#so now the rock has a garden full of souls for the next champion to find

[theelkmaiden]

So I've been thinking.

If Captain Marvel is the Champion of Magic, does that mean he has to play by the rules of all magic? Demon, fea, pixie etc.? Because if you owe something to one of those, things tend to go wrong. Fae can take your children, pixies can make your life hell, demons can literally take your souls.

So what if Billy Batson, being the sweet boy he is, keeps doing people favours? Now, he'd never take a child or cause someone chaos, as that means actually interfering, but souls? That boy could definitely be having people sign their souls away to him and he has no idea.

The first time he did someone a favour after the wizard granted him his powers, Billy was overtaken by a surge of tingles that tasted vaguely of rotten eggs. The feeling only lasted a second, but he couldn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. All he did was help Old Linda from the block over carry a bag of food to her place of residence. That was it. But after the tingling, Billy felt like he was connected to her in some way, on a deep and intimate level that didn't make sense.

And then it kept happening.

Helping to paint his neighbours room. Helping a girls cat from a tree. Letting a lost child sleep in his abandoned apartment overnight.

And later, bringing Batman a coffee after a long mission. Teaching Green Arrow the basics of pickpocketing. Spotting Flash on his running form.

Anytime someone said "can I ask you a (quick) favour" the tingling and eggs would come and Captain Marvel had no idea what it was or why it happened.

That is.

Until Old Linda died.

It had been a long patrol for Captain Marvel. There was a crime wave almost every year around July, like clockwork. Mainly teenagers getting in with gangs and trying to prive their worth now that school was out (or, at least, that was Cap's theory).

He was just touching down near his building to transform when he felt an entirely unique sensation. The tingling he was so familiar with came crashing over him in a wave so intense the demigod found himself wobbling where he stood, garnering a few concerned stares by citizens. The part of him that had been connected to Linda had snapped into place and, without even having to doue check, Billy knew for a fact that Old Linda was dead.

He also knew where to find her.

Drawing on his magic, Captain Marvel opened a portal to a corner of the Rock of Eternity ans stepped through.

There, on the otherside, stood the kind old woman who would often give him food if she had any left over.

"Excuse me, sir?" She asked, looking rather fearful, "would you mind telling me where I am?"

With eyes already misting, Marvel closed the portal and stepped towards her with his arms out in a calming manner.

"Linda. I'm so sorry. You're in the Rock of Eternity. You shouldn't be here but I think it's my fault you are," he was swallowed thickly, putting every ounce of self control he had to the test to bit show how distraught he was with this development.

Clearly seeing his distress, Linda calmed and gripped the Captains arm in a consoling manner. "I'm sure it's quiet alright, dear. Why don't you tell me what happened and then you can return me home. And then you can explain to me all about this place, hmm?"

Her small smile fell when the captain did not immediately react to her request.

"Miss Linda," Billy tried, not feeling very much like a superhero at that moment I time, "I'm so so sorry! I shouldn't have helped you with the food. But I just wanted to do something good. And now you're stuck here forever and I don't know how to free you and there's so many people that are going to come here and I didn't mean to!"

The hulking form of Captain Marvel was now a kneeling, sobbing mess as the twelve year old realised what he had done. The feeling of rightness that sang in his magic at Linda standing within the Rock of Eternity. The pull of what he now knew to be souls pulling him in different directions. The fact that he had only been trying to help.

"Now dear," Linda kneeled next to him, patting his shoulder in confused concern, "I assure you I have no idea what you're going on about. I've seen you flying overhead and fighting monsters, but we've never met officially past today. But if I'm stuck here forever, then at least I'll have company. Now, come, dry your eyes and get up. You need to explain to me what's going on." The mum of four in her seemed to have taken over as she dragged the massive man up to his feet and the stood on her toes to wipe his cheeks with the sleeve of her cardigan.

Taking a deep breath, Captain Marvel nodded. "Miss Linda. You are dead. I'm sorry. I accidently own your soul and I don't know how to release you to go somewhere better. And you're only the first person that's going to arrive here. This is completely new for me and I'm not sure what to do. This place is my home so you are welcome to explore and make yourself comfortable. But it's not much."

The silence that followed was deafening as Linda contemplated her situation. It stretched on until a look of resolve made its way onto the old souls face.

"Okay."

"Okay? Is that it?"

"Well you are obviously very distressed so it was definitely an accident. But I am not staying somewhere that looks so dull for the rest of Eternity. You and I are going to be doing some redecorating. How big is this place?"

"Infinite."

"Then this shan't be an issue. We can build a lovely garden where we can all stay until you get this figured out. Besides, it'll give me something to do."

So, he did. Captain Marvel (who Linda learned to be Billy Batson) got to work and transformed a large section of the Cave into a garden, with strict directions from Linda.

Over time, more people joined and Linda took it upon herself to greet the newcomers and explain what had gone on. Many people were unhappy, but soon settled into their afterlife and making friends.

After awhile, Billy took Linda aside and granted her a Boon. One of her choosing. She chose "to be the peacekeeper of this little afterlife. I want to help comfort those here who miss their old lives. I try, I do, but a little magical help wouldn't go amiss." And so she became the Peacekeeper.

In the outside realm, when Captain Marvel explained to Batman, Green Arrow, and The Flash that he accidently owned their souls, well, let's just say that shitshow lasted a while.

[angrylizardjacket]

Brian May Exclusive Enterview: Queen, Debauchery and Freddie Mercury (May 21, 2017)

Originally from The Times (which you have to pay to read) but found on SpearHead News (who republished the whole thing for free and I love them for it). Not sure if people had seen it much before but Rock Dad Brian May is v sweet, and the spearhead link has images attached. 

Tragedy, debauchery … and dwarves — the guitarist Brian May gives Krissi Murison an access-all-areas account of his life with Freddie Mercury and rock’s most flamboyant band. by The Sunday Times 

Brian May does a great Freddie Mercury impression. He leans forward in his chair, clasps his hands together conspiratorially and channels the high-speed, staccato delivery of the greatest showman of the late 20th century: “ ‘I had an idea … you know Michael Jackson did this album and it’s called Bad?’ Yeah, Fred. ‘Well, the album we’re making, we could call it Good.’ ”

May laughs. “He would always knock you sideways. Sometimes it was great and sometimes it wasn’t.”

The visitors to Freddie’s dressing room started to change from hot chicks to hot men. It didn’t matter to us — why should it?

May, the guitarist in Queen since their 1970 inception, remembers when Mercury finally announced to him that he was gay, “years after it was obvious”. “In the beginning, the band lived on a shoestring. We couldn’t afford individual hotel rooms, so I would share a room with Freddie … There isn’t a lot I don’t know about Freddie and what he got up to in those days — which was not men, I have to tell you. It was fairly obvious when the visitors to Freddie’s dressing room started to change from hot chicks to hot men. It didn’t matter to us, why should it? But Freddie had this habit of saying, ‘Well, I suppose you realise this, that or the other,’ in this very offhand way, and he did say at some point, ‘I suppose you realise I’ve changed in my private life?’

“And years later, he said, ‘I suppose you realise that I’m dealing with this illness.’ Of course, we all knew [he had Aids], but we didn’t want to. He said, ‘You probably gather that I’m dealing with this thing and I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want our lives to change, but that’s the situation.’ And then he would move on.”

Dredging through old memories has been the subject of May’s latest project: a compilation book of his personal collection of 3D photos from his time striding around the globe during Queen’s heady reign of stadium-rock supremacy. The accompanying words mark the first time any member of Queen has written about their experiences in the band.

It is harrowing to read of Freddie’s final days and the devastating effect the HIV virus took on his body before he died in late 1991. “The problem,” May writes, “was actually his foot, and tragically there was very little left of it. Once, he showed it to us at dinner. And he said, ‘Oh Brian, I’m sorry I’ve upset you by showing you that.’ And I said, ‘I’m not upset, Freddie, except to realise you have to put up with all this terrible pain.’ ”

Equally hard is May’s belief that the “magic cocktail” of drugs that has since stopped Aids becoming a death sentence was discovered just too late to save Freddie.

“He missed by just a few months,” May sighs. “If it had been a bit later he would still have been with us, I’m sure. It’s very …” he breaks off sadly. “Hmmm. You can’t do ‘what if’ can you? You can’t go there because therein lies madness.”

Brian May on his Queen picture book and Freddie Mercury

Honestly, I had expected to meet a sanctimonious old git. May has been dubbed “the world’s grumpiest rock star” thanks to his online blog, Brian’s Soapbox, on which he posts pious rants about politics, the press, badger culls and animal rights. There are flashes of the same hectoring tone in the book. But it must be a mean trick of the typing, because in real life he seems a terribly gentle and pleasant soul.

I meet him in Windlesham, Surrey, in the vast pile where he has his offices. The bookshelves are lined with antique cameras and 19th-century volumes of Punch. In the middle of the room is a female mannequin wearing a sweeping Victorian crinoline skirt — another of May’s esoteric interests.

He wanders in wearing clogs, gardening trousers and a woven red jacket, almost as arresting as his bright grey corkscrew barnet. Under the jacket is a white shirt, unbuttoned dangerously low for someone who turns 70 in July. Bohemian chain pendants clatter against nipple as he leans in to say hello. He is very tall — or maybe that’s just the hair — and frightfully easy-going.

Tea is arranged and he briefly excuses himself. I assume he’s gone to use the facilities or take an urgent phone call. But after 20 minutes I look out the window to see him tottering around the back garden taking pictures of his rhododendron. Has he forgotten me? When he finally returns, it’s with a box containing his treasured collection of “stereoscopic” (3D) cameras and some of the original slides he took.

He shows me one of his favourites: a picture of Freddie and the Queen bassist John Deacon on a private plane in 1977. A blonde woman gazes at Freddie from the seat next to him.

“That’s Mary, his long-term girlfriend.” Despite Mercury’s sexuality, Mary Austin was his longest relationship and the woman he called “the love of my life”. “They were still very close right to the end,” May nods. “He took care of Mary in his will.”

We look at another photo of Freddie having his make-up applied before a show. “You just feel he’s so close there, don’t you?” May smiles. “It’s almost painfully real. He was this strange mixture of flamboyance and shyness,” he says, remembering his first impressions of Mercury. “He had already built this image around himself, which was very confident and colourful. He was a rock star long before he made a record. In the old days they would have called him a dandy. And more recently a metrosexual. He was like a peacock, a person who brought his own fantasy to life.”

Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, east Africa, to Indian Parsi parents in 1946. He had already started calling himself Freddie before his family came to England, fleeing the Zanzibar revolution for Feltham in west London when he was 17. May grew up a few miles away in leafy Hampton, a studious only child who would later quit a PhD in astrophysics at Imperial College London to pursue his rock’n’roll dreams. (He eventually completed it 36 years later in 2007, specialising in zodiacal dust.)

May tells me about the day he met Freddie. The guitarist was already in a university band called Smile. One day Smile’s singer unwittingly brought his colourful, outspoken mate from Ealing Art College to watch a rehearsal. “Freddie was full of enthusiasm, really fired up,” May remembers. “He loved watching us. Then, on the other hand, he was: ‘But you’re doing all of this wrong. Why are you just standing there looking at the floor? Why aren’t you giving a show for people?’ ”

Was he angling for the frontman job himself?

“I think so. He was very complimentary to me. He said, ‘You should be my Jimi Hendrix.’ Freddie loved Hendrix, he followed him everywhere, he was like a disciple.”

A band, Queen, was born with Mercury as singer. I had no idea how revolutionary his crowd interaction was until May explains that most audiences going to watch a rock band in the early 1970s would sit on the floor, nodding. “These days groups encourage audience participation, but Freddie asking people to sing along was almost uncool in those days. It was viewed as something that might happen in cabaret. What we did, if you want to be crass about it, is we amalgamated rock with music hall. That’s why we wrote We Are the Champions, We Will Rock You and Radio Ga Ga — it was consciously allowing the audience to be part of the show.”

