I believe it was my soul’s fate to happen upon Sherlock post S1 and to become so obsessed with it that I did what I’d never done before which was join a fandom. I came to the show having studied film theory in grad school- film sound, the technology of filmmaking, film semiotics, the inner workings of film scores, the materialism of film production. I had studied narrative theory for years and years. I taught film and television narratives as a university literature instructor of undergraduates for over 15 years. I came to Sherlock prepared to recognize the show’s semantic nuances quite clearly and to delight in them until what was meant to happen for me happened. While I waited unawares I wrote meta.
I wrote Johnlock meta for fun. I found the ship (once I figured out what a ship IS) exciting, titillating. I wrote some mediocre fic. I meta’d like the pro I was. I got hung up on the cinematography, a topic I’d dabbled in but didn’t understand in any honest, practical depth until later. And I began to try to explain how shot selection and camera movement and light and color helped make meaning which I’ve always maintained is the work of the viewer ultimately. I used shipping as my case study. I waffled back and forth, argued with myself and others for the sake of fun and exercising my brain and trying out thoughts. (Wank happened but I’m not interested in talking about tjlc right now.)
So I’d written a lot of meta post S2 about my fave episodes and it turns out that they were lit by the same Director of Photography who also happened to have operated “A” camera on the eps. (Not all DoPs operate and if they do, they don’t always operate “A” camera.) I was meant to meet him. Kismet. Destiny. That was the point. I didn’t know it at the time– I just did what I was compelled to do which was to fangirl. And anyway I had no way to contact him until S3 production began and he began tweeting. I eventually asked him if he meant the real lost Vermeer of TGG to be visible in the cinematography. It was THERE but was it conscious? Yes, it turned out it was. I feel that I have been interested for years in the question of authorial “intentionality” and the transmission of a predetermined, transmitted/telegraphed meaning in narratives for the express reason that I was supposed to recognize this one person’s intelligence– the intelligence of that one person behind the camera. That was my destiny. Sherlock was just the conduit in the end for us to meet and for our acquaintanceship to grow into a cherished friendship.
We had many conversations over the years– both joking and philosophical– about Johnlock. I knew from the start that it was never consciously imprinted into the text in any way by him or the directors he worked with. The phenom kind of mystified and mildly amused him at first. Johnlock eventually grew and grew as a pop culture phenom after S3 so we did have some nuanced discussions about it from time to time- conversations about things like this, for example:
Johnlock was a topic that came up prominently in our final entanglement.
We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did – and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the mighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see each other again; perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us.
― Roland Barthes
Looking back now it was inevitable I suppose. The context of our last musings on Johnlock and its consequences made it crystal clear to me that the ship is this dangerous kind of cosmic lightning rod. If there are concepts that have mythic-level powers then that ship is one of them. John and Sherlock are these other worldly archetypes with the ability to utterly entrance people, to blind them to sense and to make them fall into a deep obsession with the world of 221b. It’s been that way since “A Study in Scarlet” found its first audience. Imbue Sherlock and John’s story with sex and/or romance and what do you get? I have mainly experienced incredible turmoil and massive psychic destruction.
What do you see going around you now in the fandom after The Final Problem?
Our problem. The final problem. Have you figured it out yet?
Sherlock beguiles us. Johnlock entices us from our moorings.
The final problem is fucking Johnlock.
The bastard form of mass culture is humiliated repetition… always new books, new programs, new films, news items, but always the same meaning.
-Roland Barthes
What is the meaning of Johnlock? How in rereading it might we disarm its power over us?
Oh yeah, the political part!
Here is one example of Johnlock at play in the wild. How many months were spent by how many people (most of them female let’s be honest) who were convinced that is would have been a Very Good Idea for Mofftiss (an imaginary entity) to HIDE the sexual attraction/romance between two men for YEARS until a grand reveal- a reveal that was, however, only anticipated, only visible to those in the know, with the secret keys to decode The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name?
