#we were literally dissecting these songs and voices so much than focusing on the story

[hellishgayliath]

Okay after giving it another listen its not as bad since it was my first time hearing it but i just cannot get behind Apollo's voice he sounds like an anime rival like gary oak-esque kind of rival I’m sorry, I keep replaying his part and it doesn’t land. Hera's voice is still nice but its too soft as compared to the original clip. Her old tone delivery gave off that gritty and powerful queen of the gods vibes that i just love that the new one doesn't capture. I loved Hephaestus' voice and wished his part was longer ( his voice is giving antonio banderas), but i find it cute that jorge got to have both his parents help with his project that's sweet. I wouldn't change a thing about ares and aphrodite tho they were perfect through n through. Zeus is fine i guess, dunno how i feel about his beastly tone, it was giving Beast from beauty and the beast and for some reason transformers xD

Maybe i should just listen to it again with my earbuds and see if my opinion changes anymore but i do think jorge could've spent just a bit more time polishing this

Oooooooooohhhh im gonna feel bad for saying this and it kills me cuz i love epic with my whole heart but

Wisdom Saga did not hit right :v

[goose-books]

goose-books productions: a 2020 review

view the image in higher quality here! (open the image in a new tab to zoom in.) thank you to my dearest @yvesdot for the template

transcripts and month-by-month details under the cut! for reference, you can find my projects here :-) overall, new and old followers, thank you for another good year over here! [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your hand] [holds your h

january

i spent late 2019-early 2020 working on 2019’s nano project, quark, aka the speculative fiction thing about new york city and prophets and dissections of the chosen one trope and gay people. quark is my second-oldest project (five years!), but it’s also probably the most ambitious, so it’s been... difficult to wrangle into place, and i didn’t end up finishing a first draft. oh, well.

enjoy a snippet that is devastatingly emblematic of everything about quark. the tone. the homoerotic tension. the ensemble cast all talking over each other. the fact that caelum has spent pretty much this entire scene crying. fun autopsy report meeting.

Marble stares at the notebook in Shade’s hands. Or maybe he’s staring at Shade’s hands. Dawn feels a little voyeuristic, so she does what she does and says a dumb and unrelated thing: “Augustus, I think this pizza-on-the-floor thing is hurting my ass.”

Augustus flutters his hands. “Sometimes nonconformity is painful.”

“At least we’re originals,” Caelum mumbles into his sleeve.

“Exactly,” Augustus says.

“True originality doesn’t exist,” Marble says.

“Oh,” Shade deadpans, “it’s going to be a fun autopsy report meeting.”

It isn’t.

february

in january i stressed myself out trying to make the plot of quark work. so in february, i decided to take some time and write something Entirely For Fun. like, entirely for fun, no rules. and. my god. how do i explain the project i started calling “third eye for the bad guy.”

it was an unholy mashup of many of my past hyperfixations, including the gone series, a tale of two cities, warrior cats, and the left hand of darkness. one of the characters was a canon scalie and one was a canon fictionkinnie. it centered around a polycule of wannabe-evil-overlord high schoolers. i only wrote like three chapters but i was lost in the sauce for all of february and then i just… like… wiped it from my mind and moved on? somehow??? one character was a werewolf and that literally wasn’t relevant at ALL

I.

Someone was going to die on these steps.

This had been Ivy Lee Palomo’s thought last year during the all-school photo, and it rose in her mind again now. The one hundred marble stairs leading up to the great double doors of Saint Constantine Academy were the school’s pride and glory, steep as the mountain, sharp as the blade under Ivy Lee’s skirt. With the cutting wind and snow glazing the stone more often than not, with the freshmen wild and wired on their first day of their first year, it was really only a matter of time before someone slipped and cracked their fucking head open.

It wasn’t going to be her. Not when she had Doc Martens and reflexes like an electric coil. Still. Ivy Lee didn’t want to watch someone die. She didn’t get along with dead people.

march

in march, i got back to the project i’d started in 2019 - AMT, my podcast! it’s a shakespeare retelling set in a modern high school; this excerpt is funnier and also more unnerving in context. (double, double, toil and trouble...)

INDRAJIT: What the hell are you doing?

[PAUSE.]

DEE (like she’s lying): Making pasta.

[ALL THREE OF THEM LAUGH.]

NONA: That’s right.

MORA: We have the keys to Mab’s office.

DEE: We’re using her stove.

NONA: To make pasta.

DEE: Do you want some?

[A TENSE PAUSE.]

INDRAJIT: No.

april

and darkling rears its head! all of my other projects have existed for at least a year; darkling (specfic king lear retelling) is... special. it was conceived in april, when i started hyperfixating on king lear, and i still managed to write an absolutely ridiculous amount of content for it. it was like the power of hyperfixation let me speedrun the entire process. which. okay.

iv: control

They say Cressida Stayer was nine years old when she turned her hair to gold. They laid her down in bed blonde, and the next morning, the waves cascading down her shoulders were solid metal, glinting harshly in the sunlight, weighing her down, creating that odd head-cocked expression she still wears now. Nine years old. Two or three years before most people develop enough magic skills to dye a single curl. Much less transfigure their hair into precious metal.

People also say Leovald Stayer’s immediate reaction was to hack it off her head and melt it down for cash. But generally they say that part a lot quieter.

may

in may i wrote AMT episode 15, by which i mean that in may there was a day when i sat in my room with the door shut for literally five straight hours listening to the same three songs on loop as i wrote the climax of one of the plotlines of AMT. so. that sure was… a day.

ISAAC: Do you want… do you want someone to drive you home? Hawk, you’re worrying me -

HAWK (almost cutting him off): Don’t. Don’t say that. I’m here to help. With your… thing.

