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oceanpulls · 24 days

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Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have a plan to soundtrack everything

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross – best friends and Nine Inch Nails bandmates – found unlikely creative fulfilment (and a couple of Oscars) by reassessing what they had to offer as musicians. Now they’re thinking even bigger, and imagining an artistic empire of their own making

By Zach Baron

Photography by Danielle Levitt

Every weekday, Trent Reznor makes his way from his house, a cottagey sprawl behind a white wall in a canyon on Los Angeles’s Westside, to a studio he’s built in his backyard. There he meets his best friend, bandmate, and business partner, Atticus Ross, and they get to work. Reznor and Ross observe the same hours, Monday to Friday, 11am to 7pm. “We show up,” Reznor told me. “We’re not late. We’re not coming in to start to fuck around.” It’s a methodical, orderly existence that Reznor could not have foreseen in the ’90s, when he was fronting Nine Inch Nails and struggling with a drug-and-alcohol problem that was his answer to success. “I would do anything to avoid writing a song,” Reznor said. “I’d rewire the studio 50 times.”

Now Reznor has a wife, Mariqueen Maandig, five children, and multiple jobs. He is sober. Since 2010, when the director David Fincher asked Reznor and Ross to score The Social Network, for which Reznor and Ross won an Oscar, the two men have had steady employment composing for film. This year, Reznor and Ross are also starting a yet-to-be-named company, built around storytelling in multiple disciplines: film production, fashion, a music festival, and a venture with Epic Games.

And then, of course, there is the oldest and perhaps still the most complicated of Reznor’s jobs: being the frontman of Nine Inch Nails. In 1988 Reznor formed what was then a one-man band; the first two full-length records Nine Inch Nails released, Pretty Hate Machine(1989) and The Downward Spiral (1994), have sold more than eight million copies. (Over subsequent years and subsequent albums, the band has since crossed the 20 million mark in sales.) In the ’90s, for a time, Nine Inch Nails were ubiquitous: a phenomenon on the level of Nirvana or Dr Dre. During that decade, the success of the band nearly killed Reznor. “I didn’t feel prepared to process how disorientating that was,” he said. “How much it can distort your personality.”

These days, Nine Inch Nails, which Ross joined as a full-time member in 2016, present a different problem – how do you make something old, something so already well-defined, new again? There are years when Reznor feels like he has the answers and years when he’s less certain. He has put the band on hiatus more than once; after the last Nine Inch Nails tour, in 2022, Reznor deliberately took a break from playing shows as well. “For the first time in a long time I wasn’t sure: what’s the tour going to say?” Reznor told me. “What do I have to say right now? We can still play those songs real good. Maybe we can come up with a new production. But it wasn’t screaming at me: this is what to do right now.”

But he and Ross still come to work, daily, in search of transcendence. “We sit in here every day,” Reznor said. “And a portion of the time organically becomes us just figuring out who we are as people and processing life and a kind of therapy session. And in those endless hours it’s come up: why do we want to do this? And the reason is because we both feel the most in touch with God and fulfilled.”

It is easy to make things when you are a teenager growing up in rural Pennsylvania, near the Ohio border, as Reznor was, and you have nothing to lose and everything to gain; it is considerably harder, once you’ve got older, and found a way to make things that people like, to keep going. It’s an old story: the act of creation can lift you up, but those sharp gifts can also destroy you, and if you make it past that, the sheer blissful regularity of life with money and a family can even you out so thoroughly that there is no friction left to work with. You look inside the cupboard and the cupboard is bare, or it’s a mansion and living inside of it is a person you’re bored of, and so you stop looking. But Reznor and Ross have never stopped looking, and the search for that magical feeling of finding something – that feeling of, in Reznor’s words, “I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know how I just did what I did, but I’ve channelled it into something that worked” – is still the thing that organises their days and their moods.

We were talking in their studio, which was low-lit and cold and full of synthesizers’ blinking lights. Reznor was on a sofa and Ross sat in a chair nearby. The two men first met in the ’90s, when Reznor signed Ross’s band, 12 Rounds, to Reznor’s Nothing Records. Soon after, they became friends, and then musical collaborators. “I was just getting sober,” Reznor said, “and I was in a pretty fragile transitional phase. And I just hit it off with Atticus right off the bat. And part of it was, he was someone who was on much firmer ground, in a mentor-y kind of way, than I was.”

Ross is two years younger than Reznor, but when they met, he’d already been through certain things Reznor was just getting around to. “I got clean when I was very young,” Ross told me. “So I had a bit more experience than him. Put it like this: I knew you could have fun without being high.”

Their friendship has been a constant in both their lives since. “I don’t know if parts of us are broken and we don’t feel good enough,” Reznor said, staring at the ceiling of the studio, “but we know if we work as hard as we can and do the best work we can, it fixes something. At the core of it, that’s what unites us creatively. On top of that, I think his take on the world and role in life helps me understand my place and not feel as detached in some ways.”

Reznor often jokes, or simply explains, that he is a “quart low” on whatever it is that makes people happy. “I think we can both, on our own devices, run below zero as a baseline,” Reznor said. “I don’t mean manic depression, I just mean we don’t take compliments well. It’s like when we won the Oscar, it was the day after: ‘Let’s take today guilt-free, kind of say fuck yeah.’ And tomorrow we’ll have settled back down to a few feet below sea level.”

In their years of collaborating with each other, both men have found some mutual reassurance – a little lift. Reznor gestured at Ross.

“I remember something he said to me – I don’t know if you want me to say this or not – in one of our talks years ago: ‘Here’s what I want today.’”

“I see what’s coming,” Ross said, nervously.

“I just want to feel OK,” Reznor said, quoting his friend. “I want to feel like I’m OK.”

One day this winter, Reznor greeted me at the door of their studio – in the course of reporting this story, I never saw him anywhere else – wearing a black hoodie made by the synthesizer company Moog, black jeans, and black running shoes. At 58, Reznor still retains the angular intensity and jet-black hair of his youth, but time and fatherhood seem to have made him quicker to smile. He looks a little like a college professor now, or an unusually-well-cared-for software engineer. He led me back, past walls of unused gear and several black-clad mannequins, all of which startled me, to their primary workspace, where Ross – a tall west Londoner (he grew up in Ladbroke Grove) with a stern face and a pleasantly reedy voice – sat at a computer, also all in black. (Once, I asked the two men whether their upcoming clothing line would feature any colour. “No,” Reznor said, incredulously. “Of course not.”)

They were on deadline for two films at the moment, including Luca Guadagnino’s forthcoming Queer. “But we’re trying not to work,” Reznor said, drily. Leaned up against one wall was a photo of the two in tuxedos, accepting the Academy Award for best original score for their work on The Social Network. Reznor had contributed to soundtracks before, in the ’90s, but he’d never formally scored a film until The Social Network.

But Reznor and Ross quickly realised that the work, in some ways, wasn’t so different from songwriting. “What do we do when we write a song?” Reznor asked. “We’re trying to emotionally connect with somebody.” Take the Mark Zuckerberg character in The Social Network:“Here’s somebody who thinks this idea is so important that it’s worth kind of fucking your friends over for it. And then realising maybe it wasn’t worth it, or I didn’t realise how I’d feel if I got what I wanted at the price of this. I can relate to that in my own language. Suddenly there’s music.”

