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PLAYER INFORMATION
Your Name: Mal
OOC Journal: [mustakrakish] at LJ
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: Nope. 20!
Email + IM:

EMAIL: deanpants[at]gmail.com
AIM: drunkandblogging

Characters Played at Ataraxion: N/A

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Name: Sherlock Holmes
Canon: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Original or Alternate Universe: AU
Canon Point: Just before the end of The Game of Shadows. As a consequence, and I apologize in advance as I know the movie hasn't even been out for a month yet, but I have to note that this application DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS for the movie.
Number: 023

Setting:

History:
"In another life, Mr. Holmes, you would have made an excellent criminal."

While there is such little detail given about Holmes' early life in the films, what we can assume is that the most of it is based upon Arthur Conan Doyle's writing, at least loosely. While the story and cases therein are different from the ones in the movies, the character himself remains very much intact, so presumably the most of his history does as well. Even so, the details of his life are few and far between, and a very vague picture is painted of Holmes as a young man. His life seems to have started with his being a consulting detective. There is no mention of his parents, and his ancestors are only described as "country squires", though he does have a brother seven years his senior, Mycroft, whose intelligence even exceeds Sherlock's own (though his drive is paltry in comparison).

Holmes is (mostly likely) a Cambridge scholar, having learned the most of his induction roots at university; his first cases were stated to have started there. In fact, it was the father of a fellow student who was the one to lead Holmes to apply his abilities in detection to a career path. Holmes worked as a consulting detective, an original job he adapted to something all his own, for several years before the fated meeting between himself and an army doctor returning fresh from the war and in need of cheap and affordable housing.

John Watson was and remains to this day Sherlock Holmes' most notable relationship throughout his life, in the absence of romance and familial attachments. Not only is Watson his colleague throughout his cases, working as a look out, a decoy, a suitably bodyguard, and even an extra eye that proves itself incredibly useful in Holmes' work (Watson is able to see situations from a different perspective than Holmes, who is sometimes blinded by a world of details at his feet), but Watson also chronicles Holmes' cases in order to be read by the public. Holmes refers to Watson as his 'Boswell', despite how sensationalized and romanticized he claims Watson's writing to be, as opposed to how analytically Holmes views his work. Beyond that, Watson is irrefutably Holmes' best friend and confidant.

"What's the major concern?"
"Panic. Sheer bloody panic, sir."

Sherlock Holmes (2009) opens with a case of Holmes' and Watson's in the London of 1890, though not just any old case - their last one, as Watson seems quick to point out throughout the span of the movie. The two fight, successfully preventing the murder of a young girl by a cultist by the name of Lord Blackwood. When Blackwood is captured and imprisoned, all seems well in the world. Watson is in talks of proposing to his girlfriend, Mary Morstan; though, consequentially, Holmes' life seems to be deteriorating.

Over the course of three months' time wherein Blackwood's trial and sentencing takes place, Holmes seems to have voluntarily become a shut-in, rarely (if ever) leaving the house, in a near constant state of intoxication, barely eating and barely sleeping. His place a mess, he busies himself by various experiments, including attempts to invent a rudimentary gun silencer ("It's not working"). Holmes is in mourning, and while in part it seems to be due to his lack of an intellectually stimulating case ("My mind rebels at stagnation!"), it's also probably largely due to Watson's plans to leave Baker Street in favor of his prospective marriage, judging by the clipped animosity between them.

Which is no matter when Lord Blackwood seemingly comes back from the grave after he is executed.

"It's a matter of professional integrity! No girl wants to marry a doctor who can't tell if a man's dead or not!"

Blackwood has Holmes as a last request before he is hanged, in which he warns Holmes of some upcoming deaths that will be unpreventable by the detective, and informs Holmes that he shall rise again. Predictably, Holmes flippantly waves off Blackwood's threats. It's only after an enlightening meeting with Irene Adler (wherein she attempts to set him on the track of a missing person's case) that Watson and Holmes receive a visit from Constable Clark about Blackwood's supposed rising from the dead. A groundskeeper claims to have seen the man climb out of his grave and walk out of the grounds.

With a bit of persuasion from Holmes (though admittedly not very much persuasion), Watson joins Holmes on the case, eager to see Blackwood's end through to the last moment, and similarly to clear his name as a physician ("You pronounced him dead." "He had no pulse!"). They find Blackwood's tomb cracked open, and the coffin inside holds Irene's missing person, a very recognizable ginger midget with missing teeth. By the dead man Luke Reordan's pocketwatch, they identify his pawnbroker and, subsequentially, his address, in order to investigate further.