ISAAC (quietly): I… don’t know if you should be here to see this.

HAWK (a little louder, more audibly upset): Well - what else am I going to do? Go home and - and have my dads talk at me and - and not be able to answer them? Because I can’t? I can’t. I don’t know what to say.

[PAUSE.]

ISAAC (V.O.): I wonder if this is what he feels like, on the outside, looking in at me. Watching someone else hurting. Helpless and afraid.

He still fits perfectly in my arms. I rest my chin on top of his head and pull him close to me, like I can stop him from shaking, like I can stop anything from happening the way I know it’s going to. I bury my face in his hair. He smells so familiar. He’s so warm.

God, Hawk. I love you so much. You shouldn’t be here to see this. Something bad’s gonna happen. And you’re not the kind of person who belongs in a tragedy.

june

okay, honestly, i should talk about “night shift” here, because in june i wrote a whole short story in one night (and then foamed over it for a week), but i am still in the process of submitting it places! so i am terrified to put even a sentence of it online. instead: the other thing i did this month was to finish AMT! (sixteen episodes and somewhere around 175k, iirc, but don’t quote me.) these lines are the opener to the final episode!

RAHMA (V.O.): The combined series of sophomore year disasters stretched through November. It’s June now. It’s taken me… a long time to get this all put together. I was going to make a vlog about it, initially - well, calling it a vlog sounds frivolous. I was going to make a video recounting the whole deal. All of it. From when I kissed Avery Fairchilde to the very last night. I scripted dozens of drafts; I put together dozens of bullet-pointed lists of what to cover… and it was never enough. Because Avery and I weren’t the only ones involved. Even if I was only focused on the two of us, it wasn’t just the two of us.

So… I gathered up everyone else. The whole town of Ellisburg is still talking about the week the town went crazy, but it wasn’t just a week. There was a lot leading up to it. And I think if anyone’s going to talk about it, it should be us. The people who lived it. So here we are. The most ambitious Rahma Ashiq production of all time - at least so far.

july

every july i pause whatever else i’m doing to celebrate the birthday of aurum & argentate, twins from my oldest and dearest WIP The Mortal Realm. july fifteenth! mark your calendars. they’re princes, though argentate would really rather not be; you can read the full birthday piece here.

“Do you�� plan to get dressed?” A bit of the usual humor crept back into Aurum’s voice. “Although if you want to speak to the kingdom in your underthings, by all means, you have my full support.”

Argentate scrubbed at his face. He wasn’t dressed, no, but the usual malaise hung over his shoulders like a cloak. Guilt. Nerves. The sick sense that he hadn’t done something he was supposed to. The numb knowledge that it was too late to change a thing.

“I meant to,” he said. “Get dressed, I mean.” The rest went unsaid: I have just been sitting here. On the floor. Thinking about how I should get dressed.

“Ah,” Aurum said, extending his hand. “The traditional route. We’ll save the nude speeches for the future, then.”

Argentate took his hand, stumbling a little as Aurum pulled him to his feet. He steadied himself on the closest wall, taking a few deep breaths. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. His hands found their way to the cross, again and again.

august

this summer, i wrote an entire draft of Valentine Van Velt is Dead, AKA “holden caulfield goes to exposure therapy,” AKA the weird little personal side project i keep tucked into my coat. interesting features include second-person narration from a narrator who doesn’t like the main character all that much. so reading it is kind of like the book wants to kill you? with an added dash of general melancholy.

You used to live here. That’s the thing that’s got you feeling so off.

You didn’t recognize your old house. I mean, you kind of did. You remembered that the road was on a hill. That hill felt like a goddamn forty-five degree angle when you were a kid. But if you didn’t have the address written down you wouldn’t have known it at all. It would have been just another little suburban house in rows of perfect little towns that make your skin crawl.

So now you’re in this diner looking out a gross smudgy window trying to block out the elevator music pumping through the speakers in the ceiling or whatever. I don’t know how speakers work. You’re trying to tune that shit out. The waitress comes over and catches you by surprise so you just point at some coffee thing on the menu so she’ll go away. For the record: you don’t drink coffee.

There’s a public library across the street. A little square building. You probably used to go there. The lady comes over and thunks your coffee on the table and gives you a kind of look, like she wants to know what in the goddamn hell you think you’re doing here and not at school. You sip your coffee and look out the window until she leaves you alone again. And then you spit it back into the cup because, for the record: you don’t drink coffee.

september

i spent september and october prepping for nano, so i was mostly working on darkling...

It’s late spring; still, at this time of night, on a rooftop, there’s a chill. The wind plays with the end of Ruby’s coat, with her hair. She hands the bottle off to Jasper, stares up at the fogged-over sky, wishes she were lying in Dany’s arms in Dany’s bed instead of here. Wishes, even, that Dany were the one on the roof with her. At least then they’d be cold together. At least then she wouldn’t have to imagine what Dany would say; she could just listen, and watch Dany’s flashing smile and her flinty eyes.

(She cuddles. This is another thing Dany does that Dany probably shouldn’t do, based on everything about Dany; it’s not like rattlesnakes cuddle. But Dany likes to nuzzle into Ruby’s side and rest her head on Ruby’s collarbones and toss an arm over Ruby’s chest, and hold her down like she’s worried she’ll float off somewhere. She’ll card her fingers through Ruby’s hair and hum. Even though they could get caught, even though she’s probably got better places to be - Dany cuddles.)

Ruby imagines it, momentarily, both of them on the roof together, sprawled like horrifyingly beautiful gargoyles, sharp teeth flashing, blood running hot. Up here - it’d be like they ruled the world.