“I’m grateful not to be as angry and frustrated and desperate as I have felt in the past,” Reznor said. “I couldn’t have predicted that I would feel this level of fulfilment.”

And Reznor found that he enjoyed the exercise of solving someone else’s problems instead of his own. “There’s something about not being the boss and working again in service to something that I initially felt guilty for feeling kind of fulfilled by in a weird way.”

Reznor said that on another Fincher film, Mank, the director suggested: “What if it sounded like maybe inspired by Bernard Herrmann and as if it were recorded in 1935 and this film canister sat on the shelf for 60 years?” OK, interesting. (Ross and Reznor were nominated for that one too.)

On the first film the two men scored for Guadagnino, Bones and All, “we got a cut of that that was nearly four hours long with no music and we kind of thought, Oh, fuck,” Reznor said. “Four hours we sat without a pee break, transfixed. It didn’t need music. And when you watch that you approach it differently.” Then Guadagnino brought them Challengers, due for worldwide release in April. Reznor said, “He started us down a path, saying, ‘What if it was very loud techno music through the whole film?’” (This is exactly what it turned out to be.)

“I wish I had his notes,” Ross said of Guadagnino. “His notes were so fucking funny on what each piece was meant to do.”

“Oh, yeah,” Reznor said. “‘Unending homoerotic desire.’ It was all a variation on those three words.”

They liked the challenge of scoring, they found, and that feeling of not being in control. They also liked the way it made them crave being in control again: “It makes you more inspired to work on other stuff when we’re finished,” Reznor said. “Even if it’s just, Thank God it’s done now and we can appreciate the freedom we had before we gave it up.”

These days, Reznor and Ross also like having jobs that let them be at home, around their families. Both men had tumultuous or lonely lives when they were younger; both men have found that fatherhood soothes certain unresolved aspects of their pasts. Ross has three kids, and “probably the greatest reward is how balanced and happy they all are compared to – certainly my growing up was an unusual sort of scenario. It was a fairly chaotic youth.” Ross comes from a notable English family, but his immediate lineage was more unstable. “My dad had a club called Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace in LA in the ’70s,” Ross told me. “He went bankrupt in England and had a judgment passed against him where he couldn’t talk to a bank manager for 15 years. So he moved here and opened this sort of Studio 54 on roller skates on La Cienega and Santa Monica.” Ross held up a coffee-table book full of photos of the club. “You don’t need to look at it, but it was just a mad life. So I grew up in some madness.”

It is particularly endearing to see Reznor, who at a distance was a fierce and terrifying figure in his 20s and 30s, find domestic bliss. I am old enough that my adolescence coincided neatly with the S&M-flavoured, I wanna fuck you like an animal era of Nine Inch Nails; when I was leaving Reznor’s house one day, I noted with some amusement the cheerful mundanity of a basketball hoop in the backyard. “I’m grateful not to be as angry and frustrated and desperate as I have felt in the past,” Reznor told me. “I couldn’t have predicted that there was a world where I would have a sizeable family with kids and feel the level of fulfilment and comfort and be able to live in that.”

Was that something you were consciously seeking before you found it?

“I think I had some abandonment issues from my parents splitting up, or feeling I never fit in, and I’d gotten accustomed to being on my own. And largely due to my own, I think, inability to really be intimate with people, or share or be open or know how to be a friend or a partner to somebody… Trying that out and doing it with pure and full immersion has led to an unexpectedly great outcome.”

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The other film project Reznor and Ross were on deadline for was Scott Derrickson’s The Gorge, a science-fiction thriller starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. They were working on a lengthy, music-dependent scene that they’d already mostly scored. But, Ross said, “the director wants it to be a bit more, I can’t think of a better word than just a bit more scary and intense.” They weren’t sure what that directive meant, exactly, but they were content – they were happy – to try to figure it out: to enter the room once again, carrying nothing, and to try to leave it with something that didn’t exist before.

Ross called up the scene on a monitor at the centre of a long mixing board: Teller and Taylor-Joy in an evil-looking spiky forest. Reznor and Ross have somewhat fluid roles in their collaboration, but today the plan was for Reznor to improvise some music while Ross edited and manipulated it in real time. “Atticus’ superpower,” Reznor said, “is that I can come up with a melody and a chord change, and he can make that sit on the scene in a way that is meticulous, and mind-numbingly boring to watch him do.”

A studio assistant, also in all black, presented himself to help Reznor set up a microphone and a cello next to a keyboard that sat underneath another computer monitor. Ross hit play on the footage and what they’d already completed of the score, a kind of haunted, chanting murmur. “It’s basically atmosphere at the moment,” Ross said. Next to him was a synthesizer whose make and model he asked me not to print and which the two men use as a kind of sound ecosystem to feed stuff into.

Reznor began by pushing down on the piano’s keyboard, while with his other hand he manipulated the sound with a flat synthesizer on the desk in front of him. It began as a kind of mellow pan flute thing, and then, with a push of a few buttons, became more of a sad, Social Network-ish plonk. Ross stood up and started tapping the synthesizer to his left, and the sounds Reznor made began to loop and accumulate – little melodic figures that plunged in and out of feedback. Reznor moved from the piano to the microphone, where he sang a few soft passages in a baritone falsetto, more sad than spooky, and then to the cello, which he played slowly and choppily. Ross moved between the computer and the synthesizer, trying to harness it all as it built to a loud, echoing crescendo.

After about 20 minutes, Reznor sat back in his chair, and Ross soon followed suit. Everything got quiet again. “It’s going fishing,” Reznor said to me, shrugging. “Sometimes something happens.”

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Or, sometimes, everything happens. One of the first things you see when you arrive at Reznor’s home studio are two original paintings by the Yorkshire artist Russell Mills – on the left, a razor against a rusty red background; on the right, a decaying yellow-and-black collage – that ultimately became the insert and the cover art for Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral. This is the record with “Hurt” and “Closer” on it. It’s an album Reznor nearly didn’t survive.

Why do I bring this up? Well. If I may, for a moment, sound like the ageing dude in a black T-shirt leaning against the back wall of a bar where you’re just trying to be young and free of recitations of what the year 1994 felt like, there was a different quality to the way things would happen in music. Bands would labour for years, unknown, and then just get struck by lightning, is the best way I can put it: one day, you’re just a guy, and then one radio station plays your song, and then every radio station plays your song, and everyone is listening to those radio stations, because there is nothing else to do, and then MTV loops your video, and everyone watches it because, again, there is nothing else to do, and all of a sudden you are known by millions of bored people in a way that doesn’t quite happen now. This is a gross oversimplification, of course, but here Reznor is, one of the very few people who have experienced the thing I’m describing. I thought: let’s just ask him what that was like.

Reznor said, OK, he could tell me exactly what it felt like. He gave me a single moment: Woodstock ’94, which Nine Inch Nails almost didn’t play – “it seemed like it was going to be gross, to be honest with you” – but ultimately did. “And when we got there, it was terrifying,” Reznor said. “It was way bigger than I pictured in my head and walking on stage. But this is the point of the story: I knew. You could feel like you were in the right place at the right time.”

In retrospect, how did you handle success?

