#2 weeks notice (2002)

[fanfixdotnet]

[lisafication]

For those who might happen across this, I'm an administrator for the forum 'Sufficient Velocity', a large old-school forum oriented around Creative Writing. I originally posted this on there (and any reference to 'here' will mean the forum), but I felt I might as well throw it up here, as well, even if I don't actually have any followers.

This week, I've been reading fanfiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3), a site run by the Organisation for Transformative Works (OTW), a non-profit. This isn't particularly exceptional, in and of itself — like many others on the site, I read a lot of fanfiction, both on Sufficient Velocity (SV) and elsewhere — however what was bizarre to me was encountering a new prefix on certain works, that of 'End OTW Racism'. While I'm sure a number of people were already familiar with this, I was not, so I looked into it.

What I found... wasn't great. And I don't think anyone involved realises that.

To summarise the details, the #EndOTWRacism campaign, of which you may find their manifesto here, is a campaign oriented towards seeing hateful or discriminatory works removed from AO3 — and believe me, there is a lot of it. To whit, they want the OTW to moderate them. A laudable goal, on the face of it — certainly, we do something similar on Sufficient Velocity with Rule 2 and, to be clear, nothing I say here is a critique of Rule 2 (or, indeed, Rule 6) on SV.

But it's not that simple, not when you're the size of Archive of Our Own. So, let's talk about the vagaries and little-known pitfalls of content moderation, particularly as it applies to digital fiction and at scale. Let's dig into some of the details — as far as credentials go, I have, unfortunately, been in moderation and/or administration on SV for about six years and this is something we have to grapple with regularly, so I would like to say I can speak with some degree of expertise on the subject.

So, what are the problems with moderating bad works from a site? Let's start with discovery— that is to say, how you find rule-breaching works in the first place. There are more-or-less two different ways to approach manual content moderation of open submissions on a digital platform: review-based and report-based (you could also call them curation-based and flag-based), with various combinations of the two. Automated content moderation isn't something I'm going to cover here — I feel I can safely assume I'm preaching to the choir when I say it's a bad idea, and if I'm not, I'll just note that the least absurd outcome we had when simulating AI moderation (mostly for the sake of an academic exercise) on SV was banning all the staff.

In a review-based system, you check someone's work and approve it to the site upon verifying that it doesn't breach your content rules. Generally pretty simple, we used to do something like it on request. Unfortunately, if you do that, it can void your safe harbour protections in the US per Myeress vs. Buzzfeed Inc. This case, if you weren't aware, is why we stopped offering content review on SV. Suffice to say, it's not really a realistic option for anyone large enough for the courts to notice, and extremely clunky and unpleasant for the users, to boot.

Report-based systems, on the other hand, are something we use today — users find works they think are in breach and alert the moderation team to their presence with a report. On SV, this works pretty well — a user or users flag a work as potentially troublesome, moderation investigate it and either action it or reject the report. Unfortunately, AO3 is not SV. I'll get into the details of that dreadful beast known as scaling later, but thankfully we do have a much better comparison point — fanfiction.net (FFN).

FFN has had two great purges over the years, with a... mixed amount of content moderation applied in between: one in 2002 when the NC-17 rating was removed, and one in 2012. Both, ostensibly, were targeted at adult content. In practice, many fics that wouldn't raise an eye on Spacebattles today or Sufficient Velocity prior to 2018 were also removed; a number of reports suggest that something as simple as having a swearword in your title or summary was enough to get you hit, even if you were a 'T' rated work. Most disturbingly of all, there are a number of — impossible to substantiate — accounts of groups such as the infamous Critics United 'mass reporting' works to trigger a strike to get them removed. I would suggest reading further on places like Fanlore if you are unfamiliar and want to know more.

Despite its flaws however, report-based moderation is more-or-less the only option, and this segues neatly into the next piece of the puzzle that is content moderation, that is to say, the rubric. How do you decide what is, and what isn't against the rules of your site?

Anyone who's complained to the staff about how vague the rules are on SV may have had this explained to them, but as that is likely not many of you, I'll summarise: the more precise and clear-cut your chosen rubric is, the more it will inevitably need to resemble a legal document — and the less readable it is to the layman. We'll return to SV for an example here: many newer users will not be aware of this, but SV used to have a much more 'line by line, clearly delineated' set of rules and... people kind of hated it! An infraction would reference 'Community Compact III.15.5' rather than Rule 3, because it was more or less written in the same manner as the Terms of Service (sans the legal terms of art). While it was a more legible rubric from a certain perspective, from the perspective of communicating expectations to the users it was inferior to our current set of rules  — even less of them read it,  and we don't have great uptake right now.

And it still wasn't really an improvement over our current set-up when it comes to 'moderation consistency'. Even without getting into the nuts and bolts of "how do you define a racist work in a way that does not, at any point, say words to the effect of 'I know it when I see it'" — which is itself very, very difficult don't get me wrong I'm not dismissing this — you are stuck with finding an appropriate footing between a spectrum of 'the US penal code' and 'don't be a dick' as your rubric. Going for the penal code side doesn't help nearly as much as you might expect with moderation consistency, either — no matter what, you will never have a 100% correct call rate. You have the impossible task of writing a rubric that is easy for users to comprehend, extremely clear for moderation and capable of cleanly defining what is and what isn't racist without relying on moderator judgement, something which you cannot trust when operating at scale.

Speaking of scale, it's time to move on to the third prong — and the last covered in this ramble, which is more of a brief overview than anything truly in-depth — which is resources. Moderation is not a magic wand, you can't conjure it out of nowhere: you need to spend an enormous amount of time, effort and money on building, training and equipping a moderation staff, even a volunteer one, and it is far, far from an instant process. Our most recent tranche of moderators spent several months in training and it will likely be some months more before they're fully comfortable in the role — and that's with a relatively robust bureaucracy and a number of highly experienced mentors supporting them, something that is not going to be available to a new moderation branch with little to no experience. Beyond that, there's the matter of sheer numbers.

Combining both moderation and arbitration — because for volunteer staff, pure moderation is in actuality less efficient in my eyes, for a variety of reasons beyond the scope of this post, but we'll treat it as if they're both just 'moderators' — SV presently has 34 dedicated moderation volunteers. SV hosts ~785 million words of creative writing.

AO3 hosts ~32 billion.

These are some very rough and simplified figures, but if you completely ignore all the usual problems of scaling manpower in a business (or pseudo-business), such as (but not limited to) geometrically increasing bureaucratic complexity and administrative burden, along with all the particular issues of volunteer moderation... AO3 would still need well over one thousand volunteer moderators to be able to match SV's moderator-to-creative-wordcount ratio.

Paid moderation, of course, you can get away with less — my estimate is that you could fully moderate SV with, at best, ~8 full-time moderators, still ignoring administrative burden above the level of team leader. This leaves AO3 only needing a much more modest ~350 moderators. At the US minimum wage of ~$15k p.a. — which is, in my eyes, deeply unethical to pay moderators as full-time moderation is an intensely gruelling role with extremely high rates of PTSD and other stress-related conditions — that is approximately ~$5.25m p.a. costs on moderator wages. Their average annual budget is a bit over $500k.

So, that's obviously not on the table, and we return to volunteer staffing. Which... let's examine that scenario and the questions it leaves us with, as our conclusion.

Let's say, through some miracle, AO3 succeeds in finding those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteer moderators. We'll even say none of them are malicious actors or sufficiently incompetent as to be indistinguishable, and that they manage to replicate something on the level of or superior to our moderation tooling near-instantly at no cost. We still have several questions to be answered:

How are you maintaining consistency? Have you managed to define racism to the point that moderator judgment no longer enters the equation? And to be clear, you cannot allow moderator judgment to be a significant decision maker at this scale, or you will end with absurd results.

How are you handling staff mental health? Some reading on the matter, to save me a lengthy and unrelated explanation of some of the steps involved in ensuring mental health for commercial-scale content moderators.

How are you handling your failures? No moderation in the world has ever succeeded in a 100% accuracy rate, what are you doing about that?

Using report-based discovery, how are you preventing 'report brigading', such as the theories surrounding Critics United mentioned above? It is a natural human response to take into account the amount and severity of feedback. While SV moderators are well trained on the matter, the rare times something is receiving enough reports to potentially be classified as a 'brigade' on that scale will nearly always be escalated to administration, something completely infeasible at (you're learning to hate this word, I'm sure) scale.

How are you communicating expectations to your user base? If you're relying on a flag-based system, your users' understanding of the rules is a critical facet of your moderation system — how have you managed to make them legible to a layman while still managing to somehow 'truly' define racism?

How are you managing over one thousand moderators? Like even beyond all the concerns with consistency, how are you keeping track of that many moving parts as a volunteer organisation without dozens or even hundreds of professional managers? I've ignored the scaling administrative burden up until now, but it has to be addressed in reality.

What are you doing to sweep through your archives? SV is more-or-less on-top of 'old' works as far as rule-breaking goes, with the occasional forgotten tidbit popping up every 18 months or so — and that's what we're extrapolating from. These thousand-plus moderators are mostly going to be addressing current or near-current content, are you going to spin up that many again to comb through the 32 billion words already posted?

I could go on for a fair bit here, but this has already stretched out to over two thousand words.

I think the people behind this movement have their hearts in the right place and the sentiment is laudable, but in practice it is simply 'won't someone think of the children' in a funny hat. It cannot be done.

Even if you could somehow meet the bare minimum thresholds, you are simply not going to manage a ruleset of sufficient clarity so as to prevent a much-worse repeat of the 2012 FF.net massacre, you are not going to be able to manage a moderation staff of that size and you are not going to be able to ensure a coherent understanding among all your users (we haven't managed that after nearly ten years and a much smaller and more engaged userbase). There's a serious number of other issues I haven't covered here as well, as this really is just an attempt at giving some insight into the sheer number of moving parts behind content moderation:  the movement wants off-site content to be policed which isn't so much its own barrel of fish as it is its own barrel of Cthulhu; AO3 is far from English-only and would in actuality need moderators for almost every language it supports — and most damning of all,  if Section 230 is wiped out by the Supreme Court  it is not unlikely that engaging in content moderation at all could simply see AO3 shut down.

As sucky as it seems, the current status quo really is the best situation possible. Sorry about that.

[templetogavage]

Weekly Weighing (04/14/2024 to 04/20/2024)

As with every week, this week brings 7 posts I loved throughout gaining & encouraging Tumblr this week.

1. https://www.tumblr.com/mattyhalled1/747953626637582336

Thanks to @mattyhalled1, who is often the source of some fun little surprises during my weeks, I got to see this incredibly hot comparison photo from @joshcroissant. There's a couple of types of good comparison photos- one where everything is exactly the same, down to pose and clothes, for example, can be thrilling- but this, where every single part of this image marks a noticeable contrast (even the beard!)...well chosen before, definitely.

2. https://www.tumblr.com/need-mass/747882780198846464/things-guys-said-to-me-at-the-last-rugby

@need-mass bringing the ex-jock fantasy to life. Just like civilians, stumbling into providing fetish fodder.

3. https://www.tumblr.com/wh-2002/748431247567634432

@whopper-t provides an interesting view- click through to see more. (Landed on my dash courtesy of @wh-2002)

4. https://www.tumblr.com/fatlardassboy/748449764107010048

Thanks to @fatlardassboy for sharing this one. @tan82 looks great wearing a sports-themed crop top. When you've got a belly that nice, you must show it off.

5. https://www.tumblr.com/mattyhalled1/748135261730406400/greed-makes-me-grow

I lazily clipped a few seconds of @overfedcub here. I highly recommend going and watching the whole thing, with audio on. (Thanks to @mattyhalled, once again, for surfacing this gem.)

6. https://www.tumblr.com/jake-is-still-drunk/748216030423367680

One of many pictures in this set by @well-fed-tw1nk. I chose my favorite, but click through if you want to see more. Much thanks to @jake-is-still-drunk for still being at this- I remember that URL from what feels like ages ago, in gaining & encouraging Tumblr time. Reblogs like this keep us going.

7. https://www.tumblr.com/wh-2002/748229668461756416

If you're into belly play, @gainerjake has a video that I expect you'll enjoy. Another entry by @wh-2002; I look forward to seeing if I get similar additions in the future!

And that's this week's Weekly Weighing! (A couple days late.)

[gofishygo]

[PRIDE MONTH- WEEK FOUR] : through green hydrangeas (my heart lies) price x ftm reader (part 2/2) - UNFINISHED

(i will complete this once i am unsuicidal and motivated)

[PART ONE] | notes: medical settings, description of injury, should have a good ending but like rn its not necessarily very bonita for either of them

The next time you and Johnathan price meet each other is indeed, in Burningham.

The doctors treating you had come with a prognosis- a puncture to the intestine. Through the whole eight hours of the surgery, the whole two weeks of an induced coma, he’d shadowed it behind a glass window. His now practically immune to the scent of disinfectants, the lemon-stained chemicals burning at his nose until the chemoreceptors in them saw nothing, felt nothing. He compares it to a black hole, how his sensory limbs have dulled since his career; his ears are now half drowned, all noose shallow and diasporic, left behind at a botched mission in 2002 Moscow. The keenness of his nose now snuffed by a recent disaster with chemicals. His body is trying and failing, pulling the weight of the world on its shoulders and inside the gaping voids of his chest, always consuming, killing, but never truly settled. Never truly sated.

And now his eyes have resulted in you being eaten, now his ears have resulted in you being ripped at your core. His body has chewed you and, and was left to spit out your body, just like Johnny-

He is scared of looking into closed eyes-they remind price too much about him. So, he leaves the living pearls alone, refuses to peel the skin back to see your colours. He never wants to chew again, not after this.

In every other world be should have stayed attentive, should have yelled at you to not mount the doorframe. But now you are here, bandage wrapped vice-tight below your own scars under your chest and blanketing part of your tattoo, and guilt and pity and some dark festering emotion he couldn’t pinpoint layer and boil like bile in his kidneys. Threatens to spill over into his throat and all over the bed when he is finally allowed to take the compression off. It reveals the shooting star of a wound, crusted tail stretching and expanding into arms that seem to try reach across your skin, to take more of the body it had infested. And he fears you will meet the fate of Johnny- that the wound had claimed your soul instead of your life. And it was an early death too, for the man he had met, for the private who’d body he thought he’d fully memorised a decade ago. The short-lived life of the man who smiled with his whole face for the woman who couldn’t. He knows you have changed, have grown up and out of your past life.

But he can only hope that now; you are strong enough to live through it.

On the nineteenth day of your bedrest, John seems to notice that the slow trickle of bouquets and cards of condolence had been wrung dry, petals brown and crusting on the small bundle of roses that Gaz had left on the bedside since the beginning of your stay in the hospital. The colour of the wilt now matched his increasingly darkening eyebags, crow’s feet near buried, shallow dents in the corner of his peripherals. Pads of his fingers rest atop your forehead- and he knows no matter how dysregulated your internal temperature was since the mission, the number of degrees in your body would always be more than the amount of “get well soon’s” you were given. Some stone of pity seems to snowball at the tip of his tongue and lodge in his throat at the lack of a similar last name on any of the unopened cards left to collect dust on the table. Perhaps, since you’d dropped your original name, the people who’d carried your last refused to see you. And maybe, the idea that the number of degrees your body temperature was also outmatched the number of times you’d seen your relatives since your transition. And maybe, you had been alone for that stretch of years, without familiar flesh to grip onto or a face to share your ashtray and lighter with.

(When long-abandoned lawns are left unattended, they seem to flourish. Rainwater fills the cracks of pavement, toadstool and wildflowers sprouting between the roots of household weeds. In miracle, you had thrived in your isolation.) With one of your eyes slightly peeled open and fixed towards him, and voice barely gathering into the creak of a tree deforested, you ask what is wrong. Price swallows: and he replies with silence.

But even in your quarter-dead state, the captain can’t seem to stomp out the embers of your stubbornness. You’d always cared for him, affection growing teeth and latching onto him with a grip near impossible to pry. In warmth, it held him, in cold, it smothered him. “Put a lid on it, private,” its some form of rumbled warning, a predecessor to earthquakes that would split continents open. “Laswell called. All six targets got taken down, thanks to the work of you and the ULF. Another mission cleared, another day of living.” The dynamics of your exhale sound oddly like a rendition of price’s puff of a cigar. He can faintly recognise the lethargy, energy seeped out of your injuries, clearly exasperated by the way he slams shut at your prying. “You don’t need to worry about me,” But you’re attentive, even in your indigence, and notice how his eyes are not focused on the explosion of scab across your torso, but on the scars that adorned the underside of your chest. “Or is there something else on your mind?”

