#and rory says his whole the core of our relationship is that i love you more and amy rebukes this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writing-wh0re · 3 years

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Heyyy could I get some virgin!boyfriend!peter and virgin!girlfriend!reader, going down on each other for the first time and kinda discovering each other kinks like the reader likes being called a good girl and Peter loves having his hair pulled 🤪😩 sorry this is very specific lmaooo I trust u bby do whatever you want !!💜

All writing will be #writing-wh0re-requests.

Peter Parker x Female Reader

Words: 1,563.

Warnings: Smut18+, Vaginal Intercourse, Loss of Virginity, Unprotected Sex, Male and Female Performing Oral, Praise Kink, Hair Pulling, Handjob, Soft Peter.

A/n: I hope you enjoy this!

*I think I'm slowly finding it hard to write for Peter because yes, I love him but just not as excited when writing* - But I'll figure this out.

Spending the weekend with Peter was something I was looking forward to this whole week. Finally time to ourselves, time alone that I hope we will both take advantage of and take our love to the next step.

I reach Peter’s apartment, using my key to let myself in as a peaceful silence hits my ears. I sigh in relief, thankful that Ned and Betty were away for the weekend and had already left. I rush to Peter’s room, dumping my overnight bag on the hardwood floor before making my way into the ensuite bathroom, wanting to get out of my work clothes.

The lukewarm water hits my skin, allowing my eyes to flutter closed in pure bliss at the feeling of relaxation. My day washes off my skin, happy to be taking it slow for the first time in nine hours. I don’t hear Peter call my name or his footsteps as I wash my body, the smell of my mango soap filling the air.

“Ah, baby there you are.”

I jump at the sound of his voice, a small yelp escaping my lips causing the tall brunette to chuckle at me.

“Jesus.”

“Sorry, did I ruin your peace and quiet.” Peter opens the shower door, the cool gush of air causing goosebumps to liter my skin. His eyes trail up my body, a proud smirk dancing across his lips.

“As a matter of fact, you did, I was enjoying my ‘me’ time.” I lean against the cool shower wall, showing more of my body to Peter which causes him to bite his lip.

“Mind if I join you?”

My heart skips a beat as I softly nod watching my boyfriend slip out of his clothes, his toned chest and arms causing a flow of arousal to pool between my thighs. I quickly look away from the god-like sight, splashing my face with some water to calm myself down.

Peter’s lips brush against my shoulder, kissing his way up my neck. I giggle at his actions, his lips causing a tingle to rush over me, excitement bubbling inside my stomach.

“I missed you.” His warm breath fans cool air across my wet skin, a love drunk smile present on my lips.

I spin around to face him, droplets of water dripping from his hair onto his nose. “I missed you more, I’ve been counting down.” I instantly blush at the words that leave my lips, knowing I sound like a complete dork.

Peter smiles at me with love and adoration, his lips kissing my nose.

“You’re adorable.”

I stand on my tippy toes, my arms wrapping around his neck allowing for our lips to meet. Peter smiles into the kiss, pushing me against the wall as I gasp, the cool tile coming into contact with my ass. Peter grabs my thigh, encouraging me to wrap my leg around his waist, I use the new angle to pull him closer to me, a soft moan escaping both of us as his cock presses against my pussy.

“Sorry baby.” Peter pulls away from me, his face filling with regret. “You’re fucking addictive.” His eyes trail up my body.

I reach out to grab his hand, pulling me closer to me again.

“Please.” Peter rests his forehead against mine, his eyes searching mine. A wave of confidence takes over me as I trail my fingers down his chest, causing his breath to hitch. Peter’s hand cups my cheek, pulling our lips together before moaning into our kiss as I slowly pump his cock up and down. His hand wraps around mine, helping guide my actions to reach his release.

Peter’s hand leaves my face, cupping my heat earning a gasp from me.

“You’re so wet.”

Butterflies erupt inside of my stomach, excitement and nerves starting to take over my senses. Peter slips his middle finger past my folds, rubbing my clit slowly as all of the nervousness washes away, replaced by pure bliss.

Peter keeps his eyes trained on his fingers, ensuring to take everything slow, both of us moaning at each other's actions. My eyes fixate on his dick, loving the sounds I am pulling from him as I continue to pump up and down, circling my hand from the base to the tip which causes a string of curse words to leave his lips. I fall to my knees, looking up at Peter through my lashes, his face filled with surprise at my sudden actions. I swipe my tongue across the tip of his cock, taking his length into my mouth, bobbing my head up and down, his hand falling to the back of my head, guiding my mouth causing his hips to thurst.

“You’re good at that baby.”

“Such a good girl.”

His praise causes my clit to throb with arousal. I use my hand to cup his balls, massaging the skin as my tongue swirls around him, causing his head to tilt back and profanities to fall from his lips. I pull his cock from my lips with a pop, his strong arms pulling me up against his chest, our forehead's resting against eachother again. His finger slips back between my folds, circling my clit, my lips part with soft moans filling the air.

“I want you.”

Peter smiles at me before registering my words, causing his actions to halt.

“Please, I need you.”

Peter’s eyes search mine, looking for any doubt behind my words.

“Fuck me.”

Peter shuts the water off causing a sense of sadness to take over me.

‘Does he not want to have sex with me?’

Peter chuckles, sensing my emotions.

“I’m going to fuck you, I’m going to make you feel so fucking good baby.” His words cause my breath to hitch and my heart to race. “But not in a shower, not for the first time.”

He laces our fingers together, guiding us to his queen bed, not bothering to grab a towel for either of us. I fall back onto Peter’s quilt, his body caging me against the mattress before locking our lips in a heated kiss, tongue and teeth hitting against each other, both of us excited for the next step in our relationship. Peter’s lips trail down my body, kissing and licking in between the valley of my breasts before his lips suck my thighs, littering the skin with his mark.

My fingers instantly grip onto the strands of Peter’s hair, his tongue slipping past my folds as my body tenses.

“Keep doing that.” I look down at Peter watching as his eyes flick to my fingers tangled in his hair.

His tongue goes back to circling my clit, his finger slowly slipping inside of me. A lazy smile fills my face, nothing but pleasure filling my body. Peter’s tongue causes my legs to shake, his fingers curling inside of me.

“Yes, Peter, yes.” I tug on his hair, attempting to pull him closer to my core, grinding my hips against his tongue. Peter moans against my clit, the slight vibration causing my mind to go fuzzy. My heartbeat slows, my breathing starts to become erratic as I feel the coil inside me tighten. Peter senses that I’m close, pulling away from me and earning a soft whimper.

“You’re cumming around me.”

I open and close my mouth, no words forming, another sense of nervousness settling around me.

“Baby, we don’t have to do this.”

I instantly shake my head, wanting nothing more than to feel him inside of me.

“No, please, I want you so badly.”

Peter smiles at me, kissing my lips softly before lining himself up with my entrance.

“It will hurt, but only for a little, I need you to breathe for me and I’ll stop whenever you need.” I nod in response to Peter’s words, I hiss as his dick stretches my slick walls. Peter moans at the action, kissing my lips before whispering in my ear.

“You’re doing so well.”

“My gorgeous girl.”

“I love you so much Y/n.”

I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper inside of me, both of us moaning at the deeper angle.

“I love you Peter.” I whisper, rocking my hips up slightly. His hand falls to my hip, holding me still as he slowly thrusts in and out of me, building up a comfortable rhythm.

“Does that feel good baby?”

“So good, god Peter.”

“Such a good girl.” My pussy clenches around him as he praises me, a soft chuckle falling from his lips, knowing what he is doing to me.

“I-I’m cl-close.” Peter rubs my clit, the added pleasure causing my body to flush hot, my body tenses before I feel my release wash over me. Peter’s name falling from my lips, mixed with curse words.

“Fuck, Y/n, so good.”

Peter continues to rock in and out of me, my legs shaking at the sensitivity of my core. I watch his muscles tense, his fingers grip my hips tighter as a warmth fills me. Peter captures my lips in his before he slides out of me, his cum trickling out of my warm core.

“That was amazing.” I smile, my chest rises and falls, Peter’s the same as he pulls me into his side.

“I love you baby.”

“I love you so much Peter.”

It was safe to say, our weekend was spent like no other.

| | |

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ocsandallthatjazz · 4 years

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*banging pots and pans* RIZZY FOR THE OTP MEME

They are so new, I think we’re all gonna learn stuff today.

What was their first impression of each other?

Izzy thought Rory was pretty goofy, hard to take serious, but maybe there was a sweet side under all that enthusiasm. Rory thought she looked cute and kind of liked that she just eye-rolled all his silly schemes.

What is their ship name?

Rory x Izzy = Rizzy!!!

Describe their relationship dynamic.

They have some of that “the brains and the goofball” trope (I’m blanking on the best way to word it, but y’know). Rory’s kind of like her personal pep squad and Izzy is always there to laugh off his antics with Sam and the others.

What was their relationship like before they got together?

They were pretty friendly, but just club mates for a bit. Virginia got attached to Rory super easily, so that helped them get closer.

How would they describe each other?

Izzy would point out that while, yeah, he can be kinda naive sometimes, he has a huge heart when it matters and he makes people feel like they really have a friend in their corner. Rory would say that she’s super cute and almost elegant, but could talk her way into winning a person’s whole wallet if she really wanted, and that’s quite a skill to have.

What do they love about each other?

Rory loves her clever attitude and her passion for her hobbies. Izzy loves his enthusiasm and adventurous attitude, also, how he goes along with her comfort zone.

What do they have in common?

They share some similar music interests and they both get nervous about fitting in at new places.

What are some differences between them?

Rory is far more gullible and Izzy is far more scrutinizing. Also, a fun fact, Izzy really loves sushi but Rory isn’t really a fan.

What made them realize they were in love?

For Rory, it is as Artie is trying to bait him into competing for Sugar’s attention, to which he is like “No??? I already have a girlfriend? And I love her a lo- oh mY GOD.” For Izzy, she had an inkling from around sectionals of that year, but she knew for certain when he asked her to prom, which wasn’t even either of their proms.

What are their love languages?

Rory likes to shower her in little gifts and surprises. Izzy typically expresses with acts of service.

Do they get married? Who proposes and how?

Yeah, I can see that in their cards. Izzy is probably the one to actually propose, towards the end of or after college is done in NYC. She’d pick somewhere with a tourist cliche he’d love like Central Park or the Statue of Liberty.

What would happen if they never met?

This means Izzy hadn’t joined Glee Club, so she would’ve kept working as a library aide and I guess during his time at McKinley they would just keep missing each other. Who knows if she’d still commit to NYU bc without Glee she wouldn’t have Virginia’s and the rest of her friends’ influences (at least not nearly as much).

Who dies first? How does the other one react?

.....skip lol

Are there any love rivals?

I guess Brittany because Rory liked her when he’s introduced, but like I erased the Sugar plot so, not really?

Describe your favorite moment of that ship!

We came up with an extra episode plan for fun that is this friend group having a bunch of Christmas-cliche-themed dreams and Izzy’s is meeting the Flanagans for the holidays. Even though it’s not real, there’s this soft moment where she watches him joke around with his brother and begins to come to terms with the fact that maybe growing apart for awhile (and letting Rory be close to his family again) will help them grow up better and eventually grow closer together, followed by her singing Please Come Home For Christmas.

What do other characters think about this relationship?

Literally, I don’t think anyone really cares, they’re so background lol. I’m sure Vi is invested because these are two of her best friends, but it’s also not like their relationship ever gets in anyone’s way.

