Okay but how horrible a person does it make me to want Rosie Watson to just evaporate?

I’m sorry but, her existence is an unnecessary nuisance. Did John Watson have a child in ACD canon? I don’t think so. To be honest, the only way her existence is acceptable to me, even in fanfics, is when she is always with Sherlock’s parents. And if that’s the case in S5 too (if Rosie is always with someone else) then what’s the point of her?

It’s supposed to be Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Just the two of them against the rest of the world.

Not Sherlock Holmes and John Watson plus “Mary’s” child.

I just want her to be a figment if John’s imagination or SOMETHING ELSE. I DO NOT SEE JOHN AS A FATHER. Even if parentlock is cute, I really, really don’t see them as parent material.

I don’t know if that makes me a bad person.

one of the things I love most about scrolling through the various posts on tumbrl is that at some point the same thing you’ve seen millions of times, simply because it is presented to you at a certain angle suddenly appears to make sense. This is the case of “daughter of Mary”. Of course I know that Rosie is Mary’s child, but now I have realized that she is the child of Mary of the Canon. Yes I know, they didn’t have children. Child as an inheritance. Inheritance as what remains. What remains when you are gone. In the Canon the love story in evidence had to be heterosexual. But now the need for Mary no longer exists, she can disappear. But she cannot disappear as if she had never been there, as in the Granada adaptations, which are balm for everything, because her existence is a fact, pleasant or not. @sagerstreet had already told it, identifying the child as representative of the love story, a switch that was triggered according to the couple it was joined by. The concept is the same, there was a clear love story in the Canon, between Mary and Watson, there will be a clear love story in Sherlock between Sherlock and John, only to really understand it I had to get it from another perspective.

@possiblyimbiassed @sarahthecoat @sagestreet @ebaeschnbliah @gosherlocked @loveismyrevolution @why-cant-people-just-think

HMM, i can (as usual!) see both perspectives on the "rosie issue". I doubt if i would have written a baby into the story, but tv babies don't bother me that much (they aren't like real babies that take over your life). I love @sagestreet 's "baby switch" meta. And this is an interesting thought, that "mary" can't be deleted if she wasn't first included. I have to admit, i am all for deleting "mary", if i had to choose i would delete her before the baby! So i can't blame anyone who feels that way about rosie. I feel like all of s4 is more symbolic than "real" anyway.

What is Reality?

So, I spent the morning typing out this long, detailed response to a post by @possiblyimbiassed​ concerning therapists in the show being representations of Sherlock - hit the post button - and found Tumblr ate it. Yep, it disappeared into the ether. That’s… fine. Probably didn’t belong on that post anyways since it went down a completely different track, but here is an abbreviated version of what I concluded:

We have always been in TAB/S4 hell and just didn’t realise it. 

It all began to break down when I tried to discern the point of view we are seeing the story from - or who the author is. This is a story about John - we begin with him, and he is ‘the blogger’ (and original author of the Sherlock Holmes stories) so we might naturally conclude he is the storyteller here, but then that conclusion quickly breaks down the first time we see Sherlock. We see Sherlock before John meets him. John has no way of knowing about Sherlock beating a corpse and rejecting Molly’s advances, so how are we seeing that if John is the author? Lest you think that John made this up from Sherlock’s comment about leaving the riding crop in the morgue and his interaction with Molly when she brings him coffee 1) that would be amazing because we have never seen anything to indicate this level of imagination from John 2) his stories on his blog are not anywhere near as detailed, fantastic and elaborate as this moment and the show on whole 3) that is a pretty twisted conclusion for John to draw about what a man he just met was doing with a riding crop in a morgue - not something one would just guess. Also consider that John would never have known (and is unlikely to have ever been able to get an accurate account from Sherlock given the way we see them interact) about what really happened between Sherlock and Jefferson Hope when they were alone. 

So maybe Sherlock was the narrator? Well, then there are several scenes that he didn’t witness and can’t have possibly known about (like the entire first part of the story where we are shown what John’s life is like beforehand) and what happened with Donovan and Mycroft. Likewise, it seems very unlikely that Sherlock would have been able to devise John’s very novel reaction to Sherlock being with the killer. I mean, one would not typically think that an experienced soldier with ‘nerves of steel’ (as Sherlock himself says) would panic and go running through the building screaming Sherlock’s name which would both alert the killer that he was coming and alert the cleaners that someone is in the building who shouldn’t be. Not a reaction otherwise in character thus far.