Price- he truly does hope that you register his stifled grunt and the widening of his eyes as shock instead of horror. Your words catch him off guard, a bear trap that ensnares his tongue instead of his legs, and he is left thrashing in desperation for new words. “no, it’s not- its not that you’re transgender. I don’t care for that. Why didn’t you contact me? What made you think that I would despise you, just because you changed? Just because you were happier?” did you think I could ever hate you for that? “no, its not your fault kid. m’ mistake.”

Silence from the only person who’d dared to raise their words to match all his own, isolation from the man whose touch anchored you down to the ground of the earth and the heat of his skin- it’s smothering him still, a phantom weight that chained the both of you to the bones in your knees and the cuffs of your necks. (If love Is liberation, maybe you two could have been set free-)

[theflowergothic]

Kelly Piquet Master Timeline - Amendment 1 (Some things I missed the first time around)

(Masterlist)

Hey y'all! Welcome to the first amendment for the Kelly timeline! In these amendments, I will be adding things that happened during already-published parts of the timeline, but did not add before for a variety of reasons (not knowing about it, not having proof for it before, etc).

Sorry this took a bit to release. I've been dealing with a bit of irl stuff this past week that took my attention away from working on Max/Kelly things aside from updates to the timeline. In fact, you might have seen me crack on Twitter over it! Yay!

By the way, you may notice some repeats from the official timeline. Those are events that I did cover in the original, but with new information/context that I initially missed.

Let's go!

As always, you can find the full timeline here.

A new person has entered the grid!

Christiano “Tuka” Rocha: A former Brazilian race car driver Kelly considers her first love. The two would remain in touch until his tragic death in a plane crash in 2019.

1999

March-October, 1999: The 1999 F1 season. Jos serves as a test driver for the Honda Formula 1 Project.

2000

Unknown dates, 2000:

Kelly and Tuka meet. She is most likely 11 and he is most likely 18.

2002

Unknown dates, 2002:

Tuka visits Kelly and her family while she is visiting France. She is most likely 13 and he is most likely 20. (Archive)

2004

May, 2004: The Jordan racing team considers Jos as a replacement driver for an underperforming Giorgio Pantano. But, a test drive is canceled after he discovers he is too big to fit in the car.

2012

November 10-11, 2012: Max has a series of flirty/amorous exchanges with former world karting champion Laura Tillett on Twitter. She is 21 and he is 15. (Archive) 

December 7-10, 2012: Max has more flirty exchanges with Laura Tillett on Twitter. She is still 21 and he is still 15.

2015

September 30, 2015: Max turns 18. He spends the day obtaining his road driving license. He would move to Monaco shortly afterwards. (Archive 1, 2)

Mikaela also posts on Twitter to celebrate Max’s birthday, calling him her “love”. (Archive)

2016

December, 2016: Kelly leaves her job at Formula E. Officially, she claims she resigned because of burnout, mentioning she “was literally on a plane every week” to a new destination. But, unconfirmed rumors claim she was fired for sleeping with a married man. (Archive)

2018

September 14, 2018:  Kelly likes an Instagram post by Victoria. This would be her first of many likes on Victoria’s Instagram.

September 23, 2018: Victoria likes an Instagram post by Kelly. This would be her first of many likes on Kelly’s Instagram.

September 30, 2018: Max turns 21. Lando makes an Instagram post wishing him a happy birthday. It is not liked by Max, but it is liked by Kelly.

October, 2018: Kelly likes several more of Lando’s Instagram posts.

Late October-Early November, 2018: Kelly and Daniil’s daughter is conceived.

November 13, 2018: Lando makes an Instagram post celebrating his 19th birthday. It would be liked by Kelly.

2019

January 8, 2019: Lando likes an Instagram post by Kelly. This would turn out to be one of several posts he would like on her account throughout 2019 and 2020, including a post about breastfeeding.

March 17, 2019: Lando makes his F1 debut at the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, driving for McLaren. He would finish in 12th place. At this point, he is 19 years old. (Archive)

On the same day, Victoria likes a post by Kelly. She would proceed to like several more posts on Kelly’s account throughout her pregnancy, with Sophie doing the same on some of the same posts.

November 14, 2019: Tuka is seriously injured in an airplane crash near Bahia, Brazil. (Archive)

November 17, 2019: Tuka succumbs to his injuries sustained in the plane crash at the age of 36. He is memorialized as a hero for trying to save the lives of others  in the same crash. (Archive)

November 19, 2019: Kelly makes a memorial post for Tuka on Instagram, calling him her “first love” and mentioning he made her “feel like the most special girl in the world” and “feel very special feelings”. (Archive)

December 4, 2019:  Daniil makes an Instagram post about the end of the F1 season. Kelly likes the post. It would turn out to be her last like on his account.

December 6, 2019 (Most likely): Kelly and Daniil end their relationship. While Kelly makes a since-deleted Instagram post implying she broke up with Daniil, varioussources claim it was Daniil who broke up with Kelly for a variety of reasons.

2020

Unknown dates, 2020:

Max and Dilara break up. Despite that, Victoria, Sophie, and Jos continue to follow her on Instagram. Daniil would also follow her at a later date.

January 31, 2020: Kelly likes another Instagram post by Max. This would turn out to be one of several posts she would like on his account throughout 2020.

2021

July 16-18, 2021: The 2021 British Grand Prix. During the first lap, Lewis attempts to overtake Max, resulting in the latter retiring and going to the hospital after a collision. Max would be released that same day.. Lewis receives a 10-second penalty, but ultimately wins the race. (Archive)

Initial reports would say Max was unharmed in the collision. But, in subsequent interviews, Max would admit he felt the after-effects of it in races, including blurred vision. (Archive 1, 2)

September 3-5, 2021: The 2021 Dutch Grand Prix. Max achieves poll position and finishes first, starting a three-year winning streak at the race. (Archive)

Kelly leaves the race altogether after qualifying, and Max spends a night at his motorhome on the track. According to speculation, Kelly and Jos had a fight over her sharing photos in his residence. Jos unfollows Kelly on Instagram.

2023

Unknown dates, 2023:

An anonymous Tumblr user makes a summary of the rumors and scandals surrounding Kelly to that point. (Archive)

2024

June 21-23, 2024: The 2023 Spanish Grand Prix. Max starts in P2 and finishes first. This would turn out to be his last Grand Prix victory until November. (Archive)

June 28-30, 2024: The 2024 Austrian Grand Prix. Max finishes first in the Saturday sprint race. This would turn out to be his last victory in general until October. (Archive)

During the second half of the main race,  Lando makes multiple attempts to overtake Max. This culminates in a collision when the latter tries to block him. Lando would retire from the damage, and Max would place fifth. (Archive 1, 2) 

Of note is that while Kelly posted about Max’s pole positions and sprint win, she would not say anything about the results of the main race.

[ihavenolife346]

Don’t Forget Me

Pairing: 1998/2002 James Hetfield x f!reader

Warnings: Cheating, swearing, and crying

Characters: James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Jason Newstead, Lars Ulrich, Francesca Hetfield, Y/N

Summary: James never meant to fall in love with a woman who wasn’t his wife. They fell in love…but knew they couldn’t be together as long as they wanted too.

Link to pt 2: https://www.tumblr.com/

Side note: Don’t cheat on your partners. It’s necessary for a good plot in this😅.

Neither of them meant for it to happen. All she was supposed to be was his guitar tech. He was freshly married. They never meant to fall in love with each other. James never did want to fall in love with her. But there was something about her that drew him to her. From the second he met her, he knew there was just something about her.

Y/N never did think she would fall for her boss. He was almost a year married, he seemed to be happy with Francesca. She thought he was until the night she was taking him back to his hotel room after he had to much to drink. She always has had a thing for him, even before she started working with him. That was the night he told her “I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time”, that was he night she become the woman he cheated on his wife with, that was the night she became the 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 woman.

That was a year ago. They had been doing this for a year now. James would always find a way to make time for Y/N. With Francesca hardly ever joining them on tour, Y/N spent most of her nights in James’s room. They acted just like a couple when they were alone. He’d hold her, kiss her, tell her how pretty she was, and even told her he loves her.

Y/N had been ok with being the other woman. Their relationship was working and James was going to get a divorce and they could finally be public about it.

“You still haven’t told her Francesca’s pregnant?!” Kirk felt like slapping James. Kirk was the only one who knew that James was also with Y/N.

James sat there in silence for a moment. He knows he needs to tell Y/N. He’s known Francesca’s pregnant for almost 3 weeks. “I know I have to tell her. I’m going to tonight.” James didn’t want to. He didn’t want to tell her cause he knew he would have to end things with her. He wasn’t going to give his child the same childhood he had. James was going to be there.

“Good luck man.” Kirk shook his head slightly. He had no idea how this was gonna go down.

______________

Just like clockwork, at 7:45 Y/N came softly knocking on James’s door. “Hi!” Y/N chirped once he opened the door, not noticing the look on his face right away.

James couldn’t even look her in the eye. This was the woman he loved, this was the woman he was gonna get a divorce for, but know this was the woman he was ending things with. “H-hi.” James stuttered out, earning the attention of Y/N.

“What’s wrong?” Y/N had no clue what was wrong. The only thing that crossed her mind was that he had finally given Francesca the divorce papers and she just ended up saying things to him that would hurt.

James’s mind almost went completely blank. “Y-you should sit down.” James moved out of the way so that Y/N could come in. As much as he wanted to hug her and kiss her, give her a proper greeting, he knew if he did he would never be able to get the words out of his mouth.

Y/N knew something was really wrong now. “Ok?” Y/N walked into the room, immediately finding the closest seat she could. “What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.” Y/N was genuinely concerned now.

“God I don’t know how to tell you this.” James grumbled, getting on his knees in front of her, resting his hands on her knees.

“Baby, you know you can tell me anything.” Y/N grabbed his face to make him look at her.

James physically felt his heart break at her words and actions. “We can’t keep doing this.” James mumbled, not loud enough for Y/N to hear.

“What was that James?” Y/N questioned, resting her hands on-top of his.

“We can’t keep doing this anymore.” James repeated, feeling his eyes start to water.

Y/N slowly took her hands off of his. “W-what?” Y/N stuttered, hoping she misheard him.

“I’m so sorry baby.” James forced himself to look at the girl.

Y/N completely froze. He was ending things with her? Why was he ending things with her? He promised her he was going to leave Francesca. He told her he loves her. And now here he was telling her they can’t keep doing this. “W-why…?” Y/N stuttered, feeling tears form in her eyes.

“Um…” James tried to figure out how to say this as easy as possible. “So um…do you remember when Francesca showed up at a show a few weeks ago?” James sighed, only getting a nod out of her. “And how you told me to do what I need to make her not suspect us…?” James added on, wanting to punch himself for getting her on the verge of tears. All he got was a soft “yea” out of the girl. “Well…Francesca told me that she’s pregnant.” James watched as Y/N went as pale as a ghost.

At the time Y/N knew she had to be ok with James sleeping with his 𝘸𝘪𝘧𝘦 that night, it never would have worked out if he hadn’t. “S-she’s…” Y/N couldn’t even get the words out.

As much as she hated it, she understood why he was ending things right now. He had told her how he grew up, how he was never gonna let his kids grow up the same way he did. She knew he had to be present in their lives, even if it meant those kids were with someone who wasn’t her. “I’m so sorry baby.” James mumbled. He could tell she was hurt…she was really hurt.

Y/N didn’t know what to say. She understood why he was ending it…as much as she hated it she understood. It was his fucking kid on the line, how could she not understand?

______________

They sat there in silence for a solid 10 minutes. Y/N was trying her best not to break down, they both were. They both knew this was wrong, but they loved each other. It’s hard to stop yourself from falling in love with someone. James couldn’t read her like he always could. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, what she was feeling, she just sat there blankly. James was waiting for her to start yelling at him, start saying she hates him, but no. Instead she let out a broken sob.

James felt himself fighting back tears even more now. He hated being the reason that Y/N was crying. Y/N let out more sobs, covering her face in her hands. “Y/N…” James went to reach for her. Y/N immediately collapsed in his arms, she didn’t even care that she practically fell out of her seat. “Shhh, I know baby. I know.” James stroked her hair, he knew he had to keep himself together for her, at least right now.

Y/N sat there and sobbed in his arms for at least 10 minutes. She could feel James shaking under her. “O-one more night?” Y/N stuttered out, trying to pull herself together.

“What was that baby?” James couldn’t quite hear her.

“One more night….please?” Y/N got up the courage to look him in the eyes.

James knew he couldn’t say no, truth is, he needed just one more night with her too. “One more night.” James kissed the top of her heard, feeling her cuddle as close as she possibly could to him.

______________

That night, they tried to make the best of it. They laughed, talked about the happy times they had together, they spent their last couple hours together happy. When Y/N fluttered her eyes open that morning, everything came crashing down again.

Like she always did, Y/N woke up curled up against James’s chest with his arm around her waist keeping her in place. Y/N didn’t want to move from her place, but she knew if she was still here when he woke up, she wouldn’t be able to keep herself together.

Letting out a small sigh, Y/N gave James the best hug she could before maneuvering her way out of his grasp. Y/N started wondering around to find a pen and paper, if she was leaving without a proper goodbye, she was at least leaving a note.

Within 5 minutes she was folding her note up and setting it on her side of the bed. “I love you.” Y/N mumbled, placing on last kiss on James’s lips, feeling her eyes start to water again as she forced herself to walk away from the man she loved…

______________

When James opened his eyes, he expected to find Y/N curled up right next to him. But no…she was gone. James shot up in his bed, he didn’t think she would be gone, not without a proper goodbye. She never left his side until he was awake as well, she was always there to greet him with a hug and a kiss in the morning. He didn’t think she would leave yet.

Looking over at her side of the bed, James felt his heart break when he found a folded up piece of paper with his name on it. Reaching over and grabbing it, James took a breath before he slowly opened the paper.

I’m sorry I left without a proper goodbye…I didn’t want my last memory of us to be sad. I want to remember the last time I saw you, or at least the last time for a while to be happy. Seeing you peaceful, not a problem at the moment. By now I would have already told Kirk Im quitting, I’ve had offers and I’ve taken a job to work for Foo Fighters. I can’t stay here knowing the history we have.

The time I had with you had been the greatest year of my life. I never did think that we would be parting ways like this, but I understand. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. Your child deserves the best life they could get. I knew you could never be fully mine, but I will always be yours. I wish nothing but the best for you and your kid. I hope you don’t forget me, I won’t ever forget you. I love you James Alan Hetfield.

If things end up not working out, or if you just need a friend sometime, call me. I’ll always pick up for you. (***-***-****).

-Yours always and forever

Y/N Y/L/N

As James read over the note, he didn’t both holding back his own tears. He knew he could never just be friends with her. She was the only woman he never had an issue with opening up to. She was the only woman who actually listened to him with whatever it was, and as bad as he felt about it, she was the only woman he truly did love. And now she was gone…

______________

2002

“Jesus Christ Francesca! Nothing is fucking wrong! I had a rough day is all!!” James finally snapped at the woman who had been preying at him for the past 15 minutes, ever since he walked through the door.

“I know that’s not it James! You haven’t been happy in months!” Francesca shot back at him.

“You know, you’re right! I haven’t been happy in months, I haven’t been happy with you for months!” James snapped. That was a lie. He hasn’t truly been happy with her for years…ever since Y/N left. He loved his kids, they were the only reason he was sticking around with her.

“What do you mean yo-“ Francesca started.

“Mommy? Daddy?” Cali came creeping into the room.

James took a breath at the sight of his daughter. “Hi baby, what’s up?” James walked over to the child, kneeling down to her level.

“Why are you and mommy fighting…?” Cali practically whispered. Her and Castor could hear them from downstairs.

“We aren’t fighting baby.” Francesca intervened.

