You know, I think Clara knew about Amy.
Not at first, of course, but Clara grew up with her --- that is, grew up reading Amelia Williams books. And they were precious to her, books she's read many times over the course of her childhood -- how else does she know exactly which chapter holds what in the book she gave Artie? Perhaps she has always felt connected to her, this moderately obscure children's fantasy author, following in the footsteps of E Nesbit; this contemporary (and sometime friend (oh yes!) ) of Edward Eager's; although not nearly as widely known as either of these. Perhaps because of her choice to publish openly under a "woman's name", thus, in the time in which she lived, relegating her books to the inferior realm of "girls' books", despite the more than equal balance of male viewpoint characters.
But Amelia Williams is different from these authors too -- often fantasy, but sometimes more like early science fiction, a barely- recognized pioneer in both genres. Her views were feminist and daring. In so many ways she was ahead of her time, and the innovations she imagined! almost as if she knew what the future would hold.
And if Clara knows and loves her books so well, she can hardly fail to recognize the most frequently repeated character archetype in them. especially after she rereads a few on a subconscious hunch, during that summer after the Maitlands found a permanent nanny and she insisted that before anything else, she go off and fulfill her original travel plans from 101 Places To See. (The Doctor purported to leave her alone to forge her own way with this, but was in actuality very bad at that, and kept popping up nearly every place she went.) She's Clara, she's clever, how can she fail to look up from her book and notice that the person who's just appeared out of nowhere to stand in front of her with a plate of jammie dodgers and a goofy smile has stepped directly out of the pages?
And then of course, there are the dedications. Sure, there's normal stuff like "to my daughter", "to my loving and patient husband", and "to my parents, who are children now" which is rather weird and whimsical, but fits in with the fantasy author's signature style of dream-like imagination.
But the majority of Amelia Williams' dedication pages say things like "to You", "to My Doctor", "to My Raggedy Doctor" "to my raggedy man" (weird but clearly connected to the other variants), and, cryptically, over and over again: "to you", "to you", "to you", "to you (wherever in time and space you are)".
There's "to my imaginary friend" and "to my imaginary friend, and to all children who have an imaginary friend" and "to my imaginary friend, and every child in the universe who's ever met him, or ever will". Nerds and English teachers have occasionally debated what, if anything, she meant by all this, and now Clara thinks she knows, but she can never say....
And then there are the nights that the Doctor wakes up crying out for "Amy!" and then refuses to talk about it when Clara asks, refuses to acknowledge ever even knowing an Amy, "well everyone shouts random things when they're asleep, it doesn't mean anything" and "I don't remember." if pressed for details about his dreaming. And later he might go off somewhere and cry quietly, reading a book he never lets Clara see.
And then he regenerates, and calls out for "Amelia!", "the first face this face saw."
There's newborn twelve, with his Scottish accent, letting her name slip. It's the first - and only - time he's spoken of her while awake and not actively dying. And Clara is too busy with the immediate threat to their lives to think about it in the moment, but at this point she at the very least has a hunch about the connection between him and the Scottish-American author with the rather opaque background --- that as far as anyone can trace it (although to be fair, no one really cares enough to try very hard) she and her husband just kind of appeared out of nowhere in pre-WWII New York. It seems kind of obvious, now, that the doctor would have had a hand in that.
And now with all the books everywhere, the library gradually migrating into the console room, what else is obvious is that he owns every single one of her books. multiple copies, first editions, last editions, signed copies, mass paperbacks, everything. There's a TARDIS key hidden in a well-worn, well-loved, tear streaked copy of The Cuckoo And The Doll's House, which Clara finds when she's cataloging all the locations of TARDIS keys, just in case she should ever need that information one day.
This all is enough for Clara to know. There doesn't really need to be any more proof, but there is. What totally and fully clinches it are the pictures. Tucked in the pages of another tearstained book (The Beast Below this time), are photographs of Amelia, looking just as she does in her black and white author photos, but younger, and in 21st century clothes. Elsewhere, later, she finds photo booth polaroids of a still younger Amelia, goofing off and smiling. Some of them feature another young man Clara doesn't recognize, and some of them feature the Doctor. He's wearing a tweed jacket instead of his purple wool, and no vest, but otherwise he is exactly the same as the Doctor she first met. The three of them hang off each other like old friends, like family.
idk how to end this.
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One unspoken virus that plagues female bodies due to growing up and being conditioned in a western colonial capitalist patriarchy is the lack of reverence, respect, and honoring we have for our teachers and inspirations/muses.