This doesn’t even go to mention that there are scenes that neither character could have seen or known about. We see Jennifer Wilson and several of the other victims right before their demise and we have to conclude that those scenes are either seen through the eyes of an omnipresent/omnipotent (all seeing/ all knowing) author or through the killer’s eyes.

OK, so maybe it is a story told from the omnipresent/omnipotent perspective? Well, then that doesn’t explain the shared consciousness between the characters. Again, I’ll point you to the first scene, if we only see what happens to John because we are “omini” then how does Sherlock know about what happened to John to play out a very close echo of that original telling of exactly what happened to John before they met in his TAB MindPalace drug dream. Another glaring instance of this is the whole “dragon slayer” term, which is first mentioned when Sherlock and Mycroft are alone together, then Mary calls Sherlock the same thing when she’s alone with him, then John uses the term - none of them should know what the other has said.

So reality is broken from the start. 

Why?

Well, this is where things really make your mind explode. 

So in the 2nd episode when John returns from his interview with Sarah, Sherlock says that he had asked John for a pen when John was gone and John concludes that Sherlock ‘didn’t notice’ he was gone. We might be tempted to take John’s assessment at face value and think that Sherlock was too distracted or self-absorbed to have noticed John left, but we have been given an evolving perspective on what that moment really means. Over time, we’ve learned that Sherlock actually sees a version of John in his alternate reality (MindPalace) where he talks to John and John helps him solve things. And sometimes (like when he tries to replace John with Molly as an assistant in solving crimes) that alternate reality spills over and he hears John’s disembodied voice taunting him in Reality. So, what we have from this little moment in episode 2 is the clear indication that, at times, Sherlock cannot discern Reality from his Alternate Reality. Yet, as things evolve, we (as a viewer) often move with Sherlock seamlessly between these two realities that, in their own right, seem equally real except that the location of one might be a bit extraordinary or Sherlock exhibits extraordinary qualities to manipulate the Alternate Reality - cluing us in that it is “not reality”. 

Two realities. Bleeding between them. Funkiness in both of them. What does this sound like? Well, it sounds a lot like TAB, doesn’t it? And what did we find out in the end of TAB. Neither reality was Real. 

So, what does this mean? What part of what we see is Sherlock’s hallucinations or alternate reality and what is Real?

Maybe this moment in episode 2 and Dr. Frankland’s and Culvertson’s drugs that make people hallucinate and lose memories are hints that Sherlock has been drugged from near the beginning and was seeing things and/or losing time since the 2nd episode. All reality is suspect because we are shown Sherlock’s internal world along with the rest - but some it Real.

Maybe, Sherlock really did take Jefferson Hope’s pill before John could reach him and, instead of dying, he slipped into a coma like-state and everything after that point was like TAB where he created two realities (a MindPalace and a Real World) and he keeps slipping between the two, but neither are Real.

Maybe nothing is real and from the beginning it is all in Sherlock’s head. From that first episode we see perspectives that don’t make sense from any one point of view and there is a collective consciousness that can’t be explained unless there is a narrator that has full control of all the characters and so every character has the potential to know what other characters have said or done (since they are all just fabrications). 

Perhaps, it will be explained with something akin to the movie Ghost Stories (which, interestingly enough, Martin Freeman plays the doctor) where Sherlock has been ‘locked-in’ his own mind (in a coma-like state) this whole time and has simply been “setting the stage” with the people from his hospital setting who seep into his imagined world (John is really his doctor, Sarah and Mary are nurses that Dr. Watson seems to flirt with, Lestrade is the kindly janitor, Billy is the anesthesiologist, etc., etc.). And, if you have ever had your mind play a trick on you by reinterpreting something you hear or feel from reality (like your alarm clock going off or your cat sitting on your chest) into something that can fit into your dream, then you can begin to imagine how Sherlock could be reinterpreting things from Reality into his coma-like state. John really has saved his life so many times and so many ways (as his doctor). The gunshot wound literally was surgery. They really did have to restart his heart. When he is walking around on walls and everything is falling apart, they’ve got him drugged up and are moving him between beds (which would give the strange sense of weightlessness), etc., etc. Maybe there is a telly on his room that is playing documentaries (about Chinese pottery and the Van Bueren Supernova) and news (about Chinese gangs, bombings, murders) and infomercials (featuring Connie and Kenny Price) and kids shows (featuring Richard Brooks) and the occasional Bond and horror movie. And, as his health deteriorates, so does his imagined reality, until he is torturing himself with his past and everyone is both a mirror of himself and an enemy. 

