Standard App
[ Player Name ] : Colette
[ Personal LJ ] : horatia1984
[ Age ] : 26
[ Timezone ] : U.S. Central
[ Character's Name ] : The Doctor (Eighth)
[ Character's Age ] : Somewhere in the 900s if you ask him, but he's been that way since his seventh life. 900's like 29 for Time Lords. ;p
[ Series ] : Doctor Who
[ Canon Point ] : After "Dead London"
[ History ] :
I'm going to have to wiki you this one. 900+ years is a long time!
[ Personality ] :
Eight shares a lot of the same oddball personality quirks of his other incarnations. He's easily distracted, prone to talking to himself, an incorrigible name-dropper, unable to resist tinkering with anything mechanical, and completely convinced that he had absolutely atrocious taste in clothes his last seven lives but has finally acquired superb fashion sense. He's a little overconfident sometimes, and doesn't know quite as much about the TARDIS's systems as he thinks he does, but that doesn't seem to faze him.
He's an incredibly curious person, and sees no real need for self-restraint where that's concerned. Strange as he seems to many people, he'll jump into goings-on wherever he is as if he belongs there. He's become a practiced expert in getting into restricted areas and obtaining information he's really got no business knowing. It's not always with a particular purpose or part of a great plan to save the world; often he just finds something interesting. If he's mistaken for someone, half the time he'll just go with it, because it's fun. Needless to say, it gets him into a lot of trouble.
His appetite for adventure is boundless, to the point where it borders on addiction. He thrives on risk and danger and action, and finds it difficult to settle down and keep still for any sustained amount of time. He associates stability with captivity, and he refuses to be tied down. Even staying with friends on Earth, he never hangs around more than a few weeks unless he has to. It's not to say his friends--and Earth--don't mean much to him, in fact it's very much the opposite. Earth is more a home to him than Gallifrey, and while he's occasionally frustrated with humans as a whole, he has a great deal of affection for them. And human or not, he finds it impossible to refuse to help anyone in trouble.
When the Doctor makes a friend, it's meant to be for life. He doesn't go looking for people after they've left--he likes going backward in Time, but backward in his own timeline, into his past, is definitely not his favorite direction--but they never matter any less. If they're in trouble and he hears about it, he'll still drop everything to help them. (There are a few exceptions to this; the staff at U.N.I.T., especially Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, have been close to him across incarnations and continue to have semi-regular interactions with him.) Sometimes he seems to forget the people around him when he's absorbed in a mystery or on his back under the TARDIS console, but in a crisis, his first concern is his companions, and he'll do anything to keep them safe.
The Doctor can't help getting attached to people. There are times when he questions whether this is a quirk or a bad habit, but when he's been around someone a long enough, he starts to care about them and take an interest in their lives. He's got some abandonment issues--he can't properly remember the events that separated him and Charley, all he remembers is turning back to the TARDIS for two minutes, then rushing back to find a goodbye note, and no Charley. "Everybody leaves" was the lesson he took from that, and he tries not to expect people to want to stay with him longer than they have to. He was surprised when Lucie said she wouldn't mind not going home for a bit, and they've both gotten used to relying on each other. He needs her friendship as much as she needs his, and now that they've gone and admitted it, neither intends to let other live it down.
As good a friend as he makes, the Doctor makes an equally formidable enemy. His sense of self-preservation is almost non-existant when he's protecting people; he'll do anything and everything he can to stop an adversary who's threatening innocent (and sometimes less than innocent) lives. He's got a temper on him, and if you get on his bad side you're going to hear about it. He has little patience for intolerance, and anyone who advocates killing something as a quick solution.
He's not as carefree and bouncy excitable as he once was; his battles with Rassilon have taken a lot of the innocence out of him. The discovery that his childhood hero was yet another villain bent on controlling the world has left him more than a little disenchanted. "All my heroes have been so disappointing," he told Romana--and he's learned to be his own hero, but there's a hard edge to his idealism now. He's not trying to save the universe at this point. That would be nice, but it's probably impossible... he's just evening the odds. In every way he can think of.