Why the draw? It’s not just powerful adults brainwashing the queer youth as tumblr would have you believe. No. Johnlock is a vortex, a shorthand for every kind of power implied by the inner workings of its narrative. Sex, drugs, infidelity, secrecy, shame, hubris, ego, hedonism, desire, bodily fluids. Johnlock is inherently political.
Johnlock is the pattern formed when magnetic shavings collide on a table. It’s the phallus, the phalluses, in the steel dust.
How many problematic things come to fruition in The Final Problem? Sexism. The erasure of race (a non issue). The worship of the male genius, the pathologizing of the female, the fetish for the trappings of wealth, class difference as comedy, the unbearable romanticization of the Byronic…junkie, smackhead, who everyone serves. (How does Wiggins get by I wonder?)
I loved the episode– not because it wrapped everything up in a bow of domestic bliss and semantic certainty, but because it did quite the opposite. It blew apart– literally blew apart– the domestic petri dish that gave birth to Johnlock. And in the 221b explosion went the trappings of some twisted homonormative imperative marriage plot demanded by the show’s most obsessed, most rabid fans in the name of queer representation “a happy ending.” Those fans who degraded and damaged hundreds of real people in the name of fidelity to the coupling of TV show characters and the author-gods they made and worshiped like…dads.
Somehow The Final Problem broke the fucking spell. It derailed the fantasy and dismantled, in many permanent ways, the Johnlock “community.”
Moffat and Gatiss laid waste to Mofftiss.
We laid waste to us.
Wow. What a reading! I don’t agree with some of it (and on other points, I’m undecided), but this is a virtuoso reading. Incredibly thought-provoking a and productively challenging. Thanks, @mid0nz. This is such a valuable contribution.
I enjoyed this read, too. It articulates something I really enjoyed about TFP, and also why I’m actually HAPPY that they did not offer up the “happy ending” TJLC crowd demanded, and strongly feel that the rupture of it all is so much more desirable a consummation.
That said, I also loved the space they left for domesticity and bliss. Quite a trick, I thought.
Fascinating and well-articulated theory, but not one that rings true for me. As an older Johnlocker (who was NOT predisposed to seek slash themes in the show), I believe this theory glosses over the culpability of the writers in making Johnlock not only a viable reading of the show, but a very likely reading. The evidence for future Johnlock was overwhelmingly strong in the first three seasons, and millions of fans saw it, trusted the writers, took Johnlock to heart, and loved it passionately.
What “Moftiss” did in S4 was a form of character assassination (especially with John), and showed a meanness of spirit that took us all by surprise. Moftiss fathered Johnlock, promoted it, reveled in it, took credit for its subtle (and not-so-subtle) brilliance, and were happy when the show exploded into fame. Why they changed horses mid-stream and cruelly denounced the very fans who loved and supported Sherlock the most for seeing what they saw, hearing what they heard, believing in Johnlock as they did….well, they have some ‘splainin’ to do.
The Final Problem was a big mess, full of plot holes, contradictions and character behaviors that just don’t make sense in the canon of Sherlock past. SHERLOCK was glorious. And now, none of us can know what is to come, if it is to continue, or if Moffat and Gatiss will seek to cure the disease that afflicted S4. S4 was Mary-centric in its character arc. Redeeming Mary was beyond the pale, and ending TFP with a Mary voice-over about HER Baker Street Boys was a travesty. Mary was elevated at the expense of Sherlock and John, both. To what end?–To deny Johnlock? Throwing the baby out with the bath water is what happened. What a sad, unsatisfying ending to the glorious show that was SHERLOCK.
<p>Tfw when amazing, clever people like @thanangst articulate your every thought much more eloquently than you ever could. Thank you for this.
The evidence of Johnlock did not only blow me away during the first three seasons; especially the TLD scene with Chekov’s “romantic entanglement” and “I wanted more, and I still do” made it pretty much… inescapable to me. I left TLD in high spirits, absolutely convinced–with every fibre of my being–that TFP would bring canon Johnlock: the only logical resolution for the narrative that kept steadily building towards it, and nothing else. “Great to good”? I think that was sherlock in s3 already. “The final problem”–what? Staying alive? TLD: “I don’t want to die.” All done before TFP aired. What was TFP, then? The necessary bone thrown to sensationalist, entertainment-hungry audiences that expected a grand finale–one that was not queer?