The last possibility is the saddest interpretation of all the facts because it is quite possible that if in a S5 Sherlock does manage to wake up, the relationship between him and John is not nearly as deep as he imagined it to be and is, in fact, (if Sherlock is just a patient) non-existent. It could even be that Sherlock put himself into that state when he was a young man, overdosing due to his attempt to escape some childhood trauma. If so, then he might not even be consulting detective. It is also possible that the image that Sherlock projects of himself isn’t at all close to reality but more who he wishes he was. Perhaps, he is more like Billy, extremely clever underneath it all (able to deduce John) but looks and speaks in a way where no one would listen to him or pay attention to him in Reality.

What is reality? 

It could be very, very different and jarring.

  @ebaeschnbliah, @sarahthecoat, @sagestreet, @raggedyblue, @possiblyimbiassed, @sherlockshadow,

i'm so glad i found @ebaeschnbliah 's reblog of this, for some reason tumblr decided not to tell me i was tagged (grrr!). And i'm glad you started a new post, since this deserves its own discussion!

"what is real" is a question i bump into often! I wonder sometimes if this show is at least partly drawing on the kind of fluid blend of reality, dream, hallucination, and fiction, that "the singing detective" uses. That's a six part bbc series from the 1980s, where the main character is bedridden in hospital with a painful skin condition. Some of the time, he is lucid and interacting with doctors and nurses, some of the time he is writing his next novel, or thinking about that, or remembering things from his childhood (more or less distorted) or his marriage, sometimes he is outright dreaming or hallucinating. There generally isn't any clear demarcation between them. You can probably still find it on youtube, as i did a couple years ago. watching it really helped me let go of trying to "make sense" of the surface reading of bbc sherlock, and delve into the metaphorical reading, blog theory, etc. and say "yes" to all of them.

I remember going through a period of time, from somewhere before s3 to around maybe a year after it, when i was so hungry for more sherlock, and s3 really didn't do it for me, that i had a hard time enjoying any other adaptation, and especially any that were humorous at all. I could just barely tolerate granada, it was that bad. Thank goodness i got over myself, and i credit @threepatchpodcast for helping, they have an infectious sense of humor. I havent watched this particular trailer yet, but i can guess from reactions that i might be up for seeing it on the big screen IF the firsthand fan reviews are good, otherwise i will wait to get the dvd out of the library. That way i can nope out if i have to, and enjoy it if it's fun. Sherlock Gnomes was fun, those silly norwegian guys on youtube are a hoot. There is room for humor!

I’m not an EMP theorist, but I will say this. All of us are working on the same set of data, and it’s useful to have more eyes on that a set of data, even if (perhaps especially if) we don’t all agree what it means. I’ve picked up new things from EMP metas; some of them have made me rethink material I’d made my mind up on. One thing I’ve learned by going through the canon multiple times, in addition to reading other people’s writings about it, is that the more I broaden my perspective, the better able I am to perceive a pattern. Narrowing perspective is a great way to invite confirmation bias.

EMP is only partly about having someone be in a coma; it’s also about the inner life of Sherlock Holmes, which is something all sherlockians have been preoccupied with for over a century, including people we all respect, like Jeremy Brett and Arthur Conan Doyle. I think that one of the things everyone has ‘got wrong’ as Mark Gatiss puts it, is that it’s John Watson’s inner life that we should be concerned with. But, although it makes me sad for Watson, I can’t blame people for instead focusing on the character we’ve been manipulated into caring about the most for so long. That’s what Doyle intended. He worked hard to make sure that would be the outcome.

And ultimately (here’s where my recent Derren Brown viewing will start to show), we are all being manipulated here. If any corner of this fandom has developed a ‘big theory’, it’s because they planted evidence for us to find. Anyone who has seen Ghost Stories, which plays with all our theories, can understand this.

So, I still invite people with all kinds of theories to come and interact with me. Not all of us approach this puzzle the same way. I actually prefer that to the alternative, even if others don’t. It’s all fine.

Yes yes and yes.

Im here for all of it!

