#ms marvel wallpaper | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dashboarddiaries · 2 years

Text

DASHBOARD DIARIES, EPISODE 2 - The Game (Unpacking Fandom Fallout) is On

We tackle a second - and shortest running - part of Superwholock: Sherlock. Lauren walks us through the rise and fall of the fandom for the TV show BBC Sherlock, explains the broad strokes of The Johnlock Conspiracy (TJLC), and admits the wild internet rumor she wanted to believe. Meanwhile, Cherokee is literally losing sleep over For All Mankind. Episode may induce flashbacks to the mid-2010s, spontaneous shipping of old ships, and deeply analysis of wallpaper. Share your Sherlock feels in our ask box or email us at [email protected]!

Credits and transcript under the cut. You can find transcripts for this, and every other episode, here.

Thank you Lindsay and Mallory for sharing your feels with us!

Find the posts discussed in this episode in this tag!

Credits, show notes, and transcript under the cut. You can find transcripts for this, and every other episode, here.

Dashboard Diaries is a production of Atypical Artists, hosted by Lauren Shippen and Cherokee McAnelly. Our theme was composed by Lauren Shippen and mixed by Brandon Grugle. Art by Shae McMullin. Transcription (which can be found on our Tumblr) by Laudable.

Sound effects: "Bad Beep" by RICHERlandTV; "Correct Answer / That's Right!" by Beetlemuse; "Weather Forecast Introduction" by SergeQuadrado; all licensed under the Attribution 3.0 License.

Mark Gattis + Steven Moffat Answertime

To learn more about TJLC, here are a few resources to get you started:

Decoder Ring Podcast Episode about TJLC

Vox Article About Shipping Culture (with a focus on Johnlock)

YouTuber Sarah Z Video Episode

101 from a TJLC-er

Insider Breakdown on r/HobbyDrama

[intro music]

Cherokee: Hello, soft, sad freaks. I’m Cherokee McAnelly, professional tumblr’er, and ship poster.

Lauren: And I am Lauren Shippen, professional writer, and a person who to this day still thinks of that one scene, you know what I’m talking about, whenever I plug in my phone and miss the plug.

Cherokee: And this is Dashboard Diaries, a podcast for you, the folks who are in this internet bunker with us. We talk about what’s going on our favorite hell site, get into what we like to call “Tumble’lore,” do fandom deep dives, and share the times when we’ve gone feral over a new ship. So, Lauren, what have you been up to this week? What have you been watching? What have you been thinking? What have you been feeling?

Lauren: Well, after our conversation last time I did watch all of The Bear in two sittings. And felt more stressed out than I have ever felt in my life. I absolutely adored it. It was just phenomenal. And I also went totally nuts over the finale of Ms Marvel, which was just incredibly delightful. And that show gave me everything that I could have wanted from a Ms Marvel TV show, except for the fact that I just want it to be 100 episodes. I want to watch it every single week until I die. So, I hope that there is a second season that comes sometime soon.

But, Cherokee, what about you? What have you been up to?

Cherokee: Well, first off, I am so glad that you watched and enjoyed The Bear.

Lauren: It’s so good.

Cherokee: I agree that watching it feels like taking the SAT’s but I can’t turn it off.

(laughter)

Lauren: Why is that so accurate?

Cherokee: Or, you know, the SpongeBob/Mr. Krabs’ meme where it’s like him in the middle and then everything is kind of spinning around him?

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: That. (laughs)

Lauren: Oh, my god. You’re so right.

Cherokee: So, yeah. So, this week I, thanks to you Lauren, watched two seasons of For All Mankind. So late.

Lauren: Which has episodes that are an hour and a half sometimes. (laughs)

Cherokee: Yes. I watched it till 3:30 in the morning, not once but twice.

Lauren: (laughs) Oh my god.

Cherokee: The second time I slept through my alarm and missed my 10:00 AM meeting.

Lauren: (laughs) Sorry, Tumblr.

Cherokee: If you are listening to this – don’t , if you’re my boss. Anyway, I really, really loved For All Mankind. I have lots of thoughts and feelings about it. But in addition to that, I watched the first episode of Supernatural, in the first step of this journey of watching every episode.

[rock riff]

Lauren: It has begun. Your Supernatural journey has begun. All right. Give me the low down. How was the first episode for you?

Cherokee: I really enjoyed it. I will admit. I have watched the first episode before.

Lauren: Sure.

Cherokee: I’ve probably seen the first episode three to four times because the amount of times I’ve been like, “I’m going to watch Supernatural.” And then I get distracted naturally by something because there are 15 seasons. But this time, y’all, I’m sticking to it. I’m sticking to my word.

Lauren: It’s happening.

Cherokee: I’m watching it. So, first episode of Supernatural, as you all know, that is the episode where the mom dies on the ceiling, as I described very perfectly last episode.

Lauren: Oh yeah!

Cherokee: Of course, the woman in white, which I think what a girl boss villain to start off with. Good for her. You know?