But whatever. Jasper’s fun. He’s hot. He’s got a sharp tongue in a lot more ways than one. And she likes when he lets the mask down. She likes seeing the soft bits underneath. She wants to sink her teeth and nails into them so hard she draws blood. Masks don’t bleed. Ruby would know; that’s why she is what she is.

october

...though i was also in creative writing class in school, and thus ended up writing a bunch of poems of varying quality (my teacher had a real thing for poetry) and also one darklingverse short story where rory and cressida hold hands! which you can find here.

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

november

and then november of course was nano which was an adventure all the way through. (opening tumblr on the fifth day of nano to find out about d*stiel... was something.)

“Apologize to me. Or get out of my house.”

Gracen’s voice is very, very low. For a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her at all. Then he spins, eyes blazing. “What did you say?”

Gracen watches her own chest heave. She pushes herself up off the desk, stands with the effort of pushing a mountain off of her back. Leovald is six-foot-four. Gracen is six-foot-two. In her heels, in the heels she must wear to be a professional woman, to be a lady - they are the same height.

Gracen wipes her nose. When she lowers her arm, there’s a streak of blood across the back of her hand. Fire shivers in her chest; her heart rings in her ears; her voice could cut steel.

“I said,” she says, low, slow, volume building, “apologize to me. Or get. Out. Of. My. House.”

december

and finally, the poem i posted this year! it’s called the beast sonnet, and you can find it in its own post over here (with commentary! how sexy.)

i kill the beast and drop down to my knees, my blade stained dark with blood of stygian hue, and for a moment these scarred hands shake free, and hold a world unfurled for me anew. but once-mourned victims, victors, vices find; fear winged me; now its absence strips me bare. my sword now dulls, my legs, my voice, my mind; the beast, pried from my throat, leaves no skill there. and still i hear it laugh, O DEVOTEE— O CHILD DEAR, NO GLORY WITHOUT ME.

i was quite productive this year; i have to think it was because i was avoiding things... the peak of my productivity happened over the summer and in november, AKA, college app hell. (almost done with the last applications! pray for me.)

a general breakdown of what occupied me this year:

(no, i don’t know why the “various other things” category ended up so large... i blame all the one-off projects i wrote a single page for, and also whatever the fuck happened in february. yes, i do know why it looks hideous; it’s because each of my WIPs has a theme color

thank you once again for spending some time at goose-books dot gov this year! what to expect for next year: well, i very much hope i can produce AMT... also hoping to get darkling ready for beta readers, so keep your eyes out!

[monaedroid]

Part Zero: An Introduction

Janelle Monáe is sitting on her throne. This is true in a figurative sense, of course. “If she the G.O.A.T. now, would anybody doubt it?” she asks on “Django Jane,” the boastful, rap-heavy song that served as one of the introductions to her latest album Dirty Computer. But Monáe is on a literal throne as well: sitting in Complex’s Studio 3 on a regal chair that mirrors the one in her “Django Jane” video (or at least as close as our hard-working video team could find on a few days’ notice).

Monáe is here to discuss Dirty Computer, the album and accompanying 48-minute “emotion picture” that is her response to a troubled world. Rather than couching her ideas in 28th century science-fiction garb, as she has before, Monáe brought her concerns to the present (or, in the emotion picture, to the near-future of the 2090s). She wanted to let her listeners know that what she calls “dirty computers”—people who are made to feel like integral parts of their being are bugs and viruses—can band together, find love, and fight back.

Dirty Computer is, Monáe says, broken up into three sections. The initial handful of songs make up the Reckoning (“This is how I’m viewed. I’m a ‘dirty computer,’ it’s clear. I’m going to be pushed to the margins, outside margins, of the world,” she told the New York Times). The middle section is the Celebration (“It’s like, O.K., these are the cards I’ve been dealt”). At the very end, there’s Reclamation—that is, reclamation of American identity. It’s a realization that, as the album’s final track has it, “I’m not crazy, baby/I’m American.” Appropriately enough, those are the themes we stuck to in our interview. But first, we talked a little bit about the album more broadly, her experiences living in Complex’s home base of New York City, and how a silent film from 90 years ago started everything.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

I want to hold up a quote and I was hoping you could read it to me. “There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as the mediator.” That’s from Fritz Lang’s 1927 German Expressionist film Metropolis.

What does that line mean to you? The film inspired pretty much all of my work and it inspired me to want to be the heart, to be the mediator between the mind and the hands; the high class [and] the low class; the have-nots and the haves; and use music to bridge that gap and to bring us together.

Since you’re in New York City, I wanted to jump back to when you lived here. You were in school in the city for about a year and a half studying musical theater. How did that training prepare you for what you’re doing now, which is essentially putting out a new musical with every album? 

I enjoyed all of my time at the American Musical and Dramatics Academy. I grew up acting and singing and writing and going to after-school Shakespearean programs. It was my dream to come to New York, and I’m so happy I did. I learned so much about reading music, and dance and technique, in terms of acting and my delivery as a performer. It also let me know that I did not want to tell other people’s stories. I had a story to tell.

One of the tricky things conceptually about Dirty Computer the emotion picture and the album is that in some ways, it’s a prequel to your earlier work. What was challenging or surprising about writing a prequel? I had the concept and the title of Dirty Computer before I released [her 2010 debut album] The ArchAndroid, so the albums are connected. It is sort of a prelude and there are little Easter eggs in the visual. If you watch the Dirty Computer piece online, you’ll see Mary Apple [played by Tessa Thompson]. I have a song on The ArchAndroid called “Mushrooms and Roses” that talks about a character named [Blueberry] Mary, and she shares DNA with this Mary Apple. It’s all related. It’s connected.

