f(x) where x = "reflection John"

So we're inside Sherlock's mind palace, not just watching him watch himself, but watching him watching himself ignore his own reflection in a mind palace mirror. I could go deeper, but I'm not sure you're ready for that.

But who cares, here we go, I'm diving in and you'd better close your eyes if you don't want spoilers.

One of the complexities is the symbolism of Moriarty not having a hole in his head in the mirror reflection that Sherlock is ignoring in his mind palace, yet obviously having one later, which he shows to Sherlock once they've moved away from the mirror. Why is this deception necessary? What is Sherlock trying not to see, and then later trying to tell himself?

Let's dive into metaphors. Sherlock wants to see how Moriarty did it, so he works on solving an older similar case, but in his mind palace, he can't see the obvious because, as Moriarty points out, it's not real. Remember how Sherlock told John it wasn't real on the rooftop, just a magic trick? Except now Sherlock is telling himself in his head through a character that it isn't real because it's in his head...

But let's back up for a few seconds. Metaphor and symbolism are both as real to the brain (and to both the writer and the viewing audience) as 'reality', whatever that is- a definable actuality, let's call it. We still don't have a definable moratorium on Moriarty (god, I love words) as far as definable actuality is concerned, but we do have a grasp on Sherlock's reflection of John in his mind palace, with Sherlock recognizing that John is a reflection and fondly embracing that John's reflection is the core conversationalist he needs in order to let go of his house of mirrors and leap out of his mind palace back into definable actuality.

A mind thinking thoughts is definable actuality, if we want to get technical (thought is a form of reality, if you're lost already), and a stream of consciousness, no matter how twisted, is part of all our paths. Consciousness inside one's mind is just as viable as consciousness outside one's mind while one is experiencing it, is it not? We vaguely define what is 'real' or not, but what was very real to Sherlock was that his own perception of the outside of him (definable actuality) was deeply layered in his own perception of the inside of him (in his mind), and his approach to problem solving depended on layering his perceptions to reveal truths. Some of the truths turn out to be things he doesn't want to know about himself or admit to himself, but I'm jumping the gun.

Just as Sherlock and Moriarty moved away from the mirror in the mind palace, Moriarty said the truth was boring, just wonderfully done symbolism, in Sherlock's mind palace. He's playing out his own symbolism of hiding truth from himself. Since Moriarty is a character in Sherlock's mind, Sherlock is the author of what Moriarty is saying, basically Sherlock telling himself that truth is boring and that's not why he's in his mind palace. We know Moriarty was bored before he shot himself in definable actuality and used Sherlock as part of his morbid mind game, and we know Sherlock was bored, too, because he said so. Two very bored souls found each other on a rooftop, made a pact, and Sherlock psychologically internalized what was essentially a marriage vow in hell. "You want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you." And then Moriarty shot himself, and you could go into the whole blood brother suicide pact (and even Romeo and Juliette) thing. Don't fear the reaper, per se.

pic clicks to a pretty good, albeit very lengthy recap and analysis
"The Reichenbach Explanation"

It's not much of a leap to realize Sherlock's mind IS hell, and that the leap in his mind off the painting of the Reichenbach Falls away from both hell and reflection John was an emotional reset after the way he left definable actuality John the first time with a real leap.

MY question is- Was Sherlock high when he met Moriarty on the rooftop? The question is starting to come up between Mycroft and John in The Abominable Bride whether Sherlock uses every time he goes deep into his mind palace, since Sherlock hinted that's how he problem-solves. Sherlock is quite used to morgues and corpses and body parts, but was Moriarty right? Was Sherlock a suicide witness virgin? Was it Sherlock's first time to witness the transition from life to death right in front of him? To go from the gripping handshake to witnessing violent death while still holding hands? Because that is quite the pact. And if that's what it was, Moriarty stole Sherlock's innocence, consummating their deal.

