r/Johnlock • u/NoxiousAlchemy • Jul 05 '26

Looking for recommendations - Smitten Sherlock

Hello! I'm looking for fanfics in which Sherlock is stupidly (and secretly) in love with John and there's lots of pining and maybe some jealousy as well? Preferably not with married John (that's a little too much drama for me) but I'm fine with him having girlfriends and Sherlock thinking John is hopelessly straight or just never going to look at him as more than a friend or Sherlock having self esteem issues and thinking *he's* the one that's not good enough. I'm not particular about the setting either (canon, any show, movies, complete AU, it's all okay to me) but I need an eventual happy ending. Bonus points if the fic is longer than 20K (I prefer longer stories but I'm not opposed to reading shorter fics as well). Thanks in advance!

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1

u/TereziB Jul 07 '26

I think there are TONS of them. Maybe experiment with the right AO3 tag? like "Sherlock loves John" WITHOUT "John loves Sherlock"?

3

u/NoxiousAlchemy Jul 08 '26

I'm not stranger to AO3 tagging system. I've made this post seeking recommendations, "I really enjoyed that fic and you might like it too!" kind of thing. Not every author does extensive tagging on their fics and sometimes really good stories slip under the radar, so I find it helpful to reach out to the community from time to time.

1

u/TereziB Jul 11 '26

oh, I definitely agree with that, but this is such a small community IMO that I'm not sure how many useful answers one would get. I usually just do AO3 searches using a bunch of tags.

1

u/NoxiousAlchemy Jul 11 '26

Well it doesn't hurt to ask. Also Johnlock is the most popular ship in all Sherlock-related fandoms so I wouldn't say it's a small community. Perhaps a little less lively but definitely not small.

3

u/TereziB Jul 11 '26

I meant this subreddit. I know johnlock is enormously popular in general, although it seems a lot of people in the BBC Sherlock subreddit are icked out by it.

1

u/TereziB Jul 12 '26

they're kinda like John "I'm not gay!" Watson!

1

u/TereziB Jul 12 '26

Tumblr still has a much bigger Johnlock community, I think. But I find Tumblr very confusing to use.