Lauren: Yes. We love a strong female.

Cherokee: A girl goddess, yeah, look at her go. She’s so powerful that even after the grave she’s still messing stuff up. I respect that. I wrote down some thoughts. The first one was: this was on network TV following the very graphic death of the mom, one scene in? And the second was: I forgot that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in this. Just icon, love him. Also, I just wanted to note that Sam got a 174 on his LSAT and that is not quite as well as Elle Woods scored. Elle Woods got a 179. So, I just wanted to-

Lauren: You’re right!

Cherokee: ... just wanted to point that out. Sam did really well, but if we’re going by the Elle Woods’ scale, he should take it a couple more times.

Lauren: That’s true.

Cherokee: But I got a 168 on my practice LSAT. So, Sam did out-score me. And I look forward to watching the next episode. I love the reluctant savior trope. The coming back for one last ... “this is gonna be the last one” and then at the very end it’s like, “oh, we’re gonna kill monsters for 15 seasons.” So, yeah, I’m very into that trope. I’m in it. I’m ready to go. Yeah, I will be updating biweekly. Hopefully I watch more than one episode this time. But I was really-

Lauren: For All Mankind really sucked up that time.

Cherokee: It really did. It’s a thinker. So, wonderful week that we had. And speaking-

Lauren: Absolutely excellent.

Cherokee: Speaking of Supernatural and diving back 15 years in the past, let’s dive into our own archives with our Dashboard Confessions.

[guitar riff]

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: So, Lauren, what archive post were you checking out this week from your secret Tumblr?

Lauren: Well, it’s so funny because I decided to dive back into July of 2017. And what did I find but mostly Supernatural gifs. Genuinely, it’s like wall to wall. I mean, honestly, it’s a lot of Destiel. But it’s like wall to wall supernatural stuff because I started watching in earnest Supernatural at the end of 2016, because that is when I met Meghan Fitzmartin, who we will have on the show at some point, who was a writer on Supernatural. Who is one of my best friends, and got me into the show by telling me about how great it was. And how great it was to work on.

And so I think by July of 2017, so about seven months after I started watching, I was embarrassingly far into it. I started watching it in November or December and I think by that August I was done. And this would have been season 12 or 13. So, I watched a lot of episodes in a very, very short amount of time.

But actually the post, specifically, that I want to point out this week from July of 2017 is not Supernatural related at all, but a classic meme that I had forgotten about. So, it’s a screen cap from Gone With The Wind of Rhett looking at Scarlett. And instead of his famous line, the caption says, “TBH Bae, IDGAF.” And it’s just this funny remaking of this line in 2017 internet speak. It went around a bunch on Tumblr at the time. So, we will re-blog that to the www.DashboardDiaries.Tumblr.com, and you can see it for yourself and re-live those days of 2017.

Cherokee: First off, I thought that was the line from Gone With The Wind. So, you know, the more you know.

Lauren: I mean, it basically is. It has the spirit. You know? What were you seeing in your archives?

Cherokee: So, I have a very special post that I found this week. And it is from July 2015. This is the summer between me finishing my internship at Tumblr and working at Tumblr full time. And as I mentioned, I hung out with anyone associated with Tumblr. I went to everything, all the time. That whole summer. So, this is a selfie with David Carp, the Founder of Tumblr. Good ‘ol Tumblr Daddy.

Lauren: Oh my god.

Cherokee: I was at this thing and I was like, “David, I gotta get a selfie with you.” And my thing was is this going to be my last opportunity to get a selfie with David? What if I never work at Tumblr again? And thankfully that did not happen and I got to bother him for many more years. But yeah. Good little moment in time.

Lauren: This is incredible.

(laughter)

So, we will re-blog that as well. And you all can see Cherokee with our Founder. With our Father of Tumblr fandom.

Cherokee: The creator of Supernatural. Not literally, but in spirit.

(laughter)

Well, wonderful. Following our great little deep dive and staying with the superwholock vibe that we started the first episode off with, this week we’re going to dive into Sherlock. Which I believe you, Lauren, are a very big fan of.

Lauren: Yes. Yeah. I believe I talked about this on our first episode. But Sherlock is the thing that got me back into fandom as a 20-something. And is sort of the reason that I’m in fandom to this day.

Cherokee: Sherlock’s impact. So, some top line information on Sherlock that I pulled from the depths of Tumblr. Here’s the numbers, folks. So, Sherlock, the BBC show, has been a top show on Tumblr for 100 weeks since 2015, which is when we started recording these fandom metrics. Which essentially every week we published. If you’re not familiar, those listening along every week, we publish the top 20 in TV, film, music, movies, celeb, what have you, and it’s updated weekly.

And so we started have the categorized list in 2015. And I feel like there was a whole year where Sherlock was just, 2016 or 2017 I wanna say, pretty much every single week. Sherlock was a top show.

Lauren: That’s so wild.

Cherokee: Johnlock was only in our Ships list twice. And at first I was shocked about this and then I realized we didn’t launch a ship list for a few years.