“Yea baby, we aren’t fighting. We’re just talking loudly.” James nodded along with his wife. “What’s up?” James further asked.

“Me and Castor are hungry.” Cali softly asked with a small smile.

“Well your mom can go down and make you guys something to eat ok?” James got an immediate grin from the girl. He needed Francesca away from him right now. He just needed a breather.

“Yea, come on baby.” Francesca didn’t bother looking at James as she took her daughter’s hand and started back downstairs.

______________

James groaned as he practically threw himself on his bed, rubbing his hands over his face. He knew this wasn’t working anymore. He knew this hadn’t been working with Francesca for a long time now. They’ve been arguing, sleeping in separate beds for a time James couldn’t even remember. But he hasn’t truly been happy in this marriage for a long time. He loved Francesca, but he knew he only loved her as a friend. As much as he’s been forcing himself to love her as his wife the way he used to, he knew she wasn’t the woman he loved. But he loved his kids, he didn’t want them to think their dad didn’t care about them if he left their mom, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could take it.

James laid here for a solid 10 minutes before a sentence rang though his ears. “ I love you James Hetfield.” 𝘏𝘦𝘳 voice rang though his ears. The woman he thought about for the past 4 years, the woman he missed, the woman he loved, her voice rang though his ears as if she was right there next to him.

James decided to just say “fuck it”. He’s kept himself from calling her for so many years, he 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘥 to at least hear her voice right now. Opening his bedside drawer, James pulled out that note she left him 4 years ago. He was amazed that Francesca hadn’t found it yet. He always kept it close to him. He remembered it word for word.

James immediately went down to the last small paragraph. “If things end up not working out, or if you just need a friend sometime, call me. I’ll always pick up for you. (***-***-****).”

James was hoping she still meant what she wrote as he grabbed his phone, flipped it open, and started dialing the number she had written down. He didn’t even know if she still had this number. He didn’t know if she would even pick up.

The phone rang a few times before the other line was picked up. “Hello…?” James knew that voice. It was her voice. He was hoping he hadn’t woken her just based on how tired she sounded.

“Hello?” Y/N asked again after a few moments of silence.

“Hey Y/N.” James could hear how she shot up from what he could assume was her bed.

“J-James?” Y/N sounded shocked yet also happy to hear from him.

James smiled, “hi pretty girl.” James spoke just loud enough for the girl to hear as he laid back on his bed smiling ear to ear.

[burntheedges-updates]

over again, epilogue: together

Joel Miller x f!reader | 18+ minors DNI | word count: 6.4k

summary: you fell in love with Joel Miller in Austin, Texas, in 2001, but you thought you lost him and your whole family in 2003 when the world turned upside down. now it's 2024, and you find the surprise of your life waiting for you in Jackson, Wyoming. or, five times you and Joel fell deeper in love, on both sides of the apocalypse (and one time you did something about it) chapter tags/warnings: fluff, flirting, banter, light angst, kissing, pet names (darlin’, baby, honey, pretty girl), Joel calls reader a good girl, neck grabbing (no breath play), light manhandling, grinding, oral (f receiving), oral (m receiving), deepthroating, light choking, p in v sex (no condom this time, but use a condom, y’all), creampie, praise kink, light anal play, face sitting, if I missed anything please let me know! a/n: I cannot believe this is the last part (this is the +1 - the time they did something about it). I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know what you think!

series main post | series playlist | ao3 ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 4 | ch 5

This is my updates-only blog! Follow me at @burntheedges

Epilogue: Together

Austin, December 2002

Almost two years in, and sometimes you couldn’t believe how happy you were with Joel. Almost two and a half, really, if you counted the 6 months you spent getting to know each other but holding yourselves back. 

You had a memorable second Christmas together – you stayed with the Millers for your entire holiday break from teaching, only running next door to your house to get random things you needed as they came up. Sarah, then 13, had been excited about it for weeks, though her excitement hadn’t died down after Christmas itself. You weren’t sure why, but she was still practically bouncing off the walls of the Miller household. Joel easily agreed to let her go to a New Year’s sleepover to burn off some of her energy.

A couple of days before New Year’s Eve you came back from a grocery run to an empty house. You knew Tommy had driven Sarah to the mall, but Joel should’ve been there somewhere. You called for him and heard a thump from the backyard, so you set down your bags and wandered out to see what he was up to. You found him up on a ladder, hammer in hand, string lights trailing over his shoulder and already secured in other places on the tall fence around the backyard.

“What’s all this?” you asked, coming to stand beside the ladder to steady it. It had rained earlier, but now it was just foggy and a little chilly. For Texas, anyway. You shivered.

Joel grunted, voice muffled by the nail he was holding with his lips. “I wanted to do something nice for Sarah for New Year’s.”

“Isn’t she going to that sleepover?”

“Yeah, but she’ll be back the next day. Thought we could celebrate it together.” You rested your hand on his ankle and smiled up at him. He was such a good dad, always thinking of little details like this that would brighten her day.

“Need any help?”

“No, I’m ‘bout done. Hey, could you go make us some coffee? Maybe we can sit out here for a bit when I’m done, think about what else we could do to decorate.”

“Sure, baby.” You squeezed his ankle and headed off to do just that.

It took you about 20 minutes to put away the groceries and make some coffee the way you both liked it. By the time you wandered back outside, Joel had finished the lights and put away the ladder. The string lights were glowing softly all around the back yard. You smiled a little, noticing that he’d also put down a large blanket in the middle of the yard and set up the boombox nearby. 

“¡Que Bonito!” was playing quietly, but Joel was nowhere to be seen. 

“Joel? You out here?” 

You whirled to your left, careful with the coffee, as he cleared his throat from behind you, near the door to the house. Somehow he’d managed to sneak in and change without you noticing. He was wearing a black button up and nicer jeans than he had been 20 minutes ago. 

Before you could ask what was going on, he walked towards you and took the coffees from you, setting them carefully on the low table the boom box was sitting on. “Come here, darlin’.” He guided you into a slow dance, starting to sway back and forth.

“What’s the occasion?”

He hummed, pulling you closer. “Just dance with me, pretty girl.” 

You realized he wasn’t going to tell you, at least not yet, so you relaxed into it. You rested your face on his chest as he rested his cheek on top of your head.

You swayed gently together, and the soft glow of the new string lights made everything feel soft and romantic. You sighed and let yourself sink into him. 

When the song ended you felt Joel tense a little. You tried to raise your head, but he suddenly relaxed and tucked your head back to his chest with his left hand. You realized the next track was “Amazed,” and you started to smile.

Sure enough, Joel ducked his head and put his lips right to your ear as he started to sing along softly with the song. You closed your eyes and let his deep voice wash over you.

I don't know how you do what you do I'm so in love with you It just keeps gettin' better I wanna spend the rest of my life With you by my side Forever and ever Every little thing that you do Baby I'm amazed by you

He sang through the first chorus, but then trailed off. He slowly stopped swaying you back and forth. You raised your head, and he let you this time. His eyes caught yours as he stepped back from you, your brow furrowed in confusion as he took a deep breath.

And then he dropped to one knee. 

Your hands flew up to cover your mouth, eyes wide, as Joel reached into his pocket and revealed a small black box. Your whole body was tingling and you sucked in a sharp breath.

He said your name softly as he opened the box, not breaking eye contact once.

“I was planning to wait until New Year’s Eve, bring you out here at midnight and ask you to spend the rest of your life with me. But when you came home earlier, you looked so goddamn beautiful and so right, here in our home. I couldn’t wait any longer. 

“Darlin’, I started falling in love with you standing in my driveway, watching you smile at me and our daughter over those bushes. I didn’t let myself admit it right away, but that’s the truth of it. And then I spent months falling deeper and deeper, sitting with you on your back porch, ‘n every new thing I learned about you just pulled me in more. But I was stuck in my own fear until that day you watched over our girl and took such good care of her and told me you loved her. And I knew it then. I knew you were the one for me, the one for us, and I needed to stop being so afraid to let you in.”

You realized you’d started crying and you wiped away your tears, a huge smile taking over your face. Joel watched you intently and visibly powered through it instead of reaching out to you.

“Every moment with you blows me away, baby. I didn’t think I would ever be this happy. I want to spend the rest of my life making you smile just like that, hearing about your day, watching you be a mom to our little girl, holding you when you need comfort, marveling at how smart you are. I want to bump shoulders in the kitchen as we do dishes together and catch you as you stumble when you’re too tired after a night of dancing to make it up the stairs. I want to dance with you every day, even when we’re old and our backs hurt with every step. I want to watch you watch our daughter grow up. I want to see you every morning when I wake up and I want your cold feet to snuggle under mine in bed. I want to spend every night in bed with you, touching you and kissing you and making you come so hard your legs shake.” He grins and winks at you, and you laugh. You can’t help it.

“I love you so much, darlin’. I want to take the long way with you. I want you here, with us, together, for the rest of our days. Will you marry me?” 

You flung yourself at him before he even finished the question, and he caught you around the waist, laughing and keeping the both of you from toppling over. 

“Yes! I love you so much, Joel Miller. Yes, I’ll marry you. I want all of that too. I want it so bad, baby.” He grinned at you, and you saw he’d teared up a bit too. You were both a mess, teary and smiling, as he slipped the ring onto your finger.

You both looked at it for a moment, stunned, before he took your hand and raised it to his lips, kissing the back of your fingers with his eyes closed. He whispered, “I never saw you coming, darlin’, you took my breath away from the first moment.” He opened his eyes and when he met your gaze he smiled, slow. “Come here, pretty girl.” He pulled you in by your hand and drew you into a deep, slow kiss that stole your breath. With his left hand at your back he lowered you onto the blanket he’d put out, nestled under the trees. 

Joel hovered over you, pressing small kisses all over your face and trailing down your neck. You threaded your fingers through his hair and sighed. 

“Let me make you feel good, baby.” He moved to take off your clothes at the same time your hands moved to his buttons. After a bit of laughter and fumbling, both of you were stripped bare, right there in the yard, hidden by the trees. He looked down at you from where he hovered above you on all fours, cock already hard and hanging heavy between his legs. 

“Look at you, beautiful. Laid out for me all perfect, wearing nothing but my ring.” He dipped down to pull your nipple into his mouth, and you moaned. “That’s right baby, let me hear you.” He reached over and turned up the volume on the boombox slightly. 

You moved your left hand to cup his face, and he immediately turned into it to kiss where your ring sat on your finger. “What do you want, pretty girl?”

You reached down and held his cock lightly in your right hand. You wanted what you knew would drive him over the edge – what always made him lose control. “I want you to fuck my face, baby.”

He groaned, dropping his head to your chest. “Fuck.”

“I want you to come up here and feed me your cock. Come on, cowboy.” You moved your hands to his hips and urged him forward. 

“Baby, I want–“ he started to protest.

You pulled his head up so he had to meet your gaze. “Fuck. My. Mouth.” You could see him shudder, his eyes blown wide as his mouth dropped open. He scrambled to do as you asked. 

His big thighs came up to surround you, sturdy on either side of your head. You hummed, pleased. He leaned forward to find the right angle and you stuck out your tongue to meet the tip of his cock as it lowered towards your face. He groaned loudly. His hips moved closer, suddenly, like it was out of his control. You opened your mouth and extended your tongue, flat. 

Joel was breathing fast, but he lowered his hips perfectly so that the head of his cock landed right on your tongue. You realized he must have been watching and tilted your head back to look. You met his gaze, upside down, his head hanging between his shoulders. He looked completely undone and you’d barely touched him. You smiled as he slowly sank the head of his cock into your wide open mouth. 

He groaned as he pushed inside, not too far yet. He knew you loved this, and he fucking loved it too, but he was always a little afraid of hurting you at first. Always cautious. You positioned your mouth and throat so that he could push father, but he pulled back out and you hummed. You reached up and lightly slapped his ass cheek before grabbing his hips to urge him forward. 

“Ok, baby, ok. I just don’t want to choke you.” He breathed out a laugh, sounding completely wrecked. You pinched his ass. “Ok, I know, I don’t want to choke you too much.” This time he sank down further and you tried to open your throat to welcome him in. You swirled your tongue over his shaft as the tip of his cock kissed the back of your throat. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck baby that feels so fucking good. Fuck.” He pulled back out and, a bit faster, thrust back inside. You hummed and squeezed your thighs together at the feeling. You were already getting wet.

Slowly, steadily, he started to actually fuck into your mouth. You encouraged him with your hands on his ass and your moans every time he went a little bit farther, a little bit deeper. You could hear him, cursing and murmuring quietly about how good it was, but the blood started to rush in your ears as he settled into it. 

You pressed your tongue to the tip of his cock the next time he pulled out and then sucked, hard, on his next thrust. His hips jumped forward and his cock sank slightly farther into your throat. You choked, just a little, and immediately held onto his ass to keep him from pulling out. “Oh baby, your mouth is fucking perfect,” he growled, accepting that you wanted him right there, down your throat, not moving until you let him. “You want to choke on it that bad? You got it, pretty girl.”

He started thrusting a little deeper, pushing the head of his cock into your throat every time. You moaned, encouraging him, and realized tears were streaming down your face. You clenched your thighs together, pussy dripping wet, overcome by the sound and the feeling of him starting to use your throat. 

On his next thrust you slipped a finger in between his ass cheeks and his hips stuttered forward, almost sinking his entire cock into your mouth. Joel cried out as you choked and your throat tightened around him, before pulling out suddenly and yanking you up the blanket towards him. 

“Holy fucking shit, baby, what did I do to deserve you? Such a good fucking girl for me. You take my cock so fucking well.” He wiped the tears from your eyes and leaned down to lick across your lips before kissing you deeply, tasting himself and groaning loudly. “I need to be inside you, pretty girl.”

“You were, baby.” Your voice was husky, throat a little raw, and he shuddered at the sound. 

“Let me fuck this pretty pussy, baby, I want to make you feel good.” He lifted your knees to your chest, opening you up to him. “I need to put my cock inside this perfect little hole. Fill it up.”

“I do feel good, Joel.” You smiled, dreamily, watching him look at your pussy and lick his lips. 

“I can see that, honey.” You were sure the look on your face was totally blissed out. It’s how you felt. “I want you to feel even better.” As he said it his fingers moved from your legs to your pussy and he moaned. “You’re so fucking wet, is this just from sucking my cock?” You nodded. “Such a good fucking girl for me. Getting so wet just from having my cock in your mouth. Like I already filled you up and you’re dripping, leaking everywhere. So needy, baby.”

“I love your cock, Joel. Love the way it tastes. Love choking on it.” You reached for him, but he leaned down before you could pull him towards you and licked your pussy, tongue flat, from your hole to your clit. You whined and fisted your hands in the blanket. 

“You taste good too, baby. So fucking good.” He lowered his head again and slipped his tongue inside of you, holding you open with his hands behind your thighs. You squirmed, trying to thrust your hips towards his mouth. He twisted his tongue, closed his mouth over your hole, and sucked lightly. You moaned. 

He pulled his face away, gasping. “I need to be inside you, baby.”

You nodded, pulling him towards you. His eyes were dark and his gaze burned into you, making your breath stutter.

“I’m going to fuck your so good, honey. ‘M going to fill this tight little hole, stuff it full of my cock, stretch you open and make it mine.” He leaned down and kissed you as the tip of his cock nestled at your entrance, your legs still wide open for him.

“It’s already yours, Joel. I’m all yours.”

“That’s right, baby. For the rest of our lives.” With that, he pushed forward and sank his cock inside you, slowly, inch by inch. You threw your head back and whined as his hips met yours. You felt stretched full, a perfect fit. He stopped there and watched you for a moment before leaning down and kissing you, so softly and gently it made your breath catch. 

He moved his lips to your ear and whispered, softly, “I am going to ruin this pretty pussy, baby.”

You moaned, clenching down on his cock and twisting your fingers through his hair. “Please, Joel. Do it.”

He moved his face back above yours, giving you a cocky half smile. He pulled out slowly, met your eyes, and then slammed back into you. You could feel your chest heaving as he set a wild pace, strokes fast and deep. You thrust your hips to meet his, panting. He moved his left hand to where it belonged, holding the back of your neck in a strong grip as he held himself up on his elbows.

