#withanaccent

[candicanesunited]

Thanks to Withanaccent for this scoop.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hey there! I love your blog! There's something bothering me a lot, and it's the interview where Gatiss and Moffat state that Jonlock will never happen and that they are tired of saying it and that people are twisting their words to get a johnlock confirmation.. How can you still have faith in this ship when they keep repeting it's a no go.. I'm such a huge johnlock shipper, and used to believe in it till series 4, but now it's getting harder and harder not to loose faith..

these are part of the interview i was talking about: “Don’t blame us for things that aren’t there. It is infuriating. We get pilloried for these things as if our show – we haven’t even made the thirteenth one yet – has to have the shoulders to bear every single issue and every single campaign point. You can’t do that. It’s our show, they’re our characters, they do what we want them to do, and we don’t have to represent absolutely everything in that ninety minutes. It’s impossible. ”

“But we’ve explicitly said this is not going to happen – there is no game plan – no matter how much we lie about other things, that this show is going to culminate in Martin and Benedict going off into the sunset together. They are not going to do it.”

Hi Nonny!

Ah, yes, this is from the infamous WithAnAccent Interview from SDCC 2016, which actually sparked a LOT of controversy in the fandom at the time because the writer of this article refused to release sources for their content, when Nerdgeist offered up sources with no question, and essentially, I THINK if I recall correctly (please, friends, correct me if I’m wrong), that the writer was essentially being very anti-Johnlock themselves. I actually talked a bit about it here. There was actually a followup story the following day or so, which was a “part two” and basically confirmed Mofftiss lie all the time. I believe this was the same con that Mofftiss made the speech about “grumpy bisexual” and “camp gay” comments, and how you have to be careful about how you introduce LGBT characters. I suppose the latter interview can be left up to individual interpretation.

SDCC 2016 was a wild one, that’s for sure.

That said, we also have the comments by and actions taken by the creators post-S4 (like blocking and mocking people who talked about Johnlock, admitting to queerbaiting, etc.). So yeah, I can see why you are at a loss as to whether or not Johnlock will be canon, especially after whatever the hell S4 was. And that’s totally okay, Nonny! You’re allowed to be upset, and to really not think there’s any more coming, especially when all the cast, creators and crew either speak ill of Johnlock or block people, admit to queerbaiting, or shirk the questions. It’s totally okay Nonny! You’re allowed to not believe there’s more; there’s plenty of evidence pointing to what we got is “it”.

So, what still keeps me going after all of this, after all of the negativity surrounding S4? For me, I still have faith because what the narrative is telling us belies the word coming out of everyone’s mouths. In Seasons 1 to 3 and TAB, we are shown that Johnlock is the glue that holds the series together. This is demonstrated by the utter lack of Johnlock in S4 and you get a show that makes absolutely no sense. The quality of S4 is not the same as the previous seasons, and I just have a REALLY hard time believing that this Emmy-award-winning team:

Suddenly forgot how to film a scene without getting a camera operator in the shots.

Made sloppy editing choices that look bad on the crew (ie sloppy transitions, jaundiced skin, making sure the camera people weren’t in the shots).

Repeated scenes without any explanation as to why.

Created more plot holes than answers.

Forgot ALL the rules they established for their universe in previous seasons.

Gave us SO many inconsistencies. SO MANY.

Create Eurus who makes no sense at all.

Are STUPID METICULOUS about EVERYTHING in EVERY FRAME of EVERY SHOT, but are claiming none of it means anything?

Suddenly decided to no-homo the entire series and make these characters they claim to love so much essentially NOT the “Sherlock and John show”, like they were claiming for years.

Made the first two episodes look so beautiful but created whatever the hell TFP was.

Went from TAB to... that. It doesn’t make sense.

Etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.

TL;DR: S4 makes no sense and I just CAN’T let that go. As a logical creature, I need to pick apart everything to try to make sense of it.

Anyway, I do honestly have a bit of hope for something more, that there may be a Johnlock ending eventually. I do believe either something happened behind the scenes that we’re not privy to, or it’s “recreating the outrage of the original TFP”, or it’s purposely bad to get people to realize that the show is pointless without Johnlock, or they were annoyed we figured it out. 

As many of my followers know, I reluctantly want an S5, if only to explain the fuckery of S4. 

Anyway, thank you  for the lovely comment about my blog! I’m glad you enjoy it here, despite my flip-floppiness LOL.

[mac-arthur-park]

That Guardian article brought me to actual tears, can you believe it? That’s how you journalism, dear withanaccent. That’s how you do it.