Sherlock was never about the cases or the action or the STORIES, like TFP tried to sell us. It was from the very start the “John and Sherlock show,” and if that narrative arc should have been a platonic one then they should have shown John getting married, Sherlock being happy about it and them continuing to solve crimes after the wedding as best friends, content to be so. But we got TSoT, the tarmac, the coming back to life, TAB, TLD. You don’t build these elements into the story to not have them go off. If it was supposed to be some quietly titillating queer subtext for a minority of viewers, okay, knock yourself out–a hint here, an allusion there… but don’t structure your story like this.
but s4 as a whole is a mess to me, anyway. I’m still trying to rationalise John’s character arc. I understand it in parts–the breakdown in TLD was the required catharsis–but I remain undecided on the necessity of beating Sherlock. Likewise was Mary’s redemption arc not a redemption arc at all; it should not have happened; Mary should have gone the path that was so clearly laid for her, but she didn’t. Iceman Mycroft shrinking away from blood? Soldier John, steady and stoic, being unable shoot a man? Sherlock, the forever child, suddenly always having been the grown up? The retconning of a three subversive seasons with a patronising voice over of a character meant to be a villain? Mad woman in the attic–the necessarily mad genius because she’s a she? a baby i was supposed to care about but which didn’t actually make it into the show at all, leaving me cold? The INCREDULITY of blowing 221b up and I just don’t care at all? The back story of the protagonist revealed–arguably the climax–and it’s so weak, so badly done, even non-Johnlockers shout it’s fake because it’s just so bad?
Welcome to sherlock season four. Where every established story writing rule is laid to rest and consistency and narrative arcs matter no longer.
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
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.
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!
That’s not shade. That’s fucking harassment. Asking a gay writer that question, a gay writer with a serious track record of real-world activism and who has, you know, actually written about queer people before, just because he didn’t make your OTP canon.
What the above poster said. I am frankly disgusted that in any universe I would be associated with so called “fans”
Mark has campaigned for LGBT causes his whole life, being Parton of Gay Switchboard to name just one. He’s outspoken and out. He’s also a gay man who grew up during a time (and in a place, not being in a metropolitan area S a kid) where being a gay man would have been difficult. He is a fine ambassador for our community and I have nothing but respect for him in that area.
How dare you attack a man like him just because your ship didn’t become canon.
Mark puts his activism in the real world. Directs it at real problems. I suggest these so called fans do the same.
I haven’t yet witnessed anyone calling him names, or sending threats, or mobbing him a violent way, I’ve been quietly watching for a week now, and he’s getting a lot of mentions, but nothing outlandish imo
The tweet I screenshot here is an example of how people are demonstrating their hurt. It’s concise, and petty yes, but is that harassment? I wouldn’t even consider it. It’s just another one of many speaking their hurt. People trust him exactly because of who he is, and those same people are feeling betrayal for it.
Mark is a powerful, secure man with a block button. He hasn’t even attempted to block the mildly infamous dymm the real yet. I think he’ll be just fine.
I don’t think anyone sane denies Mark is A) a gay man and B) done good things for the community. I don’t think this was ever about ignoring or denying things he’s done right. Doing good things doesn’t negate mistakes you have or will make either.
A lot of people opposing this wave of backlash moftiss are getting keep with the same mantra, the ‘because your ship didn’t become canon’ thing.
