myladylyssa:

madgirlspoem:

wssh-watson:

madgirlspoem:

This is not about the resolution of a TV show which is currently an open text and may as well continue to be so for the next 20 years.

This is not about predictions or decoding.

This is about intelligent readings and queer subtext and the labor that goes into fans making sense of convoluted narratives in the search for satisfying media and queer representation.

This is about giftedness and queerness and the wages of being different. 

(This also got long).

Because if there’s one thing I learned from being part of the BBC Sherlock fandom is that a large number of you, us, fans, are unusually gifted. Whether that giftedness manifests as mental prowess, scholarly achievements, high empathetic IQ, artistic talent or writing virtuosity, we got invested in this show because we all wanted more: more compelling plots, more complex characters, more nuanced queer representation. We wanted more. We wanted something different, different from heteronormative romcoms and linear crime stories. We wanted messy and clever and queer and human. Why wouldn’t we want that? That sounds groundbreaking.

I think it’s no coincidence that we got hooked in a show centered on a protagonist that is coded as gifted, neuro-divergent, and queer. We—so many of us female-identified people—are tired of having the world explained to us by men. And Sherlock, that most human human calculator, seemed miraculously positioned beyond the world of rigid binaries. He appears brilliant but insecure, suicidal and arrogant, interested in humanity but disinterested in heteronormativity. He can be read as trans, a gay man, an asexual, a demiromantic, autistic, bipolar. Different always. Gifted always. Conventional never.

We have been writing this amazing character, you and you and you and you. For years. Your labor gave it life. Your intelligence gave him depth. (The same can be said about John Watson). When canon gave you scraps, you made tapestries. When it gave you gaps, you filled them with intricate designs. You made this show rich and warm and human. You did. You did. With your creative and interpretative labor. By following the clues embedded in a carefully crafted queer subtext. You. Your labor did it. Your giftedness did it. Your desire for different representation, for deeper meaning did it.

Now. We were always in for this ride of humanizing the gifted detective, soften  the edges of the broken doctor. With love. (fan love, textual love, queer love, creators’ love) Love, not abuse masquerading as pedagogy. Humanization, not humiliation—fans, girls, people, there’s an abyss of difference between these words.

And that’s it. This is where I draw a harsh line: if you are a gifted/ neuro-divergent/ queer person you probably have been told at some point in life that you need to apologize for your difference, that you need to learn to take what love you can get because you aren’t worth much. That you must labor twice as much to get little back. If on top of that you perceived as a “fangirl” then your labor loses even more value—you only care about sex and schmaltz and “gay men doing it.” Your work of reading texts, of LOVING TEXTS, gets undermined by male creators devaluing your intelligence, your interpretation, your emotional investment. 

Well. Fuck that. Please say this with me. Fuck that toxic excuse boys will be boys so violence between them is condoned. Fuck the idea female characters must invariably conform into Victorian models of wifely care-taking and self-sacrifice, EVEN if they are presented as assassins. Fuck the destructive narrative gifted people must be beaten down until they apologize for their capacities, as if betrayal and physical abuse ever made anyone a better human being.

Fuck the notion queer audiences must scrounge for every ounce of subtext and then origami inconsistent narratives into tiny slivers of positive representation because we are SO starved for queer happy endings.

Fuck “fangirls” having to make excuses for male creators’ mistakes, inconsistencies, failures and shortcomings.

And above all, fuck the idea that mass produced and distributed fiction/media should *not* be held to a higher standard than “harmless entertainment”.

Damn it, let’s be real here: we all most likely were saved by fiction at some point in our lives. Books, movies, video games, songs—stories save lives, they make sense of lives. Hell, history has we know it is mostly stories told by victors or people in positions of privileged (beginning with alphabetization).

So damn it, stop letting media (male!) creators off the hook that easily. You stuff your show with queer subtext, you are RESPONSIBLE for it and you are liable to your audiences to address it. You don’t get to keep gaslighting and whiplashing your fans—all your freaking fans at this point— with plot inconsistencies, unaddressed callbacks, and veiled queer references, only to deride them if they refuse to keep laboring for YOU by attempting to make sense of the mess you made of your own show. (You don’t get to call bright fans stupid if they call you out on your muddled writing).

Guess what: Johnlock fans asking for canon queer representation are only following the clues you seeded in your own show. And they deserve better than a contrived plot where gifted queer people only earn love after a beating, or only find their humanity after losing their pride and sense of security.

Or that they can only experience a moment of same-sex intimacy (that long-awaited hug) after said physical contact is followed by discussions on heterosexual courtship behavior (having John’s texts to E being equated with Sherlock’s texts to Irene and both linked with sexual interest). Damn it if that’s not too close to no-homo for my comfort. I don’t want have to write/read 20 posts on subtext to be able to validate a reading of queer romance. I want it to be in PLAIN VIEW, to be TEXT, literal, formalized, spoken, made clear as day, for everybody to see, the same way hetero romance is, every day, all the time!!

Damn it. You know you deserve better when the only way to salvage positive queer representation is to erase the whole narrative in a “it was all a dream” deus-ex-machina scenario (and I love you EMP people, but to me your brilliant and well-researched theory signifies more keenly how intrinsically discontent fans have been with the inconsistencies of canonical narrative since HLV, so much so that some fans had to outsmart the creators and come up with a theory that would actually be clever, if albeit unlikely).

Yes, it’s an open text. You can stick with it or you can walk away. You are not smarter for staying, nor dumb for leaving. You are not an “anti”, nor a fair-weather fan (that’s not a thing, by the way).

Whatever you do remember this (particularly if you are young/alienated/oppressed):  your labor is valid. Your emotional investment is valid. Your non-normative readings are valid. You are a fan and you are queer and you are different and you are neuro-atypical and you are pretty damn smart. And for that alone, you always deserve more, better than a queer world designed according to some men’s tipsy-turvy views on what giftedness and same-sex love looks like.

Tagging some people I have been following regarding this: @a-different-equation, @femmelocked, @sweeter-than-cynicism, @ravenmorganleigh, @sussexbound, @wssh-watson, @atikiology (yes you are that person now), @xistentialangst

Bringing this back because it’s so important and @madgirlspoem is a wonder and I’m proud to have her here.

Thank you, dear @wssh-watson! I am going to go on a long, restorative hiatus, but in the face of what just happened let me add:

Dear BBC Sherlock creators, may one day Oscar Wilde have your heads in a silver platter.

Thank you, @madgirlspoem, for this post. May your hiatus be restorative, and may we have your voice again.