Want to share a few casual viewer reviews of s4. It’s certainly not just the johnlock community that hated everything. The TV Junkie is hilarious [his comment at 7.58 made me giggle]
But this second one is the BEST. He doesn’t know much about canon or Holmes/Watson, but James Murgatroyd is just so pissed!! We all need to take this guy out to a bar and have fun with him. He is sooo on our wavelength about Mary. Watch!!!!
LOVE THESE!!! The first guy is so heteronormative but his thought on TFP are so cathartic and on point, love his comments about consequences. The second guy IS MY FAVOURITE and I want to be his friend. His TFP thoughts are blegh, but his Mary Watson rants are A++++++. Both of them on Mary is so great. Oh these videos are great, thanks so much for sharing!
thanks for sharing these, they are both great! It’s so validating to see that guys with zero investment in John/Sherlock romance, also hated the same things about the episodes that I did.
Exactly!! The main reason I posted them.
okay these are both great for their own reasons but holy shit james murgatroyd hits the nail on the head so hard with his review
oh god remember way back when martin said he was so proud of Sherlock and how unique and brilliant it was and how he was adamant he never wanted it to become a parody of itself, which is why he refused to do any special comedy shorts for charity or anything, and then for TAB he was reluctant and had to be persuaded by moffat and gatiss bc the dream-like nature of it was risky to him….? like I don’t think there would be anyone who hated TFP as much as martin must have
The hardest thing to do when you are in love is to let go. Even when that love has soured. Particularly when the soured love was one that provided you with solace.
I am writing this to say goodbye because so many of you (if you are still here!) have been kind and joyous friends. I am not going away from the community because queer representation wasn’t proffered explicitly (though I mourn that) nor because the writing decreased in quality (which admittedly did), but because the thing I loved has become painful.
There are many ways in which I find myself hurt by this show that goes beyond the debates on “queerbaiting,” irresponsible portrayal of neuro-divergence, and blatant sexism. In the end, I am hurt by BBC Sherlock because it became a show that celebrates unwarranted pain and punishment. Brilliant, neuro-divergent, queer men are punished for their lack of social skills with peerlessness and physical brutality; traumatized veterans are punished with abusive marriages and manipulative “affairs;” young women are punished with perpetual unrequited love, death or imprisonment. No one finds happiness in this universe, no one has a chance to be themselves. Cardboard cut-outs of “heroes”,“villains”, “side-kicks,” “mad women,” “sacrificial wives” and “lovelorn maidens,” Sherlock, John, Molly, Mary, and so on exist only to be punished for poor decision-making and unbalanced emotional investments. In the process of becoming “stories,” they have been gutted of their human core.
Here’s what it boils down to me: when I first watched this show it smelled like the enticing, expensive aroma of possibility, of subtlety, of sophistication and intelligent play, like a grand opera. By S4, ep 1, it smelled of cheap drugstore cosmetics—bubblegum pink body lotion, orange suntan spray, men’s acrid cologne. Expendable, hastily put together, the thing you reach for in a moment of rushed need, only to throw away and never think about it twice. It smelled like plastic, like sour milk, all those possibilities of complex play and interpretation curdled.
No one made me fall in love with this show. I myself didn’t even want to love it. But I did, and now I that I do, I am the only person left to be responsible for my well-being and recognize mourning when it comes, death when it comes.
You were part of that life-blood. I loved this show because you loved it and you spun its sub/text and images into gold. I will always think of all of you, my dash people, as creative forces. I hope you use that force for happiness and that you take care of yourselves in the process of mourning, reconciliation, or celebration—whatever spectrum of the fandom you might be in.
@madgirlspoem, so sad to see you go. I have always valued your contributions, but I am grieving for all the reasons you mentioned and more, and I can completely empathise with the choice you’ve made for yourself.
I wish you well and will miss you. ❤️
I am sad to see you go, too. Will you keep your blog up, though, for reference? I’ve found your contributions insightful, especially as a fellow academic.
I feel your pain and send you love. Be well, @madgirlspoem.
also, idk if it matters, but i think we were def supposed to be able to read that address because when i first saw the tweet, i swear it had a different screenshot where he blocked out the address too well and you couldn’t read it. the only reason i noticed that the black scribble was different is because when i saw he blocked out the address the first thing i tried to do was read it lol,,,
i didn’t take a screenshot of the first one cuz i didn’t think he was going to change it .-. so if he did change it so it could be read more easily, that at least confirms we’re supposed to know that address for some reason or another
or i’m crazy and this didn’t happen but i’m p dang sure it did
i think i snagged a screenshot of both:
so i do think we were supposed to read it!
