Here a Fanfic, There a Fanfic...
Still dealing with the fallout that was Sherlock's Final Problem. As someone stated, the final problem is that this episode was crap. More than a few fans have taken to YouTube to break down the show, their reactions and crits, and how it has impacted them as fans. Some folks are mad as hell with everyone associated with the show, from the writers who they had thought were good at their job, to the actors who seem to have been "IN" on the queerbaiting. Those who did not see the relationship of Sherlock and John moving beyond mere friendship have been posting things similar in tone to the Republican voters who keep telling me to "Shut up, we won, get over it, move on or leave the country." There is always the need for people to crow about how right they were.
Er...does that make you feel smarter? Does it validate your pessimistic view of things? Or do you just hate the thought of two popular characters bumping uglies?
Sorry Jan, if you failed to see the hints between Sherlock and John, you have your het goggles on too tight. Even folks who are not looking for slash couples in shows have seen that there was something going on with those two. The writers have said maybe they "took the joke too far", which is really the WORST thing they could have said about the whole thing. Now you're saying that queerness in stories is still for laughs? Hello, 1970's...did ya miss me? And not for nothing, but once or twice having folks assume John and Sherlock are a couple is, for you, funny...but how many times did this happen? Now it becomes an anvil you're bopping the audience over the head with.
As for those who smugly tell you that this is all YOUR own doing, you played yourselves, you saw what you wanted to, you have to always make it gay, there is no such thing as queerbaiting...way to argue your point by throwing the blame onto the viewers who saw something you didn't. I have witnessed an entire fandom rise from a few interactions between characters that were hardly slashy at all, so I know when that sort of thing is going on. And BBC Sherlock? Practically spoonfed the audience with this couple.
There had been hope that this was all part of the plan, shitty though it would be to do to fans, that there was another, secret episode, and that Apple Tree Yard was a ruse. However, that has proven not to be the case, and ATY is really a show. It also apparently had a het couple having sex seven minutes after the show started, and I mention this because it shows you the divide between male/female pairings and male/male or female/female pairings. When the characters are opposite sex, having them meet and quickly move into a relationship or sex is now considered normal. Even shows that feature the tortured slow burn and tease of dragging the attraction between them out for a whole season, or even a whole series....normally you get a payoff! Some resolution! We'll take whatever happens off camera even.
Now imagine John and Sherlock as opposite sexes, with all the banter, hints and innuendo that went on around them, but they remain resolutely friends. Good friends, but just friends. How weird would that be, hmmm? To get to the end and be all like "Yeah, love you. Like a brother!" Hell, even The X Files couldn't keep itself from drinking from that glass. I remember the creator swearing that Mulder and Scully would never be romantically linked, that theirs was a true friendship, blah, blah. Yeah, till your ratings started to tank. Then you'll do anything.
Some Sherlock fen hold out the slim hope that we will see something at the end of the month, on the 29th, because that is the anniversary of John and Sherlock meeting. Someone else conjured up a date sometime in March. I know the show has trained the fans to make these sort of obscure connections because they often put things like this into the show, but I have my serious doubts. I could get behind this Sunday with the 221B thing as it is not long after the last episode, but the farther away we get, the more folks will move on and you really don't want your major fanbase to miss tuning in.
Which means TFP was the end of Season 4, and possibly the entire series, and to see such a well written show end in such a muddy pool of writing makes the fandom sad. If you had told me the writers went on strike and they had to get someone else in to do this season, I would SO get why it feels like it doesn't belong. It literally feels like other people were in charge. The actors did the best with what they were given, and one wonders what they were thinking while they were doing it. Naturally they won't ever say anything bad about the production, but you have to wonder. The sadness and disappointment over this episode doesn't just stem from no canon John and Sherlock...it's gone beyond that. And it isn't just het women fetishizing gay men and being disappointed that their OTP isn't canon. And it isn't just gay folks being disappointed and made the fools for hoping to see two popular characters be gay. It's all those people and more. There are queer women who were in LOVE with the idea of John and Sherlock. Are they fetishizing gay men? Why would slashers care about plot when all they really want to see is two men fucking? Right?
Maybe we did see too much in this show. Was it really a mediocre show that we watched with such high expectations that our brains filled in plot holes with creative spackle? I'd kind of lost track of the show as it follows no seasonal format, and so haven't seen a few episodes, but if it really is this poor a show...why does it take years for it to be done? There are shows with phenomenal writing that crank out good stuff every damn season, with 20 episodes to Sherlock's three or four. Seriously, if this show is average, what takes so long guys?
If there is more shows, great. I'll tune in and do my own slash thing because it's what I do. But I know more than a few fen who will be so gun shy that they may never tune in. This should maybe then be the end of the whole thing because it has changed the characters to the point where they can't really go back to the way they were. And the writers will just have to accept that their brilliance was limited, and that maybe they should have quite after three, after all.
Me...I have this convoluted, jacked up slash story where John has lost his memory from a traumatic conflict, which doctors and others have told him was from the war. He meets Sherlock and things progress mostly as they did, except he and Sherlock become a couple. Moriarty enters the scene, knowing there is a thing of great power that the gov't is hiding, and he kidnaps Mycroft to lead him to it. Sherlock and John show up, and they all go down to the vaults. Inside a room carved into bedrock stands a plinth, on which sits a ring. At gunpoint, Mycroft admits that this is the most dangerous thing on the planet. Moriarty tries to take the ring, but he can't seem to move it. Frustrated, he demands to know why, and why this ring is so powerful, but Mycroft is busy watching John like a hawk as he tells Moriarty that it is of extra-terrestrial origin. John seems weirdly entranced by the ring, and against Sherlock's warnings, picks it up and slips it over his thumb. He blinks several times, then slowly turn to Sherlock with the most amazing smile on his face. "I remember, Sherlock. I know who I am!" Sherlock trembles, wondering if he has already lost the one man in his life that he thought was his soulmate. "I remember," John says, looking at Mycroft who is also smiling. "My name is Arthur. Arthur Dent!"
Hee hee. Maybe I'll even write that up someday, who knows. For now, fair farren Sherlock.