#character: the master (rory!master)

[canisonicscrewyou]

DUNNO WHAT OTHER ANON WAS TALKING ABOUT BUT I CARE. tell me about it

I have been meaning to answer these for like a hot week. Take my hand(s). Come with me. This AU is excellent if you don't care too much about canon and if you want to permanently ruin the way you watch Eleven's run w the Ponds. This is also just straight infodumping.

This post is both shorter and longer than I expected. I can talk about this for ages so this is truly one of those topics that’s like If You Have Any Questions At All About Fobwatched Rory!Master AU GimmeGimmeGimme I Will Always Be Down To Talk About Him/Them.

The gist is that this is an AU where Rory Williams is still Rory Williams. It’s just that Rory Williams should not exist? It’s just that Rory Williams Definitely Did Not Exist until some busted TARDIS fell into a backyard in Leadworth in the 90s and sat there to rot. It’s- It’s just that Rory Williams is a front. Was made up. Rory Williams is genetically human. Rory Williams has a fobwatch that has been harboring the Master for as long as Rory Williams has existed.

The background is that the year is 2012 and this is a headcanon being tossed around because the Master has not even been alluded to in Eleven’s run. Criminal. This premise was promptly stolen by me and ruined my brain for the next 12 years. There are a handful of fanfics that explore this premise, it’s been Too Long since I’ve read any so I truly don’t have any recommendations right now.

So. We have Rory Williams.

You may ask me “Hey, Andrew, in 2012 when other people were playing with this headcanon, was there anything in canon that could have supported this? Not because you NEED to justify headcanons and AUs with hard canon. I’m just curious.” and I say thank you for specifying. YES. Definitely. Totally.

I hope this helps :)) No straws were being grasped :)) It will be like 3 more years until Missy is introduced :))))) Some of us were starving :))))))))

So now that that’s some fun fandom lore established let’s settle this bastard (the Master)’s timeline…

From the Doctor’s timeline: Eleven has not actually seen the Master. Eleven’s last time seeing the Master was Simm!Master being dragged back to Gallifrey before the regeneration tour. The Master is dead.

From the Master’s timeline: Missy is dying. Missy is trying not to die and is effectively kickstarting a new regeneration cycle.

There are two priorities here: Get far away from the Doctor and get far away from any version of themself. In fact that new regeneration cycle might take time to fully develop. Doubly in fact, the Master’s TARDIS is not in good shape.

Solution: chameleon arch.

Rory Williams is not meticulously planned as a human. Rory Williams didn’t even have a name made up when the Master was both regenerating and going under the chameleon arch. There was no planning or time to plan. There was just going, and hoping for the best, because the chameleon arch will sort itself out just fine. (wrong)

Amelia Pond moves to Leadworth with her family as a young girl.

The night Amelia Pond settles into a house with a crack in the bedroom wall, a TARDIS crashes in someone else’s backyard in Leadworth. And Brian and Mallory Williams suddenly remember that they were supposed to be renovating their daughter’s bedroom (that strangely looks like a home office at the time), and put Rory Williams to sleep on the couch after he comes wandering in from the woods out back.

Rory Williams meets Amelia Pond the literal next day, and immediately, unknowingly, the youngest 7 year old in existence Fucks The Master’s Whole Shit Up For An Entire Millennia.

About a week later, the Doctor crash-lands into Amelia Pond’s backyard, and there is literally too much going on for him to even get a HINT that his Best Divorced Enemy is taking a ✨Mental Health Break✨ a few blocks over.

Amelia tells Rory all about the Raggedy Doctor she met and he does not question the weird anxious feeling in his stomach at all, because this kid is dealing with other things, like transgenderism and hanging off of Amelia Pond’s arm and also her Every Last Word. He will get dragged into games of Raggedy Doctor until they are at least 15 and will look at all of her Raggedy Doctor fanart and trinkets and listen to her borderline religious obsession with this character and is the only person in Leadworth aside from Mels to not look at her funny or tell her its all A Bit Too Much when she starts ranting about him. He decides early on he wants to be a doctor. Or maybe a nurse.

curb your enthusiasm.mp3

Everything from Eleventh Hour on is… Pretty accurate. The Master isn’t even really involved. The Master is in an old antique wristwatch somewhere in the Williams’ house, buried in boxes in Rory’s closet. I’m sure there’s a joke there somewhere.

Rory Williams is just. Like that.

The Master has no hand in Rory Williams’ sheer inability to die.

