superwholock

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sapphicrevan:

thinkingingallifreyan:

elan-morin-tedronai:

I’m really not here for bashing on anyone for being a fan of Supernatural, Doctor Who, Sherlock or – gasp! – even all three. It’s grating to see people having to loudly declare how embarrassed they are of their “superwholock past”, or making disparaging remarks about those who still enjoy said shows. I’m sure there’s a longer and more in-depth post to be written about this, but idk man, I’m tired. I’m just not here for this shit.

Generally I’m not a fan of being expected to be embarrassed about stuff you used to be into.

Or the idea that once a thing is no longer one of your main interests, you no longer like that thing. Which I feel is sometimes connected to having to be embarrassed about your previous main interests.

are … are you not aware that mocking superwholock fans is less because they are “embarrassing” and more because of the extremely homophobic, racist, misogynist and ableist tendencies the fandom/s at large has/have exhibited?

Have you ever seen the Star Wars fandom? It’s a goddamn nightmare and it’s everywhere. The ableism and the misogyny was and is appalling. When John Boyega was cast as Finn fans of the franchise sprouted crap about “forced diversity” and “political correctness” on here and on Reddit and Twitter. and everywhere you went on the Internet. When the main character of Rogue One was announced to be a woman fans flipped their lids about “feminism taking over”. When Jake Lloyd was diagnosed with schizophrenia Star Wars fans laughed, because he was in the worst of the movies, don’tyaknow, and therefore his suffering was funny.

Plus the franchise itself still hasn’t got a single main LBGT character or WOC anywhere in the movies, in 2016, and it probably won’t anytime soon. John Boyega got paid less than Adam Driver, for more screentime. Most of the movies don’t have more than a handful of female characters, and only a couple of them even pass the Bechdel Test. Leia had that gold bikini. Whenever articles appear in the media saying how nice it would be for more diversity and less sexism to happen, they’re shouted down by Star Wars fans yelling and yelling and yelling.

Homophobia, racism, misogyny and ableism? Check, check, check and check. A franchise not being as progressive as it should be? Check. So where’s all the “fuck-no-starwars” blogs? Where are all the “ugh I can’t believe I used to be in Star Wars fandom” posts? Surely people should want to distance themselves from that toxic, unending crap. Why don’t they?

Lord of the Rings was used by Lord of the Rings fans as a rallying point for actual fascism and white supremacy, once upon a time, and in the modern day the movie producers can’t even bring themselves to cast non-white hobbits. Or any characters of colour at all. Number of Middle Earth blogs I’ve seen post a disclaimer to explain that it’s okay, they’re not like that, they just like the story, they’re not racists: zero.

No, it’s not that. Or if it is that, it’s deeply hypocritical.

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butchkirk:

feeltheberd:

phantomrose96:

I would pay top dollar for a comprehensive, source-supported explanation of how Superwholock vanished.

Like……..that was the core of tumblr in 2013. Its tainted life-blood. Its fetid royal palace. Destiel this and Johnlock that. Tardis-in-the-impala-at-221B URLS. Bendydoot Cucumberpatch and long analytical debates of which doctor is best doctor

What caused the end? What destroyed it? What series of events sunk this fortress? I’m so. So curious. This was so much of what tumblr was. So unavoidable. It’s cultural history. I want. to know.

people still like sherlock and idk what happened to the other two but i promise it’s not that serious

Maybe because people ceaselessly harassed the middle school girls that made up the superwholock faction for the sin of being nerdy preteen girls, combined with the fact that everything ends and they grew up

Yeah, that one.

Why did superwholock ever exist? -sigh- And the DW fandom is ruined.

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taiey:

the-last-teabender:

scriptscribbles:

Eh, I wouldn’t say that ruins it. I mean, it’s largely just a bunch of young and enthusiastic fans occasionally being a bit odd or embarassing. That’s hardly new (believe me, I’ve hung out with Homestucks). Compared with stuff the Who fandom has faced before, like the entirety of the eighties, I think it’s difficult to call superwholock ruinous. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why it’s a thing (other than the linking presence of Rachel Talalay’s talent, of course), but I try not to judge their way of enjoying the shows.

Superwholock fan behaviour could get a bit cringey at times, but never in a way that actually damaged anything and certainly never past anything I did as a young dweeby fangirl. Honestly if how someone else acts ruins your fandom for you, that’s a conversation you need to have with yourself.

It existed because all three were popular at the same time in a group of people. They never really fit together as a trio.

Especially considering that Doctor Who was still first and foremost for *children*, and the other two definitely weren’t.

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Whenever I hear that old chestnut about “lol superwholock and its queerbaiting” I always want to ask “…have you actually watched Doctor Who?” and the answer is usually no, and that makes me sad, that everyone thinks it’s a homophobic mess, because Russell T Davies.

Like, I have my issues with Russell T Davies (oh boy, do I have my issues) but back in 2005 he did something huge with Doctor Who, which was use it to – being gay himself – completely and utterly normalize queer relationships on British TV. And he did it really well and he did it really loudly, to the extent that you had homophobes both online and in the media complaining about his ‘gay agenda’ on pretty much a weekly basis. By the time the Doctor and Jack kissed in The Parting of the Ways, it was sort of cemented that Yes, Gay and Bi People Had A Place In Doctor Who Now. (Doctor Who has actually had a “gay following” since at least the 80s, but it really seems to be all but forgotten these days, although maybe not in the UK?)

