tendergingergirl:

madzither:

hubblegleeflower:

221b-hound:

thescienceofjohnlock:

atlinmerrick:

happierstill:

madgirlspoem:

the-seventh-stranger:

sussexbound:

weeesi:

iamjustreading:

glenmoresparks:

Just three days on,
and already there is some great analysis of the No Homo Declaration to be found.
I have read so many insightful, well-reasoned responses. I’ve read the for-and-against
arguments, I seen people who have despaired and those who have shrugged their
shoulders and carried on.

The one consistent
response seems to be offence: everybody recognised that the statements were
spiteful.

I don’t know what
they’ll do with series four – whether we’ll see more Exasperated John still
wailing that he’s not gay, if they’ll light specific scenes with rainbow
prisms, or whether Mary and John are really such a Couple From Central Casting
that that they dress their kid in a rabbit suit. I don’t know who will be in
line to physically assault Sherlock this time (Mrs Hudson and Lestrade are the
only two regulars who haven’t had a turn) or if Moriarty still isn’t dead.

I don’t have any
stance on what The Moftiss and Ms Vertue said either, other than it was nasty
and, that after six years of innuendo and red herrings, it’s perhaps a little late
to start explaining what the program is about.

About the only firm
conclusion I’ve reached is here are two privileged men having a dummy spit.
“This is our story and now it has girl germs all over it. Shoo, girls! Take
your excellent stories, clever videos, meticulous metas and exquisite fanarts
away from our story! We’re writing this, it’s OUR story and the only
involvement we require from you is that you admire it and pay money for it.”

Good luck to The
Moftiss and Ms Vertue. Of course their program will be popular, and of course
it will make them oodles of money. They might get Baftas too. The Times will
produce some fawning pieces declaring that they’ve made history by introducing
Sherrinford or presenting the Watson offspring in rabbit ears or whatever the
press kits decree is a turning point in history.

The most engaging
parts of Series Four, for me at least, will still be here on Tumblr. No matter
how much they stamp their feet, The Moftiss and Ms Vertue can’t erase the fact
that the fandom is the where Sherlock comes to life. These days Sherlock the
program is, to me, a like a series of writing prompts. The best story in Series
Four is yet to be written. It will show up on AO3 after BBC Sherlock, series 4,
has gone to air and I can’t wait.

I know a lot of the
fandom were hopeful that BBC Sherlock would be the groundbreaking series that
sets Mr Holmes free. I was one of them. It is miserable to feel baited by that
allusion, and miserable to feel scorned for that expectation. There is no right
way to deal with The Moftiss-Vertue insult. Disregard the No Homo Declaration,
accept it sadly or come and sit with me on the fence. It’s all fine.

History has been made,
I think, in the fandom here on Tumblr. In all his incarnations, Sherlock Holmes
fans have never had such a vibrant, intelligent place to play and talk. Female
Holmes fans have never had such a unobstructed platform to make their feelings
known and share their fannish produce. Women are used to being overlooked and mocked
by the male author gods, but rarely have they had an easily accessible and
supportive place to take their opinions and responses. We have now and
surprisingly, I find myself grateful to The Moftiss and Ms Vertue for making
that possible.

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
I’m actually in tears. This is so true and I do feel the same way.

“These days Sherlock the program is, to me, a like a series of writing prompts. The best story in Series Four is yet to be written. It will show up on AO3 after BBC Sherlock, series 4, has gone to air and I can’t wait.”

You know, though, with rare exceptions, it’s still only the male Holmesian’s adaptations that are taken seriously, that are published, that are studied in academic circles, that are given funding to be turned into television and film adaptations.

Yes, BBC Sherlock has awakened a huge flood of female creative response, adaptation, art, fiction, etc.  But for the most part these adaptations are languishing away in online fic archives, and in fan spaces.  It is still labelled silly, disrespectful, fetishisation.  Female Holmesian’s, are still talked down to, still regarded as nothing but horny fangirls, even when they are sometimes very well-educated, middle aged academics.

