The Sign of Two

Connie, 31, she/her. Sherlock devotee. Johnlock shipper.

[warmth-and-constancy]

I am totally hedging and being like “lol, of course it would be delusional to even entertain the idea that I am feeling like a post-Reichenbach Strand Magazine reader at the present moment because a well-known media figure did a podcast about TJLC out of the fucking blue as a direct result of some kind of unseen string being pulled somewhere” but I have been basically unable to accept the more *seemingly* rational premise that this TV show ISN’T being directed at us in very oddly specific ways ever since that onscreen phone number in S4 was like “1-800-555-TJLC” and also ever since Ashleigh was in S4

Anyway, goodnight!

[warmth-and-constancy]

Right there with you, but I think fangirls and non-men were leading the charge back then, too. At least, I’m pretty sure it was a woman who called ACD a brute. (I’m also envisioning her whacking him with a large bag or parasol, but I think that’s actually just my imagining of what a Victorian woman would have done to a man whom she had addressed as “you brute!”)

[warmth-and-constancy]

Like, every single one of us has been thrust into the Crazy Fan spotlight and I don’t necessarily think that has to be an intentionally engineered part of the showrunners’ “game” (in which they create the puzzles in the show for astute audiences to figure out and mirror the astute fans’ responses and parallels to ACD’s readers in both the narrative and in their engagement with the public) in order for us to make our next move one of “okay, since we’re here in this spotlight anyway, thanks for coming to our TED Talk”

[warmth-and-constancy]

Just to reiterate that I find it totally uncanny that TJLC’s active numbers have dwindled since S4, while many fans who are involved enough in fandom to be aware of TJLC think that we failed to predict the show’s outcome accurately (believing the show to have ended, crappily) and the overwhelming majority of the fans of Sherlock (defined simply as people who have watched and enjoyed it) AREN’T aware of TJLC and also probably haven’t thought about Sherlock in over a year, and that presumably the majority of fans with whom the showrunners, cast, and crew have contact (at cons, on Twitter, etc.) are either not TJLC at all or casually on board with it (i.e., tweeting to Arwel about elephants), AND YET

- TJLC has been an implied subject of a “fans didn’t get what they wanted and I didn’t like the backlash” comment by Martin, and

- TJLC is the subject of, or mentioned in, more than one podcast in a matter of days

All while TPTB are clearly ramping up promotion of their totally-over, definitely-ended TV show with charity breakfast auctions, escape rooms, and neverending cons (I don’t actually know if that last one is true but it seems that on every rare occasion when I have paid attention to actual Sherlock news in the last century, that news has consisted of “there is another Sherlocked con taking place in some part of the world,” so I can only assume that one is currently being held in, like, Cleveland).

What I’m saying is:

1) Did one of you hire a PR firm to issue press releases without telling the rest of us?

and

2) I definitely think we should wear black armbands.

[shinka]

the escape room is going to be about a case featuring two people who are in love but can’t be together for plot reasons and all the casuals are going to be ‘hmmmm as an escape room it doesn’t make sense but it was fun!’

[warmth-and-constancy]

Sherlock: Beauty is based on childhood impressions, etc. etc.

John: Hang on, is this my jumper or Sherlock’s dad’s jumper?

TJLC: ....Sigh. [writes 100,000 words of meta on this subject]

TPTB: (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[warmth-and-constancy]

I’m not saying I am conspiratorial enough to feel that we have entered the “uggggh, the fans didn’t get what they wanted and now they won’t shut up,” public, press-oriented phase of the mirroring of ACD by Mofftiss, BUT: that.

[warmth-and-constancy]

Like, I might be COMPLETELY insane for feeling like this is some Geek Interpreter shit, but I am always 1000% suspicious of Slate when it comes to TJLC stuff, considering that A) I THINK they were one of the few publications in the wake of S3 to be like “look how gay this is,” which, if I remember that correctly, makes it extra weird that Willa Paskin wouldn’t just, y’know, kick this whole thing off by casting a glance at the archives, and B) they published that article about Vivala.me and other postmortem video services which may or may not be real companies

I swear to God, who pitched this angle to Paskin? Was it Sue using a burner email address? Congratulations, Slate, you’re Strand Magazine now

Coming soon: “Moffat and Gatiss straight up spoil S5 for you - only for Slate Plus members!”

