Entry tags:
Reality Shifted application
Player Name: Tossino
Player LJ/DW:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tossino
Email/AIM/Plurk: AIM @ thetossedone |![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
Tossino
Timezone: CET / GMT +1
Other Characters: N/A
Character: The Second Doctor
Series: Doctor Who
Deviance: 1
Age: Between 450 and 500... ish...
Gender: Male
Species: Time Lord
Canon Used: Doctor Who TV canon to the end of The War Games.
There is a lot of audio, prose and comics canon that I am not familiar with but sometimes go to the wiki for to pick and choose what to use as experiences and topics for the Doctor, since there is a lot of time TV canon doesn't cover that it can be filled with. It's all very flexible for me.
Appearance: Like so
Psychology: Clown, cosmic hobo, scarecrow. The Second Doctor is a bit of a raggedy figure; the coat he wears is a bit too big, his bowtie is always a bit askew, and he does have trousers that are fitting for a clown, with braces and all. A lot of the time it seems like he bumbles his way through everything, wrings his hands and stutters and waddles as he walks, just comes off as overall awkward.
This is somewhat an act. Or, at the very least, he exaggerates it sometimes for the sake of coming off stupider than he actually is. He’s a little dramatic and over the top, can seem on the hysterical side at times, and just seems to be a fool sometimes. Only to eventually turn around and knock you down several steps with one move, if he’s done a very good job. Not everyone falls for it, but he still doesn’t really seem to know what he’s doing until finally it looks like he actually did (but he probably didn’t really, at least not completely).
The Doctor is a very clever man. Incredibly clever. This one is also a bit of a chess master, or puppet master if you prefer. He doesn’t always know just what he’s doing and if he pulls out the recorder you know he needs to think really hard, and when he does know what he’s doing, he most certainly knows which strings to pull. He does a lot of things on the fly and when they don’t work out, he does genuinely get very concerned. He’s not really very collected and doesn’t always react very well at all under pressure, but in the end, he still tends to come out on top. But he is a bit bumbling, a bit nervous and stomps a bit like a child when things don’t go as he likes and it’s not really all an act.
Then he’s got a bit of a temper. Also when things don’t go as he wants, or people don’t do what he wants them to do. His anger can sometimes look like that of a hissing kitten, really, because of how he seems most of the time, how short he is and his, frankly, kind of dorky hair. And to be honest it’s not his loud anger you need to worry about, but rather his quiet fury. Quiet fury means focus, focus means that if you stand in his way… god help you. There isn’t much that pushes him to that point so if you’ve done that, you better step very carefully. The anger that makes him frown and snap at you really isn’t much to worry about. He’ll get over it.
If there’s anything truly sharp about him, it’s his mouth. The Doctor’s never been one to just step down and do what others want, at least not without plotting a way to get out of it. But if he has to put up with it, you can be sure that he’s going to demonstrate his displeasure through sneaky quips and snarky remarks – and he's rather fond of puns too, to Jamie's dismay. He has a way with words and he’ll most definitely use it.
It’s not only a witty way with words, either. He stands for peace and diplomacy and most often doesn’t approve of violence. There are times when he resorts to drastic and violent measures, like sending an Ice Warrior fleet into the sun. He’s willing to look at “the big picture” and kill a few if it will save millions. But if there is ever the possibility of getting somewhere without resorting to that, he will fight for that option. He’s pretty good at convincing people to agree with him.
Most of all the Doctor is kind. He can be manipulative, frightening and ruthless, but he’s incredibly kind. He loves so incredibly deeply and cares so very much for everyone, and the less people die the better a day it is, no matter if he technically wins. He always tries to look after people and make sure they’re all right, and protecting everyone and saving as many as possible is always top priority.
Yet he never really lets a lot of people close. He doesn’t like talking about things that are too personal, he doesn’t like goodbyes, and he wants to protect his hearts. And at the same time he gets close to people incredibly quickly. Mostly, he can love and rely on people pretty easily, if at different levels, but he hardly ever talks about himself. He’s a very reserved person who often talks a lot but says very little, and it’s practically always been that way. A part of it is also that he doesn’t want to burden people with his problems, a lot because he often thinks they’re greater than people really need to help carry. And, alternatively, he’s just too busy to think of it, or has too much on his mind to feel like he can properly express it.
There’s so much weighing on him sometimes that all he can really do is run. Lingering to say goodbye is more to add to that pile, endings are more to add to that pile. He doesn’t know how to finish things because he’s always running. He never stops, and he never looks back. And there’s so much to see that if he sits still for too long he gets antsy and itches for discoveries and adventure. Wanderlust has defined him from childhood and always will define him.
Other Skills/Abilities:
Two hearts - Time Lords possess two hearts. If one were to stop functioning, they would keep living but be very weakened, and you can feel two pulses in their wrists so they have two circulatory systems. With training, they can learn to control the beating of their hearts, as far as to stop them and thus play dead. To manage the hearts they have advanced respitory systems which enabled them to hold their breaths under water for much longer than humans, and they can also control their need of oxygen by going into a trance state. The respiratory bypass system helps with holding their breath underwater and makes it possible for them to survive strangulation and gas.
Thicker skin - The skin of a Time Lord had several more layers than a human’s, which makes it more durable and resistant to damage.
Resilience - The thick skin definitely helps with their ability to fall from great heights without any bones shattering like it would in a human. They can survive extreme heat and cold.
