#〉 CLARA && TWELVE ₎ duty of care.

[userscully]

Are you looking for her? I'm trying. DOCTOR WHO 9.12 | Hell Bent (December 5, 2015)

[tardxsblues]

Look, I have a duty of care, okay? You know what that is? Of course I know what a duty of care is. What are you suggesting?

[leninisms]

twelveclara + “hoax” by taylor swift

“do you think i care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?”

[sentientsky]

once again in my "thinking about twelve and clara" hours (aka all the hours)

[thekingofspin]

Currently sobbing over hell bent AGAIN. I do this every single time. I love this episode.

[seaweedstarshine]

Thinking about the convolution of Eleventh Doctor's expressions of love for River Song in Season 7B. He does not trust Clara. He is utterly (wrongly) convinced that he and Clara are playing a grand manipulative game together. “What are you, eh?! A trick? A trap?!!”

So naturally, the last thing he should do in this game is to clue his opponent in on something that could be used to hurt him. Something like River, so painfully near the end of their time together, whose data ghost he can always see, who “it would hurt too much” to acknowledge. He can't let Clara know of the loss which constantly floods his senses; (“You are always here to me. And I always listen, and I can always see you,” he professes, once Clara has vanished into his timestream).

And yet. River fills his every moment (irregardless of any sneaking out for dates with increasingly-young Rivers while Clara is asleep like he did while the Ponds slept, which would explain his absence when the TARDIS is hiding Clara's bedroom). Even though it's not strategic, he can’t help but tell Clara about her. The best defense he can manage is to phrase it as if River isn’t as important to him as she is. Not only is avoiding her first name in his grief; he's also completely avoiding pronouns; which seems extreme given that he's still mentioning her as often as: “Oh yeah, of course he has! Professor Song! Sorry, it's just I never realized you were a woman.”

Leave out the emotion — leave out the details — don't show the cracks in the armor — play the part — win the game.

“Well, there's no point now. We're about to die. JUST TELL ME WHO YOU ARE.”

[yes7erdays-archive]

tag drop

[geekinclara]

This is your regular reminder that what Twelve and Clara had was beyond platonic, beyond romantic. And definitely not father-daughter.

They had a duty of care for each other. And they loved each other until their last seconds.

[fancifulplaguerat]

I am thinking about my beautiful cancelled wife again. In particular her worldview about humanity, because I maintain the impression that Aglaya cares about humanity, firstly through her dialogues: “I am a humanitarian. My duty is to save people, not kill them,” “I only wish to do good; not specific, targeted good, like that Clara, but overarching good,” and “Human lives are valuable to me. To this day, I’ve been paying for my kind-heartedness.” Likewise this seems implicit in her hatred of Nina’s purported callousness for human life, but then Aglaya claims: “We’re inherently evil, Clara. Evil is what defines human nature. An attempt at self-discovery is a provocation.” Pardon me but reading that makes me need to Blair Witch It in the corner for an hour. At least. Just due to the potential implications of Aglaya apparently advocating for a humanity she believes is evil. It immediately calls to mind Daniil’s quote “The point is that in this case, the winner will be […] mere humanity. Any kind of it—even malicious, and yet still a living one,” and a dialogue between him and Artemy: 

> If the Polyhedron alone caused so many deaths, how much evil will a whole city of incarnated miracles beget?  Bachelor: Rather a lot. Let’s be realistic here. Does this mean, however, that we—all of us, humanity, I mean—should abandon our attempts, efforts, and search? You’ll never convince me of it. 

So Aglaya’s dialogue reinforces that recurrent theme of pursuing impossibility, but the ramifications for her individual character interest me more. Like. She despises Nina for being the literal “embodiment of evil,” yet she considers human nature inherently that? Perhaps & perchance Aglaya’s hatred for Nina (pre-Polyhedron) is because Nina embodies Utopianism, which is *arguably* the most ‘humanity-’ oriented philosophy, as its ideologues are “those who believe in the power of the human spirit and the infinite scope of creativity.” Outlandish conclusion to draw but this is a Tumblr post so I shall say my piece: maybe on some narrative level, Aglaya despises Nina for being an embodiment of some kind of human nature. 