“Had a drink. That’s what sent me down the path. I wasn’t the guy that, you know, at 12 years old cracked a beer. That wasn’t it at all. Just, I feel anxious around people. I’m not sure how to act, especially now that you’re someone that’s supposed to act a certain way. There’s a projection. It feels uncomfortable to walk down the street and people are looking at you because they recognise you. That’s weird. Suddenly everybody wants to be your friend and you’re the coolest. Everyone wants to date you and shit like that.” Reznor said he found it was “easier to have a beer before I go in that room, and then a couple of beers before I go in that room. And pretty soon over a period of time, wait a minute, things start to get out of control. And you know how the story goes.”

Here’s how the story went: Reznor began to wonder if Trent Reznor could ever live up to the Nine Inch Nails guy that people had in their heads. “The reason I was having to drink was to fix that problem, my own insecurity. But the net result is: I’m not really who I am because now I’ve got drugs or alcohol in my system and I’m not thinking as who I really am. And that comes into focus once one gets sober and has time to reflect and kind of think about what got you there and shit you did.”

Eventually, Reznor got sober, and built himself back up. Today he’s happy to talk about all of it, obviously, but he and Ross have done a lot together since – 10 albums’ worth of Nine Inch Nails (Ross was an official member of the band for five of them), among other things – and Reznor is, by nature, not one to dwell too much on the past of a band that he’s still very much trying to figure out. “We’re not fans of resting on our laurels. We’ve been afraid of thinking about nostalgia. That’s a whole other conversation, but the reality is we’re getting older and our fans are getting older and that’s a fact. And I think, say, during the pandemic, not that you asked this question, but as I’m sure everybody was, I was pretty genuinely freaked out and very clearly came into focus: I’ve got to protect my family.”

He was consumed by fear, by terror of what might happen, of what he might do about it. “I can’t even fit all my kids in a car,” Reznor said. “But in the midst of that anxiety, sitting alone in here, I found comfort in nostalgia. I found comfort looking back at things from my youth that I’ve been afraid to even allow myself to glimpse at because it meant artistic death. Because one has to look forward. One can’t be self-referential. I was so afraid growing up in a little shitty town. I could see people that thought the highlight of their life is junior in high school catching the football. You know what I mean? That’s it. That was the peak. I don’t want to fucking be that person. I could see my fate if I stayed in that town.”

In those moments sitting by yourself, what were you getting nostalgic for?

“I miss parts of living in Pennsylvania. I miss a simpler life that I grew up with. I really loved the first INXS album in 1983. I was a senior in high school, and when I listen to it now I could almost start crying because it fucking reminds me of driving in a shitty fucking car in the summer in Pennsylvania. You know what I mean? Man. I allowed myself to kind of immerse myself in who I was at that time, and what it felt like.”

Reznor had been trying to remake himself ever since he left where he grew up, and now here he is in Los Angeles, over 40 years later. “And I kind of went on a deep dive for a while and allowed myself to realise: I am who I am. And the things that made me weren’t the cool things. I’d always been ashamed of: I came from a shitty town; I didn’t have an exotic upbringing; shitty education, you know what I mean? That’s who I am. I’m not sure what the point of all that confession was.”

Well, except: “It plays into where I’m at now.”

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The last time I saw Reznor and Ross, it was once again in their studio. They were sitting very still. Had they been working before I got there?

“We were for a little bit,” Ross said. “And then nervously thinking about you arriving.”

Really? It’s OK if that’s the truth.

“That’s the truth,” Reznor said. They’d just been in this room for the past weeks, months – years, really, he said. Head down. Working. He gestured at me. “It’s a different mindset.”

And “I was thinking about something you said the other day,” Reznor said. That was on a Friday. I’d asked a somewhat rude question about their soundtrack work, which was: why would Reznor or Ross work for anyone else when they didn’t have to?

Now it was Monday. “I thought about that over the weekend,” Reznor said. “It’s like, Why are we doing this? The idea comes from what we think is a good place of ‘Let’s break it up. Let’s get sent down the rabbit hole on certain things and feel like we’ve got tasks being assigned to us rather than us just blindly seeing what happens creatively.’ ”

But, he said, “I think coming out of a stretch of a number of films in a row, I want some time of seeing where the wind blows versus: there’s a looming date on a calendar coming up and we’d better get our shit together. And certainly in the last few weeks I’ve been itching to do what we often do, which is just come in and let’s start something that we’re not even sure what it’s for.”

Some of that energy, he and Ross said, would probably become the next Nine Inch Nails album. Doing soundtrack work, Reznor said, had “managed to make Nine Inch Nails feel way more exciting than it had been in the past few years. I’d kind of let it atrophy a bit in my mind for a variety of reasons.”

But now, “I do feel excited about starting on the next record,” Ross said. “I think we’re in a place now where we kind of have an idea.”

And then there was the company, which Reznor and Ross spent the last two years putting together, piece by piece, with the help of John Crawford, their longtime art director, and the producer Jonathan Pavesi. The idea was, what could they do that they hadn’t already done around storytelling? Some of that might take the form of examining Nine Inch Nails from yet another angle – “we’ve been working on homegrown IP around Nine Inch Nails, stories we could tell, and we’re working on developing those in a way that are not what you think they’d be.” (As in: not a biopic.) They also have a show in development with Christopher Storer, the creator of The Bear, they said, and a film with the veteran horror director Mike Flanagan.

Reznor put on a pair of black-rimmed glasses so that he could examine a piece of paper next to him. “We just wrote some notes because I knew I’d forget what the fuck I’m about to say.” There was a short film coming with the artist Susanne Deeken. There was a clothing venture, a T-shirt line made in collaboration with a notable designer whose name they’d like to keep secret for now, which will arrive this summer. There was a music festival that they were currently planning, “where we’re going to debut as performing as composers along with a roster of other interesting people,” and a record label, both scheduled to launch around the same time.

And for two years they’ve been working with Epic Games on something that is not exactly a video game, in the UEFN ecosystem Epic has built around Fortnite – “It’s what Zuckerberg was trying to bullshit us into calling the metaverse,” Reznor said. “You can’t say that word any more, but in terms of the tool kit, thinking about it through the lens of what could be possible for artists and experiences, we thought that would be an interesting way to tell a story through that.”

They were nervously contemplating the prospect of having day jobs again, of being responsible for more than just themselves. Early on, as they contemplated launching the company, they’d sat down with David Fincher to ask him about movie production: how does it work? “And he’s like, oh, you’re fucked,” Reznor said. “I can distil a two-hour conversation into that. Because, he said, ‘I know you guys, and no one’s going to care more than you do, and you will not be able to let it go.’”

Reznor has actually had this experience before, of being sucked into a project bigger than Nine Inch Nails and having it take over his entire life. Years ago he worked as an executive, first for Beats and then for Apple, building a streaming-music service.

“Trent was very clear when we started,” Ross said. “We cannot let this get into Apple terrain.”

Reznor laughed. “What I mean by that is – I will make this brief; I’m trying to think through what I’m about to talk shit on. Just to self-censor for a second.”

Reznor paused for a moment and then explained. For years, he said, he’d wondered: what would make a good streaming service? This was before the advent of Spotify in the US or Apple Music. Jimmy Iovine, Reznor’s old label boss – later, Iovine would also become Ross’s brother-in-law, after he married Ross’s sister, Liberty, in 2016 – was launching a music service at Beats, which was then acquired by Apple, and Iovine said to Reznor: come try to make this thing a reality. And Reznor surprised himself by saying yes.

