#even break up pop songs are so fucking soulless these days
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Y'all I Can Not
#gay teenage boy roommate is going through break up ok guy was an ass whatever#he starts playing music real loud but lets it autoplay like. mall music#i ask if i can play fall out boy. he says he only knows one of their songs#he puts on we didn't start the fire. i have specifically avoided this. i feel my brain drain out my ears. god its so bad#the fucking emotional whiplash of coming home from the barbie movie to this. is something#ive never been more motivated to clean my room but its too am im too tired and high to move#i want to be there for him but like. i need to sleep. and deal with this bullshit tomorrow. and listen to something else#he's played other stuff since but im literally like. no wonder you don't know what to do with your feelings kid.#even break up pop songs are so fucking soulless these days#prsnl#sorry i just can't
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Out from the cold (Llewyn Davis x reader)
Summary: Llewyn (precious baby) needs your comfort, and oddly, looking after him comforts you too. Fluff but a lil angst to get to the comfort.
Author’s note: I’m doing soft blurbs bc you all deserve a hug from one of our fave fictional husbands. Let’s all destress and be comforted one blurb at a time, okay? (Dunno how many I can do but gonna try and blitz a few requests out tonight. I’m doing these quickly so they’ll be a bit scrappy, please forgive!) ALSO THIS IS EXCITING I’VE NEVER WRITTEN LLEWYN BEFORE AND I’M KINDA HAPPY WITH IT! LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK? (I love this movie so much, one of my all-time favourites, and one of my fave Oscar performances.)
Warnings: just Llewyn swearing, as per. Alcohol and cigs. No drunkeness. Mentions of homeessness / couch-surfing. Mention of abortion.
GIF by @digginmovies
It’s late when he shows up at your door. Or rather, it’s late when you find him in your hallway. You don’t know how long he’s been standing there, because he didn’t even knock. Perhaps he was too afraid to, but by the time you eventually stopped pacing your floorboards and threw a scarf around you, you’d come to fear the worst; that he’d been beaten and left in a gutter or some doorway, or perhpas that he was just stubbornly wandering the streets, preferring to freeze to death rather than “bother” you. Or worse than that... perhaps he’d finally struck lucky and you’d never see him again. Now that he no longer needed your couch, maybe he no longer needed you.
Anyway, all of your fears were entirely unfounded, and it was a shock to find him there, leaning up against the wall. The shortest missing person recovery mission ever known.
“Llewyn?” you question, sighing in frustration and unwrapping your suddenly suffocating red scarf.
His whole body is an apology as he turns his head towards you. Eyes apologetic. Shoulders apologetic. That sorry cord jacket is very, very sorry indeed. Hell, even his curls slump over his forehead in a despondent way, as if they’ve given up too.
This precious man. Why doesn’t he know how special he is? Why does he always dwell in the shadows, rather than allowing himself to be welcomed into this warm, light-bathed apartment of yours. Why doesn’t he realise that he is a light himself, and not a burden? That his presence alone can furnish and illuminate any room. Can compel audiences and, certainly, can move you to train your eyes on him as if he is a star under a perpetual spotlight.
Well, you suppose you should just be thankful that he’s here at all, because he always seems an instant away from slipping into shadow and never coming out again. You are thankful. You are always thankful to find him on your doorstep.
“How did it go?” you ask him, and Llewyn pushes himself up from the wall, despondently shaking his head. He stuffs his hands into his pockets and simply stands there as if forgetting any purpose which might cause him to move. You have to shuffle forwards yourself to give him the hug you feel he so desperately needs, even if he doesn’t know he deserves it. You wrap you arms around him, and it’s a little awkward, and he’s stiff, and he feels of wool and cord beneath your fingertips. Smells of frost and cigarette smoke, and like he hasn’t managed to run his clothes through the laundry in a few days. You make a note to do that for him, if you can coax him into a warm bath later.
“Can I please stay with you?” Llewyn asks in a small voice.
You don’t let go of him, willing him to soften against you.
“Llewyn, you dont have to ask me that, you live here.” You say it like it’s obvious, yet this simple fact is something you are endlessly trying to convince him of.
“I sleep on your couch, because I have no fucking money. Because I’m a piece of shit musician who can’t book a gig except for the Gaslight. And that’s only because I knocked-up a chick who gets me a slot out of pity some nights because she aborted my baby.”
“Llewyn!” you say, heartbroken and disbelieving that he could talk about himself in such a way, and looking, in your shock, like you might come for a piece of him too for thinking so little of himself. But, the world keeps kicking this poor man when he’s down, and he’s running out of energy to keep getting back up, so there’s something in you which can’t blame him.
“I’m just tired. I’m just so fuckin’ tired.”
You bring your hands to the sides of his face, that thick, soft beard under your fingertips.
“Llewyn,” you say softly, searching his melancholy eyes. You want to tell him how talented he is, how important. How special, like you have a hundred times before, but he won’t beleive you. Never does. So, instead, you try something you never have before. At least, not while sober. You dip forward and press a chaste kiss to his lips.
You pull away before his lips have time to react, though even if you had lingered, you’re not sure he would have. You swear that man is so touch-starved that he can no longer recognise affection. That he can no longer remember how to move his lips against another’s. You swear he’s too down on himself that he doesn’t remember how to respond to being wanted.
“Come inside. Your lips are like ice,” you say, and it’s true. You only wish you could thaw him.
Llewyn picks up his guitar case and finally follows you inside, taking his familiar spot on the couch and folding his arms around himself, not even taking off his scarf or jacket. Sometimes you worry that his chill goes all the way down to his bones. Just incase it can help with that, you make him some warm tea and wordlessly pass the mug to him.
“Thank you,” he says earnestly, leaning forward in his seat as you sit at the other end of the couch from him, watching him gripping the warm beverage in his fingerless gloves like he’s never known a warm touch like it.
You sit quietly next to him and allow him to thaw a little, watching the steam rising from the mug as he takes careful sips. It has begun to lash with rain outside, the percussive sound and howl of wind muffled against the window pane, and pleasantly soothing. At least, it sounds soothing to you; Llewyn probably thinks it’s that dark cloud following him around again.
“Have you eaten?”
“Waffles. Had some Gaslight money left,” he says in monotone, staring intently at a particular spot on your hardwood floor. He didn’t make nutritionally sound choices, it seems, but at least he’s had something.
“Good,” you nod. “And do you want to talk about the audition?”
“Nope,” Llewyn responds dejectedly, popping the “p” emphatically.
When he’s drained the cup he sets it down, eventually unwinding his scarf from around his neck and shuffling off his gloves and jacket. Without all his layers he looks a little like a lost baby bird without its nest, or like a winter tree without it’s covering of leaves.
You take a risk in an attempt to perk him up and head towards the vinyl player, dropping the needle on a record you know he likes. And then, you reseat yourself on the couch, a little closer to him this time.
Llewyn finally turns to you, elbows resting on his thighs, looking just a little less morose. “Got any wine? And cigarettes?”
Now, that you could do.
You oblige him, and before long you are sipping on a glass of red, and you let Llewyn rant freely about the audition he doesn’t want to talk about at his leisure, a cigarette bobbing in-between his lips as he talks, smoke wafting around his face and his hair like the ghost of his own curls. You let him rant about the cookie-cutter, soulless, talentless musicians who make it, and the blood-sucking label execs, and the tasteless consumers, and the whole damn thing, until his shoulders look a little less heavy. A little less apologetic. Until he forgets himself and picks up his guitar and begins to mindlessly pluck and strum away.
He starts to sing under his breath, because he can’t help but sing. Because it comes naturally to him, and suddenly he is the only light in your living room. He is under his own super trouper, against the backdrop of the rainy window pane. Light shining against melancholy.
As lovely as he is to look at, with the way his left cheek tugs up with his words and his brow creases with feeling, you close your eyes as his voice filters through into your bones, making you warm from within.
“I love it when you sing,” you say sincerely, and you don’t know it, but your simple, honest words are music to Llewyn’s ears. Those words are something he hears startingly seldom for a man with a talent like his.
Your eyes are still closed when you hear the chaotic thrum of strings as Llewyn sets the guitar down. Your eyes are still closed as Llewyn kneels before you and slides his hands along your thighs, palms down. Your eyes open just before he dips his head and presses a chaste, smoky kiss to your lips.
Your lips do not react. If Llewyn was too touch-starved to kiss you back earlier, you suppose you are too surprised that he might want you back. You want to kiss him, and apparently he wants to kiss you, but you are singing different bars of the same song. Your timing is all off. So, your lips do not meld with his, no matter how long you’ve waited for this. Wanted it. This time too, his mouth was even warm against yours. His hands warm against you. Thawing.
You smile at him, softly. Catiously. As if you might scare him off. As if he is a wild animal who has dropped to his knees for you.
Instead, he remains as you bring your hands back to either side of his face, and lose yourself in his dark, turbulent stare. It is you who suddenly feels catious, as if he is a storm which might swallow you. Might paint you in licks of grey if you don’t first heal his pain. His eyes are raw. Broken apart, and his beautiful soul so exposed beneath them. No wonder he is so guarded. Feels so vulnerable. His heart is so open and so wounded beneath the expletives and the apathy and the lucklessness, isn’t it? It would be so easy to break, like a lost bird far from its nest.
But this time, he stays. Llewyn simply looks right back into your eyes, for once. And when he undoubtedly notices your evident desire there, all he does is question why you are looking at him at all.
“Why do you want me?” he asks you, plainly, shaking his head softly. He doesn’t say more, but you swear you could guess his thought. You could have any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Or a Chad. Some rich, muscly dude with a centre part and a Corvette. I’m nothing. Nobody.
Your mouth forms a bashful, thin line, and you shrug your shoulders, placing your hands over his palms. You desperately want to show him he is somebody.
“I dunno. Why do you sing, Llewyn? Why do birds make music? I just do. I want you. My soul tells me I should, and I listen.”
He looks sad. So sad, So tired, and so you do the only thing your soul tells you to in this moment. You comfort him. You reach up and tangle your fingers into that mess of crotchet black curls on his head. You stroke him and soothe him, and he gives in to you, burying his head in your lap and letting you touch him. Letting you smooth your hands and your fingers and thumbs over his hair, his neck, his back, his shoulders. He wraps his arms around your lower legs and curls around them, still sat at your feet like a stray who refuses to be a house cat, despite how many times you try to coax him in from out of the cold.
“Llewyn, come lie with me a while?” you ask gently, and he looks up at you, unsure. Still, he clambers up from his position and is about to recline on the sofa when you grab his hand. “No, Llewyn. Come lie with me in my bed?”
He gulps, as if you might eat him alive, but he follows as you guide him as if it might be a relief to climb into your jaws anyway, and you lead him by the hand along the hallway and into your room.
