something historical, probably Victorian to fit with the Sherlock Holmes inspiration, I would have to write something I already have some level of familiarity with. I learnt about the Victorians at school, that seemed like it would do, I didn't need to be that accurate, but I live in England and always have so my school history lessons have always been what was up in Britain. Except the slave trade, we did the American slave trade instead of the British for 'some mysterious reason'.

(Honestly, I think Horrible Histories taught me way more than school).

And I have read a few classics from the era, including some Sherlock Holmes that we studied at school and wrote essays on, enough I that I thought I could passably mimic the style, but again, mostly written by Brits.

(Jules Verne is the most notable exception- but the second fic, A Reunion of Brothers, is part set in Paris. These are translations I have read, I am very bad at French)

So rather than do lots of research on what was up in America at this point to write a historic Central City I just thought fuck it and moved them to London. Cisco is still American, he moved, but everyone else gets to be in the one I am much more familiar with.

And the place I am most familiar with of all is Sussex, where I live (I am not getting more specific than Sussex), which meant I could write the whole fic very quickly and only actually looked up where the lifeboat station was at that point and when Lewes Prison opened.

Likewise the most recent fic, The Mystery Lantern, was written as a quick prompt fill so it's Hastings because I have been there, and it's a little inspired by smuggling without explicitly being about smuggling because there are stories of smugglers down there and it's really about a shipwreck because I know there are loads of wrecks off Hastings, they have the Shipwreck Museum down there which I would recommend, they have a dinosaur footprint in it. It's a little museum, it's in an old church, it's down by the boats and Hastings actually had the largest remaining beach launched fishing fleet in the country, they don't have a harbour, they get pulled up the shingle so they're all little boats, the Shipwreck Museum is also opposite the aquarium which is nice, anyway. It's about things I already know a little about but not mountains, so I can get away with just checking a few dates and things.

I did do a little more research on the RNLI, but there is a programme on the BBC called Saving Lives at Sea that is about the lifeboats now and because the RNLI are 200 this year plus it's the 80th anniversary of D-Day the first episode of the most recent series was about the RNLI during WW2, and I remember being quite small and our school trip included going to see a lifeboat and one of the lifeboat people telling us all about what they do and some history, so again there's little bits I've picked up that I can add in- like Frankie (Kane) being one of the people at the station in The Fraudulent Scientist, while she probably wouldn't have been part of the crew, women were involved in launching the boats even back then- and the rest I can kind of gloss over.

And the lifeboats specifically because even now they are all volunteers who go out into danger to save people, and it seemed like the best role to stick the superhero in in an AU where he has no powers.

It does also get a little nerve wracking sometimes- Cisco's trans in this AU (that I did do a bit more research for), and it's a historic period that necessitates Iris, Cisco, and Barry being closeted, and it has a part to play in that the story behind these is that Iris and Cisco are writing down for their grandchildren what they wants them to know but they aren't old enough to understand and dont know if they will ever be able to tell them, but I don't want that to be the whole story? It's something important, but I want it to be something that Iris was never going to put it in the stories that went to press, but in their daily lives their friends and their families might not bring it up and confirm it- much like Iris always call Roderick "Hartley's very good friend"- but it isn't something they judge them for, they are loved and happy and they have long, happy lives together, and I do get nervous about whether that balance is in the right place.

It's really fun to write though.

Thank you!

[Fanfic Director's Cut]