my big problem is bbc sherlock kinda suggests that he /is/ equipped to understand other people’s emotions & how his actions will affect them, even if it’s from a detached pov rather than from personal experience. he just doesn’t seem to care.
Oddly enough, I’ll kind of give him a pass on that. He isn’t equipped to care. His emotions are weird things to him. He kind of stands outside them, I think. Understanding something is easy; _caring_ about it is not at all in his nature.
And, like, if your own emotions are a puzzle, then why take other people’s seriously? None of it _matters._
Now turn it around and put yourself in John’s head, and suddenly there is a Problem.
You’ve said a lot of very very accurate things, and I think you’ve put your finger on the nub of it for me: if he cares sometimes, and not other times, then what is this? Emotional inconsistency? Bad writing? And yes, there are “not enough spoons” days, but I would like to hope that if he cares enough about John on the good-spoons days to recognize when he’s hurt him in some way, that even on the no-spoons days he would at least attempt to disguise his actual reaction?
Like, there’s nothing wrong with finding John funny. But there is something very wrong with showing John that he finds him funny, when it’s been shown that he knows John well enough to know that this will hurt.
Maybe he’s just out of practice. God, I think I gotta go with that.