Then there were the outfits. May’s book features some beauties: early 1970s Freddie in flowing locks and Zandra Rhodes’s white pleated “winged” capes; gay-icon Freddie, barechested in black leather trousers and black leather biker hat; “Mediterranean prawn” Freddie with his porno moustache, bouffant wig and strappy red leotard.

Wasn’t he scared of getting beaten up?

“No, not really. There were times when we went, Fred, are you really going on in that? I think the maroon sequin shorts were close to the edge as far as we were concerned. But he loved to outrage people. We were very much a people’s band. If people stopped us in the street and got excited, it was generally bricklayers or truck drivers. Freddie had an amazing way of being in contact with everyone, making people feel like their inner selves were going to come out. We liberated a lot of people.”

Mercury the daring peacock, May the soft-spoken brainiac … it is hard not to see them as two polar opposites, but May disagrees. “We were all striding around the world being big-time rock stars, but actually we’re quite fragile inside. It’s probably the reason we’re rock stars, because it’s a big compensation thing, playing a loud guitar or strutting around singing. You do it because you want to feel confident, you want to find yourself and achieve your potential.”

It says much about Mercury’s light-sapping charisma that May spent much of his time in the shadow of the singer while he was alive. And it says much about May’s strategic brilliance that he hasn’t subsequently faded into obscurity, but become the figurehead of a band that is now even more successful than it was during Mercury’s lifetime. According to this year’s Rich List, May is worth £125m, while a recent survey named Queen the favourite band among fiftysomethings.

Next year will finally see the release of a long-awaited Freddie Mercury biopic, with Rami Malek playing the singer, and May and Queen’s drummer, Roger Taylor, on board as music producers. We Will Rock You, a musical based on Queen’s hits, ran at the Dominion Theatre for 12 years from 2002. Since 2012, Queen have toured live with the American Idol finalist Adam Lambert singing Mercury’s lines (heresy in my opinion, but apparently Freddie would have loved him). Nothing, though, can eclipse May’s 2002 moment astride the top of Buckingham Palace, playing a guitar solo of God Save the Queen for the jubilee. The roof was his idea; the organisers had initially envisaged him wandering through the state rooms for the performance, but he thought it lacked impact. Perhaps he is more like Freddie than we will ever know.

Absent from any of the post-Mercury Queen activity is the bassist, John Deacon, now said to be a recluse. “I don’t see him at all, no,” says May. “It’s his choice. He doesn’t contact us. John was quite delicate all along. He could be very outgoing and very funny, but I think some of the stuff that happened in Munich gave him a lot of damage, and I think losing Freddie was very hard for him as well. He found that incredibly hard to process, to the point where actually playing with us made it more difficult.”

Munich was where Queen holed up at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s to write and record. Things got out of hand. May coyly refers to it in the book as a period of heavy drinking in a local bar, “living in a fantasy world of vodka and barmaids”.

Today he is more forthright: “We all lost our minds … we were all in a perilous place where our emotions were out of control. It manifested itself in way too much drinking, a certain amount of drugs, which I didn’t share — but certainly an awful lot of vodka went through my body. We all fell to bits. That’s the moment Freddie wrote It’s a Hard Life. If you look at the video, it’s a metaphor. There’s all this wonderful, fanciful clothing and excess of food, wine and debauchery, but Freddie’s saying ‘It’s a hard life’ as the grapes are thrust into his mouth. The Freddie writing that song was actually in a very painful, emotional place.”

It inevitably also had an impact on the band dynamic. “We overreacted with each other at times. We all left the band at some point. The studio’s a hard place for a band anyway, but in our case all four of us as writers had had worldwide hits — and I think that’s unique, I don’t think there’s another band in history where that’s true. You have four writers trying to create the next statement of what we are, so what could that statement be except a fight between the different visions? The lifestyle we led magnified that conflict.” In Deacon’s case, it culminated in “John disappearing to Bali and seeing God or whatever”.

When it comes to legendary Queen decadence, May’s book does its best to brush over the carnage. So let me be the one to remind you: there was the Madison Square Garden aftershow party at which male guests were served by topless waitresses in stockings and heels and female guests by men in nothing but gym shorts (to avoid accusations of sexism). And the champagne bill for Freddie’s 35th birthday in New York in 1981, which is said to have been £30,000. Most outrageous, though, was a 1978 album-release party in New Orleans, involving “a flock of transvestites, fire-eaters, dancing girls, snake charmers and strippers dressed as nuns”, according to Mark Blake’s well-respected Queen biography. The tales of what happened next range from the lurid (naked mud-wrestling, public fornication) to the unprintable, but perhaps the most famous involves a fleet of dwarves carrying platters of cocaine strapped to their heads. Does May remember seeing them?

“We knew a lot of dwarves,” he concedes. “I’m still very friendly with the dwarf community because my wife, Anita, used to do pantomimes. I don’t want to sound big-headed, but I’m pretty big in the dwarf world. I’ve spent many long nights propping up bars with dwarves.”

Of New Orleans, he says: “We chose to launch the album there because it was completely broad-minded. We knew a lot of people on the ‘edge of society’, as you would have called it then. You wouldn’t call it that now, you’d call it LGBTBF or whatever it is now. To that party came all sorts of pretty outrageous performers of every sex — and there are a lot! It was fun, nothing sinister went on at all. Nobody was abused, nobody was taken advantage of.”

Fat Bottomed Girls — I was proud of that song. The nude photoshoot was fun at the time, but I wouldn’t find it amusing now. Attitudes change

He would rather distance himself from some of Queen’s less politically correct japes. “For instance, Fat Bottomed Girls. I am very proud of that song, but as part of the album packaging we had this nude [female] bicycle race for a photo session and it all seemed quite innocent and fun at the time. Now I wouldn’t think that was amusing. Attitudes have changed to lots of things.”

He was far from the hardest-partying member of Queen. He’s never even tried drugs, having decided while still a student that “I want to get to the end of this and know that everything I felt was real”.

His weakness was always “company”. He bemoans his sensitive and emotionally immature nature, which meant he was endlessly trawling the world for “the perfect bond with the perfect partner … the place where you could dissolve with someone to the point where you don’t know where they start and you end.”

Did he ever find it? “No, it’s impossible. I’ve glimpsed it. Various times, various moments. But it’s a wonderful fiction, really.”

Don’t feel too bad for him. While he was searching, his then-wife, Chrissie Mullen, was stuck at home with their three children.

“It was very different in those days. There were no mobile phones and phone calls were incredibly expensive if you were on the other side of the world. There was this feeling that life on the road was this separate bubble from your life back home. Nowadays you can’t even begin to think that because communication is so good. We lived in a time that was very exciting, but lonely because you were cut off. You were exploring the frontiers of what was around you, but also the frontiers of what was inside you. In the same way as people who went to look for the Northwest Passage in the 1950s. It felt a bit like you were an explorer in another universe.”

As justifications for adultery go, I suppose it’s a pretty classy one.

He met his second wife, Anita Dobson — aka Angie, the original Queen Vic landlady from EastEnders — in 1986 at a film premiere, while he was still married to Mullen. He and Dobson wed in 2000. There was much amusement in the early days about them both having the same huge poodle perms — though May’s is the real deal and Dobson has been platinum and straight for some time now. In his book’s acknowledgments, he thanks her for managing to live with “possibly the most infuriating man in Britain for 30 years”.

“I know I’m not easy,” he says. “I’m constantly obsessed with one thing or another — astronomy, stereoscopy, music, saving animals … Living with someone like that is appallingly difficult, so I think she deserves a medal. I’m not going to tell you she’s easy, either. She’s an artist and a fearsomely creative person, so our life has always been turbulent, but I suppose that’s what’s kept us young.”

He has previously spoken about the depression he suffered from in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as he dealt with the fallout from his first marriage breaking down and the deaths of both his father and Mercury. Last year he cancelled a tour due to a mystery “persistent illness”. And on Christmas Day he published an alarming blog on Brian’s Soapbox. “I’ve been going through some radical and painful changes in my life … if you had seen me a few weeks ago, you would’ve wondered if I was going to make it to Christmas,” he wrote, before publishing a “tool kit” of apps, a book and a prayer to help others struggling to cope “physically or mentally or spiritually”.

“I went through a very bad period before Christmas and cancelled everything, not just the tour, everything,” he explains. “I just knew I couldn’t handle it.”

Would he call it depression?

“Strangely enough I prefer not to call it depression now. I’ve recently got very much into the body and mind. All my life I’ve been pathetic at doing exercises. I now have a regime — every morning I do 40 minutes’ exercise, then I finish with meditation. It’s really enabled me to recentre. I feel like I’m in a much better place.”

He is an advocate of mindful meditation — a way of living in the present that he believes Mercury used in the final days of his illness. May is happy to speak openly about his own mental health. “I noticed Prince Harry opened up in a similar way. I’ve always thought it’s nice to be open and I get reinforced in that because I get tons of mail saying the fact that you talked about it has helped me feel like I wasn’t alone and wasn’t a freak. I don’t think all this taboo business is helpful at all.”

I wonder if it might be a better use of his platform than his zealous activism on behalf of badgers, which seems a rather niche concern. In brief, then: he is a fierce campaigner against the policy of culling badgers to try to eradicate bovine TB. It is his scientific belief that the cull isn’t working. But it is muddled by his more deep-seated conviction: “Martin Luther King said we hold it self-evident that every man is born equal. I hold it self-evident that every creature is born equal.”

He can point to numerous childhood traumas that led him to this conclusion: watching his mother pour boiling water over an invasion of ants on the path outside his house; squirting a bumblebee with the pesticide DDT, then recoiling in shame as it dropped to the ground, buzzing to its slow and agonising death. If he hasn’t yet had therapy for the latter, he really should.

The animal fanaticism is odd, because on everything else he seems so calmly rational. Perhaps he learnt some of that composure from Freddie. Despite his pain, Freddie was determined to keep working during the band’s final days together in a recording studio in Montreux.

“What we did was get on with business as usual, which is what Freddie wanted,” May remembers. “He said, ‘I don’t want anything to change. We just do what we always do and we love what we do, so it’s going to be fine.’ Certainly those days towards the end were fabulous, full of laughter and joy, Freddie as wicked as ever. He was incredibly matter-of-fact about everything. ‘Oh darling, I’ll just get on with it.’ There wasn’t any self-pity at all. He wanted a ballad, so I very quickly sketched something in the studio and Freddie liked it. He said, ‘Gimme some words’. It was a question of scribbling a few lines and he’d chuck a couple of vodkas down — because he could hardly stand at that point — ‘Oh darling, I’ll do it now.’ Then he’d prop himself up on the desk and sing the lines. We didn’t quite get to the end. I gave him the last verse and he said, ‘Oh darling, I’m not feeling too good now, so I’ll come back to it. In a couple of days I’ll be fine, we’ll do it then.’ And he never did.”

May finished the song after Mercury’s death. It’s called Mother Love, “an attempt from the two of us to look at life and sum it up, to reconcile the end with the beginning, although we wouldn’t have put it that way.”

What does he think Freddie would be doing now if he were still alive? “I don’t think he’d have the patience for social media, because I hardly do and he was much more impatient than me. I don’t think he would be tweeting, he would probably be still writing his little memos on pieces of paper. He was becoming more and more reclusive towards the end of his life. That was partly because he was becoming more and more visible, but partly not wanting his illness to be public. But he was very private anyway and I think that would have continued.”

