'Sherlock' Meets 'Doctor Who'? Yes, Please

When you have iconic fictional characters, all very beloved, the desire to mix and match — and take it beyond the strictly canonical – is understandably strong. Such is fandom. Such is, also, this mash-up adventure of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who 's Eleventh Doctor.

It should be noted that "Wholock," as it is known, is not at all a new thing; in fact, it's existed within the Sherlock and Doctor Who fandoms (which have a lot of overlap in their populations) since the second Sherlock premiered (and probably long before then with other Sherlock Holmes incarnations and other Doctors).

The fan fictions, the gifsets, and the fan art have mainly taken refuge in places like Tumblr, often even with the addition of Sam and Dean Winchester from Supernatural for a crossover called SuperWhoLock.

But it's nice, now that both have made solid leaps into the mainstream, to see more people contemplating the magic that can come when beloved characters meet.

It's also nice to see some of the talent that resides in fandom get some respect, because as the editing and special effects of this video done by YouTuber John Smith prove, there's a lot of it.

This all reminds me of my favorite fandom-related quote of all time, found in Lev Grossman's TIME article "The Boy Who Lived Forever" (which you should read):

Fan fiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don't do it for money. That's not what it's about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They're fans, but they're not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language.

Think of this as visual fan fiction. And enjoy.

Image: John Smith/Youtube