tell her a story
Sep. 30th, 2012 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dineruI did accomplish some work yesterday and today, not as much as I wanted but enough that I think I'm in a reasonable position to start off the week. Hopefully I'll be able to minimize context-switching and spend more time on my research and really focus on implementation and starting to produce something tangible. I feel more confident than last Sunday (when I was a bit of a wreck) and that's good because I'm pretty sure I'm going to be more emotional and easily distracted for a while.
Yes, I'm talking about the aftereffects of Saturday's Doctor Who.
It didn't hit me until the episode was over that the Ponds are my companions, just as Eleven is my Doctor. "The Eleventh Hour" was the first episode of Doctor Who that I ever watched, two and a half years ago, and I loved it immediately. I've seen all of Nine and Ten's series since then and had fun with other companions, but Amy and Rory were the first. They won me over with their snark and their bravery and their affection and their love. And though they've suffered through cheaply written breakups and less than coherent plot arcs, they will always be my beautiful, functional time-traveling couple who have lived multiple lifetimes for each other and can never say no to the Doctor even when they know their lives will end up irreversibly, terrifyingly changed.
It's not that it wasn't time for the Ponds to go. And it's not even that their ending was objectively tragic. After all, they lived long happy lives and they had each other and I think that's all they would have asked for, in the end. But what I keep coming back to is the absolutely heartbreaking juxtaposition in this episode: the spine-crawling terror of the Angels versus the idyllic and frankly adorable scene of the Doctor and Amy and Rory sprawled out in Central Park, reading trashy novels and teasing one another. Jokes about a family outing to a video game arcade interrupted by the sudden horror of Rory gone when it was all supposed to be over and resolved.
It's not that they're gone from the Doctor's life, because it had to happen. It's that they were ripped away from him just when everything looked okay again, and those few precious moments in Central Park before Rory went to get coffees were the last peaceful ones they had together, and they had no idea. They never truly got to say goodbye. It's a lot like the uncertainty of reality, actually, and that's too real, too plausible, for me to appreciate. I'd been on edge the whole episode, flinching at the Angels and clapping my hands over my mouth and swearing at my laptop during the whole of the Winter Quay scene, but when Rory vanished and Amy broke, I lost it. I don't think I've ever cried so hard while watching something. Because Rory was gone and all their dreams, their beautiful castles in their air that had been real just a second ago, were shattered. Because the Doctor didn't get to say goodbye to Rory. Because Amy didn't know if that had been the last time she would see Rory. Because Amy knew it was probably going to be the last time she saw the Doctor. And because hers was the first face that he saw, and they were such wonderful friends, and he doesn't like endings but she just couldn't turn down the promise of adventures to protect him from the pain of loving humans, and all of those feelings were crammed into a few precious moments, not enough time, but no amount of time would ever be enough to say everything they wanted to say.
And then it was over.
It feels a lot like Reichenbach all over again. (And not just because of suicidal building-jumping, goddamn, was that really necessary?) I woke up this morning and spent an hour watching fanvids of Youtube and tearing up. Most of my Tumblr dash is Doctor Who, a full day later, and every time I see a cap from the episode, I get a lump in my throat. I cried a little writing this post. I keep thinking about the Ponds' final farewell, like probing at a loose tooth, and I want to go back and watch all their episodes again even though it probably wouldn't make it hurt any less. It's worse than Reichenbach, actually, because Sherlock is alive and coming back, but the Ponds are gone forever.
So I will be preoccupied this week and unable to tell anyone why. Grief over fictional characters is a strange thing, but I wouldn't want to live any other way.
Yes, I'm talking about the aftereffects of Saturday's Doctor Who.
It didn't hit me until the episode was over that the Ponds are my companions, just as Eleven is my Doctor. "The Eleventh Hour" was the first episode of Doctor Who that I ever watched, two and a half years ago, and I loved it immediately. I've seen all of Nine and Ten's series since then and had fun with other companions, but Amy and Rory were the first. They won me over with their snark and their bravery and their affection and their love. And though they've suffered through cheaply written breakups and less than coherent plot arcs, they will always be my beautiful, functional time-traveling couple who have lived multiple lifetimes for each other and can never say no to the Doctor even when they know their lives will end up irreversibly, terrifyingly changed.
It's not that it wasn't time for the Ponds to go. And it's not even that their ending was objectively tragic. After all, they lived long happy lives and they had each other and I think that's all they would have asked for, in the end. But what I keep coming back to is the absolutely heartbreaking juxtaposition in this episode: the spine-crawling terror of the Angels versus the idyllic and frankly adorable scene of the Doctor and Amy and Rory sprawled out in Central Park, reading trashy novels and teasing one another. Jokes about a family outing to a video game arcade interrupted by the sudden horror of Rory gone when it was all supposed to be over and resolved.
It's not that they're gone from the Doctor's life, because it had to happen. It's that they were ripped away from him just when everything looked okay again, and those few precious moments in Central Park before Rory went to get coffees were the last peaceful ones they had together, and they had no idea. They never truly got to say goodbye. It's a lot like the uncertainty of reality, actually, and that's too real, too plausible, for me to appreciate. I'd been on edge the whole episode, flinching at the Angels and clapping my hands over my mouth and swearing at my laptop during the whole of the Winter Quay scene, but when Rory vanished and Amy broke, I lost it. I don't think I've ever cried so hard while watching something. Because Rory was gone and all their dreams, their beautiful castles in their air that had been real just a second ago, were shattered. Because the Doctor didn't get to say goodbye to Rory. Because Amy didn't know if that had been the last time she would see Rory. Because Amy knew it was probably going to be the last time she saw the Doctor. And because hers was the first face that he saw, and they were such wonderful friends, and he doesn't like endings but she just couldn't turn down the promise of adventures to protect him from the pain of loving humans, and all of those feelings were crammed into a few precious moments, not enough time, but no amount of time would ever be enough to say everything they wanted to say.
And then it was over.
It feels a lot like Reichenbach all over again. (And not just because of suicidal building-jumping, goddamn, was that really necessary?) I woke up this morning and spent an hour watching fanvids of Youtube and tearing up. Most of my Tumblr dash is Doctor Who, a full day later, and every time I see a cap from the episode, I get a lump in my throat. I cried a little writing this post. I keep thinking about the Ponds' final farewell, like probing at a loose tooth, and I want to go back and watch all their episodes again even though it probably wouldn't make it hurt any less. It's worse than Reichenbach, actually, because Sherlock is alive and coming back, but the Ponds are gone forever.
So I will be preoccupied this week and unable to tell anyone why. Grief over fictional characters is a strange thing, but I wouldn't want to live any other way.
