#anti tjlc meta

[aveline-amelia]

On sexuality assumptions in Sherlock (part 2)

So, I literally forgot this was supposed to be a two-parter and what I was even going to write about in part two, but then I remembered. This is about examining some TJLC/Johnlock evidence that is potentially actually problematic and regressive if taken as fact. Not all of them are ProblematicTM, some are just... weird. These are in no particular order and some are possible stretches, but hey, I am allowed to have meta fun too.

Number 1: Mycroft making the sarcastic comment about John and Sherlock's engagement is proof Sherlock is gay.

The reason why this feels regressive to me is because it implies that you can only make quips about your brother dating a man if your brother is gay. But... why? Why is it only acceptable to make this comment if the men in question date other men? It's not a joke about the concept of homosexuality itself.

The 'joke' is "You have been very close to my brother, moved in with him, and are spending a lot of time with him. What's next, marrying him?" That's the point of the comment. It has nothing to do with anyone being gay.

Mycroft doesn't mean they are actually a couple. I fully believe that if Sherlock had a female flatmate, he would have made the exact same comment. All this tells us is that Mycroft doesn't think being gay is a big deal or possibly that being gay in this world isn't that big of a deal.

First of all, let's entertain the possibility that Mycroft believes or knows that Sherlock is gay. If this implies that Sherlock is gay, isn't telling that to John, whom Mycroft just met, and can't be certain that they ever even discussed the topic, basically outing Sherlock to his flatmate?

Now I talked about the fact it's very possible Mycroft made this comment and the later one hinting about possible John/Sherlock sex in the future (which is much better evidence, but people focus much more on the first one since it's more apparent) is testing the waters to see how John feels about gay people and how he feels about being mistaken for a couple with another man or being accused of having feelings for a man.

If John reacted in a very defensive and/or homophobic manner, it's possible Mycroft would have made sure John stayed far away from his little brother. This in itself doesn't have to mean Mycroft believes Sherlock is gay, just that he is being cautious because bigots are unsafe to be around (let alone live with!) for anyone who isn't a bigot themselves.

Number 2: If Sherlock isn't gay, why doesn't he ever correct the people who think he is or that he's dating John?

Because he doesn't care what they think of him. Related to number 1. It's okay to wish people not to mislabel you. Not wanting people to think you're gay if you're not is not homophobia. But Sherlock just doesn't care. This is in contrast with John, who does correct people and doesn't want newspapers calling him a confirmed bachelor.

Number 3: Sherlock got a case wrong and accused a gay man of being a murderer because he was feeling bad about his Unrequited Gay Love for John, who was dating someone else at the time and he thought gay relationships were doomed to fail (this is about a case on John's blog)

This one is just... why. Sherlock is the Great Detective. He's the world's only consulting detective. Why would a man's sexuality influence his decision solely because he's hoping for a gay relationship for himself and is salty about it? Gay or not gay, there's no indication sexual orientation plays any factor in how he views or treats people. This assumption is just straight-up homophobic. I can't see it any other way. Sherlock thinking a man is a murderer because he's gay... is homophobic. Even if you believe Sherlock is gay, internalized homophobia is a thing. It would also make him look quite incompetent, unprofessional, and just straight-up Bad at his job, the one thing he is unquestionably Good at.

Now we get into the weaker ones, at least according to me.

Number 4: Sherlock knowing purple apart from lilac or making serviettes makes him Camp Gay.

I think this is just Sherlock being Sherlock. He knows the color because he knows and notices the things others don't while ignoring those he deems unimportant. As for the serviettes? Why? Because planning a wedding is a gay stereotype? Sherlock is most likely hyperfocused on the wedding because he's nervous about things changing.

Number 5: John was definitely about to make a Move on Sherlock during the stag night and that was the perfect time to do it

I sincerely hope this idea only extends to fiction (because I don't want to be one of these "if you support this in fiction you support it in real life too!!! people) but if it does not, hopefully none of these people ever become someone's Best Person at the wedding if they think seducing the groom right before a wedding is a good idea. Do they think John was about to make a move and if it didn't work just Mary marry anyway as a consolation prize? Do they think that's what happened in TSO3? We or John had no idea she was an assassin yet, so that would be really shitty.

Number 6: John lied about being bisexual

He didn't. The only way this would be true is if someone asked John if he's bisexual and he said no. Unless you think John being closeted and potentially hiding the truth about his sexuality and being purposefully vague about it is lying. It's not.

Number 7: Mycroft believed Sherlock was about to kiss John in front of Mary when asking for time alone

This one is just strange. A confession is one thing, especially if you are not directly confessing. But why would Sherlock do this? He was going to his death and had nothing to lose? Why would he do it in front of Mary? And Mycroft? And the other agents who I think were also still there? Why? Was he sure John would kiss him back? Did he even care?

Miscellaneous: John didn't want Sherlock looking at his laptop because he has a bunch of Gay Porn there

Or... because it's an invasion of privacy? This one isn't Problematic, it's just a stretch.

[moriarty1234]

T*LC Refutation (but decidedly NOT johnlock refutation)

[Note: I love and ship johnlock because I saw it for myself in the show when I watched it and was part of the general audience in the past. I even want it to become canon in some Holmes adaption in the future. But T*lc needs to get sucked into obscurity and forgotten. Other fandoms like Good Omens, etc., are following the same rhetoric in their "meta" posts, and that needs to go. This is crucial for our basic critical thinking skills and objectivity.]

Read Part - 3 : Everything wrong with "subtexts" and "symbolisms" here.

