#sherlock discourse

[musclesandhammering]

Actually still seeing people say stuff like “maybe the adlockers & sherlollies were right about sherlock being hetero-“

BOY. When did we say that? Who the hell is saying that?? Cause from where this adlocker’s sitting, sherlock is the most bisexual character on the show. He’s queer as hell. Man’s straight as a slinky. As bi as a bicycle.

…….Oh but I forgot that doesn’t actually count, because the only queer identities that are queer enough to count in their minds are gay men they can ship with other men without female interference. Right. My bad. Silly me thinking women had any place in the equation.

[cowboylikeyouu]

my favorite gender is men finding out about the concept of shipping non-canon ships

[who-always-pays-their-taxes]

Why do you (as in the royal you) as a member of a fandom,, seem to believe that things need to be,,, canon??? in fanfiction??? why would? that ever be? if you wanted to read pure canon, you could,,,, idk,,, read canon? pick up the source material,,, and if you wanted to read pure canon fanfiction just search the ‘canon compliant’ tag. that’s how ao3 works. so silly.

[clearwingedmaven]

Alright, so. I've got little time and some ideas, so I'll do a brief thought process on the death of Sherlock Holmes in 1893, and the fandom as a whole.

Firstly, getting this out of the way. Sherlock Holmes was not the first modern fandom. That honor most likely goes to Charles Dickens and his work, especially the Pickwick Papers. There is evidence and record that fan merchandise, like joke books, tobacco, and shoe horns, were made with Pickwick Papers characters, especially Sam Weller.

However, Sherlock Holmes is probably our first instance of a global fandom where consequences quite literally created a literary and cultural firestorm. This isn't an exaggeration.

ACD's relationship with Holmes is... strange. Of course, he wanted to kill off Holmes, and move onto other books. (Historical novels, mainly, or Spiritualist manifesto), but there was always a love hate relationship, and we see that most predominantly through fan letters.

Almost immediately after Holmes’s death in 1893, there was shock. Scandal. Mourning. Fans exchanged letters in newspapers, trying to reach out to other fans to figure out what just happened, and what to do next. Holmes was dead. And for all anyone knew, so was the series.

So how'd they cope?

By creating communities. Discourse communities, to be more apt. They exchanged letters, asked questions, and talked through newspapers. Each one plucked from 1893 and 1894 show grief and confusion: for a fictional character.

People even started seeking out Joseph Bell, the man who inspired Holmes, in order to try to fill the void. There's even record of fans venturing to Reichenbach Falls in costume to pay tribute to their fallen hero. And this kept happening. For years. The world lost not just a character, it was their friend.

Keep in mind! Victorian literature was a family affair. Many people would gather around and read stories and books together, so the firestorm went further.

Until, it made ACD change his mind, and bring back Sherlock Holmes. (Can we call it bullying? Perhaps. I call it a unique circumstance of cultural phenomena.)

So where does it leave the fandom?

Ah, that's the question. This fandom, uniquely, has a distinct honor of being one of the oldest living discourse communities, an exchange of reader response, engagement, and including even more material.

So to the fans: from the fanfic writers, to the game makers, to the cosplayers, to the fans of adaptations near and far, to the editors, to the artists, to the dreamers and thinkers...

It is, given the nature of the fandom, that you are all a part of history, as part of one of the oldest(and still going!) Fandom discourse communities.

Keep that in mind. And keep going. 🙂

[tremendously-crazy]

sometimes, i forget that people ship sherlock holmes with characters other than watson. genuinely startles me

[thefisherqueen]

He brightened and rubbed his thin hands together as he listened to the meagre but remarkable details. A long series of sterile weeks lay behind us, and here at last there was a fitting object for those remarkable powers which, like all special gifts, become irksome to their owner when they are not in use. That razor brain blunted and rusted with inaction. Sherlock Holmes's eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer hue, and his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the call for work reached him. 

'His whole eager face shone with an inward light' oh Watson you besotted darling

[infiniteaugends]

I see a lot of post celebrating canon buddie, a lot of posts catching the wording of “I’m sorry I outed you…”, and celebrating them ‘cuddling’. I just want to say it feels a little queer baity to me.