Their search proves fruitful, if dangerous. Though they discover Reordan's attempts to create a something for Blackwood using a combination of both magic and science, Holmes and Watson, who was meant to be having tea with his in-laws in ten minutes' time, have their detective work interrupted by a group of hired hands who are fully set on disposing of whatever evidence may have been left in Reordan's home. Failing that quest, they instead decide to dispose of Holmes and Watson. After a long and intricate fight and consequential destruction of a ship yard, the pair are detained while the criminals escape. Mary bails Watson out. Someone else bails out Holmes.

"If the rest of his family is dead, how long do you expect to survive? Food for thought!"

That someone turns out to be Sir Thomas who, as Holmes deduces after he chastises the man for even attempting to blindfold him on the way to the Temple of the Four Orders, is Blackwood's biological father. He, along with Home Secretary Lord Coward, are the leaders of the secret society, and ask Holmes to stop Blackwood, a former member of the society who was conceived at one of their rituals of the occult. It's all well and good until Blackwood, soon after, kills Sir Thomas. Holmes is invited to the crime scene, and takes a book of spells from Sir Thomas' concealed ritual chamber. Standish, the American ambassador, is also murdered when he refuses to pledge loyalty to Blackwood - it's revealed that, to the alternative, Coward DOES show loyalty.

Meanwhile, Holmes procures the body of one of the men who tried to kill him and Watson at Reardon's place. Via the evidence, he deduces that the man had been frequenting a factory by a river, and again manages to coerce Watson into following him. Unbeknownst to him, so does Irene Adler. Blackwood takes her captive and attempts to kill her - first with flames, and then with a bandsaw. Luckily, Holmes and Watson save her. Not so luckily, Watson trips a series of explosions that leave him seriously injured. Holmes has little time to grieve: A warrant is issued for his request by Lord Coward.

Obsessively, Holmes throws himself into the case, recreating the cult's spells and rituals in order to better understand their motives. His idea is beneficial - when a newly repaired Watson and Irene show up the next morning, Holmes has correctly induced the cult's next target: Parliament. The plan is to kill the members therein, whereas those who pledged their allegiance to Blackwood will have drank the antidote to the poison the night beforehand.

"Well, at least that solves the great mystery of how you became Inspector."

Holmes sends Watson and Irene on their way, with specific instructions: Holmes is to allow himself to be arrested and, with the aid of Detective Inspector Lestrade, to trick Lord Coward into indirectly telling Holmes where he needs to be later that day. Specifically, in the sewers beneath Parliament itself. Holmes escapes through the window, where Irene and Watson wait in a boat. The trio travel to just there, where they find a pinnacle of scientific discovery: A remotely controlled device. Via radio waves, the device is meant to turn its poisonous contents into a gas, which will then travel via the air ducts in Parliament, disposing of the people within.

Ameliorating this is not an easy task. Several men, including a rather large one who had tried to kill Holmes and Watson back at Reardon's, guard the machine, and the machine itself is rigged to ward off any attempts to disarm it. Irene removes the cylinders holding the poison with a small, controlled explosion, and attempts to escape with the contents. Holmes pursues, while Coward is captured, and Blackwood steals away to an escape route.

The final confrontation of the movie happens on the unfinished Tower Bridge, at the precarious edge of the scaffolding. Blackwood knocks Irene unconscious, after which Holmes tricks Blackwood into becoming entangled in a rope amidst the construction. Holmes recounts Blackwood's plans while the man hangs off the bridge over the Thames. At the end of it all, after Blackwood insinuates he'll only escape to build a new plan, a loose beam falls, and somehow, Blackwood is hanged by the chains in the bridge construction. Successfully, this time.

Blackwood's case is closed. Upon the discovery of a new murder (which Holmes correctly deduces was committed by Irene's employer), however, a new case is reopened, and a new and more sinister enemy is introduced to Holmes: Professor James Moriarty.

"Please don't underestimate him. He's just as brilliant as you are. And infinitely more devious."
"We'll see about that."

A year passes. Watson moves out of Baker Street and into his new home with his fiance. Holmes, as per usual, is up to something devious and, more than likely, dangerous. Over the months, there have been a series of bombings which are attributed to rebel activity. Holmes thinks differently.

He has correctly figured that he is under surveillance, and adopts the habit of donning various disguises when he deigns himself to leave the house. At first glance, it seems almost as though he's between real cases yet again, instead going so low as to tail Irene's criminal activity whilst in costume. Irene, as it turns out, has insurance on her newfound 'delivery service', and, after accepting a dinner invitation, unsuccessfully sics her four bodyguards onto Holmes. Holmes disposes of them as seen fit, and follows Irene.

Impeccable timing, as her package delivery turned out to be a bomb delivery. Holmes intercepts an envelope Irene was meant to recover, and rids of the bomb. Still, the man, a surgical prodigy, it was intended for is found dead outside of the auction house, and Irene escapes. She never does show up for dinner that night.

