[ SECRET POST #3238 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3238 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.









Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 043 secrets from Secret Submission Post #463.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[elaminator]

To be honest I don't see the appeal of 'arguing' about characterization at length. For instance, if someone said Sherlock was a gentle, kind, perfect soul I'd be like "?!?!?!" but in a lot of cases people aren't going to change their minds and I'm fine with leaving them with their interpretation even if I feel it's terribly, terribly wrong, lol.

But in this specific case, wouldn't the BBC Sherlock fans be arguing about BBC Sherlock's characterization? (Sure, there probably is the occasional fan who hasn't read the books but thinks they know everything about the source material, but I bet that's rare.) I don't think the majority of the fanbase are convinced that BBC Sherlock and book Sherlock are the same things. Every version is different.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, there probably is the occasional fan who hasn't read the books but thinks they know everything about the source material, but I bet that's rare

In my (fairly extensive) experience in the BBC Sherlock fandom, it is rare. But then I'm not someone who's going into the ACD-loving side of fandom very much. I guess it stands to reason that the BBC Sherlock fans who are also, secondarily, ACD Holmes fans, would go over into the ACD side of fandom. And then some of them will get into arguments with ACD Holmes fans, because their ideas about ACD Holmes are heavily shaped by their more dominant love of the BBC version - whereas ACD Holmes fans' view of the ACD story is predominantly shaped by their love of that story itself.

I can see how those sorts of encounters would be annoying for ACD Holmes fans.

[(Anonymous)]

Especially since there is a lot of inaccurate fanlore in the BBC fandom about ACD, canon Holmes and the nineteenth century context, and even quoting chapter and verse doesn't seem to convince them to drop it.

A particularly egregious example is "ACD married off Watson because of the Oscar Wilde scandal, so it would seem less gay". Watson marries in SIGN (1889). At which point Wilde hadn't even met Alfred Douglas.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

And that's also based on the wobbly assumption that Holmes and Watson's relationship "seemed gay" to the audience of that time period. I don't think it did, actually, so there was no need to make it seem "less gay".

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT There's no evidence that they would have or did, true enough. But when even the actual dates are wrong it gets even more silly.

[deird1]

No more than Poirot and Hastings seemed gay - and those stories were 50 years later.

Contemporary ideas of what fictional gay relationships look like are rather... contemporary.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT Yeah, I love my slash goggles and will happily adopt many a slashy theory for my headcanon. But the vast majority of the things a lot of people claim are objectively, canonically slashy just seem like tremendous reaching to me.

People like to talk about slashy subtext. Now Xena and Gabrielle had (fem)slashy subtext. Perhaps Will and Hannibal had a twisted kind of slashy subtext. But IMO what "subtext" mostly is, is slash goggles and fanon.

[(Anonymous)]

IIRC, the creators of Xena were well aware of fans and fan speculation about the subtext and deliberately chose to play with that as the series went on. But for the most part, you can't really claim the same thing for historical fandoms.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, exactly, it was deliberately put into the story by the writers. I don't know if Xena/Gabrielle was always on the agenda, or whether it got put onto the agenda as the writers because to see what the fans were seeing, but either way, in time it became apparent that the Xena/Gabrielle subtext was actually there.

Personally, I don't consider it "subtext" if there was never any intention on the part of the writers or actors to make subtext. Yeah, yeah, the author is dead, and literary criticism encourages us to unpack the text in any way we can conceivably construct and argument to support. Call me old fashions, but I care about the intent of the creator(s).

[(Anonymous)]

*the writers because began to see what the fans were seeing

Lol, how the fuck did I get "because" from "began"?

[elaminator]

I guess it stands to reason that the BBC Sherlock fans who are also, secondarily, ACD Holmes fans, would go over into the ACD side of fandom. And then some of them will get into arguments with ACD Holmes fans, because their ideas about ACD Holmes are heavily shaped by their more dominant love of the BBC version - whereas ACD Holmes fans' view of the ACD story is predominantly shaped by their love of that story itself.

Yea, that makes sense. A good number of the BBC Sherlock fans I've come across don't seem interested in ACD's stories, so I guess I just haven't ran into the 'right' fans.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, most of the people I know in the fandom aren't interested in the ACD stories much. Nor am I. I've read quite a few of the short stories but that's about it, and I've only read a couple of ACD 'verse fics (as opposed to like 2500 BBC fics, lol).

I think some BBC fans may even feel slightly challenged by the whole ACD side of things, because the flip side of us BBC fans being somewhat obnoxious johnlock maniacs, is that the ACD fans can be kind of superior and judgmental.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think it's about trying to convince people. I think it's just that it's fun to get into those arguments because it gives you a reason to have a back-and-forth about something that really interests you.

[elaminator]

Ahh, when you put it that way...

If people just want a back and forth about how they see the character, that I understand. That's what fandom is all about: discussion.

But when I saw the word 'argument' I thought of hostility, so I assumed that there was an element of 'trying to convince others that their view is the right one'. (I know that arguments can just be disagreements, and you can disagree without disagreeing violently or disrespectfully, but this being fandom...I jumped to conclusions, lol. Oops.)