He watches you with hesitant fascination as you shrug off your layers, down to your underwear. Then, he follows suit, letting his worn trousers and white t-shirt pool on to the floor at his feet, until he’s standing in only his patterned boxers.
You climb under the covers, shivering at the autumn chill in the room, and you hold the tented covers open for Llewyn to climb in after you.
“Y-You want me to... W-what do you wanna do?”
“Nothing you don’t want to, darling. But if you’ll let me, I just want to hold you.”
He hesitates, but he’s cold, and so, so alone, and he’s so tired of never having anything he wants. So tired that he’s willing to forget, just this once, that he can’t give you what you deserve. Or at least to stop consciously reminding himself of it.
He slots his soft, slim body under the covers, and you let the blanket fall over him. Then, you lie on your back and pull him on top of you, until his body covers yours and his head nestles on the cushion of your breasts.
It is quiet enough in the room that you hear him gulp again, but he doesn’t bolt. Once he’s settled, your wrap him in your arms, your fingers twining in his hair, carding through those thick, tangled curls. Your hands smooth up and down his back, until he is humming softly, his face entirely buried in your chest. “Sweet man,” you soothe, and listen to the sound of the rain outside, and the background noise of the record player filtering through. “I know it’s not much, but I love it when you sing. I wish I could give you riches for it, and record deals. But all I have to give in return is a little piece of my heart, and you steal a piece of it every time I hear your voice,” you whisper gently.
Llewyn is silent, and you wonder if you might have scared him off, but he seems quite content exactly where he is. You wish he would stay, but you know he has a cycle of houses, like a traitourous street cat with nowhere he feels deserving to call home.
For now though, he is here, and you begin to sing gently along to the song filtering through from the living room. It’s one of your favourites. One which Llewyn has sung for you many times before.
You look down at the side of his face, his eyes closed, his eyelashes fanned on his cheek, and his beard twitching as his full lips tug up into a faint smile. Finally.
“You have a pretty voice, dove,” he says, and your heart clenches at the pet name. At the fact you have finally found a way to make him happy. You should have realised it would be music.
“No, Llewyn. It’s nothing compared to you.”
“I dunno. You probably have more chance of making it than I do. Maybe you should have gone today instead.” You worry that he has been tugged back into a slump, but you see he is still smiling, and you recognise the humour in his tone, self-deprecating though it is.
By the next chorus, Llewyn begins to softly sing along too, and your heart flutters as his voice vibrates against your bosom.
You tug in a deep, happy breath, and exhale spring into the autumn room.
Llewyn props himself on to his elbows and shuffles up the bed, until his face is level with your own.
You regard him catiously, feeling suddenly as flighty as he usually is.
“What do you want to do?” you ask him, as his lips hover close to yours.
“Nothin’ you don’t want to,” he says, mirroring your words from moments ago.
This time, when your lips meet, softly, neither of you are surprised. This time, your mouths are both warm and moving together, like you sing the words to a shared song, both melding in time.
As Llewyn curls around your body and snuggles into you for warmth, you hope you can get him to stay. You hope you’ve showed him he doesn’t need to wander in the cold any longer.
He has your heart after all, and you need him to bring it indoors; out from the cold.
#llewyn x reader#llewyn davis x reader#inside llewyn davis#inside llewyn davis fanfiction#llewyn davis fic#llewyn angst#llewyn fluff#coen brothers#oscar isaac
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How about 3, 8, 9, 19, 24? Thanks!!
Oof that's a lot 😂 Thanks nonnie ❤️
3. Favorite angel
Cas. I did like some of the shorter lived angels, I enjoyed both Balthazar and Gabriel (in his original run) a lot and I like Anna, but s4-7 Cas is my favorite. He was the perfect mix between the hard asshole Uriel and the very human, rebelling Anna. I love the gravitas he had and I love his one-liners when he didn't get the pop culture. I love to watch his slow descent into rebellion and coming into his own. I love the s6 development. While I will be forever salty that the writers sacrificed a great villain like Eve (there was so much unexplored there) to the Crowley/Cas/Leviathan drama, I thought the whole theme road to hell is paved with good intentions was a story arc that made sense. And I like the resolution ep from Cas pov. When he died, I was sad to lose his character, but I felt the ending was real and earned. I didn't mind too much when he came back at first because I even still like mad Cas after he took the trauma from Sam's wall breaking. After that… The writers were just all over the place with Cas. His abilities depended on plot demands and they never managed to write enough other angels compelling enough that I cared about heaven's drama. I liked the bit with Hannah, but I wasn't invested enough in angel drama. I thought the whole be Jack's dad thing had potential, but I felt the exploration of Jack and how he was raised fell victim to the plot. There wasn't enough time to do it right because they insisted on the whole soulless drama for Jack and had other ridiculous storylines (the whole Nick thing. Shoot me now).
I still love Cas as a character, I didn't even mind when they gave him popculture knowledge because even though he had all the knowledge it was clear from his references (agent Beyoncé anyone?) that he still didn't understand. Is it realistic that he wouldn't? Maybe. He's millenias old, it's hard to change then I guess.
I'm excited to meet him again when I do my rewatch and enjoy his early seasons.
8.If you could write yourself into one episode, would you? What episode?
Oh, idk the death rate on supernatural is so high…. And everyone who shows up either has a horrific experience, loses a loved one, or dies. The only safe bet seems to be one of Dean's casual bar hookups 😂 (Sam seems to have a better run recently, but Sam's peen of death is a thing and I'd rather not die even if I get to sleep with Sam). Oh, maybe a bartender? Have a little chat with the guys, then safely watch them walk away? Don't get me wrong, I love the show, but I don't want to be in it 😂
9. What supernatural being would you be?
Hm. Vampire? I am fairly nocturnal. But I'm a lover not a fighter, so ghoul? I feel like a ghoul a lot these days, the grave robbing kind, not the fresh meat kind anyway 😂
19. Favorite brothers scene?
The barn scene. THE BARN SCENE THE FUCKING BARN SCENE OMG WHY WOULD YOU ASK ME THIS I AM CRYING AGAIN JUST THINKING ABOUT WRITING ABOUT IT THE FUCKING BARN SCENE BARN SCENE BARN SCENE BARN-
You know, it's really hard to pin down, I think, there's so much good stuff over the years. Everything in Faith, probably, but mostly Dean's I'm dying and there's nothing you can do and Sam's very stubborn watch me.
AHBL 2 Sam dying in Dean's arms.
There's one in s3 but I can't remember the ep, but the one where Sam fights for Dean to want to live. I want you to be my brother again. Just because.
S4 finale, their reunion, killing Ruby and the way they clutch each other's jackets when Lucifer rises.
Swan Song. SWAN SONG. THEIR LOVE LITERALLY SAVED THE WORLD OMG. Lucifer beats up Dean and the reflection in Baby is such a violent reminder for Sam of Dean and Home and Lucifer gets caught in it, gets caught in the memories, the feelings, the love and he cannot handle it because he has never felt a love so strong, so deep, so all-encompassing and it stuns him and throws him off enough for Sam to break free, Sam who's armed with a lifetime of memories of home and love and Dean, riding shotgun with his brother, and it makes him strong enough to fight lucifer and strong enough to jump and my heart broke into so many pieces.
SACRIFICE. Don't you dare think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you! It has never been like that, ever! I need you to see that. I mean, they practically got married in that church. They damned the world to an eternity of demonic existence so they could be together. Shoot that sweet, sweet, fucked up codependency straight into my veins.
There are more moments, later, but I haven't rewatched the last seasons enough to quote them (do not ask about the barn scene), so this will have to do.
24. I'd tell them that they're heroes, even on their worst days. That they made a difference. That they mean something, to so many people. That they'll leave a legacy, in their world and in ours. That they'll never be forgotten.
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15x13: Destiny’s Child
Welcome to our last new recap for a while (frowny face). We’ve got a couple requests that we’re going to work on in the next couple weeks, and then chip away at all the episodes we have yet to do while we not-so-patiently wait for more episodes. If you have requests, don’t hesitate to ask!
Then:
Cas loves one (1) pizza man.
Now:
Late night study sesh in the bunker is interrupted when Sam and Dean hear a weird noise down the hall. They take off for the armory, only to find a Fiat and ---SAM AND DEAN?! (And while I guess it’s not, I’m just rolling with the idea that Savage Garden is blasting from that little clown car. I mean, really, what a perfect song and one I never thought would EVER pop up on this show --okay, or any show, it’s been like 20 years since I’ve heard that song, lol.)
The rift flickers and Alt!Sam and Dean disappear.
They tell Cas about what happened. Billie pops up to tell them that Chuck is almost done destroying all the other worlds. They have to be ready --and by that, she means, it’s time for the next step in Jack’s training. He needs to find the Occultum. Sam helpfully translates that as “hidden.” It is hidden --lost for centuries.
Once Billie takes off, Sam sets to learning more about the Occultum. There isn’t much. Dean ponders the futility of killing God. Doesn’t Jack need to kill Amara too? Cas gets a lead on the Occultum from Sergei. Dean and Cas flirt unnecessarily. Cas is so patient with all of Dean’s ideas, I can’t help but think that this is a common thing with these two.
Anyway, the Occultum was owned by the Jacobson family for a long time, until they used it as payment to heal their son. The healer was “attractive, and she healed the child by laying on hands which glowed.” I don’t know if there’s been an unattractive person in this universe, so good luck finding the healer!
Lol, j/k, there’s only one angel healer that’s attractive out there! Sam and Dean find Anael and want her help with killing God. She thinks it’s wiser to stay on the side of the all-powerful being. When the brothers flash their angel blades (eerrr…), Anael confesses that the Occultum is really with Ruby. (I was one of the many rage viewers with this, but well, we’ve been rage watching these writers for so long, and we’ve had to handwave SO much over the years. What’s another plot point that we can easily headcanon at this point? Sigh.)
We get a flashback of Ruby and Anael negotiating the sale of the Occultum. Anael then tells them that the Occultum was never actually sold because they ganked Ruby before she could do anything with it. It’s now safely hidden in Hell.
Jack, meanwhile, is busy getting back to life.
Cas finds him in the kitchen eating EVERYTHING. Jack notes that coming back alive really makes you pay attention to what life is. “Hot, cold, sweet, spicy, funny, scary.” (Kind of like Sam when he was soulless, Jack is describing sensations, and not feelings, emotions, not really getting at what life really is.) They talk about Jack’s soul and what he felt when he had one.
Jack admits that he understands that he hurt Sam and Dean, and wonders if Dean will ever forgive him for what he did to Mary. “Dean, he feels things, more acutely than any human I’ve ever known. So, it’s possible he could work through this. One day, he may explode, and let it all out, and breathe deeply and move on.”