So yes, I will still enjoy our fan creation, just as I always have as a female fan of primarily male-created media.  And I will still enjoy the creative works that my fellow female fans have produced in response to that original content.  But until someone like Sue Vertue is willing to fund my queer, femlock fanfic, and turn it into a successful television series, with the same blind eagerness she rushes to fund her husband’s, I’m going to be a little angry, and I’m unwilling to settle or give up the fight.

The fact that women are out there writing these amazing Holmesian pastiches, and derivative works which are being shared in primarily female-dominated online spaces just isn’t enough for me anymore.  I appreciate every single one of you.  Some of you are writing some of the best lit I have ever read (published or not), and yet your creative works will most likely fade into obscurity like the bulk of women’s literature has down through the ages.

There was this moment at the SDCC Nerd HQ event, last weekend, that really gave me pause, and it gives me even greater pause now that this interview has dropped.  There was a female fan who mentioned that she and her twin sister had just been published.  Mark and Steven congratulated her, but then she mentioned that it was a Sherlock Holmes short story with Sherlock and Moriarty.  She thanked Moffat and Gatiss because they were the ones who introduced these two young women to the world Sherlock Holmes through BBC Sherlock, and she said that Moffat and Gatiss had changed their lives.  Immediately Mark and Steven started talking over these two women, ‘joking’ about sending them to jail (with an ‘Orange is the New Black’ reference that actually got groans or distaste from the audience), and even having them shot after they left.  When Moffat asked them if it was a Victorian adaptation and if they resurrected Moriarty (they did), he then ‘joked’ that they weren’t allowed to resurrect Moriarty, because he’s dead.  The woman batted back that yes they could (good for her!), and Moffat again told her she couldn’t.  it took them forever to even let the poor girls ask their question, and overall I thought Mark and Steven were unnecessarily dismissive and rude.

I think that incident perfectly illustrates their general attitude toward young women dipping their toe seriously into the Holmesian world.  It’s all fun and games as long as female fans ‘remember their place’ and keep their creative works in fan spaces where they belong.  Mark and Steven repeatedly said almost that same thing this weekend.  ‘If people want to think what they think, and write fan fic, then that’s fine, but this is our show, and we’re writing what we want!!’.  In other words, stay the hell out of our yard with your silly women’s stories.

The world of Sherlock Holmes has always belonged to the men.  As soon as these two women start getting their Holmes adaptations published, that’s a threat to the old Holmesian men’s club.  Male Holmesians have long been fierce gatekeepers of all things Holmes.  In fact, the famous Holmesian society ‘The Baker Street Irregulars’, which was established in the 1930s, didn’t even agree to admit women until 1992.  

This is what we are up against as female Holmesians, and this is why I’m still furious.  Yes, I love all of you here.  I love the amazing, intelligent creative works you are producing every single day.  They do have value, more value and creativity than a lot of the published works I’ve seen, but I want more for you.  I want your works to be publicly embraced and respected as readily as the 100+ years of male Holmesian’s works have been.  I don’t want your works to be minimised, degraded, mocked.  I grieve that you are expected to keep your works archived away online, whether you want to or not, that attempts to be published can result in you being publicly derided by two male Holmes enthusiasts you love and admire.  You deserve better.  And much as I see where you are coming from, I for one am tired of settling for the crumbs from male Holmesian’s tables, and I’m mad as hell.

THIS IS A MUST-READ. Thank you @glenmoresparks for one of the very best commentaries on the recent fandom trauma, and @sussexbound for your important addition. I think most of us has been through a brutal, painful awakening with everything that has happened. We are left with having to face the very real possibility that the showrunners really can’t stand us. The are annoyed by our devotion, utterly clueless about what we are about and who we are, and disgusted with fanworks, metas, discussions and fan interaction. THEY HAVE NO IDEA. It’s stinking of misogyny and narcissism. The story about the two published fans above, almost makes me want to close down my blog and never give Sherlock BBC another thought. I’m still struggling with how to deal with this. But. I am increasingly coming to the same conclusions as @glenmoresparks here: This space, this community, is something absolutely beautiful, shining and amazing. We should not let them take this away from us. What I see here is a unique space for girls and women (and of course other identities) of all ages to freely and without shame express opinions, show intelligence and brilliance, develop their creativity and, very importantly, express their sexuality in a way that society deems so shameful and frightening that it is never even talked about. I think that’s worth fighting for. @weeesi @ebaeschnbliah @isitandwonder @constancecream

This is *so* important @sussexbound, @the-seventh-stranger  and @glenmoresparks.