He is adamant Mercury would still be creating music. “His creativity would have carried on. He was unstoppable and very lateral-thinking. Always coming up with things that were surprising. Often Roger and I, if we’re creating something for Queen, both of us have said that we feel like he’s in the room and you know what he’d say. You can tell if he would have been scornful or enthusiastic — although of course the whole thing about Freddie was that he wasn’t expected.”

We have touched upon May’s depression, infidelity, the painful death of one of his closest friends and the painful death of a bee. Yet there is one subject so sensitive, I have avoided raising it until the very end. His hair. He hates talking about it, but he must on some level like the attention it brings, otherwise why doesn’t he just cut it off?

“I’m comfortable with it,” he says. “It’s completely real. For a time when it was going grey I got very worried that I had to keep it a certain way or I wouldn’t be me any more. Anita encouraged me not to worry about it.”

Would he ever cut it off?

“If it would achieve world peace, I’d do it tomorrow. If it would stop the badger cull, I’d probably do it tomorrow. Because the badger cull is a worthless, senseless operation, it’s not working and sooner or later our government has to realise …”

The images in May’s new book are not just any photos, but 3D pictures, taken on one of the Queen guitarist’s prized “stereoscopic” cameras.

Alongside music, astronomy and badgers, May is deliriously passionate about 3D photography. He first became hooked, aged 12, when Weetabix gave away free stereoscopic picture cards. He petitioned his parents to send off 1s 6d for the photo viewer so he could see them properly in 3D. “It’s probably about £2.50 by today’s money. But we were poor in those days — £2.50 was a lot of heating and lighting.”

“Stereoscopic” photography was originally a Victorian phenomenon and May’s book is published through the London Stereoscopic Company, a 19th-century business he brought back to life in 2008. He has also designed and prototyped his own stereoscopic photo viewer, the Owl, to see the images in their full, 3D majesty; it comes with the book. “It’s just magic to me,” he says, “when you see a picture of Freddie in the viewer and he springs to life.”

[erinelizabethh]

Caught Your Eye | Leon x Reader (7/?)

Summary: Your little sister is the newest, most promised challenger to beat the region’s Champion. Leon is said Champion. You just have a Pikachu.

A series of drabbles following yours and Leon’s friends-to-lovers slow burn… years in the making.

1 2 3 4 5 6

Chapter Seven: Must Be Fate

Chapter Summary: Perhaps fate is something to believe in.

Fate is a concept, an idea to believe in rather than accept as fact. To believe in whatever was to come meant a sense of control in one’s life, and God forbid if this world wasn’t so unpredictable. Perhaps the word is meant to comfort you, to justify the shudder in your bones at the fast-approaching return to Postwick. In fact, Sonia can go on about how she dawdles in it all, only entertaining destiny when she sees fit which is… exactly the topic of conversation upon your first step in Wedgehurst territory. With your Rotom phone tucked in between your shoulder and your ear, heat traveling to a phone increasing in stupidity the more you couldn’t figure how to navigate it, you raise a shoulder to drag your duffle bag toward the column of your neck while kneeling to bring your able Pikachu into your arms. “She must be right excited to see Leon in the flesh again, huh?” Sonia inquires in fact, expecting proof of delight in return.

The girl famous for her peach strands of hair and her brilliant knowledge of the region remains your friend through passing texts and selfies with your now ex-best friend, and his now rival Raihan. Unlike everyone else, she’s that rock that is dauntless of abilities that near rival a ghost type, choosing to spend moments of her day checking in with a, “What’s goin’, love?” despite your schedule too full to respond to left messages. Sometimes if the nostalgia is too much to bear, she recalls of outings the four of you had however rare, taking quick detours on routes home because you finally caved and relished in the way the sun’s rays traveled in the waves of the lake beside her home. Sometimes she’ll sign off her messages with a plead for you to return through the excuse that Leon and Raihan are down to one bookworm to tease; she misses a friend, a fellow girl, someone whose contact means more to her and less to you as the years are counted and lives are left behind.

No one’s fault but yours, you suppose, it was difficult to detach from the village girl in you to make residence in the city. Contacts of old classmates nonetheless are found upon the habitual scrolling through lists of numbers foreign, all besides your mother, Lydia, and Sonia having to deal with a fleeting existence never picking up. If only any of those people fortunate enough to hold a spot in your memory even bothered to call, but again, no one’s fault but yours. With a few updates every day from Mum about the abundance of Butterfree’s among her plants as if you care and a few more from Lydia mentioning a girl she’s crushing on in University as if you have any right giving her advice, your phone is dry with your recent calls your mentor and boss as the only source.

At this point, you’re not exactly positive why you bought this device.

Your Pikachu nuzzles her rosy cheeks into your forearm, appreciative of that buzz she experiences when her owner gives her attention. “He texted me back a, ‘yep’ when I told ‘im, I mean Sonia… he’s definitely a bit cross with me— oh, but the hat—“

You step outside Wedgehurst Station to find a crowd of people in your vision, and the very man invading your thoughts as the object of their affection. They ogle over the cape that dresses him so proper, aware of how contagious his smile can be, salivating at the amount of patience required to fully tame his winning Charizard. There are sparkles in the eyes of each aspiring trainer and parent searching for a distraction, asking him of favors to amuse them just a little longer. You’re somebody that doesn’t deserve paying mind to, except Leon has to perk up at your voice and turn to meet your entrance home, successfully diverting the attention from him and his most trusted Pokémon to someone who wanted none of that. The inhabitants of Wedgehurst turn heads at Leon’s change of behavior and the source, and you lower your phone from your ear as your gaze shuffles at every direction but the one where he is in your direct line of vision.

… And there it is, in your periphery. Your gift to him.

No one walked the world without finding his name on a billboard, his face plastered in hyperbolic documentaries of how the boy from nothing rose to the top and became the Champion of Galar. The world knew he was loved, yes, that he packed up his wardrobe and set out at the age of sixteen, yes, but did they know how good he was at remembering birthdays? His mother would tease him in passing by posting a picture of him when he was a teenager and the population would go mad and exclaim about his braces but were they there during his woes of them being too tight, too fragile? Would anyone have cared if he wasn’t a winner, if he wasn’t always a winner? So many questions and yet, you would think being twenty-three, all the time in the world would be offered to you to answer them.

You followed Leon’s journey to twenty-four through the eyes and ears of others, lips flat as you witnessed him having the time of his life. Lydia, with the occasional snapshot of his rare visit to his home, would encourage a grin from the adult when he found no reason to frown. You would scroll down Hop’s feed, his stan feed if you will, claiming that one day he would be Champion just like his brother, analyzing the stream of Leon’s many battles and victories. Then, if you were courageous enough, the next tab would be reserved for his mother’s profile—still kicking, still tagging your mother in articles about gardening. The occasional upload of Leon’s pose would show up if you scrolled further, with Mum sparing time to comment about how his signature stance kind of looks like a Charizard which was kind of the point, followed by the demand for him and you to meet up in Motostoke. Of course, your name in bold was to be your limit, and you proceeded to exit the application to bang your forehead against your phone two, three times.

His appearance is just as in the pictures, except you’re now able to put a voice and a soul into them. The boy, now a man, can’t seem to avert his gaze from what he deems is the more pressing matter at hand, his cheeks losing its color the more he eyes the color that fuses within yours. His hair reaches yours in length, undoubtedly as soft as silk, and perhaps one day there would come a time where he would allow you to braid it in a design that accentuates more of his silent gratitude. You squint to find the regret in his eyes, maybe contempt, only finding dandelions that sway in the lovely, constant breeze. There is no difference to be found in him so far but the growth on his chin and the tufts of hair that far outmatch yours. Rather than spare his many glances at you, gaze aligning so perfectly with the other, he now follows you to a height stunted just because your body isn’t built to be tall. However, although the number of contrasts is small, they are too significant to ignore, and you can’t help but notice that there can be no return to a boy strife with the burden of crooked teeth and expectations. Leon, although no longer a best friend, remains but a spirit meant to haunt you because no one can seem to let him go. You, unfortunately, are no different.

You, however, appear to have been obscured from both families’ requests for selfies or photos of your new flat, only a comment of how you’re welcomed at your new position, partaking in research that no one cared to find out about, so it’s quite a shock to him to find you seven years later under a new light. Quite some time has passed since yet the years have been kind to you, he’s sure. You deserve it, of course, but maybe you don’t; some part of him has to remind him of what you did to him. Regardless, there exists weights beneath your eyes, no doubt an accumulation of years of studies, yet you compensate for it with lips soft and glossy. The second that transpires before you shield your face from the sun, your irises shimmer underneath it’s rays and he’s thrown back to when the two of you were teenagers and the sun set over the horizon at just the right time when you were just in the right spot, and he’s as mesmerized then as he is now.

Boy, does he hate it.

There is something you haven’t seen from him since you departed: a frown upon his lips that deters those who find solace in his abiding smile. Eyebrows narrowed if only for a moment, the relief of those that know a caricature of him returns when he puffs out his chest, permitting you from defacing his image by forcing out a, “Welcome home,” despite, you know, not coming back for seven years. The smile that reaches the surface is unsettling to you, as behind it there are cracks in which you are the cause, imprints of memories better off forgotten because you made them undesirable. You return the favor in contrast to Pikachu squirming in your grasp, settling with the familiarity of the boy before her. His Charizard simply huffs out his dismay, gaze observing the tremble that crawls up your skin and threatens to make an already horrid situation much worse. He flexes his growth from the cheeky yet promising Charmander to the inviolable Charizard the world knows, all because you can’t seem to stop breaking his owner’s heart. No difference found, as perhaps his form of discipline during your many study dates alone with him really was punishing you for the inevitable.

Lydia and Hop are in the back of this mess, balanced on top of their toes to witness the commotion over the shoulders of passersby, murmuring under their breaths of the lack of timing that warrants such a situation. The two grown, yet not grown enough, graduates jostle shoulders to get through to the both of you, and it is then that you notice of the increasing similarity in behavior and appearance between Leon and his sibling. Of course, there’s no time to worry about it lost, as Lydia grasps your free arm and grants you a favor after years of you slacking as her sister and her confidant. When she drags you from the fray, calling for Leon over his shoulder of her intended whereabouts, you’re not at all occupied with the intimidation of unwanted attention and off handed clicks of the tongue.

Out of all the caps to wear…

Out of all the trinkets and parting gifts that would remind you of home…

You wear mine.

[knightowl725]

Healing in a Graveyard

Fandom: Critical Role

For Fjorclay Week 2020′s Modern AU Prompt - a day early because I wrote something very short for today’s actual prompt and got super excited about this one. More chapters to follow.

Read on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23828932/chapters/57258880

Chapter One: Just For A Few Days

Fjord had never expected to agree when Beau and Jester first dragged him to see the place. The Blooming Grove.

“It’s a big house near campus,” Jester told him. “They’re very friendly to students, and the prices are very reasonable. Molly said there were lots of empty rooms they want to rent out.”

“Yeah, but it’s in a graveyard,” Fjord reminded her. She ignored him.

"We'll all have rooms near each other and share meals and hang out.”

"If our rooms are next to each other, we can learn morse code and tap messages!" Beau exclaimed, and that one got to him. So he went along to take a look at the place. Yasha and Molly were already living there, and it was Molly that showed them around in the absent landlord’s stead.

Fjord said no at first. He was with Avantika and her crew. He'd gotten in with Avantika early on, when it all first became overwhelming. Classes and a part time job, topped with the social pressures of a smaller school, it was all too much. Avantika had found him then, drawn him in and all but fed him to that…

If he was honest he'd just call it a cult. Like Jester's Traveler but instead of lighthearted mischief it was promising your eternal devotion and doing some mildly illegal shit. They found him at his lowest and made him feel wanted, welcome. Like he was family.

