#13 would be torn apart by conflicting impulses

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

yaz voice: i keep thinking,,, i keep thinking abt the.....future affecting the past of it all. the "if he runs out of time the hostile action would end and a time machine would know", "im fine because you fixed yourself", and "because it's not a grave"

like if it were me. if it were me. i still would have gone with the villa diodati conundrum. "save the poet, save the universe" what do we do when the poet IS the universe. "watch people burn now or tomorrow" like the distinction exists? like tomorrow isnt yesterday?

so we make them face the child. the doctor loses this one, right? too beholden to their rules. lost with shelley, will lose with the child. because there is no way to win it. not with the rules of the universe theyve clung to up to this point. not without play

so theres a child that needs to be saved but the doctor cant do it because it will take the foundation out from under the universe. she Can Not interfere. she fails to be the doctor when it comes to herself. but yaz is there. doctor's doctor. wont accept this. saves the child

the universe crumbles, but this or tecteun's revenge the outcome is similar except. the universe that crumbles if you save the child is the timelords' universe, their imposed histories, their laws, their logic. nothing makes sense anymore. it's terrifying. gotta let go gotta let go gotta let go. you HAVE to play. play or perish. please it's not that serious. it's just identity! funniest game there is. listen to the master; tag, youre it

[tasteslikemolecules]

13 and 25!

13) Arc: Your favourite arc. Get specific!

My shitty Philosophy major impulse is to ask “But what is an arc, really?” but simultaneously my brain went “Hallucifer! Demon Blood! Ruby!”

If an arc can be understood as something really broad and unintentional, something that most viewers don’t necessarily perceive as a “narrative“ at all, then it’s got to be Sam’s mental health (deterioration) and his self perception over the course of the show. That's how I watch SPN most of the time, as a story about a young angry and conflicted man who keeps trying to keep up his hope against all odds, while getting traumatized over and over again, and in an attempt to keep his hope, he changes what he hopes for (from having a normal life to saving the world to just keeping Dean happy etc) until he gets older and stagnates and gives up asking for anything but keeping the status quo for himself and averting further crisis for others. It's all very closely connected to his relationship with Dean – although of course his major traumatizing event is the Cage – and how Sam goes from trying to escape their unhealthy obsession with another, to accepting and nurturing it, to relying on it and identifying through it. I'm not sure how much this is an arc or simple my framing of the whole show, but it is my main reason for obsessively watching.

As for more intentional arcs I'm torn between Ruby & the demon blood addiction (and all that meant to Sam and Dean's relationship) and everything connected to Lucifer: from Sam being his vessel, to the Cage to the hallucinations and finally to adopting his son.

Ruby's story line was one of the few of the show that was actually well-executed from beginning to end, which made it compelling and entertaining to watch, but – and now I'm going back to Sam's mental state in a more general sense – I'm mainly obsessed with it because of how both her and the demon blood and Lucifer exemplified Sam's struggle with himself and the 'darkness' within him. How the otherness in him isn’t bad or good, but just is.  15. Favourite episode.

Baby (11.04) Beat the Devil (13.21) Red Meat (11.17) Lost and Found (13.01) When The Levee Breaks (4.21)

An impossible question that I will doubtlessly still spend a lot of time agonizing over, but the first episode I thought of was “When The Levee Breaks“. I re-read the script last night and even without the visuals and Jared's great acting, I got that same feeling of urgency and excitement. It's right before the climax of the season and is imo the most anticipatory episode of the show: You just know big things are coming. It feels important. 

I love every second of that episode. The panic room is one of the most horifiying things on the show and it's bizarre that the horror of putting Sam there is never really adressed later on (but I guess there were other horrors to put him through that took priority not being addressed). I love how Sam-centric the episode is, but the horror of watching Dean and Bobby sitting there waiting, talking about the likelihood of Sam's death, is also amazing. It’s an episode about Sam, but also an episode about SamandDean in a really pivotal way. 

DEAN No. I'm not giving him demon blood. I won't do it. BOBBY And if he dies? DEAN Then at least he dies human!

Sam’s hallucinations Sam while he detoxes are both so brutal and telling. Every conversation he imagines raises the stakes, from his younger self attacking him to Mary reassuring him that he's doing the right thing.

YOUNG SAM How could you do this to me? I thought we were gonna be normal. SAM I tried. I did. It didn't pan out that way. Sorry, kid. YOUNG SAM 'Sorry, kid'? That's what you have to say? It's all we ever wanted. We were so close. You got away from Dad. You quit hunting. You were gonna become a lawyer and get married. Why'd you blow it? SAM Look. They killed Jessica. YOUNG SAM Yeah. And if you hadn't run off with Dean, if you'd been there to protect her, she'd still be alive. SAM I know. YOUNG SAM You think Jess would want you to turn into this? She loved you. You think she'd be happy you using her as an excuse? SAM I'm sorry. I am. But life doesn't turn out the way you thought when you were fourteen years old. We were never gonna be normal. We were never gonna get away. Grow up. YOUNG SAM Maybe you're right. Maybe there's no escape. After all, how can you run from what's inside you?

That's such a pivotal moment: Sam's resignation to his fate. Sam blaming himself for Jessica's death and seeing it as a result of leaving with Dean. I also loooove that young Sam calls it 'running off' with Dean, the romantic connotations are A+.

SAM What's in me, Mom, it's— MARY Evil. And you know it. SAM What if it's stronger than me? Look at me. What if Dean's right? MARY Dean can never know how strong you are, because Dean is weak. Look at what he's done to you. Locking you in here? He's terrified. He's in over his head. You have to go on without him. You have what it takes. You have to kill Lilith. SAM Even if it kills me.

Chills down my spine. What an inside into Sam's head. Him admitting to himself that he thinks Dean is too weak to do what's necessary, something we don't get to see post-Lucifer. I love how clearly Dean and Sam work as antagonists in this episode (even when they're clearly struggling with it). This is the only time the show didn't shy away from it. But it makes sense, that it's only here, when Sam can still muster up enough belief in himself that he's doing the right thing to go against Dean (compare that to later seasons when he goes along with Dean even knowing full well that Dean is wrong).

And then the final straw when he thinks he’s talking to Dean who says “And I tried so hard to pretend that we were brothers. That you weren't one of the filthy things that we hunt. But we're not even the same species. You're nothing to me.” I feel that in my gut. 

I love the Ruby and Sam reunion just as much. Her perfect manipulation, his desperation. And then the big finale of Dean appearing. I can never get over that visceral hate he has for Ruby for ‘stealing his Sammy’. The hurt he feels when Sam defends her and won’t let him kill her. And while Sam doesn’t want to make it about Ruby vs Dean, Dean definitely sees it as a complete either or situation. 

SAM Stop bossing me around, Dean. Look. My whole life, you take the wheel, you call the shots, and I trust you because you are my brother. Now I'm asking you, for once, trust me. DEAN No. 

That fight they’re having is up there with the best ones in the whole show. The hurt on both sides. The crying. The “It means you're a monster.” Dean’s reenacting of John’s “You walk out that door, don't you ever come back.” 

I think the only thing (apart from the overly dramatic music at the end) I don’t like about the episode is the aftermath. The implication that because Ruby was manipulating Sam, Sam was in the wrong all along. I really don’t see it that way. Given the info he had, he was right. The episode asks “who is right: Sam or Dean?” and answers with Dean, and I don’t think it’s that clear cut. I would have done the same as Sam.