Senses - Time Lords have better sight and can see more details from a long distance and see things that humans can’t. They can hear things from further away, and pin-point blood type, wood type, the age of an item and more by tasting it. The sense of smell is, naturally, also enhanced, to get the full package. The Tenth Doctor even once pinpointed what time they were in by smelling the air... except he was probably just talking and didn't actually mean that. But, still, enhanced smell.
Temperature - Time Lords have an internal temperature of 16 celsius/60 fahrenheit and it drops to below freezing if recovering from lethal injuries.
The brain - A Time Lord’s brain is bigger and more complicated than a human’s, including a seperate lobe for mechanical and bodily functions so the big one can focus on intellectual matters. They have a form of photographic memory. Because of their brain they’re also capable of hypnosis, mind reading, thought sharing etc etc. and could resist others doing it towards them. All kinds of telepathing things, basically, and all Time Lords shared a telepathic field to communicate with each other, but the longer the distance the more difficult it got. They send messages by basically putting their thoughts into a box.
Biochemistry - Time Lords can expel poison from their system and don’t really get affected by alcohol. Anaesthetic require more for a Time Lord than for a human to have effect, and aspirin can kill them. Toxins overall take more time to have any effect on them. They have a lot of bacteria in their body that would be dangerous to a human, but would kill them if they were without them.
Skeleton - A Time Lord’s skeleton is very flexible to allow them to compress the hearts on their own. This further explains how they can survive falls better.
Sleep - Time Lords don’t need to sleep as much, and can make do with as little as an hour.
Regeneration - And last but not least, Time Lords are able of doing a complete reconstruction of their body. If they’re mortally wounded or if they’ve tired out their body, they’ve got a quick (but painful) fix. Rewrite every single cell in their body – including brain cells – and walk away with a new body and new personality because regeneration creates a direct reaction to their last personality. They still have the same memories and are still somewhat the same person because the experiences stay the same.
Aside from his alienness, he has a vast knowledge of the whole universe. A lot of it are booksmarts (for now), but very handy. He also has great knowledge of engineering, chemistry and all matters of space.
Other Weaknesses: Time Lords have a weakness towards some things that humans do not, sometimes to the point of it being lethal, which is the case with aspirin. But Time Lords honestly have... very little weaknesses. They're kind of ridiculous. Still, there are ways to make regeneration unavailable to them, such as poison from the Judas tree, and a quick enough death by for example drowning or killing a Time Lord during the regeneration process would make it permanent.
History:
Pre-series
The Doctor was born on the planet Gallifrey (also called The Shining World of the Seven Systems) in the constellation of Kasterborous. At the time, he had a name that is still unknown in the series and will probably never actually be known. When he was eight years old, he entered the Academy of the Time Lords. The admission ceremony was for every child to look into the Untempered Schism, which is ”a gap in the fabric of reality”, in the words of the Tenth Doctor, where you can see the Time Vortex that basically created the Time Lords. When looking into this gap, a child gets either inspired, goes mad or runs. The Doctor ran, and then never really stopped.
During his school time, he went by the name Theta Sigma or Thete. He didn’t graduate until his very last try at passing everything, and did so with minimal scores. Nor did he pass the driving test for their space and time travelling vessels called TT capsules, or TARDISes, an abbreviation given to the ship by the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan from Time And Relative Dimension In Space. This name was eventually adopted by the whole of Time Lord society.
It wasn’t because he couldn’t pass – and probably with flying colours too – but because he wanted to attract as little attention as he possibly could so he could eventually leave Gallifrey. The Time Lords have a non-interference law and thus don’t let many go out and actually travel space and time, but the Doctor always dreamed about the stars.
I imagine – to try and match it with his overall timeline – it was sometime during his centuries in the Academy that he found a partner and started a family, but all you ever hear is that he had a family, never with whom or how or when.
There are a lot of different stories for why he eventually did leave Gallifrey, but I will personally go with the idea that he broke said non-interference law (a lot because it’s also supported by TV canon) and was thus to be punished by being erased from history. Instead he got help from his brother Braxatiel to steal a TARDIS (he always says ”borrow” because he always meant to return it), and brought his granddaughter Susan with him.
First Doctor
After some travels with only Susan, they ended up in London in 1963. Susan wanted to stay and study, as she was fascinated by the world, and so they did. They had landed in I.M Foreman’s junkyard, and took that name as a last name to enlist Susan in school. However, the fact that their address led to a junkyard caught the attention of two of her teachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who went to investigate. When the Doctor returned to the TARDIS one afternoon, he didn’t only find Susan, but those two teachers.
He had been going by “Doctor Foreman” himself, so Ian and Barbara only ever knew him as a doctor, and thus began calling him that. At this point in his life, the Doctor didn’t trust humans at all and rather than risk them getting out there to tell people about the existence of the TARDIS, he took off in an act of panic, pretty much kidnapping them. Since the navigational system was broken, he couldn’t return them, either.
Over time as they travelled – visiting pre-historic time and the planet Skaro, the home of the race that would become the Doctor’s greatest enemy, the Daleks – the Doctor stopped looking at Ian and Barbara with suspicion and they started forming a friendship. When they landed during an invasion of Earth by the Daleks, Susan fell in love with a man, and the Doctor decided it was about time she stopped travelling with a “silly old buffer” like him.
