I made this early on in the day, sorry for not posting it sooner I was in classes until like 5pm -w-‘ also made this in between classes and I had to rush this to go over all the way across campus because I was late to my dang class. Got to into the zone ig -v-

But anyway! @birdssong ‘s au is persistently in my head, to the shock of absolutely no one, and I drew this because I was inspired by everyone on tik tok giving characters their own problems XD

Ao3 addiction be upon ye.

Basically, they know about their ship tag on ao3. And they look at it often. F!Waterboy looks at it more often at night, because they can’t keep a straight face to save their life, even if it was the most vanilla shit imaginable. Meanwhile f!Robert reads anything with a completely blank expression no matter how insane or how absolutely deprived it is. Over breakfast and everything, like it’s the goddamn morning paper! Herman is very jealous… if they knew.

Though Idk if they know the other is also reading it. Can’t decide if they know, or if they try and keep it a secret. Maybe Robert does something that he saw in a fic during smexy time and Herman stops and is all like, ‘Wait…I read that in a fic before…’ 🤣

like sure she knows, rationally, that she lost bill and nardole and missy and that it’s messing her up but she sidesteps it mentally. i dont think she goes around during s11 crying when no one can see. like she isnt hiding from anyone else, shes hiding from herself. she wont let it be conscious. she wont admit to herself that shes hurt

and i wonder if, because the difference between the doctor and the master in general i think is a certain degree of self-awareness and self-knowledge, and because the master got even more in touch with their feelings during the vault times, i wonder if the master cant do that at all right now

like 13′s issue is that nothing can reach her anymore. she has disconnected herself from everything because feeling anything is gonna destroy her (not that she doesnt feel. she just feels subconsciously, she wont put words to the feelings, she wont admit that theyre there)

but for the master it seems like everything hits him very directly all the time now. the only dissociation we see him do i think is those brief moments when his eyes just go suddenly empty