Part I: Reckoning

As Monáe mentioned, the concept of the “dirty computer” is one she’s been thinking about for a while. The idea became all the more relevant in recent years, as forces of hate, prejudice, and division gained power across the world. The 2016 election, in the singer’s words, “sped up” the release of her album. An artist ever-focused on life centuries from now was dragged by circumstance back to today.

When talking about Dirty Computer, you’ve said, “Those of us who live in the future are sometimes needed in the present.” So much of your work has been focused on the future. What do you think being so focused on that in your creative life helped you express when you came back to the present? What did you see that other people might not have? One of the things that’s important is that I’m aware of what’s going on now. I did have the tendency to always think about what the next project was or what else I can do. It’s like, “No, we have to pay attention to what’s happening here, right now.” I like to go where I’m needed. I wanted to celebrate the marginalized, and those folks that I felt needed the most amplification of their voices because they were not being heard.

I’ve read three or four different supposed inspirations for a lyric in “Screwed”: Everything is sex/ Except sex, which is power.” So I wanted to ask the source. Where did that line come from? That particular quote was inspired by Oscar Wilde. [Ed. note: The quote “Everything in human life is really about sex, except sex. Sex is about power.” is attributed apocryphally to Wilde] I put my spin on it because I wanted to support what it was that I was trying to get across: “You fuck the world up now, we’ll fuck it all back down.’ I just thought it was a clever wordplay.

I read that line, “You fuck the world up now, we’ll fuck it all back down,” was something you said in the heat of the moment maybe seven or eight years ago, and filed away? It did start with something that I just said casually. It was a reaction to my bus being dirty. The whole band and crew, we were all sharing one tour bus. I hate to say this, but I was on the bus with a lot of men. I’m not gonna say all men are dirty, but I will say that the guys I was on a bus with, and I love them dearly, they were just living la vida loca.

I came on the bus, and if you know me, you know I cannot sleep in a dirty space. It just overcrowds my mind. I only wear black and white, for crying out loud. Maybe it’s an OCD thing, I don’t know. I just came on the bus and I saw banana peels and underwear and it was crazy. I said, “You know what? Whoever fucked this bus up, y’all better fuck it right back down.” They laugh at me to this day when they think about me coming on that bus and saying that and seeing how serious I was, and I didn’t even realize what it meant. It’s something that we laugh about all the time, and I felt like it applied to our current state of affairs.

I SAID, ‘YOU KNOW WHAT? WHOEVER FUCKED THIS BUS UP, Y’ALL BETTER FUCK IT RIGHT BACK DOWN.’

One of the things in the emotion picture that grabbed me was the use of drones as the first line of law enforcement. Can you talk a little bit about why they play that role in the movie? Dirty Computer is near-future. Right now, we are dealing with drones. I was in a hotel recently and I saw a drone hovering over my window. It was really, really scary because I had never experienced it. Then I saw drones when I was at a plaza. I saw them going over the plaza, and I was just like, “What is going on?”

It’s a question that we have to ask ourselves around surveillance as a form of oppression, or surveillance also as a form of protection. Is it good? Is it evil? Is it invading privacy? It’s something that I have not fully settled on yet. I’m still forming my opinion on it.

Part II: Celebration

Dirty Computer is not by any means solely, or even mostly, a somber meditation on the ills of today. It is a frequently joyous record, particularly in the middle “Celebration” section. This is borne out in Monáe’s live shows, where she, her band, and a slew of backup dancers turn an arena into what the singer frequently calls “the church of the Dirty Computer.” The show not only runs through much of Monáe’s catalog, it also pays tribute in ways both overt and subtle to the history of black music in the 20th century, from Cab Calloway to James Brown to Michael Jackson to Monáe’s mentor Prince.

You were in a dark space when writing this record. How did you make an album that is so celebratory and hopeful? Well I would say that some of it is dark. I wouldn’t say that everything is. I think darkness is important so that you can appreciate the light. Balancing all things is something that I live by.

As much as this album is about me, I wrote it during the Obama era and then things changed [laughs], and I felt like I needed to create a sense of community for folks in these marginalized groups. At the concerts, when they listen to the music, I want them to feel proud and celebrated and seen and heard.

When you were making this album, you said, “I had to really think about who I wanted to celebrate and who I was okay with pissing off.” I chose to focus my energy and my time on celebrating the folks that I felt needed it most. Just to name a few: my brothers and sisters in the LGBTQIA community, black women, minorities, immigrants, lower class, working-class folks like my parents who worked as janitors and post office workers and trashmen. I wanted to focus on celebrating those voices that are not represented in the media as much as I’d like. I wanted to figure out how I could create a community and a safe space for us because honestly, when I take off my makeup, I take off my clothes as an artist and the performer Janelle Monáe, I fall into those groups. That’s my reality and that’s how I grew up, and I want to protect us.

One of the first voices you hear on the album is Brian Wilson. Why have him sing harmony on the title track? What relationship does that song have to the Beach Boys, and to “In My Room” specifically? I’m a huge Beach Boys fan. I remember listening to “In My Room” and loving the tone of their voices, and then seeing this documentary where they talk about the reason why their harmonies were so soft and low was because they were trying to hide recording from their parents in the house.

When I was writing “Dirty Computer,” I knew that this was an introspective song and I wanted you to really be in the mind of a Dirty Computer, me—what it meant to be, for the first time, reckoning with how the rest of society views you. I felt like his voice was going to be perfect to help tell that story.

“Celebration” is the middle section of the album, and I wanted to talk about some of the people you celebrate artistically. When you perform, you do a mashup of “Make Me Feel” and James Brown’s “I Got The Feelin’.” Can you talk about why you connected those two songs and what James Brown means to you as a performer and as a dancer? As a performer, James Brown is one of my favorites. I studied him and his movement. When I was making “Make Me Feel,” I could feel his presence when I started to perform it. It wasn’t until I started to perform that I started to connect the two and it just had a groove. It was like me and James were talking to each other, going back and forth through dance. I wanted to make sure that when you came to a live show, you saw us having that conversation.