An entire year and some had gone by. And Fjord was getting thinner, more tired, more drawn out every day.

Beau burst into his room one day after class. He was living in a house with the rest of Avantika’s group, The Champions, in a room he shared with three other people. It was a cramped house, and it ate up all the money he made at his part-time job. But that was the price you paid to be family. A Champion.

No one else was home right now, off under Avantika’s guidance to do something in their snake god’s honor. Fjord still felt shivers every time they said its name. 

A rap on his window jolted him upright, books strewn around him on the bed. He went to the window to find Beau crouched outside it, perched on a part of the roof that met the house under his window.

He unlocked the window and flung it open. “Beau! What are you--”

She slid into the room past him. “Intervention!”

“Inter--”

“The semester is nearly over,” she said, starting to wander around the room, piling up his books and school supplies. “There’s only a few weeks left, tons of tests and shit. You said yourself that these...freaks or whatever...are distracting you, and you’re this close to losing your scholarship.”

“Yeah, bu--”

“They take all your money, force you to work with them, act super controlling all the time, and now you can’t even study.”

“They let me miss out today to stud--”

Beau found his duffel bag and began shoving books into it. “You’re staying with me for a few days. Just a few days! Swear. You need to get out of this creepy house--”

“And into the graveyard?’

She gave him a pointed look. “Isn’t it saying something that the graveyard isn’t half as creepy?”

He rolled his eyes, and she went on, “You’re getting a break, dude. You need it. Everyone agrees. We’re intervening and forcing it.”

“Beau--”

“Just a few days,” she insisted, a little softer. “Hang out with your friends, focus on school, then you’ll be back in this shithole selling your soul to whatever like you always dreamed.”

She shoved the open bag, stuffed with books, into his arms like it weighed nothing. He nearly buckled at the sudden weight. “Pack up your laptop and some clothes and shit.”

Fjord tried to argue further, but she was right. He was exhausted. And loud as their friend group was, they knew how to respect someone trying to keep a scholarship. They wouldn’t follow him to the library to drag him to a ‘mandatory meeting’ no one told him about, or burst into class in the middle of a test because he had a ‘personal emergency’ that was just another meeting. Or remind him at least twice a week that he could always drop out and just work full time with them.

