Wannabe Writer and Wanderer

I got a comment on a fic that is less than a year old and it was mostly an apology for being a comment on an "old fic" and how late they were in commenting.

Anyone who adapts Sherlock Holmes listen the fuck up!

1. Holmes is someone people went to when they were scared of or knew they would be dismissed by the police. That is why there are numerous stories where abused women come to him for help, the speckled band, the copper beeches, the solitary cyclist, and also stories about people from a lower social class coming to him for help because he wouldn't charge them for his investigations and he would treat them with the same respect, if not higher, that he would treat the upper class.

2. Yes he is misogynistic in the beginning but there is literally a story about him unlearning his bigotry because a woman outsmarts him. This is why in adaptations IRENE ADLER HAS TO OUTSMART HIM!!! It is a vital part of his character arc. (Looking at you Moffat) If you make Holmes outsmart her, not only are you incapable of letting a woman be smarter than a man, you would also fail high school English class because you don't understand how character development works.

3. Holmes is not an asshole to everyone! He is purposely an asshole to the police and to rich people. He is an asshole to people that think they are better than him, and sometimes his client, because of their wealth/social standing/gender/perceived intelligence. Yes, he is sometimes accidentally an asshole because he has a difficult time with social cues (also this man is neurodivergent) but he apologizes! Usually right after he says something and if not then, always when Watson calls him out!! There are also times when he gets a case wrong and he asks Watson to remind him of these cases in the future when he becomes too full of himself to remind him that he makes mistakes!!! He wants to be reminded that he is human and makes mistakes, he wants to learn from them!!

Sherlock Holmes has a sense of humor. So many adaptations have left that out, back even to Basil Rathbone’s portrayal, but it’s weirdly common to make him absolutely humorless and focused only on showing how clever he is and that’s not true at all. (I think a LOT of writers make Holmes into an English version of Hercule Poirot: a fussy egomaniac which is fine for Poirot but Holmes isn’t like that at all.)

Basically, if you’ve seen Doctor Who at all, Sherlock Holmes has the same personality as The Tenth Doctor—extremely smart, immediately gets caught up in helping people, rages against evil, mostly has good social skills, and just seems incredibly alien to most people. Other sources to take inspiration from include the audio adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories as performed by John Gielgud, and The Great Mouse Detective.

Now, onto something that Moffat and Gatiss actually mostly got right: WATSON IS NOT A STUPID INEPT BUNGLER.

The popular idea of Watson is that of an extremely stupid man who solely exists to say how he could never have guessed at what Holmes had figured out. Even Conan Doyle himself seemed convinced at one point that Watson wasn’t particularly clever, but the stories themselves totally contradict this. Watson is both an accomplished doctor and a successful writer, and it’s merely his bad luck that his best friend happens to be one of the smartest and most observant people on the planet. Going back to the Doctor Who comparison, are Rose Tyler, Donna Noble, or Martha Jones stupid because they know less than the Doctor? Of course not!

Watson also, crucially, has a sense of humor and enjoys occasionally deflating Holmes’ ego. Comments like “I must admit that I am very stupid,” are sarcastic rather than Watson actually saying that he’s stupid—this particular comment follows Holmes being both extremely cryptic and slightly exasperated that Watson didn’t follow him. Another memorable one is “Professor Moriarty, as famous among criminals as....I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public.” which is one of my absolute favorite moments in the entire Holmes canon.

'…meet me in the moonfire gardens'

just because bryke is pretending the lightning scar never happened doesn't mean you have to

we all saw it

we've been drawing it on there for 20 years

give the man his sexy self sacrifice metal af star-shaped lightning scar. add some sick fractal scarring shit while you're at it, as a treat. it will make your muscle rending look more dynamic

do it for you

do it for the girls

art sources under the cut