Describe or write a really fluffy scene!

Leading up to the S3 prom, Rory spontaneously serenades her on a walk home one day to ask her to the dance. She laughs and rolls her eyes but is smiling the whole time and when it’s done says “It’s not even our prom and we’re working at it.” Rory gives her a look and a dramatic arm wave basically equaling “so what?” She plucks wildflower of the ground nearby and tucks it into his shirt pocket to mimic a boutonniere, before accepting.

Describe or write a really angsty scene!

They have to have a serious talk about their relationship leading up to Izzy’s graduation (in this timeline Rory gets to stay an extra year), because she’s already moving to New York and he decides it’s best to just finish high school back home, so what was already going to be long distance just became a whole ocean farther. It’s when Izzy really starts to show her anxieties about moving and change in general, because a core part of her support network won’t be there physically anymore.

Talk about a headcanon you’ve never talked about before.

Izzy loves peanut butter cups, so she gets a little offended he hid never trying them from her (maybe for good reason because then they had to sit down and taste test every version of Reese’s).

What does a typical date look like for them?

They’ll go to the coffee shop, like just about anybody in that town. They’ll also just walk each other home a lot and Rory likes to come to jam with her on her piano at home.

What’s a really significant moment in their relationship? Ask your own question! [what’s a song that reminds you of them?]

The first instinct was Jolly Holiday from Mary Poppins, the perfect balance of chaotic, refined, and doting.

OTP Ask Game

#asks #farklelucas #oc: izzy prasad #ship: izzy x rory #fandom: glee #long post

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godlyborn · 4 years

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end of an era. | keaton & rory.

date: june 12, 2020 characters: keaton arkwright & rory mikaelsohn summary: keaton and rory talk about their relationship.

Keaton walked Sheep over to the Zeus cabin. It had been odd these last few weeks with the two of them moved out of their apartment, and back where they were a few years ago. Something was still off, and Keaton knew it. She had been off, different then before everything. If he was being honest, he was also off. The last few conversations with his therapist, has been making him realizing things about himself, about him and Rory, that he couldn't keep his mind off. He was too afraid to voice them though. Voice them into reality, or voice them and hurt Rory. "Go get Mama," Keaton said, letting Sheep of his leash to find Rory. Keaton followed Sheep, and after the dog greeted Rory, Keaton wasn't too far behind. "Hey."

Rory had left the front door open, anticipating Keaton’s arrival. Sprawled out on the couch, she was trying her best to get out of her own head for a minute, not wanting everything that’s been on her mind lately to weigh her down. The jingling of a leash pulled her attention away, and a bright smile appeared on her face when she caught sight of Sheep running towards her. Dropping down to the floor, she let the dog jump on top of her and fussed over him. “Hi Sheepy!” Her bed felt colder and it was weird to adjust to not having her dog or her boyfriend to curl up with her at night. Piper was starting to warm up to cuddling at night, but it wasn’t the same. “I missed you so much, baby boy!” Herring footsteps, she looked up, her grin now directed towards Keaton, though she couldn’t get off the floor because of the dog sprawled on top of her. “Hey, babe.”

Keaton smiled when he saw her, taking a seat next to her on the floor. "How was your day?" Keaton asked, letting Sheep roll over so that he was laying in the middle of the two of them, belly up. "Where's Piper?"

When he sat down next to her, Rory leaned over to give him a quick kiss. With Sheep now off of her, the smile dimmed slightly, and she could feel her brain kick start once again, especially at his question. “It was alright,” she started, busying herself with looking around the room for the cat in question. “Pipes is around here somewhere, she ran off after a toy before so she could be anywhere honestly.” She made a few whistling noises, and while Piper didn’t make herself known, there was a thump from somewhere farther in the cabin. “Bailey isn’t here so that must be her.”

Not too long after the thump, Piper came running in, tripping slightly over her big for her paws. Piper rolled up next to Sheep and Keaton scratched behind her ears. “So, uh, the apartment is all clean, and the landlord just said to give him the keys within the week.”

Rory shook her head, laughing slightly as Piper tripped. That cat went from dopey idiot to sweet love bug in five seconds flat, and she never failed to find it endearing. The smile fully fell off of her face as Keaton spoke again, and she pressed her lips together as she nodded. “Alright, yeah. I’ll drop mine off before my shift on Tuesday.” She felt awkward, about the situation they found themselves and everything else that was running through her head. Rory knew that she needed to talk about it, and soon, but she was unwilling to just yet. Instead, she gave him a small smile as she looked up at him. “Do you want me to bring yours too? Or did you already drop it off?”

“If you want, I was going to ask you the same thing,” Keaton replied with a small chuckle. Keaton took off the key from his key ring, a moment of silence flooding over them. “So uh, how’s Bailey? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

Rory only felt more awkward as the silence seemed to drag on. She busied herself with pulling her hair-ties out of her braids, making quick work of taking both of them out of her hair. "Oh, she's good, running around all the time as usual. We're both still getting used to living together again." She shrugged. "How's everything over with your sisters?"

"They're good, we've been working in the forges a lot. I think I've come to know at least 4 classic rock albums by heart by now," Keaton replied. "Blue's been in and out with her geefs, and Morgan, is y'know, Morgan," he replied. "Though like you with Bailey, we're getting used to being in the same cabin together again, at least Blue and I, I've never lived in the cabin with Morgan before."

Rory laughed slightly, she remembered the other Heph kids mentioning Morgan's obsession with blasting classic rock while in the forges. "Yeah, that makes sense." She paused, but realized that was pretty much her reply to everything Keaton had said and instead moved to fuss over Sheep again. "And hows my Sheepy boy settling in?”

"You know, Morgan loves Sheep, when he's not with me, he's usually with her," Keaton replied.

Rory nodded her head, Blue liked Sheep too, so she knew that her boy was in good hands between the three of them. "Good, I knew she would love him. It's hard not to with this cute face." She took another minute or three to pet Sheep and center her thoughts. Taking in a breath, Macey's voice sounded in her brain. This is your life, Ror. Take charge. Her eyes slide shut as she let out a shaky breath. She knew what she needed to do and while she wasn't quite sure she was 100% ready to pull the trigger, Rory knew she couldn't keep pretending. "I think we need to talk."

Keaton's mind was on so many other things, Rory's voice brought him back. "Oh, yeah?" he asked. "What's up?"

Rory let out another breath, not being able to help the flare of annoyance that flared in the pits of her stomach. The last thing she wanted was to do all the work in this conversation, therapy already made her feel emotionally drained almost constantly and this didn't help whatsoever. This is necessary she reminded herself, but still couldn't bring herself to look Keaton in the eyes. "We need to talk about us, Keat."

Silence fell between the two of them when Rory mentioned talking about them. Their relationship had been on his mind fo a while now, even he's talked to his therapist about it, and even his therapist thought what was going on between the two of them was unhealthy. Keaton let out a slight sigh, almost relieved that he wasn't the one to bring it up, too scared to. "Uh, yeah."

Now turning her entire body to face Keaton, she found the words disappearing from her brain. The two of them have been awkward lately, which yeah made sense since they moved out of the apartment, but it seemed to be more than just that. Rory's brain had been going in circles since the minute that apartment door shut behind her the night of their fight and her therapist had finally been able to help her start to understand everything that had been making her feel so on edge this whole time. "I love you, Keaton. You know that I do.." Her voice trailed off, her throat feeling as if it had closed up on her suddenly.

Keaton let out the breath that he had subconsciously been holding when she started her sentence, but trailed off. They had been at two different points in time, but it seemed to come together when she opened up the gates to what seemed like a break up conversation. "I love you too, but you're breaking up with me, aren't you?" he asked, relieved that she was the first to mention it somewhat first. "I'd be lying if I wasn't thinking about it too."

She froze at his words, letting them ring in her head before her body reacted. Sagging slightly, she let out an almost relieved sounding sigh. "Yeah, I am." This was a terrible thing to be relieved over, but the tears that welled up in her eyes were ones of genuine sadness. "I just think I need time, we both do. There's so much stuff I haven't let myself get over yet and I feel like I'm just....not me." Rory had always been very aware of the person she was at her core, but as time went on and all the trauma started to pile up in the dark corners of her mind, she felt that person slipping away from her. "I just need to be me again and I can't let myself become this dependent person." She reached out, gripping his hand tightly as the tears fell down her cheeks. "I need to do this for me. I've done everything for everyone else for so long, but I can't do that anymore."

When Rory started crying, Keaton didn't really know what to do. He wanted to hug her and tell her it would be okay, but this was happening, this wasn't a fix it situation. He wanted this too. "I want that for you too," Keaton replied. "I don't want this, but I think that it needs to happen. I don't know. I want you to be who you are, and I know who you can be, and I love that about you, and I want you to be happy, and I know that for you to do that, it's not with me." Keaton broke eye contact with her, feeling weird not comforting her when she's crying. "I don't want you to become dependent, especially on me, because I'm a mess right now too, and I'm just realizing so much shit I never realized before. I'm so dependent on you, and our relationship, that I don't even know who I am. That's not your fault at all, to clarify, that's a me thing. I don't want that for you. As of late, I've been a shitty boyfriend, a shitty person really." Even though he wasn't hugging her, he still let his thumb rub circles into the back of her hand that she had in his.

Blinking the tears away, Rory intently listened to everything he had to say and just felt so grateful that he understood where she was coming from, that he even agreed with her that this needed to happen for the both of them to heal. "Don't blame all of this on you, I haven't exactly been girlfriend of the year or anything lately." She leaned her cheek against the couch and froze so Sheep could get comfy again, tucking himself closer to her lap when he saw the tears in her eyes. "I want you to be so happy, Keaton and I wish that I could that person to help you figure out who you are alone, but I can't be right now. I let all this shit basically take over my life and you don't deserve someone like that holding you back from figuring out what makes you happy."

“It’s crap to say that I don’t want you to help with that. You have so much going on, that I know you need to work through too, and I don’t know how to be there for you,” Keaton said. “You’ve done so much for me already, and you need to do things for you, and I need to learn that I shouldn’t be so dependent on someone who isn’t myself. I don’t know if that even made any sense.” Keaton sighed and then looked up at Rory again. “We’re not who we were months ago, or hell, even years ago when we met. You’d never hold me back. What happened Rory, that shit was traumatic, it’s understandable that you need to figure out yourself and figure it all out, without me, especially for the fact that I look like a complete idiot trying to help you, because you were right when we fought, I don’t even have my own shit figured out. I’ve been running for so long, and I guess when you started running, I didn’t want that to happen. It fucked me up, and it’s a shitty road to go down, and I didn’t want you to feel all the hurt that I felt, that I still feel. It’s the last thing that I ever wanted.”

Rory shook her head. "That doesn't mean I had the right to say it. I was too proud to say that anything was wrong with me, or maybe I was just too scared to admit it. But what it was, it didn't change the fact that no matter what, you tried to help me. Doesn't matter if your way of doing so helped or not, but you tried and I'll always be grateful for that." A sad smile grew on her face, and her free hand moved to rest gently on his cheek. "We're definitely not those kids anymore, but we need to figure out who those kids became separately if we have any shot of figuring out if we work together anymore."

Keaton leaned his head sideways against the couch. "Aren't you scared though?" he asked, and then sighed. "I know we both need it, but I'm scared I'll just fall into myself."