It feels like they’re giving the fans what they want, but only in vague terms to spark engagement. As someone who grew up in the era of Sherlock and Supernatural I want to offer a warning. Don’t get too invested in this ship becoming canon, John and Sherlock had a cuddle. Cas told Dean he loved him. In the end it didn’t matter, because the creators wanted the engagement without doing the work.

If buddie becomes canon, great! I don’t ship them, but I’ll always support more queer characters and representation in media. I just genuinely don’t think that it’s gonna happen. In order to enjoy fandom sometimes you’ve gotta accept that your ship is never going to truly sail and keep shipping them anyways. idk, maybe I’m just traumatized /lh.

That’s what I found so refreshing about Buck and Tommy, there was no subtly, no will they won’t they? Are they queer? The creators weren’t just giving crumbs in exchange for devotion to a ship they were never planning on canonizing. Anyway, as someone born of the age of queer baiting and denial of queer representation this feels like more of that.

[ponkydraws]

If you ship Sherlock and Molly, consider yourself an opp

[moonlightandpalmtrees]

shout out to Sherlock Holmes the most aspec character to ever aspec. And shout out specifically to people who view his and Watsons relationship as a qpr I am kissing your forehead

[jellybellyblimp]

I’m kind of glad tumblr “died” because it means this website is now mostly populated by adults who survived the fandom insanity of the early to mid 2010s and are now much more chill for it. Sometimes I see teenagers getting into fandom discourse on TikTok or Twitter and am immensely grateful that this site is no longer the primary stage for vitriolic fandom fervor

[grasponreality]

it doesn't matter what people in the "fandom" think - keep doing whatever the fuck you want

they say your fan art is cringe? it doesn't matter

they don't think you should be writing THAT type of fanfiction? it doesn't matter

they have some sort of moral objection to a ship you like or a personal head cannon or something else you enjoy? it doesn't fucking matter

just do whatever you want

don't bother having tedious "discourse" about it, don't bother trying to justify yourself to anyone, and don't get stressed out over strangers on the internet who want to police the way you interact with your favorite media.

I say this as an old woman who has used Tumblr on-and-off for the past 10+ years. None of it matters. The petty arguments, the rules and guidelines they try to impose on you, the self-righteous call-out posts about innocuous bullshit - tune it all out. it doesn't matter, it never mattered, and it never will.

[casebasket]

so this thought isn't very well formed yet but I wanted to know how the people who's been on here since circa 2012 thinks about how the nature of fandom discourse has changed or stay the same. How does the new good omens/ofmd/what we do in the shadows (??? is that the third one???) triumvirate stack up with 2012 OG superwholock whose name I can finally say out loud without wanting to lock myself in a fridge? Is it as insane? does it even qualify? To me I think it doesn't because like. tumblr really is the best site out there for fandom culture and I know there's a whole lot of very hot takes in the ofmd fandom being made on tiktok or insta now instead, and i've dipped my feet there a bit, and it doesn't feel the same. idk. superwholock entrenched every corner of this shithole to the point it leaked out to other sites. but sometimes i see posts there like 'i've never watched a show before that has altered my brain chemistry this much' and the james franco "first time?" meme pops in my head and how time is a circle that is, in this case, a decade long lol. what are we thinking about the recent generation of discourse.

[someonecomegettheirchild]

Question for the culture: What are the 5 most influential fandoms of all time?

Not necessarily the best and/or the biggest but which ones have had the most impact on how people engage with fan content today.

Star Trek, Supernatural and Harry Potter are all up there for me and ARGUABLY One Direction although I don’t know how much of that is personal bias but I am interested to hear everyone else’s takes and justifications

[allgremlinyaps]

I hate the last season of BBC Sherlock not because it was bad but because it was bad and it tricked me into thinking I was stupid. "why cant I really follow whats going on here I must be dumb" no you're just 12 and also its not very good TV. not a matter of your intelligence, really.

[thefisherqueen]

Now, presuming that the source of the crime is as we suspect it to be, there might be two different motives. In the first place, I may tell you that Moriarty rules with a rod of iron over his people. His discipline is tremendous. There is only one punishment in his code. It is death. 

It's slightly horrifying to learn more about Moriarty - about what a dangerous, merciless kind of man Holmes choose to atttempt to have arrested