Part-4: The Harmful Aspect of T*LC:

Let's move on to some more serious issues, or why we (Kim and I) don't believe for even a second that hardcore t*lcers (the ones who're rabid about this theory) ever cared for any type of representation, or even johnlock in itself for that matter.

I say hardcore t*lcers because the normal ones simply believe in t*lc and keep that shit to themselves. I'm even mutuals with them on Tumblr (although I know that when the show was on air, hardcore, insufferable, and deeply problematic t*lcers were in the majority).

1.) The very definition of t*lc : The general idea of t*lc is that johnlock has been planned since 2010 (right from the first episode of S1), this whole show is essentially a love story between Sherlock and John, the cases are not so important, and that johnlock is going to be the endgame canon ship. When the writers deny anything related to johnlock in their own show, they're lying to keep their elaborate plan under the wraps. When Sherlock and John kiss on screen, it'll be a rug pull moment for all the non-believers, their love story will be groundbreaking queer representation in mainstream media, and BBC Sherlock will become a culturally iconic Holmes adaptation. Because sometimes, the queer characters can be the heroes of the story.

All this sounded so nice and fancy to me when I was new to shipping johnlock. Because BBC Sherlock was my first fandom that I ever participated in. Johnlock was (and is) my first ship. I used to be a non-shipper before this, because I'm not exactly a Romance-genre fan in published fiction.

Now I don't like the general idea of this at all. Not because I don't want johnlock to become canon in some version (I really do), but there are so many flaws in the very idea of t*lc.

a.) They didn't even plan what they were going to do with Rosie Watson in S4. They just introduced the pregnancy subplot to raise the stakes in HLV. Only for shock value purposes. This was Mark Gatiss' statement (now I can't find the link but I've seen an article about this before). To think they'd planned an entire romance storyline, but it was just under the wraps the whole time, is unrealistic.

b.) While it's true that showrunners or directors do lie to their fans before a work is published to maintain an element of surprise, Moffat and Gatiss had denied anything related to johnlock too many times, and almost vehemently for most viewers to believe that they're just lying. One can only lie too many times, after all. And something needs to be there in the actual show for (maximum) fans to catch on that they're indeed just lying. There wasn't enough evidence for that. Too many of those scenes just came off as gay jokes instead of anything of real substance. That wasn't a good look.

c.) The third part is really what gets me the most here, and one of the main reasons why Kim and I began to actively despise t*lc, even though we're both still pro-johnlock. These people really thought the ultimate rug pull moment for the entire audience should be... that John and Sherlock are in love? Really? That's it? That's highest standard you have for supposedly groundbreaking queer representation? That doesn't sound right. Queer representation really shouldn't be used for shock value. As if we're not marginalised and isolated from most people already. Especially in my country. That just sounds as though you want to place these two characters in a museum as though they're some exotic beings or something. That's the opposite of a healthy queer rep.

d.) Even if johnlock were canon, it would've hardly been groundbreaking for the purposes of queer representation. Even in the 2010s. Because shows like Breaking Bad (a show from 2008, i.e., before BBC Sherlock, in which a very significant character is canonically gay and black), Elementary (where Mrs Hudson is canonically trans, Joan Watson is a well written character even as a poc female lead, Jamie Moriarty is also properly characterised when mainstream media doesn't have a lot of well-written female villains to begin with), London Spy (which is also a BBC show from 2015), Money Heist (which also features a significant canonically gay character), etc., still existed. I'll even list The Irregulars as an example, even though the first season of that show was aired in 2021, because that was still before the Sherlock Holmes franchise entered the public domain. Watson is canonically gay and black in that one.

e.) This is a detective show you're talking about. Cases aren't important? You kidding me?

2.) Rabid t*lcers were hypocritical as hell. They used to demand canon johnlock for "representation", but they were all sorts of bigoted people themselves.

a.) They made racist comments about Lucy Liu.

(From Sarah Z's video) :

They've called slurs to fans of colour in the fandom (I can think of one fan specifically right now) for not shipping johnlock.

b.) Characterising Sherlock as a twink, gay baby, or "smol" is fetishistic. It's just homophobia indirectly.

c.) They went rabid about the bisexual Sherlock headcanon, Instead of simply disagreeing with it for whatever reason. You're not doing the queer community any favours by h/cing John as bisexual just for your johnlock shipping, only because he has canonically shown attraction to women.

See this:

Stop playing the victim card right after perpetuating biphobia lol. You need to rewatch the show if you think mere fascination was all he felt for Irene. Also, even if he genuinely didn't show any attraction to any woman in canon, fanon can still be its own thing. Not everything has to be strictly canon compliant.

One more:

Stop straw manning and assuming real people's sexuality. Stop ship bashing. Enough with the biphobia.

This person is a johnlocker and "The One" obviously means johnlock here. No, not everyone is uncomfortable because of johnlock for bigoted reasons. People are allowed to have preferences.

Another one (probably my favourite) :

Talk about hypocrisy. The title of this post sounds so positive to bisexuality, but then OP goes right ahead to frantically claim Sherlock is 100% gay and not anything else!!! 1!!

Sherlock is heavily queercoded in the show, I agree. I don't even care whether that was the authorial intent or not at this point. That's what a non-insignificant amount of people took away from this show.

But his canon sexuality was never specified. People are allowed to interpret his sexuality however they want. You are nobody to state your own headcanons as facts.