"Oh, I'm terrified. But being terrified of myself is what got me into this hole in the first place, so." She shrugged and the humor in her voice had almost a depressed tone to it. "I'm tired of being scared."

Keaton let out a small laugh, it was almost comical how he didn't believe they would get to this point. "How did we even get ourselves here, Rory?"

Rory's brain quickly flashed through everything they've been through, all the trauma between them that they were too young to handle. Now that she was looking back, she almost wondered how they hadn't reached this point earlier. "I don't know, Keat. I guess everything finally caught up to us."

Keaton looked forward again, his hand rubbing the top of Sheep's head. "Yeah, I guess so."

#d:keaton #d:keatonrory #keatonrory #keaton #discord

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reputayswift · 5 years

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This is somewhat random and you don't have to answer if you don't want to but which taylor songs remind you of jess x rory?

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want but —*proceeds to ask the question I’ve been waiting my whole life for*”

Conveniently, I just so happen to have an entire playlist lying around that’s full of Literati songs (in chronological order of the events of the show, ya know, casual) that’s like 80% Taylor songs

But I’ll go in depth below the cut!

Enchanted

“Same old tired lonely place” // “The playful conversation starts, counter all your quick remarks like passing notes in secrecy”

Not much new happens in the sleepy town of Stars Hollow, until now. Describes their first meeting, in particular that scene where he writes notes in the margins of her book and catches on to her Oliver Twist reference.

Treacherous

“Can’t decide if it’s a choice getting swept away, I hear the sound of my own voice asking you to stay”

The “turn right” scene! She knows she’s with someone else and that she’s getting into a treacherous situation spending alone time with him, but she can’t stop herself from asking him to extend their trip just a little longer.

Style

“It’s been awhile since I have even heard from you” // “I’ve heard that you’ve been out and about with some other girl”

Jess coming back to Stars Hollow, only to be seen out with Shane. Also references coming back together after “crashing down” and they quite literally had a car crash lol.

State of Grace

“I never saw you coming, and I’ll never be the same” // “We are alone just you and me, up in your room and our slates are clean” // “So you were never a saint and I loved in shades of wrong”

Them meeting up in Luke’s apartment after they first start officially dating. Jess is a “”bad boy”” and Rory strung Dean along, but now their slates are clean and they can be together.

You Are In Love

“We kiss on sidewalks, we fight, and we talk”

Self-explanatory.

The Archer

“I’ve got a hundred thrown out speeches I almost said to you”// “Help me hold onto you”

Jess isn’t accustomed to sticking around and he’s becoming more distant. Also pretty much directly describes the “I have imagined hundreds of different scenarios with a hundred different great last parting lines” monologue.

Haunted

“You and I walk a fragile line, I have known it all this time” // “Stood there and watched you walk away from everything we had”

They were doomed from the start, Dean is trying to get closer to her again, and the events of the party have caused a rift between them.

Forever & Always

“I stare at the phone, he still hasn’t called” // “Here’s to silence that cuts me to the core” // “It rains when you’re here and it rains when you’re gone”

The silent treatment between the party and Rory’s graduation. When they’re apart, they’re caught up on each other, when they’re together, disaster ensues.

Afterglow

“Put you in jail for something you didn’t do” // “Punished you with silence, went off like sirens” // “It’s all me in my head, I’m the one who burned us down”

Jess acknowledging that he’s to blame for blowing up at Rory for his graduation struggles, the first line could also refer to that time Rory assumed he’d gotten in a fight with Dean (Swangate lol).

You’re Not Sorry

“All this time I was wasting hoping you would come around” // “You don’t have to call anymore I won’t pick up the phone” // “You’ve got your share of secrets and I’m tired of being last to know and you’re asking me to listen cause it’s worked each time before”

The graduation phone call, Rory not knowing about him not being able to graduate, the scene where he asks if they can sit down and talk (aka the “I love you” scene)

Death By A Thousand Cuts

“I take the long way home, I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be alright” // “I see you everywhere the only thing we share is his small town” // “I look through the windows of this love, even though we boarded them up”

Jess and Rory running into each other but not being able to talk to each other. Jess confessing his love for her (also big revival energy). Jess leaving again immediately.

All You Had To Do Was Stay

“All I know is that you drove us off the road” // “Why’d you have to go and lock me out when I let you in” // “Here you are now, calling me up, but I don’t know what to say” // “Let me remind you this was all you wanted (you ended it), you were all I wanted, but not like this”

The graduation phone call and “I love you” scenes again. “You were all I wanted, but not like this,” you and me both Rory, you and me both.

The Last Time

“Find myself at your door just like all those times before, I’m not sure how I got there, all roads they lead me here” // “You wear your best apology but I was there to watch you leave, and all those times I let you in just for you to go again” // “This is the last time I say it’s been you all along, this is the last time I let you in my door, this is the last time I won’t hurt you anymore”

QUITE LITERALLY the “run away with me I’m ready now I’ve always loved you!!” scene.

Sad Beautiful Tragic

“Words, how little they mean, when you’re a little too late” // “You’ve got your demons and darling, they all look like me” // “Distance, timing, breakdown, fighting, silence, this train runs off its tracks, kiss me, try to fix it, could you just try and listen? Hang up, give up”

Jess telling Rory he loves her a little too late, seeing a girl he thought was her, a summary of their entire relationship, basically.

Holy Ground

“Back to a first-glance feeling on New York Time, back when you fit in my poems like a perfect rhyme” // “We had this big wide city all to ourselves” // “For the first time I had something to lose” // “Sometimes I wonder how you think about it now and I see your face in every crowd”

Reminiscing on the New York trip, Rory was the first thing Jess had to lose.

I Wish You Would

“I wish you would come back, wish I never hung up the phone like I did” // “We’re a crooked love, in a straight line down, makes you wanna run and hide but it makes you turn right back around”

More reminiscing, Jess was constantly leaving and returning.

The Way I Loved You

“He calls exactly when he says he will, he’s close to my mother, talks business with my father, he’s charming and endearing and I’m comfortable” // “You were wild and crazy, just so frustrating, intoxicating, complicated, got away by some mistake”

Comparing her relationship with Logan to her relationship with Jess.

Hope that answers your question lol!!

#useless rambles with tay #otp: ernest only has lovely things to say about you #gilmore girls #taylor swift #ask #asks #long post #ask hall of fame

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the-desolated-quill · 7 years

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The Girl Who Waited - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Tom MacRae is back for the first time since his Cyberman two parter back in the David Tennant era. That story was pretty decent overall. Much preferred Age Of Steel over Rise Of The Cybermen, but as a whole it’s pretty good as Cyberman stories go. Truth be told I wasn’t expecting much from The Girl Who Waited. I guessed it would be fairly decent, but nothing special.

Boy was I wrong.

MacRae, I didn’t know you had it in you. I LOVE this episode! It’s such a simple and inventive idea as well as a wonderfully constructed, character driven story. I’m in awe.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive on Apalapucia, the second best holiday destination in the universe according to the Doctor. Upon arrival they discover the entire planet is under quarantine due to a plague that kills the two hearted citizens of Apalapucia in one day. As a result, ‘kindness centres’ have been created where the infected citizens are placed in separate time streams, allowing them to live out their lives whilst in communication with their loved ones through giant magnifying glasses. Already I’m hooked. It’s a great setting. I love the minimalist set design and the whole time stream idea. The Handbots are really creepy too. They’re not evil alien invaders. They’re just robots that want to help, but don’t understand that Amy and Rory are aliens and could be harmed by their medicine. Their inability to reason and their insistence that what they’re doing is ‘a kindness’ makes them pretty disconcerting to watch. It’s also a great excuse to keep the Doctor out of the action since he’s vulnerable to the plague because he has two hearts.

So Amy gets trapped in a separate time stream because she presses the wrong button (bit of a contrivance I admit. Why didn’t Rory tell her which button to push when she asked?), and the Doctor and Rory are unable to follow her in because of the quarantine. So they use the TARDIS to break into her time stream, only to discover that they’ve arrived over 30 years too late and Amy is now a fifty something year old woman.

Oops.

Tom MacRae essentially takes the ‘Girl Who Waited’ moniker that Moffat has slapped on Amy to its very extreme. Exploring what would happen if the Doctor made Amy wait for such a long time that no amount of fish fingers and custard can possibly justify it.

Now I’ve mentioned numerous times how much I dislike Amy, citing her severe lack of proper characterisation as well as her often obnoxious attitude. That’s not to say I don’t like Karen Gillan. Quite the opposite in fact. When you actually give her some good material to work with, Gillan is phenomenally good, and The Girl Who Waited proves that without a shadow of a doubt. Okay I admit she’s not 100% convincing as a middle aged woman, but it almost doesn’t matter because of the emotional weight and gravitas to her performance. Not only is this a great showcase for Gillan’s acting ability, it’s also the first time I’ve ever come close to actually empathising with Amy and began seeing her as an actual character as opposed to a Moffat plot device.

Years of isolation and fighting for survival has left Amy feeling bitter and cold. Not only does she resent the Doctor because of his tardiness, but also resents his willingness to play God with her life. He wants to save past Amy, but doing so would mean erasing older Amy from existence. On the surface that seems like a good idea, but older Amy makes a good point that it’s not fair to erase 30 years of her life and pretend it never happened, questioning whether it’s for her benefit or the Doctor’s.

As I said, Gillan is phenomenal in this episode, constructing a character that’s very uptight and full of bile, but is still recognisably Amy. I particularly loved the way she spat out the words ‘Raggedy Man’ at the Doctor with such venom. One of my favourite scenes is where she has a conversation with her past self and is convinced to let the Doctor help her for the sake of Rory. This episode really explores the relationship between Amy and Rory and how much they mean to each other. I especially liked the memory the two Amys use to bridge the two time streams together. If it was Moffat writing this, he’d probably go with the fish fingers and custard shit again, but MacRae chooses the Macarena, the song that was playing when Amy and Rory had their first kiss. It’s little details like this that help to really humanise Amy and gives her relationship with Rory more depth and credibility than it did before.

While Karen Gillan is the undisputed star of this episode, Arthur Darvill also deserves a ton of credit for his performance as Rory. He clearly cares for Amy, but not in that faux action hero way Moffat was trying to shove down our throats in A Good Man Goes To War, which just came across as hollow and unconvincing. Here it’s much more believable because Rory is talking like how an actual person would talk. He regrets losing the chance to grow old with Amy and expresses profound guilt at making Amy wait. He clearly loves Amy very much and it comes across in Darvill’s performance, particularly in his emotional rant about the Doctor’s irresponsibility at not checking Apalapucia’s history before arriving.

Eventually older Amy agrees to help the Doctor, on the condition that they take both past and older Amys with them. I think we all knew that was never going to happen and MacRae doesn’t try to suggest otherwise. The minute past Amy shows up, the flaws in older Amy’s plan immediately become apparent. Which Amy does Rory consider to be his Amy? And how are two Amys supposed to coexist? This is where elements of ageism start to creep in. Rory gravitates more toward younger Amy because he’s more familiar with her, and this doesn’t go unnoticed by older Amy. So yeah, I suspected that older Amy was due for the chop at some point toward the end. What I didn’t suspect was how they were going to remove older Amy from the picture. Young Amy gets knocked unconscious by a Handbot, Rory gallantly carries her into the TARDIS, older Amy rushes to join them... and the Doctor slams the door in her face.

