send “grip” to grip my muse’s jaw in your muse’s hand; Romantic, platonic or threatening it is up to you!
“ … . oh sis.”
He whispers it almost rapturously, as though bearing reverent witness to the collapse of a great star: himself.
“D’you really hate us so much now, that you’d kill me and erase yourself?”
“No, of course not. But sometimes, the thought is there, deep down. And it’s hard to push it away. I just wonder how it feels to be threatened by your own self, dear. Maybe I’ll remember this?”
Missy kept her grip on her younger self, knowing it could go wrong but of course she didn’t care about it. She would push her luck.
“Would you? Knowing you wouldn’t erase yourself, would you do it?”
“NO.”
The force and certitude of the reply is nearly palpable: nearly a wind gale that can be felt against the face. Perhaps that’s because the Master’s mind produces the sentiment–the mind that, with sheer force of will, can bend the thoughts and emotions of others.
It’s enough to dislodge Missy’s hand from his throat. He scrambles away, with a stinging lack of dignity. But then he straightens and affords her a searing glare.
“I was bluffing that day I hit you with my laser, and you SURELY know it! Because here you stand! I only wanted to prevent you from going to the Doctor in such a way that compromised your freedom! That’s not hate, Missy, I LOVE you! All that I HAVE, in my darkest hours, is ME. My will, my beliefs, my dogged determination to survive! And you are one exquisitely beautiful part of that!”
I’ll go a step further and say it’s not just indiscriminate freedom, it’s agency. It’s having control over his own selfhood, his own thoughts, his own actions. Because as much as he might claim the moniker “Master,” ironically, that’s the last thing he’s ever been granted, by his House or the Time Council, or Rassilon, or even the Doctor, when they were children and the Master, innocent of any crime, was burdened with the title of death’s keeper. And what are the “Drums” but evidence that his whole personhood has been tampered with for Rassilon’s convenience?
The Master has NEVER been granted autonomy, and that’s what makes him protect it so viciously through every single one of his faces, and the Doctor does NOT understand that; the Doctor pleads with Missy to “hear the music of the universe,” and that “bearing witness to it” is “ownership enough,” and that’s all well and good, it’s poetic and beautiful really, but someone who hasn’t been the puppet of a tyrant for his whole life doesn’t understand what a precious commodity agency, and individuality, and independence, are.
I don’t think the Doctor is TRYING to betray him here, even though the Master thinks he is; in fact I don’t think the Doctor DOES know how much that agency means to the Master. To the Doctor, relinquishing control completely to the universe and the fluid flow of all its marvelous experiences is the natural thing to desire. The Doctor didn’t “go mad” when he looked at the Untempered Schism, like the Master, who sees something through to its end, did; the Doctor RAN.
So what the Doctor believes, here, is an act of mercy, is in fact a betrayal to the Master, who sees his control over his own fate, his autonomy, violated. But what’s tragic about this is that the Doctor sees his cruelty as a kindness.
//Man with the extreme telepathic permeability of the Master’s mind, both input and output, I feel like he would need a neural balancer more than anyone, but he also might fry it with sheer force of will.
rhythmofwarGood. He needs love Things would be so different if he actually felt loved Actually, things would already be so different if he thought someone believed him about the drums If he wasn’t just constantly told he’s insane That the noise and the PAIN is just his imagination, no matter what he does to get rid of it
sclfmastery tell me about it. i’m chronically ill and the reason why i love simm master so much is because when the doctor heard the drums and believed him he was euphoric. because nobody fucking understands how miserable simply existing is, how it alienates you from fucking everyone all the time and you’re "just imagining it" unless you keep your suffering to yourself. the moment i saw how much it meant to him for someone to understand was the moment i decided i’d basically die for him because i get iti really really get it that’s why he means the world to me and i’d fight for him no matter what
“I choose a Doctor who would never ask me to make that choice.”
//Oh this is so sad. That is so cruel. That is so awful. The creatures it creates as a trap don’t even have the agency to decide if they’re “real” or not. If they’re “right” or not. Okay the Solitract is evil even if its denizens aren’t and even if it’s loneliness that made it evil.
// Okay so the Solitract (sp?) is an entity that rejects the harmonizing/unification/ordered function of the universe, that refuses the building blocks of existence such as matter and time and mathematics to fall into place and work as a unit. That sounds fundamentally malevolent.
//But it’s also fundamentally lonely and left out oh no I’m having An Emotion.
//That means everything in the Solitract universe (I presume, one of infinite possible multiverses, but the ONLY ONE THAT CANNOT EVER FUNCTION PROPERLY) evokes that fundamental incapacity to fit in, yet has all the mirrored identical yearnings of the original universe and its denizens.
Oh whoa but that seems cruel. It’s not its fault it can’t function the way the original discrete universe “wants” to function.
Wow can this be expanded to a discourse about the treatment of the neurodivergent, mentally ill, and disabled? Oh whoa. Society “functions” so long as they shun us?
Or is it more of a thing that it’s evil so it has to be purged?
I HAVE MANY QUESTIONS.
And imagine a Solitract Master. Would they be worse or better? What about a Solitract DOCTOR? Neither is likely to appear as both are alive in the original universe.
// Okay so the Solitract (sp?) is an entity that rejects the harmonizing/unification/ordered function of the universe, that refuses the building blocks of existence such as matter and time and mathematics to fall into place and work as a unit. That sounds fundamentally malevolent.
//Headcanon that Koschei knew and loved Granny Five and she found ways to help Theta and Koschei hide when they were truant from school lol.
Does Koschei/The Master have a canon/semi-canon birthday? Asking for future reference.
@sclfmastery (on mature content mode to keep out of the purge bots in case they return, so sadly my reply abilities have been forfeited)
Okay so that means he’s likely a Capricorn. I can get behind that. Also a near-Christmas birthday? Hell yeah. It’s not like those two characteristics apply to me at all nope
//Mine’s a Sagittarius because he’s bombastic, charismatic and temperamental, but Capricorn works well for Og Master, I think, and he certainly has the Capricorn characteristics of tenacity, ambition, and calculation, lol.
Icarus 