Every time Rory somehow evades inexistence the Master is pleasantly surprised. It makes absolutely no damn sense how this random human managed to escape death multiple times. It makes no damn sense that he just so managed to become an Auton just so he could guard his girlfriend for 1000 years (for the Doctor, but it’s important that every move this man makes is in Amy Pond’s name. The Doctor doesn’t even cross Rory’s mind when he decides to watch over the Pandorica.).

Rory Williams does not think much about how anxious he feels in the TARDIS. Somehow, the TARDIS makes him feel claustrophobic. Somehow, he feels like he isn’t welcome there, though nobody around him would give him that impression, ever. He does not think much about how he understood how the TARDIS worked immediately outside of the one article he read on dimensional travel. There is a period of time where he thinks the sickly feeling he gets in his stomach looking at the Doctor is just him needing to unpack weird feelings around his own bisexuality and Amy teases him relentlessly for it, because honestly, it’s just mortifying that it’s the Doctor of all people.

Around the Power of Three, Brian Williams is downsizing. It’s just him living in Rory’s childhood home now, no reason to hold onto all of these boxes of things.

Brian discovers an old, busted wrist watch in Rory’s childhood bedroom, buried deep in his closet shelves where he frankly never even touched. There’s some part of his memory that tells him it was from Rory’s grandfather, some hand me down, a gift for a christening, something. Rory should have this watch. Rory would want it. Next time he sees Rory, he gives it to him.

Rory is now aware of the watch. The Master is now aware that Rory is aware of the watch. The watch has gotten incredibly claustrophobic. The Universe resetting itself doesn’t take away Rory’s centurion stint, and it doesn’t apply to streams of consciousness that are hidden in dusty Time Lord tech. Rory does not want to open the watch- there is a part of Rory deeply self aware that if it’s opened, he will no longer exist. Every fiber of Rory’s being feels compelled to open the watch. The Master does want to open the watch- but the Master does not, cannot have, the watch opening around the Doctor. Neither man wins in this scenario.

You are the Master. You explicitly chose some random coordinates and fobwatched yourself into some random human with a random backstory. You somehow wound up best friends with the person obsessed with your ex that you were AVOIDING. You all traipse around his TARDIS together. You die and come back multiple times for this girl, this woman that you hooked onto immediately. Your daughter marries that same fucking ex. You couldn't have pranked yourself harder if you tried.

You are Amy Pond. You shouldn't really exist but you do against all odds. And you do not deserve any of this.

When the Master comes out(ha.) it is messy and awkward and nobody has a good time. There is no discernible reason why the Doctor should believe the Master going “oops !! oopsie !! well this is awkward isn’t it !!!!” while wearing the face of his best friend’s husband, and a very good friend of his own, and also technically his father-in-law. The Master is also aware of this. The Master is, actually, feeling kind of guilty that he killed Amy Pond’s husband right in front of her?

The Master has been locked in a state of half-regeneration for 1000 years. The Master has been in Rory Williams head, and likewise the Master has had Rory Williams in his own head. The Master is softly aware that there is something different in him this time around. There is something that feels decidedly human, sickly and overly emotional and cagey. There’s also just plain dysphoria when he looks in the mirror as himself, as the Master and not Rory, for the first time, something that absolutely fucks up the Master who is A. A Time Lord who has regenerated dozens of times B. Up until this point frequently operates on the idea that “Any Working Body Is A Good Body”.z

Eleven hates his guts. Amy is not fond either. (I am convinced that if that watch opened up without the Doctor around at all he would’ve immediately snatched up Amy and forced her to be his best friend even if she didn’t want to. I am certain that if Rory opened the watch at a few specific points the Master could’ve absolutely just willingly whisked Amy away to be his own companion and they would be sooo fucked up together.) It is uncertain to everyone involved whether or not River knew this was a possibility, let alone something she knew would even happen. The Master is spiraling. The Master is also lonely, both in the present and in the memory of being Missy. The memory of a Doctor who doesn’t exist yet. Rory Williams is a ghost that haunts the Master until he regenerates. Rory is in his sudden knowledge of how to properly bandage a burn. Rory is in his hesitation at saying the coldest and cruelest thing he could think of to get a reaction out of Amy Pond. Missy is in the inside joke he quips to the Doctor before realizing that the joke hasn’t happened yet. Missy is in the way he wonders if the Doctor even had a chance at remembering this regeneration of his since the whole timeline is disrupted, so does it actually matter what he does with it? Between Rory and between everything that happened with Missy and the Saxon Master and Twelve, is he actually what he perceives as the Master anymore? Or will another version of himself eventually just come along and put him down like a sick dog for not performing correctly, too?