“It was a unique opportunity to work at the biggest company in the world at a high level,” Reznor said. “And it was interesting, the scale of the people that you reach through those platforms, just the global amount of influence those platforms can have was exciting. The political situation I was dropped into was not as exciting.”

Reznor enjoyed working with Apple’s design team and its engineering team. “But it made me realise how much I want to be an artist first and foremost.” Reznor also became discouraged with the possibility of fixing the problem that he was trying to solve. “I think the terrible payout of streaming services has mortally wounded a whole tier of artists that make being an artist unsustainable. And it’s great if you’re Drake, and it’s not great if you’re Grizzly Bear. And the reality is: take a look around. We’ve had enough time for the whole ‘All the boats rise’ argument to see they don’t all rise. Those boats rise. These boats don’t. They can’t make money in any means. And I think that’s bad for art. And I thought maybe at Apple there could be influence to pay in a more fair or significant way, because a lot of these services are just a rounding error compared to what comes in elsewhere, unlike Spotify where their whole business is that. But that’s tied to a lot of other political things and label issues, and everyone’s trying to hold onto their little piece of the pie and it is what it is. I also realise, I think that people just want to turn the faucet on and have music come in. They’re not really concerned about all the romantic shit I thought mattered.”

Anyway, Reznor said, turning to Ross, “That was a long-winded way of saying, when we talked about this company, I just said, ‘Be aware of what success might look like because it will turn into something that eats up lots of cycles and time and attention and energy.’ ”

But, Ross said, taking on new responsibilities was, paradoxically, also a way to stay a little younger. “I know we’ve all been talking about being dads and being adults and all that,” Ross said, “and there is a part of me that thinks: it’s important to keep the kid alive.” Meaning the child inside yourself, rather than the one you’re responsible for.

He told a story about him and Reznor visiting the director David Lynch at his house to work with him on the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks. “And I don’t know how old he was at the time,” Ross said, “but he was older. But just walking in there, and he had the room set up and there’s a screen there, there’s some chairs here and there’s some musical instruments there and he’s smoking a cigarette. There’s nothing old about that dude. You know what I mean?”

Lynch showed them some Lynchian footage. It was incredible, even if they didn’t quite know what they were looking at. Lynch was probably 70 or 71 at the time. “But it’s that thing of it doesn’t matter how old he is,” Ross said. “He is alive. It’s that bit of it all that one doesn’t want to lose with age.”

The point was, Reznor said: “Let’s try some stuff. We’re bored. We are. You know what I mean? We’re grateful. We enjoy doing films. We can write a better Nine Inch Nails record, I think. We can put on a cooler tour. We are aimed to do that. But man, what if we try to do that?” Meaning, the company. “What if we could take what we’re good at, like we did with film? We identified something I think we’re good at and we figured out how to apply it to something else. What if we take that theory and try it on some other things? And that’s led us into: we’re not beaten down completely yet. And it feels exciting. That’s what matters to us right now.”

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Styled by Mobolaji Dawodu Grooming by Johnny Stuntz using Dior Capture Totale Hyalushot SFX Makeup by Malina Stearns Grills by Alligator Jesus Tailoring by Yelena Travkina Set design by Lizzie Lang at 11th House Agency Produced by Emily O’Meara at JN Production

#my ninposting #my transcription #trent reznor #atticus ross #nin #nine inch nails #trent #reznor #gq

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winterrrnight · 9 months

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sling

PAIRING: drew starkey x fem!singer!reader

SUMMARY: an instagram blurb about y/n releasing her second studio album and all the posts leading up to the release (+ so much supportive boyfriend!drew)

FACE CLAIM: clairo

WARNINGS: none!

EDITH SPEAKS: y'all absolutely ATE supportive, hype man boyfriend drew in the french open blurb and i knew he needs to make a come back so here we goooo 🥹 sling is one of my comfort albums of all time so this is so so special to me, I hope you all like this 🩷

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yourinstagram joanie is my favorite companion in the studio 🐾❤️‍🔥

drewstarkey what about meeee?

-> yourinstagram sorry bubba, joanie comes first

-> ynfan21 HAHAHA joanie and y/n supremacy always 🤭

ynisamazing cannot wait for whatever you're cooking up omg

lorde 💛

-> yourinstagram 🤍

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drewstarkey my girl is working on something very cool for y'all

tagged: yourinstagram

yourinstagram lmao who let you use the keyboard

-> drewstarkey I'm a music connoisseur baby

user81 MOTHER AND FATHER

drewfan87 okay but what if they use y/n's music in the soundtrack of obx 4, like we need that

-> rafe_is_hot that will be so good omg

-> maybankluvbot THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN

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ynupdates y/n's second studio album sling is set to be released on 16th july!!!! 🥹🫶🏻🪐

ynanddrew OML OML OML OML

yn_rocks IM SO EXCITED

ynwrotebags i cannot believe it oh my god-

user97 it's going to be so good trust

liked by wallows, arlo.parks and 1,983,792 others

yourinstagram 'sling' is out now. this album shows me at my most vulnerable state, my most intimate feelings and my most private thoughts. I've always found music the best way to let out everything I'm feeling, and I think this record encapsulates that perfectly 🐾

special thank you to the one and only drewstarkey, who spent innumerable days (and nights) with me at the studio, and for being my ultimate inspiration. drew, this one is for you 🤍🌟

I hope you all like this :) see you all very soon!!

beneemusic holy moly this record is beautiful 💗

-> yourinstagram thank you darling 🤍

drewstarkey forever proud of you, i love you so much ❤️

-> yourinstagram I love you so much more bubbles 🥺🤍

madelyncline this is therapy in the form of an album

-> yourinstagram maddy baby 🥺

liked by drewfan87, ynisamazing and 89,483 others

drewstarkeyupdates drew via ig stories!

tagged: drewstarkey, yourinstagram

drews_rafe drew is the most supportive boyfriend ever 🤍

-> drewsify FRFR

drewhive if his favourite track is zinnias then the man has TASTE

ynanddrew 🥹🥹🥹

liked by jonathandavissofficial, brooke_starkey and 1,509,482 others

drewstarkey a lil collection of pictures from the sling studio days 🎞️

tagged: yourinstagram

yourinstagram so cute ❤️

-> drewstarkey you're cute

rafezcameron drew what is your favorite track from sling WE NEED TO KNOW

-> drewstarkey cannot choose one for the life of me so it's bambi, zinnias and just for today

-> ynfan21 HE LIKES SOME OF THE BEST ONES FRFR

fionapalomo adorable!!! 🥺

madisonbaileybabe 🐾🫧

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

TAGLIST: @runningfrom2am @ragingsammie @maybankslover @totalswag @madelynie @chenslucy @ietss @elle-mp3 @viawritesstuff @wallsdreams @tahliac11 @sadfury

#drew starkey #drew starkey oneshot #drew starkey fanfiction #drew starkey x reader #drew starkey imagine #drew starkey fic #drew starkey fluff #drew starkey one shot #drew starkey instagram au #instagram blurb #instagram au #instagram feed #social media au #fake social media #fake instagram #written by edith! 🪄

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bananaofswifts · 6 months

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BY RACHEL SONIS

It came to her in a dream (an embarrassing one, at that), Taylor Swift recalled about the origin of her song, “All You Had To Do Was Stay.” On the cusp of her ascent into stratospheric superstardom with the release of her fifth studio album 1989 in 2014, Swift explained to TIME that in the dream, her ex had come to her front door to get her back, and all she could say back was a high-pitched “Stay.”

