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nym_wibblyCouple of interesting fanficcy questions that came my way lately: why didn't I make a big thing of the chipped cup in A Bed of Thorns? And will the Doctor and the Master pair off in Antithesis? And if so, will Jack be in the way?
On the chipped cup, I know I had a reason at the time for downplaying it, but I, erm, can't remember much about it. One aspect was that it represented a broken relationship by the time Rumple placed it on a pedestal (literal and otherwise), and I intended to write a story where Belle and Rumple's relationship never got that broken - where he never bought himself those regrets by choosing power over love. Without that regret, the object doesn't have the same power, even if it retains some sentimental attachment for the pair in A Bed of Thorns. It's Belle herself he's gone and put on a pedestal - and that brings its own issues, which they're working out at the point where the story is hanging.
On the Doctor and the Master... I think so? Maybe? The whole piece is me indulging myself, so you'd think they'd be doing the Time Lord tango on every available surface in the TARDIS for no better reason than how pretty I think it'd be, but... no. Emotional realism keeps stopping me pushing it over the line - that, or their anger gets in the way just as things heat up. The more I explore their respective incarnations, the less viable that pairing looks, and while I'm not opposed to writing a riotous mutual hatesex-scene for the hell of it, or to let them blow off some steam, I'm too squeamish to let the trainwreck go on happening and call that a 'ship. There's something there - a chemistry, that inseparability, absolutely a need for one another, the memory of old fondness - but that particular incarnation of the Master really, really hates the Doctor. Ten doesn't hate him in return, but wants him to be someone completely else - wants to change him when he doesn't want to be changed. That's possibly even less healthy than honest hatred. "If you'd just be someone else, I could love you." See above, re: Belle and Rumple's smashed-teacup canon relationship.
In the canon that came along after I started writing, we saw Simm's Master going on hating the Doctor into a different incarnation, retaining that sheer spite towards him to the last - choosing to die rather than allow his future-self, Missy, to mend fences. In terms of the characters' history, hate is not their usual vibe at all - they usually have mutual respect, mutual exasperation, even an affection towards one another and enjoyment of each other's company and conversation. It's still present in Ten, it returned with Missy and Twelve, but was lacking in Simm's Master. Cleverness and overblown masterplans usually define the Master, but the Simm incarnation was defined by cruelty. So that's what I've ended up exploring with the then-and-now contrasts - how and why the relationship is different in those incarnations. I'm not sure they can escape a getting-together of some sort if they remain trapped in that situation in my story; something's got to give, and their list of possible somethings is pretty short. Fucking hard up against the Master's prison wall is definitely an option. I'm not sure I'd call the fallout of those two immovable objects finally colliding a relationship. The reader may wish to bring brain-bleach if they ever get beyond snogging. Missy and Thirteen now.... If I can find a way past the obstacles, though, you can bet they'll be together. Because it'd be pretty.
Jack being in the way... no. Whatever's going on between him and Ten (and between him and the Master, for that matter - their brutal antagonism is as much a driving force in the story as Jack's awkward but sweet 'shipper subplot with the Doctor), it's not an obstacle to anything the Doctor chooses to do next. It's a sticking plaster that can't hold for long - an outward expression of how concerned Jack is by the situation, and of how sorry the Doctor is for abandoning him. They began the affair knowing that it wasn't a long-term deal - that while it may be love on Jack's side, it's unrequited by the Doctor. What they do have is trust, making them the exact opposite of Ten/Master for the purposes of my story.
On the chipped cup, I know I had a reason at the time for downplaying it, but I, erm, can't remember much about it. One aspect was that it represented a broken relationship by the time Rumple placed it on a pedestal (literal and otherwise), and I intended to write a story where Belle and Rumple's relationship never got that broken - where he never bought himself those regrets by choosing power over love. Without that regret, the object doesn't have the same power, even if it retains some sentimental attachment for the pair in A Bed of Thorns. It's Belle herself he's gone and put on a pedestal - and that brings its own issues, which they're working out at the point where the story is hanging.
On the Doctor and the Master... I think so? Maybe? The whole piece is me indulging myself, so you'd think they'd be doing the Time Lord tango on every available surface in the TARDIS for no better reason than how pretty I think it'd be, but... no. Emotional realism keeps stopping me pushing it over the line - that, or their anger gets in the way just as things heat up. The more I explore their respective incarnations, the less viable that pairing looks, and while I'm not opposed to writing a riotous mutual hatesex-scene for the hell of it, or to let them blow off some steam, I'm too squeamish to let the trainwreck go on happening and call that a 'ship. There's something there - a chemistry, that inseparability, absolutely a need for one another, the memory of old fondness - but that particular incarnation of the Master really, really hates the Doctor. Ten doesn't hate him in return, but wants him to be someone completely else - wants to change him when he doesn't want to be changed. That's possibly even less healthy than honest hatred. "If you'd just be someone else, I could love you." See above, re: Belle and Rumple's smashed-teacup canon relationship.
In the canon that came along after I started writing, we saw Simm's Master going on hating the Doctor into a different incarnation, retaining that sheer spite towards him to the last - choosing to die rather than allow his future-self, Missy, to mend fences. In terms of the characters' history, hate is not their usual vibe at all - they usually have mutual respect, mutual exasperation, even an affection towards one another and enjoyment of each other's company and conversation. It's still present in Ten, it returned with Missy and Twelve, but was lacking in Simm's Master. Cleverness and overblown masterplans usually define the Master, but the Simm incarnation was defined by cruelty. So that's what I've ended up exploring with the then-and-now contrasts - how and why the relationship is different in those incarnations. I'm not sure they can escape a getting-together of some sort if they remain trapped in that situation in my story; something's got to give, and their list of possible somethings is pretty short. Fucking hard up against the Master's prison wall is definitely an option. I'm not sure I'd call the fallout of those two immovable objects finally colliding a relationship. The reader may wish to bring brain-bleach if they ever get beyond snogging.
Jack being in the way... no. Whatever's going on between him and Ten (and between him and the Master, for that matter - their brutal antagonism is as much a driving force in the story as Jack's awkward but sweet 'shipper subplot with the Doctor), it's not an obstacle to anything the Doctor chooses to do next. It's a sticking plaster that can't hold for long - an outward expression of how concerned Jack is by the situation, and of how sorry the Doctor is for abandoning him. They began the affair knowing that it wasn't a long-term deal - that while it may be love on Jack's side, it's unrequited by the Doctor. What they do have is trust, making them the exact opposite of Ten/Master for the purposes of my story.
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Date: 10 May 2019 10:44 (UTC)I'm not even sure it's the hate that makes me think that. It's the way their need for each other exists; in probing each other's sore spots, using the other as a mirror to excoriate their own issues in. The conflict between the vision they once shared intimately, and now use as a weapon to thwart the other, is something that their relationship cannot exist without. I think that were they to ever get close to a functioning dynamic, one of them would sabotage it subconsciously. To come close to a middle ground or accept their shared strengths would be to lose their understanding of themselves. Both of them are too strong to do that without it negating them entirely, or one succumbing to the other's strength of identity. And those outcomes are definitely possible - in increasingly laboured depictions of the universe's biggest trainwreck. A relationship? Only in a very despairing sense of the word.
That said. I wouldn't mind a few 4K, high-speed-camera glimpses of said trainwreck before you bring it safely to a halt ;)
Also, damnit, your Jack deserves better. All Jacks, I think, deserve(d) better. But yours especially has the most fiercely protective spot in my heart! He's doing a great job, and ought to be congratulated with an excellent shag (or twenty) if you can't give him True Love.