#anybody else here like Fiona apple or what

[sil-te-plait-tue-moi]

The idler wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw.

Quick summary: After one too many drinks, you find yourself unable to think of anything but a certain smart-mouth detective who is in desperate need of a release.

Word count: 11K (I'm sorry)

Warnings: This is basically just SMUTT with a lil feelings (if you squint) sprinkled in there; kind of angsty at points (mentions of canon-typical death and violence (hellooo they're homicide detectives); gets a bit existential at points, watch out; pretentious.

A/N: YAY! I had this obsession with True Detective S1 all throughout October (watched it at my nan's house lmao), so enjoy the lovechild of that. This is just for fun, so, please, nobody be angry at me if they don't agree with Rust's characterisation, or any of the weird philosophical chat, lalallalal, OKAY ENJOY!!

***

The night air is sluggish and humid with the remnants of a warm summer’s rain, pressing down thickly, close, clogging, simmering just below the surface.

A few times, I’ve interviewed people who live in these sorts of places: motel-types, the “in-between”, where folks stay when they’ve either got no money, no choice or nobody. Other residents include passers-by who’re looking to save money on accommodation, skipping on the fancier places. Not that Louisiana really has any “fancier places”. Places without the paint peeling off walls like dead skin, I guess. A bed and breakfast in the nicer suburbia, with a view overlooking a subpar daydream of a ghost town centre. 

I’ve leaned up against the crooked, metal railing, felt the influence of my weight almost sending it and myself crashing down onto the faded parking lot beneath. I’ve leaned up there—after knocking—and waited, waited for a grey face to peer through a crack in the cracked door. I’ve smiled and remarked about how the beat-up, brass numbers up there are hanging by a thread. Sometimes, people are real stingy – they slink out and close the door behind them, or they remain in that little slit, just an eye visible, or they plain shut it in my face. Most let me in right away, maybe a little intimidated by the shiny badge clipped up in my jacket – I’ve sat across from ‘em, felt that mud in the room’s air seep into my pores, inviting me under its still swamp. 

Seems like the sort of place for him.

Too many a fuckin’ time, Marty’s come grumbling and muttering into the office kitchen, rolling his eyes, scoffing, huffing, the whole lot. And when I ask him why the strop?—“Ancient fuckin’ philosopher fuckin’ Rust Cohle on it again. Birthday’s comin’ up: get me earplugs and a generous bit o’ duct tape for my dear partner over there, would you?” 

Or somethin’ along those lines. 

For all his apparent talk about us silly, little “biological puppets”, this seems like Rust’s sort of place. Temporary existence, temporary living. Purgatory?

Whatever.

If you ask me, Rust Cohle’s head is so far up his own ass that it’s no wonder his outlook on life is so dark. 

If I was more sober, maybe I’d be thinking about it—about him—less—but this night out has had me so drunk I was maybe even hallucinating at some point. Rust?—sure, he’s been in the back of my mind for some part of the last few months – I have to see him most days I go to work, don’t I? – but, sometime in the space between my third and fourth shot of straight vodka, he was suddenly at the very front of it. I’d seen a guy who smoked like him: cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, a simple, deep drag. I’d thought it was him, but then I realised his face was shrouded in the smoke that he’d exhaled, and I recalled that Rust never seems to do that. Never seems to exhale. All the tar and shit stays in. 

With a twist of my keys, the engine rumbles off into more-or-less silence. Fuck, it’s a bad idea, yes, just being here. If he likes to keep his distance, well—he’s entitled to that choice. 

I glance over my shoulder, out the window, out at the complex which is all yellow and shining, illuminated by buzzing halogen light bars and, of course, the occasional bug zapper. It’s clean enough. The lines of this parking space were white enough. Apartment 11A, said Marty. Second floor. 

“Are you drunk?” he’d asked – Marty, not Rust.

I’d replied, “No,” pressing closer to the phone box in attempts to remove myself from the swarm and bustle of the ladies’ bathroom. And it was an honest reply. Sort of. Despite his scepticism, by that time, I’d long stopped drinking, and all that remained from it was a sort of numb tingle in my fingertips—as far as I was concerned. 

I don’t think I’d be in this parking lot, stepping out of my car, if I wasn’t still a little bit gone. 

Marty’s sigh had crackled through the receiver. “Don’t bring any o’ tha’ party-this-party-that attitude to ‘im, alright? He’ll hate it.” I’d told him okay, my stomach spiking up with excitement. “Fact is, I don’t think you should go at all. ‘f you do, should be a work matter. This a work matter, detective?”

I’d lied, said yes, perhaps with a slur to my voice. 

He clicked his tongue. “Okay, buck, whatever you say.” Then, he’d hung up. 

There was something disapproving in the manner of the conversation. I got the feeling that he was talking to me in the same voice he used to lecture his daughters. The only reason I’d called him was to get something from him, sure, so that I could basically get something from Rust, his partner. I could see how that sort of thing might’ve upset someone. Not that Marty Hart should have any right to judge, not when he’s coming into work in the same clothes as the day before, stinking of sweat and God knows what. The unsaid agreement of everyone in the office is to turn a blind eye. I’ve met his wife. Someone should cut off his damn dick. 

Quiet, now. Hell, who am I to talk? Marty’s fun to chat with, makes a slow day at the office a little brighter. ‘Course, there’s rarely a slow day at the office.

And I’m at the top of the stairs, now. And I knock—one, two, three—on the pilling, forest-green door. Dulled down 11A. Blinds are determinedly shut, slats flat. For a second, I think maybe I’ll be waking him.

Then I remember Rust doesn’t sleep. 

A grey face appears as the door swings just a little ways open, grave and sunken-tired. His expression isn’t so pissed-off as it is just his usual expression. 

“Rusty,” I say to him with a small nod, words scraping out dryly. 

He doesn’t respond right away – ‘stead, he leans his body out partway, eyes absent like he’s searching for some hooligan criminal in the night.

“Marty told you my address?” he asks lowly. It’s more a statement than anything, but I amuse him with a nod anyways. There’s a cigarette flaring up between his fingers. His hand twitches a little like he’s wanting to take a drag, but his eyes are fixed on my shoes, now, like he’s still coming to terms with the fact I’m a foreign body in his domain. 

My toes curl up tight in my shoes – there’s that prick of anticipation again. Ice-cold, you could easily mistake it as dread. 

Rust doesn’t exactly subject me to an imploring look—not really his style—but he bows his head down just slightly – that’s sign enough for me. He wants to know why I’m here, and he no doubt wants to know the quickest way to be rid of me. 

I sigh. I ask him.

My body trembles, and he notices it, records it, stores it away for later reference, for some other time he’ll find that it and me will contribute to his purpose. 

Rust has a face of stone. I get to know it well as I search for a sign there that might let me know what lies beneath. But, of course, a statue is solid through and through. Sharp angles and smooth planes carved hollow. If he’s cold to the touch, I’d like to reach out and be sure. Is he cold where a man ought to be warm? Christ, it makes my pulse jump just to think about it. 

There is no greater purpose or cruel intention underlying my words, as far as I’m concerned. Rust, however, lingers there, with his arm up on the door, barricading the entrance, while he peels back and flits over every layer of possible meaning, his attention fixed absently on my left ear.

He then looks at me—briefly—in the eyes, with a sort of paralysing intensity. Even the tingling in my fingers ceases to be. 

It takes a moment, pregnant with the chorus of cicadas, crickets and other night-creatures, before he steps back neatly to allow me in.

The door clicks softly behind me as I enter into a room that’s bare as bare can be.  

Rust grunts, coming up around me and into the kitchen area. “Want anything?” he mumbles around his cigarette, other hand shoved in his pocket. He’s still half-dressed in his work clothes, his tie strewn on the counter, his blazer slumped over a rickety picnic chair perched up in front of a wall of crime scenes and dead bodies. My eyes linger there—how can they not?

“A beer,” I tell him, still looking at those photographs, then at the stacks upon stacks of books. Philosophy, ethics, religion. Names I’d expect only those with PhDs to know.  

“Don’t think you’ve had ‘nuff to drink already?”  

I shoot him a look. “I think I can handle it, Rust.” He straightens up, raises his brow. I snort, reasoning, “I’ll only have one.”

“One,” he agrees, opening up the fridge and having a rummage around.  

White walls and all of them empty, like some sort of psych ward. Half-sure Rust actually did do some time in that type of care, though, so—shouldn’t make any quips about that. I don’t want him thinking I think he’s crazy – he gets enough of that, I’m sure.   

Back at my place, though, I’ve got posters or drawings or paintings up around every corner. My niece’s drawing of a mermaid sits on my dresser, and photographs of my family are displayed in the hallway. One up by the TV, I painted myself when I was in high school. About two years after I graduated, they asked if I wanted my portfolio back, and I’d obviously said yes. And I love my stuff! Some ‘cause it’s pretty, others because of memories and whatnot. Guess some people don’t have that creative trait, or they lose it. Or maybe they detest the sentiments, those strings that have been, are and will be attached to things. When my cousin broke up with her boyfriend, she cut her hair and burned his clothes. “I just want to forget him,” she’d snarled. I’d sputtered a laugh into my tea.

Rust plants a Corona down on the counter, already cracked open.

There’s no mirror in here either – I can’t check whether I look as desperate as I feel. When I focus back on him, Rust is taking a swig from his own beer, turning to glance at the crucifix pinned above the messy mattress on the floor. Huh. Didn’t peg him as a Christian.

His honey-blond hair doesn’t look cold to the touch, that’s for sure ‘n’ certain. Wonder if he just wakes up like that or what. Once, Marty had been teasing him at work, even cracking a smile out of the old guy. “Ain’t them just the prettiest curls y’ever seen, buck?” he’d remarked, nudging into me, cooing at him. Silently, in my head, even then, I’d agreed: prettiest curls I’d ever seen. Rust hadn’t looked up to chart my reaction, but, if he had, he’d maybe have seen my fidgeting fingers or hitch of breath. Or maybe he felt it, heard it. 

“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” I offer pathetically through a nervous smile. 

He blinks, takes another swig, leaning over the counter that separates us. “No, y’aint.”

Jesus, I have to turn my head and shut my eyes for a second. I don’t particularly believe in God, but I ask Him to please give me the strength to resist my urges and act like a normal damn person for at least a few more minutes. And then I apologise for only praying out of convenience. In the face of temptation. This is why people shouldn’t drink – still, doesn’t stop me from downing a good part of my beer.

I turn to the wall and try to turn myself off a little bit. It’s not hard – Rust still has Dora Lange (rest her soul) pinned up on his wall, naked, blue, stiff. I don’t want to know why, so I don’t ask him. 

His eyes are adamant on the side of my head. Funny how he never seems to look at me at the same time I’m looking at him. Pisses me off a lot of the time – not just him, but in general. A lot of people share this same fear of not being heard, not being listened to and not being cared about. Men in particular, I’ve noticed, have a tendency to raise their voice over others’, to yell or shout or hit things or push ‘n’ shove. Marty’s that way – a lot of men at the precinct are, too. Women who are raised to be the listeners sometimes act out in the same way, frustrated at all the things they have to care about that men don’t, burdened with manners and politeness. I used to hate having to listen, to wait for the man who interrupted me to finish speaking. Rust always lets people finish their point, for better and for worse. Pisses me off in a different type of way. I can feel his judgement seeping out of him, so potent that’s it’s tangible, lapping at my feet.

He doesn’t push and shove – he’s a listener, too. Of course, he has that male privilege where his silence has a gravity, a magnetic pull, where mine is simply as is. At least he pays attention. Sure, on the surface, it might look like he doesn’t care at all, hunched over a case file at his desk, back turned to me and the rest of the lot, but proximity has its power – assigned workspaces put with his personality, and he knows what’s like and unlike me better than my sister. He’s reading into my refusal to talk, to face him – unlike me.

“So, you’ve given this some thought, then,” Rust says matter-of-factly, and my tummy bubbles up.

I snicker nervously, heart racing. God, I’d expected surprise, disbelief, outright refusal, maybe even a little disgust, but, when I manage to turn around and look at his face again, it just seems to me like a calmness. Stoicism found in the affirmation, maybe, of his expectations. It’s like I’m walking right into one of those little theories of his: a proved hypothesis.

I take another sip from my beer, feeling too shy for my liking. “Well, yeah,” I drawl, slumping over the kitchen counter and propping my chin up to look right back at him in a surge of liquid confidence. “I always think ‘fore I do anything that’s anything, Rust.”

Almost immediately, he retreats, standing up straight and resting the small of his back against the lip of the sink behind him. He hums, glances away. “We both know that’s a lie,” he combats, hands tucked into his pockets, chin tilted up, eyes down. A mouthful of beer numbs the sting of rejection. “What you mean is you think you can justify all your decisions. You think you can justify why you knocked on my door and said what you said—” he elaborates quietly, eliciting a snort from me, “—but, at the end o’ the day, all your decisions boil down to what you feel is right, not what is right.”

“‘n' you think you ‘n’ you alone know what’s right?”

Slate-grey eyes flit up and down my face, like I’m a specimen on a slide.

“I think that the girl who’s stumbled up on a fella’s door asking him to fuck her is less inclined to know, without bias, what’s right, yes.”

I swallow thickly, sucking the remaining flavour of beer off of my tongue before going in for another swig.

Christ.

Not a single bat of his eyes. Not a quiver of his mouth, not a twitch to his nose, not a morsel of natural, human hesitation. Does he have to be so crass? I did the courtesy of making it palatable, at least to my own ears, with a euphemism. But when have I ever known Rust Cohle to water anything down? No drink I’ve ever consumed will match his body’s preference of alcohol content. He’s nursing his beer close to his chest, but who knows what poisons lay dormant in these cabinets?

“Rusty,” I say lowly, maybe asking for a break – I close my eyes for just a second, part because I couldn’t bear it if I caught some sort of disapproval on his face, and part because it’s just past two o’clock in the morning.

Late nights have consumed my life recently, what with that sicko rapist connected to a Christian fertility cult. Children of God – “go forth and multiply”. His confession had turned my blood cold. Johansson had offered to sit in the box instead, but I did it anyway. I went home and cried over it, then came into work the next day to talk to some press and then receive my new assignment.

He hums, taking a drag from his cigarette, swallowing the smoke down. Rust knows how it is. To be honest, I’m probably the one who doesn’t know the half of it. One night at the office, he’d casually confessed to his insomnia, like he was just commenting on the state of the weather ‘n’ nothin’ else. So, I guess I won’t pretend to get it.

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. “Are you into that whole abstinence thing?”

The weak light above flickers gently as he pauses, turns the question over in his mind. Anyone else would’ve surely laughed.

“I believe that man is susceptible to desire, yes—but he can resist it and its consequences should his willpower be stronger than the false promises posed by that temptation.

I snort again, because, now, I really am tipsy, and I can’t hold in my attitude any longer. It’s not that I think he’s lost it or whatever. It’s just—he’s so—objectively—absurd. Well—“objectively”. He’s got points, but those points lose all meaning in the spiralling darkness of overthought and deep contemplation wherein he’ll explain that everything really means nothing—and he’ll be right about that, sure, but also unintentionally prove a point about himself. I’d ask him what it means when, in a world where everything means nothing, a child will give their friend a flower found on the way to school, but I feel like his answer would be too morbid for my liking. Does that make me an unreliable source? The fact that I want to live?

He's absurd. He’s also a little bit awry in the head. Don’t know what he’s lost or what he’s lookin’ for, but it’s not a good look on him. He’s honest, yes – that’s a good trait. But honesty without kindness is cruelty. And he is kind – underneath, he’s kind, and I know that because of how hard he works to weed out evil people in this world, most times at his own risk. That’s kindness, albeit unconventional, whether he realises it or not.

The kindness almost cancels out his arrogance.

“So, what?” I challenge under the guise of a teasing grin. “You can go mouthin’ off for hours on end about how up themselves religious people and all’at are, but you can’t draw the similarities between their philosophy and your philosophy? How does that work, Rust?”

While I was working that Children of God nightmare of a case, he just couldn’t seem to restrain himself – every bullshit word that left him revealed to me his hubris. Now, I’m not angry, and he’s not stupid – we’re not arguing. In fact, he seems intrigued, lean body shifted toward me. He sets his beer down on the counter, crosses his arms over his chest after securing his cigarette between his lips, and lowers his head as if to listen to me better.

I sigh, continue. “D’you know what I think? I think you oversimplify humanity. You’re a great detective—‘nd I guess you know it—and, within the confines of your job, it serves you well, makes you good in the box. But your assumptions are too general. People are who they are, sure, but they also decide to be those people. By their environment and those who surround ‘em, people make the decisions that define ‘em. A lot of the time, their circumstances ain’t fair. People born into badness are trapped by the badness—either physically, or up in their heads—and they have a tough time escapin’ it.”

Rust inhales the smoke again, the only evidence of it happening being the soft whisp that curls away from his nose. I wonder to myself how his lungs are still standing.

“‘s that how you explain that—homicide case you’re workin’ on?” Three-year-old boy died of neglect, his siblings found locked in cabinets, one in a dog cage, by their mother and stepfather. Rust’s eyes flash silver. “Killer had a tough time?”

Asshole.

I narrow my eyes dangerously. “Don’t be mean, Rusty,” I scold, and he blinks in concession. “I think evil exists. I think it’s complicated. I think you summarise things that ought not to be summarised.”

He’s silent for a heartbeat. Then, his hand comes up to pinch away his cigarette, and he waves it in a small flourish, explaining, “When I say “people”, I mean society. Human culture.”

“Last I checked, Rust, you don’t know everybody on the planet. You don’t know their “culture”, or experiences.” That seems to shut him up. My eyes wander to his broad shoulders, trail along the meat of his arms beneath the cheap, polyester shirt that hugs close to the muscle, and they linger there like the quiet that settles between us.

He nods slowly, once. “Our decisions define us?”

I bob my head, unabashedly staring at the elegant column of his throat, his neck, and the stretch of tan skin that is settled beneath the white undershirt revealed by the first one, two, three buttons which have recently been undone.

He’s quieter when he asks me, “Well, how does this decision define you, then?” There’s nothing malicious about the way he says it, or even lustful – just a calm curiosity.