"Oh, how I've missed you, Holmes."
"Have you? Why, I've barely noticed your absence."

This, as it turns out, has all taken place just before Watson's stag party. He has been engaged to be married for a year, and the wedding is planned for the next day. Holmes is the best man and, in his current mental state and the distractions that have followed, doing a piss-poor job at being such. Watson finds the man living in a literal jungle within his study, overgrown plants and animals running amok inside. Holmes has truly outdone himself this time, and on top of forgetting Watson's stag party, shooting darts at the man in attempts to try out a new form of urban camouflage he's been creating, extracting fluids from the adrenal glands of sheep, and drinking formaldehyde for the mere sake of drinking formaldehyde, Mrs. Hudson recounts how the man hasn't been sleeping, how he's been living on a steady diet of coffee, tobacco, and cocoa leaves, and how he even talks to himself at length, in several voices, as though he's rehearing a play. She pleads with Watson to get him to a sanatorium.

Holmes also seems to have adapted Watson's old office into a veritable shrine of James Moriarty's conquests and behaviors. It turns out that Holmes is, in fact, on a case. "The most important one of my career," he tells Watson, "perhaps of all time."

The two bicker the entire way to what Holmes alludes to being the location of Watson's stag party at the Shush Club. Judging by the fact that the only other person to join them is Holmes' brother Mycroft (who openly admits that he isn't there at all for the party, but is instead attempting to quell the animosity between France and Germany before the peace summit in Switzerland), and that Holmes' toast to Watson is mostly spent watching the suspicious activity of someone within the club, they're not exactly there for a stag party. Watson storms off to gamble at the game tables. Holmes moves upstairs to have his fortune read.

The woman doing so, as it would have it, is the intended recipient of the letter Holmes intercepted from Irene. What luck in something that was entirely not intentional! Holmes vaguely interrogates her about the letter and, after correctly inducing that a man has been sent there to kill her, the two ward off the assassin. Madame Simza "Sim" Heron, the fortune teller who is in actuality a Romani gypsy, returns to her camp. Holmes takes a very drunk Watson to be married, and despite his endeared actions throughout (holding a hungover Watson's hand to help him unsteadily ready himself for the ceremony, acting the part of best man as he was originally intended, fixing his cravat before Mary reaches the altar), Holmes disappears after the vows are exchanged and the happy couple is wed.

He's met outside by Sebastian Moran, an employee of Moriarty's. As it turns out, Moriarty wants to meet after his lecture later that day. Holmes accepts.

"In answer to your previous request regarding Doctor Watson not being involved, the answer... is 'no'."

It's the first meeting of the two, and they dance an inevitable routine around each other, intellectually and verbally, in which Holmes essentially diagnoses Moriarty as a sociopath by examining the graphology of his handwriting. Holmes and Moriarty allude to whatever greater game is afoot, but what's of most note is Holmes' request to leave the recently betrothed Watson out of their game of cat and mouse. Moriarty immediately denies the request, and sends his "regards" to the newlyweds. On the way out, he even coldly gives the news of Irene Adler's death to Holmes. It seems that Moriarty had her employment terminated and, never wanting to leave any loose ends, had her poisoned. He gives Holmes her bloodied handkerchief.

Holmes throws himself back into his work, and the mission at hand: the endangered newlyweds. He joins Mary and Watson on their train ride to their honeymoon in Brighton where, indeed, Moriarty has sent a team of assassins to attempt to kill the good Doctor and his new wife. Disguised as a woman, Holmes tampers with the men's equipment, throws Mary off of a train - though Watson assumes the worst, it is, in fact, to safety; he times it perfectly so she falls into the water just by Mycroft's boat, a plan set up beforehand. Mycroft takes Mary to safety, his estate. With knowing Mary's safe, Watson is successfully persuaded into yet another 'one last case', though there's an earnestness to Holmes' words that seem as though, this time, he's speaking honestly.

The two take a trip to France - Paris, specifically - to find Madame Sim again. On the way, Watson discovers the late Irene's handkerchief in Holmes' bag, and assumes the worst, correctly so. He's beginning to see just how grave this case is beginning to unfold to be.

"Your brother has become involved with a very dangerous man, who clearly believes that Rene has told you something that you shouldn't know."

The pair successfully find Sim in the gypsy camp (though not without their belongings being thoroughly rifled through), and further ask her about her situation and, more importantly, her brother Rene who originally sent her the letter that was meant to get her killed. Her brother's leaked information was accidental, and small, but enough to give Holmes a lead, something Moriarty probably anticipated. They track the source of Rene's letters to a wine cellar where Frenchmen have been making bombs for Moriarty - the same bombs mistakenly attributed to the French rebellion. Their contact, Claude Ravache, gives them the information they need, but only before revealing that his wife and children are in danger because of Moriarty. Holmes promises to help them. Ravache refuses and shoots himself in the head, alerting the guards to their presence.

