#but it's been since end of june and the only other company that wanted to go past the screening process ghosted me multiple times

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - June 26, 2023

1. California's Lake Oroville now at 100% capacity following megadrought; 1st time since 2019

Once a stark example of the drastic effects of California's yearslong megadrought, Lake Oroville has rebounded and is once again filled to capacity, data from the state's Department of Water Resources shows.

Lake Oroville, the state's most beleaguered and second-largest reservoir, is at 100% of its total capacity and 127% of where it should be around this time of year - a huge boost after the climate-change-fueled megadrought sucked away nearly all its water supply.

2. Blue whales are thriving in California waters – the story of their amazing comeback

If you’ve recently taken a Southern California whale-watching tour, you may have been lucky enough to come across earth’s largest animal. Pacific blue whales grow up to 110 feet long and can reach a weight of 200 tons. Decades ago, blue whales were nearly hunted to extinction, and although still listed as protected under the Endangered Species Act, marine biologists and researchers are heralding a “conservation success story,” unlike any other.

According to a study published in 2014 by researchers at the University of Washington, the West Coast blue whale population has bounced back at tremendous levels, recouping 97% of its pre-whaling population

3. Newborn left in Florida Safe Haven Baby Box adopted by the firefighter who found her

Zoey is now 5 months old. Courtesy Zoey's family

A firefighter in Ocala, Florida, was pulling an overnight shift at the station in January when he was awakened at 2 a.m. by an alarm. He recognized the sound immediately. A newborn had been placed in the building’s Safe Haven Baby Box, a device that allows someone to safely and anonymously surrender a child — no questions asked.

“To be honest, I thought it was a false alarm,” said the firefighter, who wished to remain anonymous to protect his family’s privacy. But when he opened the box, he discovered a healthy infant wrapped in a pink blanket.

That baby would become his daughter, Zoey.

4. Iceland suspends whale hunt on animal welfare concerns

Iceland's government said Tuesday it was suspending this year's whale hunt until the end of August due to animal welfare concerns, likely bringing the controversial practice to a historic end.

"I have taken the decision to suspend whaling" until August 31, Food Minister Svandis Svavarsdottir said in a statement. The country's last remaining whaling company, Hvalur, had previously said this would be its final season as the hunt has become less profitable.

5. He wanted to pet dogs for his 100th birthday. Hundreds lined up.

Alison Moore had a unique idea to celebrate her father's 100th birthday: a pet parade filled with as many dogs as possible. Her father, Robert Moore, has always adored dogs and wanted to pet every one he saw. So, Alison took to social media and invited the community to join in the festivities. Little did she know that over 200 dogs and their owners would gather for the heartwarming event.

The parade brought immense joy not only to Robert but also to attendees like Rodger, who has Alzheimer's disease, and his daughter Denise, who hadn't seen her father smile so much in a long time. It was a day filled with wagging tails, smiling faces, and love that made Robert's milestone birthday an unforgettable celebration.

6. Historic decision: Estonia legalizes same-sex marriage

Tuesday, the Estonian government has survived a vote of no confidence in the Riigikogu tied to amendments to the Family Law Act and related legislation, which is granting same-sex couples the legal right to wed. 55 members of the Riigikogu voted in favor of the measure, while 34 voted against.

It is proposed that the institution of marriage, as defined by family law, be modified so that  any two natural persons of legal age, regardless of gender, may marry. The words "man and woman" will be replaced with the words "two natural persons."

7. US approves chicken made from cultivated cells, the nation's first 'lab-grown' meat

For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation’s restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves.

The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the U.S. to sell meat that doesn’t come from slaughtered animals — what’s now being referred to as “cell-cultivated” or “cultured” meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates.

----

That's it for this week :)

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#best news of last week

[martybaker]

Whiskey for the good times

It’s a warm June evening and Dream is sitting at the end of the bar at The New Inn, watching Hob at work.

Priya the bartender called in sick and so Hob is manning the bar himself tonight. The inn is full of patrons and Hob is kept busy, clever fingers handling various bottles of liquor. He chats amicably with regulars and newcomers alike, ever with a kind smile on his face, even though there is a sheen of sweat at his temples, testament to his hard work.

And despite the crowd, whenever there’s a lull in the influx of warm bodies demanding his attention, he finds a moment to wind back to Dream, to give him a refill, a new anecdote, an observation about a patron, or just a smile before he’s called back to duty.

Dream enjoys their conversations, but he enjoys simply watching Hob at work as well, and he has had plenty of opportunities to do so over the last year. Since his escape from Fawney Rig and the subsequent demands of his office, his visits to the Waking world had became much more frequent. But not only because of his duties, but also thanks to the newly rediscovered pleasure of Hob’s company.

They agreed to meet once a month, so Hob could more thoroughly catch Dream up on all the things he has missed during the years of his…detainment, and slowly conversations over a drink turned into invites to, quote, “hang out” with Hob outside of the New Inn as well. Some things are better shown than told, he said, and Dream smiled and complied rather too easily. Their monthly meetings became weekly, and though Dream was notoriously prone to getting lost in his work, he suddenly found himself in the habit of time keeping and counting down days until their next meeting.

Today, however, is special. The calendar on the wall reads June 7th in bold black letters. A day as any other, but also their day.

Dream watches Hob, circling the rim of his glass with his finger.

Currently Hob is held at the other end of the bar by a pair of young giggling women he seems to be familiar with, presumably his students. They keep glancing in Dream’s direction, and Hob’s face is growing redder by the minute. He keeps shaking his head, disputing whatever notion they’re pushing, but the girls seem relentless.

Eventually, when he makes his way back to Dream, Dream cannot help letting his curiosity take over.

“Your students?”

Hob nods, a faint flush still visible on his cheeks.

“What were they inquiring about?”

Hob huffs, shaking his head. “They were making fun of their old history professor, s’wat they been doing.”

Dream rises his eyebrows at him.

Hob sighs, fidgeting under the gaze, but eventually breaks.

“They were asking if you were a good kisser,” he admits, darting away with his gaze as soon as he says it, tugging nervously at his ear.

Dream’s eyebrows shoot up even higher. “Were they? What did you tell them?”

Hob blinks at him. “The truth? That I wouldn’t know?”

“Hmm,” Dream hums, twirling the amber liquid in his glass. He slowly puts it down, then reaches across the bar and pulls Hob towards him, leaning in to join their lips. Hob makes a noise of surpise against him but then falls into the kiss, tasting the whiskey from Dream’s lips.

When Dream pulls back, Hob sways on his feet, looking lost with his mouth hanging open and pupils dilated. His hands clench, frozen in midair as if he wanted to hold onto Dream but wasn’t sure he was allowed to.

There’s a whistle and laughter from the other side of the bar.

Dream picks up his glass again and smiles at Hob beatifically. “There. So you could give them an honest review.”

Hob blinks at him and makes a noise like a squeezed rubber duck.

Dream cannot help the grin tugging on his lips as he nods in the direction of the women, encouraging Hob to return back to them to relay his impressions.

Hob unfreezes slowly, shaking his head, running a hand through his hair and muttering “bloody hell” under his breath before he hesitently makes his way back to the other side of the bar. The students immediately latch onto him, rejuvinated by the display as well as the liquir running through their veins.

When Hob comes back to uncork new bottles for the customers he is unusually quiet and the red on his cheeks seems to have made a permanent residence there.

As he grabs for a bottle of tequilla it slips from his fingers and shatters on the floor, minutely interrupting the rumor of conversations before they’re picked up again.

“Bollocks!” He curses.

Dream hears himself laugh. Not a full on raucous laugh, just a chuckle, but Hob looks at him with wide eyes, as if he was seeing the eight wonder of the world.

Hob laughs too, breaking the moment, and returns his attention to the shattered bottle.

“Look what you’ve done to me!” he says, grabbing for a broom and glancing at Dream with mirth dancing in his eyes.

“Menace.”

Dream hides his smile in his glass. He feels a sparkling feeling in his chest, which doesn’t seem right because alcohol shoud have no effect on him unless he lets it. Perhaps his control is slipping, or perhaps it’s just the pleasent buzz of the evening and good company.

Perhaps he doesn’t mind all that much, letting his control slip tonight.

Having cleaned the mess, Hob comes back to him, as he always does, and gives him a crooked smile. “You’ve just about made their day tonight. I won’t hear the end of it at the uni, thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Dream drawls, leaning his head on his hand. He gives Hob a once-over, gesturing at his shirt that’s been soaked by the alcohol. “You might want to take that off.”

Hob looks at his shirt, then back at Dream, huffing in disbelief. “Was that the plan all along??”

“An unforseen benefit.”

“Uhuh,” Hob says, giving Dream a dubious look. “Heavens, you are in a mood tonight. Should have given me a warning beforehand, I don’t know if I can survive a whole evening of this,” he says, gesturing at the whole of Dream.

“You can survive anything,” Dream reminds him.

“Physically, maybe, but my composure? My dignity? My sanity? I am really not all that sure, love.”

Dream smiles, keeps smiling, really, as he doesn’t seem to be able to do otherwise tonight. He downs the last sip of whiskey along with the sweet tingle of Hob’s endearment.

“Want a refill?” Hob nods at his empty glass. “Or would you like to try something new? Something more daring?” he says, rising his eyebrows in a challenge. “Since that seems to be the vibe tonight.”

Dream hums. “Perhaps i would like to try something old.”

If Dream knew Hob’s reactions to a little bit of flirting would be so entertaining, he would have endeavoured to do so sooner. Hob grows even redder in the face if that’s even possible, huffing and blinking rapidly, seemingly unable to decide what to do with his hands which he twists together, then crosses across his chest, then lets fall against his sides again, smoothing down the seams of his trousers.

He shakes his head and rubs his forehead.

“You’re something else, Dream,” he says with a deep sigh.

“Yes, that is a correct assesment.”

Hob rolls his eyes.

“Hey, Mickey!” He yells at a regular at a nearby table, “would you like to make a quick buck? Can you come over to man the bar for a minute? I need to change.”

“Sure thing, mate!”

Hob takes of his apron, muscles flexing underneath the shirt made half translucent, and Dream wants.

“Do you need assistance,” he asks nonsensically, but Hob understands it for the proposal that it is.

Hob’s eyes grow wide. He laughs, shaking his head. “Christ, if I were really working here I would get fired for this,” he says, but he beckons at Dream who slips from his chair and joins Hob at the other side of the bar. Hob puts his hand on his back and nudges him towards the backroom.

“Lucky you are the owner, then,” Dream points out.

“Yeah, lucky,” Hob says, hand slipping around Dream’s waist from behind, and kisses Dream’s neck as he closes the door behind them.

——————

Happy 7th of June dreamling nation!

Here’s something for ‘Ep6 continuation’ prompt of Dreamling Week :)

#dreamling #dreamlingweek2023 #dreamlingweek #dreamling week #dreamling week 2023 #my writing #the sandman #sandman #dream x hob #hob x dream #dream of the endless #hob gadling #dream the endless #morpheus #sandman dreamling #not beta-ed we die like jessamy

[snwycde]

Connected (Bang Chan) part 2

Pairing: BangChan x fem reader

wc: 2.2k

warnings: none

summary: angsty - slow burn of Chan and fem reader. Chan runs into his past, how will it affect the present and his future?

This is NOT the first part!!! Here is part 1

-----

“Hyung, what do you mean you’re going to make a new solo song?!” Han sits up from the couch, “Would the company even allow that? We’re supposed to release this album literally this year.”

Chan leans back into his chair and grabs at his hair, “I just don’t feel like my song is as…it just doesn’t fit the vibe that I want it to give.”

Han put his hands onto his face, clearly stressed. 

“Why don’t you like ‘Roads’?” Changbin swivels his chair around to look at Chan, “I think it’s good and the lyrics are good?”

‘Roads’ was Chan’s song that he wrote for stays, it’s his solo song in the SKZ-Replay album. 

“I just don’t feel like I spent as much time on the song as you guys did with yours. Literally everyone has deeper meaning to their own songs, even Lino!”

Han looks up and turns to Changbin, “He has a point there. Lee know hyung isn’t one to be emotional and then he literally wrote 나지막이 (limbo).“

“Besides, the company will probably allow me to change it, it’s only June and we’re releasing it in December.” Chan sits back up, “And I’ll just release ‘Roads’ if I don’t come up with anything.”

Han shrugs at Changbin. Now it’s Changbin’s turn to lean back into his chair, “Why not. It’s not like we’re going to be able to change your mind.”

Chan starts packing up his things, “Good.”

“Where are you going?” Han questions his sudden movements.

“We’re done here… so I’m going?” he says as he places his laptop into his bag.

Another shared glance between Han and Changbin, a state of confusement since their hyung is never first to leave. 

“Look I’ll meet you guys back at the dorm.” giving a peace sign before exiting the room, leaving Han and Changbin baffled.

----

You have arrived, announces the car’s GPS. 

Chan parks on the street outside of a building, Connections, a cafe. Chan looks at the outside before entering, he hasn’t been here in years. 

----

“Yeah, I’m gonna surprise him at the ice skating rink,” You say while getting in the car, “He doesn’t know that I came back during spring break.”

“I can’t believe you flew back for him, don’t you ever learn your lesson,” your friend announces after your phone connects to your car.

“Look it’s been rough between us for a while and I want to clear things up, I feel like we just need to see each other and things will go back to normal.” You turn on the car, “Jihyo, I know you’ve never liked him but you didn’t even give him a chance!”

You can hear a sigh on the end of the line, “Whatever babe, I love you. I’ll be back home later tonight.”

You return an I love you and end the call.

----

“How long do you want to pay for?” an employee asks.

You check your watch, 11:30am, “I’ll stay for 2 hours.” 

As you sit down and put on your skates you check your phone to see your boyfriend’s location, he’s been here for 30 minutes already.