“Ain’t it obvious?” I grin again, laugh a little, blush hotly. “I’m horny!” I hide my face in my shoulder, trying to compose the hiccups of laughter in my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I snicker, wiping my palm over my brow, my eyes. “This probably isn’t very attractive to you.”

“You’re a very pretty girl,” he replies. He mutters my name solemnly, like we’re in a formal meeting or something.

I glance up, check whether he’ll offer me eye contact again, but he doesn’t – he’s staring at the wall, lost.

I scoff. “You’re a very pretty guy, Rust.”

God willing, none of the boys at the precinct will ever find out about this. If Marty lets it slip that I even asked for Rust’s address, then I’ll never hear the end of it. Worse, everyone’ll think I’m dead-gone over him. Guess I don’t really fit the standards expected of women around here: “wife”, or “whore”. Or “dead”. It’s hard enough to be taken seriously going about pretending I’m not interested in sex at all. Once sex comes into the equation, I’ll be reduced to that and nothing else. 

Anxious, I start flicking up under my fingernails. Is Rust already starting to think those things, too? I’m a great detective, but that’s the only capacity in which he’s really known me. 

I wring the neck of my bottle. “I should explain—”

He holds his hand up, stating, “I don’t need you to. Do you feel the need to?” 

Curious, wary, I watch his face, a blank slate. Still waters run deep. My eyes drift down, to where his hands are together in front of him, one relaxed beside him the other curled around his wrist with two fingers resting on the pulse.

“No,” I reply. 

“You thought it over,” he says, eyes tilting up at the ceiling, aloof, bored, maybe. His words are sort of monotone, like he’s reciting a passage from a book that he’s just recently read: “You chose me because you know me. You haven’t been sleeping well. You’re stressed, you’re scared, you’re frustrated.” He blinks. “You’re attracted to me due to some—unfortunate trigger beyond your control in the reptilian part of your brain.” Brief as the flicker of a candle in a still room, he looks over me, brow raised slightly as if daring me to tell him that he’s wrong. He pauses again, takes a short puff. “It makes you think I can take care o’ your needs.”

Look at the state of him: sallow and wilting on the inside. Reducing me down to a sentence or two, and being right about it.

“Well, can you?” I ask weakly, feeling small. He looks over me, blinks blankly. “How do you take care of your needs?” No reply. “You do have needs, don’t you?” I remark, tapping the rim of my bottle to my warm temple. “Programming ‘n’ whatnot.” 

He tilts his head away in dismissal. 

I smile, more to myself than to him. “Beat off in the shower, is it?”

For a second, Rust is still. My eyes grow heavy, admiring the strong profile of his nose. He then nods helplessly, like there’s no point in trying to lie.

I hum, a soft, self-satisfied smirk edging its way onto my face. “Must feel like a sin,” I snicker.  

He squints slightly, like he disagrees with my logic, but does not interrupt to protest. 

“I remember takin’ baths as a teenager and double-checkin’, triple-checkin’ I locked the door,” I confess. “Couldn’t take my time. ‘S that how it is for you, Rust?” I probe, tilting my head to the side, losing his eyes as quickly as I catch them. “You ever let yourself enjoy it? Let yourself want it—?”

“I don’t want it,” he snaps quietly.

“But your programmin’ says you do, right?” I point out, scrambling to hold onto the flaw in his argument. I search his face, my own bright, eager.

He quirks up a miraculous smile, and I myself burst into a wide grin. Still smiling—though, you’d have to admit, it’s such a strange sight, sort of gratifying, almost patronising—he shifts his weight between his feet, scratches at his nose with his pinkie, sniffs, takes a long drag of his dying cigarette. I know he must feel disjointed, though he doesn’t show it: he’s misstepped, and I’ve caught him. And how often does Rust Cohle misstep? I should’ve checked the news for a blue moon tonight. 

Interested, now, is he? Breathing quietly, rolling his jaw – he’s entertaining the competition I have goin’ up in my head. From the looks of the gentle smirk on his face, he’s enjoying it, too. 

“No,” he corrects with a dry husk to his voice. “No, I know what I want, and, when I think those things are necessary or useful, I know how to get them.”

In this type of context, I’d like to see him try. Though, he is an undeniably attractive man. Thick, solid all the way through, like a rich wood. But he’s got these brittle eyes: fraying.

He continues: “Most of the time, though, what we want is born out of dangerous feelings, like rage or lust. Ruminating on the consequences of those potential actions seems to me the more sensible thing to do than to just leave it and find out.” I sniff. “Desire is inescapable for most, including the sexual kind. I feel it—“ he eyes how I wriggle beneath my skin, “—you feel it. But it can be resisted. You’re lettin’ it dictate what you do ‘n’ say. If I do to you what you want me to, have you thought about how it might affect things down the line? Tomorrow, next week, next month—?”

“Yes,” I hiss, a little too emotionally, such that a gleam of satisfaction crosses his grey eyes at the strain and stretch of my voice. Christ. Desperate much?

I take several seconds to think before allowing myself to speak again, all while staring at him straight on and refusing to look away: I’d just die if I let him catch me out. “Well, how can you be sure of the fallout? How do you know the good won’t outweigh the bad? Not “you” specifically, but, also, yeah, “you” specifically. I can think about something morally ambiguous, and I can evaluate the potential consequences, and, just as you are satisfied to observe, I will decide to follow through with this somethin’ and deal with what I gotta deal.”

He sighs. “Because decisions define a person?” 

I tuck my hair tight behind my ears. “Yes.”

And he hums – that beautiful noise resonates in my stomach before sinking down there, low, its weight a comfort. “I agree with you in that respect,” he admits. 

A laugh erupts out of me like the sputter of an engine. Luckily, I’m easy to laughter – it’s like me, as is my genuine grin. “Rust Cohle’s agreein’ with me on somethin’?—Call the police!” 

“We are the police,” he replies smartly, watching me snort and smile and grow flushed in the face. I feel very grateful to that beer – at least my giddiness can be blamed on the effects of alcohol and save me from embarrassment.  

As I simmer down, he looks away, adds, “I agree to an extent. People all think that they’re one-of-a-kind. That they make these—amazing decisions. They speak and do and walk and play and work and fuck and eventually die – all of ‘em.”

“You’re part of the people,” I argue.  

He hums, nodding in acceptance. “Yes.”

“If a person acts due to their instinct, whether it’s succumbing to it or fighting against it, then isn’t man simply his programming?” He lowers his head. “You can be aware of it, and you can be a part of it, too. Who are you to deny yourself the good parts?”  

He fiddles with his cigarette, svelte fingers nimble and acute. I cross my legs, flex my hips; he notices. 

“Because of the consequences,” he replies, a soft whisper.  

I thought that everything meant fuck-all?

For someone who sees no meaning in life, he sure seems to spend a lot of time contemplating it. Here, I thought I’d have hot hands sliding all over me, gripping, spreading, pushing, but instead find myself defence in an unprecedented debate. 

Rust is breathing slower, deeper, almost unable, now, to look me in the eyes, even look at me in general, whereas, before, it had been a choice, whether that choice be conscious or unconscious. His cigarette burns weakly in his fingers, forgotten. The muscle in his jaw flexes, his expression hollow. 

My body buzzes with want, leaves me scrambling for breath like I’ve just run a race. I want. I want, I want, I want. The rough pads of his fingertips, the surest and most confident I’ll have ever known. Sharp tongue, quick and precise. Something about how he smells. All my compliments to pheromones – even in the heavy musk of the bar, I’d smelled him, ashy, warm, alive, and now it’s wreathing all around. Or maybe that’s just me – it’s like when you try to take someone’s pulse with your thumb, and all you’re feeling is your own heartbeat.

I want – my breath trembles with it.

“Rust,” I say softly. He shakes his head a little, looking away still, vulnerable like a wild animal. I sigh, gnawing at my lip. “I really want it. I—I’ve—it’s not just a rash decision,” I explain. “I’ve wanted it for a while, now.”

He shudders – I notice. “Since when?”

I huff out a sheepish laugh, fix my eyes on my restless hands. “You won’t remember it—”

“I will.”

His voice sounds clogged. It sobers me right up. 

“A year back,” I tell him. “You were working at the office—late, in the dark. You called me, and I asked you why, and you said—it was because you were tired and thinkin’.” I glance up to check if he’s maybe looking, but he’s not – he’s turned his head even further away. The soft, gentle curls of his hair tempt me. 

Blindly reaching for the bottle, securing it almost immediately, he finishes the rest of his beer, then sets it back down. 

“I—” he begins, scratching his nose, “—I was—tired.” He pauses to re-thicken his voice. “And—thinking—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, but the both of us know what he said that night: Of you. Thinking of you—of me .  

My stomach flips, leaving me almost nauseous, just like it did when I first heard those words. At first, I thought I’d misheard, that I was so tired my mind was playing tricks on me. Then, I thought he was being cruel, or maybe he was drunk. Those two instances weren’t—aren’t—unlike him, but he never, ever calls to be mean or to be stupid. He’d been quiet and warm through the phone after that, a presence so thick I could’ve sworn he had his arms around me right then. I hadn’t slept well for a time, then, of course, and that made it all the more vivid. His voice had made me shiver all the way through as he told me he had to get back to work. 

When I saw him the next morning, I couldn’t look at him. It was the first time I couldn’t, not wouldn’t. It was also the first time I felt him paying attention to me.  

I shift, ask the question I’d wondered since that call: “Why?”

A pause. 

Then: “You brought me coffee that morning,” he explains softly, speaking to the wall opposite. “I was—looking at the mug on my desk – it was yours. Green one you like to use.” He sniffs. “And…” He teeters on the precipice of that word but does not finish the thought. 

Hmm. That’s something to think about. Rust Cohle thinking about me and not picking apart why and why he shouldn’t be. It had been a mindless enough gesture – it’s not unheard of me to be makin’ coffee for other people in the office, not because I have to but because I like to. For the people I can stand, that is: Johansson always, and him for me; Cathleen;   Marty, when I’m not pissed off at him; and Rust, from time to time. Everybody knows that green mug is mine, though – nobody touches it, not even the boss. Rust reads far too much into things. Most of the time, he’s dead-on. I should’ve known from the moment I placed that coffee on his desk, from the sharpening of his eyes (that did not spare me a glance) that lingered on my lingering hand on his table, that he knew. Figured out something I hadn’t even quite figured out myself. Not until later that night. 

I wonder if he’s ever thought of me when fucking his own hand. I wonder if he thinks about me sometimes, when he can’t sleep, in between horror stories and brutal blows and uncovering the secret truths of the universe. I do, sometimes. 

When I push myself back to my feet, stand up, Rust’s attention springs back, and he watches me, looks at me.

Quietly, I relish in the satisfaction of his stare, crossing on light feet to toss my empty beer bottle in the bin. He steps aside to let me open the cupboard under the sink, his hand curled in a loose fist by his side. I’m not trying to tease him – I grant him the space he so clearly needs, retreating about five paces back, leaning slightly myself against the counter. 

I could say anything right now, no matter how insane, and he’d treat it with total and utter respect. I could reveal to him the reaction my body has to seeing his fingers fiddle like that with his cigarette, and he’d manage to identify the cogs and wheels in what, when you step back, actually turns out to be a hidden machine. Christ, I could probably remove all of my clothes, stand naked in front of him, and he’d look on as one would look on at a piece of evidence at work. Going over the details, once, twice, scribbling it all down in that big, leather ledger. 

Here’s what I think: he needs it. For all his talk about how unoriginal, how predictable mammals are at the end of things, he probably knows that himself. The tension in his jaw, the perpetual tightness of breath. That clipped way of talking he has, wound so tight around himself, like a compressed spring fighting its natural urge to let go.  

I could make him let go. Maybe. I wish he’d let me try. It’s nothing possessive, really: wanting to be the one to unravel his tightly coiled body. Just—the release of seeing him be. No thinking in particular – just being.

He is still, however, uncommonly mute, avoiding my eyes.

I sigh. I ask him tentatively, “You think I ought’a be ashamed o’ myself?” biting down on the fleshy inside of my cheek.  

“No,” he contradicts.

“But—you think I should be findin’ my fun elsewhere, with—some other guy?”  

He sort of pins his hands behind his back, pressing his weight against them there at the edge of the sink. He looks a lot taller from this angle. “I think there’s a lotta fellas stumblin’ over themselves to be with a girl like you.”

“Maybe,” I scoff, “but my reptilian brain don’t want none of ‘em.“ I blush warmly when I glance up and he’s there watching me, though there’s no bashfulness at all on his side of it. 

I expect him to maybe dart his eyes away again, like he does, and then walk me to the door, maybe even to the car if I haven’t offended him too badly, and then call it a night. I could stuff it in; I can compartmentalise. Monday would carry on as it always does, except now without the wondering and the yearning and the delusion. Did he have to be so good-looking? His cheap, wrinkled shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows—like they are now—and those lean forearms braced up on the table, caging in the neatly set-out notes scrawled up in his ledger, like they have mind to escape. And he’s—beautiful. He’s tall. Out-of-place sort of tall, where he has this bend to his neck, sometimes, as to not draw attention to himself. Other times, though, he stands to full height, regal, elegant, authoritative, like when he comes out o’ the box.

He sees into people. He feels it all so deeply.  

And he’s looking at me, seeing into me, deeply. His eyes are brittle like china pieced back together with store-bought glue. The low light casts long shadows down his neck and harsh face. 

“Come here to me, Rust,” I say to him, beckoning him over with a tilt of my head. To my surprise, he does. He does immediately, peeling himself off the counter, eyes drifting somewhere just behind me as if disinterested.

He stubs his cigarette out on an old plate, abandons it there officially, before stepping slowly towards me, feet never dragging, dodging my searching eyes like the plague.

Hmm. Maybe I made a good argument “for” to his “against”. Or maybe he was never “against” to begin with. I’ll watch him carefully tomorrow and see if there was anything I missed.

I reach up and touch his face gently. I used to do this with my husband before he passed, and he’d close his eyes and whisper my name and lean into the touch, tender, loving – my fingers shake slightly with the memory. Rust Cohle does none of that, because he is nothing like my husband. He’s perfectly rigid against my fingertips; his stare flits briefly up right into my soul, his mouth pressed in a hard line. Everything about him is so sharp. The ridge of his cheekbones, the defiant slant of his nose. The lean muscle of his arms and shoulders, slightly sinewy just beneath the skin. 

But when I brush my thumbs up along his eyebrows, easing the sharp line between them, he sighs and closes his eyes, neck bowing down, still as stiff as before, just—different. A small gap, an opening, to that locked room of his upstairs.  

“Rust,” I whisper, nose brushing his. He hums again, lowly, eyes shut. “What do you think of us havin’ sex?”

“Sex,“ he replies softly, “is the illusion of connection constituted by the release of a mess of happy hormones, simply by touching all the right places—and nothin’ more.”

I hum and watch the look on his face grow brittle as our breaths mingle closely. God, he’s so near to me that my head swings in a bout of lightheadedness, heady, vision centring in on him and only him, such that I wouldn’t know if this place was burning down all around, even if the flames started eating us alive.  

“I think you’re full o’ shit, Rusty. Know how I know that?”

He sighs shakily. “How?” It’s like the word is dragged right from the pit of his chest, barely a breath to show for the effort of it.

“I can feel you against my leg.” 

He swallows thickly, but he does not blush, and he does not open his eyes. And, contrary to what he might seem, Rust is not cold like stone. When my fingers grow more confident, when they trace and drag lightly along the line of his cheeks, he is warm there. His pulse, when I find it, exists and is hot and slightly erratic, a fact that leaves my mouth dry and open. I can feel the inflexion of his throat as he swallows again, the shift of the skin and the rhythm of his heartbeat, the gentle influence of his breathing. 

I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. So, I ask him, “Can I kiss you?” ever so gently. 

Softer still, he replies, “Yes,” with that slight Southern whistle of his, barely moving. 

Give me strength. Give me strength. 

That look on his face is filling me with a delicious, vibrating power. As I stretch my neck up to brush a kiss against the corner of his mouth, my eyes are open and watching him, charting him: Rust breathes strongly out of his nose, eyes still determinedly shut, like he’s absent and meditating. He is not tough as stone – parts of him are soft. He barely returns the kiss, but, as far as my brain processes, his lips are soft. Hesitant, maybe. 

Then, these soft lips part, and he is sucking in a hot, shuddering breath, capturing me in a deep kiss, as if to breathe all of me in, a strong hand threading through my hair. It hurts a little at first – a small noise escapes my throat at the slight shoots of pain tugging at the roots – but Rust doesn’t seem to notice. Not at first. No, he’s still breathing me in. His lips are dry, rough, a push and tug, a twist, and he’s kissing like a punch, knocking the breath right out of my lungs. Whatever oxygen I manage to hold onto is sucked out of me promptly. 

I whine, my body going all slack and tired as he smooths the hair out of my face, palms dragging clean back across my cheeks. Those hands cradle the back of my head, making it impossible to keep my eyes open.

Content, I sigh, eyes succumbing to the sensation and falling shut. The last thing I see is his own eyes slipping open to look at my face.

Boy, he’s a good kisser. Must be that lizard brain he has such a distaste for.

My fingers blindly reach and fumble at his belt, hooking into the waist, pulling him flush against me. Rust must forget what he’s doing for a moment, and he pauses where he is, in limbo, eyes far away. When I begin to unthread his belt from its quietly clinking buckle, he goes stiff again, blinks rapidly before perceiving me. 

Holy shit, he’s gorgeous.

His hands hover over my shoulders, not quite committed to the contact. 

He’s seeing me—really seeing me—as I unzip his trousers and spit crudely into my palm and curl around the length of him, warm, tight. I begin to understand the gentle throb and strain he feels, a delightful thrill running rapid all through my insides. He feels deliciously alive. 

But then he turns his head away, neck straining up, breath choked back in his throat. His hands come away, raised, it looks like, as if trying to seem non-confrontational, trying to come away unscathed from a bad situation. 

My stomach burns with desire. “Let yourself like it, Rust,” I mumble against his cheek. “Are you here with me?” 

I can feel him swallow.

“Yes,” he responds. I guide his face to me, stroking his cock confidently once, twice, as encouragement, maybe. Temptation. Whatever you want to call it. My mouth waters, my head goes airy, when I feel his sex twitch in my embrace. 

“Kiss me again, then.” 