Rory haunts the Master in the way that the Doctor can’t look at the Master’s face without revulsion for ages. Until the Master is grasping at straws, and suddenly insisting that the Doctor look him in the eyes. And he does- he just barely does. It’s not what he was expecting, but he does it. The Master grabs at his wrist and there’s a desperate insistence to the way he says it, the most pathetic “Say My Name” to ever fall from any regeneration’s lips, and when the Doctor does say “Master…”, it’s only to follow up with “Master… Are you okay?” because NO he clearly isn’t. The Master is quite obviously never okay but this is different, nothing is working the way it used to, nothing sounds right and even the Doctor isn’t doing it right and it’s clearly(/s) all just because of Fucking Rory Williams.

Anyways. It’s about haunting your own narrative and it’s about how to best fuck up a Time Lord who was Too Human For Too Long. It’s about giving the Master empathy and both gender and social dysphoria and an identity crisis.

It's also about Amelia Pond and Rory Williams, two human beings who by all accounts should NOT exist at all, finding and loving each other because two TARDISes crash landed in Leadworth in 1996.

In Conclusion:

P.S. while I’m here: Him Face (Also important to note that if you’ve read this far in, congratulations, you get the added fun fact of knowing that in this the Master’s TARDIS is a horribly beat up and graffiti’d vending machine. It’s not stuck like that. It’s just how his TARDIS prefers to present, and shockingly, the Master’s TARDIS refuses to listen to a word he fucking says.)

[seaweedstarshine]

Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).

I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?

That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.

Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌

TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.

Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.

(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)

Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.

(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)

Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.

Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.

Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.

We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).

Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.

(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)

And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.

If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.

Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.

[deathxproof]

Starter Call !!! Rory!Master

Like/Etc and get a starter with Rory!Master of varying degrees of length and quality. (or otherwise to get me in your DMs plotting)(which. sounds far more sinister when you put it that way.)(very fitting.) Pleasepleaseplease probably specify muse if you’re a multi.

[quietwingsinthesky]

one of my favorite things about doctor who is that, by necessity from the ever-rotating cast of companions and the doctor’s own changing face, you could never possibly argue that there’s one single pairing for the doctor to get with that would be the True One For Them. they’ve lived too long, loved too much, for it to ever be just one person.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

it's honestly hilarious to write OFMD and Doctor Who fanfic back-to-back because of the difference in writing violence. In OFMD, the MO is literally "if it's not a member of the main cast, stab away" while in Doctor Who one of the character arcs literally leads to the Doctor not killing the person who has killed millions of people because pacifism/allowing his companions to make choices/etc.

Comedic excessive violence v. pacifist weapon-hating main character fight!

[deathxproof-archive]

Just think it would be soso fun to give Rory a little friend(and/or Amy) he’s had in his life for a while or someone who’s there when Rory opens the watch. And Rory!Master is just like. Well. Well. I guess you live here now. Companion just dropped. Welcome to the Disaster TARDIS.

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

i have to say, i kind of think ayitl is a darkly genius means of resolving a not-quite-love-triangle -- a highly discoursed-upon love situation, if you will -- because i think both rory/logan and rory/jess shippers look at the revival like “this shows exactly why [pairing i don’t like] doesn’t work, and exactly why [pairing i do like] does work”

and i think it works equally well in either direction, hahahahaha

[rowesam]

do any of my lovely followers have, per chance, any good dw fics rec. i dont want to rawdog the ao3 tag again im scared AND im a busy woman but. you see. the blorbos

[legends-of-time]

Thorn Bush (Doctor Who Story) - Materlist

Warnings:

Major Character Death, Minor Character Death, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Period Typical Attitudes, Cannon-Typical Violence

Physical description:

Kathy has light brown hair and blue eyes

Summary:

Blimey, where does she begin?

Well her name is Katherine but most call her Kathy and her age, well that's the real question, a complicated one.

——

Kathy is someone who is reborn into the world of Doctor Who from ours. Kathy meets the Doctor and their companions in multiple different places in their time streams throughout the Whoniverse. Not the usual companion or love interest.