I am a silent film professor so I just assume no one wants to hear about the formation of Hollywood and 100-year girl fandoms in such a cutting-edge space as Tumblr. However, let me just say this—the frustration and disappointment you all express here with a male-gated “high culture,” the impenetrable “boys club” of Holmesian studies, IS symptomatic of the historical moment when mass media fandom was first invented and —wait for it— was codified by MALE film journalists, producers, and directors as trivial because it was the province of adolescent girls. Can you imagine? A male-dominated Hollywood only got off the ground because girls supported it so passionately? Can you imagine depending on a bunch of girls as fans and stars, on their emotional labor and talent? Yeah you had to trivialize that in order to secure your fucking frail masculinity didn’t you D. W. Griffiths of early Hollywood?

Still GIRLS made fandom. They invented it. We are talking about everyday, working and middle-class, white and of color, many single and queer-identified teenaged girls WHO  invented the fan language we all use today (yes you too Holmesian fanboys!); the film clubs that became your comic cons (looking at you Star Trek fanboys!), NONE of that would exist without girl fans growing up in the 1910s. Dear 20th century fanboys, you owe a bunch of dead girls your fan tools, your modes of expression, your elaborate gatekeeping against intersectional minorities and “girls germs.”

Nobody speaks of this because our male-dominated society is invested in undermining women’s sociocultural agency and power, but this is not a fluffed up account to appease some Tumblr users. Dear friends THIS IS HISTORICAL FACT. Trust me, I dedicate my life to studying it and have the archival dust allergies to prove it.

(TL;DR History will set you free)

Everyone needs to reblog this. I hope one day Moffat and Gatiss get the memo. This is fandom. We are not idiots. We are intelligent and passionate and hurt. @bbcone

I know how disappointing it is to feel that our works don’t matter in a male-dominated media. But part of that will will WILL be cured with time. We are the genie and we are out of the bottle. We, the creators — artists, writers of all stripes, video makers, everyone — have seen the power of our creations.

I don’t know about you but it’s an addiction not to be surrendered to be told you gave someone the words to describe depression to a family that didn’t understand, that you helped them realize their sexual identity, that you improved their marriage, things I know have been said to fan fiction writers.

The thing to remember is that though the change seems slow it’s here. We are here. We are not going away and we are getting louder.

There are small presses printing male/male romance and Sherlock Holmes and John Watson romance. Paper books you can hold in your hands. There are people who want the stories you write, they’re out there. Improbable Press, Clan Destine Books, Manifold Press, Carnation Books, Lethe Books, Riptide Publishing.

Things are changing, never fast enough, yes but changing they are because we out number the assholes okay? There are more of us than them and we’ll get there, we will. We’ll shout and we’ll write and we’ll publish and we’ll talk over the narcissistic idiots who reek of privilege and ignorance and…we got this. We do. If Mofftiss have any superpower at all it’s to help piss us off, focus us, unite us. We can and we will and we are. Keep creating. Please keep creating.

The more we are told ‘you can’t do that’ the more we should do it.

I’ve been a Holmes fan at least as long as Mofftiss, though all sorts of reincarnations, they can’t tell me what I can and can’t do, they don’t own our Holmes.  

Any series 4 prompted fanfics out there please tell me, I want to read them and pass them on to others because we know Sherlock much better than they do.

I’m in the process of writing a whole new season 3 and 4 under the series name The Pure and Simple Truth. Mostly because I’m wedded to narrative cohesion. And rage.

This is on top of pro holmesian fiction and over a million words of fanfic. Because apparently I don’t know how to say ‘when’. 🙂

A beautiful creative authentic response to a difficult and untenable situation.

This is the perfect way to make right this horrible wrong. 👏👏👏

You all have right here, an incredible Marketing Machine. USE IT!