#tjlcers

I don't know how much you, reader, know about TJLC...but. Well, me, relatively speaking--I'm a newer fan. I became very invested in BBC Sherlock/Johnlock in, if I remember correctly, like mid-2016? So in between S3 and S4. I was fortunate in that I didn't have some of the huge hiatuses to wait through like fans who got to the fandom sooner did, but I also came in AFTER a lot of the bad stuff that went down with TJLC. By the time I showed up I only interpreted TJLC as a group that believed that Johnlock was coded into the show, subtextually, to be end-game. I watched all the old videos Rebekah made on YouTube about TJLC (click for a link to a playlist including some if not all of those), and thought they were very smart and insightful, and I was excited because I came to really think the show was doing something pretty cool...and along the way, just being on Tumblr, I learned more about sexuality in general and my own in particular.

I had no real idea about the "Power Puff Girls" (the group who apparently started TJLC...the name vaguely rings a bell so I guess I must have seen it, or them, around in some capacity at the very beginning of my time here, but I don't have distinct recollections...they might even be mentioned in the TJLC videos I linked to above? But I just don’t remember, my memory is awful and it’s been years since I watched those) or all the controversy surrounding TJLC. I did pick up on the idea that TJLC was viewed as sort of an extremist thing by certain fans, but I didn't know why and thought some of it was due maybe to homophobia or to inter-fandom debacles I probably couldn't grasp due to my newbie status. (In fact, I didn't know the full story of TJLC until I watched that Sarah Z video that came out recently. The video left me feeling a bit grateful that I didn't show up sooner, and also a bit defensive on behalf of innocent TJLCers.)

I didn't know all the negative connotations...I was just aware that there was some discomfort surrounding the group, and some idea that the group came across as toxic or made things uncomfortable for some, possibly even including the actors at cons and whatnot (which isn’t cool, obviously). But there are such problems in every fandom occasionally, and I knew I wasn't going to engage in any toxic behavior/doubted all TJLCers were like that, so I adopted the problematic term for myself. It was the closest fit for my perception of where I fit within the fandom: I was someone who could clearly see the subtext and thought it surely must be intentional, and that anyone with their heteronormativity glasses off could doubtless see it too. I had taken my glasses off after a lifetime of not knowing I was being forced to wear them, and I was really excited and eager for other people to take theirs off as well.

I'm lucky, in a way, that I did come to fandom so late in life even though it's fulfilled me so much that I often wish I could have had that fun sooner, especially while time and health were on my side (I was 33 before I entered my first fandom--Doctor Who, as a Ten/Rose shipper--and I'm 38 now)...because if I had been, say, a teenager who stumbled on all this at such an impressionable/tumultuous age, and had begun to feel as passionately about my ships as I do now, I can only imagine how toxic and explosive all that could have been and how I might have gotten embroiled in it. And it probably would have been a sore spot of embarrassment forever and ruined my enjoyment of Sherlock, if not fandom altogether.

When you buy a shirt, you expect it to has a certain quality, and the shop assistant promises you that it will be comfy and easy to wear, but it turns out to be a piece of useless rag instead, you feel cheated and you want your money back. You have every right to go back to that shop and return it.  Same thing goes for a TV series that keeps up with a great quality content for some time and builds up for something big and satisfying, but the writers and producers back up in the very last minute and you end up watching an episode, or even worse - a finale - that leaves you disappointed for years. You are allowed to feel unsatisfied and you have every right to complain. You don’t have to be “grateful” because it aired - you are the customer and the actors, writers, production workers earn their salaries because you want to watch it, and if they don’t deliver what the audience wants to see, ergo: doesn’t watch it, they lose money. That’s how the business works.

So if you pay for something you except to have a good quality, and you end up watching a nightmare that doesn’t follow up with the rest of the story, has a hundred plot holes, queerbaits, discriminates or God knows what else, you are not a spoiled brat for writing a complaint letter, demanding a fair follow-up episode or whatever. 

Surely everything depends on how you express yourself - there’s a huge difference between constructive criticism and plain hate, and you still have to remember that there are real people out there working on those episodes, but I can see that a lot of people have a real hard time understanding this concept and they act like the writers, producers and actors are generous gods who want us to be happy and therefore work for free, so we should just shut up and accept everything that comes up, even if it’s an utter shit that ruins the whole story.