Lauren: Oh, okay.

Cherokee: So, we launched the ship list in like 2018, 2017. So, there was a lot ... There were some key Johnlock times that just did not get counted in our ship list. So, I don’t think that’s a fully accurate representation. So, all you Johnlock stans out there, do not fret, it really isn’t ... it’s big on Tumblr. You know?

As in currently, there are 661,000 followers on the Sherlock tag. And 80,000 followers on the Johnlock tag on Tumblr. So, that’s just people following the tag alone.

Lauren: Right.

Cherokee: And we only launched tag following a couple years ago. Maybe a year ago. So, that’s again something that was-

Lauren: Oh wow, okay.

Cherokee: ... launched post really the big Sherlock kind of extravaganza.

Lauren: Yeah.

Cherokee: I do know there was hinting of a season five, potentially. So, maybe.

Lauren: We’ll get to that. (laughs)

Cherokee: (laughs) So, to start off, before I jump the gun here. Lauren, can you give us a brief history of your relationship with Sherlock and the Sherlock discourse for all of our unfamiliar listeners out there?

Lauren: Absolutely. So, as many of you probably already know, BBC Sherlock was a TV show that launched in 2010 and ran for four seasons of three episodes each with one Christmas special as well. So, there’s only 13 episodes for this entire series, essentially. But it was a massive, massive cultural phenomenon. It basically launched Benedict Cumberbatch’s career from someone who was doing decent sort of trade in British movies. He was busy. He was working. But then Sherlock made him this mega star that he is today. And spawned this renewal of the Sherlock Holmes fandom, which has really been around since the 1890s.

So, Sherlock Holmes is a character that has instilled a lot of fervor in people for over 100 years. Myself included. So, before we really dive into the fandom as a whole, this is not going to be a super academic break down of the Sherlock fandom or the drama conspiracy. It’s not going to be a gossipy fandom drama run-down. There are some really interesting deep dives into the larger sort of fandom conspiracy that occurred within the Sherlock fandom that we’ll link in the show notes. Because it is very, very interesting.

But for me it really started out as a show that I just really enjoyed. I watched the first series, the first season. They’re called “series” in England. That’s been the Sherlock fandom mostly, how you refer to the seasons of Sherlock as “series.” I watched the first series in December of 2010. I watched all three episodes over my Christmas break from college and absolutely fell in love. And was already on Tumblr and hadn’t really actually used Tumblr for fandom stuff at that point beyond music fandom. And so I started to dive deep into the Sherlock tag and it led me to AO3 as well, which I believe at that time was a still pretty new website in the grand scheme of things. And I started reading fan fiction again, which I hadn’t done since I was 16.

It was just a really, really wonderful time on Tumblr. Cherokee, I don’t know if you remember that time with the Sherlock fandom or if you were watching the show yourself when it was being released?

Cherokee: I was not, actually. I have seen a few episodes of Sherlock. I watched the first series in college when it came out. I had a friend studying abroad in England, I went and visited her, and instead of doing anything she was like, “I have discovered this show. Let’s watch it.” And that’s what we did the whole time. I was with her a weekend in London and we watched Sherlock.

Lauren: I love that.

(laughter)

Cherokee: So, I have seen the first season. I have now watched most of it. I have two episodes left. I wasn’t able to fit them all in. And again, that is entirely my fault. Because of my For All Mankind fixation for the past couple of weeks. But I’m familiar, as someone who lurked and was scrolling during the time. Also we did a Q&A with Mark Gatiss and Stephen Moffit. We did an answer time in 2018, which we can also link in the podcast so you guys can all jump into it and learn ... I’ll also drop it in here for you, too.

Lauren: Please.

Cherokee: So, you can take a gander at it.

Lauren: I’m fascinated that took place in 2018. Because the first season came out in 2010, then the final season, or rather the fourth season that sort of has become defacto the final season came out in January of 2017. And so I’m really interested that they did that answer time in 2018, because that was a decent amount of time after the show had, for all intents and purposes, ended.

Cherokee: I think they were doing a Sherlock themed escape room or event or something.

Lauren: What’s interesting, to me, about some of the Sherlock fandom in the grand scheme of SuperWhoLock ... and I think just to set expectations, it will probably be a while until we do Dr. Who on this show, just because neither Cherokee, nor I, are huge, huge devotees of the show. We will want to get somebody on who is. But Dr. Who is sort of its own thing. It’s always had its really loyal fans. It’s been running forever. It’s constantly reinventing itself with the new doctors, et cetera. Supernatural, as we know, ran for such a long time, has such a dedicated fandom that will continue to live on past the show for the rest of time.

And Sherlock is kind of interesting in that, like I said, there have always been Sherlock Holmes fans, this show in particular really drew a massive, very active fandom. But since the end of the show, the fandom has really not gone dormant. There are still lots of people making fan art, a lot of people making fan fiction, a lot of people talking about the show still. But it’s certainly not to the degree that it was at its heyday. And I think that is in part, at least for me as a fan of the show, kind of because how things ended up going within the Tumblr eco system specifically.