Growing up in a world created out of the male mind and male philosophy, we are groomed to be less collaborative and more competitive and "takers," taking resources from the feminine, without acknowledging our sources, whether it's another woman/femme's work or resources of the earth. We have adapted to being sneaky and slick.
Everything is recorded. We do not get away with anything. The desire "to take" from other women is a 'bottom-feeder' scarcity consciousness. When a woman or womb owner holds this type of consciousness in her system, she births babies who become adults who do not feel like they are good enough and they further the unconscious scarcity imprint into future generations.
When you take words I have written like "friendships can be deeply romantic" but do not credit me as the source of your newfound wisdom and simply shift words around, it is still recorded and felt by those with intuitive gifts.
I am devoted to letting those whom I love know how much I adore them. Within the last 10 years, there has not a single close friend I’ve had who hasn't received a message of me sharing my love of them at some point. This is the lived experience the quote was birthed from.
In the last 30 days, I have sent voice notes to a woman I follow on instagram who writes beautiful things about heterosexual relating and bridging the gap between women and men. I'm not a heterosexual woman, but I love reading her work. She expands my own consciousness of love so I reached out to her just to let her know how much her work inspired my own flow of love in a pure way and thanked her.
Reverence for another human can be so activating for the psyche and requires extreme vulnerability, which is one reason it is so hard for most people to honor other people without feeling less than. We have forgotten that we are all Gods, that’s why. 🪶🙏🏿🕊️
Years ago, a couple from Atlanta came to visit me and my lover in Europe. When they arrived, I was the only one at home and when my lover came home from work, I met her at the door as usual—which was really no big deal to us. Ha, I will never forget when we turned around and saw the sheer shock on their faces from witnessing how we greeted each other after being a part for "only 7 hours" —one of them said. They were shocked that we had that so much reverence for the presence of the other. But to me, reverence is human. It is love. It is the nectarous flow of one’s inherent wellspring of vulnerability.
Recently I spoke to a past mentor of mine from 2008 who is 22 years older than me, a mentor who I have expanded beyond in consciousness and lived experiences. I find traits of a good mentor to be one who can help evolve students beyond their own capacity and limitations, maybe begin to actually to revere the student’s growing beyond the mentor’s capacity overtime. This is what our relationship is like now. She is genuinely happy for everything I am and everything have become. In all these years, I have felt nothing but sheer love and appreciation from her at different stages of my journey. I told her how much I loved her for who she divinely is. I showered her with compliments and sent her a cashapp for no reason at all. I did not reach out to her to talk about myself. I only spoke about her --her beauty, sass, heart, worth, and value. Women who can not acknowledge the gifts and beauty of other women and only want “to take...” will always be poor in a myriad of ways.
Heart-centered womanhood. Women can turn this world around when we begin to get deeply honest about what is living in our bodies and truly become women again. Please consider revering/honoring those women who help to move you forward into new ways of being that will expand into limitless possibilities. Not become envious them, not steal their work but truly hold reverence and love and even cheer them on. Doing so helps to create more and more connection and love stories and less separation, fear and violence in our world. Everything is connected to everything, you see.
The aim is to get better at loving and sweetness than we were conditioned to be at extracting and taking. When we do, a secret garden of vitality blooms abundantly, like the generous nectar that Spring and Summer summons from human bodies. Because beautiful people impact us in beautiful ways when we allow. Never forget that. --India Ame'ye
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On New Year’s Eve, during a house party at her home in Richmond, Virginia, Lucy Dacus had her fortune told. She thought why not. On a personal level, 2017 had been a wretched year – a steady conveyor belt delivering the 22-year-old bad news.
“This girl, who I didn’t even know, came to the party and gave me this year-long reading,” she explains. “Month-by-month it was so specific. So far, it’s kind of lined up.”
In the past Dacus has been sceptical about the prophetic powers of the tarot card deck, and was taught that the pentacles (coins) were a symbol of Satan. “It’s hard to look to the future and see nothing, to know nothing,” she muses. “I still don’t know what’s going to happen, but having something to have your mind bounce off is nice. That’s why I like tarot. It gives you something to reflect on.”
It’s all part of a fresh way of thinking for Dacus, a new “mood of just trying to be open to new things.” For so many reasons the past year has been one Lucy Dacus is keen to put behind her. “I guess I could just list things,” she says laughing, but not joking. To begin, some of her close family suffered health problems, compounded by her own serious issues including a bout of appendicitis that forced her to have surgery. She was attempting to buy a house for the first time, a process that proved “trying”. Three of her tours got cancelled.
