Can I give you hugs, fellow tuna!lock soldier? Also preach, word to the man, etc. because that shizz is hilarious
Hugs are always welcome!!!
And thanks, dude! I’m absolutely humbled by all of the praise I’ve been getting for my tuna!lock speech. I’m over the moon that y’all enjoy it!
I think I love you after reading this wonderful tunalock commentary. Thank you for that by the way. I agree that our fandom, as any fandom really, has people in it that are sometimes beyond disgusting, but I don't think I have ever seen a fandom get as much hate as the sherlock fandom does and it just makes me sad because I just wanted to enjoy this really amazing show online with some people who share my enthusism for it. Thanfully ignoring the hate is easy most of the time
I love you! And I agree with you COMPLETELY.
Sherlock appeals to me for a lot of different reasons, but the actual quality of the production is a big one for me. I’m hoping to go into the film industry and eventually, if I’m lucky, write and direct my own feature films. And Sherlock is utterly inspiring to me. Every aspect of the show aligns perfectly with my visual and literary tastes. I’m in awe of what they’re able to do.
And fandoms are fun! They’re a community where you can share your interest and enthusiasm without being labeled a dork or laughed at. Like, I have a lot of serious respect for the crew members, the writers, the actors, and the entire production team. I would never intentionally do anything that makes anyone uncomfortable with regards to the show. So why should I suffer when someone else doesn’t extend the same courtesy that I do? It’s the same mentality as punishing the whole class when one person doesn’t do their homework. It’s illogical. It’s fucking stupid is what it is.
Everyone has their own ideas about what’s “obscene” as well.
It’s funny to me, because, in the United States at least, literally the only thing considered obscene enough to be silenced or removed from public consumption is child pornography. That’s it. Anything else is fair game. Some people may not agree with that loose ruling, but The Supreme Court hath spoken.
That said, there’s no law in the Sherlock fandom that insists you have to venture into the “erotic” or “alternate universe” or “crossover” sides of the fandom. I’m pretty tame as Sherlockians go. But I believe whole-heartedly in healthy and respectful artistic expression. If you wanna draw a Sherlock and Watson as mermaids and depict them fertilizing one another’s eggs (and I’m sure this has been done somewhere) go for it! I give no fucks! I probably won’t be hanging that artwork on my wall anytime soon, but that’s just me.
I guess people insisting that a Sherlock AU or crossover is “invading” their fandom or affronting their sensibilities is ridiculous to me. Maybe that really is just the American in me, but whatevs. I see stuff on the television that I would rather dunk my hands in boiling water than watch. (FOX news anyone?) But you know what, I don’t call in to FOX and complain about them taking over my TV with their bullshit that I don’t want to hear.
I flip the goddamn channel and find something else to watch. It’s not a hard concept. I don’t understand why people on the internet think the content around them should be catered to their every whim. The internet is a free forum for ideas, no matter how silly, ridiculous, or personally offensive you find that material to be.
If I can ignore the assholes in the Sherlock fandom, surely people who aren’t even Sherlockians can do the same.
Sorry. I just went on another rant. Haha. That’s kind of what I do.
But really, you are lovely and thank you for your message. I super appreciate it!
Before we get to Tunalock, I’m gonna make like Rich Brook and tell you a story.
Once upon a time there was a little show called Sherlock. It was about the great detective Sherlock Holmes and his trusty companion Dr. John Watson. The show became critically acclaimed and shot its stars (Benadryl Snickerpatch and Morgan Freeman) up the ladder of mainstream success.
Sherlock also amassed quite the fanbase on the internet and in particular, on our beloved Tumblr.
Most Sherlock fans did what most fans do: They wrote fanfiction, shipped everything and everyone, cried over feelings, and analyzed the shit out of every frame of the production.
However, let it be known that not all Sherlock fans were of pure intentions. Some made inappropriate and privacy infringing posts about the actors in the show. Some were idiotically rude about the other incarnations of Sherlock Holmes. Some used their ships to fetishize the gay community and refused to see sense on the matter. Some complained about certain adaptations changing the sex and/or race of characters and were generally asshats.
And these jerks were disliked by all, not because they were Sherlock fans, but because they were dicks. However, there were some people who couldn’t see past the exterior of these circumstances. They saw these douchcanoes running amok and shouted from the highest treetops that:
“The Sherlock Fandom is a menace! Grab your torch and pitchforks! GET ‘EM!”