I implore you to reevaluate all the facts. Mark has openly admitted in the past to purposely toying with homoeroticism in Sherlock. The No-Homo, Not a Love Story narrative is a relatively recent development when you consider the entire seven year lifespan, particularly after the reaction following S3 – whereafter it could simply no longer be ignored. There is a multitude of reasons why people feel the way they do, and the largest majority of those reasons stems from their own use of romantic devices and tropes, their cast calling it a love story, ‘the gayest love story’, etc etc, not to even touch on the fact they numerous times cite TPLOSH as a template and their muddy use of ‘we lie we lie we lie’ to obstruct people from drawing clear conclusions. This is wholly without bringing the loads of ACD queer academic readings, and the fact that they have boldly promoted themselves as ‘groundbreaking’, ‘fixing something no one has gotten right yet’, and do you really expect queer people not to get excited when your show is promoted with the line ‘Sherlock Holmes is back and is in love – with who?’ Really? It’s exactly as it sounds – queerbaiting. It’s relying on the excitement of people invested in the main relationship of the show between two characters that happen to be male and not following through.
So really, it’s a little more than being denied an OTP. Young gay kids who love this show thought, genuinely, the evidence was too much and too undeniable to possibly not be real, that their heroes and faves were really, finally going to be textualised in some shape or form.
They, the fans, just didn’t expect a gay man to be on the other end of their disappointment. It’s not that he doesn’t care about LGBT as a whole, it’s why, in this instance, for everything he’s said and done regarding this show and the main relationship, for all his knowledge of ‘softly softly’ representation, and he must be aware, he must be, why did he do this – or alternatively allow this to happen? He has, objectively when you critically analyse and break down his writing on this show, written a romantic narrative (perhaps Steven more than he).
People are in pain. They are frustrated. Combine that with the fact that TFP (well S4 overall but particularly TFP) makes no sense and no real connection with the rest of the series, and overall seems to be poorly executed (another mention to destroying the 3G scene in what can only be seen as self destruction and entirely contradictory to earlier receipts on what they believe for 3G), AND then you throw in the villains as being the only textualised queer characters… it’s a nasty blow to people who idolise this man.
So, gay or not Mark is a big boy. He’s rich, and in a position of power with a fanbase he’s slowly spotted his track record with by talking down on them at more than one occasion. He’s clearly able to throw his weight around, he can shut down anyone he wants to. He has yet to do so.
I’m a fan of Mark. He’s is, maybe was, a role model of mine. I think he’s incredibly intelligent, and I think if and when he decides to engage the alienated fans who fill his pocket, on level, in fair discussion and offer closure if anything, people will settle down. He needs to address the very community that means so much to him, that he’s attracted through his very own work.
This isn’t harassment, this is the audience doing anything they can to engage the authorgod. This is ACD vs. his mourning, angry readers in the 21st century.
It’s hilarious when a sherlolly thinks johnlockers are being harassing when they ask a writer in plain ol’ sarcasm on whether or whether not queer people will be represented, but when a sherlolly tells a johnlocker that they deserve to be abused, it’s either ignored or justified.
I haven’t seen any blatant verbal abuse to either of the writers in my time here, and fuck it all I sure as hell would tell a fellow johnlocker to stop it if I had seen any for myself. Plus, Mark Gatiss is big boy, he can handle his own, and he sure doesn’t need any protection from anyone.
Yeah, I didn’t misspell for a fucking good reason. Bite my ass.
We are truly not sorry for standing up for our rights and to fight against queer baiting. Mark is a gay man and that’s why we thought he wouldn’t treat us like this. Well we were wrong and now we raise our voice. If you Sherlolly shipper or whatever straight ship you ship have a problem with that log out and continue telling yourself how awful we are. I don’t care and I won’t stay quiet about what they did to us and the whole lgbtq+ community. And this is not just about Johnlock not being canon but about how they called it a joke and how funny it was to see queer kids hoping to get for some respectful representation.
