DW BFA The Settling
Sep. 7th, 2021 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethA pure historical set in Ireland when Cromwell was killing them.
It's a pure historical on the theme of You Cannot Change History, so, it is a *rough* one for the characters.
And some very meaty character work.
I liked how it started with Ace fighting and Hex peaceful, because he's a nurse and that's what he has been doing so far, but then got them all swapped around. By stages, for reasons, they ended up swapping chairs. I'd say swapping sides but they spent extensive time talking to both sides of the fight. Only fought on one of them.
Hex has heard all about this bit of history from his family, but being mired in it hits different. He does his best to change things but instead gets chewed up by that most depressing of paradoxes, that if you can't change history you just become part of the causes of it.
I liked how the framing story has Ace and Hex in the TARDIS talking it over afterwards. Because usually that looks like it just pulls the tension out of the story, you know everyone is going to survive, but realistically we know who survives anyway, so what it is doing is pushing the characters actions into the past-inevitable even as we're listening. We can get wrapped up in the story and hope for a better ending, but we know. We all know, listener and character alike.
This was a bad time.
The story pulled us through that, while making it very clear that everyone there was an actual human person.
So it did the historical thing where a time traveller hits their limitations, it takes Hex waaaay past his previous limits, it ends with everyone having swapped around so many times there's a great big tangle of when anyone did right, let alone resulted in good... and it gave the characters space and time to react to all that.
It also got a really chilling moment and plot consequences out of Hex's verbal habit of "Oh my god".
Using even the funny catchphrases to make you jump or think.
It's really well written stuff.
And the usual complaint about historicals, if you cant change anything why even be there, is the point of the conversations. And why Hex is questioning this whole time travel thing.
Hex asks Ace if she would leave with him. And Ace... well I remember the bit where Hex has his shirt off for medical reasons and Ace tells him he's like her little brother. And also that she tells the Doctor of course Hex will stay travelling with them. Hex is not settled in his own mind about either part.
Plus it's weird at this point, Ace talks about her teens as so long ago and says she's been travelling a surprisingly long time and calls this full grown nurse her little brother (right after discovering she has an actual brother, who she is actively ignoring)
and you dont actually know, because canon what canon, but it all seems so brittle. Like deciding to call herself McShane but it only lasts a few stories before she's back to Ace. Doylist reasons? Or someone flailing because they've learned how to be tough but maybe not resilient?
Good character stuff.
At the end Hex says "I killed people!" and Ace is all "You can't blame yourself for what happened"
even though one can very reasonably blame oneself for having killed people
and it says so much about where they are and how Hex is showing us a side of Ace that is maybe not necessarily the best side, even if we like her.
Seems like she's putting Hex's doubts down to this being his first time, and trying to keep going the same.
And you can see how some of that is that Ace did this story at a sprint, taking the TARDIS to the destination and losing some calendar time, while Hex did the marathon, with if I read wiki right a month between Drogheda and Wexford.
Ace has been doing history like that, the quick way, hit and run. For how long?
Ace also focuses on the one they could save, rather than the historical huge numbers they could not, but she maybe does not focus on how much of that specific person being in danger might be down to them. It's good to have a small win in the middle of a huge battle, but left to herself would she even have been there?
Also I the listener only listened to this one last night because the one immediately before it was upsetting. But a lot more people get killed in this one. So I'm thinking about me as well, and about approaching things as Stories and Adventure, while the audio does its best to show us many different aspects of actual humans such as there were in that moment, yet can only convey the scale and numbers with lines and sound effects.
Rushing through trying to fix things is exciting adventure, but doesnt leave much time for people to be people. Staying with the reality of unalterable history has a lot of people, but, very heavy.
I wouldnt want an historical like this every week, but it is very good stuff.
So I went to look up what I might have said about this audio before
and got distracted by 2009 me
because that was when I first heard it.
... 2009 me had more going on but moooooore stress.
... so now I'm thinking about college and not actually DW.
Okay, so, I felt like I had more thinky thoughts but they aren't here now.
This was a very, very, good audio adventure.