With a deep, tired sigh, Fjord relented.

~~~~

It had been raining, a hot summer rain. Sticky and gross.

"C’mon!" Beau ordered, literally dragging him by the arm through the graveyard with her insane strength. "Just stay for, like, three days. Get your head on right."

"There's no way your landlord will let me stay."

"You haven't met the guy," she said with a strange expression. Like bewilderment met respect. It was always the look his friends who lived there wore when talking about their landlord and neighbor. "His family has owned this place since like forever. He acts like a major stoner though I rarely see him smoke, and all he wants is tenants that keep the place lively but not destroyed. And to feed us sometimes. But it's dope vegan shit."

"Sounds like the weirdest hippie ever."

"Oh, he is," she assured him.

And Fjord gave in and followed her up the last steps up to the building they called the “Xhorhas”. 

The building itself was old, but sturdy. A stone and brick structure that had stood longer than some of the Grove’s vibrant trees. It was almost mid-Spring then, and the garden-graveyard was bursting with color and flowers and bugs.

“Don’t be a baby,” Beau snapped when he jolted away from a fat little bumblebee. 

“There aren’t bugs in the house, are there?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes, which he hoped to mean ‘of course not’.

The front porch was a wooden structure, painted white then further painted in mis-matched designs and colors. Various plants covered the railings and hung from the room, and there was a little table, a white wooden bench - also painted - and a single, oversized rocking chair. 

“We painted those,” Beau said. “Caduceus had to tear down the old porch and rebuild, and Jester convinced him to let us paint all over it. Check this out!”

She led him to the bench and dragged him down to sit, then to look under it upside-down. There, painted neatly and lovingly under the bench’s seat, was a series of stylized dicks.

Fjord sighed as Beau cackled. Normally it might get a chuckle out of him, but he was too tired to be amused these days.

“Oh, c’mon you old man,” she said, leading him to the actual door. She pulled it open without a key.

“Is it always unlocked? Won’t people try to break in?”

“To a graveyard house?” she asked. “Honestly I’d like to see them try. You haven’t even seen--”

“Ah, Beauregard?” called a low, gentle voice from inside. “Welcome home.”

“Hey Caduceus,” she replied, wiping her feet on the entry mat - covered in a floral design - before stepping further inside. Fjord mimicked her movements.

The front entryway was probably larger than it seemed, with tall ceilings and a rectangular frame. But it was over-crowded with things. Plants everywhere, hanging and on window sills and standing at the edges of the room. There were plush rugs over stone flooring in muted, worn colors more likely due to age and use than style. There was, to the right, a door leading into another room with a curtain hanging down and a collection of plush, mis-matched chairs around a table. Slightly off center to the left were the stairs up to the actual rooms. To the left, a little shelf crammed full of books, endless plants, and was that a shrine?

“Oh, you brought a guest?”

Beau had stepped towards the left, where a tall figure was peering into hanging plants with a watering can dwarfed by his height.

“Yeah, Caduceus, this is Fjord. The friend we’ve mentioned. Fjord, this our landlord, Caduceus.”

Caduceus looked over and smiled, eyes a little droopy in that calm, might-be-a-stoner-but-might-also-just-look-that-way kinda way. He was a firbolg, a rare breed in this area these days, coated in a layer of gray fur, but with pink eyes, hair, and a neatly trimmed pink beard. He wore plain, loose clothing underneath a vibrantly teal, thin coat that stretched nearly to the floor, covered in pink branches and flowers and beetles. Through one ear looped a thick wooden spiral for an earring.

Caduceus made a face. “I don’t like that word, ‘landlord’. I prefer just being another neighbor. Hullo Mister Fjord.”

“Hello. It’s nice to meet you.” Fjord gave an awkward little nod towards the tall man.

“Right, well I wanted to ask if it’s cool if Fjord crashes here for a few days,” Beau said with no warning nor ceremony. Fjord twitched in discomfort. “Maybe a week.”

“I don’t want to impose,” Fjord insisted. “I do have a room--”

“Yeah, in a cultist house with your shitty whatever she is,” Beau snapped.

“Ah, Fjord,” Caduceus said, as if he was suddenly putting the pieces together. “It wouldn’t be any trouble at all.”

“I don’t have any money. I couldn’t pay.”

The firbolg smiled at him. “I didn’t ask for money. You’re a friend of everyone here, and they are my friends. Which, by extension, makes you a friend of mine as well. I wouldn’t turn away a friend who needs a little time away from things.”

Beau gave him a pointed look as if to say, “told you so!”

To Beau, Caduceus said, almost dreamily, “We still have that vacant room.”

“Molly’s old room,” Beau reminded Fjord. Molly, their wild and fabulous tiefling friend, had decided to transfer schools last semester. While it broke the heart of their friend group, he still visited, video chatted, and sent perfumed letters often.

“It’s not much, but there’s a bed and a dresser still. Good enough for a week or so.”

“I couldn’t accept such a generous offer,” Fjord told him. 

“Fjord!” Beau exclaimed. “Let people help you!”

“It’s an entire room, something everyone else is paying for!”

“For like a week, Fjord! And it’s not like people are breaking down the door to live here!”

Fjord glanced at Caduceus, but the man looked unaffected by the comment. Either he was completely vacant, or he was very much in touch with the reality of his home.

“If it’s so important to you,” Caduceus drawled. “I could use some help around the house and the Grove for a few days. I’ve got some projects that have piled up. We could consider that your rent for the week?”

Beau stared holes into Fjord, hands splayed and extended as if to say, “come on!”

“That’s very kind of you, Caduceus,” Fjord said. “I...I suppose it would be a nice break.”

“Finally!” Beau exclaimed. She leapt over to the stairs, thudding up them and shouting, “Jes! We got Fjord for a week!”

“A week!” came a shout from Jester’s familiar voice.

Fjord sighed. Caduceus looked up the stairs smiling. “Such a lively bunch.”

Turning back to Fjord he said, “Let me get you your key.”

~~

Caduceus had been right, the room wasn’t especially noteworthy. But it was clean, with a nice window that overlooked the Grove, including the largest tree there, and simple, sturdy furniture. 

He didn’t have much to his name with him. Avantika and The Champions had taken it poorly when he texted the group chat that he was staying with a friend for the week, but they hadn’t completely flipped out. Still, he wasn’t going to risk going back to that house until he was going back for good. When Beau had grabbed him, they’d focused on taking the things he needed for school so as not to draw attention, and only the bare minimum in anything else.

He had $20 to his name for food for the week, maybe longer. He had two day’s worth of clothes, so he’d be doing laundry every day. Maybe it’d be a good excuse to convince Caleb to let him clean his clothes as well. He somehow always got them covered in dirt and mystery stains. Chem majors.

Caduceus had left him with fresh sheets and linens, as well as a small potted plant. He rattled off instructions and odd musings, then promised it would survive almost anything as long as he watered it every few days and didn’t put it in direct sunlight.

Fjord sat on the edge of the bed, patchwork blankets neatly folded beside him, his duffle bag sitting by the door, and took a breath. There was a large mirror on top of the dresser that looked directly at him. He looked, well. He looked like shit.

His beard, never the full, lush thing he would have preferred, had grown in patchy and speckled with gray. That tiny sliver of gray he’d found at eighteen had expanded into a full-blown chunk at the front of his scalp. His hair was too long, disheveled at this length. His eyes looked sunken and almost bloodshot. He was frowning deeply, his default expression. He sat slumped and tired and worn. Worse than shit, he looked half-dead.

Maybe he could just ask Caduceus to dig him a hole.

~~

He shouldn’t have joked about that, because that was exactly what Caduceus asked him to do pre-dawn the next morning. Luckily, Caduceus was an early riser, which was the only time Fjord had reliably free before classes and work.

“Do I want to know what these holes are for?” Fjord asked gingerly, looking at the shovel handed to him.

“I would think it’s fairly obvious,” Caduceus said, a little perplexed and a little amused in one.

Fjord cleared his throat. “Right. Okay.”

Caduceus worked right alongside him, digging, then breaking from that to stay nearby. He cared for plants, cleaned gravestones, laid out flowers, and prepared these new gravesites. He worked in relative silence, occasionally humming some song or another seemingly without realizing. Sometimes Fjord heard him murmuring to the plants. He’d heard of people talking to plants, and, frankly, it would have been weirder if Caduceus didn’t.

Fjord finished his work as the sun rose, a little worn and sweaty, covered in dirt, but good. He hadn’t been exercising with Beau as much these past few months. Or the past year, really. He was just too damned tired these days. But it felt good to do something physical again.

“Ah, got that done much faster than I expected,” Caduceus said happily. He looked over the grave sites, then nodded in approval. “You did an excellent job. You’re stronger than you seem.”

“I spent a few years working on ships,” Fjord said. The reason he had started college later than most.

“On the ocean?”

“Yeah,” Fjord said.

“That sounds nice,” he said dreamily. “Never been to the ocean.”

“Really?” Fjord asked. “You, uh, you might like it. Not as many plants, at least not that you can easily see. But it’s beautiful. Calming.”

Caduceus leaned on his own shovel like a staff, closing his eyes for a moment as though he were picturing it. “Maybe I’ll go someday.”

They were quiet for a moment, seeing the sun cresting the earth, casting light over the graveyard. 

“Well, that’s enough for today, I think,” Caduceus said. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

Fjord followed him back to the house, bounding up the stairs to shower and change into his only other set of clothes. The biggest downside to the Xhorhas was that it only boasted two bathrooms to share between the residents, two and one more on the third floor for Caduceus. At least each shower was beyond its own door from the sink and toilet, which was something. 

Not many were up at this hour, so he had an entire bathroom to himself. He showered briskly, then took a moment to shave. His hair would have to wait. Maybe Yasha would cut it? She cut Caleb’s hair that one time. Or was that his beard? He couldn’t remember anything besides it involving a sword.

He passed Nott on the way downstairs, who griped at him for ‘taking forever’. Nott was the only non-student in the house, besides maybe Caduceus. She was staying there to save money while she waited for her husband and her son to be able to move to the area, where they hoped to get a proper house for themselves. And maybe Caleb.

When he reached downstairs, noting he still had time for breakfast and maybe some studying before class, he found an odd sight. Carefully arranged in the limited space of the front entry were two yoga mats, on which Caduceus and Beau were finishing up their yoga session.

“Oh, hey Fjord,” Beau said from a twisted stance that was certainly not human. 

Caduceus released a sigh as he unfurled himself. “Mister Fjord, we’re about to do some meditating if you’d like to join us.”

Beau’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah. Caduceus does the best guided meditations, man.”

“I’m not really one for meditation,” he said.

Before Beau could complain, Caduceus nodded, closing his eyes calmly and saying, “That’s quite alright. If you ever need to calm your mind or find some peace, you’re welcome to join us.”

“Uh, thank you,” Fjord said. 

He slung his bag over his shoulder and quickly left the house and The Blooming Grove. If he swung by the cafe he worked at, he might be able to get some day-old pastries or breakfast sandwiches for a discount. Of course, only The Champions worked there, so he’d be at a risk. 

He was scheduled for this afternoon, and he had to work. But he wasn’t ready to face any of them.

Might be better just to skip breakfast.

[onestowatch]

Q&A: Pale Waves Guides Us Through ‘My Mind Makes Noises’ Debut Album, Track by Track

Photo: Brian Griffin Pale Waves is a bit of a contradiction, and that is just part of what makes them such a dynamic act. They look like the disciples of Gerard Way and Joy Division, but sound like the offspring of The Bangles and Carly Rae Jepsen. They’re huge fans of modern pop acts like Charli XCX, but they could have easily shared a stage with Madonna in the ‘80s. They have amassed over 25-million Spotify streams since the release of their debut single, “There’s a Honey,” in Feb. 2017 and have played huge milestone venues like Madison Square Garden. Yet, they have just released their debut full-length album, My Mind Makes Noises.

Their meteoric rise based on a collection of singles solidifies that Pale Waves has what it takes to become the next big thing, and their success comes down to one simple fact: no one else is doing what Pale Waves is right now—nor as well. Not only has Pale Waves championed the difficult task of successfully walking the line between pop and rock, but they have introduced a universe of tender emotion with their lyrics as they wear their hearts on their fishnet covered sleeves. Combining elements of different genres, decades, subcultures, and emotions, they craft dream-like pop that still has two feet firmly planted on the ground. With their dichotomous existence and evocative lyrics, Pale Waves’ success ushers in the return of female-fronted pop-rock in an era that’s sorely lacking thereof.

After a year and a half of cultivating their rapidly rising fame, today marks the release of My Mind Makes Noises. The album is filled with enough diverse pop bangers and guitar-driven melodies to throw the Manchester-based outfit further into the spotlight, while drawing new listeners into their emotionally cinematic world. Frontwoman Heather Baron-Gracie’s lyrics entangle you in their strikingly raw nature as she presents her most vulnerable self, while the production of drummer Ciara Doran creates lush gardens of whirling melodies and skies of twinkling synth that makes this album one to be kept on repeat, or risk leaving their beautifully melancholic world.

Despite the fervor surrounding My Mind Makes Noises, as well as their accompanying headlining tour, Heather and Ciara are surprisingly calm as they make themselves comfortable on the sofa of the small lounge we’ve met in. “It’s kind of like a timeline of our band from basically three-and-a-half years ago to present day,” Heather explained as we begin talking about the debut album. “We started the band because I had all these songs on my acoustic and when I met Ciara I was like, ‘Can you put drums to my songs?’ We did performances where she was just drumming, and then we decided to just become a band.” 

Though they were the heart and soul of the band, when the duo met Hugo Silvani and Charlie Wood a year later, Pale Waves would finally begin to take shape as they began to plan for world domination—something that My Mind Makes Noises will undoubtedly help them achieve. “It feels pretty surreal. It feels like our whole journey’s been pretty fast and really exciting. A lot of people are really emotionally invested into our band at such an early stage, which is great because it means we’re really connecting with people. It’s just everything you could ask for and I want the album to be what people expected,” Heather stated.

In honor of the release of My Mind Makes Noises, we spoke about each of the 14 tracks on the album to hear the stories behind the music, and get a feel for what’s next for the band.

OTW: The opening track “Eighteen” is an absolute earworm that truly seems to channel what it feels like to fall in love. What can you tell us about its creation?

Ciara: “Eighteen” was written fully on tour.

Heather: Yeah, I wrote a lot of things to the instrumental and then in Denver I finally got it. Everyone we showed it to was like, “This is gonna be a big song” so, that’s why it’s first on the album.

Ciara: Lyrically, it’s really nice as well.