Joel leaned down slowly towards you, the move totally at odds with the devastating pace he was setting with his cock. You could feel his breath on your lips. He slipped his tongue towards you and brushed it lightly along your bottom lip, teasing you, holding your neck in place when you tried to surge forward to meet him. The soft pressure combined with the feeling of his cock hitting you just right inside made you whine and close your eyes. 

“That’s it, baby. You’re always such a good girl, fucking taking what I give you like you were made to do it.” He leaned to the right and nipped lightly at your jaw. You tried to tilt your head to give him more room but his grip on your neck held you in place, right where he wanted you. He shifted his weight to his left elbow, picking up his right hand and grasping your hip to encourage you as you met his thrusts. He scraped his teeth down your neck.

“Being with you feels like a miracle, baby. It’s so fucking good every time. A man could lose himself in this pussy.” His hips stuttered. “Wish I could stay right here inside you all damn day.”

You felt tears forming at the corners of your eyes as he kept his steady pace, fucking into you, holding your body where he wanted it. “Joel, please.” You couldn't help but beg him even though you didn’t know what you were begging for. You scratched your nails down his back, feeling his muscles moving beautifully under his skin.

“Shhh, let me give it to you. Just take it, honey. That’s it. Be my good girl.” You held your breath as he whispered in your ear, as his right hand moved to your clit. He began to dance his fingers over it in time with his thrusts and you suddenly felt your orgasm, which had been building steadily, coming for you like a meteor. 

“Joel!”

As you cried out his name, you felt yourself clench around his cock, coming so hard you swore you heard ringing in your ears. He moaned your name, low and guttural, and sank his teeth into your shoulder. His hips stuttered and his fingers pinched lightly at your clit as both of you flew over the edge. His orgasm stirred yours higher and your hands went lax. You saw stars dancing in your vision as he ground his cock into you, almost smothering you with his weight.

His hips stilled, but neither of you moved. You both sucked in deep breaths and tried to slow your racing hearts. You could feel his in his chest, beating strong and fast. 

Slowly, Joel lifted his head to meet your gaze. You realized with sudden alarm that he was crying.

“Baby, what–”

He cut you off with a kiss, so soft and gentle it soothed you. He whispered your name.

“How did I get so lucky as to find you, honey?” He spoke right into your mouth, seeming unable to move back, unable to stop kissing you. “I’ve never been so happy. Never knew it could be like this.”

You mustered the strength to move your arms, slipping them around his waist. “I’m the lucky one, Joel. I’ve never been loved this good. No one’s ever come close. I didn’t even realize what I was missing before you.”

He hummed, kissing along your jaw softly. “Maybe we’re both lucky. Sure do fit together like this is how it’s meant to be.” He ground his hips into yours a bit, emphasizing his point. You laughed.

“Well, you know how much I love your cock.”

He smiled, but hid it in your neck, licking and kissing his way down and back up. “Just my cock? I see how it is.” He kissed your ear before biting down on it lightly.

You laughed again, and considered continuing the joke, but you couldn’t. Not that day. You moved your hands up to take his face gently between them, bringing his gaze to meet yours.

“I love you, Joel Miller, every part of you, with all of my heart. I can’t wait to marry you. Every part of me belongs to you and our family. I never want to be without you ever again.” He looked stunned and then he smiled so wide you couldn’t help but return it. 

“We’re getting married.” He looked elated as he said it, like he’d forgotten and only just remembered. You grinned.

“Yeah, cowboy, we are. You even swept me off my feet.” You kicked at his ankles a bit, reminding him. He laughed.

Slowly, he reached down to pull out of you, humming as he felt his cum spill out of you with his cock. He fingered you lightly, pushing it around and making a mess. You raised your eyebrows at him and he grinned ruefully. “Ok, ok.”

He moved to the side and laid down, pulling you in so your head was resting on his chest and your leg was thrown over his. He tugged the part of the blanket you weren’t lying on over the two of you, holding you tight against him. You knew you’d want to go inside and clean up soon — you’d started to notice again how chilly it was — but for now you relaxed into his embrace. You were both quiet, reveling in the moment.

“I feel like you should have something, too,” you mused.

“What do you mean?” Joel picked up your left hand from where it rested on his chest and toyed with your ring before kissing your fingers. “I’ll get my own ring real soon.”

“I just want to get you something. Like, an engagement watch or belt buckle or something.” 

Joel burst into laughter, eyes crinkling. “A belt buckle? Baby, I don’t think that’s a thing.” 

You narrowed your eyes at him and tried not to laugh. “Well, we’ll just have to make it a thing, won’t we?” He laughed so hard he almost bounced you off his chest and onto the blanket. You grinned, making a mental note to enlist Sarah’s help to definitely get him an engagement belt buckle – the cheesiest one you could find, and soon. 

…

Later, when Tommy and Sarah got home, they found you dancing in the kitchen to the mix CD Joel and Sarah had made you the Christmas before, laughing and singing along to “Forever and Ever, Amen” as you made dinner. Sarah immediately gasped and zeroed in on the ring on your finger before you could even say anything. She screamed and jumped across the room to hug you both.

“Finally! I thought you were never going to do it.” She pinched her dad in the side and he squirmed away.

“Hey! I told you I was planning on New Year’s, you little meddler.” He was smiling wide as he teased her.

“Is this what you’ve been so excited about?” you wonder aloud. 

Sarah nodded at you, bouncing on her toes. “We bought the ring a month ago! Do you like it?”

“I love it, sweetheart, thank you. It’s beautiful.” She beamed at you and hugged you again. You laughed, holding on tight. Tommy came in and squished all four of you together in a hug. 

“Welcome to the family, sunshine!” He pulled you away from Joel and started dancing you around the room as Sarah and Joel laughed. “You’re stuck with us now.”

You grinned as he spun you around, catching Joel’s eye. “Stuck, huh? But there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

...

Jackson, Early Fall 2024

After that night you and Joel can be found together more often than not.

You don’t move in together, not yet – you want Ellie to be comfortable, and that’s more important than anything else. 

But you spend a lot of nights in each other's beds.

At first it surprises you, how quickly the two of you fall together again. But it shouldn’t, really. Just like you told Joel, the core of who you are is still the same, and who you are together was always something special. Something that had burrowed so deep inside of you, had become so much a part of you, that you’d mourned a part of yourself when it was lost. You’d assumed it was gone for good, right up until the moment Joel Miller touched you again. 

You have some difficult conversations, difficult in the sense that it’s hard for the both of you to talk about some parts of your past. But just like Before, Joel is there to catch you when you stumble over your words, there to hold you when the memories are too strong. You do the same for him.

And when Tommy and Maria’s baby is born in early summer, you’re there for each other for the hard moments and memories that come along with all of the good ones. (Ellie takes to her baby cousin Isabela and the joy of being the big cousin with wonder and enthusiasm – they’re like two peas in a pod of chaos. You still wish Sarah was there every day, but seeing them together heals you a bit, too.) 

Later in the summer, once he can come up for air after the baby is born, Tommy shows the three of you the lake near Jackson. Joel takes the opportunity to teach Ellie to swim, which results in a couple of hilarious afternoons with both Joel and Tommy ending up soaking wet when they don’t mean to be. You laugh at them from the grass nearby (or sometimes from the lake, with Ellie).

In early fall, on what seems like one of the last warm days of the year, the five of you go out to the lake. Maria leaves Isabela with her closest friend, taking advantage of the summer weather while you still have it. (You were surprised Maria wanted to come, since no one wanted to bring the baby outside the walls of Jackson, but she just shrugged and said she was getting stir crazy and wanted to spend the afternoon with family, that it would only be a couple of hours, anyway. Her smile was a little too knowing, a little suspicious. You’d narrowed your eyes, sure something was up, but couldn’t figure out what.) It’s a day off from work and school and Ellie bounces along beside you, excited to be out exploring. She’s adjusting well, but still needs to get away sometimes. 

You and Joel are walking slowly around the edge of the lake as Ellie and Tommy invent some sort of splashing game with extremely complex rules (that mostly result in Tommy getting soaked and Ellie grinning like a little demon the whole time). Maria just watches and laughs at their antics from her comfortable spot on a blanket next to the lake. Whatever the game is, they’re clearly having fun, and you leave them to it. 

Joel takes your right hand in his left, intertwining your fingers and squeezing, and says, “I still can’t really believe it, that we get to have all of this again.”

“I know what you mean. It’s starting to make the 20 years in between feel like a dream, which seems impossible.” He nods, agreeing. “I don’t think either of us will ever be unaffected,” you share a glance and the knowledge that both of you still have nightmares and rough days, “but it seems too good to be true.”

He pulls your hand up to his lips, kissing the back of it softly. “You know, Ellie pointed something out to me the other day.”

You turn to look at him when he doesn’t say anything more. “Oh?” You elbow him a little to urge him on. He smiles, one corner of his mouth lifting.

“We were talking about Before, and she pointed out that technically, we’ve been engaged for almost 22 years now. You know, we never officially called it off or anything.” 

You stumble a little and laugh, wondering where he’s going with this. “I mean, technically, she’s right.”

Joel grins at your reply and pulls you to stop, turning you to face him by grabbing your other hand. “And technically,” he winks, “that’s probably long enough for an engagement. We could probably, well. We could get married, um. If we wanted.” He looks a little shy, somehow, even after everything you’ve been through. 

Your breath catches in your throat. And for some reason the question that comes out is, “do people still do that?” 

He laughs, crinkling his nose at your question. “Yeah, I asked Tommy. Sounds like at least around here, people still do that.” Of course they do, you realize it as he says it – Tommy and Maria are married, after all. 

“I…” you trail off, words leaving you, overcome by a possibility that you hadn't once stopped to consider. He sees how surprised you are and tries to talk you through it.

“You know, there’s not one particular way, sounds like people just do whatever seems right to them, with a few witnesses or sometimes a party at the Bison or something. Something they like.” 

Your brain is coming back online and with it the force of your desire to be married to this man. It emerges from somewhere deep within you, pushed down and ignored for so many years because of how much it hurt to think about. You never stopped wanting it, not really, you only stopped being able to have it. It was out of reach for so long that it didn’t occur to you that you could have it now, even with Joel right in front of you, miraculously alive. You start to smile and he straightens up, smiling back and looking relieved.

“It’s just too bad we don’t have any kind of rings, you know?” He continues. You clear your throat, suddenly awkward, and he narrows his eyes at you. He knows you far too well. “What?”

“Well,” you start, “maybe we do have some rings.”

“Rings?” Joel’s eyes go wide as he emphasizes the end of the word, clearly incredulous both at their possible existence and at the idea that there might somehow be more than one ring available to you.

“I might have held something back, from the shoebox.” His mouth drops open and he pulls you closer. “I held onto mine, somehow, never lost it. I didn’t wear it of course, but I kept it close and never had it stolen.” He’s shaking his head in disbelief, looking down at your hands that are still clutched in his own like he might find it there on your finger, somehow unnoticed until now. “And then when I went back to the house, I found them. In your sock drawer.” He squeezes your hands so hard and looks so shocked you worry he might fall over.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” It’s a fair question.

“Well, at first it was like the rest of the shoebox – I was just waiting for a good time to tell you about it, and I did as soon as I could. But the rings…” You sighed. “I was trying not to push, you know? You said slow, and I agreed.”

“But we left slow behind months ago, darlin’.” He tugs you in closer, letting go of your hands to move his around your waist. You slide yours up his chest to his shoulders. 

“I know, but well, two reasons. One, it honestly hadn’t seemed possible in so long that I sort of… assumed people didn’t get married anymore. And two, well. It seemed kind of fast, to just bring it up right away. Hey, thanks for the mind-blowing orgasms, did you still want your wedding ring? Then I just made it more difficult by waiting and got all in my head about it.” He laughed and pulled your face into his chest, kissing along your hairline. 

“You could’ve said that. The orgasm thing. We have been engaged for 22 years, after all.” You can feel him laughing as he says it and for a second you marvel at the idea that it’s something you can both joke about. “Let me help get you out of your head, baby. We can work it out together.” He pulls back and to your surprise, for the second time in your life, Joel drops to one knee in front of you. His hands go to your hips and yours to his arms. He holds you up as your knees suddenly feel weak.

“I can’t beat that first proposal, I don’t think, especially not with our family right over there. So I’ll just say that I love you, darlin’, and I never stopped. I can’t believe I get another chance at spending the rest of my life with you. I’m not letting it pass me by. We were made for each other, after all.” You smile, and feel tears slip down your cheeks, just like last time. He squeezes your hips. “I know it won’t be easy all the time, but I’d rather handle the hard things together than apart. Even when the hard things come from us.” 

His eyes are looking a little teary, too, and he says your name softly. “It turns out we really did take the long way ‘round, but I’d like to go the rest of the way with you by my side, however long it turns out to be. Will you marry me, darlin’?”

You say yes, of course. You say yes, and fall into his arms again, just like last time. Joel draws you into a kiss, both of you on your knees, and then laughs when you slide your hand into his back pocket and squeeze. 

“We’re too old for me to take you right here on the ground like last time, baby, and we’ve got an audience anyway.” You look up to see Tommy, Maria and Ellie are all watching you, grinning. When you make eye contact with them they start cheering. It’s ridiculous and it makes you tear up again. Joel leans forward to whisper in your ear as they come running towards you, “I promise, honey, I’ll give it to you so good when we get home that you won’t be able to walk tomorrow.” You shiver. 

You rise, just as Ellie arrives and throws herself at you both, getting you all wet with lake water. She smiles at you both and starts to poke at Joel as Tommy walks up behind her. 

“Well, what am I supposed to do, sunshine, welcome you to the family a second time? It don’t make any sense.” He grins at you, and pulls you into a hug. Maria is right behind him with another, and you realize that all three of them must have known what Joel was going to ask you today. 

Ellie looks up from where she’s teasing Joel mercilessly for being such a romantic. “Hey, why does he call you sunshine, anyway?”

Joel and Tommy start laughing, and you roll your eyes. “Come on, I’ll tell you the story on the way back.” 

“Aw come on, it’s not a long story,” Tommy grins as he needles you. He looks at Ellie. “We were at some bar and this guy wouldn’t leave her alone, got so far as putting his hand up her shirt. After she’d already pushed him away a couple times. She was dancing, we were over by the bar.”

Joel chimes in, “She took care of him, though. Didn’t need any help.” He’s grinning.

Tommy nods. “Yeah, it was beautiful. She grabbed him by the shoulders, shouted, ‘watch where you put your hands if you want to keep ‘em, fucker’ and kneed him straight in the di– erm, junk.” Tommy corrects himself, glancing at Joel. Ellie rolls her eyes.

“You can say dick. I’m not a fucking child.” Ellie crosses her arms and frowns at Tommy. Joel sighs, long-suffering, but you know he’s hiding a laugh. 

“Anyway,” Tommy shrugs, “the fucker folded in half right there on the dance floor, just fell right over and groaned. Everyone around them turned and laughed at him.” Tommy pretends to wipe a tear away from his eye. “He had to army crawl off the dance floor and creep his way outside. Truly, one of the most beautiful sights I ever saw.”

“Ok that is like, fucking awesome obviously, but it doesn’t explain the nickname.” Ellie raises her eyebrow at Tommy.

Joel and Tommy start snickering again. The absolute dorks.

“Sure, yeah, but you know,” Tommy snorts and says gleefully, “she got him where the sun don’t shine.” He and Joel laugh again, louder this time, leaning into each other. This time you roll your eyes, even as Ellie laughs, too. Tommy’s still just as pleased with himself for coming up with that nickname, more than 20 years later. He’s got the same look on his face as he did outside of the bar, crowing about the way you took the guy down. 

You and Ellie and Maria leave them there, leaning against each other and laughing, as you walk arm in arm back to where you left the horses. 

...

a/n: that’s it, y’all. Thank you for reading!! Every single one of your comments has meant so much to me. Please let me know what you think of the ending?

I bet I’ll add some drabbles showing some of this stuff that didn’t fit in the story. To answer your probable questions:

Yes, you get married. (Your rings don’t actually fit anymore, but neither of you care. You have them, that’s enough. And later you pass them on to Ellie.)

Yes, you do show Jackson how it’s done, dancing at the bar. You even bring out the mix CD. 

I handwaved the cure and resulting issues here but just know that however it went, they took care of it. 