Its a puzzle and none of us have all the peices we can only speculate what the peices are and try to put them together

There maybe more factual evidence for one narrative or the other that works, doesn’t mean you have to stop exploring compeletely and looking at other perspectives. Exploring boundaries instead of shrinking them is what we need to do

After all we’re all rooting for the same two idiots and their love

yes! ALSO, being a STORY, it is going to mean different things to different people, depending on the many different variables each of us brings to our viewing. I can't wrap my head around "euros" as anything but an aspect of sherlock, but i heard one of the three patch podcasters say something about how healing his relationship with his sister spoke to her own life experience. Just as one tiny example. There's no "one right way" to see it, not now, not before s4, and not after s5 whenever that is, and whatever it is, and whatever the writers say about it.

QUEERBAITING

This is probably an thorny post, it’s not my intention to question anyone’s feelings, and what I want to do is just an observation. BBC Sherlock has been accused, he is accused, of Queerbaiting heavily after S4. This basically because all the previous allusions to a possible (probable-inevitable) love story between the two have been dropped and nothing has actually been seen. But could not the same behavior be attributed to Doyle himself? He created a fascinating character, strong, intelligent, but with a sensitive soul that is moved for a concert. A paladin of justice, the absolute one and not that of the laws of the state. A defender of women, able to see them for what they are, damsels in distress or imperious warriors. But detached in feelings. The ideal man for whom, any woman with the attitude of wanting to save the object of his love, would be ready to fall in love. And so it happened, it happens. And so on his first death there were thousands of letters of sorrowful women. But then there is also John Watson. Their relationship is there to be seen by those who want to see it. All love, devotion. All the joys and pains that the two shared. The love story is there, suggested, but never explicit. And certainly could not, but I’m not sure it’s just this. Doyle was an extremely intelligent man, his head was a continuous flow of ideas and interests. When he decided to make Sherlock Holmes a character in a series of short stories, which he did after the writing of two novels, he performed a deliberate act. A programmed action. His innovative idea was to link readers of a magazine (the Strand in this case) to the magazine itself, not through the usual serial novels, but through a series of stories, each finished by itself, with the same characters. A trivial idea for us, innovative at the time. And for attracting readers’ attention everything had to be built. And so it happened, the women fell in love and it is probable that the men with particular inclinations recognized something that satisfied, in the possibility of the time, their interest. With this I do not want to belittle the love story between the two (I could never) nor even say what Doyle really felt (I could not in the same way). I would just like to underline that what we see in BBC Serlock, once again is a perfect mirror of what happens in the canon. The hero is sexy for fall in love, love is there to be seen, but nothing is explicit. Then the affirmation remains, perhaps the only true one, that this wants to be a correction of the canon.

@possiblyimbiassed @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat

Interesting thoughts, @raggedyblue. There are parallels indeed. But I would also like to observe this: BBC Sherlock has already gone further than ACD ever did. If we assume for a moment that TFP was the end, we get them being very close to a each other, with a child and in a child-proof flat. Surrounded by friends. This is very different from what we get in Canon. And since this is not the end, there may be more to come.

@ebaeschnbliah

Agree, @gosherlocked  Sherlock BBC, The Final Problem ends on a completely different note as in canon. Nor does it seem to be the end of the story. And who would evaluate a painting before the artist is finished. The most positive statement is included in the much criticized epiloge of TFP: “I know you two; and if I’m gone, I know what you could become.”  Not many options left after flatmate, colleague, friend, best friend and family … I guess. 

But what’s more … that piece of dialogue originates from Sherlock’s and John’s own words prior to that final scene. 

The whole monologue at the end of the episode is Sherlock’s. 

Regarding a growing romantic relationship between Sherlock and John, I never saw a more promising end/cliffhanger as the one from The Final Problem.

yes! Especially on top of all the subtext bursting out of s4.

as I said at the end of the post, probably in an unclear way (my mistake), what we have seen is a precise adaptation of the canon, in its positive and negative sides. The fact remains that this is an adaptation, not a perfect copy, and is therefore likely to give its own interpretation, and its interpretation seems clear to me, even if the work is not finished (yet). I absolutely agree that we have already moved forward (we moved a century and a half to begin with and this is already the first chance that they gave the story to be able to be resolved differently, or at least to resolve in the light of the sun ). We expect a correction, it will be, I would say that we deserve it.

@gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @possiblyimbiassed

I absolutely agree with all of you @raggedyblue @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @possiblyimbiassed

Even as this a very sensitive topic, I agree that the queerbaiting wasn’t what many people took it for. Imo it were mostely the expectations that made it this big a problem. BUT of course all the subtext made us believe it. But that’s exactly the point. It made it believe US. And WE (johnlock supporters) think we undestood the series, but there are many many others who don’t agree. And all of them have the same right to interpret the series their own way. Because that’s the thing with art - the interpretation is in the eye of the beholder! Therefore I agree with @ebaeschnbliah that a piece of art can’t be judged befor it’s finished. And a piece of art the series is!