This past weekend, I went to see a documentary about Betty Davis, who meets anyone’s definition of a free-ass motherfucker. Do you feel any connection to Betty? I love Betty Davis. She’s free, and she’s one of the godmothers of redefining how black women in music can be viewed. I respect her a lot and she’s opened up a lot of doors for artists like myself.

The “Pynk” video’s now-famous pants were originally inspired by David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane-era bodysuit. And there are a couple of characters in the emotion picture who have Bowie-inspired looks. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about David Bowie—his look and his music. David Bowie is, as an artist, so interesting to me. The world that he built out inspired me to build out my own world, as well. It let me know that I didn’t just have to be a singer. I didn’t just have to be an actor. I could mesh both mediums and tell stories.

You can tell stories through fashion, and I just wanted to tell the story of—some people call them labia pants, some people call them vagina pants, some people call them flowers—but I wanted to celebrate women. There are some women in the “Pynk” video that don’t have on the pants, because I don’t think that you have to possess a vagina or a labia to be a woman. We tried to think about that and be sensitive to it, and I think that Bowie has inspired not just me, but so many artists with his work and with his vision.

THERE ARE SOME WOMEN IN THE “PYNK” VIDEO THAT DON’T HAVE ON THE PANTS, BECAUSE I DON’T THINK THAT YOU HAVE TO POSSESS A VAGINA OR A LABIA TO BE A WOMAN.

The Stevie Wonder interlude “Stevie’s Dream” is a brief but very important part of the record. Do you think that with this album you’ve succeeded in doing what he asks in that segment, which is to express anger using words of love? Do you think that’s even possible? Stevie Wonder is not only my musical hero, but he’s like a godfather to me. I started out writing [the album] during the Obama era and then things just changed, and I had to be honest to where I was mentally after November 2016. I was just very angry. I was angry for a lot of different reasons, because I love this country like so many.

I went to go talk to him, and this is a man who got Dr. King’s birthday to be a national holiday. He has been on the front lines. He has done so much behind-the-scenes work. He spoke to me and he just wanted to remind me that I needed to be patient, that we needed to be patient and we didn’t need to give up hope. But it was important for me to lead with love. It’s a difficult thing. It’s difficult. I’m working on it. I don’t know if I’ve mastered it, but I’m working on it. I’m a work in progress, and I think it’s great advice.

There are lots of great vocal moments on the album. One that stands out for me is the final chorus of “So Afraid,” where you go up an octave and it sounds impassioned and strained. Can you tell me about recording that moment? “So Afraid” was a song I wrote when I was on the way to the dentist. I had a throbbing toothache and I had just taken some Advil and I had driven myself to an emergency dentist appointment. I had my voice memo by me and at every stoplight, I would just record different melodic ideas and I would record myself talking about things I was afraid of, my fears at that moment.

Then when I got to go sit down in my dentist’s chair, my dentist was taking too long—and I love my dentist, shout-out to him, he’s amazing. I had my mouth [held] open, and I was singing the chorus like, [sings with mouth open] “Ah ah ah ah ah.”

I just remember wanting that voice memo of me sounding like that to be on the actual song. So I ran to the studio afterwards. I called Nate Wonder and I told him, “This is how I want the song to be produced. I want to make sure that the thing you pay attention to most is my voice, and the fear that you hear in my voice and the yearning. I don’t want to sing it too high starting out. I want the first verse, first chorus, second verse, second chorus, I want all of that to be low, like an octave lower than what I would normally sing. And then when I just can’t take all of the fears that I’m experiencing, when I’m about to blow up, literally—because I’ve had moments like that—I want that octave up to represent an explosion.”

Part III: Reclamation

“Don’t try to take my country,” goes the chorus of the Dirty Computer closer “Americans.” “I will defend my land.” It’s a line that has roots in one of the song’s initial incarnations, from the point of view of a white male Southerner who is confused and upset by all of the dirty computers around him.

But in its present incarnation, in the album’s “Reclamation” section, it represents something else as well. It’s the determination of Monáe not to give up on her homeland, despite its often-vicious treatment of the people she holds dear. “Love me, baby,” she pleads. “Love me for who I am.”

In “Django Jane,” you talk admiringly about black artists like James Baldwin and Josephine Baker and Saul Williams who “fled to Paris.” At the end of the album, you make a different choice. You say, “I will defend my land.” What made you decide to end the record on that proclamation? Why is it important to be American? “Americans” is in the Reclamation section of the album. The Reclamation is about reclaiming what is ours. My ancestors helped build the White House. We helped build so much [with] our blood, sweat, and tears. These are my ancestors, people like my grandmother and great-grandmother. I wanted it to be clear that we have no intentions of running as Dirty Computers, but staying right here and reclaiming what’s ours.

That song originally had a different spin on it. Can you tell me about “Southern Man?” I wrote like three different iterations of “Americans.” One of them was called “Southern Man.” I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was inspired by some of the Southern white men that I encountered. They really felt like they were superior and this was their country, and we were just here. I was trying to speak from their perspective in hopes that when they listen to how they sound, they would realize that in fact, it was very divisive and, quite frankly, stupid.

Is there any of that left in the version we hear? Yes, there are lyrics that I left from “Southern Man” in “Americans.” I wanted to make it more inclusive with the different perspectives—you have the folks who are just clinging to their guns, clinging to their bibles, using their bibles as a whip, believing in superstition. You have so many different kinds of Americans and I was trying to make it as inclusive as possible.

