Curating top tropes for Missy fanfiction feels like cataloging a delightful chaos — she’s just such a magnet for both chaos and sympathy. Fans who write or read Missy fics tend to swing between adoration, curiosity about her darker impulses, and an urge to unpack why she’s the way she is in 'Doctor Who'. I find that balance between menace and vulnerability is what keeps her stories so replayable: you get danger, wit, and emotional complexity all tangled together, which naturally spawns repeatable tropes and a not-insignificant list of triggers to watch for.
Here are the top recurring tropes I see, with quick notes on why they’re popular and what they usually involve:
- Redemption arc / rehabilitation: writers try to humanize Missy, giving her therapy, slow-change arcs, or sincere attempts to be better. It’s satisfying when the show’s villain gets a shot at nuance.
- Villain-in-love / Doctor/Missy dynamics: flirtation, obsession, and
the push-pull of love-hate with the Doctor is huge. Expect long conversations, jealous scenes, and morally messy romance.
- Mind control / manipulation: classic Master/Missy territory. Stories will use mind control, persuasion, or tech to force choices — tense and ethically fraught.
- Gender/regeneration play: because Missy is a regeneration of the Master, authors explore gender, identity changes, and how other characters react to a different incarnation.
- Domestic AU / found-family: slice-of-life AUs where Missy is awkwardly integrated into “normal” life are surprisingly comforting. She’s snarky, but somehow makes pancakes.
- Canon divergence / what-if timelines: alternate history where a choice changes everything — Missy helps the Doctor, or never becomes tyrannical, or rules differently — great for exploring cause and effect.
- Power-play / erotic tension: power imbalances are fetishized in some fics; these lean into seduction, dominance, and control dynamics.
- Psychological horror / torture & trauma: stories that dig into the cost of her actions or subject her or others to severe
mind games; very heavy, often cathartic.
- Post-regeneration confusion: dealing with memory, identity gaps, and the fallout of being a different person in the same shell.
On the trigger front I always flag things upfront because Missy stories can go dark fast. Common triggers include non-consensual scenes or dubious consent, mind control, psychological or physical torture, graphic violence, self-harm or suicide content, sexual content involving power imbalance, depictions of severe mental illness or PTSD, body horror (especially around regeneration), and major character death. Some fics also include stalking, gaslighting, and manipulation that can be draining to read.
My go-to reader tips: always check tags and warnings (fans are pretty good about flagging on sites like AO3), skim author notes for intensity cues, and use filters or blacklists for specific triggers. I personally love a Missy fic that leans into moral ambiguity without glorifying abuse — give her a quiet scene where she’s unexpectedly tender, and I’m sold. Overall, Missy fic is a wild genre playground: you’ll find everything from fluffy tea-and-sarcasm AUs to grimdark psychological dissections, and I enjoy hopping between both ends of that spectrum depending on my mood.