[queerbaitinglock]

please read the second part of the interview and stop worrying about johnlock

[queerbaitinglock]

I’m not going to say anything about this mess of an article but that it has once again shown me the beauty of the TJLC community.  I received several messages from people I never talked to before, everyone was looking out for each other, supporting each other in their anger, protecting each other from doubting and telling each other to sit down with TAB and a cup of tea and just take care of themselves. Yesterday was a terrible day for lgbt+ representation, we’ll see if it was a terrible day for BBC Sherlock as well because the show doesn’t make any sense without canon johnlock and this is something that will never change.  Wether you keep believing (as you should imo) or decide to distance yourself from the topic out of fear of being disappointed and hurt (something I can completely understand), I want to focus on the compassionate and caring way we stuck (and still do!) together in this crisis. We are beautiful and we deserve to be treated with respect. 

[girlwhosangtheblues]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck

So, "the article" is real, per Mark Gatiss. I either take them at their word and just... Try to enjoy the show anyway, stop watching to avoid my inevitable disappointment, or stick my head in the sand and hope like hell they're lying (very adamantly) about this and continue as things have been... I don't mean to make it sound so serious, but I felt a very personal, crushing sort of blow when this happened with a previous show I was "invested" in (not a gay ship, and one obviously openly hinted at in canon) and I don't really want to have to deal with that. I despise feeling led-on. Ugh. And I'm not even as heavily invested as many of the queer fandom are... To me, it's just a (very good, not to mention very well-founded) ship. To them, it's being marginalized and poorly represented yet again, by a man who really should know better. Not sure what I want to do right now. I've literally only been in the fandom for a couple of months, and I almost feel like I'm already at a "point of no return." I feel a little ill right now.

[themayflynans]

TPTB doth protest too much, methinks

[themayflynans]

The withanaccent interview & Mark’s response: a reflection

I am a Sherlock fandom nobody, est. 2012.

I never used to care whether Johnlock would actually be canon until, much like a not-inconsiderable number of fans, the airing of series 3. I was a passive spectator to the birth of TJLC and the ensuing factioning of the Sherlock fandom along that line, and I always promised myself that I would never be a judgmental fan - live and let live, I always say. I followed the metas of LSiT as well as mid0nz (and continue to follow the latter, including her brilliant new online magazine) with equal enthusiasm, agreeing with some of their ideas and disagreeing with others. 

I continue to be a more or less passive fan; I do not get involved in fandom discourse, I do not create transformative works, I do not add comments longer than a paragraph or so to my reblogs, and my most viral post is silly and uncontroversial, thank goodness. But I was and am a thinking fan, and here are my thoughts. 

In the end, I thought, there was a pretty good possibility that Johnlock would be canon, or else the show was queer-baiting. Or, as the old fandom adage goes, “Gay or Trash”. Am I a TJLCer? According to its definition, I am. 

And as a TLJCer, I find that the belief in Johnlock is interestingly similar to believing in god, because, similar to having faith in a higher power, there is literally no way to know whether Johnlock will be canon until the end. 

The textual evidence is strong. But the show could be queer-baiting. The creators always, always, tout themselves as liars, so you can never know the truth outside of the text (”There is nothing outside the text”, in the eternal words of my go-to literary-theorist-when-I-used-to-actually-write-at-uni Jacques Derrida) but then they say shit like what they said at SDCC. There is no way to know until the end, and many people don’t care, and many people love that fact, and many have come to peace with it.

Is this interview the first time, or the worst time, something like this has happened? Hell, no. I don’t think anything will best the Caitlin Moran fiasco pre-series 3. But that’s just me. Most will agree that this interview is not the worst thing to ever happen.

But when the creators say something like this, after a weekend like SDCC (actually because of it, probably), it really is a bummer, and it takes a while to get over the funk that hangs over you after reading it. Because you kind of invest a big amount of your happiness in the cathartic experience that Johnlock will be, no matter how important you think representation is (and it is quite important), and having them constantly put your fandom down with scorn, of all things, after the high, high euphoria of the last few days is like blowing up a balloon, popping it, patching up, blowing it up, over, and over, and over.  It really is exhausting.

I truly admire fans who ship Johnlock (and other ships, but this is about Johnlock) without expectations of its canonicity, because they find happiness in their ships in their own ways, the right ways, disregarding the words of the creators because ultimately, yes, there truly is nothing outside of the text, and it belongs to you. 

But - I never agreed with the Death of the Author interpretation favored by certain segments of the fandom (who were wrongfully attacked for their interpretations - I cannot overstate how Extra 2014 was if you weren’t there) of Sherlock and canon Johnlock because the Author still lives, the Author still writes, and the story is not over. 

We just have to wait and see.