You remember he said that he was planning on going ice skating with his friends today when you had called him last night, and since you didn’t know how to surprise him, why not here while he’s with his friends…?

The ice skating rink is filled with people, so you look before getting on the ice to see if you can see your boyfriend. You see him, wearing one of the jackets you had bought him, and warmth rushes to your cheeks. 

As you step onto the ice you start towards him, the rink is quite large so you decide to call out to him, “Jae-”

You stop yourself once you see someone slide into him. A girl. Maybe it’s just an accident, you tell yourself. Jaebum, your boyfriend, wraps his arms around her, hugging her. You stop skating towards him, watching from a distance as he laughs and kisses her forehead. 

Your heart stops, as your eyes follow the girl as she gets off the rink and walks towards the restroom. 

You don’t even realize you're following her until, “Your hair is so cute!”, you say. 

“Ah, thank you!” the girl blushes as she touches up her short black hair in the mirror, “I love your long hair, it's gorgeous!”

“You and your boyfriend look so cute together,” you take out your lip oil, what am I doing?

The girl notices your lip oil, “Omg I have that one too!” as she takes out the dior lip oil to show you, “yeah, he’s actually not my boyfriend…yet!”

You turn to her, heart breaking since she’s so sweet, “oh really?”, from your intuition, you know she doesn’t know you, she seems like a good girl.

“He’s taken me on a few dates here and there, but I haven’t decided if I want him to be my boyfriend,” she leans in to whisper, “he is just a bit older than me, haha.”

You pretend like you don’t know that and gasp, “Omg how old is he, how old are you?”

“He's only 3 years older than me, I’m 24.” she smiles.

“Me too!” you exclaim, suddenly all you want to do is scream at Jaebum.

“Well it was wonderful meeting you!” you say before waving bye and quickly exiting. 

You spot Jaebum on the ice talking to one of his friends. As you get on the ice, his friend spots you before he could, “Y-Y/n?”

Jaebum turns around, color slowly leaves his face, “Y-y/n! What are you doing here!” He pretends to act excited as he looks around. 

“Surprise!” you act, forcing your whole body to hug him back when he hugs you, it makes you want to throw up. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks again breathlessly, “shouldn’t you be overseas?”

“Wouldn’t you like that,” you say under your breath before looking up at him, “Jagi, you’re wearing the jacket I got you! It looks so good!”

As you pretend to check him out in his jacket he starts to panic, “Aren’t you tired? You’re probably tired, you should go home and rest. I’ll bring dinner tonight!”

You stop and hold his hand, “omg jagi, I was in the restroom and I met the sweetest girl! You have to meet her.”

At that moment whatever color was left on his face left, it looked like his soul left his body, “jagi,” he starts, you wince at the nickname.

“Jaebum?” The voice behind you makes you smile.

You turn and look at the girl, on her face is pure confusement, you see her look at you holding his hand. Jaebum quickly wiggles his hand out of yours, your heart breaks a little. 

“Miyeon-ah.” Jaebum takes place in between you both, “Look, I can explain.”

“Miyeon… what a cute name,” you sadly smile before looking at Jaebum, “I saw you hold her.”

“J-jagi, I didn’t mean it,” Jaebum puts his hands up.

“Jagi?” Miyeon questions, her face trying to put the pieces together, “Are you guys dating?”

You look at Jaebum waiting for him to answer her but he just stays silent, “Jaebum was my boyfriend.”

“Was?” Jaebum looks at you, but you’re still looking at Miyeon as she realizes the situation. 

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know he was in a relationship.” Miyeon’s face drops, “I should leave.”

“No don’t,” Jaebum then turns to her, “can I explain?”

“Please don’t, you have nothing to explain to me.”  Miyeon replies before she waves to you and skates off.

Jaebum just watches her leave, “Y/n, I didn’t mean it, we were just good friends.”

You scoff at his words. You see his friend Jackson turn away not even believing him because he’s clearly in the wrong.

“How long?” That's all you wanted to ask, that’s all you wanted to know, maybe.

“Y/n please.” Jaebum takes your hands into his.

“How long, Jaebum.”

“I only took her on 5 dates. It started in June. It’s only been a month.”

“Only?” you look at him slightly hurt, “we’ve been dating for almost year and you’re gonna throw it away to have some fling?”

“I didn’t plan on getting that close to her, Y/n. you have to believe me.” Jaebum waves Jackson off to go elsewhere, “It was just a little lonely for me, you’re all the way overseas doing your stuff and you’re always busy nowadays.”

You pull your hands from his, “you’re blaming you cheating on me being busy?”

“That’s not what I’m trying to say, Jagi. I just want to say I’m sorry and that we can move on from this and grow stronger.” Jaebum holds your shoulders, “I didn’t mean to kiss her, it was always out of stress and loneliness, I just really missed you.”

“Kis– Jaebum don’t touch me.” you step away from him.

Jaebum moves to try to hug you, but his bracelet on his wrist starts going off notifying that his time on the ice is over. 

“Look, do you want to go somewhere else and talk about this? Let’s try not to make a scene.” Jaebum sees Jackson getting off the ice, trying to move towards the exit.

“Make a scene? Seriously.” 

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

You look at Jaebum, then check the time, you still have 45 minutes left before your time is up, “You should go.”

Jaebum looks at you, then his bracelet, “text me whenever you’re ready okay? I love you.”

You cringe at those words, yet watch his back as he heads out to leave in sadness, not wanting him to go.

---

You’re in shock as you skate alone around and around the rink, trying to waste your time. You get a notification from your phone, Jihyo: 

I get off a little late today, so I’ll bring some food home ;P

You decide to text her and tell her what happened, when you hear a voice say, “Bin I’m actually gonna leave you, you’re embarrassing me.”

This wakes you up from your deluded thoughts, and you stare at the two people who happened to be in front of you, one gripping onto the wall and the other, slightly taller than the other, blonde hair peeking out under his beanie. 

“Chan?” you hear yourself whisper.

But you’re completely drowned out by another boy taller than them both coming by to completely push the one gripping onto the wall. As he’s desperately trying not to fall, that's when you hear it. 

Chan’s laugh. The sweetest and most contagious laugh you’ve ever heard, it makes your heart ache yet feel so warm. 

The laugh distracts you from your thoughts so well that it also distracts you from reality, you’re able to snap out of it, when you’re suddenly hit and falling to the ground. 

“Ouch,” you grab onto your wrist that you fell on.

Your nose is suddenly filled with the scent of his cologne, bringing back memories you did not want to feel right now. Feelings starting to worsen your current heartbreak with a past heartbreak.

He starts, as he rushes to get up and off of you, “I'm so sorry. I am truly so sorry.” He stretches out his hand for you, “are you okay?”

Does he not recognize me? You wonder as you start to get up using the wall, “You don’t have to apologize, it’s okay.”

Chan tries to make eye contact with you, “Do you need help or do you need anything?”

This is embarrassing, he’s the exact same as before. His actions start to irritate you, “”N-no, it’s really okay.” 

I’m done here. This is the worst day ever. You’re thinking as you skate off.

You walk and text Jihyo, Jaebum cheated on me and I just literally ran into Chan.

You find your shoes and start taking off your skates. Your phone’s notification starts to go off, thinking it’s from Jihyo you pick it up, instead it’s from Jackson. 

Hey y/n, look I know we’re not the closest, but I just wanted to say that I didn’t know you guys were even dating still. Jaebum told me and the guys that you guys broke up a little after you flew back to the States. I’m sorry that he’s been lying to you. - Jackson

This makes your eyes start to water, you’re not sure whether to be angry, hurt or –

“Hi I’m the guy who fell into you earlier”

5 years Chan, trust me I know you.

“I really am sorry about that, I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

You scoff at his words, they’re so familiar, “You want to make sure I’m okay?”

“Um yes,” hesitation in his voice, “I just want to know if I hurt you badly and you’re just hiding it.”

Hearing this from your ex is not the best feeling. Especially when he doesn’t even remember you, or does he? So you decide to make eye contact with him, feeling pathetic yet angry as you still have tears in your eyes, “No Chan, don’t worry you didn’t hurt me at all.”

His face suddenly drops, from the nice guy act he was playing, as he steps back a little he questions, “Shit, Y/n?”

“Sorry you might’ve forgotten me, my bad.” You stand up and brush his shoulder as you walk out.

author's note: OKAY so I think I'll release every day until this story is done, around 10-11 pm PST time 👍 I'm not entirely sure honestly but I'll try to be active as long as people want more 🙏

#stray kids #skz #slow burn #bang chan #bang chan fluff #fluff #bang chan x reader #skz x reader #skz imagines #skz fluff #skz scenarios #skz smut #pov #angst #skz angst #skz soft thoughts

[hesalleyes]

If you're a bit confused about Rusty Quill or what's been happening, hopefully this will be a handy guide.

Hello everyone, especially all newbies to the Rusty Quill family! I thought I'd talk a little bit about the company. There's a lot of information out there, some of which may be contradictory or difficult to find, and so I compiled it into what I think is a decent timeline. I've also included some of my thoughts on what Rusty Quill has been through, and where it's going.

(check the end for associated footnotes!)

A Brief And Mostly Objective Timeline For Rusty Quill Ltd.

Alexander J. Newall wanted to start a company for creatives. His father (presumably) laid down the starting capital and Rusty Quill was founded 29th June 2015. Alex owned 99% of the company, John Newall, 1%. (1)

Alex reached out to a bunch of his improv friends and asked if they would participate in an actual-play podcast. Alex hadn't seen a fully produced actual-play with sound effects and background music and he wanted to fill that niche in the market. James Ross, Bryn Monroe, and Lydia Nicholas all agreed. Tim Meredith was otherwise engaged, but said his brother Ben would be up for it. Rusty Quill Gaming (RQG) was born and started airing episodes in June 2015.

Meanwhile, besides running, editing, producing, directing, and mastering RQG, Alex also worked nights at an extremely boring data entry job James Ross set up for him. James also helped Jonny Sims get that same job (2). At the time, Jonny was playing gigs with his band The Mechanisms, but his passion was for writing. The Mechanisms were a folk band that reimagined classic stories/myths to music with hefty narrative pieces, which has obvious applicability to a podcast company. Because of this fortuitousness, sometime in 2013-14, Alex and Jonny met and found that they were both highly creative people who desperately wanted out of this job. Jonny invited Alex to a Mechanisms show at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Alex loved The Mechs show. He was convinced he must work with Jonny on something. Jonny had a few ideas and pitched what would become The Magnus Archives, though it was first more of a Twilight Zone anthology, which is why the "narrator" had Jonny's name. Alex wanted to add more of a narrative framework and they shaped it together, all five seasons, so that it was cohesive the whole way through. Some things did, organically, pop up later. For instance, Martin started mainly as a foil to Jon, and only became the love interest after a bit of writing.

Around 2018, Patreon funding eventually allowed RQ to build a studio in Rusty Towers that enabled them to record their high-quality audio (3). Before that, they were - at various times - recording in a ‘yurt’ made of blankets and duvets for most of season one (usually at James Ross’ house or Martyn’s hallway, since Alex was - at that point - intermittently homeless due to asbestos problems).(4)

In 2016, RQ set up the Rusty Quill Forums, an official RQ fan-space where fans could interact with each other and RQ members. (5) This early arena for interaction would precipitate the more immediate (and much larger) Discord, Rusty Quill Official. Anil Godigamuwe, Community Manager, was the main force behind running and moderating the forums.

2016 was also the year that Mike Lebeau decided to gather a few people to play games and raise money for charity in what would become the predecessor to Rusty Quill Giving and Gaming. This event involved only Mike, Bryn, Ben, Anil, and Martyn Pratt (Chief Technology Officer). It only lasted twelve hours and they raised £700. (6)

Late 2017, Rusty Quill, in association with Historic Royal Palaces, released Outliers, a historical fiction podcast. Probably the least known of RQ’s podcasts, but very good and well-done. (Yes, this is a plug for Outliers. Go listen! It's great!)

In 2018, the Rusty Quill Official Discord server (RQO) went live and most of the fans from the forums moved there. (7)

February 15, 2019, Stellar Firma, the improv comedy sci-fi show starring Tim and Ben Meredith, began airing.

Mike wanted to explore more of the video side of creating. On January 25, 2020, RQ Streams launched, and soon there was a decent amount of content generated on RQ’s Twitch channel. Video content would gain traction in the form of New Player Challenge (NPC). Many RQ members would stream, including Anil, Autumn, several editors, and Helen Gould (member of Rusty Quill Gaming and later promoted to Head of Inclusion). The streams would get big enough that RQ would eventually hire a few mods specifically for the streams (30). RQ Streams wasn't fiscally sound as a primary source of income, but streaming helped encourage community engagement.

In February 2020, Alex gave an interview to Haggis and Dragons at PodUK. The host asked why, despite their success, Rusty Quill hadn't been present at many events such as PodUK before. Alex responded that the company was dedicated to making sure they took care of their people first, but now that all the finicky backend admin stuff was finished, they could do fun things like conventions. (8)

A month later, COVID-19 shut down the world.

At this point, TMA had been running for four years, and - while relatively successful and critically admired- was still a smallish podcast, especially when measured against engagement levels of other fiction podcasts at the time. Whether COVID, the whim of Tumblr, or a spark that refused dim, the fuse on TMA had been lit. It would jump sharply with the season four finale in Halloween 2019, but when season five premiered on April 2, 2020, TMA was at its second highest peak in popularity , its highest only a month away. It would maintain a high level of engagement until the series finale in March 2021. (9) Whatever the reason, TMA had exploded, and no one could've predicted it.

In July 2020, Hannah Brankin, Chief Operations Officer and spouse of Alex Newall, became a director in the Rusty Quill company. (10)

In August 2020, Autumn Jarvis (longtime fan of RQ) with a history of convention organization came on as Community Assistant. (11) This role promoted her to Head Moderator of the Discord (RQO), coordinating communication between the Discord mods and RQ admin. RQ hired her to help Anil, as at this point, RQO had nearly 8000 members.