You and Joel do talk about Tess and Michelle and everything else that happened. You tell Ellie all about Sarah and the extended family she would have had in Texas. Talking about them hurts but seeing her wonder, hearing about her huge family, helps. 

You and Ellie talk about Michelle and she eventually opens up to you about her crush on Cat, bringing the two of you closer together. 

Joel still sings to you in the kitchen and dances with you in the backyard. 

You’re all happy, in the end. It’s hard, and sometimes it’s so hard you think it might not work out. But it always does, and you’re happy. Together. 

Tag list

@morgaussy @jay-zzle @bluetattoos @dins-riduur-anthe @huffle-punk @poodlebae

[mirai-e-jump]

Hero Vision Vol.7 (2002/Summer) ft. Kamen Rider Ryuki Cast Members with Ryohei & Hidekazu Ichinose (translations below)

Takamasa Suga (Kido Shinji) Interview (page 6-7)

"At the time of this interview, the double filming for both the movie and TV series were underway, and it appears to be a real nightmare."

Suga: I'm already overwhelmed. I don't have time to sleep or even memorize the script. "What am I suppose to do?!" is the current state of things (laughs). My body is starting to get used to it, but it's still very difficult.

"Despite the demanding schedule, he always has such a sweet smile on his face. It's been six months since he started playing the role of Shinji Kido, the main character of Kamen Rider Ryuki. He says that his image of Shinji, which at first felt like a blur, has recently become more defined."

Suga: In the begining, I was so preoccupied with filming, that I honestly wasn't thinking about Shinji. I hadn't seen "Kamen Rider Kuuga" or "Agito," so I didn't know about the whole Rider process. However, when someone said to me, "Producer Shirakura said that after the transformations in Episodes 1 and 2, that was Ryuki's Shinji," I thought I had a better grasp of what was going on. I thought it was the movements of suit actor Seiji Takaiwa in the Mirror World, so I though, "Alright, I'll do that." At first, I thought Shinji was a pretty pathetic guy, but he's actually a strong leader, and always does what he thinks is right. I've recently realized how cool it is that Shinji's charm has the power to envelope everyone around.

"Not the coolness of a dependable hero, but rather, humane and tasteful coolness. He and Takaiwa-san had a close meeting to better express Shinji's emotions before and after transforming. Whether it's how Shinji sleeps, or how Shinji goes about his day after waking up."

Suga: Even in my private life, I notice I'll say, "Eh!?," or some other Shinji like reaction. Sometimes, I get caught up in a strange emotion where I can't tell who is the original, myself or Shinji.

"Suga-kun, who is now a huge part of Shinji's life, had never seen "Kamen Rider" until he was given the chance to audition. Although he had always been interested in the entertainment industry, he was unsure of his career path after high school. It wasn't untill he saw the movie "Swallowtail," directed by Shunji Iwai, where he decided to become an actor."

Suga: It felt as though I had watched that movie with my whole body. I saw it with my eyes, heard the sounds with my ears, and even felt like I smelt the movie. After watching, I was still in a mix of emotions and thought, "What is this feeling?" Then I realized, "Oh, I know! I want to be on the screen!" It was a real Shinji moment (laughs).

"After working on TV dramas and gaining some experience, he auditioned for Ryuki a few years later, but with the feeling that he was "grasping at straws."

Suga: When I went into the second round of judging, all the models around me were on the same level as Ryohei-san, so I thought this was definitely not going to work out. Even after making it to the final round, I was so nervous that at one point I said something unintelligible like, "I love beer!" When I received the news two weeks later that I got the role, I didn't believe it right away and was cautious, saying, "I don't believe this."

"When you went to the costume fitting with high expectations of what kind of cool Kamen Rider you'd see, when seeing Ryuki for the first time, you though……."Kendo?!" You were very surprised.

Suga: When I first saw it, I thought it was a really strange design that I had never seen before. Now, I'm very attached to it, and think it's the coolest out of all the riders. I love it so much.

"Of all the episodes that have been filmed so far, episodes 13 and 14 are the ones that you value the most. It's the episodes where he was distressed by the thought that he had killed Zolda."

Suga: It was then, that I once again found myself thinking about my sense of responsibility as a Rider. It was like I had just shed a layer of skin. But, even though he grows little by little this way, I would like to keep Shinji's "roots" planted as they are. Everyone around Shinji is carrying something on their shoulders, except for Shinji himself. He's quick to say, "I'll protect people," while having nothing to back up his words. No one to protect, and no past. I once thought about it deeply, and asked the producer, "Does Shinji have a past?" I was told, "No, Shinji is just a young man who had a normal upbringing." I think that's when my mind began to wander. I don't have anything to prove it, but I'm not sure that's something Shinji would say. What I am sure of, is that his emotions are straight and pure like a child, which I like. I also cherish the bad and idiotic parts of Shinji as well.

"You get along well with your co-stars, Matsuda-kun and Ryohei-kun, who are of the same generation."

Suga: We'll talk about upcoming scenes and say things like, "Ren, how do you feel about this part?" and "Ok then, let's do that part like this." We'll work through this process by trial and error. Everyone has a strong character, so I hope we can create relationships on screen that brings out the best in all of us.

Suga-kun talks about Shinji and Ryuki with more enthusiasm than usual. Everything in his life is all about Ryuki now, and he seems to be enjoying it very much. _

Satoshi Matsuda (Akiyama Ren) Interview (page 8-9)

Matsuda-kun was dressed in a black tank top, with black leather pants, and short black boots. Just like Ren, black seems to be his main image color. We asked, "Are you trying to convey Ren's image?" He responded with, "I think Ren is trying to convey me." If a normal man said those words, you'd think he was being sarcastic, but when Matsuda-kun says them, they sound natural.

"Matsuda, a native of Osaka Prefecture, still occasionally speaks with the Kansai dialect."

Matsuda: Recently, I've been able to play the role of a Ren naturally. Ren's a really cool guy, isn't he? Before, I worked hard on creating the "extreme" part of him. You don't normally see people like him in real life (laughs). People who have known me for a long time will say, "You and I are exact opposites." Usually I'm just messing around while speaking nonsense.

"Ren (Kamen Rider Knight) is a complex character, being neither right nor wrong. Therefore, when acting, Matsuda says, "I try to give weight to each word instead of saying too little." He also said, "If I move too fast, I'll look weak, so I try not to move too fast except for when I run at full speed. Like when I'm chasing after Shinji, you know?"

"He won the role of Ren through an audition, but even before doing the audition, he "debated for a week whether or not he would accept the role." According to his manager, who is Toei's producer for Ryuki, Shinichiro Shirakura, he had been paying attention to Matsuda-kun since his debut work in "Natural Girl Next ~ 100 Nights in Yokohama". Matsuda-kun, who never heard that before, shyly said, "This is the first I'm hearing of that!! I'm so embarrassed (laughs)."

Matsuda: Before the audition, I had some hesitation due to the fact that Ryuki was a children's show. So I worked with the manager, faxing each other back and forth, talking about all kinds of things, like what kind of fans the franchise had, the kind of material we had, who would watch us, and so on. In the end I decided, "Okay, I'll accept!! After all, I went through all this trouble of research, so I'll definitely have to do it now!"

"Oooh, so cool Matsuda-kun!!"

Matsuda: Afterall, I would look like a complete idiot if I failed the audition because I said, "I don't want to be associated with tokusatsu" (laughs). That's what I thought, so I didn't push back at all when I entered the production.

"Ren plays the "Secondary Rider" role in the show, and while Shinji is the main character, according to Matsuda-kun, "It's probably better than having the lead role (laughs). The camera follows Shinji, and Ren follows him in order to make the story more interesting." He goes onto say that Shinji and Ren have a bad relationship."

Matsuda: Rather than liking, disliking or having a friendship with him, I feel it's more like, "It's stupid to even hate this guy" (laughs). When he says to Shinji, "I owe you one," he says it as if embarrassed, and I think it's Ren's way of dealing with Shinji that he'll carry through to the end.

"There are rumors (!!) on the internet that you're on bad terms with Takamasa Suga, who plays the role of Shinji."

Matsuda: I'm often asked by magazine reporters if we don't get along (laughs). But, it's actually really surprising to be asked such a question. Sugacchi (Suga-kun's nickname on set), is a good friend and co-worker, who I usually go home together with, or out on the town together. So, I'm trying to figure out what else I should do to emphasize how well we get along with each other.

"It's been said that you're also on good terms with Hassei Takano, who plays Tezuka Miyuki (Kamen Rider Raia)."

Matsuda: He and I are strangely compatible. On my way to the studio, we meet up at a convenience store near the train station and make the 10 minuet walk while goofing around. That's what we like about each other (laughs)

"He says that working as an actor is difficult, but also enjoyable. He says that tokusatsu programs are particularly appealing because he can play a role over the span of a year. However, he also has his complaints."

Matsuda: I've begged the staff to do more action! Riders fight after transforming, so there's not much action before the transformation. And since Ren is supposed to be a strong fighter, he can knock out his opponents with a single punch. Well, that's not exactly what I mean, I just wanted to make a big statement. The other day, there was a scene where Takashi Hagino, who plays Takeshi Asakura (Ouja), filmed a scene that I really liked, and I watched admiringly while also being jealous (laughs).

"Matsuda-kun was originally scheduled to work for a fashion related company, but after his debut, understood "the depth of the industry," and chose to be an actor."

Matsuda: Ryuki is a battle between 13 Riders, but in reality, it's also a war between the Riders to see who can survive and who will be eliminated. That's why I myself, feel like I'm in a very serious competition as Akiyama Ren. There's no end to how difficult it is to be an actor, and the fact that there is no answer, not a single one, is fascinating. It's perfect for a arts major like myself.

Ren (Knight), wasn't the only one who continues to fight without an answer. Actor Satoshi Matsuda's battle has only just begun. _

Hassei Takano (Tezuka Miyuki) Interview (page 10-11)

Two years ago, Takano-kun gained popularity for his cool acting as Hiroya Fujimiya (Ultraman Agul) in "Ultraman Gaia." He didn't expect that he would also appear in Kamen Rider Ryuki as the fifth Rider, "Raia." As expected, no one else has appeared in both productions but him.

Takano: At the time I overheard from a friend of mine that, "There are going to be 13 Kamen Riders this time around." "Eh? That many?," we talked about it so normally. Then he said, "My friends are going to be in it." It turned out to be Matsuda-kun (Akiyama Ren) and Yuge-kun (Yura Goro). So, while I had heard stories, it was a surprise that I was also going to appear in the show. It felt almost like fate (laughs).

He had no hesitations about appearing in a tokusatsu program for a second time, as he thought to himself, "I want to do it."

Takano: If I had been the me from a little while ago, I might have been a little put off, but this time, I'm enjoying the challenge of how to play the hero and making them look good.

"The days of Ultraman Gaia were the dawn of a new era for tokusatsu. This was followed by "Kamen Rider Kuuga," which marked the new wave of tokusatsu, as these series of works have made the public recognize tokusatsu programs more and more in recent years."

Takano: I felt this phenomenon firsthand. The quality of "Gaia" was high, and I felt that the range of people watching the show was expanding, but since filming Ryuki, I've realized how popular these shows are.

"This is a comment only a performer of two works can make. What did you feel was the different between Ultraman and Ryuki when you actually played the role?"

Takano: The difference in enemy size (laughs). In Ultraman, alot of the performance is looking up and imagining the enemy in the blue background. Furthermore, for Ultraman, the SFX team would split up my shots in two directions, whereas in Ryuki's case, I would just keep saying, "Ok, I going to transform," so I really felt that I was transforming. I'm actually really fond of it. Uh…But, when I was shown a picture of Raia's image for the first time, I honestly thought, "Eh-?!" (laughs). The color is kind of mediocre, like it's pink metallic with some orange. Personally, I love blues and black, so I thought, "It must be nice being Knight~." Everyone else has a clear motif, like a bat or dragon, but Raia is a stingray? Can't I be a shark or maybe a whale? Furthermore, I'm a fortune telling stingray? eh? (laughs). At first, I was surprised by the world view of Ryuki. "A net for grilling meat?", "Transforming with a card?" things like that (laughs).

"That was a very honest yet blunt comment by Takano-kun. But now, he loves playing the role of Raia. As for the character of Miyuki Tezuka…"

Takano: I liked him from the very beginning. Tezuka wanted to change his Rider's fate. The desire to push back against something that's already been decided is a natural trait inherent in humans, isn't it? "If I can decide my future, then this wasn't it!," and I think everyone wants to change something. I think Tezuka, who says that he creates his own future, is a very charming and passionate character to play.

"Takano-kun says that he also admires Tezuka. In the show, there is a scene where Tezuka asks Shinji, "Have you ever felt so lost that you feel you could die?"

Takano: I've never been that unsure. I am indecisive, so when I'm in doubt, I'll ask someone else to decide for me (laughs). Even when I'm hanging out with friends, they'll say, 'Where do you want to go?" I'll say, "You decide. I'll follow you." I admire Tezuka's way of life, but it seems so extreme that I'd rather not live like him.

"By dying, Tezuka proved to Shinji that he could "change his future" with his own hands."

Takano: For Tezuka, when I read the script about him becoming a Rider because of what happened to his friend, I cried a little.

"At first, Takano-kun heard that Tezuka's friend (Saito Yuichi) was initially suppose to be a racer. The story was originally about him being unable to use his legs due to an accident, then, it was changed to him being a pianist that lost the ability to use his hands due to an incident caused by Ouja (Takeshi Asakura). This is what caused Tezuka to become more agitated before the battle with Ouja."

Takano: What's most sad to think about, is that I'll no longer have a role in the show after I die. In Ultraman Gaia, I was always out of sync with everyone else and was often alone, but this time we were always together.

"As their senior in tokusatsu, he gave advice to Suga-kun and Matsuda-kun, and in return, they taught him about Ryuki. On one occasion, when filming for the day finished early, the three of them went out for drinks in Shinjuku"

Takano: At that time, there was a counter across from the table where we were sitting, and there was a young woman reading a copy of Hero Vision. I noticed and went, "Ah-!," and all three of us were exposed immediately. I thought to myself at the time that the popularity of tokusatsu programs were reaching new heights (laughs).

Kamen Rider Ryuki, which was made with the help of people of his generation, will likely be a very memorable work for Takano-san. _

(partial translations for the rest below)

Kamen Rider Ryuki - Film Site Report (Page 12) (top, 1st photo): "Between takes, they made friendly conversation. They were constantly surrounded by the neighborhood children, but only Matsuda-kun kept his distance from them (laughs)." (bottom, last photo): "In his hand is Dragreder. Hidden away in his bag is a Ryuki Plushie." _

Satoshi Ichijou (Shibaura Jun) Interview (page 14)

"The sixth Kamen Rider, Gai (Shibaura Jun), is a smart, game freak, and coldhearted college student, while Ichijou-kun, who played Jun, is also an active college student."

Ichijou: During filming, I had to ask my friends to help me with various things like, "I’m sorry! I lost my attendance card somewhere" (laughs).

"When Ichijo appeared in Kamen Rider, his friends reaction were, "We can't watch it because it airs tooooo early in the morning!" The reaction of his friends are very natural."

Ichijou: On my days off, I hang out with my friends in my hometown. I also play street futsal with the guys from my high school soccer team, as well as those from the baseball and basketball teams who liked to play soccer. There's a place behind Meiji University in Ochanomizu, where we play all the time and always win, plus, it's free to get into (laughs).

"At first he wondered how he was going to fit in, but it turned out "they were all nice people" and he settled in easily."

Ichijou: I was aware from the beginning that Gai would be gone in five weeks, so it wasn't a shock to me that he died. But, I had been wondering how he was going to die. I really didn't think he would die in an explosion (laughs). Furthermore, what's inside the suit of a Rider whose been bombed to death with such incredible force? I wonder.

Ichijo-kun is an active university student with a flexible attitude. I wonder where we'll see him next?

_

Yasuko Kobayashi (Main Writer) Interview (page 15)

"When the production of Kamen Rider Ryuki was announced, we were surprised at how ambitious the setting was."