Doctors 9-14

Chapters:

Chapter 1: Prologue

Chapter 2: Tooth and Claw

Chapter 3: The Girl Who Died

Chapter 4: Robot of Sherwood

Chapter 5: The Bells of Saint John

Chapter 6: The Pandorica Opens

Chapter 7: The Big Bang

Chapter 8: The Death of the Doctor

Chapter 9: The Day of the Doctor Part One

Chapter 10: The Day of the Doctor Part Two

Chapter 11: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith

Chapter 12: The End of Time Part One

Chapter 13: The End of Time Part Two

Chapter 14: The Eleventh Hour Part One

Chapter 15: The Eleventh Hour Part Two

Chapter 16: The Shakespeare Code

Chapter 17: The Witchfinders Part One

Chapter 18: The Witchfinders Part Two

Chapter 19: The Woman Who Lived

Chapter 20: Legend of the Sea Devils

Chapter 21: Thin Ice

Chapter 22: The Haunting of Villa Diodati

Chapter 23: The Next Doctor

Chapter 24: War of the Sontarans

Chapter 25: The Unquiet Dead

Chapter 26: The Paternoster Gang

Chapter 27: The Snowmen Part One

Chapter 28: The Snowmen Part Two

Chapter 29: The Crimson Horror

Chapter 30: The Name of the Doctor

Chapter 31: Deep Breath Part One

Chapter 32: Deep Breath Part Two

Chapter 33: Survivors of the Flux

Chapter 34: The Vanquishers

Chapter 35: Family Time and Tying Up Loose Ends

Chapter 36: The Unicorn and the Wasp Part One

Chapter 37: The Unicorn and the Wasp Part Two

Chapter 38: Daleks in Manhattan

Chapter 39: Evolution of the Daleks

Chapter 40: Across the Pond

Chapter 41: Captain Jack Harkness

Chapter 42: Demons of the Punjab Part One

Chapter 43: Demons of the Punjab Part Two

Chapter 44: Idiot's Lantern

Chapter 45: Village of Angels

Wattpad access

fanfiction.net access

Ao3 access

[elliottexists]

"the one who waits" is such a doctor who thing to say. oh "the one who waits" you say? is that every character ever? do you mean jack harkness? amy pond? rory williams? river song? bill potts? yaz khan? the master? THEY ALL FUCKING WAITED

[canisonicscrewyou]

Wearing a big t shirt with text that says “Ask Me about my 10-year-running hyper-specific mildly-to-intensely-convoluted blorbo AU” and a big caution symbol underneath it

[shadowsndaisies]

hangman meets 'thena

wc: 1.7k

synopsis: word is, there's a new pilot on board carrier air wing nine, and she flies for the VFA-14, the Tophatters.

main masterlist

athena-verse master post

a/n: the highly requested hangman and athena meet blurb, let me know what else you'd like to see from this universe, especially things that exist outside the storyline. or even if you just want more of certain characters. This serves as a precursory understanding to Jake and Athena, it probably doesn't answer every question about them, but it might help you see their foundation a bit better. but special shoutout to @djs8891 @tgmreader @rory-cakes and @fanreader75 for asking specifically about hangman and athenas dynamic (mentions at the end as well)

You’d heard of him, everyone active had. The only active aviator with a confirmed kill, never mind that your dad had two.

Hangman was exactly what you expected if you were honest.

Phoenix, who had taken an instant liking to you as soon as you’d been reassigned to the Tophatters, had filled you in on all the Lemoore gossip. Phoenix flew with the VFA-41, the Black Aces, also based out of Lemoore, and in fact, on the same carrier as you, Commander, Carrier Air Wing Nine. Her first order of business was getting you caught up on the carrier, that included learning the players, and while she was happy to introduce you to different Naval officers, the only one she warned against was Hangman.

Someone really should have told her that at your core, you were your father’s daughter.

Let it be known, you did not go looking for him. He appeared in all his Ken Doll Aviator glory as you were doing a morning check on your F/A 18E. Apparently he also flew an F/A 18E, ‘Nix on the other hand had an F/A 18F, as she normally flew with a WSO.

He approached, full of cocky attitude, and maybe it was all the years being raised by both Ice and Mav, but when he spoke it was like you could understand him just as fluently as you did with them. You could see where Nat was coming from with “honestly, Athena, Hangman in two words? Texan Douchewad.”

“Well, Howdy, darlin’, scuttlebutt was that there was a new girl on board, glad to meet you, name’s Hangman,” was his introduction.

You couldn’t help the smirk when he said girl, “Isn’t the hallmark of a proper southern boy, that he’s, well, proper?” you shoot back, eye brow quirked. “I’m a woman, not a girl.”

It was fun, watching the way his smirk melted, how his brow furrowed, as he tried to catch up.