The official Rusty Quill Discord server (RQO) went from a reasonable 1000 participants to nearly 14,000 before its shutdown in September 2021. In August 2020 (a few days after Autumn took over), a group raided RQO, proclaiming issues of racism, ableism, and other accusations directed at Rusty Quill, but also at the volunteer mods. It was the only major attack, but from time to time small incursions would occur thereafter. RQO’s many mods (at least 11, at one point) were unpaid. Whether or not that was a good business decision is debatable, but mods were responsible for monitoring content that was Patreon-exclusive, so one might think a Patreon subscription should’ve been included.

April 2, 2021, Patreon-exclusive Inexplicables began airing. The show was initially met with a lot of positive feedback and excitement. The RQO channels were full of theorizing and chat, which Alex could be seen reading. While Inexplicables seemed ripe for a sequel, there have been no indications of future content.

In May of 2021, Rusty Quill launched the Rusty Quill Network. Many felt the network wasn’t explained sufficiently, but subsequent clarification from Autumn verified that RQ was not doing any of the following for the new shows that would be included under the network’s umbrella: producing, funding, editing, or creating. Apparently, the RQN was designed to act as a distribution and collective bargaining service. Unfortunately, this aspect was never made explicit to the fans by official RQ channels.

In September of 2021, Autumn was terminated. While Autumn has stated the reason she was terminated, it was on a private server and because RQ has made no official statement regarding the termination, I won’t share that information. RQ did ask if she would like to appeal the decision, but Autumn declined. Later, the mods organized a walkout in protest and quit. Only the mod known as Crunchy remained, and was the last one to close out the server. Later, he would admit that the mods actively decided not to include him in this decision. (12) While there were RQ Streams mods, they, unfortunately, didn’t have as much power as the Discord mods and were unable to assist much (30). RQ released a statement on September 15, 2021 regarding the closing of the Discord and the mod walk-out, and RQO has been dark ever since. (13)

RQ Streams, it’s worth mentioning at this point, had some mods specifically for streams, but also relied on the Discord mods to moderate the chat during streams (30). Ultimately, when the mods walked out, RQ Streams was also forced to stop.

Since the mod walkout, any events run and sponsored by RQ have been modded by volunteers, and usually small enough that it hasn’t become an issue (RQGG21 being modded by some Discord mods, with other Gather events modded mostly by RQ employees) (30).

April 26, 2022, Chapter and Multiverse, the analogous successor to Rusty Quill Gaming run by Maddy Searle, the former lead editor of Stellar Firma, began airing. It would conclude its first season in August. While RQ has indicated that C&M will continue, it has been postponed until 2023. However, Maddy Searle posted a tweet (since deleted) indicating she is no longer employed at Rusty Quill. After claims that Maddy was reprimanded and forced to take down the tweet, RQ would later clarify that they have a 48 hour confidentiality policy regarding things like that, and that's why they requested the removal of the tweet for that time. Maddy hasn't reposted the tweet, or commented publicly on her reasons for doing so. 

On June 10, 2022, Mike announced he was leaving Rusty Quill. (14) Although others had also streamed on RQ’s Twitch in the past, he was the primary force driving its relevance and the channel has remained  mostly unused since the aforementioned Discord mod walkout, most likely citing lack of moderation as a main concern.

August 2, 2022, the original RQ production Trice Forgotten premiered. Trice Forgotten continues to update.

As per the September 21, 2022 Patreon email, Cry Havoc! and Neon Inkwell, the other RQ original productions, have been postponed to 2023. (29)

With their three original podcasts completed and many future projects postponed, Rusty Quill had reached a quiescent stage. Patreon emails were sparse and while RQ maintained a loyal base, activity around the company had slowed.

Then -

October 10th, 2022 a string of strange letters appeared in a Patreon email. (15) Fandom quickly deduced that it wasn't a mistake, but rather a cipher. A Discord server dedicated to cracking the code sprang up almost immediately and fandom deciphered the cryptic letters in a few hours. This began a mini-ARG leading to the announcement of a Magnus Archives "side-quel": The Magnus Protocol. On a subsequent livestream, Alex confirmed the sequel and announced that the project would be fully funded by a Kickstarter. No money would be taken from Patreon, current or proposed shows, income generated through ads, agreements, merch, RQN residuals, etc. (16)

The Magnus Protocol Kickstarter launched November 22. It was fully funded in less than one minute, and as-of publishing this post is currently at £ 624,268, 4162% of their original goal. Release for the project is expected in October 2023 and is said to follow two British civil servants, Alice and Sam, as they deal with the legacy of the burned-down Magnus Institute of Manchester. Curious, as the Magnus Institute from the original series was very much based in London. (17)

On December 12, 2022, Newt Schottelkotte - marketing director for the Fable and Folly podcast network - released an opinion article on Medium detailing several allegations against Rusty Quill. (18) Schottelkotte submitted the article to several publications that declined to publish it. They decided to self-publish on Medium, which allows for independent publication. In good faith, I won’t presume this was a targeted attack by another network, but rather the opinion of a contingent of industry professionals who tried to represent those allegedly wronged by Rusty Quill as a production company (perhaps taking advantage of the timing of the new Kickstarter to gain traction for their post - but that one can only leave to speculation). The testimonies were anonymous.

December 13, 2022, after a resulting influx of polarizing social media posts, RQ released an official response to the Medium article, refuting most points raised. (19)

Now, before I get into less fact-based territory, and knowing RQ intends to announce a more recent Operations Update in the new year, I feel it's relevant going forward to mention that for all the talk surrounding both sides of the story, the composition of Rusty Quill is not as large as some might think, considering the assumptions of some of the claims.  In 2021 the company conducted a voluntary internal census on company makeup and satisfaction. (20) At the time they had 28 employees. 23 responded, and here are a few interesting tidbits they had to say:

91% identify as Neurodivergent

30% identify as non-cisgender; 48% identify as female, 26% as male, and 26% as not exclusively one of those categories

30% are people of color

30% identify as bisexual, 9% pansexual, & 9% queer. 26% identify as heterosexual. These numbers may or may not include the 17% who identify as asexual.

This census doesn’t include individual contractors (which comprises most of their editors and voice actors). In the census, RQ recognized their huge deficit in hiring people of color. RQ maintains a flat pay structure across all departments (including leadership), which - thanks to Patreon funding - stands above the London cost of living rate. (21)

The Less Than Objective Part

Rusty Quill is a small company. The average number of employees for 2022 was 21. (22) This number doesn't reflect possible layoffs/terminations since then. Most of its voice actors and editors are contracted. This is intended partially to allow flexibility on both RQ and the contractors’ part as well as enable RQ to diversify their talent without the contractual obligation of employment (the UK doesn’t recognize ‘at-will’ employment; termination must be for a cause). Meaning that even if the company finds itself in the position of having to terminate employees, it maintains the possibility of working with those same people as contractors to help out RQ financially, but also to allow those employees to find more stable or long term jobs in the interim.

However, holding onto only an essential team of staff (as you find in any small company, but especially in an industry without historical regulation - often relying on a presumed integrity of nebulous industry standards, as opposed to codified protections) employees are often forced to wear many hats. Most often voluntarily, but often to their detriment. This manifested in such things as Autumn transcribing Stellar Firma, without any transcription experience, or the continual mishap of Alex or Hannah responding to delicate situations with off-the-cuff inexpertise (generally sweet and earnest, but not as diplomatic or clear as needed - something that larger companies potentially avoid with dedicated teams regarding media training), but is perhaps most apparent in the early stages of RQG and TMA where Alex, in addition to being a primary player/voice actor, did the majority of the editing and mastering until Lowri Ann Davies joined halfway through RQG. Based exclusively on the runtimes of RQG episodes/specials (not including how long it actually took to edit down recorded footage to what we hear), Alex edited a total of 217 hours of RQG, over 9 whole days, or nearly 83% of the content. (23) Early specials, behind the scenes specials, and Q&As often contain jokes about Alex needing to sleep. This sort of work-life balance should not be necessary for success, but many creatives know that it’s the unfortunate reality for many startups without the resources of a major media network backing them. 

And, as evidenced here, despite its exposure and popularity Rusty Quill’s resources were limited from the start. Alex and Hannah, as directors and main shareholders in the company, are solely responsible for the company’s fiscal viability. As such, I think this has led to some decisions where one or both of them have taken over projects or refused to delegate when it would have better served that project or even themselves. But there’s also something to be said for a duty of care, and the difficulty of giving that up. 

In such an environment, it’s not surprising that a large part of smaller podcasting companies’ revenue is generated through fan-funding. The grassroots organization of a devoted fanbase can help grow a company without access to other funds or a robust marketing budget. Steady patreon subscriptions can make up for periods of instability in advertising returns, but issues begin to arise when companies encounter something like RQ did: an explosion in popularity that lacked sustainability, and the contingencies and strategies to deal with that. However, it’s a double-edged sword. The importance of Patreon and fan goodwill can help create the mentality that RQ owes the fans something. Nothing in Patreon's TOS requires artists to offer rewards; the idea behind Patreon - at least to me - is that in exchange of supporting someone making art you enjoy, you occasionally get glimpses into the creative process behind that art. This idea has evolved over the years, but I think Patreon has become, to some people, more transactional: I pay you five dollars, you give me one piece of art. This more give-take mentality can lead to feelings of ownership; fans pay for RQ to exist, therefore they should have a say in how RQ conducts its business. Whether RQ views it that way or not.

RQ has begun to diversify their income, however, with the creation of the RQN, where they get fees from providing marketing and distribution services for other podcasts. Although RQ has experienced a drop in Patrons, it has returned to subscription levels similar to those before the meteoric rise of TMA and is hopefully navigating towards finding a balance between delivering what fans want without enabling an unhealthy relationship of catering to what’s profitable instead of what they want and are excited about making. (24)

Fandom and The Illusion of Closeness

There’s no denying that many creatives have an intimate relationship with their audience, especially smaller and/or newer ventures. RQ had, for a long time, quite a close relationship with its fans. It’s still visible in the old forums, where Alex, Mike, and Anil could be seen posting with regularity. There are many images from past RQGGs (even up to RQGG19) where RQ staff and fans casually mingled. 

However, there is an issue with something like Discord where the immediacy of contact creates the illusion of intimacy. The ability to ping a creator facilitates the idea that the creator is therefore available and willing to be pinged. It’s not so much an issue when there are 1000 people on a server with only a hundred or so active, and only a fraction of them irregularly contacting creatives. When that number goes up, even proportionally, it results in a huge uptick in forced contact. It’s been theorized that both Jonny Sims and Ben Meredith stepped back from the Discord server because of crossed boundaries. Another staff member had a fan harass them to the point of needing to block said fan and the fan was eventually banned from RQO by the mods. 

On the other hand, Community Manager Anil continued to always be available and Alex & Hannah would occasionally hop on and respond when they were active. This apparent ease of access can trick people into believing that they are close to the creators, and the illusion of this perceived relationship can be problematic for both parties.

In these circumstances it’s natural for creators to develop a persona to protect themselves. There’s nothing wrong with this and it is, in fact, a healthy and smart thing to do; the person fans interact with is not, exactly, who that person is. Not to say they’re fake or lying, but that creators deserve a degree of privacy that comes from concealing certain things about themselves that fans aren’t - and shouldn’t be - privy to. Fans’ insistence on access to creators and their secrets can be extremely difficult and exhausting, especially for creators who don’t have a publicity or security team. For instance, Jonny was forced to reveal his past with drug abuse when people incessantly questioned and berated him about his portrayal of drug abuse in "Strung Out," a season five episode of TMA (notably also when the fandom had exploded beyond the comfortable community of its earlier seasons). Fan entitlement to knowledge about creators and access to them can be particularly egregious in this sort of setting where the creators are trying to maintain the intimate community they used to enjoy, one that (at least in the initial stages) they relied on financially, while dealing with a huge influx of new fans. Even Critical Role, arguably the largest podcast in the actual-play genre, has suffered from a similar issue, though the actors in CR have much more experience than RQ.

Rusty Quill is a business and their dealings are of proprietary interest. Like any other entertainment company, they produce a product for consumption but the way they run internally isn’t something consumers are (or should be) privy to - barring gross mistreatment  which, despite claims, hasn’t been proven. When Autumn was terminated, RQ didn’t release an official statement on what led to the termination. While many fans wanted to know, RQ has no obligation to reveal internal processes like hiring/firing, especially if details of such could affect an employee’s future employment. Identifying particular employees as responsible for certain policies or potentially upsetting updates could open that employee to threats or harassment (which RQ experienced before).

The Disproportionate Critique of Small Creators

It would be ridiculous to assert that Rusty Quill has never made a mistake - sometimes repeatedly - or a misstep. They’ve issued an apology multiple times for the lack of sensitivity in their content or a miscommunication on their end. Miscommunication was, in fact, a key factor in why the Discord mods left. RQ tried to preemptively combat these issues by hiring Helen Gould as a sensitivity director to ensure their content had been looked over for things that could be harmful. Given their company makeup and the composition of their talent - both writing and on-air - RQ has tried to diversify itself so that their content doesn’t come solely from the perspective of cishet white male. Stellar Firma would be the only show to suffer from this, however, it’s worth mentioning that on the production side Maddy Searle and Katie Seaton seem to have been brought on intentionally to avoid, or at least ameliorate this issue.