[ Strengths/Weaknesses ] :
Strengths: The Doctor's greatest strength is his defiant nature. He never gives up hope, whatever the situation. He can't; he doesn't know how. No matter what the odds are against him, he'll keep fighting. Through what bitterness and cynicism he's picked up over the years, he has an unending faith in human potential, peaceful solutions, and new beginnings. His willingness to give people a chance to learn and prove themselves allows him to manage unlikely alliances and pull people together who would otherwise rather take their chances on their own.
In terms of abilities, he's regained some of the martial arts skills of his third incarnation. He can handle himself in a fight. He'd rather not, but he can. He has some telepathic abilities, though he needs physical contact to get into the mind of someone who isn't one of him. Hypnosis isn't a particular strength with him, and he doesn't use it often, but he can perform it, as well as break another telepath's hypnotic hold on someone. The layered consciousnesses of Time Lords acts as a natural defense against anyone attempting to use mind control on them. He's extremely handy with mechanical things, especially when it involves his sonic screwdriver, and he's defeated many opponents thanks to his ability to "reverse the whosit and make a thingy" in a pinch.
Weaknesses: His most obvious weakness is also a strength: his devotion to his companions. He's seen so much death, he'll do anything to keep the ones he cares for safe. The easiest way to get him to do what you want is to threaten the life of a companion--or a group of people. He knows his enemies frequently exploit this weakness and tries his best to work around it, but it's still his achilles heel. His contrary attitude gets him into trouble too. Coming into a situation, without knowing any background, he will side with the underdog in the fight simply because they are the underdog, and sometimes he finds that he hasn't really chosen the lesser of the two evils. He also overestimates his ability to talk himself out of a situation, and it's all too easy to distract him with a diversion.
[ Other Important Facts ] :
Those who are familiar with the new series only may be a bit surprised by Eight, especially his take on his background. Be advised, this is a very different Doctor. Ask him about family, and he'll tell you they'd rather pretend he doesn't exist. The Time Lords consider him somewhere between an annoyance and an embarrassment, but they find him useful on occasion--and on such occasions they like to drop missions (and sometimes companions) on him with no notice or explanation, with the implied threat that he enjoys his freedom only so long as he cooperates. Eight's quite possibly the most rebellious and defiant of the Doctors, and he resents the hell out of it. The Time Wars are far in the future, and his relationship with the Time Lords, never a stellar one to begin with, is at an all-time low. Fed up with centuries of manipulation and interference, in his own lives and in the universe as a whole, Eight wants nothing further to do with them. Right now, as far as he's concerned, if he never hears from them again it will be too soon.
.
[ Sample ] :
Lucie...? Lucie, are you out there? I've been rather conveniently provided with this communication device, I can only assume you have, too...
{a small pause, and he tries again}
Lucie, it's me. It's the Doctor. Do you hear me? {a second passes, then another, and then a change in tone, something a little less inquisitive and a little more prematurely defensive} And before you ask, no, I don't know where we are, or when we are; no, I don't know where the TARDIS is; no, I don't know where the starfish came from; and yes, I'm quite sure it's nothing I did, so no cracks about my driving if you don't mind. Well, at least I'm fairly sure... I don't know much at all, really, but your whereabouts would be a good start. So pick up, would you?
{a longer pause; a frustrated sigh}
Right, well, if anybody should run into my friend Lucie--can't miss her, human girl, blonde, Northern accent, lots of attitude--tell her the Doctor says call me. I'm not going to stand here waiting for the ...starfish... to ring, I want to have a look around...
...
Well, now that's an intersting question.
There is, I assume, a way to make personal calls on this thing--isn't there? I mean, shouldn't there be? Numbers, private frequencies, something on that level, surely... I can't really see a society that communicates solely through ham radio. I just haven't figured it out yet. They really ought to hand out instruction manuals...
.....Or maybe one of you could tell me? Hm? How do I work this thing, exactly--I mean, beyond what I'm obviously doing now? And why is it that I have no memory of whoever gave it to me? Can you tell me that?
Anybody...?