Things Sherlock Holmes Has Canonically Done:

things sherlock holmes has canonically done:

scrapbooked the hell out of his newspapers

put on a hat that was too big for him 

giggled

cried because lestrade was nice to him

got all sappy and romantic by smelling a rose

let a puppy lead him on adventures

“impish mood”

lit his pipe with an ember from the fireplace because he thought it looked cool

feel free to add to this

I mentioned in another post that Yuukoku no Moriarty is an adaptation that plays with adaptation as a form, and no one asked me about it, which kind of makes me sad because I really wanted the impetus to talk about it to override my executive dysfunction. But it turns out I think it was interesting enough to write anyway.

Maybe it’s not as interesting a realization as I thought it was when I thought of it…whenever that was. This year, sometime. Maybe this is because I said that literally hours ago and didn’t want to wait.

So, Yuukoku no Moriarty is an adaptation. A loose adaptation (very loose), but nonetheless an adaptation of not one, but two different very well-known stories in not only the anglosphere but pretty much globally. I have never read a Sherlock Holmes story in my life or seen literally any other adaptation of it. I still knew who several of the characters were before I even started the series. I have never read a James Bond novel or seen literally any of the movies. I still knew the character’s names and often roughly what the did, before I started the series. I could recognize a lot of the names of the story arcs and what they were riffs on.

That is how well-known and famous these stories are. They are stories people know just through existing in the world and bobbing along as osmosis.

And this story would not work if it were not an adaptation.

Now, there’s a lot of way to approach adaptations. For instance, when adapting a book to a movie, changes are usually made so that the material in the book can get crunched down to fit into a movie of reasonable length, which means scenes or characters might go. Some lines that were thought will be said. Things like that, in order to make the story work in the new format. Takeuchi-sensei says in his notes in volume two of the series to think of Sherly as just another flavor of Holmes because each adaptation’s version is slightly different. That’s just how adaptations are, no matter how faithful. Changes have to be made to tell the same story properly.

And then there are looser retellings and adaptations that tend to be less strict about trying to tell the same story. Something like Elementary is not really trying to tell the same story as the Sherlock Holmes canon did. Like. The events are not the same. The characters are different. They gender-swapped someone and set it somewhere else. They just used the same pieces of the story—some of the characters and their dynamics, etc.—to tell a different story they wanted to tell.

Yuukoku no Moriarty is doing both at once: It’s a loose retelling that’s dramatically changing the story—and also acknowledging in-universe that this is a different story from the one it’s “supposed” to be.

It helps, because the original Sherlock Holmes stories were narrated primarily by one of the characters acting in the story, and he was, in the original canon, writing them to sell them for money. There’s a bit of a strange fourth wall there that YuuMori is taking full advantage of.

YuuMori’s story starts out with a flashforward: a flashforward to one of the most famous scenes in the original canon, a scene which was reliably recognized for what it was as Reichenbach Falls and Moriarty’s end.

And then tells us a story about how narratives are artificial. How they’re crafted to serve an end. A story about a villain who casts himself into a role as one and calls his plans a “play.” A villain who chooses someone to cast into the role of his nemesis and make the protagonist, intentionally trying to craft a poetic contrast between the two to make the story really impactful. And all this despite the fact that neither of them ever properly fit into the roles they were imagined as and the story demanded them to be: William’s cast listing for his play, as upfront as the cast list in a play might be (if you’ve ever noticed, a play will have the entire cast and their roles in the front), is fake and not true to reality.

It tells us a story about a doctor who writes stories about his best friend and hid the messy details to make sure neither of them came off too terribly and no one got too angry at the details. A doctor who fudges the story of him proposing to someone for a ploy to avoid making his fiancée upset and buried stories completely at his friend’s request for the greater good.

It tells us a story about how the world was told a woman was dead and gave her new life as a man, and the two sides were easily enough to slip and blur between. It tells us a story of a blackmailer who tells the truth in ways that would cause the most harm, and it tells the story of how lying about a man’s actions help save the country because it was a horror they did not need to know.

YuuMori is constantly telling stories about lies being given to people to make a story easy and palatable, to serve the ends of the one lying about the story, of about people crafting narratives and stories, and the more the lie, the closer they put the character to us.

And then it shows us that the story we thought we were seeing from the start in the flashforward was also a trick. You know this story, it said. You know this story and how it ends. Everyone does. It’s one of the most famous endings of a character in the anglosphere.

But did we really? Or do we just know how we were told to story goes and how it ends?

Yes, we had a flashforward. But that one panel would have meant nothing if we did not know that Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty faced off at a waterfall in Switzerland, and that Professor Moriarty died there, the victim of his eternal nemesis and enemy. And we only knew that because it’s an adaptation of one of the most-adapted canons in English literature.

The story fundamentally would not work if it were not an adaptation. It relies on that premise to tell a story. Not because it’s using the same copyright pieces. Not because it’s trying to tell the same story.

But because if we didn’t think we knew the story, then the twist couldn’t have happened.

And I think that’s an amazing use of the form.

Things in Mtp/Ynm we need to talk more about:

• Louis without his glasses.

• Moran's and Bonde's relationship.

• How badass Ms. Hudson is.

• How much the Moriarty brothers, Moran, Bonde, Fred and Jack love eachother.

• John's angry issues.

• Mycroft's love for Sherlock.

• Louis' hate for Sherlock.

• Bonde looking more happy as James than as Irene.

• Albert's addiction to wine.

• Fred's good work for his age.

• How good Jack is for his age.

• How hot everyone is.

• VON HERDER!!!

As much as I would love to see this, I think that genetic cloning and the atomic bomb don't need to be invented in the late 19th century.

Oh, who am I kidding? If I get more Herder scenes, he can do whatever he wants, I just want MORE CONTENT OF HIM GODDAMNIT!

i can't stop thinking about sherlock and herder being in cahoots, that would be the most chaotic, destructive friendship ever: the eccentric gunmaker and the unhinged chemist

they would give louis an aneurysm and burn down London all over again

How Sherlock celebrates his birthday:

His birthday is, unfortunately, one day after Mycroft's.

Which means that, until Myc went to college, they had the same birthday party.

They both hated it.

However, their mother loved to bake. And her cakes were delicious.

It was also not very fun to celebrate, because, as christians, 5th of january is the day they take down the Christmas decorations.

And on the 6th, there was always more to do.

They didn't get presents, because how do you buy presents for such insufferable children?

When they moved out, they did not celebrate it at all. It wasn't important.

But after the fall, they get together with the whole group to celebrate.

It is not and explicit birthday party. They don't get gifts, except from their partners.

There is no cake, no candles to blow.

But there is family, and friendship, and love, and laughter.

Suddendly they look forward for the start of thr year.

They know good things are coming.

Hi guys! This is a very short one, because I just didn't want to let their birthday pass blank. But later I will post a more detailed version. Maybe even a full on fanfic on AO3.