So, when I was watching the show I fell in love with it because I love Sherlock Holmes. I always have. In seventh grade I went as Shirley Holmes a gender bent Sherlock Holmes for Halloween. (laughs) So, it’s like I was the target audience for this. And for the first time ever I found myself shipping Sherlock and John in watching this show, which is just something that people have done pretty much since Sherlock Holmes was first invented. There have been lots of queer readings of the text since, I think, the earliest sort of documented one in the 1940s. But this is not a new phenomenon of people shipping Sherlock Holmes and John Watson together.

But this was the first time that I had personally sort of seen the chemistry between them. Because Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are fantastic together. They have great chemistry. The show does sort of wink at Sherlock’s ambiguous sexuality. And the fact that he and John have this incredibly co-dependent life partnership where they are each other’s most important person.

For me, as a viewer of the show, I was really enjoying the whole show and then anything I wasn’t getting from the show I was getting from the fandom, because the fan art and the fan fiction and the fan sort of chatter around the show was just phenomenal. And then after season three things kind of changed a little bit in the Tumblr eco system.

And I think what’s really interesting about experiencing the Sherlock fandom on Tumblr, specifically – like, why we’re talking about this on this podcast – is that I had friends in my real life who were big Sherlock watchers who even shipped Johnlock, who maybe read fan fiction, but who weren’t on Tumblr and had no idea that any of this was going on.

For me, a lot of what happened from season three onwards was beginning to sort of dominate the circles of Tumblr that I was in. So, in short, and once again we’ll link to the deeper dives around the Johnlock conspiracy as it became known. TJLC. But basically it was this idea, and still is this idea, which we’ll talk about in a little bit, that not only are John and Sherlock in love in the show, but that the show is building up to them becoming a romantic couple. And that there is all of this evidence in the text of the show that suggest that Moftiss, as they’re called (Stephen Moffit and Mark Gatiss collectively are Moftiss). There’s all this evidence in the show that tells the audience that Moftiss is planning this. And that eventually Johnlock will become canon because it has been intricately signaled by the show itself.

And this was something that came out of sort of this huge meta post that somebody put up after season three that then a couple of other users saw and were talking amongst themselves and said, “It’s like the Johnlock conspiracy.” And then that kind of became the name for the whole conspiracy. And that sort of started to take over the Johnlock tag. I was not necessarily following any TJLC’ers as far as I knew. And yet I was still seeing a ton of that stuff on my dash because I was a Johnlock shipper and I was following Johnlock blogs and increasingly there were these discussions within the fandom around if you are a Johnlock shipper or if you were a Johnlock shipper that really believed that it was going to go canon.

As often happens with these things kind of end up creating this fissure between parts of the fandom. There were a couple of sort of fandom blow-ups where people were sort of getting angry at other people and it was trickling into the larger fandom tag. And then after season four, when nothing went canon and it was pretty clear that despite the creators saying that they were open to a season five, that that was not going to be planned imminently and that season four was kind of the end as far as we knew it. Things really kind of cratered from there because you had all of these people who were really disappointed by season four and then you had other people who were really disappointed by season four, but really believe that season five is still coming and that it’s going to correct things.

Really, what that equals to, regardless of what side you’re on, is that just everybody was kind of bummed. Which is a bummer when you’re in a fandom, especially that has so much wonderful fan works being made. Right? There’s so much great fan fiction. There’s so much great fan art. That for me as someone who was really enjoying all of that stuff and somebody who was enjoying the show, but who also was deeply disappointed by season four, for a number of reasons, my experience with the Tumblr fandom being consumed by this argument around the ship that a lot of us, or a lot of the people I was following, we all shipped the ship, that was not the issue – kind of made it difficult to engage.

So, it was really interesting to dive back into the tag this week and kind of see what I was talking about with Sherlock and the things I was reacting to and see what was still active now. And remember, oh my god, this ship and this show consumed my life. And I’m being drawn right back into it. I want to read fan fic again. I want to dive deep into the tag again. I remember having such a good time with this. And the fourth season and the subsequent fall out within the fandom was sort of so difficult at the time that I just walked away from the fandom for a while, which I think a lot of people did. And I think a lot of people have also experienced in a lot of other fandom’s as well.

Cherokee: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, from someone who obviously when I first initially watched the first season didn’t know anything about any of the discourse around it and also I think it was pre-discourse, honestly. It’s like 2014, 2013? And then now having watched it, I feel like I texted you after watching two episodes and I was like, “Excuse, me. How is Johnlock not canon?” Because it is so-

Lauren: Yeah.

Cherokee: They’re not hinting at it, they’re slapping you in the face with it. I mean, the first episode, he moves in with Sherlock just kind of immediately. There’s that kind of flirty back and forth where Sherlock is like, “My work is my marriage. I’m married to my work.” And so he’s not being like, “No, I’m not into you.” He’s just saying he’s focused on his work. And then there are so many ... When John gets engaged and the land lady whose name is escaping me at this moment.