Also hey. That “An attempt at self-discovery is a provocation” I’m going to Cask of Amontillado myself into the wall thinking about that in context of Aglaya and Artemy’s conversations about selfhood and free will. When Artemy says that he wants to explain himself Aglaya says, “Explain yourself? Your very self? How curious! Speak. I’ve found myself rather preoccupied with matters of identity lately! Seems like I’ve abandoned those matters all to early—seeing what they have done to me.” I imagine Aglaya has considered her selfhood in her attempt to wrestle some autonomy from her awareness of the metanarrative but ough. Ouch. Does Aglaya also consider herself inherently evil. Aglaya if I could I would crawl in my computer and hold your hand and feed you strawberries I love you & you never did anything wrong even when you suicide baited Daniil D Dankovsky and bullied a twelve year old 

[jupiter049]

I'm already a big 12th Doctor elitist so I'm sorry for what I'm about to say but The Husbands Of River Song instantly made me more invested in River and her romance with The Doctor than the entire Smith era.

I really wanted an episode that's just a proper date between the two and this episode finally gave it to me (a date with these two does involve criminal acts btw).

If you check my recent posts then it's no secret that I'm a Whouffaldi truther but it's a relationship that was doomed to end horribly (that's one of the biggest appeals of the ship lol) which makes it so beautiful to see Twelve have a proper relationship with River.

A relationship where he isn't obsessed, where he doesn't have a "duty of care", a relationship he can comfortably enjoy and settle down with knowing and facing the fact it's not going to last forever, and there's nothing he can do about it. I'm sure it is exactly what Clara would have wanted.

A very sweet epilogue to series 9 and a fantastic send-off to River Song (which was a storyline 7 years in the making so thank god Moffat didn't screw up the ending).

[userscully]

you ever think about how twelve spent four and a half billion years in what was essentially purgatory just for a chance to save clara. you ever think about how he could have been freed of the time loop whenever he wished just by admitting he didn’t have the information the time lords wanted, but instead he chose to die over and over again, to be tortured—all alone—for what must have felt like eternity, just to hold on to his bargaining chip and get clara back. you ever think about how he broke every one of his rules, ignored the finality of death, held up a gun and shot one of his own people, all because he couldn’t live with having lost clara. you ever think about all that? cause i do!

[twelfthdoctorwho]

eleven in the snowmen when clara dies: “it’s my fault. I am responsible for what happened to clara. she was in my care.”

clara and twelve in hell bent: “I was dead and gone! why would you do that to yourself?” “I had a duty of care.”

[leninisms]

twelveclara + “western nights” by ethel cain

[ohmerricat]

thinking about the fact that ____ gets hired at the dead languages department as a caretaker (specifically “the Caretaker”) + the episode The Caretaker + “she’s my carer” “duty of care” … the theme of care in twelve’s era. a running motif. wonder why it’s still running here, has anybody figured it out? i haven’t, not yet. esquivalience is a trap street in a dictionary. why is clara haunting the narrative again get out miss oswald

[iamryxx]

So.. for some reason, I started watching edits of Doctor Who AGAIN. I stopped watching DH because of Twelve’s regeneration, for context.

Anyhow, I realized again how deep the “I had a duty of care” hit me, even now. Even after years of watching it for the first time. I find myself getting so emotional when it happened. I find myself thinking about it all day, for more than a week now. I find myself tearing up whenever I think about it, even a little bit.

The way he looked at her while saying that was… so heartbreaking. As if it is the most OBVIOUS thing, and he couldn’t understand how she could miss that. That also brought “Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?” to the service of my mind. I thought it’s as if he was surprised that she’d forgotten about that. He “cared” for her too much that he was expecting her to know that. To know that he would go to any length if it meant that she’d be safe. I don’t know how to explain this but I think this is one of the -if not THE- most heartbreaking moments in all of DW history for me. Top 3 at least. He’s looking at her as if he really cannot understand what so strange about him doing all of this for her. If there’s any other scene that you think is more painful than this then be my guest. And yeah that OF COURSE was due to the incredible performance of Peter and Jenna, who brought life to these characters by their marvelous performance. They both were absolutely killing it.

Annnnyway….. Just for the sake of saying it, I don’t necessarily view the Doctor and Clara’s relationship as romantic, such as River and the Doctor.. BUT that’s not to say the Doctor didn’t love Clara. HE DID. He loved her with his whole being, he loved her so unconditionally that it was/is sometimes painful to watch -because I want to be loved unconditionally like that🧍🏻‍♀️- but there’s also no denying how…. straining-?? excuse me for not finding a better term to describe what I mean- they both were for each other. They were welling to push each other to the edge because of their love for each other. I mean Clara by day became a different version of him, and he literally went through 4.5 billion years of hell and torture just to bring her back from being dead. She was right, she did that to herself but he wasn’t ready to let her go. He KNEW he was going TOO far but that didn’t stop him, if anything it only pushed him further more. And they both knew that there’s a danger to that, to them being together, pushing each other and becoming more attached, more dependent on each other.