Holmes, Watson, and Sim escape through a secret passageway out into the streets of Paris, where they find dynamite and, incidentally, an earlier draft of the sign being used in Don Giovanni's opera piece that very night. Knowing, then, where the next bomb is going to be placed, they go there. As it turns out, Moriarty was having a lecture in Paris that day, and attended the opera that night, presumably to oversee his bomb in the works.

It's not until Holmes breaks into the backstage area, climbs inside the stage setting, and realizes that, not only is there NOT a bomb concealed within, but Moriarty, in fact, has a clear shot to the stage where he knows that Holmes will wrongly assume where the bomb is, that Holmes utters the impossible: "I made a mistake." The bomb is instead concealed within a cake in the hotel across the way from the opera hall.

The three of them are too late to save the people inside, but the crime scene is still fresh enough to gather what they need: The bomb blast was cleverly intended to conceal an assassination, completed by someone under Moriarty's employ. Watson correctly identifies him as Colonel Sebastian Moran by both his sniping skills and the blend of tobacco that he remembers having smoked in the war in Afghanistan. His victim: Alfred Meinhard, a major weapons producer. Holmes induces where it is that Moriarty intends to head next, after the discovery of a large amount of shares he recently purchased in Meinhard's company. Moriarty owns the main factory now, in Germany. However, because of the recent antagony from France, the trains leading from Paris to Germany won't allow them to pass through. They'll have to sneak into the country.

Luckily, they have a gypsy with them.

"They're dangerous at both ends and... crafty in the middle.
Why would I want anything with a mind of its own bobbing about between my legs?"

They cross the border on horseback with the help of some of Sim's camp, and successfully infiltrate Meinhard's (now Moriarty's) factory grounds. Holmes sends Watson off to send a telegram to Mycroft, while he takes it upon himself to pursue his own mission: That is, to enter the heart of the factory itself. There, he's apprehended by Moran, and delivered to Moriarty, where he's held captive.

To Holmes' credit, he leaves Watson a note with which to find him.

To Moriarty's credit, he hangs Holmes up by a meat hook like a frozen pig and lets him idly swing around the room in agonizing pain, whilst cheerily singing Schubert's Die Forelle to the other man.

The song speaks of a fisherman who is attempting to catch a trout; successfully, he traps it. "So beware! otherwise you may bleed too late!" The song speaks volumes of Holmes' and Moriarty's back and forth dynamic, ominously predicting that one of the two will have to lose at some point, though who is the fisherman and who is the trout seems to be up for debate. At the time being, Holmes is looking rather trout-like. Moriarty tortures Holmes and interrogates him about who the telegram was sent to earlier on. He successfully retrieves the information from Holmes. Holmes, however, unbeknownst to Moriarty, successfully retrieves the book of Moriarty's financial records from his coat pocket in the process.

Outside, Moran attempts to assassinate Watson, and manages to trap the man before he can reach his colleague, while Holmes' tortured screams are aired over the intercom system in the factory. Moran traps Watson, however, behind a cannon, which Watson takes it upon himself to launch into the tower that Moran has perched himself upon as a vantage point. The tower collapses onto the building where Moriarty and Holmes are, and Watson rescues Holmes from the wreckage. The two escape, though Holmes is gravely injured and bleeding out the more strenuous the activity. The two and the gypsies have to bolt from the camp, losing a number of people in the process. Only Holmes, Watson, Sim, and a fellow gypsy Tamas remain, taking shelter on a nearby train.

Sherlock Holmes dies in the train car.

"If we can find him and stop him, we will not only save his life,
but perhaps prevent the collapse of Western civilization. No pressure."

Oh, but he's not going to get off that easily.

When his attempted chest compressions fail to revive Holmes, Watson remembers the 'wedding gift' Holmes gave him earlier on: The fluid from the adrenal glands he'd drained from the goats. Watson injects Holmes, Holmes runs into a wall, and the two immediately resort to their usual, par for course bickering as Watson continues to attend to Holmes' wounds. Still, the air is one of relief and perhaps defeat in wake of what's happened. Watson suggests they go home. Holmes tiredly agrees. "Via Switzerland," he specifies after a long pause.

Switzerland, as Holmes correctly predicts, is the next and potentially final stop of Moriarty's little trip around the world on his World War Creation Tour. His plan is to create the demand for his supply of missiles by hammering the last nail into the coffin: Rene is going to assassinate someone at the peace summit that night, at Reichenbach. Mycroft provides them with the information they need about the attending ambassadors, as well as tickets into the ball in question.