“It was a little bit miserable,” says Dacus, sitting in an east London cafe. “Towards the end of the year, I just had to laugh… Like, come on!”
Interwoven with these practical challenges she was having to navigate something much more troubling. “I got out of a relationship in 2016, which I was waking up from in 2017 – realising that it was abusive,” she begins. “Letting myself say that, it took many months to come out of the numbness… to stop being brainwashed. So, that’s all been a growth. It’s ended up being positive, but it is difficult wondering how I let that be a part of my life for so long.”
Deepening the ordeal, still, this year of personal upheaval was set to the backdrop of Trump’s first 12 months in office. A vociferous supporter of Bernie Sanders through the 2016 election campaign, Dacus is a passionate advocate for equal rights, attending marches and collecting donations for community organisations at her shows. To have Trump sat in the White House representing her country, she says, felt – feels – “horrible”. “It’s just absurd and I feel like I’m in an alternate universe,” she says. “It’s really hard maintaining hope.
“Coming to Europe I’m embarrassed to be an American sometimes, but then I just have to hope that people know that I am not part of Trump. I’ve thought about wearing shirts at the airport – just like ‘not my president’. In little ways I just want to assert that opinion.”
And then there were the disturbing revelations surrounding Harvey Weinstein (and subsequently many other men) revealed in Autumn 2017, that opened out into a global conversation around the abuse and harassment of women.
“It’s been nice coming out of that really terrible relationship during a time when women are speaking up more. It feels like I’m allowed to say these things now,” says Dacus, crediting the #MeToo movement. “All these horrible, heartbreaking stories of women being mistreated are at the forefront but the solace that people are doing what they need in order to find closure and help each other prevent that happening ever again. For one of the first times I’ve been noticing male friends of mine actually examining their past behaviours.”
While there are some early shoots of positivity, the truth is, the culmination of all of these factors left the songwriter dealing with anxiety for the first time. “2017 was a new state of mind for me – and not really in the best way.”
Lucy Dacus was raised in Richmond, Virginia, about two hours south of Washington D.C. on the east coast. It’s a place sometimes described as “the biggest small town left in America.” The family home was in the rural suburbs and she travelled into the city to go to high school. “It’s hard to tell you in one answer how my whole childhood was,” she says. “It’s a large variety of things. Overall, I’m coming out with my thumbs up.”
In her household music was always there. Her mother is a piano teacher, as was her grandmother. Picking up songwriting was never a big deal, like a second language that was spoken around the house. “That’s how music is – like, it’s just part of my life,” she recalls.
Yet the dream of being a professional artist seemed almost so unattainable that it was invisible. In her late teens, Dacus went to college to study film but dropped out, primarily because she’d end up saddled with huge debt. “That, paired with the feeling of being misunderstood in my programme,” she confirms. “I just didn’t have a lot of like minds in my classes.”
That prompted a move back to Virginia where she took a job in a photography lab developing kids’ cheesy school photos. She’d been writing songs in her spare time and gathered nine of the 30-or-so she had together when her friend Jacob Blizard (now her touring guitarist) asked her to record them for his school project. Her 2016 debut album, ‘No Burden’, was made in one day in Nashville. Blizard passed school, and that album received rave reviews. NPR called it “vulnerable”, while Pitchfork said it was an “uncommonly warm indie rock record”. As a result, 20 different record labels reportedly scrabbled to sign Dacus. She settled on Matador, and began to prepare for what should have been a joyful 2017.
The first time Dacus remembers assuming the role of historian she was seven or eight-years-old. She was writing in her journal – and she smiles now recalling her first entry. It complained about how the babysitter spent the whole evening on the phone to her boyfriend. “There’s a point where I realise I’m journaling and so I stop and go, ‘I should probably introduce myself… I’m Lucy’” she laughs, remembering it clearly. “It’s really cute.”
More than a dozen notebooks, and many years later, she still keeps a diary now. Sometimes she writes every day, other times, weeks go by and then she fills 20 pages. Occasionally she flicks open an old one to either “laugh or cringe” at her younger self.