Okayokayokayokay. Jack wants to know how long that’ll take and Cas admits that he doesn’t know, and I’M FEELING about how this ageless, ancient being is just WAITING for Dean to do this very thing. He has all the time in the world from his perspective. He knows Dean --really knows him, and it doesn’t matter how long for him because time doesn’t really matter for Cas (I mean, I think being close to humanity and all it probably means more than it used to but...I’m just rambling about my feelings right now. This is Boris --Natasha is far more coherent and eloquent with her thoughts, lol.)
The brothers make it back to the bunker, planning on heading to Hell. Cas leads them to a room where Alt!Sam and Dean are stuck between the worlds. Dean doesn’t care at this moment --he wants to get the Occultum. They tell Cas their plan and he thinks they’re crazy. They could be searching forever down there. (UH, they’re LITERALLY BFFs with the Queen of Hell.)
Anyway, Dean and Sam head south while Cas babysits the spell.
Cas still doesn’t like this plan and hatches a plan with Jack so he can talk with Ruby in the Empty.
(I know, you just have to roll with Buckleming episodes, etc., but their insistence on making it beyond easy to jump from realm to realm is MADDENING.)
We get a mention of Cas’s deal with the Empty, so that really is still a thing. Cas is “far from happy”, so we’re good!
His plan is for Jack to “draw out most of [his] lifeforce” and store it in a flask. What’s his “lifeforce”? His grace? Something more? Something else? How does he die without his grace? How is he just mostly dead but still able to go to the Empty?
We’re also giving this exchange: “If I screw up?” “Well, then I’ll be lost forever.” WHOA. What kind of fucked up parenting are you writing, Buckleming? Good thing Jack doesn’t have a soul, because that’ll mess with a child forever.
Also, why can Jack use his powers now?
Sam and Dean are ambushed in Hell. Anael wanted them dead apparently and made a deal with some demons (ONCE AGAIN, like Rowena would allow this to happen!?!??) They’re Sam and Dean Winchester though and easily dispatch the demons.
Cas stalks through the Empty calling for Ruby. “Hello, Clarence,” a familiar voice says and Cas turns to find Meg reclining on a throne. He looks sweetly surprised to see her before his face falls as he realizes she’s the Shadow from the Empty.
The Shadow may be allied with Billie, but they’re definitely not good buds with Cas. Nevertheless, “Go get her, pizza man,” Shadow!Meg says and a ball of flame swirls towards Cas and turns into Ruby.
Cas asks about the Occultum, and Ruby asks after Sam. Cas refuses to answer and, since I’ve been stress re-reading some regency romances lately, I’m gonna go ahead and say he acts like an affronted chaperone.
For Gratuitous Cas Science:
We see another flashback of Ruby and Sister Jo’s wild adventures, only this time Jo is the one who invited Ruby to talk to her. Jo tries to tempt Ruby into hiding from the apocalypse in the Occultum. It turns out it’s a place AND a thing. A whatever, if you will. Ruby cut a deal with Jo, hid the object, and then died her noble death.
Ruby promises to help Cas as long as he can get her out of the Empty. You see, instead of lullabies and sweet dreams, or even quiet and no dreams, the Empty is nothing but endless reels of regrets playing over and over for every angel and demon trapped there. “Yeah, I know,” Cas says quietly and we all break a little bit thinking about how he swore it was nothingness instead of constant emotional torture. (That’s SO on brand.) Cas promises to try to free Ruby in exchange for her intel.
The Winchesters return to find Jack babysitting the spell alongside a MOSTLY DEAD Cas. Despite Jack’s (actually really terrible) explanation, Dean and Sam demand that Jack bring Cas back right away. Jack unscrews the flask.
Cas isn’t getting out of this so easily, though. The Shadow smirks and clenches Shadow!Meg’s fist, sending Cas to the ground in pain. The Shadow still is no fan of Cas, and is only willing to uphold deals with Billie, who promised to send the Shadow back to a lovely snooze if they cooperate.
The Shadow ruminates on the fact that Billie has never mentioned Cas as being essential to her plan. This makes Cas expendable.
Cas sputters to life suddenly, only to face Dean’s angry-worried greeting. “You’re an idiot, by the way!” Apparently still in pain or just suffering from almost-not-quite-dead-and-now-actually-quite-alive syndrome, Cas hauls himself up slowly and explains that he now has all the info they need to find the Occultum. “Am I still an idiot?” Listen, boys. Kiss and make up, mmkay?
They’re off to tackle the Occultum quest, but before they go they need to set out some decoys to throw Chuck off their scent if he tries to spy on the bunker. Dean suggests pulling AU Dean and Sam out of the void and setting them up as fake Sam and Dean. He flippantly suggests using Cas’s grace to power the rift this time and FOR THE LOVE OF PIZZA DEAN it’s called body autonomy.
Cut to the Winchesters Set One and Set Two seated at the map table with beers all around. We learn:
Alt Winchesters are also hunters
Their dad is alive (but still SUPER controlling)
They don’t drink beer or watch porn
Private planes fly them all over the world to fight monsters
Their AU could be a middling CW pilot about wealthy monster hunters called “Hunter Corp”
I have a greater appreciation of our flannel-clad boys
Dean and Sam clumsily explain their ploy and their relationship with God and it’s not weird at all!
Later, Team Free Will 2.0 heads to a small church. It’s guarded by a hellhound, which makes Dean SUPER happy and comfortable in his skin. They break into the church and look for clues about where the treasure is hiding. The clue is that the top of a cross points to the treasure. Moonlight streams conveniently through the window and at JUST the right angle to cast a cross of light on the floor. They pull out a little velvet bag from the floorboards.
Cas reads Enochian on the little golden snitch-style ball. “In order to be in the Occultum, the Occultum must be in you.”
Back at the bunker, Alt!Dean and Sam enjoy their new rugged life. Sam watches kitten videos, and we continue to identify very strongly with him, indeed. Alt!Dean finds porn on Dean’s computer and I continue to ask WHY WHY we have to constantly cycle back to Busty Asian Beauties. Porn isn’t objectionable, but that SPECIFIC porn franchise should have died a swift death back in season two. (Boris: AMEN)
Jack swallows the Occultum, as one does. “Spit it out,” Dean demands. But Jack disappears into a flare of light. He wakes up in a garden.
No, he wakes up in THE Garden. He’s greeted by a young girl who tells him that humans are prohibited. A snake confronts Jack. “Who are you really? Who are you meant to be?” Jack flashes through his good and bad memories and suffers an epiphany.
He flutters back into the church like Tinkerbell in a ball of light before zapping back into reality. His reappearance burns away the two hellhounds.
Back at the bunker, Dean sends the Alt Winchesters off to Brazil to enjoy the beach. He’s a little uncomfortable around them until he learns that the Alt Winchesters drove Baby. Then they get shoved out of the bunker just as fast as you please.
Once they’re gone, Cas tells Sam and Dean that Jack has returned changed. He leads them to Jack who hunches over the kitchen table. Jack is crying. He apologizes for killing Mary. He has his soul back!
“Please forgive me,” Jack whispers, and a symphonic line carries us into the black.
Overall Surprisingly Enjoyable Quotes:
The healthcare system sucks so I pick up the slack
Cas, you know what’s good about being dead?
I’m far from happy, so I should be fine
We had a good thing until he killed me
You’re gonna have to lose the man bun
Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!
#spn recap#spn 15x13#destiny's child#dean winchester#sam winchester#castiel#cas#jack kline#anael#ruby#the shadow#meg masters#supernatural season 15
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reddie music & lyrics au anyone
- richie is a washed up musician, after his partner mike decides to leave music, breaking up their band "the losers"
- as much as richie can run his mouth, he can't write song lyrics (even if his melodies are breathtaking)
- stan, richie's manager (and best friend) has been getting him gigs at hotels, state fairs, knotts berry farm
- stan tells richie that adrian, one of the hottest, most popular pop stars, loves "the losers" and want richie to write a song for her
- following a recent break up, adrian reads a book called "way back into love" and gives richie three days to come up with a song
- sitting in his apartment banging his head on the piano, enter eddie, who is helping a friend (bev) by watering (drowning) the plants
- eddie hears him struggling and unintentionally starts helping him write lyrics, and purposely continues
- they are inseparable, walking around the city, writing music (falling in love)
- eddie rearranges richie's entire living room, "i can't write music a mile away from you" and drowns many plants in the process
- eddie opens up about his writing past, he was a student at columbia when he met bill denbrough, prodigy writer, teaching a class while working on his writing seminars phd
- bill takes interest in eddie and eddie falls hard, spending all his time with bill, until he realizes bill is engaged
- a year later, bill's new hit novel is released, "the truth about evelyn kates," telling the story of the soulless writer that seduces her professor to get published. he calls "evelyn" horrible things, things eddie's mother used to tell him, and the book haunts him so much he stops writing
- celebrating their song at dinner, richie and eddie run into bill, and while eddie has a panic attack and tries to flee, richie tells bill off, receiving a punch to the face
- they go back to richie's apartment and eddie nurses his brusing cheek. they sleep together that night
- while adrian loves the song, he wants to change the vibe to make it more hip hop, bollywood, and oversexualized. he also asks for one more verse
- richie agrees immediately, he needs this for his career
- eddie is much more opposed to the "orgasm set to the ghandi soundtrack"
- while trying to write a third verse, they fight when eddie can't find it in him to write
- in frustration, richie tells eddie that all the things bill said about him were true, "when you can't get your way, when things don't have some perfect fucking fairy tale ending, you can't handle it, you throw a fit!"
- eddie writes the third verse and sends it to adrian. "i need inspiration, not just another negotiation"
- bev drags eddie to the concert. richie walks on stage and eddie gets up to leave. he can't even look at him
- richie begins singing a song. that he wrote the lyrics to. by himself. about eddie
- "since ive met you, my whole life has changed. it's not just my furniture you've rearranged"
- "ive already blown more chances, than anyone should ever get. but all i'm asking you is don't write me of just yet"
- richie and adrian perform the song, as written originally
- eddie shoves his way backstage. richie runs off stage as song as the song is over. and everything is as it should be
this was longer than expected and very self indulgent
im an awful writer so if anyone wants to write this/convince me to suck it up and write
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To Fall for the Fae | 09 (M)
Pairing: Andrew Hozier-Byrne/Unknown Female
Genre: Fantasy, Modern, Romance, Smut, Fluff, Angst
Words: Chapter 9: 1,991
Summary: Andrew Hozier-Byrne unknowingly searches for the woman that pulled him from the bog 3,000 years ago. Unknown to either of them that in this modern world their souls are still intertwined from the life they shared long ago. She is unavailable, he’s not giving up. Will the woman that inspires his music be wooed by his songs or will he lose his chance? That’s Wasteland, Baby!