Lauren: Mrs. Hudson.

Cherokee: Mrs. Hudson is like, “To a woman? You’re engaged to a woman?” It’s so in your face. They’re obviously in love with each other.

Lauren: Exactly. And I know that there are lots of Sherlock viewers and a lot of people who are active in the Sherlock fandom on Tumblr who were not Johnlock shippers at all. Or who ship different ships, or just want them to be platonic friends. And those people are completely valid and I love you, you’re great. I hope that you had a great time in the Sherlock fandom, despite the fact that a lot of it was Johnlock shipping.

But yeah, I was completely on the train of these two guys are in love. I personally did not believe that the show was going to make it canon. But then also I would see these meta posts and be like, “Well, you make some good points.” And to sort of, I guess, admit something that I’ve never admitted before around my own relationship with the Johnlock conspiracy, which is called the Johnlock Conspiracy and it is a conspiracy theory and I think that’s something that a lot of the people believe it don’t shy away from because it involves a lot of very deep reading of the text, connecting all of these dots, really intricate sort of red string type stuff. It also involves believing that Moftiss have been actively lying to everybody for years, which tends to be a central tenant of conspiracy theories.

On that particular side of things, we know for a fact that creators and the Moftiss specifically do lie to us. Right? That is a huge part of Marvel’s marketing machine. Right? Is having Andrew Garfield on late night talk shows being like, “Oh, yeah, I’m so excited to see the Spider Man movie. I wish I was in it. But best of luck to them.” And of course he shows up on screen in the Spider Man movie. So, that to me is like not outlandish really to think. And if it turned out that everything was true and the Moftiss had intended it all along I’d be like, “Great. Fantastic! They didn’t need to put us through that much pain for that long.” (laughs)

But the piece of it that really got me, and that I sort of didn’t put together – why and how this was so appealing to me at the time. So, season four premiered New Year’s Day as all the season except for season one, did. In 2017. And I was home that month back in New York, sort of staying with my parents. And I was watching each Sunday. Sherlock was on and I was watching the episode. And the week of the finale premiere a couple of things happened. I believe the Russian dub of the finale got leaked online somehow. And so people started watching it and writing about what the finale was. And everybody was like, “Are we being trolled? This doesn’t sound like a Sherlock episode. This sounds really weird. What’s going on?”

And then the finale premiered and the thing that was sort of most baffling to me was that it just didn’t feel like a Sherlock episode at all. It felt like this very weird ... somebody compared it to, I think this was a critic, an episode that was like a Saw movie. Because it involved John and Sherlock and Mycroft going through this series of rooms that were all orchestrated by Sherlock’s secret sister who was kind of psychic. It all just felt very out of left field and strange.

Cherokee: The secret sister thing was interesting, I will say.

Lauren: It was interesting.

Cherokee: Yeah. (laughs)

Lauren: And we all kind of knew because Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s careers were getting so busy and the show had gotten so big. We sort of knew that this was going to be the last episode for a long time, if not forever. And so it was really hard to stomach that the final episode of the show that you dedicated so much of your love and energy to doesn’t actually feel like an episode of that show. And so there was this conspiracy that was going around online that the next week, the following Sunday in the Sherlock time slot, a BBC show called Apple Tree Yard was taking over that time slot. And there was a conspiracy that actually Apple Tree Yard was not a real show and that was going to be a secret real finale of Sherlock.

And I remember just scrolling Tumblr Sunday night, seeing this theory going around, having just watched this finale and being like, “Well, maybe.” And of course that’s not what happened. Apple Tree Yard was a real show that ran on the BBC. But as I was sort of revisiting this time period of my life I realized this was January of 2017. The reason that I was home is because the 2016 election had happened a few months earlier. I went home for Thanksgiving. I stayed through Christmas. And then I stayed through the end of January so that my sister and I could go to the march in DC at the end of the month. And also me and my family were just like reeling with the results of the 2016 election. It was an incredibly dark time. It was an incredibly ... it was just very, very bleak.

And looking back on it now I’m so able to recognize, oh my god, I was just so sad. I was so isolated. I was feeling so scared about the world. That the idea that there was this conspiracy about a secret actual finale of the show that I loved where I didn’t like the finale very much, is incredible appealing to me. That I’m actually going to kind of let myself believe it for a week. So, that’s the closest that I came to sort of really believing the Johnlock conspiracy. (laughs) And I really get it. I get it from all sides. I get why people still believe it now. Because to bring it back to sort of the season five prospect, Moftiss have said that they have a plan for season five, and it’s just a matter of scheduling and all of that kind of stuff. And that they would like to do it someday.

And there is, as far as I can tell on Tumblr, sort of diving into the TJLC tag some people think that January 1, 2023, which is the day that all of Sherlock Holmes becomes public domain ... there’s a couple of stories that are still under copyright and January 1st of next year they all enter public domain. The copyright expires. January 1st will be the premiere of season five, because the show would always premiere on New Year’s Day.

