elisi | Doctor/Master (crack) theory.

This is inspired by The Doctor's Wife (no spoilers) and A Christmas Carol (minor spoiler), plus I borrow SHAMELESSLY from The Naming of Things by

ariafic (Summary: How to become the Master. This is the best Master fic EVER.)

The Enmity of Ages...
TEEN KAZRAN: What, now? I kiss her now?
DOCTOR: Kazran, it's this or go to your room and design a new kind of screwdriver. Don't make my mistakes.
'A Christmas Carol'

Once upon a time on Gallifrey there were two little Time Lord boys called Theta and Koschei who were bestest friends. And as they grew older, Koschei realised that he was head-over-heels in love with Theta, but Theta was utterly oblivious, and also liked girls and quite clearly didn't think about Koschei like that...

Now Koschei wanted to the centre of Theta's world in every way, so he did the logical thing: Killed himself and turned into a girl. (A red head, obviously.)

This (not surprisingly) made Theta FREAK OUT, even though he was also excited and attracted and intrigued, but at the critical moment he lost his nerve and ran away to his room and began designing a new kind of screwdriver.

Gallifrey hath no fury like a Time Lady scorned, so Koschei killed herself again (out of spite) and resolved to stay male forever (that'd teach Theta not to appreciate what (s)he'd done for him!), and the friendship never recovered, although the complex feelings stayed with them always.

And the Doctor was left with a particular weakness for strong-willed red heads...

Never the End

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Plus the way they have that HUGE UST thing going on, even though the Doctor is clearly very straight...

I ship them so hard.

It's weird, because absolutely everyone else I know who ships Doctor/Master shipped it before Doctor/River. I'm the other way around--I only got into Doctor Who during series 5, and I went back to watch the other series specifically in hopes of lots more River Song (yeah...) and I wonder how that shapes my views on Master/Doctor.

A lot of Master/Doctor and Doctor/River shippers I've spoken to have said they ship Doctor/River in part because, like the Master, she's the only one who really seems to be on equal footing with him. Basically River = feme!Master so they ship it. Then there's only old me, who shipped River/Doctor long before I even knew that the Master existed as a character.

Am I making sense? I've been running errands on very limited sleep all day, I'm not sure I'm making sense. Thoughts?

Nope, nope, you're making sense, and I'm basically in the same position. By which I mean I came to the show with season five and my interest in Doctor/Master is almost entirely based on Doctor/River.

It's a pretty technical/narrative interest, though. It would be a stretch to say I ship it. You've got a character whose basic purpose is to be evil--I just can't take that seriously.

I suppose my shipping it relates largely to what I do consider canon--which is basically everything I like, canon or fanon. When I think about it, I really don't ship canon!Master with canon!Doctor at all, but I ship my ideas of them and their shared story. I ship them for reasons that are vaguely rooted in canon but ultimately not canon at all. I suffer the same phenomenon to greater degrees in certain fandoms; there are two fandoms of which I am a part where I basically don't care about canon at all and think it's awful, but I love the underlying ideas and the fanfiction it produces.

I do like some of the fanworks a lot more than the canon. The fic elisi linked up there in particular is magnificent and makes the characters believable as people. And the broad, crack-y, campy, snarky stuff I love.

But the middle ground in between that, including pretty much everything onscreen . . .

There's a character whose purpose is to be evil. Let's just say that's not calculated to appeal to my narrative interests.

There's a character whose purpose is to be evil.
Hmm. I'd say that his purpose is to be the anti-Doctor. And the thing is that without the Doctor he loses his purpose - this is one of the reasons my new theory appeals makes me so happy: The Master is a reaction against the Doctor ('The enmity of ages' indeed - worst. breakup. ever). Of course you explore this beautifully in your fic, but let me also rec Nowhere Man in case I haven't before.

/random

ETA: Actually, going over old ground, then there's an interesting split in the RTD years, where Ten loves two people who are polar opposites (nicely reflecting his own personality split), whereas River is a much more complex character, both good and bad...

Edited 2011-05-28 16:26 (UTC)

Actually, I'm a bit reminded of the people who get so riled up when Moff "objectifies" characters--literally makes them into objects or treats them too much as symbols rather than fully rounded people (Abigail, for example). And that doesn't bother me--it's meaningful to me, it enriches my understanding of what's going on.

But Rusty morally objectifies characters (as do many writers), and I'm sure there's legit reasons for doing that too. But it boils my blood if I think about it too hard, which is why I mostly ignore this sort of thing when it crops up in fiction.

On either side I doubt it matters too much how much the writer manages to add shading and characterization on top of their framework--the underlying offense is always going to be there.

This makes sense.

And it's quite funny, actually, because this was sort of the case with Spike on BtVS... except he (and his relationship with Buffy) kinda got away from the writers, and the things they were supposed to 'be' got completely out of hand. It's one reason I love them so much. ♥

Asked the sister, who is far more widely versed in cult sci fi than I but shares most of my prejudices, and she does gives Buffy her general approval, even if she's not gaga over it, including the assessment that 'you at least need to watch it sometime so that you know it.'

So, yeah, that will probably happen at some point.

'you at least need to watch it sometime so that you know it.'
Heh. I have now spoiled you silly, of course, but hey-ho. It's only 144 episodes...

*ducks and runs away*

I honestly don't really care. And often with long shows/books, knowing what's ahead is what gets me through them. I like to have some framework for what I'm absorbing.

(And usually the "how" and "why" is more interesting than the "what" anyway *points to icon*)

Oh you make a lot of sense, although I, too, am one of those Doctor/Master shippers who then fell for Doctor/River...

And it's funny, because I absolutely adored the Doctor/Master relationship (it's what finally tipped me into proper obsessiveness) - all the dark mirroring and twisted love etc etc (I can link you to my VERY VERY LONG essay that I wrote after S3 if you like?), and I was very happy with that and was very clear that I'd never ship the Doctor with a human (or someone mortal). And then S5 happened, and I had to eat ALL MY WORDS.

Yes I love Doctor/River because of the way it echoes Doctor/Master, but also because of all the differences. Doctor/Master is impossible, it'll never happen. Doctor/River does happen, and how! And whereas Doctor/Master throws both of them into rigid roles (because the Master is EVIL and the Doctor is therefore good), Doctor/River is far more complex, because she's... not exactly a light of goodness (to say the least) and yet the Doctor marries her (or as good as), which makes him a lot more morally suspect too.

And now I'm not at all sure I've made any sense, since *I* am half asleep. Hey ho, tangents are nice, aren't they?

Doctor/Master (crack) theory.

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