Heather: I had that first verse written for ages, and then Ciara wrote the music around it.

Ciara: That was actually a song that like I watched Adventureland and wrote to. Vibes from films can really give you inspiration for sound.

OTW: There are new recordings of your first two singles “There’s a Honey” and “Television Romance” making the cut. What was it about these songs that made them, as opposed to the others on your EP, essential for your debut record?

Heather: Well, “There’s a Honey” just had to be on the album because it was the first song that we put out there. It really made our fanbase, and it set something up for us. And then “Television Romance;” those two just sort of work together as a duo, and it felt weird to have one without the other.

Then when we were listening back to the demos it was pretty clear that we had to re-record them. We wanted it to sound like they were all recorded at the same time in the same studio and having the demos on the album just wouldn’t have worked.

OTW: “Noises” is undoubtedly one of the most powerful tracks as it tackles image insecurities and expectations. Did the track come from a purely confessional standpoint?

Heather: I thought about how the fans would react to it, but I knew I had to write it for me. I didn’t even think that much about how they’d relate to it until I got loads of messages thanking me. I feel it’s the most important track we’ve put out so far—we have quite a young fanbase and when you’re growing up that’s when you really think about what you wanna be and how you look. I’m just glad that I wasn’t too scared to write about that because it’s the song that’s now been there for so many people.

OTW: And what can you tell us about the video?

Heather: That video was a last minute thing but it was just so obvious that it needed to be a performance video from me. We spoke about having different Heathers that weren’t truly me: punk Heather is more exaggerated, the fashion look is stereotypically socially acceptable, and the doll look is a really sort of childish, vulnerable me. The one with the plastic sheet over my face, it’s basically like: what is beauty and who considers it? It plays on plastic surgery as well like, “Am I still beautiful under the plastic?” For the flashes of text between scenes, I wrote a paragraph of all my thoughts, and then we spoke about the ones that stood out the most. One, in particular, is “Does everyone feel this way?” I wanted to put that in because I wanted it to be like a sense of comfort for people who are really insecure as well, to know they’re not alone.

OTW: “Came In Close” and “Loveless Girl” are definitely two of the poppiest songs on the album. What inspired the tracks?

Heather: Those two tracks are really influenced by Ciara. I feel like we work so well together because I’m quite dark and she’s quite light so that’s how we get our sound. The lyrical content is quite meaningful and sad, but then Ciara sparkles it with pure pop elements, which you can really see on those tracks.

Ciara: “Came In Close” is really new. I was listening to Aretha Franklin’s “Jump To It,” and then I just sat down and wrote that bass line. It just turned out to be a really dancey song.

“Loveless Girl” originally sounded quite different, and I was so unhappy with it. I had to literally force myself to rework it cause it didn’t have the right vibe.

OTW: “Drive” is a larger than life track that smacks you with a guitar driven alt-rock sound and some truly dreamy synths. What can you tell us about the track?

Heather: We kept coming back and kept referencing The Naked And Famous, especially with the guitar sounds. I imagine when we play it live, it’s not going to take a lot for it to sound massive. It’s a really dramatic track as well; lyrically it’s like the sequel to “Noises.” Like “Noises” was when I was 16, and “Drive” is where I am now at 23. I do find writing songs about myself is hard, but I’m really glad we have tracks like “Drive.”

Ciara: You know that line “I drive fast so I can feel something?”

Heather: She would listen to that on repeat!

Ciara: Because I would cut it and put a delay on it and it made it like the best part of the album, I think.

Heather: Everyone we’ve played it to has been like, “Oh my god, this is something else!” We must be doing something right.

OTW: “When Did I Lose It All” is a breathtaking ballad that is just pure emotion. How did you approach writing the track?

Heather: Well, Ciara actually helped me write the chorus, and it’s about basically having somebody who’s “the one,” and you know that they’re right for you but you just don’t work in that moment. We were writing that chorus and Ciara came up with the “I want to marry you, but not now.”

Ciara: It’s the saddest thing.

Heather: I thought it was a really strong message. When I’ve shown the album to people, I’ve noticed that the older audience sway to that song.

Ciara: They find it really powerful; it’s a really powerful song. The guitar line was written on the tour bus. I feel like the next thing we do is going to be that vibe.

OTW: Similarly, “She” uses its power as a ballad to create a slow build into an absolutely epic guitar solo that has become a fan-favorite at your live shows. How did the track come to be?

Heather: “She” is quite an old song. I wrote, “My baby don’t touch me like they used to” first in my bedroom ages ago. It’s one of those songs that Ciara really just let me be all emo about. And the guitar solo—I love playing it live. A lot of the time I give all the lead riffs to Hugo but with this, I was like, “I can’t give you this, I’m sorry I have to play it.”

Ciara: I think it’s also the first song that I started doing a lot more of the music.

Heather: And now Ciara pretty much owns that whole area. I feel like the album has much more personality than the EP because when we did the EP that was all my really old synth songs except “The Tide.”

Photo: Danny North OTW: The following song “One More Time” seems to be the formers’ upbeat sequel that features an addictively timeless rock hook, making it one of the fullest sounding songs on the record. What shaped the creation of the track?

Heather: This was one of the moments where we were sitting down in the studio, but we needed more sort of “pop bangers.” We weren’t trying to write it for the radio but that’s just how we are.

Ciara: We just didn’t feel satisfied without it though, because we love pop so much. We wanted a song that was really just straightforward and would sound really good with Heather on guitar.

Heather: Really simple and dry all the way through, but you don’t really get a break in it. When Ciara showed me it musically for the first time ever, I just stood there and started singing the chorus.

Ciara: She sang that, and I was like “Fuck!”

Heather: Usually we’re perfectionists and we’re like, “If it’s the first thing it can’t be right,” but with this, we were like, “You know what? That’s it.” I feel like everyone goes through it when you break up with someone and you have that doubt in your mind. You like to know you could still have them—you want that power and that’s what this song’s about.

OTW: As we touched upon “Television Romance” earlier, let's talk influence. Considering how many of your tracks are cinematic enough to be suited for a John Hughes movie, and “Television” is a frequently used word lyrically—how much do TV and Film influence your songs?

Ciara: It influences us a lot, I mean that’s how we used to start off writing songs like “Kiss.”

Heather: Yeah like The Breakfast Club—I had to do this assignment for Uni and it was like, “Write a song to a film.” I caught a trailer of The Breakfast Club and that’s how “Kiss” became a song. So like I think it influences us a lot more than we think.

Ciara: Movies are like songs: like they all have a flow and a vibe and a story. So, like I feel like it can go hand-in-hand and just inspire you a lot. Especially when you can go, “I want to make a song that sounds like it belongs in that movie.”

OTW: “Red” is an incredibly modern pop-rock classic that seems to channel the likes of Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen. How did the track come to be?

Heather: “Red” actually started as an acoustic track. I love playing acoustic, and it was how we started the band, so I wrote “Red” acoustically to be that song. When I showed it to Ciara she was like “Oh my god that’s far too good.”

Ciara: It wasn’t right, the tone wasn’t right, the lyrics weren’t enough for an acoustic song.

Heather: It’s completely different now—the chorus is like a club track

OTW: “Kiss” is akin to a “Friday I’m In Love” moment that’s effortlessly feel-good. What inspired the track, and on that note, what was it like playing the Robert Smith-curated Meltdown Festival this year?

Heather: That was amazing, so good. We didn’t get to meet him but knowing he was the one who gave us that slot and kind of likes our band is pretty amazing. I think Robert Smith is an amazing songwriter and just a fantastic icon. I’ll probably dress the same when I’m old. “Kiss” is so old. It started with The Breakfast Club and that riff. It’s such a naive song, and I wasn’t half as honest as I am now. It’s a fun song to play live—the main thing about it is that it goes down really good live, and it’s just really energetic.

OTW: “Black,” your most recent single, is your most diverse. It plays with R&B beats and intensely catchy guitar riffs. What shaped this track?

Heather: “Black” we’ve had for ages. I actually wrote the first verse ages ago, then I showed Ciara and it always just stuck with her, so she was like “Please, please make it into a song.”

Ciara: That was written on tour as well.

Heather: It’s been the most problematic song that we’ve ever wrote. It just had a lot of different versions.

Ciara: When I stupidly put an R&B chorus in there we were like “Ugh, how are we gonna do this now?”

Heather: Cause like, when you listen to it the verses are really frantic and really rock, and then the chorus is relaxed R&B.

Ciara: It’s a juxtaposition.

OTW: Closing out the record is “Karl”—a deeply personal acoustic track that is beautifully haunting. What was it like writing the track destined to end your debut record?

Heather: Well, after I wrote “Red” and needed a new acoustic song Ciara was like, “You need to write an acoustic track about something a lot more personal… Why don’t you write it about your granddad?” I’d been trying to write about him for ages because he’s such an important person in my life, so then I sat down in the studio and really, really focused on him while writing. It took me a day to write the song and the next day we went in and recorded, so it’s as real and raw as it gets. Ciara cried when I first sang it to her. Everyone has nearly cried when they first listen to the song.

Ciara: You’d be a monster if you didn’t cry to that song.

Heather: I think that’s a track that’s really going to impact some people. I wanted it to be like a conversation more than a song so a lot of the lyrics are like if I could talk to him now the things I would say. It’s definitely the song that I’ve listened to the most. It’s my most vulnerable self, and it’s really quite scary, this going out into the world, but it’s as real as it gets.

[thatsnotcanonpodcasts]

Nintendo Lawyers, Home Gardening & Comic-Con At Home featuring Shaun from Comics2Movies

This week we invite our special guest Shaun Keenan, creator of Xtreme Champion Tournament (in which mythical and legendary heroes face off) to share his thoughts on some news from San Diego Comic Con.

Kicking things off, the Nerds discuss Nintendo's itchy DMCA trigger finger, they’ve taken down the tragically short-lived DirectX 12 Super Mario 64 Port. This was a fan work based on the Mario 64 decompilation project, reformed into a gorgeous 4k Ultra-Widescreen rendition of everyone's favourite plumber. And they also lost 2TB of data including user account details, which are now being used to hack people. Oops.

There's now one less reason to leave the house, since gardening provides a boost to your emotional well-being that is as powerful as going out for dinner or taking a run. Grow chickens and you have an excuse for a dinner and a run as well. So, is gardening the ultimate weapon against millennial depression memes?

Lastly, Shaun chips in to talk about SDCC's move to being an online only event. Pros: Better food. Better chairs. No lines. Cons: No costumes. No crowd excitement. It's a tough sell for some of us, but the rest of us are perfectly happy to stay at home.

This week, Professor broke his brain in HyperRogue and DJ confronted his fear of the dark in Alan Wake.

Come back next week, we miss you.

Nintendo Lawyers File Copyright Complaints Against Super Mario 64 PC Port

- https://torrentfreak.com/nintendo-lawyers-file-copyright-complaints-against-super-mario-64-pc-port-200508/

Gardening at home as good as exercise

            -https://environment.princeton.edu/news/emotional-well-being-while-home-gardening-similar-to-other-popular-activities-study-finds/

- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204619307297

Comic-Con 2020 is now an online event

            -https://comicbook.com/comics/news/san-diego-comic-con-announces-online-show-making-fun-itself/

Games Played

Professor

–HyperRogue - https://store.steampowered.com/app/342610/HyperRogue/ 

Rating: 5/5

DJ

– Alan Wake - https://store.steampowered.com/app/108710/Alan_Wake/

Rating: 3.5/5

Other topics discussed

5G (In telecommunications, 5G is the fifth generation technology standard for cellular networks, which cellular phone companies began deploying worldwide in 2019, the planned successor to the 4G networks which provide connectivity to most current cellphones.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G

VHS ( (short for Video Home System) is a standard for consumer-level analogvideo recording on tape cassettes.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS

Nintendo has reportedly suffered a significant legacy console leak

- https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/nintendo-has-reportedly-suffered-a-significant-legacy-console-leak/

Sony Pictures hack (On November 24, 2014, a hacker group which identified itself by the name "Guardians of Peace" leaked a release of confidential data from the film studioSony Pictures.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Pictures_hack

Team Fortress 2 and CS:GO source code leaks

- https://www.pcgamer.com/au/team-fortress-2-and-csgo-source-code-leak-raises-security-fears/

Mythbusters Experiment on Talking and Music Effects on Plant Growth

- http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/plant-ed/2004-December/007770.html

Victory Garden (also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit, and herb gardens planted at private residences and public parks in the United States,United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Germany during World War I and World War II.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden

FarmBot: open source backyard robot for a fully automated garden

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqYrAWssrrY

Community gardening (A community garden is a single piece of land gardened collectively by a group of people.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_gardening

Comic-Con @ Home 2020 trailer

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbHnCt9GM5s&feature=emb_logo

Armageddon Expo (Armageddon Expo is a New Zealand owned and operated pop culture convention that holds multiple events around New Zealand in cities including Auckland, Wellington, Tauranga and Christchurch.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_(convention)

- https://www.armageddonexpo.com/

Marvel Studios held a panel at San Diego Comic-Con where Feige announced the full Phase Four slate. This included five films to be released—Black Widow, The Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder—as well as five event series to be released on Disney+—The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,WandaVision,Loki, What If...?, and Hawkeye.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe:_Phase_Four#Development

Zoom meeting hackings also known as Zoom-bombings and security updates to avoid it

- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/23/zoom-update-security-encryption-bombing

Adam Savage from Mythbusters going Incognito at Comic-Con 2018. His costume this year is a replica of the first high-altitude pressure suit, made in 1935 for famed aviator Wiley Post.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nqfq3qjkfQ

HyperRogue game screenshot

- https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/342610/ss_e0555239fea0e57fafd0ece149b568ecef60f571.1920x1080.jpg?t=1572831895