And he does. Brows furrowed as if in pain, he does, with the tip of his nose dragging and pressing into my cheek. He kisses me sweetly once, then again, and then pants down hotly into my mouth, hovering there before sliding his tongue deep inside, close, smooth. 

I let myself love it. I let myself let go with every kiss he blesses me with, growing looser and easier and lighter each second. 

The weight of him in my hand inspires a beautiful urge to have him lay down and let me feel every part of his body. Even though his hips stutter, he doesn’t buck up into my fist, doesn’t whine, doesn’t moan, doesn’t curse. Not yet. He just breathes and breathes, and kisses me and kisses me, like it’s all he was set on Earth to do. All he’s allowing himself to do.

Desperate, perhaps, my thighs are pressed against his, feeling unnaturally weak and warm. The throb between my legs coincides with my heart rushing in my ears, a steady ache, impatient. Part of me wants to drag this out as long as possible, because what if this never happens again?—and another part wants to push him inside me already, have him fill me up, fuck me stupid. 

This thought stuffs me up to the brim, like cotton punched down into a pillowcase. I whine shallowly and try to slot his thigh between my own. 

A switch in his brain must flick on. 

It’s like he’s inside my head, like he’s in on my desperation, like he can see and feel every sinful image and thought circulating my alighted brain. He knows it all so well, such that he uses his hips to press us firmly against the counter, spreads my legs with the nudge of his foot between mine, and immediately pushes the rough pads of his fingers right where I need it, through the fabric of my skirt, letting me grind myself against him, hips and all. He circles there generously. I can feel my need dripping from me. He can too, no doubt. 

I sigh, he breathes. I gasp, he breathes. My eyes flutter open and shut, but he looks on, eyes half-lidded but stare immovable. 

He then lifts his knee to place against my cunt. 

“That feels good, don’t it?” he says gently, rocking me over his knee up and down, back and forth, fingers digging into the soft skin of my hips.

My legs widen. When I gasp out weakly, he raises his brow and scans my face, like he had predicted the shaky, wordless nod that I offer to him too late in return. 

“Did you want it like this, girl?” His voice is low, intimate, a hit of something just shy of addictive. “Or did you want somethin’ else, too?” 

He kisses the hollow of my neck. 

His other hand grips at my ass, up my skirt, kneading the flesh there, manipulating it, and his fingers ghost my slit, spreading me around his knee. He fucks up into my hand. I slide my fingers through his hair, which is soft and warm like butter. 

Fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid, pretty curls. I’ve proved my point: regardless of whatever act he may try to put on afterwards, we’ll both know that Rust isn’t as numb as he wants to be, that I made him feel good, that I made him want me, and that he’s hot-blooded and thrumming with life. I can feel how alive he is . I hope he thinks of this again some time, whether by himself or surrounded by people. I hope it drives him a bit mad, remembering this. 

A hot, sharp breath fans out across my cheek, his mouth slotting back over mine, open, daring me. 

I rut against his knee, my fingers teasing the wet head of his cock. I look down between us, at my hand on him, with half a mind to drop onto my knees and make him cum down my throat.

Rust lets out a grunt and swallows hard again.  

Then, he gently grabs my wrist and pulls my hand out of his pants, leaving me dazed and confused. With nimble fingers, he unzips my skirt, pushing it over my hips and dragging his hands over my bare skin. He asks me, “You want the bed?”

I step out of the pool of fabric around my feet, slide my shoes off. “‘s not a bed.” 

I slide my fingers beneath his sweaty, white undershirt, feeling the taut muscle there, feeling the steady breaths that contradict his racing pulse. He holds my eyes, dipping slightly when I dip, tilting when I tilt. “Seems like one to me.”

How unlike him. 

A smile spreads over my face, and his pupils blow wide, dark, imploring. “You wait ‘n’ see what happens when the dust-mites turn up.” 

His eyes on me alone are enough to leave me breathless, chest caving in on itself. Of course, when he kisses me softly, it only makes things worse – his long fingers curl around the base of my throat, watching me watching him, and his other hand slides up under the hem of my blouse, palm spread over my bellybutton. 

I sigh, try not to squirm. 

“You want the bed?” he repeats, heavy, rough. I bite back a needy whine that sits at the back of my mouth. His fingertips press down slightly into my pulse, tightening my breathing. 

I nod. “Yeah.” 

Think of all the times I’ve sulked over his lack of eye contact with me. Was I annoying? Uninteresting? That, obviously, was an immature way of looking at things, definitely not improved by my distinct femininity undergoing some kind of unspoken disapproval by most I met on the job. This is the most present he has ever been in a moment with me around.

As he pulls himself away, steps back, his eyes are darting over my face, less like he’s judging me and more like he’s trying to find and memorise every detail. I do that, sometimes: if I pay well enough attention, it feels like I’m re-living the moment when remembering. 

His hands slot sensibly into his pockets as if his cock isn’t blushing and poking out of his fly right now, belt undone, hanging low about his narrow hips. 

Legs don’t fail me now. I slink out of the glowing kitchen and carry on to where the mattress lies in a dim, blue corner, the strange crucifix watching over, a long shadow cast over the empty wall upon which it hangs. He follows shortly behind me, his warmth radiating out onto my back. 

I pause and look out onto the darkness revealed behind the half-open slats of the floor-to-ceiling blinds that shield the room from the window to the outside world. 

Rust’s presence is intoxicating behind me. He smells like cigarette smoke, still, enticing. I’m trying to quit, but he makes it damn hard. His nose is just shy of my hair, his body so close to enveloping me into him – the prospect of it makes me shiver in delight. I must hallucinate his fingertips along my spine. 

I unbutton my blouse with slow fingers, then slide it off and undo my bra. 

His breathing is level and grounding by my ear as he comes close, sliding his strong, wide hand up my stomach, along my ribs, and cups under my soft breast. He rubs over my nipple in gentle circles before squeezing over me warmly. He then comes around to pinch the creamy tissue gentle between his fingers and thumb, closing his hot mouth over, drawing along his feverish tongue. I sigh, stroke his hair, let him press soft pecks and kisses to the curve of the soft flesh and to my sternum.

My fingers, cupped around the nape of his neck, dip under the collar, cool. This touch, for some reason, causes him to make some sort of breathless, pathetic noise against me. His eyes are half-shut. 

“Anything else philosophical y’wanna get out before we fuck?” I quip smartly (though, not feeling so smart altogether), hand placed innocently on his hip. 

He lifts his head, removes his hands from my body – he looks so tragically beautiful in this light. “You want me inside you?” he asks genuinely, seemingly aloof to the fact I’m naked in front of him, open and wanton and pressing my thighs together, his eyes never drifting from mine.

“What do you want, Rust?” I whisper. 

He seems to really think about it – he’s always thinking. Briefly, his eyes flit down to my mouth. Then, he looks away, scratches at his forehead. 

After a moment longer, he swallows thickly and tips his head down over to the bed, tells me, “Lie down on the mattress,” in a gentle, decisive tone. He’s so soft-spoken – it makes my toes curl. 

I do as told, transfixed by the dark shadow in his eyes, and sink down to sit and then recline back on his coarse mattress, coarse bedsheets, with my weight on my forearms and chin tilted up towards him. He watches me, tucking his thick cock back into his underwear.

Still fully dressed in his work attire, he takes a step forward, looming over me, powerful, assertive. Saliva pools in my mouth—again—as I play with the thought of him sitting heavy on my tongue with his stomach tight, shaking, hands in my hair, fucking down my throat. I would let him. Hell, I’d probably let him do anything he wanted to me at this point. 

Does he know that? Maybe. I don’t know.

As he reaches his hand out too smooth the hair out of my face, I try to figure it out, but I can’t – he seems too wrapped up in his own desire to be thinking anything at the moment. I feel a flicker of satisfaction jump up in the pit of my stomach. Or maybe that’s something else. 

“Lie back, girl,” he tells me. 

My cunt flexes. 

I thump onto my back, breathless. “Take off your shirt, Rust.” 

Without replying, he sinks down to his knees in front of me, my thighs. Instinctively, I prop myself up and watch him unbutton that wrinkled shirt all the way down, shrug it over his broad shoulders. I could fuck myself silly just over the thought of those shoulders, I remark inwardly. He tugs the wifebeater over his head, lean muscles catching the low light, strong, study, solid, and tosses the thing to the side thoughtlessly. My hands reach out to touch him, to feel him and know him. When my fingers press into his skin, glide up his neck and down over his chest, he sighs deeply. He then carefully removes my hands, urging me to sprawl down under him.

“Said lie back, didn’t I?” 

Rust doesn’t say another word before placing his large hands on my knees and easing them apart, lowering himself to press pecks and slow, open-mouthed kisses to my thighs, closer, closer, stroking my sensitive skin gently. I almost flinch at his every touch, like it burns. His face is awful serious, like he’s concentrating. I wriggle in anticipation, eager. 

“Rust,” I whisper purposelessly. He looks up, hums, searches my face for anything the matter. 

I watch on desperately, on the brink of feral distress. A sob clogs my throat as he kisses my fluttering stomach, ducking his head down and curling his forearms, his hands, around my thighs. The dark stamp of his bone-bird tattoo curls over his arm. I realise he is waiting for my attention to return to him, his eyes patient but glazed over with something cardinal. Hungry.

“Can—?”

“Yes.” 

He hums. And then he breathes hotly over my underwear before pressing his nose right there into the damp fabric, inhaling my scent there. I whimper at the pressure he applies with the strong bridge of his nose, at the wetness of his open mouth against me. He breathes heavily into me, groaning slightly beneath it all – I can’t tell past the thrumming of my heart in my ears.  

“Rust,” I whisper again, my shoulder straining with the task of keeping me up and looking down at the sight of his sweet head buried between my glistening thighs.   

“Lie back.”  

He kisses me through my underwear, dutifully kneading the flesh of my hips, my inner thighs.

I thump back against the mattress, helpless, keening into his touch as this grey man roughly tugs my underwear down, down, all the way down, until they’re clean off my body, long gone, and then returns his nose to the cleft of my pussy, unseaming me with his tongue, opening me up, breathing me in. It’s enough to draw a shallow, hoarse cry from me. He doesn’t say anything, and I can’t say anything, biting down on my white knuckles.

Rust licks warm over my clit, sucking gently on the bud of nerves (then not so gently), before sliding down, down through my very centre.

Whining breathily, the twist in my stomach tightens and spasms as he presses my hips and thighs right down against the mattress, slow, strong, giving me time to notice it, realise it, give into it, deny the natural instinct to curl my limbs tight all over his face, his neck, his mouth. 

Holy fuck. Rust Cohle has his face buried between my legs right now. I have Rust Cohle’s tongue pushing deep into my cunt – he sighs softly, a sound with its own powerful gravity a black hole to envelop me in, and grinds his hips against the edge of the mattress for a split second, just once. My mind pulses with the thought of making him cum. I wonder if he feels the same hunger. 

Then, he’s sinking his long, elegant fingers into me, one, then two, and just the knowledge that those fingers belong to him makes my thighs quiver and shake, makes me sigh again. Thick, confident, they curl inside, slow like an experiment, right up to the knuckle. When he taps up against me, when I squeal and crimp up into his hold, he returns himself to mouth dutifully over my clit.  My hand threads itself into his hair, holding him steady – I offer a breathless moan when his grip across my hips loosen, an invitation to begin rolling myself up over his pretty face. He pulls his fingers out of me, wet and hot, and encourages my thighs upon his beautiful shoulders, clinging onto them urgently. He shudders a little, I think, when I lock them firmly around his head and grind myself shamelessly against his mouth, his nose. He moves his jaw, his face, in tandem.

I cum after a while like that, because how can I not? The searing buzz reaches a roiling static.

I go loose, moaning softly, melted down flat, and stroke fuzzy fingers through Rust’s pretty hair as he sucks my clit still, as he inhales again and sighs again, reduced to something primitive and needy.

Thick, my heartbeat throbs and echoes like a drum in my skull, threatening. I feel so full that I could mistake the beat of pleasure for nausea pressing in my throat. It was silly to think that this could all be satisfied just from one time. My eyes closed, Rust’s light touch over my abdomen, up to my throat, is acute and heightened, like a million tiny, individual sparks. His fingers fumble over my jaw, then press lightly over my pulse. 

He retreats just as I’m playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck, coming to stand to full height above me, unthreading his belt from his trousers with quiet, precise hands. I press my shaking thighs together, watching him breathe strongly through his nose, trying to remain somewhat respectable in the presence of the darkening look in his eyes that is locked down on my body.

He pauses, wipes some shine from his nose. Before he can continue with whatever, I find myself sitting up on my knees, grabbing his hips hard enough to bruise all pretty and purple, shoving the trousers down to his knees, and palming him through his boxers. 

We don’t have to say anything. He just watches me passively, pushing my hair back again, behind my ears, my shoulders, rolling my earlobe softly between his fingertips.

I remove his underwear, take him into my mouth, thick and long and wanting; he sighs, holds my head with two steady hands.

When was the last time someone helped him like this? I honestly couldn’t have told you, even given a loose theory, prior to this moment: Rust is simultaneously the hottest and most non-sexual being I’ve ever come across in my life. He just happens to be beautiful; he just happens to inspire these sort of feelings choking up inside me. No overarching intention that he’ll ever admit to, no vanity, no preening. So strict to himself, so tight, like a piston, something that fights and pushes and hurts.

So, as I hold him firmly and suck at the head of his blushing cock, kissing him, I watch his face, savour the tart taste of him, and press my thighs together: he’s becoming warmer, looser.

Still, as much as I want him, I know he’s wanted me. However vague he tells it, he’s wanted me. Good Lord, he looks even more stressed now, somehow, than when we had just been talkin’. Hands gently cradling my skull, he tilts his head away, watches the cross on the wall, as he succumbs to it, maybe, and begins to gently, languidly fuck my face. I tuck a hand between my thighs, and I love him, my other with the fingers digging into his hip, his ass. If I’m lucky, maybe it’ll leave some sort of mark, just to remind him I was here, so that, when he’s being all indifferent again, with his eyes lowered to the floor as he shares a report with me at my prim, little desk, we’ll both know that we were once in this room together, here like this.

Rust breathes and breathes, almost mechanically, and slides his cock further into my mouth. The weight of him in there drives me half-insane. If I could consume him, envelop him, and we could be one and the same, I’d readily allow it. When he sinks deeper still down my throat, I sigh around him, rub myself the way I like.

His eyes are determinedly shut, like some part of him refuses to be here. 

Before I can make him cum, he shakes his head and tugs my hair back a little bit, mumbling for me to stop and sit away. 

For all his mouthiness just a half hour ago, would you look at him now?—Rust Cohle, plundered by the human sensation of speechlessness. I’ve never seen him out of his element before. When he comes down and cages me with his body, hot skin flush against hot skin, I don’t mean that in a bad sense. Shit, he’s far from it. But there’s nothing to say. Nothing of note, nothing to pick apart, no deeper meaning, no theory. Just an itch that has to be scratched. He wants, he is, and it’s heaven to see. 

In the dark, he sinks in to me as he is, eliciting from me a soft moan that curls over the shell of his ear. I have to bite down on his shoulder when comes the push, the stretch, the sink, the comfort of him inside. I curl my legs around his waist and grab at his ass, willing him deeper still. He shudders silently over me, thick ripples of pleasure rolling through his lean body.

I curse, but I’m sure it barely registers with him. 

His head lifts and his eyes clamp shut as he braces an arm against the wall, lifting one of my legs up over his hip and fucking into me deeper, slipping out and in, and again, and again. I know what I’d see if I took a look down, saw his cock pumping into me, but I can hardly do anything but buck my hips up to meet his effort, my stomach stuttering with that building pressure, hands gripping desperately around his neck and shoulders. 

Though, I’m not even sure it is effort that’s driving him. 

I mumble into his shoulder, dumb, focussing on the feel and press of him in my belly. I doubt he’s really aware of anything more than the sensation of it, evident from the small grunt that passes his lips as he fucks deep in me. His stomach presses heavier down onto mine, crushing a delicious pressure there, teasing out a long, breathy whimper. He snakes an arm around my hips, pushes his free hand to the back of my knee, tilting my legs back a little more, and then pulls me wider. Tight, he moves me how he wants me, my flesh dipping and carving, fucking himself raw with me, with my hot cunt. His mouth moves over mine, not kissing me, not speaking, just there, present, hot, panting. He doesn’t open his eyes, so I close mine, and I breathe.

Rust stutters and cums and spills over into me with a grunt. He pants sharply, harshly, rhythmically into my mouth, tense again, and then he collapses over my body, and he lays there. I lay there too, burning on the far inside. 

I think he only really remembers I’m there when I shift under him.

His eyelashes brush against my cheek. “Sorry,” he murmurs, but the sound of his voice scrapes directly against my brain with the shock of a flesh-wound. 

I assume he’s referring to the thick cum that I can feel leaking out of me now. He shifts his hips, adjusting himself in the grip of my cunt. My fingers wrap around his arms, squeeze as I feel him easing out. 

“It’s okay,” I reply. 

He glances down between us and guides himself out with a lewd noise, swallowing hard. I shiver. 

Quiet, sedated, he shrugs his trousers, his underwear, off of his ankles, slipping the bedsheet over both our naked selves. His hand spreads and flattens warm over my abdomen, feeling the gentle swell and sink of the breaths I take and release.