Note: A/N: This is a story requested by my best friend to be written about her favorite musician. I have been inspiried by his songs and specific lines. Any reference to his music is used in the name of inspiration and creating art. I do not own any of his music. Any reference to Hozier in this story is fictional and used by the author in the name of crafting art. I want to thank all who read it. I have fallen in love with writing this story and would love to hear from you. It will be written in installments. The finished story will be at the very least over 50,000 words. I’m getting to the smut, this story has a mind of it’s own. I’m going to stop putting language and sexual warnings for the most part. It’s rated M for a reason. Read at your own discretion. Enjoy loves.
To Fall for the Fae: Chapter 9
The funeral pyre grew. It seemed every time they came close to extinguishing the flame, there were more bodies to add to it. This fucked village remained in a standstill with the monsters in the woods as long as the Forest Father was there. ‘How long would he stay?’ was the question on everyone’s mind, as he trudged into the woods day in and day out. Often he came back out silent and covered in his own silver blood. The forest was not going to give him this win so easily, it seemed.
His arms and legs became a rainbow of stitches as Willow Woman made small dedicated Xs on each bite in every different color thread she had at her disposal. He had so many bites that they stopped counting. He’d come back from the woods, she’d sew him up, then they'd lie there wrapped in each other’s arms until night fell.
Still, the village spent every day walking on a wire. They could hear the monsters pacing at the very edge of the forest. Howling, they wanted to be released. They were hungry. Desperate for that silver blood. The Forest Father kept them at bay. They bid their time until he left. They could wait. Not patiently, but they could wait.
The Elder worried continuously. The lines in her face grew deeper and more pronounced as leaders from other villages began to bring their dead to what had become a communal funeral pyre in creaking wooden carts shiny with silver blood.
The sickly sweet smell, like rotting flowers, filled the village so often that Madison and Andrew had grown accustomed to it. As they stole among the buildings they would bring their shirts up over their nose and mouth to escape the choking smoke. At night that smell of death filled the cabin like morbid incense smoke.
He never asked for a different place to stay and no one dare off him one. Her cabin was his cabin. It was a silent agreement that all had come to terms with.
The Elder watched them grow closer and her heart ached. She was aware that she was using her daughter to keep the Forest Father anchored here in this village to protect them. The Elder however had no intention of letting her daughter become clanless. To be banned from the village, taken from her life. Not even for the Forest Father. Not even for love. Oh no, love took many a fool, but it wouldn’t take her daughter. She let them play their parts, knowing nothing about this relationship could remain permanent.
She would break their oh so sweet bubble when the time came that she needed to. Or when the Forest Father was finally successful at driving the beasts back deep into the forest where they belonged.
The beasts were like large dogs. Their fur patchy and snarled in dirty clumps. Their snouts were large and twisted, with teeth as long and thick as fingers. Their limbs twisted in painful directions always making a crunching sound when they walked. The pain of movement never kept them from chasing down any fae caught out in the open. Their eyes were pitch black, like dark pools, soulless. They glowed red in the night when they hunted those dumb enough to be caught outside the safety of a cabin. Many were run down in the night by the monsters called Cuuls. The bodies were found the next morning usually by tearful family members a few feet from their homes. It was heartbreakingly tragic to watch. There was little time to mourn. It happened so often that the villages were clamoring to establish a new type of normal during these times of terror. The villages still had to run, or they’d all be clanless soon, left to live off the land. So they cried their tears and went about their days.
The Elders of the surrounding villages met one hot afternoon after Andrew came stalking quickly from the forest yet again dripping his blood onto the grass that grew rich with lush flowers from the amount of pure fae blood spilled onto it from him. He wore another scowl and the village knew it was another failed attempt.
The other Elders railed and ranted. Why was he not doing his job? Why was he not successful?
The mother of Willow Woman waited patiently and listened to them. She knew they were desperate for results. They were scared. They stunk of their fear. She always knew this bad of a infestation would take time to tear down. Even for the Forest Father. She knew most of all that they were jealous. Jealous that he had chosen HER village to protect. That the killings had paused as long as he was there while in their own, fae were run down on a daily basis.
They finally asked the question she was dreading.
Was the Forest Father the answer or was he a sham?
She quelled their fears only barely. The Elder knew it was only a matter of time before nothing she said would calm them. Then they would say the one thing that would break her and her daughter’s heart, though for very different reasons. Her’s because she knew the killings in her village would begin again. Her daughter’s because she had fallen so desperately hard for the Forest Father. It was one simple sentence she knew was on the tip of all of their tongues.
The Forest Father should be sent away.
OoOo
Her phone chirped and she practically jumped out of her skin. They were making their way up the sidewalk wondering the city aimlessly, both so unwilling to call it a night. It was getting late, way late, later than she should be out, risking getting caught. Her mind had been so caught up in their conversation. They came so easy. He asked questions, listened, responded thoughtfully, and was always honest when she asked one of her own. She loved the feel of this. It came so...easy. They’d known each other for thousands of years. They’d loved for a good portion of those. Until they were ripped apart from each other, they had been inseparable.
It all came flooding back now as they talked and talked.
Her feet were aching in her combat boots with the golden elephants embossed on the side, as they’d been talking for several hours as they walked.
When her phone chirped it popped that little bubble she’d allowed herself to get caught up in. With trembling hands she pulled her phone out of the pocket of her black, faux leather jacket and checked it.
He watched her with trepidation as she jumped at the sound of her phone and stared down at it like it had the ability to reach out and bite her with poisoned fangs. He remembered how she had practically ran out on him the last time this had happened when they were together. He waited. Waited for her to run off like Cinderella dropping one combat boot on the pavement as she danced her way back out of his life.
...Bates is gone on business for the next 2 days. Make the most of it. You know EXACTLY what I mean...
She couldn't believe the words she was reading. She couldn’t believe the stroke of luck. Madison had been terrified of seeing The Snake’s number asking her where she was, or worse telling her he already knew where she was. Instead it was her friend giving her the green light to have a night of freedom. Or rather morning of freedom. The hands of the large analog clock on the streetlamp hanging above them read 12:30 am. They’d talked well into the morning hours. She stuffed her phone back into her pocket.
“Trouble?” The lilt of his Irish accent was beautiful and it gave her chills. She missed Ireland. There was far more open lush green space there. Less of these iron cities, erected by the humans after the age of the fae had passed. It choked her sometimes to be around this much metal and she hated it. Her body had adapted enough that it didn’t poison her to breath in the exhaust fumes from the cars or to touch the metal buildings. Still, it didn’t feel like home. Beautiful and natural in so many places. She craved it. Something wild in her broke. She almost turned to him then and asked him point blank to take her back to Ireland. She knew if she asked he’d have her at the airport in a few moments. She also knew it wasn’t possible. Madison knew what Bates would do if she ran. She knew he’d hunt them down. She also knew he’d go back on their agreement in a moment. She’d given up on having freedom a long time ago.
She was unaware she had let her left hand hang down by her side slightly swaying as an easy silence stretched between them until she felt his soft hand take it tentatively.
He knew she had every right to jerk her hand out of his grasp. It would hurt if she did. He wouldn’t stop her though.
The feel of his hand in hers. Warm, soft, solid. It set her body alight again, just that light touch. Perhaps she had given up on freedom a long time ago, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take one night to get a taste of it.
Without thinking, because if she thought about what she was going to do she would back out, she pushed him back against the brick building behind them. He looked surprised at first but a lopsided grin spread across his face. She grasped his shirt by the collar and pulled his face down to hers until she could press her lips firmly against his. The kiss was passionate but still tentative. She deepened it until they both became frenzied. He flipped their position so that he was pressing her back against the wall. He easily lifted her off the ground, wrapping his arms around her waist and pinning her against the wall. Her clit throbbed in rhythm to her heart as he pressed the fly of his jeans against the thin lace of her panties. He was definitely hard and his cock bulged against the fly of his jeans. She wrapped her legs around his waist and his fingers roamed up and down the bareness of her thighs where her dress had ridden up.
It was dangerous out here on the street. She let them kiss a little longer before breaking away from his lips with great difficulty.
“Are you going to do me out here on the street or do you have a place to go?” His grin was infectious and she smiled back. A true smile she hadn’t worn in ages.
Instead of letting her down he threw her over his shoulder in a full caveman carry. She laughed so loudly that it rang across the empty street.
He carried her like that all the way to his hotel.
OoOo
It all rested on the head of a pin.
Their fate was hanging in the balance.
She could scarcely survive their joining.
She would not survive their separation.
Winglessly winged loved hard.
Hated harder.
It was all of nothing with the fate of the fae.
They played with fire.
A willow tree of a woman.
A black thorn tree of a man.
Neither was man or woman but something of a completely different caliber.
They burned with a fever that could only be soothed with the feeling of lovemaking.
Then they would catch on fire.
The world would be set alight.
The cities would burn.
Then as the monsters once again descended.
The willow and black thorn tree would throw themselves upon the funeral pyre.
Such was the fate of the fae.
OoOo
#hozier#hozierfanfic#andrewhozierbyrne#urbanfantasy#smuthozier#fluffhozier#flufffanfic#smutfanfic#fanfic#fanfiction#eventualsmut#romance#fanfichozier
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10 Songs that make Love/Sex Sound Like No Fun
Happy Vagina Day! I mean Happy Valentines Day!
[wipes brow]
What do you mean it’s the 15th???
Valentines Day has always been my least favorite holiday, even now when I can actually appreciate it as a taken man. I was never a very romantic person, as hard as I try, and a lot of the gushy crap forced down our throats around February is akin to being buttfucked with a tree branch. It’s like walking into a store and all of the workers are talking in uwu-speak.
Hewwo wewcome to Gwistedes dat wiww be 20 dowwaws! Cash oah cwedit?
But if February is good for one thing aside from overcoming your Winter Break Hangover, as a song critic, it’s a good time to talk about love songs. (And fuck songs, ‘cause there’s a lot of those.) But talking about songs that actually bring out powerful romantic feelings is absolutely no fun, because like I said, I’m not a romantic man. Wouldn’t it be much more fun to find love and sex songs that make the acts seem... really, really lame? So that’s what we’re doing.
Keep in mind that I don’t know every song on the planet, in fact, my scope is actually a very small, strange corner of the musical world. So if you have your own list, feel free to put it together and show me if you want! Go crazy.
Honorable mentions go to any songs that aren’t actually intended to be romantic or sexy. Stuff like The Nine Inch Nails’ Closer. Or Eminem’s Kim. If that’s your idea of love, well... you do you I guess. There’ll be more honorables later.
Nuuuumber 10!