👀👀👀
Funnily enough though crossed through two different ways, the address is the same. The first time only showed the top half of the letters, the second gives us the bottom half.
We at TJLC agree with @worriesconstantly and @alwaysanoriginal: making enough anti-S4 noise using twitter hashtag #norbury is the most likely interpretation of what the Sherlock PTB want out of fandom during this… shall we call it an intermission?
Dale Pike, a fic author whose works are almost certainly a product of Moffat & Company, suggested this course of action on January 29th. As of yesterday, in a new fic, The Players, a character IN-NARRATIVE confirmed as Moffat (masquerading as a very clumsy Sherlock), BEGS US to tell the world who he really is. Because that matters. And we just wanted to hear him say it.
In Dale Pike’s first suggestion, we received a link to THIS HANDY VIDEOwhich sums up the most egregious of s4 sins. We’ve been encouraged to TWEET THIS VIDEO as well as any other original content we may want to berate the internet with. The only ao3 tag on “The Players” is #norbury. So let’s get this show on the road.
Will it work? I DON’T KNOW. BUT WE SHOULD TRY!!!!!!! WE SHOULD TRY!!!! And we should see if we can manage to get enough of a buzz going in time for March 8th, since, supposedly, if I’m reading the signs right, SOME sort of truth ought to be revealed.
The goal here is to get #norbury trending within one hour, then keep it going as long as we can sustain. This blog is thinking we should go for 7pm London time/2pm EST/11am Pacific on Saturday and Sunday, March 4th and 5th.
In “The Players,” it’s been suggested that we’ve got to get Sherlock’s attention with a one word test, yelling, together, as loud as we can. This disorients Sherlock enough that the bomb hidden beneath his coat becomes exposed. While I have a feeling TPTB may be trying to remedy this situation themselves, they’re clearly struggling, and WE SHOULD TRY TO HELP!
BONUS TIP: IF WE CAN GET SOMEONE WITH 50K FOLLOWERS TO RETWEET OUR MESSAGE, WE SHOULD BE TRENDING WITHIN MINUTES.
ALL TOGETHER NOW:
>GET #NORBURY TRENDING >WITHIN 1HR >ON MARCH 4TH AND 5TH >AT 7PM LONDON/2PM EST/11AM PST
AND REBLOG THIS FUCKING POST!!!!!!!!!!
Once more unto the breach. .. let’s do this!
I’m reblogging this again because I have now caught up with the going ons of fandom: DO NOT USE #norbury FOR ARG RELATED THINGS. That hashtag was created to bring up queerbaiting on Twitter, NOT for ARG. It’s extremely disrespectful in my opinion to twist the hashtag in this way. Feel free to make a new hashtag for this, but keep #norbury out of it.
Hello! Some actual news this Sunday regarding actual content that will be coming your way soon!
No, we’re not moving to film the pilot yet, unfortunately. BUT
We’ve decided to adapt “The Science of Deduction” into a podcast which Charlotte will broadcast biweekly (potentially upgrading to weekly if it’s successful enough. Specific info coming on that later.
In terms of the actual show, we’re slowly gathering a team, episode three is being written, and we’re getting episode two ready to send off for copyright! Thank you for all of your support thus far.
Fem!Lock TV series is developing and is hosting a Podcast.
I see that #norbury is now used to promote an alleged ARG or to somehow get the attention of TPTB to release an alleged lost special/whatever? That this cause of action was somehow proposed to the fandom by Dale Pike (who some on here believe to be Mofftiss)? Or by dymm?
And that confuses me…
Mofftiss are now, in this scenario, somehow portrayed as helpless pawns in the hands of the BBC (?), in need of our support to get a fourth episode out to remedy everything that went wrong in S4?
Seriously?
Sorry, I thought the norbury hashtag was made to protest the writers negative and condescending attitude towards this fandom (especially johnlock) and the blatant queerbaiting, and not to vindicate them and what they did?
Or did I get that wrong?
I also thought the focus of last Sunday’s twitter action was to get the BBC/Mofftiss address the queerbaiting in Sherlock, and not to excuse this as some art form or PR trick?
