The Johnlock Conspiracy fallout

 (by ninezku)

I came to Sherlock fandom after season 2 aired.

No, actually: I first stopped after watching ASIP and googled “BBC Sherlock gay?” to see if the show had really gone there, as it seemed from what I had just watched. I was surprised to find out that no, they hadn’t officially gone there. I was so certain, it seemed so obvious! After watching both seasons it felt even more true: all the gay jokes, that scene with John and Irene, John telling his therapist there was something he wished he would have said and so on.

And then I found the fandom and the fic, oh my god, all the wonderful fic. All those clever answers to TRF, all the angst and cases and feels, all the meta and the hiatus jokes and crossovers. It was so much fun.

I remember at some point reading a well-written, interesting fic that had John grieving and then Sherlock returning, all proud and happy about the joke he had managed to play, the whole situation wasn’t that serious at all, and he was somewhat surprised how John hadn’t realised it. And John was furious at him and the fic dealt a long while with how Sherlock came to realise how he had erred with John and there finally was a reconciliation. And I thought to myself: yikes, this is actually something Sherlock could do, but there’s no way this would actually happen. And went back to reading all those other fics with all the painful, complicated answers.

And then season 3 came and that one fic was actually a lot closer to the canon resolution than anything else, no competition. And it felt to me like stepping out of the Matrix: the show was still clever and the relationship between John and Sherlock was still so important, but it wasn’t that clever. And the relationship was definitely not going to go there. I still loved the show, but had to get my expectations in line, took a step back, separated the canon and the fanon in my mind. We had all these great fics and we had this beautiful show. It’s not TPTB’s fault that my expectations didn’t meet with their creation. I was disappointed, but they owed me nothing. I could take it or leave it, and I still wanted to take it.

And so people went four different directions. Some were like me: disappointed with the season but still loving the show and shipping the ship (which is a different thing from wanting/believing the ship to become canon). Others loved the season, maybe despite its flaws, found new ships or continued with their previous ones. Others hated it and left. And the fourth group decided to turn their disappointment into Belief: it couldn’t really have been bad. There had to be an explanation, another reason for all this, a hidden meaning. And so became gay or trash, a conspiracy theory was born.

It only turned bad when the theory became a belief, hopes became demands, doubts became attacks. The meta became Proof, instead of all the discussions, rebuttals and debates it had been. Non-believers became Casuals and homophobes and antis and haters. Any criticism towards TPTB was hate and not allowed. One ship becoming canon became the only true LGBT presentation needed, the only true representation that would define TV history, no matter how it was done, no matter what all the other shows were doing at the same time, on BBC or in other countries. This was the only thing that mattered, this was the thing that would either save or destroy all the LGBT youth, these two white middle-aged man kissing on screen, nothing else would do it.

And because of that representation it was okay to harass and bully and doxx real, actual LGBT people. Even though I’ve seen it happening for a few years now, I’m still absolutely flabbergasted seeing the harassment happening towards Mark Gatiss now. Once again that actual LGBT person is subjected to such hate in the name of a fictional relationship that I have to wonder who it is that they’re actually fighting for, since it certainly doesn’t seem to be real discriminated people - and Gatiss is one from the more privileged side, unlike all the people from fandom who have been treated the same way. (Also I have to wonder why Gatiss is taking the brunt of this - you’d think Moffat as a straight white man would be the more obvious recipient, not that I wanted anyone to be the target!) You can think they queerbaited you or not (although even when I disliked the gay jokes: how can it be queerbaiting when they repeatedly told you it was not going to happen and you just decided to ignore the possibility that they weren’t lying about this one? Sherlock Holmes would be disappointed by something as careless as that), but harassment is not okay either way.

So now it’s again a bit like the situation after season 3. Others are disappointed. Others loved it. Others are leaving. I hope there’s no new religion born this time. YMMV, this is what I’ve felt.