Thirteen/Master

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You may be looking for a different Doctor/Master pairing; see The Doctor/The Master.
Pairing
Pairing: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master
Alternative name(s): Paired with Missy: Thrissy, Missteen
Paired with D!Master: Thirster, Spydoc
Gender category: F/F or M/F
Fandom: Doctor Who
Canonical?:
Prevalence:
Archives:
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Thirteen/Master is the pairing of the Thirteenth Doctor and The Master from Doctor Who fandom. This most often refers to the pairing of 13/Dhawan!Master, but pairings featuring Thirteen with other iterations of the Master also appeared, including 13/Missy.

Canon

Played by Sacha Dhawan, the Master has a very friendly relationship with the Doctor while under the guise of 'O', a human MI6 agent she mets years before her current incarnation. The Doctor regularly texts him and signs off a WhatsApp message with 'Kisses!', and 'O' appears at first glance to be a very adoring fan of hers. When he finally reveals his true identity, and returns to being manically cruel, the Doctor is speechless for several minutes and physically curls into herself from the betrayal.

After this reveal, however, the Doctor is shown to have a very different approach to the Master than Ten and Twelve did. Although she offers herself to spare innocents and submits to the Master's very public power play of asking her to kneel to him and say his name three times, she laughs at him when she realises he's not in control of the alien Kasaavin who have been attacking her and her companions, and is very willing to leave him behind in horrible situations, first to Nazi soldiers after framing him as a spy (this incarnation being played by a British-Indian actor) and then again to the Kasaavin he was planning on betraying. Although there's been no in-episode confirmation that the Missy regenerated into this incarnation of the Master, the Doctor seems to have accepted she can't save him and makes no attempt to do so during their fight, only asking him if he'll ever stop betraying her and killing people, to which the Master outright admits he does it to get her attention.

Fandom

Following the debut of the Thirteenth Doctor, fans began pairing her with the most recent iteration of the Master. It was a small femslash pairing in Doctor Who fandom, and it remained small as Missy didn't appear during Thirteen's run. Many of these works were fix-its, or involved Thirteen meeting Missy before Missy's death. Others were essentially canon-compliant and involved 13 meeting a new female regeneration of Missy. This pairing was known by both Missteen and Thrissy.

In series 12, a new regeneration of the Master was introduced, played by Sacha Dhawan. The het pairing of the 13/Dhawan!Master became popular. No definitive pairing name was decided upon by fandom. The specific tags of Thirster and Spydoc, as well as the general tags Thoschei and Best Enemies, are used to share content on Tumblr.

Following the Dhawan!Master's reveal some fans were skeptical that this could become a large ship as it was a POC paired with a white woman. The fear of racism in fandom, was temporarily put aside when controversy arose about how the canon storyline handled its POC. In Spyfall Part 2, the Master, a POC, disguised himself as a Nazi Officer, and the white Doctor disabled his perception filter, leaving him to be arrested by the Nazis, an extremely out of character thing for the Doctor to do. This controversial and some claim racist act by the Doctor is often addressed in post-Spyfall fanfics and fix-its.

Thirteen/Master is a common pairing for Gifset AUs. In these works, images for multiple source materials are often combined with incorrect quotes to create the gifset equivalent of a constructed reality vid. 13/Dhawan!Master and 13/Missy are the most common subjects for these gifsets but other 13/Master pairings also appear. Fanworks of this type are also been created for older version of the Doctor/Master pairing.

Common Tropes

13/Dhawan!Master

  • Doctor/O pairs the Doctor with a Master pretending to be MI6 agent O. These can be works set before O's reveal, with much angst once O is revealed to be the Master. Other works are AU or employ time travel to return to a previous point in O's timeline.
  • Missing Scenes can be episode tags or work set during the Master's 77 years on Earth.
  • Telepathy and texting are regular forms of communication between 13 and the Master.
  • Role Reversal is particularly popular in fanart, but the Whittaker!Master and the Dhawan!Doctor also appear in fics.
  • Works set post-The Timeless Children season finale.
  • The Doctor allows the Master to hang around on the TARDIS on occasion, often much to the confusion of the companions.

Fanworks

Fanfiction

13/Dhawan!Master

  • 2578 years of marriage - And I still hate your guts aka The Duck Fic by Resa_Saso. The Doctor and the Master accidentally end up on a planet that is very concerned about keeping its peace - And end up on trial. Which ends with them forced to live as the married couple they never got to be on Gallifrey. In peace. Which totally works out. Because they never fight. At all. Ever.
  • Parallels by spoilersweetie, The Doctor and O spend the night together while her friends sleep in the outback, the Master is predictably disinclined to let the Doctor forget about it.
  • Biological Incompatibility by Kantayra, a crack fic featuring the mating rituals of Timelords.
  • They Die With Us by Fairylights4672, The Doctor had been thrown against a pillar, and currently had a large metal pole, impaled deep into her stomach. Blood was pooling around the metal and dripping down it, sickeningly slowly.
  • Two Can Play At That Game a series by HiNerdsItsCat, The Thirteenth Doctor agreed to ten trips with the Master in his TARDIS—but before they could depart, the Doctor threw in an additional complication (Fobwatch fic and alternate Season 10 fic)
  • Madness For Two by Nym - a pair of Doctor/Master character studies celebrating the Master's 50th anniversary in 2021. The Doctor and the Master. Two unreliable narrators, two points of view, one messy shared history, one story to tell. Haven't they burned enough bridges for one lifetime?

Fanart

Fancomic

Archives and Communities

References

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