honestly. it’s kind of cute that people are trying to claim the moral high ground by defending mofftiss from our vicious attacks. like, nobody is excusing death threats or actual real life harrassment and i haven’t seen anything of the like; what we have on one side is a bunch of passive aggressive tweets by a frustrated subset of fans, predominantly queer/marginalized people who voice their frustration on social media after being queerbaited and treated condescendingly for years. on the other side we have two rich middle-aged cis men turned author gods who can’t even admit that they have made continuity mistakes because this would touch their massive ego in ways they find slightly inconvenient; i know your intentions are noble but you won’t get a cookies for defending them from some tired gays who want closure
I understand where you’re coming from, nonny, and if you want more, then please, absolutely keep hope that there will be a series 5 and that it will be everything you dream it will be. ❤
For me though, at this point I would very much like for this to be the end, if this is how they’ve chosen to proceed. I won’t deny that the show they have given us through TAB has been beautiful and well-crafted, and I would have loved to see more of that show. I don’t know what happened with this series, but all of that seems to have gone out the window. Here we get plot holes so large you could drive a freight train through them. And yes there have always been plot holes–even small ones crop up in the most carefully crafted of stories–but there are so many nonsensical things done here or plot lines that start and then go nowhere or are waved away again with a single line of exposition that it’s sometimes hard to see the threads of story that remain around them.
What I find most unforgivable though is the drastic 180 in characterization for almost everyone. We get Mary being repeatedly tied to actions Sherlock believes to be related to Moriarty and drugging people and running off to do whatever the fuck she wants even though it means continuing to lie to and gaslight the husband she’s supposedly trying to protect, and then apparently some kind of wildly over-the-top, sacrificial death is supposed to redeem her completely. We get Molly who was given the chance to finally move on and get over Sherlock in s3, and then she’s just been dragged kicking and screaming back into s1-style pining hell for the purpose of… actually I’m still not even really sure what the purpose of that scene was other than emotional cruelty to everyone involved. We get Mycroft who was so concerned about protecting Sherlock that he apparently ensured his baby sister remained locked away in a secret prison facility for her entire life, and then he still brings James Moriarty to have a fun little chat with her, despite knowing that Eurus wants him there entirely because he wants to fuck with Sherlock. We get John promising to look after Sherlock at the end of TAB, and then he does nothing of the sort anywhere in s4–ignoring his growing drug abuse problems, beating the shit out of him, going so far as to barely even protest when Sherlock threatens to actually kill himself to end Eurus’ game. (I honestly have a ton more complaints about what was done with John this series, but I’ll stop there for now.)
Sherlock is the only character who hasn’t really done some kind of ridiculous flip-flopping here, but what they put him through in TFP in particular was entirely unnecessary. He has repeatedly sacrificed everything for John, has again and again shown his heart in how he treats his friends and his clients, particularly with [the woman he thought was] Faith Smith who he spent all night with just to keep her from killing herself, and the writers here decided that for whatever bizarre reason he really just needed to hug his rapist, murderer sister, who he didn’t even know existed before this episode, in order to be fully humanized. But he already was. He already was. The real highlight of this series has been that they showed that off so well–Sherlock was incandescently human throughout all three episodes–but really he’s been so human for so, so long now. Since the moment that he stepped off of a rooftop to save three lives. Hell, since the moment he asked a suicidal army doctor to move in with him and took him out on a case because he thought it would give that man a purpose again. Sherlock’s beautiful heart has always been on display. TFP wasn’t at all necessary to show us that. We could all see it–all of us except Mark and Steven, I guess.
Admittedly, yes, there are parts of this series that I have liked, in all three episodes. There are parts I have even loved, including the majority of TLD where both Ben and Martin’s talents were given so much beautiful room to play. But Moftiss have made egregious, unforgivable missteps here, sacrificing so much of their previously careful storytelling and characterization at the altar of the “cleverness” of the Eurus puzzle. And the sad part is that it wasn’t even really a puzzle. The thing about puzzles is that there have to be clues there to help you figure them out along the way. When Mary was revealed in CAM Tower in HLV, there had been clues throughout TEH and TSOT that she wasn’t perhaps the woman she seemed. There were no clues within the story that pointed to Eurus being the woman John was texting or being Faith Smith (and what even was the purpose of her doing either of those things anyway? yet another thing that was never addressed). There were no clues that Moriarty’s “final problem” that he referenced way back in TRF was ever going to turn out to be a jigsaw prison game with Sherlock’s unknown, psychopath sister. This wasn’t a puzzle. It was a mess, and they went all in on it, reshaping their characters and outright ignoring the show’s history to cram this series into a Eurus-shaped tin. And it didn’t work. It didn’t work, and I don’t want to see more of this version of the show.
