Expiredverse Sherlock Holmes AU
Loved loved loved! reading about the true crime unsolved spectacle Alastor's human death has become, especially with Doyle mixed in. My brain is chomping at the bits of how this affects modern media and even pop culture.
Holmes has been influential in forensics yes, yes, but; putting american racism on blast for all to see? It may not be as popular before the 21st century, but you bet your ass modern times will revere his book about the Butcher. Progressive schools might use it in the same vain they use Romeo and Juliet, might even be required reading for related college courses sometimes having an entire module dedicated for it. Research papers cite it so frequently, and maybe even legislations were built up around it. Point is, racism as a subject might become something openly discussed and taken seriously earlier.
Also, you know how Sherlock Holmes gets to have many, many adaptations? It gets radio plays, movies, series, even video games. One of those video games will feature the Butcher, and it will have multiple endings depending on how you solve the case. So like, yes you can save Alastor (to the sheer relief of his fans and especially Lucifer once he gets his hands on a copy of the game and figured out how game consoles worked), maybe you even get to play AS Alastor (and it's a difficult quick time event as he escapes from the Butcher coz the devs like to make ppl suffer). I imagine one of the writers/producers/devs for the game might be a child/grandchild of (SeleneMoon's) Edith, and so there will be cameos and easter eggs that others might think are fictional but is actuallly true irl (they grew up on these stories ok)
Alastor, being generally accepted to have known the Butcher before he was murdered by them, becomes the mold for a new Tragic Character Archetype in modern literature.
Some absolutely think that Alastor's a Mother Teresa like figure and treat him as such. Which means yep, a group out there thinks he's catholic (maybe on paper he is because he attended church with his Maman) and are dedicated to his canonization. If events of The Summoning are taken seriously, Alastor wouldn't be deemed worthy even before application so they just become a cult. If most are convinced it was a hoax, they might get as far as getting Alastor to "Venerable" status.
Yes! The fun of this idea is what the changes would be - I can ABSOLUTELY seeing this story being taught in school just like, say, to kill a mockingbird. And the adaptations! The concept! (Don't think about what Moffat would have done to Alastor) (There is absolutely a quick time event and Lucifer absolutely gets the game and plays until he's good enough to make it!)
The fun thing about the Butcher and Alastor, is that it WASN'T racism that made him kill him - it becomes a case study in vigilantilism gone wrong. Sure, you can go out and kill 'bad' people - but eventually, you ARE going to make a mistake and take out an innocent.
I don't know enough about how Saints are made in Catholicism to comment, but Alastor, being a creole in New Orleans at that time, WAS probably catholic, as well as Voodoo, they didn't see them as 'you can only be one or the other'.
