Problematic because: "in one bad ending, she burns naomi’s paper scrap because she’s jealous over satoshi, intentionally trapping naomi in heavenly host forever. which is so fucking nasty and personal. it isn’t her trying to save anyone or fix the ritual or make some desperate heroic choice, she just lets her jealousy take over at the worst possible time and ruins naomi’s only chance of escaping."
Propaganda: "relatable? hopefully not. iconic? yes. she has the worst occult hobby success rate in history, but she commits. she cries, she panics, she tries again, she makes everything worse, she feels awful about it, and then somehow finds a NEW cursed object to trust. absolute disaster class rep. i support her emotionally and oppose her logistically."
Problematic because: "the master is basically the doctor’s worst friend from school if that friend kept trying to conquer planets, steal bodies, start cults, weaponise alien tech, and make the doctor emotionally miserable for sport. they’re a renegade time lord, like the doctor, but instead of travelling around helping people, they usually turn up with some plan involving mind control, political takeover, mass death, or “i am in charge now because i said so.” the classic era already has plenty - in logopolis, the master kills nyssa’s father tremas by taking over his body, then messes with logopolis badly enough that the doctor is warned it could cause universal disaster. new who just makes the scale even worse. as harold saxon, the master becomes prime minister, murders the us president on tv, uses the toclafane to conquer earth, keeps the doctor aged and helpless, and turns martha’s family and jack into prisoners/slaves on the valiant for a whole year. then in the end of time, he turns almost the entire human race into copies of himself, because apparently normal tyranny wasn’t personal enough. and that’s before missy and dhawan!master. missy builds an “afterlife” that uploads the minds of dead people so they can be turned into cybermen, which is a genuinely horrible thing to do even by master standards. dhawan!master destroys gallifrey, turns dead time lords into cybermasters, and later tries to force the doctor to regenerate into him so he can use her identity as a weapon. so yes: murder, body theft, mass manipulation, political dictatorship, cyberman crimes, gallifrey crimes, earth crimes, doctor-specific emotional terrorism, and a level of clinginess that should probably require a restraining order across time and space."
Propaganda: 1. "they are not just evil, they are ANNOYING about it. every plan has to involve theatre. every betrayal has to be personal. every time the doctor tries to move on, the master appears like “hello :) did you miss me :) i have ruined another government.” i love them because the relationship with the doctor is so messy. they hate each other, love each other, understand each other too well, keep trying to save or destroy each other depending on the day, and somehow make “we went to school together” sound like the most dangerous backstory in the universe."
2. "The Master is so funny as a recurring villain because no matter the incarnation, the basic energy is always: I am smarter than everyone, I should be in charge, the Doctor is obsessed with me specifically, and if any of that is untrue I will make it everyone’s problem. Delgado has evil charm, Ainley has panto menace, Roberts is doing whatever the TV movie was doing bless him, Simm is feral, Missy is flirting with redemption and murder in the same sentence, Dhawan looks like he’s one bad conversation away from biting through the furniture. They’ve done basically every kind of villain nonsense available: hypnosis, disguises, political coups, body theft, Cybermen, fake afterlives, dead Time Lord armies, forced regeneration, turning humanity into themself, refusing to die politely. But the reason they work is that it’s always personal with the Doctor. The Master doesn’t just want to win, they want the Doctor to watch, react, argue, understand, maybe join in, maybe stop them, preferably all at once. Absolute nightmare bestie."