Kobayashi: I think that 13 riders were chosen in part because Bandai was going to produce alot of toys. Rather than having just one rider with multiple forms changes, Bandai said, "Let's have a lot of Riders." We planed to use this as a strategy to create an impact in terms of the number of participants. At first, we wanted to say, "Let's send out 50 Riders!," and I think Bandai was also interested in the number of people who would be involved in the project. Bandai also requested that we integrate cards in and to fight in a different universe. That's why Producer (Shinichiro) Shirakura-san must have thought a lot about it, until he decided on what we now call the "Mirror World." We wanted it to look like there was a "story" first, and not the "setting" first.

"In certain situations, only the main character, Shinji, "Has no reason to fight", which we think is very original."

Kobayashi: I think it's important to sometimes say "It can't be helped," because other people are carrying a variety of burdens. Because he's not carrying anything on his back, he's able to look at the battle from a "pure" perspective, which is what makes him the main character. I think the strength of not carrying anything on one's back comes out in the genuine strength of a person. Because, even though there is nothing of interest at stake, it's usually impossible to do something dangerous or foolish like risking lives, especially for today's generation. That's why Shinji is the strongest of them all……is what I think.

"However, Shinji watches and fights for Ren and his friends suffering, and in the end, Shinji too is able to grow.

Kobayashi: But, I don't think it's a good idea for him to grow based on circumstances of the people around him, due to them being so grave. However, how we move Shinji forward is an issue for the future. What will happen to the relationship between Ren and Shinji is the most important thing now. _

Ryohei & Hidekazu Ichinose: The Secret Records Vol.1 (page 17)

"How did you two get to know each other?"

Ichinose: I went into the office because I wanted to ask for some advice. Goro-chan immediately stopped me at the entrance (laughs).

Ryohei: Goro-chan is a bodyguard, you know (laughs). Actually, we had a mutual acquaintance. The first time we met was before I got the role in Ryuki. It was after I had auditioned, so it must have been last fall.

…

"Recently Ichinose-san has completed filming for "Ultraman Cosmos."

Ichinose: "The question now is how can I make the most of what I have gained during the past year? The other day, I was in Myanmar to live on a lake as part of the filming for "Sekai Ururun Taizaiki," where I had a great time, and I hope everyone enjoys the broadcast! I slept soundly every night, and even drank tea made from boiled river water without getting sick or having an upset stomach. After this I hope everyone will continue to look out for me.

Ryohei: I'm currently putting all my energy into Ryuki. I'm happy that I'm popular among adult women, but what I really want is for children to focus on me. I would be happy to receive fan letters from children. I really don't understand them at all (laughs). I like kids, but they're all afraid of Kitaoka, so when they see me on the streets, they back away, and, I'm pretty sure won't look me in the eyes?

Ichinose: The children become frozen.

Ryohei: It's strange, isn't it?

"It may seem unconvincing, but we're rooting for you to become popular with the children!"

[shiftingmegs]

☆☆ Fame DR ☆☆

So i noticed that i never did the credits list for my DR where i'm a actress (Yes i have a very shitty attention spam is a real problem to me) so without any more delay here's the list of my Roles in this DR.

Hamptons Paradise (1997-2002)

My first ever important role (2 on american TV and 3 role ever in my carrer). Started filming when i was 15 and finish it when i was 20. I play as Kate McNamara.

X-Men Movies (2000, 2003, 2006)

Technically my biggest role ever because is in a super hero movie but i didn’t have much screen time in any of the movies. I play as Lorna Dane/Polaris when i'm 18, 21 and 24.

Not a Love Story (2001)

Project where i met my first (scripted) boyfriend. Filmed while i was 19 years old. I play as Allison Scott.

Supernatural (2005-2020)

Play as Eleanora "Ellie" St.Dennis. She is a hunter that Dean met during the time Sam was in Stanford. Till season 6-7 she is a seasonal Character ( shows up in between 1 and 3 episodes per season) after season 8 she becomes a recurring character. Ellie does have a sexual relationship with Dean but she and Sam are not friends (the're friendly but it's more like if/when Dean its not around they don't stick together at all). Ellie died for the first time when she was 8 years old when a werewolf hunt her father had taken her went wrong and her twin brother sould his soul to bring her back. When she first met Dean she had just lost her brother. (She have not talked with her father since one week before the deal day came close by their 18th Birthday)

The Vampire Diaries (2009-2016) and The Originals (2013- 2016)

I play as Elizabeth Hearts. I didn't plan exactly when i show up but its around the same time as the originals storyline. She was a friend of Kol and one of the first vampires to be created by him. I leave after 1 ½ -2 seasons of The Vampire Diaries after the other Originals.

Young Sheldon (2017-2024)

One of the only projects where i didn't create a new Character. I play as Mary Copper.

[shiningthroughpcos]

Maximising Your Laser Results: Preparation, Aftercare, and Realistic Expectations

Hello again! If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that LBHR is one of the most popular treatments for managing excessive hair growth caused by PCOS. But as we dive deeper into this process, it’s important to recognise that booking your consultation is only the first step. Preparation, aftercare, and understanding how to maintain your results are key, especially since, for many of us with PCOS, the typical six sessions recommended for most people will not be enough (Liew, 2002).

Preparation for LBHR: Setting Yourself Up for Success

Avoiding Prolonged/Excessive Sun Exposure: One of the most important pre-session steps is to avoid direct sun exposure. Tanned skin can increase the risk of burns or pigmentation changes due to the laser (Alamri et al., 2023).

Shaving Before Treatment: Make sure to shave the treatment area a day before your session—this allows the laser to effectively target the root of the hair follicle without the hair shaft getting in the way (Mustafa & Jaafar, 2015).

Avoid Waxing or Plucking: It’s crucial not to remove the hair from the root (like with waxing or plucking) before your laser sessions, as the laser needs the follicle intact to adequately target the melanin within the hair follicle.

Check Medications and Skincare Products: Some medications or topical skincare products, known as ‘photosensitisers,’ can increase your skin’s sensitivity to the laser. Always inform your clinician about your prescriptions and skincare routine, even if it seems minor (Kerstein et al., 2014).

Aftercare: Protecting Your Skin for Optimal Healing

Cool Down: During your session, cooling methods like a cold air attachment or cooling gel may be used to soothe the skin. At home, continue to keep the area cool—use ice packs or aloe vera gel to relieve any redness or irritation. This is particularly important for darker skin tones, as clinical endpoints (like redness and swelling) may appear later (Vaidya et al., 2023).

Moisturise Regularly: Keep the treated area moisturised using a thick, emollient-type moisturiser to help protect the skin from excessive water loss. Avoid any products with ingredients like retinol or AHAs/BHAs for 2-3 days post-treatment, as these can irritate the more sensitive, lasered skin (Vaidya et al., 2023).

Avoid Sun Exposure: Just like before your treatment, protecting your skin from the sun afterward is essential. Use a broad-spectrum SPF 50+ to prevent hyperpigmentation (Hamzavi et al., 2020).

Gentle Cleansing: Stick to mild cleansers, and avoid hot showers, saunas, or strenuous workouts that cause sweating for at least 24-36 hours post-treatment. Sweating can trap moisture in swollen hair follicles, potentially leading to rashes or infections (Arsiwala & Majid, 2019).

Maintaining Results and Understanding the Process

While LBHR offers long-term reduction in hair growth, it’s important to remember that this journey is a process—it’s not an instant fix. For those with PCOS, the typically recommended six sessions are often not enough, and you’ll likely need additional treatments to see significant changes. Here’s why:

Hormonal Impact: With PCOS, fluctuating hormone levels continuously stimulate hair growth, which means more than six sessions are often necessary to achieve lasting results. Each session weakens the hair follicles further, which is why consistency is key. Remember, if you’re waxing between sessions, you’re removing the root that the laser targets, so it’s best to stick with shaving.

Regular Treatments: Consistent treatments, spaced every 4-6 weeks, are essential for targeting hair during its active growth phase. While this may feel frequent at first, patience and consistency are what lead to noticeable results. You’ll likely notice slower hair growth, and the hair that does return will be thinner and sparser. In my experience treating patients with PCOS, most clients start seeing these effects around the 6-7 session mark, with hair shedding naturally after it weakens.

Maximising My Results: What Else Should I Do?

Stay on Top of Hormonal Management: Since PCOS is closely linked to hormone imbalances, working with a healthcare provider to manage your hormones—whether through medication or lifestyle changes—can enhance the effectiveness of your laser treatments. For me personally, hormonal management became much more controllable after I was prescribed Metformin by a specialist. While I can’t recommend specific treatments, I strongly encourage seeing a medical professional to keep your PCOS under control.

Choosing the Right Clinic/Clinician: Not all lasers are created equal. Ensure you select a clinic with advanced technology and experience in treating individuals with PCOS, especially across diverse skin tones. You may have heard that darker hair on lighter skin achieves quicker results, but modern laser modalities can effectively treat all skin types. Regardless of your skin tone, as long as you have dark hair, there’s a suitable laser for you.

LBHR is a powerful tool for managing PCOS-related hair growth, but achieving the best results requires thoughtful preparation, diligent aftercare, and realistic expectations. With consistency and proper support, this journey can lead to significant, long-lasting results. Don’t hesitate to consult with your healthcare provider to tailor your treatment plan, and always be patient with the process. By following these guidelines, you’ll be well on your way to maintaining and maximising your results

Luciana 🤍

References

Alamri, G. E., Bondagji, M., Kinkar, L. I., Almasoudi, E., Fageeh, S. M., Asiri, L. G., & Bahashwan, E. (2023). Knowledge and attitude regarding the use of sun protection to prevent adverse laser events among the general population in Saudi Arabia: A cross-sectional study. Cureus. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.50157

Arsiwala, S., & Majid, I. (2019). Methods to overcome poor responses and challenges of laser hair removal in dark skin. Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, 85(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijdvl.ijdvl_1103_16

Hamzavi, I., Fatima, S., Braunberger, T., Mohammad, T., & Kohli, I. (2020). The role of sunscreen in melasma and postinflammatory hyperpigmentation. Indian Journal of Dermatology, 65(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijd.ijd_295_18

Kerstein, R. L., Lister, T., & Cole, R. (2014). Laser therapy and photosensitive medication: A review of the evidence. Lasers in Medical Science, 29(4), 1449-1452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10103-014-1553-0

Liew, S. H. (2002). Laser hair removal. American Journal of Clinical Dermatology, 3(2), 107-115. https://doi.org/10.2165/00128071-200203020-00004

Mustafa, F. H., & Jaafar, M. S. (2015). Shaving area of unwanted hair before laser operation is useful in cosmetic procedure: A simulation study. Journal of Dermatology & Dermatologic Surgery, 19(1), 36-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jssdds.2013.10.001

Spritzer, P. M., Marchesan, L. B., Santos, B. R., & Fighera, T. M. (2022). Hirsutism, normal androgens and diagnosis of PCOS. Diagnostics, 12(8), 1922. https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12081922

Vaidya T., Hohman, M. H., & Kumar, D. D. (2023). Laser Hair Removal. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507861/

[mischievouslittlecreature]

Hello 🌻

hope you are having fun during your holiday :)

So... I noticed in your bio you describe yourself as a film snob, and I was curious if you could put together a list of films you believe everyone should watch. It doesn't matter whether they're niche films or d'essai or blockbuster, I used to adore going to cine-forums and watch every kind of genre, they always leave you something to bring home

Thank you! <3

(Sorry for the ramble, but I'm stuck in bed for the next couple of weeks with way too much free time, and I figured I might as well put it to good use! xD )

Ohhh my god, Ari, you have no idea just how badly I wanna hug you right now. Films and filmmaking are one of my special interests and I could literally talk your ear off about the industry!

Please keep in mind that these are just my personal picks/opinions, and I am almost certainly forgetting a few because I'm doing this off of memory. I'm also not including any films that I haven't seen yet (there are a few classics that I embarrassingly just somehow never got around to seeing that are currently in my watchlist) so if you notice any strange omissions that's why. Please keep in mind that I tend to prefer dark, pessimistic films, so this list is going to reflect that.

If you'd like specific recommendations, wish for me elaborate anymore on any of these films, or want a part 2 to this, please let me know!

Also, I recently got a Letterboxd account back in December, so if you want to see what I've been watching recently, give me a follow over there!

Under a read more because this got LONG.

Alien (1979, Dir. Ridley Scott)

Aliens (1986, Dir. James Cameron)

Anthropoid (2016, Dir. Sean Ellis)

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022, Dir. Martin McDonagh)

Batman Begins (2005, Dir. Christopher Nolan)

Black Swan (2010, Dir. Darren Aronofsky)

Children of Men (2006, Dir. Alfonso Cuaron)

A Clockwork Orange (1971, Dir. Stanley Kubrick)

Clue (1985, Dir. Jonathan Lynn)

The Dark Knight (2008, Dir. Christopher Nolan)

The Dark Knight Rises (2012, Dir. Christopher Nolan)

Dune Part I (2021, Dir. Denis Villeneuve)

Dunkirk (2017, Dir. Christopher Nolan)

Get Out (2017, Dir. Jordan Peele)

The Godfather (1972, Dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

The Godfather Part II (1974, Dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

Inception (2010, Dir. Christopher Nolan)

Interstellar (2014, Dir. Christopher Nolan)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001, Dir. Peter Jackson)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003, Dir. Peter Jackson)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002, Dir. Peter Jackson)

Memento (2000, Dir. Christopher Nolan)

Molly's Game (2017, Dir. Aaron Sorkin)

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, Dir. Henry Selick)

No Country for Old Men (2007, Dir. Joel Coen & Ethan Coen)

Oppenheimer (2023, Dir. Christopher Nolan)

Platoon (1986, Dir. Oliver Stone)

The Prestige (2006, Dir. Christopher Nolan)

Psycho (1960, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Pulp Fiction (1994, Dir. Quentin Tarantino)

Rear Window (1954, Dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

The Shining (1980, Dir. Stanley Kubrick)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Dir. Jonathan Demme)

Spotlight (2015, Dir. Tom McCarthy)

Titanic (1997, Dir. James Cameron)

12 Years a Slave (2013, Dir. Steve McQueen)

28 Days Later (2002, Dir. Danny Boyle)

Zero Dark Thirty (2012, Dir. Kathryn Bigelow)

[fanfixdotnet]

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Lake Erie Blooms

Algal blooms have become a common occurrence on Lake Erie, as much a part of summer at the lake as island-hopping, scenic cruises, and roller coasters. In 2024, a bloom of blue-green algae began forming in the lake’s western basin on June 24—the earliest that a bloom has been identified by NOAA since the agency began tracking them in 2002. It was still present in early September. Bloom season can last into October, with its duration depending on the frequency of wind events that mix lake waters in the fall.

When the OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9 acquired this image on August 13, the bloom covered approximately 320 square miles (830 square kilometers). Since that date, which was the last time Landsat satellites got a clear look at this part of the lake, the bloom would more than double in area to the season’s likely largest extent of 660 square miles (1,700 square kilometers) on August 22.

Phytoplankton blooms carry implications for the lake ecosystem, human health, the local economy, and even municipal water supplies. The dominant organism in this bloom, a Microcystis cyanobacteria, produces the toxin microcystin, which can cause liver damage, numbness, dizziness, and vomiting. NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory measured toxins at concentrations above the recreational limit the week of August 12. The agency noted that toxins can be concentrated in scums, advising that people and their pets stay out of the water near scums.

NOAA and its research partners had forecasted a moderate to above-moderate harmful algal bloom (HAB) in western Lake Erie this summer. Blooms are classified based on their biomass, and a moderate-severity bloom will produce noticeable areas of scum. However, the agency noted, a bloom’s size does not necessarily correlate with its toxicity.

“Nutrient input from the Maumee River is the dominant driver of HAB variability from year to year,” said Brice Grunert, a professor in the department of Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences at Cleveland State University. Other factors such as temperature, mixing of the water column, and water movement also influence the extent and duration of blooms, he said. Precipitation can increase the load of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous in runoff to the lake, and warmer, more stratified water can amplify blooms. In 2024, the bloom followed a period of record April rainfall and an intense heatwave, according to news reports.

Satellite imagery plays an important role in helping scientists understand the nuances of phytoplankton blooms, which in turn can aid those charged with monitoring and forecasting the events. Grunert has been working in Lake Erie’s western basin for the past three years to better understand phosphorous cycles within the lake. His team is investigating how satellite imagery, combined with data from sediment sampling and chemical tracers, relates to the amount of algae-producing phosphorous in the water column.