The Doctor, Ian and Barbara then picked up a girl named Vicki from a crashed ship who had nowhere to return to, and she reminded him of his granddaughter, so he gladly took her under his wing. After the Daleks created a time machine and chased the TARDIS through time and space, they were eventually defeated and Ian and Barbara took the functioning time machine to get back home. Steven took their place in the TARDIS instead.
Vicki left the TARDIS to check on a man she had come to care for after the incident with the Trojan Horse, and the Doctor and Steven ended up in France right before the Massacre of Bartholomew’s Eve. The Doctor’s refusal to in any way get involved and save a girl from what could end in her death infuriated Steven, who was set on leaving the TARDIS at the next stop, except someone else running into the TARDIS made him go back. And so they gained Dodo Chaplet.
Steven and the Doctor eventually reconciled and when Steven left the TARDIS, they were on much better terms. The Doctor was beginning to feel his age at this point. In London, Dodo left after an adventure with a dangerous alien computer, and the Doctor gained two new companions named Ben and Polly completely by accident. After an encounter with another long-term enemy, the Cybermen, the strain on the Doctor’s body was too great and he died from old age, regenerating into the Second Doctor.
Second Doctor
Immediately after regeneration the Doctor, Ben and Polly were thrown into a battle against the Daleks, and the Daleks recognising him as the Doctor convinced Ben and Polly fully that it really was him. In 1746, they met a piper named Jamie McCrimmon, who would end up travelling with the Doctor until the very end of his second incarnation’s run. The trio travelled to Atlantis and the moon, among other places, and when they landed at the Gatwick airport, Ben and Polly decided to stay, as it was the right time as well as place.
After Ben and Polly left the TARDIS they ended up in 1866 where they met Victoria Waterfield. When she lost her parents to the Daleks, they decided to take her along. They encountered the Cybermen again when some archaeologist found one of their tombs, and encountered new enemies in the form of Yeti and Ice Warriors. During a second encounter with the Yeti, the Doctor met Alistair Gordon Leathbridge-Stewart, who quickly became a treasured friend and would be a part of most of the Doctor’s life.
Victoria eventually tired of the life on the TARDIS and decided to stay with a family they encountered on a Euro Sea Gas station. They met the Cybermen once again at a space station – where the name “John Smith” as an alias for the Doctor was first made up, by Jamie – directly following Victoria’s departure, where they befriended Zoe Heriot. Zoe was a genius girl who found herself constantly patronised by the men on the station, which she was tired of, and when the Doctor and Jamie turned down her offer to come with them, she sneaked onto the TARDIS and stowed away. She wasn’t very familiar with friendship and emotions due to her background and studies, but the Doctor and Jamie greatly influenced her as a person.
They met the Dominators and their Quarks and ended up in the Land of Fiction, where a man tried capturing the Doctor to continue his work in keeping that land alive. Naturally, he didn’t succeed, and as they returned to Earth they once again met Alistair, who had founded UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) to deal with extra-terrestrial matters. Together they defeated the Cybermen.
After more travels where they met Krotons, Ice Warriors again and space pirates, they ended up in what seemed the middle of a war. It turned out this was actually a machine created by two men – one of which was a Time Lord the Doctor once knew – to create the greatest army and conquer the universe. They took humans out of their own battles and placed them in recreations of those wars, so they’d think they were still fighting it. Some of the prisoners eventually figured this out, and the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe helped them defeat the leaders of the operation.
However, in the end they couldn’t bring everyone back to their own time with the time machines the War Lord (as the other Time Lord was called) had helped build because their power was running out, and the Doctor’s TARDIS still had no navigational system. Because of this, the Doctor had to call for his own people, despite a great amount of reluctance. But he couldn’t stand leaving everyone in that war machine, even if it meant he would be arrested, seeing as he was a renegade.
He tried to escape with Jamie and Zoe, but in the end, they didn’t succeed and after the creators of the War Games got their punishment, the Doctor was put to trial. Jamie and Zoe were sent home with only the memory of their first meeting with the Doctor, as he should never have brought humans with him. His sentence for breaking the non-interference law was given after he told the Time Lords of the evils in the universe that needed to be fought; an exile to Earth to still fight evil, just confined to one place.
Canon Point: The end of The War Games, after Jamie and Zoe's departure.
Reality Description: The Doctor spent his whole life before he left his home planet dreaming of travelling the stars, and time. Now, that is what he does, in a dimensionally transcendental (bigger on the inside) time machine called the TARDIS that from the outside looks like a police box from 1963. Or at least, that's what he did for a good while, but he has been brought back to his home planet Gallifrey to be put to trial for breaking the non-interference law of the Time Lords.
Gallifrey is a planet with two suns, an orange sky, red grass and silver leaves and the great city of the Time Lords - the Capitol - lies in a glass dome. There you find the Academy and the seat of the High Council.
The Council consists of Cardinals representing the different colleges of Gallifrey, as well as an Inner Council where you find the Lord or Lady President of Gallifrey, the Lord or Lady Chancellor - the holder of the Key of Rassilon - and the Castellan - who oversaw the guard and security.
First Person Speaking Sample: [ Can you blame him for wanting to take any chance he can get to get out of the Time Lord's trial? It had been a far shot, but suddenly there had just been something... out of place. So why not check it out? After all, that is what he does.
He's not sure what to expect, doesn't really expect anything, but what he steps into is utterly... wonderful, coming from where he was. There's nothing under his feet that he can see but the universe is a vast place with many possibilities and never has something new seemed better. He spins on his feet, looking up and down and around and it's like the night sky except it's not like anywhere he's ever seen, but he can swear he saw a familiar constellation somewhere, nowhere it usually is. But when he turns to have a second look it's gone.
