//anyway hot take but people sure vilify the master/missy a lot for simply wanting to do things autonomously without being under the control of a foreign agent or will and acting violently when their control of self is once again threatened, whereas the doctor has BEEN that outside malevolent control to others on more than one occasion and under the convenient masquerade of moral rectitude.
//Oh, the Master, EASILY. The Doctor has never been self-aware in any face, which has effected consequences ranging from being blunt, impatient, and rude toward a Companion who’s scared or upset, to the creation of a number of monsters throughout the universe, including the Master themself.
The Master is aware of this, and is contrariwise a hypervigilant, fanatically meticulous person. Whether in love or loathing, the Master has studied the Doctor like a most beloved academic subject, and simultaneously, like a soul mate. Simm Master has a penchant for rubbing salt directly into the deepest wounds, as well, and that’s not just because he’s spiteful and nasty (which he is), but also because he knows the Doctor THAT well. It’s a double whammy because the Master studies EVERYTHING thoroughly (except maybe the potential heroism of humans, whom the Master constantly underestimates), and also because the Doctor is the Master’s favorite subject in all the universe.
He would know ages before the Doctor. Ages.
“I can assure you, there’s truth in your supposition. I have been in love with the same two-hearted soul who is equal parts comet and black hole, for thousands of years. I have watched the same Andromeda-spiraling brain forbid weapons while being the worst weapon of all. She killed a planet, with invalids and children and pets and birthdays and anniversaries and favorite tastes and colors and nervous tics and bowel patterns and least favorite songs and a thousand million other uncoiling springs of LIFE. I have seen her rail against death because she foisted the duty of executioner off upon me. But she is also the person who would rescue just as many men, women, and children on a colony ship doomed to perish, and risk her own life in the process, to give them the chance at the strange ecstasy of living, just a bit longer. Playing with her food, yet never ignoring a distress signal, absolute and merciless, and yet rapturously inspiring. She is the most violent and the kindest being I know. How are such paradoxes possible, within one being, without the fabric of space and time collapsing?
“Simple. The storyteller is either one of the ones she strung up to slowly starve; or it’s one of the ones she took by the hand and saved.”
“You still haven’t answered the question…”
Doctor Who – The Last of the Time Lords (2007)
#see #I could go FULL meta here #but I just want to point out two things#Kosch (mostly in my HCs but I mean look at him)#is very particular about his freedom #being free is all he has#and it’s always been like that#and I mean it’s hardly a secret so i figure the Doctor knows#now just look at the bottom two gifs #Ten knows what he’s doing#what he’s sentencing him to #the TARDIS is barely more than a cage#a big one but still a cage #with no control for him to go anywhere#and the bottom right gif #oh god #at first the Master is just so… incredulous#like “he wouldn’t. He KNOWS.”#and then there’s the betrayal in his eyes because #yes #he would #he IS#and you can see the very moment the realisation is settling in#that the Doctor is about to rob him of the one thing #the ONE THING#he knows is more precious to him than anything else #more than fame#more than power #more than wealth #more than his life (via rhythmofwar)
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.
my best friend: mentions we’re best friends
me: 💝? 💕?? 💓💕?? ? 💗? 💝💕💗? 💖💕💖❤️💗💛!!!!!
Oh my God @mostincrediblechange just apprised me of the most DoctorXMaster thing to which I have ever borne witness, particularly the Harold Saxon era, fite me.
Skype rp
@mostincrediblechange as the Thirteenth Doctor
sclfmastery as the Simm!Master.
Melancholy hangs in the air like a fog. It makes the whole TARDIS seem grey and gloomy. Her hearts are heavy and her usual fire and enthusiasm is lacking, but even so, she feels his weariness too and wants to help.
“Kosch… d’you mind if I join you? I… I don’t feel very well,” she admits, finding it hard to describe how she’s feeling. It’s as if she had a bad dream that she can’t quite remember… but the feeling lingers.
**********
The Master turns to the Doctor, a dull aimlessness in dark brown eyes a tell-tale sign of his own melancholy. But he forgets himself with her earnest request for comfort. He stands, wearing an oversized hoodie, and opens his arms. He closes the distance between them and gently engulfs her. He kisses her eyebrows. "I love you, Thete.“
Such a simple straightforward declaration, gentle and sweet.
