JP wrote:

A side note about Twitter. Of course you can ask. I did many times. Getting answers is another thing though. I think with almost 700K of followers he surely gets spammed as hell. I doubt he even has time to read his TL completely. It's hard enough to get answers from Arwel or Danny.

That´s too bad. 
 

I have a whole damn file of questions for Mark. So far, I was the closest to getting some answers at Sherlocked, when we happened to be in the same lift, and for a split second it seemed like it was about to get stuck.
Apparently it would be too much luck though.

I think the lift remained operational only due to the sheer desperation of Mark's back then. He must have recognized you as a person with a list

LOL! 

We need to arrange something with the lift maintenance people next time any of us in a building with Mark!

ewige wrote:

I have a great idea for a counter-johnlock meta! Find a book or a movie or even a finished TV show with a similar number of romantic tropes, mirrors etc. in regard to any two characters, that's not culminated as a romantic story (doesn't need to have a happy ending, tho) and was in fact a story about their friendship all along.

I think it might be difficult to find a story exactly the same, and one that continually references them being a couple.  And although there's a huge list of tropes in the list I linked, some of them don't really fit, some of them aren't necessarily romantic, etc.  And some of them, in my opinion, are just there to show an unusually compelling (and kind of romantic, in its own platonic way) friendship.  Some of them, I feel, have been kind of shoehorned in. 

Now, I would happily go through the whole list, but I think I've probably bored you all enough with that huge list of questions I insisted on going through recently (finished before S4!  Yay!).   But just have a look at the beginning - you'd see that there would have been no way to write the story using ACD canon, without it being considered to be using "romantic tropes". 

As I know I keep saying (sorry), they could just show us the relationship if they wanted to, rather than hide it - if they didn't want them to be a happy couple just yet, they could have shown them pining, etc.   But they could have made them wanting more explicit, then the general audience could have been following that story for the last few years. 

Liberty wrote:

As I know I keep saying (sorry), they could just show us the relationship if they wanted to, rather than hide it - if they didn't want them to be a happy couple just yet, they could have shown them pining, etc.   But they could have made them wanting more explicit, then the general audience could have been following that story for the last few years. 

I tend to agree with you, more and more. Over the last year I have become more and more convinced that they will never give us explicit Johnlock on the show. Which feels totally weird, because I definitely see it all: I see the ambiguity, I see the lighting, I see the eye sex... everything. I'm just not convinced anymore that they've put all of it in the show for the reason of making Johnlock canon.
I agree with those who say that the way they've been telling the story would fill Johnlock (if it became canon on the show) with far too much meaning and importance and would be the complete opposite to what Mark was talking about when he mentioned a tv show where a cop just goes home in the evening to his/her same-sex husband/wife. Maybe I'm getting Mark wrong, but I always understood this to be a totally casual and natural thing to happen, without any fuss, without any codes that have been hidden in the narrative for years.

(A very good example of how you can do this [because yes, it has already been done!] is the US tv show "The 100", where in one episode you have one of the characters, a security guard, come home to where another guy is waiting for him. At first the audience could assume that they are 'just friends', but in the course of the conversation they embrace and kiss and it makes total sense. I didn't see this coming, but it convinced the hell out of me. Of course one can argue that these two characters aren't the main focus of the show, but to me it's proof that you can tell this kind of story if you want to. In a totally natural way, without any jokes and maybe for some people not arty enough or not clever enough or not demanding enough - but for everyone to see and understand.)   
 

As for other shows - I haven't seen much Star Trek myself, but that was one the very first slash shippers, wasn't it? With a lot of tenderness shown between Kirk and Spock? 

I would just like to remind of something:
- there's maybe more than just two possibilities, the one showing a pairing right from the start without further ado, the other one being "everything is just a joke, whoever sees something else in it is dumb and will absolutely stick a fork up Mofftiss behind and if we want it we only do it naturally passing by."
-maybe we witness a story telling here. And that takes time.
-

Of course they could just tell the story of an extraordinary friendship here. But I feel that the questikn " Where will this head?" gets more and more valiable then. Tbh all we get is the promise of darknesd and misery. And then? We see Sherlock and John distraught in the recent snippets and trailers. John punches Sherlock. What then? Reconciliation and being really great friends? Hmmmmm....

It's good that we agree on the variety of possibilities, I think.
I was certainly a bit over the top but honestly: it was not me expressing the fear of the Moftiss getting attacked (which is completely out of bounds, I certainly agree on that), and it was not me citing interviews where the Moftiss more or less called the idea of seeing johnlock dumb.

ewige wrote:

I wonder whether there are people among non-johnlockers who are used to formally analyzing literature. I'd like to know their opinion on the romantic tropes and romantic mirrors used in the show.

Again: what for? To try to convince people who don't want to be convinced? To me the question is why ppl invest such an amount of time and energy into something that might be just a wishful thinking.
There is more to life than JL.

diva wrote:

But I wonder why those who don't see it are so keen on disproving any signs for a romantic relationship.

When ppl start to bend facts to fit their theories I can hardly stop myself from correcting them - call it OCD

At the beginning I thought it was funny. It still would be okay if it was seen as an alternative universe, an interpretation, a "what-if". But the level of "dedication" is really uncanny, not to mention the entitlement. And after the last drama I developed a real allergical reaction to it. Sad, I used to enjoy some aspects of JL.

diva wrote:

I guess most people who see Sherlock and John as a couple will continue to ship them even if it never becomes official in the show, and I hope they will still enjoy the show as a brilliant modern take on the original stories.

Amen.

diva wrote:

But what about those who are opposed to any romantic connection between Sherlock and John? If you don't see it will you stop watching the show if it turns out that Sherlock and John will end up together as a couple

What? Why should I stop watching? The only reasons would be: 1 I got bored, 2 the show lost the quality.

As I said before, as long as it makes sense storywise, they can marry, adopt kids and happily change diapers for the next couple of years. The only problem I would have personally, is to digest the fact that I wasn't right. But it would be MY problem only.
I didn't condemn the whole TAB, only because I didn't like the idea of Sherlock taking drugs on the plane.