Amy and Rory’s Guide to How Costumed Role Play Saved Our Time-Tossed Marriage
Amy and Rory’s Guide to How Costumed Role Play will Save Your Time-Tossed Marriage
I watched the Night and the Doctor vignettes on the Doctor Who: Series Six box set today. My favorite by far is “Good Night”. Amy admits to the Doctor that she can’t sleep because she has two overlapping sets of memories inside her head and her life doesn’t make any sense. It got me thinking about rewritten timelines, unreliable memories, and Amy and Rory’s relationship.
In series five we learned that “Time can be rewritten.”
In A Christmas Carol, we learned something even scarier: “People can be rewritten.”
In The Girl Who Waited, we witnessed the truth of what those words could mean, when we met an older Amy who was afraid that the Doctor would rewrite the thirty years of experiences that made her who she was. In the end, he did, and that older Amy never happened.
During series five and six, the events of Amy and Rory’s childhoods are altered multiple times.
In series six, Amy and Rory are married. When they take their wedding vows, a bride and groom promise to stay together through all sorts of challenges. The biggest threat to Amy and Rory’s marriage isn’t sickness or poverty or death. The real danger lies in the “Good Times and Bad.” How do you maintain a relationship when you and your spouse may wake up tomorrow in a timeline where you have never met? Rory Williams loves Amy Pond. Amy Pond loves Rory Williams. Will Roman Rory still love Samurai Amy? Will Secret Agent Boss Lady Pond still love Captain Williams? For Amy and Rory, this is a real problem that they have to face every day.
Little Amelia Pond grew up with a crack in her wall and the universe pouring through her head. She has memories in her head of places she’s never been, and events that could never have happened. She has been dealing with this fact since she was seven years old. I think she found a way to stay sane, even from a very young age.
When they were kids, Amy made Rory dress up as the Doctor. As a teenager, Amy had a job as a kiss-o-gram which meant she got to try on different fantastic costumes every day. On their honeymoon, Amy and Rory wore their centurion and police woman costumes to the bedroom. Amy said her kiss-o-gram job was “a laugh” and Rory said their honeymoon was “just a bit of fun”, but I’m starting to think that it is much more important than that.
I think costumed role play serves a vitally important therapeutic function in Amy and Rory’s relationship.
What do you do if you wake up with a head full of memories that could never possibly have happened? How do you decide which memories make up part of who you are as a person and which are just echoes of a fantasy that never was? Why not use imagination to try on the identity of an alternate version of yourself? Then, when you are done, you can take off the costume, and set that alternate persona safely away and return to the “real you” …once you’ve figured out who the “real you” is, of course.
How do you deal with the fear that you and your spouse may wake up tomorrow and not even remember the experiences that first brought the two of you together? Why not use role play to try out lots of different combinations of identities in the bedroom and prove to each other that the two of you can still love one another no matter how much you change? If Roman Rory and Policewoman Amy can find love in the bedroom on their honeymoon, doesn’t that prove that there is a chance for Super Spy Amy and her Captain Williams to do the same in a broken time-stream? By trying out lots of different fantasy identities in their imaginations, I think Amy and Rory prove to one another that no matter how the timeline changes they will still be able to find love and make it work. By using their imaginations ahead of time to grow more comfortable with the idea of living inside the skins of an alternate version of themselves, I think Amy and Rory are better prepared to weather changes in the timeline while preserving their core identities.
tl;dr
Kinky cos-play saved Amy and Rory’s marriage.
I watched the Night and the Doctor vignettes on the Doctor Who: Series Six box set today. My favorite by far is “Good Night”. Amy admits to the Doctor that she can’t sleep because she has two overlapping sets of memories inside her head and her life doesn’t make any sense. It got me thinking about rewritten timelines, unreliable memories, and Amy and Rory’s relationship.
In series five we learned that “Time can be rewritten.”
In A Christmas Carol, we learned something even scarier: “People can be rewritten.”
In The Girl Who Waited, we witnessed the truth of what those words could mean, when we met an older Amy who was afraid that the Doctor would rewrite the thirty years of experiences that made her who she was. In the end, he did, and that older Amy never happened.
During series five and six, the events of Amy and Rory’s childhoods are altered multiple times.
- Childhood #1: No parents
- Childhood #2: No parents and no Rory
- Childhood #3: No parents, no Rory, and no stars
- Childhood #4: With parents, with Rory, with stars, but no Doctor
- Childhood #5: With parents, Rory, stars, and Doctor
- Child hood #6: With parents, Rory, stars, the Doctor, …and Mels
In series six, Amy and Rory are married. When they take their wedding vows, a bride and groom promise to stay together through all sorts of challenges. The biggest threat to Amy and Rory’s marriage isn’t sickness or poverty or death. The real danger lies in the “Good Times and Bad.” How do you maintain a relationship when you and your spouse may wake up tomorrow in a timeline where you have never met? Rory Williams loves Amy Pond. Amy Pond loves Rory Williams. Will Roman Rory still love Samurai Amy? Will Secret Agent Boss Lady Pond still love Captain Williams? For Amy and Rory, this is a real problem that they have to face every day.
Little Amelia Pond grew up with a crack in her wall and the universe pouring through her head. She has memories in her head of places she’s never been, and events that could never have happened. She has been dealing with this fact since she was seven years old. I think she found a way to stay sane, even from a very young age.
When they were kids, Amy made Rory dress up as the Doctor. As a teenager, Amy had a job as a kiss-o-gram which meant she got to try on different fantastic costumes every day. On their honeymoon, Amy and Rory wore their centurion and police woman costumes to the bedroom. Amy said her kiss-o-gram job was “a laugh” and Rory said their honeymoon was “just a bit of fun”, but I’m starting to think that it is much more important than that.
I think costumed role play serves a vitally important therapeutic function in Amy and Rory’s relationship.
What do you do if you wake up with a head full of memories that could never possibly have happened? How do you decide which memories make up part of who you are as a person and which are just echoes of a fantasy that never was? Why not use imagination to try on the identity of an alternate version of yourself? Then, when you are done, you can take off the costume, and set that alternate persona safely away and return to the “real you” …once you’ve figured out who the “real you” is, of course.
How do you deal with the fear that you and your spouse may wake up tomorrow and not even remember the experiences that first brought the two of you together? Why not use role play to try out lots of different combinations of identities in the bedroom and prove to each other that the two of you can still love one another no matter how much you change? If Roman Rory and Policewoman Amy can find love in the bedroom on their honeymoon, doesn’t that prove that there is a chance for Super Spy Amy and her Captain Williams to do the same in a broken time-stream? By trying out lots of different fantasy identities in their imaginations, I think Amy and Rory prove to one another that no matter how the timeline changes they will still be able to find love and make it work. By using their imaginations ahead of time to grow more comfortable with the idea of living inside the skins of an alternate version of themselves, I think Amy and Rory are better prepared to weather changes in the timeline while preserving their core identities.
tl;dr
Kinky cos-play saved Amy and Rory’s marriage.