No wonder Sherlock is still so obsessed with Moriarty. It's not just about how Moriarty did it, whether the body really disappeared, or even whether he's still alive. It's about how Sherlock made this 'marriage' with Moriarty minutes before he broke John's heart, and then abandoned John to two years of the blackest grief imaginable, straight from a pact in hell to abandoning his best friend to go root out the last of Moriarty's network. For Sherlock to succeed, of course he had to cut his feelings off, but we all saw the tear fall down his cheek on the rooftop as he said goodbye over the phone, we all know he knew the pain he'd be causing, and we can imagine reflection John showing up in his mind palace during those two years working for MI6. Who knows how many countless convos Sherlock had with reflection John all that time. Poor definable actuality John has no idea how strong this bond is for Sherlock when they are saying goodbye before Sherlock gets on the jet, because most of their friendship has gone on in Sherlock's head.

Sherlock chooses to become so cut off from his emotions to focus on crime solving that it takes getting high to process and feel them. To come full circle, Sherlock allows himself to address his own issues through John while he's in his mind palace, including allowing reflection John to express concern for him as a friend not expressing his own natural humanness. Reflection John is the closest Sherlock comes to admitting to himself that he cares that someone else cares about him enough to ask about his sex life, even if he still can't bring himself to let his own walls down in his own head talking to a reflection of someone.

Sherlock might be able to think quickly and efficiently, but even in his own mind, reflection Mary calls him the slower brother while she leads the way to solve the problem, and along the way he makes mental notes alluding to Mary being an excellent choice of wife for John. We must remember that Mary is by extension the bestie of his bestie, and that Sherlock made a vow to protect Mary (and through that vow, to also protect both John and Mycroft from Magnussen), and it is ultimately that vow, expressed back through reflection John, that overrides his suicide pact with Moriarty in his mind. I thought the imagery in the "desanctified" church was very telling of how Sherlock sees Mary as 'his', framed together through one window while John is framed alone in the next window. Before Sherlock gets onto the jet, he asks Mary to look after John (essentially asking Mary to step up and take on his role in John's life), Mary says she'll keep him in trouble, and Sherlock says, "That's my girl." Sherlock seems to openly accept Mary in his life without reservation, which is a subtle emotional bond that maybe even he doesn't realize has happened. I think the Mary bond, both in definable actuality and in his mind palace, is an unrealized reflection of wish fulfillment. Mary is the closest thing Sherlock has to intellectual competency without either being his brother or a bad guy, working with Sherlock as opposed to gaming against him like Irene Adler had.

Going into his mind palace is about beating the game. What is the game? Solving the ultimate riddle, finding all the pieces to the ultimate puzzle, alleviating boredom. What is the solution? An emotional commitment to real people in definable actuality. With Sherlock's own mind in the way, never the twain shall meet, it would seem. One could argue that Sherlock is emotionally impotent, and that keeping his relationships controlled in a mind palace is what keeps him the 'virgin', any way you want to define that, although Moriarty showing up in the lacy wedding dress pretty much disclaims that Sherlock's innocence is over now.

Despite Sherlock's careful withdrawal from emotional entanglement, Moriarty shattered Sherlock emotionally with a real event Sherlock couldn't control that psychologically ushered him over a threshold and made him capable of murder himself, as we see happen with Magnussen. Sherlock becoming Moriarty's counterpart and unraveling his network was only a tiny part of winning the game after that happened. The game never ends. If Sherlock is capable of murder now, and if he's going into himself and talking to reflections to confront his emotional problems while he solves riddles, he can't help running into himself playing Moriarty. (One can only wonder how psychotic Moriarty's own mind palace must have been.) If not for John's narrative continually interrupting his thoughts, where would Sherlock be? Trapped behind his own mirrors, perhaps.

I'm loving the hints coming up in Mycroft's book. Their mom is a Vernet...

Yeah, gonna leave it hanging there. I especially loved the hellish orange glow that came up between Sherlock and Moriarty in that wedding dress in the desanctified church.

starting lots of sentences with conjunctions and independent clauses, like you do

Being the 381st commenter on the blog post "15 things you absolutely must know about social media or your face will melt off and get eaten by goats", you can see I have deeply studied the greats. Yes, there are loads of things people really shouldn't do with their blogs, but pouring your heart and soul out isn't on that list. If everyone really did pour their real hearts and souls out, I believe this world would be a much better place, but writing funny posts like @TheBloggess does is pretty awesome, too.