The final words of the album are, “Please sign your name on the dotted line.” Can you give us any insight on that? The lyric can mean a couple things. It’s like, “I’ve expressed to you as an American from my perspective the things that are going on. Are you ready to commit yourself to this country? Are you ready to come over here and really be a citizen at this moment in time?” It also could mean a continuation of what is to come for Americans in the future.

Do you have a message for all the Dirty Computers of the world, for the people who are made to feel defective? My message to Dirty Computers who are made to feel defective, to feel like they’re bugs and they’re viruses, are negatives and need to be deleted and need to be reprogrammed, is to know that there’s nothing wrong with you. Your features are your bugs and your viruses. They’re attributes. They add value to this society, to this country, to your communities. Continue to lead with love. I hope that with this album and with this emotion picture, you feel more seen, you feel more heard, you feel more celebrated—and continue to be free-ass motherfuckers.

[serpent-jugheadjones]

The Partner Revealed - Part 3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Pairing: Jughead Jones x Reader

Description: Jughead and Y/N’s relationship gets more intense but will it continue?

Warnings: Bullying

Word count: 3396

A/N: Sorry it took so long to update, my computer died on me. But it is a bigger part to make up for it! 

Jughead’s point of view

Jughead gets up refreshed that morning. He couldn’t sleep many hours, but the ones he managed to were serene, the very word Y/N used to describe Sweet Water River the previous night. He has so much to write after what he considers to be his best moment in ages! He lets his fingers work fast and his mind even faster, for he would have to move from one Twilight Zone to another – the drive-in to school – pretty soon.

He walks through the halls of Riverdale High just thinking about the latest lines of his novel, imagining several possible ways in which those pages could unfold. He’s wondering what role Y/N will play in that story, looking for her face on everyone else’s. Jughead is bitterly disappointed in himself because he never remembered to ask for her phone number. His mind is brought back to the present as he spots Archie standing by Jason’s locker, now a memorial site. He really wants to work things out, so he tries to start a conversation with some of his usual sardonic humor, making a joke about Jason. However, it has a bad impact on his friend, and the awkward atmosphere between them continues.

Jughead walks into his Biology classroom with Principal Weatherbee and Sheriff Keller’s announcement still fresh in his mind. “Most of you already know the details, but your classmate Jason Blossom’s body was found late Saturday night. So as of the weekend, Jason’s death is now being treated as a homicide. It is an open and ongoing investigation.” He wants answers just as much as they do and will stop but nothing to find them. He sits in the front, overhearing Cheryl’s conversation with her minions, confirming that Jason had fallen into the water. She says like it’s the most obvious thing, but Jughead doesn’t buy it and takes note to share with Y/N later if or when he sees her. Just as he finishes writing his sentence, the teacher walks in. “Seats, everyone. Pair off, gloves on, scalpels up.” He says hurriedly, putting something on the blackboard. Walking right behind him is none other than Y/N Y/L/N. Jughead shouts he wants to be paired with Y/N before his brain even processes the thought, before anyone even has a chance to pick their partners. Archie says he wants to pair up with Cheryl, Veronica practically throws herself at Betty, leaving Kevin to work alongside with Moose, the pair who found Jason’s body.

The Y/H/C girl seats on the stool next to his, drops her heavy bag on the desk, opens the zipper and takes her notebook out. “Didn’t think we had any classes together.”, says a kinda nervous, kinda thrilled novelist who can’t help noticing she smells like white chocolate and ginger. “Just Biology, I guess. Didn’t make the grade for honors.”, she explains. “Here I thought pairing up with you would be a guaranteed pass.”, he says playfully. “Sorry Jones, that guy with the gradebook doesn’t like me.” He looks at her questionably. “I refuse to make dissections. Telling him we are in the 21st century and that kind of teaching is old fashioned didn’t seat so well with him.”, she says rolling her eyes and taking off her jacket, revealing a biology joke on her shirt, a cell taking a selfie written cell-fie under it. “So I’m gonna have to do all the work?” He points at the frog sitting in front of them. She laughs. “I’ll do the theory, you do the practice.” Jughead starts dissecting their frog and she looks away, earning a reproving look from their teacher. 

As Y/N makes notes on frog anatomy in Jughead’s book, he observes her. She’s so focused on what she’s doing that lines form on her forehead, and he thinks they make her look adorable. "We should go to the Pep Rally together.”, he blurts out. She looks up from the book and towards him, puzzled. “Everyone will be there. It’s the best time for us to narrow down our list of suspects.”, he quickly tries to fix what could’ve sounded like he was in any way interested in school events that involve jocks and cheerleaders running around. “Maybe that sounded like I wanted to take her out and now she thinks it’s just for my novel. Well done, Jughead.”  He scratches his neck nervously at what she’ll say. “I’ll meet you under the bleachers.” She writes something down on a scrap paper she hands to a now happier Jughead. “I got her number.”

He notices how hard it is for her to keep a gag in as they do the assignment, so he discreetely gives her the note containing Cheryl’s conversation, in hopes it will make her mind shift from dead open frogs to dead shot people. “Does anything weird come to your mind whenever you think of that holiday? Besides Cheryl lying.”, she asks in a low voice, looking around to make sure no one is eavesdropping. “Well, Archie and I were supposed to go on a road trip during the July 4th weekend. But he bailed last minute. I tried talking to him about it before class, but he was... evasive.”, he says reluctantly, with some visible bitterness, looking at his friend behind him, afraid to see a suspect instead of a life-long pal, but then again, he wasn’t so sure they were still friends after that. “He was also very defensive this morning when I made a joke about skipping PE because I’m grieving Jason.” He knew she wouldn’t reprehend him for it, unlike Archie. Even not  knowing her long enough, he could tell they had similar ways to see and react to things. She even giggles at the thought of Jughead telling Archie a morbid joke. “Archie seems too nice to do it, but we can’t be sure. Maybe talk to him? Since you two have a history. I’ll stick with Evil Queen Cheryl.” He laughs a little too loud, but he’s literally saved by the bell ringing and everyone leaving the classroom as fast as they can.