So, you know, for those of you out there who still believe, I hope you get what you want. I understand wanting more of the show. Because just spending a week diving back into the tag I remembered what I loved about it. And what I loved about the fandom, which was that you had incredible fan artists, incredible fan fiction writers, and also people who were writing these incredibly in-depth meta posts around the lighting in the show, the costuming in the show, the set design in the show, the parallels from episode to episode, season to season. And whether those things were intended or not by the creators, it was really lovely to see people apply such analysis to something that I loved. And think so deeply about this thing that we were all enjoying collectively, even if at times things maybe got a little bit out of hand.

Cherokee: Just like in March 2022. What do you do? You go straight and you watch the thing you love. You go on Tumblr and you look at all the stuff about it. You get really passionate about a thing that is so low stakes in the grand scheme of things. I completely ... I do exactly the same.

By the way, one of the answers in the Sherlock answer time ... user Milk-Bag asked, “When can we expect the next season of Sherlock to come out?” And the answer is, “The future.”

Lauren: Interesting.

Cherokee: And that was 2018.

Lauren: Yeah.

Cherokee: Yeah. So ...

Lauren: You know, everything gets re-booted. Everything comes back. Never say never. It could happen. It’s so interesting how fandom’s can kind of get so big and get so passionate that they sort of eat themselves a little bit. I think that this is something ... I have friends in my non Tumblr life who love the show and it’s still one of their favorite shows and they still think of it very, very fondly. Because they weren’t sort of deeply entrenched in the fandom. All of those people were also very disappointed by the finale. (laughs)

I think something that was particularly interested for me as a big sort of transformative works person, I love fan fiction, I love fan art, I love head canons, all of that kind of stuff. It’s also interesting to see the other side of fandom and see more of the curative fandom, right? The analysis, the really engaging with the text and only the text. And I think that Sherlock really had both in abundance.

I abide and hope that all of those sides of fandom can get along and that everybody can be nice to each other, ‘cause as sometimes happens on Tumblr and in other internet spaces, there was some very bad behavior and it’s never okay to be mean to people on the internet. But yeah, I think that it’s something ... I think getting to witness people be passionate about something is always a real gift. And I have to say, diving back into the Sherlock tag I was excited to see that there was still some active folks.

One of the trends that I was seeing a lot of, which I really dig is Fleabaglock, which is people taking quotes from Fleabag and putting them over Sherlock screen caps or gifs. And boy oh boy. There was one, I’ll re-blog it to our Dashboard Diaries blog, that just made me feel all the Johnlock feels that I was like, oh god, I’m going to have to dive back into my AO3 bookmarks and revisit the ship. Because I am having the feelings again.

Cherokee: And I will say, Moriarty, I know he’s pure evil ... I love him.

Lauren: Oh, of course.

Cherokee: I would do anything for him. Also, Johnlockiarty ... Why don’t they-

Lauren: Ooh! OT3?

Cherokee: You know? Yeah, like a nice little polycule.

Lauren: Yep.

Cherokee: Johnlock can solve the crimes that Moriarty commits.

Lauren: Such cute ways of flirting, just committing crimes and having your partner solve them.

Cherokee: Yeah, he can leave little clues, which he already does. Because he has a crush on both of them, because he wants them to show up everywhere they go.

Lauren: Yes. 100%

Cherokee: Obviously. (laughs) I mean, come on, the whole thing with the taxi cab and the video in the back of the cab. He loves him. He loves him.

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Cherokee: This is flirting. Everyone in Sherlock is in love with each other – is my take away from that show.

Lauren: I love that. I think that is a perfect place to sort of wrap up our Sherlock deep dive. And head to a quick break.

Cherokee: And after the break we’ll play a little Sherlock quiz game.

[Exciting synth music]

Cherokee: Lauren?

Lauren: Yes?

Cherokee: For this segment of fan fiction versus fan fact.

[Rolling synth music]

So, I have four quotes for you. The first one is: So, you joined a cult.

The second one is: You’re thinking, it’s annoying.

The third one: Suddenly, I’m Mr. Sex.

And the fourth: Brilliant impression of an idiot.

Lauren: Okay. I know the second one. I know that’s something that Sherlock says. I am pretty sure three is something that Moriarty says. I think it’s “So, you joined a cult.” I think that’s the fan fic. No!?

Cherokee: It is. No, you are correct.

[positive beeping sound]

Lauren: Oh, it is. Okay.

Cherokee: “So, you joined a cult,” is a quote from Dr. Strange.

Lauren: Oh, brilliant.

Cherokee: But you got it right.

Lauren: I have seen the show a lot, Cherokee.

Cherokee: You foiled me. Honestly, I was like, “How do I find ...” every quote I wrote down, “She’s going to know this!”

Laruen: No, I think you did fairly well. I did have to think about it. I did.

Cherokee: You had to ponder.