More hypocrisy.

d.) The acephobia was rampant in this fandom mostly because of these people. It's a well-documented fact.

e.) The misogyny in this fandom was ugly. The kind of outlandish metas they write trying to disprove adl*ck from the show... jeez. If adl*ck definitely doesn't exist in this show, why would you need to disprove it so many times through your meta posts?

Can't erase something that really isn't there, just saying.

"Irene is just a personification of Sherlock's libido for John." Seriously? Do you even listen to yourself?

Don't get me wrong. I blame Mofftiss equally as much for not writing women properly in general, Irene Adler in particular. They butchered canon Irene Adler (a queen) way too much in their show. But the fans' response to her was almost worst.

It's understandable if the show's version of Mary doesn't sit right with you for whatever reason. People are allowed to have preferences. Personally, I'm quite neutral about Mary Morstan in this show.

But these people used to take their hate for her too far. These people have never been as mad at Moriarty, or even at Culverton Smith, as they all were at Mary for shooting Sherlock. Again, this is a crime drama show. Not all characters are going to be sunshine and roses.

3.) Rabid t*lcers hardly ever tried to explore johnlock in other versions. If you're a fan of Sherlock Holmes, you'll be at least curious about different adaptations that exist out there. Why did they hardly ever posted about The Irregulars when it was aired? An adaptation in which Watson is canonically in love with Holmes? I've been around in the johnlock fandom enough to know that the rabid t*lcers (NOT ALL T*LCers) never really cared about the possibility of johnlock in some other version after it ultimately didn't become canon in BBC Sherlock. They only care for johnlock as long as Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are associated with it.

... Yup.

(ACD canon Watson was in his early thirties in the first novel. That's not middle aged. Joanlock didn't even become canon - something that was specified since Day 1 - in Elementary lmfao. Also, Lucy Liu was in her forties when Elementary aired. Get your facts straight.)

All these three points are enough to conclude that what t*lcers usually posted about was obviously not "demand for representation", but rather a demand for some extremely specific fantasies acted out on screen with an even more specific choice of actors.

I even joked to Kim about this: The stuff they demand for is so extremely specific that it sounds like a Starbucks order lol.

Part: 5 - Conclusion:

I want johnlock to become canon in some version of Sherlock Holmes adaptation. But I want t*lc as a theory to be completely forgotten and obscured. T*lc is definitely not the way to go about it. Other fandoms (namely Good Omens) have started to write "metas" with the exact same rhetoric in them, and now it's completely unacceptable. It's 2024 now. Let it go.

Some interesting links Kim and I found that are very insightful and relevant to this post:

About cults and the followers

Cult psychology

Conspiracy theory psychology

Science vs pseudo-science

Science vs psudo-science - 2

Conspiracy theory psychology - 2

Signs someone is a pseudo-intellectual

One explanation why even otherwise sensible people seem to believe in t*lc

PS: Not every dark haired character/ blond character is a Sherlock/John mirror respectively. That's not how character-mirroring works. Experts would know this.

T*LC refutation (but NOT johnlock) refutation master post.

[musclesandhammering]

Very true but a couple other points:

• I hate when they reduce everything he does down to doing it for John. He took down Moriarty’s network because it was a giant criminal network torturing and killing people and it needed to be taken down.

• Even if you argue that he did it for personal reasons, the sniper targets were Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and John. Not just John. Don’t erase his other friends just to hype up John.

• He killed Magnussen for Mary, not John and the jlockers can stay mad about it.

Some people saying Sherlock only sacrificed his moral compass by learning how to kill for John in his hiatus or with Magnussen

When he literally flew to kill terrorists with a sword for Irene months prior

[leatherbookmark]

🙄.

there's this post that's got about ~1500 notes rn about how SOME parts of the of/md fandom are happy with their show and how good it is, and then SOME OTHER people are SO WEIRD that they came up with a whole tjlc theory that the writing is "bad" on "purpose" and izzy is going to be revived! it's so popular! and like

maybe it's just me because i only follow one ofm/dposting person, but i've never seen those posts, and

it seems that the reasonable, normal part of the fandom that's just focused on enjoying their beloved beautiful show isn't that focused on it, if they have time to check what's going on the other side and make fun of it? and again it might be me but when someone pisses me off i simply block them. this is why i had no idea izzy antis were pointing and laughing at one rather big meta series on ao3 for two weeks until i saw the post on some unrelated blog i was browsing for non-ofm/d reasons. idk though

[trixterdark]

I was scrolling Hulu and when I saw this, I busted out laughing

I can't explain man, you had to be there lmao

[aveline-amelia]

On sexuality assumptions in Sherlock (part 1)

So there's one thing I never quite... understood about TJLC analysis. It's reading into lines in a way that hints at Johnlock or the sexuality of a character but with a caveat that the person saying the line is a massive bigot if you take that reading to be the writers' intention.

An example in ASIB with Sherlock is "here to see the Queen?" "apparently yes". Now even casuals (why does that feel like a dirty word in regards to bbc Sherlock) see this as a hint that Mycroft is gay. Now you can see this as a subtextual hint that he is gay, or that he's gay but Sherlock doesn't know and is calling him gay in a 12 year old humor way but Sherlock is not the type of person to do that? Neither is John "It's All Fine" Watson, who has a wlw sister.

Some even think that it's about Mark Gatiss being gay and not Mycroft, but that's it's a "cheap gay joke" nevertheless.

Now TJLCrs do believe Sherlock and Mycroft are gay (some believe Mycroft is aroace, but it depends) and that John is bi, homoromantic bi or repressed bi. But even with all of that in mind, why would John feel so safe laughing along if the joke is homosexuality of another's sibling?

