doctor temperance "bones" brennan

[dr. temperance "bones" brennan]

ALL ABOUT YOU!

your name ooc: Bean
your age: 17
experience: 4 1/2 years or so
what do you hear?: nothing but the rain

ALL ABOUT THEM!

character name: Doctor Temperance "Bones" Brennan
canon: Bones
canon point: End of s5, before Indonesia
important history: Temperance Brennan is not her birth name. Tempe was born as Joy Kennan, daughter of Ruth and Max Keenan and brother to Kyle Keenan. Her parents were former bank robbers who fled and took on assumed identities to escape the criminal lifestyle for the benefit of their children. Thus, Ruth became Christine, Max became Matt, Kyle became Russ, and Joy became Temperance.

Temperance was a bright but quiet child, enthralled by her science teacher father's home experiments and completely devoted to her brother. Often the only word Tempe would say all day would be "Polo" in response to Russ' called "Marco."

Once, when she was younger, she came upon the corpse of her recently-deceased elderly neighbor. Temperance claims she was perfectly fine following the incident, but for reasons she can't name, she kept faking her own death. One such incident caused Russ to require counseling from the school psychologist.

Things turned extremely sour for Temperance at Christmastime when she was fifteen.

Her parents, who had testified against the others in their group of bank robbers, knew they were in danger from their past and abandoned their children. Russ, eighteen years old at the time, attempted to make Christmas still happen to Temperance. Angry and hurt and confused, Tempe refused to open the gifts he had found until their parents returned. Russ was unsure if he was qualified to care for his troubled sister and also left to make his own way, leaving Temperance to foster care.

Though comparatively short, Brennan did not have an easy time in foster care. She once spoke of an incident when she was locked in the trunk of a car for two days after dropping a plate she was cleaning. The water was hot, and the soap was slippery, but she was a clumsy child and was warned of the consequences.

At school, her peers were little better. Temperance bonded with the creepy janitor, finding dead animals to dissect in order to understand the anatomy. Upon graduation, Brennan attended Northwestern and continued at Georgetown for graduate works.

She may hold up to three doctorate degrees and has a teaching position at the University of Georgetown in addition to her work at the Jeffersonian Institute in Washington, DC, as a forensic anthropologist.

Originally her work consisted in the identification and cataloging of ancient remains, but she has been contracted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to aid in murder investigations in which the victims have been discovered in various extreme stages of decomposition.

Her partnership with Special Agent Seeley Booth has had an extreme impact on Brennan's life. He nicknamed her "Bones" - because she stares at bones to learn the truth - and while she initially disliked and protested the name, she has grown to think of it as a term of endearment.

Throughout their combined careers, Brennan has been kidnapped, been drugged with voodoo magics and lost a day of memory, been buried alive, accused herself of murder in order to free her father from prison, shot a man who was going to set her on fire, and has grown into a more open, more warm, and more socially knowledgeable woman.

Perhaps because of her developing openness, or simply perhaps she is only human, Brennan found herself overwhelmed by the death and tragedy that surrounds her life. At the trial of the Grave Digger - the defense lawyer who kidnaps and buries her victims alive with only enough oxygen to survive for about a day - the woman who kidnapped half the Jeffersonian team - Brennan found herself unable to cope with the extremity of emotion she was feeling.

At the end of the trial, Brennan was offered the lead position on a dig to the Maluku islands in Indonesia, where ancient remains suggesting an alternate theory to the evolution of man had been discovered.

The expedition is to last for approximately a year. Booth received an offer from the US Army to return to Afghanistan and the Rangers to train snipers - the role he performed years ago when he was in the Army. The promised in the airport that they would meet in one year's time at the coffee cart by the reflecting pool at the mall.

character age: 33
face claim: Emily Deschanel
notable weaknesses:

• social situations - Temperance almost has Asperger's Syndrome. She can come off as abrasive and insulting without intending to.
  
• fear of abandonment - because everyone she's ever love has left her, Temperance has difficulty trusting people for fear s/he will inevitably leave once Temperance has begun to really care.
  
• Special Agent Seeley Booth - though she will never admit to it (and will claim they are

just partners until she is blue in the face), Brennan is extremely protective of her partner. She quite possibly is in love with him, but she would never admit to such feelings under torture. She firmly believes there is a "line" that working partners cannot cross.

[/li][li]idioms and popular culture - despite her high intelligence, she has little to no knowledge of any popular culture references or slang terms. She'll take any comments literally and will often become confused if and when they don't make sense taken as such.[/i][/li][/ul]
notable strengths/abilities: As a forensic anthropologist, Brennan has extensive knowledge of the skeletal system. Her specialty lies in the bones, but she has "picked up" other information about fleshy areas or medical needs. She has a genius-level IQ and will not hesitate to point this out of the opportunity arises. In addition, she prides herself on being a "good shot" and has a comically overlarge gun she somehow manages to hide on her person.
general personality: Many people describe Dr. Brennan as a "cold fish." She is extremely pragmatic and rational and prides herself on her ability to compartmentalize her emotions. Having been abandoned in the past, she doesn't believe in love and will go on a tangent about chemical reactions in the brain if the subject is brought up. Brennan claims to not have an open heart and to understand the dead better than the living.

Those that have broken through this hard, scientific exterior know this isn't the case. Rather than not connecting at all, Brennan connects on too many levels, making it terribly difficult for her to distance herself from the feelings cases may evoke in her. Outwardly she claims to be objective, and while she doesn't let her personal emotions get in the way of her job, Brennan has strong opinions regarding her never ending thirst for the truth.

In Brennan's mind, each victim deserves to have a voice. From thousand-year-old Egyptians wrongly accused of murder to month-old murder victims, she throws the same single-minded focus into finding all the evidence.

Hand-in-hand with her drive to discern the truth lies Brennan's near obsessive-compulsive need to keep her evidence uncontaminated. She will rail and scream for hours at incompetent crime scene technicians or interns who don't show the proper amount of respect to a set of remains.


anything else important about your character: she's likely to offend the easily offended by just being herself. She's blunt and doesn't lie.
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PROVE IT!

sample rp post AS YOUR CHARACTER:

Something was not quite right here.

Last thing Dr Temperance Brennan had been aware of, she had boarded the plane to Indonesia, off to the Maluku islands to, in Angela's words, "redefine what it means to be human."

She'd been thinking about Booth while relaxing in the reclined chair. This was usual for her, thinking of Booth. Though she loathed to admit to it, upon further examination of her feelings, she was uncomfortable with the thought of the long period of time without seeing him. She'd begun to rely on his day-to-day incessant presence in her life.

Who in Maluku would pull her from the remains and make sure she ate? Who would ensure she was leaving the lab setup to sleep at normal hours of the night?

Looking around, Brennan was startled out of her thoughts by the unfamiliar surroundings. This was most definitely not the interior of a plane. Her luggage was nowhere to be found, and... Why was she wearing her Jeffersonian lab coat and identification badge?

None of this made sense. Brennan concluded she must just be dreaming on her plane. Something had caused her to become aware of her dreaming state. That was supposed to mean she could control the dream, didn't it?

Irrationally, her thoughts tried to summon Booth to be with her, to give her a "guy hug" and hold her close in the goodbye embrace they hadn't had the luxury of in the crowded airport.

But nothing happened. Hiding her disappointment, Brennan continued to study the people appearing around her. None of this was possible. Logically, she had to be dreaming. She pinched her arm in an attempt to wake herself up, but nothing happened.

What was going on?

[EVITA.]

ACCEPTED!
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