![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Welp, I've been in the Sherlock fandom for almost five months now, and I still feel like I'm getting acclimated. I've never joined a fandom this late in the game before and I keep stumbling into old feuds. People keep talking about the TJLC thing coming back. I barely know what that is, but it sounds terrible. I've left fandoms for stuff like that.
I still don't know where I stand with Johnlock. Am I part of that subset of fandom or not? Every time I look up aroace Sherlock in the tags, I run into so many anti-Johnlock and anti-aroace posts. It took me a while to psych myself up to join this fandom in the first place because I'm so tired of aphobic shit in fandom, but I kept telling myself that Sherlock is a classic aroace-coded character. There are so many people who see him as aroace. I will have no problem finding a group of people to gush over aroace Sherlock with. Five months later, and I still don't have that group. I've found a lot of support, but I need people to share the squee with. Most of the people I've found who see Sherlock as aroace don't want to go near the fandom because of backlash. And yes, a lot of them hate Johnlock. I keep feeling more tired.
I write John as being romantically in love with Sherlock, so that's Johnlock. But Sherlock as aroace, so it's part not? Even though he's aesthetically and sensually attracted to John? I don't know. Shipping is so concerned with mashing up all the attractions together all the time, and that's not how I operate. I barely understand sexual attraction as a concept and I don't feel it. It's so much more common for me to experience aesthetic and sensual attraction without romantic attraction than with it. I'm not aro, but I haven't been romantically attracted to a lot of people. So where does that stand as far as shipping goes? Am I shipping Johnlock or am I not?
I still don't know where I stand with Johnlock. Am I part of that subset of fandom or not? Every time I look up aroace Sherlock in the tags, I run into so many anti-Johnlock and anti-aroace posts. It took me a while to psych myself up to join this fandom in the first place because I'm so tired of aphobic shit in fandom, but I kept telling myself that Sherlock is a classic aroace-coded character. There are so many people who see him as aroace. I will have no problem finding a group of people to gush over aroace Sherlock with. Five months later, and I still don't have that group. I've found a lot of support, but I need people to share the squee with. Most of the people I've found who see Sherlock as aroace don't want to go near the fandom because of backlash. And yes, a lot of them hate Johnlock. I keep feeling more tired.
I write John as being romantically in love with Sherlock, so that's Johnlock. But Sherlock as aroace, so it's part not? Even though he's aesthetically and sensually attracted to John? I don't know. Shipping is so concerned with mashing up all the attractions together all the time, and that's not how I operate. I barely understand sexual attraction as a concept and I don't feel it. It's so much more common for me to experience aesthetic and sensual attraction without romantic attraction than with it. I'm not aro, but I haven't been romantically attracted to a lot of people. So where does that stand as far as shipping goes? Am I shipping Johnlock or am I not?