It's a rule that someone else making fun of your sibling is different than you doing it. And even if John isn't straight, he is presumed to be by all of the people who don't think he is dating Sherlock, and if he's closeted, then, to other people, he is a straight guy making fun of his flatmate's gay brother.

One bizarre example, from HLV, is the reading that Mycroft telling Sherlock "how very uncle Rudi. Perhaps crossdressing would have been a wiser path for you." is Mycroft teasing Sherlock about his (Sherlock, not Mycroft lol) romantic love towards John, who is presumably straight and that he could have tried to attract John by dressing up as a woman. And if that were true, that would be unbelievable levels of homophobic cruelty towards his little brother. How come Sherlock didn't physically assault him there and did for calling his actions "unwise", if that's really what Mycroft meant?

Or that Mycroft telling John to "choose a side" in ASIP is a hint towards John's bisexuality, but in the worst possible and most regressive way. Mycroft just felt like being being extremely biphobic atm I guess? Maybe I am sensitive because I do see him as bisexual simply because there was no option left, and I like the headcanon itself. But even if he is gay or straight or something else, there's no way he doesn't know bisexuality is a thing and this a hurtful thing to say to a bi person. Why would he do that? Felt cute, might do an erasure?

[musclesandhammering]

This. And it’s so braindead because I might understand if they skipped over both parts of the statement- but they don’t! They use the “look at us both” all the time to prove that John is secretly in love with Sherlock!! And yet.. they never acknowledge that it also applies to Irene.

Like you can’t look at a sentence that literally says “we both love this guy” and use it as proof for one ship and refutation for another! That makes no sense.

Irene is a lesbian and she even admitted to it. I do not really believe that Sherlock and Irene were in love. They are both extremely gay but they were intrigued by each other. Irene was fascinated with Sherlock because of his amazing ability to solve crimes and Sherlock was fascinated with Irene because of how clever she was. But there was no sexual attraction. Sherlock always looked at Irene’s brain and never her body, he only looked at her measurements to solve the case. Never for love.

[moriarty1234]

T*LC Refutation (but decidedly NOT Johnlock refutation, because that definitely was a thing.)

Part- 1: Introduction.

[Note: I love and ship johnlock because I saw it for myself in the show when I watched it and was part of the general audience in the past. I even want it to become canon in some Holmes adaption in the future. But T*lc needs to get sucked into obscurity and forgotten. Other fandoms like Good Omens, etc., are following the same rhetoric in their "meta" posts, and that needs to go. This is crucial for our basic critical thinking skills and objectivity.]

Alright, folks. Let's talk about the logical fallacies, and how most of the t*lc metas are flawed to their core.

Not to beat the dead horse here, but I entered the fandom in late 2021 (after having watched BBC Sherlock a year ago). I'd started to ship Johnlock as soon as I entered the fandom (because that's what I saw on the show independently, as part of the general audience in the past, even though it was on a subconscious level at first).

I discovered T*LC in December, watched and read metas about it, became a T*LCer myself (albeit briefly - for like a month or two), and then I grew out of it.

I grew out of T*LC because while the meta posts were seemingly clever, I always thought there was something off with most of them. I didn't have much vocabulary related to critical thinking skills back then (because English is not my first language), so I couldn't put my finger on exactly what was wrong with them.

I reluctantly and falsely assumed they must be right just because I couldn't come up with effective counter-arguments then (what a flawed way of thinking). I just thought that this thing (t*lc) was not my cup of tea (ha!).

I continued to ship Johnlock though. I still do it wholeheartedly. I'm no longer part of the BBC Sherlock fandom, but I do still ship Holmes/Watson enthusiastically in various other Sherlock Holmes adaptations.

In the meantime (i.e., from when I dropped the idea of t*lc like a hot potato to the day I decided to exit this fandom for good), I did a lot of research.

Research related to what the fandom used to be like throughout different eras when the show was still on air (through sources such as old posts on Tumblr/other social media platforms, Sarah Z and hbomberguy's videos on t*lc and the actual show criticism respectively), and also research about how the rhetoric of most conspiracy theorists looks and sounds. I've read about articles on science vs pseudo-science as well (I come from a science background myself, so those articles were helpful as a refresher for me).

I also read a lot about cult psychology and how it can be used effectively to lure anyone in.

T*lc checks all the boxes of flawed ways of thinking, various logical fallacies used to prove or disprove something, pseudoscience, a typical conspiracy theorist's rhetoric, and a cult group's way of thinking in real life.

When I use these terms, I do not throw them around lightly. I've read a lot about this along with my friend, let's call them Kim. For context, Kim also comes from a science background. They ship johnlock too.

I know the comparison of T*lc with a religious cult in real life has been done to death, and same is the case with the comparison of t*lc with any other outlandish conspiracy theory out there. It's just that I've been bottling up my thoughts and feelings on this thing for way too long. I can't do that anymore. Just bear with me if you find something repetitive.

Kim and I read about all these things on the internet, had a lot of long discussions for months altogether, and now I've personally decided to share our conclusions with anyone out there who stumbles upon this post.

This blog is a few days old, and I'm the only person behind this, so I don't have many followers just yet. I'm not even expecting anything from anyone. If you see this post, I just want you to read it with an open mind and act according to your judgement afterwards.

Now that we have the whole context with us, let's begin.

Part- 2 : What's wrong with their actual meta posts?

T*LC (but NOT Johnlock as a whole) refutation master post.

