You guys don’t understand
just how badly I want to demonstrate to you how Johnlock is real.
And maybe it’s homosexual and erotic or homosexual/asexual or queerplatonic, but whichever it is, they’re canonically together and even the writers and actors have told us so, without even recognizing what they were saying with their own words (because lemme tell you people are forever discussing committed asexual relationships without even realizing that’s what they’re trying to put into words).
And it doesn’t matter if they aren’t having sex on screen (or at all) because their primary way of getting each other off is really this BDSM danger game they play together.
Where the cases are scenes, and John puts himself into Sherlock’s hands to lead John into danger and through it, and sometimes John doesn’t know where he’s going or what he’s doing and he may as well be blindfolded and spinning in circles, and sometimes Sherlock even lies to him and tricks him, but that’s okay because part of the thrill is Sherlock scaring him and guiding him.
And so when they all talk about Sherlock in ways that frame him as equal to Mary in John’s life and we get Sherlock in the wedding photos and Sherlock making vows to John, you are totally not hallucinating. They are totally a couple, and even Mary recognizes and respects that John’s basically got two spouses.
Also I want to talk about how no, you are not hallucinating that Sherlock and John have a pretty fucked up relationship sometimes. And this show is basically modern noir which is about people who are often deeply flawed and not always very decent, and they live in a kind of nasty world, and sometimes they do bad things to themselves and others and set themselves up for failure from the consequences of their own actions.
But they’re in it together in this nasty world, understanding and consenting to most of this and choosing not only to do it but to share culpability for the questionable things they to do themselves, each other and others. And they consent to live and work the way they do, and part of the fun and the risk and the thrill for them is that they play with risks of non-consensuality and the danger that things could always cross that line.
But the one time they really do in a way that’s so very very very not okay is Reichenbach.
And when Sherlock comes back he finally realizes that and spends an entire season trying to apologize and do better and re-affirm their relationship.
And finally when Mary turns out to have done the same thing to John and she doesn’t seem to regret it, Sherlock is like NO THIS IS NOT OKAY I KNOW THIS NOW and sets things up so that John has the ability to give his informed consent to his relationship with her.
(But also maybe he kind of manipulates John some, because Sherlock sees that Mary is part of that world too—part of Sherlock’s world, she’s like Sherlock—and he wants John to stay there in it with them and to want to choose Sherlock and people like him. And Mary is totally on board with that too, so they’re both like, “Yes, love us, John. Choose us like you always do.”)
And that there’s no pining involved in the end. Like maybe Sherlock’s a bit worried about it in the second episode, but by the time things are trucking along in the third he can see that John is still with him as well as with Mary, and at the end their relationship is actually in a really healthy place (well, you know, them being kinda nutty people notwithstanding) and it’s devastating for them that it looks like it’s going to end here and you can see them both trying to be all manly and stable for each other.
But you know what? In the end it doesn’t end there, and next season is going to be awesome.