Closer - The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey
I personally believe both of the artists involved in this are more sexually weak than Kevin from F is for Family. (And if you’ve watched the whole series you know exactly what I’m talking about. Also hit me the fuck up, I need someone to fanboy over that shit with.)
I like Halsey. I don’t think she’s amazing or anything. Oftentimes I feel like her greatest flaw as an artist is that she wants to do three things at once: Appeal to internet people who like stuff like Marina and Lana del Rey (eg. Colors), appeal to a mainstream that just likes regular easy-listening pop music (eg. New Americana), and also just do her own thing and talk about her own experiences (eg. Control and Gasoline). These things don’t really work that well together at times. New Americana is one of those times, I hate that song. Closer is another one of those times.
The Chainsmokers kind of improved by 2017, but for awhile they were putting out soulless crap like Don’t Let Me Down with all the excitement of a party that only consists of art students. Closer is also lame. But more than that it shows me two things: The first being that Andrew Taggart is an asshole, and the second being that the Chainsmokers don’t know how to write women and even Halsey’s halfway-decent voice and attempts at emotion can’t really fix it.
“Hey, I drink a lot. But everything was fine before we started dating, so it must be YOUR fault!”
Part of me almost feels like Taggart just really wants to fuck Halsey and so he wrote this song as an excuse, like it’s essentially the expensive version of a self-insert fanfic.
If the Chainsmokers are good at one thing, it’s lyrical detail. It worked in their favor in Paris, which is a song that I actually really love. All of the tiny details worked into it paint an insanely vivid picture of these two rich kids basically having some kind of one-night stand.
In Closer it does the complete opposite. I have a hard time believing that there’s any thought less sexy than fucking in the backseat of a range rover with a mattress in the trunk that belonged to your roommate, and they probably masturbated on it and how do you even have this car if you can’t afford it? Or is Taggart just being fucking presumptuous? Dammit, man.
Halsey plays this really pathetic character who left Taggart’s character based on looks alone, and is now regretting it because I guess the endless sexual draw of the weird long-headed guy from the Chainsmokers would make anyone change their mind. It paints Halsey’s character as pathetic, and that’s a character I have absolutely never wanted to see her play. Because her personality as a singer is kind of thin. When she’s playing a character who is aggressive and violently emotional, it works, but when in a role like this it feels like misuse of her actual talent. Kind of equivalent to when they got Eminem on that strip club song Shake That.
(He don’t get it. You don’t get it. And most of all, I don’t get it.)
Frankly, Halsey’s strengths (”specific yet vague” emotional detail) don’t play off well with the Chainsmokers’ strengths. (detailed scenery to piece together vague stories) These two should never have gotten together. Frankly, they shouldn’t have even tried,
Numéro Neuf
You Was Right - Lil Uzi Vert
His face is so weird. It’s just so weird.
I have a kind of odd love of Lil Uzi Vert, despite the fact I’ve only heard one song that I really liked. (XO Tour Lif3, for the record.) I feel like he has a creative energy that most artists in pop are missing, but he’s really, REALLY not using it to his advantage. A lot of his songs are just kind of... nothing.
You Was Right is one of those hits that was so early in 2017, my brain keeps telling me it was a 2016 hit. It was also Uzi’s first platinum single. It’s an okay song musically. Not that interesting. Beat kind of sounds like it was bumped from Wicked, which is not helped by the fact that Metro Boomin’ was involved in both songs. But lyrically, this song is... weird and confusing.
The basic plot makes sense: Lil Uzi’s character in this song feels bad after cheating on his girlfriend, and he wishes he could turn back time and stop himself from doing so. But man. This song makes the idea of a relationship with Lil Uzi sound like way more trouble than it’s worth.
I bet you’re asking me: “Panda, is this line accompanied by the most obnoxious eye-roll possible in the music video?”
Yes. Yes it is.
Yep, that’s right. Lil Uzi is feeling guilty, and wishes he’d never taken this girl home, and--
Uzi stop.
You should’ve just not. Done anything. Because you have a girlfriend. You shouldn’t have boned, you should’ve gone home and boned your girlfriend, dammit Lil Uzi. Let me like you, you bastard.
The reason this isn’t any higher is because I at least feel like Uzi has some kind of love for his girlfriend. As the second line indicates that the moment he saw his girlfriend, he immediately passed by some other woman to hit her up. But still...
I THINK YOU KIND OF DID WRECK HER. YOU FUCKED A GROUPIE, MAN.
This whole verse is just funny I have no explanation. Like. You’re in the same room, but because the door is locked, even though... you’re in the same room? You can’t talk? But she’s actually in the bathroom. And Uzi needs to take a piss, so he’s basically just forcing some romantic lovey-dovey crap, like babe I wanna caress you, I’m seriously gonna wreck the carpet right now, can we just move on from this.
But here’s the best/worst line, in my humble onion:
1. What does this have to do with anything,
2. He’s gonna fuck your sister and then kill her if you talk shit, I guess. So to my sister, I am very sorry.
I think Uzi improved on conveying emotion in his next album, or at least with the big single XO Tour Lif3, which I’ll defend until I’m dead. But as for You Was Right, well... he was wrong.
Número Ochoooooo!
Shape Of You - Ed Sheeran
Did you wanna fuck Ed Sheeran?
NO?
TOO BAD.
Ed Sheeran is a musician I enjoy purely for the purpose of mocking him. While he does, now and then, drop a good single like Don’t, Sing or Castle on the Hill, oftentimes he exudes only one thing:
PERPETUAL VIRGINITY!
Maybe it’s because of his voice. Or maybe it’s because he looks like a high schooler who hit puberty too late. Maybe it’s because I have THIS picture of him saved to my computer:
Look at him. Look at his fucking face.
He just exudes involuntary celibacy. Not like the reddit “hurgh durgh FEMOIDS” kind, just like. The “sees a naked boob and passes out bleeding like an anime character” kind.
Look at his fucking face. He looks like he’s not sure how to hold a woman’s hand. He looks like he doesn’t even know what it is. I don’t know how I’m expected to recognize Ed Sheeran as a sexually active man. The weird dinky three-tone beat ripped straight from Sia’s Cheap Thrills and pretty much every Rihanna song ever, namely Work, doesn’t help in the slightest. Because here’s the thing: Work and Cheap Thrills are not sex songs. If anything, they’re songs about the lower class and their struggles. No fucking required, unless you count Drake’s verse on Work.
Shape Of You is a sex song. And it’s about as sexy as wedging your dick in a paper bag.
It’s like it was supposed to be a romantic sex song, but the vibe I’m getting is a teenage boy up in your DMs asking (admittedly politely) for titty pics.
He’s in love with the shape of you. Just your outline. Your contour. Like that one episode of Ed Edd ‘n Eddy where Jimmy somehow gets his linework stolen and has to be kept in a blender? He wouldn’t fuck a lady like that. You gotta have a... shape. Square. Circle.
RECTANGLE GIRLS OF THE WORLD
This isn’t helping the whole “virginal loser” thing for the record.
The verses try to be more romantic, and totally fail at it because let’s be honest, if Ed Sheeran took me to an all-you-can-eat buffet on our first date, I’d probably kill him. McDonald’s is even preferable. I guess it’s also technically more expensive if you want seconds, but like... everyone there is probably sweaty... and the food usually looks really gross. Sometimes you have mashed potatoes in the steak bucket and it just completely ruins your day.
Ed’s wispy delivery really doesn’t help, as he has all the sexual energy of a castrated Charlie Puth. He’s not crazy. He does not fit the radio definition of “crazy”. He’s the musician that I just see the least as one who fucks. Puth gets more pussy. The ICP get more pussy. Meghan Trainor probably fucks more than he does, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she was some kind of otherworldly plant being that reproduces via budding.
Also I’d feel bad if I didn’t mention the video, which is literally, no joke, the video for Maroon 5′s One More Night. You know, where the lead singer becomes a badass boxer who punches shit. Now I’ll probably drop my feelings towards Maroon 5 with more detail in the future, but in short, I actually enjoy most of their singles. One More Night is a fun song in my opinion, not high art or anything, but I like it. Adam’s falsetto doesn’t bug me as much as other people. I’d prefer him singing in a high pitch than, say, Swae Lee.
(Dammit Swae, let me love you, you bastard.)
But see, I actually also prefer the VIDEO for One More Night. For two big reasons.
1. Adam Levine is at least a little more threatening than Ed Sheeran. Remember how fucking goofy Animals was BECAUSE Adam was singing it? Imagine if Ed was on that track. It’d be ridiculous.
and
2. One More Night was a song about how his relationship with his girlfriend basically feels like a warzone. The violence in the music video was, at some level, metaphorical. In Shape Of You it doesn’t have any emotional or symbolic relevance, so I just have to take at face-value that Ed Sheeran is a boxer, and...
That’s just not happening.
Numerum VII!
Blurred Lines - Robin Thicke ft. Pharrell and T.I.
This would easily be higher up if not for the fact that, on the most technical level, it’s a joke song.
Bet you didn’t know that.
Yeah, the joke here is that these three are singing this ridiculous sex jam despite in real life all being happily married men (or at least were at the time this song came out, Robin’s wife promptly dropped him as soon as this album fell into our collective hands) who are way past their prime when it comes to flirting with chicks at the club. Also, Pharrell looks like an alien.
I’m not gonna extend this too much, as everyone’s already riffed on Blurred Lines more than we’ve probably riffed on other socially questionable songs like U.O.E.N.O. or Treat You Better. But this song sounds like it... COULD BE about sexual assault?
I’ll be fair and say that I don’t think this is straight-up a rape song. Because the thing is that it’s not actually about sex, it’s about picking up girls. But Robin’s approach is so slimy and gross that I’d honestly prefer, very specifically, to re-enact that one scene from The Simpsons’ Cape Feare where they drive through a bunch of cacti with Sideshow Bob hanging on the bottom of the car, and I’m Sideshow Bob, but facing the ground with my dick out, so it slides through the cactus like a sad, sad little pool noodle full of thumbtacks.
On one hand, there’s implications of attempting to get consent, and on the other hand, there’s also discussion of whether or not he’s actually GETTING consent or not. Maybe it’d work if Robin Thicke had more swagger to his personality, and if they removed all the stuff about “blurred lines”, it’d be less suspicious. But even then it’d still sound like a /r/niceguy trying to convince a girl that she WANTS to fuck him.
Once again I’d like to mention the video real quick, specifically the alternate version.
The topless version somehow makes it even LESS sexy. When the women were clothed, it definitely gave more of a vibe of “cheeky girl at a bar playing hard to get”, but once you have a bunch of topless chicks running around looking unhappy and bored, it reads more as... “harem sex dungeon”.
Not much else to say, really. Other than that Miley Cyrus has horrible taste in men.
Even you can do better, Miley.
Nummer Sechs!
