what would the Master do?
Jun. 3rd, 2011 02:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI have the kind of headache that goes away when I lie down in the dark but comes back when I sit up and put the lights on. I had that for two hours before bored got more important than pain. the balance will tip the other way quite soon.
I was thinking about an AU Master in an urban fantasy setting. I'm thinking there's not much I can keep. Hoodie Master, yes, very much. Even throwing lightning around, though that's high end for a fantasy character, I've got books where they do that. Trouble is once you've got a character who can do that you have to give them problems that can't be solved with lightning. But lightning is so much fun!
Could also keep cheetah face and hunger. I saw a manip with cheetah+hoodie. It's nice to know there's people who got the exact same reaction to early exposure to The Master with cat teeth. Can also keep leather gloves and significance of taking them off. I like unwrapping presents.
Things one cannot keep: Time travel, Time Lord, general time type powers, cause they're too big for urban. Actually having said that the whole TARDIS thing is really very magic as it is... I guess I can't even say it lacks dream-logic, because bigger on the inside and opening doors to whole new places and slipping sideways into other times is totally dream logic and I've seen all those stories. Ah, sense of place! Urban fantasy the way I'm thinking on it, like the Kate Griffin Madness of Angels etc or Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, is tied tight to sense of place. They're not just magicians in generic city, they're navigating the myths of their specific urban world. London's great for that. If you have a TARDIS you can go anywhere and everywhere, and that cuts the ties to sense-of-place. In which case I could keep time travel as long as I lost space travel. But I'd really very definitely have to lose Gallifrey. It wouldn't be hard to have a faerie equivalent Gallifrey for people to be exiled from, but it isn't the Lord of the Wastelands feel I wanted to play with.
Time travel would have to be specialised. There's times that are myth, times that get trapped in pockets, times that sink in to the fabric of a place and never quite quit. Those are all proper destinations for urban magic. But then there's a week last Thursday, or the scene of the crime just before the burglar gets there, and that's not mythic enough. I think it's less like the urban mage travels to other times and more like some times have never gone away. Not always the obvious times, but ones with a reason, hooked on to the hopes and dreams of the inhabitants. It's the fabric of the city that leads.
The Master's basic goal in life, the whole conquest of the universe bit, is an awkward fit for urban magic too. Sense of place again. Not just one city but every city would be the focus of his attention, and that's spread a bit thin. But wanting to rule so he can get all the strength pointed in the same direction, wanting to put the powers on war footing, that could work. And from there, conquest? The thing is that would basically lead to London declaring war on Birmingham, which is both more and less epic than I was thinking. Or, possibly, different bits of London fighting, or Norwich vs Ipswich, or London vs Cardiff. Stick with historic or football rivalries and conquest makes some sense. Don't know though.
If we take The Master and leave out conquering the universe do we in fact still have The Master?
We can keep his 'You will obey me'. But even when he uses that he doesn't use it to micro manage, he gets his hooks in to one person to legitimise his infiltration, then twists everyone else around with knowing their weak points. Sometimes he can skip the 'obey' entirely cause he's got a good angle. It's more fun, cause otherwise the world is made of puppets. Actually one thing that makes The Master and how he treats the Doctor make sense is the idea that his world is made up of two groups: puppets and The Doctor. That would make the Doctor the only real person in the universe. Everyone else just acts in accordance with the Master's will, making them just busy extra bodies of himself. His perception of the universe is like that Master Race bit but all the time. He's wrong, repeatedly, hence the losing a lot, but if it feels like he's almost alone a particular kind of crazy makes sense.
I don't know though, I started with hoodie-and-cheetah Master, who is almost not suits-and-obey Master. I mean he turns out to be just as tricksy, but the appeal is quite different. The political Master would fit in a vampires or faerie politics type world, where the wasteland Master would be hunting the dark edges and... not necessarily skipping the politics but not sitting behind a desk getting minions to dance for it. Different story types entirely.
See this exercise is fun cause I keep on bumping into my definitions of both The Master and urban fantasy. It zooms in on the appeal.
If I want a story about long term plans based on finding the weak points or taking a strength and twisting it to break point, I want the Master all suits and urbanity. That's a good word. Refinements and courtesies.
... the Master I'm thinking of is not so much that Master. And he's interesting partly because he's the shattered edges of that Master. Control starts with the self, so what if he's pushed right to the edges of his control? What if he learns to live there?
