I’m having thoughts about how aros tend to react to the phrase “just friends” and… none of this is to negate those ideas, but rather to add to them. Also these thoughts are half formed, so please do engage with them that way. I’m looking to start a conversation, not make a well-put together point.

Anyway.

I think maybe, when people say “we’re just friends” and the like, sometimes (not all the time) the “just” isn’t alluding to a hierarchy where friends are below romantic partners. It might be alluding to something else:

I think some people consider romantic relationships to be “friendship + romance.” In fact, I also see comments that are like “oh, if you’re not best friends with your romantic partner then that’s an inherently lesser relationship than [friendship + romance].” Romantic flings that do not have strong elements of friendship are also seen as lesser under amatonormativity.

It’s this idea that you need to get all your emotional connection needs met from *one person* (because capitalism) and if a person is not that one person, then it’s an inherently lesser relationship.

Anyway, that’s the thought, would love to hear other perspectives.

isitandwonder:

laconiclurker:

thanangst:

byebyefrost:

welovethebeekeeper:

isitandwonder:

“The obsession, particularly online, with the homoerotic tension between Sherlock and Doctor Watson… The template for us was the Billy Wilder film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which deliberately plays with the idea that Holmes might be gay. We’ve done the same thing, deliberately played with it although it’s absolutely clearly not the case. He’s only a brain, ‘everything else is transport’ to him and John clearly says, “I’m not gay, we’re not together” but the joke is that everyone assumes that in the 21st century that these two blokes living together are a couple– what they wouldn’t’ have assumed in the 19th century. They’d have assumed they were bachelor best friends and now they assume they’re lovers. That’s obviously such fun to play with and the fact that people now assume, in a very positive way, that they’re together is a different joke to it being a negative connotation.”  Mark Gatiss in The Gay Times, February 2012

Hmm, I’m actually not so sure about that. Because I never got this joke (and no, that’s not a generation thing. I’m round about the same age as the show creators). Honestly, to me, two blokes sharing a flat in central London in the 21st century are just two blokes sharing a flat because it’s fucking expensive. I’d never assume anything else.

Even if one of the man was depicted as obviously gay (Girlfriend? Nor really my area. - Boyfriend? I know it’s fine.) - I wouldn’t assume any kind of romatic interest between them. I can’t see a joke there either.

But when their flat sharing gets laden with innuendo? For example, their landlady asking them if they share a bedroom. Another acquaintance taking them for being on a date. Those two blokes gazing at each other as if they were about to eat each other alive. One of the man killing for the other, who, in return, protects him from being prosecuted… Well, thenI’d start to assume something’s going on - because it is shown to me and hammered home.

Only, I can’t see a jokethere either…

So, what Gatiss described in the above interview wasn’t what happened. They were not just showing us two blokes living together. Because then no one in the 21st century would think of them as a couple. Moffat and Gatiss had to actively insert innuendo for their viewers to catch up on their ‘joke’ in the first place. They encouraged this on many levels: text, acting choices, casting, costume, music, lighting, cinematography.

They actively implemented homoerotic (sub)text in their show - only to lament at the same time that people cought up on it? That some viewers expected something to come out of it. Because, in the 21st century, no one thought it possible that it could just be a lame joke! Because there just is no joke to it.

The viewers took the positive attitude Gatiis desrcibes a step further and expected positive representation from the writers after playing with the inherent homoeroticism of the original stories. The fandom was far more advanced than the show runners, it seems.

And why play with the  homoeroticism it in the first place? I really can’t see where the fun might be in there, apart from cracking some cheap gay jokes that feed an outdated no-homo attitude?

What is there to play with when it’s not an issue anymore? And if it’s still an issue, I’m not sure that making fun of it ist the appropriate approach to it.

We’ve done the same thing, deliberately played with it although it’s absolutely clearly not the case.

Clearly not the case??? How can a gay man, an LGBTQ advocate be so obtuse? They have used every gay trope in the book. The result is a desperately broken gay man who is in love with his repressed flatmate. Can Mark and Steven be this stupid, this unobservant, this deep into their own form of homophobia, that they cannot see what their own creation has become? Sorry Mark, but it was never clearly not gay. It was clearly the opposite.

I agree. Sorry Gatiss but that’s bs. In Friends Joey and Chandler shared a flat and nobody expected them to get together.

You know, for a brilliant man, Gatiss can be remarkably thick.  Total BS, in my book.

Here’s the thing from my perspective: there were enough tent poles in the writing (not even the acting or the direction or the cinematography, but just the writing) for people to come up with a reading that Sherlock and John had unusual, deep, possessive feelings for each other that many would not categorize as simple friendship. It’s not even the multiple lines of dialogue where others assume that Sherlock and John are a couple (including everyone cited above, together with the gay innkeepers and Dr. Frankland and Henry’s psychologist and Kitty and arguably Magnussen and ….) I find it morbidly fascinating that despite evidence in the writing itself that was more than third party characters making joking assumptions about John and Sherlock, the creators in their public statements basically chalk it all up to the “delusional fangirl” stereotype and say “play online but don’t talk about it with us, the writers.”

The Battersea conversation between John and Irene is one example of relationship implications being directly in the writing, despite some posts I’ve seen attributing Johnlock to some manifestation of acting and editing. We all know the scene by heart. John says they’re not a couple; Irene says that they are. John says he’s not infatuated with Sherlock because John is not gay, and Irene counters that she is gay, and “Look at us both [being infatuated?].”

