you smell so human, so time lord

whenever i'm watching a film and i get a strong sense of what one of the characters is like, i can imagine their scent. it's less imagining and more that i can actually smell them, but i know it isn't real. this never happens when i read a book, though, it's just movies. maybe because i love the smell of books enough to begin with. some prime examples of this strange phenomenon are tony stark from iron man, and sherlock holmes from the movie of the same name. they're both the strongest to me and oddly enough, they're both played by robert downey jr. i'm still trying to figure out if that's a coincidence or not...

and though i've been watching doctor who for months, almost a year (i started so late...) i have never been able to "smell" the doctor. there aren't many characters whom i can smell, but since the doctor's quirky, persistent personality is so constant, you'd have though i'd have been able to figure out his scent by now. but it hasn't been until now, after watching 2.3 (gridlock) that i've been able to figure out his scent. and it's so strangely human--although there's something that ties it all together that i can't quite name.

the doctor smells like the rubber of new sneakers. he smells like bread baking in an oven and that scent on your fingers after holding something metal. he smells like secondhand books and there's a little cinnamon that you can barely breathe in. there's the faint smell of marshmallows and kettle corn, and the even fainter of damp laundry. the doctor smells like an unscented burning candle and a little like my dad's shampoo. but there's one last thing, something i can't quite name, that seems almost otherworldly, that i'd never be able to place. and that's probably the truest scent to him of all. of those scents, blended together, the strongest of them is this one. but it makes sense--he's not human after all, who said he has to smell like one? this scent is time lord, there's no other way of describing it.

it takes a really strong character for me to conjure up a scent of them (and i don't even know how or why my brain does that--i'm thinking it may be my synesthesia being weird), but no scent has ever been as strong as the doctor's. it just goes to show that after spending so much time with the doctor, in his world, he's finally allowed me to get a better sense of him, more than the one i decipher from images and sound. once i catch a character's perfume, i never let it go and it just makes my understanding of that person that much stronger. with the doctor, it's no different, but it is increased tenfold. i don't know exactly why this odd occurrence happens, or why it happens with the characters it does. but it's always interesting to see who stands out the most to me and what exactly they smell like (sherlock smells like blueberries, the inside of a violin case, my grandparents' house, and rain in the city). it makes watching movies (or television, now, for that matter) so much more fun and it gives me a better insight to a character, for whatever reason. i'm intrigued by this odd talent of mine, and i figured it was probably time that i write about it.

also, for the song of the day, i thought i'd give it a doctor who theme to complete my post ;)