He and other scientists studying aquatic ecosystems will soon have a new tool at their disposal in the form of the OCI (Ocean Color Instrument) aboard NASA’s PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) satellite. This instrument measures waterbodies in hundreds of wavelengths across a spectrum of ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. When fully calibrated, the data will enable scientists to track the distribution of phytoplankton and—for the first time from space—identify which communities of these organisms are present on daily, global scales.

Despite the presence of the word “ocean” in the mission title, PACE also opens new lines of inquiry in the freshwater realm. “There are a lot of interesting questions that can be addressed using PACE imagery in the Great Lakes,” Grunert said. For example, hyperspectral data will be able to reveal phytoplankton pigments that could previously only be estimated with the limited number of spectral bands, he said. And a more detailed perspective of blooms over space and time is expected to help scientists decipher how HABs in Lake Erie develop and why cyanobacterial blooms in Lake Superior are starting to occur. “This unlocks a whole new level of information that can be used to describe the unique and changing ecosystems and biogeochemistry within the Great Lakes,” he said.

Grunert is currently working on a PACE Validation Science Team project, taking field measurements in parallel to observations being collected by PACE’s OCI. These include water-surface color and the optical properties of phytoplankton, sediment, and other substances in the water column.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 03/08/2024 (Post Malone/Luke Combs, Central Cee, Calvin Harris/Ellie Goulding)

For a fifth week, Sabrina Carpenter remains atop the UK Singles Chart with “Please Please Please”, and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, lesbian sex, confusion

Rundown

As always, we start the episode with our notable dropouts, those being songs that exit the UK Top 75 - which is what I cover - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40 and first of all, that Eminem album really crashes out this week as both “Habits” featuring White Gold and “Brand New Dance”, only lasting a single week, make their exit. As for the rest, well, Charli xcx switches out “Girl, so confusing” - helped by its Lorde-featuring duet version - with another song we’ll get back to, but other than that, we say farewell to “the boy is mine” by Ariana Grande (also helped by a remix with Brandy and Monica), “Addicted” by Zerb, The Chainsmokers and Ink, “Illusion” by Dua Lipa, “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay and, though it’s not notable, just for fun, we say goodbye to a brave soldier, “Pink Lemonade (Str8 Reload)” by LeoStayTrill. Song of the Summer indeed.

One thing you may notice this week is that older songs had a particularly nice lift, and this shows in our re-entries, as other than Ariana Grande’s “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” returning to #66, we see a massive resurgence for *NSYNC’s “Bye Bye Bye”, so massive and manufactured that the song now claims to be “from” the Deadpool and Wolverine soundtrack. Yeah, okay, Justin, anything to recover your world tour. Timberlake’s boy band debuted at a #3 peak with the song in 2000, with the #1 on that week also being a debut for Madonna’s derided cover of “American Pie”. “Bye Bye Bye” only lasted 10 weeks on the chart but definitely made itself a cultural staple due to its ear-worm chorus and iconic music video, leading Anne-Marie to interpolate it in her #3-peaking “2002” from 2018. That song’s uninterrupted five-week run at #3 saw #1s from Calvin Harris, Jess Glynne, Clean Bandit and George Ezra pass it by, and I reviewed all of that back when I was just starting. The *NSYNC hit is back thanks to the release of the aforementioned superhero movie that has high enough praise on aggregate sites like Rotten Tomatoes as well as genuine fan push evident from how high this song is, that it might help the declining Marvel universe. Why am I pretending to care about that?

As for our notable gains, we see plenty of hefty boosts this week for “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma” by Luke Combs at #56 off of the continued success of its film, Twisters, “Smalltown Boy” by Bronski Beat at #55, “You & Me” by Disclosure featuring Eliza Doolittle at #51, “WILDFLOWER” by Billie Eilish at #45, “The Door” by Teddy Swims at #25, “Move” by Adam Port, Stryv and Malachiii at #18, “Apple” and “360” by Charli xcx at #14 and #12 respectively (more on her later) and finally, making their first entry in the top 10 for whatever reason, BL3SS, CamrinWatson and bbyclose - all clearly household hitmakers - are at #7 with “Kisses”. The song’s not bad at all, but I just never would have expected it to be this successful, even if ACR might be paying it some favours.

As usual, our top five should look pretty standard, aside from a decent jump for Dasha as the already long-lasting top 10 “Austin (Boots Stop Workin’)” - yes, it’s been renamed for easier clicks - is up to #5. Otherwise, we’re all familiar with “Stargazing” by Myles Smith at #4, “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” by Billie Eilish at #3 and “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan reaching a new peak of #2, and of course, Sabrina at the top. What should be much more interesting though is our mixed batch of fascinating new song a bit lower down on the chart, which we’ll have to get through now.

New Entries

#71 - “Gold Mine” - Aitch and D-Block Europe

Produced by AoD and Jacob Manson

Damn, what other way to start an episode is better than to begin the new entries with my boys Young Adz and Dirtbike Lb? …and some white guy. Okay, Aitch isn’t awful and has displayed a degree of personality over the years - though not often as a lead artist - but one thing I’ll never care to hear from him is relationship drama, especially with one of the laziest beats I have ever heard on this show. A singular acoustic guitar line that already cuts out abruptly is then cut in a rush that makes it sound like flipping paper, then we have some of the cheapest trap drums available - I hate that snare - and it’s way too stagnant to go for the West Coast swagger it clearly attempts, though Aitch’s personality-void vocals aren’t helping matters. For some reason, Youthful Advertisements, going for a sing-songy flow and incomprehensible sense of flow on the chorus, is way louder than everything surrounding him and decides to croon about having his tongue in a woman’s ass - classy - whilst Dirtbike Lb seems to not understand he’s on a relationship song until the end of his verse. Aitch is the only one on topic, but he’s my least favourite presence on here - it’s insane just how better this nearly objectively terrible beat sounds with Dirtbike on it instead of Aitch. There are some vaguely cool lines but nothing special, and his flow isn’t new for him, but there’s something so effortless and liquidy to how Dirtbike appears on a track nowadays that appeals to me. And yes, though this may not be the song for it, I agree that I hope the situation in Palestine turns around. I have no faith that it will and whilst this is a throwaway line in an otherwise unrelated song, it should show how much the youth care about the genocide that a pop-rapper is bringing it up so casually. Wait, isn’t this an Aitch song?

#67 - “Lonely Road” - mgk and Jelly Roll

Produced by SlimXX, BazeXX, Charlie Handsome and Travis Barker

Okay, I’ll bite: who’s this new, abbreviated figure of mystery who goes by the simple three litters, mgk? I wonder who could be hiding behind there. Jokes aside, it makes perfect sense for Machine Gun Kelly to take his awkward, triple-barrel name and shorten it down to what everyone was calling him anyway - especially for him, as his name is long enough for it to be very noticeable in Spotify and YouTube titles. Hiding as “mgk” makes it much clearer and easier for you to see “Jelly Roll” on the title for this YouTube video, which could be obscured if he used his full name, which would be a massive turn-off for any Jelly Roll fans with taste. Given that Mr. Jelly has songs with Falling in Reverse and HARDY, I would assume this is not an issue, but part of me does find it amusing how this guy had a song with Eminem just three weeks back and is now hopping on to duet with mgk.

This is actually Jelly Roll’s first time charting and whilst he has a history in underground country rap, he’s recently brought a belting presence to country and rock stations in the US through his rougher but mostly accessible country rock and soul tracks that have gained him a slow-burn following Stateside, yet - perhaps unsurprisingly - he’s yet to crossover to the UK. We love our big, gruff rock belter guys though so I don’t supect it’ll be long, and this track seems to be the UK’s first taste of the J-Man. Is it a good first impression? Well, given the Travis Barker production credit, this seems to be more the first impression for whatever mgk’s next album will be but unfortunately, if you thought that maybe country and rock would be safe from nostalgia-bait sampling, you will be devastated to know that our story starts in 1971.

John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is one of the most iconic country songs of all time. Whilst Denver always associated himself with Colorado, the ode to West Virginia became so famous that it’s now one of their state anthems. A pop song becoming raised to even that standard is really honourable, though perhaps expectedly, the late Denver’s version never crossed over to the UK charts, though it has of course appeared in various alternate versions because everyone and their mother has covered it… and I mean everyone and their mother: literal mother Olivia Newton-John took it to #15 in 1973 (the #1 was “Blockbuster” by the Sweet) and a mother to many online, Lana Del Rey, covered the song just last year as a way to signal the start of her country era. The West Virginia anthem didn’t return to the charts until it found its way there in the year 2000 in possibly the most bizarro world way: Melky Sedeck sang a brief parody of the song in the bridge to Wyclef Jean’s hilarious #3 hit “It Doesn’t Matter” featuring, of all people, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The #1 the week of its peak was Modjo’s “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)” but please, I beg of you, take a listen to that batshit song that to this day, is the highest-charting rendition of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” in the UK and I’m not even joking. The next year, a Dutch Europop group Hermes House Band would make a more standard cover that peaked at #7 in 2001, whilst the #1 was Daniel Bedingfield’s “Gotta Get Thru This” and the #2 was “Murder on the Dancefloor” - funny how those things turn out - and another straggling cover by the Revellers hit #86 the week before. Now, once again, Denver’s anthem is back on the UK Singles Chart thanks to… Machine Gun Kelly and Travis Barker. 2024, ladies and gentlemen.

Now, you may be wondering: was all that background history worth it for mgk and Jelly Roll? And the obvious answer to that is, “No, but it was more interesting than telling you the obvious fact than an mgk song sucks, right?”. Turning “country roads” into “lonely road” in the intro of the song, pushing the chorus ahead to catch your interest due to the sample, is just pathetic and cynical in a way that I should probably expect mgk to be now, but still hits a sour note, especially given the verses seem to use reference humour - except without the humour - to rock bands like Taking Back Sunday and The Devil Wears Prada who are… decidedly not country, these are punk bands. The Taking Back Sunday reference made me sigh and nearly turn it off, but when the fake snap beat came in, I knew that this was going to a bro-country-rap fusion that, surprisingly for two people who came up in rap, is surprisingly awkward! I like Jelly Roll, but I’d prefer if mgk weren’t showering his echoed backing vocals behind him for no reason, let alone that shitty trap beat, but that southern, gritty texture in his voice is at least much more preferable to mgk’s nasal drawl. I honestly think the song if it were just Mr. Roll and the female backing vocalists would be somewhat salvageable… oh, what am I kidding? A country-rap-rock hybrid interpolation of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” produced by Travis Barker is horrible basically on principle. There’s some comedy in it, I suppose, but it’s otherwise a gross attempt at a monogenre comeback for a guy who’s not respected in a single one of the scenes he’s fusing together… and I’m starting to think he doesn’t respect any of those genres either, because this is sad.

#63 - “365” - Charli xcx

Produced by A.G. Cook and Cirkut

It’s… kind of weird that this is charting, right? It’s a tad extraneous: a book-end song intended to close off the BRAT album by calling back to its opener and most successful single, “360”. Charli will have a fuller song debut next week as Billie Eilish cameos on the new version of “Guess”, so this’ll be one week where “360” essentially deposits two similar but not identical spaces on the chart. That’s not to say “365” isn’t good or is just a remix because that is far from the case. After a rollercoaster array of different beats, hooks and emotional progression, we return to the glitchy buzz of “360”, one that’s almost quaint by the end of the record, with the “bumpin’ that” mantra ending each line in what is essentially a singular, continuous verse building up for the whole song, with the funnelling switch early on bringing a thundering bass and acidic rhythm to the song that separates it absolutely from “360”, if the new inclusions of less playful or even likeable lyrics, painting the image of the “it girl” from that first track being way too far gone, didn’t already do that for you. The original song takes a lot of restraint to make it an opener that doesn’t alienate you with its sonic palette, whilst bringing you some signature ugliness in the back of the mix, but Cook goes fully wild on here, especially in that disgusting drop by the end that drowns out every melodic element, filtering it behind a slodging hardcore bass that eventually fuses with the vocal lead to an unrecognisable, inhuman slush… yet Charli still gets the last laugh, even in pitch-shifted form, reminding you at the last second that she’s still “bumpin’ that”. It may not make much sense as a single, which it isn’t trying to be, but it’s a brilliant production and inspired way to close the album. Sure, it wouldn’t resonate nearly as much if it weren’t for the fact that “360” existed, but that’s so much of the song’s appeal in its distortion and looping of some of that track’s core elements, so “365” doesn’t really need to stand on its own… and given “Guess” is coming, probably for a top 40 placement, I doubt it will need to stand on its own on the charts for very long.

#53 - “Sailor Song” - Gigi Perez

Produced by Gigi Perez and Noah Weinman

Gigi Perez, according to her website, is on tour in October and is signed to Interscope. She… she doesn’t tell me anything else, what’s the point of even having a website nowadays if it’s only links to your social media accounts and music videos? We don’t even get a bio, but thankfully on Spotify, she gives us this detailed description of her music and her backstory. It reads, ahem, “Sims 2 emo lesbian love story but in the medium of music”. So… Little Miss Buzzwords here actually went semi-viral back in 2021 with the sleeper hit “Sometimes (Backwood)”, which boasts over 100 million streams on Spotify and is a largely structureless, lo-fi song, wherein the vocal mix echoes itself into crossing gender boundaries a little, whilst also telling a full story of a relationship, singing about some of what made them work, what made them break up, and the sexually-charged intro the song’s subtitled after. I’m not that big of a fan of the song’s undetailed writing or demo flavour, but I can see the appeal, even if her vocals on that track are really not great, but it is a debut and it shows some ambition and a unique sound that I figured would be expanded upon in “Sailor Song”, released a year after her debut EP, and yes, this is more like it.

Weinman brings a cleaner production to Perez’s acoustic racket, with a warped jazz sample occupying the back of the mix, smoothly texturing the fast-paced indie guitars and that wonderful falsetto chant in the intro that is incredibly catchy in itself without even getting to the verses. “Sailor Song” is similar in tone to the first part of “Sometimes”, being an awestruck sex song where, in her unique, imperfect vocal recording and tone that reminds me of maybe a Left at London, but many others I can’t quite put my finger on right now, she gets down and dirty with a girl that reminds her of Anne Hathaway. For a song without much in the way of bass or production, there is a swagger and groove to it that makes the sexual lyrics not come across as awkward as they could have, with that chorus not only giving a wistful touch through the clever ending lyric, “I sleep so I can see you ‘cause I hate to wait so long”, but also justifying the “sailor” comparison by getting pretty raunchy, including blasphemy and admitting that she’s covered in, well, glistening girl juices… on the second chorus, it’s the other way around, in a subtle twist of perspective. The general tone of secrecy surrounding their rendezvous is emphasised by how she may burst into a louder delivery but it’s tempered with softer crooning, even if it’s the same lines being sung, and frankly, it’s been a while since I’ve heard a sex song this poetically written whilst still getting as horny as it does. I’m surprised I like it as much as I do but this is a brilliant song and I hope that within the recent wave of sapphic pop songs led by Chappell Roan, that the charts can find a place for this too.

#42 - “Somedays” - Sonny Fodera, Jazzy and D.O.D

Produced by Sonny Fodera and D.O.D

I see that Mr. Fodera actually produced this one, or at least didn’t forget to add himself to the production credit on Spotify like on “Mind Still”. Regardless, this seems to be a new trio assorted through recent UK chart recurring characters, particularly in EDM, with Fodera joined by fellow house producer D.O.D, whose work I consistently enjoyed and can be seen on best hits list for last year, as well as Irish singer Jazzy who may have surpassed her sketchy breakout with Belters Only in the eyes of the public but has yet to prove herself as much of interest outside of being a relatively anonymous dance-pop vocalist for me. As far as this goes, she doesn’t need to be much more, as that is exactly her role, even if it could have been played by the marginally more interesting Clementine Douglas, who co-wrote the song, and sadly, this is very much a generic house-pop song, fine-tuned to fit all audiences. It’s got flat yet anthemic pianos in the pre-drop, a rote four-on-the-floor beat, even flatter future house bass synths as a lead for much of the build and enough reverb to mean amateur remixers only need to put “(slowed)” above this one, yet despite that, the drop still lands on a weirdly dry, anti-climactic note. The composition is fine, it’s sequenced as you’d expect a song like this to be, and Jazzy’s performance is okay even if that lead vocal reminds me of Flo Rida’s “I Cry”, almost distractingly so. It’s just that it’s all so processed that it’s hard to fish much personality out of me for me. I kind of like the farty bass they introduce in the final drop but not only is it not exactly atypical for this song of song but it’s also too little, too late. Sure, it’s serviceable, but when EDM, including house-pop, has been breaching more genre boundaries and delivering great pop music over the past couple years on the UK charts, including from people involved in this very track, I don’t think I’ll settle for the more generic leftovers. Sorry.