[musclesandhammering]

For the love of Christ, is there any Sherlock meta that doesn’t mention Johnlock/Sherlolly/Adlock/etc?? Like I don’t mind those ships but it’d be rly nice to read headcanons and stuff about Sherlock alone without connecting him to a supposed relationship.

And not to be rude, but shipper metas always sort of act like it’s a given that Sherlock is interested in the other character when that’s not usually true in canon, and it kinda distorts their analysis of the show’s events. Anyway... gen metas anyone??

[helplessly-johnlocked]

T6T is a message for TJLCers

I was rewatching The Six Tatchers and noticed that, from the very beginning, there were subtle messages directed to us via Sherlock.

In this meta I’ll try to show you the most noticeable examples of that, so welcome to my first analysis of Sherlock. 

1.  One of the first lines we have in the episode, “that’s not what happened at all’’.

We are Sherlock and Mycroft and his super secret gang are Mofftiss.

This may be one of the most blatant evidence, as a lot of us have already pointed out in emp theory or john’s tab theory.

Here, Mofftiss the “British Government” is showing us Sherlock fake footage. Sherlock, or rather us, immediately knows that all of that isn’t real, it’s made up. It’s a distorted version of reality.

Despite us Sherlock knowing and saying it’s fake, Mofftiss Mycroft carries on with the lie, telling us that now, it is the only truth.

2.  Mofftiss’ plans

We are Sherlock and Moriarty is Mofftiss (how ironic, huh)

Moriarty Mofftiss filmed the message the series/lost especial before (t)he(y) “died”, dying as of disappearing. Now they are ghosts, lurking in the dark and making our pain prologue more and more, waiting for the perfect moment to announce the fifth season.

Lady Smallwood: You also say you know what he’s going to do next. What does that mean?

We know what Mofftiss are going to do, we know tjlc is the endgame of the series, even though Moffat and Gatiss themselves refuse to explicitly tell us.

Sr. Edwin: Perhaps that’s all there is to it. Perhaps he was just trying to frighten you.

Sherlock: No, no, he would never be that disappointing. He’s planned something, something long term.

They are trying to convince us that that’s all there is to it, that s4 is all we have, and we’ll just have to take it on the chin. But we know that they would never do that, they aren’t that disappointing, they are Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat for God’s sakes! They’d never do that to us, they’d never queerbait. 

They have planned something (johnlock) from the beginning of the series, since the gay pilot. And those plans are still on. 

3.  Our plans

“What are we going to do in this long, exhausting hiatus?”

Well, what we’ve always done. We are the targets, targets wait, right? Mofftiss are the owners of Sherlock and we have to wait until they decide to start again.

But in the (painful) meanwhile, we’ll do what we are excellent at: we’ll rewatch the series again and again and go deep into the incredible layers of subtext.

4.  Trick? Obviously

The trick is the released season four and the surprise is our predicted season four.

Sherlock: The trick was meant to be a surprise.

Mr. and Mrs. Welsborough: Trick?

Sherlock: Obviously.

The trick aired S4 was meant to be the foretold s4 a surprise (not to us, obviously, we knew what was going to happen, but rather to casuals and antis); but in the end, it didn’t take place. 

The surprise expected season didn’t get executed, we didn’t have the explicit Johnlock we were hoping for. But we know that, unlike Charlie’s surprise, which didn’t happen; we will get our so deserved happy ending, with TJLC finally confirmed and Sherlock and John parenting Rosie as a happy couple.

5.  Acronyms

Sherlock: AGRA’s an acronym.

Mycroft: Oh, good. I love an acronym. All the best secret societies have them.

Well well, how do I start with this? It is clearly and blatantly about TJLC.

This scene works similar to the group of women in TAB and Chris Melas, Mofftiss are telling us they know about us, they know who we are, and they like us.

Mycroft (Mark) is not only saying he loves acronyms, but he also thinks that all the best societies have one! And even better, he is holding a pen!!

Ladies and gentlemen, this is evidently Mark Gatiss himself  telling us he knows and appreciates TJLCers, this is him saying all of that directly to us, this time not even through Sherlock.

6.  The butcher’s

Sherlock is we are more than certain that it has to be a ploy made to confuse and mislead us.

Season four is too bizarre, too baroque, even Bond-esque and with countless plotholes. It has to be fake, IT IS FAKE. There is no other explanation to its fuckiness and nonsense.

It is also a rope to put our neck into, it’s a test we have to pass. And in a way, we like it, we have fun making theories and writing amazing metas; we enjoy it, that’s how we are. Just like Sherlock.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, here finishes my first meta (omg I thought I’d never be writintig that). This was all I could extract from the episode, I hope you’ve liked it!! If there is anything more you’ve noticed about T6T, please let me know. I’ll be more than glad to hear it.

I’ll leave some ‘must read’ links to emp and john’s tab theories:

John’s alibi masterposts by @/inevitably-johnlocked: link one / link two / link three

EMP huge masterpost by @/monikakrasnorada: here

EMP Tumblr blog @/emplock: here

[loudest-subtext-in-tv]

Something I know no one will ever contend with when they just want to write a hit piece about us, but...

When Moffat said on the A Scandal in Belgravia commentary, “If you watch the show carefully, there’s subtext about John’s drinking,” what did he mean? He wasn’t being flippant, he’s said one of his favorite writers is William Goldman and writers should study him because he “knows everything.” Goldman’s Ten Commandments on Writing say to “put a subtext under every text” and not to be too on the nose. 

