"Never do tomorrow what you can do today ..."

taxonomites Fourth Wall Event

2011-04-18T20:03:54Z

Martha had seen a lot of arrivals since being brought to Taxon - and almost as many departures - but, in the past, they'd always been spaced out. What were the hamsters trying to achieve this time? Was this some kind of special treat or were they just causing trouble? Again?

She was keeping her eyes peeled for another zombie invasion, of course, but she was also looking out for familiar faces. Her family had been through more than enough during the year that never was and she hated the idea of them being imprisoned here with her, but she did miss them. She missed them - and Mickey, who should have been her husband by now - so much that it was a physical ache in her chest. She just wanted a chance to talk to them and make sure that they were ok.

And the Doctor. She definitely missed the Doctor. If anyone could get get them out of here, it was him. So where was he?

After one final scroll through the new collection of dots on the map, Martha switched on the tablet.

"Welcome to Taxon," she said with a wry smile. "I'm Doctor Martha Jones. I'm a prisoner too, but I have a practice in the central district if you need anything. I know this is a lot to get used to, but I'll do everything I can do help. We all will."

Come on, Doctor. We need you!

taxonomites Permissions Meme

2010-09-24T20:06:11Z

General

Character Name: Martha Jones [allthatlife]
Species: Human
Abnormal Abilities, if any?: None!

Psychology

1. Is it okay for your character's thoughts to be read / their mind to be probed? Yep!

2. Is it okay for any of your character’s intense / distressing memories to be seen / heard / read in this situation? Ask first, but it'll probably be a yes.

3. What kind of mind does your character have? Are they disturbed at all? Are their thoughts ordered or jumbled? Pretty ordered. She’s clever, logical and scientifically minded.

4. Is it okay for your character’s emotions to be sensed? No problem.

5. Does your character have a weak or strong mind? Are they susceptible to influence or hypnotism? Strong, but not unusually so. She’d still be susceptible to the right sort of hypnotism or the right sort of influence.

6. Does your character have supernatural / mental fortification against mind reading or telepathic communication? Nope.

7. In the case of characters who can just 'know' things about people, can the muns of these characters use the powers of Wikipedia to get information about your character? Certainly.

8. If so, is there anything that should absolutely never ever be brought up? There are things that won’t produce a favourable response from Martha, but there’s nothing I’d have a problem with.

9. Anything that should absolutely be brought up? I don’t know. The wonders of time and space?

10. Will thoughts in the narration be up for grabs? If so, how will you indicate these? Any and all thoughts in her narration are up for grabs.

11. Does your character have any fears / phobias that you wouldn't mind being exploited? The Master, maybe? She’s still haunted by the year that never was and what happened to the human race under his rule.

Physiology

1. Is it okay for your character to be affected by chemical agents? Fear toxins, for example? Yes, but double check with me first.

2. Does your character have any unique biological difference that would affect their resistance to toxins / chemical substances? She has an advanced immune system – the result of her travels in time and space – which would improve her resistance quite a bit.

3. Does your character have any notable genetic / supernatural / biological difference that would make their blood in any way different to a regular baseline human's? I don’t think so. Her blood cells were mutated during her trips through time and space, apparently. I guess it would depend on the taste buds of the vampire.

Physical

1. How okay are you with your character coming to physical harm? Fine with me, as long as it makes sense and we thrash out the basics first.

2. How okay are you with your character's home / possessions being targeted by bad guys? There’ll be consequences, understandably, but you’re welcome to risk it!

3. Can your character be impacted by telekinesis? Yep!

4. With regard to vampires, would your character be willing to be a donor? Probably not, although it really depends on the vampire and the relationship she’s built up with them beforehand.

5. If no, then how about unwilling? … yes?

6. With regard to shapeshifters, are you okay with having those with this power taking the shape of your character? Definitely. It won’t be the first time she’s met a clone.

7. If your character has any superhuman abilities, would you be okay with these being replicated by those who have the power to absorb / take on the powers of others? Nope, she’s just a baseline human.

8. In a physical confrontation, is it okay if characters who have the power to sense / foresee / predict movements use this to their advantage against your character? Why not? Yes.

9. Are you willing to participate in plots where your character will sustain damage outside of a fight, such as in situations with torture, environmental hazards, or accidents? Yep!

10. Is there anything about them that would stand out noticeably if they were ever injured or otherwise examined by a doctor? Are any of these things noticeable to others without close inspection? Nope. And she usually is the doctor.

Magics

1. Can your character be influenced and tempted by magical or supernatural means? If the offer was right? Maybe …

2. If yes, will someone with the ability be able to find this out about them, and in what areas can your character be tempted? We’ll work that out when we discuss it.

3. Could your character be glamoured (a form of mind control employed by vampires to make humans compliant / alter their memories)? Yep!

4. Can your character be effected by spells of any kind and are there any specific types to which they would be immune? Yep, although we should probably discuss things first.

5. Can your character's presence be sensed by characters with the power to read auras / pick up generalized vibes from people? Sure!

6. If yes, what kind of stand out things about your character can be sensed? Determination and stubbornness. Her travels through time and space. The difficulties of her walk across the Earth.

7. With regard to characters that can sense danger / receive visions / predict general doom, are you okay with your character being the subject of any of this, if the occasion arises? That's absolutely fine.

Privacy

1. Will your character change their name as it is shown on the map? No.

2. If they’re able, will they ever opt to hide their location on the map? Only if the Master returns to Taxon/

3. If your character is from an earlier point in their canon than another member of your cast, what is and is not okay for your fellow castmate to spill the beans about regarding your character’s future? That sort of thing should really be decided on a case-by-case basis. Talk to me?

4. With regard to characters that like to snoop, can they find anything that's been publicly said by your character through the tablets? Yes.

5. How about privately? Nope!

6. Is there anything you'd especially like to be known about your character, for the purposes of amusement? Nothing in particular.

7. Anything you especially don't? Again, nothing in particular.

8 Do you like threadhopping and are you okay with other people threadhopping in your threads and posts? I love threadhopping! Check if the conversation looks particularly personal, but it should be fine.

taxonomites Information

2010-06-08T10:52:08Z

Player

Name: Emma
Journal: atraphoenix
IM: atravenenum
Email: atraphoenix@hotmail.co.uk
Other Characters: DG and Drusilla [AU]

Character Information

Character Name: Martha Jones
Fandom: Doctor Who
Chronology: Following her last full appearance on Doctor Who (‘Journey’s End’) but before the off screen wedding that is mentioned in ‘The End of Time II’ and Torchwood’s Children of Earth, when she was apparently on her honeymoon.

Background: Born in 1986 to Francine and Clive Jones, Martha was raised – along with her siblings, Tish and Leo – by her mother following her parent’s divorce. She studied medicine at university and was working as a student doctor at London’s Royal Hope Hospital when she encountered the Doctor for the first time. She impressed the Time Lord – who had infiltrated the hospital by posing as a patient – by remaining calm after the Judoon transported the hospital to the moon.

As the Judoon searched the hospital for a renegade plasmavore, the oxygen in the hospital – which had been transported in a sealed bubble and with a limited air supply – began to run out. Martha risked her life to resuscitate the Doctor and give him a chance to stop the plasmavore and encourage the Judoon to return the hospital.

Later that day, the Doctor tracked down Martha and offered to take her on a single trip in the TARDIS. Although this single trip eventually became several trips, giving Martha the chance to visit New Earth and encounter the Daleks, the Doctor eventually returned her to Earth. As he prepared to say goodbye, he overheard a TV news story about Professor Lazarus and the pair found themselves caught up in another adventure. Afterwards, he invited her on board for one more trip, but Martha, who wanted to be more than a passenger, declined. Eventually, the Doctor invited her aboard permanently.

Martha and the Doctor travelled together for over a year. They spent three month on Earth while the Doctor, who altered his biology and became temporarily human, hid from the Family of Blood and ended up trapped in 1969 after an encounter with the infamous weeping angels, amongst other things. Furthermore, during their adventures, Martha developed – and tried, with mixed success, to hide – unreciprocated romantic feelings for her Time Lord companion.

Events took an unexpected turn when Captain Jack Harkness, a former companion of the Doctor, unintentionally forced the TARDIS to travel to the end of the universe. On the planet of Malcassairo, they found the last survivors of the human race, who, under the guidance of Professor Yana, were attempting to find a way to leave their dying universe and escape to the mythical Utopia.

Too late, the Doctor realised that Yana was actually a Time Lord, the Master, who had escaped from the Time War by altering his own biology. With his true consciousness restored, the Master stole the TARDIS. Martha, Jack and the Doctor had no choice but to follow him back to Earth using Jack’s vortex manipulator. They soon learned that Harold Saxon, the newly elected prime minister, was actually the Master, who arrested Martha’s family and captured the Doctor and Jack before they could stop him from releasing the deadly Toclafane and taking over the Earth.

Martha escaped, spending the next year travelling the ravaged Earth and spreading stories of the Doctor. To defeat the Master, everyone had to think of the Doctor at a specific time. The combined force of their thoughts – which was multiplied by the power of their ruler’s own satellite system – restored the Doctor to full strength. Furthermore, the destruction of the paradox machine that the Master had constructed to facilitate the release of the Toclafane caused time to rewind. Only the people on board the Valiant retained their memories of the Master’s year of power. (The Master himself was shot and killed by his wife, Lucy.)

Although the Doctor wanted her to return to the TARDIS, Martha decided that her family – who had been tortured repeatedly by the Master during their year in captivity – needed her more. She also acknowledged the fact that she couldn’t spend the rest of her life hoping that the Doctor would fall in love with her.

Having left the TARDIS and the Doctor behind her, Martha completed her medical training and joined the United Nations Intelligence Task Force. (She also remained in contact with Jack, forming a close relationship with his Torchwood team and joining forces with them on a number of occasions.) She spent most of her time helping her family deal with their post traumatic stress and, eventually, met and became engaged to Thomas Milligan, a fellow doctor who had saved her life when she was captured by the Master.

Martha was briefly reunited with the Doctor when he joined forces with UNIT to prevent an invasion by the Sontarans. She was imprisoned and cloned during their attack, but her clone died shortly after the Doctor rescued her. Before dying, she told Martha that she had so much life left to live and so much still to do. With that in mind, she turned down the Doctor’s offer to travel with him again and, after a brief trip to Messaline, returned home.

A short time later, Martha moved to New York to act as medical director on UNIT’s Project Indigo. While she was working in Manhattan, the Earth was transported to the Medusa Cascade by Davros and the Daleks. Martha used the incomplete teleportation device to travel to London and find the Doctor, carrying with her the dangerous Osterhagen Key. The key, when combined with pieces carried by other UNIT operatives, could be used to destroy the Earth instead of leaving it in their hands of the Daleks. Before Martha could use it, however, she was teleported to the Dalek vessel and joined forces with the Doctor and the other ‘children of time’ to defeat them.

Jack offered Martha a job at Torchwood when they returned to Earth, but she declined in order to continue her work at UNIT. Tom had been killed during the Dalek attack, but, over time, Martha developed a close friendship and, eventually, romantic feelings for another former companion of the Doctor’s, Mickey Smith. Although his attempts to get her to leave UNIT and go freelance have been unsuccessful, she had no qualms about accepting when he proposed.

Personality: Helping people has always been very important to Martha. It started when she became the family peacemaker and eventually developed into a desire to become a doctor. She takes the Hippocratic oath very seriously, although her travels with the Doctor encouraged her to reinterpret certain parts of it. She’ll fight to save alien life as well as human life but she has, in the past, been forced to – unwillingly and not without guilt – take life in order to preserve it. Even when she is scared or uncertain, Martha will make caring for other people a priority. She is particularly protective when it comes to the people she holds dear. Hurting her loved ones – she is fiercely loyal to those she respects, but you have to earn that respect first – is the easiest way to make an enemy of Martha.

Martha is not afraid of voicing her opinions or standing up for herself and is brave enough to rise to the many challenges presented by life with the Doctor. She is also incredibly determined and frequently stubborn. For example, she refuses to continue to travel with the Doctor unless he accepts her as more than a temporary guest and won’t leave New Earth until the Doctor tells her about Gallifrey. It takes a lot – an act of great injustice, for example, or a threat directed at her family – to make Martha lose her temper, but she can be sharp when the situation calls for it.

Like most of the Doctor’s companions, Martha is naturally inquisitive and eager for adventure. A conscientious, intelligent and responsible student, the Doctor gave her the chance to explore parts of the universe that she’d never even dreamed of. She couldn’t help but fall in love with him, although she hated herself for feeling jealous of Rose and she was furious with herself for allowing him to make her feel like second best. She’d always been taught to respect herself and she’d always known that she was better than that. In the end, she left the TARDIS – and the Doctor – to prove as much to herself. She wasn’t willing to spend her whole life pining over someone who would never return her feelings.

Since returning to Earth, Martha has become both more responsible and more independent. She has thrown herself wholeheartedly into her important role on Earth and won’t let herself regret what she gave up or gaze wistfully at stars she can no longer visit. She made her choice and she knows that it was the right one to make. Martha throws herself into her work with remarkable fervour, because it is her duty to help to protect an entire planet. (She’s had the fate of the human race on her shoulders before and, although that time has passed, she can’t let go of the burden entirely.) As well as staying strong for the people that rely on her and denying the fact that the year that never was still haunts her, Martha has her heart set on improving UNIT. Once, she saved the world with words instead of weapons. She won’t be made into a soldier and likes to think that she can change things from the inside. As tempting as joining Torchwood or going freelance might be at times, she knows that she can make more of a difference with UNIT resources at her disposal.

Abilities and Weaknesses: Martha is an ordinary human, with all the standard vulnerabilities that that entails. Although her travels through time and space have left her with a unique immune system and mutated red blood cells, and although she has an improved resistance to most diseases, she has no superpowers or special abilities.

She is, however, very good at running. (It’s a companion prerequisite.) She’s also an accredited medical doctor who is, thanks to her UNIT training and her travels, particularly good at working in the field. She can use weapons such as firearms, but she prefers not to. She’ll always be, first and foremost, a doctor.

Programmed Possession: Project Indigo

- Permission Meme
- taxonomites Tag
- Taxon Wiki

writers_muses Prompt 131

2010-06-07T14:40:00Z

In the end, it happened by accident.

It took Martha a long time to realise that she’d fallen in love with Mickey. She’d fallen in love with Tom suddenly and sharply and desperately, because he’d been so normal. He’d been what she’d needed, even if, in the long term, he probably wouldn’t have been what she’d wanted. (She could think that now, even if she couldn’t say it. It had been over a year, after all.) With Mickey, things moved slowly. So slowly that it took her a while to realised that they’d moved at all.

She let him crash on her couch after the Dalek invasion. He never left.

He told her about traveling a paralell planet in a battered van, destroying cyber conversion units and ending the lives of the people they’d been too late to save. In return, she told him about walking the Earth, telling her stories and praying that the Doctor’s plan would work.

They talked about the planets they’d visited and the things they’d seen with the Doctor. They didn’t mention the things that had gone wrong. Unrequited love and loss and the feeling of always being second best. They didn’t need to.

He made her laugh. She’d almost forgotten she was capable of that.

Sometimes, they talked about Tom. Eventually, it stopped hurting as much as it had.

When they kissed for the first time, Martha wondered what they’d been waiting for.

***

“Did you love him? The Doctor?”

Martha raised an eyebrow, giving Mickey an arch look over the rim of her mug of instant coffee. They’d been talking about Rose and the parallel universe, so the question wasn’t wholly surprising. She had a feeling that he’d wanted to ask it for a while.

Her answer to that particular question had changed over time. Once, she’d have responded with an emphatic, embarrased ‘no’. During the year that the planet no longer remembered, it had changed into an almost desperate ‘yes’, as if loving him and fighting for him was enough to guarantee success and survival. Now:

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly, “Maybe I was just in love with what he showed me. All that life … all those planets … it was more than I’d ever dreamed of seeing.”

“And you still walked away from him.”

It wasn’t a question, but it felt like one. She put down her mug and turned to face Mickey – sitting next to her on a battered sofa that would never be as comfortable as the one that had been destroyed in the Master’s explosion – properly.

“I don’t regret it,” she said, emphatically. “I wasn’t going to spend my whole life pinning after someone who wouldn’t love me back. I had to get over him. Besides, my family needed me. The Earth needed me.”

That was why her job at UNIT was so important. Every week she fought dozen of small battles. Battles that helped to maintain the safety and security of the planet she loved, even if the Doctor wouldn’t have been interested in them.

“Martha Jones, saviour of the Earth,” said Mickey, giving her a grin that was affectionate as well as teasing.

“That’s Doctor Jones, actually,” she retorted, before adding: “Mickey Smith, defender of the Earth.”

“That’s why you should go freelance. We’d make a great team.”

“I’m fine where I am.”

She answered quickly, then realised that, somehow, her hand had found his during the course of the conversation. She could smell his aftershave and their cooling cups of coffee and the smell of their nextdoor neighbour’s barbaque through the open window. The TV murmured quietly in the background. It was so normal that, for Martha and Mickey, it was almost abnormal.

“We’re still a team.”

“Except when you refuse to do the washing up.”

“Even when I refuse to do the washing up.”

Martha laughed – abnormally loud and a little too long – at that. The sound lapsed into a silence that wasn’t as companionable as it usually was. There was a certain … not uneasiness in it, but certainly a confusing anticipation. Part of her wondered if Mickey kissed her just to break it, but not for long. Not for long.

Prompt: "I held a moment in my hand. Brilliant as a star and fragile as a flower, a tiny sliver of one hour. I didn't know I held opportunity."
Word Count: 701