“It was almost operatic,” Swift said. “I woke up from the dream, saying the weird part into my phone, figuring I had to include it in something because it was just too strange not to. In pop, it’s fun to play around with little weird noises like that.”

It’s how some of our greatest pop songs have come about: making music out of the weird or the strange. That's why it is all the more surprising that “All You Had To Do Was Stay” has never gotten its due. With the release of Swift’s rerecording of 1989 bringing Taylor’s version of the song, nine years after the original, the time has come to reassess the long underappreciated track.

There’s a science, of course, behind “All You Had To Do Was Stay” and its placement on 1989. The song falls into what Swifties call the “Track Five” factor. If you look at Swift’s albums, the story goes, the fifth track of each one is the saddest and most cathartic of the project—and typically best captures its mood and message. On Fearless, it was “White Horse.” On Speak Now, it was “Dear John” and on Red, “All Too Well.” The list goes on, and for the release of her seventh studio album Lover (with “The Archer” as track five), Swift acknowledged the clear pattern.

Contrary to popular opinion, this is also true of “All You Had To Do Was Stay.” It’s one of the saddest songs in Swift’s discography, but it’s created in a way that feels foreign to those who have been following her music since she cried tears on her guitar. In fact, it’s worth asking if it’s a strategic move for the self-proclaimed “mastermind” of subtext.

Saying so long to the country darling we once knew, 1989 marked Swift’s entry squarely into the pop arena. We heard inklings of this in Red two years prior, but this time, the shift in sound was unmistakable: Swift was charting a path toward a kind of pop stardom where her music was going to become ubiquitous and permeable—heard in your bedroom, your mom’s car, or even on the dance floor.

In many ways, this album was meant to be a light-hearted pop forward soundtrack to Swift’s life. “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space” were devil-may-care responses to the media circus and Swift’s romantic throes while “Welcome to New York” was a gleeful proclamation of young adulthood and finding one’s footing in a world that is electric and full of possibility. Even the most pointed of songs, “Bad Blood,” still feels coy and playful. But as any Swiftie knows, you can never have fun without the pain. And that’s where “All You Had To Do Was Stay” plays its critical role.

Perhaps that’s part of the brilliance of 1989, but also of Swift’s mastery. Behind the pulsing synths, drum pads, and processed backing vocals, lyrically, the story she’s trying to tell is just as vulnerable, relatable, and cutting. “People like you always want back the love they pushed aside. But people like me are gone forever when you say goodbye”—a line that lands with a sinister calm before an explosive “stay!” carries us into the chorus. There, with brutal honesty, Swift battles how complicated breakups can be: how you might hate someone and still want them back. How people inflict their deepest wounds on each other despite their best intentions. And how you can dance through the sadness and feel release—from that person and sometimes, even, from yourself.

Catharsis comes in many forms and from places where you’d least expect. Sometimes it’s tender and quiet. But it can also be loud and raise hell. With “All You Had To Do Was Stay,” Swift made clear that catharsis in the form of the latter was OK—that loudness and spectacle is OK. The song’s drama, sharp storytelling, and dreamlike quality are unmistakably Swiftian. At the same time, it shows the beauty of how pop music works: How weird and crazy sounds and your most embarrassing stories and dreams can be operatic and accessible. If only you give yourself enough room to lean into it and dance.

#taylor swift #1989 tv

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my-rose-tinted-glasses · 3 months

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So because of this post by @blmpff ( I went to the account and there it was on the story) I just found out that they are releasing the Love for Love's Sake songs on spotify in podcast form?

They just released a new one today. And I have so many questions

Why podcast format? Why not an official playlist or album?

AND why did no one tell me???

#i feel like I should've known about this #and I blame everyone here for not telling me #love for love's sake #rose rambles #spotify #Spotify

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toskarin · 2 months

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enough time has passed that I can ramble about how a lot of the initial concept behind NOMAD/VIRTUE formed from me being a hater about how much influence Firefly had on the soundscape of rural sci-fi. I was writing Beneath Still Stars, thought about the Rimworld soundtrack, and writing something "not like that" powered me through the majority of the album

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 5 months

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Evanescence, ‘Fallen’ | The Album Story

RS: Listening back, it is striking just how bold and ambitious it is for a debut album. Not many bands come out with a full choir and string section on their first album. Did you have to fight for those elements at all?

AMY: “You know, it helps when you have something that you really want to do that you’re gonna fight for. But that you have the ability to do. If I had a crazy idea of Gregorian chants or an all-boys choir, something that I couldn’t actually make happen, it would be a lot harder, because we’re gonna spend all this money on finding somebody to create the sound and then find the team. At least with choirs, specifically, in high school I was the choir president. I loved choir, I was inspired by a lot of that old Celtic and Latin hymn stuff. And I took Latin. So I was like ‘I’ll write it, I’ll do everything, all you gotta do is help me put together a small team of vocalists, it’s not gonna be that expensive’. We can make this happen. I think just having the moxie, or whatever it is, to go ‘I’ll put this all together, all you have to do is just trust me artistically’. It’s still a fight. It was harder to fight for real strings, because that’s just expensive. That’s just something that cost a whole lot of money. But to me, that was so key to what our sound was. The whole idea was that it was if a heavy band with riff-driven, pop hooks could get in a head-on collision with a dark film score. If it didn’t have that film score part of it, it would have felt like so much was missing. I do remember having a discussion with the label about ways we can make it sound real with pads and stuff – they’re better than they used to be. But I just always said ‘No, whatever it is, we’re on the hook for it. In the end, I promise we’ll get the money paid back. We have to have real strings. It has to be real’. And then we ended up with David Campbell who is one of the absolute best in the industry for that, and we’ve had a lifelong, career-long partnership now that I’m so grateful for.”

RS: The ‘Bring Me To Life’ demo was the first taste people got of this reissue. It’s remarkable how fully formed that track already was even at that early stage.

AMY: “There’s probably 10 demos of that song. The label had fixated on it and decided it was going to be the single we were going to focus on. So it was just constantly changing, we felt like we were in this demo forever. But they all happened over the course of just a couple of years. So the very first demo, before the chorus was what it was, I don’t even know where that is. I don’t even have that. It started without the rap but also the ‘Wake me up inside’ part wasn’t there. It was the verses and the chorus was like…I could sing it for you but that’s not going to translate into your magazine. But the one you heard that’s on there was sort of in the middle. That wasn’t the last one.”

RS: It is still the song we know, it just needs a few tweaks. It’s interesting to be able to see the process behind that.

AMY: “I always remembered that little sample in the beginning that became the piano part. That was always still in my head because we listened to it so many times before making the song. We wanted the piano so it would be like a film score starting out.”

RS: How big a role did your cinematic influences play in creating the album?

