#but while writing it i remembered other queer labels that get death threats from their own community | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

groupkiller · 7 years

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Living in the moment

David Mitchell taught me about “living in the moment.”

https://youtu.be/6HTt6QJqzxk

Sometimes like during sports finals or movies you THINK you are living in a good moment, but later you have to reevaluate and realize you sat through 1,5 hour that turned out to be bad moments. People might agree that a football match was exciting while it was on, but still wont categorise the moments watching that match as very good, if their teem looses the game.

I will in no way deny that I have been intertained by Sherlock season 4.

I don’t deny that I don’t own the show. It was never my personal fanfiction (though it felt like it).

In The Final Problem I WAS at the edge of my seat, (despite inconsistanscies) I felt entertained, smiled, clapped and so on, untill the end, when I got sad.

But I think it is ok to be disapointed in movies and TV shows that don’t follow through on “their promises”. I put it in “” because at least the johnlockers felt the creators promised romance, but a lot of other people didn’t.

I think they should have put less subtext in the show, if all they wanted to do was a friendship story. They could have made it much more clear that the soft moments were just about friendship, if they wanted to.

(If they did want a romance or just wanted an open ending, so people could read into the show what they want, I think that is not as good as being clear, especially in a show where a lot of queer people have representation at stake).

They didn’t have to make John act jealous of/at Irene, didn’t have to include all the innuendo and gay jokes. They could have told a friendship story very clearly without that sub textual ambiguity.

I didn’t expect Harry to end up with Draco, or Tintin to kiss Hadock. Even though/if shippers of those couples (I don’t ship them) claim there to subtext. I think we can agree there is way less foreshadowing and build up for a Harry-Draco affair, than a john-lock kiss.

So the expectations come from the subtext.

The subtext led us to believe that we could expect romance.

I could put a million quotes here about “the things Sherlock always wanted to say but never did” and “romantic entanglement that… could complete you as a human being”. But we would be here all week then - besides you probably KNOW all the quotes.

Point is: subtext led to johnlock expectations for many people, and that makes us reevaluate the season (and for some the whole series) as “living in a bad moment” because stuff we love turns out to be queerbaiting.

I see people saying things like: “don’t expect the creators to cater to your ship.”

“Don’t hate the series just because your ship didn’t become canon.”

“It’s not queerbaiting, they ALWAYS wanted to just do a friendship story.”

“You see things that aren’t there, you just convinced yourselves that it’s there, but it never was.”

And i don’t hate the show. I hate the queerbaiting, and I honestly think it is there, because of the vast amount of subtext.

I don’t think you should ever hate on people, nomatter how disapointed you are. And sending the creators HATE is not something I condole. I think we should keep a civil tone while certainly telling them, we are disspointed. But lets’s not send any death threats ok!

I do feel intertained (mostly by season 1-3) but also by season 4. I just have to reevaluate the last 4,5 hour as living in “not as good a moment as I thought”.

In The Big Bang Theory people who wanted Sheldon to stay an unfeeling machine might be as disapointed after “the ShAmy” became canon as I feel right now.

But I think people CAN actually expect show creators to take into account what the viewers want. And I think a lot of people wanted Sheldon and Amy to have sex. A lot of people wanted Ross and Rachel to get together. A lot of shows DO listen to many of the viewers and try to make their favorite ship happen (at least if it’s straight ships).

So I don’t think johnlockers are crazy for having believed that finally the queer community would get a ship become canon on main stream tv in 2017.

That said, I know that far from EVERYONE wanted Johnlock.

These viewers might think it is great to see a fulfilled story arch where Sherlock starts out as an unfeeling machine (due to childhood trauma), but finally he became a good man, learned to have friends, learned Greg’s name, and continued helping people with cases.

But I think we WERE promised a romantic arch. Not just a “judge for yourselves, if you want johnlock to be there, just read it into the show”-ending.

Imagine what it would feel like if Rose hadn’t wanted to hold Jack’s hand in the freezing water after Titanic sunk.

I think people watching Forrest Gump would reevaluate, what they thought was living in a great moment watching a good movie, and label it a bad moment, if the movie ended with Forest visiting Jenny, and it turned out:

Forrest didn’t actually care that much about her. They were good friends, had coffee and that’s all. He then went on to sit at bus stops talking to strangers about celebrities he met, great adventures he had and offering them chocolate.

If in the end it turned out that his words: “why don’t you love me Jenny? I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is” weren’t really important to his story and character arch at all, it wasn’t always about Jenny. Forrest asking her to mary him because he’d make a good husbond… that was just a fleeting remark, not important at all. Then I think people would have felt cheated. Like they were promised a love story they didn’t get.