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla – Male and Female Eivor Are Both Canon Choices, Says Narrative Director

- https://gamingbolt.com/assassins-creed-valhalla-male-and-female-eivor-are-both-canon-choices-says-narrative-director

Blake’s 7 ((sometimes styled Blakes7) is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake%27s_7

Babylon 5 (Babylon 5 is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Television.)

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5

Fresh Prince of Bel Air - Uncle Phil Tries on Wig and Geoffrey saying ‘awopbopaloobop alopbamboom’

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE0Wgov6ntE

Terralympus - Volume 1 & 2 - Space Sci-Fi Graphic Novel Kickstarter project by Stephen Kok & Shaun Keenan

- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1917428739/terralympus-volume-1-and-2-space-sci-fic-graphic-novel

XCT: Fractured Worlds Kickstarter project by Shaun Keenan & Stephen Kok

- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2067957354/xct-fractured-worlds

An Assemblage of Grandiose and Bombastic Grandiloquents (TNC Podcast)

- https://thatsnotcanon.com/grandiloquentspodcast

The Mistholme Museum Of Mystery, Morbidity, And Mortality (TNC Podcast)

- https://thatsnotcanon.com/themistholmemuseumpodcast

Check out more stuff from Comics2Movies including XCT & Terralympus

- https://www.comics2movies.com.au/

Shout Outs

4 May 2020 – Elon Musk’s son was born - https://people.com/parents/elon-musk-grimes-welcome-first-child/

The 32-year-old singer has given birth to her first child on Monday, her boyfriend Elon Musk confirmed in a tweet. Musk shared the exciting news on Twitter when a fan asked for an update on the baby after the Tesla CEO had previously shared that Grimes was due on Monday. In true Musk fashion, he also announced the baby's name was very outside the box telling fans his son was called X Æ A-12 Musk (pronounced "Ex Ash A Twelve"), although this may not be a legal name in California due to it containing characters that are not English letters. During a podcast with American comedian Joe Rogan, Musk explained the way to pronounce his son’s name. Responding to a question asked about his son’s name on ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’, Musk said, “First of all, my partner’s the one that mostly came up with the name. I mean it’s just X, the letter X, and the ‘Æ’ is pronounced, ‘Ash,’ and then, A-12 is my contribution.” He then elaborated that ‘A-12’ stood for “Archangel 12, the precursor to the SR-71, coolest plane ever.”

09 May 2020 – Little Richard passes away at 87 - https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/may/09/little-richard-dies-aged-83-rock-n-roll-pioneer

Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), better known as Little Richard, was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. An influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades, he was nicknamed "The Innovator", "The Originator", and "The Architect of Rock and Roll". Penniman's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding backbeat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. His innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock tohip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations to come. "Tutti Frutti", one of Penniman's signature songs, became an instant hit, crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom with the lyric ‘awopbopaloobop alopbamboom’, and a series of follow-up records helped establish the genre and influence a multitude of other musicians. Penniman was honored by many institutions. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of its first group of inductees in 1986. He was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. He died from bone cancer in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

11 May 2020 – Jerry Stiller passes away at 92 - https://deadline.com/2020/05/jerry-stiller-dies-comedian-seinfeld-actor-92-ben-tribute-1202931049/

Jerry Stiller, the American comedian and actor who was one-half of the great 1960s husband-wife comedy team Stiller & Meara, a fan-favorite cornerstone of the sitcom Seinfeld and the father of Hollywood star Ben Stiller. Jerry Stiller is more well-known with his casting as Frank Costanza, the father of Jason Alexander’s George Costanza, a hot-tempered eccentric who once attempted to contain his rage at wife Estelle and son George (and, indeed, the world) by repeatedly chanting “Serenity Now.” On another classic episode, Frank, ever disgruntled with the status quo, invented his own holiday: Festivus, for, as he said, “the rest of us.” Among the holiday’s made-up traditions: physical feats of strength and the airing of grievances. This role which earned him an Emmy nomination. The year Seinfeld went off the air, Stiller began his role as the eccentric Arthur Spooner on the CBS comedy series The King of Queens, another role which garnered him widespread acclaim. Jerry was the father of actor Ben Stiller, and the father and son appeared together in films such as Zoolander,Heavyweights,Hot Pursuit, The Heartbreak Kid, and Zoolander 2. He also performed voice-over work for television and films including The Lion King 1½ and Planes: Fire and Rescue. In his later career, Stiller became known for playing grumpy and eccentric characters who were nevertheless beloved. He died from natural causes in New York City, New York. His son tweeted “I’m sad to say that my father, Jerry Stiller, passed away from natural causes. He was a great dad and grandfather, and the most dedicated husband to Anne for about 62 years. He will be greatly missed. Love you Dad.”

11 May 2020 – 15th Anniversary of World of Warcraft's Leeroy Jenkins Video - https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/world-of-warcraft-leeroy-jenkins-15th-anniversary/

On May 11th, 2004, a video was uploaded to the website Warcraft Movies that would have a major impact on World of Warcraft, and the culture surrounding the game. In the video, a team of players crafts an intricate plan, but one shouts "LEEROY JENKINS!" before charging into battle, unprepared, getting the entire party killed as they attempt to save him. The video went viral, and became one of the biggest memes in the history of World of Warcraft, and the internet in general. Since then, Leeroy Jenkins has been referenced on Jeopardy!, The Daily Show, and even on Family Guy. For many World of Warcraft fans, it holds a special place in their hearts. For years, World of Warcraft fans debated whether or not the video showed a real planning session that went awry, or a staged event. The video's creators, Ben Schultz and Ben "Anfrony" Vinson, intentionally answered ambiguously about it for years. In 2017, Vinson released a video showing an initial, failed attempt, proving that the Leeroy Jenkins video actually was staged. While the video itself was staged, no one involved could have predicted what a major impact it would have on World of Warcraft. Fandom can often have a strange impact on popular culture, and that has never been truer than it is in the internet era. The Leeroy Jenkins video is not the only time that a company has leaned into an internet meme, but it's certainly one of the earliest examples. When Schultz, Vinson, and the rest of their friends created the video, they had no idea it would catch on in the way that it did. Others have tried to replicate the success of Leeroy Jones, but the video certainly stands as a unique moment in popular culture.

Remembrances

12 May 805 – Æthelhard - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelhard

Bishop of Winchester then an Archbishop of Canterbury in medieval England. Æthelhard is deposed by Eadbert II (Praen) when he seizes the kingdom of Kent from Mercian overlordship. Æthelhard flees to the court of his Mercian supporters and refuses to venture back to Canterbury, even though it seems safe. In 803, he returns to England from Rome and convenes the Council of Clovesho (Clofesho), which re-establishes the prime importance of Canterbury and, with papal authority, asserts the freedom of the church from secular authority. He died in Canterbury. He was later revered as a saint, with a feast day of 12 May.

12 May 1856 - Jacques Philippe Marie Binet - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Philippe_Marie_Binet

French mathematician,physicist and astronomer, he made significant contributions to number theory, and the mathematical foundations of matrix algebra which would later lead to important contributions by Cayley and others. In his memoir on the theory of the conjugate axis and of the moment of inertia of bodies he enumerated the principle now known as Binet's theorem. He is also recognized as the first to describe the rule for multiplying matrices in 1812, and Binet's Formula expressing Fibonacci numbers in closed form is named in his honour, although the same result was known to Abraham de Moivre a century earlier. The Binet equation, provides the form of a central force given the shape of the orbital motion in plane polar coordinates. The equation can also be used to derive the shape of the orbit for a given force law, but this usually involves the solution to a second order nonlinear ordinary differential equation. A unique solution is impossible in the case of circular motion about the center of force. He died at the age of 70 in Paris.

12 May 1994 - Erik Erikson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson

Erik Homburger Erikson, was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. Despite lacking a bachelor's degree, Erikson served as a professor at prominent institutions, including Harvard,University of California, Berkeley, and Yale. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Erikson as the 12th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. The development of identity seems to have been one of Erikson's greatest concerns in his own life as well as being central to his theoretical work. As an older adult, he wrote about his adolescent "identity confusion" in his European days. "My identity confusion", he wrote "[was at times on] the borderline between neurosis and adolescent psychosis." Erikson is also credited with being one of the originators of ego psychology, which stressed the role of the ego as being more than a servant of the id. Although Erikson accepted Freud's theory, he did not focus on the parent-child relationship and gave more importance to the role of the ego, particularly the person's progression as self. According to Erikson, the environment in which a child lived was crucial to providing growth, adjustment, a source of self-awareness and identity. He died at the age of 91 in Harwich, Massachusetts.

Famous Birthdays

12 May 1895 - William Giauque - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Giauque

American chemist and Nobel laureate recognized in 1949 for his studies in the properties of matter at temperatures close to absolute zero. He spent virtually all of his educational and professional career at the University of California, Berkeley. He became interested in the third law of thermodynamics as a field of research during his experimental research for his Ph.D. research under Professor George Ernest Gibson comparing the relative entropies of glycerine crystals and glass. He principal objective of his researches was to demonstrate through range of appropriate tests that the third law of thermodynamics is a basic natural law. In 1926, he proposed a method for observing temperatures considerably below 1 Kelvin (1 K is −457.87 °F or −272.15 °C). He developed a magnetic refrigeration device of his own design in order to achieve this outcome, getting closer to absolute zero than many scientists had thought possible. This trailblazing work, apart from proving one of the fundamental laws of nature led to stronger steel, better gasoline and more efficient processes in a range of industries. He was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

12 May 1918 - Julius Rosenberg - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg

Julius Rosenberg, American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. Him and his wife Ethel Rosenberg were accused of providing top-secret information about radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs; at that time the United States was the only country in the world with nuclear weapons. Julius Rosenberg joined the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, in 1940, where he worked as an engineer-inspector until 1945. He was fired when the US Army discovered his previous membership in the Communist Party. Important research on electronics, communications, radar and guided missile controls was undertaken at Fort Monmouth during World War II. In February 1944, Rosenberg succeeded in recruiting a second source of Manhattan Project information, engineer Russell McNutt, who worked on designs for the plants at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For this success, Rosenberg received a $100 bonus. McNutt's employment provided access to secrets about processes for manufacturing weapons-grade uranium. The USSR and the US were allies during World War II, but the Americans did not share information about or seek assistance from the Soviet Union regarding the Manhattan Project. The West was shocked by the speed with which the Soviets were able to stage their first nuclear test, "Joe 1," on August 29, 1949. He was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York.

12 May 1970 - Bruce Boxleitner - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Boxleitner

Bruce William Boxleitner, American actor, and science fiction and suspense writer. He is known for his leading roles in the television series such as How the West Was Won and Babylon 5 (as John Sheridan in seasons 2–5, 1994–98). He is also known for his dual role as the characters Alan Bradley and Tron in the 1982 Walt Disney Pictures film Tron, a role which he reprised in the 2003 video game Tron 2.0, the 2006 Square-Enix/Disney crossover game Kingdom Hearts II, the 2010 film sequel, Tron: Legacy and the animated series Tron: Uprising. In July 2015 Boxleitner said that he is done with the franchise, as "it's been too up and down for me. I would rather not just keep going. I don't want to repeat my career anymore." He has also starred in several films within the Babylon 5 universe, including Babylon 5: In the Beginning, Babylon 5: Third space, Babylon 5: A Call to Arms, and the direct-to-DVD Babylon 5: The Lost Tales. He was born in Elgin, Illinois.

Events of Interest

12 May 1926 – The Italian-built airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norge_(airship)#Polar_expedition

Umberto Nobile, the airship's designer and pilot explained the Norge trip was to observe the uncharted sea between the Pole and Alaska where some thought land was; at the time he believed Robert Edwin Peary had already reached the pole. On 12 May at 01.25 (GMT) they reached the North Pole, at which point the Norwegian, American and Italian flags were dropped from the airship onto the ice. Amundsen the expedition leader and navigator and polar explorer Oscar Wisting who served as helmsman were thereby the first to reach both poles. Relations between Amundsen and Nobile, which had been strained in the freezing, cramped and noisy conditions became even worse when Amundsen saw that the Italian flag dropped was larger than either of the others. Amundsen later recalled with scorn that under Nobile, the airship had become "a circus wagon in the sky". This was now unknown territory and Amundsen sat at the front of the cabin to look for any land. Unfortunately, they came into thick fog at 8.30 am which made it impossible to see down on either ice or land. The fog stuck to the airship as a layer of ice and lumps of ice were thrown from the propellers and into the balloon skin, with the resulting danger of puncture. Running repairs were made as far as possible from the keel space.

12 May 1941 – Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin. - https://www.inverse.com/article/15542-konrad-zuse-s-z3-the-world-s-first-programmable-computer-was-unveiled-75-years-ago

Zuse presented the Z3, built in his workshop, to the public. The Z3 was a binary 22-bit floating point calculator featuring programmability with loops but without conditional jumps, with memory and a calculation unit based on telephone relays. The telephone relays used in his machines were largely collected from discarded stock. Despite the absence of conditional jumps, the Z3 was a Turing complete computer. However, Turing-completeness was never considered by Zuse (who had practical applications in mind) and only demonstrated in 1998. The Z3, the first fully operational electromechanical computer, was partially financed by German government-supported DVL, which wanted their extensive calculations automated. The Z3 revolutionized computing. It was used to help calculate aerodynamics in aircraft design, which the UK’s Centre for Computing History says helped the German Aircraft Research Institute in its analysis. We’re used to today’s computers reading programs from solid state storage, but the Z3 read its programs off of punched film.