...okay. ]
Huh. Must have imagined it.
[ He catches onto something else in the corner of his eye, turns and sees a sign that reads INFORMATION, which is also unusual. Normally when he ends up in unknown places they're not usually that kind.
Well. Might as well have a look.
Except when he comes there and sees the instructions for how to get assistance, he only... frowns suspiciously. Hm. ]
Help.
[ Then the holographic screen is what comes up and he makes a long-suffering groan. ]
Computers! Why is it always computers?
[ With an annoying, practiced voice too. Brilliant. ]
Oh, shut up. Guide to-- I don't need that. Broderick Naismith's Introduction to the Astral Plane. That's what this is; Astral Plane?
[ His eyes skim over the screen. ]
Paper! Now you're talking.
[ He grabs the printed brochure with a hum of approval and reads it through, eyes moving rapidly across the papers. ]
A meeting point between universes? I've never heard anything about this. Shouldn't the Time Lords know? What have they been doing?
[ A pause. ]
Ah, but I suppose my abstinence probably made it difficult to tell me anything. Perhaps I should... ask them...
[ He sighs, because this just makes it all the more clear he'll have to return eventually.
Speaking of returning. Just think...? What sort of travel is that? Unlike anything he's heard, that's what. He'll have to try that. Well, he has to, in the end, doesn't he?
With a grimace, he puts the brochure in one of his pockets, asks for the other brochure as well because he might as well have a look at that too. He doesn't right away, however, and puts that in another pocket before he turns to wander away from the information booth. ]
Now, then... Let's see what we can find, shall we?
[ Computers and confusion and nonsense aside, the Doctor smiles as he rubs his hands together and looks around to decide where to start. ]
Third Person Writing Sample: There had been times the Doctor thought he would end up alone, a few of them. When Steven stormed out of the TARDIS, and then Dodo wandered in. When Dodo left, he was so sure he would be alone, only for Ben and Polly to wander in to return a spare key. Things had turned around so suddenly those times that after a while he was always beginning to expect people to disappear. Victoria wanting to stay behind didn’t exactly surprise him even if it hurt.
Jamie was falling asleep in one of the chairs in the control room. He’d been sitting there talking about one thing or other – honestly, the Doctor hadn’t really been paying attention because Jamie had been slurring and Victoria had left. It was probably about Victoria, anyway. He could tell Jamie had liked her a great deal. He was half expecting something to happen there.
But perhaps Victoria had never really been cut out for this sort of life. She was better off where she was now.
Jamie, though…
The Doctor smiled and left the TARDIS hovering in space.
With Jamie, it didn’t feel as if he would eventually end up alone. Not anymore. Jamie would say that he needed someone around to look after him and, well, he probably did… But he felt he also needed someone to look after. And he needed company. He thought about the idea of being completely alone in here and he became afraid. He wasn’t sure of what, exactly, only that it was so frightening that it made him… paralysed. And the worst thing was that he couldn’t actually force anyone to stay with him no matter how much he might have wanted to dig his heels in as soon as they suggested leaving. With Ian and Barbara there had been the excuse of not wanting them to risk piloting a time machine on their own and he had latched onto it as hard as he possibly could.
He didn’t want people to leave him.
Jamie wouldn’t, though. Not for a very long time, not after a few years, but many. He knew that for certain.
He glanced towards the doors, and wondered if maybe he could actually manage to make it possible to open the doors and really look at the stars. He hadn’t tried yet. The TARDIS didn’t like it if he tried opening even the inner doors, but she had shields… Maybe if he coaxed her a bit… Then he could wake up Jamie, and they could stand on the edge in the doorway with deep, black space stretching out in front of their feet.
Turning back to the console, he gave it a good look-over. Shields, shields…
He probably ought to get down and look at the machinery… So, he got down onto his knees, and rolled over onto his back, reaching up to take off a part of the underside of the console. He just had to put his tongue right in his mouth… and then he could reach up and grab a few of the wires, try to work out what lead to what… And if he pulled that one out there…
--or not.
“W-whoooaaa!”
Either that was completely wrong or the TARDIS protested, because suddenly it tipped over enough to send the Doctor sliding across the floor. He could hear the chair fall to the floor too, followed by an annoyed and surprised yelp from Jamie.
In the end, they were left against the wall with no real possibility of getting back up to the console and the TARDIS didn’t seem to have any intention of turning itself back upright. Spluttering, the Doctor turned over and sat to lean against the wall, because at least the wall wasn’t suddenly a floor.
“Och, Doctor, what are ye doing?” Jamie asked testily as he started to crawl his way over.
“Oh, heh, well, I was. I was trying to change the shields,” the Doctor said and allowed himself to sound sheepish with a smile to match, slowly rubbing his palms together. “I guess it didn’t like that.”
“Aye, of course it didn't.” Jamie rolled his eyes. “Ye mean ye didn’t actually know what ye were doing.”
“This is my ship, of course I knew what I was doing.”
Jamie pulled a face; his mouth tugged to one side and there was a very meaningful crease to his brows. The Doctor knew what was coming, so he put a scowl on.
“Aye, I’ll believe ye when ye learn to tinker without sending us on our backsides.”
“One day, Jamie,” the Doctor said, shaking a finger. “One day.”