Ok I might be unfair because Forrest Gump had a clear romantic arch, no one would deny. But with Sherlock, many would deny johnlock. (Because of heteronormativity or whatever, To be fair I haven’t really listened to many of the arguments against johnlock ^_~ who knows, some might be legit)

“Who you are isn’t important” Well the johnlockers really thought that WAS important in adotion to all the interesting cases. Romance WAS an important part of the story, and if they didn’t want us to expect that, I think a lot of the scenes in the show are quite weird and out of place for a platonic friendship story.

In conclusion: - I do love the show, also season 4. - I was excited, but think I was promised more than I got. - I don’t like the queerbaiting. - I think people who deny the queer subtext and the promises that gives us are not nessesarily homophobes, but too grounded in heteronormativity to understand how devistating this unfulfilled romance is to johnlockers.

I am a writer, and one of the most important rules of writing is: if you promise the reader something, remember to give them what you promised or explain why they can’t have it. You should always have beta readers tell you, the promises THEay THINK you made to them. So if you made promises without being aware, you can adress them.

There might be good reasons why you wont give the reader the romance you hinted at. Maybe you as a writer only intended it to be a friendship story. But then you have to make that clear.

In short stories open endings are fine. But in novel-length-works people expect answers to the story questions they develop along the way.

And though many casual viewers think that a friendship as end goal and a more mature Sherlock might have been the clear goal of this series. There are CLEARLY a huge group, who thinks the show promised something, and didn’t deliver. And they didn’t explain why. If they did anything, they opened the ending, so you could enterpret it as you wish, but that’s not enough after 16,5 hours in my opinion.

There is also the political discussion about queer representation to take into account.

But from a pure story-telling perspective: What I thought was living in a great moment turned out to be an intertaining but unsatisfying moment in retrospect.

And I think a good show should be able to entertain in more than the moments it takes to see the show first time. It should keep on making you feel like you came full circle with the characters.

And a huge group doesn’t feel that with only this friendship. Or the open ending.

But what about the people who would have been sad and felt it would have been wrong if they kissed? Probably the big majority of viewers.

Isn’t it their show as well?

Yes it is. But i refuse to believe that in 2017 all the casuals would have recoiled and said: “where the hell did that come from,” if a tiny montage with the most obvious gay subtext had been incorporated.

It’s ok to surprise your reader/viewer, as long as you DO foreshadow.

I am uncertain about how many would have reevaluated their moments (16,5 hours) as bad moments, if johnlock had happened.

Maybe if they never rewatched the series and thus never picked up on the gay subtext in light of the ending… Again going back to the idea of a good show being able to entertain again and again with more depth every time you watch it.

If the epilouge to Harry Potter had him arriving to platform 9 ¾ with Draco, kissing him, I would have reread the books to see where I had missed the foreshadowing. (I did this emediately after book 6, because I loved Snape. And by looking for foreshadowing that could redeem him, I picked up on the Lily-thing. Told all my friend, noone believed me until book 7, but everyone then said it WAS great because of the well hidden but totally pressent foreshadowibg of Snape’s story arch) And i hope most viewers would have done the same with Sherlock, had johnlock happened explicitly - realizing how much romantic build up there was.

Then they might have reevaluated their moments as giving them a ship they didn’t ask for but at least with good story telling and build up behind it. Maybe be angry at the show’s straightbaiting/heterobaiting?

I HATED that Catnis lost her sister in the end of Hunger games, because i wanted a happy ending. But I still think the books are great because they dared show that in war there is usually no happy ending. And I think back, and realize the story of Hunger games from the start told me that all my favorites could die a meaningless dearh, that was part of the story and sort of the point.

So it’s not like I can’t enjoy good story telling even if it gives me an ending I didn’t want, AS LONG AS the book/show/movie warned me and foreshadowed events.

But in Sherlock I feel like they foreshadowed a romantic ending in EVERY episode, and didn’t deliver. I felt like they deliberately put in hints only to not follow through.

But I had hoped for johnlock, and for a lot of casual viewers to think: “oh, I should have seen that coming, but it doesn’t change that John and Sherlock are a great, and I love when they solve cases, and it doesn’t matter if they share the bedroom.”

Now casuals think things are as they have always been, and should be.

It’s still 1895, eventhough it’s actually 2017.

And Johnlockers cry because of this entertaining, but queerbaiting opotunity that was wasted.

@quietlyprim @jenna221b @loudest-subtext-in-tv

#johnlock #the final problem #tjlc is real #tjlc #sherlock

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