David Stark / Zarkonnen: fanfic

Some shenanigans your captain might experience in Sunless Sea.

It occurred to me that Dumbledore's Army was basically a paramilitary student organization. In reality, those tend to be bad news. So here's a cynical alternate history, told through newspaper headlines. Any similarity to real-life events is blatant and intentional.

Another Sherlock Holmes reinterpretation: Holmes goes into fugue states where he becomes Moriarty and commits crimes. He doesn't consciously know about this double identity, but passively, information flows both ways. So Holmes believes that Moriarty is extremely clever because he's "always one step ahead of me, Watson, he was in this very apartment during the night!"

I continue to be fond of alternate takes on Sherlock Holmes, so here's another one:

Holmes is actually a network of experts hiding behind a common pseudonym. That's why he's considered a "master of disguise" - it's all different people. "Watson" is simply the codename used for cases where two Holmes operatives need to turn up to the same place. Think Global Frequency mixed with Sherlock Holmes.

I have given in to the lure of fanfic. Here's a take on what might happen eighty years after Bruce Wayne's death.

"It's simple. We kill the Botman."

Julia looked taken aback. She still wasn't used to Percival's rather... direct approach to problem-solving, but she had to admit he had a point.

"Well, it's not really killing, is it? More like shutting down." Play it cool, Julia.

"Decommissioning," Laura added.

Julia gave the floor a little sideways kick, sending her and the chair spinning. All the chairs in this place were upholstered with fancy leather and pointlessly high-backed. Sitting down was a squeaky and slightly mildewy embrace.

It's long been fashionable to reinterpret Sherlock Holmes, such as in the recent TV shows Sherlock and Elementary. Apart from changes in time, place, and mood, the exact nature of Holmes and Watson has seen various permutations - here amusingly referenced by Kate Beaton. So here's my cynical take on things: Holmes as a fig leaf for corruption.