But I'm pretty sure if I started with a were cheetah that looked like John Simm in a hoodie and claimed the concrete dusty wastes for his hunting ground I would also have collected enough of my favourite things to make a very interesting character. Especially if he wanted to be called master.
... I just read this interview and found unfortunate many happy thoughts in it. I don't know why I like the idea of him wearing a crucifix for the feel. I do know why I like the battered leather and the tattoo he didn't remember getting. Now I'm wishing I'd stuck to thinking about The Master cause I always feel a little creepy borrowing details from real people.
But I was already thinking about urban fantasy and tattoos. It's one of my happy Ethan Rayne thoughts, something I've read in fic too where he was the one that inked Lindsey. Words are magic, art is magic, ink under skin is living magic. I don't know as The Master would get tattoos, too revealing, but giving them, marking people, labels, telling them what to be... oooh yeah.
Then I got sidetracked designing tattoos in my head. I really need to get my computer fixed and my art programs either working or in updated new versions. I still couldn't make tattoos that look like in my head but I could doodle them while thinking.
He'd be using them for binding. So knotwork, and ivy (green evergreen) or boston ivy (red and dies every year) or twisted together both. I thought brambles, for the thorns, but he pointed out they have fruit. He suggested holly, to go with ivy, which I said had fruit, but he said red balls are different. Doesn't really twist and bind though. Tribal curves look claw like, but they're either too new to have much weight yet or not ours. Barbed wire is too obvious and single purposed. Also in cities it's used to keep people out of places mostly, and would be the enemy of the kind of mage who believes it all belongs to him. Other sorts of city parts could inspire. Gothic arches. Flints. But the unlikely life in the corners is most interesting. I really don't know. Symbols old and new, combined to make living art, ink in skin. I'd have to go out looking to find the right things.
Back in Doctor Who there's a whole Gallifrey theme to symbols the Master would use. But I don't think he'd use them, mostly. Etching bodies is nothing compared to reshaping minds.
So already the guy in my head is not The Master. More of a variation on my usual themes. No good for Doctor Who AU fic then, but maybe a useful bunny guy.
I was thinking about an AU Master in an urban fantasy setting. I'm thinking there's not much I can keep. Hoodie Master, yes, very much. Even throwing lightning around, though that's high end for a fantasy character, I've got books where they do that. Trouble is once you've got a character who can do that you have to give them problems that can't be solved with lightning. But lightning is so much fun!
Could also keep cheetah face and hunger. I saw a manip with cheetah+hoodie. It's nice to know there's people who got the exact same reaction to early exposure to The Master with cat teeth. Can also keep leather gloves and significance of taking them off. I like unwrapping presents.
Things one cannot keep: Time travel, Time Lord, general time type powers, cause they're too big for urban. Actually having said that the whole TARDIS thing is really very magic as it is... I guess I can't even say it lacks dream-logic, because bigger on the inside and opening doors to whole new places and slipping sideways into other times is totally dream logic and I've seen all those stories. Ah, sense of place! Urban fantasy the way I'm thinking on it, like the Kate Griffin Madness of Angels etc or Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, is tied tight to sense of place. They're not just magicians in generic city, they're navigating the myths of their specific urban world. London's great for that. If you have a TARDIS you can go anywhere and everywhere, and that cuts the ties to sense-of-place. In which case I could keep time travel as long as I lost space travel. But I'd really very definitely have to lose Gallifrey. It wouldn't be hard to have a faerie equivalent Gallifrey for people to be exiled from, but it isn't the Lord of the Wastelands feel I wanted to play with.
Time travel would have to be specialised. There's times that are myth, times that get trapped in pockets, times that sink in to the fabric of a place and never quite quit. Those are all proper destinations for urban magic. But then there's a week last Thursday, or the scene of the crime just before the burglar gets there, and that's not mythic enough. I think it's less like the urban mage travels to other times and more like some times have never gone away. Not always the obvious times, but ones with a reason, hooked on to the hopes and dreams of the inhabitants. It's the fabric of the city that leads.
The Master's basic goal in life, the whole conquest of the universe bit, is an awkward fit for urban magic too. Sense of place again. Not just one city but every city would be the focus of his attention, and that's spread a bit thin. But wanting to rule so he can get all the strength pointed in the same direction, wanting to put the powers on war footing, that could work. And from there, conquest? The thing is that would basically lead to London declaring war on Birmingham, which is both more and less epic than I was thinking. Or, possibly, different bits of London fighting, or Norwich vs Ipswich, or London vs Cardiff. Stick with historic or football rivalries and conquest makes some sense. Don't know though.