So what is the “real” subtext to why John drinks, and why does John drink when he’s alone with Sherlock and trying to get him to open up, or otherwise thinking about Sherlock? If the subtext is not about John’s relationship with Sherlock, then like... who else is in the room in those scenes, what’s going on, who is John actually thinking about, and why is it so important to the story that Moffat would include it? What storyline does the subtext of John’s drinking pertain to? It must be pretty big to not have been revealed yet, so it shouldn’t be hard to make a case for.

Similarly: When Moffat and Gatiss say that The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, a movie noteworthy for depicting Holmes as a homosexual in love with Watson, is the inspiration for their adaptation, what do people imagine they adapted from it? Because it wasn’t the characterization, they don’t much resemble the BBC Sherlock characterizations. Barely any plot points were borrowed, and minor ones at that. Why did they pick the big overtly gay adaptation for the basis of their show from a hundred straight alternatives? Why did Gatiss say the thing he liked about it was that Holmes was in love with Watson?

I mean, I know people who hate us will never actually watch it, but the movie is not subtle. The movie isn’t a bunch of gay gags, the movie makes very clear that Holmes is genuinely homosexual and in love with Watson in a deeply painful way that queer people can recognize and relate to, and the same vibe is heavy in series 3 especially. For example, the endings of TSoT and HLV are not gay gags, they are things that happened in the plot and were not presented as remotely funny.

There are two reasonable perspectives on this:

1) It is not especially weird for people who pay attention to what the writers have said about their stories to think all the gay stuff is intentional, and its not weird to have fun chasing down things the writers have taken care to talk about. That’s what fans do, they try to predict where stories are going. No one made hit pieces ridiculing Jon and Daeneyrs shippers because they recognized what the foreshadowing in Game of Thrones was saying, and they were basing it off almost nothing compared to what the showrunners of Sherlock have said and taken care to include in the plot and subtext. People write hit pieces about us because they deeply believe it’s stupid for queer people to think a gay romance could be depicted, we had the misfortune of having a sense of humor about ourselves (calling it a “conspiracy” and ourselves a “cult”), and were enthusiastic about the show and writers whose fandom we’re a part of.

2) The gay stuff is intentional, but all a big joke despite appearances to the contrary. Most of the antis even argued that the gay stuff was intentional, they just thought it was to fuck with people or be provocative. Some of them were even dreading S4, including while it was airing, because they thought we were going to be proven right and we’d be insufferable. If people who hated us worried we could be right, then how delusional could we be?

I can understand someone thinking it all being a big joke is more likely than a TV show depicting a gay romance, but it does not follow that people deserve to be an object of public ridicule because they recognized a bunch of queer allusions and painful queer life experiences that resonated with them and considered that the writers, one of whom is queer and unabashedly obsessed with the works in question, may have positive motives for including those things. It feels like punishing people for doing their due diligence of actually researching the writers’ feelings about things and their influences, rather than just piling on and calling them homophobes. I’m not trying to invalidate anyone’s opinions if that’s how they feel about Moffat and Gatiss nowadays, I’m just saying it’s not some shameful thing for people to actually investigate these things and conclude differently. It’s okay to think writers are talented and clever, and their fandom should be a place where it’s okay to explore that.

What makes me most sad about this is that there is genuinely no area of life where people can just play around anymore without being hunted down. Like, politics is fucking miserable, the pandemic is miserable, I just had a friend kill himself a few months ago because of how bad life is lately, a close relative who I never thought would have suicidal ideation has it now, I have been fighting wanting to die for years, in the U.S. none of us have any idea if we’re ever getting any sort of pandemic stimulus again -- so many of us are suffering immensely right now, it should be okay to be goofy and creative in a fandom without someone deciding its their prerogative to profit off us because they think we’re weird, or whatever. 

The reason there’s a lot of crazy meta analysis is because this was supposed to be a relatively safe, creative place where people can try their hand at analyzing stories without being graded or made to feel inadequate, so we treat metas a lot like fanfics where it’s not really appropriate to just rip people’s shit apart no matter how illogical it is, and we find things we like about analysis we don’t agree with in that same spirit: it’s a cool idea anyway, it’s artistically inspiring, it got close to a more compelling idea, etc. I have a big packet of fan mails where several people told me they had been scared and self-conscious to share their thoughts on things, and TJLC helped them open up and inspired them to major in literary or film-related majors. People start somewhere and it’s cruel to make fun of them because they weren’t great at something that doesn’t fucking matter. 

FANDOM IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A SUPER SERIOUS SPACE. NO ONE PUTS ON A TUXEDO BEFORE THEY LOG IN TO TUMBLR. NO ONE NEEDS SOME OUTSIDER TAKING THE THINGS THEY OFFERED IN THE SPIRIT OF FUN OUT OF CONTEXT TO PRESENT TO A WIDER AUDIENCE THEY DELIBERATELY AVOID BECAUSE THAT AUDIENCE IS MEAN AND SENDS THEM DEATH THREATS AND HOMOPHOBIC AND MISOGYNISTIC SLURS AND SUICIDE ADVICE. IT IS ACTUALLY NOT AN ENORMOUS CHARACTER FAILING TO SHARE BAD ANALYSES OF A TV SHOW, AND SHOULD NOT BE A MATTER OF NATIONAL INTEREST. 

But places where people can open up and try things out increasingly can’t exist anymore, because even in a low stakes environment like a fandom there are busybody ghouls who want to profit off being condescending about how people spend their leisure time. It doesn’t add anything to the world except their bank accounts.

[johnny-pie]

I had the honestly terrible idea of scrolling through the anti TJLC tag and now I have a question.

You see, I watched the show in 2016, read the meta, became a firm believer of tjlc and then s4 was realesed and Oh boy... yeah.