And in the confusion that this blanket statement caused a bunch of innocent, harmless, and respectful Sherlock fans got caught in the crossfire.
People who had never said a bad word to anyone inside or outside of the fandom were suddenly slapped with a stigma that didn’t represent them in the slightest. These Sherlockians didn’t know what to do. They wanted to enjoy a thing. That’s all they wanted to do. They wanted to laugh and joke and cry with other people who enjoyed it too. But every time they did something that even minimally involved another fandom or anyone outside of their Sherlockian bubble they were berated and hated for making “everything about Sherlock.”
This left many Sherlockians hopeless and at a loss as how to remedy the situation. There was no way to stop other people from being dicksniffers. They couldn’t control the blogs of others. All they could do was make sure their own behavior was decent and try to educate others about courtesy. But this wasn’t very effective.
As the Sherlockian’s tried desperately to save their reputation, another conflict began to brew.
For as long as anyone could remember, fandoms had participated in crossovers and alternate universes. Anything and everything could be crossed over and it often was. Harry Potter and Star Trek, Star Wars and The Lord of The Rings, Doctor Who and Batman. Fandoms flowed freely and no one said a damn word in protest. The Hunger Games was written with animals instead of people. Fandomverses were gifted with special powers and sent to chill with the X-Men for a while. It was all in good fun and fun it was! If you didn’t want to read the stuff you didn’t have to. You could just scroll past the fanfiction and fanart and no one got hurt.
But then, then the Sherlockians began their own forays into cross overs and AUs.
For some reason this made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Sherlockians were chided for Hobbit!lock, Trek!lock, Fawn!lock, and many other AUs. Sure, some of the stuff was pretty weird, but didn’t every fandom have their dirty little oddball secrets? Didn’t Doctor Who have Ten/MetaTen fanfiction that they dubbed “handy porn?” Didn’t the Star Trek fandom paint homoerotic Spock/Kirk watercolors long before BBC Sherlock fans followed in their footsteps? Didn’t Supernatural have…. Well… to be honest the Supernatural fandom is kind of shameless with all their kinky OTP shit… and hell Alternate Universes are freaking canon in that show… but that’s not the point!
The point is, the Sherlock fandom was only doing what all fandoms do. Every fandom has crack. Every fandom has crazy crossovers. Some Sherlockians were fuckwads about it all, sure, but they weren’t they only ones punished for that regrettable behavior.
And those wrongly persecuted Sherlockians slowly became less and less forlorn and more and more pissed off. They decided to fuck the police. They decided to unleash…The Crack-en
And that’s where Tunalock comes in.
Tunalock.
Tunalock is hilarious.
And let me tell you why
Tunalock is a direct response to the hatred the Sherlock fandom receives for their AUs and it is brilliantly satirical. (See also: Pinecone!lock)
Anyone with half a brain can look at Tunalock and see it for the joke that it clearly is.
Tunalock is a fish in a scarf that flops around London solving crimes with his trusty human, Dr. Watson, by his side. He’s anthropomorphic. He has the brain of Sherlock Holmes in the body of a tuna fish. How is that not the funniest shit you’ve ever heard of?
The greatest thing about Tuna!lock though, is that people have taken the bait, so to speak.
Those individuals who lump the Sherlock fandom under one misrepresentational umbrella automatically assume that there must be people seriously and un-ironically loving this thing. They express their “disgust” at the Sherlockians. They “lose all their respect” for Sherlock fans. Which is a joke in itself, because if they can genuinely believe that Tuna!lock is for real? They obviously never had any respect for the Sherlock fandom to begin with.
Tunalock proves once and for all that the hatred of the Sherlock fandom was never about the actual multi-faceted group of people who enjoy BBC Sherlock. It was about generalizing an entire group of people as being “sick” and “psycho” and “annoying.”
Tunalock is a message to all those ignorant people who refuse to imagine the world complexly.
Not everything is as it seems. Not everyone is the same as their neighbor. Just because you like something doesn’t automatically make you special, or awful, or crazy, or nice, or smart.
I’ve met plenty of people who have incredibly similar interests to me and I’ve hated their guts.
So stop acting like you’re above us.
We accept that not everyone in our fandom is the greatest human being. Some of them can be downright cumguzzlers, but you want to know the worst part?
You’re on the same level as they are.
By mis-imagining the thousands of Sherlockians you do and treating a bunch of innocently enthusiastic people like shit? You’ve become the very thing you claim to be against.
That’s what should fill you with disgust.
Not a fucking fish.
