#which continue to be grounded in a notion that only the Most Deserving and Virtuous Poor should be ‘allowed’ to thrift shop

[nonasuch]

your thrift store write up doesn't even account for gentrification and white people going out of their way to enter underprivileged communities of color for clothing, or the corny trend of thin people taking any nice quality plus size item they can find to "upcycle", ive seen both with my own eyes and it seems like you're just ignoring both of these very valid points that poor people have about the mainstream granola ass thrifting community 💁🏽

...so, this is the exact framing I am arguing against, actually.

Because this framing ignores the realities of the secondhand economy, especially the part about the 24/7/365 firehose of new inventory. the overwhelming majority of these items are not scarce. we are not competing for a limited resource. there will be a new truckload tomorrow.

I cannot overstate just how much clothing gets donated in the US every year. Most thrifts turn their entire inventory over every couple of weeks, and often they literally can’t process new inventory fast enough to get it all out on the floor.

(and yes, in the decade or so that I’ve been going to thrift stores on a near-weekly basis, prices have gone up somewhat, overall. You know what else has gone up in price? Fucking everything! Commercial rents are bonkers. Calling it gentrification is blaming the wrong end of the problem — you’re holding individual shoppers responsible for the much larger forces that are keeping wages flat.)

Maybe the thrift stores are very different where you live, but mine are not plagued by wealthy white people arriving from far-off exurbs seeking plunder. Most of the thrifts I frequent are within 15 minutes of my apartment, in the community where I live, which is majority-POC. The people I see shopping there are my neighbors. The people who work there are my neighbors, too, and we support them by shopping at their store.

Also, if that actually is happening — if minivans full of rapacious white soccer moms are driving an hour-plus into neighborhoods that make them nervous, in numbers that actually affect the bottom line of the stores they descend upon — then that would mean that thrift stores in low-income majority-POC neighborhoods are... regularly getting large cash infusions? Which they use to pay their staff (who mostly live in the same community) and support any charities they’re affiliated with? and that’s... bad, I guess?

Are the thrift stores in my area just wildly different from everywhere else? What am I missing here?

Also! I agree that it’s shitty to buy plus-size clothing only to cut it down! I just disagree that this happens with enough frequency to put a dent in the firehose of new inventory. It’s very visible, because the people who do it like to post on social media about it, but that does not actually make it prevalent!

Really starting to feel like all this is an idea of ‘who shops at thrifts’ that’s largely based on the tiny minority of thrifters who constantly post about thrifting on social media.

[maggiemay67]

The person who dared to talk about the elephant in the room-An open letter to Moffat-

“It is infuriating, frankly, to be talking about a serious subject and to have Twitter run around and say, oh, that means Sherlock is gay. Very explicitly it does not. We are taking a serious subject and trivializing it beyond endurance,” Moffat said.

Mr Moffat, I wanted to write directly to you, in order to discuss your above statement, as well as addressing a few other things that have been troubling me recently. I sincerely hope that this finds it’s way to you somehow.With that said then I shall begin.

In regards to your statement above:

It is you ( not the fans) who has taken a serious subject and trivialised it beyond endurance.

What do you really know about the Johnlock/TJLC element of your fan base?A selection of drawings or fan fictions of compromising positions and plotless porn, picked specifically to raise some eyebrows and generate a few smirks on a show like Graham Norton, maybe?Look closer at us please.For the majority of us it is not simply gay sex that fans lust after at any cost to plot line or character development.It is rather the confirmation that (sexual or not) John and Sherlock are in love and are in fact in a deep, meaningful and exclusive relationship with one another.A relationship that is stated, not simply implied, and that transcends friendship to the point of it being the most enduring and important of their respective lives.People can be in love and be absolute soulmates without ever consummating it in a physical sense.The TJLC community is fully aware of that fact and respects it as a lifestyle choice, as equally as they respect any other representation of sexuality.If you think that this passion from the fans for these two characters, simply boils down to a bunch of rabid and hormonal young teenage girls wanting a cheap thrill by seeing Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch shag on a BBC screen,then you really don’t know the fans,the TJLC or the LGBT community tied to this show at all.You really don’t understand a thing about this and why it matters to so many people.Trivialising a serious subject?How can a group of people be trivialising a serious subject, when the entirety of them are either supporters of or LGBT themselves?How are these people therefore trivialising it?Trivialise the subject?How so?By backing your versions of these characters and placing their trust in you because they believed the story you were actually telling ( using credible and talented A list celebrities) could be ground breaking, monumental and would actually give them the representation that they desperately deserve on the scale that they desperately deserve?

Trivialising?

No Moffat, trivialising would be to knowingly involve yourself in queer baiting for seven years in order to exploit an element of the audience that follow your show.The actions of someone dramatically letting down an element of society who are relying on them.

I’m sure you are already clued up on the expression that defines what you are doing but I’ll remind you of the specific definition just in case…

“In a fannish context, queer baiting (or queerbaiting) is a term used to describe the perceived attempt by canon creators (typically of television shows) to woo queer fans and/or slash fans, but with no intention of actually showing a gay relationship being consummated on screen.”

I’m not going into all the examples of your queer baiting in Sherlock. Quite frankly, there are too many embarrassingly BLATANT instances purposefully loaded throughout every one of your episodes.I’m therefore going to ask the TJLC/Johnlock fans that you seem to view with contempt for ‘trivialising homosexuality’, to think of their most obvious example/s and then ask themselves this key question?

Knowing what you know (of the show as it stands), who has really succeeded in trivialising sexuality beyond endurance in this instance?Yourselves or the creator of this show?The one I am currently addressing..