If Pinky had one wish... I said that 42 days ago.

When I was first crawling slowly back out of my cave on my hands and knees and blinking in the poisonous sunlight stabbing my eyes, I hung on to everything Jenny Lawson was writing until I was able to stand up and take my own wobbly steps. What really helped me was knowing she didn't live on either coast and is within a day's drive of my house. Not to stalk or anything, but you know, out here in the middle of all the backward people who still don't understand Batman isn't from the devil. By the way, NO ONE has ever cross-shipped Batman with Xev. unless you count "Stevie BATMAN Sanchez" pinning Xev on pinterest. And no one has ever done a Xev vs Catwoman character analysis. I really hope my presence on this earth helps correct this.

I've spent so many years getting here. Flayed my own skin off, gutted myself, ripped my own heart out, pulled my brain apart looking for answers before I realized I wasn't asking the right questions. What was my question? The answers are all around us, we just don't know what to do with them until we know what the questions are.

This was me in emotional shutdown for 8 years.



I generally try to steer clear of the deeper triggers, mostly because I don't survive them. But something new is happening, after something changed. It was like finally getting past a barrier, like through a locked gate, or over an impossibly high wall, or across river rapids during a neverending flood season.

This is me changing over the last year, the me I am now. The me that knows this is my destiny. The me that accepts the layers of my life, and owns all the feels.



I know exactly what I wish for. I also know I may never get it. And if I never get it, I know it's my own fault. But after carrying this for so many years, coming to understand so many things, I will never stop wishing, because what I wish again was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Imagine finding someone who not only gets you, sees through you, but even challenges you in ways no one else in the entire world can. Imagine someone who amazes you with hidden talents and ideas that no one else you know comes close to, or gets to see. Imagine having a person like that for a friend and never even realizing you're holding that one rare jewel you always dreamed of, that one special prize you always wished for. Imagine someone said they could give you your dreams come true, and you realize you already have it. Imagine how I wish I'd said that when I had the chance.

Oh, yeah, NOW I'm all poetic and mushy. I'm still not very good at being friends with people. I'm trying.

I'm the blogger. Millions and millions of words have slipped by. I ~get~ all the things now. I will never not be sorry, and I'll never stop wishing. I'll never move on, because there will never be better, or even adequate. There is no replacement. That spot will always sit empty, and I will still always have the table laid out and the candle lit. But it's ok, because now I can embrace that. It took 8 1/2 years to realize that's who I am. I'm the one that sprains people.



This is me surging over the top of all those feelings all these years, never quite knowing why, until just lately, still feeling that surge of joy, because I love remembering how I felt. This is me being thrilled I got to experience the coolest friendship I ever had.



I've really gotta stop embarrassing people. But it just can't be a secret that this is all part of who I am, and I'm still really cool with it.

blogger on blogger on blogger

That title is actually 'me (a blogger) assessing a fictional blogger on my Blogger blog'.

Disclaimer- I've been trained to psychologically and medically assess, but I'm not certified in either field. I also have a B.S. in Sociology. I love to overthink things. What I've written below is the TV show only, no comparisons to other novelizations and film, whether anything is cannon, or what the fans think. This is just me sharing what I thought about today as I was once again fording flooding streets running errands and noticing that, despite the torrential downpour in heavy traffic, I was drving around with the least amount of anxiety I've had in ~years~, because I was so preoccupied thinking about this.

I think a lot about John Watson.

Of course, he's the blogger, not the mastermind. Right off the bat, we understand that John is the interface between Sherlock's inner monologue and the outer world at large. If we use a medical analogy, John is like the nurse who interfaces between doctor and patient, which involves a lot of note taking and data entry. It's a job, and John takes it seriously, just as a med assistant would him being a surgeon.

So let's look at John.

All the attention is on Sherlock when he says he doesn't have friends. Well, neither does John Watson. John has acquaintances that he goes to for rebound, like when he goes out for a drink with Mike Stamford to get some air away from Sherlock, but he doesn't have a regular gang or hobby or meetings outside of his circle with Sherlock. He can't keep a girlfriend for the longest time. When we first met John, he was so alone that he didn't know what to do with himself. I think veterans probably appreciate how much of themselves they might see in John when they watch this show. After the cultural shock of coming home, who wouldn't want a Sherlock to give life direction again?