This site became a rollercoaster of emotions, of people being dissapointed, heartbroken, angry, etc.

But still, was the TLJC community really that toxic? I'm being genuine, I was there, yes, but I wasn't really involved.

Cause I've seen posts about how tjlcers sent death threats, insulted people who did not believe, and other honestly disgusting stuff.

Idk

[mousedetective]

Would you be willing to do all of the salty questions with bbc sherlock? 👀 (if not then 3 and 7)

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?* I’m not really sure why people ship Holmescest? To each their own, but I don’t get it.

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?* Jlock, and even that’s with a more fanon John.

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? Oh yeah. I’m anti-TJLC (but not anti Jlock) and I’ve been followed by some TJLC-positive blogs so sometimes, depending on how rabid they are, I block them.

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?* I’m not super into Jlock, because I write it for friends, but I don’t ship it myself (for BBC Sherlock only...I’m an avid Granada/Ritchie Holmes Jlock shipper)

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?* The fandom for BBC Sherlock definitely ruined Jlock for me a lot. That’s why all my Jlock fic is AU.

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?* Yes! I wasn’t a Mystrade shipper at the start and was rather annoyed by another slash ship in the fandom until I read some amazing stuff in the fandom, and now I’m a huge fan of the ship.

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?* I can still stand it, though not as much, but Mollstrade. Not due to fandom though! Some of the commentary from Rupert Graves skeeved me on the pairing.

Have you received anon hate? What about?* Not so much anon hate, but I mentioned how my son was on the autism spectrum and he was a fan of Benedict’s even after the kerfluffle on stuff he said and someone who was in the Sherlock fandom (and was fairly popular) said I shouldn’t regain custody because I was a shitty parent. I blocked them and took off the dedication for a fic I was going to write for them, but yeah. That stung a lot. But that’s also why I never turn on anon messaging on this blog.

Most disliked character(s)? Why? John Watson. Firstly, I don’t like Martin Freeman much, and secondly, he reminds me way too much of my dad in a bad way.

Most disliked arc? Why? Mary’s death and the aftermath. It was just handled so badly that I still haven’t had the nerve to watch series 4 (I was spoiled to death when it aired and got all the info and meta I needed to write the season without watching it).

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? I guess Molly? She gets a lot of shit but I adore her. She’s strong and resiliant and caring and just such a good person.

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? Maybe Tom? I like it because it shows Molly didn’t spend all her time while Sherlock was “dead” moping around. She moved on, even if it was to a thinly disguised clone.

Unpopular opinion about XXX character? @lady-of-the-spirit picked Irene, and I guess my unpopular opinion is that I like her with Sherlock as a ship. Adlock gets so much shit but it’s intriguing.

Unpopular opinion about your fandom? There are so many misogynists in this fandom. I hate that the male characters have fans that are fans at the expense of the female characters and treat the actresses like shit on social media.

Unpopular opinion about the manga/show? I don’t think there should be a fifth season. It ended at a good spot to let people continue the stories in fic.

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? Mary would have lived.

Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…I think I would have started the Eurus arc earlier, around series 3? After they got done with Moriarty, they should have started planting seeds for Eurus instead of dropping her on us the way they did.

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased? According the the fandom, yes. But in my opinion? Much more fun to be a multi-shipper, so the fact I don’t ship the big OTP doesn’t mean anything other than I like to spread myself around and have more couples in my sandbox.

What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom? See the misogyny answer above.

What is the purest ship in the fandom? I don’t think this fandom really has any. Maybe that’s a bad thing, maybe not.

What are your thoughts on crack ships? Love ‘em. My OTP is a Star Trek AOS crossover (McMolly, or Leonard McCoy/Molly Hooper).

Popular character you hate? John Watson

Unpopular character you love? Sally Donovan

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? Honestly, this is one of those shows where I think others have done it better (I happen to also be a huge fan of Elementary), but I would recommend the show for some fine examples of acting on Benedict Cumberbatch and other’s parts and just tell people to avoid the fandom.

How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX? I wouldn’t change the ending at all. It ended in a really good way after the Eurus stuff.

Most shippable character? Molly Hooper

Least shippable character? Philip Anderson

Salty Ask List

[tiger-moran]

kaelang12 I've been seeing Sherlock ads on my Google feed recently, and it drains my brain everytime. Fingers crossed it's just fan posturing and not something official

Why the fuck are people dredging up 'TJLC super secret fourth episode' nonsense AGAIN

[the-elephant-room]

The Elephant Room - A TJLC Discord Server

No one wants to talk about the Elephant In The Room. 

Except for us, apparently!

If you’re looking to relive some of that feverish craze of TLJC’s golden days, look no further! We are a small but rapidly growing server of Johnlock fans looking to rebuild the community for some fun. Whether you want to share meta, talk about the show, share fanfic, or just hang out, we’re here for you!

Some more info:

+18 age limit

Reaction Roles

Mod positions open

Channels for all corners of TJLC - tinhatting, tarmac hell, you name it!

Zero tolerance policy for antis and terfs

Open to suggestions for channels

Space for other adaptations - Granada, Canon, Pastiches, etc

Fandom events and more!

🐘 Join Us Today!🐝

[thewatsonbeekeepers]

TSoT Meta

There’s a much longer meta coming soon (oh boy, EMP theory doesn’t know what’s hit it) but I was rewatching TSoT and came across some lovely (read heartbreaking) parallels last night that I wanted to write up before they vanished. A fair warning - I’ve been out of the fandom since 2017, and I’ve tried to update myself on what has gone on, but if I’m repeating, I apologise!!