#true detective #rust cohle #marty hart #rust cohle x reader #rust cohle x reader smut #okay cool this is a bit niche hope you liked it #this show made me question my life's purpose #the first season at least #thanks matthew mcconaughey #anybody else here like Fiona apple or what

[tragedyandterror]

ive made some playlists i thought i would share if anyone might like some bjr tunes! i have a serious one, a silly one, and one for the nebulous modern au tht lives in my brain

the last two i'll most likely still be adding songs here and there, but the 1st playlist is complete! i'll add the 1st playlist's tracklist+some lyric excerpts in the read more

black black heart - david usher

Something ugly this way comes Through my fingers sliding inside All these blessings all these burns I'm godless underneath your cover Search for pleasure search for pain In this world now I am undying I unfurl my flag my nation helpless Black black heart why would you offer more Why would you make it easier on me to satisfy I'm on fire I'm rotting to the core I'm eating all your Kings and Queens

dark entries - bauhaus

I came upon your room, it stuck into my head We leapt into the bed, degrading even lice You took delight in taking down my shielded pride Until exposed became my darker side

dissolved girl - massive attack

Shame, such a shame I think I kind of lost myself again Day, yesterday Really should be leaving, but I stay Say, say my name I need a little love to ease the pain Need a little love to ease the pain It's easy to remember, when it came

on the bound - fiona apple

You're all I need And maybe some faith would do me good I don't know what I'm doing Don't know, should I change my mind? I can't decide, there's too many variations to consider No thing I do don't do no thing but bring me more to do It's true, I do imbue my blue unto myself, I make it bitter

i think i'm paranoid - garbage

I think I'm paranoid And complicated I think I'm paranoid Manipulate it Bend me, break me anyway you need me All I want is you Bend me, break me, breaking down is easy All I want is you

symphony - dorian electra

Something's funny when I grab my guitar Feeling lonely like a dead shooting star I'm not the only one who's crashing your car (crashing your car) Need something louder just to drown out the scars (Make some fucking noise) Come on, baby, can't you see? (Can't you see?) I'm gonna need a symphony (symphony) And I'm gonna need to hear you scream

lecher bitch - genitorturers

I am the Lecher Bitch and I call on all who feed on danger Taste of the whore. Suffer my seed Crawl with the heretic and the world outside gets a little bit stranger

the bondage song - london after midnight

Innocent child, how you thought you knew me Understood my ways, my dark needs The hunt is not the thrill I'm after I want the kill, the conquest, to be your master Wrap your arms around my pale skin, it's too late to back out you're in On your knees and praise your new lord, deeper now And here's your reward, take me to bed and rip me apart

mercy - hurts

Fill me with rage And bleed me dry And feed me your hate In the echoing silence I shiver each time that you say Don't cry mercy There's too much pain to come

touch myself - genitorturers

I love myself, I want you to love me When I feel down, I want you above me I'll search myself, I want you to find me Forget myself, I want you to remind me I don't want anybody else When I think about you, I touch myself

nihil - 3teeth

Bound by flesh Freed by blood

this s*it will fcuk you up - combichrist

I am a bitch How do you want me? From behind Or on my knees? I am a slut Please hold me down I'll be your noise This shit will fuck you up

you spin me round - 3teeth

I set my sights on you And no one else will do And I I've got to have my way now, baby All I know is that to me You look like you're havin' fun Open up your lovin' arms Watch out, here I come

closer - nine inch nails

(Help me) I broke apart my insides (Help me) I've got no soul to sell (Help me) the only thing that works for me Help me get away from myself

you've seen the butcher - deftones

I wanna watch the way You creep across my skull You slowly enter 'Cause you know my room And then you crawl your knees off Before you shake my tomb

hey - pixies

Hey, must be a devil between us Or whores in my head Whores at the door Whore in my bed But hey! Where have you been? If you go, I will surely die

And the whores like a choir: Uh-uh All night And Mary, ain't you tired of this? Uh, is the sound That the mother makes when the baby breaks

hail mary - skating polly

She got hit so hard she just got up from the ground If she ever hits back, I won't tell Hey Mary, follow me out and we'll never walk back Hey Mary, tell me honestly you'd never want that Hail Mary, trust me, don't look back or it's gonna end badly

if you really love nothing - interpol

When I find my home The next artery Splendid I bled my whole life So it's probably a kiss Goodbye then

tangled up in plaid - queens of the stone age

Come, lets play along And let each other lose A win would cause an alarm Don't matter to me, don't matter to you

spaceboy - smashing pumpkins

And spaceboy, they'll kill me Before I'm dead and gone And any way you choose me It won't be wrong And any way you choose me We won't belong

#black jack randall #fanmix #the modern au is vry vibes based i dont have any real concrete story beats or anything thought out #its just smth fun for me to play around with #the central theme is definitely the cycle of abuse going on with bjr+making him face things+attempt to deal with them #i imagine a scenario in tht au where alex gets rly sick+bjr has to return to their family home+he doesnt handle any of it well at all #i also like the idea of modern bjr being into hook suspension which is vry self indulgent bc im fascinated by it lol #my vision of modern au bjr is an evil femme set to self destruct #i also kinda like the idea of him being a fencing instructor maybe 🤔

[rosewatergrapefruit]

“

@sallycinnamons​ hehe okay. sorry this took forever I was like ‘ok if I post it I have to make double extra sure I’m satisfied with every song on there’ (special shout out to “Every Night” by THEE Paul McCartney, which I adore but decided was not right. It’s the only one I culled)

anyway HERE is a link to this playlist and below is a bit about why each song is on here or what gains the song entry to this playlist. Basically the organizing question is what does Love sound like to me, Mimi [REDACTED]? Like many great playlists it started as an informal shortlist in my head and I decided I really did want to keep track of them. You’ll notice maybe like I did after making the playlist that a lot of them are about someone you want to listen to or want to listen to you more than anything. clearly that’s the height of romance to me...

its not in any particular order, just how I added it. 

1. “Jesus, Etc.” - Wilco - “I’ll be around / You were right about the stars”

2. “Only for You” - Heartless Bastards - first song I ever felt sounded like love to me, would have been first song if I had not been actively listening to Wilco when I decided to pull the trigger 

3. “The Book I Read” - Talking Heads - “I’m embarrassed to admit it hit the soft spot it in my heart when / I found out you wrote the book I read” 

4. “Ask Me Why” - The Beatles - “I love you / ‘Cause you tell me things I want to know” also John’s cold voice sounds like hes cryinnnnggggg :)

5. “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” - Talking Heads - as I mentioned earlier, often considered The love song in a catalogue characteristically devoid of them. Can’t pull out a lyric, all of them fit

6. “Ladies” - Fiona Apple - “Nobody can replace / anybody else / so it would be a shame to make it a competition”

7. “I Want You To Love Me” - Fiona Apple - Hey Guy Have You Heard This Song.

8. “Village Green” - The Kinks - ok this one is more getting at the fact that you can love a place so much, and also I always love how he goes back and sits with Daisy even though she’s married to the grocer. sometimes when you go to college out of state you form strong emotional connections with village pastorals okay?

9. “If I Needed Someone” - The Beatles - kind of incredibly blasé for a love song but thats why I love it I think?? It’s saying listen I don’t actually need anyone else but. If i did it would be you..

10. “Sugar on My Tongue” - Talking Heads - YAYYYYYYY BEING ALIVE IN A BODY AND HORNY FOR ANOTHER HUMANBEING IS BEAUTIFUL YAYYYYY LETS ALL HOLD HANDS

11. “Tim I Wish You Were Born a Girl” - Of Montreal - a repression enjoyer classic but its on here because he literally loves tim more than he knows how to think about. ok wow

12. “Concerto for Philodendron & Pothos” - Mort Garson - I have dreams about trying to orchestrate this one day and I’m giving the synth around :45 to a lone trumpet. That’s Love

13. “Nothing But Mine” - Billie Marten - “Be my friend / there is no other way to say it”

14. “Slide Away” - Oasis - “I dream of you / and all the things you said” & “Let me be the one to shine with you” & “We talk of growing old” NEED I GO ON? This one very recently has become an instant cry in the first ten seconds kind of song, which is nice. It deserves it

15. “Don’t Let Me Down” - The Beatles and Billy Prescott who is really quite crucial here - best John vocal of all time. Sorry. Don’t let me down please don’t let me down. Don’t let me down........

16. “Live Forever” - Oasis - “Maybe you’re the same as me / We see things they’ll never see” - man. man. man. man. man. yeah

17. “People Take Pictures of Each Other” - The Kinks - “People take pictures of each other / just to prove that they really existed” 

18. “Village Green Preservation Society” - The Kinks - “Aren’t they the same thing? Love and attention?” 

ok yay this was fun. If I ever add more songs I might come back to this post I really enjoy annotated lists 

#im sure you werent expecting a post this long but I Yam what I Yam

[kindaorangey]

loveless

never been in love (will jay)

i’ll say this here: this playlist does not have an order to it. if it did, i’d do what @georgiaswarr did and put this song at the end, because it’s a joyous expression of aromanticism, and georgia doesn’t get to that stage for a long while

i walk a little faster (fiona apple)

i love this song, it’s like ‘maybe you’re the reason’ if the ‘you’ in question didn’t actually exist

“rushing to a face i can't define as yet/keep bumping into walls and taking lots of falls/and even though i meet round each and every corner/with nothing but disaster/i set my chin a little higher, i hope a little longer/build a little stronger castle in the air/and thinking you'll be there, i walk a little faster”

i’m actually not sure what fiona apple wrote this song about, but if it was desperately and fruitlessly searching for a romantic life partner, i wouldn’t be surprised. it’s on here because of georgia’s love for love stories, and her optimism that she will experience one of her own

don’t delete the kisses (wolf alice)

a certified rooneypip song. i recommended this one to alice before loveless was released and she gave it the stamp of approval, it’s a massive point of pride for me

“when i see you, the whole world reduces/to just that room/and then i remember and i'm shy/that gossip's eye will look too soon/and then i'm trapped, overthinking/and yeah, probably self-doubt/you tell me to get over it/and to take you out"

this feels very pip to me. ‘gossip’s eye’ maybe meaning georgia and jason speculating about pip’s feelings for rooney before she’s ready to address them. the whole song feels like it’s about something secretive, or at least something thrilling and new, and it also captures the difference in dating experience between pip and rooney

this is what they say (carly rae jepsen)

this one works twofold! to me it’s both a rooneypip honeymoon stage song, but it’s got a dramatic irony to it, which would apply to georgia. “this is what they say/falling in love is supposed to feel like” but is she feeling it, really? (spoiler alert: she is not). that line just feels like a bit of a falsified emotion, so it’s very loveless

solo (carly rae jepsen)

this one's about finding joy in your life when you don't have a romantic partner - realising that love can be put elsewhere, and that that is just as fulfilling

dust to dust (the civil wars)

g-georgiarooney....

"you're like a mirror, reflecting me/takes one to know one, so take it from me/you've been lonely/you've been lonely/too long"

sweet little duet about finding yourself in someone else, and letting yourself be known by that person

we’ve got a good thing going (lady lamb)

rooney bach, love of my goddamn life. this song’s about searching for a rush in things that end up being self-destructive, and it’s also about deciding to live for the love you have for your friends

inside of love (nada surf)

you know, i don’t remember where i found this song. i’m half certain i took it from someone else’s playlist but i’ve looked around and i can’t find it anywhere else

“i wanna know what it's like/on the inside of love/i'm standing at the gates/i see the beauty above/i wanna know what it's like/on the inside of love/i can't find my way in/i try again and again”

my future (billie eilish)

"'cause i, i'm in love/with my future/can't wait to meet her/and i, i'm in love/but not with anybody else/just wanna get to know myself"

self-discovery can be a beautiful thing!! a lot of the songs on this playlist are just subversive of typical romantic expectations, and the whole "i am my own love interest" thing doesn't exactly fit georgia, but put into the context of rooney or even the way georgia looks up to sunil, she is definitely "in love with her future" in some ways

team (lorde)

the absolute vibes of this song are getting super dressed up with your friends for no real reason, which is a very loveless gang thing to do, and also:

"i'm kind of over gettin' told to throw my hands up in the air/so there"

just the feeling of being sick of convention, especially in songs/the media, is relevant to georgia's story but also the rest of the loveless gang too

somebody to love (queen)

taken from @georgiaswarr 's georgia playlist - i just adore this one, because it's soul-bearing, it's dramatic and theatrical, it's got all the yearning and hopelessness and optimism that georgia feels A N D the best part is that georgia does find somebody to love!! several somebodies, actually, but rooney promising to be her 'person' and pip getting college-married to her are the main ones, just because they're explicitly the same level of commitment that you would get from a romantic relationship

#this one's fun bc i made it before loveless came out and i can barely remember some of the songs fjdjfds #playlists #long post

[voodoochili]

My 75 Favorite Albums of 2020

Every year produces excellent music and 2020 was no exception. The exceptional thing about this year, though, is the loss of livelihood so many musicians suffered as a result of the pandemic. To better celebrate all I’ve listened to and loved this year, I’ve expanded my albums list from 50 to 75 albums and included a highlight track from each in the Spotify playlist below. If you like what you hear, why not throw the artist a few dollars on Bandcamp?

Check the Spotify playlist HERE.

Without further ado, my favorite albums of 2020. Happy New Year, and happy listening!

10. Playboi Carti - Whole Lotta Red: Carti’s long-awaited opus has only been out for a week, which is probably not a long enough time to give an album as sprawling and surprising as this one a full critical evaluation. But I do know when I’m hearing something that’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard: this album rearranges hip-hop at the molecular level. 

Whole Lotta Red is overstuffed with invention, the glitchy, expansive production giving Carti ample opportunity to glom onto the contours of the beat and experiment with his voice. That voice is the album’s main attraction: it squeaks, it squeals, it roars, it spits, it shudders, and organizes itself into irresistibly ignorant mantras (my current favorite is “Lamborghini parked outside, it’s purple like lean”). 

Across its 24 tracks (which feels like too many, sure, but only the 5-minute long Kid Cudi-infected droner “Metamorphosis” overstays its welcome), Carti plays with listener expectations, annihilating rap songwriting conventions (why do you need verse-chorus structure if every line is a hook) as he defiantly proclaims his desire to be unlike anybody else. Though it bears some resemblance in sound and subject matter to Future’s Monster (and much of the production owes a debt to the work of Lil Uzi Vert’s favored Working Of Dying collective), Whole Lotta Red firmly establishes Carti as a totemic figure connecting mainstream and underground sounds.

9. BbyMutha - Muthaland: BbyMutha is a natural born spitter, armed with a drawly stutter-stepping flow that routinely annihilates unconventional instrumentals. She glows with supreme confidence and comfort in her own skin, especially when she’s dripping with disdain with those who’d dare refuse her the respect she deserves. A 25-track opus that earns every minute of its runtime, Muthaland is an engrossing immersion into Mutha’s world, balancing a fascination with the occult (“Sorry I don’t fuck with n****s who don’t fuck with Satan”) with grounding interjections from close friends and her four children. Boasting rockstar fantasies like “Heavy Metal,” bad girl anthems like “Nice Guy,” and dancefloor-ready jams like “Cocaine Catwalk,” Muthaland is a tour-de-force by one of rap’s singular voices, and if she’s really finished with music as she’s claimed (rappers never really retire, but Mutha has indicated she wants to focus full time on her Apothecary), the game will greatly miss her incisive punchlines and crudely empowering perspective.

8. Westerman - Your Hero Is Not Dead: In 2020, Mid-’80s sophistipop grew into one of my favorite comfort foods. Westerman’s Your Hero Is Not Dead struck me directly in the sophistipop sweet spot, evoking the attention-to-detail and synth-heavy craftsmanship of that era and pairing it with harmonic complexity and a piercing emotionalism that recalls his idol Neil Young. On songs like “Blue Comanche” and “The Line,” Westerman constructs tales as twisty as his melodies, economically exploring how people relate to each other at the beginning and end of romantic relationships. Westerman complements his tasteful palette of synth sounds with intricate and lyrical guitar playing, most notably on the sighing, gorgeous instrumental “Float Over,” which softly segues into the title track to end the album on a gently-rising high note.

7. WizKid - Made In Lagos: The focal point of the sub-Saharan Afrobeats renaissance, Lagos is having one of the most exciting musical moments of any city since Kingston in the early ‘70s. WizKid is one of the scene’s biggest stars, with an ability to combine the sonic tapestry of his hometown with Caribbean-influenced beats and vocal styles. Made In Lagos is a masterwork of sound design, bringing creamy bass, chicken-scratch speckles of guitar, tasteful interjections of saxophone and brass, and an intoxicating mix of acoustic and electronic percussion, all offered in service to an immaculate vibe that matches the album cover’s shiny, monochromatic color scheme. Made with lockdown in mind, the album eschews uptempo dancefloor workouts in favor of stress-relief and romance. WizKid plays the perfect host, tamping down his melodic flights of fancy and embracing a song-serving smoothness. He’s a warm and inviting presence throughout, laying out the red carpet for a cross-continental cast of collaborators like H.E.R., Skepta, Burna Boy, and Damian Marley. The result is a truly global pop masterpiece, capable of brightening even the dourest day of a miserable year.

6. Ka - Descendants of Cain: Firefighter by day and rapper/producer by night, Ka is a master of allusion. He organizes his thoughts into themed collections of metaphor, illustrating the bleak realities of street life with gnomic symbolism. On Descendants Of Cain, Ka’s strongest work to date, the enigmatic rapper expresses himself through a litany of biblical references, drawing parallels between ancient parables (he goes far deeper than the Cain/’caine double entendre that rappers have been using for decades) and the stark code of morality with which he lives his life. The 48-year-old hermit produced the project himself, creating an immersive sonic realm, crafting expansive, noir-ish backing tracks populated by late-night saxophones, sparkling pianos, and the occasional shot of sweeping strings. Once again, Ka’s music comes almost entirely without drums (certainly without “beats” in the traditional hip-hop sense–every once in a while, he adds an open hi-hat or a subdued shaker), the artist preferring to let his music swirl around his half-whispered words of wisdom. The album ends on a tearful, sentimental note with “I Love (Mimi, Moms, Kev),” in which the artist ditches the biblical lyrical conceit and expresses his love for his wife, his mom, and his best friend atop light percussion and a warm soul sample.

5. SAULT - Untitled (Rise): Rise is the second part of a diptych that SAULT recorded in response to the movement that exploded in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Black Is, the first part, is a great album (you’ll find it in the lower reaches of my 2020 list), but the mysterious UK collective fulfilled their immense potential with Rise, a propulsive, powerful, and danceable album that doubles as a thought-provoking examination of the nature of freedom and liberation. The album tackles weighty topics–police violence, fake-woke “allies,” protest, cultural appropriation–but handles them with an inspiring effervescence and a propulsion meant to usher right-thinking people into the streets. The music itself is an intoxicating marvel, combining elements from every trendy musical movement from the early ‘80s (post-disco, post-punk, house, hip-hop, whatever the hell ESG was) into a percussive and surprisingly cohesive cocktail. The album immediately makes its greatness known with its first four songs, one of the strongest opening runs of any album in recent memory: the swaggering, funky, keep-your-head-up anthem “Strong,” which features a drum solo from SAULT architect Inflo, the soaring, club-ready vamp “Fearless,” concept-establishing, string-heavy interlude “Rise,” and especially “I Just Want to Dance,” the best song ESG never wrote. 

