Comments | sadcypress: two great tastes that go great together?

sadcypress

two great tastes that go great together?

Jul 13, 2015 11:11

So yesterday, poor_choices posted some Arcadia fic on tumblr, and because she wants to destroy me, texted me and left me raging at her in capslock over how heartbreakingly good it was. What a jerk ( Read more... )

thinky, doctor who, theatre, tom stoppard, i want stoppard's intellectual babies, arcadia

Comments 15

arcadiaego July 13 2015, 23:05:25 UTC

Ahhh, I love this so much.

He knows the value of what he does, even when the box he makes for himself is consciously small and ordinary.Although being a soldier is less ordinary than being a nurse I think this can apply to Danny as well. His story ends in the opposite way because he dies but he is a 'regular person' who does something every day like loving someone else but it's really the most extraordinary thing that does change the world. RTD's Who addresses love through the Doctor and Rose, but it's never explained why Ten loves her more than his other companions, he just does, because she's 'different'. Which is ironically to me a much more immature view of love than the fairytale Moffat version ( ... )

sadcypress July 14 2015, 14:09:20 UTC

All that totally makes sense! And yeah, I think it's totally natural to align Danny in the same way (I still have only seen the most recent series once, so I neeeeeeeeeed to revisit it soon, but want to keep rewatching in order as long as I can ( ... )

arcadiaego July 14 2015, 15:04:33 UTC

We see Amy and the Doctor together and we can think- yes, those two make sense, why would she pick Rory? That audience/outsider perspective seems so natural- the Doctor and Amy are both flashy and brash and want to run around having adventures all the time, so they should be in love in a romantic/sexual way.I'm going to have to rewatch the entire Pond arc to comment more on this, but I actually never did think that Amy/Doctor was something that made sense - partly because I see Eleven as so asexual* and weirdly he comes across to me as the oldest in mind of any of the New Who doctors. But mainly it was so clear to me from the beginning that Amy kissing the Doctor was part of running away and not wanting to grow up - it wasn't that she didn't love Rory, but she was freaking out about taking on 'adult' roles. So that was always the meaningless fantasy that you know would never actually happen. She met him when she was a child anyway so it's all very mixed up for her. (I do think there's issues raised by that but I don't think Moffat was ( ... )

sadcypress July 14 2015, 15:37:14 UTC

I think fandom responds to chemistry of any sort by saying NOW KISS, and Amy and the Doctor have faboo chemistry, hence.... I am also very much in favor of an OT3 in this case (probably pre-River reveal, yeah)- these people all love each other very much, and I'm pro working that out via some good old fashioned fanfic sexy fun times, please. ;)

Thread 5

arcadiaego July 13 2015, 23:13:45 UTC

I've had this user name for so long sometimes I forget about it and then...

sadcypress July 14 2015, 14:10:26 UTC

Do you know that sometimes, I still think of you or start looking you up on twitter with the old "QueenWAIT NO OBVIOUSLY NOT". ;)

arcadiaego July 14 2015, 15:08:33 UTC

Weirdly I hardly ever remember I used that handle in fandom which is bizarre given that it's still my email address!

(The comment has been removed)

sadcypress July 14 2015, 14:40:43 UTC

Right?? NO ONE CAN RESIST SEPTIMUS. It's a RULE.

Stoppard has SUCH a heart and a love of beauty, it's all right there, beating and vulnerable on the surface. I did see The Hard Problem via NTLive and GAAAH- I thought it was just lovely. He doesn't have the answers but he believes SO MUCH in hope and beauty and how extraordinary people really are.

Rory is 100% the heart of that trio, and it's always about doing whatever he can, giving of himself however he can, to help someone else. When I rewatch these episodes, again and again you see him step up and try to help someone else, to do the right thing, even if it's going to cost him dearly. He is so GOOD that how could Amy possibly love anyone else when she's had him in her life? He makes life better.

daiq July 14 2015, 10:03:24 UTC

So much love for Arcadia! And Doctor Who. But especially Arcadia!

sadcypress July 14 2015, 14:41:05 UTC

It's my absolute, all time, favorite play. Nothing else comes near it, really.

daiq July 15 2015, 10:26:24 UTC

Mine is Godot! LOVE my Beckett :D

tempestsarekind July 15 2015, 04:11:17 UTC

EMILY. Why did you have to make me feel all the FEELINGS??? Seriously, I got to the end of this and almost cried. What a lovely post.

Amy is so interesting to me, because objectively I suppose it's true that she doesn't treat Rory very well, but I almost never read her that way because to me it's so clear that she just doesn't know how to deal with emotion and all of her abandonment issues - she's not making a choice to disregard Rory's feelings so much as she is acting on impulse and instinctive aversion.

sadcypress July 15 2015, 13:55:58 UTC

OH I AM GLAD, GLAD TO HAVE TORMENTED YOU SO IN YOUR POOR, POST-OP STATE.

I'm with you on Amy as well. Amy starts off as VERY emotionally immature because she's had to be closed off her entire life- she makes so many mistakes because she's figuring it out! She knows she loves Rory but doesn't really know what that MEANS- it wrecks me every time when she can so casually end her wedding morning phone call to Rory with an "I love you," because she has come SO FAR, both bc of her own journey and bc of what it means to grow up with that much more open love in her life.

Once she gets it, though, once she really understands what losing Rory would mean to her, she never, EVER makes him less than her one priority. The narrative plays with it, sure, and Rory doubts because he's human and fallible, but Amy?

Nope.

She knows who she wants, and as much as she loves and values the Doctor and all their life together means, it's Rory she chooses every damn time. He comes first, and with him, she has the life she wants, whatever that means.

tempestsarekind July 15 2015, 18:01:38 UTC

YOU ARE A CRUEL TORMENTOR.

Yes - it takes Amy some time to figure out what love and commitment really mean, after the way she grew up. But once she does, she keeps choosing Rory, over and over. And even when they're on the verge of divorce in "Asylum of the Daleks," it's because she loves Rory so much and wants what's best for him (and can't believe that she's it). Even though it comes out of nowhere story-wise, it's so consistent emotionally - from Amy's decision to "give Rory up" to Rory's reading of that as Amy's not loving him enough, because he's always worried about that.

it wrecks me every time when she can so casually end her wedding morning phone call to Rory with an "I love you," because she has come SO FAR, both bc of her own journey and bc of what it means to grow up with that much more open love in her life.Oh goodness, yes! That's such a wonderful moment - it's so casual, and Rory barely even registers it, which tells us that it's just normal for him to hear it, in this version of the universe. Such a tiny, perfect ( ... )