"I charge whatever saddens you to take a hike, presently.”
He kisses her forehead three times.
***********
The Doctor folds herself into his embrace, hiding her face in his neck and breathing in the scent of his skin.
She loves him too, more than her own existence. That’s why it plagues her, days like these… Where she feels inferior. Days where she’s reminded of her failings and weaknesses. Her cowardice.
She wonders if there won’t always be some part of him that secretly expects her to abandon him again someday…
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “You deserved more from me. You still do. I’m sorry I failed you. Hurt you. I swear, though, I’d die first before hurting you again…”
**********
He bunts foreheads with her, with the saddest expression, and nuzzles her face with his nose.
“Me too,” he breathes, afraid to speak louder for fear of his voice shaking. “Me too, angel.”
**********
The sound of his voice springs tears to her eyes and she pulls back, cupping his face. She doesn’t try to stop them from falling or her voice from wavering as she speaks.
“I did this to you. It’s my fault. How can you ever forgive me for leaving you behind? For… For confirming everything you had ever feared about yourself?” That he was unlovable, unwanted, broken, degenerate, monstrous…
“I don’t deserve this miracle life… I don’t deserve this happiness or our daughter or you…” But she wouldn’t let anyone or anything take him away, for his sake more than hers. She would protect him with everything she had.
**********
“I can forgive you because you are part of me, and if I want to survive, which I always do, then I must forgive myself. I can forgive you also, because every good thing in my life is your doing, too. Every single thing that has ever made me happy came from you, sweethearts.”
He cups her face in his hands, as he so often does. He runs his thumbs up and down her cheeks, from the bottom of her eyes down to her jaw.
“You deserve happiness. If I do, then you do absolutely. You take your suffering and mistakes and try to turn them into learning, and try to exalt others. I’ve lurked in shadows and torn people down to ease my own hurt. I would not have had a chance at pulling myself back up out of darkness if it hadn’t been for you. You are not perfect, but you do, you absolutely do, bring hope with you. Wherever you go. Natural as breathing. It’s almost like bright little flowers grow where you’ve trod. Freckling an otherwise dingy ground with color.”
“Never doubt that you leave things better than you found them, my love of loves.”
**********
She opens her mouth, but all that comes out is a pitiful sob and the Doctor cries.
She does not weep openly often, but her hearts and soul ache with a raw, cloying regret that drags at her very being. Theta Sigma, as she is, as she has been, buries her face in her husband’s chest and sobs, finding comfort in his words and touch and promise.
Thank you. My best friend in existence. My Koschei. My Kookaburra. I’ll be what you need. I swear.
***********
He holds her so tightly and so closely that she nearly disappears in his embrace, against his soft frame, held securely in firm arms. There’s a fierce sincerity in his hold, one that protects her from anything external to their bracketed bubble of two.
You already are.
**********
I should have been much sooner.
She pulled back and wiped her tears on her sleeve, staring up at him with a quiet determination in her eyes.
“I love you. You deserved better from the start…”
**********
He seizes her wrists.
“I don’t like that look on your face. Whatever you’re planning, don’t. I don’t want any alternative to this. What we have now. I don’t want anything jeopardizing US. Not just any us, THIS us. We are sacred. This is sacred. To me. Let me decide please, what happens to me, just once. Please.”
**********
She tugs feebly at her wrists, her expression pained.
“But it was my fault. Everything that happened between us. All the centuries of hating each other, of fighting. We were friends. We were in love when we were boys. That shouldn’t have ever ended. I shouldn’t have let you slip away!”
More tears fell. “I could fix it. I could keep us together. It would save you so much pain. Save you the drums, save us so much time… We could have a home, we could have our home, under our favorite tree… We could raise our children under that tree… I could do it. I know I could fix it… Please, Koschei…”
**********
“No, my sweet Theta. Oh, Goose. Would you let me do anything that might erase me from your timeline? Of course not. And I won’t say yes to anything that might change who we are now. I won’t let you tamper with your own timeline. Love, you’re so focused on the present and the future, but you must remember that the past you say you wish to honor can’t be edited and tweaked for a potentially speedier route to happiness. We honor the good times but also the scars we acquire. I am who I am because I had to fight. And I love him. And I love him BECAUSE of YOU. And I love YOU. Not some version of you that you think would’ve been more optimal. I might as well not exist, if you’re not you. I might as well have died in infancy. No. We got here the way we were meant to.”