John likes handheld weapons, and he's really good at them. He's highly skilled and special trained in more than one field. He has focus that rivals- Sherlock's. He may not notice something under his nose (he doesn't play deductions), but we don't know if he's sarcastically not noticing, do we? The mind games run both ways between the two boys. John says he's not stupid at the most obvious times, and then leaves it hanging because Sherlock evidently misses the deduction that John might know exactly what's going on (to a point) but is too pissed off to allow Sherlock to take over and win the information game. John dropping a point, to me, is like a bowling ball hitting the floor that Sherlock completely misses. Unlike Sherlock, John doesn't feel the need to point out what someone else misses. He understands kindness, even when he's pissed off. John is quite possibly the kindest character I've seen on TV in awhile. (The Christmas scene with Mary is my favorite.)

John needs direction, a captain or commander. Once he has direction, he self motivates and thrives. He's trained for this. He had a previous commanding officer that he fell out of touch with. Why? What viewers want to know is just how much of Sherlock's jealous affection is John not understanding? What I want to know is just how much of John's choice to be around Sherlock all the time is Sherlock not understanding? John may stomp off here and there, but he always comes back. Always. He never leaves Sherlock to go find a new friend to take his place. So why did he fall out of touch with his old commander that he seems to have such high regard for?

The whole sexual orientation thing that has the fandom going crazy is a distraction. Viewership is off the rails because the show leaves so much room for fill in the blank, which means anyone can identify with the characters, a smart writing technique. What I see- John accepted immediately that Sherlock could be gay and didn't blink an eye. That's what military people do, don't ask, don't tell. While he adamantly keeps espousing that he himself is not gay, he seems to keep missing that Sherlock never denied it, but I don't believe the whole point of other people bringing up he and Sherlock being a couple is lost on John at all. He has no problem being well known for being Sherlock's live-in bestie, so why does he keep saying "People will talk"? Which Sherlock never really addresses...

Click for meme history on Defensively Heterosexual John Watson

It feels like John isn't fretting so much as prompting. John is already deeply committed to the friendship, loyal soldier no matter what Sherlock drags him through, and he's pushing Sherlock to commit back. The people will talk thing is just John saying "HA, you're admitting you care about a friend", because Sherlock also doesn't care how it looks. Neither one cares how it looks. John is waiting for Sherlock's verbal commitment. Sherlock plays that back on him, forcing John to spill in the train car when he thought death was imminent. Why? Because when Sherlock first called John "friend", John corrected him to "colleague". The mind games started there. Ever after that is like a ball being tossed into each other's court- who will be first to admit how deeply the friendship impacts them personally? Sherlock finally gives John a very carefully thought out full confession on the day of his wedding.

Whether any of that has anything to do with Sherlock possibly being gay might be beside the point. I loathe having to step down to the audience and say you guys were well played by writers and ate it all up like candy, but brava. Alpha and beta male bonding is as natural and common as women bonding like sisters, sex or no sex. I'll take it either way, it's a fantastically well done story. My personal opinion is that Sherlock never intended to 'fall for' someone, male or female, accidentally found a soulmate (the other side of his coin, as it were), and might have allowed it if John had been gay, even though Sherlock is 'married to his work', which becomes extremely Freudian when Sherlock calls Molly 'John' during crime scene investigations later. I think Sherlock might have allowed it even if he himself weren't gay, because John is his best and only friend, and he wouldn't have risked losing John to another man.

Why do we find out Sherlock's laptop was in the bedroom while he was using John's laptop? He block-mocks by saying if he wanted to look at naked women, he'd use John's laptop (meaning Sherlock snooped through the history). Well, he was using John's laptop, looking up John's old commander. Do you think John looked at the history later to see what Sherlock had been up to? John knows Sherlock is jealous. (Mary was already in on this from John's point of view by the time of the wedding, they'd talked about it.) It looks to me like John kinda gets that Sherlock is fixated on him and politely ignores it, because Sherlock is also his best friend. He doesn't mock Sherlock back. John is kind. Pissed off, but still kind. John doesn't berate Sherlock like Sherlock does others.

