I don’t know how or why I thought this, but I just had the craziest idea.
What if the Doctor is literally a kid with a box? Like Doctor Who is about this little kid who finds a big empty blue box he can fit inside, and being a kid, he makes the box his space ship. So his blue box is something seemingly small that’s so much bigger on the inside to him with all kinds of crazy controls that only he knows how to manage.
And his parents were kind of traditional and strict who occasionally grounded him, and wanted him to be the greatest medical professional in the world, and what’s greater than being a Doctor to multiple universes (he just learned about space in school)? So he fights his phobias like the creepy angels in the graveyards and gassy green hippopotamuses with fly faces (he had a dream like that once).
And being a young kid starting to mature, of course he likes pretty people. At first it’s girls, but then maybe a couple of boys. And of course he gets into fights a lot with the other kids and sometimes he gets a little depressed when people leave him out of things and he squishes a spider when he’s really upset. And he’s a really kind-hearted person and hates to see the younger kids on the playground get bullied.
And sometimes he just wants to be other people, but sometimes when the world wants him to be someone else he just wants to be himself.
It’s like the greatest metaphor ever for growing up but remaining a kid at heart.