However, it's not until they attend the ball that they realize the difficulty of their situation: Rene is disguised as one of the ambassadors attending the peace summit, and not merely with bells and whistles like a fake beard and a well-made suit. He's been surgically altered to look like the ambassador he's impersonating. If the wrong person is apprehended, it could raise an uproar. Not only that, but then Rene may take advantage of such by completing his mission. Holmes, however, leaves Watson and Sim with the information they need to identify Rene, and tempts Moriarty up to the balcony with a note left with a maitre'd.

No pressure indeed.

"People have an innate desire for conflict. So what you are fighting is not me, but rather mankind.
War, on an industrial scale, is inevitable. I'm just supplying the bullets and bandages."

Moriarty and Holmes meet for a chess match upon the balcony overlooking the Reichenbach Falls. The two exchange blows not only on the chessboard but also verbally - Moriarty taunting Holmes about losing the game at hand, Holmes revealing that his own 'bishops' (Watson and Sim) have caught Moriarty's assassin, Moriarty similarly revealing that he keeps his loose ends tied up and Moran hereafter kills Rene with a poisonous blow dart. They hear the shouts from below; first Rene's, of fury regarding his apprehension, and then Sim's wails of loss for her late brother. When the timer runs out on the chess game, Holmes insists upon finishing the game via speech. Holmes locks Moriarty into a checkmate.

The two are bound to circle each other for the indeterminable future, that much is made very clear. Moriarty purposefully details how creatively he intends to end John Watson, just for Holmes' sake, and it's only then that Holmes reveals his bigger surprise: The book of finances he pickpocketed off of Moriarty is safely with Mary at Mycroft's estate, who has been decoding his records and is successfully delivering all of Moriarty's dirty money to Detective Inspector Lestrade.

Infuriated, Moriarty leads an emotionally-driven attack. The two depict scenarios about the ensuing fight - first, Holmes using a focused attack that looks as though it will end in his victory; Moriarty's voiceover interjects with his own method of attack, and due to Holmes' shoulder, still injured from the events in Berlin, he succumbs to Moriarty's assault, and is pushed over the balcony to his death, at least hypothetically. Holmes knows he cannot win this fight, not with his shoulder. He employs an alternative solution to the problem.

He forcibly locks himself in a grapple with Moriarty and, just as Watson enters the balcony area, plummets the two of them to their death over the edge of the Reichenbach falls.

Now, however Holmes survives the fall isn't detailed within the movie, but he does make a reappearance at the very end of it, leaving a small breathing apparatus he'd discovered at Mycroft's estate in an anonymous package sent to Watson's home, where his colleague seems to be writing up the details of their latest case and, consequentially, a memoriam to Holmes. This may or may not be the method by which he actually lived, but instead just meant to signify a message to Watson that only he would understand: I am still alive. In the novel, Holmes employs a specialized form of martial arts, bartitsu, in order to grapple the cliff edge and flee to safety.

In any matter, it's after the plunge at Reichenbach from which Holmes will be taken, should he be accepted.

Personality: At first glance, Sherlock Holmes does not have a very attractive personality - he's cold, calculating and precise; he's rude, he's arrogant, and he has little to no concept of how tact might work in a social setting, and certainly not how it would be put to practice. Holmes is incredibly intelligent and, as such, that intelligence is both a bridge (in cases, in his work) and an inhibitor (in emotional situations, in social interactions).

The first glance is not wrong, if perhaps oversimplified. Watson himself is the one to generally make the observations throughout the films, employing adjectives such as "manic", narcissistic ("Suicide is not in his repertoire; he's far too fond of himself for that."), a "masochist", and even referring to him as something "not human" in a moment of true ire. It's too often that people resort to elementary terms when referring to Holmes' atypical behavior for someone who is, quite candidly, just WEIRD.

Holmes is incredibly hyper intelligent, well educated in a number of areas which are involved in his work (i.e.: anatomy, chemistry, forensic sciences) and is able to induce copious amounts of information from a seemingly minute set of details. The way he describes it, while most people merely 'see', he takes things a step further - he 'observes'. As a self-invented consulting detective, Holmes is able to recognize patterns where "normal" people are unable, and has a tendency to make everyone else feel incredibly stupid along the way. Holmes' arrogance isn't unfounded - he IS smarter than everyone else, in the sense of knowledge and logic - but it's still a source of endless frustration to those around him.

Consequentially, Holmes is remarkably stunted insofar as social interaction. He is constantly belittling those around him, if not just because he's so academically exceeded so many of them. He has a thirst for proving his intelligence, and while he doesn't go out of his way to do so, he never misses an opportunity to deprecate. Not only is it relatively known for him to make frank (and sometimes cutting) observations of those around him without a second's thought to a modest or reserved response - for instance, openly mocking the Detective Inspector in front of his police force ("IMPECCABLE timing as always, Lestrade.") - but he is utterly lacking in appropriate behavior, whether emotional or social, to most of any situation.