4. Fiona Apple - Fetch The Bolt Cutters: Fetch The Bolt Cutters arrived with the kind of universal acclaim that can make some people suspicious. The Pitchfork review got a lot of attention, not just for its perfect score but for its bold statement that “no music has ever sounded quite like it.” 

That statement might’ve been slightly hyperbolic. Fetch The Bolt Cutters has the kind of propulsive left-hand piano figures, chest-thumping percussion, and impassioned vocal performances that we haven’t heard since...the last Fiona Apple album. But the album deserves its experimental reputation. These songs mess around with song structure and melody in ways that resemble avant-garde singers like Meredith Monk, use overlapping vocals that occasionally evoke the works of post-modern composers like Luciano Berio, and echoing modernist composers like Edgard Varese in the way she wrings pathos out of rhythmic elements.

Though Fetch might be a slight step down from The Idler Wheel, it’s an invigorating listen, packed with the soul-baring confessionals that only Fiona is capable of executing. Combining literary wordplay with plainspoken directness, Fiona forces the listener to confront her trauma and contemplate her diagnoses of patriarchal ills. The songs are uniformly excellent–especially opener “I Want You To Love Me,” the most “traditional” song on the record, and “Shameika,” a burrowing childhood rumination with a happy ending–but Fetch The Bolt Cutters stands out to me as a collection of amazing moments: when the jig-like “For Her” fades into an unforgettably painful cadence (“Good mornin’, good mornin’/You raped me in the same bed your daughter was born in”), Fiona’s ground-shaking vocal intensity at the end of “Newspaper,” her dogs howling over the outro of “Fetch The Bolt Cutters,” the winking repetition of the title phrase on “Ladies.” Her albums display more than enough ambition to forgive the long gestation periods, but hopefully we won’t have to wait another 8 years for Fiona to bare her soul once again.

3. Drakeo The Ruler - Thank You For Using GTL: Embroiled in a Kafkaesque legal saga that shines a light on the worst aspects of our horrendous justice system, Drakeo The Ruler spent more than three years wrongly incarcerated for a crime he not only did not commit, but for which he was acquitted (for more info on Drakeo’s ordeal, read Jeff Weiss). He’s now mercifully a free man, mostly due to the work of his lawyer, but at least partially because of publicity generated by Thank You For Using GTL. Recorded over the phone from prison during the height of the pandemic, it’s a miracle that an album created under such sub-optimal conditions sounds as excellent as it does, but credit producer JoogSzn–who not only supplied the creeping, head-nodding backing tracks but recorded Drakeo’s phoned-in vocals–and engineer MixedByNavin for the project’s astonishing fidelity. Drakeo and Joog spent hours on the phone to record the album, in the process paying thousands of dollars to GTL, the predatory telecom company of choice for the L.A. corrections system, whose mechanical interjections serve as a constant reminder of the injustice that made the album necessary. Of course, a good story is a good story, but that alone doesn’t get an album on 2020’s most prestigious Best Albums list (mine). It’s a classic rap album, perhaps the best ever released by an incarcerated rapper, and a thumb directly in the nose of the D.A. and the LAPD. The album is a lyrical marvel, packed with winding wordplay and outlandish flexes, as Mr. Mosley takes aim at 6ix9ine, cackles at sorry-ass Instagram haters, and sneers at American-made cars (“To be honest, a Hellcat isn’t a foreign”). Each song has a carefully considered concept, the rapper’s punchlines building upon one another to make an airtight case for his status as L.A.’s top dog. He contrasts his own whip-crashing lifestyle with flashy wannabes on “GTA VI” and “Backflip or Sumn,” mourns a favorite department store on “RIP Barneys,” and proves he still doesn’t rap beef on “Maestro’s Tension.” The album’s masterstroke comes with “Fictional,” the final track, in which Drakeo exposes the prosecution’s use of his lyrics as evidence in criminal proceedings as the farce it is: “It might sound real, but it’s fictional/I love that my imagination gets to you.” Drakeo’s story was a rare bright spot in 2020, and a rare one with a happy ending. Just last week, the rapper released Because Y’All Asked, a studio-recorded version of Thank You For Using GTL, giving the album’s songs the clarity they deserve. But I think I’ll mostly return to the original, which will live on as an excellent album and a vital document of post-George Floyd America.

2. Pa Salieu - Send Them to Coventry: Hailing from the middle of nowhere–or, more accurately city in the English Midlands only known in the states for its middling Premier League team–Gambian-British artist Pa Salieu served up the most distinctive, visceral, and daring rap debut of the year. His style fuses elements of grime, drill, afro-trap, dancehall, and the darker edges of U.S. hip-hop into a percussive slurry, injected with the urgency of his struggle to survive. The magic of the album comes from the way Pa’s fluid flows interact with the shimmering and foreboding production (Felix Joseph and Aod lead the cast of the project’s sound architects), which is perfectly suited for cold city nights. He slips effortlessly into the pocket, toe-tagging the beats with a combination of aggression and trance-like meditation and uttering casually powerful pronouncements (“I'd make a killa riddim offa any riddim/The grind can never stop 'til I'm wrapped in linen”) that make you believe he’s Britain’s next great rapper. Pa keeps the vibe consistent throughout, but the moments that stand out are the moments when he locks into an unbreakable groove over no-frills production, like on singles “Block Boy,” “Betty,” and “B***K.” The artist’s wry sense of humor and brash confidence keeps the album from feeling bleak, but Send Them To Coventry wisely ends on “Energy,” a warm and bright ode to keeping your creative spark safe from the prying forces of fame and fortune.

1. Kassa Overall - I Think I’m Good: “I think I’m good”–a phrase that’s ran through my head throughout this shitstorm of a year. Sure, I postponed a wedding, cancelled trips, and saw my friends and family much less often than I would like, but I count myself among the lucky ones. Still breathing, still sane. Though it was recorded and released before the pandemic started, Kassa Overall’s I Think I’m Good became a lodestar of sorts for me. It’s a brilliantly introspective and deeply personal album about existing in enclosed spaces–whether a jail cell, an NYC subway car, or the inescapable prison of your own body.

Kassa Overall made his name as a jazz drummer, touring with icons like Geri Allen, but his solo music incorporates elements of hip-hop, classical, and trap to create a wholly original milieu. The album features contributions from over 30 accomplished voices, ranging from luminary Vijay Iyer, to Kassa’s saxophonist brother Carlos Overall, to virtuosic pianist Sullivan Fortner, to venerated activist Angela Davis. But all the disparate elements come together in service of Kassa’s deeply personal and engrossing vision.

Taking partial inspiration from Kassa’s struggle with manic depression, the music fluctuates between meditative calm and unbearable tension, mimicking the patter of an unquiet mind. Album opener “Visible Walls,” is a mesmerizing prayer for salvation soundtracked by fluttering harps, piercing woodwinds, and heartbeat percussion. “Find Me” buries a plea for help within a cacophony of sampled voices and rattling piano notes. Fortner’s piano guides us through the hauntingly devastating “Halfway House” and the Chopin-indebted “Darkness In Mind,” each highlighting a different stage of grief (despair and acceptance, respectively). The arc of I Think I’m Good concludes with the hopeful “Got Me A Plan” and “Was She Happy (For Geri Allen),” a Vijay Iyer-assisted tribute to his late friend and mentor. 

It’s ironic that an album that so deeply explores the feeling of isolation vibrates with such a collaborative spirit. I Think I’m Good feels like an answered prayer–a community coming together to check on a beloved friend who’s gone through a tough time: “You good, man?” “I think so.”

Here’s the rest of my list.

11. Yves Tumor - Heaven To A Tortured Mind 12. Shackleton & Waclaw Zimpel - Primal Forms 13. Bob Dylan - Rough & Rowdy Ways 14. Duval Timothy - Help 15. Lil Uzi Vert - Eternal Atake 16. Moodymann - Taken Away 17. Secret Drum Band - Chuva 18. J Hus - Big Conspiracy 19. Headie One & Fred Again - GANG 20. Tiwa Savage - Celia 21. Andras - Joyful 22. Bill Callahan - Gold Record 23. King Von - Welcome To O’Block 24. Flo Milli - Ho, Why Is You Here? 25. Chubby & The Gang - Speed Kills 26. Madeline Kenney - Sucker’s Lunch 27. Empty Country - Empty Country 28. Smino - She Already Decided 29. Destroyer - Have We Met 30. Yves Jarvis - Sundry Rock Song Stock 31. Ela Minus - Acts Of Rebellion 32. Creeper - Sex, Death & The Infinite Void 33. Alabaster DePlume - To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals, Vol. 1 34. Good Sad Happy Bad - Shades 35. The 1975 - Notes On a Conditional Form 36. Kate NV - Room For The Moon 37. $ilkmoney - Attack of the Future Shocked, Flesh Covered, Meatbags of the 85 38. Eddie Chacon - Pleasure, Joy and Happiness 39. Kenny Segal & Serengeti - Ajai 40. Bad Bunny - YHLQMDLG 41. Kahlil Blu - DOG 42. Califone - Echo Mine 43. Boldy James - The Price of Tea in China/Manger On McNichols/The Versace Tape 44. Bufiman - Albumsi 45. Moses Boyd - Dark Matter 46. Thanya Iyer - KIND 47. Jyoti - Mama You Can Bet! 48. Obongjayar - Which Way Is Forward? 49. Rio Da Yung OG - City On My Back 50. Young Jesus - Welcome To Conceptual Beach 51. Owen Pallett - Island 52. Oceanator - Things I Never Said 53. Shootergang Kony - Red Paint Reverend 54. Shabason, Krgovich & Harris - Philadelphia 55. Six Organs of Admittance - Companion Rises 56. Lido Pimienta - Miss Colombia 57. Kelly Lee Owens - Inner Song 58. Polo G - The GOAT 59. Actress - Karma & Desire 60. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher 61. Porridge Radio - Every Bad 62. Yg Teck - Eyes Won’t Close 63. Mozzy - Beyond Bulletproof 64. Ratboys - Printer’s Devil 65. R.A.P. Ferreira - Purple Moonlight Pages 66. Ulver - Flowers of Evil 67. Rina Sawayama - SAWAYAMA 68. SAULT - Untitled (Black Is) 69. Ezra Feinberg - Recumbent Speech 70. Davido - A Better Time 71. Hailu Mergia - Yene Mircha 72. HAIM - Women In Music Pt. III 73. Half Waif - The Caretaker 74. Key Glock - Yellow Tape 75. KeiyAa - Forever Your Girl

#kassa overall #pa salieu #drakeo the ruler #fiona apple #sault #ka #wizkid #westerman #playboi carti #bbymutha

[misterbitches]

In my opinion Oh-aew had some sort of crush on Tay (I have to write it this way the dyslexia jumps OUT if I spell it Teh) or like affection whatever even if he didn’t know it which you can see when it manifests now.

(I mean ok I know it’s been one episode but I’m always right)

It’s interesting that he said he can’t handle the pain of losing a friend like that again. I was surprised when he said no to being that close again and that’s when I think it was made clear just how much it meant in retrospect.

The argument was so stupid and I’m not gonna make this explicitly about living in a Society but the idea of choosing and being jealous as if you can’t exist at once. What happens if art is fun? What happens when we realize we all have the lights in us.

When Tay was like I just want him to do poorly there was no basis besides insecurity. It’s such a stupid way of looking at things but human and immature. There’s no explicit guarantee one is better than the other but “nobody can replace anybody else so it would be a shame to make a comparison” (this is a fiona apple lyric) comes to mind. We can’t get to where we’re going together? And obviously that’s not true since they all have their friends that they grew up with.

I also like how it’s not outright opulence. Rich ppl suck and i dont want that in my eyes. I don’t feel bombarded with wealth and a fairytale. As if this would be the sole key to tbe happy ending that all media proposes is a victory in their laziness to ensure and please capital.

But that’s also clearly because this show was taken with immense care at least on the crew’s side. But for the cast yea that too I mean everyone’s so dramatic but it has its flair, very Thai, and they use the vibrancy and the landscape.

But this is what happens when things aren’t made at a constant rate and you try to churn out many episodes.

I find a lot of these shows to be unbearable and I have a high threshold for “good” acting because I’m overly critical and terrible but it was nice seeing them even if it was so much crying. I really love things that capture youth since a lot of mine wasn’t pleasant. The ups and downs are natural for them and it will be ok. They have friends and their city.

Usually I abhor the editing on most of these dramas (these = overwhelmingly the BL genre tho that recent japanese show...love...something idk they meet walking a line was very pretty and digestible) but, if I remember correctly, it’s really good here. In fact I am positive—it does absolute justice to the story. And the writing underlines the subtlety. So much of the show is about being young and exploration and I love it. Honestly, when he was trying to imitate the instagram picture it was just...wow that’s so teenage. I was so embarrassed.

That brings me to something else wrt editing. So a lot of asian dramas are very dramatic which isn’t my favorite thing but it has a clear cultural place so it means a viewer has to adjust to differences and see the merits within an alternate scope. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever like the dramatic music they put in. I hate those musical cues like no other. This is just my preference and it will always be. I don’t know why it’s so allurin from a creative standpoint; we know the stakes! But it wasn’t so distracting that I couldn’t continue. I think I found the whole thing extremely cinematic so the hyped up musical cues kinda threw me off.

All in all it was very enjoyable and further critiques are minor and something that time can work out like some acting but seriously thag’s mostly nothing and I saw that they had acting coaches in the credit. I think they may have been on set—I haven’t watched the doc—but that’s something people take for granted and I respect it. Seriously. Or if other shows do these ones actually understand how to get their characters from point a to b.

Acting is such a cool art and comes in different atyles but I feel like our responses to it are so intuitive so the deliveryno matter what method has to embody life qualities. I could go on about this but I won’t cause ambien but even if there’s a political approach to acting (Brecht) it is stil rooted in life. For ONCE the cast and crew fix things accordingly (this isn’t just a BL problem but I also wouldn’t classify this as BL I guess gorl IDK im going thru it)

I’m more critical than usual and I’m going through a major artistic crises lol so it was nice. There’s a lot of unrest in Thailand so I won’t forget that people are struggling. I think something that moght get people to look mght is how beautiful it looks and that brings attention to artists. Artists who represent their country, or believe in something, or care and maybe introducing people to Thai film. Art can give us access to whole radical landscapes.

Even tho i’m in favor of pirating always I feel that contributing monetarily means support and it’s a big thing for me (which is why I so often opt out because I don’t support something but should have access to it bc LIFE) and the point is yo contribut and encourage, right? Which is why I believe in sharing, it isn’t capital that drives us to something, we get attracted to the merits and contribute with capital but that means a level if absolute respect back. This means that while I can’t really pay a bunch for the episodes I think I will buy two. Which never happens.

Lastly this is probably one of the worst yrs in existence. I break down crying when I think of lives lost and black people abd being inside and just the pressure of it all. I wouldn’t say escapism tho that has merit but we get to see a fun youthful world that is just missing. It’s missing. As much as I love contemplating on the absurd, theres solace in watching people go about without external pain cementing them

#i told sunset about you #long bht idk how to mame read more on monile oj well

[queenofcrystaltokyo]

My Spotify got DELETED this year so no Spotify Wrapped. Instead I’m just going to list all of the albums I bought on iTunes and go over my thoughts on them. No ratings; ratings are lame.

Cape God - Allie X

It’s no surprise I’ve been following Allie since Collxtion I. This year’s album from her is a natural evolution and a wonderful maturation of her music up to this point. Her previous work was already developed but I find this album just strikes to the center of your person. I feel like telling you there’s a collab with Mitski on here puts that into good perspective.

Personal Standout: Sarah Come Home

Future Nostalgia - Dua Lipa

I haven’t listened to this one much since the week I bought it. It’s a good pop album though with a lot of disco influence which was fun and was definitely a trend in pop music this year. That and metal.

Personal Standout: Don’t Start Now or Physical

SAWAYAMA - Rina Sawayama

I’ve been a fan of hers since we were orange hair sisters in 2017. But oh boy. This album. In many ways album of the year (although I can name three other albums on this list that also vie for that spot). Her use of rock music and the variety of topics (compare Comme Des Garçons and XS) shows the depth of her talent. Still upset I didn’t get to see her and Allie in April.

Personal Standout: Who’s Gonna Save U Now?

Fetch The Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple

When I first head The Idler Wheel when I was 15, I think my world changed a little. It’s like when you hear The Hounds of Love for the first time. So it was no surprise her next album would be phenomenal. But it should be illegal for an album to be this perfect. Cutting to the core of every possible emotion in a way that only Fiona could do. Flawless is selling it short.

Personal Standout: Drumset

I Disagree - Poppy

I followed Poppy for a bit when she was that one girl who made weird experimental Youtube videos and had one EP. I remember getting 3:36 on her Bandcamp. But I sort of fell off. But THEN I was made aware of this album, gave it a listen, and bought it immediately. I love good, rich rock music and deeply miss it in the pop scene I’ve stationed myself in. This scratches that itch in abundance.

Personal Standout: I Disagree

Petals For Armor - Hayley Williams

Paramore is maybe the most important rock band of the last 20 years. After Laughter is probably my actual favorite album of all time even though I still say Miley Cyrus And Her Dead Petz. But Hayley’s solo work has proven itself to be a separate entity. It’s very deep and personal and is refined in a way that could only come from years of being deeply ingrained in music and understanding it thoroughly.

Personal Standout: Cinnamon

Flamboyant (Deluxe) - Dorian Electra

I was initially hesitant to get into Dorian Electra. I think I thought it was trying too hard. But I warmed up a little and found it speaking to my queer masculine side, which I often ignored in favor of the liberation of femininity.

Personal Standout: Adam & Steve

how i’m feeling now - Charli XCX

How Charli managed to make a no-skip in two months during quarantine is completely beyond me.

Personal Standout: anthems

spice²world - Spice Girls

Now I’m sure you saw this and thought “Wait, what’s that? I’ve never heard of that album.” Well this is actually related to the Spotify deletion. It’s literally just Spice and Spiceworld stuck together. I had it as a playlist on my Spotify and decided to recreate it in my iTunes.

