#The Sign of Three

[idbelostwithoutyou]

BBC Sherlock textpost part 5/?

[buckingham-ashtray]

Am I… Pretty?

- A johnlock fanart by 一安er

*Disclaimer: This fanart belongs to 一安er and her only, please do not repost or commercialize without her direct consent. Support provided directly to her by using the source link below is much appreciated.

[desiccatedthyme]

6th October

"Drug Abuse/Addiction"

i burned myself out and couldnt hold a pencil for a few days, so this one is late! it's a redraw of an old piece. unfortunately, i didnt do it on such a scale as to include the mood patches from the original ^^" one must assume that for him, there was still the cocaine bottle.

[baby-doll95]

This scene lives in my mind rent-free.

John, your gay is showing.

Sherlock, your love is showing.

Sherlock definitely kept this locked in his mind palace.

"I can't keep my hands to myself, I mean, I could, but why would I want too?" - is so John Watson coded.

[sarkylittlemonster]

"Neither of us were first, you know"

MARY WHAT DO YOU MEAN. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE TALKS ABOUT HIM ALL THE TIME. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, MARY. MARY.

[bluebellinbakerstreet]

John: And how was that?

Sherlock: Surprisingly okay.

Happy International Tea Day (May 21st) 🍵

[safedistancefrombeingsmart]

The Season 3 John Watson Look was quite something

[221bnassau]

The moments when they insult each other might be their best, actually.

[winterdaphne2]

Gay Easter Eggs in BBC Sherlock

(I trust the above requires no explanation.)

Perhaps someone has done this before, but I wanted to put together a compilation of gay easter eggs in the show that I’ve seen other people point out and/or have thoughts on myself. So here it is!

When I say “easter eggs,” I’m thinking of small clues that the show creators included in the set designs, music choices, and other details of the show to reference that Sherlock and John are in love. I’m thinking of things you could miss at first, especially little clues that often require a bit of extra information or require observations across episodes to understand.

Of course, there’s also lots of subtext woven into the show, moments where interpreting the dialogue or visuals in a certain way tells us something about Sherlock, John, and/or the state of their feelings for one another. I’m not sure if I can clearly define “subtext” versus “easter eggs” and explain what distinguishes them, but at least to me, several of the things I’ve listed here seem a bit different from what people often refer to as subtext. Maybe subtext is about uncovering the layers to a piece of dialogue or an action that takes place in plain sight and seeing how that impacts our interpretation of the story, but easter eggs are about spotting smaller, hidden details. I’m not trained in literary or film studies, though, and I’m not trying to be doctrinaire about this at all! This list is just for fun, anyway. (The above image might not actually count as an easter egg, but I couldn’t resist including it here. Indulge me.)

The more I read about this show and the harder I look, the more I think that hardly anything is there on accident. All these easter eggs must have been included on purpose. The creators knew they were telling a love story all along.

I’ve linked to the posts where I initially saw people point these out or to other good sources, and for some of these I’ve added my own commentary/observations/interpretations. I’m sure there are many other easter eggs that I’ve missed! What have you spotted?

John’s PIN in TBB – When John tries to pay for his groceries at the beginning of the episode, we see that his PIN is 743. In ASIB, Irene’s code to unlock her phone is SHER, which would be 7437 on a phone keypad. So, John’s PIN is a clue that he is or will be in love with Sherlock. Source: @loudest-subtext-in-tv, here.

Shaftesbury Avenue, 20m from Piccadilly Circus in TBB – While investigating in Chinatown, Sherlock and John bump into each other at what used to be a cruising spot for gay men in London. Source: @the-signs-of-two, here.

Archer the American in ASIB – In the scene where the American CIA agents try to get Sherlock to open Irene’s safe, the head CIA agent pressures Sherlock by threatening to have one of his men shoot John. The agent says: “Mr. Archer, on the count of three, shoot Dr. Watson.” Ordering someone named “Archer” to shoot John could be a reference to Arthur Conan Doyle’s poem “The Blind Archer,” which is about Cupid and describes Cupid shooting two men who sound an awful lot like Sherlock and John. Source: couldntpossiblycomment, here.

“¿Dónde Estás, Yolanda?” in TEH – The song that plays during the scene with John and Sherlock’s disastrous reunion at the Landmark restaurant is a cover of the song “¿Dónde Estás, Yolanda?” performed by the band Pink Martini. The Spanish lyrics to this song are about searching for a long-lost lover, which is fitting for the scene where John sees Sherlock again for the first time since his fall. Notably, the creators didn’t use the first of the two versions of this song that Pink Martini has released. The band’s first version appears on their 1997 studio album Sympathique and features a man singing about a woman. Instead of using that version, the creators used the version from Pink Martini’s 2011 compilation album A Retrospective, in which China Forbes performs most of the vocals. So, the creators deliberately chose a remade version of the song in which a woman sings about a woman. They chose a gay song about searching for a long-lost lover for Sherlock and John’s reunion. abrae (@tea-and-liminality on tumblr) has a meta with more to say about the use of this song here.