There is a pervasive issue with fandom as a whole to apply a more rigorous rubric against smaller and/or indie companies producing entertainment because they’re accessible. It’s easy to see why this phenomenon exists; when a person sees that they can speak to a creator directly, that the creator might respond specifically to those critiques. It can feel as if the consumer has more power in the relationship. Complaining about Disney cutting out a lesbian kiss in Star Wars, for example, will never reach Bob Iger, but if you want to talk to James D’Amato about a choice he made in the most recent Skyjacks episodes, he’s almost certainly going to respond. By feeling more intimately connected to creators, fans can feel empowered to be more aggressive in their criticisms.

A sustainable medium must exist between the two extremes of critique. A small indie company like Rusty Quill cannot be above criticism because of its size or its intention to do better - at some point, it must actually be doing better (which, I believe, it has and is consistently endeavoring to). Conversely, it can’t be upheld to a stricter standard than a larger company purely because its creators are accessible and will directly encounter the critique aimed at them. Rusty Quill has expanded their base of collaborators - which includes having an open pitch form to allow anyone to submit ideas - and made headway on wider and more accurate representation in their shows. There are certainly other shows and companies tackling and portraying difficult issues and diversity with a better outcome than Rusty Quill. That doesn't detract from the efforts RQ is making and shouldn't invite a disproportionate level of critique.

So What Now?

While it is fair to offer critique aimed at Rusty Quill and what it does, I think the benefits of this coming from a large audience diminish due to a few factors: quantity with no control for quality, purity culture, and entitlement. These things could comprise a much much longer essay, but I’ll be brief.

One of the huge benefits RQ got out of early Patreon release on the Discord was a limited quantity of feedback. Alex would show up to ask about the sound quality: if anything seemed off or if we had comments or noticed something. Anil would collect extra content warnings if needed, and some titles even changed when fans pointed out redundancies. Both Alex and (to a much stronger degree) Helen interacted with patrons about Inexplicables, including thoughts and theories. At one point, RQ created a gaming system called Ensemble and elicited feedback from people, encouraging them to play. These comments and critique are very helpful for RQ because of their pointedness. Contrast this to the response to the s5 TMA episode “Strung Out" - or the controversy surrounding a later episode’s perceived insensitivity to current events, necessitating a warning and apology before the usual opening theme (a perception generated before the public launch of the episode, stoked by assumptions and Twitter discourse).

Fandom as a whole has veered bizarrely into an obsession with purity - if something isn’t perfect, then it shouldn’t exist. RQ will not and cannot get everything right. It’s not a format made for easy editing and revision after the fact. It can be lauded for its achievements and persuaded to do better in a way that isn’t overly aggressive or hyperbolic. People tend to forgive mistakes if they like something and focus on them if they don’t, but it’s better to avoid assigning a moral value to something like representation - the effort and commitment is important. (For clarity - I believe it is moral and ethical to do everything you can to achieve accurate and diverse representation. The morality I reference here is more in regards to labeling something, irredeemably, as bad just because it doesn’t live up to your expectations). 

Not to be repetitive, but fans in smaller fandoms often feel a sense of entitlement because of their ease of access to creators. If Alex is right there talking about the Trice Forgotten schedule, why shouldn’t he answer a prod about the continuation of Chapter & Multiverse??? The answer is that he’s updating you on Trice - not Chapter. Fans are not, and shouldn’t be, part of the internal machinations of a company, however close they feel, and why certain things happen or when isn’t always going to be obvious. RQ has varying degrees of success when it comes to updating their fans about timelines or happenings in the company, and while there is definitely room for improvement, overall, it shouldn’t be a requirement or expectation. That is to say - the relentless inundation of tangential comments or questions offers no benefit and can impose an increasing feeling of frustration: for the company, for the fan asking, and for the fans witnessing. Not even mentioning the personel issue. RQ has shown a willingness to acknowledge, apologize, and modify their content when there are complaints made against it. Because RQ has acted this way, it might invite the idea that they should have the same transparency and openness to comment about the way their business runs; of which they have no obligation to do so, and in many instances, definitely should not.

For instance, several people may have been let go from Rusty Quill recently, probably because of financial issues due to the downturn in the UK economy (see RQ’s statement for more specific reasoning). Although it is tempting to be angry or upset about it, businesses make decisions involving structure and the reorganization of employees in their company all the time. For a variety of reasons. Lay-offs or terminations may be needed in order to keep a company afloat. Often these legal reasons and internal processes cannot be disclosed, and barring that the individuals involved may not have consented to their information becoming public - despite audiences wanting to see corporate due diligence. The point is that while it might be comforting to know why things happened, ultimately it isn’t reasonable to expect a company to share those details or any others that have to do with its internal running or function.

Moving Forward

Rusty Quill is in a precarious position. The unexpected juggernaut of The Magnus Archives turned them from a small, emergent company to a well-known name in the podcast community. They were unprepared for it, very few people could be, and nearly three years later they’re still struggling to find a sustainable balance. RQ has had to adjust to the influx of fans, fan opinions, money, and the resulting issues of accountability. And now that TMA is over, they’ve had some time to try to adjust to not having that same monetary inflow. Whatever outward critique can be placed on them for how they’ve handled the transition, the formation of Rusty Quill Network seems to have leveled out their income in a way that will enable them to stay solvent, even if it means occasionally stopping to restructure and reorient. There is no provable model for success.

While some detractors may claim that the Magnus sequel Kickstarter is a huge windfall, it isn't necessarily so. Money made from a Kickstarter must go toward what is promised - hence the use of clearly stated stretch goals. It is against Kickstarter policy to give funds to charity, so the KS money will be used solely for projects relating to TMP. That money is spent and should be treated as thus and not a surge of new money into RQ’s coffers. It’s not a bail out. (25)

RQ has a brand that people trust and they should lean into that reputation, heavily promoting their new shows and focusing on getting those running. RQN seems instrumental in keeping the company afloat and therefore it’s understandable that so much time is spent introducing and promoting the shows taken under that umbrella (that’s part of the incentivizing service they offer RQN shows anyway), But RQ cannot expect the ad revenue from their new shows like they did with TMA and have to adjust accordingly. I hope RQ recognizes that they’re still mostly a small indie company with a surprise hit and allow themselves the restrictions - and responsibilities - of that.

As for fans, I think RQ should capitalize on the good favor they have and reengage the fandom in an appropriate manner. Livestreams are wonderful, but should automatically have slowmode to at least 30 seconds on any stream, 60 on a huge one (like the KS promotion livestream). It not only allows the on-air talent to catch some messages, but it allows the mods to filter easier. How they reestablish a team of mods is theirs to outline, but with better communication and potential benefits (i.e. a patreon subscription) it’s likely folks would be willing. 

Secondly, I believe RQ should reinstate the forums. The benefit to something more static like forums (or reddit threads or whatever is similar) is the ease of moderation and the forced expansion of time. Without the instant chat function of Discord, it isn’t as overwhelming to participate in forums or threads. These should be official RQ forums and moderated (which won’t be as difficult as a Discord). As mentioned, compensation is a tricky subject because when you start paying ‘volunteers’ they can claim employment and it opens up RQ to a whole swath of responsibilities. A “Mod Team” shirt or pin, a patreon subscription, maybe some mod-creator meetups could be provided for services rendered.

RQ could possibly look into reopening the Discord, perhaps limiting it to patrons. While that would make it more manageable, it potentially leads to issues involving classism or elitism. It could also exacerbate the earlier issue of fan entitlement. If RQ decides to reopen the Discord, they should do so with a lot of consideration.

I'm a huge fan of Rusty Quill. There are plenty of times I’ve been frustrated or disappointed with them, but at its heart, it tries to accomplish what I think to be a noble and admirable goal. Rusty Quill seeks to create good art with an emphasis on highlighting diverse voices that might not otherwise get a chance to perform. And, from what I’ve seen despite some ups and downs, tries to do their best to create sustainable income for those they bring along as collaborators. The love the team has for storycrafting is obvious and that - along with their community - is where they should focus.

EDIT:

I started this post about three weeks ago, so the Medium article was a big surprise. I won’t dissect the article because that’s not my goal, but I do have a few thoughts.

So, let's address the article on Medium.

Here is the article so you can read it for yourself. https://medium.com/@newtschott/whos-afraid-of-alex-j-newall-ae3a67f3a5e1

Here is Rusty Quill's response: https://rustyquill.com/2022/12/13/public-response-to-an-opinion-piece/

This tumblr post speaks about an inaccurate quote that the article mentions, and I think is relevant: https://www.tumblr.com/dadhuddle/703488191401984000/journalistic-integrity-re-newt-schottelkottes-rq?source=share.

Here is a link to a tumblr post from Harlan Guthrie, creator of the Malevolent podcast, which is part of the RQN. I felt it important to get a point of view of someone involved in the network. https://www.tumblr.com/malevolentcast/703493906802868224/you-probably-already-know-about-this-but-an?source=share

The issues the article raises are very important. If these allegations are true, they need to be addressed. Newt being the marketing director of a rival podcast company and failing to disclose this for several hours casts the entire article in doubt because the conflict of interest is something ethical journalists would've avoided. (26) Newt also favorably compared RQ's practices to Fable and Folly. (27) Newt and the other two editors of the piece also provided their contact information to provide help with "research, job searches, and more" to former/current employees of RQ. (28) Neither of these things are inherently wrong, but Newt's connection to F&F casts them in a different light. This could possibly be construed as encouragement for current RQ employees or network shows to leave RQ for F&F. It's unfortunate, because this conversation needed to happen, especially if the purported issues are factual. Now there is a haze over the veracity of this article because of this lack of disclosure and the conflicts of interest from the author.

There has been some talk stating that podcast networks are not rivals. They can be friendly, they can share actors, they can share spaces. They almost certainly don't share profits. Every show added to a network brings in income for that network. If one of these networks dissolves, then the shows under its umbrella can move to one of the other networks, raising its profits. It's difficult to deny that one podcast network would benefit from the dissolution of another. I would identify that as rivals, even if they're friendly.

I don't believe that Fable and Folly had anything to do with this article. I don't even think Newt intended for them to be involved at all or for people to make that connection. It's the appearance of bias that muddies the waters. Most journalistic codes of ethics tell journalists to avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived. If it seems a journalist has a stake in the outcome of a story, it compromises the neutrality and the authenticity of the piece.

And unfortunately, despite Newt's claims of a background in journalism (unverifiable at the time of posting this blog outside of editorial publications), the necessary practices to lend credence towards these allegations weren't followed.

This post represents my own opinions, based in my involvement in the community. I've tried to provide sources whenever I could, though much of it was lost when the RQ Discord shut down, or mired in the sheer breadth of content. If there's a blatant untruth, please let me know with supporting evidence so I can correct it.

Footnotes:

1. Establishment of the company and ownership as per the foundation documents.

2. Alex & Jonny working the same job James Ross gave them (160 Q&A)

3. Patreon funding builds new studio via Studio tour video: (the video is patron-only, so here is a screencap of Alex stating that Patreon funded the studio)

4. Alex was homeless for a while, retrospective 189.5 (amongst others)

5. Rusty Quill Forums https://rustyquill.proboards.com/board/1/general-board

6. RQ Forums post celebrating the first RQGG

7. Rusty Quill Official Discord goes live, via RQ Forums.

8. Haggis and Dragons interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkYsA50Ts9M&list=FLaf41raWk5sb2VhQcEcPpsg&index=27

(Alex talking about the company stepping back from the public 12:30)

9. Popularity of the term “the magnus archives” from Google Analytics

10. Hannah becomes director, via RQ filing documentation

11. Autumn becomes Community Assistant, via Patreon email

12. Rusty Quill’s official statement about mods walkout.

Announcement - plain text 15-09-21.pdf

13. Crunchy's tweet

14. Mike LeBeau leaves RQ, via his twitter

15. The first Magnus sequel ARG prompt, via Patreon email

16. Oct 24 Pre-Kickstarter Announcement Livestream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLOj5JKq-QU&t

17. The Magnus Protocol Kickstarter launch livestream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xk1hgVY2cc&t

18 Newt Schottelkotte's Medium piece: https://medium.com/@newtschott/whos-afraid-of-alex-j-newall-ae3a67f3a5e1

19 Rusty Quill's response to the Schottelkotte piece: https://rustyquill.com/2022/12/13/public-response-to-an-opinion-piece/

20. Rusty Quill internal census

21 The end of the RQ census summary:

22. Average number of employees at RQ in 2022, via RQ filing documentation

23. RQG editing stats, courtesy of the LOLOMG: A performance review by Oscar Wilde team (the team theorizes that Alex was still mastering during that early gap, but forgot to credit himself) [additional note: LOLOMG was a fan project to celebrate the end of Rusty Quill Gaming] note added 10am - incorrectly attributed, my deepest apologies to Straw and their team

24. Patreon retention stats, via Graphetron

25. Kickstarter use policy

26 The lack of disclosure on the initial posting of the Schottelkotte article.

27 Comparison of Fable and Folly's practices to Rusty Quill's.

28 Contact information for the writer and two editors given to current and ex Rusty Quill employees and network shows.

29 Patreon announcement of Cry Havoc! and Neon Inkwell postponement (I knew I had this lying around somewhere!)

30 Some additional information from Crunchy (thanks Crunchy!). sorry for the awful paint edit job (added 16/12/22 7pm)

#rusty quill #rusty quill drama #the magnus archives #rusty quill network #the magnus protocol #that's like just your opinion man

[indestructibleheart]

Hi, fam! Okay, so I'm going to be out at an appointment tomorrow morning, so I'm kicking this off a little bit early. It's technically Wednesday in several timezones and very nearly Wednesday in mine. I'm... also a bit eager to share this, ngl.

I know that I've shared a lot of angst lately, but I swear that's not all I'm doing. 😅 In fact, the actor/playwright AU decided to wallop me in the face out of nowhere after sitting in my WIP folder for months. I'm really excited about it, so I'm gonna share the first scene!

(Also, those of you who have been to New York with me will recognize my favorite brunch spot in this scene lmao.)

