//Honestly when the one racer guy tells the story about his mum moving out of the way when he jumps out of the tree and he breaks all these bones and she says “now you know you can never trust anyone in this life,” and the Doctor looks visibly disturbed, I think it goes beyond what any compassionate person would feel hearing that story. I think it’s
1) remembering how detached Time Lord loom parents were, grooming children of the Great Houses for glory but never showing any affection and 2) thinking about how this kind of teaching shaped the Master/Missy.
There are echoes of the Master/Missy in this season, without ever directly referring to them, and I love that.
Shout out from the bottom of my lungs A plague on both your houses This thing It’s a family affair It’s drawing out my weakness
Big boys don’t cry They don’t ask why
There was a time when a moment like this Wouldn’t ever cross my mind The sun will rise with my name on your lips ‘Cause everything will change tonight
I want to be back on the ground Where my feet touch my shadow I want to dig my heels in the dirt Feel it break between all of my toes Anything to stop floating ‘round Bring me down Back down below, oh, oh, oh, oh
Take breath And push the anger down Try to remember calmness
Big boys don’t cry They don’t ask why
There was a time when a moment like this Wouldn’t ever cross my mind The sun will rise with my name on your lips ‘Cause everything will change tonight
Hey now What’s the gravity upon your face So I’m the one who’s bleeding Real men Always thinkin’ with our fists My turn to be the victim
Big boys don’t cry They don’t ask why
There was a time when a moment like this Wouldn’t ever cross my mind The sun will rise with my name on your lips ‘Cause everything will change tonight
There was a time when a moment like this Wouldn’t ever cross my mind The sun will rise with my name on your lips ‘Cause everything will change tonight
((Is this from the new album, Wide World??? How did I miss this song?! It’s truly perfect.. I have never thought about this but the way this song addresses the intersection of repressed emotions, excessive aggression, and toxic masculinity, and shedding these things in order to properly grieve, really apply to Simm Master…..))
There is equally little hesitation in this response. It’s carved from steel and it carries the patina of Icarus’s melted wax wings.
“Don’t quit.”
//Random headcanon: Koschei is very fond of the M.I.A. song Bad Girls.
Muse Character Fears
Bold any fears which apply to your muse.
Italicize what makes them uncomfortable.
the dark ⋆ fire ⋆ open water ⋆ deep water ⋆ being alone ⋆ crowded spaces ⋆ confined spaces⋆ change ⋆ failure ⋆ war ⋆ loss of control ⋆ powerlessness ⋆ prison ⋆ blood ⋆ drowning ⋆ suffocation ⋆ public speaking ⋆ natural animals ⋆ the supernatural ⋆ heights ⋆ death ⋆ dying ⋆ intimacy ⋆ rejection ⋆ abandonment ⋆ loss ⋆ the unknown ⋆ the future ⋆ not being good enough ⋆ scary stories ⋆ speaking to new people ⋆ poverty ⋆ loud noises ⋆ being touched ⋆ forgetting ⋆ being forgotten
I’ve actually had a long conversation with @materxnatura about this in the past, but particularly Lin-Manuel Miranda’s take on Hamilton resonates with my Master.
I mean we all joke that the Jonathan Groff song from King George III, You’ll Be Back, is a hilarious representation of the Master’s warped view of love for the Doctor, and it’s true to an extent, but if you examine it with the idea that a villain can be a protagonist from another POV, then it becomes possible to see the protag of Hamilton having affinities with the Master.
–“My Shot” is a song about the inherent virtue in personal ambition, implicitly American, against unkind odds, even if one’s actions may seem ruthless from an outside vantage point. While in its original context it’s about things like ethnic diversity and immigrant status not getting in the way of opportunity, it completely works with the Master in the context of oppressive Gallifreyan parentage and neurodivergency.
– “I imagine death so often it seems like a memory.” Need I say more?
– “There’s so many things I haven’t done: just you wait, just you wait.”
–The hot-headedness, aptitude with words and (for better or worse) emotional manipulation, the SELF-DEFEAT that comes from HUBRIS (see “Congratulations” LMAO god that’s a read for filth– “you’re the only enemy you ever seem to lose to”).
–Burr’s POV about Hamilton in “Wait For It” (though that song resonates with me personally more than any other in the musical) as someone “facing an endless uphill climb” with “something to prove and nothing to lose” is VERY Time Lord Society perception of the Master (and Doctor).
“Well I ‘got one,’ too. D’you ever get tired of hearing your own stupid empty inane rudely prying words come out your presumptuous gob, aimed at making me marinate in past regrets, or is this a new look on you, you insufferable earth ape?”
It was Missy.
I started again, after Missy.
Not when she stabbed me, no: but directly after I shot her. Something about the senseless act of mutual self-harm unlocked memories I’d lost. Memories Rassilon had stolen, when I’d returned to Gallifrey’s timelock, and been “cured.”
”Fixed.”