What are we looking at, Moffat? Genuinely, I would like that answered and am confused about Moffat and Gatiss’s hostility towards discussing romantic interpretations of their writing. What was that line supposed to do if not invite us to examine the nature of both John’s and Irene’s feelings towards Sherlock and perhaps the immutability (or lack thereof) of romantic attraction? I know that script page floated around ages ago that said that John then laughs at the absurdity of the situation in response to Irene’s comment, but whether he laughs or gives that rueful huff that we get in the final version, John has no spoken answer to Irene’s comment. Was she right? Was she wrong? What was Moffat trying to convey? Was it only about Irene in that moment? Is she the only one with a bendable sexuality? That’s an ugly implication.

And then someone on their team wrote a scene episodes later where John and Sherlock are the only people at a bachelor party (when there certainly would have been comedic value in Lestrade or Anderson or relatives we’ve never met or Mycroft (like the Ritchie movies, right?) being in on this little celebration). But instead we’ve got no explanation for why there are no guests other than our assumption that Sherlock and John wanted a night alone together, and John saying he doesn’t mind touching Sherlock’s leg. Why is that line there if it doesn’t mean something? That’s 15 seconds of screen real estate that could have been spent elsewhere. I want to hear what Moffat and Gatiss say about this scene, the dialogue, the setup, etc.

These are two examples. We all could pull out at least one bit of written dialogue per episode where something in the writing itself implied “couple” or “attraction” that was not a joke made by a third party. And I really just want to ask them what they were trying to do in any of these types of scenes, because these were not jokes made by third party characters. But no interviewer will ever go beyond asking the question of whether John and Sherlock are a couple with Gatiss pulling out that stock reply about how in the 21st century, it’s cheeky to say that everyone will assume that they are together. Maybe Gatiss’s real answer is that they delighted in the ambiguity, never settling on one thing, raising issues and questions about character motivations without any definitive answers in a way that gives their writing (an illusion of) depth (a show like Mad Men played with raising different questions and not always answering them), and they never thought that anyone would seek to insert answers to these little questions that they toyed with.

I also think from my vantage point of reading and watching some of their interviews that Mark especially is not a fan of ardent fans. I know some interpreted TEH as an affectionate homage to the fandom, but I saw then and still see now his discomfort with fans reading anything into this show beyond the emotional context that they are trying to generate in any individual scene. It doesn’t matter how Sherlock survived or what John went through: what matters is that we have a little laugh at John’s successive losses of temper that send them to progressively seedier establishments in TEH: it’s a joke, it’s a show, it’s not serious beyond taking an emotional journey contained to 90 minutes. I can only see S4 as a massive repudiation of quite a lot of what ardent fans liked about the show, and I think part of it does stem from discomfort with fan expectations (and part of it from writing the season in too short a time period at the last minute).

Very Well said @laconiclurker. Thank you for this!

“Call me friend, but keep me closer”

—Billie Eilish: When the party’s over

Feljegyzések G. ről

G. egy random srác a városból, akit mintha a sors küldött volna, rámírt a semmiből

G. nagyon aranyos, egész nap beszélgettünk, pedig én nem vagyok nyitott, eleinte picit tartottam is tőle.

G. különlegesnek talál engem.

G. ről megtudtam, hogy 20 éves.

G. vel együtt kockulunk, sokat lelkizünk, találkozni szeretne velem előben. Szorongok ez miatt.

G. nek küldtem egy snap fotót, a barátaimmal éppen mekizni mentünk. G megjelent, elindult felém és leült velem szemben. G nagyon magas. A barátaim meglepődtek.

G. aranyos volt, vicces, a barátaim is nagyon bírják őt. Szorongtam közben.

G. kikísért a buszmegállóba. El akart hívni másnap moziba. Nemet mondtam. G megölelt, (még mindig nagyon magas), puszit kért. Nem adtam. Nem akartam félrevezetni.

G. vel továbbra is beszélgettünk. Egyre jobban megismerjük egymást. Mintha a bátyám lenne.

G. szeretne velem kettesben találkozni. Rávett a találkozóra , tegnap reggel elkísért suliba. Nem pánikoltam, jól éreztem magam vele. Az alvásparalízisekről beszélünk.

G. ről tudom, hogy ő mit érez irántam.

G. és én odaértünk a sulihoz. Beszélgettünk még egy kicsit, kezdtem kínosan érezni magam.

G. megölelt, puszit kért. Adtam neki. Lehet nem kellett volna. Most túlgondolja.

G. t meg kellett bántanom. G a legjóindulatúbb ember, akit valaha megismertem, nem érdemli meg.

G. iránt képtelen vagyok érezni. Szörnyű ember vagyok.

G. t összetörtem, megbántottam őt, talán csalódott bennem. Talán rá kellett volna erőltetnem magam a kapcsolatra. Talán jobb, hogy végül így döntöttem.Talán ő volt a hibás, hiszen nem engedett el, pedig én szóltam előre.

Talán én, mert képtelen voltam úgy érezni iránta, ahogy ő irántam.

G től kaptam az első és talán utolsó legszomorúbb szerelmes levelet, amit már a naplómba is lejegyeztem.

Kedves G, nem tudom elmondani mennyire fáj az, hogy így kellett alakulnia a dolgoknak. Hálás vagyok neked, amiért te voltál az első ember, aki közeledni próbált felém, hiszen óvatos voltál és tiszteletben tartottad azt, amilyen vagyok és amilyen türelmes voltál hozzám. Köszönöm, hogy miattad különlegesnek érezhettem magam, mégha csak egy kis időre is.Sosem felejtelek el G, örülök, hogy megismerhettelek és mindennél jobban sajnálom, hogy így kellett alakulnia a dolgoknak.