Jughead was once again wandering through the school halls, messenger bag across his chest carrying his laptop and the school book Y/N made notes on, headphones blasting his favorite song, blocking the world. He passes by the music room and sees something so weird that breaks him away form his daydream. His best friend – at least that’s what he would call him until last summer – and the music teacher so close they could only be kissing. His mind going 100 miles per hour, he goes straight to Andrews’ house to wait for Archie and follow Y/N’s advice to talk to him. Now more than ever he needs to understand what’s going on; Besides, regardless of the distance that formed between them, he cares about him – a lot. When he finally shows up, Jughead doesn’t like the answers he gets. He tries his best to knock some sense into that bonehead, but has to leave declaring defeat. He’d usually head to Pop’s to write and eat his body weight on fries but he is terribly wiped and has so much in his mind he knows he won’t be able to make a single coherent sentence. He doesn’t even remember about Y/N until she shows up holding his hand, slightly touching her lips on his cheek – in his dreams.

Y/N’s point of view

Keeping her focus on studying becomes a lot easier after Biology. She doesn’t have any other classes with Jughead, and there aren’t too many honor students anyways. School hours fly by and her homework pile gets bigger, but all she wants to work on is the case. She looks for Jughead after her last class, unsuccessfully. She heads to Pop’s, the only place left she believes he can be found. To no luck. But she does see Veronica and her mom, the new comers from New York, just after Jason supposedly drowned. They aren’t the strongest of suspects but Mr. Lodge being in jail makes it wise sticking around to see what she can find out. 

She doesn’t hear anything worth mentioning, besides the Archie/Veronica drama. Hermione pretty much just does her job, taking orders and delivering them. After it gets boring, mainly because Jughead was a no-show, Y/N leaves.

Y/N finds out she’s home alone for a few days. Her parents always leave town without notice, certain that she can take care of herself. The only hint is her dad’s car keys gone. “I just thought that with a murderer on the loose they’d at least let me know.” That said, she opens the fridge and finds dinner ready to heat up with a note on it: “Back in a couple of days, love mom and dad.” A beautiful smile forms in her face. “There’s my note.” She goes up to her room to finish the homework she started at Pop’s while she was waiting for Jughead. It’s an essay for her Spanish classes on the book “Pablo Escobar: My Father”. After each sentence, she glances at her phone, occasionally pressing the power button to check if Jug texted her, but her eyes only meet her screen background. 

She hasn’t seen Jughead all morning. He wasn’t at Pop’s when she passed by before class, he wasn’t in the halls or in any classrooms when she got to school, and they didn’t have Biology that day. Y/N thinks she’s getting paranoid. “I mean, we only spoke twice so far! That doesn’t make us friends. He doesn’t owe me anything.” While she’s lost in those thoughts, walking into the student lounge, a lively conversation is taking place there. Archie, Veronica, Betty, Kevin, and many other northsiders are just listening. Reggie is talking about Sheriff Keller giving him a hard time over Jason’s death, but when he sees that bright girl coming in, it’s inevitable not to provoke her, not to let his urge to defeat her turn him into an unpleasant caveman. “Maybe Y/N did it?” Everyone laughs. “Bare with me.” He ajusts himself on his seat to face her. “She did tutor him. Maybe she fell for him and he didn’t crush her back. Obviously, who would?” He looks at her with disgust, making her sigh in anger. “Maybe she snapped and shot him.” Some of the guys on the football team were actually falling for his theory. Y/N needs only a few seconds to think of an appropriate answer. “You have a theory strongly based on maybes, don’t you? If you had focused on certainties, maybe you could have reached to a plausible conclusion – that Jason’s death is much more than a love crime. But how would you, if your neurons are already wasted on football moves?” She looks away from an enraged Reggie and sees Jughead standing by the vending machine, confused. She stares at him, hoping to get some backup, but she’s only met with more doubts in his eyes.

Reggie’s teammates tease him about her comment, forcing him to try to defeat her. He has another stupid idea. “If a kid at Riverdale killed Jason, it’s not gonna be a jock, right?” He trows his football over to Moose, who was laughing the most. “Now let’s be honest. Isn’t it always some spooky, scrawny, pathetic Internet troll, too busy writing his manifestos to get laid? Some smug, moody, serial killer fanboy freak, like... Jughead?” He turns to him and everyone laughs again. “Why is picking on us so funny for them? Just because we don’t fit in their distorted standards.” But he does’t stop there. “What was it like, Suicide Squad?”, he asks and Jughead just shrugs. “When you shot Jason, you didn’t do stuff to the body, did you? Like… After?” The whole football team is backing him up. “It’s called necrophilia, Reggie, can you spell it?” Juggie wittly answers. She chuckles at his reply before Reggie skillfully jumps over the couch towards him. Fortunately, Archie stops him. ”What do you care, Andrews?” Reggie asks demandingly. “Nothing, just leave him alone.” Arch is trying to minimize the damage for both him and Jug, but he can’t find the words. “Holy crap. Did you and Donnie Darko kill him together? Was it some sort of pervy, blood brother thing?” Hearing that, the red-haired boy loses his temper and jumps at the caveman. Everything turns to chaos, ending with Reggie punching Archie in his eye.