I love episodes that cast the Doctor in an unsavoury light. While he is a good person who cares deeply for the lives of others, he’s not a saint or a superhero. That’s what makes him so interesting and why he’s endured as a character for so long. While he’ll always try to find a peaceful solution to problems, he’s not above getting his hands dirty. The Girl Who Waited shows the Doctor at his most insidious. Blatantly lying to Rory and older Amy and manipulating them to achieve his own goals. He’s vowed not only to save Amy, but also to fix everything. To put everything back the way it was by any means necessary. And that’s exactly what he does. He has good intentions, but his actions are shocking to the point where it borders on cruel, even going so far as to convince Rory and himself that older Amy isn’t real. On a second viewing, the extent of the Doctor’s manipulation becomes very apparent and it’s really a testament to Matt Smith’s performance that he’s able to trick the audience into believing his sincerity. He really tones down his trademark goofiness in favour of a more subtle, multi-layered performance that makes you realise just how cold and calculating the Doctor really is at his core. We’ve seen him manipulate his enemies many times, but the ease with which he’s able to manipulate his own friends without even so much as a guilty twinge is chilling to say the least.

I do however have one problem with how this is resolved, but I’m actually going to save that for the next episode because that’s when it really becomes apparent.

In my opinion, The Girl Who Waited is up there with The Doctor’s Wife as strong contender for best episode of Series 6. It’s an emotional character piece that provides some much needed nuance for Amy as well as providing a very frightening insight into just how far the Doctor is prepared to go for the so called greater good. A truly impressive effort from Tom MacRae.

#the girl who waited #tom macrae #doctor who #eleventh doctor #matt smith #amy pond #karen gillan #rory williams #arthur darvill #steven moffat #bbc #review #spoilers

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iamsaha · 4 years

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Hourglass

I love my wife. Always will.

This is my story.

January 1, 1990

I’m born at 8:33 P.M. with a head covered in brown hair. I’m wet and gross and covered in bodily fluids. Despite that, I can hear the doctor telling my parents that they’ve got a beautiful baby boy now. He could have just said ‘baby boy’. My parents would have been just as happy.

Just like always, I don’t cry immediately. I just stare at the doctor’s stupid face. Then, when he smiles and makes his face more stupid looking, I start crying. Doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it. It’s scary every time. That man should not be delivering children.

The rest of that day is free of any incidents but they keep my mom in the hospital for the night since she bled quite a bit giving birth to me. She insisted that she was fine but the stupid faced doctor knew better so they listened. I don’t care. I don’t mind that I am completely unable to move on my own, that I am entirely dependent on adults to do anything besides shit myself. I just lay in my bassinet happy with the fact that my future wife would be delivered in two weeks at a hospital a hundred miles away.

Her name would be Rory.

January 16, 1990

Rory is born at 7:49 A.M. She’s born bald but she’ll be a brunette in a month or two. Her mom bleeds more than mine did and dies because of it. That’s something that Rory will talk about in therapy when she starts going at the age of 19 at my insistence. Her single father did a magnificent job raising her. Even got his sister to help for womanly matters. But it wasn’t the same as having another parent. It’s a hole Rory had for much of her life. A hole that she learned to live with but never truly went away. Not until we have our children. But that’s later.

December 15, 2007

I get accepted to Yale and I can’t contain my excitement. My grandfather had gone there, then my dad, and now me. There wasn’t any pressure on me from my dad to follow in those same footsteps but I, at a young age, decided that I would. That was a significant amount of pressure on its own. I didn’t even know I’d be meeting Rory at Yale. The knowledge that I had accomplished a life long goal filled me with energy and I run around the house. Our dog, Tito, joins me in running. He doesn’t understand why I’m so happy but he’s eager to join in on my celebrations. Just happy to be there. Relieving this moment is one of the best parts of coming back.

A few hours later that happy high is forced to come crashing down when my girlfriend, Abby, breaks up with me. She had also applied to Yale in the hopes that we’d go together but she had been rejected. After I suggested long distance, not even considering going to the local university that we had both gotten accepted to, she ended it. She wasn’t willing to try long distance and didn’t feel right asking me to stay when I so obviously wanted to go. I’m heartbroken of course. My first love. A first love that had lasted for two years. A love that I foolishly thought would last my whole life. I had dreamed Abby and I would be one of those old, old couples you’d meet and be surprised to learn they were high school sweethearts.

She’s the first of many dreams to be burned. But for the reality that is Rory Foxhorn to become a part of my life, Abby had to go. I understand that now. Still. The break up stings me to my core every time.

August 12, 2008

Number 5 in my top five favorite days. It’s move-in day at my dormitory. Nothing special save for the teary goodbye with my parents. It’s especially hard since I’m their only son. My dad jokes and says they’ll have to stay in a hotel for the night and cry the rest of their tears before actually starting the 10 hour drive home. I now know - after finding out for the first time at my college graduation - that that is exactly what they did. Not so much to cry. But to process their feelings for a little while so they wouldn’t do it on the road.

That evening a Freshman Mixer is held for all the new students to meet and potentially make new friends. That’s what makes today so special. Of the dozens I meet in my eagerness to talk to as many people as possible, four end up being important to me. Noah Terese, Tony Anders, Celeste Lopez, and Rory Foxhorn.

I meet Tony and Celeste by the pizza. Tony and I reach for a slice, the last slice of sausage and pepperoni, at the same time. I shrug and say he can take it. He shakes his head and offers it to me. Celeste laughs and steals it for herself. We start talking and I learn that the two were dating and had been doing so since sophomore year of high school. A memory of Abby stabs me but I suppress it. We talk for longer and learn we have some classes together. After exchanging numbers and promising to hang out, the two leave. I’m still not ready to head to my dorm so I wander for a little bit longer.

Noah calls out to me and challenges me to ping pong. I accept. Then lose. I challenge him. I lose again. I challenge him again and he smiles and nods, just humoring me. I win. Intrigued, he challenges me to another round. I win. We make eye contact. One more round. Winner takes all. There wasn’t a prize. But the winner takes all.

Noah wins.

We had drawn onlookers by this point and they all cheer. I smile and shake his hand, telling him I’d kick his ass next time. We also exchange numbers so that we can arrange for the next ass-kicking, and I decide to finally head to my dorm that my parents had so lovingly helped furnish. I barely get out of the bulk of the crowd when I see her. The most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on.

Brunette. Round face. Cute ears that noticeably, but not obnoxiously, stick out. In shape but in a normal sort of way. Not athletic looking is what I mean.

“Ah man is it over?” She says to me. “I kept seeing people leave on my way here!”

I realize she’s talking to me. “Huh? Oh no. It’s not.”

“Thank God!” She beams. “I got caught up putting my damn desk together and didn’t notice the time. I really thought I’d miss out. Didn’t even get the desk built!”

“Nah the party’s still going.” I hold my hand out. “My name’s Tommy.”

“Hi Tommy.” She shakes my hand. “Rory.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“I only came out here for a little breathing room.” I say. Her eyes are hazel. “But I haven’t eaten yet. Wanna join me?”

“Sure!”

My stomach is fit to bursting but I cram two more slices of pizza into myself along with a cup of soda. I don’t notice since my conversation with her flows so well. It just happens. In about two hours anyone looking would say we’ve been friends forever.

“Sorry to hear your girlfriend broke up with you.” She says. “Mine broke up with me too.”

My heart sinks. “Oh? Did she have the same reason as Abby?”

“Oh shit I didn’t mean my girlfriend.” Rory smacks her forehead. “I meant my boyfriend. Like. I was thinking ‘oh my relationship ended the same way’ and ended up saying ‘mine broke up with me’ instead. I don’t know why my brain did that.”

My heart rises. “Ah okay.”

She looks around. “I think it’s actually ending now.”

I notice that janitors had arrived and were beginning to clean things up. “Damn.”

“Yeah. Damn.”

I decide to take a shot. “Hey want me to help you put that desk together?”

“Would you?” She smiles and I get my reward before I even put the desk together. Lucky me. It isn’t fair for someone to be this pretty. She smirks at me.

“That’s all you’ll be doing by the way. Putting my desk together.”

She was flirting. “I don’t have any ulterior motives. If that’s what you’re implying.”

“Maybe.” She shrugs. “You seem really nice. But you can never tell with boys.” She smirks again. “Y’all can be pretty saucy.”

“So can y’all.”

“True!” She turns and begins walking. “Let’s go! I’m gonna have to sneak you in. No boys aloud in the girls dorm after 11.”

“You live on the ground floor?”

“Nope. First.” She says. “But I’ve got a tree by the balcony. Classic rom-com set up.”

“Rom-com, eh?”

“Yeah.” She playfully punches my shoulder. “The com part is you thinking there’ll be a rom section.”

“Rom can just be me putting your desk together.”

“We’d be the first g rated rom-com.”

“Fine by me.”

“Me too.” Then she winks at me. I look forward to this moment every time and it fills me with joy still. So much power in one little wink. “For now.”

August 26, 2008

It takes me two weeks to ask Rory out on a date. Despite that, our friends all assumed that we were either an item or would be an item. We apparently gave off that feeling each time we all hung out as a group. In hindsight, I now know that to be true. Not that we flirted relentlessly (though we did do that). It’s the small things. Buying snacks. Saving seats. Casual touching. Easy laughter. Even easier teasing. Knowing the limit without being told.

“Took you long enough.” She says. “I’ve been waiting!”

“You could have asked!”

“Do you really think I could manage that?”

“Nope.” I smile. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Anywhere with you.”

“Juliano’s.”

“Nah I’m not feeling Italian.”

“You said anywhere!”

“I lied.” She smirks. That damn smirk. “But really. Anywhere.”

September 20, 2008

Number four in my top five favorite days.

She’s studying and I’m with her. She enjoys having company while doing things, whether or not the company is doing the same thing. She says it’s like having a dog around. It’s not studying. But looking at it every now and then or, at the least, hearing it breathing provides comfort. I’m more than happy to be that presence for her since I get something really nice to look at.

“You can study too, you know?”

“Can’t focus with people around.”

“Then you can go.” She smiles. “You don’t have to keep me company. I’ll study with Celeste or something.”

“I’m better than Celeste.”

“Fair.” She says. “But not as good as Noah.”

“You’re just saying that because he’s gay and you want a gay best friend.”

“Yeah! And I can talk about cute boys with him. I can’t do that with you.”

“Sure you can.”

“You wouldn’t care if I talked about a cute boy I saw?”

“I mean there’s a limit.” I say. “But if you just say something like ‘Hey that barista today was really cute’ or something like that I wouldn’t mind.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I know I’m not the only cute guy you know.” I say. “As long as you don’t sound super horny and act like you wanna fuck them.”

“That’s fair.” Rory says. She nods her head in the direction of the computers.

“What do you think of him?”

There were three guys there, only one of which I’d consider attractive. “Blondie?Yeah. I’d give him an eight.”

“Me too.” She says. “What about his buddies?”

“A five and a one.”

“A one?” She laughs. “Tommy that’s so mean!”

“He’s a one to me.” I say. “Not saying he’s a one to everyone.”

“Still. I’d say he’s a four.”

“You’re very generous.”

“I’m fair.” She says. “Okay point out a girl you think is cute.”

I point at her.

“Other than me.”

I pretend to look around. Then point at her.

“Tommy!” She laughs. “I’m serious.”

“Of all the girls that I can see right now, you are the prettiest.”

“Fine then name someone you think is pretty.”

“Celeste.”

“Tony is lucky.”

“Not as lucky as me.”

“I could never do this with my ex.”

“Same. Wanna know why?”

“Why?”