Did you read the rules? Yes!
Player LJ/DW:
tossinoEmail/AIM/Plurk: AIM @ thetossedone |
Timezone: CET / GMT +1
Other Characters: N/A
Character: The Second Doctor
Series: Doctor Who
Deviance: 1
Age: Between 450 and 500... ish...
Gender: Male
Species: Time Lord
Canon Used: Doctor Who TV canon to the end of The War Games.
There is a lot of audio, prose and comics canon that I am not familiar with but sometimes go to the wiki for to pick and choose what to use as experiences and topics for the Doctor, since there is a lot of time TV canon doesn't cover that it can be filled with. It's all very flexible for me.
Appearance: Like so
Psychology: Clown, cosmic hobo, scarecrow. The Second Doctor is a bit of a raggedy figure; the coat he wears is a bit too big, his bowtie is always a bit askew, and he does have trousers that are fitting for a clown, with braces and all. A lot of the time it seems like he bumbles his way through everything, wrings his hands and stutters and waddles as he walks, just comes off as overall awkward.
This is somewhat an act. Or, at the very least, he exaggerates it sometimes for the sake of coming off stupider than he actually is. He’s a little dramatic and over the top, can seem on the hysterical side at times, and just seems to be a fool sometimes. Only to eventually turn around and knock you down several steps with one move, if he’s done a very good job. Not everyone falls for it, but he still doesn’t really seem to know what he’s doing until finally it looks like he actually did (but he probably didn’t really, at least not completely).
The Doctor is a very clever man. Incredibly clever. This one is also a bit of a chess master, or puppet master if you prefer. He doesn’t always know just what he’s doing and if he pulls out the recorder you know he needs to think really hard, and when he does know what he’s doing, he most certainly knows which strings to pull. He does a lot of things on the fly and when they don’t work out, he does genuinely get very concerned. He’s not really very collected and doesn’t always react very well at all under pressure, but in the end, he still tends to come out on top. But he is a bit bumbling, a bit nervous and stomps a bit like a child when things don’t go as he likes and it’s not really all an act.
Then he’s got a bit of a temper. Also when things don’t go as he wants, or people don’t do what he wants them to do. His anger can sometimes look like that of a hissing kitten, really, because of how he seems most of the time, how short he is and his, frankly, kind of dorky hair. And to be honest it’s not his loud anger you need to worry about, but rather his quiet fury. Quiet fury means focus, focus means that if you stand in his way… god help you. There isn’t much that pushes him to that point so if you’ve done that, you better step very carefully. The anger that makes him frown and snap at you really isn’t much to worry about. He’ll get over it.
If there’s anything truly sharp about him, it’s his mouth. The Doctor’s never been one to just step down and do what others want, at least not without plotting a way to get out of it. But if he has to put up with it, you can be sure that he’s going to demonstrate his displeasure through sneaky quips and snarky remarks – and he's rather fond of puns too, to Jamie's dismay. He has a way with words and he’ll most definitely use it.
It’s not only a witty way with words, either. He stands for peace and diplomacy and most often doesn’t approve of violence. There are times when he resorts to drastic and violent measures, like sending an Ice Warrior fleet into the sun. He’s willing to look at “the big picture” and kill a few if it will save millions. But if there is ever the possibility of getting somewhere without resorting to that, he will fight for that option. He’s pretty good at convincing people to agree with him.
Most of all the Doctor is kind. He can be manipulative, frightening and ruthless, but he’s incredibly kind. He loves so incredibly deeply and cares so very much for everyone, and the less people die the better a day it is, no matter if he technically wins. He always tries to look after people and make sure they’re all right, and protecting everyone and saving as many as possible is always top priority.
Yet he never really lets a lot of people close. He doesn’t like talking about things that are too personal, he doesn’t like goodbyes, and he wants to protect his hearts. And at the same time he gets close to people incredibly quickly. Mostly, he can love and rely on people pretty easily, if at different levels, but he hardly ever talks about himself. He’s a very reserved person who often talks a lot but says very little, and it’s practically always been that way. A part of it is also that he doesn’t want to burden people with his problems, a lot because he often thinks they’re greater than people really need to help carry. And, alternatively, he’s just too busy to think of it, or has too much on his mind to feel like he can properly express it.
There’s so much weighing on him sometimes that all he can really do is run. Lingering to say goodbye is more to add to that pile, endings are more to add to that pile. He doesn’t know how to finish things because he’s always running. He never stops, and he never looks back. And there’s so much to see that if he sits still for too long he gets antsy and itches for discoveries and adventure. Wanderlust has defined him from childhood and always will define him.
Other Skills/Abilities:
Two hearts - Time Lords possess two hearts. If one were to stop functioning, they would keep living but be very weakened, and you can feel two pulses in their wrists so they have two circulatory systems. With training, they can learn to control the beating of their hearts, as far as to stop them and thus play dead. To manage the hearts they have advanced respitory systems which enabled them to hold their breaths under water for much longer than humans, and they can also control their need of oxygen by going into a trance state. The respiratory bypass system helps with holding their breath underwater and makes it possible for them to survive strangulation and gas.
Thicker skin - The skin of a Time Lord had several more layers than a human’s, which makes it more durable and resistant to damage.
Resilience - The thick skin definitely helps with their ability to fall from great heights without any bones shattering like it would in a human. They can survive extreme heat and cold.