And a lot of bad things for Hex.
It's a pure historical on the theme of You Cannot Change History, so, it is a *rough* one for the characters.
And some very meaty character work.
I liked how it started with Ace fighting and Hex peaceful, because he's a nurse and that's what he has been doing so far, but then got them all swapped around. By stages, for reasons, they ended up swapping chairs. I'd say swapping sides but they spent extensive time talking to both sides of the fight. Only fought on one of them.
Hex has heard all about this bit of history from his family, but being mired in it hits different. He does his best to change things but instead gets chewed up by that most depressing of paradoxes, that if you can't change history you just become part of the causes of it.
I liked how the framing story has Ace and Hex in the TARDIS talking it over afterwards. Because usually that looks like it just pulls the tension out of the story, you know everyone is going to survive, but realistically we know who survives anyway, so what it is doing is pushing the characters actions into the past-inevitable even as we're listening. We can get wrapped up in the story and hope for a better ending, but we know. We all know, listener and character alike.
This was a bad time.
The story pulled us through that, while making it very clear that everyone there was an actual human person.
So it did the historical thing where a time traveller hits their limitations, it takes Hex waaaay past his previous limits, it ends with everyone having swapped around so many times there's a great big tangle of when anyone did right, let alone resulted in good... and it gave the characters space and time to react to all that.
It also got a really chilling moment and plot consequences out of Hex's verbal habit of "Oh my god".
Using even the funny catchphrases to make you jump or think.
It's really well written stuff.
And the usual complaint about historicals, if you cant change anything why even be there, is the point of the conversations. And why Hex is questioning this whole time travel thing.
Hex asks Ace if she would leave with him. And Ace... well I remember the bit where Hex has his shirt off for medical reasons and Ace tells him he's like her little brother. And also that she tells the Doctor of course Hex will stay travelling with them. Hex is not settled in his own mind about either part.
Plus it's weird at this point, Ace talks about her teens as so long ago and says she's been travelling a surprisingly long time and calls this full grown nurse her little brother (right after discovering she has an actual brother, who she is actively ignoring)
and you dont actually know, because canon what canon, but it all seems so brittle. Like deciding to call herself McShane but it only lasts a few stories before she's back to Ace. Doylist reasons? Or someone flailing because they've learned how to be tough but maybe not resilient?
Good character stuff.
At the end Hex says "I killed people!" and Ace is all "You can't blame yourself for what happened"
even though one can very reasonably blame oneself for having killed people
and it says so much about where they are and how Hex is showing us a side of Ace that is maybe not necessarily the best side, even if we like her.
Seems like she's putting Hex's doubts down to this being his first time, and trying to keep going the same.
And you can see how some of that is that Ace did this story at a sprint, taking the TARDIS to the destination and losing some calendar time, while Hex did the marathon, with if I read wiki right a month between Drogheda and Wexford.
Ace has been doing history like that, the quick way, hit and run. For how long?
Ace also focuses on the one they could save, rather than the historical huge numbers they could not, but she maybe does not focus on how much of that specific person being in danger might be down to them. It's good to have a small win in the middle of a huge battle, but left to herself would she even have been there?
Also I the listener only listened to this one last night because the one immediately before it was upsetting. But a lot more people get killed in this one. So I'm thinking about me as well, and about approaching things as Stories and Adventure, while the audio does its best to show us many different aspects of actual humans such as there were in that moment, yet can only convey the scale and numbers with lines and sound effects.
Rushing through trying to fix things is exciting adventure, but doesnt leave much time for people to be people. Staying with the reality of unalterable history has a lot of people, but, very heavy.
I wouldnt want an historical like this every week, but it is very good stuff.
So I went to look up what I might have said about this audio before
and got distracted by 2009 me
because that was when I first heard it.
... 2009 me had more going on but moooooore stress.
... so now I'm thinking about college and not actually DW.
Okay, so, I felt like I had more thinky thoughts but they aren't here now.
This was a very, very, good audio adventure.
And a lot of bad things for Hex.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-07 11:18 pm (UTC)