---

You probably didn't even know I was in the room, but I noticed you straight away. You were talking with your friends, happy and animated and fully alive—a person living in dimensions I couldn’t access—and so beautiful. Your hair was longer then. You were the center of attention, but you weren’t afraid. You had a yellow ipê-amarelo in your pocket. I thought, this is the most incredible thing I have ever seen; I'd better keep it a safe distance away from me. I thought, if someone like that ever loved me, it would set me on fire.

INT. MOM'S KITCHEN & BAR - HELL'S KITCHEN - LATE MORNING

"I'm telling y'all," Alex is saying, punctuating with dangerously large bites of his pancake burrito. "The dude's a dick." 

It's been two hours since the nightmare audition, but Alex has been on this tirade since June and Nora first slid into the retro diner chairs across from him (at least forty-five minutes ago).

They're at Mom's: a restaurant-bar in midtown that can only be described as millennial nostalgia incarnate. The trio fell in love with it two years back—post-karaoke, stumbling in right before closing—when Alex saw God in their Fruity Pebble pancakes.  Since then, it's been his favorite place to eat his feelings.

Mom's is just really fucking comforting in general, honestly; whether it's the televisions cycling through episodes of 'Rugrats,' 'Dexter's Laboratory,' and 'Hey, Arnold!' or  the rainbow straws and Lisa-Frank-looking menus, Alex can't be sure. It doesn't hurt that they've made friends with several of the waitstaff, including an eccentric bartender, Pez, whose pink hair and painted nails fit right in with the decor. 

Today, it's the combination of breakfast sausage, bacon, eggs and cheese wrapped up in a syrup-soaked pancake that's really doing something for him. It could also be the margarita the size of his face, which Pez placed in front of him before making himself uncharacteristically scarce. But it's fine. He's probably just busy.

Alex won't admit it out loud, but what really helps is having June and Nora here to talk to… even though Nora is scrolling on her phone.

"I'm sorry," June says. She pokes an ice cube with her straw, and Alex watches as it bobs around her mimosa like a buoy. "That sounds like it sucked, but if he's really that rude… maybe you didn't want to work with him anyway."

Nora doesn't look up as she pops a home fry into her mouth. 

"Several sources say he's difficult to work with," she adds, evidently reading about Henry on the internet. "Though, in his defense, his dad did just die, like, three years ago… and there was that whole thing when he came out after. Remember?"

Alex does remember. Henry's grandmother, Mary Mountchristen, runs a pretty major company that used to own half the theatres on the West End. When Henry came out last year, she tried blacklisting his shows from her properties to punish him—which totally backfired when it got around. At least a dozen other queer writers and producers started talking about how they were also denied the space, and Mary was stoned on the streets of the theatre district. Like, metaphorically. 

Alex, Nora, and June had just moved to New York, but between June's position at Newsday and both Alex and Nora on the audition circuit, it was all anyone in their new circles could talk about. They were some of the first to know when the Mountchristens were bought out of their properties and Henry moved to the States.

This show is the first of Henry's being produced here—and it's autobiographical, which Alex has to admit is pretty fucking baller. So, yeah, Nora's not wrong. He has reason to be standoffish. Still, it doesn't explain why Alex was only halfway through his audition monologue when Henry abruptly stood up and exited stage left as if pursued by a bear.

He shoves another forkful into his mouth. "It's just, like, they're the only people who let me into the room," he says, barely finishing chewing. "Nobody wants to take me seriously, and I really thought this was my shot, you know?"

June and Nora both know Alex is having a hard time landing serious roles after growing up on a sitcom—Nora more than most, as his former co-star. What they don't know is that losing this role, specifically, feels like a kick to the stomach. From the moment Alex saw the script, he wanted to be a part of it. He can't even explain why, and now he'll never figure it out. Henry wouldn't give him a chance.

"It wasn't your only shot, and you know it." Nora fixes him with a look. "Seriously, I get it—I do—but it's just one play, buddy."

June nods. "Something will happen for you, baby brother."

At that, Alex finally groans. "Okay, calling me baby brother doesn't help me feel better about the entertainment industry infantili—"

"—itty bitty, teeny weeny—"

Alex throws a home fry at her face. 

It bounces off her forehead and into the giant gauntlet holding her mimosa with a very unappetizing splash. Just as Alex throws his hands into the air with a victorious whoop, his phone buzzes on the table. 

A glance is all it takes for him to see that it's his agent, Zahra.

"Damn," he says, deflating. There goes that upswing. "You answer it."

June balks. "Me?"

"I don't need to hear how fucking badly it went. Trust me, I got the message." Alex blinks innocently, like he's six years old again, asking her to lie to their mom about that broken vase. "Please, Bug? Besides, Zahra actually likes you."

"Everyone likes me." June rolls her eyes, but she caves—answering the phone with a haughty, "Alex Claremont-Diaz's office," before breaking into a smile. "Yeah, Z. It's me… No, Alex is feeling a little sensitive today."

(He throws another home fry at her. This one misses.)

To her credit, June's face remains totally blank as Zahra no doubt tells her how Alex insulted Henry Fox's name and all of his inbred ancestors just by showing up, or whatever—which is extremely annoying and unhelpful—but, once she says goodbye and sets the phone back down on the table, her face breaks out into a grin.

"Guess you didn't suck too bad," she says. "They want you for the part."

He doesn't know if it's Nora throwing herself at him or the shock that knocks him onto the floor.

Tagging some lovelies. If you haven't been tagged and you want to be, consider this your tag!

@anchoredarchangel, @barbiediaz, @cha-melodius, @cricketnationrise, @guillermosfamiliar, @hgejfmw-hgejhsf, @hippolotamus, @inexplicablymine, @jettestar, @junebugclaremontdiaz, @kiwiana-writes, @lizzie-bennetdarcy, @missgeevious, @mulderscully, @myheartalivewrites, @ninzied, @nontoxic-writes, @notspecialbabe, @priincebutt, @rmd-writes, @rosedavid, @three-drink-amy, @treluna4, @vanillahigh00, @welcometololaland, @orchidscript, @ships-to-sail, @stereopticons

#wip:snippet #m:wip #fic: breaking character

[chemicallady]

I WANNA FEEL LOVE AGAIN

Part 1 ; Part 2 ;

Couple: Noah Sebastian x Fem!Reader

Content Warning: I made a little homage to three fanfiction I really love! I leave you to find the references ;)

Taglist: @ada-clarence , @badalmondzzzz , my wifey @starsomens , @raventherockstarhippie @blacksoul-27 , @somewhere-diamond

Summary:  This is just cute. I swear.

But you never promised me to be wiser of better.

Time flies.

Two years passed by so fast that you almost didn't notice. At first, your job was not demanding at all, compared with the rest of the crew. You have to accompaning Noah or any other member of the band to attend the interviews, most of them for radio stations. Taking notes for integrations on their website. Keep an eye on publicize enough any tourdates or merch drop, find sponsor for bigger venues and check at the end of the day if the guys need something for the day after.

You had to spend a lot of your time on the band socials, especially instagram and twitter, which you have always shared credentials with your brother and the rest of the band. You also create their TikTok and take care about the creation of fun contents.

It was way easy before the release of Death of Peace of Mind. After the beginning of 2022, you were on the road more than at home. A lot of famous hosters started to ask for an interview with Noah. All the lights switched on the future promise of rock music when Just Pretend became one of the most used/listened songs on TikTok.

And now, in the middle of the summer of 2023, the band is still rising. More money bring more responsabilities, the necessity of arranged a better shows, bigger interviews, more publicity, more interaction through the socials.

Everyone has to work the double, you included. Speaking with radio manager and small magazine specialized in all metal subgenders was a thing.

But now the band is too huge to stop at this level. And you werent trained enough for all this pressure, but it started to grow on you month after month, tour after tour. You are the guardian of Noah's schedule. You are not charming enough to compete with others PR, but since the crew is more similar to family meeting than a serious ansemble of professionals, you became competitive.

Hard work got big results like the european tour with Bring Me the Horizon. Oli wanted Bad Omens to open for him but you were the one who put all her soul and time on the project. On the papers. Because behing any tour there is a mountain of burocracy, sponsor phone calls and publicity. You had to team up with Matt, Miles and Davis so many times that at some point, that it's like having more than just one older brother.

From june 4th, the last day on tour, you are on vacation. You have nothing to do with music creation or audio/video sound checks. You just need a laptop, a lot of patience every time you scroll your emails, and the fantastic mojito your neighbour Brianna makes. A good reason to work on your balcony, along with the sound of the ocean, is her company. You don't have many friends but she is amazing. She moved from Minnesota after the shutdown, and she is an actress. Small roles, but as she always says, small roles bring bigger ones.

《 and it would have been ever better if my prick boyfriend didn't show up and basically assaulted the casting director》

You have heard this story at least ten times, but it's still amazing how boys can be idiots. 《 Why are you still with him? He's a bomb ready to detonate, Bri》 , you know that your concern will not help her in resonate, but you can't shut up.

《 I can't afford either the apartment or the car and you know that, y/n. Also, he is not that bad when he's sorber.》

《 But he never is! 》 you place the now empty glass on the outdoor table, disappointed in seeing her almost offended expression. It's a fortune that Matt isn't around. He has to deal with Jim at least twice a week. 《 You're my friend, Bri. The only one unrelated to my job..... I can't sleep over this situation anymore. I can help you. Move in with me and Matt, take care of my plant and Lucifurr for me while we are on tour. We don't want you to help with the rent. You just need to tell that dick to fuck off.》

《.... but he drives me to every casting》

《 and he's the reason no one is picking you in a very first place. This relationship is too toxic》

《 y/n I think you're crossing the line.》

《 He's gonna kill you one of these days!》

You both muted for a couple of seconds, the now tense air between the two of you being thick as a wall. Yeah, you cross the line but like Matt, you're no good in resonate with people who don't want any help. And like Matt you can't stand injustice, not at this rate.

But you know that you have to excuse yourself, simply it's hard to find the right words. You are not going to apologise for speaking your mind, but just about the way you did it.

《 y/n? Are you ready?》

A raspy voice catch you off guard. It's already seven??

《 Shit, Noah. I'm outside》, you yell in response, before turning again towards Brianna. She already reached the empty glass and without a word, and she comes back to her apartment. 《 C'mon Brianna. I'm sorry, just-for the fuck sake.》

Noah is standing right next to you when Brianna shut the door loudly.

All you can do is sigh out loud - a bad habit you inherit from the tall man on your side - before bringing your hands to cover your face in frustration.

《 What's going on, here?》 He asks , munching a candy.

《 I don't understand women.》

He gives you a funny look. 《 Damn, that's the real deal, man. Not the chicken/egg question, or what's our purpose on earth.... but why you girls act so weird. 》

《 Shut the fuck up, Noah. Not now.》

Your relationship with Noah also changed drastically in the last two years. It required some time and a ton of patience, but he open up to you and from thenon, you became a sort of confident of him. In return, he is the one you call when things are not going well. It was a bit embarrassing, the first months, but your friendship now is stronger than youve ever immagined. You feel like you can tell everything to Noah without being judged. Sometimes he laughs at you, of course, but he knows when a situation has to be manged seriously.

He cares about you with all his heart.

He doesn't aspect nothing in return, but he is dear to you on a level than only your brother have always been.

And he knows you deeply, that's why it is so easy for him to detect how worried you are.

《 Do you think he beats her? I mean, Steve is a scumbag, but I can't figure him being actually that violent. He is always too high to have some form of coordination.》

Since his arrival - Noah has the keys of the apartment so he can come and go as he pleased, especially when both you and matt are not in town and someone has to take care of Luci- Noah asked you questions on Brianna's situation.

He knows you're concerned and he also can't pretend he is fine with your neighbors yelling at each others on daily basis.

《 I don't know but he is getting more and more jealous. She told me he's sabotaging her auditions, now.》

Noah takes a sip of the iced tea you offer him, before grab your hand on the surface of the counter. 《 Start to call the police on them, when they argue. Maybe you're right. He is not beating her yet. But he could start.》 You nod slowly, thanking him with a soft smile. 《 By the way, do you feel okay? Wanna postpone our date?》

He loves to joke around with you, because he knows how this helps in rising your moral.

You pretend to get offended. 《 I would never, ever decline a date with you. Let me change in a more adequate outfit.》

《 take your time, the limo's driver can wait downstairs.》

You giggle, before leaving him in the kitchen, reaching your room for a quick change. In five minutes you're ready: a ponytail, red joggers and a tank top.

《 Ready to run, pretty boy?》

《 I'm always ready, chicken butt.》

Noah has never told you the real reason why he has taken the work out so seriously, but you're glad he did, because you joined him on his program and honestly, you feel at your top right now. It's not a matter of aesthetics, but you feel healthy. You are less tired at the end of the day, and you can endure the - at least- 15 working hours while Touring. Back at home, it became a habit of the two of you going out for a run daily during the sunsets since Noah is not an early bird and you'd rather work in the morning.

The place you chose is on the street that runs alongside the beach in Malibù. One of reason why you got used to LA is also the precious view of the ocean while the sun sinks in it and paints the sky in gold.

There is a small beach, hidden in the stunning nature of the Pacific Coast, that has become your spot. Every day you reach that beach, stretch a little and then go back to your apartment when usually Noah showers before leaving.

Today is a Saturday and even if you don't have big plans, Noah sometimes takes his chances on a Saturday night. Even God took a day off on Sunday, right?

《 It's the red hair?》

You ear him chuckles while you bend, grabbing the tip of your toes to stretch your back.

