Citations:TJLC

Noun: "(fandom slang) The Johnlock Conspiracy"

 * 2015, Cassandra M. Collier, "The love that refuses to speak its name: examining queerbating and fan-producer interactions in fan culture", thesis submitted to the University of Louisville, page 93:
 * Proponents of TJLC believe that Sherlock producers have always intended Holmes and Watson to end up in a romantic relationship.
 * 2015, Kee Lundqvist, "Stories of Significance: The Process and Practices of Sense-Making in the Sherlock Fan Community", thesis submitted to Uppsala University, page 70:
 * Tumblr user multifandom-madness conducted a survey about Sherlock and shipping, and after analyzing the over 2,000 responses she concludes that the typical TJLC 'conversion' story involves the consumption of meta (multifandom-madness 2014).
 * 2017, Carolina Lindström, "'The power of characterization': A comparative analysis of the transformative works created by the English-language and Japanese-language fandoms of BBC Sherlock", thesis submitted to Stockholm University, page 33:
 * The birth of TJLC originates from the fact that a part of the fandom of BBC Sherlock belongs to the LGBTQ+ community themselves and is starved for queer representation in media, as proper and well-known characters are rare.
 * 2017, Christopher Redmond, About Being a Sherlockian: 60 Essays Celebrating the Sherlock Holmes Community, page 171:
 * The addition of new, Johnlock-free canonical material in Season 4 meant TJLC had to revise its catechism in the face of the series' total repudiation of its beliefs.
 * 2018, Diana W. Anselmo, "Gender and Queer Fan Labor on Tumblr: The Case of BBC's Sherlock", Feminist Media Studies, Volume 4, Number 1, Winter 2018, page 93:
 * The queer utopianism infusing TJLC fanworks is shaped by a strand of collective fan labor often dismissed by mainstream sources as self-indulgent and overemotional: that of protest, in this case against toxic heteronormativity.
 * 2018, Melissa A. Hofmann, "Johnlock meta and authorial intent in Sherlock fandom: Affirmational or transformational?", Transformative Works and Cultures, Number 28 (2018):
 * The show itself even acknowledges the existence of these fans both explicitly, with the representation of fan theories and fan behaviors in "The Empty Hearse," and implicitly, with the secret cabal of wronged women in "The Abominable Bride" (2016), which some fans interpret as a nod to TJLC.
 * 2018, Brianna Huber, "Slash and Stigma: The Impact of Media Representation on Public Perception of Slash Fiction and Fandom Culture", thesis submitted to the University of Oregon, page 99:
 * The fact that writer Mark Gatiss is a gay man himself and has cited Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes as inspiration for BBC Sherlock, gives TJLC added traction.
 * 2018, Małgorzata Lisowska-Magdziarz, "Authors, Owners, Influencers, Entitled Fans And Ultimate Fanboys: TJLC Controversy And The Politics Of Media Content Creation", in Participation, Culture and Democracy: Perspectives on Public Engagement and Social Communication (ed. Tadej Pirc), page 85:
 * These expectations became confronted with the decision on the side of the screenwriters that angered many fans supporting the TJLC theory.
 * 2018, Ann K. McClellan, Sherlock's World: Fan Fiction and the Reimagining of BBC's Sherlock, page 235:
 * Known as the "Johnlock Conspiracy," or TJLC, these fans argue that the writers are simultaneously conspiring to fuel and thwart audience's desires for a romantic culmination to the characters' on-screen relationship.
 * 2018, Lori Morimoto, "Ontological Security and the Politics of Transcultural Fandom", in A Companion to Media Fandom and Fan Studies (ed. Paul Booth), page 267:
 * In one notable case, a subsection of Johnlock-centered slash fans has even created an elaborate theory called "The Johnlock Conspiracy" (known within the fandom as TJLC) that posits "endgame" Johnlock as a closely held production secret disernable only to fans with the analytical wherewithal to correctly decipher clues in the text of the show itself, in something of a "Great Game" of Sherlock fandom.
 * 2018, Tosha R. Taylor, "Digital space and Walking Dead fandom's Team Delusional", Transformative Works and Cultures, Number 27 (2018):
 * In this way, the fandom resembles other conspiracy-based television fandoms, such as The Johnlock Conspiracy (TJLC) fans of the BBC's Sherlock (2010–17) who believe that the show's creators have misdirected viewers by placing their male leads in heterosexual relationships to disguise a canonical same-sex romance;
 * 2019, E. J. Nielsen, "The Gay Elephant Meta In The Room: Sherlock And The Johnlock Conspiracy", in Queerbaiting and Fandom: Teasing Fans Through Homoerotic Possibilities (ed. Joseph Brennan), pages 83:
 * Where TJLC differs from traditional Sherlockian fandom and fannish scholarship is in its insistence on a single correct reading of the text: