#toyspiel

[starleska]

I am definitely here to find out more about your OC Harper if you wanna share 👀👀👀

oh my god yes yes yes thank you so much Jam i would LOVE to gush about Harper Spiel and their bizarre backstory, thank you so much 🙈💖 Doctor Who OCs are so fun to make!

my dear Harper's story begins right after the events of The Giggle! Harper Spiel is a 26-year-old ludologist, or games specialist: a former world champion in several board games who turned their fascination with games into a lucrative career. previously they worked with the British government investigating high-profile gambling rings and other criminal operations which involved gameplay mechanics! 👀

following The Giggle, UNIT wanted to find out all they could about the Toymaker, and so they hired Harper to create a full report on him...against The Doctor's wishes, and without his knowledge. during their research, Harper discovers that the Toymaker is not an isolated incident: he has cropped up in gaming lore and texts throughout history as a godlike entity no one can win against. most people would steer well clear...but Harper takes this as a challenge 🔥 so, they begin a series of experiments with the Toymaker's Toybox. Harper spends weeks trying to engage the Toymaker without opening the box, attempting to coax him into a game, but comes up short. until they have a mad idea! on their birthday, Harper brings a sand timer to the Toybox, and challenges the Toymaker to emerge before the sand runs out. they have no way of knowing if the game is accepted... until a bang!! then, a flash of light...and the vague image of a grin with far too many teeth, beaming through the fog. when Harper awakes, they are no longer in their own timeline. they are in 1984, in an empty lot where the UNIT building hasn't even been constructed yet! 😱 it takes a few days for the Doctor - specifically the Sixth Doctor - to find Harper, and it's because the TARDIS has become absolutely fixated on London in 1984 and he can't work out why. this leads him to Harper, who the Doctor recognises as a temporal anomaly: a living entity displaced in time who should not be able to exist in this reality, but has been rejected by their own. according to the Doctor, Harper's birthday - originally March 22nd, 1998 - is now March 22nd, 1956...which would make them 65 years old according to their original reality!! if not...that means they're minus 40 💀 the Doctor, horrified by this mess, takes Harper into the TARDIS and tries to bring them back to 2024...but the TARDIS nearly implodes! he then tries every workaround he knows, but something about the game Harper opened up with the Toymaker has caused their own timeline to shun them. like it or not, the only safe place for Harper to exist (at least without increasing timey-wimey shenanigans) is within the TARDIS 😉 so!! Harper gets stuck with the Sixth Doctor, to his chagrin and their delight. Harper is familiar with the Doctor, but only his most recent regenerations, and they take delight in playing off his bombastic, arrogant personality. they're always getting stuck into some part of the TARDIS they shouldn't be, or wandering off and nearly causing a category 5 space-time event. they're a magnet for disaster and time distortion, and it drives the Doctor mad! 🙈 but as funny as their relationship is, there is real grief here. the Doctor soon recognises Harper to be somewhat like him: a scientist whose fascination often overrides their emotions, so the process of understanding that they will never see their friends again (as they have no family to speak of) is tough. it doesn't take long for the Doctor to soften towards Harper...after all, Harper is something which the universe itself is trying to reject. who can relate more to that than the Sixth Doctor, whose regeneration was characterised by fear, anger and feeling like an alien in his own body? aaaand that's Harper Spiel!! unwitting companion to the Sixth Doctor and challenger of the Toymaker 🥰 their adventures would be characterised by them attempting to find some way back to Harper's original timeline safely, with Harper insisting they need to find the Toymaker to make it happen...😭

#giggles oh i love making Doctor Who OCs. everyone should do it!!! thanks so much for asking about Harper 🙈 #also yes - Harper's birthday (dd/mm) and the time they get yeeted back to (dd/mm/yyyy) is the start of Colin Baker's tenure as the Doctor 😉 #i needed a ridiculous character to ship with both of my favourites okay and THIS WAS THE COMPROMISE #doctor who oc #harper spiel #the doctor x oc #the toymaker x oc #sixspiel #toyspiel #sixth doctor #6th doctor #the doctor #the toymaker #doctor who #dw #starleskasks #starleskawrites #long post