The Hills - The Weeknd
The Hills is about as sexy as getting the bottom half of my body lost in the void while prime minister Shinzo Abe projectile vomits onto my face.
I actually like this song. But it doesn’t sound like sex. At all.
It does sound like a good horror movie soundtrack, which I guess...
I guess at least this line would make sense if it was?
Everything about this song kind of punches you. The beat punches you and the tune punches you and it’s really really loud. Literally everything about this song fits together EXCEPT THE PREMISE. This is, from what I can gather, a song about some dark spooky sex machine who’s helping a girl cheat on her boyfriend, but doesn’t really care because his drug problem or something is more important to him. And nothing fits with it.
Say what you want about Earned It, it sounds like a sex song. Maybe I’ll discuss that song in the future, but while Earned It creates the vibe of some sort of expensive Blank Space-esque rich guy mansion with a sexual twist, The Hills sounds more like... an explosion in a really dark place. Even the video works for the sound more than it works for the premise. Frankly, if this had been a song about a break-up or being sent to prison or something, I’d totally buy it. The Weeknd’s warbling baby voice can convey suffering more than it can convey sex.
The best way I can explain this is...
Imagine if Rolex was backed by the ending track from A Serbian Film. That’s the tonal problem we’re talking here.
Though lyrically, The Hills isn’t high art either.
Bragging about erectile dysfunction: Counting this and Young Thug’s Lifestyle, I guess we can call this a theme now. I hate it. Also, Weeknd rhymes “simple” with “simple”. And the fact that this is a fuckjam makes the title drop of The Hills Have Eyes even more questionable. I’d honestly rather hear a sex song based on Cannibal Holocaust.
Also, fun fact, this song has a remix featuring Eminem. Fucking EMINEM. That is the least sexy rapper you could have picked. You could have chosen anyone for your sex song, and you picked the man responsible for such classic sensual love songs as Stan and Just Lose It.
Dear Weeknd, I wrote you but you still ain’t callin’...
Still a song I like. Just... pretend it’s not about boning.
Numero Cinque!
Bad Things - Machine Gun Kelly ft. Camila Cabello
I debated deep in my heart as to whether or not I could, in good taste, put this song on the list. Because I really shouldn’t expect a whole lot from ex-Fifth Harmony member as well as the only Fifth Harmony member anyone knows the name of, Camila Cabello, as well as this weirdo Machine Gun Kelly, who looks like a very failed attempt to clone Macklemore.
But then I read this.
Wait, this is a love song?
I thought it was just... about like, fucking.
ALSO WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU SAMPLE OUT OF MY HEAD IN A LOVE SONG.
And most importantly, and much less aggressively, why does this song sound like it’s about, like... abuse.
Like, yeah. You’re- you’re giving each other scars. And guess what! This is actually edited.
Somehow the edit makes it both better and worse. Because on one hand, like, bruises usually sounds like more of an abuse thing. When I think of an abuse victim I see bruises. But, also, scars are... technically a bigger deal? Bruises go away. If you’re scarring up your SO, then you have some serious issues. And MGK’s uninterested delivery makes it way worse, as well as the Fastball sample that is from a song about hurting your lover. Which kind of sounds, uh, a lot like... what’s going on here.
And, uh, I guess you could argue they’re in a really intense BDSM relationship? I guess Camila seems pretty into it, and not really in like, a Stockholm Syndrome way. But the other thing that takes up a good chunk of this song is the comparison between drug dependence and romance.
Which really doesn’t help?
Like drugs aren’t a good thing. Honestly I feel like Kesha using this metaphor was a sign of things to come considering what happened to her in 2017. Because, here’s a crazy thought, drugs may be addictive... but they also hurt you.
Like an abusive partnerokay we’re moving on sorry.
Numero Neljä!
Treat You Better - Shawn Mendes
Oh hey, I like, just mentioned this one.
Honestly, Kodak Black’s Side N**** would’ve taken this spot, except that I don’t wanna think about Kodak Black. Ever. So you get the whiter version of it.
Treat You Better is another one of those songs that makes the idea of dating the singer sound insanely unappealing. But unlike You Was Right above, Treat You Better has next to no self-awareness.
I’ll admit that I don’t really hate Shawn Mendes. I actually like Stitches, the tune is nice enough and regardless of how you feel about this apparently 6′2 tower of twink flesh, you can’t really argue that he hasn’t got a decent set of pipes on him.
But damn if his songwriters aren’t trying to sour my opinion of him at every turn.
If this were an actual review, I’d complain about how the backing guitar sounds exactly LIKE Stitches, but the problems arise in the lyrics, and the way the video plays off of the lyrics.
oh wait excuse me
Alright sorry.
But in case you can’t tell, Treat You Better is basically a niceguy anthem. I mean, when I read the title I thought it was like the earlier-mentioned Fastball’s Out Of My Head or Hoobastoobaskeeboodidillybaboobastank’s The Reason where the male singer does some nonspecific bad thing to their SO and vows to be better in the future. You know, like--
(YAH... HUH... I PROMISE TO, UH... BE BETTER... YIEAH...)
But no, actually. Treat You Better is more equivalent to Daya’s Hide Away, which you could honestly consider as on this list in the exact same spot because they’re basically the same song.
I suspect the reason nobody wants to date Daya is because she dresses like Heather Chandler in the 2018 Heathers remake.
I also suspect her and Shawn would absolutely love one another’s company.
To be absolutely fair, neither of these songs take the stance that real life nicefolk take, because it’d make them look absolutely insufferable. The big reason I chose Treat You Better over Hide Away for this list is that the video tries to imply that Shawn’s object of attraction is being abused by her current boyfriend. Which I guess makes sense, but...
I love how the combination of the song and the video essentially imply that Shawn’s got this ladyfriend who’s being beaten to shit by her boyfriend and his only response is man, this is why you should’ve dated me instead! I would be WAY better to you than that guy!
Instead of, you know.
This guy is seriously terrible to you and I’m calling the police.
Or better yet!
Kill him.
Also this girl’s just not... a very good actress. I’m not asking for a Hollywood performance, just, you know. Some kind of expression other than “mild disinterest” when you’re about to get your shit kicked in would be nice.
Really the big issue is that, regardless of whether or not we’re supposed to see the girl as an abuse victim, Shawn will forever see himself as the victim. Which means it’s either
A. Some dildo victimizing himself because his best friend is a taken woman and he wants to Betta in her Dannygans.
or B. Some dildo victimizing himself because his best friend is in an abusive relationship... and he wants to Betta in her Dannygans.
So either way, Shawn Mendes’ greatest worry isn’t your safety, or if you’re happy in your current relationship, his one worry is getting his spindly little baby-soft white boy hands into your undies. And frankly, I just don’t need that in my life!
the third one
Honey I’m Good - Andy Grammar
How much do you wanna bet all these couples broke up/got divorced after featuring in this thing?
I labored over how this one matched up with #2, but decided it was at least making some sad, sad attempt to promote faithfulness in couples. See the plot of this song written by Andy Grammar, who I’m assuming is a one-hit wonder because I’d certainly never heard of him until this song came out, is stated very clearly:
I think the best part about this is the way it’s worded. “I gotta be like oh baby, nah baby” makes him sound so annoyed. Like, “Ugh, I wanna bone you, but I wanna be nice to my wife or whatever, so I GUESS I’ll turn you down... Sigh...”
So this is essentially a self-fellating anthem congratulating Andy’s character for not cheating on his wife. Because, as he says,
“Yeah, babe, better men than me have cheated on their wives, so it’d be totally fine if I DID, but I’m such a Nice Dude that I won’t do it. For my wife. Smooch.”
One could argue that he’s supposed to be drunk, but let’s be real here: Being drunk doesn’t make you lie. If anything, it makes you more honest. Booze is a truth serum. Now if he had just gotten out of dental care after getting his wisdom teeth pulled and his hot lady dentist was trying to flirt with him, maybe I could imagine it making sense.
And once again, the Devil’s Advocate could say, “well if he’s being honest, then this shouldn’t be a problem, he’s faithful to his wife”, but the thing is that he’s not even totally drunk yet.
Translation: If I have another drink, I’ll be so boozed up that my honest feelings will make me want to fuck that ass.
He’s tipsy at best, which is why he’d admit to considering this at all, but if he were more drunk he’d totally fuck this assumedly more attractive woman. So for all we know he’ll go back to the club tomorrow, have one too many, and considering how well this stupid song did, he’d throw enough money at the next Cambodian prostitute he runs into to buy her a mansion.
The congratulatory tone to the music doesn’t really help, it really does feel like Grammar is sucking himself off for having the “willpower” to not be a completely terrible person. The only thing that makes it even more hilariously sad is the video of elderly couples lip-syncing to it, all the while holding up signs or wearing shirts that say how many years they’ve been together. It’s as if they’re bragging about how their marriage is bound to last way longer than the marriage in the song.
“Mildred, do you promise not to bone a random guy at the bar when I’m home?” “Only if you promise not to do that either, you rascal you.”
For all I know, Andy Grammar’s a great guy! But with only this song to go by, I’m obligated to assume that he’s a complete dildo who wears a mask of faux-Southern charm when he’s sober and avoids getting drunk so that mask doesn’t shloff off of his face like he’s a juggalo at the official sprinkler festival.
The weirdest part of this to me is that this song is so catchy we actually fell for it, if only for awhile. And its happy tone kind of makes you forget the lyrics. I almost feel like that was intentional. Like, his producers looked at the lyrics and just said, “Boys, let’s fix this shit.” It’s not even good production, it’s just really catchy! Fuck!
All in all, Honey I’m Good is about as romantic as listening to my parents argue at 12 in the morning. Not only is there no reason Andy Grammar deserves any congrats on his mediocre “feat”, but he really doesn’t seem to love his wife that much, if a shot of tequila and a scantily-clad cokewhore is enough to wreck his faith.
Numbah TWOOOOO!
What The Hell - Avril Lavigne
I’d honestly argue that Avril Lavigne’s character as a singer is equally sociopathic to that of Taylor Swift and Cher Lloyd. I feel like after Hello Kitty slaughtered her reputation and career forever, we kind of forgot how genuinely terrifying she was. She’s like every horrible thing about being a teenager squeezed into one person who’s way too old to be pretending to be a teenager. I mean, look at Girlfriend. The only thing more terrifying than Girlfriend is, well, What The Hell.
Because, you know. That’s not a problem or anything.
Rather than the obsessive character from Girlfriend, Avril in this song is the complete opposite. She doesn’t make connections with anybody, and when she’s sick of a relationship, she’ll move onto her boyfriend’s friends, strangers, fans, non-fans, parents, teachers, Todd Howard, etcetera. So she’ll go around macking on anything she wants and then have blase, slightly annoyed reaction when her boyfriend is completely horrified by it.