I contacted @opnorbury and have been told that they don’t support this shift in focus of the norbury hashtag (which they didn’t create though).
I honestly don’t understand at all what is going on here? Or what’s happening to parts of this fandom. I have to say I find some of the things proposed around here (in relation to an unconfirmed ARG/Dale Pike/Lost Special event) extremely disturbing and unhealthy. It feels as if this once smart fandom now suddenly loves to get played, instrumenatilsed and exploited by someone’s crazy ego trip. Just ask yourself: Is it worth this amount of self-humiliation? No one of you knows who’s game you are playing right now! Just take a step back and think about what you are doing here!
I honestly don’t want to be associated with any of this. IMO this is insane, dangerous and totally not funny. I’ll unfollow blogs who promote this kind of blind confidence in Mofftiss and who assure others that of course there is a 4th episode, which will be given to us if we continue or even intensify our support for people who don’t want us and who threw us under the bus.
I can’t take that anymore. It turns my stomach to see blogs calling this fandom to still root for Mofftiss, to still support them, and who promise everything will be fine if we just beg long and loud enough. Because it won’t!
And to the people who run these campaigns: Please, be careful what you are doing. You are playing with peoples hopes and dreams. That’s sensitive area.
I AGREE 100%. Tweet Sulu? Excuse me?!
Thank you so much for this post, @isitandwonder! I have been looking at my dash lately and wondering when the hell I fell through this rabbit hole.
All of this- ARG, Twitter accounts, Dale Pike (??)- watching the fandom lose their collectives minds on all of these things that have YET to be confirmed as ANYTHING, is so disheartening. After the whole lostspecial website debacle, I would have thought we’d learn to be a little more cautious?
All any of this is doing is giving antis ammunition. We are proving them correct in their accusations of our ‘delusions’ and ‘seeing what we want to see’. We are better than this. We are SMARTER than this!!!
Where is our common sense?? Where are the voices of reason that I KNOW exist in this fandom. How does any of this make sense for a publicly owned company? Do we really believe Mofftiss would sooo spectacularly go out of their way to shit on this corner of fandom, only to give us this special game to play???
Oh God, how well said girls! With all this crazyness our fandom looks like a joke, not so long ago we were the most clevers and now we are this? Come on!
I wasn’t really following this stuff, but have now become aware
of some posts that really frighten me. There was this ‘call
to arms’ under the norbury hashtag today:
Dale Pike, a fic author whose works are almost certainly a
product of Moffat & Company, suggested this course of action on
January 29th. As of yesterday, in a new fic, The Players, a character
IN-NARRATIVE confirmed as Moffat (masquerading as a very clumsy
Sherlock), BEGS US to tell the world who he really is. Because that
matters. And we just wanted to hear him say it.
This should be achieved by retweeting a video.
The vid in question is here.
This seems to be the same person that tweeted another video, that
allegedly predicted everything about to happen in S4 (but actually
failed to do so), to
all and sundry from the show and associated with it at the
end of 2016, to get some attention for their predictions.
People, you are being used for someone’s narcissistic ego trip!
Even if these people should be Mofftiss – and why would they produce
such low quality videos filled with false predictions? – trying to get
this fandom retweet this vids under a false identity would be highly
unethical. But I guarantee you – those are not Moffat and Gatiss.
It’s just someone using this fandom to get their fan vid promoted.
But many react as if this equals the second coming!
I read the sentence today: “The skull instructed us…”
This seems to refer to this twitter. Peeps, this sounds like a batshit crazy brainwashed cult even to me –
and I support EMP.
I leave you to your deductions, as we used to say, but there’s such a thing as attention whores…
If you want your vids to become popular, stop posing as Mofftiss, stop catfishing, and stop sockpuppetting prominent fans!
And, please, leave Mr Takei in peace!
Jesus. My first response was even without having seen some of the rest of this you posted here, @isitandwonder and I was already concerned but now I am horrified. I honestly don’t know what is happening anymore with this fandom.
What is it coming to when we EMPers seem to be the ones hanging onto reason?
This should be seen by a lot more people, so I’m going to shotgun-tag a bunch of blogs (sorry not sorry) just to get it out there a bit more. I think it’s time we pulled this fandom back to earth a little bit and re-established some ground level of common sense, because right now, it’s making a laughing stock of itself.
