#moramori

(Dare I say this is perhaps why a lot of trans people seem to latch on really hard to Moran, because he was trying to live this life that wasn't really him and he abandoned that to become who he really was, even though it resulted in him being hated and ostracised and ultimately even hunted by society. I don't see Moran as trans but I do see him as someone who... kind of would get it, the trans experience, because he does know what it's like being viewed as someone you're not, he knows the feeling of people having expectations of you just because of how you happened to be born, expectations that do not match up to what you actually feel or want)

Alternate versions of this artwork

*used animal photos for references

Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare (1601-1602) // "The light of the street fell full upon his face." Sidney Paget, The Strand Magazine (1903) // The Tyger, William Blake (1794) // Tiger's Head, Abbott Handerson Thayer, oil on canvas (1874) // The Sniper, Liam O'Flaherty (1923) // The Killer, David Fincher (2023) // A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller (1932-1953), Anaïs Nin (1987) // Tiger and Snake, Eugène Delacroix, oil on canvas (1862) // Seduction, Frank Bidart (2006) // "Professor Moriarty stood before me." Sidney Paget, The Strand Magazine (1893) // Rattlesnake, Stanley Vestal (1928) // Inferno, Franz von Stuck, oil on canvas (1908) // How to Maintain Eye Contact, Robert Wood Lynn (2021) // Ripley, Steven Zaillian (2024) // Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare (1601-1602)

And that's actually kind of terrifying to him.

And Moran's act of rebellion is to turn to crime and he does this most likely before he meets Moriarty. Is the reason he does this his way of trying to gain some control over his own life? Some identity of his own that isn't just being his father's son, being just another Moran in a line of Morans with the typical careers in the army or politics? Maybe he "began to go wrong" because that was the only way to do right by himself, to pull himself out of the shadow of his father and his family and be his own person, even if that means acquiring an "evil name", because at least that's him and it's his, his name, his reputation, and that's the thing Moriarty seeks him out for. Moriarty seeks him, and Moriarty sees him. He sees Sebastian, not just the son of Augustus Moran.

(Also I'm laughing at how many people giving advice seem to think everyone who wants to write sex scenes is really embarrassed about actually writing them. LOL, nope)

And yeah I do think they were maybe coding Moriarty as queer in this, which is very much like the canon. I think again some adaptations would have still tried to give Moriarty some kind of female love interest, maybe even tried to suggest something sexual/romantic had gone on between him and Adler. Instead we have the softly spoken opera and pigeon-loving guy who intimidates Adler without ever touching her and who only gets more hands on with his male 'nemesis' and whose closest companion is another man who is supposedly just a 'gun for hire' yet who is devoted enough to him to get himself shot trying to avenge him even when he already knows Moriarty isn't badly harmed (also: Moriarty saying he likes Switzerland because they respect a man's privacy there. Sir what specifically are you up to there that you need privacy for it?). It's definitely very suggestive.