AMY: “We were really inspired by film and would go to the movies all the time. Part of that is just the age we were in high school. But it also felt like research – ‘Donnie Darko’, ‘Edward Scissorhands’. It was like I was really learning from it. My favourite part about film was the music, not so much the soundtracks, that’s great too, but the score is what makes you know how to feel. There is a whole sub story going on underneath. You are feeling things that are deeper than just the words and actions of the characters. So that’s when I started getting really inspired. I wanted to be in a band, but I would really like to score film and was going to school for that when we got signed.”

RS: ‘Everybody’s Fool’ is a track you have discussed a lot in the past. It seems to express some frustrations around the idea of fame and success but, again, it was written so early in your career. Once you found that success, did the song take on any new meaning for you?

AMY: “At the time, I was the teenager, a big sister, and my siblings were younger in elementary school. My two little sisters, who are very close in age, were in their boyband and pop girl moment. I was like ‘Oh my god, you guys are totally dumb. Listen to real music, I’ll show it to you’. I was always trying to influence them with Green Day, and Nirvana songs that didn’t have horrible things in the imagery. But at the same time, like they were going through this time where it was not just about the stars but school cliques and what you look like seemed like a really big focus. Who liked you, all that stuff, everybody goes through that. I think what I really wanted to say was that what I respect is authenticity. That should be the thing that we’re trying to win, not the beauty contest. Just be yourself. But then, strangely, soon after I found myself in the spotlight really fast in a really big way where you are on a stage for people to just look at you and talk about you like an object and that was hard. That was a weird time for me, because I was really young and really never bought into all that. But when it’s happening to you on a really large scale, you can’t just tune it out and leave the cafeteria. You have to actually face it – ‘There’s my career, how do I be the most of myself and show all the parts of myself that I really want to be seen and not be misunderstood?’ I just felt really misunderstood. But I think the lesson really is that you have to keep on, look at yourself, look at your real friends and the people around you that really know you. Remember who you are apart from it. It’s always been good for me to take breaks from this. I don’t think I need to anymore the way that I did. I know who I am. I know we’re gonna be here. But it was always important for me to step away and go ‘I’m not Amy Lee. I’m just Amy still’. I still have hold of my identity which is ever changing. It still has room to grow. I’m not stuck as that album cover picture forever, even though that is still a perception in probably millions of people’s minds. So you just have to give yourself the freedom to keep growing.”

RS: In terms of what may come next from you, how has looking back and reflecting on your early days affected how you want to move forward?

AMY: “I think it’s always a positive thing to remember your roots, even if it just means you’re going to branch really, really far away for them and do stuff that you’ve never done. I think you have to know who you are and know where you’ve been, because this is just the next chapter in that story. I’ve been doing that all year to where I just kind of never want to hear it again. Not really, but it’s definitely a little bit of what I said before about recognising those innocent moments where I’m not trying to be ahead of somebody’s criticism or anything. Write something without feeling any fear. That’s really sweet. I don’t know how I could recreate that. It’s hard to say because I dearly, dearly love our band, my guys and now Emma (Anzai, bassist). I’m most interested to hear what her new dynamic brings into the situation when we get together. I’ve wanted to be in a band with her for a really long time and it just finally worked out.”

#amy lee #evanescence #2023 interviews

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meanbossart · 3 months

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a few weeks before i found your tumblr (through the lovely ass grab comic) i’d discovered the band Swans but hadn’t done much exploring through their discography. your bg3 band au prompted me to watch their 1987 performance of beautiful child and from there i started listening to more. i wanted to ask if you had any suggestions/favorites of theirs?

OHHHHH boy you're making a very difficult request of me, but a welcomed one nonetheless. Swans' discography is huge and they went through several different styles from pretty standard noise-punk, to experimental drone, to long form ambient tracks and even folk music. It's difficult for me to make a suggestion without knowing what you're into, but If I were to give you my favorites it would go like this:

THE GREAT ANNIHILATOR: It took a second for it to grow on me, but now I find this album to be absolutely stupendous. FAV TRACKS: Killing for company, Alcohol the seed, and specifically the live version of Blood Promise (I believe you find that in the Swans Are Dead live album)

SOUNDTRACKS FOR THE BLIND: Probably their most experimental album. A really unique experience, if you can make the time for it I highly suggest listening to all of it in one go. FAV TRACKS: I Was A Prisoner In Your Skull, Helpless Child, Volcano.

TO BE KIND: Really, really good introductory album, I actually think I suggest you begin here regardless of your musical tastes. FAV TRACKS: Pretty much all.

WHITE LIGHT FROM THE MOUTH OF INFINITY: Used to be my favorite, now I think it's been replaced by The Seer. Either way a lot of the tracks still hit me incredibly hard. FAV TRACKS: Love will save you, Why are we alive?, You know nothing.

THE SEER: Just listen to the whole thing and thank me later. FAV TRACK: Again, pretty much all.

#ask #music

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miyuhpapayuh · 9 months

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fifteen

Music’s playing, candles are burning, there's no light beside the sun peeking through the curtains, shining down on her prettiest subject.

Her glass of white wine is being babysat, cause knowing her and how much of a lightweight she was, a few sips were enough.

Leon definitely took a shot before they got started, since he'd never been a model for anything. His last minute nerves made him even more adorable to Zora.

Blk Odyssy had become one of her favorite musicians, thanks to Leon and his impeccable taste. Their new album, diamonds & freaks served as the soundtrack.

Sexy lady

Got me faded

I'm intoxicated

I been watching, baby

Sexy lady

Sweet Jesus, save me

Go on, and rock me, baby

Don't stop it, baby

“Love this song,” she comments, dipping her brush into the deep red paint, using it as one of her base colors.

“I thought you would.” He replies.

“Yeah, you knew.” She hums a laugh, tilting her head to the left, following the curve she's creating for her study of her boyfriend.

“Are you painting me just like I am?” He asks.

“Well, everything above the knees. That's all I can fit in the canvas.” She answers.

“Where'd you get this idea from?” He asks, curious all of a sudden.

“My sisters actually suggested it. They were really excited that I had started painting again, and since you're my muse, it seemed like something really fun to do.” She explains, poking her head out to look at him, snickering at the focus in his face.

“Quit laughin’ at me,” he mumbles.

“Sorry, you're just so still, like you might break if you move. Relax a little.”

“I thought I needed to stay still.”

“Yeah, but not that still.”

“Hm,” he hums, staring at the back of the easel and the sliver of her face that he could see. A smile graces his face as he watches her in her comfort zone.

Still singing along to the music, she takes another sip of her wine and paints another fine line onto the canvas, super pleased with how everything is turning out.

His green button-up covers her thick frame like a dress.

Her feet were tapping against the bars of the stool, her sloppy bun, flopping around with every concentrated turn of her head.

She was just as focused, but he wasn't gonna tease her. He loved seeing this new side of her. She let him into her art world, finally.

Taking her advice and relaxing, he falls into his natural trance of her, when she readjusts the easel, giving him more than just a peek at her beautiful face.

All the while, she was looking at him and back at the canvas, perfecting every curve, dimple, divot with striking blues and oranges, deep reds and browns.

Stealing glances at him, she tugs on her lip.

She knew it was gonna be kinda distracting, but he definitely wasn't playing fair.