Because we didn’t reach the end as you and @gosherlocked already mentioned. And that is one more thing that is very canon compliant: Doyle and Sherlock Holmes weren’t finished after the final problem. He returned after massive protest of the fans that this can’t be the end! And look what’s happening now. Mofftiss are hassled with questions about the continuation of Sherlock. They are possitvely pressed to do a next series! If that isn’t a repitition of the past…

But back to the queerbaiting. It’s a topic I discussed with @ebaeschnbliah a long time ago (as is everything with me really). And back then I said to her, that I think they didn’t mean it as queerbaiting but to make the queer subtext of Doyle’s original work more blatant. And that tey didn’t make it explicit because they wanted to leave open all other possibilities as possibility as well - Sherlock being gay or bi or ace, John being straight or bi or frustrated ;-) . And even pairings as Mystrade or Adlock or Sherlolly or Molstrade are left open to be possible. It’s all up to interpretation. And that’s what I think has been their goal all along… to make it a possibility. And that’s imo the exact opposite to queerbaiting, because in my opinion the motto of the show is something said in the very beginning, by the narrator himself… IT’S ALL FINE!

Very well said, @loveismyrevolution  Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are fictional characters. They never lived in this world for real. And because of that no one will ever be able to prove anything about them … neither this nor that. As long as people read or watch the stories about those famous literary characters, each and everyone will create their own fantasy about them, will see them in their minds in their own unique way. That’s the beauty of fantasy. It’s forever and for everyone. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson belong to everyone.

May I add the last verse of a poem by Friedrich Schiller … To The Friends

As there’s only a spanish translation availlable for the lyrics on the site I found it, I had to do the english one myself (have mercy). 

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson will stay forever the way we like them most. Be it in victorian or modern times, young or old, married with one another, with someone else or not at all. That’s not the point because, as you mentioned above ‘it’s all fine’ … and …. ‘live and let live’ as good old Hudders so wisely puts it. :))))

I’m still curious and thrilled though, where Mofftiss will take the two of them in their fantasy.. 

@gosherlocked @sarahthecoat @raggedyblue @possiblyimbiassed​

rb for discussion. I'm curious too!

QUEERBAITING

This is probably an thorny post, it’s not my intention to question anyone’s feelings, and what I want to do is just an observation. BBC Sherlock has been accused, he is accused, of Queerbaiting heavily after S4. This basically because all the previous allusions to a possible (probable-inevitable) love story between the two have been dropped and nothing has actually been seen. But could not the same behavior be attributed to Doyle himself? He created a fascinating character, strong, intelligent, but with a sensitive soul that is moved for a concert. A paladin of justice, the absolute one and not that of the laws of the state. A defender of women, able to see them for what they are, damsels in distress or imperious warriors. But detached in feelings. The ideal man for whom, any woman with the attitude of wanting to save the object of his love, would be ready to fall in love. And so it happened, it happens. And so on his first death there were thousands of letters of sorrowful women. But then there is also John Watson. Their relationship is there to be seen by those who want to see it. All love, devotion. All the joys and pains that the two shared. The love story is there, suggested, but never explicit. And certainly could not, but I’m not sure it’s just this. Doyle was an extremely intelligent man, his head was a continuous flow of ideas and interests. When he decided to make Sherlock Holmes a character in a series of short stories, which he did after the writing of two novels, he performed a deliberate act. A programmed action. His innovative idea was to link readers of a magazine (the Strand in this case) to the magazine itself, not through the usual serial novels, but through a series of stories, each finished by itself, with the same characters. A trivial idea for us, innovative at the time. And for attracting readers’ attention everything had to be built. And so it happened, the women fell in love and it is probable that the men with particular inclinations recognized something that satisfied, in the possibility of the time, their interest. With this I do not want to belittle the love story between the two (I could never) nor even say what Doyle really felt (I could not in the same way). I would just like to underline that what we see in BBC Serlock, once again is a perfect mirror of what happens in the canon. The hero is sexy for fall in love, love is there to be seen, but nothing is explicit. Then the affirmation remains, perhaps the only true one, that this wants to be a correction of the canon.