“You and I love each other.”

She blushes.

“What?”

“You just said you love me.”

“I did.”

“And that I love you.”

“Am I wrong?”

“No.”

“Knew it.” I smile and kiss her ear. My favorite thing to do. “Say it.”

“I love you, Tommy.”

“I love you, Rory.”

March 3, 2009

We have our first major fight. It resolves quickly. I still hate watching it. I hate seeing her so agitated and I hate being the cause of it.

“How hard is it for you to text me when you make it to work?!”

“I just forget sometimes!” I shout back. “I’m not purposefully stopping myself.”

“I’ve asked you a million times.” She says. “It makes me so fucking anxious just sitting there waiting.”

“Rory what are the chances of something happening to me on the way to work?”

“It’s not zero!”

“Nothing will happen.”

“You can’t say that for sure.”

“I’m a better driver than you!”

“AND OTHER PEOPLE ARE BAD AT IT!” She screams. Her ears go red when she’s angry. “That’s not what this is fucking about, okay?!”

“Then what is it?!”

“It’s about you not listening to a basic request. You do this simple thing and it’ll give me peace of mind. Can’t you give me that?!”

“I can keep trying. I swear I’m trying.” I say. “But you need to stop accusing me like this! Why would I intentionally hurt you?!”

“I know you’re not doing it on purpose. Doesn’t stop it from hurting. Doesn’t stop me from jumping to the worst possible conclusion.”

“Okay. Okay. I understand.” I say and step closer. She lets me hug her. “I’ll be better.”

“Thank you.”

“This anxiousness of yours needs to be addressed, though.”

She’s silent for a long time. “I know.”

“I get anxious too. We can both get help.”

“Anxious peas in a pod.”

“Cute imagery.”

“Yeah.” She hugs me tightly.

I counted it. After tonight, I forget to text her a total of 15 times. We were together for 65 years.

June 25, 2012

Number three in my top five favorite days.

My family, Rory’s family, and all our closest friends are standing behind me in the backyard of Rory’s childhood home. Most have their phones or cameras out, ready to take pictures. Two of the professionals I hired are to the side, away from the main group. Tony and Celeste, escorting Rory to what she thought was a normal summer barbecue, open the backdoor.

“Oh my god!” She yells when she sees all of us. Then she sees me get on one knee. “OH MY GOD!”

“Rory Foxhorn,” I say when she gets close to me. “I love you more than I ever thought possible.”

“Oh my god.”

“You are perfect for me in every way. I don’t care how cliche it sounds. You are my soul mate and I’ve known it for years now.”

“Oh my god.”

“Will you marry me?”

“Oh my god.”

“Is that yes?”

“YES!” She screams, barely holding still while I push the engagement ring onto her finger. She latches on to me when I stand up. “YES!”

June 25, 2013

Number two in my top five favorite days.

I watch as Rory’s dad walks her down the aisle towards me. Her shoulders are bare with lace sleeves stretching just past her elbow. The rest of the white dress contoured her body perfectly until her thighs, where it gracefully flared out to drape down to the floor. It left a minimal trail since she didn’t want one that dusted the church floor as she walked up the aisle. Her hair cascaded, yes cascaded, down just past her shoulders. I could see her ears and it made me happy to see that she was wearing the cheap earrings I had gotten her for our first anniversary. It had been all I could afford. She had gotten upset that I had spent even that meager amount.

“You look handsome.�� She whispers when she stands in front of me.

“So do you.”

“Thanks.” She giggles and looks at Noah, who is officiating our wedding. “You can begin, Noah.”

April 5, 2015 and July 8, 2017

Number one in my top five favorite days.

They’re the birthdays of our two kids, a girl and a boy, Charlie and Juno. Of course they’re going to be equal.

If I thought Rory was beautiful before she became a mother… What she was after couldn’t compare. The gentleness she used whenever picking up our children. The strict, but affectionate, extension of her pointer finger whenever they got in trouble. The laugh she had just for them whenever they did something cute. The look she’d give me whenever Charlie did or said something that’d prove her belief that she was my clone. The separate look she’d give me whenever Juno did or said something that’d prove her belief that he was my clone as well. She could find a similarity to me in every little thing they did. She claimed it wasn’t fair. But I saw the delight in her eyes whenever her children acted like their dad. It was the very same delight in mine whenever they acted like their mom.

August 9, 2034

Move-in day for Charlie. Rory cried in front of her. I only teared up and refused to let go when Charlie pulled away from the hug goodbye.

Rory had to drive on the way home. I didn’t want to get a hotel.

August 11, 2036

Move-in day for Juno. Rory had to drive on the way home again.

I really don’t like crying in hotels.

October 3, 2072

Rory gets diagnosed with cancer. I don’t like paying attention to this day. But that’s part of the deal. I have to experience the worst parts as well.

She still smiles for me. But I know what her face looks like when I’m not looking. I’m glad I never actually see it.

November 12, 2073

My Rory is gone.

November 13, 2073

“Ah. Welcome back, Thomas.”

“I prefer Tommy.” I say.

“Did you get your fill this time?” He asks. “Are you ready to move on?”

“I’d like to go again, please.”

“It won’t be any different.”

“I don’t want it to be.”

Look me in the eye and say you’d be able to move on from a picture perfect life like mine. Tell me you’d say no to heaven.

He sighs. Then smiles at me knowingly. “Confirm with me one more time. You wish to repeat it all. Every moment from the second you are born to the second you die. It will be exactly the same. You will be an audience member of your own life, feeling every second of it as if it’s all new but unable to control your actions.”

“Yes.”

“As you wish. I will see you in 83 years.”

I love my wife. Always will.

-Saha

0 notes

rcrantz · 7 years

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Reviewing Doctor Who: What Have We Learned, Class?

Now that I’ve watched every Doctor Who there is to watch, you may be surprised to learn that I have some opinions! So, since you’re all here, I suppose I may as well share.

The Classic Era. You know that old cliche about the one constant characteristic of Doctor Who being change? It’s absolutely correct. It started its life as a low-budget show about a grumpy old man with a very inaccurate time machine and became . . . a lot of different things over the years. But it started to feel like Doctor Who pretty early on in its run--much like the character of the Doctor, the themes and faces change, but there is a core idea that never quite goes away.

As such, it’s hard to give the classic era one defining trait--each Doctor is very different from most of the others--but I think it’s safe to say that characters are handled differently. In the classic era, character arcs are less of a thing. We seldom meet the friends and family of our companions, and there are very few character-driven stories. That’s not to say there aren’t excellent characters and excellent character dynamics, but the focus is generally elsewhere. (There are, of course, exceptions.)

The interesting thing is how casual this makes some of the companions’ departures. Modern Who won’t let a companion leave without giving them a whole climactic episode (and Moffat won’t let a companion leave without having them pretend to leave six times, then have them seem to leave forever only to come back and travel through space and time with some random interstellar badass); in contrast, many of the companion departures in classic Who are fairly abrupt. The Doctor ditches Susan so she can get married to the dude she was hanging out with; he leaves Sarah Jane Smith in the wrong city because humans aren’t allowed on Gallifrey and he’s been summoned; Nyssa decides that she’d rather stay and help plague victims than keep traveling; and so on. Sometimes they decide to leave, sometimes the Doctor leaves them behind, but the show seldom dwells.

On the one hand, if you don’t like a companion this is fantastic. Classic Who relies much less on continuity (due, I think, largely to the format): if a character is gone, chances are we won’t hear about them again. But it does mean that some interesting character dynamics aren’t fully explored.

All told, I had a lot of fun with the classic era, and I think a lot of it is worth revisiting. Due to the episodic nature it’s pretty easy to just drop in wherever; you’ll probably figure out what’s going on without too much trouble. (I think Romana is the only companion who benefits from a bit of explanation, and even then all you need to say is “Romana is also a Time Lord.”)

The Davies Era. When I started watching, of course, Davies was all there was. I think I picked it up right after the End of Time had aired, before Moffat’s era started. Davies loves his character drama (see also my “rose is sad” tag), and lingers a lot on the effect the Doctor has on the lives he touches--and on the lives of their family and friends. Though this sometimes goes spectacularly badly (see: Father’s Day), for the most part I appreciate it. The companions feel more real, and it adds a layer of complexity to the Doctor’s character and his relationship with his companions.

He also likes big explosive finales where the fate of the world/universe is in balance, and meta-arcs which aren’t so much story arcs as they are a series of references that make you go “ah-ha” when you finally hit the finale. I actually like that, for the most part: if the finale is bad, you don’t feel that the whole arc is ruined; if it’s good, it adds a little bit of extra satisfaction to the resolution.

Early on in Davies’ run, the Doctor was usually an unknown character. He later starts running into people he’s encountered before, and of course the Daleks have a personal vendetta, but only once (during a Moffat-penned episode) during the Davies era does the Doctor save the day by just saying “I’m the Doctor, look me up.”

The Davies era is still firmly in the classic style: the Doctor and his companions live on the TARDIS. In the modern era they now visit their homes with some regularity, but they’re still primarily travelers. On some level, even if they’re expecting to be able to go home again, they give up their lives to travel with the Doctor.

The Moffat Era. I was actually pretty stoked to hear Moffat was the new showrunner when time rolled around, because his episodes thus far had all been top-notch. And while doing this rewatch I did not dislike it nearly as much as I’d remembered. So why was it frustrating my first time through?

I think most of it is that Moffat likes to set up interesting mysteries without having a good resolution in mind. Sometimes he simply fails to resolve them, sometimes the resolution is a cheap cop-out, and sometimes it’s just unsatisfying. And the seasons are now woven into the meta-plot to some degree or other, making it harder to extricate.

Moffat’s meta-plots are more involved than Davies’ were, which also means they’re less subtle. They will regularly feature brief segments, usually at the end of an episode, where the ongoing mystery happens: In Series 5, it would be a shot of a Crack in Time; in Series 8, we had Missy; etc., etc. I didn’t like most of these meta-plots, as you can probably see from the fact that I gave most of their conclusions relatively poor grades.

Moffat is also much more focused on the Doctor as a character, and especially early on it’s focused on the Doctor as the Most Important Being In The Universe. This leads to some really goofy situations (the Pandorica Opens), and there’s a lot more reliance on “I’m the Doctor, look me up” as a resolution to plot devices. (There’s also a lot more reliance on “time travel!!!” as a resolution, which Doctor Who actually usually tries to avoid, I think because it’s usually not as clever as Moffat thinks it is.) He tries to back away from this later on, but there are still some lingering traces. (He literally makes the Doctor the President of Earth. This is wrong on so many levels.)

It also seems Moffat does not particularly like two-part episodes. So, so many of these stories I’ve had the thought on initially watching them that “if this had a second part, it would have been great.” The pacing feels rushed. Worse, often when we do have two-parters, they frequently follow the “part one is a completely different story from part two” formula. This is fine occasionally, but often it makes it feel like, rather than resolving the cliffhanger from the previous episode, we’re just assuming that was resolved off camera and we’ve got a new, related story going on. 45-ish minutes is not a very long time to tell a good story; it’s doable, but many of the stories want us to care about characters we’ve hardly had time to get to know.

For some reason partway through Amy and Rory’s time on the TARDIS, Moffat decided that his companions now lived primarily at home, and the Doctor only stops by occasionally for Adventure Purposes. I don’t think this decision made anything better.

Still, though I have many critiques of the Moffat era, it’s still Doctor Who. It produced some fantastic episodes, and Twelve is probably my second favorite modern Doctor (despite a seriously rocky start).