Senses - Time Lords have better sight and can see more details from a long distance and see things that humans can’t. They can hear things from further away, and pin-point blood type, wood type, the age of an item and more by tasting it. The sense of smell is, naturally, also enhanced, to get the full package. The Tenth Doctor even once pinpointed what time they were in by smelling the air... except he was probably just talking and didn't actually mean that. But, still, enhanced smell.
Temperature - Time Lords have an internal temperature of 16 celsius/60 fahrenheit and it drops to below freezing if recovering from lethal injuries.
The brain - A Time Lord’s brain is bigger and more complicated than a human’s, including a seperate lobe for mechanical and bodily functions so the big one can focus on intellectual matters. They have a form of photographic memory. Because of their brain they’re also capable of hypnosis, mind reading, thought sharing etc etc. and could resist others doing it towards them. All kinds of telepathing things, basically, and all Time Lords shared a telepathic field to communicate with each other, but the longer the distance the more difficult it got. They send messages by basically putting their thoughts into a box.
Biochemistry - Time Lords can expel poison from their system and don’t really get affected by alcohol. Anaesthetic require more for a Time Lord than for a human to have effect, and aspirin can kill them. Toxins overall take more time to have any effect on them. They have a lot of bacteria in their body that would be dangerous to a human, but would kill them if they were without them.
Skeleton - A Time Lord’s skeleton is very flexible to allow them to compress the hearts on their own. This further explains how they can survive falls better.
Sleep - Time Lords don’t need to sleep as much, and can make do with as little as an hour.
Regeneration - And last but not least, Time Lords are able of doing a complete reconstruction of their body. If they’re mortally wounded or if they’ve tired out their body, they’ve got a quick (but painful) fix. Rewrite every single cell in their body – including brain cells – and walk away with a new body and new personality because regeneration creates a direct reaction to their last personality. They still have the same memories and are still somewhat the same person because the experiences stay the same.
Aside from his alienness, he has a vast knowledge of the whole universe. A lot of it are booksmarts (for now), but very handy. He also has great knowledge of engineering, chemistry and all matters of space.
Other Weaknesses: Time Lords have a weakness towards some things that humans do not, sometimes to the point of it being lethal, which is the case with aspirin. But Time Lords honestly have... very little weaknesses. They're kind of ridiculous. Still, there are ways to make regeneration unavailable to them, such as poison from the Judas tree, and a quick enough death by for example drowning or killing a Time Lord during the regeneration process would make it permanent.
History:
Pre-series
The Doctor was born on the planet Gallifrey (also called The Shining World of the Seven Systems) in the constellation of Kasterborous. At the time, he had a name that is still unknown in the series and will probably never actually be known. When he was eight years old, he entered the Academy of the Time Lords. The admission ceremony was for every child to look into the Untempered Schism, which is ”a gap in the fabric of reality”, in the words of the Tenth Doctor, where you can see the Time Vortex that basically created the Time Lords. When looking into this gap, a child gets either inspired, goes mad or runs. The Doctor ran, and then never really stopped.
During his school time, he went by the name Theta Sigma or Thete. He didn’t graduate until his very last try at passing everything, and did so with minimal scores. Nor did he pass the driving test for their space and time travelling vessels called TT capsules, or TARDISes, an abbreviation given to the ship by the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan from Time And Relative Dimension In Space. This name was eventually adopted by the whole of Time Lord society.
It wasn’t because he couldn’t pass – and probably with flying colours too – but because he wanted to attract as little attention as he possibly could so he could eventually leave Gallifrey. The Time Lords have a non-interference law and thus don’t let many go out and actually travel space and time, but the Doctor always dreamed about the stars.
I imagine – to try and match it with his overall timeline – it was sometime during his centuries in the Academy that he found a partner and started a family, but all you ever hear is that he had a family, never with whom or how or when.
There are a lot of different stories for why he eventually did leave Gallifrey, but I will personally go with the idea that he broke said non-interference law (a lot because it’s also supported by TV canon) and was thus to be punished by being erased from history. Instead he got help from his brother Braxatiel to steal a TARDIS (he always says ”borrow” because he always meant to return it), and brought his granddaughter Susan with him.
First Doctor
After some travels with only Susan, they ended up in London in 1963. Susan wanted to stay and study, as she was fascinated by the world, and so they did. They had landed in I.M Foreman’s junkyard, and took that name as a last name to enlist Susan in school. However, the fact that their address led to a junkyard caught the attention of two of her teachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who went to investigate. When the Doctor returned to the TARDIS one afternoon, he didn’t only find Susan, but those two teachers.
He had been going by “Doctor Foreman” himself, so Ian and Barbara only ever knew him as a doctor, and thus began calling him that. At this point in his life, the Doctor didn’t trust humans at all and rather than risk them getting out there to tell people about the existence of the TARDIS, he took off in an act of panic, pretty much kidnapping them. Since the navigational system was broken, he couldn’t return them, either.
Over time as they travelled – visiting pre-historic time and the planet Skaro, the home of the race that would become the Doctor’s greatest enemy, the Daleks – the Doctor stopped looking at Ian and Barbara with suspicion and they started forming a friendship. When they landed during an invasion of Earth by the Daleks, Susan fell in love with a man, and the Doctor decided it was about time she stopped travelling with a “silly old buffer” like him.