Jughead’s point of view

Y/N takes Jughead out of the student lounge before Reggie does anything else. He tries to escape as soon as they get to the hallway, but she grabs his wrist, making him stop and turn to her. “My parents aren’t home, we can hang in there till the Pep Rally.”, she says in a way he can’t deny. “Don’t you have any more classes today?”, he asks, implying he didn’t want her help. “I’ll skip.” He’s taken aback by her determination to help him. He doesn’t think she has ever skipped class before.

The walk to her house is dead silent, unlike the previous one. Neither dares to break the silence. Jughead, a prolific writer, is oddly unable to find the words. When they arrive, she hands him a soda can and opens one for herself, pointing him towards the tall stools around the kitchen island. “You tutored Jason?”, he finally asks. It isn’t the bullying that hurts. He sits down and takes a sip from his soda. “Yeah, last year.”, she says softly, not meeting his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He knows he can’t demand anything from her, but he’s hurt by finding out from someone else – Reggie of all people. “Didn’t think it was relevant.” He knows she’s right. “Would’ve been nice to have a heads up.” He runs his hand on the strains of hair sticking out of his beanie. “We weren’t exactly friendly to each other. I just helped him with his Chemistry assignments a few times. Like I said, irrelevant.” They both sip their sodas. They both think that Jason’s chemical problems might matter after all, but they don’t know how to explain it, so they move on. “I’m sorry, I’m just pissed at Reggie.” He looks down at the dark, cold marble table hoping he hasn’t ruined the start of something good. “I know.” She reaches for his hand and they maintain eye contact for a while. When they stop touching, all he needs is feeling her soft touch again, but he just freezes.

After finishing their drinks, they silently agree to leave everything about that small-brained Reggie behind. Jughead’s attention was instantly directed to the living-room shelves the second he got in, so now he has to ask about those shiny DVD covers, his eyes shining even more. “Is this the complete Tarantino filmography?”, he points at them. “Me and my dad are obsessed.”, she tells him with an excited smile. “What do your parents do?”, he asks, trying to understand why they have such a collection. He picks up some of the DVDs to take a closer look. “My mom is a writer. Nothing big published yet, just some magazine articles.”. He finds that even more interesting than Quentin’s “From Dusk Till Dawn” in his hands. “Dad’s a retired surgeon.”, she continues, as his focus is back on the shelves, now checking the book bindings. “Retired?”, he asks, wondering about his age. “He’s not old. He had an accident and his hand got crushed. He can’t operate anymore. So now he just consults for other doctors.”, she explains. Worried that she may ask about his parents, Juggie quickly finds something else to talk about. “Can I borrow this?”, he shows her the book cover. “Metamorphosis? You’ve never read it?”, she asks amazed. “About time, huh?”, he’s embarassed and they both laugh. “Please take it. Kafka is a must. It’s a crime you haven’t read it.” Damn, he loves the way she deals with words, saying things with multiple meanings. He feels stupid for hiding from her all day over a dream he was afraid could come true. Only now he realizes he actually wants it to happen.

He feels good, like he hasn’t for a long time. It’s great to be relaxed, not having to watch his back or keep second-guessing someone’s sentences. He can just get to know that fascinating girl. In this spirit, Jason’s murder doesn’t even come up for the rest of the afternoon, as if it didn’t happen at all. However, those few hours eventually remind him that he had a life, a dysfunctional but satisfactory one, before the case. As nice as being with Y/N is, he misses his friend, more than he cared to admit, to himself and to Archie.

They are standing next to the bleachers. The field in front of them is full of Vixens and Dogs. Everything is decorated in blue and gold, the school’s colors. Jughead can hear Y/N’s voice but he can’t make out the words, not because the crowd is making an incredibly loud noise or he’s ignoring her, but due to the fact that his attention is solely on Archie, speaking to Miss Grundy. His friend finally approaches. “See you at Pop’s later?”, she asks, making sure to give them room to talk. Jug just nods, anxious to know what he has to say:  Weatherbee will know he heard a gunshot on July 4th. Juggie is immensely relieved and proud, glad to realize they’re heading the right way, back to their unique friendship.

Y/N Point of view

She watches everyone from afar, used to doing that since she learned being invisible comes with advantages. But no one is acting guilty or uneasy. “Is it just me or cheerleading is revolting?”, she asks out loud, knowing nobody will listen to her. She’s ready to leave for Pop’s, rolling her eyes at the girls with their high pony tails swaying their hips happily to the song as if a kid, the brother of their leader, hadn’t died. Something changes her mind, though. Cheryl running away from the stage, crying her heavy make up out. Y/N follows the red-haired girl as fast as she can, barely keeping up. She stops at the dressing room door and almost walks in. Cheryl is drowned in tears and Veronica’s voice is trying to comfort her. “He was supposed to come back.”, Cheryl sobs. Y/N hears footsteps coming to their direction and quickly gets out, for she’s already a social pariah without being caught sneaking up on Riverdale’s elite. But not forgetting to make a mental note to tell Jughead later.

Arriving at the diner, she looks around but doesn’t spot Juggie anywhere. She asks at the counter if they’ve seen him, but no one has. She places her order and proceeds to his usual booth to wait. Every time the shopkeepers bell rings, she looks up at the door, excited to tell him what she heard. A few hours later, when she is finishing her third milkshake, the bell finally signals Jughead entering. Y/N can’t help a grin, but he looks to the other side of the diner. Archie walks in right after him. They both stand at the door for a second before making their way to the table Betty and Veronica are sharing. Her grin slowly fades, giving way to an exasperated expression. Jughead doesn’t even notice she’s there until she gets up to leave. She sees him moving as if he will get up and walk after her, but she’s so fast at disappearing it’s impossible to check whether he really does it. “He got his friends back, he doesn’t need me anymore.” That’s the only thing in her mind.