The Mayfly Man is called Jonathan Small. Lots of people have commented on this - name-sharing is really important in this show, and having a character called Jonathan sets him up as a clear mirror for John. We’ve normally drawn on this to talk about his behaviour with women, which is a pretty valid thing to do, but I want to focus in on John as murderer.

Ironic, right? This is the episode about John saving lives. So why is the murderer his mirror? Well, let’s fast forward to Sherlock’s deduction about the murder itself. Archie suggests to him that Sholto’s would-be murderer is the invisible man with the invisible knife, and Sherlock pieces together than the attempted murder of Stephen Bainbridge was actually a rehearsal for Small’s attempt on Sholto’s life. We see Sherlock zoom in on words pinned to the baker street wall in a table - Venue, followed by a picture of the wedding hall, Rehearsal, followed by a picture of Stephen bleeding out. The murder is being compared to John’s wedding.

As many have pointed out, the second you prod the Mayfly Man mystery it begins to disintegrate - we all laughed at Tom’s ‘meat dagger’ suggestion, but the reality doesn’t make much more sense. A rehearsal for a murder? That’s a ludicrous suggestion - it doubles your chance of getting caught, and also risks getting caught before you get the chance to perform the real thing. Why the particular obsession with Bainbridge - surely it could have been any guard? But Bainbridge in particular was stalked to the point that he actually contacted a detective. How on earth did neither Bainbridge nor Sholto feel the skewer/knife? Furthermore, Sherlock’s deduction is immensely flawed - if we compare it to any other deduction, it feels really random. Deducing Mary’s pregnancy, for example, he draws on her behaviour throughout the day, and deducing the various men for Janine zooms in on features clearly connected with them, like cat hair etc. This deduction, by contrast, is messy - the skewer recollection is completely disconnected from the crime, as is the wedding schedule that prompts him to think of Bainbridge as a rehearsal. It feels messy and incomplete.

Instead, I want to flip the murder-as-wedding metaphor around - what if, instead of the wedding helping us to understand the murder, the murder actually helps us to understand the wedding? The convoluted structural parallels that are the substance of the former metaphor are the set-up for a far more important reveal in the latter. If the wedding is a murder, and John is the murderer, then someone needs to be the victim.

Sholto is the would-be victim of the Mayfly Man, and he is pretty clearly used as a mirror for Sherlock throughout. They are both notably anti-social, which Sherlock himself draws attention to when he’s jealous that John thinks that Sholto is more anti-social than he is. Sherlock also implies that if Sholto is John’s old commander, Sherlock is his current one. It’s pretty clear that Sherlock sees a lot of himself in Sholto, which will be important for the deduction he is making.

People have talked about the implications of murder in tjlc a lot - the framework for the entire show is set up in TGG when Jim threatens to burn the heart out of Sherlock, which can literally be seen as murder, but figuratively, given John’s got a bundle of semtex on at this point, is probably more to do with destroying Sherlock’s figurative heart, and is set up as being specifically about Sherlock and John. 

It makes a lot of sense, then, that the attempted murder of Sholto can be read as the moment that the heart is burned out of Sherlock - this is possibly the most painful moment the show has to offer. Even if we take out the super phallic murder method (meat dagger, thank you Mofftiss), the queer parallels are still there and fairly obvious. Mary’s comment to Sherlock re Sholto, ‘neither of us were the first, you know’, just doesn’t make sense without tjlc, as many have pointed out. Most striking, however, is the line that Sherlock delivers when Sholto is considering s**cide in room 207; he says:

“We wouldn’t do that, you and me. We wouldn’t do that to John Watson.”

The parallel Sherlock draws between the two of them is frankly bizarre unless you believe that they are experiencing the same pain in that moment, but it’s better explained by taking a look at Sherlock’s deduction. If Sherlock has deduced the wedding-as-murder, and based on his discussion of Sholto is aware of the parallels between the two of them, this may be the first time that Sherlock has deduced the entirety of his feelings for John. There are a couple of things that back this up - one is Sherlock’s inability to recognise that he is John’s best friend early on, suggesting that he’s still in the dark about their relationship, but more important is the end of the episode. We see a close shot of Sherlock’s face looking pretty damn sad just before he leaves the wedding early, and the song goes: 

“Why’d it take so long to see the light?

Seemed so wrong but now it seemed so right.”

Extended S4 meta (coming soon) will deal more thoroughly with the second of those lines and why it is so important, but it’s a pretty devastating pair of lines to choose to accompany Sherlock’s last glimpse of John before he leaves. I take these to mean that the best man speech isn’t about Sherlock solving the Mayfly Man case - he uses the Mayfly Man case to deduce his feelings for John at the moment John leaves him, and that is tantamount to the murder Moriarty has planned. (How does Mary play into this - is it a plan of Moriarty’s? I’m still untangling these threads for the longer meta.)

When Sherlock delivers these lines, then, it’s clear that he’s already made the metaphorical connection between himself and Sholto in this episode. His acknowledgement that they’re in the same position is an acknowledgement of his love and of his - metaphorical, unlike poor old Sholto, although I’m sure he feels plenty of heartache too - murder.

Structurally, the Sherlock-John-Mary “murder” takes centre stage here - the discovery of the identity of the Mayfly Man isn’t even given a deduction, except the usual nod to the fact that he was hiding in plain sight (like tjlc). The end of the episode focuses on the devastating departure from the wedding that I’ve already mentioned - the metaphorical murder complete.