Flexing those big arms of his, “stretching”, was already enough and too much for her. And every time he licked his lips, her left leg would tangle with her right. He caught it each time and smirked.

Once he got to readjusting the only article of clothing he had left, her eyes diverted to his lower region and hers began to throb.

Almost finished.

“Jesus,” she mumbles to herself, shaking her head like it would clear the explicit images swimming around her mind.

“You alright over there?” He asks, a hint of amusement in his tone.

“Yeah, I'm good,” she shakily answers, taking another sip, which looked more like a gulp from where he was sitting.

“You sure?” He teases.

She laughs, now looking over at him. His devious smirk does nothing to help the wet spot forming between her thighs.

“You done?” He asks.

“No.”

“I'm distracting you?”

“And, you know it.” She nods, making him laugh.

“You told me to relax. I'm just tryna follow the rules, dear.”

“Yeah, and now your friend is winkin’ at me.”

He simply shrugs. “That's your fault.”

“Mine? How?”

“Cause you're so fine. This happens every day, babe.”

“Every day?” She repeats.

“Yeah. A couple times a day.”

“Wow.”

“You've seen you, right?” He asks.

She scoffs, lifting the brush back to the canvas. “Boy, please. I can't even look you in the eye, right now.”

He snickers, moving out of his pose to further mess with her. Pulling his chair just a bit closer, he leans forward to stare at her and she keeps her eyes trained on her work.

“Zoraaa,” he drags out.

“I'm so glad I got all the details I needed, you play so much,” she laughs, trying her best to ignore his taunting.

“Come play with me,” he continues, almost making her drop her brush.

“Can you get back in your position, please?” She asks.

“Can I put you in a couple positions?” He quips, earning that eye roll that he knew was coming.

“If you let me finish… maybe.”

He holds his hands up in surrender, moving right back into his pose. Zora fans her face, no longer caring if he can see how flustered he's made her.

The next thirty minutes dragged on by and she was finally done, not even getting to sit her brush down good before being whisked over to the couch, him hovering over her.

Bruising her lips with his rough kisses, he quickly discards the scrap of lace that barely covered her ass, as well as his own briefs, before sliding into her with one fluid motion.

Gasping into the kiss, her hands cling to his broad back and shoulders, sinking her nails in as the feeling of him bottoming out with every thrust sends fire through her.

His mouth latches onto her neck, while she lets out every expletive she can think of, into the damp air of her apartment.

“Oh m— my god,” she pants, holding him so close to her body, shivering as his groans vibrate on her skin.

“You feel so damn good,” he rasps.

His tongue trails down her chest, nibbling on her breasts as he rips the shirt open, squeezing her flesh into his big hands, driving her crazy as she cradles his head.

Her feet are pressed against his chest and he leans up to do more damage, his hips rutting against her ass that's hanging off the couch. She looks up at him in disbelief.

His hands have her ankles bound, as she cries and writhes underneath him. Her hands move up and down his arms, back down to scratch his hips as it gets too good.

“Fuc– king me so— good,” she squeals, catching both of them off guard as she releases all over him. His thumb finds her clit, making matters slipperier.

“Yeah, gimme all that shit, baby.” He moans, encouraging another orgasm to happen right on the spot. Her edges were back curly by this point.

“C’mere,” she whispers, pulling him back down to her level to swallow his every breath in a kiss. Her cramped legs wrap around his waist, pulling him closer if that were even possible.

Pulling away, he smirks down at her, taking her in, breathless, sweaty, hungry for more as she stares back at him, ready for his next move.

“So beautiful,” he says, dragging his thumb across her parted bottom lip, “why don't you pose for me, now.”

✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿

Once she got around to actually taking in her painting, she was super pleased with how it came out. So was Leon.

“Can I just say, I'm flattered.” He smirks, cracking up at the look she gives him.

“Stop it,”

“Seriously. That's literally me.” He exclaims, pulling her into his side.

“All of me.” He mumbles, hearing her disapproving groan sound through the space.

“Leon, please!” She laughs. “But, you really like it?”

“Love it, sweet stuff. I told you. Art gallery.” He says, smiling down at her.

She smiles back up at him, shaking her head. “Nah, not yet.”

He raises a brow at her, earning a brighter smile.

“Not yet, huh? So you're getting closer to putting yourself out there?” He excitedly asks.

“Yeah, I thought about what you said and it doesn't sound like a bad idea. I'm just nervous, ya know?”

“Why?”

“I feel stunted. Like, I gave everything up to be someone's doormat and.. I don't know. I just feel like the level of artistic ability has kinda dissipated? And yeah, I know. I look at my paintings and I see what I'm capable of so get that sad look off your face,” she pinches his cheek as he laughs, “I just have my doubts.”

He wipes the frown away, but there's still sadness there. He wants nothing more than for her to believe in herself. Fully.

“It's harder than it seems to cross some hurdles, I understand that. But if you really want this, that's what you gotta do.”

“No, I know. And, I appreciate you for putting me back in front of this here easel. It's been a while, but it's always so much fun.”

“Of course, baby. It's a pleasure watching you in your zone.” He says, leaning down to kiss her temple.

“I cannot show this one to the girls.” She snickers, before looking up at him.

“Yeah, nah. Maybe the top half.”

“Please. I can hear Nique fighting for the extra details, as we speak.”

“That girl is hilarious.” He comments, moving to stand behind her and wrap his arms around hers.

“Funniest person I know, besides myself, of course.”

“And me. Hol’ up.”

“Right, right. Can't forget about you,” she snickers, yelping at the pinch to her butt.

“It's what you get.. talkin’ shit.” He mumbles into her neck.

“Oh yeah, don't try and bill me for that shirt, since you were the one that ripped the buttons off.” She says, making him chuckle.

“One, I would never do that for real, it's an empty threat every time.” He admits, making her laugh. “And two, I can always get the buttons put back on. Or you can just add it to your collection.”

“Oh, I was gonna do that anyway, cause that's how I am.” She smiles like he can see her.

“Something else.” He shakes his head.

✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿ ... ✿°•∘ɷ∘•°✿

“Why I can't see that one??” Nique asks, pointing to the covered canvas and stomping her heeled foot like a bratty child.

“Cause you play too much, man.” Zora waves her off, pointing to the painting on the easel. “But you can look at this one!”

Nique immediately gasps at how breathtaking the painting was. It's as if Zora had committed Leon's face to memory and captured him in five different lights so realistically.

“Girl, when I say talented doesn't even cover it.” She shakes her head, looking over at her best friend.

“Oh, girl. Stop.”

“Nah, man. This is on another level!” She swats her arm in excitement. “Like, that's his literal face, dude! How do you even do something like this?!”

She shrugs. “I honestly just sat her and did it. He came to my mind and I just let my paintbrush guide me.”

“Wow.” She says in response, making Zora laugh.

“Yeah, I said the same when I was done.”

Staring back at the canvas, she smirks. “So, are you gonna do anything with it?”

“Ah— I might. I don't know yet, really.”

“Cause you know, it would be really nice if someone invested in you snagging a spot at the mint museum to display such a piece.”

Zora squints her. “That's still something you'd do for me?”

“Zora, it's like you forget who I am or something. I'm highly offended right now.” She places her hands on her hips, reminding her of both of their mothers.

