I blog about it, he forgets his pants.

“I’m not as tall as people think I am.  I’m nice - ish.  Clever. Important to some people. But I tend to rub people up the wrong way.”

Made myself laugh drawing that first panel...this is part two of THE SIGN OF THE FOUR, part one here!

No for real what is it with Johns hair in season 4???

Like you can’t tell me the stress of having a newborn and then his wife dying makes johns hair look that good?

(feel free not to answer if this is too weird or anything)

Sorry my reply got really long. I've broken it up with memes in the hope that it makes it more readable.

I've been in the fandom for a few years now, and I don't have much to compare against because I've generally avoided fandom spaces because they seem pretty intense (and I've not had a piece of media grab me quite like this before) but yeah it seems pretty chill?

I think there are lots of possible reasons why.

It might be that the fandom skews a little older, with lots of people who have enough life experience to know how to de-escalate tension when they encounter it, and when to walk away from the keyboard.

It might be that there's a century-old understanding that we're all playing a silly tongue-in-cheek game with characters from magazine stories that were never supposed to be analysed this way. Remember the term "canon" as used in fandom circles was invented by Sherlock Holmes fans (specifically my boy Ronald Knox) as a joke, a deliberate cute misapplication of a term used for discussing the Bible to something frivolous. Not taking yourself too seriously is very baked into Sherlockian culture.

I sometimes get glimpses from other fandoms of this puritanical attitude that to like or not like a character or a piece of work is somehow a moral act, and I find that... bewildering. A bit scary. To be a fan of Sherlock Holmes is inherently to love something dearly which also contains things which should be hated: racism, sexism, imperialism. I think that fans tend to be people well used to approaching literature with the level of nuance required to process that dichotomy. To acknowledge it rather than hide from it.

It might also be because it's public domain. A big blockbuster movie or pastiche by a celebrated writer is precisely as legitimate as every fanfic on Ao3. Or the CGI movie where they're gnomes. Or a slightly wonky point and click game someone is obsessively making in their spare time (...coughcougheveryonewishlist 'The Beekeepers' Picnic' onsteam) Sherlock Holmes belongs to everyone equally regardless of how much money and power they have, which is why I love it.

Like, I love him as a character, I love the Victoriana, I love the mysteries, but the #1 reason I've gone gaga over Sherlock Holmes these past few years is the joy of loving a thing which isn't controlled by a corporation and which does not exist to make money (anymore).

I'm not saying there's zero drama because I think when you get a bunch of people passionate about something there will always be a little drama. I'll see things like the jostling of people who are very protective of asexual readings of Holmes and people who are very protective of gay readings of Holmes, things like that. Feelings can run high when personal identity is involved. But I've never seen anything got too vicious.

Errrr yeah idk if you wanted an essay as a response but you got one!

Everything teaspoonnebula said above but also there's so many adaptions of Sherlock Holmes anon that if someone doesn't care for ACD they can just pick up one of the literal hundreds of other adaptions out there.

Don't like the Victorian setting? Cool we got BBC Sherlock or Sherlock and Co.

Want an American setting? Awesome we've got Elementary or the Watson and Holmes comics.

Think there isn't enough robots? We've got Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century or the very real world SHERLOC & WATSON robots from NASA.

Want something where Sherlock isn't a detective? We can watch House M.D. or read any of the brilliantly done AU fanfics on AO3.

Heck Sherlock has been adapted all over the world! We've got Miss Sherlock, Шерлок Холмс, Touha Sherlocka Holmese, and O Xangô de Baker Street to name a few.

Dr and Mrs Watson. ✉️

Hey lovelies, for those who need a little smut in their reading, I have a glorious, wicked, delicious roundup of all my sexytimes fic rec lists!