Which brings us to the delightfully cunning way Moffat sneaks in Sherlock equally berating women in this time of political correctness.

John came home from 'brothers in arms' to no relationships at all, estranging himself from his own sister, who was evidently a hardcore alcoholic spiraling down a drain. They must have fought and parted not very amicably, Harriet rather spending her money on booze than helping out her own brother. It's funny that John never asks Molly out, since he seems to have no specific preference in women and is seemingly open to getting friendly with any woman he happens to bump into in a very basic unsuave kind of way. Sherlock, on the other hand, is dismissive of nearly the only woman near his age he has regular contact with. I get tickled watching him irreverently heckle Molly, who doesn't seem to get that she fills in for the little sister Sherlock never had but probably desperately needed in his life after all the crap he took from Mycroft.

There's a sort of unwritten rule that guys don't date best friends' sisters. I think that's why John never asks Molly out. I'm not sure it's a conscious thing, but John seems to get where lines are drawn, and Sherlock draws a great big line around Molly. Molly is his. Sherlock might not realize he's already established Molly being his territory as big brother, which is what's confusing poor Molly, since she's getting a lot of his attention, even if it is pretty negative. We think Molly is sweet when she notices Sherlock looking sad, like her father used to look. They say girls are attracted to men who remind them of their fathers. If this is true, Molly's father probably didn't know how to cultivate deeper relationships, and she noticed the sadness reflecting back through him as he aged. She recognized this in Sherlock because she'd already seen it, she'd already learned to be aware of it. When she later slaps the living daylights out of him several times and gets after him, it's because he is also already hers. Consciously or not, Molly accepted and committed to this kind of relationship with Sherlock, and over time came to own him as family. Family is allowed in to the deeper more familiar places. After John moved out, Molly stepped up at work and marked her territory right back all over Sherlock as sister bossing back.

Mary gets Sherlock. She totally gets John and Sherlock. There is no question that Mary understands their deep connection and Sherlock's jealousy of another man (for whatever reason, maybe Sherlock just needed to 'own' someone after growing up under his brother being so hard on him), and it's beautiful that Sherlock is the one who metaphorically hands John to Mary. Mary is an automatic bestie extension of bestie John, and through Mary we get to see how far and deep and even viciously Sherlock will go protecting someone he loves. "Love is a much more vicious motivator."

Which is what Moriarty needed. Sherlock had never heard of Moriarty before he met John, although we find out later Mycroft has known of and even been in contact with Moriarty for a long time. Mycroft has carefully kept Sherlock away from everything connected to Moriarty. Until John came along. John was the key. Moriarty needed something, someone Sherlock cared about so he could get to him, manipulate him, use him to get to Mycroft. Moriarty had been working out how to get to Mycroft for a long time, lying in wait in the shadows watching everything Sherlock did, waiting for a weakness to exploit and twist up to start the game going to pull Mycroft down.

"Here be dragons." I can't help wondering if Mycroft was actually giving Sherlock permission to protect him from Magnussen here, although I doubt he knew it would go so far.

When it turned into Sherlock protecting John by protecting Mary and ultimately protecting everyone else Magnussen had abused, including Mycroft (one has to wonder how far Mycroft had already kowtowed to Magnussen himself), Sherlock had to be removed for his crime. His parting last words to John, "Sherlock is a girl's name" is, again, extremely Freudian and could be as close as he was able to come to saying "I love you" in an "As you wish" kind of way.
Did John get it? Possibly later, laughing about it with Mary, yes, I imagine they understood. I don't think John Watson is so stupid that it would never occur to him. Sherlock made a puzzle out of it for John to solve. If that plane had never turned back around, I can only wonder if John would later himself regret not having said more. After all, he was a soldier, he understood missions. I think even if Sherlock had gone off and not come back and then been reported having died, that John would never again believe it. I think he would always, in the back of his mind, believe that Sherlock was still out there somewhere. I don't think John could go through accepting losing him twice. Saying goodbye, for John, is not an option, and so he laughed, saying he'd never name his baby girl 'Sherlock', which was, in his own way, saying "I know".
I'm so ready for season 4.