#it is 1am i hope this is vagurly coherent woops

[doctorsanddetectives]

hey! so, the thing is I used to be really involved in tjlc pre s4 and it pretty much crushed me when the season aired and I just made a hard cut and distanced myself completely from it all. though I just kept on missing it, I didn't dare return to it, not even other adaptations. but recently, I just felt such a strong need to come back and it started with granada and tplosh but in the end, I just couldn't help myself and here I am thinking about Them again. and I've realised there are actually still a few people actually believing in tjlc, even some new ones. and I don't know, I guess I was just wondering if you could tell me why you still believe, if you really think they're actually going to make them canonically in love/in a relationship after all, what you think about a possible season 5 etc.? I know it's a lot to ask, I guess I just want to be convinced again haha

anyway, thank you for your time if you indeed answer this and of not then thank you anyway!

oh, hi! i'd sort of forgotten my ask box was open, so sorry for the late answer! this got a bit long, so i'll put it under a cut

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first off, if you do rejoin the fandom, believing in tjlc or not, welcome back and i hope you have fun!

for me still believing in tjlc mostly boils down to this: 1. all the things that we saw in canon pre-s4 still exist, they are still in the text of the show. s4 doesn't change that just because it didn't go how we thought it would. 2. s4 doesn't make sense in ways that are too specific to not be on purpose.

number 1 is pretty self-explanatory i think, but just to throw some stuff you might remember back at you:

sherlock never denying insinuations that he's gay or that he and john are a couple, despite being mr. 'i get the last word'

sherlock saying 'into battle' while psyching himself up for john's wedding. sherlock watching sadly during john and mary's first dance and then leaving the wedding early. mind palace mary wearing her wedding dress while shooting sherlock in the heart.

john not being able to say the words he always meant to say to sherlock, even during therapy (what could they have been? i know what i think)

irene saying 'somebody loves you' to sherlock when she realises john was careful to not actually hurt him when punching him in the face. irene immediately following that up with asking john 'are you feeling exposed?'

john being sherlock's pressure point

i'm sorry, i gotta come back to the beginning real quick, everyone thinks sherlock is gay. mrs hudson (two rooms?). mycroft (happy announcement?). angelo (nice and romantic). janine (i know what kind of man you are).

that one post from the mofftiss tumblr q&a where the question is 'is sherlock saying i love you to john' and gatiss is like 'no, unless he's talking to a mirror' and we find out sherlock's talking to molly! john's main narrative mirror! mindboggling

that's just what comes to my mind right now, but there's of course still so much more. i sadly don't have a collection of all the old metas at hand but i know other people do, so i'd recommend you go searching for those.

as for 2. there's two pieces of particularly brilliant s4 meta that are keeping me afloat (and that i think i stole most of the points i make here from), i'll link them here and here. believe me, if you wanna believe in tjlc again, this is what you wanna read.

there was also a post that links weird things happening in s4 to bits from the earlier seasons, but i can't find it rn, i will link it if i do find it later.

but the one big thing that tells me s4 being the way it is was planned, is mary's death.

in s3 we get a 'how not to: death by gunshot' and it's

you don't get thrown across the room

you only have a few seconds of consciousness. choose wisely what to do

(if john watson is there, he will act like the army doctor he is)

in s4 we get

mary has time to throw herself in front of the bullet, then gets thrown across the room because of the bullet impact

mary holds a full 60 second monologue while bleeding out

(instead of trying to stop the bleeding or calling an ambulance, john just moos sadly)

it's the exact opposite. that is on purpose. whether it is on purpose to tip us off that s4 is not reliable narration - or if mofftiss genuinely decided to just say, fuck it, let's be weird as hell for no reason - that i can't promise. i choose to believe it is the former.

and, in terms of the five act structure: act 4 is supposed to hurt. usually, it's supposed to hurt, and seem so bad that it can't be fixed, to the *characters* not to the *fans* - but when have mofftiss ever done anything in a normal way, eh? because act 4 is when you lose all hope before the grand finale in act 5.

as for s5, idk if you know this or not but there was a 10 year anniversary q&a (it's on yt) in which mark gatiss said something about us being the most patient fans ever or so (i don't have the exact words). that made me go 👀 with regards to a potential s5 for sure.

also also, sherlock never officially got cancelled. and they were originally signed for 5 seasons from what i understand. everyone just thinks it's over because it seems over.

so long story short, i still think most of the original meta and analysis from before s4 holds up, i think mofftiss are willing to do some weird abstract shit that maybe we just don't understand yet (but that ultimately, hopefully, has purpose) and they always said there'd be 5 seasons

that was a long ramble, oops! but i hope it helps a little bit.

lastly, i should also point out that if it sizzles out and we never hear anything about sherlock again, that would not be the end of the world for me. i believe canon johnlock is the thing that makes the most sense for how the show is set up - but i'm well aware of the possibility that there might be things behind the scenes that we're not privy to and that might have changed the original course of the show. i do like to keep entertaining the idea of a s5 that proves tjlc until we have reason to think otherwise though!

#it is 1am i hope this is vagurly coherent woops #also feel free to ask if you have any specific questions or such #my dms are also open! #marty.txt