“You-”

“Phoenix gave me a run down, but to be honest, I’ve always preferred forming my own perceptions,” you shrug, as you continue your check.

As you brush past him, you aren’t surprised to hear him following after you. “Ah, so my reputation precedes me then?” he muses, and you can see the way he uses his charm and humor to cover, a shield of bravado, too bad he didn’t realize you were raised by bravado.

“Not exactly, though I did see your plaque at Top Gun, to be fair, I saw Phoenix’s too,” you shrug again.

“So you’re the fresh blood, huh?” he prompts, and finally you turn and smile at him.

“I guess fresh blood is better than being called new girl. Name’s Athena, you’d do well to use it,” you tell him, smile in place.

“Athena? As in th4e Greek goddess of war and wisdom?” he asks, brows furrowed down.

“That’s the one,” you nod, moving to check the landing gear.

“Athena as in, the Naval Aviator who climbed through the ranks and had two separate stations before she went to Top Gun?” he follows up and you turn.

You turn to face Hangman, and now your brows are pulled, “How’d you know that?”

“I keep tabs on things that pique my interest,” he shrugs, and your lip curls on the end. “Rumor was you had Admirals arguing over who got you under their command…”

“Nice to meet you Hangman,” you decide finally, climbing back from under the plane, and offering him your hand.

“Pleasure’s mine, Miss Athena,” he smirks back. “It true your old man flew too?” he tacks the question on as he shakes your hand.

You can see it in his eyes, nepotism, you know it’s where is brain’s gone. It’s like you couldn’t escape it, everyone assumed that’s how you got as far as you have, as quick as you have. They were wrong.

“Yeah, mostly f-14s though, nothing with the juice of my baby,” you straight up lie, so what if your dad was still flying? So what if he was probably flying f/a-18s or something experimental? No one but you needed the specifics, and you’re pretty sure it wouldn’t help you fight against the nepo-baby claims. Too bad no one realized how much of a detriment being attached to Maverick actually was. It made most of the higher ups uneasy about taking you on, unsure if you’d inherited your father’s need for speed and reckless streak, you had, but you were just better than him at keeping it in check, if Ice taught you anything, it was that — “ice cold, kiddo, no mistakes.”

“Must’ve been nice, having a leg up like that,” he’s still smiling as he talks down at you.

You match his smile and catch the flicker of confusion in his eyes as you walk up closer to him. “It was, see, it prepared me for a lifetime of dealing with cocky naval aviators and their inflated sense of bubble wrap bravado.”

“That all?” he presses, staring down at you, the two of you now face to face, staring hard at each other, but you caught the little twitch of his eye at your term.

“No,” you smirk before turning and walking away, “but I’ve got a hop to prep for, see you around Hangman.”

…

He finds you in the Mess later that day. You’d just returned from morning drills with your squad, and was eating with Phoenix.

“Ladies,” he greets, setting his own tray down in the seat opposite you.

“And I’ve officially lost my appetite,” Phoenix decided, standing up. “Athena, I’ll catch you later, I’d say it’s nice to see you, Bagman, but we know better,” she states, grabbing her tray, patting your shoulder and walking away.

“You sure know how to clear a room, Hangman,” you note, eyes flicking to Phoenix over Hangman’s shoulder, Nat was clearing her tray and pauses to look back and roll her eyes dramatically as she looks at Hangman’s back.

Your lip twitches and you lift your glass of water to cover up the smile threatening to split your lips.

“Bubble wrap bravado,” Hangman repeats back to you, echoing your statement from yesterday.

“What about it?” you challenge.

“Explain it to me,” it’s not a question, not in how it’s phrased, but you understand that he is asking.

“Protective to an extent, easier to pop than you think, so long as you apply the pressure properly. Problem is, everyone knows when it does, it’s usually a bit loud,” you explain, and he seems so incredibly focused on you.

You didn’t mind the hyper-focus though, you’d coined the term a long time ago. It had originally been for a different boy, one with a temper, but who you’d watched grow up. Ice had thought it an apt descriptor, he’d even taken it to describe a few officer’s he’d interacted with over the years.

“Hmm,” he hums, eyes glued to yours.

“You disagree?” you ask.

“No. I think you hit it on the head,” he admits and your lips curl up just the slightest bit, at least he seemed honest… cock sure and stubborn too, but honest.

“A naval aviator for a father was a lot of things, Hangman,” you admit, hesitating for a moment, deciding how much you wanted to say. “It was limited time, and firm goodbyes. It was getting behind a yoke for the first time when I was 12. It was learning ranks at the same time I was learning how to do multiplication,” you say, and you study how his expression changed which each revelation. “Having a Naval Aviator for a father might have given me a home field advantage, but that’s all it did. The rest, the wings, the assignments, I earned those,” you tell him seriously.

