Lostspecial

(Or: More Things That People Think Make Sherlock Canonically Straight But They Really Really Don’t)

Allow me to address one more incredibly beautiful part of Sherlock (and then I’ll stop overusing the word “beautiful”, sorry, I just loved series four): Let’s talk about what is the point of Molly Hooper.

I’ve always sympathised with Molly, but I admit that from a literary point of view, I didn’t quite get her. If she was a love interest for Sherlock, why would the story not revolve more around her? But if she wasn’t a love interest, where was her character going? Why was she there in the first place? It didn’t feel Moffat-y sound. (And yes, I just made that expression up.) 

But looking back on all four series, the intention of Molly’s character actually becomes pretty clear. In a nutshell: At any given moment of the show, Molly is an indicator of John Watson’s feelings towards Sherlock. (No really, let me show you.) 

This is by far the most stunning piece of visual mirroring I’ve ever seen on Sherlock.

The glass breaks over and over again.

From an anonymous tip:

What do those shapes look like run through Conway’s game of life? Unfortunately some variation of the rules would be needed to account for shades of gray.

Shapes in question (that I found on thelostspecial’s black image, one on every corner and one in the middle):

The Game of Life is not your typical computer game. It is a ‘cellular automaton’, and was invented by Cambridge mathematician John Conway.

The rules are:

For a space that is ‘populated’:

Each cell with one or no neighbors dies, as if by solitude.

Each cell with four or more neighbors dies, as if by overpopulation.

Each cell with two or three neighbors survives.

For a space that is ‘empty’ or ‘unpopulated’:

Each cell with three neighbors becomes populated.

It can be played here and there are other simulators as well, this is imo just the simplest one to figure out how this fucken works

So, we got out ‘game’ to play! This is IMO what we must solve: Also applies to the ‘you see but you do not observe’ since not only were this on separate places of a really big black image,but some people found these but without being able to decipher them, just thought they were some random computer pixels.

BTW: We discarded this being a QR code. Me and several friends tried many combinations and none did anything.

I’ve been mulling over this theory more and more, that Mary has been drugging John and Sherlock with TD12. I’ll specifically focus on John here:

So, from possibly the end of The Six Thatchers leading into The Lying Detective, John is starting to ‘see’ Mary. But because of the drug, he is not sure what is real and what isn’t– he doesn’t understand that the real Mary is actually holding him hostage. (See Looks like John’s trapped by @teapotsubtext)

But, like the real Faith, perhaps something started to click before John forgot entirely. We see Faith upset and shaking trying to write out her note:

FAITH (tearfully): I can’t remember. Can’t remember who you’re gonna kill. SMITH: Dear, in five minutes you won’t even remember why you were crying. (x)

Imagine Smith as Mary and John as Faith:

What if John pretty damned smart Watson was fighting the effects of the drug, had started to remember that something was Very Wrong. He needs to leave a message, let Sherlock know-

But Mary is always watching him. She sees John writing the note and:

“Oh, Faith John. Don’t you think I should take that? It’s only going to upset you.” 

She can’t have John and Sherlock communicating at all, she needs to keep them isolated from each other, make them feel like all hope is lost. She can’t risk Sherlock reading any sort of sign from John. 

So, what does she do? Well, why not amp up the isolation even more? Threaten more people to follow her own game plan? 

What if Mary threatened Molly, forcing her to hand Sherlock a note, and to tell him it was from John:

But, it wasn’t. Perhaps it was a deliberately scathing note, designed to keep Sherlock from contacting John, so that he would not reveal to John the DVD Mary sent him.  

Ok, here we fucking go:

thelostspecial.com has existed since the 31st (I believe, as just a solid black website). Yesterday, a header image appeared of Sherlock sitting across from Moriarty in TRF, with several messages hidden inside. Over the course of several hours, pages were added and removed, discoverable only by manually editing the url.

The message above was hidden in the source code of the page.

