#veep illustrates her own fic
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veggiesforpresident · 1 year ago
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swallowing smoke
illustrating my fic part 2/?
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safflowerseason · 5 years ago
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some dan x amy musings
In response to a question from @wecouldstillbegreat...what is Dan and Amy’s relationship to physical touch/physical intimacy?
This is such a good question…although it was kind of hard to answer, because it’s so easy to blur the boundary between the show and fanfiction!
It’s an especially interesting question too, in light of the fact that Veep is not a particularly “touchy-feely” kind of show, and physical touch and physical intimacy are so often manipulated or twisted by the various characters. Selina and Tom’s relationship is a good example of this…both of them attempt to use their physical attraction to ruin one another. Or Selina and Andrew…Andrew constantly takes advantage of Selina by sleeping with her, and even Selina herself is somewhat aware that her physical attraction to Andrew is constantly getting her into trouble.
Dan and Amy’s relationship stands out on Veep because when they touch one another (or when they aren’t touching but want to), the physical dimension of their relationship is generally framed to emphasize the “purity” of their emotional connection, if that makes sense. Dan and Amy are terrible people, but they are two terrible people who have a genuine emotional connection to one another that the show isn’t interested in twisting (at least during the Iannucci years). Whether or not Dan and Amy are aware of it, touch for them is a fundamentally good thing. 
In S1, Dan touches Amy in a very “unconscious boyfriend” kind of a way—a hand on her back, an arm over her shoulder, etc. This is also the season where their relationship is played the most “romantically.” I’m assuming the acting choices for both Reid Scott and Anna Chlumsky derived from this tonal approach.
(Sidenote: in spite of my earlier statement that touch is broadly framed as a “good” thing for Dan and Amy…I have to include a caveat here. The frequency with which Dan touches Amy in S1 is quite startling, considering they are not dating and Amy is especially distrustful of Dan during this period of their relationship. As an audience, we’ve been generally socialized to accept his behavior because their relationship has been coded as romantic…Dan and Amy are attracted to one another and thus it’s “fine” for Dan to always be touching her in these small ways…but it’s really not cool. (It makes you wonder if RS would have made the same acting choices in a post Me-Too world.) Of course, for what it’s worth, Anna Chlumsky also never plays Amy in S1 as physically uncomfortable when Dan is touching her in this way, a choice which broadly shapes the audience’s reaction to Dan as well. The fact that they are in a “romance” excuses a lot of behavior that we might not look at so indulgently now.)
In S2-S4, this dimension of their relationship drops off—they are close, constantly in one another’s space, arms brushing, etc, but Dan’s not draping his arm around her on the couch after he’s gotten her to agree to a suicide pact. It’s impossible to know what the actors and the writers discussed, but subconsciously or otherwise, this change seems to reflect the broader tonal shift from S1 to the more subtle “Machiavellian work spouses” dynamic of the later Iannucci seasons.
During S2 and S4, Dan mostly touches Amy when she’s extremely emotionally fired up. The two big moments that come to mind is in 2.08 during Selina’s interview and 4.08, when she’s so desperate to deliver Pierce to Selina she’s about to blow their cover. This speaks to their intimacy in a different way, I think—that Dan feels enough of an emotional connection to Amy to reach for her when she’s furious, but also that Amy finds his touch emotionally soothing (whether or not she realizes it). In 2.08, Amy would be perfectly justified at flinging Dan’s hand off of her, of jerking her body away from him—he’s incredibly smug and condescending to her—but she doesn’t. That’s significant. 
Even in S3, when Dan and Amy are basically in an episodes-long fight over Dan’s promotion as campaign manager…Amy is the one who Dan leans on when he has his panic attack, and she willing assists him out of the room, minutes after she’s sabotaged him. (We barely see this happen, though, and I can see why they might not have wanted to show it, because the imagery would be beyond unsubtle and probably felt a bit serious for the moment…it’s funnier and lighter to have Dan freaking out in the cab and thoughtlessly running a hand down her face.) 