Holmes has been observed making such crude assumptions about Watson's wife that he's driven a refined woman to publicly throwing drinks in his face, bursting in upon an elderly couple in nothing but his undergarments for the sake of a case, and even shooting pistols in the safety of his own home in the hopes of inventing an early gun silencer. Perhaps the most blatant case of his strangeness involves a full conversation in which Holmes partakes, the entirety of it spent hanging from a noose in the middle of his home.

What Holmes lacks, in addition to his intellectual prudence, is an average capacity for empathy, and this is an area where and sociopathic implications come into play. For the good of his educational pursuits, his puzzles, and his work, he is apathetic in regards to healthy and regular reactions to matters such as death, grief, and love. He outright refuses to regard Watson's relationship as anything solid for the majority of their time together, constantly reminding Watson of the pains of relationships and how much of a beaten dog his matrimony will make him. Rather than pay attention to an emotionally shocked man's grief upon what he thinks is a devil's body rising from his own grave, Holmes instead takes everyone ELSE'S empathy to his advantage in order to confiscate evidence from a crime scene (directly leading to him pick-pocketing a watch off a corpse).

People are comfortable with assuming Sherlock is, very simply, insane. While Holmes' personality undoubtedly echoes several markers of the condition, antisocial personality disorder is more likely a misleading diagnosis - perhaps one that he would rather the police believe, out of convenience and a need for solitariness; perhaps even one to which he aspires, in a way.

Still, despite his failings, Holmes is far from being remorseless, much as he might like to be (or at least come across as). He spends a good portion of the first film trying in vain to get Irene Adler to leave the country, correctly piecing together a rather dangerous and potentially fatal situation into which she has gotten herself. In Game of Shadows, there's an unmistakable guilt to his expression when he wrongly induces where a bomb will be set, directly leading to the death of a handful of people that he could have easily prevented, had he been looking in the right place - so much so that he even numbly and openly admits, "I made a mistake," words that Watson seemed shocked to hear come out of his colleague's mouth.

Similarly, most telling of Holmes' softer side, is Holmes' relationship with Watson as an entirety. Beyond the chummier parts of their friendship (living together for years, sharing clothes, Watson seemingly the only person to know the inner workings of the most of Holmes' emotions), there has rarely otherwise been someone for whom Holmes so freely graces with his favor. Whether it's such a complete understanding of Watson's immediate reactions to taunts (and correctly realizing that Lord Blackwood was attempting to spear the man through the skull with a nearly imperceptible glass spire), or an awkward regard for Watson's continued existence after a life-threatening explosion ("Well, I'm. Just so very glad you're... with us."), Holmes has a flagrant and irrefutable care for a man who seems so very painfully NORMAL to the untrained eye.

Even more evidence of this lies in Holmes' first direct interaction with his most dangerous nemesis, James Moriarty, in which, before attempting to ferret out plans, weaknesses, or anything useful that he might use against the man, Holmes instead takes the time to try to passively play Watson off as a past component of his life, no longer relevant to Holmes' work and therefore not a threat to Moriarty, nor even a metaphorical blip on his radar. He's so concerned with Watson's safety that he actively puts it before the case at hand, before anything else.

More likely than remorselessness is that, due to his work, this is a mindset that he has observed - 'Caring takes too much effort, too many emotions, so I must quell it for a moment so I can get things done' - in order to do his job more effectively. Emotions are wasteful in a logical setting and only serve to haze an otherwise clear insight to a situation. They're useless while he is on a case, much as he finds himself slave to them at inappropriate moments (in which he may even take the time to talk himself out of such reactions; "This mustn't register on an emotional level").

Overall, Sherlock is his own person, unapologetic to a fault for his personality and his actions. He's incredibly fast-paced, constantly craving mental and adrenergic (and more often than not potentially self-destructive) stimulus ("My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work"). He chooses his own cases as they come to him, only flocking to the most difficult and intellectually engaging, and as a consequence, he often has long periods between them that leave him depressed, lethargic, and, most dangerously, bored.

He's been shown choosing petulant arguments with the landlady Mrs. Hudson, picking out manic and dissonant chords and songs on his violin, shooting initials into walls, shooting blow darts at potential 'attackers' who may enter his study, keeping goats and jungle plants for fun, chain-smoking, drinking, drug-taking, and even going so far as to drinking a straight dosage of formaldehyde in the wake of nothing better to do. All in the name of his own, all-encompassing boredom. Sherlock can sometimes go for days without eating, without sleeping, without SPEAKING because of these episodes. It's been theorized by scholars that Holmes is easily diagnosed with a manic depressive personality, if not just because of the intensity paired with the sudden onset of his rapidly cycling moods.