《 No red hair as far as I can recall》

《 So... the girl you helped at that dive bar?》 You rise again, bringing your arms to the sky 《The one who broke up with her cheating boyfriend? Or maybe your neighbour? I like her. I remember you told me she was so happy when you sent her our merch.》

Noah pushes you a little, making you loosing your balance while a giggle leaves your lips. 《 You're making me look like a fuckboy!》

《you are a fuckboy, always surrounded by beautiful women. And don't look at me like that! I know you like it that way!》

Noah is young and awesome. You got a crush on him in the beginning of your partnership. It's more than obvious that he has a significant number of choices when he wants to spend a night out.

This used to hurt you a bit, but the feeling of jealousy or envy - you still don't know what it was - disappeared in the moment you realised what you have.

All this girls can have noah for a night or two.

You can have him fully, you can call him in the middle of the night if a guy screws on you and Noah will bring you to buy ice-cream to McDonald's. You two can talk for hours about the absolute nothing or regarding the most difficult life choices.

You can mocking him, make him laugh in the golden light of the dying sun, in this very moment.

And that's more than enough.

Maybe you and Noah are not meant to be lovers, but he is your person and you are his. Like twin Flames, that doesn't matter how far they are.

They always burn bright.

《 I don't know, I was thinking for something casual. Like Netflix and chill.》

Lucifurr jumps off the sofa in the moment he hears Noah entering in your apartment. Your cat totally ignores you and starts to purr to the tall man that interrupts everything to kneel and cuddle the black ball of furr.

Satanic animal...

《 Then you should text the neighbor. She is the sweetest of yours hooks up.》

《 Then I can simply ring the door on my way back.》

《 Call her, Noah. Don't be a prick. The world doesn't revolve around you. Maybe she is planning to go out.》

You can hear him sigh in his annoying way. 《Can I shower here, anyway? I smell bad.》

《 You always smell bad.》

《 Am I???》

You exchange a glaze with him and immidiatly know its time to run. In the moment he leaves Luci alone, he is following you around the house while you yell for help. But matt isn't back yet, so you're on your own. As soon as noah reaches you (very soon, his legs are longer than yours), he huggs you tight, trying to put your head under his armpit.

《 NOAH STOP IS DISGUSTING!》 , you try to defend yourself hitting him on his back and between his legs with small slaps.

《Ei! Low blow! Don't slap my nutts!》

《 Don't sweat on me, you piece of-》

A yell interrupted the both of you, follow by a long cry and some smashed dishes. Noah realise the grip on you and sighs deeply looking at the wall that divides your apartment from Briannas one.

《 Is it always like this?》

《 almost every day, now.》

And there is something that broke in your cracking voice that completely shattered Noahs heart.

《 let's call the cops》, he says with a soft voice, hugging your shoulders. 《 I'll stay. We can watch a movie togheter.》

You look at him in surprise while he is reaching his phone. 《 and your date?》

《 you're my date》 , is the cheeky replay. The both of you smile, and you need a second. Not only because you're worried about brianna, but also because these small situations make you feel.... weird on your feelings towards noah.

You don't want to admit it, but a real date would be all you desire.

....but at what cost?

#noah sebastian #bad omens #noah sebastian x reader #noah sebastian imagine #bad omens imagine

[romana-after-dark]

The Wrong Way (Dark Ending): Going Under, Part 2.5

Raider!Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

Raider!Tommy Miller x Fem!Reader

Spotify Playlist

Summery: After you give birth to Ellie in the cabin, Joel fins you and Tommy, besting Tommy in a fight. What happens to you? What happens to Ellie, Tommy, Lorenzo and the rest of the family Little One has acquired? How does Little One learn to cope with her new reality? Does she fall into the darkness that surrounds Joel and all he touches? Can Joel really change for you and your daughter?

WARNINGS FOR FULL FIC, NOT CHAPTER BY CHAPTER UNLESS SOMETHING NEW IS ADDED AFTER MASTER WARNING LIST: DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT!!!! Fic contains graphic depictions of sexual assault, rape, molestation, dubcon/non con. MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH WARNING, graphic violence, murder, manipulation, the horrors, Joel being Joel, Tommy being kinda pathetic, Joel's weird sexual fantasies, breeding kink, abuse of power. Just.... all the bad.

Extra warnings: again on the suicide. Post partum depression heavyyyyyyyyyy feelings inadequecy, joel's mind games are getting to her... but shes smart and shes fighting for her life.

Last chapter before things start looking up. Im having a little trouble making the chapters mesh together right without being too long bc chapter 1 was supossed to end with the deaths, but gooooood it was getting too long so i had to totally readjust. so yeah, this one is short too. don't worry, I do have a cohesive plan and an arch, im not going into this blind.

*****************

You didn’t leave the room much anymore. You left to use the bathroom, but honestly sometimes Tommy nearly had to drag you. June had to beg you to eat, always trying to make your favorites and you felt bad knowing she was largely slipping into the position you had been last month and you didn’t want her to have to take on all that… but you didn’t have the energy to do anything. All your time was spent caring for Ellie: breastfeeding, diaper changing, holding her… all your energy went to raising her.

June and Joel were your only company. Tommy wasn’t allowed alone with you, understandable under the conditions, but you missed him terribly. You wanted to talk to him alone, talk about what happened, how he and you had sex, how you promised to love each other. You were going to run away together, Tommy raising Ellie as his… he was supposed to be her dad, not Joel.

You were just thankful Joel didn’t seem to have any doubts Ellie was his… if he thought she was Tommy’s baby, she’d be dead. Did Tommy miss his almost daughter? Joel, for his part, was enraptured with his daughter. He changed her, got out of bed when she cried, took her outside and made sure she got fresh air and sunshine… a doting father, the kind of man she would have happy with in another life; but this was not the Joel that raised Sarah. 

Joel always dressed Ellie the way always dressed you… he didn’t dress you anymore, because you rarely changed. You didn’t move from the bed hardly at all, so there was no real need. In the month since her birth, you had yet to go outside and had no desire to change that. As the sun began to shine on your face, waking you, you felt you jaw hurting from the blowjob you gave Joel last night… he’d remained away from your vagina and allowed it to heal which you were thankful for, but the sex options were depending on his mood. Good days he fucked your thighs or allowed you to jerk him off. Bad days he used your asshole, although he’d managed to find an old stash of vaseline he was using as lube which eased things. 

Last night had been medium, so he let you blow him, even letting you take control… you were thankful for the little things.

“Morn’n to my beautiful girls.” Joel yawned out as he stretched.

“Good morning.”

He side eyed you for a moment, and you tried your best to smile… you couldn’t let him know how badly your families death affected you, how much you missed them all… With a kiss, he set about his morning routine: Change Ellie, give her to you to feed, burp her, go for a walk with her, bring her back and get ready to ‘work’ as he called it. If he felt he had some time, he’d lay a blanket on the floor and let her have ‘tummy time’ or letting her feel different objects or encouraging her wiggling. He’d proudly told you last week he thinks she’ll be rolling over early.

‘She’s strong.’ Joel assured you. “Dolly’s gonna grow up to be strong young woman.” Since when did Joel like his women strong? You wondered if he’d change his tune when she actually became her own person, when she questioned Joel and the world around her as all children do. Ellie was small of course given being premature but had been growing healthy. With lack of medical technology it may be hard to tell if she had issues such as hearing, sight, or heart problems, but Joel seemed thrilled with her progress. In these moments, he seemed like a normal dad. 

So why didn’t you feel like a mom?

You loved you daughter. Of course you loved your daughter, it was almost impossible not to, not when there was a primal, biological tie… And it’s not like you didn’t like her either. Ellie was a good baby. Sometimes she had trouble sleeping, but so did you. No, the problem was with you. Always you. Joel had been right, Ellie deserved a good mom and no matter what, you couldn’t rise to that, you couldn’t match Joel’s parenting, you couldn’t be the mom she needed… When you looked at her… all you felt was guilt.

She liked Joel more, that was clear… Tommy tried to tell you that was normal, that kids go through phases and it didn’t mean she hated you… but you had your doubts. As you watched Joel change her, speaking to her so happily as you heard the household begin to wake up… you couldn’t help but feel their bond was stronger… Ellie liked her more… and that was only ever going to continue. By the time she’s a preteen she’d going to hate you, she’d going to realize you’re a bad mom, she’s going to realize you were weak and pathetic and a cheater and stupid just like Joel said you were.

“Oh little one…” Joel’s voice called you and you turn to see Joel finishing up dressing Ellie in a warm onesie for their walk. It was getting colder. “Honey, why are you crying?”

You were crying? Your hand lifted to feel the tears… yeah, you were. “I didn’t… I didn’t realize I was, I’m so sorry.” You tried to act like everything was fine, please don’t get made, please don’t hurt me…

But as Joel brought over a fussy Ellie for you to feed, he wrapped his arm around you, looking sympathetic. “You’re having a hard time, aren’t you?”

An understatement, but yes. “Maybe… maybe just a little.”

He sighed, massaging your neck and god, that felt nice. “How about you come with us on our morning walk, might make you feel better?”

That sounded exhausting. “No, I think I’ll just-”

“I think you should come.” He wasn’t asking. 

When Ellie was finished, burped her and put her in her swing before giving it a little push and walking to the wardrobe. “So many nice clothes…” It’s almost as if he was reminding you of what you had. Eventually he settles on a sweater dress with wool stocking… the dress was your favorite color.

“You always look so beautiful in this one.” He praised, off your shirt. “Fuck…” Joel groped at your breasts and for a moment you thought he wanted to fuck you… but he simply sighed. “I can’t wait to make love to you for real again, show you the love you deserve.”

Joel assisted you in dressing from sliding on the bra that didn’t quit fit right with the changes your body had made since breastfeeding, to rolling up the stockings, to kneeling before you and tying your shoes. It made you feel like before, made you feel taken care of… childish, but in the sense that you don’t have to worry about anything, that everything would be handled for you… you had missed this. 

He helped you get into a light jacket, dressed himself, then picked up Ellie and placed her in her pram that you kept in the room. Joel was very particular with Ellie’s things. They stayed in the room so no one could harm her by messing with them.

When he opened the door, the view to the kitchen surprised you. June was cooking breakfast and Tommy was standing nearby… very nearby. He was talking to her and she was laughing at whatever he said and you couldn’t help the jealousy inside you. He was supposed to be yours… Now June was his wife, and it appeared like neither were too upset about it. Could you blame him? She was beautiful, she was soft, she was funny and adventurous… all you did was lay in bed and mope. June was making the most of her situation, why couldn’t you do the same? Joel took care of you, provided, protected… all the things a man should do for his wife. You were a bad wife. Ungrateful, spoiled, useless. You were a bad mom.

June called your name, smiling nervously at you. She didn’t interact much with Joel from what you say, but she tended to mumble things under her breath which always caused Joel to double take… but she was always by Tommy’s side when she did. Would Tommy protect her? Still, your friend smiled brightly at you while Tommy looked caught. “You’re up!” She didn’t mean it like that, but it felt like a slap in the face. You hadn’t moved for a month.

Joel spoke for you when you merely nodded. “We’re going for a walk today.” He said with the arm that wasn’t on Ellie’s pram around your waste. “Would you like to join us?” You didn’t doubt the offer was genuine; Joel wanted the 5 of you to be a happy family together.

Tommy looked to June. “Would you like to go?”

You could see the back of June’s head nod towards their room. “We’re in the middle of breakfast.” She turned around to look at you. “Can we go tomorrow? We’ll plan the day a little better, this was just last minute idea of ours.” June smiled up at Tommy.

“Tomorrow it is then.” Joel confirmed, and ushered you outside, picking the pram up to carrying it down the porch stairs.

You thought of that day a whole year ago, even longer actually… the night after Joel branded you, violently and public raped you, leaving you to be devoured by a pack of wolves… he had taken you outside to watch the sunshine, bundled up in his arms… warm, somehow so safe… he’d been different, after that. With the exceptions of choking you and the incident with Tommy and the gun, he didn’t hurt you until the night he hung you. Were you really playing off choking you so hard you saw spots and putting a gun to your head a one off’s? What had happened to you? You supposed you never knew much better with your father… but you should have. Maybe Joel was right, maybe you were stupid after all. Just a stupid bimbo housewife that was only good for being his breeding bitch. 

“I have a… a meeting, today around noon but I’m gonna cancel everything else. Taking the rest of the day off to be with you and Dolly, okay?”

“Okay… yeah that sounds. Nice, actually.” And you were being genuine. It wasn’t Joel you were scared of… it was the crushing weight of being a failure as a mom, a wife, a sister, a friend, a daughter… Did your dad ever think of you? Because you sure think of him, especially when you wake up from the nightmares.

You can see Joel smiling from the corner of your eyes. “Maybe you can start joining us on these walks? Quality time as a family is so important.”

It’s also important for the child's mother to be able to take a piss without an escort… but that's neither here nor there.

Joel seemed to read your mind. “Maybe… maybe it’s time you have a little freedom… you’ve been good. Last month was just a lapse of judgment, right? We both made mistakes. There's no reason I should punish you forever.” Except you murdered my brother.

You wouldn’t know what do with that freedom. You didn’t want to go anywhere, do anything… You didn’t even really want to live… but you couldn’t leave Ellie. You’d failed her in every way but you could keep her fed… the nutrition from your body at least was enough to help her grow, so you weren’t completely fucking useless.

“Here” Joel stopped the pram and dug in his pocket, pulling out a jackknife… the one used to kill Nick, the one you stabbed him with… He pressed it into your palm. “Stay in the yard, keep this on you… but you can leave without me or Tommy, okay? When the wether warms I can build you that greenhouse you wanted…” Joel took your hands in his, touching foreheads. “I already started radio chains to trade for seeds you want… whatever you want to grow on the farm, the greenhouse, any livestock, pet… it’s yours.I want this to be your home, little one. I want us all to be a family. That’s why I spared Tommy, you know that, right? I know how much you care about him… and June, I bought her for you… everything had been for you, for Dolly… so we can all be happy together.”

Did he love you? He had to, right? He did it all for you… for your family… he loved you… Why did you run? Why did you mess up what you had? The home you made here…

No.

