SuperWhoLock

I started this series to kind of get to the bottom of what the connection between these shows was. What exactly inspired such a fervent fandom and why these three shows? Well I recently went to my very first Doctor Who convention at Gallifrey One and a pride panel kind of gave me my answer. I think the answer to what connects these shows and what connects the fandom is the queerness of all three shows.

If we think about tumblr say circa 2011-2014 when SuperWhoLock was at its peak a lot of the fanfiction and a lot of the fan art depicted things like JohnLock, and Destiel and the Doctor with just about anyone. Now some of the queerness that the fandom identified with is inherently there in the content. Like the entire existence of Jack Harkness. It's well known in the Doctor Who universe that The Doctor really doesn’t have a concept of gender so they are attracted to whomever, Jack is attracted to anything that moves and we have a Lesbian lizard-human interracial relationship so the entirety of that show is gay automatically.

With Supernatural I know that there was a subsect of the fandom that considered Gabriel queer but really the focus was on Destiel. Destiel was a fan ship that was centered around Dean and Castiel. I very much do not think that it was something that was purely fan created. I think sometimes in television shows fans do create things that aren’t there in an attempt to carve out space and representation for themselves. But with Destiel I don’t think you can qualify this ship as something fan created. It was really clear from the beginning that Cas and Dean had a different relationship. Cas and Sam were friends, they were co-workers but Cas and Dean were best friends. And best friends in the same way that my husband and I are best friends, now I haven’t actually finished the show. Because it was on for far too many seasons and the quality declined drastically and quickly but I know that it ends with a love proclamation from Castiel to Dean. Now here's the deal, we know that the creators and writers of every show know what goes on on the internet. They know what the headcanons are, they know what the ships are. So by season 15 they absolutely knew that Destiel was one of the most powerful unifiers in the fandom. How they handled it is a different discussion but I don’t think that it's deniable that they leaned into it.

Moving on to Sherlock. John and Sherlock have a very different relationship. Neither man is a flirt. They are also best friends but not in an overly affectionate Destiel kind of way. More in a codependent kind of way. For much of the series they really can’t function properly without each other and from the outside of it, it seems very weird. I can absolutely see the romantic undertones of this relationship that people pick up on. To me personally they seem more brotherly, however I will say that Sherlock’s emotional response after he finds out that John is getting married and on the actual wedding day does seem a lot more intimate.

I really think that the biggest thing that bonds these shows together isn’t just their similar structures and story dynamics. I think that the character relationships are more than just the; act first, think later/logical, friendly/hard or harsh character dynamics. I think that the true thing that bonds these shows and the fandom is the queerness in the shows and in the SuperWhoLock fandom. It is a fandom that carved out its own space and representation and I truly think it set the tone for the kinds of media that we have now. I would go so far as to say that we owe things like Good Omens to the existence of SuperWhoLock, whether directly or indirectly that massive internet fandom had a hand in reshaping how queer relationships are depicted and recognized in media.