My brother is about as big a fan, and as knowledgable,of the original canon as yourself. he has told me that he is actually slightly uncomfortable with the way you are, ‘including completely unnecessary gay subtext/references in every episode’.He suggests that their wasn’t a need to allude to that in his fav version (Jeremy Brett) in order to make it successful, so why the need now?

Seeds have to be planted in people’s minds for them to grow.Even those non TJLC viewers like my brother are able to see it.

So please feel free to answer the perfectly reasonable question from a non TJLC member.Why exactly have you felt the need to include so many queer references?

Do you need some reminding of these references?Very well…

You began your first episode with a dinner conversation between the two main male leads regarding boyfriends and girlfriends all being fine.You made it sound like John was coming onto Sherlock and Sherlock was rejecting him.You made the land lady believe that they were gay ( time and time again you had her mention it).If you had stopped there and never said another damn word about it after that first episode,or even season, then I ( and others like me) would have likely forgiven you and accepted the mild queerbaiting at the beginning of your show. Accepted it as a way to simply address the notion that some people believed the relationship to be more than what ACD actually imagined it to be.

HOWEVER

You continued it…..you continued it through most ( if not every) episode you’ve ever written.You continued to make the gay jokes/the relationship jokes.You continued to plant the seeds and water them for seven years and now,when the garden is blooming in all the colours of the rainbow, you are complaining about the suffocating landscape!

If what you have said in your interviews turns out to be the truth (platonic bromance and not romantic relationship) then how dare you attack and mock those poor fans (whose only crime in all of this was to actually be tricked into believing your blatant lies through the narrative you presented to them).

You might still be wondering what could possibly have been the catalyst for such a rant from myself.Well read on because there’s an East wind coming….

I just watched a video of the Q and A section at the screening and you completely let yourself down Mr Moffat.So rude and abrupt to a person who clearly has their heart invested in your show. I am Embarrassed and mortified to call you a fellow Scot because that kind of attitude is why people wrongly assume we are miserable c**** at times!

The thing that really made my blood boil ( apart from your condescending tone and borderline sexist remark to that person )was the fact that you actually had the audacity to jump down their throat for daring to mention something which your OWN show members/staff have been tweeting and teasing for months.That damn elephant in the room ehhhh! Always causing problems….however self inflicted it is..

In that screening, I watched you completely cut that person to the bone as you callously talked over and demeaned them. You said something really patronising and sarcastic about Sherlock and John going away to do the dishes now ( because they asked about their relationship).Something about them solving crimes cause that’s what the books say they do ( like the person isn’t fully aware of ACD and his far superior narrative ).

You felt it was a good idea to Mock someone for their ‘lack of knowledge’ of the original canon, whilst you yourself are arsing up your own fan fiction version of the canon by choosing to M Night shamalan it to bits at the final curtain call. It’s now at the point where it’s got that many gaping plot holes,that it resembles Sherlock’s sitting room wall during a particularly complex case! It’s not even remotely clever any more! Has anyone had the balls to actually tell you that to your face?Through all the gushing and fawning has anyone provided a reality check this season?I mean the simplicity and brilliance of series ½ compared to series ¾.Moriarty just being wonderfully Moriarty in those seasons, to what we must endure now…Scooby Doo villain reveals …to name but one… If you are so virtuous and true to your beloved ACD and his books, then why did you have an entire season of Mary and even introduce a baby?Do you honestly think that ACD would ever have enjoyed or wanted the Watson and Sherlock sitcom that we got landed with for a time?Coupled with the ridiculous Mary/Assassin backstory. Don’t even get me started on the secret sister/ evil genius plot.

Jumping the shark much Moffat?

This ain’t lesbian aliens and their assistants from Doctor Who that we are dealing with after all.It’s ACD and we can’t offend him by changing or defining the relationship of his two male protagonists, can we?

You have the cheek to mock that person at the screening for asking about a Johnlock relationship ( specifically where it goes from here) when you yourself cultivated and encouraged fans like them to latch onto and care about that very thing. Perhaps you did do that in the beginning to hook a certain type of audience in order to generate a cult popularity.However the show got massive very quickly and you still continued it. So I ask the question again.Why did you continue to do it? You seem to despise and deny it’s very existence at every opportunity, so why continue it?One mention (by an eager Johnlock fan) about the Johnlock relationship (fuelled by your loaded subtext) made you completely lose your cool in front of an entire room of people on Thursday. A member of an online community who ( on the most part) have done nothing but shower you with admiration,warmth and kindness in the last seven years.You let that person down on Thursday.You let us all down in that instant.They probably went home with red rimmed eyes, a trembling lip, the memory of a partially mocking audience, laughing at them, pitying them,and what’s worse, the memory of someone that they trusted and held in high regard,treating them with contempt, to the point that they probably now feel that they are somehow wrong for thinking the way they do about TJLC.The person who dared to question the elephant in the room was not wrong to do so….and Moffat you stood there and spoke to them like that whilst being fully aware of that fact.That is what is truly disgusting about your actions on Thursday night and why I simply couldn’t stand back this time and let this go without saying something.You are fully aware that all the person was guilty of is picking up on your queer baiting and questioning you about it. You are perhaps embarrassed that they asked you that elephant question because you know you’ve led people right up the garden path.Are you ashamed about that,so your first response (rather than simply own up to it) is to lash out to prevent anyone from calling you out on it?

Trivialising?

You bet your ass you have Moffit…..

Now be prepared because there’s an East wind coming and you’re going to have to face up to it very soon.Maybe you could start that process by apologising to the person who dared to talk about the elephant in the room.

Remember….elephants never forget and we certainly won’t be forgetting this anytime soon…