I didn’t sleep much last night, in fact not slept much since the BFI screening to be honest, and at 4am I decided to play Devil’s Advocate and look at how we all ended up here. Not my interpretation of the show, but as an observer, tried to be as removed as a life long Holmesian I can be. Granted I cannot separate my own bias, so a clinical analyse cannot be really done. My aim is not to defend anyone nor to attack. So let’s have a go at it anyway. Under the cut as it’s long:
i have like. a lot to say about why sherlock failed as t.v. show bc i think as a writer it’s a really crucial study in how to ruin a good premise/beginning and tbh if not to just … study how not to handle characters it’s pretty fascinating bc there are some truths which i feel it’s necessary to point out:
nobody likes to feel cheated at the end of the story.
death only matters if it’s forever and it’s rare.
on that note, there should be consequences for actions.
trust your characters to be interesting without unnecessary drama.
throwing plot at your characters feels less real than having their desires make them walk fully into the glass door of plot
if you’re going to make one of your characters “a sociopath” or disabled with ptsd or any other mental or physical illness, do extensive research into the personal experiences of those who suffer it and handle it with gravitas; don’t just vanish a character’s disability because it’s inconvenient to have them use a cane etc.
when there’s a good plot twist with nice foreshadowing, the audience loves it. when there’s just always plot twists, the author loves plot twists more than his own story.
surprise isn’t always a good thing.
“it was all a dream/joke/mirage/spell” is literally the weakest form of writing yourself out of a corner and is incredibly annoying to read/watch
queerbaiting is ugly
ride rollercoasters, not a broken elevator. have some stretches between plunges. your story can speed ahead and stay interesting without diving into hell again.
having a Big Bad Evil doesn’t make the story interesting; in fact having “monster of the week” problems feels more authentic and enjoyable
write your women like people and let them have plots that have nothing to do with men.
just because you’re good doesn’t mean that you are above critique or getting better. you should always be challenging yourself to outdo your previous self, not resting on the laurels of a previously effective moment
characters don’t have to be overpowered to be interesting
if a character’s emotions all exist on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most emotion that an emotion can be (the saddest/angriest/broodiest), do not let that character hit a 10 until you are ready to be done with them forever
Just because the writers turned out to be assholes doesnt mean i didn’t actually see that love story though???
Now it just feels like the wirter died and never finished it, or went through a suden conversion where they dont like their work anymore, or they got suddenly fired and someone new came in to make some new episodes that no longer feel like canon
It just feels like the show never got renewed for a 4th season so the plotline of pining-sherlock, closeted-john, evil-mary and secretly-alive moriarty just never got to close due to outside influence
I don’t AT ALL feel like ‘they were never going to get together’, ‘you misread it’ or ‘that wasnt the creators intent’
Because honestly i usually don’t give much of a shit about the writer of a story unless im interested in their other work, which i’m decidedly not interested in now.
like
I still read a bunch of ACD stories and saw love there
I still read a million fics and saw love
i still watched TPLOSH and saw love
like
Just because BBC Sherlock is DEAD doesnt mean Sherlock and John dont love eachother?
it just means i never get to SEE it
Which is awful
but we’ve all loved a show that died too early, or who fired its writers
So lets do what fandom has ALWAYS done
Finish the story ourselves
(((i think we just need a new tag))))
THIS. SO MUCH.
We weren’t blind, we listened and we heard right, and it’s up to us to write and paint and draw and blog and imagine the REAL ending to the story.
Steven, Mark, and Sue might even be bewildered at the extreme reaction they got for TFP
All time low ratings
Complaints filed at the BBC
Scathing backlash from reputable news sources
That other hellsite Twitter that they could not run away from like Tumblr
People actually applauding their elaborate farce of an episode as legit
When they were hoping that we would stay clever at the crucial moment
Or did we all abandon them like John did at the lab in TRF?