I was descending the lift on Mondas, descending it to crawl aboard my TARDIS. With each and every ding of the bell, each floor I sank nearer the black hole, nearer hell, nearer a grave of my own making, the memories rushed back: the Doctor, sparing me on Christmas day, and my reciprocation. ‘Wonder what I’d be without you’ and ‘yeah.’ The conversation in the wasteland. Little kindnesses he’d performed, throughout our childhood, that the Time Council had so skillfully slipped from my memory databanks.
Things Missy had, of course, remembered, because in that moment, I was remembering them.
But then I went off-course of destiny.
I survived.
And I dropped everything, and did as Missy said, and went looking for the Doctor. To say, ‘sorry, and yes, yes. Take me with you. Yes, my answer is yes now. Yes.’
I am the me that should not still be alive.
But here I am. Here we are.
My apology to the universe.
//Just your periodic reminder, to the flurry of new followers (hi! :3 ). My Simm Master is:
—Chronically physically disabled (the wound from Missy attempting to cause his regeneration caused permanent spinal injury which manifests as severe lower back and leg pain) –Nonbinary (like all Time Lords and Ladies canonically are) –Panromantic and demisexual –Neurodivergent (PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, and possibly Autism Spectrum). PLEASE NOTE these identifying traits neither explain nor justify his MORAL deprivation. Morality and mental health are two very separate things.
IM CALLING IT ALREADY THE TIME LORDS WIPED THE MASTERS MEMORY AFTER THE EVENTS OF ‘END OF TIME’ BECAUSE THEY JUST KNEW THE MASTER AND THE DOCTOR HAD RECONCILED IN THE TOP RIGHT AND LEFT GIFS AND THAT SCARED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THEM BECAUSE THE REBEL TIME LORDS BESTIES WERE FUCKING BACK.
AND THEY KNEW THAT TOGETHER THEY COULD BURN EMPIRES.
SO THEY WIPED HIS MEMORY
SO HE WOULD FORGET THAT THEY FORGAVE EACH OTHER
THAT THEY SAVED EACH OTHER
THAT THEY REALISED THE REAL SHITS THAT KEPT FUCKING THEIR FRIENDSHIP OVER WERE ALL THE FUCKERS IN THE CITADEL.
That’s why we saw Simm the way he was in the Doctor falls. Because he was the one who forgot.
And missy is the one who remembered.
#DontmindmeIlljustcrymyselftosleep
^ I like this headcanon because his behaviour in the Doctor Falls feels so wrong to me
That’s definitely one extremely good theory and yes I think the root of all of it is that the Time Council fears what the two chief renegades of their age would do if they joined forces.
My theory is more complex:
–The Master went into the Timelock trying to kill Rassilon. He failed and was apprehended. –Rassilon imprisoned him in a sensorial deprivation chamber on Gallifrey during the Time War for 70 years (the same amount of time, coincidentally, that Missy was being “rehabilitated” by the Twelfth Doctor), complete with the manufacture of the “Drums” sound that the Master had shaken off, as well as PARTIAL memory erasure so that should he encounter the Doctor again, the “facts” the Doctor offered would still add up. During that time relentlessly bombarded him with information about everything the Doctor was doing at different points in the Doctor’s timeline after the Master went into the Timelock, without trying to come after and save the Master. It culminated in information that the Doctor would at some point visit Gallifrey again…but still not go looking for the Master (events in Series Nine). –By the time the Master was released, and free again of the Drums and all the psychological conditioning, he was convinced (partially, at least consciously) to retract his forgiveness. –Rassilon played him like a puppet, giving him ostensible political power, then framing him to be exiled from Gallifrey (the so-called “mutual kicking out” the Master refers to in The Doctor Falls). –The Master stole a TARDIS and crash landed on Mondas. –Twelve’s obsessive preoccupation with “saving” Missy–which, out of context, to the Master, would look like brainwashing–and his obvious horror at seeing the Master again, only seem to confirm the lies Rassilon has told the Master.
I also love how there are several Simm Master muns in this thread and despite our varied portrayals of this muse, we all agree that Series Ten Simm!Master was totally ooc.
Send a symbol and I’ll answer the question about my muse. (Or answer in character. Whatever works for you!)
🌠 – Would your muse make a wish on a star? If so, what would they wish for?
Koschei would proclaim himself above needing the help of supernatural powers or even of luck, and this one’s tricky because consciously he would wish for total mastery, total dominance, over any and all potential threats to his autonomy, which usually takes the form of great social, military/weapons-based, and political power. Yet unconsciously, and perhaps with increasing self-awareness over the passage of time, he would wish for a different form of safety: the unconditional acceptance of his best friend. In only two of my verses is he beyond wanting the Doctor’s approval, and settled with a different love interest, and in those cases, he wants the unconditional acceptance of those romantic partners. In all cases, he is looking for control because he is looking for safety. And in his main verses, he has reached a point at which he’s aware of this, and of the fact that control is not necessary for safety, but rather, mutual affection and respect.
Icarus 