I don't work at Walmart

One of those ‘Sherlock Holmes in the modern day’ things, except it actually explores the full implications of its concept - i.e. that this is a 21st century setting in which Arthur Conan Doyle never invented the world’s most famous detective and his loyal Doctor Watson.

Because, like - sure, it’s not quite a dramatic a change as most alternate history things (‘what if the Nazis won’ or such like), but all the same, Sherlock Holmes is one the most influential literary characters of all time. Thousands, maybe millions of writers will have be influenced by him over the years - what does that mean for popular fiction in a world where he never existed? Are crime procedurals as enduringly successful? Do they look different? What does fandom look like without arguably its first big example? What random little dominoes get pushed without Sherlock Holmes because it means this person was never inspired to write that, which means these two never met, so he was never born and couldn’t do this-

Five entire chapters - genuinely a third of the book - do not include Sherlock at all, and are instead dedicated to exhaustively chronicling the back story of the murderer. This seems to mainly be a diatribe on Arthur Conan Doyle’s part on why Mormonism is an evil misogynistic cult

Sherlock straight up kills a dog

I really do enjoy thinking about how this specific character came to be.

I like to imagine that it went like this:

One day, the writers for Fairly Odd Parents are chilling in their writers’ room, tossing about concepts and episode names, when all of a sudden the door comes crashing open. Standing in the doorway, panting heavily and doubled over, is a woman from international distribution.

(In my head, everyone at Nickelodeon Cartoon HQ works in one huge, orange building)

“STOP EVERYTHING,” she yells.

The writers jump, and all turn to her in a panic.

“What’s going on?” one asks. “What have we done!?”

The woman from international distribution is still doubled over. She looks up.

“You’re bringing back the baby character from the original series, right?” she says. She points at a piece of character art on the wall. “And that’s his new design?”

“Yeah,” says the writer. “We thought it would be fun to see him all grown up, maybe it gets the nostalgic adults on board- ”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s great,” says international distribution. “But you get that this show goes out in the UK, right? And also Australia, and New Zealand?”

“Yes? I mean, it’s great, and we’re all so happy to have the opportunity to work on an internationally beloved franchise like this- ”