2 messages hidden in the header were “MISS ME?” in black on the TV and “40″ hidden in the wallpaper. The third alteration was a partial reflection of a creepy elephant. More on that in a second.

Some /messages only led to clues to figure out final pages. For example, /elephant led to a message that read “WHICH ONE?” /mary led to “Be more specific,” /marymoran to “Who?”, and /marymorstan to the cap of Mary with devil horns.

/tjlc and /johnlock loaded pages, unlike incorrect guesses, which would just be black with the header. At these 2 pages, an image w traffic cones read “404 Error” (4x04?)

At /cluedo, we got this image:

Many images were associated with character names and the episode finales, Moriarty-heavy, these were early on so it may have just been helping us figure out how to use the site.

At /black, there was a comment box where we could briefly communicate, which they seemed to interact with–someone mentioning norbury led to a /norbury page, for example, and I believe this is how they figured out we were “Stumped on 40” and, at the new /ineedaclue, told us “Go to the source. The real source.” 

Other oddities included /januscars (cap of the logo), /old (the victorian baker street mantelpiece), /new (a hotel room bath in niagara falls), /coffee (Sherlock in ASIP drinking coffee with “WRONG WAY” superimposed over it), /dymm (moriarty on the picadilly circus screens), there are too many to cover here tbh. 

At /solveme/, this message reads:

Which translates to the Henry V quote, I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. [The game’s afoot.]

So what’s with 13.9.16? Oddly enough, this is the day that the elephant, /murderousmary, was executed. The image that appeared at /murderousmary is here, it’s a smidge disturbing. Hmm… which elephant?

More of a stretch,13.9.16 is also the date that Mark trashed a Grimm’s Fairy tales Reichenbach theory in the papers, and Moriarty says “every fairy tale needs a good old fashioned villain” at minute 40 of TRF.

CANON references to 40, which seems closer to accurate, appear in TFP and The Lost Special. There’s contingency over what the 40th story is, we’re between The Valley of Fear and The Second Stain (and the Red Headed League??) at the moment, which are all relevant.

TFP: In three days, on Monday next, matters will be ripe, and the Professor, with all the principal members of the gang, will be in the hands of the police. Then will come the greatest criminal trial of the century, the clearing up of over forty mysteries, and the rope for all of them–but if you move at all prematurely, you understand, they may slip out of our hands, even at the last moment.

THE LOST SPECIAL: A telegram sent at 6:40 reads ““To James Bland, Superintendent, Central L. & W. C., Liverpool. - Special passed here at 4:52, well up to time. - Dowster, St. Helens.“it’s the telegram that says the train was on schedule and on the appropriate line, right before it disappeared” (from @edwardhardwicke)

So far, the message in the source code reads:

You see, but you do not observe. I see you like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. Murderous Mary. (Every fairytale needs a good old fashioned villain.) XXX.

Hmm. What appeared at /xxx, at the very end of the game?

Most pages have now disappeared, along with the header, leaving a mostly black site once again.

John starts hallucinating after being shot – PART 2.

A sort of extended version of this meta-video. Watch carefully for parallels and metaphors. Remember that since we’re in John’s head, everyone is, at some point or another, John himself –even Sherlock when he’s being hit in the head. In this one I focus on the approximate order of the events taking place in reality as John unconsciously picks up on what’s happening around him, translating it into an hallucination/dream. Also, dreams are emotional, not rational, so don’t try to find a logical explanation for anything in TFP (you won’t be able to). I’m making a separate post on how even (specially I’d say) the seemingly ooc details are perfectly understandable, and believe me, it’s heartbreaking once you see it. Take what John imagines Sherlock saying as a decoder ring for everything: “look how brilliant you are, your mind created the perfect metaphor”. The only way we can understand this episode and its purpose in the show’s narrative is through the metaphors.

Summarized explanation of this video under the cut:

Let’s roll with John metaphorically being the girl on the plane, then. What do we do with the opening, when she gets a phone call from Moriarty? Is it just a way to get a good punchy opening? 

