delurkingdetective:

You’d think that I’d be all over TFP tinhatting.  I’ve been entranced by the “you can’t trust what you’re seeing” imagery in BBC Sherlock since I started watching it.  I even wrote a post, shortly before TFP, about how we as the fans are like John looking up at BBC Sherlock on the roof at Bart’s, watching him as he lies to us, trying to have faith.

“Faith is a funny thing,” I wrote in that post.  “It’s not inherently good or bad.  To lose faith when it ought to be kept is a tragedy, but so is to keep faith when it ought to be cast aside.”

Like a lot of people, I’ve been flipping back and forth between two readings of TFP.  The first reading says, “BBC Sherlock is actually terrible.  All the things I thought I saw – the imagery, the clues, the characterization, the mirroring, the references – I must have just made up.  TFP is real, it has to be.”  The second reading says, “BBC Sherlock has gotten really, really meta.  TFP is fake, and they’re violating all sorts of norms about how television works in order to surprise everyone and make a point.  TFP is fake, it has to be.” 

These readings are in conflict, not just with each other but with me.  Believing either requires me to question my own reality.  If I accept that TFP is real I have to question my ability to read and understand stories.  If I accept that TFP is fake I have to question all sorts of norms about how the world works and how tv gets made.  

Neither feels tenable.  And I feel like, well:

(Image by @livingthegifs)

I doubt I’m alone in this.  And the idea that anyone else in fandom feels like this, especially the younger fans, the other queer folks, the people who already deal with mental health issues – it breaks my heart.

So I want to be absolutely clear here:

Your perceptions of reality are not flawed.  You are not wrong to be deeply upset by TFP.  And you are not alone.

There are, more or less, three theories about TFP:

1)  We made up everything.  We took coincidences and concocted a false narrative in our heads.  Our predictions were wrong because our perception of the evidence was wrong.

2)  TFP is fake.  We’ve been right all along, and the creators are preparing a giant rug-pull, hopefully without realizing how much distress they’ve caused. Our predictions will be proved right because our perception of the evidence was right.

3)  TFP is real, and all the ‘evidence’ we thought we had was planted either to fuck with us or because the creators changed the story they were telling.  Our predictions were wrong, but our perception of the evidence was largely correct.

I am going to go ahead and eliminate #1 as impossible.  We did not make up everything.  We did not make up the ‘question reality’ imagery used over and over again in the show.  We did not make up the references to queer icons, including to Oscar Wilde and Freddie Mercury in TFP itself.  Much of the stuff we’ve pointed out in our metas may be coincidence but not all of it, and not all of it together.  

One of the other two options must then be the truth.  I can’t say which it is – obviously I’d prefer #2, but #3 is still possible.  But both imply two things:

* The creators are fucking with our sense of reality.

* Our sense of reality is just fine.

And this is what angers me so deeply.  Because gaslighting is awful.  It’s a textbook sign of abuse.  It’s something that multiple BBC Sherlock villains engage in – Culverton Smith most notably, but also Frankland in THoB and Moriarty in TRF.  And yes, yes, the writers are villains, the mystery writer is the criminal, but that’s symbolism, okay?  It doesn’t excuse gaslighting just like it wouldn’t excuse Moffat or Gatiss if they went out and actually murdered someone.  It’s still a shitty thing to do.  

And it’s a shitty thing to do at this particular moment in history, when we are all struggling so hard to figure out how to trust each other, how to build a shared and reliable reality.  I mean, f I want to be gaslit, I’ll go read my President-elect’s twitter.

Look, it’s good to question the stories you’re told.  Very good.  And it’s good to question the stories you tell yourself, occasionally, to keep an open mind and admit when you’re wrong.  But this type of questioning comes from a place of strength.  You question the stories you’re told because they violate your values or your knowledge.  You question yourself when something about what you’re doing or thinking feels out of line with who you are.  It’s hard to do that when you’re wracked with self-doubt and in pain.  

I love every last person in this fandom and I want you all to feel whole and strong.  I want that for your own sake, because you deserve it, but also, selfishly, because I need you.  I need you to help me fix all that’s wrong with this world – to help me fight Trump and the rise of fascism, to help me protect and nourish the next generation of LGBTQ folks, to help me build a better and kinder world.

So be good to yourself.  Throw yourself into analysis if that makes you happy, take a break if you want to, reach out to friends and family, do whatever it is you need to do to remind yourself that you’re okay.  And, if you can, help others to do that.  Share your love and your strength.  Don’t try to push your opinions about reality onto anyone else – we’ve had enough of that already.  Treat each other with gentleness.  Treat yourself with gentleness.

(Gif from @livingthegifs again)

❤