Born under the sign of Sherlock.

Why did we choose Sherlock Holmes?

Why not Captain Kirk or Bella Swan? Scarlet O'Hara or Batman?

We see a lot of appreciations of the great detective, read stories of how a particular Sherlockian came to love Sherlock Holmes and his friend John Watson, and generally take in a lot of info on individual Sherlockians. It's usually a very specific bit of data, Sherlock-centered, of course, and a good many of us have other fandoms in our backgrounds as well . . . though none may quite match our enthusiasm for Holmes.

Yet there are somethings we must have in common, those of us drawn to Sherlock Holmes. Some character traits that are definitely lacking in the non-Holmes fan. And you could probably say the same of Kirk fans, Swan fans, O'Hara fans, Batman fans, etc., etc.

It occurs to me that looking at someone's fandom(s) could even be a lot more revealing that that ancient twelve-part categoric system called we call the Zodiac. Everyone in your birth month seem anything similar to you? No? How about everyone you know standing beneath the banner of Sherlock Holmes? Closer?

And what if we fine tuned it ever further . . . .

What do we know of a Sherlockian on the cusp of Harry Potter . . . something more than a Libra on the cusp of Mario.

A fandomish "Zodiac" could not only delineate your character traits -- it could even probably do a better job of predicting your future. Born under the sign of Spiderman? The Wednesday fan-o-scope will probably read "Your path will take you past a comic book store today."

Of course, under Sherlockians, perhaps we could form our own literary Zodiac and find our character signs based upon your birth month matched against pushing dates in The Strand. Let's do a quick ramble through the Canon and pick the strongest for each month and see how that works?

Born in . . .

. . . January -- You are a bicycling Violet Smith.
. . . February -- You are an angry Grimesby Roylott.
. . . March -- You are a wounded Victor Hatherly.
. . . April -- You are a manipulating Charles Augustus Milverton.
. . . May -- You are someone only friend Victor Trevor.
. . . June -- You are the sisterly Violet Hunter.
. . . July -- You are the adventurous Irene Adler.
. . . August -- You are the comical Jabez Wilson.
. . . September -- You are the secretive Altamont.
. . . October -- You are the predatory Sebastian Moran.
. . . November -- You are the doomed John Openshaw.
. . . December -- You are the spider Professor Moriarty.

Well, that didn't work out very well . . . so many of the strongest characters are pretty evil. And that whole "birth month" business always did seem a little shady. Let's go back to the idea of a fannish system. That way we can all just be born under the sign of Sherlock.

Because those poor November people . . . well, they could have had false leprosy, too.