(This? This is my greatest fear.)
Her disinterest really comes out in the lyrics, and her sales pitch is, basically, this is just who I am and you should fuck me even if you don’t like it. Especially since, while I hate to be the guy who says it, if this was a song by a guy, everyone would fucking hate it. I actually don’t mind the beat or the tune, honestly, I listen to this song sometimes when I’m out of music that rises above the bar of “guilty pleasure”. That almost makes this worse. Everything is delivered with the disinterest of a Future verse, as if this is just a normal thing, and looking back imagining middle school me singing along to this is pretty fucked.
Not that I really blame this for any kind of influence on children. Honestly I don’t think anyone was really listening to the lyrics, they were just having fun. It’s fun! That’s pretty messed up.
By the way, I think this bit on the bridge says a lot about Avril as a writer (and maybe even as a person):
I love the assumption that this guy is still devoted to her after she has cheated on him and shown no remorse whatsoever. Why would he really want her back? Personally I’d say something along the lines of “fuck you, bitch, go get syphilis somewhere where it can’t be transferred to me.” Bye bye!
Really, though, the more Avril Lavigne tried to lean into her teen rebellion phase, the more I realized how old she was. And as she got older, and tried to be more rebellious, it became less endearing and more sociopathic. Maybe she’s a really nice person, but at the same time, to write a song like this, I can’t really tell. Especially when THIS is how she describes it:
Avril, you read the lyrics, right? Of course you did, you sang it. Jesus, lady.
Well, before we move onto the big weiner, let’s talk honorable mentions!
You Belong With Me - Taylor Swift
Surprised that Taylor didn’t make it on here? It came down to the wire, but in the end, the concept of screwing in a pile of jizzy sheets in a range rover bumped this one off the list. Still, though, Taylor’s attempts to be “relatable” end up making her sound desperate. And also Taylor’s pre-existing ideas of why she’s “better” for him than this other girl kinda remind me of...
Hide Away - Daya
I almost wish I had found space for this song since I hate it so much. But really my biggest problem with it is that Daya sings like a rubber goose and that, of course, the nicegirl/niceguy mentality needs to die and people like Daya are perpetuating it.
Don’t Wanna Know - Maroon 5 ft. Kendrick Lamar
Yikes, dude. Just... yikes.
Marvin Gaye - Charlie Puth ft. Meghan Trainor
Charlie Puth and Meghan Trainor are two beacons of sexlessness and this song does Marvin Gaye a disservice. The only reason I left it off is because it’s honestly been discussed to death, I’m almost like, tired of hearing about it.
Side N**** - Kodak Black
This isn’t even a niceguy song, it’s literally “you should date me because I’ll shoot you and your man if you don’t”. I’d have loved to make space for it, but I don’t even want to listen to this song in full, or talk about this guy. At this point Kodak Black is keeping the fire lit with controversy. I’d like to just dump water on it.
NUMBER ONE!
Sigh. This one’s obvious enough.
Dear Future Husband - Meghan Trainor ft. Satan, probably
Sometimes you just gotta throw your hands up and say STOP, MEGHAN! STOP!
STOP!
Meghan Trainor is an artist who I actually do understand the appeal of: She appeals to white feminist teenage girls and soccer moms that still read Twilight even though their daughters are long since over it. But, sadly, that’s two demographics of people I hate, and thus, I find myself hating everything Meghan Trainor puts out. The only remotely passable single I remember by her was Lips Are Moving. Dear Future Husband isn’t even my least favorite fucking Meghan Trainor song. (It’d probably be No, if I had to pick.) But god, if this song isn’t just... oof.
Let’s get the shoehorned feminist message out of the way:
We know you have a job, nobody’s expecting you to cook, why would you bake pies all day, who needs that many pies, no you can’t write a hook, and these views are insanely outdated for anyone who doesn’t have a Return of Kings account. So great, you have a job and can’t cook. Cool. That’s a thing with a lot of people.
Honestly the insistence that she “deserves it” even though she makes no attempt to prove herself a good wife aside from saying she’ll buy you groceries and fuck you sometimes. This song kind of lays on the assumption that you’ll do literally anything because, duh, she’s famous musician Meghan Trainor, and if you don’t do these things, YOU JUST HATE FAT GIRLS.
(Mary Lambert never pulls this shit. And she weighs more than the gold toilet you use, while you’re using it, MEGHAN.)
Honestly though, listening to Meghan Trainor songs just kind of turn me into that obnoxious guy on 4chan who unironically uses the term “feminazi” in 2018. Because really, she fits every feminist stereotype in existence, and she never says anything of any worth.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way--
Acting crazy... how?
Do we mean like, Ren & Stimpy crazy, or Avril Lavigne crazy?
Because I’m terrified it’s the latter.
Meghan kind of talks about her theoretical future husband like he’s a dog, or some other kind of animal that does badass tricks. Essentially obligating him to constantly do what she wants, when she wants it, and never disagree with her even if she’s in the wrong, because then she MIGHT fuck him. Or, uh, excuse me,
Some KISSES! :D
You like KISSES, don’t you? Who’s a good boy? WHO’S A GOOD BOY? IT’S YOU! YOU’RE A GOOD BOY!
...
[clears throat]
It doesn’t help that this song is, essentially, just a list of requests and things this guy has to do. So while Meghan can do whatever she wants, her husband is still required to do the traditionalist romance crap like buy her things, lose every argument, hold doors, accept potential insanity, and be “classy”.
Honestly, don’t let Daya and Meghan Trainor do a single together. I think the pain of hearing it will overtake my body. Like that forcible body-wracking feeling you get when you dry heave.
The best part being that I haven’t even touched on the worst line.
So like, ignoring all of the other shit, if a girlfriend or potential wife said this to me, I’d jump ship. Like, controlling every other aspect of your life wasn’t enough, she also gets to decide what people you see! So if she doesn’t really like your good friend John, then he’s banned from this house forever. And forget about seeing your grandpa. She doesn’t care if he has cancer! You fucking MISOGYNIST PIG! LOVE YOUR WIFE!
Urgh. Of course the song that combines the insanity of What The Hell with the me-me-me attitude of Treat You Better and the bored lack of emotional connection in You Was Right would top this list. I’m glad Meghan Trainor killed her own career in 2016, because I don’t think I’d be able to handle another year of these shitty faux-feminist throwback jams. Thanks, Me Too!
If I was you, I’d wanna anyone besides me, too!
Also, if anyone’s curious about ratings I’d give these, here you go.
10 - 2/5 stars. Not good enough to be mediocre.
9 - 1.5/5 stars, mostly because Lil Uzi can do better, which is half a saving grace and half a detriment.
8 - 1/5 stars. Ech.
7 - 2/5 stars. I’ll admit the Blurred Lines controversy was blown out of proportion, but it’s still not that great of a song.
6 - 3.5/5 stars. I can get down to this, it’s just... not sexy.
5 - 0/5 stars. RIP Fastball.
4 - .5/5 stars. Only because Shawn’s slurring is funny.
3 - 2/5 stars. At least it’s fun, I guess.
2 - 2.5/5 stars. Again, at least it’s enjoyable if you ignore the words.
1 - 0/5 stars. No more Meghan, please.
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Favorite Films of 2016
10.) Elle
Elle manages to be juicy diabolical fun while also containing some of the most challenging feminist politics I’ve seen in a film. To this day I still occasionally find myself questioning if the title character is a soulless sociopath or a feminist trailblazer.
9.) The Handmaiden
There were a lot of three-hour epics released this year, but unlike most of them, The Handmaiden breezed by with a thrilling pace that kept me glued to the screen. While at first it seems like a Korean take on Pride & Prejudice, it doesn’t take long before Park Chan Wook’s signature taste for the perverse bubbles to the surface and the movie takes not one but several twists and turns that I never saw coming. Darkly comical, gorgeously shot, and downright nasty, I ate up every minute of it.
8.) The Love Witch
As if Elle’s challenging feminism wasn’t enough for one year, The Love Witch is stuffed to the brim with thought-provoking notions of feminism, romance, and gender-roles, and it all comes wrapped in a campy cheese-pop packaging that harkens back to exploitation films of the late 60s/early 70s with uncanny detail. Great for intellectual discussion or for just getting wine-drunk and laughing hysterically, it’s a film that lets you have your colorful cake and/OR just eat it too!
7.) Ghostbusters
While not as successful as it deserved to be at the box office, Ghostbusters was one of the few films of the year that seemed determined to just give people a rollicking good time. It’s one of those films where the (stellar) cast in it are clearly having so much fun making it that you can’t help but resist their infectiously giddy vibes. For all the blockbusters of the summer, this was the only one that felt like it actually reached for and achieved the heights of a bona-fide summer blockbuster. I had a blast watching (and re-watching) it.
6.) 10 Cloverfield Lane
A surprise from out of left field, 10 Cloverfield Lane was easily one of 2016’s most thrilling films. While a lot of people are split on its ending, I admired its determination to just completely go all the fucking way (which nowadays seems almost against the norm of all the bleak or ambiguous endings most people are going for). John Goodman was snubbed for awards this year, and it was great to finally see Mary Elizabeth Winstead in a worthy role. I look forward to more installments in this unique franchise universe.
5.) The Witch
Typing this list is making me realize what a great year 2016 was for feminist cinema, and The Witch only adds to the batch. While it does contain some of the scariest and most unsettling scenes of 2016, it knows what makes a horror film great and achieves it—if you stripped it of all its scary scenes, it would still be one hell of a gripping and thought-provoking drama about paranoia and the nature of evil.
4.) Toni Erdmann
Toni Erdmann is one of those films that really lingers—its emotional impact only becoming stronger and stronger after you’ve already left the theatre. It is at once an intimate story of an estranged father-daughter relationship, but also an epic portrait of universal themes—our human nature, our self-seriousness, and the different ways different people choose to live their lives. While its scale at first seems small, the use of The Cure’s “Plainsong” as its end-credits song really hammers home just how grand its achievements are.
3.) The Neon Demon
Cast me out to sea for this one—I love The Neon Demon. Like Spring Breakers, I didn’t know what to think of it at first and later only found it more watchable and enjoyable with repeated viewings. Also like Spring Breakers, its one of those movies that completely indulges in and has a blast with the very subject-matter its satirizing. Is the story deep? No. Is the message ground-breaking? Far from it. Do I want to turn it on, lose myself in its hypnotic imagery, and laugh at its sassy-bitchy sense of humor, especially after a night of drinking? You bet your sweet ass I do. It has a lot of symbolic imagery you can put together like a puzzle in your head which is fun and all and gives it the excuse to be called art, but the movie is mostly like Juicy Fruit gum to me—it doesn’t deeply fulfill or linger for very long, but in its limited capacity, goddamn it tastes good!