Maybe this only feels cruel because we expected it to be less clever, i. e., the resolution to every fucky thing, finally
We expected it to be less clever, aka explicit, a spoon-feeding of explanations
We gave more weight to this episode as “more official and legit” when it should have had the same weight as the other episodes
But if we look at this from the mindset that they are still mind-fucking us TAB style, the emotions would not run as high on our side, and will not be as bewildering on their end
They have been doing in S4 what they’ve been doing since TAB
It’s fandom’s reaction that’s different now, suddenly too angry and violent
Suddenly it became dangerous to hope, when we’ve been doing that for years just as they’ve been making this show clever for years
It’s suddenly a hostage situation where it’s “Stop this shit or I’ll kill myself” to the creators and “You’re responsible for people’s mental health so stop giving them hope” to fellow fans
Why did we allow TFP to give license to fellow fans to take our hope and logic hostage
Why did we allow TFP to give license to fellow fans to
suddenly lose their agency over their own lives
Why did we allow TFP to give license to fellow fans to decide that what we’ve been doing for years with the material is suddenly the irresponsible, dangerous, Stockholm Syndrome way to read the text
What we’ve been doing for years, putting together clues, is suddenly a moral failing now
How did we suddenly U-turn in our approach to this material
How is suddenly changing how we examine the text the “voice of reason” now
It was fandom expectation that suddenly made this episode – hell, this season – feel like a betrayal
We are the ones that suddenly refused to engage in the text-reader contract
We are in the perspective of the aggrieved party believing them to have failed us, when they have been consistently delivering what we wanted, a conspiracy that turns out to have been right all along
They teamed up with Amazon, Twitter, Russia’s Channel One, The Telegraph, and BBC News to make us even more engaged than ever
We are the ones who changed, who suddenly left in the middle of the story and blamed the story teller and called it a shit tale when it hasn’t even ended yet
We wanted to be spoon-fed for once and threw a tantrum that we were still treated as grown ups with agency and thought and willingness to feast
We are the ones who failed them, fellow fans, and the material itself
No. We did not fail them. Questioning your interpretation of a television show after being gaslit, big reveal or not, is perfectly healthy.
We are all handling this as we need to. Don’t judge. I have more faith in us than I do in the writers.
Please don’t say this. People were self harming in anguish. I spoke to a few on twitter, there were a few considering suicide. We can’t defend the effect TFP had on LGBTQ youth. If this was a stunt it was badly thought out and went spectacularly wrong. There has to be an accounting for this eventually. We did not fail them.
This is the EXACT rhetoric used against abuse victims. We are a community of queer women and trans people. WE did not fail them, they failed US, not just in TFP but countless other times. These men do not deserve glory and praise for hurting us, for gaslighting us, for emotionally and mentally abusing us (that’s part of what gaslighting is). We never deserved this. We don’t owe them a single thing.
Sorry @consultingeastwind. just consider for one moment that it wasn’t a marketing stunt but that they just fucked us. That they took the piss. I won’t defend people who make fun of my hopes or use them for some twisted marketing purposes.
Believe what you want but please stop telling others that criticising Mofftiss is failing them; that they are not real fans when they question what happened with TFP and the whole of S4. This is actually dangerous. We are not a cult, and if we are as smart as we always thought we were we simply can’t have blind trust in people who have proofen so far not to care about us regarding the fallout after TFP.
We haven’t failed them and we owe them nothing. On the contrary, we are entitled to voice our criticism. Because we are an intelligent, thinking fandom, not lemmings.
All of the above. This is not a cult. Critical thinking is not a sign of being a bad fan. And so far the creators did neither interact with us in regards of our criticism nor encourage us to take a closer look at the episode. We can’t fail them because they apparently don’t care about us.
Reblogging for the replies.
Stop defending privileged cis men who don’t give a shit about you except for how much money you can put in their pockets. Don’t put their over-inflated egos ahead of marginalised people’s desire for representation, and their very real and justified hurt and sense of betrayal. Don’t blame the victims and defend the perpetrators. Just don’t do it.
Mark and Steve don’t need your support. They’re laughing all the way to the bank. Your community needs you right now. Support them.
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