Stray Thoughts. Doctor Who experiments. I think that’s at the heart of the show. Sometimes those experiments fall flat, and sometimes they accomplish great things, but despite being a show with a strong formula, it’s never afraid to innovate. It’s true we’d probably have missed out on some of the less enjoyable stories if the show had been more conservative, but we also wouldn’t have stories like Midnight. (Hell, we probably wouldn’t even be here. I don’t know if I would have made the decision to have the Doctor transform from a grumpy old man into a bumbling clown way back in the day, and I think that change, more than anything else, helped bring us to the modern era.) It’s a show with the spirit of an explorer, and even when it falls flat it doesn’t diminish the effort.

By the time this gets published, it’ll only be a few months til the Christmas special airs, which will be the end of the Moffat era and the end of Twelve, and very probably will be our first “official” glimpse at Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor. The show’s about to change--that’s what it does. That’s why it’s still here, fifty-odd years later. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

#doctor who

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falkenscreen · 5 years

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Gilmore Girls

Gilmore Girls is better than everything else that’s out now, so let’s talk about it.

The show, still deservedly a favourite among very many, has a conspicuous and especial place in the lives of many a Gilly, this author no less. Having watched the now classic (non-sequentially) following its release, when I was just a few years shy of Rory, I returned to it in 2019 to watch it the whole way through, now a few years shy of Lorelai.

The difference in perspective, and all that which still resonates to boot, is astounding.

Somehow the ending wasn’t ruined for me, nor A Year in the Life which we’ll get to later. I’m far from the first guy to write about or fall madly in love with Gilmore Girls and if you’re not listening to Kevin T. Porter’s and Demi Adejuyigbe’s Gilmore Guys then you’re really missing out. Take these as the reflections of a most ardent fan who came to the show relatively afresh, did a Luke, went all in and found something that still sets a standard in scripting, character-building and female-driven storytelling, for which we are sorely lacking and still so grateful to Amy.

Spoilers herein for Gilmore Girls and A Year in the Life and, just so it’s out of the way; Jess, obviously. Dean quickly became a one-note boyfriend (who cheats), Logan (yes he did grow as a person) never near actively enough supported Rory in furthering her aspirations unlike others around her and Jess was the only partner who both held a candle to her intellectually and didn’t let Rory coast on her least forgiving qualities. I’m not counting Marty.

First thing’s first – story and plot. More often forgotten than not, they’re two different things. Gilmore Girls, as it was hurriedly pitch in a last ditch attempt to sell a show to the network, is about a mother and daughter who are more like best friends. Whenever it’s just the pair interacting the show was at its far and above best and never got tiring, not once, and was never as strong when Yale split them up or the revival, atypically and so consequentially, chose to see Rory and Lorelai apart for whole stretches.

Exceptionally cast, as good as Alexis Bledel was its Lauren Graham who ultimately drove the show and she never gets near enough credit for her nuanced portrayal of one of the most complex characters in modern television. Just look at the wordless despair, affection and resolve that passes across her eyes in the seconds before she steels herself for the proposal and season 5 cliff-hanger. Ask yourself how many performers can achieve such a range of emotion without dialogue in so few beats; there are few.

Significantly, mother and daughter besties are actually not what the show is about. What’s really going on is the tragedy of intergenerational disharmony as the mother who rejected her wealthy upbringing for a more regular life sees her daughter in turn rebel against her for the elite world she abandoned. With story and plot elements as strong as this, there was much to work with.

The spectre of a 16 year old Lorelai with a little bundle rocking up on the porch of the Independence Inn pleading for any job hangs over the show’s entire run. There’s been a fair few critiques over the years that Gilmore Girls is elitist or insular for its focus on small-town Connecticut which for many who haven’t been there can appear like a privileged haven.

Gilmore Girls is more accurately about a young woman and mother who didn’t get the support she needed from her family and set out to make a life where she wasn’t reliant on anyone but herself. The show, thankfully absent hackneyed flashbacks to supplement a narrative which didn’t need padding out, did however proffer us one glimpse into Lorelai’s early years establishing that Richard, amidst a great disdain for what was then very scandalous, insisted Lorelai marry the useless Christopher.

Anyone who thinks Lorelai’s circumstance or Rory’s for that matter reflects a privileged position needs to check it and on the matter of Connecticut there are many families who arrived there far from being a Richard or Emily, this author’s included; it being as diverse a place as the show’s myriad of characters suggests.

Now to Rory. Many (most) viewers were disappointed in the arc she undertakes and continues well into A Year in the Life. Yes it’s frustrating when you see characters you love take paths you’d rather they didn’t (those hoping for a happier end to Jaime’s story can relate) but her simply being on this trajectory as disappointing as it is isn’t a fair criticism of the show in and of itself and is one it has been unreasonably burdened with. For those who hate to see elitist Rory, it bears acknowledging the subtle parallel the series draws with Lorelai’s own (if more widely relatable) snobbery; think just how many times she judged or forewarned of someone simply for their being rich.

Those who were sad to not see Rory (or Lorelai) grow in key respects at least until the very end of season 7 point to this as a flaw in the series. This mistakes however the important distinction, one drawn as rarely as between story and plot, as regards character building and character growth. For the volumes we come to learn about Rory and Lorelai they conversely (and uncommonly for a character-driven series and moreover one of this length) don’t grow very much. We may not like it but hey, it’s a fact of life and often people don’t change, sometimes even after 10 years. It’s an unusual, dramatically refreshing theme befitting a drama and yes, Gilmore Girls is a drama. Like The West Wing given the volume of dialogue and hilarity it remains funnier than most comedies yet is still at the core a coming of age drama.

It is a nominally rare thing to see sustained character growth in this most distinct of series, later rendering Emily’s arc in the four most recent instalments all the more resonant. When Lorelai cautions Lane in season seven (the only era of the show when overwrought story beats infamously overtook character-driven drama) that she had best prepare for a circumstance where Lane’s children embrace the religiosity Lane rejected, it could fairly be highlighted as an unnecessary meta intrusion or an annoying ‘state the moral’ moment. It is however one of the only occasions emblematic of explicit character growth, coinciding as it happens with Rory having to contend with her most consequential instance of professional rejection. For being distinctive it resonated all the stronger in a series that would rather grow its characters and their world than the characters themselves; in modern terms a relatively novel and here welcomely idiosyncratic approach to storytelling emphasising bittersweet and very relatable aspects of our lives and interpersonal relationships.

The realm of Star’s Hollow being invested with a great deal more personality than most fictional settings, Lorelai and Rory’s narratives notably ground to a halt in Summer to see a musical tableaux of the town. If admittedly outstaying the welcome, it was a nice opportunity to say a farewell to the only significant character herein which didn’t get any dialogue. An affectionate ode throughout to small town life, it was well to remind us that every stop on the highway has a Taylor and Kirk, though rarely ones so lively and repeatedly entertaining; even if Kirk towards the end did go over the top.

Who never went over the top was Melissa McCarthy; it being a special pleasure to see her in pre-mega fame mode sharing her best moments alongside Yanic Truesdale, as well as a few hints at the more exaggerated roles she would later take on in some of Sookie’s most strident moments. The pop culture references were too a joy for any junkie; with the show (take note modern cinema) graciously never skipping whole beats to let one-liners or hark backs sink in, instead trusting that we’d get it or appreciate the resonance nonetheless.

This was conversely one of the flaws of A Year in the Life; but for allusions to Game of Thrones and a couple of other tidbits there wasn’t much acknowledgement in the scripting choices that this world had aged at all. There still being the ‘no cell phones’ sign in Luke’s after all these years, as fond a recall as it is, was just too much a stretch; on par with the infamous Game of Thrones-esque (yes Gilmore Girls did it first) roll credits moment when Rory delivers her manuscript.

For all its flaws and clustered cameos the addendums did however bring back Jason Stiles for a dignified farewell. A character very short-changed by his series’ conclusion (and lack thereof), when written out there was never a sense of closure like that proffered his contemporaries which fans indeed got ten years later.

And this brings us to the much touted ‘last four words.’ “Mum,” “Yes,” “I’m pregnant.”

It’s both a lacklustre and exceptional end in respects. Sure it would have had more of the intended resonance those ten years ago when Rory, mirroring Lorelai’s earlier experience, found herself at a stage of her life still yet to realise many of her goals that a newborn child would then and here implicitly affect. It still bears its impact but like much of A Year in the Life’s recurrent storytelling and character motifs it doesn’t resonate as desired and as it would have that era ago within a world and set of people who have now inevitably aged.

The theme and consequences of unplanned pregnancies has also already been widely explored in the series between the experiences of Lorelai, Christopher, Lane and, most unnecessarily, Luke. It’s far from improbable that any one or all of these figures, including Rory, would experience an unplanned pregnancy, yet when it came to introducing April the familiar story beats had already been well played out, as distinct from the more intimate and procedural arc with which Lane’s pregnancy is treated.

Rory’s announcement does however reflect the core theme of the series in children and parents, despite intentions and efforts made, replicating their forebear’s cycles. Despite it being foreshadowed that Logan is the father, he being evidently modelled on Christopher, here the show does not go for a bittersweet note but a heartfelt, cautionary one. As the series repeatedly reminds us, it’s far from unfortunate that children have similar experiences to their parents, or indeed that families continue to procreate. It’s just that, as when Rory dropped out of Yale, whatever happens in children’s lives may or very likely will still happen in spite of anything and everything a parent may want or try, and we’re all just along for the ride.

A Year in the Life’s highs and lows notwithstanding, it was well worth the hours to spend that much more time with our girls and loved ones (the most hilarious Paris’ return was probably the highlight) as it was over so many months and years. If you’re craving the qualities and depth that so much modern storytelling is so lacking, look no further.

Gilmore Girls is now streaming on Netflix

#xl #film/tv #netflix #gilmore girls #lauren graham #alexis bledel #melissa mccarthy #yanic truesdale #amy sherman-palladino

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irisbleufic · 7 years

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You've discussed over time on this blog the two Hamlet productions you saw in 2005, and both sound like they were mind-blowing on the Hamlet/Horatio front. Would you be able to list ALL the Hamlet productions you've seen over time so that I can look up reviews? I'm curious if they all influenced the way you write Hamlet fic, or if it was just those two slashy ones?

Hello, anon! I’d be more than happy to do that, absolutely.