Personal Standout: It’s the Spice Girls. Love Thing is my favorite.

Smile - Katy Perry

I’ve loved Katy Perry since fucking meanplastic posted a soundcloud post of International Smile. From there I delved into her back catalog and learned that One of the Boys is and will always be her best album, which is somewhat unfortunate because, presumably after Lady Gaga blew up, she shifted to pop music and we’ll never get 2008 pop rock goddess Katy back again. But don’t let that deter you. Her music has been evolving since Teenage Dream, which was written by God according to people on here who jump through hoops to hate her. And though Witness was like Artpop in that it sort of broke the facade of infallibility, Smile took what worked from Witness and refined it into a more introspective album that’s trying less hard to be commercial. I hate to admit that that post comparing Katy to Cyndi Lauper as a relic of her decade was right, but I’m okay with that because I feel like Katy is gearing up to be, in the words of Britney Spears, an underground star.

Personal Standout: Tucked

Chromatica - Lady Gaga

I’ve been a little monster since the very beginning. I remember preordering Born This Way at Hot Topic when I was 14. Since then I’ve always held that it’s her best album (though Joanne didn’t make that hard to argue). But Lady Gaga did the impossible. Yes, Chromatica is now Lady Gaga’s best album. The club pop with elements of disco is sheer perfection.

Personal Standout: Replay

Pang - Caroline Polachek

I know I really hyped this album up when it came out last year, but I only got around to actually buying it this year after my Spotify got deleted. But yeah, of course this album is great.

Personal Standout: Pang

Spirit Phone - Lemon Demon

A striking departure from the previous listings. Calling it meme music would not be incorrect. But it’s fun and it’s good. I listened to it all day Halloween but I’m still listening to it right now.

Personal Standout: I Earn My Life

Dreamland - Black Box

Do y’all like house music? If you do, then this album needs no introduction. It is THE house album. Stan Martha Wash.

Personal Standout: I Don’t Know Anybody Else. But you should definitely listen to Ride on Time first.

BONUS:

apathy + Vacuum Noises - Astrophysics

I didn’t buy these albums on iTunes. I got them off of Astrophysics’ Bandcamp. So that’s why they’re bonuses. But I love these albums so much. I only started following Astrophysics this year. You might know them for doing synthwave remixes of anime songs like Connect from PMMM or Komm Süsser Todd from NGE. But their music has evolved into more glitchcore/shoegaze (with a Soviet aesthetic that I love). It’s some of the best music I’ve heard in that field.

Personal Standout: The remix of Sometimes by My Bloody Valentine from Vacuum Noises. Listen to it here!

ベノマ - かいりきベア (Venomer - Kairiki Bear)

This one I also did not buy on iTunes. But I didn’t get it on Bandcamp either. I got it on mikudb, which is my go-to website for Vocaloid music. Venomer is a remix collab album by Kairiki Bear where he invited several other Vocaloid producers to remix his most popular songs. It’s a real who’s-who of the hottest Vocaloid producers right now.

Personal Standout: The Niru Kajitsu remix of Ángel (I have an audio post of it here!)

[askanaroace]

(1/2) Hello! I'm in a bit of a trouble: one if my family members absolutely wants to see me "create my own family" (partner + children), they think it's the goal of everyone's life and I feel like I have to come out if I want for them to stop repeating that to me again and again. The problem is I don't think they would take the news really well, they took psychology classes and now think they know more than anybody else. Moreover, they already think I have some sort of trauma in addition to my

(2/2) mental illness so I worry they would take my aroaceness as another sign I'm traumatized and want to "heal" me somehow... I thought about maybe giving them links to informational websites, but I'm also terrified of coming out :( do you have any advice? thank you.

One of my favorite new phrases that I’ve come across thanks to Captain Awkward is “reasons are for reasonable people”.

Your family member is not a reasonable person. They have very unreasonable beliefs, and they are expressing them in an unreasonable way.

Your fears are incredibly founded. You absolutely don’t have to force yourself to come out to someone unsafe when there is absolutely no guarantee this will make them see reason. Because they are not a reasonable person, and they are not looking to understand you better. They are an unreasonable person getting some sick sense of satisfaction over judging people in this way and harassing them over these conservative beliefs.

This is not about you proving yourself to this family member. This is not about getting this family member to see reason (because if they don’t want to, they absolutely won’t, no matter how reasonable you are). This is about boundaries.

If you want to come out, that is great and fine, but you are going to need to work on setting and enforcing boundaries whether you come out or you stay closeted. That is how you handle this relative.

You are now a brick wall to this relative. Your goal is to stop hearing about how they want you to create a family. You’re going to work towards that goal by shutting them down anytime they bring up this subject.

You start by defining your boundary in a simple, concise, clear manner. The next time family member makes one of these comments, you get stern and you respond “I’m going to live my life the way I want. Whatever happens will happen. I am tired of hearing about how you think I should live my life. I no longer want to discuss this at all. I would like to have a good time with you. So, how about [that Fiona Apple album]? I found it [opinion]. Have you seen it? What did you think?”

If family member doesn’t drop it and tries to push it, you walk away. You hang up the phone. You put in headphones. You do not engage any further. You will talk to them the next time you call/see them or in another hour or so when you’ve both cooled off.

Every. single. time. family member tries bringing this up, you become a brick wall. You can give one reminder while you get comfortable setting this boundary. “I said I didn’t want to talk about that. [Subject change].” or even just “*blank stare* SOOOO, anyway, [subject change]”. If family member still keeps pushing it and you’ve gone through this several times, stop giving them a chance to continue on with you with the subject change. Tell them “we’re not doing this” and hang up/walk away.

This will be hard to do. Unreasonable people do not like boundaries. It will be hard on you to enforce. You just want to be a good person and give everyone a chance. You want to believe the best in family member. Setting this boundary will feel mean to you even though it is in no way mean. You will slip up. You will once again try to reason with and explain to family member. It’s okay. You’re human, and you’re just trying to be understanding and accommodating. You will pick yourself up and re-set the boundary and uphold it more strongly  next time.

If you come out, it should be because you genuinely want to come out. You do not have to come out before you’re ready just to try and prove your humanity to someone or show that your choices are worthy of respect. Your family member is being assuming and judgemental and is wrong by demanding everyone needs a partner and children. No matter your sexuality, you have a right to determine what you want out of life for yourself, and you definitely have a right to determine that without being harassed or pressured into what someone else wants for you.

The issue isn’t that family member doesn’t understand this - it’s that they don’t respect it.

When and if you are ready to come out, I have various bits of advice in my coming out tag and would be happy to answer any other or more specific question you have about coming out in your situation. =)

I’m sorry your family member is treating you like this. It’s not okay. I’m here if you need. Good luck!

x

#amatonormativity #harassment #relationships #boundaries #communication #coming out #anti asexuality #anti asexual #ableism #asexual #aromantic #aroace #ask #op #rennfris

[sinceileftyoublog]

Bettye Lavette Interview: The Quiet I Can Be

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Bettye Lavette has had, as she calls it, two careers. The Detroit-raised soul singer-songwriter cut her first record at just sixteen, achieving early success with charting singles and touring with Atlantic Records-signed artists like Otis Redding and members of The Drifters. In the music world, initially, she was never front and center for long periods of time, even giving up recording in the mid-70′s for a six-year run on Broadway to star in Bubbling Brown Sugar. For all intents and purposes, her second career--the one that brought her both critical and commercial success as a solo artist--started in 2005 with the Joe Henry-produced I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise, a collection of songs written by female artists like Lucinda Williams, Roseanne Cash, and Fiona Apple. (The title is taken from Apple’s “Sleep To Dream”, which appeared on the record.) Hell started a still-going series of albums of songs written by others, each based around a cohesive theme, like 2010′s Interpretations, covers of British rock artists like The Beatles, Elton John, and The Who. But it’s been her fruitful collaboration with drummer and producer Steve Jordan and legendary jazz label Verve Records that’s produced perhaps her two best albums yet: 2018′s Things Have Changed and the upcoming Blackbirds (August 28th, Verve).

Things Have Changed was a collection of Bob Dylan songs, many lesser-known, that Lavette made her own, to say the least. It helped somewhat that Lavette didn’t have much of a longstanding relationship with the tracks. “[Interpretations tracks] and Bob Dylan songs were not played on black radio a lot,” Lavette told me over the phone from her home in New Jersey in April. “They’re just songs. If you can sing, you should be able to sing them, whether they’re gospel songs, or blues songs, or British songs, they started out words on a piece of paper,” she said. The songs on Blackbirds, however, span different eras and genres, and they’re predominantly written by women of color, many of whom were and are Lavette’s peers. And her relationship to these tracks is more complex. Unlike many soul singers from her era, Lavette didn’t start out singing in the church but in her parents’ home, opting to perform R&B and country and western songs instead. When it was suggested to her in the 60′s by her manager Jim Lewis that she learn standards, Lavette was at first reluctant, wanting instead to learn tunes that were popular at the time, and then admittedly intimidated by the prospect of singing songs by such powerful voices. “While Dinah [Washington] would wait for you in the alley and kill you, her voice was just magnificent. And Ella Fitzgerald’s voice was like an instrument,” Lavette said. Years later, Lavette has found a way to make old songs sound personal.

Lavette credits Jordan with a lot of why Things Have Changed and Blackbirds sound so good. For one, he’s one of the only black producers she’s ever worked with, and she describes her experience singing old songs with him behind the boards and the drum kit as discovering what it would be like had she had someone like him when she first started her career. “One thing Steve knows about me that maybe others don’t...most musicians don’t know the quiet that I can be,” Lavette said. Indeed, their working relationship allows Lavette’s voice to shine. Lavette picks and sings the songs and sends her vocals to Jordan, who will arrange with her and their keyboard player, around her voice. At that point, Lavette, having established such a sense of trust with Jordan, doesn’t hear the arrangements until it’s time to record. The results on Blackbirds are astounding. She’s gentle, yet forceful on Nancy Wilson’s “Save Your Love for Me” and upfront on “Book of Lies”. The songs you might expect to sound stern or sad, like Nina Simone’s music industry olive branch “I Hold No Grudge” and “Blues for the Weepers”, are funky and upbeat, while ones you might expect to be somber, like “Strange Fruit”, are slinky and anthemic.

As much as the songs on Blackbirds, often by their very inclusion, are reflective of Lavette’s incredible career and her place, she prefers to look forward and often gets frustrated by fans and journalists stuck in the past or the mundane. Fans, especially overseas, want her to play old material without understanding the importance of it. “The thing that annoys me about fans--and that’s in air quotes--is just the love without the knowledge, or not wanting to know about it or where it came from,” Lavette said. Or interviewers who ask questions like, “What’s your favorite color?” For the author and now Blues Hall of Fame inductee, it’s a shame, because she wants to talk. When I told her how much I loved Things Have Changed, Lavette said, “Well why didn’t you call me? I have never been more accessible in my life!” Indeed, Lavette was careful to toe the line between re-imagining old songs and being faithful to their spirit. “I certainly did not want to be disrespectful in any way to these tunes,” she said. “I didn’t want to do the disco version, unless it was adaptable.” 

“Adapt” is the key word here, and not just in describing how Lavette fit the songs to her voice and how Jordan and company subsequently arranged and played. Lavette, with every word and tone, applies her experience as a black woman, a singer-songwriter and performer for over half a century, to tunes that themselves offer a narrative history of important American music. It’s worth noting that when we finished talking, she signed off, “And by the way...my favorite color is black.”

Read my interview with Lavette below.

Since I Left You: Blackbirds is different from Things Have Changed, since you’re singing songs that were written and performed by a wide variety of different artists and songwriters. Do you change your approach when you’re tackling songs from different people and eras than from the same person?

Bettye Lavette: No, I treat them all as songs. I don’t care where they came from. I think the most unusual thing I’ve ever done in my life was when I did Bubbling Brown Sugar. That was totally out of my wheelhouse. I hadn’t done a play or anything, so I had to approach the whole thing theatrically. But I still approached the songs the same way vocally. My attitude at this stage, the theater, if the song is, “ahhh,” they want, “AHHH!” [laughs] The endings are a little unnatural. But the scenes may have to be ended that way. 

But doing these songs in Blackbirds, these were songs I heard as a very young girl, most of them, and did not think I would ever sing them. For one thing, when I was younger I didn’t like them. But then as I learned to respect who these people were, I thought, “I will never be able to sing like that.” That was before I learned, “Just sing it how you sing it! Maybe it is like that.”

SILY: What music did you like when you were younger? What did you grow up listening to?

BL: I liked The Drifters. I’m so glad that I’ve gotten the chance to work with many of the people I grew up listening to. The first time I went on the road was with Clyde McPhatter and Ben King who were both lead singers for The Drifters. And you talk about a groupie! They couldn’t come out of their dressing rooms without seeing me! [laughs] But I always liked to dance. The difference between blues and rhythm and blues was that you couldn’t dance to blues, you could just cry. With rhythm and blues, you could cry and dance at the same time. My voice fell into that kind of music.

SILY: And you elude to that when you perform “Blues For The Weepers” on this album. In the liner notes, you talk about how you could perform that song in a number of different places--a bar, a lounge, a big stadium--and everybody can feel it.

BL: Well, I’m not sure everybody understands it as well as you seem to. People seem to want you to do either what you did before or exactly what they expect you to do. I have a great many fans in England, and they like these songs I did from the beginning till about 1975. They’ve just really collected that period of black music. They hated my album of Interpretations. It’s in my contract that I have to do [the older] songs. I joke that if they didn’t love me before, I would not do this show for anybody else. This is what I’m trying to grow to be, not what I’m trying to relive. To do a whole show? It sounds like a grown person singing silly songs. [laughs]

SILY: At the same time, when you sing a song like “I Hold No Grudge”, at this point you’ve come to accept and even embrace certain things about being a singer and musician and about the music industry.

BL: I want you to be my spokesperson! That’s exactly how I feel. The songs I sing now have so little to do with love affairs. They have more to do with what you just said: Where I’ve come to be at this point in my life and my career.

SILY: In general, on Blackbirds, it’s striking to me how different the arrangements and instrumentation are between original versions and your versions. How do you go about, from an instrumental and arrangement perspective, whether to remain faithful or stray from the original?

BL: I don’t have anything to do with that. Here’s what I do. At this point, I call Steve Jordan, the Bettye whisperer, because he understands what I’m saying. This is the first time I’ve had a black producer since early on in my career of any kind of note. I did one album with one black producer, but he was a black producer who had been producing Norah Jones. It was completely different. But Steve Jordan played with James Brown and loves Motown. What he does is take how I feel about the song and arrange the music accordingly. I usually get just the keyboard player...when I choose the tunes, I sing them the way I want to sing them, and [Jordan will] write it in the way that I’m singing them, as opposed to making an arrangement and I adapt to the arrangement. I sing the song, and he fashions the arrangement around what he’s heard me sing. He comes over to the house, and we sit on the floor of the living room, and he listens to the recordings that I’ve made with my keyboard player. He brings, usually, the keyboard player, who I hope for the rest of my life who will [play with me]. You know, there aren’t a lot of black musicians, and black musicians my age, that I can get to. Most of my contemporaries are millionaires, and I don’t have their telephone numbers. [laughs]

SILY: To what extent are you involved in the mixing and production decisions? Like on “Book Of Lies”, the arrangement has you start out a capella, but throughout that song, your vocals are really upfront in the mix.

BL: I appreciate that. That is absolutely a compliment from any sound engineer and producer, that he makes it all about me. Especially someone as arrogant as Steve. [laughs] He pays very close attention to the words that I’m saying because I pay very close attention to fashioning them to make you hear them. The Billie Holiday song [“Strange Fruit”], most of the younger singers I’ve heard approach this tune, they have great regards for what it’s about, and great regards for Billie Holiday, and being almost 75, I have great regards for me. I wanted all the lyrics to be distinct. I wanted you to understand what it is that happened. It’s not a song; it’s a protest. It’s a jazzier protest. I’m a rhythm & blues singer. And because Steve was born and raised in Harlem, he hears James Brown singing these songs. And that’s what you need to hear if you’re producing. In a recording, it has to be fashioned around me. 

I’ve had some brilliant producers and loved so much of what they’ve done that I’ve felt completely comfortable with fashioning myself around them. But this one and [Things Have Changed] are quite different. The last one was the first time Steve and I had ever worked together. He understood exactly what I was saying so quickly. He read back to me an arrangement exactly as how I sang it. I didn’t want to lend myself to the lavish arrangements they had on originally. I told Steve on the Bob Dylan album, “I don’t want to recognize any of these songs.” He pretty much knows that’s the way I work now. I say, “You know we have to leave this lavishness out. I’m not lavish, I’m pretty basic!” I thought he did such a wonderful job when I went to the studio and heard what they were going to play. Because after he and I work on it, I don’t hear it any more until we get to the studio. There’s not a whole bunch of rehearsing. I do the whole album in 4-5 days.

SILY: It’s interesting that you said you don’t want the songs to be recognizable. That’s the approach Bob Dylan takes when he plays his own songs live!

BL: [laughs] He didn’t recognize any of the songs until they got to the chorus. I took that as a total compliment!

SILY: [Dylan] said that to you?

BL: No, he said it to my manager.

SILY: As much as these are songs on a single playing field, it’s interesting and meaningful that something like “Strange Fruit” and “Blackbird” are two songs that so many people know, whereas something like “One More Song”, which is pretty recent, is a standout among more-known standards. Why did you feel it was important to include that one on the record?

BL: The answer is so simple and ridiculous: Because we just liked it! [laughs] Sharon Robinson, she wrote [Patti LaBelle’s] “New Attitude” and a song for me called “The High Road”. She was Leonard Cohen’s writing partner. When Leonard died, they did a tribute to him in Toronto, and I went and did one of his songs. His family actually requested that I come and sing. That was the first time I ever met Sharon. I had heard “One More Song”, and I told her, “I’m going to do this tune.” Same thing with “I Hold No Grudge”, when I met Angelo Badalamenti. I thought, “I’m going to do this song,” 10 years before I met him.