The Doctor, Ian and Barbara then picked up a girl named Vicki from a crashed ship who had nowhere to return to, and she reminded him of his granddaughter, so he gladly took her under his wing. After the Daleks created a time machine and chased the TARDIS through time and space, they were eventually defeated and Ian and Barbara took the functioning time machine to get back home. Steven took their place in the TARDIS instead.
Vicki left the TARDIS to check on a man she had come to care for after the incident with the Trojan Horse, and the Doctor and Steven ended up in France right before the Massacre of Bartholomew’s Eve. The Doctor’s refusal to in any way get involved and save a girl from what could end in her death infuriated Steven, who was set on leaving the TARDIS at the next stop, except someone else running into the TARDIS made him go back. And so they gained Dodo Chaplet.
Steven and the Doctor eventually reconciled and when Steven left the TARDIS, they were on much better terms. The Doctor was beginning to feel his age at this point. In London, Dodo left after an adventure with a dangerous alien computer, and the Doctor gained two new companions named Ben and Polly completely by accident. After an encounter with another long-term enemy, the Cybermen, the strain on the Doctor’s body was too great and he died from old age, regenerating into the Second Doctor.
Second Doctor
Immediately after regeneration the Doctor, Ben and Polly were thrown into a battle against the Daleks, and the Daleks recognising him as the Doctor convinced Ben and Polly fully that it really was him. In 1746, they met a piper named Jamie McCrimmon, who would end up travelling with the Doctor until the very end of his second incarnation’s run. The trio travelled to Atlantis and the moon, among other places, and when they landed at the Gatwick airport, Ben and Polly decided to stay, as it was the right time as well as place.
After Ben and Polly left the TARDIS they ended up in 1866 where they met Victoria Waterfield. When she lost her parents to the Daleks, they decided to take her along. They encountered the Cybermen again when some archaeologist found one of their tombs, and encountered new enemies in the form of Yeti and Ice Warriors. During a second encounter with the Yeti, the Doctor met Alistair Gordon Leathbridge-Stewart, who quickly became a treasured friend and would be a part of most of the Doctor’s life.
Victoria eventually tired of the life on the TARDIS and decided to stay with a family they encountered on a Euro Sea Gas station. They met the Cybermen once again at a space station – where the name “John Smith” as an alias for the Doctor was first made up, by Jamie – directly following Victoria’s departure, where they befriended Zoe Heriot. Zoe was a genius girl who found herself constantly patronised by the men on the station, which she was tired of, and when the Doctor and Jamie turned down her offer to come with them, she sneaked onto the TARDIS and stowed away. She wasn’t very familiar with friendship and emotions due to her background and studies, but the Doctor and Jamie greatly influenced her as a person.
They met the Dominators and their Quarks and ended up in the Land of Fiction, where a man tried capturing the Doctor to continue his work in keeping that land alive. Naturally, he didn’t succeed, and as they returned to Earth they once again met Alistair, who had founded UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) to deal with extra-terrestrial matters. Together they defeated the Cybermen.
After more travels where they met Krotons, Ice Warriors again and space pirates, they ended up in what seemed the middle of a war. It turned out this was actually a machine created by two men – one of which was a Time Lord the Doctor once knew – to create the greatest army and conquer the universe. They took humans out of their own battles and placed them in recreations of those wars, so they’d think they were still fighting it. Some of the prisoners eventually figured this out, and the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe helped them defeat the leaders of the operation.
However, in the end they couldn’t bring everyone back to their own time with the time machines the War Lord (as the other Time Lord was called) had helped build because their power was running out, and the Doctor’s TARDIS still had no navigational system. Because of this, the Doctor had to call for his own people, despite a great amount of reluctance. But he couldn’t stand leaving everyone in that war machine, even if it meant he would be arrested, seeing as he was a renegade.
He tried to escape with Jamie and Zoe, but in the end, they didn’t succeed and after the creators of the War Games got their punishment, the Doctor was put to trial. Jamie and Zoe were sent home with only the memory of their first meeting with the Doctor, as he should never have brought humans with him. His sentence for breaking the non-interference law was given after he told the Time Lords of the evils in the universe that needed to be fought; an exile to Earth to still fight evil, just confined to one place.
Canon Point: The end of The War Games, after Jamie and Zoe's departure.
Reality Description: The Doctor spent his whole life before he left his home planet dreaming of travelling the stars, and time. Now, that is what he does, in a dimensionally transcendental (bigger on the inside) time machine called the TARDIS that from the outside looks like a police box from 1963. Or at least, that's what he did for a good while, but he has been brought back to his home planet Gallifrey to be put to trial for breaking the non-interference law of the Time Lords.
Gallifrey is a planet with two suns, an orange sky, red grass and silver leaves and the great city of the Time Lords - the Capitol - lies in a glass dome. There you find the Academy and the seat of the High Council.
The Council consists of Cardinals representing the different colleges of Gallifrey, as well as an Inner Council where you find the Lord or Lady President of Gallifrey, the Lord or Lady Chancellor - the holder of the Key of Rassilon - and the Castellan - who oversaw the guard and security.
First Person Speaking Sample: [ Can you blame him for wanting to take any chance he can get to get out of the Time Lord's trial? It had been a far shot, but suddenly there had just been something... out of place. So why not check it out? After all, that is what he does.
He's not sure what to expect, doesn't really expect anything, but what he steps into is utterly... wonderful, coming from where he was. There's nothing under his feet that he can see but the universe is a vast place with many possibilities and never has something new seemed better. He spins on his feet, looking up and down and around and it's like the night sky except it's not like anywhere he's ever seen, but he can swear he saw a familiar constellation somewhere, nowhere it usually is. But when he turns to have a second look it's gone.
