more than what i fear

being too much like the doctor got missy killed and i will never stop thinking about that

because she didn’t kill saxon, she was going to let him bleed out. what’s more doctor than that, to take the moral highground by saying technically, it wasn’t my hand that did it, though i did set up the dominoes that fell. and then she. she has a speech. she has an honest to god doctor speech, aims it right at saxon, and then she turns her back on him. i can never stop thinking about that. she turned her back on him. but she’s not the doctor. and he shoots her. because she let him die slow enough to run, because she stayed for a speech and gave him time and reason to know he wanted to shoot her dead, and she turned her fucking back on the master.

it’s 2 parts ‘we aren’t that self-destructive’ (false) and 2 parts ‘if i was the doctor, he wouldn’t shoot me in the back, because i wouldn’t shoot the doctor in the back, i’d want to see his face when i did it’ (true) BUT SHE IS NOT THE DOCTOR. SHE IS NOT. AND IT GETS HER KILLED.

rewatching institutional memory again and sitting in the cjtoby conversation and just, like, god. what an episode. cj cregg means so much to me.

part of this is that the episode climax is just: a woman who has worked very hard for nine years, so hard that her dad is dying a thousand miles away, so hard that leaving the house at 6:45 am is considered running late, as everyone else quits or drops out or moves onto something new, finally admits that she doesn't WANT to keep doing Her Duty. finally admits that she does, actually, want that light at the end of the tunnel instead of putting her head down and continuing to shoulder the burdens that everyone else left behind. and that's just so important to me!!

WAIT HOLD ON I cannot fucking believe when I was like four years old my parents were cajoling me to walk with the family and trying to get me to keep up even though I kept insisting that I was "tired" until they took me to a doctor and found out my LUNGS DIDN'T WORK. how insane that we live in a world where reasonably loving parents think their FOUR YEAR OLD is trying to be LAZY. like they were mortified to be clear. adults are just so trained to ignore children's complaints as untrustworthy, kids just need discipline, they can't possibly speak for themselves. what the fuuuuck.

YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE BTW you should always be trying to take children seriously, especially very little ones but definitely all of them. the most disempowered class basically legally defined as property and most people are like "yeah that's good actually I hate when they Loiter lol they're stupid and loud and i actually think children should stop existing. restrict their personhood more actually"

the best thing about rulette 2 is that i do think it adds substantial mechanical improvements to the game design of the first iteration — paul and sam as ‘players’ intended to follow and be called out on rules, interesting new rules/prompts/modifiers, the golden rule concept, etc. — but all of that slowly but surely becomes overshadowed by josh ruben landing by chance on all of the specific rules that transform him into a baby-themed tongue-heavy gyrating monster