Here’s the run-down of productions (minus the four or five very minor amateur or community ones I’ve seen at Ren faires and local theater festivals) I’ve seen, and I’ll try to include a brief commentary on what I found most striking (and most useful, at least from the perspective of writing What You Don’t See / At This Chance ‘Verse) in each one:

1) Boston Shakespeare On the Common, July/August 2005 (Jeffrey Donovan as Hamlet; Pedro Pascal as Horatio)

This is the first live production of Hamlet I ever saw. It was rendered as a modern police-state setting with a ‘90s feel. I got to see it twice before the run ended; the reason I went back a second time was, honestly, because it reflected back at me the exact thing I saw in the text when I first read it as an eleventh-grader (short version of that story: I read the ending of the play during a free-reading period of English class and ended up sobbing into my book by the time I hit “and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest”; Mrs. Piper was very, very shocked, but she brought me the box of tissues from her desk, and this is why I always make sure to offer virtual tissues to readers who tell me in their comments that they’re crying). Whether the decision to have Hamlet and Horatio constantly touching and clinging to each other in crucial moments of high emotion was down to Donovan and Pascal or to the director, I am not sure, but these actors had such stunning chemistry in the way they spun the subtext that the effect on me was about the same as reading that ending for the first time. This was one of the few productions I’ve ever seen that had Hamlet's “tables” as a literal Moleskine notebook he carried around perpetually in his inner jacket pocket, and it tore me apart to see Horatio attempt to bodily prevent him from dueling Laertes. In that moment, Hamlet removed his jacket and shoved his tables at Horatio even as Horatio had him by the shoulders, shoved them against his chest, over his heart, this is my story; it is yours, it is ours. This production used “our philosophy,” and I was still an undergraduate at the time. I didn’t know that textual variant existed, because every printed edition I had ever read had featured “your philosophy,“ and I had not yet made a study of the various surviving early versions of the plays. Pascal’s Horatio is still the most heartbroken (and heartbreaking) I have ever seen during the death scene. So close they could have kissed, looked like maybe the tension was meant to convey the significance of its absence; gut-wrenching tears, lips pressed to Hamlet’s forehead. My inner eleventh-grader was relieved to know such a reading was valid enough to stage, because she was at the time still quite deep in the closet. This production also had one of the two most canny, strong-willed Ophelias I have ever seen. She drowned upstage in an actual pool, and there was one scene between set-switches, after someone pulled her body from the water, where she walked across the stage with slow, eerie dripping-wet majesty. This is where my ghost!Ophelia comes from.

2) English Touring Theatre, November 2005 (Ed Stoppard as Hamlet; Sam Hazeldine as Horatio)

I was in my first term of graduate school in York, UK when the production came to town. Still high on the Boston Common production, which I’d seen only a few months before, I snagged the first student-price ticket I could get my hands on. It was staged in spare blackbox style with only a few tables, chairs, and other items as props, but the costuming was firmly 16th-century. Before the production, the director spoke to us about their decision to speed up line-delivery to as close to normal day-to-day conversational speech as possible, and he also spoke of how they felt that, at its core, Hamlet is really a story of two families (Gertrude, Old Hamlet / Claudius, Hamlet; Polonius, Laertes, Ophelia), their relationships to each other over time, and a series of stunning failures of communication between them. I was excited about this, as I have a lot to say on the subject of Hamlet, Ophelia, and Laertes growing up together in a context where they might as well have been siblings (and how Gertrude’s and the King’s expectations regarding Hamlet and Ophelia would surely have pushed him to court her even if his heart wasn’t in it, which it clearly isn’t; I maintain that most of Hamlet’s actions surrounding Ophelia are driven by the perceptions and expectations of others, and I truly hate that, because Ophelia deserved so much better). When “our philosophy” passed Stoppard’s lips instead of “your philosophy,” it’s pretty much a wonder I didn’t choke right there in the theater. Stoppard’s Hamlet and Hazeldine’s Horatio had a level of intimacy and easy physical contact that, if not matched, certainly came close to the one I’d seen between Donovan and Pascal in Boston. Stoppard’s Hamlet is the closest I’ve ever seen to the Hamlet in my head, in both physical appearance and mannerisms (dark hair, very pale eyes, a kind of self-deprecating, wry cleverness that lacked the disturbing, aggressive flashes of temper I’ve seen in a number of other interpretations of the role). Hazeldine’s appearance and mannerisms as Horatio, therefore, fell neatly in line; this is why I tend to portray Horatio as a ginger. The death scene, too, was just about on par with what I’d seen in the Boston production. As you can imagine, I went back to see this one a second time, too. The period aesthetic of this one, as well as the physical appearance and mannerisms of the actors, spliced neatly with the elements of the Boston production I’d already adopted. When I write about these characters, the SOTC and ETS productions have had the most significant influence. I even discuss this in the header notes on AO3, because when I run Google searches on these two productions? It turns out that WYS/ATC ‘Verse is one of the top three search results!

3) Wyndham’s Theatre, June 2009 (Jude Law as Hamlet; Matt Ryan as Horatio)

While this production had the most beautiful sets and overall production values I’ve ever seen in a single rendering, Law’s Hamlet was too aggressive (read: borderline physically abusive) for my taste, and Ryan’s Horatio was a bit flat and uninteresting (although he had long hair and was costumed more or less as a bad-ass biker dude with a dagger on his belt; he was eye candy, if nothing else). Sadly, these two had zero chemistry. The two highlights of the production were, without a doubt, Law’s delivery of “To be, or not to be” while trudging barefoot into the castle from a snowstorm (seriously, it was one of the most visually arresting pieces of effect and staging I have ever seen) and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s electrifying Ophelia (seriously, she’s the best Ophelia I’ve ever seen; she was as canny in her madness as the Boston Ophelia, and I appreciated that to no end). Otherwise, this production has little bearing on the way I write about these characters and the world they inhabit.

4) National Theatre, October 2010 (Rory Kinnear as Hamlet; Giles Terera as Horatio)

This production was rather terrible, and I would like to forget most of it. The performances by and large felt phoned-in, Hamlet and Horatio had almost zero chemistry (I was lucky I could even read them as friends, let alone dear ones), and the whole Hamlet-spraypainting-smiley-faces-all-over-everything really got on my nerves. That is not how you use ubiquitous graffiti, my friend. This Hamlet had some fascinating manic moments, but there was a whiff of the aforementioned (needless, IMHO) violence from which I instinctively shy.

5) National Theatre, August 2015 (Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet; Leo Bill as Horatio)

This production had sets and staging choices to rival the Wyndham’s production; I especially loved the convincing quality of Elsinore’s great hall being partially reduced to bleak rubble by the end. I enjoyed Cumberbatch’s portrayal, but not as much as you would think; when all was said and done, he didn’t hold a candle to Donovan or Stoppard. He delivered the role with a tenderness and whimsy in some moments that I feel many actors miss, but that doesn’t surprise me. He wasn’t a violent Hamlet, and I appreciated that. What really, really shone for me here was Horatio. Leo Bill might be my second favorite Horatio as far as delivery; Pedro Pascal comes in first, and Sam Hazeldine comes in third. My heart was on high alert during this production because he reached and reached and reached out to his friend, but Hamlet was too fraught to see or understand what was being offered. It’s the first time I ever saw an edge of unrequited love between these two characters, and it led to me giving @neverwhere and incredibly gesture-filled and emotional account back at our con hotel room later that night. Hats off to you, Mr. Bill!

#hamlet #hamlet x horatio #horatio x hamlet #hamratio #shakespeare

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frazzledsoul · 7 years

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In terms of continuing the conversation, ill-advised as it may be

So when it comes to my OTT emo post about all the ways in which Amy Sherman Palladino has personally victimized me:

@dollsome-does-tumblr said:

I think that fundamentally it seems like ASP started out making what was, at its heart, a feel-good sweet show – and then something in her just totally balked at the idea of having to stick to writing something that was sweet and kind at its core, or something.

I think something as relatively simple as Luke and Lorelai never saying “I love you” in a healthy, ordinary context because ASP thought it was too cheesy really shows the disconnect here. And to be honest, until I got on Tumblr again I never even noticed that because what I wanted from the show was so little that it wasn’t a big deal to me. After everything that the show put us through with these two, just accepting that they are together and that they ended up with a happy ending was enough.

And that’s what still upsets me about the whole thing. I didn’t ask for much, only for her not to break our hearts (and Luke’s) irrevocably. Yes, there’s something to be said for sometimes giving the fans and the story what they need instead of what they want, but it wasn’t necessary to ruin things in the most horrendous way possible just because you got bored and wanted to focus on your beloved side character. None of this had to happen at all.

I wanted to think more of ASP. I wanted to believe in her more, that she wouldn’t eventually betray us like this. I wanted to be wrong about her. But I wasn’t.

The one stark difference I really notice between s6 and s7 is that s7 doesn’t seem to have that same awkward wariness re: leaning shamelessly into good emotions.

It really feels like there are a lot of moments in season 7 where the show is like, “It’s okay for you to feel good about this character/relationship/etc.!!!”, or “It’s okay for you to want Luke and Lorelai to get back together with your entire being! We want that too!!”

I also feel like the writing of Luke, Zach, and Logan finally really shook off the ‘men suck and are emotionally inaccessible and relationships with them will always be hard and require a lot of secrecy and uncertainty and the communication will never be good and it’s just something you have to deal with as a heterosexual woman’ vibe that had become really pervasive over seasons 5 and 6.

and

@aetw389 said:

So. Much. Word. And why not be proud of being angry? You speak for many of us. ASP is a brilliant writer, but the characters eventually could and did exist outside her sphere. ASP would never have given us the karaoke scene, and yet it's perfect and iconic and totally in character. I don't even know where I was going with that ... but I was in the middle of agreeing and got distracted. So - yes. Preach it.

As someone who was a late season 7 viewer, it definitely has its rough spots but I feel that overall the writers were not emotionally involved in pushing any particular aspect of the love triangle. Christopher and Lorelai can be over in their corner doing their own thing and then Luke can be over in his corner taking care of his daughter and nobody has to be the villain. It’s a nice contrast to what I thought was really cruel about the last half of season 6, that Luke is ripped down so much and becomes such a jerk, just so Christopher can be built back up. And I just felt like the agenda ASP was forcing on us is almost semi-offensive, because we’re supposed to resent Luke for trying to be a responsible father. It’s almost like it’s a battle for his attention between Lorelai and this kid who was totally innocent, and he ultimately fails in some way because he doesn’t prioritize Lorelai above everything else, and she has to punish him in the most savage way possible.

As bad as his behavior got, he deserved better than that. We deserved better than that. Ugh, Lorelai, how could you? OK, I’m stopping now on that train of thought.

I kind of feel that in season 7 as much as I didn’t want the Christopher/Lorelai thing to happen ASP wrote her into that corner and they had to go with it. ASP made her be obsessed with marriage: ASP made her be a person who wanted someone emotionally open. Christopher offers all of those things and we can see why Lorelai decides that it’s good enough, and overcompensates with the PDA when Luke starts circling her orbit again because she knows that something will never be quite right there. We can also see that Luke will always be there for her in a way that Christopher never will, because during all of this time he’s allowed to be a good guy, too.

I still think that a lot of the positive stuff that happened in season 7 wouldn’t have been possible under ASP’s watch. She would have shrugged the karaoke scene off as being too cheesy. I doubt she would have had Luke and Lorelai do something as healthy and positive as take responsibility for their awful behavior and apologize to each other . Luke wouldn’t have developed a healthy relationship with April on his own: he wouldn’t be allowed to win that custody battle and have something apart from Lorelai that isn’t a competition for her affection.

(And that’s a whole another issue which ASP got so wrong in the revival. There are definitely points in season 7 where I felt the whole Lorelai/April thing seems a lot warmer and healthier than it did in the revival, because ASP seems to really obsess with letting us know that he always seems to prefer Rory a little more. But that’s it’s own issue, even in a ASP-slagging post).

@dollsome-does-tumblr continues:

And that got so rambly! Basically: ASP, she done us all wrong. (I am still going to enthusiastically watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but in a way where I’m just going to expect everything I love to get torn from my hands at any moment. Granted, TMMM feels like it’s got a much more caustic heart from the get-go, which is probably where ASP is comfortable as a writer?)

