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.
the thing is, a lot of the plot holes don’t matter. it doesn’t actually matter about how they survived the explosion or got on the boat or got john out of the well. the problem is that the overall conclusion of the episode’s plot, no matter how you look at it, is unnecessary. we didn’t need this episode for Sherlock to realize that he’s better with his emotional connections in juxtaposition to Eurus’s lack of them, because Sherlock realized that exact thing in TAB and acted in accordance with that realization in TST and TLD. we didn’t need Sherlock’s family to be remade in a better image because the underlying love between Sherlock and Mycroft has always been clear, even if it hasn’t been perfect. we didn’t need Sherlock to understand the importance of having or saving a best friend because he realized it in TRF. we understood from the end of TLD that John and Sherlock have reconciled and are now ready to trust each other and work in partnership again (which TFP actually undermined by Sherlock ignoring John’s Vatican Cameos warning, incidentally). we knew Sherlock was willing to die to protect his loved ones two seasons ago. there was no emotional fall-out or gain for the characters on the basis of going through Eurus’s games.
we just…didn’t need a single thing this episode gave us. that’s the plot hole I can’t let go of. that’s what makes this so unsatisfying. it wasn’t just sloppy, it was a waste.
That would have been SUCH an embarrassing moment for Eurus because she couldn’t kill her. What would she say? “Uhm … well … yeah, go to the next room, we try to call her later!”
A person who can predict terrorist attacks but didn’t consider THAT, lmao
mom sue just told me the art department took time to paint tab’s director on a pub sign and people tryna tell me they did #alla that tfp cause they didnt care
I’m so glad it wasn’t just me who felt this way!! I went back to the episode to find the exact quotes on the queercoding side of things. First we’ve got Eurus, who has this interaction with Sherlock:
Eurus: Oh! Have you had sex? Sherlock: Why do you ask? Eurus: The music. I’ve had sex. Sherlock: How? Eurus: One of the nurses got careless. I liked it. Messy, though. People are so breakable. Sherlock: I take it he didn’t consent? Eurus: “He”? Sherlock: She? Eurus: Afraid I didn’t notice in the heat of the moment. And afterwards, well, you couldn’t really tell.
Here we have Sherlock, the hero, establishing a heteronormative, non-consensual narrative for what happened; Eurus wrongfoots him by queering this narrative. Throughout their conversation, Eurus is scaring him, setting him off balance, being cruel. This has been the pattern of their conversation so far. So when she introduces queerness, it’s implied that she is intending to have that same effect: of scaring, setting off balance, seeming morally wrong to Sherlock’s morally right. She explicitly states that gender doesn’t affect her sexual choices, which would usually be indicative of, perhaps, pansexuality – but it’s done in a way that’s frightening and destabilising both for Sherlock and for the viewer. Queerness is a trump card for her to play, here, another weapon.
Then we have Moriarty. Firstly, he arrives to the tune of I Want to Break Free by Queen – lead singer Freddie Mercury, “self-confessed bi-sexual”/ The joke in the song name is there, it’s funny, but then you pair that reference with what Moriarty says and things become a bit more nasty. There are two snippets for him:
Moriarty [apropos of nothing, speaking out of the blue]: Do you like my boys? This one’s got more stamina, but he’s less caring in the afterglow.
and
Mycroft: You’re a Christmas present. Moriarty: Oh! How do you want me?
In the first instance, the words are being spoken to the head of the prison; in the second, to Mycroft. Both times, knowing Moriarty as we do, we assume that they are meant to frighten – since that’s kind of his whole thing whenever he talks at all.
Both of these villains use queerness to destabilise the “normal”, to take the good guys’ heteronormative worlds and twist them, add an edge of unexpected danger. Queerness is quite clearly written in TFP as something you shouldn’t do, something that is frightening to do, something you can use as a threat, something you can use as a weapon. This is never challenged. There is no positive queer narrative to counteract it. It’s not a bad thing to have a queer villain – but when both villains are explicitly queer and no one else is, that’s queercoding. It’s hugely damaging. When people react negatively to queerness for no reason they can put their finger on – when people tell you “it just makes them feel weird” or “it grosses them out” or “it makes them nervous” – point fingers at this. It’s this that solidifies the connection between queerness and deviance, queerness and dangerous mental imbalance, queerness and moral wrongness. And it sucks.
This makes me want to cry. I missed some of that dialogue (noisy family members) when I watched it, and this is such a clear explanation. I just don’t understand why the writers would do that. I really want to believe the best of them, but this really is inexcusable.
i like that eurus is apparently the explanation for everything? miss me? eurus. affair lady? eurus. culverton smith? eurus. therapist? eurus. a drone somehow flying into 221B with a grenade? eurus. sherlock playing the violin? eurus. sherlock liking dogs? eurus. where the heck is rosie? idk eurus probably knows
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