No, Joel hung you from a tree. He punched you repeatedly in the chest so hard you bruises for weeks. He raped you. That’s how this all started, Joel raped you. He called Ellie Sarah sometimes, he was delusional, cruel, a bully…

But then why was he so good sometimes?

Everything hurt, everything was foggy… but the walk did feel nice.

When Joel noticed you were tired, he ushered you back to the house, weak from birth and the lack of movement… but your heart rate had gone up, you felt the sun on your skin and fresh air… maybe this could be a new start? You had freedom now. June made the best of her situation, maybe you could too. You had her now, after all… 

Joel and you played with Ellie for a while, and for once you actually felt engaged in your daughter. She was strong… already wiggling and looking like she was trying to roll over. You notice how she tries to keep her eyes open, taking in the world around her… curious, beautiful little thing… 

You made that. She was half you… if she was half you and 100% perfect, there had to be some good in you, right?

Joel left for his “meeting” (probably murder, but he liked to talk like he was a businessman from before), June and Tommy entered to keep you company. You missed Tommy, you missed Tommy so fucking much… Tommy was supposed to be her dad, would he have been as attentive as Joel? Joel had said he was a good uncle, that him and Sarah were close. Did he think of Ellie as his daughter? Did he long for her? After promising to raise her, after loving you… fighting for you both, he had to feel some sort of personal connection, right?

You look at the man you thought, for a few brief hours would be your husband… your savior… “Tommy?” You say, hopeful. “Would you like to hold her?”

Tommy looked at Ellie for a long, long time. For a moment, half a second, he reached for her, then turned on his heel muttering something about having to insulate the chicken coop before the first big freeze.

You were gutted. 

June swooped in at that, quickly coming to grab Ellie and take her to her crib. 

“Let’s take a nap, okay?”

“Y-yeah, okay.” You agreed shakily as you settled into bed… Tommy rejected Ellie. Tommy didn’t want Ellie. Tommy didn’t want you…

The whole time you thought Tommy was yours, he was seeing Maria and god knows who else on the side… then he ditched Maria for you and you thought that maybe, just maybe, he was yours… but Tommy didn’t want you anymore. Tommy didn’t want to be Ellie’s dad anymore. 

Tommy didn’t want to be a family anymore.

And with that realization, the tiny bit of self worth you’d gained was shattered.

“I missed you, you know.” June said as she wrapped her arms around you. You and her used to sleep like this sometimes at the farm she grew up on with you. Zach usually slept at the end of the bed… you all felt safer like that, even though when your dad wanted what he wanted from you and June, he usually got it. Sometimes, though, Zach was too much to deal with. Sometimes he put up enough of a fight Jaimie backed off. That fight got him killed. You got him killed. You got Lorenzo killed, Jack, Maura… and if you weren’t careful you’d get June killed too.

“I know, I missed you too.”

“I worried constantly… I wanted to do something but… it was like at the farm, you just get lost in the helplessness.”

“I know.” God, did you know. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to do anything, you would’ve gotten yourself killed. I’m not worth it.”

June sat up, saying your name with shock. “How can you say that? Sweetheart, look at me.” June coaxed your face to look at her. “You are worthy of protection, okay? You deserve to be safe.”

You didn’t know if you believed her, but you believed she believed it, and that was enough for the time being.

**********************

Tommy tommy tommy.... what are we going to do with you?

I swear, little one finds her voice the next chapter!

For the record, i stand by tommy in the alt ending being a loving father, husband, and friend. in this ending he's just... well we'll see. It's nothing crazy bad but yeah.

@pimosworld @rubyfruitjungle @moriartyyouwhore @k-ra @the-fox-den @jenna-ortega @alwaysmicado @lunar-ghoulie @ladynightingale @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @maura-honey @fandxmslxt69 @my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @miraclesabound

#Joel Miller #Joel Miller smut #tw rape #dub con #non con #dark joel miller #romana after dark #dark!Joel #the last of us hbo #joel miller fic #joel miller reader #joel miller reade smut #dark joel miller reader #tommy miller fem reader #tommy miller smut #tommy miller fem!reader #the wrong way fic #the wrong way series #tommy miller

[latibvles]

SAD, BEAUTIFUL, TRAGIC.

beautiful, tragic // lean on me.

these walls are my skin. this room is my heart. besides, i have a sister brother.

masterlist | gallery | taglist

TAGLIST: @liebgotts-lovergirl , @softguarnere , @brassknucklespeirs , @monalisastwin , @mads-weasley , @eugene-emt-roe , @mads-weasley

SUMMARY: The Company passes over the Rhine

WARNINGS: The events of episode nine, none of the Camps are depicted — there’s a much more lengthy note in e end notes on AO3.

Spring is in full bloom by the time they cross over the Rhine.

She and Ginny exchange a smile, a small, wavering thing, because Daisy’s stomach still churns all the same in this new place. It’s not Berlin, but it’s still Germany. Germany, which the men were fantasizing about marching into since last June. Whenever Daisy thought about it, she imagined the smell of gunpowder and bodies lining the riverbeds, more land scarred by foxholes and tanks, grass stained with spilled blood. She imagined a permanent ringing in her ears from the artillery fire.

The sky is brilliantly blue, the grass is green, and the only sound breaking through the quiet is that of the trucks rumbling down the road and the men talking about one thing or another.

It looks normal, and Daisy feels a little silly for imagining anything otherwise.

The fact that she has the time to mull over any of it feels misplaced. Like she’s doing something inherently wrong. Every time they entered a new place she was ready to leap off the truck to the first wounded man, and be put to work.

“What’d you think you’re gonna do when all of this is over?”

The question takes her by surprise, she lets her gaze drift back over to Ginny, whose eyes are on the jeep ahead of theirs with more officers.

When it’s over. Inevitably, talks about future plans were springing up all over the place. Word spread fast about Captain Nixon’s divorce. Eugene admitted he’d never actually been able to have his wedding over breakfast, that it was the first thing he would do when the war ended. Daisy looks over the side at signs in a language she still can’t read.

“Rita wants to go home with me, there’s an apartment I wanna get — if it’s still there,” she explains. “I… don’t know what, after that. What about you?”

There’s a pause, like Ginny’s mulling it over.

“Honestly? Haven’t given it much thought.” She starts out, but there’s a level of calmness to the way she says it. “I’ll go home, obviously, but I threw a wrench in all my parents’ plans when I left. Should probably check the collateral on that.”

What surprises Daisy isn’t Ginny’s honesty, but more so the casual way that she says it. Like she’s not afraid of going home to something unknown. As usual, Daisy finds herself caught in the middle of envy and admiration when it comes to how Ginny handles things. And it serves as an acute reminder that she’s staring a whole lot of uncertainty square in the face. Which is to say a lot beyond the most obvious, which Ron told her not to focus on, and he had some sixth sense which granted him that ability to know when she was thinking about it.

He’d pinched her side the other day, sharp and subtle. She nearly jumped three feet in the air. He just gave her a look, like he knew she was getting in her head again. Which she was, but that was neither here nor there.

“I wanna keep doing this.” Daisy admits, looking at her hands. Ginny shifts her attention fully to her, she can feel her stare.

“What, like staying in the Army?” Daisy shakes her head.

“No uh… helping people. I don’t think I have it in me to be in a big hospital though, something smaller,” A private practice, maybe. Somewhere she’s less likely to encounter a blown limb. “I don’t wanna let what I’m good at go to waste.” I don’t want to waste away is what she doesn’t say, but she’s thought about it more than she wants to admit.

If Ginny understands what Daisy’s trying to say, she doesn’t give any indication to how she feels about it.

Never in her life did she imagine a point in the war where she’d be more worried about stretching her legs, but when they pull into the town, it’s the first thing on her mind — letting out a prolonged groan as she stretches out her legs, her back. The chuckle behind her has her rolling her eyes with lingering affection, and she turns her head to see Joe staring at the area around them.

“They’ve got real fuckin’ houses,” he points out, surprised, with that simmering irritation beneath his words.

He had a right to be pissed about it. As did she and every other person occupying the streets right now, being stared at — their war looked like bombed out buildings, rationing, gunfire ringing in their ears and the ever-present threat of a German advance springing them into action again. Even London was scarred by all the air raids over the past four years. How many people had been forced from their homes in Eindhoven and Bastogne?

What do the people here get? Trucks rumbling through their streets and the off-chance that they’re booted from their home for a night.

She doesn’t know what it says about her that she doesn’t feel bad for their circumstances. There’s too much on her mind for her to care about that sort of thing.

“Bet they’ve got lights that work too,” she points out, taking those few steps back to bump his arm with her own, “Indoor plumbing. Better beds.” She casts a look down towards the other officers, makes a mental note to move down there and seeing what’s what — how long they’d be here and what the situation was looking like.

Joe’s lip curls in a way that reminds her of Bastogne, more teeth than smile, something sharp and red-hot burning behind the eyes.

“S’gonna be good times ahead of us, Dais,” he declares, shaking a cigarette from the pack and bringing it to his lips. She can’t help but wonder if he’s saying it moreso to convince himself, than her of that fact.

Dick doesn’t think they’ll be in this town for more than a night, so they don’t completely unload like they had in the previous town. They’d taken hold of the local clinic, its staff mouthing off in puzzled, rapid-fire German and Private Webster playing translator for the whole of the interaction. Like most of them, it involved a lot of shouting, voices overlapping and overpowering one another.

They had five minutes to clear out, and thereafter the place went quiet, the majority of the other combat nurses scattering across town to their respective platoons in their respective companies.

She stares up at the one bookshelf built into the wall. Unsurprisingly, all of the titles were in German, so nothing for her to pluck from the shelves.

A vase of bright yellow daisies sat by the windowsill, catching the sunlight shining through the windows. They made sure the doctor here left the key for the pharmacy in the back behind.

In Haguenau, finding a box of tea felt like striking gold. In Mourmelon, nothing was growing. Here, they actually have a pharmacy.

The door opens with a ringing of the bell — so normal it makes her stomach lurch — and she turns her head. Ron doesn’t seem to notice her at first, with his gaze flitting about the room and for a moment Daisy can’t help but snicker.

“No trinkets here,” she points out, and his gaze snaps to her as though she might’ve actually startled him. “I don’t think your mother needs any more ornate candle holders anyway,” He takes those few steps forward, slight twitch to the corner of his mouth and eyes rolling at her remark. “How’s Janovec? Still ducking out of your sight?” Ron waves his hand dismissively.

“He’ll be fine.”

“Ah, but that’s not what I asked, is it?” Amusement lingers behind his stony gaze and she can’t help but roll her eyes with affection. Ridiculous. That’s what he is. There’s no other way to describe how much he got a kick out of watching replacements squirm at the sight of him. Ridiculous like the antics of a teenage boy telling someone a scary story.

He shrugs, nonplussed, but when he’s about to speak again the door slams open. Daisy snaps her gaze to a panting, red-faced Perconte.

“Major… Major Winters needs you at the front, sir.”

They share a look, and a nod, and then he’s off.

Spring was in full bloom over the Rhine. It didn’t look like that in the camps. A whole week and a few days later the smell of it still lingers in her nose. She doesn’t get how anyone could’ve missed it, which seems to be the collective question. How didn’t you know? It only took the patrol a few hours to come across it, after all. There’s a women’s camp down the road — a trembling voice and a hard swallow.

She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t think there was anything she could say.

She didn’t see Joe much in the days that followed, preoccupied with helping where she could until the Hospital unit could be pulled up. She could really only imagine how he was taking it. They moved again before she could catch him.

Washing her hands didn’t do much when the discomfort was embedded beneath her skin.

She simply knew she had to see Joe. To be there, in some way. That’s what a friend would do, and he’d been there for her when he couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was going through, how she was feeling.

She gathers from a handful of people that he’s on watch — which was more like her inquiring to a handful of men she immediately clocked as replacements saying it so flippantly that it rubs her the wrong way. She can only assume that they haven’t seen it, because they seemed especially pissed over his “bad mood.” And if she weren’t so occupied with actually seeing him — she would’ve given them the verbal lashing herself. But Daisy didn’t care about them. She cares about Joe.

Joe, who, when she finds him, is just where they said he’d be: on lookout, sidled up at the outpost of sandbags and staring down the sights of the machine gun all alone. Daisy doesn’t announce herself, but she does lift her hand to let him know she’s there. She doesn’t miss the way he glances at her through his peripheral vision, which is more like an irritated side eye than it is neutral acknowledgement.

“Save the sage advice, Dais, I don’t wanna fuckin’ hear it.” His words are sharp, he barely gives her a second glance. She instead slips into the post silently, and that’s when he gives her a side glance and a weird look.

“Alright,” she agrees, but her acknowledgement doesn’t bring him any solace — because he continues.

“M’not gonna fucking calm down.”

“That’s fine.”

“And I don’t give a shit if that bothers you.”

“That’s fine.” Joe turns his head, giving her a narrow-eyed look. Daisy sits down, slumping against the wall, looking right back at him. His eyes look her up, and down, then up again — like he’s only just now realizing she really isn’t there to put a leash on him.

“Th’hell do you want, then?”

“I didn’t want you to be alone,” she states plainly, offering little more than a shrug as he looks down the sights of the machine gun. “Besides, it’s been quiet.”

Quiet. The word hangs heavy in the air, Joe doesn’t give her some dry remark or otherwise indicates that he doesn’t want her around. If he told her to fuck off, she’d do that — if he told her to stay, then she’d do that. But she wouldn’t get cross with him for being upset.

She couldn’t even imagine what this was all like for him, so who was she to tell him how to feel?

They’re quiet for a solid five minutes, broken up only by the occasional breeze.

“I had to tell them all to go back in there,” Joe says. Daisy looks at him, saying nothing. “At the men’s camp. Major Winters made me do it.” Silence again, Daisy pulls her knees into her chest.