And I know that people are right at this moment gearing up to type “That all went away with Moffat’s era, though” but it…mostly didn’t? Madame Vastra and Jenny were introduced and ended up a loving lesbian couple who faced down monsters constantly and yet remained alive. Clara and River both made allusions to relationships with women that revealed them to be bisexual. (Even though the show still hasn’t ever said the word, sigh.) Don’t get me wrong, this all sure as hell wasn’t/isn’t perfect – the T is still mostly missing from the LGBT representation the show has and that’s just for starters – but it was such a big, awesome deal at the time, it’s still making waves now even.

Essentially, it just seems a real shame that all the things Russell T Davies did for Doctor Who, and for questioning kids have just been forgotten, smushed together with a couple of other shows and completely dismissed. Because he really fought hard for it. Remember that lesbian adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that everyone rightly adored when it aired on the BBC? That wouldn’t have happened without Davis first setting the groundwork with Doctor Who.

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With all the talk recently about making fandoms safe for kids –

I think a lot of people tend to forget that in Britain (its country of origin), Doctor Who is still widely considered a children’s show. A children’s show that adults can and do enjoy as well, but still mostly a children’s show. In most bookstores in the front of the kid’s section you can find Doctor Who activity books and sticker books and SO MANY TOYS. TOYS EVERYWHERE. It has its own children’s magazine, too:

Doctor Who Adventures loves Martha. That scan’s from 2007 but it still loves her! And all the other companions! Hooray!

Anyway, audiences weigh in frequently as to whether Doctor Who’s presence on the BBC infantilises British TV in general, about whether Vastra and Jenny’s relationship is appropriate for a family show (it is), about whether it’s too scary for children, etc. The showrunners too consider children the primary audience, and not always with good results (hence Russell T Davies’ ‘there can’t be a female Doctor because then fathers would think they have to explain sex changes to their children’ comment; but I think fandom can do better than that.) Basically, people assume Who and, say, Sherlock or Supernatural or even the MCU share a target audience, but they really, really don’t. People criticise no end the child-centric episodes of Doctor Who – Fear Her, Nightmare In Silver, In The Forest of the Night – but there is very good reason why they’re there. Because children are and always have been the target audience of the show.

What I’m trying to get at here is that children participate in Doctor Who fandom a lot and they should because it’s for them. Little girls do too! And those little girls take it just as seriously as we all do.

Please nurture their interest in the companions as role models, since despite what showrunners/popular commentators will have you believe, the companions are (not unlike the Disney princesses, actually, whom little girls get equally derided for admiring) much much more than any beauty or special abilities they possess. Young girls gravitating towards them is a good thing. I mean, pretty much all the magazines and companion-themed merchandise aimed towards children takes care to emphasize that courage and kindness are the qualities you should be aiming for? Amy’s admired for her bravery, Martha for her smarts, Clara for her compassion etc. So yeah!

There is SO MUCH to criticize about Doctor Who, as there is for any show, but I really want the fandom to remember/know in the first place who the show is actually aimed at? These guys! And these guys! Be kind to them. Please. When you google ‘doctor who fans’ Google autocompletes it to ‘doctor who fans are the worst’ and ‘doctor who fans are annoying’ and that’s going to totally, totally suck for the eight-year-olds looking up their favourite show for the first time.

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sweaterkate:

i feel like there’s so many valid criticisms of ‘superwholock’ like the racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. present in all those shows but 90% of the time i see it discussed on here it’s just used as an excuse to take a cheap shot at teenage girls for daring to enjoy something while being teenage girls

“Sherlock, Supernatural and Doctor Who are massively popular shows that teenage girls find appealing – maybe due to the portrayal of close male friendships that they can safely project their own desires onto (Sherlock, Supernatural), or the idea of a girl roughly their age working her way through a complex relationship with an attractive, powerful man (Doctor Who). Many of these young women in question have found geniune support systems both within the texts and within the fandom that surrounds them- fandom as a subculture has long provided an easy way for teenage girls to get the things they’re not getting, for good or for ill. For example, Sherlock and Supernatural’s queerbaiting male-male relationships provide a quick, easy gateway for a young girl -who might, of course, not be straight herself- into a ‘romance’ that she can relate to without ever having to ask the difficult questions. And of course, asking the difficult questions should be the job of the text, but they often fail in this regard – a problem made even more complicated and difficult by the fact that sometimes the people involved behind-the-scenes of popular shows, like many of their most defensive fans, are themselves members of marginalized groups. When critiquing problematic-but-popular TV shows, it’s important to remember just how much misogyny, homophobia etc is internalised, and also to bear in mind the problem of seeing any fandom as a homogeneous entity when any one will contain people of all genders, sexualities and backgrounds…

But unpicking all that is really haaaaard! So we reblogged a fourteen-year-old girl’s lovingly drawn Dean-Doctor-Sherlock fanart with the caption ‘ewww no this is gross’, instead.”