...okay. ]
Huh. Must have imagined it.
[ He catches onto something else in the corner of his eye, turns and sees a sign that reads INFORMATION, which is also unusual. Normally when he ends up in unknown places they're not usually that kind.
Well. Might as well have a look.
Except when he comes there and sees the instructions for how to get assistance, he only... frowns suspiciously. Hm. ]
Help.
[ Then the holographic screen is what comes up and he makes a long-suffering groan. ]
Computers! Why is it always computers?
[ With an annoying, practiced voice too. Brilliant. ]
Oh, shut up. Guide to-- I don't need that. Broderick Naismith's Introduction to the Astral Plane. That's what this is; Astral Plane?
[ His eyes skim over the screen. ]
Paper! Now you're talking.
[ He grabs the printed brochure with a hum of approval and reads it through, eyes moving rapidly across the papers. ]
A meeting point between universes? I've never heard anything about this. Shouldn't the Time Lords know? What have they been doing?
[ A pause. ]
Ah, but I suppose my abstinence probably made it difficult to tell me anything. Perhaps I should... ask them...
[ He sighs, because this just makes it all the more clear he'll have to return eventually.
Speaking of returning. Just think...? What sort of travel is that? Unlike anything he's heard, that's what. He'll have to try that. Well, he has to, in the end, doesn't he?
With a grimace, he puts the brochure in one of his pockets, asks for the other brochure as well because he might as well have a look at that too. He doesn't right away, however, and puts that in another pocket before he turns to wander away from the information booth. ]
Now, then... Let's see what we can find, shall we?
[ Computers and confusion and nonsense aside, the Doctor smiles as he rubs his hands together and looks around to decide where to start. ]
Third Person Writing Sample: There had been times the Doctor thought he would end up alone, a few of them. When Steven stormed out of the TARDIS, and then Dodo wandered in. When Dodo left, he was so sure he would be alone, only for Ben and Polly to wander in to return a spare key. Things had turned around so suddenly those times that after a while he was always beginning to expect people to disappear. Victoria wanting to stay behind didn’t exactly surprise him even if it hurt.
Jamie was falling asleep in one of the chairs in the control room. He’d been sitting there talking about one thing or other – honestly, the Doctor hadn’t really been paying attention because Jamie had been slurring and Victoria had left. It was probably about Victoria, anyway. He could tell Jamie had liked her a great deal. He was half expecting something to happen there.
But perhaps Victoria had never really been cut out for this sort of life. She was better off where she was now.
Jamie, though…
The Doctor smiled and left the TARDIS hovering in space.
With Jamie, it didn’t feel as if he would eventually end up alone. Not anymore. Jamie would say that he needed someone around to look after him and, well, he probably did… But he felt he also needed someone to look after. And he needed company. He thought about the idea of being completely alone in here and he became afraid. He wasn’t sure of what, exactly, only that it was so frightening that it made him… paralysed. And the worst thing was that he couldn’t actually force anyone to stay with him no matter how much he might have wanted to dig his heels in as soon as they suggested leaving. With Ian and Barbara there had been the excuse of not wanting them to risk piloting a time machine on their own and he had latched onto it as hard as he possibly could.
He didn’t want people to leave him.
Jamie wouldn’t, though. Not for a very long time, not after a few years, but many. He knew that for certain.
He glanced towards the doors, and wondered if maybe he could actually manage to make it possible to open the doors and really look at the stars. He hadn’t tried yet. The TARDIS didn’t like it if he tried opening even the inner doors, but she had shields… Maybe if he coaxed her a bit… Then he could wake up Jamie, and they could stand on the edge in the doorway with deep, black space stretching out in front of their feet.
Turning back to the console, he gave it a good look-over. Shields, shields…
He probably ought to get down and look at the machinery… So, he got down onto his knees, and rolled over onto his back, reaching up to take off a part of the underside of the console. He just had to put his tongue right in his mouth… and then he could reach up and grab a few of the wires, try to work out what lead to what… And if he pulled that one out there…
--or not.
“W-whoooaaa!”
Either that was completely wrong or the TARDIS protested, because suddenly it tipped over enough to send the Doctor sliding across the floor. He could hear the chair fall to the floor too, followed by an annoyed and surprised yelp from Jamie.
In the end, they were left against the wall with no real possibility of getting back up to the console and the TARDIS didn’t seem to have any intention of turning itself back upright. Spluttering, the Doctor turned over and sat to lean against the wall, because at least the wall wasn’t suddenly a floor.
“Och, Doctor, what are ye doing?” Jamie asked testily as he started to crawl his way over.
“Oh, heh, well, I was. I was trying to change the shields,” the Doctor said and allowed himself to sound sheepish with a smile to match, slowly rubbing his palms together. “I guess it didn’t like that.”
“Aye, of course it didn't.” Jamie rolled his eyes. “Ye mean ye didn’t actually know what ye were doing.”
“This is my ship, of course I knew what I was doing.”
Jamie pulled a face; his mouth tugged to one side and there was a very meaningful crease to his brows. The Doctor knew what was coming, so he put a scowl on.
“Aye, I’ll believe ye when ye learn to tinker without sending us on our backsides.”
“One day, Jamie,” the Doctor said, shaking a finger. “One day.”
Did you read the rules? Yes!