Along the same vein, more than likely directly relative to his unhealthy cures for a stagnating mind, Holmes is also an observed drug addict. While he doesn't seem to be particularly picky about his poison of choice, given the fact of his drinking embalming fluid for the sake of drinking embalming fluid, cocaine is canonically to what he tends to flock. He's also what would be today's equivalent of a chain smoker, a tobacco enthusiast, regularly seen with a pipe hanging from his mouth.

Holmes is merely difficult. Difficult to understand, intellectually or emotionally; difficult to get along with; difficult to live with. He has little sense of personal space and social stigma, often asking probing questions and making blunt observations that put people immediately on the defensive. He has a wealth of knowledge, he has little tact, and he is a force with which to be reckoned.

TL;DMFR: He's a too-smart, emotionally stunted, crack-addled asshole and John Watson thinks he's the bee's knees. Sometimes. The end.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations: He's brilliant. Plain and simple. He has a wealth of knowledge over a wide array of intellectual areas, with access to obscure trivia involving chemistry, geology and forensic sciences. His memory is extraordinary, and likely - if he wasn't born with one, that is - he's trained himself to have an eidetic one. Holmes is able to maximize his visual memory, and recall small details and exact wording of a plethora of observations. Holmes is also incredible at solving puzzles, and finding otherwise hidden links between seemingly insignificant details, all in his head. His attention to the particular is extraordinary.

Despite his smoking habits and his poor sense of self-preservation insofar as sleep and nourishment are involved, Sherlock is very physically fit. He's well-rounded in boxing and a few other scattered martial arts methods, and has been observed analytically picking out an opponent's weak points and successfully rendering them immovable in a few, short, quick, precise hits - on more than one occasion, even. In fact, his biggest downfall seems to be that aforementioned lackadaisical regard to self-care. This IS a man who drinks formaldehyde martinis, after all.

Overall, Sherlock is still very human, at least physically, and as such is obviously limited insofar as powers.

Inventory:

One (1) pocketwatch
One (1) revolver, fully loaded
One (1) violin
One (1) disgusting bathrobe
One (1) miniaturized oxygen tank
One (1) well-oiled pipe
A small supply of tobacco and other poisons

Appearance: [ refined ] [ less so ]

Throughout Doyle's novels, Holmes has been described as rather 'bohemian' in lifestyle, and while he does have a catlike approach to neatness, he is only tidy in very selective and particular ways. Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes holds true to this description, and given the time period, Holmes dresses like a bit of a lunatic. His hair messy, his stubble unshaven, his clothes in various states of disarray. Holmes is generally unkempt, and that's if he's even bothered to don clothing in the first place - he's notably spent portions of the movies in nothing but a bathrobe or pajamas. He does, however, know well enough how to tidy himself up for appearances outside of the house.

Sherlock Holmes is tall (RDJ being a bit on the short side for Holmes, at about 5'8"), and muscular despite his lankiness on account of his boxing and various martial arts. He has deceiving brown eyes to match his hair, and dark circles under them to clearly signify his sleep patterns (or lack thereof). Watson notes in Game of Shadows that Holmes has lost quite a bit of weight since the first one, making him more lean than usual.

Age: 37

AU Clarification: Rightly speaking, the BBC Sherlock is truly the AU of the original 'canon'; that is, Doyle's novels. While the Sherlock Holmes movie is adapted from the books (the characters more carefully, though the story is only very loosely so), the Sherlock television show is as well. Where they vastly differ is in their time periods, and it really does make a significant impact upon their characters because of the setting around them.

Sherlock is a modernization of the Sherlock Holmes tales that have been around for decades and decades, planting Sherlock into today's society. As such, he has access to gadgets, texting, internet, and a menagerie of other useful technology advances to which the Victorian era Holmes hasn't been held privy. Sherlock sometimes won't even leave his home to solve a case at hand, choosing to solve them from the safety of his flat. Holmes obviously doesn't have the benefit of webcam, or any sort of instant social means (other than the good old fashioned stopping by his home), and has no access to this luxury. Sherlock is also stunted by the notoriety of drugs and tobacco use in today's society: He is begrudgingly clean of all narcotics for the time being, and doesn't even smoke, instead using nicotine patches to quell his urges. Holmes lives in an age where, while cocaine isn't perhaps the most orthodox extracurricular, it is still legal to buy. He also smokes from a pipe, in inordinate amounts.

The small differences are numerous, and they do add up, but where the two really differ probably has a lot to do with the societies in which they were raised. Sherlock is the product of the modern age, where aloofness is abound and it's far too easy to become cold, calculating, detached from one's cases and the people around them. He has a wealth of technology which enable him to mimic social interaction via text, which allow him to become much more of a recluse than Holmes, and drift far more into the territory than his Victorian counterpart. That's not to say that Sherlock is someone entirely antisocial, but he does seem to be much less well-versed in the ways of social interaction in general, rather than Holmes who finds such unavoidable in a world where letter-writing isn't a very feasible substitute for personal interactions.