#36 - “Free” - Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding

Produced by Calvin Harris

If this song debuted nine spots higher, I’d be five pounds richer. Anyway, this is the latest collab between the duo of Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding, coming really not that long after “Miracle”, and going for a… surprisingly very different approach, probably because Harris already rettried the formula with Sam Smith on “Desire”. Instead, Harris goes for an anthemic piano hardcore track that I felt the need to check WhoSampled for since it is so clearly referential, if not a straight throwback, to that era of 90s breakbeat rave with diva vocals. What’s wonderful about this modern revision, however, is not just the inclusion of webby synths to elevate the song to cosmic textures amidst the piano stabs but also how much Goulding is not a diva. She doesn’t belt as much as she careens smoothly through the mix, becoming a very breathy presence as she holds that “free” in the chorus, taking it to a really interesting, nuanced delivery that could have just been held in one note but was taken to more interesting levels, similar to how she could have punched in “free” to the “when I’m with you, I…” take but let herself fall short of the full line to not only get a more organic take but also to ensure the resolve of that line, when it’s finally completed, hits satisfyingly. Goulding brings a really unique and subtle approach, furthered by the lack of much in the way of lyrics, that textures Harris’ always top-notch production. The actual lengthening of the “free” vocal in the drop to hold the note before breaking down in a glitchy stutter behind the pianos and drums is a sick way to distinguish the chorus from what follows, and whilst I’m not exactly a fan of the muddier mix the factorial drums take in the verse afterwards, especially given the subtle, angelic melodies are the best asset this song has so covering them doesn’t do wonders, I appreciate the risk taken in regards to the progression of the song. It has a build-and-drop structure, but the two parts play off of each other and are placed within a more nuanced composition instead of just being there for clubs’ sake. What I’d really love to hear, however, are some remixes as, to my surprise, none exist yet for this song! Extended, five to eight minute edits of the fantastic foundation this song lays down, by other producers and DJs in breakbeat scenes, could turn what is a good song executed carefully but not perfectly, into something I adore if you bring the right guys on, especially if the remixers can trace their roots back into those classic 90s rave scenes. For now, this is good, but it can - and knowing Calvin Harris, probably will - be expanded upon into something genuinely transcendent with a little time and care.

#34 - “gen z luv” - Central Cee

Produced by Ambezza and Peter Iskander

…Excuse me? Are we doing this? Sigh, okay. The increasing memefication of a clearly talented and interesting Central Cee into a zoned-out crossover novelty rapper digs him deeper into mediocrity every time he releases some new gimmicky single, and “gen z luv”, as you may expect from its title, is no exception. It’s not just “gen z luv”, it’s “FYP love”, “IG love” and God, I have never felt older listening to a song. Hell, I feel second-hand embarrassment for Cench as whilst I’m sure the millions and easy access to Ice Spice helps for now, but if I were 40 years old looking back at my life accomplishments, and I saw “gen z luv”, I think I’d rediscover my relationship with the big guy upstairs. There’s a certain ugliness to parading the idea of having kids with his current relationship when he just ditched his long-time partner, who he previously referenced in “Doja”, for a viral pop-rapper, especially when above this garish production mixing cheap, muddy loops with half-finished drill percussion and an almost eerie key note reminiscent of Kanye West’s “Say You Will” more than anything actually loving or “Gen Z” for that matter.

The line “Usin’ words [that are] not my usual language” may be more telling than Cench thinks. He’s basically just rapping buzzwords and trendy phrases in about as smooth a way as someone in a board room taking algorithmic phrases they see spread on TikTok and Instagram would - for someone who is seemingly a part of the generation he’s “celebrating” on this song, there’s a lot of “how do you do, fellow kids?” energy to how he constructs the bars. A few highlights include that in the chorus, he bemoans that people call their love “childish”, and that he must agree because she’s his “baby” - gross! - and that he starts the first verse by basically giving a middle finger to the audience that he started out with, by saying “My crisis ain’t from cost of living”… man, fuck off. More than anything, this song just renders as sad and boring, but maybe I’m just not in tune with the youth of today or something because I saw how people older than me reacted to mid-2010s trap with a similar distaste. Cench just finds new ways to disappoint me and alienate anyone who either doesn’t understand or doesn’t give a shit about the kind of social media “aura” he surrounds himself with. When it comes down to it, this debuted lower than it should have for Cench. People want to hear bars, man. I don’t know what this really qualifies as but I’m damn sure a lot of the audience for his harder street drill cuts, or even a more general audience who found him through “Sprinter”, won’t care for this one at all, if it’s not just genuinely incomprehensible for them. And yes, I’m very much included in that last section.

#26 - “Guy for That” - Post Malone featuring Luke Combs

Produced by Louis Bell, Charlie Handsome and Hoskins

Posty’s fishing for another hit through the third of these country duets, this time with American megastar Luke Combs, who has charted decently in the UK before with his “Fast Car” cover. As I said before, the UK may not like country music too much, but it likes its big, gruff, rough-and-tumble singer-songwriters, and Combs fits that bill more so than, say, Morgan Wallen. Combs’ more homegrown and honest position in country worried me as it could be less of a neat fit for Post, who even in his country songs has his foot clearly embedded in the pop rock sphere, and yeah, this is evidently his weakest country track yet. This is Post’s third ode to bromance in this album cycle - which is of note when there’s only been three singles - but the detailed lyrics here give it an edge that not only is reminiscent of the same 90s and 2000s country he has in his “country forever” playlist on Spotify but also places it even further into Luke Combs’ territory. He’s been writing about fatherhood recently, so it’s fully in his wheelhouse to evoke the dad trope of having a “guy for that” - a friend you can call up or drive to for each and every little problem he may have. However, this may be Post’s least convincing performance thus far, as he stumbles on the wordiness of the verses and practically murmurs some of the chorus which fills so many words in and is so unnecessarily lengthy that it honestly confused me… and that’s because it tacks on relationship drama to the song for no real reason. Post hasn’t got a “guy for” fixing his relationship, but this seems so pointless when it’s only part of a song mostly preoccupied with listing near-comical situations. This sitcom of a song has Post so desperate to prove his fumbling warble over honestly stale country pop that he refuses to even let the fiddles have room to breathe - what does that tacked-on post-chorus riffing do other than muddy the momentum of the track, which is barely there in the first place?

Even Luke Combs performs bizarrely here as whilst his vocal tone makes more sense, he’s talking about knowing a guy who has a time machine and flexing about his brand new AP watch... what?! You’re Luke Combs, is that supposed to be a brag rap? I can accept being silly but when it comes in tiny flashes in an otherwise stale song, it stands out as tonally unfitting or just desperate. The duo really took the 2000s country pop throwback to its slightest detail as well, as unsubtle Auto-Tune is quietly smothered on some of Combs’ overly patched-up vocal. Why get Luke Combs on to practically take over the track, which ends with some cinematic petering off instead of an actual bridge or narrative resolution where the two can display any chemistry, if you’re going to take the soul out of his performance?

“I Had Some Help” was catchy enough to convince me somewhat on Post’s reinvention but the two following singles have demonstrated some wide open holes in how he approaches this genre, and how awfully the guest vocalists have been implemented. Part of that may be Louis Bell, whose production is fine but he and Post have yet to write any of these songs to have any impact or feel like anything more than a simple, breezy sing-a-long you don’t like but put up with when it plays on the radio during a road trip. Post’s uniquely ambivalent take on the country genre clearly comes from his history in pop-rap, but the last-minute clean-up has been slowly wearing thinner as more music from this album is released, and I am honestly worried that this upcoming album, which I was excited for previously, will end up just as faceless and subtly dysfunctional in the mode it wants to perceive itself in as this track was, purely for the sake of pushing Post headfirst into a trendy movement whilst sticking with songs short enough to gather virality, jeopardising the genuine chance it has to tell a story. I don’t like this song at all, and it has me really concerned if this malformed “duet” is what ends up being the last-ditch attempt at not having the Morgan collab overshadow the rollout entirely.

Conclusion

Yeah, it’s obvious who’s getting Worst of the Week here, though Central Cee’s “gen z luv” has genuine challenge from the Dishonourable Mention, “Lonely Road” by mgk and Jelly Roll. There was a lot this week that was pretty bad, though, but at least it was in an interesting way this time around, and there was a lot to balance it out: Charli xcx gets Best of the Week for “365” whilst Gigi Perez is trailing close behind with “Sailor Song” as the Honourable Mention. As for what’s on the horizon, Charli of course is coming with Billie but the rest may be a bit of an unexpected jumble of tracks - I can pray for Jamie xx and The Avalanches but it’s more likely we see some bubbling under songs get a good week to break through. For now though, thanks for reading, long live Cola Boyy and I’ll see you next week!

[fountainpenguin]

So I'm trying to figure out how to explain Poof and Foop being caught up with their peers mental age-wise at the end of / right after the time freeze for writing reasons. Cause if they were being held back by the time freeze, and fairies aren't ready to attend school until they're 40-50, wouldn't they still be years behind in that regard? Was their mental age unaffected by the time freeze?

I personally had them aging while they were in Fairy World (i.e. the time freeze only affecting Earth). That's why it took 50 years for Fairies to catch on and even then, they didn't put the pieces together until Timmy confessed... Fairies kept aging normally, so only godparents would notice, but you have to be down on earth to interact with your godkid and if you're on earth, you're getting influenced by the magic overlay.

Poof's development was delayed because he was only aging while away from Earth (such as visiting extended family or attending school), but he did indeed age. Perfectly reasonable for him to know what 2+2 is by the time he's 40 to 50, I think.

FOP canon establishes pooferty, so we know the jump from babbling baby to speaking in full sentences is totally normal in their world, so I always assumed a jump in logic and awareness came along with it.

A good example of this would be my one-shot "Hidden" which shows Foop struggling with some development milestones (in this case, A-not-B search error) despite being able to talk:

"Something is seriously wrong with you! I'm not a baby anymore. I am an intelligent being! You make a mockery of me with your silly parlor games!" "Please retrieve the jack-in-the-box, Anti-Poof." "Oh my smoke! It's right here, you insufferable paperweight!" So saying, Foop ripped Caudwell's jacket from the floor. … to reveal that the stone floor was bare beneath it. "What?" Both hands clapped to the sides of his head. "What is this trickery? I don't understand. Where did it go? It was hidden right here last time."

Post-pooferty, he'd have no problem making the leap from "I watched this guy put my toy under a blanket so therefore my toy is under the blanket and not under his jacket the way it was last time."

Frozen timestream is also where we get "Shouldn't Have Survived," which is that one-shot about the Burger World employee getting in a fight with Happy Peppy Gary over... well...

Kenny's eyes roamed around the office. They settled on a calendar resting on the desk beside the pencil sharpener and a pink laptop - one of those 'tear off one page a day' types of calendars. "Gary… What year is it?" "2002," Gary answered without hesitation. "Or did you want it in the Fairy calendar? It's the Year of the Last… the Last… Well, I can't be expected to remember what it was exactly-wactly, but you get the idea. Oh, Last Berry- that was it. It's the Spring of the Last Berry. LS, 90, YoLB19. Yes: June 13th, 2002, exactly a week before the Fairy calendar turns to summer on June 20th. What?" When he saw Kenny's expression, he tipped his head, the soft blue tassel on his graduation cap bouncing against his dark cheek. "Am I wrong?" "I dunno. Where I'm from, it's 2008." "Well, well! I respect and support you. Haha, I don't even know you anymore, friend, but here on Earth it's 2002. I sing the counting song with the kids. Every day. For the last seven years. I think I know how my numbers go, Kenny..."

Them... Thank you FOP for giving us a canon frozen timeline for 50 years; no media will ever feed me so well again <3

Besides Timmy, who made the Secret Wish, Kenny's the only human who was ever aware of the frozen timestream, though he quickly succumbed to the time freeze magic and fell for the lies just like everybody else. I like to think he tracked Timmy down and confronted him and Timmy pulled him aside and did a little gaslighting... Shh, you didn't see anything...

He went a little nuts and that's hinted in the 130 Prompts even if it's not the main focus, but we love him for it.

That wasn't your question, but I'm still not over the fact that they brought him back for Season 10 and he is STILL serving burgers and looking bewildered about it...

POV: Your place of work (which is outer space) blows up in S7E1 and you spend the next 3 to 4 seasons wandering Dimmsdale because no one cared enough to send you back up there. Kenny, my son...

[herrlindemann]

Metal Hammer - February 2002, part 1

Thanks to ramjohn for the scans!

Freiburg, Messhalle 2

What a week in Freiburg! First the Rotterdam hooligans attacked the city (result: twelve arrests), and then, to all the hardships, came the Rammstein fans. In the run-up to my little company outing, I often had to hear that Freiburg is such a beautiful city - with great architecture, an old town and everything that goes with it. It may well be that the Black Forest metropolis with its 200,000 inhabitants is " beautiful ", after my visit I can only say that firstly the inside of the McDonalds in the main station looks the same as in any other place, and secondly I couldn't understand a word of the friendly gentleman at the train information desk. Also, before my visit, I would never have imagined, even in my wildest dreams, that Freiburg could rock. But when I stand in the sold-out exhibition hall  in the midst of 10,000 Rammstein crazies, even I am a little amazed.

The actually everywhere uncompromising Rammstein audience already makes it clear with the support Clawfinger that the slogan on this Friday evening is "celebrate", and that's why the Swedes are thrown applause instead of cat shit. The good half hour of play is peppered with old and new hits: 'Nigger', 'Do What I Say' or 'The Truth'. And because of 'Nothing Going On': Instead of lounging around at the bar, a good three quarters of the hall moves legs or arms to support the Swedes with a loud clapping. That pleases - and shows once again that those who are said to be dead live longer. After a short break for conversion, the air is on fire: there is a bang, a crash, an explosion - the exhibition hall, in which philatelists and shipbuilders otherwise stroll up and down, sinks into a sea of flames for a few seconds. All the fire protection officers present suffer a brief cardiac arrest because Rammstein asks them to. Construction worker Iro Lindemann rumbles, ‘Mein Herz brennt’, and the motley crowd, made up of parents with children, motorcycle rockers, pimply high school students, bodybuilders and standard metalheads, erupts in the first adrenaline rush. Rammstein only have half the firecrackers and early New Year's Eve rockets with them for their only Germany appearance on the European tour, and yet even with this stripped down version there are still enough things to light without actually burning. Flames lick out of every imaginable opening: whether it's a keyboard, guitar or human being - Rammstein take no prisoners, spare nothing and nobody. Not even himself. Lindemann bends over and over again to bring the martial lute out of the depths of his vocal organs to the surface, while the back team whips him forward with powerful metal marches. Without much communication with the audience, it all happens in quick succession: 'Links 2 3 4', ‘Sehnsucht’, 'Feuer Frei'. And always another show effect. Whether with exploding ball lightning flying across the hall or blatant face flamethrowers like in 'Feuer Frei!': Rammstein put on big cinema with a small screen. The sound fits, and when it comes to the hits 'Du hast', 'Bück dich' and 'Engel', the border triangle dances in circles. As an encore, there is another fiery encore and the rest of the arsenal of pyros is let out for 'Rammstein', 'Sonne' and 'Ich will', the thunderbolts crack in time, and for 'Stripped' there is the obligatory boat trip over the heads of the fans. Slimmed down show? Not one bit of it to be noticed, on the contrary: After the many concerts this year, Rammstein is as well-rehearsed as the crew of the armored cruiser Aurora, celebrating their own little revolution night after night. As I said: Freiburg won't be forgotten in a hurry this week.