(Laughter)

I’ll get you next time. So, the next one is less of a quiz and more of a question. And I want everyone listening along as well to ponder this question, too. As we know, Sherlock has a mind palace.

Lauren: Mm hmm (Affirmative).

Cherokee: And as we know, Tumblr is our internet bunker.

Lauren: Mm hmm (Affirmative).

Cherokee: What do you have? Mind palace? Mind swamp? Mind shack? Mind forest? What’s going on up there?

Lauren: Interesting. Have you seen Severance?

Cherokee: Yes. Twice.

Lauren: That’s what’s going on up there. Sometimes when I think about stuff and I’m trying to recall something, I’ll imagine a little person walking down a really long row of filing cabinets. I think it’s like a very blank and dower office. (laughs) What about you? What do you have?

Cherokee: So, I was thinking about this and I do think it’s a swamp.

Lauren: (laughs) Like Shrek?

Cherokee: Like, I was thinking Shrek at first, but it’s more like the swamp from the Princess Bride.

Lauren: Okay. With the enormous rats?

Cherokee: Like the Fire Swamp.

(laughter)

Where it’s like any wrong move ... it’s like, “Oh, no, I didn’t want to think that.” I would say that is like-

Lauren: I love that.

Cherokee: ... that chaotic mind swamp up there. Yeah.

Lauren: That is amazing.

Cherokee: For those listening at home or wherever you may be, tell us where your mind location or situation is.

Lauren: Yeah, what’s going on up there?

Cherokee: What’s going on up there?

Lauren: Tell us.

Cherokee: Send us a voice note, send us an artistic depiction, a painting. You know?

Lauren: Ooh.

Cherokee: I would love to see everyone’s interpretation of what their mind palace or mind space is.

Lauren: I love this.

Cherokee: Up next, we have our Fandom Forecast.

[Fantasy keyboard music]

What’s going on? What trends do we see? What is afoot? What have you been looking at this week, Lauren? Or looking forward to?

Lauren: What have I been looking forward to? I mean, I have been seeing a lot of What We Do In The Shadows on my dash, and I imagine I’ll continue to see a lot of that as it gets deeper into the season. I’ve been seeing a word this week that has been on Tumblr for a little while, but for whatever reason has started to gain ground over the last week. And I think I’m going to declare this the Word of the Week!

[fanfare music]

Our very first one. I think I’m going to be seeing more and more of it. Which is “Scrumpt.” Scrumpt as a past tense of scream. You scrumpt a scream.

Cherokee: Put it in the dictionary.

(laughter)

Lauren: So, I think I’m going to see my dash, in particular, using the word “scrumpt” more. I predict myself using the word “scrumpt” more, because I just learned it.

Cherokee: I mean, you’re already scrumpt’ing in the tags. So ...

Lauren: Exactly. So, what about you? What are you seeing sort of behind the scenes at Tumblr that’s coming up?

Cherokee: Behind the scenes. So, I mean, not unsurprisingly, What We Do In The Shadows has overtaken Tumblr in the last week. Especially ... that show is just made for shipping.

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Cherokee: Also, I know I mentioned this last episode, but nope. Which is coming out, it came out yesterday.

Lauren: Yes. Yeah.

Cherokee: And first off, Keke Palmer’s press tour, everyone is obsessed with every interview she did. She’s so funny. And her opening monologue, everyone has been talking about. I have not seen Nope yet, but I have seen a lot of Keke Palmer videos, clips, gifs. She does a really great Angela Basset impression.

Lauren: Oh, I love that.

Cherokee: So, also trending this week, which is something I’m not super familiar with was Goat Simulator. Which is a game-

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: Have you played it?

Lauren: I have not. But I’m playing Stray right now. And I know that Stray is kind of a similar game to Goat Simulator.

Cherokee: Well, which is interesting, yeah. ‘Cause Stray and Goat Simulator are both on the fandom list. And then Untitled Goose Game is what was really trending apparently. And not Goat Simulator. And that was where people were really getting excited about, Untitled Goose Game, which is similar to Goat Simulator, which is similar to Stray. Maybe there should be a crossover with all three.

Lauren: I would love that.

Cherokee: Yeah, I’ll have to check them out. I was scrolling through the tag and just looking at the post. And Goat Simulator looks like Untitled Goose Game in the chaos realm of things. All of every screen cap looked completely chaotic. One of them, they’re also you can have an avatar that’s a human, too, because there was one of someone riding a goat.

Lauren: Oh. We have questions.

Cherokee: Again, I love finding out about things by just looking at the Tumblr tags.

Lauren: Oh yeah.

(laughter)

Cherokee: And with that, we are going to mosey on over to the Feels Corner. It’s near the end of the episode. Do you know where your blorbo’s are?

[Light romantic tones]

Lauren: So, my blorbo’s this week, it’s definitely been a week of time travel for me. What with diving back into the Sherlock fandom. And the other fandom that for whatever reason was popping up on my dash this week, because it pops up periodically but for whatever reason just had me by the throat was Hannibal. Every now and then a Hannibal post will cross my dash and I will completely lose my shit and just ... that’s my afternoon.