He smooths all her hair back from her face and kisses her forehead again.
“A wise person once told me that witnessing the universe and everything in it was ‘ownership enough.’ You didn’t need to control it.”
“You can’t fix everything, my friend. My best friend. You can only love what’s there already.”
**********
“But I wouldn’t be erased, neither would you… We would be as we should have been from the start,” she argued weakly.
But she knows in her hearts he is right. She can’t go back. Even if she could tamper with their timeline, who could tell what events might have driven them apart? And if she did something that somehow undid their life together now, erased Zinnia from existence…
“I’d give anything to go back and undo some of the painting I caused you. I hope you know that. I was wrong. I was so wrong. And I’m scared that part of you still feels I might leave again.”
**********
As he watches her struggle it becomes crystal clear to Koschei that he must overcome all his insecurities, once and for all, and his self-loathing too, not for himself, but for HER. He must do so in order for her to be able to move forward and forgive herself.
“I will never lie to you again. So I must tell you, I have my bad days. My days of doubt and insecurity. But they are because of ME, MY hangups, MY weak spots. They are not your doing. But darling. I’m going to work on myself. Every day. I’m going to make a mission of it. And one day you won’t recognize a residue of pain in me at all.”
His forehead presses to hers again.
“I’m going to succeed, in your honor. I’m going to be a legacy to your mission. You’re going to look at me one day and see nothing but cause to be happy, and secure. No more guilt. No more regret."
**********
She reaches up and touches his face, her hazel gaze filled with hope and love and absolutely undying devotion.
"My Koschei. My best friend in the universe. You are entitled to your pain. You are entitled to your history. That’s why I won’t try to change it, because you asked me not to. If you work on yourself, I would rather it be for you, for your own happiness and self-security than to appease my guilt.”
She stands on her toes and kisses him. “I already see nothing but a cause to be happy. I look at you and I see my best friend, my husband, my bondmate, my lover. I see my past and my future. All the good and bad come together to make this… this perfect life. I want to help you heal, but for your sake, my love. Not my own.”
**********
“But it is! DARLING.”
He squeezes her around the waist, tight against him.
“Goose, I can’t be happy unless you are. Making you happy IS for me.”
He smiles dotingly, beams at her as she pulls in for the kiss, and returns it ferociously.
“Mmmm. What wonderful things you say to me.”
He leans in and whispers against her ear:
“I have never been happier than I am now.”
He pulls back and pats his stomach. "LOOK at me! I’ve got extra padding! I’ve never been fat and happy. Not until now! HehHAH. Tell me I’m a hot dad, Goose.“
**********
He is so boisterous, so beautifully ridiculous that she can’t help but laugh a watery laugh.
The Doctor wipes her eyes again and nods, taking heart in his words.
"Of course you are. The hottest dad in the universe. You still get me all hot and bothered easy.”
**********
“Yeh, I KNOW,” he trumpets, hands on hips, with a diabolical grin. "And all you’ve gotta do is go ’round in that shirt braless; or let me pull on your suspenders; oooor get really bossy and angry. Or let me chew on your ear. Or. You know. Smile, or. Breathe. A pause. "That’s really not fair, actually. Really unreasonable. Never stop.“
**********
She giggles, snorting a little bit, and pressing her little body closer to him.
"I loov you, Kookaburra. My hot dad husband. Actually, coom here, nibble on my ear. Let me boss you around a bit.”
**********
Koschei sniggers deviously, rubs his hands together and tickles his fingers down his Theta’s sides. He leans across her and takes her earlobe into his mouth, tonguing it, alongside the little joined-hands charm, and the chain. "Mmm. Yes ma’am.“
**********
The Doctor shudders and squirms a bit under his touch, her nails taking down his chest.
"God, the things you do to me… Wanna go make another baby, love? Be twice the hot dad you were before.”
**********
He absolutely PLUMES to twice his size, like some sort of Miyazaki protagonist, at her suggestion. His chesire grin splits his face. " Yes I would.“
Icarus 