anyway Sherlock Holmes is public domain so catch me writing a story in which Holmes’ seemingly timeless nature is explained in canon as Holmes being a restless preternatural entity discovered (summoned?) by the original Dr. Watson, who acted as its companion/custodian as it careened around doing the only thing that could preoccupy its wildly inhuman mind, ie, getting all up in people’s business and freaking them out with how much shit it knows.
the Holmes entity can die, but always reappears within a generation and without fail seeking out the latest in the Watson line. the Watsons, grown savvy over time, now devote much of their time to a.) preparing the younger members of the family for Holmes’ inevitable return or b.) desperately trying to get the hell out of dodge and live a normal life before it can happen to them as well.
just uuuuh. like a very knowing story about the inevitability of the Holmes and Watson story, centered a creepily inhuman Holmes and the long-suffering family who have spent more than a century documenting it.
OP, please, please, please write this. I will buy and read the shit out of this.
1. “you died and left me your children, even though they’re only a few years younger then me”
2. “you died and left me a haunted house”
3. “you died and left me an obscure magical object, I’m not sure what it does, and your instruction sheet just says ‘have fun storming the castle!’”
4. “you died and left me a fanatically loyal warrior order”
5. “you died and left me a bunch of money and a pile of really weird IOUs?! why did someone owe you a free body disposal. why did someone owe you two brides and a goat. why did someone owe you an island. WHY”
6. “you died and left me to repay a bunch of really weird IOUs”
7. “you died and left me a small country”
8. “you died and left me six research labs that operate in international waters and I’m kind of scared to find out why keeping them out there was a stipulation of the will”
9. “you died and left me a menagerie of animals that are supposed to be extinct? and some that aren’t supposed to be real??? where did you get unicorns. where did you get gryphons. where did you get pegasi???”
10. “you died and left me on the hook for a hereditary marriage contract”
the appeal of buzzfeed unsolved is that it’s not just a wacky believer and a strait-laced skeptic bc the skeptic is much weirder as a person than the believer. obviously the classic scully/mulder dynamic is very entertaining but there’s just something about a man who firmly does not believe in ghosts but does believe that it’s ok to eat a pickle floating in a pond “if it’s fresh”
Our cat had all four roommates feeding him each day because he acted like he was starving and we didn’t know that the other roommate already fed him. This was our solution, hopefully he will slim down a bit.