If we take The Master and leave out conquering the universe do we in fact still have The Master?
We can keep his 'You will obey me'. But even when he uses that he doesn't use it to micro manage, he gets his hooks in to one person to legitimise his infiltration, then twists everyone else around with knowing their weak points. Sometimes he can skip the 'obey' entirely cause he's got a good angle. It's more fun, cause otherwise the world is made of puppets. Actually one thing that makes The Master and how he treats the Doctor make sense is the idea that his world is made up of two groups: puppets and The Doctor. That would make the Doctor the only real person in the universe. Everyone else just acts in accordance with the Master's will, making them just busy extra bodies of himself. His perception of the universe is like that Master Race bit but all the time. He's wrong, repeatedly, hence the losing a lot, but if it feels like he's almost alone a particular kind of crazy makes sense.
I don't know though, I started with hoodie-and-cheetah Master, who is almost not suits-and-obey Master. I mean he turns out to be just as tricksy, but the appeal is quite different. The political Master would fit in a vampires or faerie politics type world, where the wasteland Master would be hunting the dark edges and... not necessarily skipping the politics but not sitting behind a desk getting minions to dance for it. Different story types entirely.
See this exercise is fun cause I keep on bumping into my definitions of both The Master and urban fantasy. It zooms in on the appeal.
If I want a story about long term plans based on finding the weak points or taking a strength and twisting it to break point, I want the Master all suits and urbanity. That's a good word. Refinements and courtesies.
... the Master I'm thinking of is not so much that Master. And he's interesting partly because he's the shattered edges of that Master. Control starts with the self, so what if he's pushed right to the edges of his control? What if he learns to live there?
But I'm pretty sure if I started with a were cheetah that looked like John Simm in a hoodie and claimed the concrete dusty wastes for his hunting ground I would also have collected enough of my favourite things to make a very interesting character. Especially if he wanted to be called master.
... I just read this interview and found unfortunate many happy thoughts in it. I don't know why I like the idea of him wearing a crucifix for the feel. I do know why I like the battered leather and the tattoo he didn't remember getting. Now I'm wishing I'd stuck to thinking about The Master cause I always feel a little creepy borrowing details from real people.
But I was already thinking about urban fantasy and tattoos. It's one of my happy Ethan Rayne thoughts, something I've read in fic too where he was the one that inked Lindsey. Words are magic, art is magic, ink under skin is living magic. I don't know as The Master would get tattoos, too revealing, but giving them, marking people, labels, telling them what to be... oooh yeah.
Then I got sidetracked designing tattoos in my head. I really need to get my computer fixed and my art programs either working or in updated new versions. I still couldn't make tattoos that look like in my head but I could doodle them while thinking.
He'd be using them for binding. So knotwork, and ivy (green evergreen) or boston ivy (red and dies every year) or twisted together both. I thought brambles, for the thorns, but he pointed out they have fruit. He suggested holly, to go with ivy, which I said had fruit, but he said red balls are different. Doesn't really twist and bind though. Tribal curves look claw like, but they're either too new to have much weight yet or not ours. Barbed wire is too obvious and single purposed. Also in cities it's used to keep people out of places mostly, and would be the enemy of the kind of mage who believes it all belongs to him. Other sorts of city parts could inspire. Gothic arches. Flints. But the unlikely life in the corners is most interesting. I really don't know. Symbols old and new, combined to make living art, ink in skin. I'd have to go out looking to find the right things.
Back in Doctor Who there's a whole Gallifrey theme to symbols the Master would use. But I don't think he'd use them, mostly. Etching bodies is nothing compared to reshaping minds.
So already the guy in my head is not The Master. More of a variation on my usual themes. No good for Doctor Who AU fic then, but maybe a useful bunny guy.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 09:19 am (UTC)It's not the cheetah teeth that gets me but the eyes. On the "Survival" DVD there's a bit where Sophie Aldred talks about wearing the slit-pupil lenses around the house to get used to them and how it freaked her boyfriend out, and I was thinking "that would not be my first reaction in that situation..."
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 02:44 pm (UTC)and yeah, that... would work, yes...