We submitted [the list of] songs to the company, and they thought [about “One More Song”], “Oh, this is new,” but I said, “We’re gonna do it because we like it!” I think it’s one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. You could just be playing the music and it would make me cry. I love this song. She is such a fantastic writer. Listen to the lyrics: Have you heard “The High Road”? She wrote the song for [I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise], and I just thought the lyrics were so great. I thought, “Well, she’s black, and she’s a woman. She’s a blackbird, so...” [laughs] She was so flattered when I called her and said I did it. When I sent it to her, she was just so thrilled with it. And Angelo Badamenti, who is now probably 90, when we sent “I Hold No Grudge” to him, he said, “I can see a big grin coming on Nina’s face.”

SILY: Another thing that seemed to be really meaningful is including “Romance In The Dark”, because it’s known for being performed by Dinah Washington [“Drinking Again”] and Nina Simone, who you also cover on this record. It’s almost like the whole record is coming full circle.

BL: I really did. The manager that made this singer you see before you today is named Jim Lewis, and my book [A Woman Like Me] is dedicated to him. When he first met me, he said, “You’re cute, you got a small waist line, but you got nothing to sing. You may not become a star. If you don’t become a star, and you still want to become a singer, you’ve got to learn to sing!” So he brought me all these songs by Dinah Washington. I have worked for 57 years because I learned to tap dance and sing [songs like] “Sweet Georgia Brown”. Those are songs that none of my contemporaries knew because they weren’t fashionable. Jim made me learn these songs that nobody else knew that I didn’t want to learn because I wanted to be a star. I’ve worked everywhere I imagined working. He told me I could do that. But even when I said, “I’m gonna be a star,” he said, “Calm down, honey, you may not be.” He talked to Norman Granz and the Verve label because they helped so many black musicians. Many black musicians played with the Jimmy Lunceford band. [Lewis] was the 6th trombonist. If he weren’t already dead, this would kill him. Verve, and these songs, and a black producer? This would kill him.

SILY: Looking back at it all, it’s got to be pretty unbelievable.

BL: It is unbelievable. I thought I was going to die broke and obscure, but now I’m just gonna die broke. But everybody knows me! [laughs] 

#interviews #bettye lavette #blackbirds #atlantic records #otis redding #the drifters #broadway #bubbling brown sugar #joe henry #i've got my own hell to raise #lucinda williams #roseanne cash #Fiona Apple #interpretations #the beatles #elton john #the who #steve jordan #verve #things have changed #verve records #bob dylan #jim lewis #dinah washington #ella fitzgerald #nancy wilson #nina simone #blues hall of fame #clyde mcphatter #ben king

[sadgirlkendall]

tag game!

rules: answer 17 questions & tag 17 people you want to know better

tagged by @eddiekzpbrak​ thank you !! 💖 (also you tagged my main blog but i’m just gonna post it here)

nickname: jojo, mojo jojo, jo, mama, mamita, sísa 

zodiac sign: taurus

height: 4’10,,, i am very little :^) 

hogwarts house: slytherin, a little hufflepuff i think

last thing i googled: birds of prey (wanted to know about the reviews don’t remember why)

song stuck in my head: motion sickness by phoebe bridgers 

following and followers: 109/162

amount of sleep i get: idk man not enough lately sometimes too much, i’d say between 4-10 hours 

lucky number(s): 7

dream job: i don’t dream about labor but if we’re talking about a job i’d choose that i’d feel a little fulfilled in and wouldn’t make me wanna off myself then just writing research papers ideally to do with racial/gender/class inequalities (which is what I attended college for anyway) and maybe a non profit or a professor 

wearing: hayley kiyoko girls like girls shirt that has a few stains on it from cooking with it on and olive green pajama shorts 

favorite songs: currently some that come to mind are: seventeen by sharon van etten, straight from the heart by irma thomas, fall in love by moaning, ball and chain by big brother and the holding company, describe by perfume genius, so blue by prince, pink moon by nick drake, jonathan by fiona apple, the steps by haim, captain hook by megan thee stallion, babydoll by dominic fike, garden song by phoebe bridgers

instruments: i vaguely remember how to play the violin but i haven’t played since 8th grade,,, i wanna learn how to play the harmonica tho

random facts: one time in 12th grade i took choir as an extra curricular just cause i needed one and we were supposed to perform a song by ourselves at the end of the semester and i sang “there are worse things i can do” from the musical grease, i had my gallbladder removed in the 5th grade and i was in the hospital for a week, i’ve known my best friends since we were 11-12 so we’ve been friends for about 10 years now

aesthetic: writing by candlelight, tenderness... homoeroticism, the scene from maurice where clive and maurice’s hands are reaching towards each other, but also artemesia gentileschi’s painting judith beheading holefernes, the feeling from listening to landslide by fleetwood mac, the eclectic and minimal vibes i have battling each other in my room, warm cup of coffee, when the bread loaf is rising in the oven, a warm blanket and the purring of a cat at the end of the night, dried roses and baby’s breath, a glass of wine while cooking some food, some other gay shit

i tag: @lovesickens, @loveenergy, @sunnaybunnay, @postpunkdyke, @casciel, @anagonye, @poademeron, @slytherino, @melancholylesbian, @galxias, @ anybody else who wanna do it just tag me!

#i am sleepy gonna go to sleep now #me #text #don't feel pressured to do this! #tagged

[cerisedreams]

Cordelia’s eyes flutter open, a sliver of sunlight hitting the side of her face. Her hands rub at her temples and she groans unhappily as she allows her senses to acknowledge all the aches and pains in her body.

A pair of strong arms tighten their grip on her middle, and the witch immediately tenses up. She prepares herself to turn and find Hank’s face beside her, the smell of liquor still swimming on his mouth. Instead, she’s met with soft blonde locks and the smell of lavender and rain. Misty is softly snoring in her sleep, a stray curl resting on the apple of her cheek.

She’s too sore and too comfortable to read much into it.

Cordelia beams at the sight of the woman beside her and snuggles closer, before closing her eyes again.

***

The next time she wakes up, Misty is already staring at her. The Cajun’s hands draw gentle patterns on her bare arms, tracing the tattoo on her wrist and her violet-tainted skin. Slender fingers follow veins all along her forearm until it dips and they disappear into the inside of her elbow.

Cordelia grins sweetly, “Misty.”

“Mornin’ Delia,” Misty shoots her a small smile, hesitant. Without makeup and in the morning light, Cordelia’s black eye looks gruesome. Misty’s calloused hands still in place. “How, uh, how are ya feelin’?”

Cordelia’s smile falters and the memories from the night before hit her. Panicked, the witch sits up, pushing the covers away. “Shit! What time is it?! Where’s Hank?!”

MIsty is taken aback at the sudden movement, but she’s patient. She’s always patient.

“Relax Miss Cordelia, he’s gone. Left after -” There’s a pause, a quiver to her voice. She timidly reaches out for the headmistress, squeezing on her shoulder, “Ya need to rest.”

The older blonde lets herself be pulled back down the bed, facing Misty. Her eyes are so blue, ocean eyes, and when Misty moves to tuck a piece of Cordelia’s hair behind her ear, Cordelia can do nothing but cry, cry, cry at the tenderness of it all.

MIsty cradles her head and wraps an arm around Cordelia, her own tears rolling silently down her cheeks. Gut-wrenching sobs escape Cordelia’s lips, body shaking between the witch’s arms. Feeble hands reach for Misty’s dress, tightening her fists on the crumpled fabric, trying to grasp anything that gives her a semblance of grounding.

They stay there, nestled together until the sobs subdue into hiccups.

“Delia, we have to talk about this,” a soft kiss to the other blonde’s forehead. “Please, I need ta’ know where it hurts.”

Cordelia wants nothing but to stay in that moment forever, with Misty Day holding her, safe.

She whimpers and lifts her chin, leveling her gaze to Misty. The headmistress isn’t ready to talk, and she knows Misty will never look at her the same way, never with the same admiration. Not after this.

Those last months with Hank had been truly horrible. She understands now how everything led up to this. Whatever she and Hank had, it wasn’t love. Far from it, actually. Underneath the sticky, heavy layer of shame, she feels the flicker of a flame, threatening to blow up into a full out fire.

She does her best to ignore the burning anger.

“I don’t- I just feel like- like I’m weak, and I’m so, so ashamed,” tears flood her eyes, heart about to spill and stain the sheets, her chest closing up.

“No, no Delia, that’s him speakin’ inside your head. Ya have nothin’ to be ashamed of, you’re so strong and brave, and so beautiful,” Misty reaches for Cordelia’s rosy cheeks, wiping her tears away. “I just wish ya had said somethin’ sooner.”

“He was just so cruel, and I know he was in the wrong, but I-I can’t help but feel like maybe it was my- my fault.” Her chest feels heavy now, her breath shallow and labored. She hopelessly tries to push down the staggering mess of emotions she’s feeling, but it’s too much. Misty pulls her into a tight embrace, rubbing soothing circles on her back.

“Breathe Dee, I’m right here.”

The swamp witch can feel Cordelia struggling, and although she doesn’t want to push the headmistress into talking, she knows it’s important. She drags them both up into a sitting position and places Cordelia’s hands atop her chest.

“I’m right here…”

Cordelia follows her heartbeat and inhales deeply. Fearful, mismatched eyes gaze at Misty.

MIsty remains silent for several minutes, and when she thinks Cordelia won’t say anything else, the older blonde speaks again.

“He was mostly drunk when it started… and I passed it up as stress from work,” the witch averts her eyes, “Hank had never raised a hand to me before.”

“Wait, that wasn’t the first time he…” Misty swallows the lump in her throat carefully and forces herself to continue, “...hurt you?”

Cordelia simply shrugs, still not meeting blue eyes. She can’t escape that feeling of shame, guilt, rooted deep into her mind, latching on to her every thought.

“Did it happen often?” The swamp witch knows she won’t get another chance to ask. She feels her heart breaking when Cordelia only nods, a shattered expression on her face. The next question bubbles in her throat before she can stop herself, “How bad?”

Misty fears she has crossed a line, but she needs to know. Cordelia debates her answer; She’s reluctant to show herself bare to Misty.

“I was convinced her loved me…” She nibbles on her lower lip, ponders her words over. “Fiona urged me not to marry him, and I didn’t listen. I should’ve listened.”

The younger blonde gently lifts Cordelia’s chin with a finger, her other hand tugging at the hem of her t-shirt. A silent request to which Cordelia hesitates, but agrees. Misty slowly lifts up the piece of clothing, exposing freckled skin.

She lets out a gasp, aghast.

“Oh Lord, Delia…” Misty’s rings are cold against Cordelia’s torso; It’s an abstract painting of blended violet and red hues, and Misty has never hated art so much before. The headmistress bites her lip again, her expression twisting into pain or embarrassment, Misty doesn’t know.

Cordelia blinks at her for a long moment and lets her tears snivel pathetically from her. She can’t help the loud sob that escapes her lips, and hugs her knees to her chest, burying her face between them.

“Delia, I’m sorry,” Misty’s eyes gloss over with sadness as she wraps her arms around the woman again, “I’m so sorry.”

She strokes Cordelia’s hair, rocking her delicately until Cordelia uncovers her head. Misty brushes the hair from her face and pulls the witch into her lap. It’s a comfort Cordelia didn’t know she needed, and instead of making her feel uneasy, it’s reassuring.

Misty seems to know exactly what Cordelia needs, even if Cordelia doesn’t voice it.

Some time passes, a comfortable silence falling between the two, only broken when Misty’s stomach growls loudly, startling them. Cordelia lets out a small laugh, amused.

By the sun streaming through the drapes, it’s probably around noon.

“I’m hungry, apparently,” Misty mimics Cordelia’s laugh. “Why don’t I go get ya lunch, huh? We already skipped breakfast.”

“No, Mist, you don’t have to do that…”

“No, but I want to. Aren’t ya hungry?” As if on cue, Cordelia’s stomach rumbles. Both women chuckle.

“I’m starving. Are you sure it’s okay?”

“Of course, don’t’cha worry.”

Cordelia smiles shyly again, touched by how much Misty seems to care. And the sentiment doesn’t make her want to run in the opposite direction. She feels so at ease with her, a feeling she hadn’t been able to share with anybody else for the longest time.

“Thank you, Misty.”

“No worries, Miss Cordelia.” The swamp witch untangles Cordelia from her lap and stands up from her position on the bed. She straightens her dress as best as she can and glances back over her shoulder to the other blonde, “Cream-cheese bagel?”

“Cream-cheese bagel.”

- Excerpts from Hold Tight (Hold on to Me)

#Cordelia Goode #Misty Day #foxxay #cordelia x misty #ahs fic #ahs coven #excerpts #softest morning ever #softest girlfriends

[rmoskowitz]

Your Best American Girl | songs for Rory pt. 1

    Ten introductory songs, summarizing Rory Moskowitz 

honestly i love this challenge so much i’ll probably do 90 of these for every mood in existence...also the songs really don’t go together in hindsight lmao 

1. Your Best American Girl (Mitski)- Rory’s blog title and a dope ass song ! I honestly love the song for personal reasons, but I think it really frames Rory; American yes, but also she isn’t your American Girl - gay, steeped in Eastern European Jewish history, raised with a different story, and a different relationship with the country, then the kids around her. On the hill, with All-American Boys and Girls, she can try to masquerade as one of them (and did) but she’s shed that side of her, in favor of something else. Mitski is singing about a boy, but in Rory’s context, it’s her and her country - she can love her country, but will it ever truly love her back? 

“You're the sun, you've never seen the night But you hear its song from the morning birds Well I'm not the moon, I'm not even a star “ 

“Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me But I do, I think I do And you're an all-American boy I guess I couldn't help trying to be your best American girl”

2. Same Drugs (Chance the Rapper) 

Rory and her ex - the dramatic transformation her wife undertook, changing herself, for what? The woman Rory knew, entirely abandoned - working through their former life, former love, and despairing over the woman her ex has chosen to be. 

Where did you go? Why would you stay? You must have lost your marbles You always were so forgetful

What did you do to your hair? Where did you go to end up right back here? When did you start to forget how to fly? 

3. Windows - Angel Olsen 

Won't you open a window sometime? What's so wrong with the light? What's so wrong with the light?

4. If I Could Write (Sam Phillips) - Also Rory and her ex, and also Rory’s interactions tag - when her heart isn’t inflamed by anger or sadness, she can reflect on their relationship, and the aspects of her that are strengthened by it being over. She is also resolute in her emotions - highlighted in certain lines- overall, just a beautiful bittersweet lovesong that captures the love and loss 

I took your ring that never comes off and put it on Sorry to lose you, sorry to keep you after you were gone Nothing is small, nothing is unexpected

Desire's the element that I can't fight Dream is the arm of God Girl's looking for themselves in your eyes I'm looking for you

5. (8 Circle) Bon Iver

To walk aside your favor, I'm an Astuary King I would ask you where it came I'll keep in a cave, your comfort and all Unburdened and becoming

6. Lady Lazarus - Sylvia Plath’s recording of her poem. So fucking chilling - encompassing the engrossing, dark aspects of Rory 

Herr God, Herr Lucifer   Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair   And I eat men like air.

7. Fuck with myself (Banks) - Because no one can fuck with Rory, the way she fucks with herself 

I used to care about what you think, baby You words burn me in the third degree And baby now look what it's come to 'Cause my love is the one, my love is the one

So I fuck with myself more than anybody else 

8. Criminal - Fiona Apple 

I've been a bad, bad girl

9. Begging for Thread (Banks) 

I got some dirt on my shoes My words can come out as a pistol I'm no good at aiming But I can aim it at you

10. Gimme (Banks) - ** I do love Banks with all my damn heart. Gimme reflects her post-Wright assassination mindset, in the aftermath of Rory’s committing her most foul crime, but gaining the greatest reward of her life. She’s hungry for more - to cement her legacy, and Julian’s. The weight of guilt is easily smothered by adopting a nefarious persona; a heightened version of her diabolical leanings, and tendencies. With Wright gone, only the election stands in the way of Julian achieving all they’ve dreamed of. Julian’s going to win the election, if it kills someone (else). 

You can call me that bitch

Gimme, gimme, what I want, what I deserve

if you made it this far - opinions on wind beneath ur wings for rory and julian jajajaj

#cbcchallenge #(all i know | moskowitz)

[jafreitag]

2020

On January 1, 2020, I went to LNHQ. The holiday party had happened a few days earlier – a sorta-epic “booze cruise” with Lana Del Rey off the Catalina coast. Everybody nursed hangovers on flights back home, and then bugged off to celebrate their new years with their people.

The office was spotless – just a few dust motes floating across the afternoon sunlight in the conference room. I grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote “What if…” on the green board. It was intended as a turn-the-page talking point. OM and I had had a sit-down after we got back from Cali. Good talk, honestly. He’s well-versed in stuff that I do not understand, and he’s driving the proverbial bus as the new LN CEO. Lotta heartfelt questions from him, lotta heartfelt idks from me. “You gotta…” and “Yeah, I suck at that, but what about…” Some bourbon later, we adjourned. “Love you, dude” and “love you back, man.” Let’s meet next week and ok.

So that’s why I was there. What are we doing? What if… What if we actually try hard? What if ECM keeps killing it on Instagram? What if Jane and Trevor come back? What if we move to a new location, and the corporate and content wings find a new synergy? What if all of the sponsorships pan out? And O’s settlement with Adidas? Sky’s the limit, right? Let your imagination wander. I mean, what if Fiona Apple puts out a new album in 2020, and it’s not just great, but better than The Idler Wheel, which was the best album of 2012?

Seriously. What if?

Or what if the entire world breaks?

That wasn’t in my head back then.

It’s December now. And we’re in a global pandemic, which is getting worse (or at least not getting measurably better) every day. This year has been indescribably difficult for all of us, particularly the ones personally affected by Covid-19. And it has been difficult for businesses across every sector, particularly entertainment. Seen a show lately? Nope? Me, neither. At the beginning of the summer, I paid Laura Marling to watch a stream of her performance at Union Chapel in London. Seemed cool then, seems irrelevant now.

We can’t help artists/bands, really, until we can see them again. And who knows when that will be? Next summer? Next fall? Maybe 2022 before we all feel safe in massive crowds again (even with masks)? Maybe never? Until then, we have streaming services. And … woof. That’s an Apple/Spotify cart that I’d prefer not to upend, mainly because it benefits me, but it’s worth some words.