[warmth-and-constancy]

I’m not saying I am conspiratorial enough to feel that we have entered the “uggggh, the fans didn’t get what they wanted and now they won’t shut up,” public, press-oriented phase of the mirroring of ACD by Mofftiss, BUT: that.

[warmth-and-constancy]

*bursts out of accidental hiatus*

You know what creators of TV shows that are definitely, 100% over like to do? Talk about them a bunch and then develop an escape room

Also, Willa Paskin, gurl, S4 was seventeen years ago, why are you interested in this now

(Hi everybody)

[warmth-and-constancy]

I for one am 1000% here for Guillermo del Toro’s romantic inter-species Creature From the Black Lagoon fanfiction, by which I mean that I have basically no desire to see it but am glad that that is a description of a real thing

[warmth-and-constancy]

Hollywood Foreign Press: *leaves kudos*

[garkgatiss]

is it REALLY so unbelievable that, after all the hundreds of easter eggs and references to the most obscure holmes adaptations you can imagine, the personification of Love would arrive disguised as a fairly prolific author of tender johnlock fanfiction

[warmth-and-constancy]

Remember when we collectively hedged about this? Like “I mean, it’s almost certainly just a coincidence that Eurus/E/whoever looks like Ashlonk Kinkleigh to an alarming degree??? But it sure is funny, hahaha!!!”

Anyway, hi Claire, love your work

[warmth-and-constancy]

Remember when I completely fucking forgot about the “I love you” trailer, good times

[warmth-and-constancy]

I don’t like the fact that the wank on my dash is annoying or pissing off my friends and mutuals but I do love the nostalgia factor

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

Genuine question but when did the fandom go from “yes Sherlock and John are two codependent assholes but it’s fiction and I love them” to “their relationship is unhealthy and a sign of shitty writing”? S4 is a whole bear we could tackle, but they’ve never acted like normal people because they aren’t normal, their world isn’t normal, and this is fiction.

[warmth-and-constancy]

In general, I have found that this kind of statement (”relatively innocuous thing would be slightly to moderately unhealthy, though not dangerous and possibly not even damaging at all, in the Real World, and therefore its inclusion in a work of fiction is BAD WRITING!”) often means one of three things:

1. I hate a ship or character, and instead of just being like “well, I guess that means I...hate that ship/character” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have decided that I need to justify my aversion and declare the ship/character Objectively Bad using something I learned in that psychology class I took in my second semester of college that I can only sort of remember

2. I would like everyone to know that I know that [codependence/being an asshole/being a superhero who uses my fists instead of my words/knocking a wizard off a flying broomstick/going to a middle school dance after being kidnapped by the government or possessed by a monster/forgiving someone for having done a bad thing] is Unhealthy and not a realistic depiction of what is Appropriate for Real People, which is A Thing I Know About, and furthermore I would like everyone to know that their depiction of such a thing means that I, who know more about Healthiness than they do, am morally superior to the creators of the canon work I love so much that I have a Tumblr about it

3. There is a fairly sensible consensus in my fandom that it is bad to depict gender-based violence, racism, etc. in works of fiction in ways that do not challenge those things, and sometimes even in ways that do challenge those things but have nothing new to say and/or are unnecessarily gratuitous or patronizing, but I have absolutely no sense of proportion and have decided that the characters in my alleged favorite show violate the Geneva Convention because they don’t always say please and thank you to one another

[warmth-and-constancy]

How do antis still exist

There are other things to discuss besides a TV show that you hate

There are even...other TV shows

[hawksmoor17]

in this post s4 world u either get rekt or get brecht……………………

pour one out for the ex-tjlcers we left behind

[darcylindbergh]

“i don’t have friends…i’ve just got one” like seriously if someone said that to you in real life and they just happened to be the same someone you had spent the last year-ish trying not to wank yourself to death over in a stew of hormones that has you google searching whether soulmates are real at 3 a.m. while he plays you a lullaby downstairs on his fucking violin bc you had ninety seconds of a nightmare, what would you even do. what do you even do with that. implode on the spot? spontaneously combust? honestly by the fact that he got through that alive, john watson is a powerful man and deserves to be feared