@possiblyimbiassed @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat

Interesting thoughts, @raggedyblue. There are parallels indeed. But I would also like to observe this: BBC Sherlock has already gone further than ACD ever did. If we assume for a moment that TFP was the end, we get them being very close to a each other, with a child and in a child-proof flat. Surrounded by friends. This is very different from what we get in Canon. And since this is not the end, there may be more to come.

@ebaeschnbliah

Agree, @gosherlocked  Sherlock BBC, The Final Problem ends on a completely different note as in canon. Nor does it seem to be the end of the story. And who would evaluate a painting before the artist is finished. The most positive statement is included in the much criticized epiloge of TFP: “I know you two; and if I’m gone, I know what you could become.”  Not many options left after flatmate, colleague, friend, best friend and family … I guess. 

But what’s more … that piece of dialogue originates from Sherlock’s and John’s own words prior to that final scene. 

The whole monologue at the end of the episode is Sherlock’s. 

Regarding a growing romantic relationship between Sherlock and John, I never saw a more promising end/cliffhanger as the one from The Final Problem.

yes! Especially on top of all the subtext bursting out of s4.

as I said at the end of the post, probably in an unclear way (my mistake), what we have seen is a precise adaptation of the canon, in its positive and negative sides. The fact remains that this is an adaptation, not a perfect copy, and is therefore likely to give its own interpretation, and its interpretation seems clear to me, even if the work is not finished (yet). I absolutely agree that we have already moved forward (we moved a century and a half to begin with and this is already the first chance that they gave the story to be able to be resolved differently, or at least to resolve in the light of the sun ). We expect a correction, it will be, I would say that we deserve it.

@gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @possiblyimbiassed

I absolutely agree with all of you @raggedyblue @gosherlocked @ebaeschnbliah @sarahthecoat @possiblyimbiassed

Even as this a very sensitive topic, I agree that the queerbaiting wasn’t what many people took it for. Imo it were mostely the expectations that made it this big a problem. BUT of course all the subtext made us believe it. But that’s exactly the point. It made it believe US. And WE (johnlock supporters) think we undestood the series, but there are many many others who don’t agree. And all of them have the same right to interpret the series their own way. Because that’s the thing with art - the interpretation is in the eye of the beholder! Therefore I agree with @ebaeschnbliah that a piece of art can’t be judged befor it’s finished. And a piece of art the series is!

Because we didn’t reach the end as you and @gosherlocked already mentioned. And that is one more thing that is very canon compliant: Doyle and Sherlock Holmes weren’t finished after the final problem. He returned after massive protest of the fans that this can’t be the end! And look what’s happening now. Mofftiss are hassled with questions about the continuation of Sherlock. They are possitvely pressed to do a next series! If that isn’t a repitition of the past…

But back to the queerbaiting. It’s a topic I discussed with @ebaeschnbliah a long time ago (as is everything with me really). And back then I said to her, that I think they didn’t mean it as queerbaiting but to make the queer subtext of Doyle’s original work more blatant. And that tey didn’t make it explicit because they wanted to leave open all other possibilities as possibility as well - Sherlock being gay or bi or ace, John being straight or bi or frustrated ;-) . And even pairings as Mystrade or Adlock or Sherlolly or Molstrade are left open to be possible. It’s all up to interpretation. And that’s what I think has been their goal all along… to make it a possibility. And that’s imo the exact opposite to queerbaiting, because in my opinion the motto of the show is something said in the very beginning, by the narrator himself… IT’S ALL FINE!

rb for discussion.

The Reichenback crawl into Sherlock’s EmP?

I’m not apologizing to anyone for the title (😂😂)

Look I ( me , personally, just my opinion) hate the idea of Emp starting in TRF .

I don’t even want to consider this possibility because it implies then, a completely different show and I have a really hard time trying to comprehend the reason for such a plot choice.

If we assume Sherlock entered emp right after he hit the ground then there’s a major clash of POVs here and we can never be sure whose POV we’re looking through.

Did we enter Sherlock’s POV instantly? or is it just johns after he did? or are we going back and forth? and then if we are going back and forth which is who’s POV? Did we only enter Sherlock’s POV at the graveyard?

According to what is most plausible, Sherlock at the graveyard is when we enter his POV, and if this is emp, it implies johns graveyard speech is emp too, and if we assume that at this point we don’t switch back to johns POV and remain in Sherlock’s POV, for consistency reasons, then we are shown johns therapy session at the end which is a continuation of the therapy session right at the beginning of the episode which implies THE ENTIRETY OF THE EPISODE BEING EMP ……..?!??

Then what’s the point of any this at all then ?

