the thing all sherlock holmes adaptations get wrong is making the guy an irredeemable asshole who treats everyone like shit . not only is it not reflective of the original stories they miss that ānice, smart, well mannered dude who snorts coke when he needs to thinkā is possibly the funniest character ever devisedĀ
I feel like the modern equivalent is that guy you think is super well put together until you find out exactly how much red bull he ingests on a regular basis.
Modern Sherlock is that very nice English Professor-seeming guy who you bring a problem and while walking from the door of his office to his desk he starts explaining the entire solution you need
And upon reaching his desk heās like āExcuse me one moment.ā and pulls out one of those huge Monster canisters they legally arenāt allowed to make anymore, cracks the whole thing, chugs it, takes a deep breath, and then nods at you and is like āAlright, and then what you need to do isā¦ā
Imagine how much better the dynamic of bbc sherlock could have been if they did this.
why even modernize it to energy drinks??? coke didnāt go anywhere. we still have coke. energy drinks arenāt NEARLY chaotic enough.Ā
Its is more like you hiring some guy to do private investigation about how your husband maybe cheating on you and Sherlock comes to your house high as fuck. Walks into your living room and without taking a moment to even talk to you or sign any paperwork, he turns aroundāpupils as big as godāand just says
āIts your best friend Brenda. Iāll email you the invoice.āĀ
and walks right out of your house.Ā
Because when it was written cocaine was legal and even considered healthy and useful by some laypeople, even though doctors knew it wasnāt, and Watson was always trying to stop people from encouraging Sherlockās addiction because HE KNEW BETTER.
So consider this, Holmes, at 2am, desperately searching the flat for the stashes of NOS cans, only to keep coming up with passive aggressive pamphlets about the dangers of caffeine overdose.
Watson wakes up to a stench like Satanās ass to find Sherlock sitting by his bed with a re-heated pot of cold brewed Deathwish Coffee that had been hidden in the back of the toilet tank (brewing) for five months.Ā Sherlock is trying to say heās proud of Johnās cleverness in finding most of the stashes, but heās passed into the fifth dimension and all John gets is a creepy vibrating grin and a sound like a shaken cat.
TLDR, Sherlock did die when he fell off the Falls, but he was so coked up his body didnāt stop moving until like a decade later.
Sherlock as one of those cryptid types the baristas talk about (thereās a post floating around somewhere) who comes in and orders a venti with as many shots as they are legally allowed to add, plus a few more for good measure (and a hefty tip) and then adds energy drink on top of it before chugging the whole thing, to the absolute horror of the cafe staff.
This is the kind of Sherlock Holmes discourse I demand on my dash. Bring me more!
Further discourse! Everyone is missing the fact that Sherlock used cocaine toĀ āescape from the commonplaces of existenceā when he didnāt have a case. The drugs are a substitute. Which means that when you hire him heās stone-cold sober and JUST AS WEIRD.Ā
So itās more like realizing that your flatmate with the caffeine/sometimes drug death wish will only chill the fuck out when he has some strange mystery to unravel, so you spend your free time scouring reddit posts that might actually feature a real missing person. Or a ghost. You really donāt care which at this point. When you finally find something your flatmate is THRILLED and straight up stops eating because he thinks he can survive on intellectual curiosity alone, and yeah thatās not good, but itās better than what he was doing to himself before. Your success is comparative, okay? You stick around for the meeting partly because youāre curious, partly because this is your home too remember, and partly because youāve found that writing up these insane excursions helps pay off your student loans. Your Patreon is thriving. The entire time your flatmate is interviewing this poor SOB he keeps breaking into manic grins and youāre kicking him under the table, trying to help him remember that others arenāt happy about a death in the family. Halfway through he pulls a cigarette from a stash in his smelly bedroom slipper, offering the client one and yeah, thatās very nice, butā¦ no. No thank you. Heās dressed impeccably and has a violin worth millions just lying on the floor, but the flat as a whole looks like a tornado just blew through and thereās something growing on the walls beside the makeshift lab. Is he rich? Dirt poor? Impossible to tell based on the surroundings. The entire time he rattles off observations about the client not at all related to the case and his continuing good mood depends entirely on how impressed the guy is. If he mentionsĀ āmagic tricksā orĀ āI saw that on Youtubeā youāre prepped for damage control.Ā
By 8:00pm youāve finally convinced your flatmate to look up from his research and go half on a pizza, but the second it gets there he shrieks in excitement and runs out the door, demanding that you follow with your legally dubious gun. You apologize profusely to the delivery guy and double his tip, begging him not to call the cops. No, not because youāre afraid of arrest, you just know the head of the local precinct and heās a pain in the ass.Ā
You run after your flatmate knowing damn well you have to be up early tomorrow because despite maintaining a private practice you still donāt make enough to get your own apartment.Ā
You are living your best life.Ā
That last postā¦nailed it
Reminder that most of Sherlock Holmes is now in the public domain.
Likeā¦. just saying.
Personally I see Sherlock as ADHD and no one will ever convince me otherwise
I mean ā itās textbook hyperfixation/understimulation right there ā I Also forget to eat and sleep and do Human Things when Iām vibing with whatever makes my brain go, and I Also take (medically prescribed) stimulants when I need to think. And Also adhd understimulation makes mundane existence an agony that one will do nearly anything to escape but at least in the modern day we have things like video games and netflix so itās a little easier to actually get that escape without yāknow completely self-destructing along the way (Sherlock Holmes plays Among Us to fill the void between cases change my mind)
And while itās entirely legit that a modern ADHD sherlock might self-medicate with energy drinks and home-brewed toilet-tank-coffee, Iād LOVE to see an adaptation where Sherlock just. has a prescription?
So instead of hunting down his secret Bad Habit Stash, John could be like āhey, sherlock- the pharmacy called, your meds are readyā and then sherlock would be all āLATER JOHN IM ON A CASE RN I DONT NEED THEMā and Johnād be like āsherlock no thatās not how that worksā
And then later once the case has been solved and the existential agony of understimulation sets back in, Sherlock could be like āhey John pass me my medsā And John might be āsherlock you already took them this morning I saw youā āyeah but theyāre not working yetā ādude it takes time for them to kick inā āsure sure OR I could just take more. I missed some days yāknow I gotta catch upā āsherloCK NO I am a DOCTOR thatās NOT HOW THAT WORKSā And then sherlock heaves a gigantic sigh and grabs a can of RedBull thatād been stuffed between the couch cushions and John like swats him with a shoe or something because SHERLOCK NO do you KNOW what that stuff DOES to your HEART PLEASE STOP
I want this more every time it crosses my dash.