There are not very many of these moments, but analyzed collectively, they obviously emphasize that Dan and Amy’s relationship is, well, different than Amy’s with Mike or Dan’s with Selina. They certainly stand out in a show that’s about how cutthroat and corrupt politics can be. And not to get all fluffy about it, but it makes me think of when Reid Scott called Anna Chlumksy “partner” in that behind the scenes video. They are partners, and the fact that Dan feels comfortable enough with Amy to literally grab her when she’s about to charge into the West Wing matters very much.
Then of course, 5.02 happens and Dan and Amy are emotionally estranged for the rest of the series, basically. They don’t touch at all onscreen in S5 or S6…and I’m not going to analyze S7 because it depresses me, and because I’ve already pointed out similarities between Ep. 7.03 and Ep. 2.08 in how Dan deals with Amy. 
It’s also worth pointing out that the significance of the moments in which Dan and Amy are specifically not touching one another but clearly want to, and the lack of touch between the brings their physical chemistry into intense focus. The bar scene in 4.04, for example…or the other bar scene in 5.02, not mention the scene in the hotel corridor. In those moments, Dan and Amy are at the very edge of giving in to their physical desire for one another—they’re not touching because if they did, they might not stop. And even though we don’t see them hook up in 6.09, their reactions to that night clearly indicate that they both had a fantastic time. Turns out touching in all the ways is just as much as fun as bantering in dive bars. (Even Dan’s “yeah, yeah, we had a lot of drinks that night…” response to Amy at the very end of 6.10 has a kind of…coy intrigue to it. He knows that it was a good night, and he clearly wants to repeat the experience, while also, obviously, not wanting to come right out and say so. If it sucked, he just would have been like “Ugh, don’t remind me” à la S7 Dan.)
Anyway, so what does all this actually mean? On a super basic level, we can generally infer that Dan seems to be a pretty touchy-feely kind of guy (or at least Amy brings it out in him). That doesn’t mean he’s super cuddly or into PDAs, but touch is an important emotional conduit for him (his love language, for lack of a better word, although both Dan and Amy would hate that phrase). And Amy, who broadly does not like being touched by other people and has never been in a satisfying sexual relationship, likes it when Dan touches her (this is largely tied, I think, to the fact that Dan is the only person in the show around whom Amy can act like herself). And when they do finally give into their desire for one another, it is a very heady experience for both of them that they’re eager to repeat. At the very least, I would argue that canon takes us that far. 
As for what these characteristics look like in a real relationship…well, the show never takes us there, so it’s up to one’s own interpretation of Dan and Amy’s relationship. Obviously, fanfic writers (including myself) have broadly extrapolated all this into stories that explore such a relationship and where physical touch becomes a somewhat central feature of their relationship. Often in these fics, sex and other forms of physical intimacy represent a way for Dan and Amy to communicate their feelings without actually having to express them verbally (their least favorite thing). We never see it in the show, but it’s nice to imagine—and most fanfic writers have—that in a real relationship, Amy does things like lean her head against Dan’s shoulder or kisses him just because she wants to. In fanfiction, these kinds of small moments illustrate to the reader that Amy fully trusts Dan (or is trying to). 
Just to pull an example from my own work…in BMTL, Dan and Amy have been “together” for roughly four years, and they’ve had a kid together for five and a half years. One way I’ve tried to demonstrate the (relative) longevity of their relationship is through physical touch. They play-wrestle, she falls asleep with her head in his lap, Dan is so tired in Chapter 3 he almost falls asleep in Amy’s lap while she runs her fingers through his hair…these moments just felt, to me, really natural to write in a fic where Dan and Amy are an established couple, not to mention how frequently Dan has held Amy in his arms, in the moments where she’s actively grieving her dad (and he’s not making it about him). 
Well, answering ask somehow turned into a novel, so I’ll stop here! Needless to say, it’s a very rich topic! 
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veggiesforpresident · 1 year ago
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Orbital Decay
illustrating my fic part 6/?
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veggiesforpresident · 1 year ago
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Twin-Sized Mattress
illustrating my fic part 5/?
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veggiesforpresident · 1 year ago
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sufferance
illustrating my fic part 7/?
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veggiesforpresident · 1 year ago
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personal matters
illustrating my fic part 1/?
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veggiesforpresident · 1 year ago
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there's nothing in california that you could not learn to hate here
illustrating my fic part 4/?
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veggiesforpresident · 1 year ago
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a black-eyed trust
illustrating my fic part 3/?
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