Clara CLEARLY wanted adventure, but the more she got it the more she became addicted to it, the more she became… like the Doctor. And that’s the last thing he needed. He didn’t need another version of him to be with him all the time. THATS why River didn’t travel with him all the time. She knew she’d become like him at some point and that isn’t what he needed, he needed someone to remind him, to hold him to the mark, because he’s such a morally gray character. That’s exactly why Donna, Amy and Rory were so important so popular to his story. They were with him all the time but they stopped him whenever he needed to be stopped. While we have Clara and Twelve pushing each other EVERY time they get to be together. There’s also “I’m exactly what you deserve” line. It says TOO much to me and I don’t think I need to explain why when I already wrote all of this.

Twelve is my favorite, and I can go on and on talking about him. But I am sometimes perplexed by his relationship with Clara. But it kinda makes sense when you think about them as the two sides of the same coin.

[doctormastertardis]

I'm trying to understand the love for Clara Oswald, so I am rewatching her episodes... :) I'm not a hater, after all lol...

I also just want to re-hash my memory on The Great Intelligence, because I HAD this nagging theory about Ruby Sunday and her "snow" ability, which is connected to my theory that Ruby is a human embodiment of the TARDIS, which is also connected to my theory about why the "old Gods" of Classic Who are coming back in relation to The Flesh + Nestene Consciousness, which circles back to my theory on the return of the Toymaker's connection to the Timeless Child Arc (aka origin of the Doctor).

ANYWAY... back to Clara :)

I think the set-up between Clara and Eleven was well-written actually!!! I always did prefer her "incarnation" as Oswin Oswald over her "21st century existence". I even hoped she would ORIGINALLY be a scientist from the far future, and THAT was one of the reasons why I was initially disappointed regarding her character-trajectory.

I can understand "The Hybrid" concept from an interpersonal viewpoint. I can appreciate it as a metaphor for a toxic, co-dependent relationship only IF the audience is willing to shed light on the Doctor's history with his OTHER human companions.

And yes, it is inevitable that the Doctor as a "whole entity" (not necessarily just Twelve) would give back Clara Oswald the Gift of Eternal Life, as she did end up DEAD because of her carelessness and over-confidence due to Twelve enabling her when he tried to bring back Danny from "hell" per Clara's request.

These are a bunch of domino effects that resulted from Clara jumping into his time stream... Perhaps, Twelve's "duty of care" stemmed from the fact that he wouldn't exist without Clara. Literally. She saved him across all his timelines from the Great Intelligence (dun dun dun)-- he'll be back, mark my words. Perhaps, that was a metaphor for co-dependence. I mean, duh, it is!

She saves him from "dying", and he in return stops her from "growing" as a person.

I would have probably been satisfied with Clara if her story had ended when she jumped into the Doctor's time-stream, but alas- we wouldn't have Missy if that was the case. AND WE ALL LOVE MISSY <3

Might I also remark that it is *GOOD* writing that they also included "Me"/Ashildr (code: warrior) in The Hybrid plot, because the Doctor made this Viking girl immortal and "less human", and in a parallel circumstance he did the same for Clara... He quite literally stopped Clara's death, the same way Clara stopped HIS many deaths.

So yeah, ok, Clara didn't deserve her own TARDIS (imo). But seeing as she's "stuck" with Me (who I personally interpret as Clara's very own "dark" Doctor replacement; hence the poetic name "Me"), I think having her own TARDIS is more of a KARMA-- like, a traumatic time-machine that takes you anywhere BUT home?

In hindsight, I was bitter about the fact that Clara Oswald got her own TARDIS because it renders all the other human companions "unimportant"? Now that I'm older, I'm realizing that Clara "mirroring" the Doctor from a perspective of a broken heart (per se) can definitely be narrated from a perspective of:

"WOW THEY REALLY WERE TOXIC FOR EACH OTHER BECAUSE THEY BOTH WANTED TO AVOID THE INEVITABILITY OF DEATH."

If I decode The Hybrid in terms of human relationship, I would say that they stopped each other from GROWING. Because "death" = rebirth. And without death, life becomes stagnant.