“Sure you did,” he nods along condescendingly, but his eyes betray his curiosity, and for now, that was enough for you.

You smile again at him, though this time it is a bit sour. “You don’t believe me, that’s fine, fair even, to be skeptical. But you should know, you’re gonna eat crow when you realize how wrong you were,” you tell him seriously, before standing up with your plate and glass, and walking away.

…

You get your chance to prove him wrong just a few days later when the Tophatters get assigned to a drill with both of the other squadrons on board the carrier, the Black Aces, and the Vigilantes. Meaning both Nat and Jake are in the air with you.

After is the first time Jake looks at you with something other than cocky contempt. As if seeing you fly up close resolved some of his concerns, but there’s still something there. He was waiting for the other shoe, too bad no one told him that you’d had both feet firmly on the ground since you signed your life to the Unites States Naval Services.

You get paired with him about a month and a half later for a cover assignment for an emergency evac of a SEAL team.

Normally assignments were set within squads, but it was an emergency evac and the carrier was docked. You and Jake had been the closest to the carrier at the time who were qualified, and so you were the two who were sent off. You flew south into South America, and while a lot of the details were later labeled as redacted, Jake never questioned your ability after. Nor should he. You saved his life.

He did however decide that meant you were friends, much to the immense annoyance of one Natasha Trace.

Considering the entire mission had been classified and redacted, you weren’t able to explain a lot of it to her, but when Jake started choosing his words a little more carefully she did her best not to start anything either. When he started sitting with you in the mess, she eyed him carefully. And when he started following you around in any downtime that lined up, she kept her mouth shut.

She found a new case study in the two of you, the outward and obvious differences between Hangman with Athena, and Hangman without. Her eyes jumping from how easily you let your guard down with him, and how utterly soft Hangman could be when he thought no one was paying attention.

Natasha, to her credit, had tried, desperately tried, to get more information out of you regarding your budding friendship, but all you would ever offer was a simple, “people tend to be more complex than what meets the eye, ‘Nix, I’m proof of that. So is he, and so are you.”

She decided then and there, you had way too much tact and patience, and maybe, just maybe, that was what Hangman needed.

...

everything: @butterfly-skinnylegend

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...

[deathxproof]

Rory!Master released from the fobwatch/chameleon arch in front of the Doctor and in a blind wide-eyed panic the very first words out of his mouth are “I’m Breaking Up With You”

[master-missysversion]

I love character/episode swaps, yknow what here's a poll

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Eleven/Amy/Rory Fics Update (pt. 18)

And here we finally have it: the Eleventh Doctor & Master confrontation, as well as the climax of the Eleventh Doctor's spiral, River's character arc in Torchwood, Amy's arc about standing up for herself, and Rory's worry about the Doctor/questioning at what point he's going to finally stop the Doctor's spiral.

This was really, really satisfying to write and I really hope it works for y'all- it felt like getting to take the ideas that A Good Man Goes to War was trying to execute, simplifying the convoluted mess around it back to a Doctor/Master confrontation, getting rid of the sexism, and giving back the companions (Rory, River, and Amy) their agency to make choices in the story.

(As well as finally giving the Doctor a chance to rest/breathe at the end. Because boy has he had a rough year.)

[deathxproof-archive]

“Well of all the things I expect to see, you know were not it. Hopefully you don’t intend on killing me this time.” (From Freddie!Missy for kosch :P @inxumerable

@inxumerable It was obvious, who she was, pretty much immediately. There wasn’t any questioning it, there wasn’t any hesitation. He didn’t recognize the face, but he knew her.

And she was American, so something had to be deeply wrong.

The Master stared at her, at Missy (did she also prefer Missy this time, he wondered?), with a quirked eyebrow , a half-amused twitch of his lips at her sarcasm. And the memory of struggling to get back to his own TARDIS with a stab-wound in his back. Oh. Well that was different.

“I… think I’m a bit too old to do something like that, now...” He finally said, with a touch of hesitation. “But I can’t say I was expecting you, either.” He cleared his throat. Tried to stand a bit straighter without seeming too obvious about the whole thing- bit of a show off for himself. And if the attention was directed on him, he could distract from the fact that his TARDIS was probably within eyeshot. Not that he didn’t trust himselfherself? Well. “So… What, exactly, were you looking for?”