It's inarguable that the two are very similar if not just because they were both so closely based off of Doyle's novels. The interesting result is that one now has access to two Sherlocks who are unmistakably and irrefutably Sherlock Holmes, but in very distinct ways from each other - Guy Ritchie's Sherlock focusing more on Holmes' bohemian lifestyle, his strange behaviors, his drug addiction; Steven Moffat's Sherlock focusing more on Holmes' antisocial behaviors, his cold and calculating nature in his detective work, and his struggles with his social interactions. It's also of note that the BBC Sherlock is a much earlier Holmes - he is introduced at the start of his and John's friendship, whereas the movie Holmes is taken from a later point in his timeline, closer to the middle of his career.

Still, they are both completely and utterly intelligent beyond their years, elegantly so; both are the best friend that John Watson has come to know and love; and they are both very strange men, no matter what era they've been placed into.

SAMPLES
Log Sample: There had been rocks, jagged and cruel and oh so numerous, dangerous, and his fingers had tried to catch a good hold but they'd only skittered across the surface, and now there was water - everywhere, in all his crooks and crevices. Something had gone wrong, but what had gone wrong? No, it was a dream. No, there was still water, and Holmes' hands shot out to try to break the surface, to swim upwards - his knuckles grazed off smooth something or other. That was wrong. He was starting to emerge into the air without making an effort either. That was also wrong. It's not until Holmes spills out onto the cold and unforgiving floor that his eyes finally open - no, there's blurred nothing, he shuts them - and, for a moment, he is calm.

His fingers touch daintily at his neck. Yes, he's never had a tube down his throat before. What a strange sensation.

The entirety of him just feels wet and utterly clammy. This will not do in the slightest. His senses are dulled - all that fills his nostrils are the sickly clean stench of antiseptic, and there's nothing beneath his fingers but cold-- steel? Or some sort of alloy, perhaps, but smooth, hard, certainly metal. There are faint, high-pitched pips coming from a direction or two, sounds he can't recognize. He needs his sight - he's lost without it - but every time he opens his lids, his eyes burn and his world reels in dangerous circles around him, and consciousness is not a preference right now, but a necessity. 'And so you have twenty seconds exactly,' he allows himself, inwardly, and after a slow and even count, forces his eyes open.

A table. No. A coffin? What are those? Everything is the shiny, sparkling, lurching sight of a man who hasn't quite adjusted to a conscious mindset just yet, which is dangerous, and everything is completely and utterly recognizable, which is as much so. A new location, he could endure, but there are all these lights and gadgets glowing that he can't begin to describe, and Holmes staggers to his feet, like a drunken bat out of hell.

"Most peculiar," he means to say to himself aloud.

"Hgghk," is what comes out in a rasp, and Holmes jars his head again, shaking the fluid from his eyes.

It seemed he'd finally taken leave of his mind. His dear and sickeningly stuffy landlady would be absolutely delighted to hear that she'd the evidence she'd always really and truly needed to lock Sherlock Holmes in some various home for the criminally insane for another. He'd daresay he'd make himself some interesting lodgings in such a place, once he was found out.

The second attempt at speech gets a, "muhhh," and he soldiers on without the dialogue, fervently patting all over himself. Legs, yes. Arms, also. All fingers and toes. No unrecognizable scars, including surgical. No, wrong, just on his arm, there. A number. His vision reels as he tries to read it, and he blinks forcibly, rubbing furiously at the number written. Not ink, nor a carving. Then body art - tattooing. Rude. He never asked for this number nor did it make a lick of sense to him within his immediate grasp, and, so, therefore, rude. Holmes tries for speech again.

"Hashiffmhj."

Not quite. Let's press on.

Comms Sample: Oh, that won't do at all.

[ The audio comes on a moment before the video does, and the camera is panned upwards, though it doesn't seem to be on purpose. Sherlock Holmes has the misfortune of being a few hundred years behind on his space technology, and while even phones are a thing of the future, video cameras concealed in tiny communicative devices are absolutely so. The feed switches from video to audio to video and back, and there are two important things apparent: a) Holmes needs space lessons, and b) he doesn't seem to have his jump suit on. Or anything, so far as his chest and shoulders seem to be advertising. ]

Certainly some sort of forward technology, but two-way? Hello. No?

[ He has a violin tucked beneath one arm, a pipe hanging haphazardly from his teeth, and his hair is fantastically askew. The function changes over one more time, to text. ]

VOICE
AURAL
AUDIO
THERE WAS A LITTLE MAN WHO SPOKE OF A BLUE LIFT DO NOT IGNORE ME

[ There are no further messages. He seems to have temporarily abandoned the task at hand for better (more understandable) prospects. ]