This is just my personal opinion really and I might not be right, obviously there are assumptions here but the POV clash at the end if it’s Sherlock’s emp drives me nuts.

Thnx for not hating me for the title ✌

ah, no hate here! As a both-and meta reader, and with no idea what "the truth" is, or even if there is supposed to be only one "truth", your considered ideas are as good as anyone's. I go back and forth between lots of different ideas that i or others have put forth. Instead of looking for a single, concrete surface story, i like to see, what's there if i look at it from this angle? And then, what if i look at it from this other angle? The way you might look at a big complicated sculpture from different angles, and see different patterns and details and shapes.

Another thing i have a looser and more flexible hold on, is that "if this is EMP, then that is too" stuff, especially after watching The Singing Detective, a 6 part miniseries you should be able to find on youtube, which largely takes place in the main character's imagination and/or memory. It shifts between "reality" and dream, memory, imagination, hallucination, etc with great fluidity. Sometimes you can spot a clear transition, sometimes not so much. so the point is not so much to "figure out what actually happened", but to just take in all these interconnected layers of the character's mind.

I'm not 100% sure yet "what is the point" of doing sherlock this way, i hope that will be more clear after we get s5. Writers can fail, i don't think these writers have quite yet, and i hope they won't. I hope they will go ahead and pull whatever rug they have going, and actually show us their "ta da!" In the mean time, i've learned not to be too firmly attached to any one idea, but to entertain them and see where they lead. The most consistent patterns do begin to emerge. Like, new information causes re evaluation of previous information, and since more is likely to come, stay flexible.

Tiny little bit of Moffat Appreciation that I know some people actually hate and would rather I didn’t mention but I’m gonna:

Alternative subtext.

What I mean here, is that he gives a ‘canon’ reading of his character - here I will use the example I know you’ll hate, but it’s the most obvious - lesbian Bill in Doctor Who. He makes absolutely damn sure there is no wriggle room for straight people here. There is no way she can be understood to be straight at all, we have been very very clear on it, every episode ‘have I mentioned I like girls’ like a true young queer woman. 

It’s excellent, it’s explicit, it’s canon. Black lesbian space explorer.

‘We all loved that,’ You say. ‘Why did you think I’d hate it?’

Well I said I was here to praise Moffat’s use of ‘Alternative Subtext’.

Steven provides you with that canon. She is never shown crushing on a male. So far, so lesbian. But he makes two choices, so that some other little queer Whovians get to have a hero that fits them if they need one too. First: He never has her say ‘I am a lesbian’ - it’s obvious, but couched in other language, and given that I have never once seen an audience member confused over if she’s straight or not, this was fine to do. Second: Her clothing choices. One outfit has a vertical striped pan flag interpretation on it, another is a horizontal bi flag.

Just because it’s meta - just because there’s subtext, does not mean it has to be true. But Moffat’s use of this to provide a little hook to hang a character on, be it their sexuality, gender, transness, or neurotype, is something I genuinely love about his writing. That he wants to make heroes for anyone who needs them, and knows how to sow the seeds of an AU or alternative interpretation into his own stories, just for that purpose. And if you ever find yourself fighting with someone over an aspect of his characters, you have to bear in mind that the answer may genuinely be that both of you are right. It’s the same dress.

Agreed!

Sweet!

I’m happy at the place I’ve landed…. everything in amy’s meta of course as a foundation… but then, the blog=show thus I don’t have to pin any proof down using details. details on both are fuzzy; it’s not about matching precise dates because the blog (and john’s account, just like acd’s account) are sloppy with details. if they match great, of they don’t, who cares, just like details like sherlock’s birthyear and everything else are fuzzy; mofftiss is doing this in the style of acd and always sort of have been but the difference is that we’re now through the looking glass. we no longer have these fictionalized accounts but all we have is the blog. the cover story. the account. we have no first-hand information. bits of “truth” peek through, sometimes indirectly. to understand this we can’t go collecting breadcrumbs anymore, we have to step outside the whole frame.