2.) La La Land
Thank god this movie didn’t win the Oscar for Best Picture because it truly is great and now people can go back to enjoying it. I think La La Land was and always has been a film with the best of intentions that got a rather unfair narrative attached to it in (understandable) response to a problematic year of race-tensions in America. The film itself is a beautiful burst of human spirit. I practically tear up with joy when I watch all those different colored bodies singing and dancing in unison atop that L.A. traffic jam. It’s also a moving meditation on nostalgia and the extent to which we can wallow in the past before we have to move forward and make change. And yes, it’s a love letter to so many Hollywood musicals of the past, but it also moves forward from those films’ happy Hollywood endings and gives us something more truthful and bittersweet, thereby making itself a modern Hollywood classic in its own right.
1.) Moonlight
Oh baby. Moonlight rocked my damn world. No other film of 2016 took me on such an up/down, back-and-forth ride of smiling, crying my eyes out, feeling elated, and then doing it all over again. Technically speaking it’s flawless. The cinematography, the score, the performances—everything goes above and beyond the call of duty to create a film that feels breathlessly intimate and real. There’s not a single scene that doesn’t belong. I’ve also never seen gay tension (especially that beach scene) so accurately and beautifully portrayed on screen. What’s even more astounding than the technicalities of the film is what it achieves in the grand scheme of things: Moonlight takes a demographic that has been known to be the most homophobic—that of the hard thug black man (how many rap songs can you think of that have featured a “faggot”-diss?)—and intersects it with a tender homosexual love story. In fact, it’s more than just a love-story, it’s a story of male vulnerability (something that we certainly never see in the world of the street-wise money-stacking thug). By doing this, Moonlight conveys a message that is nothing short of universal—the very human need to feel loved and accepted, and how only we can choose who we want to be and how we live our lives. And speaking of “faggot,” I’m head-over-heels in love with the film’s handling of the term. When the movie was over I literally melted out of my chair. Then once outside of the theatre I literally jumped for joy because I was so happy it existed. I still am so so grateful for this film. It’s a masterpiece in every sense of the word.
Honorable Mention:
*) Jackie
*) Manchester by the Sea
*) 20th Century Women
*) A Monster Calls
*) Hacksaw Ridge
*) The Edge of Seventeen
*) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
*) Other People
*) Don’t Breathe
*) Paterson
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KATY PERRY FT. MIGOS - BON APPETIT
[3.53]
In which the Jukebox is told it's not getting any dessert until it's finished its Monday singles...
Rachel Bowles: Musing about cunnilingus is the finest thing a person can do, if she's good at it. Narrowed down to just vagina-as-food songs, Perry's extended mixed-metaphor is still easily outclassed, even by Iggy Azalea. As evidenced in this list, cunnilingus anthems have been largely pioneered and perfected by Black women (Janet Jackson, Lil Kim, TLC, etc.) those with the double curse of misogynoir proudly contradicting the patriarchal capitalist message that vaginas are disgusting and only for fucking. A good cunnilingus song makes women high five on dance floors, feel sexy and genuinely empowered. Personally, I prefer obscene instructional songs (Khia, "My Neck, My Back") over those with faux-coquettish metaphor (Christina Aguilera ft. Nicki Minaj, "Woohoo") but in Blow, Beyonce found the perfect balance: sexy imagery with a direct order, delivered with female solidarity in the echoed "Turn that cherry out!" "Got me spread like a buffet" to some generic summer EDM synths just doesn't compare.
[3]
Iain Mew: Weird to hear a Katy Perry single where the lyrical issue isn't awkwardly cramming in sexual references, so much as incoherence as a result of failing to properly commit to the obvious cunnilingus angle. The low-key sweetness of the production and her restraint still makes it a better listen than most, and the two note-four note hop-skip in the chorus works even better than it did in Anne-Marie's "Ciao Adios."
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Christ, without Bonnie McKee's involvement Katy Perry really does go right back to One of the Boys leftovers with an Anne-Marie melody. In a just world, such a demonstration of value over replacement songwriter would earn McKee something, like maybe, I don't know, sales. In this one we get midtempo blahs I guess are supposed to signify sexiness, a cursory Migos feature fresh off their Capitol signing, and likely not even a hit to show for it.
[2]
Danilo Bortoli: Fabricating hatred has never been easier in 2017. "Bon Appetit" might have received all the negative press it deserves, but that happened for all the wrong reasons. Over time, however, consensus was formed: this is the most soulless Katy has been in years. Nothing works. Migos are out of place here (as a solo version proves). And, of course, the track seems like the result of a pun contest's last place entry (apparently, this is a real and tasteless thing). No joke intended -- but the song itself, that is.
[2]
Alfred Soto: "Five-star Michelin," eh? I'll say this about Katy's latest amuse-bouche: it follows through on its conceit. Confirming their A-list status, Migos gets relegated to muttered quavering non-entities.
[5]
Scott Mildenhall: You might feel differently, but Katy Perry singing "got me spread like a buffet" just has to be one of the worst musical moments of the year so far. As extended metaphors go, this one is executed very badly. "Table for two... I'm on the menu" -- is she advocating autocannibalism? "Bon Appetit" has the ridiculousness of Perry's worst, most affectedly wacky singles, yet sounds like it's being played with a straight face, and that's quite a weird place to be. The shimmering production is enjoyable, but the words are so egregious that they're hard to ignore.
[4]
Cassy Gress: This is arguably the least sexy sex song I've ever heard. Katy Perry is singing through an A/C window unit, the song just rocks back and forth between B♭ minor and B major with no resolution, Migos stops by and contributes virtually nothing, and it's a bit too close to "GOBBLE GOBBLE" for comfort for me. It manages to come off as clinical despite never explicitly referencing sex; I know I'm sort of squeamish about sex talk, but blugh. I'd rather listen to "Touch It."
[1]
William John: Katy Perry whispering unsexy, overwrought metaphors over boilerplate house reads poorly as a primer, but remains a more tantalising proposition than faded xeroxes of 80s synthpop with vacant "let's save the world" platitudes. A few extra marks for the intermittent whoops, which nod reverently to Crazy Cousins' classic "Inflation" (at least in my head) and Migos, who may have phoned in their guest spot but deliver it lithely nonetheless.
[5]
Katie Gill: Turns out "Chained to the Rhythm" was just a fluke! No, Katy Perry's going to continue to make songs about sex with dumb metaphors stretched to high heaven, warped into near unrecognition. It's an even tackier version of "Birthday", where the best thing is the Migos break and the worst thing is the impossibly tacky dancehall stylings. Possibly the most interesting thing about this song is the cannibalistic implications -- "I'm on the menu"? Really? -- which has the potential to be thought provoking, so of course that means Perry's going to ignore it.
[3]
Joshua Copperman: Between "lemiteiku" and "the worldsbestcherryPIe", this melodic math was a bit miscalculated. And that's before the chorus, which is possibly the worst Katy Perry melody ever, even counting "This Is How We Do". Unusual for Max Martin, as far as I can tell, the chord progression is limited to B♭m-B the whole way through -- apparently they couldn't even be bothered to use four chords. Migos' verses aren't bad, and I smiled at "appetite for seduction," but those are all the positives I could think of for this half-assed song that makes me wish a portmanteau of somnambulance and cannibalism was possible (somnamibalism?). I assumed that "Bon Appetit" would grow on me over the summer, but as it's currently flopping after just one week of existence, I'll never even get the opportunity to hate-then-enjoy it.
[3]
Will Adams: Against my better judgment, I clicked on the Tasty video in which Katy Perry prepares the "world's best cherry pie" (take: this is an impossible task because there's no such thing as a cherry pie that's anything but gross). But my regret soon turned into high enjoyment as I listened to Katy ramble incoherently in some misguided attempt to create a Genius annotation live. As with "Chained to the Rhythm," there's so much effort to legitimize the nonsense pouring out of her mouth: 1. She claims there are "easter eggs" in the lyrics; I think she just means euphemisms. 2. What the hell kind of songs has she heard where "cherry pie" was not sexualized? 3. That she's trying to connect this to the cherry Chapstick in "I Kissed a Girl" shows she still hasn't realized she should probably disown that song. It's all so tiresome; "Birthday" worked because it leaned into the cheesiness, but "Bon Appetit" goes serious with its Cobb salad of food-based innuendo, a concept I've rarely heard executed well. Fold in some perfunctory Migos, overdress with the entire world's supply of reverb, and... oh fuck, now I'm doing it.
[4]
Anthony Easton: I adore the gossip about Perry's fighting around her new aesthetic with the label, who apparently is worried about sales. I have no idea if this will revive her fortunes; it's not quite anonymous, but it pushes her against Migos, and Migos wins -- working against each other, doubling down on a cryptic chorus, becoming very close to being a hook singer. It's not sexy, even if it is about sex, and this kind of disembodied paen to the abstract idea of desire complicates Perry's previous perceptions. It's not quite a meal, but it does seem to have that vague whiff of nausea after eating too much candy.
[8]
Thomas Inskeep: I guess, seeing that "woke Katy" didn't exactly burn up the charts, her camp/label/some-combo-thereof decided "we better go back to the clumsy sex songs, fast!" Because, you know, nothing's sexier than hearing someone say they're "spread like a buffet." (Pardon me while I throw up a little in my mouth.) I'm sad to hear Migos doing a clear cash-in bridge rap here, because they're so much better than this. Max Martin and Shellback's track isn't bad, but it's sonically awfully slight. Ironic to hear Perry saying "bon appetit," because there's no major pop star whose music I find less appetizing.
[1]
Edward Okulicz: Pop stars get hot but they don't stay hot forever, and if this uninteresting ode to Katy Perry's vagina returns her to the top spot, then there is no explanation other than massive amounts of payola and a bunch of Capitol Records interns doing nothing but stream this 24 hours a day. I couldn't last 24 minutes of the title's non-punchline squeezed, against the laws of nature, into this non-chorus.
[2]
Jonathan Bradley: I have a Spotify playlist of Katy Perry songs that runs for about 50 minutes. That's not an extensive running time for a ten year long career, but it contains some songs that are very good and some songs that are very stupid and also some songs that are very good and very stupid at the same time. Perry has had five songs off a single album reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 -- as well as a sixth from a re-issued version. She's been risible and racist and homophobic and "woke" and "inspirational" and fantastic, and even birthed a meme from her Super Bowl performance, but on "Bon Appetit," she's nothing. This is a public-domain club groove and a Migos verse that couldn't deliver the rap group unto dance even as effectively as Calvin Harris did. If, immediately after "Ur So Gay" dropped, someone time-travelled to 2017, could you convince them off the strength of this single that, in the interim decade, Katy Perry had been one of America's biggest pop stars?
[4]
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