I’m a Spotify person. My home team is comprised of six Spotify people. We pay, collectively, $14.99/month to stream almost any music ever recorded and released. That’s around $2.50 per person per month. Pretty good deal, right? For sure. Here’s the problem: Spotify pays $0.003 per stream. That’s 1/3 of a penny. If you’re a Zeppelin or a Beatle or a Stone, that’s just a nice little dividend. (Keith is like, “Hey, baby, I love Spot-ify. I bought this sweet fedorah with that check.”) If you’re somebody else, somebody less established in the Rock-royalties pantheon, you’re probably not buying a hat. You’re probably hoping that Spotify might, might, pick up your next cup of coffee – or one at the end of the year, I don’t know how that works.

Spotify does this year-end Wrapped thing. You get a weird Snapchat/Instagram video that tells you stuff. Your most listened-to artist/band, your also-rans, etc. You also get some pretty sweet virtual (and unearned) affirmation.

My win was this.

911 seems good. It’s better than 11. The green-dotify didn’t specify whom those new artists were, which sucks, but I have a decent idea. And I’m guessing that many of those artists have Bandcamp pages, and I didn’t visit any of those. Actually, that’s not true. I did visit the Car Seat Headrest page because Will put out three different iterations of the new record on streaming, cd, and vinyl. It was mostly the same – alternate sequences and some alternate versions of certain tracks. The alternate versions weren’t on Bandcamp. You had to buy all three formats to get the whole record. Or you had to be ok with the iteration that you got. Or you could just find the alternate versions on YouTube. Sure, they wouldn’t be on your phone, but you got to hear them.

That’s not me being petty or cheap. I could’ve bought the cd and vinyl iterations. And I could’ve bought alot of music on Bandcamp, but I couldn’t have bought 911-new-artists worth. How many could I have bought? Not sure. How would I have decided? Not sure. I’m glad that I discovered that many sounds, and I’m concerned that most of those sounds were produced by real people struggling to create in this challenging (intentionally undersold the adjective there, but “terrible” and “horrible” seemed trite) environment. I’m more glad than concerned, if you follow the dichotomy. And I’m not happy about it. Having identified the problem, however, I’m flummoxed about a solution.

I listened to alot of music in 2020. #WFH #FTW (And two hashtag sentence fragments make a sentence. I just checked the LN style manual. Jane said ok.)

Alessandro Deljavan is an Italian pianist, who was born a few months before I graduated high school. He recorded Erik Satie’s piano works. My best friend and I listened to that alot this year – she calls it “sleeping music.” Miles Davis, obv. Early-covid, I made a chronologically-tight playlist of his pre-Columbia material. Mid-covid, I started a chronologically-tight and still-unfinished playlist of his fusion material. Jenny Lin? I think that’s a holdover from last year, when sleeping music was her Chopin’s Nocturnes. CSH was my lawnmowing soundtrack. Daniel Baremboim? No idea, maybe I hit his Mendelssohn’s Leider ohne Worte too many times during the days.

Minutes listened and top genre are what I want to talk about, real quick, before I get list-y. 115,891 minutes is 1,931 or so hours, and 80.5 or so days. I listened to two and a half months straight of music this year. That’s not a brag or even a humble brag. It’s a fact. And most of that (trust me here, I ran my ass off to playlists) was Indie Rock – the aforementioned “new artists.” How can I help them, besides streaming their amazing work over and over and over, and championing them here? Shouting indirectly at Spotify on social media seems unlikely to change a flawed system. Anybody with more constructive ideas can share them below the line.

Ok, the list.

I did it. I broke the unspoken rule (nobody gets #1 twice), and I’m ok with it. 2020 was a unique year. Up top, that’s Fiona from a Zoom call over the summer. She didn’t really know about Liner Notes, but she was willing to talk while walking her dogs. I wasn’t sure that Fetch the Bolt Cutters would be the album of the year at that point, but it was a nice chat. Tbh, I struggled to finalize the list because any of the Top 10 could’ve been Top. The margins were very fine. (And fwiw, I may tweak things a bit over the next few weeks.) Links to Spotify. And COME ON, Spotify. Pay artists more, and pay indie artists even more than that.

Fiona Apple – Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher

Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

This Is the Kit – Off Off On

HAIM – Women in Music Pt. III

En Attendant Ana – Juillet

Samia – The Baby

Kelly Lee Owens – Inner Song

Adrianne Lenker – songs / instrumentals

Porridge Radio – Every Bad

SAULT – Untitled (Black Is) / Untitled (Rise)

Taylor Swift – folklore / evermore

The 1975 – Notes On A Conditional Form

Car Seat Headrest – Making a Door Less Open

Perfume Genius – Set My Heart on Fire Immediately

Lomelda – Hannah

Fleet Foxes – Shore

Soccer Mommy – color theory

Beach Bunny – Honeymoon

Retirement Party – Runaway Dog

Shopping – All or Nothing

Ela Minus – acts of rebellion

The Strokes – The New Abnormal

Fontaines D.C. – A Hero’s Death

Kate NV – Room for the Moon

Dehd – Flower of Devotion

Gum County – Somewhere

Bad Moves – Untenable

Jeff Tweedy – Love Is the King

Laura Marling – Song for Our Daughter

Autechre – SIGN

Four Tet – Sixteen Oceans

Sorry – 925

Dream Wife – So When You Gonna…

Fenne Lily – BREACH

Margaret Glaspy – Devotion

Jordana – Something to Say to You

Hinds – The Prettiest Curse

Gorillaz – Song Machine: Season One

Tame Impala – The Slow Rush

Tycho – Simulcast

Ólafur Arnalds – some kind of peace

Ezra Feinberg – Recumbent Speech

Slow Pulp – Moveys

Young Jesus – Welcome to Conceptual Beach

Bartees Strange – Live Forever

U.S. Girls – Heavy Light

Empress Of – I’m You’re Empress Of

Charli XCX – how i’m feeling now

Oliver Coates – skins n slime

LN is on hiatus for a little while.

More soon.

JF

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#IFTTT #WordPress

[liz-the-lemur]

Tagged by @bluegrasshole, ty Karo! This is definitely more fun than writing cover letters!

rules: answer 30 questions and tag 10 people

# following: uh like 700?? honestly I would love to pare that down to mostly mutuals but tumblr makes it impossible to figure out who my mutuals even are. If anybody knows how to do that with xkit please tell me. Also I follow a lot of dead blogs I’m pretty sure.

# of followers: less here than on my fandom blog. But my twitter is where it’s really happening. 

average hours of sleep: I shoot for 8, probably get 7-7.5 on weeknights. 

lucky number: I only believe in bad luck

instruments: I’ve played piano since I was 5 and violin since I was 7. I still have my violin - got my suzuki books from my parents’ house over christmas break!

what are you wearing: leggings, striped dress, fleece, slippers. 

dream job: I had a job interview on Friday for a job I really really want and I’m not gonna jinx it by talking about it here. I’ll find out by the end of the week. 

dream trip: New Zealand! And I think it’s gonna happen over Christmas 2018/New Years 2019!! 

significant other: yes, 6+ years together <3

birthday: nunya

height: 5′2″

gender/pronouns: she/her

other blogs: lardo4lyfe (prev mentioned fandom blog), a few dead blogs, some other urls I’ve saved. None active. 

nicknames: I mean technically Liz is a nickname but at this point it’s my regular name

star sign: I’ve decided I’m a Leo. I only do astrology for the memes. 

time: uh it’s 8:50pm

favorite bands: Stars, Jack’s Mannequin, Lizzo, Rihanna, Fiona Apple, Dixie Chicks, FKA Twigs, Chance the Rapper, Kendrick Lamar, Dashboard Confessional, um, so many. Catch my spotify here. 

favorite artist: ok yeah I put solo artists up above so uhhh... I’m bad at remembering visual artists. Here’s my tattoo artist!! 

favorite tumblr artist: @gettzi <3

song stuck in your head: ok I’m so mad but it’s “It Wasn’t Me”

last movie you watched: 2005 P&P. It’s my favorite version, I’ll fight you. 

last show you watched: Gossip Girl, sorrynotsorry

why did you make your blog: This is the first blog I made when I joined tumblr. I don’t remember why I joined tumblr. 

what do you post: I mean, you follow me. What do I post?? (memes and cute animals mostly)

last thing you googled: don’t remember tbh

ao3: newp

do you ever get asks: no but I’d like to! Feel free to come in my ask box with whatever :)

how did you get the idea for your url: This is my handle everywhere. It was a camp thing when I was a kid lol. Now it’s an identity thing. 

favorite food: so many.... good gelato, good pasta, like, really any dessert, OH WAIT - it’s actually the cheesecake my partner makes. that’s the goooood shit. 

last book you read: The last installment of the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy

top 3 fictional universes: The Good Place, Harry Potter, John Wick tbh Tagging forward: @fynneyseas @pongpalace @dinosaurswearingdior @bubblegum-blue and anyone else who wants to! I love learning more about my followers :)

#tagging games #thanks for the tag!!

[junker-town]

Who do you want to join J. Lo and Shakira at the Super Bowl halftime show?

Photo credit should read KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images

The Super Bowl halftime show in Miami will include yet-to-be-named guest performers, and we have some suggestions.

Jennifer Lopez and Shakira will be performing the Super Bowl LIV halftime show, and it’ll probably wind up being better than, well, most Super Bowl halftime shows. Not only are they two absolute bosses, but Lopez is having a major career resurgence at age 50.

Even though they really don’t need anybody else to spice up the performance, there will be guests. Adam Schefter confirmed as much, and some of them will likely be leaked before Super Bowl Sunday.

Rather than tell you all the reasons Lopez and Shakira teaming up is the ballerest (it’s a word, don’t argue) choice for the halftime show in a long time, we’re going to offer suggestions for who should be a guest performer on Feb. 2 in Miami.

It’s time Fiona Apple and J.Lo met already

Fiona Apple is back in the public eye, after giving a rare interview to Vulture. The reclusive pop star spends most of her time at home, working on music and generally being a shut-in. As a shut-in myself with similar mental illnesses to Apple, that speaks to me on another level. But there’s more here than just Apple being back.

She’s working on a new album, due out next year (if possible), and among the things she discussed in her interview with Vulture was ... Jennifer Lopez! More specifically, Apple talked about a scene from Hustlers in which Lopez pole-dances to Apple’s 1996 hit “Criminal.” While Apple hasn’t seen the movie, she was effusive in praise for Lopez’s ability to break it down.

“Listen, I just want to say: I would give my song to Jennifer Lopez to dance to for free, any day, any time,” Apple said. “I really want to see the movie. If I were a person who actually left my house, I’d go.”

Finally, she also had quite a few things to say about Lopez’s butt. No, really. You should read the interview to get that. Apple claims she and Lopez have never met. What better way to remedy that after all these years than being a badass at the halftime show!? — James Brady

Miami natives Pitbull and DJ Khaled, and “Miami” singer Will Smith need to be there

In a haze of post-Super Bowl 53 ennui, I made a few early predictions about the 2019 season. Seven months later, most of them have aged poorly. I chose Andrew Luck as this year’s MVP, picked a six-win (LOL) Dolphins team to beat the Patriots, and thought the Steelers would keep Antonio Brown around. Eeesh.

BUT, I did nail one of them. Well, sorta. I guessed that J. Lo would make her long-awaited Super Bowl halftime debut, alongside special guests Will Smith, Pitbull, and DJ Khaled.

Let’s make it happen. Lopez has collaborated with the latter two, who are from Miami. It’d be a missed opportunity, though, if the halftime show didn’t throw it back to the heyday of TRL by putting Will Smith and J. Lo on the stage together — and let Big Willie Style welcome us to Miami. — Sarah Hardy

Wyclef Jean for one specific purpose

Shakira is definitely going to perform “Hips Don’t Lie” in some fashion, so we need Wyclef Jean on stage not to do his verse in the song or anything, just to yell “Shakira! Shakira!” in his Haitian accent as he does in the studio version of the song. The song is not the song without that.

I’m screaming into the void on this one, but bringing in Alejandro Sanz to perform “La Tortura” would make for my favorite Super Bowl halftime moment since Left Shark. — Tom Ziller

The Lonely Island feat. T-Pain, for the boats

It’s Miami. There is water. There are boats. People should be on them. Enough said. — Alex McDaniel

Rick Ross, because he’s Rick Ross

OK, I realize that local guys DJ Khaled and Pitbull are more commercially known than Ricky Rozay, but if Atlanta can incorporate Big Boi in its halftime show, Miami can put Rick Ross out there, dammit. — Morgan Moriarty

Guy Fieri could add some ... flavor

Yeah, I don’t know. Flame shirts, spiky bleach blonde hair, and a pair of Oakleys just seems quintessentially Miami, even if he’s not actually from there. Give me Guy Fieri out there dancing with J.Lo and Shakira, and it’d be great. — Adam Stites

It’s not Miami if Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine aren’t there

If we’re really going to go full Miami here, which we should, then Estefan has to be on the bill. You want to try and tell me that a halftime show isn’t going to include “Conga” and “Rhythm is gonna get you”? Nah, that’s not a halftime show for me. Seriously. Open up your preferred streaming app, listen to Conga, and tell me it would not be perfect. — Whitney Medworth

There’s no “I’m Real” without Ja Rule

If J. Lo is taking the stage, it’s a safe bet she’s coming armed with her 2001 mega-hit “I’m Real,” a song that features a verse from Tupac cosplay rapper Ja Rule. Rule was one of the most successful pop-rappers of the early aughts, but it’s possible he’s never been more relevant than he is right now. That’s because everyone loves a good grift, and Ja Rule was involved in the most infamous one of this moment in time.

We need Ja Rule involved in the Super Bowl because “I’m Real” isn’t the same without him. We also need Ja Rule in the Super Bowl because The Big Game could always use some scammer potential. — Ricky O’Donnell

Forget about Left Shark, it’s time for Baby Shark

Listen. No, really — LISTEN. The NFL is losing viewers. Sports in general have struggled to get people in seats watching their games, but the NFL has especially seen a decline over the years. Sure, 2019 has had a bit of a resurgence, but who knows if that is going to last.

What the NFL needs is new fans. New viewers. A YOUNGER audience.

So let’s bring in Pinkfong to wow the world with some “Baby Shark.” (Yes, I know it didn’t originate with them, but the version “Kleiner Hai” by Alemuel is kind of 8mm horror movie, and Johnny Only’s “Baby Shark song” is very, well, Canadian — not that Canadian is a bad thing, but it’s not so great in this very specific instance.)

So let’s bring in Pinkfong, pack children in front of the television, and let the entire country sing along to one of the most popular, albeit nauseating, songs to ever be recorded (at this writing, the YouTube video had 3,515,787,292 views).

New fans, NFL. Think about it. And just imagine what Shakira and Jennifer Lopez can do if they get a chance to collaborate on a new version of “Baby Shark” — it could be downright epic. Or, you know, just extra annoying. But we’ll never know if we don’t try. — Sam Eggleston

[hawkingbishop]

Tagged by the fabulous @gelflinggrrrl

Rules: Answer thirty questions, then tag twenty blogs you would like to know better.

1. Nicknames? Becks, Becca, Becca-Boo, Beckster, and maybe more I can’t remember? 2. Gender? Transfeminine genderqueer. She/they pronouns. 3. Star sign? Aquarius 4. Height? 5'11" 5. Time? 3:02am. (Just woke up after falling asleep trying to post something at like maybe 11? I need to go back to sleep but don’t know if I’ll be able to. Same thing happened last night and I stayed up…) 6. Birthday? January 29, 1986 7. Favorite bands? I have way too many, but I’ll list a few: Motion City Soundtrack, CHVRCHES, Saves the Day, Death Cab for Cutie, The New Amsterdams, Murder by Death, Tegan and Sara, Metric, Stars, Against Me!, Daughter, Bright Eyes, Lemon Jelly, Ratatat, Two Tongues, Sorority Noise, Girlpool, Rilo Kiley, Grouplove, A Great Big Pile Of Leaves, and a shitton more. 8. Favorite solo artists? Jenny Owen Youngs, Rocky Votolato, Matt Pond, Shura, Lorde, Kesha, Owen, Fiona Apple, Lights, Dustin Kensrue, Haley Kiyoko, adult mom, Into It. Over It., Laura Stevenson, and a shitton more. 9. Song stuck in my head? Laura Stevenson - Jellyfish. 10. Last movie watched? Atomic Blonde. 11. Last show watched? The Sinner. 12. When did I create my blog? I think this one was in 2014? But I’ve had a tumblr since 2010. 13. What do I post? Everything? Mostly wlw. A bunch of good music. Pathetic personal posts. Memes. Art. And a shitton more… 14. Last thing I googled? “chiles hiurs manchester ct” 15. Do you have other blogs? Oh soooo many. Most are unused though. I use three pretty regularly. 16. Do you get asks? Not like I used to on my other blog? I think I got more there. But more people were following me there, so I guess it makes sense? 17. Why did you choose your url? Dreadnought is A FANTASTIC BOOK about a trans girl who becomes a superhero. 18. Following? 692 19. Followers? 432 20. Favorite colours? Pastel pink and blue. 21. Average hours of sleep? Four or five? 22. Lucky number? It’s not lucky? But I love it. 343. It’s a palindrome. 7^3=343. (3+4)^3=343. 23. Instruments? Guitar (acoustic is my fave), bass, keyboard (only one handed and not very well). 24. What am I wearing? Pink tank, navy blue sweats, undies, and socks. Oh and my new cute glasses. 25. How many blankets I sleep with? 2. Right now it’s two sheets but I usually sleep with a sheet and a comforter. 26. Dream job?
Filmmaker, definitely. Especially someone who curated the soundtracks to films. 27. Dream trip?
Anywhere?? Like just get me out of here! I guess NY, Cali, Canada, UK, Australia. 28. Favorite food? Omelet maybe? 29. Nationality? I live in the US. 30. Favorite song now? Laura Stevenson - Jellyfish.

@lenacorp @tealesbian @smol-princely-tree @confessionsofatvholic @honeyhale @queerbatgirl @lis-and-chill @uncommonrarity2point0 @elizabethhawkes and just anybody else who wants to do it.

#ask game #ask game answers #about me