“to understand this we can’t go collecting breadcrumbs anymore, we have to step outside the whole frame”

this is the most important thing, i’m sure. i’ve been trying to formulate the exact same thought today, but failed 😅

i decided only yesterday to stop clinging to details, especially details of “whose point of view is that”, because it really..doesn’t matter now? i’m totally aware of the fact that “sherlock” isn’t sci-fi, but, at the same time, show’s reality isn’t tied up to our own reality too much (as Mark said, the show’s reality is a “slightly exaggerated version of our own universe” (thanks to Amy for this reminder), so. especially when lots and lots of facts point out on the idea that S4 is a combination of theatrical mechanics, i’m totally fine with almost all possible “inconsistencies” (it demand further deep analysis, of course)

yes, the exaggerated reality! I feel like I’m settling into an understanding of the show that is in-depth yet doesn’t rest upon continuity details, which feels right. 

also, the idea that I keep coming to with a lot of other/earlier theories that got a lot of traction (…john’s mind palace, it’s all an extended dream, etc etc) is that it’s like the philosophy 101 example of the elephant… (oh no is this OUR elephant in the room??? no pun was even intended) where blind men who have never heard of an elephant all try to describe it: it’s long like a snake! it’s wide like a tree trunk! it’s thin like a whip! it’s ..something to describe the big ears! and they’re all right. 

so while we’re all sort of right, we have to look at the bigger picture and not get too lost in details. we have to scale out and see the elephant.

Yes, I like this approach.

YES, I've been thinking of the blind men and the elephant too, and how we may not even have the whole elephant, or we may have more than one critter, or a whole ecosystem. I'm not sure how this qualifies as "fixing" something "everyone else has been getting wrong", but who knows what goes on in their funny little minds. I wonder if this is what arwel was trying to get at with all the elephant tweets, during s4 filming. Either instead of, or in addition to, the "elephant in the room" connotation (which still hasn't been addressed except subtextually)

THIS! IS! SO! IMPORTANT!

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL SEE TODAY

Mark Hamill, so precious.

BLESS!

Problematic ships: are we having a semantics issue here?

More and more I’m beginning to think that a lot of wank about problematic “ships” comes from the fact that we’re collapsing an entire spectrum of how people approach fandom pairings into a single word. (To keep the language simpler here I’ve only talked about “pairings”, but this also applies to poly ships.)

At one extreme, I’m personally reluctant to use the word “shipping” at all about pairings I read and write, because I don’t think “shipping” really describes how I approach fandom. I don’t have strong feelings about who characters should be paired with. When I read or write a pairing it’s because that pairing has a dynamic I’m interested in, not because I think it would be good for the characters.

At the other end of the spectrum, I know people for whom “shipping” really is believing that two characters should be together, because they have such a great relationship dynamic in canon. Who believe that being together would be better for both characters.

When people say that nobody should ever “ship” or create fanworks about a pairing because they have an unhealthy relationship in canon, those people seem to be assuming that literally everyone who creates fanworks about a pairing “ships” them in that second sense. That the only reason to create fanworks about a pairing is because you believe the characters have a great relationship dynamic in canon, and would be better off together.

Fandom is about so, so much more than that.

Sometimes we want to read or write about unhealthy relationships. Sometimes we want to explore what circumstances might make a relationship healthier, or unhealthier, than what’s depicted in canon.

We “ship” characters with unhealthy canon dynamics because we believe these are interesting and important stories to tell.

Not all relationships are healthy. It’s absurd to insist that we should only ever tell stories about completely healthy relationships.

….

Crap, that makes a *lot* of sense.

I mean, this is an actual quote from an anti post I saw today: “If you ship an abusive ship, you condone that ship automatically. There’s no way around it.”

This person clearly understands the word “ship” to entail some sort of moral endorsement – they’ve said so outright!

But that isn’t the only kind of “shipping”, and that kind of “shipping” certainly isn’t the only reason people create or enjoy fanworks about a pairing.

I got so much hate the last time I was on Tumblr for ‘shipping an abusive ship.’ I wish folks would realize that people write fic for many, many reasons. And shipping is only one of them. Nothing is black or white.

This is a great​ discussion! I think it gets even more complicated when some relationships are being teased or foreshadowed by the text, and others aren't. I try to keep a separation in my mind between shipping in general, as a "what if" kind of thought, which can encompass any pairing, regardless of shared screen time, and story structure analysis that looks at what happens between characters during shared screen time and analyzes that, from a relationship angle. Those are really two different activities or mental exercises, but they get confused with each other very easily. Then there is the whole area of what variations on the character are "acceptable" to incorporate into fanworks (and why should one fan get to tell another what is or isn't ok?) I've seen fics that make characters into vampires, werewolves, merfolk, cats, dogs, horses, that explore the darkest aspects or the lightest, or genderswap them. Different pairings are just another variation, that may or may not be to your taste, but they are to someone's.