‘Historian’, then, isn’t just the title of her latest album, but also the way she thinks of herself. A chronicler, of her own experiences, but also those around her. Those pages aren’t just a document of a growing maturity, but also a therapeutic habit that helps make sense of many life events, including that recent damaging relationship. “Seeing that it had been broken for the whole time but that I was just oblivious to it, [reading about] it helps to accept that things didn’t change,” she says. “I just saw it for what it was finally, and so perspective is good.”
Those handwritten journals are sacred, which is why, when her tenth one was stolen on tour a few years ago along with a bag of possessions, it was the notebook she replaced first.
The album itself is a recent history – a narrative burrowing through those myriad dark times. Dacus knew that she wanted it to form a complete story, and wrote the track list before some of the songs. “It’s an arc” she says, that begins in a “relatable place” with the only break-up song she’s ever written (‘Night Shift’) that subsequently delves “deeper into darkness.”
“Then the subject matter gets a little more intense,” she tells me, “– going through identity crises, or loss of home, or loss of faith, loss of a loved one, loss of your life. I feel like I’m pulling people into an uncomfortable space.” She pauses. “There’s then a change where hopefully I’m turning on a light and saying, ‘Yes, all of that exists, but it’s a foil to joy.’”
It is an extraordinary piece of work. Musically it’s a colossal step up, reminiscent of recent albums by Mitski (‘Puberty 2’), Angel Olsen (‘My Woman’) and labelmate Julien Baker (‘Turn out the Lights’). The subject matter is heavy, but it’s never a dreary listen. In fact, it’s charming, funny even – like a brave smile emerging through a curtain of tears. And Dacus has a gift for lyric writing; like the eloquent way she pays tribute to the humility shown by her dying grandmother on ‘Pillar of Truth’. From first to final note it’s evocative and powerful. “The first time I tasted somebody else’s spit I had a coughing fit,” goes the LP’s opening line in ‘Night Shift’. “If past you were to meet future me,” she sings on the final line of the closing title track, “would you be holding me now?”
It’s heartening to hear that the contents of Dacus’ NYE tarot reading were largely positive. The forecast noted that she should enjoy the proceeds of her hard work, but that “something horrible happens in the summer, then there’s kind of a rebirth, growing back into, like, life in an even more knowledgeable and peace-oriented way.” Dacus is about to leave, and picks up a bag of books she’s been keeping underneath the cafe table.
“It could be wrong,” she says. “I’m not superstitious. I’m taking it in. When that does happen I hope I can take my own advice – let it be what it is, and look past it eventually
(x) 3/14/18
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| male optional lead : 18+ |
“nat, i’m not doing this today. just go home,” he pinches the bridge of his nose in stress, trying to understand why today, of all days, this is happening to him. you’re nowhere to be found as of right now, nat taking advantage of the situation.
“oh, but ______, i’m just having fun, c’mon.”
the skinny and short black dress she has on accentuates her figure, your boyfriend not thinking about batting an eye. she’s always dressed like this, unaware of her surroundings— thus being part of the reason why the two had parted ways. it wasn’t the way she dressed, it was the fact that she threw herself at practically anyone and everything, unaware of her (ex) boyfriend being by her side while she did so. she scoots closer to the man before her, rolling his eyes and looking in a different direction.
“are you alone tonight, pretty boy?” she runs her index finger along his jaw, admiring the way his muscle tenses.
“no, i’m with my girlfriend.” he grabs her wrist and moves it off of him. he attempts to walk away but she follows, smiling while she teases and picks at him. she looks around for a second, furrowing her eyebrows. “i don’t see her.” she shrugs.
“yeah? she’s standing right there.” he grabs her shoulder and turns her around to look at you standing at the bar with your friend. you’re unaware of the scene happening with your man and his ex girlfriend.
“we should have a threesome, _______. didn’t you mention wanting to have one before?” she feels him tense from behind her, the idea catching him off guard completely. it’s true he’d mentioned it before, but he never thought of having one with his girlfriend and his ex girlfriend.
he would rather kill himself.
it was a bad idea of him to show her where you were or what you looked like, since she’d walked over to you and greeted you. she spoke to you so casually as if you were friends, but you’d both never seen each other before. “hi! is anyone sitting here?” she asks with the biggest and fakest smile.
“hi! no, no one’s sitting here.” you scoot over and smile for the girl to take a seat. you watch the way her shiny beach waves flow as she shuffles in her spot. the body glitters and oils she has on makes your heart burn in insecurity and jealousy, but you can’t help but keep the conversation going.