“Get your hands off your hips, Roberta! I know who you are! It's just.. I don't know. That was a long time ago and that was the biggest dream I've ever had to give up.”

“It's okay, I understand. But my offers are never conditional to you, dude. You could not even be my friend anymore and I'd still send you the money to do it cause I believe in you. That bozo of a boyfriend was a hater and he fucked everything up, yeah he did. But look at you, rebuilding it right now. Every time you get in front of the canvas do this,” she's eyes wide as she points back to the canvas, “you're getting so much closer to that dream of yours.”

By now, Zora is wiping tears away. Nique frowns and pulls her into a much needed hug. She wasn't expecting to get emotional today, but leave it to her best friend to pull a few tears out of her.

“Sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry. I know you hate that,” she softly laughs, wiping her cheeks.

“It's okay, I think I've needed to let it out for a while.” She smiles, covering her face for a moment to get herself together.

Nique heads into her kitchen to wet a paper towel, bringing it back to cool down her flushed face.

“Ugh, anyway,” she outright laughs. “I really appreciate you. That really does mean so much that you could hate my guts and still help me out. That's the kind of support everybody needs.” She covers her heart, Nique doing the same.

“One of a kind, I know.” She nods. “And it's nothing, seriously. You're my mother’s kid as much as I'm yours. I got you, you got me.”

“I love you, dude.”

“I love you too, man.”

“I've honestly been thinking about getting back out there for a while, but you and Neoma already knew that cause that's what y'all do,” she snorts, beating her to it, “Lovita is close to getting there, she all into Clyde right now—”

“You mean, he's all into her?”

“Right. Anyway, she'll catch on, but Leon asked me a while ago and I've just been sitting on the idea for a while. Maybe.. I wanna paint a couple more pieces and then maybe I can look into it.”

“Yeah, hey! Nobody is pressuring you. I promise. You know we just wanna see you do your best and you are the best. Fuck him and fuck those negative voices he left behind. You're the shit, Jean. Let's ask his ass to come pick up a fucking pencil and see if he won't jam it into his eye, before tryna attempt what you did on this canvas. I'd bet you the air in this room and win. He's a bitch.”

“Okay, okay,” she cackles, “relax, relax. You hate him more than I do, at this point!”

“I could kill him,” she smiles, “because you deserve better and girl, look at god! Better meets you at your favorite place!”

“I know, I can't wait to tell everyone at the wedding, someday.” She giggles.

“Oh lord, that's gonna be the countriest wedding ever!”

“Stop! It's gonna be the most beautiful wedding you've ever been to, shut up!”

“Y'all gon be letting doves go, it's gon be a duck pond somewhere cause y'all love the ducks, flowers of every damn kind!”

“Nah, I'm pretty sure he's already got flower combos to present to me.” She laughs, remembering one of their trips to the shoppe this past summer.

“What?”

“He was asking me which flowers were which one time, and they'd just happened to be my second favorite flower, my mama's favorite and he asked me if I thought they would pair well with aster, which is his mama's favorite flower, and I just kinda looked at him like… I know what you're up to.” She laughs at the giant smile on Nique's face.

“Aw, that is so cute! He thinks he's slick, let him be slick!”

“Nah, I'm not gonna burst his bubble! I thought it was adorable. He's so cute, I can't take him sometimes.”

“Lord have mercy. So, I got a question.”

“No, I'm not having a maid of honor. Y'all ain't killing me, cause I'd make it all of you.”

“You can have three! It's your wedding!”

“Three maids of honor? That don't sound crazy?”

“Nah, not to me. I was gonna do that for mine.”

“Really?” Zora smiles, making Nique laugh.

“See, look at your face! Do it for yours, too! Wouldn't that work out better anyway? Three people to divy up your something old, new and blue. Might be something you've have your eye on.”

“Okay, okay! We're getting so ahead of ourselves, and what if I don't get married? Then I can't get that something new… or blue??”

“Girl,” Nique laughs. “You worried about the gift?”

“Yes, duh. Leon ain't going nowhere. We don't have to get married, honestly. It's just another dream of mine, but I'm not as traditional as I used to be. But, I'd love to get married, too. Don't listen to me.” She cuts herself off.

“No, no. I totally get it. What girl doesn't wanna confess her love to the man of her dreams in front of everyone they both love?! In a frilly dress! With a veil! Or no veil! Big poofy hair! A reception! We'd throw the biggest party, you already know it!”

“Yeah, we would!” She agrees.

“Right! Don't let go of your dreams, keep 'em close. Just in case. Hell, Leon seems like a wonderful suitor so far!”

“Yeah, he’ll do long,” she jokes.

“Now back to this canvas, over here.” Nique says, making Zora sigh super loudly.

“Dominique.”

“Let. Me. See. It.”

“No.”

“Whyy??” She whines again, adding extra syllables to the word.

“Because, you play too much!”

“I'll be good, I promise! I just wanna see it!”

Zora rolls her eyes, before moving to uncover it, watching the joy wash over her best friend.

“Behave. I'm serious.”

“I said I'll be good, girl! Uncover the thing already!”

She does so, waiting for her snarky remarks, but they never come.

Again, “wow” was the way she described this one, too.

“See? I'm lost for words, actually.” She shakes her head. “You've done it again, man. The detailing is beautiful.”

And with that, she covers it back up. “I knew it wouldn't last long.”

“Long, like—”

“Nique!”

“Okay, okay!” She holds her hands up. “But uh.. congratulations!” She puts emphasis on the end of her sentence, stomping her foot again.

“Thank you. I love it over here.”

“Trust me, I love it over there.” She winks, both of them falling into a fit of giggles as she covers the canvas back up.

“Do tell, since I basically just did.” Zora presses as they sit on the stools in her kitchen.

“He's big all over. He makes me dizzy, sometimes,” she laughs. “Baby is hung to the left, and you know how I feel about a curve!”

“Yeah, you love it over there!” She cackles, slapping hands with her.

“Wait, y'all ain't in love too are y'all??”

“Chile, no. As much as we be up on each other, he's my man and I'm his woman and that's good enough for us, right now. I really like him, but we can kick it just as long as I don't gotta kick his ass.”

“My girl.” She laughs. “I told you I'd find you a boo!”

“Thank you, Zora-Jean. My god!” She exasperates.

“You're welcome! That was so hard for the three of you to say! Why?!”

“Because,”

“Y'all are so ungrateful,” she playfully digs.

“Stop it! Personally, I was holding my breath for a while. I didn't wanna thank you too early and then all this bad shit would start happening, and knowing you, you'd think I'd resent you for it. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't waiting for the other foot to drop. I'm sorry.”

“I accept your apology, and don't feel bad seriously, I get it. Knowing me, I probably would think that, but I know better! It's one of those negative voices,” she shrugs, “but I'm glad this is a good relationship. You deserve it, honestly. Plus, I'd kill him if he ever hurt you.” She smiles.

“And you talk about Lovita!” Nique cackles.

@ghostfacekill-monger @sheabuttahwrites @thegifstories @blackerthings @cecereads209 @soufcakmistress @abeautifulmindexposed @harmshake @mauvecherie-writes @honestpreference

#mochaff #miyuhpapayuh #poc writers #blackwriters #black romance #yahya abdul mateen ii #zora x leon #smut #fluff

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