temporarily breaking my self-imposed tumblr hiatus to share the realisation i just had when beethoven’s tempest came on spotify: i think i tend to think about twissy, in the vault especially, as having similar vibes to mr cutter and dr pryce in wolf 359. you know that scene in the finale where hes playing the piano?
(episode 61, minute 45:35)
the melodrama, the ROMANCE, (THEY TOOK A PIANO WITH THEM TO SPACE THERE IS NO WAY TO OVERSTATE THE SENSE OF THEATRICALITY THESE TWO PEOPLE POSSESS), the PARTNERSHIP! you know that scene at the end of episode 60? GOD have i listened to that scene too many times:
(episode 60, minute 38:15)
the COMPLETE and SUPER WEIRD trust they have between each other. i think subconsciously this scene is very much how the vibe im thinking of when i think about or write 12 and missy in the vault.
the way they have their roles very clearly divided between them. they each know their role they know their lines they dont deviate from their lines because it’s a breach of trust. they know who they are to each other and thats all they need from each other.
the way cutter is like “enemies i can deal with those, physics i can deal with, what i cant deal with is the smartest woman in the world improvising when her life is on the line.” it’s. UGH. it’s a fact. it’s not a compliment. it’s a fact. ‘youre the smartest woman in the world and what you do with that intelligence is the function you fulfill for me and i need you to not risk that.’ it’s this cold pragmatism - he does NEED her, he needs her skills to get achieve his world domination goals - but also he needs her as a partner, and his concern is emotional as well as rational. just that combination is mwah chefs kiss truly.
the way he makes her apologise even though im pretty sure he was in the wrong. he makes her apologise for breaking out of her role even though if he had let her intervened earlier in that negotiation they MIGHT not have ended up losing. (im not entirely sure about that. 4 years later and im still not sure why cutter let the hephaestus crew have the fancy ship. but maybe if he’d listened to pryce and not let them have it, the finale would have gone their way? idk). the way she reprimands him for caring too much about his ‘little moment on the stage’, she right. and it also very much feels like something the master could say to the doctor tbh. theyre both dramatic and theatrical but i feel like the master makes the assessment about playing it safe or playing it dramatically beforehand while the doctor just does it in the moment. which is reckless.
the line “it might even be a mistake”. GOD it says so much about their dynamic.
the way pryce is like ‘yet’ and hes like ‘does now look like a good time to be funny’ and i really dont think she was.
THE WAY SHE FINISHES THE LINE FOR HIM. AAAHH. FUCK! the RULES! the set rules they have for what they are to each other and what that Exactly entails. they cant deviate. they dont WANT to. this is what they are. individual and as partners.
OH GOD AND THERES THE REGENERATION! the multiple lives theyve lived! how theyve stuck with each other throughout those! theres this fic. so it’s kept vague in the show how exactly pryce and cutter lived so long right? i used to read this one author who went basically the direction that like, pryce made cutter’s new bodies for him? i dont remember if there was any kind of consensus about that in the fandom but it’s my headcanon because it’s good. theres this fic they wrote and it’s like, just look:
There’s always… waking up.
She sees it in the AIs, which is why she tested this sort of thing mostly with them as much as she could before she tested it on him and herself. There’s always that same disorienting feeling that every human has, every morning–the slow travel of the consciousness down the correct pathways, with a few wrong turns here and there.
It takes a little longer. He’s waking up from a deeper sleep.
“You,” he says, softly, and she takes his hand, placing her elbows on his bed. She doubts that she would touch any of the other subjects, but even if she did, she wouldn’t until they acknowledged her. “Yes… you.”
His eyes search her face, go over her nose, glance from mechanical eye to mechanical eye, down to her lips.
“Yes,” he says, again. “You’re always here. You were there before I fell asleep.”
“Very good,” she says. He doesn’t recognize the limits of his knowledge at the moment, and of course, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. That recognition is all she needs.
His hand is cool and dry, and she links their fingers together.
He sinks forward suddenly, and at first she thinks something is wrong–but he’s still breathing, his heart still steady. He’s not afraid. He’s just…
She slides her hand up, into his hair, and his breath hitches, a small shiver runs over him, but he doesn’t move.
“I like you,” he mumbles. “We’ve been like this before.”
“You do, and we have,” she agrees, and he accepts this–her favorite thing about every new him. She doesn’t have to tell him that she likes him back, she doesn’t have to tell him anything about herself. All she has to do is hold him. He accepts the information as it comes to him, which it always does–he is always so pliant like this, but still so smart. He makes no illogical leaps, always waits for all of the information to come to him.
“I know who you are,” he says. “You’re–you’re Miranda.”
“Very good,” she says again.
His grip on her hand tightens, and she knows what’s coming.
“But I don’t know who–I am someone, aren’t I?”
He is always so convinced of the possibility, in this moment, that he isn’t someone. It is always very frightening for him, but rather useful for her purposes, since he needs to get used to his new name.
“You’re Marcus now,” she tells him. “Everything else will come back later, but rest now.”
it’s like regeneration. theres this dw fic where it’s like missy is there when 12 regenerates and it has similar vibes i think:
The nearest Cyberman is an actual body, less metal than rubber, one of the early models, fully intact. Person-shaped, so it stands to reason, doesn’t it, that this was a person once, a person who was cared about, and loved, with dreams and desires and emotions that were all ground away in the processing plant long before the resulting automaton was sent to the battlefield. It’s the Cyberman promise—that there wouldn’t have been any fear left, or grief or pain by the time of the cataclysm. Still…
There’s probably nothing to be done, but someone’s got to try.
“Uh, uh, uh, don’t touch that!”
The warbled warning is too late. Or rather, it’s completely disregarded, regardless of its timing. Ouch. Scorched fingers. Suck on those. Right into the whatsit, the soothing wet with them.
Now, who was it tried to give the warning?
A very purple lady is peering around the trunk of an inadequate tree. Funny how she hadn’t been noticeable until she was. She emerges from her hiding place, wavering and shimmering as she approaches in the heat distortion of the small fires between them that don’t seem to want to go out. She tuts.
“I told you not to touch the scrap.” Her hands are cool and precise and somehow her touch is more soothing than a mouth. (Mouth! That was the word!) “It’s a good thing you’re not done knitting yet. Damaging yourself so early.”
Something warm and bright tingles between their palms. The glow sets off a tremor of feeling somewhere deep below the skin, seismic.
An echo of a stammer bubbles up. “I’m…sorry, I’m sure I know you, but…who are you?”
A smirk—or a shadow—crosses the sharp features, otherwise a picture of nurturing concern. The eyes go big and round and lash-lined.
“Why, I’m your girlfriend. You call me Master.”
it’s about the TRUST okay! ‘i know you without knowing you. i know you before i know myself’. i love it so much
anyway that was all. vault times twissy has prytter vibes. in some ways. theres none of that morality nonsense with pryce and cutter theyre evil and loving it but in terms of the relationship dynamics they have similarities i think