12 May 2015 – Massive Nepal earthquake kills 218 people and injures more than 3500. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2015_Nepal_earthquake

A major earthquake occurred in Nepal on 12 May 2015 at 12:50 pm local time with a moment magnitude of 7.3, 18 km (11 mi) southeast of Kodari. The epicenter was on the border of Dolakha and Sindhupalchowk, two districts of Nepal. This earthquake occurred on the same fault as the larger magnitude 7.8 earthquake of 25 April, but further east than the original quake. As such, it is considered to be an aftershock of 25 April quake. It struck at a depth of 18.5 kilometres (11.5 mi). Shaking was felt in northern parts of India including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Tremors were felt as far as about 2,400 kilometers away from the epicenter in Chennai. Minutes later, another 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal with its epicenter inRamechhap, east of Kathmandu. The earthquake was felt in Bangladesh, China and many other states in India. The impact of these tremors was felt even 1,000 kilometres away in the Indian capital New Delhi, where buildings shook and office workers evacuated. According to geophysicist Amy Vaughan, the 12 May quake is likely a sign that more aftershocks are on the way. "Generally, in the days and weeks and months [seismic activity] tapers off", she said. "But ... this is going to temporarily increase [the aftershocks]".

12 May 2017 – The WannaCry ransomware attack impacts over 400 thousand computers worldwide, targeting computers of the United Kingdom's National Health Services and Telefónica computers. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WannaCry_ransomware_attack

The WannaCry ransomware attack was a May 2017 worldwidecyberattack by the WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm, which targeted computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. It propagated through EternalBlue, an exploit developed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for older Windows systems. While Microsoft had released patches previously to close the exploit, much of WannaCry's spread was from organizations that had not applied these, or were using older Windows systems that were past their end-of-life. The attack was halted within a few days of its discovery due to emergency patches released by Microsoft and the discovery of a kill switch that prevented infected computers from spreading WannaCry further. The attack was estimated to have affected more than 200,000 computers across 150 countries, with total damages ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. Security experts believed from preliminary evaluation of the worm that the attack originated from North Korea or agencies working for the country. The ransomware campaign was unprecedented in scale according to Europol, which estimates that around 200,000 computers were infected across 150 countries. According to Kaspersky Lab, the four most affected countries were Russia,Ukraine,India and Taiwan. One of the largest agencies struck by the attack was the National Health Service hospitals in England and Scotland, and up to 70,000 devices – including computers, MRI scanners, blood-storage refrigerators and theatre equipment – may have been affected. On 12 May, some NHS services had to turn away non-critical emergencies, and some ambulances were diverted. According to cyber-risk-modeling firm Cyence, economic losses from the cyber attack could reach up to US$4 billion, with other groups estimating the losses to be in the hundreds of millions.

Intro

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Song Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)

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[rainydawgradioblog]

Undies - The Kanye Quarantine Special

Pictured: Kanye West at his 2016 Madison Square Garden show, where he premiered “The Life Of Pablo”

Undies is a weekly radio show focused on all things hip-hop with a focus on underground and experimental, and hosted by me, Casey Chamberlain. Due to the relatively light load of recent releases in this trying time, this week I’ll be doing something a little different, as during my time inside this week I decided to revisit each of Kanye West’s studio albums in chronological release order. Though this is by no means a new idea, I’ll be doing a breakdown of each album here, and my current thoughts on each project. I’ll also add my favorite and least favorite songs from each project, as well as my favorite features to spice things up, since Kanye’s ability to bring together a star-studded cast is so integral to his work. I’ll be back to normal write-ups next week!

Here we go, from the top:

The College Dropout

A certified classic. A wonderful introduction, and Kanye at his most joyous. On this album, Kanye just feels so energized and full of life. Everything about this project is joyful, the feature list is stacked, and it feels like an incredibly strong entrance onto the scene. Widely influential and full of some of Kanye’s best and catchiest tracks, there’s little bad to say about TCD. While I don’t revisit it all that often compared to some of Kanye’s later work, and I think it runs a little long, it’s an excellent album.

Favorite tracks: “We Don’t Care”, “Spaceship”, “Jesus Walks”, “Last Call”

Least favorite tracks: “The New Workout Plan”

Favorite features: Talib Kweli and Common (”Get Em High”), Jay-Z (”Never Let Me Down”), Mos Def (”Two Words”)

Late Registration

This is where I think Kanye really started to shine. On listening to this album again, I was surprised by how well it stood the test of time, which is not something that can be said for all of his work. While the energy is similar to a lot of what Kanye brought to College Dropout, LR feels a lot more focused, and features some really excellent emotional tracks like “Roses” and “Hey Mama”, as well as some poignant moments of commentary such as on “Crack Music” and “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”. I think LR has some of the highest highs of Ye’s career, and very few lows. The features are once again excellent as well- the rapport Kanye and Jay Z have on “Diamonds From Sierra Leone - Remix” is infectious, and “We Major” is Kanye at his grandest and has an absolutely killer verse from Nas. In retrospect, Late Registration kind of feels like the transition from the style Kanye came onto the scene with to the more pop-oriented sound featured on Graduation, which I’ll get to. I’m almost surprised by how much I love Late Registration, and I think it easily stands as some of his best work and an ambitious classic.

Favorite Tracks: “Diamonds From Sierra Leone - Remix”, “We Major”, “Crack Music”, “Roses”, “Hey Mama”, “Late”

Least favorite tracks: “Addiction”, “Celebration”

Favorite features: Jay-Z (”Diamonds From Sierra Leone - Remix”), Nas (”We Major”), Lupe Fiasco (”Touch The Sky”)

Graduation

This is where my thoughts on Kanye’s discography may start to differ from many others: I don’t like Graduation all that much, and every time I revisit it I hope to like it more, usually to no avail. I think a lot of it hasn’t aged all that well, and it really sounds like it’s from 2007. While it has some of Kanye’s most popular songs, I think it has some of his weakest as well (who thought “Drunk and Hot Girls” was a good idea?). It’s definitely catchy, and it’s got some standouts, like “Stronger”, “Good Morning”, and my personal favorite, “Everything I Am”. While I don’t think it’s Kanye’s weakest, I think it’s one of the least fully realized. Coming off of the last two, it feels less complete, and much more of it’s time. Of this original “trilogy” of Ye albums, it’s definitely the weakest.

Favorite tracks: “Everything I Am”, “Stronger”, “Good Morning”, “Glory”, “Big Brother”

Least favorite tracks: “Drunk and Hot Girls”, “Good Life”, “Champion”

Favorite features: Lil Wayne (”Barry Bonds”), DJ Premier (”Everything I Am”)

808s & Heartbreak

Alright, I just don’t like this album that much. I think it’s super weak compared to the rest of his work, and listening to everything in order you really can see the left turn this was. While it’s absolutely essential, I just really don’t enjoy a lot of the material on this album. While it’s got a few great songs, as a whole package it just feels messy to me. I don’t think it’s really bad per say, I just don’t enjoy this style, especially from Kanye. I don’t really have much to say about this one, it’s really you love it or don’t care all too much. I’m in that second boat. “Street Lights” is a top ten Kanye song, though.

Favorite tracks: “Street Lights”, “Welcome To Heartbreak”, “Heartless”

Least favorite tracks: “Pinocchio Story”, “Amazing”, “Bad News”, “See You In My Nightmares”

Favorite features: Kid Cudi (”Welcome To Heartbreak”)

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Still easily my favorite Kanye album (hot take, I know). The way every single thing on this album comes together is seriously something special. This album sounds like it could have come out today and it would still be in a league of its own. The sheer scale of this album, the features, the songwriting, the emotions, it’s completely unrivaled. Some of Kanye’s catchiest, most accessible songs sit on this album while never being simple; every single song has so much going on, so many great verses and moments, nothing feels out of place. Coming off of his previous work, this is such a massive step up, from good or great to absolutely amazing, that it’s almost hard to look back and think this was the quality Kanye is capable of when you look at what he’s currently doing. This album is truly something special. “Runaway” is obviously the highlight here: it’s one of the grandest and most heartfelt, brutal songs I’ve ever heard, and, I think, seriously one of the best songs ever written. “Devil in a New Dress” is classy perfection, and Rick Ross delivers arguably the best verse on the whole album, which is saying something. Nicki Minaj demolishes everyone else on “Monster”, Pusha T on “So Appalled” is too good for human comprehension, and Justin Vernon’s contributions are just the icing on the cake. Honestly, a perfect album.

Favorite tracks (can i say every single one?): “Runaway”, “Devil In A New Dress”, “Gorgeous”, “POWER”, “Lost In The World”, “So Appalled”, “All Of The Lights”

Least favorite tracks: “Blame Game” (I guess? I still love it, I just think the Chris Rock skit is a bit... much)

Favorite features (again, everyone, honestly): Pusha T (”Runaway”, “So Appalled”), Rick Ross (”Devil In A New Dress”), Kid Cudi (”Gorgeous”), CyHi The Prynce (”So Appalled”), Nicki Minaj (”Monster”), Bon Iver (”Monster”, “Lost In The World”)

Yeezus

Oh boy. Ok, so... I love and hate Yeezus, but I think I lean a little more towards love. This is easily Kanye’s most controversial album, maybe apart from ye. I think the abrasiveness of this album is a bit much, and it’s got some songs I really don’t care for, and really detract from the album in my opinion (“Send It Up”, parts of “Guilt Trip”, “I Am A God”, “I’m In It”- yes, I realize I just named half of the album). But, despite all of this, the highlights of Yeezus are seriously gorgeous. The outro on “New Slaves” is heavenly; “Hold My Liquor” is surreal; and more than anything, “Bound 2” is Kanye’s second best song, ever (second only to Runaway). “Bound 2”, to me, is the perfect encapsulation of what Yeezus means, at least to me. That juxtaposition between the abrasive noise, and the beautiful soul samples, that infectiously emotional hook, and some of Kanye’s best storytelling all lead to a this song feeling like an admission of fault. It feels like this whole album is Kanye pretending that there’s nothing wrong, that he’s infallible, and that “Bound 2” is him finally admitting to himself his vulnerabilities and issues. It’s moments like this that make it hard to say I don’t love Yeezus.

Favorite tracks: “Bound 2″, “Hold My Liquor”, “New Slaves”, “Blood on the Leaves”

Least favorite tracks: “I’m In It”, “Send It Up”, “Guilt Trip”, “I Am A God”

Favorite features: Frank Ocean (”New Slaves”), Chief Keef (”Hold My Liquor”), Mike Dean (”Hold My Liquor”)

The Life Of Pablo

This is where things start to get really weird. This is probably Kanye’s messiest album; hell, this isn’t even the originally released album anymore. But as a whole package, it really just works, and it’s got some of Kanye’s best work. To me it’s always felt like Dark Fantasy-lite: it’s got the same feeling, but it’s a lot messier and a lot less ambitious. But the tone and me-against-the-world vibe, combined with the stacked feature list, makes this album feel like Fantasy’s successor, at least looking back at it now. Pablo has some of my absolute favorite ye songs, like “No More Parties In LA” (how do you get Kendrick Lamar on a track and still outdo him?), “Wolves”, and “Ultralight Beam”. Is it a cohesive album? Maybe not as much as others in his catalog, but the strength of so much of this material carries it towards the top of the pack. Plus, the interludes are golden; “Siiiiiiiiiilver Surfer Intermission” and “I Love Kanye” are hilarious.

Favorite tracks: “No More Parties In LA”, “Ultralight Beam”, “Real Friends”, “Frank’s Track”, “Waves”, “FML”, “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1″, “Saint Pablo”, “Freestyle 4″, “Famous”

(I told you, I love a lot of the material here)

Least favorite tracks: “Highlights”, “Feedback”

Favorite features: Kendrick Lamar (”No More Parties In LA”), Chance The Rapper (”Ultralight Beam”), Frank Ocean (”Frank’s Track”), Kid Cudi (”Father Stretch My Hands Pt.1″, “Waves”), The Weeknd (”FML”)

ye

Alright, I’ve gone on far too long, so I’m gonna keep these last few short: there isn’t much to say anyway. ye gets a lot of hate, and I do understand why. It’s short, underdeveloped, and has some of Kanye’s worst ever bars and hooks. But the strong stuff here is nothing short of amazing. “Ghost Town” and “Violent Crimes” are incredible. Honestly, the only track I really hate is “All Mine”, which is straight up atrocious. In that sense I kind of wish this album was even shorter, just cut out that track and it’s very decent. Middle of the pack Kanye for me, but the real mark of decline going forward (with the exception of KSG, but I’ll get to that).

Favorite tracks: “Ghost Town”, “Violent Crimes”, “No Mistakes”

Least favorite tracks: “All Mine”

Favorite features: Kid Cudi (”Ghost Town”), 070 Shake (”Ghost Town”, “Violent Crimes”)

KIDS SEE GHOSTS

This one’s kind of cheating. If I include this, I should have included Watch The Throne, but whatever. This is my second favorite Kanye project, and both ye and Cudi absolutely killed this project. It’s short, concise, minimalistic, and therapeutic. Every single song is a standout. It feels like both of them are in the absolute right headspace here, and are almost just venting and talking things out on this experimental and boundary pushing project. Almost nothing bad to say about KSG, it’s really, really great.

Favorite tracks: “Cudi Montage”, “Kids See Ghosts”, “4th Dimension”, “Freeee (Ghost Town Pt. 2)”

Least favorite tracks: none. Seriously.

Favorite features: Pusha T (”Feel The Love”), Yasiin Bey (”Kids See Ghosts”)

Jesus Is King

Alright, that’s it, I’ve talked about all the albums, there’s nothing left.

Nah but seriously, this album is lame. If you’ve heard any of the original material here that was supposed to make up Yandhi, even the good you can salvage from this is ruined. I really hope he doesn’t stick to this style. I’ve really got nothing else to say, this is absolutely not it and easily the weakest project in his catalog. I guess I’m happy for him if he’s legitimately found God but I really hope that faith doesn’t continue to manifest into whatever the hell this is. “Follow God” is a cool track though.

Favorite tracks: “Follow God”, I guess “Selah” was almost cool?

Least favorite tracks: everything else

Favorite features: The Clipse reunion was ok I guess?

And that’s it! This was a much longer write up than anticipated, but it was a fun way to spend some quarantine time. I truly love Kanye and I think (almost) all of his projects are of at least some quality, and he’s really made some incredible work. Back to normal next week! Thanks for reading!

-Casey Chamberlain