John’s “oscillation on the pavement” in TEH – In TSOT, John observes a potential client standing outside 221B and trying to make up her mind as to whether to come in. Sherlock tells John “I’ve seen those symptoms before. Oscillation on the pavement always means there’s a love affair.” In the previous episode, John came to visit Sherlock at 221B but hesitated on the pavement outside, staring at the door and trying to decide whether to go in. Sherlock’s comment, “I’ve seen those symptoms before,” is a hint that we, the audience, have also seen those symptoms before—with John in the previous episode. Source: @bidoctor, here. (I saw someone else point out that last part about Sherlock’s hint to the audience, but I can’t find that post, sorry!)

Lilac dresses in TSOT – While planning John and Mary’s wedding, Sherlock chooses lilac-colored dresses for the bridesmaids. When John tells Sherlock that he likes the bridesmaids in purple, Sherlock pointedly corrects him by stating that the dresses are lilac. Apparently, “In Victorian times, giving a lilac meant that the giver is trying to remind the receiver of a first love.” So by dressing the bridesmaids in lilac, Sherlock is trying to remind John of his first love: himself, Sherlock. My heart breaks. Source: @asherlockstudy, here.

Putting the horns on Mary and Janine in TSOT and HLV – In TSOT, there’s a shot where Mary gives Sherlock and John a thumbs up before they head out on a case. The way Mary is standing, the horns on Sherlock’s cow skull thing on the wall behind her are placed right over her head. (I always thought this shot looked pretty weird, but now I see that it must have been intentional!) In the HLV scene with Janine at 221B, there’s a moment when Janine steps in front of John in the frame to kiss Sherlock, and her movement positions the horns right over her head. “Putting the horns” on someone means cheating on them. So in both cases, placing the horns right above Mary’s and Janine’s heads indicates to the audience that Sherlock and John are the real relationship in this show. Source: this post from multiple users on the @sherlockmeta blog.

The architecture of Sherlock’s mind palace in HLV – In the mind palace scene after Mary shoots Sherlock, the architecture of Sherlock’s mind palace is based on locations from ASIP. Sherlock literally built his mind palace out of places from his first case with John, illustrating that his relationship with John is what grounds him and that it means everything to him. abrae has some very helpful screencaps of this here (and I would recommend that whole meta, btw!)

The glasshouse scene in TAB – In TAB, the Victorian John tries to ask Sherlock about his sexuality and sexual history while they’re sitting in a glasshouse. In Victorian Britain, “glasshouse” was another term for a military prison. So John, a military veteran, asks Sherlock about his sexuality in a setting that represents where he would have been sent if he had acted upon his homosexual desires at a time when homosexuality was criminalized. Source: @haffieliesel, here.

What do we say about coincidences? The universe is rarely so lazy.

[221bbees]

after trf john wrote in his blog "he was my best friend and i will always believe in him" and he also posted '#sherlocklives means #johnwatsonlives' after sherlock came back. so, sherlock's surprise at john calling him his best friend in tso3 means sherlock stopped reading john's blog after trf?

[desiccatedthyme]

23rd October

"War"

i rly wanted to have john too but only had time for something simple ^^"

noteworthy quotes off the top of my head:

"when you walk with sherlock holmes, you see the battlefield - youve seen it already"

"you and i are similar, i think"

"into battle"

[sillygirlsmindpalace]

girl gang 🩷 🎀 💫

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original posts:

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[buckingham-ashtray]

BBC Sherlock || Futile Devices

I seal my lips with a kiss to my hand which has briefly held yours against those words lodged between my lungs running through my veins and drowning me in the onslaught as they pour out from every atom of my being to engulfe you with the prospect of pulling you under.

Disclaimer & credits below the cut

Disclaimer: All rights to footage, audio, and other materials belong to their respective owners. This video is created for entertainment purposes only.

All visual and audio effects in this video are my own original editing.

Clips: BBC Sherlock, S3E2&3: The Sign of Three, His Last Vow.

Music: Futile Devices by Sufjan Stevens.

[bluebellinbakerstreet]

~

[lokijiro]

I'm a little annoyed at Sherlock being portrayed as not knowing that the UK has a queen in TSOT, given that he says "for queen and country" in TGG and says "give her my love" to Mycroft in ASIB. I think of it as another small sign of the inconsistencies of the later seasons.

But. . . what if Sherlock has a tendency to view Mycroft as the British monarchy, in the same sense that he is the British Government and the British Secret Service? (And he's wrong btw.) So he misspoke and said "king", and covered up by pretending that he has no idea that they have a queen.

[baby-doll95]

This is so Sherlock Holmes and John Watson coded.