“good. how come you’re by yourself? no boyfriend?” she asks as takes a sip of her drink. her jewelry dangles and shines in the dim lights, the luxury intimidating you. “yeah, he’s actually…. he’s over there in the black top and silver chain,”
“wait oh my god, _______ is your boyfriend? i knew him in school! we had a thing for a while, actually.” she spits venom into the conversation, making your blood boil already. you feel a sense of insecurity and lack of confidence from how pretty she is as she speaks.
“really? he never mentioned his past relationships. i guess you both were different.” you try to lighten the conversation, but it doesn’t take away the fact that you want to bury yourself into the ground.
ding!
your phone vibrates and you see a message from your boyfriend.
baby boy <3: don’t listen to anything she says.
baby boy <3: she’s trying to ruin things between us
y/n: ok
y/n: who is she?
baby boy <3: i’ll explain at home. follow me to the car.
you stand up and end the meet and greet there, trying to follow your boyfriend back to the car to understand what the fuck just happened. you greet your new friend goodbye, hoping you’d never have to have this encounter again.
“it was nice chatting with you…..”
“nat.”
“nat. nice to meet you. i’m y/n. see you around!”
“what was she saying?” his voice an octave lower, in fear that she might have said something that made you worry.
“you didn’t tell me you had exes, ______. why?” you face your boyfriend, your heart racing in concern and confusion.
“it doesn’t matter because i have you now. my past doesn’t matter, y/n.”
“yes it does! it fucking matters, ______. you’re allowed to know everything about me but you never tell me anything about you. all i know is your name!”
it’s true, though. throughout the 2 year span of your relationship, you never really knew your own boyfriend. all you knew was his name, birthday and height. you had no idea how his past relationships were, why they ended, who his friends are, etc etc. now was the time you figured you’d ask. “y/n, it’s not the time, please just—“ you stop him by sighing and walking away. his excuse started off terrible, making you pissed off enough to stop caring. you didn’t wanna hear the rest of it, but that didn’t stop him.
he walks behind you and tries to keep up while you attempt to slam the door. he stops you with his large hand on the middle of the door. you push and force the door to shut, but he’s much stronger than you— enough to shove the door open and walk right into your empty bedroom.
“walk away from me one more time, y/n.” his height towers over you against the door, making your heart drop to your ass. you look up at him with doe and fearful eyes.
“why are we quiet all of the sudden? you were just running your mouth, what’s wrong?”
he lures you in dangerously, your heart pounding out of your chest as he steps closer to you, afraid he’ll hear your thoughts. you struggle to form a sentence as you race the words before your own mouth. you fight yourself to speak, but you cannot begin to understand what you want to say. all you know is that you’d like to fight back.
“please! let me cum!” your head is pushed into the silk pillows as he huffs and groans in your ear from behind you. the sound of skin against skin, and the smell of sex fills the room, all while you cry out for the man behind you to slow down.
his arm snakes its way around your neck putting you in a headlock with his cold and muscular arm. your pussy convulses and squelched with every thrust he delivers, your eyes threatening to reach your brain. “not so bold now, are we? now, when i tell you to ignore her, what do you do?” his thrusts stop while he waits for you to respond. when your mind becomes cloudy, you struggle to form a response, so he knocks you back into your senses by delivering a deep and harsh thrust. “i’ll ask again. when i tell you to ignore her, what do you do?”
you cry out, your thighs shaking and struggling to stay open. your back is aching, while you try to keep it arched for him. you push back against him in hopes that if’ll release the tension. he catches on, pulling out completely, patiently waiting for your response. “baby, i can do this all day. answer me when i speak to you.”
“fuck! i-ignore her! shit, ______ let me cum!” tears form against your waterline, your boyfriend licking up everything that you give him. he lands a sharp slap onto your right cheek, leaving a large handprint on your pearly skin. your heart starts beating rapidly while the knot in your stomach threatens to break. you shake and shiver while his thrusts don’t slow down. “that’s not how you beg, pretty girl.”
“please, please please let me cum! i can’t hold it—“
“yeah? cum all over it, milk me fuckin’ dry. gonna feel you drip all over my dick.” his thrusts become messier while the both of you chase your orgasm. he groans and pulls out after coating your walls with his cum. you feel like you’re going to explode from how much cum you’ve taken, almost too sure you’ll need 8 plan b’s after tonight.
he uses his middle and ring finger to push back whatever drips out right back into your throbbing, abused cunt gasping and jolting at every touch. he’s made you so sensitive, almost anything can make you wince.
“don’t question things that aren’t important.”
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