#irene adler is the chaotic good/neutral feminist antihero we deserve

[i-write-watolock]

so, I just watched the very first episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (and I loved it) and I would like to ask you a question as your fanfiction reader. How would you portrayed Irene Adler had you planned to write that character into your stories? Would Sherlock and Irene met under the canon circumstances in your version? Would it be a woman at all, granted Sherlock is a woman as well.

omg i’m so honored to have recieved this??? oH hONEY she would DEFINETELY be a woman. I’m a gal’s gal, and i would take any opportunity i get to portray realistic and diverse interactions between women, and Irene and Sherlock present me with an exquisite dynamic we rarely get to see in media: Respectful rivalry. The media is so keen on making us these shallow creatures that hate one another based on superficial reasons (boys), that I would love to see a real mental play, a power play, between two genius women who above all respect each other and push each other to the extreme of their genius.  I’d keep her really close to OG Irene: A brilliant woman- OG Irene was sort of proto-feminist character after all- that “““threatens””“ the wrong person: The son of a bigass company owner or a member of high social/political circles. Irene would be a beautiful woman who knows she holds that power and is not ashamed to use it, damnit. She also needs to make canon society uncomfortable, as OG Irene did. So she’d mess with the high and mighty, the powerful, because she serves one interest and that’s her own. And her insterest is to, not only elope with her scandalous love (a girlfriend), but to also help the world in any way she can. And she can do that using her power to gain secrets, and those secrets to collect what is due to the people.

So she has cost the high and mighty horrendous amounts of money and power. She’s manipulative as she’s pretty, but most of all: She. Is. Damn. Smart. That’s how she plays them. So:

We’d start with a nice fellow, a young promise, a prodigy of sorts. A man with education, drive and potential, whose little misstep lead him to be blackmailed for this “bad woman”, this sort of “femme fatale/temptress/seductress” character. He’s heard of Sherlock by the big man in charge of the police and would like to catch this woman and retrieve the “compromising document” she has on him.

So we start chasing your typical femme fatale, only for her not to be found anywhere. We start learning that her doings prevented some major injustices from happening, we also learn that- blackmailing aside- the people acusing her know nothing of her, can’t even give a physical description as she changed her appereance. Sherlock starts getting suspicious.

At the same time, a very sweet lady in a cat café gives Sherlock some pretty good insight on this “irene” character, she seems to have at least spoken to her once. She also offers good coffee and good conversation. Sherlock leaves to follow the lead she gave her, and does not find her when she returns. That’s Irene’s first appereance.

So Sherlock starts to pay attention the more she chases Irene’s trail, the more dead ends she meets, she realises she’s being teased. Like a game of hide and seek from hell, so Sherlock changes her strategy: She starts treating Irene no like an archetype, but as a brilliant woman, like herself.

They play, they chase, they meet. Upon seeing one another as they are is all congratulations for a game well played, Sherlock knows she has to catch her, but she feels inmense respect for Irene at the same time. Irene knows she needs to run and deliver her charge, but she’s having so much fun. Wato meets Irene’s “““assistant”“” (her GF) and has some helpful insight of her own.

Sherlock finds herself conflicted: She’s being tasked to find Irene and retrieve the document, that’s her reputation and honor at stake. YET, she does not want Irene to lose. We know more of this good fellow she offended and now Sherlock knows he deserved to be stopped, Irene is a roge bullet that always hits the target she needs and harms no one else.

Wato sees right through her- and gets jealous bc this is gay fellas- and calls Sherlock out on not doing all she can to trap this criminal. They have a great discussion about criminality and justice.

But Sherlock has also been spotted by Reimon, who believes that criminal acts such as Irene’s can’t go unpunished, so Sherlock does give it her all, swearing to herself that this is the last time she will try, and if Irene scapes, she will not persecute her.

She traps Irene while her lover is waiting for her on a jet sent by a red of vigilantes that gave Irene assylum. More great discussion, more girly rivalry, they aknowlege each other and Irene explains her motives: How the good fellow had a career sustained on providing the higher circles with ya know- people- and how she has the means to prove it, she shows it to Sherlock and explains how she plans on destroying him and his career to prevent him, and people like him, rising to power.

In the original, Irene beats Holmes on his own game, but I like sorority and I like games, so while Sherlock is distracted by Irene’s evidence, she pulls one last stunt that manages to allow her scape.

Sherlock realises right on time, but keeps the evidence and decides to do nothing, later arguing that she was incapacitated due to *insert weird but probable reason* and could not catch it.

She does return the document to the “good fella”, who destroys it. Wato questions it because he was a ruin man who did not deserve their help.

Cut to a week later, we see the young politician announcing his permanent retirement from politics. We also learn he’s been donating parts of his fortune to several charities while he stares angrily and a picture on his phone.

While he’s signing the money away, we see Irene Adler kissing her girlfriend in some remote part of the world, the original document on her table.

Cut to Sherlock smiling while she drinks tea.