I understand that not everybody holds grudges like me, and that’s cool. Even though I’m not emotional about it, I kind of feel that the Rory plot twist was worse: ASP’s goal all along was to ruin Rory’s future and all of the sacrifices that her mother had spent her entire life making for her. The entire mission of the show was to end in misery and despair! The only reason it’s not really so bad is that she got kicked off and Rory had a nine-year interval in which to accomplish her own goals and cushion the blow. So knowing all of that, I wouldn’t want to see what she dreams up for her next set of characters. It could get really, really rough.

Thanks everyone for putting up with this glut of long-repressed angst! I think I’m done now. Hopefully.

#long rambling thoughts #frazzled responds to comments #sorry about the emo-ness but I feel I've said all I need to about that plot twist #on to happier topics!#gilmore girls #gilmore girls ayitl

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thegodcomplcx · 4 months

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Literally so true about the “fun little limbo” of 11/amy! the way there is this weird cognitive dissonance in fandom where on the one hand people moan about the love triangle and how unlikeable Amy was by cheating on Rory etc. yet simultaneously it’s sacrilege to think 11/amy is valid on account of the adultery. people are driven by purity politics rather than engaging with the text ergo we must go with the party line that Amy only ever loves Rory because it “redeems” her (boo hiss) whereas the alternative is immoral. (I’d be willing to bet this was a real note from the network/execs once Amy got married - “no more infidelity because it makes your female lead unlikeable”. the subtext is still there but they almost certainly had to tone it down).

On this point, you’re right we never see Amy *getting over* the doctor — on her wedding day she STILL wants to make out with him and interrupts the party to remember him back into existence. this was portrayed as more significant than her actual wedding! (in both the Big Bang and TWORS she can’t remember Rory when he’s in front of her, but she remembers the doctor when he’s not even there.) Yet 2 episodes later when Rory thinks her love declaration is for the doctor she’s like “what, him??!!” As though this is a ridiculous idea when it’s literally based on *all her previous behaviour*!

I think the fandom denial of 11amy is also based on the fact that the writers were too subtle about 11’s feelings apparently. we are supposed to think he plausibly reciprocates river’s love when he is nonsensically cruel towards her and straight up says he doesn’t want to marry her, yet it’s somehow ridiculous to think he may have feelings for Amy based on his behaviour of trusting her completely, placing her opinion of him above all else, acting generally insane/fixated, etc. also, from a storytelling perspective the triangle holds no weight if the doctor is indifferent! it’s established from the beginning that Amy must choose between him and Rory, and at the end 11 begs her to choose him but by then it’s too late. The entire tragedy of this and 11’s behaviour makes no sense if he doesn’t reciprocate; it is SUPPOSED to be a doomed love story!! Anyway thank you for indulging my asks, i am insane about them.

this is why this rewatch has been so fun for me, because i wasn't sure if my hazy memories from a decade ago were an accurate depiction of what happened in the show or if i was clouded by 11/amy nostalgia and like. they're actually just like that. 11/amy had so much more of a complicated and multifaceted relationship than people usually talk about. they want the whole 11amyrory dynamic to be so simple and easy to digest but it's just not!

in my eyes the infidelity makes amy MORE of a likeable character and they should have leaned HARDER into it

the amyrory wedding was so not about rory at all. we don't see the ceremony, we literally only see amy crying and bringing the doctor back into existence. the amyrory wedding is literally an 11amy reaffirmation. amy made a public declaration of love on that day and it was not for rory lmao.

and the whole s6e2 "it's not him, it's you" speech is so fucking about the doctor its insane. they literally made an episode about how the doctor thinks it ought to be rory (s7e1). and the reason why they even had to do a divorce plot between them is that the only thing interesting about amyrory is amy's conflicting desire. the love triangle is literally all they have. they are at their best with "the core of our relationship is i love you more than you love me" (and amy's whole i can't give you children i gave you up is sickening btw)

and i literally cant speak on 11river anymore. literally my madonna-whore complex post that's all i have to say about the matter for the rest of time.

#theyre sooooo textually interesting #11amy was true and real my visions told me #mailbox

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robininthelabyrinth · 7 years

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i wish you would write a coldwest fic with the prompt: "whatever it is you're about to ask, no."

Fic: What Drives Us - Chapter 1 (Ao3 link)Fandom: The Flash, DC’s Legends of TomorrowPairing: Leonard Snart/Iris West, Barry Allen/Mick Rory

Summary: The people you date can bring out different sides of you.

A/N: This ‘fic’ is actually two short prompt fills that ended up being in the same universe, so I decided I’d make it its own fic in case I wanted to keep going.

———————————————————-

“Whatever it is you’re about to ask, no.”

Len raises both of his eyebrows.

Iris points at him. “No.”

“But you haven’t even -”

“No!”

“Now that’s just unfair,” he drawls.

She hates it when he drawls. It’s so unfairly sexy. It shouldn’t even be sexy - it’s horrid and nasal and so incredibly him, and it’s really just not okay for that to be as intriguing as it is.

“Still no,” she insists, but he can see her weakening.

“I’ll trade you for it,” he offers.

Iris’ eyes narrows. “I’m not agreeing to something blindly, what sort of idiot do you think I am?”

“For the opportunity to make my case,” he clarifies.

“If I let you ‘make your case’, you’ll convince me,” she says. Experience has taught her that much. “So no.”

He shrugs.

…is he really just going to accept her answer?

Damnit, it looks like he is.

If only she wasn’t so curious, she’d be impressed.

Unfortunately for her, she is that curious.

“Fine,” she concedes grumpily. “What’s your offer? For the right to make your case, that is.”

He manages to look remarkably smug despite making a careful (almost pointed) effort not to actually smirk outright.

“Two orgasms,” he says promptly. “Deliverable at the time, place and position of your choosing, with the exception of mid-heist or otherwise pitched battle.”

He’d learned that one the hard way. Iris was really quite proud of how she’d managed to totally derail one of his heists without revealing the nature of their relationship. (She’d just yelled at him that he owed her and threatened to call it in right then and there. Everyone had assumed it was something Flash or journalism related, thank god.)

Also, two guaranteed orgasms was nothing to sneer at. Say what you will about Leonard Snart, you definitely couldn’t fault his work ethic.

There was a reason she kept falling into bed with him.

Besides, well…

“Fine,” she says again. “Done. Now what’s the idea? And just so you know, I’m starting from a 'no’ position.”

This time, Len smirks.

“I was thinking,” he says. “The Legends are coming back day after tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah…”

“I was thinking we could throw a party,” he says. “Nice little thing. Here, maybe. Invite Caitlin and Shawna now that they’ve hooked up, drag Cisco and Lisa out of their love nest…get a few drinks, make a few canapes…”

Iris blinks. “We as in - you and me?” she hazards a guess, because that’s what it sounds like, but he couldn’t possibly mean…

He nods.

“How in the world is that a good idea?” she demands. “You know my dad will go ballistic if he ever finds out about this!” She waves between the two of them: the crumpled sheets, the nudity, the whole lot of it.

“That’s exactly the reasoning.”

“Why the hell would I agree to bring my dad’s wrath down on my head? There’s no reason in the world that -”

“It’ll distract your dad from the fact that he caught Barry and Mick making out in Saints and Sinners the other day.”

Iris winces and sits up, catching the blanket before it drops down. It occurs to her she might’ve had more leverage if they’d been dressed while having this conversation, but damnit, she’d had a really bad day at work and she’d needed some exercise of the stress-relieving variety. That’s not important now. “He caught them?”

“Yesterday evening,” Len confirms. “And now he’s gotten it into his head that Barry was cheating on you, and he is pissed.”

“But we’re not together!”

“Anymore. And you never did tell your dad that, did you?”

Iris groans and thumps her head back onto the pillow. Len settles gently by her side. He’d managed to slink back into a shirt and pants sometime after she’d fallen asleep. He always did; it was like magic.

“We separated because Barry was being unduly paranoid about my future, losing me, making me a target, etc.” she says, staring at the ceiling. “And then Barry bonded with Mick over losing loved ones, and then just as they finally fall into bed together, you come back from the dead and mess everything up -”

“Not intentionally,” Len says, but it’s not defensive. He knows how close he came to messing things up for Barry and Mick - and not through any ill-will of his own, just by being there.

“ - and then we had to work together to get them back together, and that was just ridiculous -”

That’d been when they’d fallen into bed together. It had been necessary stress relief, as Barry and Mick were both so bullheadedly stubborn that both Len and her were going totally spare trying to convince them that their respective issues did not mean that they were doomed to be sad and alone forever despite the availability of a similarly pining person to whom they were overwhelmingly attracted.

“- and there just wasn’t time to explain to Dad that we’d broken up.”

“Technically, you’re still just separated,” Len says comfortingly. “Just, you know, also sleeping with other people.”

“Says the guy who’s married to Mick.”

“Why not? No testifying, hospital privileges, better tax bracket…”

“I can’t believe you guys did that.”

“It was in the middle of a heist,” Len confesses. “Pride Parade, Boston, 2004 - we ended up hiding from the heat in a line for quickie marriages – they waived the waiting requirement –”

Iris laughs.

“The would-be arresting officer ended up as our witness.”

“Oh god. That’s just stupid enough to be true.”

“Of course, we’ll get divorced,” he adds. “Hell, we could get it annulled if we wanted, but what with no-fault divorce, I figure we’ll just sign the papers officially at the party.”

“Why’s that?” she asks, still imagining that poor cop’s face when he was asked to witness a marriage between two (platonic!) criminal soulmates.

“Well, bigamy’s illegal,” Len says. “And you did tell me up front I wasn’t allowed to drag you into anything illegal.”

Iris rolls over and stares at him. “Are you proposing?”

“Why not? No testifying, hospital privileges, better tax bracket…”

She stares at him.

“…you don’t have to say yes,” he clarifies. “I figure the shock of actual matrimony is the only thing that’ll get your dad off of his current bout of overprotective father induced homophobia. And before he tells Oliver and Oliver comes and sticks his stupid nose into everything with another ‘Barry, I think you need to re-think your relationship with your Rogues’ rant.”

“My dad’s going to kill us,” Iris says faintly.

“Tell him you’re pregnant,” Len suggests.

Iris considers this. “Well,” she says. “I guess if we start with ‘shotgun wedding’ and twin babies – one yours, one Barry’s what do you think?”

“I love it,” Len says, totally sincere. No one was as committed to serious hard-core trolling than Leonard Snart.

Unless, of course, you were Iris West.

“Conceived in a threesome, of course,” she adds.

“For shame, Iris,” Len says. “Foursome, obviously. With a married couple, no less.”

“So we went swinging and came out the revolving door with the wrong couple?”

“Exactly!”

“Yeah, after that he’ll definitely be a lot happier to hear they’re just dating. Or that we’re just dating. Wait. Are we dating?”

“I have no idea,” Len says. “Does it matter? I’ll get you a nice piece of ice for the engagement ring. Possibly even legally. Maybe.”

“You’d better, Captain Cold,” Iris says, then frowns. “Not that one you stole way back when, though.”

“The Kahndaq Dynasty diamond?”

“That one. Too big. I’m going to have to lug it around the entire time we’re doing this; it’ll break my hand.”

“Definitely,” Len agrees. “Size of your thumb good?”

“I should have stuck with 'no’,” she sighs. “But what the hell, he deserves it for the whole harassing Eddie and setting up me and Barry thing.”

Then she thinks about it for a second.

“You know,” she says slowly, “I have a friend who could probably get us a fake ultrasound…”

“You’re the best,” Len says, and kisses her.

#my fic #coldwest #flashwave #what drives us #leonard snart #iris west #mick rory #barry allen

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