#vox article

[artfulkindoforder]

Puritanism took over online fandom — and then came for the rest of the internet

Puriteens, anti-fans, and the culture war’s most bonkers battleground.

Puritanism took over online fandom — and then came for the rest of the internet

It all starts with a Voltron ship war, because of course it does.

[paceyjoey2020]

Joey and Pacey’s season three love story is the only storyline on Dawson’s Creek that might be called aesthetically pleasing. It’s an exquisitely paced slow burn, one that reveals new depths to its characters and makes them both more complex and more sympathetic. It is still satisfying to watch in 2018.

- Vox

[article-title-memos]

[danisariandi]

If you want to revoke read receipts habits, turning it off is the best solution to avoid being targeted by scammers and hackers for improving privacy protections.

Editorial illustration for the Vox article "Turn off your read receipts. They're dangerous"

[thief-puppy21]

Puritanism took over online fandom — and then came for the rest of the internet

It all starts with a Voltron ship war, because of course it does.

I really need everyone to read this article. I, admittedly, have been gone from Tumblr for a while and am finding my way back because I can't seem to escape Taylor Sw*ft on Twitter.

I didn't realize how bad it got here until I read that unhinged "Polin fan" post about Colin and his sexploits. (check my reblog for my response).

More than just being about fandom, it's a very worrying trend in that we live in a world where TPTB are dogmatically moving right. And with that, they're hoping to once again push anything they consider "deviant" to the margins of society. That's trans folks, that's sex workers, that's migrants, that's anyone not straight, white, cis, and able-bodied.

Yet, these kinds of posts, like the one mentioned above, tend to come from folks who would consider themselves liberal in some way. The disconnect is pretty astounding and awfully horrifying.

You never have to betray your own feelings about sex and what that means to you. You never get to impose your own feelings about sex and what it means to you onto other people.

[vrepitsorrynotsorry]

Scientists will unleash an army of crabs to help save Florida’s dying reef — Vox

Not all heroes wear capes. Some are crabs.

Seems relevant to share this here.

[theboldtypeobsession]

The Bold Type is a romantic comedy where the love interest is the job

There’s a new kind of love story in the show’s second season, and it’s great.

[fahbee]

So I read that Vox article.

There is a HUGE difference between “shipping” and... I guess I’d call it “comprehending the plot of a story in-progress”.  This is a pretty major fundamental misunderstanding within fandoms and within that article.  It’s why the Harry/Hermione shippers were often disgusted by the “superior” and “smug” attitude of the Ron/Hermione shippers.  R/H was a prediction about the way the story was going to go even more than it was a “ship”.  Personally, I can’t think of any instance where I “shipped” something that wasn’t canon or wasn’t going to become canon by the end of the story.  If we don’t get Johnlock, it will be the first time that I can remember that I fell in love with a romantic relationship in a story that never came to be.

“If the football fans’ goal is to see their team win the Super Bowl, the shipper’s goal is to see their ship “win” by entering the narrative as an official storyline.”  I suppose this is accurate of traditional “shipping”.  Liking two random characters who have little to no interaction with each other, let alone romantic interaction, (like Ginny/Draco in the HP world or Lestard/Mycroft in Sherlock) and rooting/hoping for TPTB to make your ship canon.

That is not what Johnlock is.  At all.  Johnlock is Darcy/Elizabeth, it’s Mulder/Scully, it’s Niles/Daphne.  It’s a part of the plot, not just a background romantic relationship with no real impact on the main storyline.  And as a part of the plot, it will be foreshadowed, teased, and hinted at.  There will be pining looks and affectionate smiles and passionate arguments and great big huge (romantic) gestures that will drive the plot along.  For example: Darcy chasing down Wickham and forcing him to marry Lydia, Mulder frantically trying to solve the mystery of Scully’s cancer, Daphne running away with Niles on her wedding day, (and yes, Sherlock flatlining and then coming back to life at the thought of John Watson being in danger).  Where there disappointed Daphne/Donny and Niles/Maris and Daphne/Frasier and Niles/Roz etc. shippers out there?  Almost certainly.  But if these shippers actually thought Niles and Daphne were not going to end up together I would say that they aren’t very good at... uh... comprehending the plot of a story in-progress.  (There’s got to be a snappier way of saying that).

It’s not about whose ship will be “endgame”.  It’s about consuming a story and being able to predict, based on the content of said story, that this couple will get together or this bad guy will be defeated, or this group of heroes will triumph at the end of the day.  It’s not an “all or nothing view of a character pairing”.  It’s basic reading (and watching) comprehension.  I don’t have the words to make this distinction any clearer.

And TJLC isn’t an ideology based on people’s desperate desire for a queer representation of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson on BBC’s Sherlock, in blatant defiance all logic, common sense, and even the explicit denials from the creators .  It is the genuine belief that Johnlock is a plot point that TPTB don’t want spoiled and thus will do whatever they have to, yes, even outright lie and deny, in order to protect their story.  For example, many people (including myself) predicted that Dumbledore would die before the final Harry Potter book based on the mentor trope, whereby an older mentor has to die (or otherwise remove themselves completely from the plot progression of the protagonist) in order for the mentee protagonist to come into their own power and worth, so that they may complete their mission / quest / etc.  I don’t know if anyone asked JKR prior to the publication of HBP if Dumbledore was going to die, but if they did, she clearly didn’t answer truthfully!  What was she supposed to do, spoil a huge plot development in her story?  One that she fully understood would have a massive emotional impact on her audience?  That is what TJLC is.  It is JKR not spilling the beans on Dumbledore dying because she wants to protect her story in-progress, even though many people can easily see that it is very likely to happen because that is how the kind of story she was writing works.  

Guess what?  Sherlock isn’t a detective story.  It is a story about a detective.  The mysteries have pretty much fallen by the wayside at this point.  This is something that the “casual” viewing public and critics all pretty much agree on.  What they can’t see, what their heteronormative goggles don’t allow them to see, regardless of the fact that it could not be more obvious when you take those damn goggles off, is that this story about a detective has a very clearly set-up and foreshadowed romantic arc.  One that started from the very first episode, nay, the very first moment that two men locked eyes across a room and the audience saw time literally stop, and the earth move.

In conclusion, Aja, seems to be applying her HP shipping wars and fandom experience to Sherlock.  All this talk of ships “prevailing” and becoming canon.  TJLC and Johlock is as necessary to the coherency of Sherlock as was the defeat of Voldemort to Harry Potter or the redemption of Anakin Skywalker to Star Wars.  To put Johnlock in the same “shipping” category as Molly/Irene or Luna/Neville is to completely misunderstand what TJLC is, at its most basic level.  And if Aja doesn’t know or understand that, she shouldn’t be writing articles about it like she’s some kind authority.

One last thought -- who was that celebrity that freaked out in 2000 over a shipping joke about himself/friend and who now has 5M twitter followers?  And who was the “friend” he got shipped with?  This was pretty much the only worthwhile thing in that whole article.