I’ve been aboard the EMP train for a long time now, too. I can’t believe we’re suddenly the baseline for rationality. But I think that says a lot about the current state of our fandom. That even though people thought EMP was crazy and far-flung, back then, it was at least a reading of the canon. The evidence came from the show itself, i.e. a verifiable source. It had that much going for it, and people still didn’t think that was good enough.
Now look at what’s happening! A verifiable source is apparently no longer even required.
This Dale Pike stuff is, frankly, ridiculous. I think a lot of people joining in that discussion must not have actually gone over to his profile and read his material or watched those videos for themselves, because when you do, it becomes painfully obvious that this is just a fan with no more ‘insider knowledge’ (and just as flawed predictions) as the rest of us.
That author is either an unwitting victim of people’s vivid imaginations who has started to play along with it because, hey, attention is always nice. Or else a concerted troll, doing exactly what thelostspecial did in taking advantage of the gullible and the desperate.
Remember TJLC Explained? Remember that final video, just before S4 aired? How happy Rebekah looked and sounded? Complete conviction, no room for doubt: It’s happening, guys! …And then it didn’t. And when I say ‘it’ didn’t, I mean none of it. None of it lead where we thought it would. None of it ended up making sense. Maybe, just maybe, we were seeing patterns in TV static after all.
So are people now seriously saying that this Dale Pike thing has a stronger claim than, what was it – over 50 videos packed to the brim with TJLC evidence straight from the show itself?
The answer is no. No. A ‘yes’ would be an affront to Rebekah, and @loudest-subtext-in-tv, and everyone else who worked so hard on bringing TJLC to powerful heights, who carved its foundations out of rock-hard evidence that had even the antis worried they might be right.
We know what happened next. Moftiss unceremoniously toppled that marble pillar and all who stood upon it, and now those same antis are laughing their arses off at how far we’ve fallen.
I have this terrible thought from time to time that we might all just be human. Even Moftiss. I’m not surprised that people find that so hard to accept, after we spent so long believing they were on our side.
But let’s just get real for a minute: One inaccurate prediction video on Youtube and a bunch of 4th-wall-breaking fanfics on AO3 (with admittedly lovely prose, but still, nothing particularly unique and still not containing any accurate predictions– hello, Abigail) is not sufficient evidence that this guy is secretly Mark Gatiss playing a poorly-structured, denied-by-everyone ARG with us. Not even close.
Has anyone actually gone and read his erotica book on Amazon? Or any of his other writing, for that matter? Here, an excerpt from The Vesuvius Club.
Does that look anything close to this Dale Pike’s style of writing? I daresay Dale is even better at this than Mark is.
We have got to start doing better than this, guys. That does not mean reaching for shorter straws. It means finding and accepting the truth, whatever that may be. Even if it means absolutely nothing further is happening until s5. What’s happening in this fandom is not just a bit of harmless fun. It is damaging us all.
I think it’s time to face the facts. There is nothing more. It is what it is. Whether you thought s4 was crap or not, that’s what mofftiss gave us. I’m not saying the show is over over, but maybe it’s time to recoil a bit back into fandom works. Stop giving mofftiss attention and credit where credit is not due. Clearly, they hardly care about fans and their opinions. They just don’t care! And that is what it is as well.
Now that doesn’t mean you have to stop caring about the show. It doesn’t mean that you have to stop trying to get BBC and mofftiss to explain why…anything. If you feel like that’s a good thing to do with your time, go ahead.
The past few weeks have been interesting to say the least. But I think it’s time to take a step back and think for a bit.
I don’t know about you, and you may not feel this way…Haven’t you had enough of the manipulation? The outright lying of TPTB, which is unnecessary and helped to create the fandom environment we are in right now? There are so many other shows and books and stories where the creators appreciate the fans way more and don’t gaslight them. (Cause yeah, that happened to all of us, whether you like it or not). I love BBC Sherlock to death, even with the crap that was s4, but it’s not the end all be all. And with #norbury…it was a great idea, it DID accomplish something and more media outlets caught onto the queerbaiting than I thought would. Not a huge victory, but a small one. I’ll take it. And now I think we gotta push our energy somewhere else.
Me: *scrolls through tumblr*
Dash/fandom: DALE PIKE. DALE👏🏻PIKE👏🏻 Ao3. T H E R E I S N O P E P E S I L V I A. TwiTTER?!‼️ *shakes fist @ the sky* MOFFTISS…..💃🏻DAncIng SHerLocKs🕵🏻 #norbury
Me: ALRIGHTY THEN
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