Nope. Because, while John is hallucinating, he is mixing reality and imagination… and what has already happened to him.

The girl is asleep. And then, she wakes up and hears Jim Moriarty’s voice in her ear.

John has lived through exactly this… when he was taken hostage in The Great Game:

(x)

John has already heard Moriarty’s voice whispering in his ear:

“Hello…. my name is Jim Moriarty. Welcome to the final problem.”

What if Jim said those exact words to John before forcing him to face Sherlock? So, John already knows what the final problem is, well before Sherlock did, and it’s still in progress, right here, right now.

The final problem is stopping John Watson’s heart, and so burning Sherlock’s heart.

More The Final Problem is John’s Garridebs ‘Dream’ Theory:

History repeating itself: John in Ashes to Ashes? ;)

“You’ve been reading John’s blog…” The Final Problem Nightmare

TFP is John’s version of TAB? by @waitedforgarridebs

@marcespot​‘s Garridebs- TLD & TFP video

“He’s making a funny face.” John Watson is definitely in danger.

The Bullet is still inside me & links to more of my John’s Garridebs dream thoughts.

thelostspecial.com/moriarty = moriarty from tfp in blue suit

thelostspecial.com/mycroft = tab!fatcroft

thelostspecial.com/mary = ‘could you be more specific?’ red text on white bg

thelostspecial.com/lestrade = promo picture? i dunno he’s bald here

thelostspecial.com/molly = i cant recognize the screencap

and most importantly

NOT ACCESSIBLE FROM MOBILE

IF YOU GO thelostspecial.com/solveme YOU GET THIS

@whimsicalethnographies @reichenlock idk who to tag lmao

  #sherlock killed magnussen for john

  Oh my god. Why have I never noticed these scenes are exactly the same??? I see, but I do not observe.

I wondered if “cake” is the little sister of “dinner”…

So “a Sugar high is some sort of substitute”? Not as good as “dinner”, but at least let’s start somewhere…

Then this is their cake …sweet…

But, also, the last time someone said, ‘obligatory’, they were talking about sex,

She’s the same actress from ASiB in TFP opening scene. Here she is.

Here we are in ASiB inside the flight of the dead.

Episode 13.

Remember the note on Mycroft’s refrigerator in T6T?

It’s BRILLIANT.

GROUNDBREAKING.

I’m trying to hold on to hope.

Mary’s posthumous revenge: murderous jealousy.

A new meta-video for your enjoyment. In this one I show you the reading of Mary’s death I’m most inclined to. I think this way 'all kinds of clues’ scattered over the course of the series do ‘finally pay off’. What Mary did was just the same as Daniel Collard from the #sherlocklive case (concise explanation here); her murderous jealousy drove her to commit suicide, framing Sherlock for it. The way I see it, Mary got ahead of her own comeuppance and ‘made her death count’ in the best possible way a villain could.

“If you were loved, it’s amazing what people are prepared to ignore.”

You may want to read the explanation under the cut.

Add this to the infinite list of reasons to believe TFP’s ending was inconclusive.

In case anyone didn’t know the smiley was always meant to be John, they made him re-do it, just so Sherlock can shoot it. Mrs. Hudson told us Sherlock always shoots the wall when there’s an UNFINISHED CASE. This is Mofftiss describing John and Sherlock’s relationship as an unfinished case that remains to be solved. They’re also saying johnlock is the most important -and final- case in this show, and it was left inconclusive.

They’re telling us to ‘mind the gap’ again; johnlock needs resolution. 

[Tagging under cut]

How can the state of Molly’s hair tell us that Sherlock Series 4 will have four episodes? It’s not as loony as it sounds.  Come and see and I’m sure you’ll be convinced! I am now 100% certain there will be a fourth episode, based on this evidence…

Word count: 458 (yep, it’s a quick read!) Ao3 link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9523913