It was really nice to go back to 2012, 2013 in my head and have my collection of Johnlock and Hannigram blorbo’s. It was lovely.

Cherokee: Which is honestly perfect, because I saw a lot of comparisons between the Hannigram ship and the Johnlock ship.

Lauren: Mm hmm (Affirmative). Yeah.

Cherokee: Lots of comparisons drawn and also I saw a good post that has images of both ships and it says, “Are you the do crimes or the solve crimes type of gay?”

(laughter)

Which I love.

Lauren: That is perfect. (laughs)

Cherokee: Why not both?

Lauren: Why not both? Will Graham is both. He solves crimes and does crimes in Hannibal.

Cherokee: Yes, he does. You are very right.

Lauren: How about you, Cherokee? Where are your blorbo’s this week?

Cherokee: My blorbo’s are For All Mankind.

Lauren: Hell yes.

Cherokee: Yeah, my sleep schedule has been replaced by this television show.

(laughter)

And Molly and Wayne Cobb’s specifically. I don’t know if you can have a couple as blorbo’s but I think you can-

Lauren: Yeah, absolutely.

Cherokee: I just love both Molly and Wayne individually and as a couple. First off, healthiest relationship on that show by just-

Lauren: Bar none.

Cherokee: ... a million miles. And also just the most well adjusted and down to earth H’ank.

(laughter)

Characters on the show, too. I really love them both. I will say where I am in the show now, I’m not feeling great about where things are going. (laughs)

Lauren: Yeah. Oh boy.

Cherokee: Oh no. Maybe I’ll have to do that thing where I just stop watching. Which is something ...

Lauren: No.

Cherokee: Hope starts to go downhill and I’m like, “You know what? If the show ended here, they’re okay, right?”

Lauren: They’re okay. Nothing bad will ever happen to them.

Cherokee: Yeah. Keep them safe. If you don’t watch the finale, everyone is safe and fine.

Lauren: That’s true.

Cherokee: That’s how I feel about the Killing Eve finale, too.

Lauren: That’s very fair.

Cherokee: It didn’t happen. Yeah. So, yeah, I would say Molly and Wayne, big blorbo’s this week. And then another time capsule blorbo ... I actually didn’t just watch these movies in the past week, but I think about them all the time and specifically Alan Cumming in Spice World and Josie and the Pussycats.

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Cherokee: He plays a similar character in both. First he’s the documentary in Spice World and then Josie in the Pussycats he’s the music manager or agent. And I just ... what an icon. What a star. I found out recently that Alan Cumming owns a club in New York called Club Cumming.

Lauren: (laughs) And you have to go.

Cherokee: And I know where I’m hosting my 30th birthday. Yeah.

Lauren: Yep. You have to go there immediately.

Cherokee: Yep. (laughs) Or a Dashboard Diaries Meet up at Club Cumming. Everyone.

Lauren: Well, in speaking of our delightful Dashboard Diaries, we have a couple of your feels to share this week in our Feels Corner. And so stay tuned to the end of the episode to hear some listener feels.

Cherokee: And submit your feels for next one, too.

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: Keep feelin’.

Lauren: Yeah. [email protected]. Send us a 30 seconds or less voice memo about your feels. And with that we have come to the end of Dashboard Diaries. I am Lauren Shippen and you can find me at the LaurenShippen.Tumblr.com, or you may already be following me on my secret blog with my Sherlock memes and I’ll never let you know what that blog is.

Cherokee: I’m Cherokee McAnelly and you can find me at chero.Tumblr.com. This has been Dashboard Diaries. And ...

Lauren: May our anons always be loving.

Cherokee: Your dash always refreshed.

Lauren: Your gifs always be loading.

Cherokee: And your ships always canon.

Lauren: May the fics you’re reading always be finished.

Cherokee: And the answers you seek always in the re-blogs.

Lauren: Thanks for scrolling with us.

Dear Dashboard Diaries, my name is Lindsay and my current obsession is the TV show, What We Do In The Shadows. Season Four just started airing and there is long awaited pining, over all hilarity, and of course the inherent romanticism of vampires. Consider this a warning, because it will probably top the trending page every Tuesday for the next couple of months.

My name is Mallory and I finished Our Flag Means Death at 2:53 AM on Sunday, June 26th. Which means as of recording I am 20 days, 14 hours, and 57 minutes into this fandom. And it is my whole personality. 235,287 words of fan fic read. 61 hours, 49 minutes, 31 seconds of fan vids watched on YouTube. 94 TikTok’s liked. 18 Tumblr’s followed. Countless feels felt. And absolutely no sign of slowing. Here there be queer pirates and I am in!

[outro synth music]

#sherlock #johnlock #tjlc #dashboard diaries #podcast #tumblr #episode #DD 02 #cherokee mcanelly #lauren shippen #fandom #transcript #Spotify

30 notes · View notes