“That’s fucked up,” is what she offers, continuing to look at him. His grip tightens.

“Think so?” he grunts out, clearly being rhetorical. “Nothin’ about it being necessary or some bullshit words of wisdom like that?”

“I already told you that’s not why I’m here, so no,” Daisy reminds him. Joe’s exhale is sharp as he lets go of his grip, shifts in his spot until he’s sat beside her, legs outstretched, thigh against her foot and head resting against the wall of sandbags behind them. His eyes shut in time with the clench of his jaw.

“I am so fucking tired of being told to calm down,” he seethes, “Glad a week’s enough time to get the fuck over it for the rest of ‘em. What kind of shit is that?” He keeps going, his words like water built up behind a cracking dam finally able to flood a riverbank. It all comes out and even when he pauses every now and again, Daisy says nothing.

She’ll dig along the bank to accommodate, but she won’t tell him to reel it in.

Joe’s always known exactly how he feels about things — found a way to phrase it even if it wasn’t the most eloquent thing in the world. It didn’t have to be eloquent. He didn’t owe anybody that. He’s mad and people are telling him to calm down because… they made the citizens clean up and they enacted martial law. Done, signed, sealed, delivered; and maybe for some that was enough, but no one gets to tell Joe when he has to get over it.

And if she feels helpless, with hands that were trained to help in a situation like this, she can only imagine how he’s feeling.

His eyes are glassy, and he’s stumbling over his words a little more, but Daisy still doesn’t speak, lending him her ear and a little more than that.

Her hand goes to his back, fingers splaying out between the middle of his shoulder blades before sliding around him — and she brings him toward her, until his head is in the space between her neck and shoulder and his lashes brush against her skin. This is what I’m here for, her thumb rubs a circle into his shoulder. She doesn’t say anything when his shoulders begin to shake, a tremor that wracks his body. She just holds him tighter. Even if we can’t do anything else — we can do this.

When his nails dig into her a little too hard, she doesn’t flinch away. He cries and leans half his weight on her and Daisy does her damndest to hold herself up and keep him close, eyes shutting as she envelopes him as much as she can.

She’ll hold him until he doesn’t need it anymore and if that moment never comes — that’s okay too.

#fic // sad beautiful tragic #ronald speirs x oc #ronald speirs x ofc #band of brothers oc #band of brothers fic #hbo war fic #hbo war oc #hbo war ofc

[thathartleykat]

A very lengthy letter before the series' departure.

Hey, everyone, Hartley here.

By June of 2023, it would be my 4th year in the Hilda community, and i'm still in disbelief that i've been active in the community for this long, as well as the animated series is coming to an end tomorrow.

I have been wanting to post this since then, but i've been extremely busy in my life, as well as my personal computer was broken for almost an entire year - hence why my activity in the community also got died down a little bit.

I have a lot of things to say to everyone, from people in the community to the people who worked on the show, as well as the past, present and future, so for the convenience of your reading, i'll divide what i want to say into chapters.

I. About me & how i got into the show ( Trigger warning: Deaths ) I've rarely talked about this to anyone, but... I live by myself, and there's a good chance i might not be around for much longer. It's sort of the reason why i got into Hilda from the first place.

I first found out about Hilda in October 2018 when i was browsing on Tumblr, but never really watched it until May 2019, when a friend of mine gave me a month free subscription of Netflix. I started to go down the list of things i wanted to watch on the platform, and when it came to Hilda, i never thought i would get fixated on the show. Well, guess where we're at now?

I was stunned by the show's colorful vibes, amazing plot writing and how the show built the characters and mythologies, especially how they portrayed the mentality of the children in the show when the kids interact with each other or with adults.

The one thing that i also extremely adore in the show is the relationship between Hilda and Johanna... because it deeply reminds me of my parents when they were still alive. I had a similar life and relationship with them. Every time i see Hilda and her mum together, it always makes me remember about my former childhood life, how kind my parents were to me, and how i wanted to be the adventurous kid that never disappoints them.

I had a pretty good life until my parents got cancer when i was 11 years old - the same age with Hilda in first & possibly second season. Things got worse since then, and they passed away a few years after that.

Now i'm pretty much alone, with a good chance that i might follow them, so if i ever just disappear without telling anything, well... at least i had a good run, i never thought i'd make it this far anyway.

The show had made a significant change on my life, as well as some of my future decisions and helped me through hard times.

It would be an understatement to say this series meant a lot for me.

Because of this, and the feeling of the show doesn't get enough attention that it deserves, i've been dedicating myself for the last few years to help the show and its community thrive.

II. About the animated series Sometimes, i feel really sad that they couldn't have done more for it. - As someone who lives in Vietnam, it's really sad to see the show lacks Vietnamese subtitles and audio language - despite there being a huge number of Netflix users in the country. Due to this, the series basically got hidden from anyone who's watching with their Netflix's interface language set to Vietnamese, which makes the show really hard to be recommended to anyone here. At the same time, many other animated series on the platform have either or both of those. - A lot of merchandise of the franchise has either never saw the day or short-lived. Hilda's GUND plushies only lived for 1.5 years, and by my count, there were 3 Hilda board games that got reported to the news, but never got released. - Hilda video games. The only official Hilda game we ever got was Hilda Creatures, and sadly, the company that made the game went defunct in April 2022, dragging Hilda Creatures along with it. - Netflix. Batch releasing the show and giving it the bare minimum marketing. The same thing happened with Jojo and we all know what happened to its hype. - The mishandling of social media pages, which led to Hilda's Facebook page got hacked for an entire month during May 2023, as well as a lack of interaction posts after season 1 to keep the community up.

I really wish the show got better treatment in a lot of stuff, but at the same time, i'm grateful for the crew's work to get the series this far. One of the directors at one point confirmed that the show got pitched to various networks like Cartoon Network, Disney, Children BBC, Nick... and no one accepted the show until Netflix came along. If Netflix never took the show in, or if it was another network that got it ( which i suspect it'd change the direction of the show by a lot ), where would we be now...?

Though the show will definitely not be reminded by Netflix every now and then as other networks do, but at least it is going out with a bang. Really wish the show would become a sleeper hit at some point in the future.

III. About the community Genuinely, it's one of the most amazing communities i've ever been in. People who are younger, same age, or even parents who are much older than me... I had amazing experiences with all of them. I've made many friends from here, which sometimes makes me wish our community would stay the same like this forever after the series ends.

Honestly, i don't know what else i could say about everyone, other than thanking you guys for making my days within the community, as well as your efforts in making it an amazing place for me and everyone else to stay in.

IV. About the future Well, i've been thinking about it quite a lot.

After the animated series ends, i'll try my best to continue sticking around in the community and do a lot more stuff for it. The franchise will still seem to continue for at least some more time, with the upcoming release of the new prequel Hilda comic series, "Hilda and Twig".

I'd be selfish for saying this, but if the current state of animations improves in the future... I'd want to see Hilda's world return as animation at some point - either following the same blue-haired girl that we all know and love, or just a spin-off from an entirely different character. It's hard to imagine how the worldbuilding we've seen in the last 12 years, where "there's so much we've never seen, so much we don't know" and "there's mystery everywhere you look" would potentially disappear after this... I really hope i would see it again, as well as be around long enough to see it.

As of now, this chapter is about to come to an end. So before it does, i want to say thanks to everyone who has been involved in this show.

Thank you Luke Pearson, the people who made Hilda the series possible, and especially - you. Whether you worked on it or are just simply a fan of the show, you have my sincere gratitude for all the great things that happened to the series in the last 4 years.

This is Hartley, and i hope everyone enjoys Season 3.

#hilda #hilda the series #hilda netflix #cartoon #netflix #hilda comic #comic #animation

[rainchyna]

𓆩♡𓆪 episode nine: THE HEARTBREAK KID’S PLAN

i’m sorry for making y’all wait long for this garbage.

7:42 am, training.

you never understood why Summer Slam was held in August, August was the beginning of fall. why call it the biggest party of the summer when people are just beginning to over feed their turkeys?

Vince is a creative genius! they say, but June is the epitome of summer, why not do it then? you ask, shut up they reply. who are they? the little voices that cause your daily brain rot known as the WWF creative.

maybe the little voice in your head wasn’t the WWF creative, maybe it was Bret Hart, because it sure does sound like he’s talking to you. wait a minute…

“y/n! get up, what the hell are you doing?”. Bret wasn’t the only person in the ring with you, Owen was running all the ropes over you and you just laid there. you groan out loud and the brothers look at you. “you alright, bud?” Owen asked, “nah man!” you sit up. “what is it?” Bret sits next to you.

“Shawn Michaels!” you exclaim, Bret chuckles, “tell me about it”. you shake your head as it falls to your palm, “no, you don’t get it. we’ve been mostly hostile for the past two weeks, but apparently Shawn and peace don’t come together!” you explain.

“wait” Owen says as he sits on your other side, “what did he do?”

“I was going to the cafeteria earlier, to get coffee and what not, tell me why a staff member pulls me to the side taking ‘bout “oh Shawn’s been trying to get creative to change up the storyline of the y/n-Taker angle”” you say.

“what?” Bret asks and Owen frowns, “what does he gain from that?” he asks. you aggressively shrug before flopping back down, you were both pissed and confused.

why the hell would he be trying to do that? what was the reason? was it something you did? does he just not like you anymore? does he want out of it? because you sure as hell can replace him, and he’s not even on your team!

“you should talk to him” Bret said, you look at him. “and who the hell is he for me to talk to him? I’ll just go directly to Vince” you said. “matter of fact, I’ll go to him right now!”

it wasn’t that long after and you were already knocking on Vince’s door. “oh, y/n, well you’re here early” he smiles as you enter. “drop the fake nice act, you know why I’m here” you say and his face drops as he looks at the paperwork in front of him.

you sit on a chair in front of him and the place your championship on the chair next to you. “whatever it is that that boy Michaels is trying to do better stop immediately.” you begin.

“I don’t know what the hell is going through his head, but if tries fucking with my story, if he tries fucking with my money, he won’t be as pretty as he is right now”.

Vince was nervous, certainly not because he was scared of you or… anything.. but he already okayed Shawn’s idea. they talked about it over the phone yesterday and he thought it was brilliant, excellent even. however, your contact does end by the time it should be executed because it’ll happen on the last bit of your feud with Taker.

and if this is how you’re reacting to just the thought of the idea, you will one hundred percentage not resign if you find out about it.

and what’s he going to do? find another fresh face that the fans will support and go with fully? the fact he was even able to sign you is insane and the amount of money you’ve made for the company since your debut is even crazier. Vince literally couldn’t risk it.

or could he?

“out of everyone you could take ideas from, his?! you took his?! seriously what were you thinking? and why did I have to find out through a staff member? you need to get your priorities straight and make some changes ‘round here”

Vince nods, “yes, Y/n, of course”

“and speaking of making some changes…” you cross your legs as you pull your championship on your lap. “it’s my turn to give you some ideas”

8:27 pm, y/n’s locker room.

“what the hell…” you mutter, who did this to your locker room?

there were five -or at least what you can count- large flower bouquets laid out on the floor, more than fifteen smaller bouquets on your couch and a singular red card on the table in the middle of the room.

from pink to red, yellow, white, and orange, big, medium and small. roses, lilies, tulips, some you couldn’t even names, the room smelled like a freshly watered garden, it was absolutely lovely.

well, this was something!

you were excited because what if someone backstage had a thing for you? trying to be cute with their confession? hmm… but what if it’s an obsessive stalker is trying to kill you? and this was their of expressing their love for you?

you cringe at your own thought before picked up the card from the table.

you’ll find your way to me, one way or another ♡

xoxo, your backstage admirer.

you read the message over and over again, each time it got more interesting, but what got you the most was the perfectly drawn heart at the end.

okay…

but now what?

the girls need to see this!

you grab one of the bouquets and the card in your hand and walk back out into the hallway, only to immediately bump into someone.

“sorry!” you didn’t even see who that was, “whatcha got there, pretty girl?”, of course it was Shawn. “what do you want? actually! do you know who put those here?” you ask.

you push the flowers to the side, Shawn shakes his head. “I‘be been wondering why my allergies have been triggered, I see why now” he says, you rolled your eyes. “I didn’t ask all that” you say, “do you or do you not know?” you ask.

Shawn huffs and he faints being hurt, placing a hand on his chest. “you’re so mean to me!” you begin walking away and towards the dressing room when he says.

“what if I do know him”, you can practically hear his smirk. “then tell me”, he shakes his head again, “be nice to me!” he demands. again with the be nice to me shit, you are nice to him! sometimes!

“i’ll find out myself!”

oh find out yourself, alright.

Shawn knew what he was doing, why would he tell you who it was? as far as he’s concerned he was a part of this little plan, and he benefited from it. you can try as hard as you wanted to but you were never going to find out.

you didn’t need him, but you wanted to know who that is so badly. little did you know, someone was watching your little interaction from afar.

“wait so who…?” Chyna asked, “I don’t know and it’s killing me!” you head falls to your palm, “it’s probably your man” Lita teases.

“huh?” you look up, she rolls her eyes, “don’t act all dumb now, you know we see you and Hunter” Lita wiggled her eyebrows. wait, she’s onto something..

you didn’t even consider Hunter as an option because the card said “secret”, maybe you do know the person! maybe it is Hunter!

but why write secret admirer? and what were the flowers for? you have so many questions.

“what is it with you and Hunter by the way?” Chyna smiles, “oh, for fuck’s sake” you mutter hiding a smile.

you don’t know what you and Hunter are.

you really like each other but no one is making the first move, you find yourself tangled in his bedsheets more often that you should, he catches himself staring at you longer than appropriate, it’s the little touches and the stolen kisses, nothing ever goes further, but deep down you both want them to.

“I don’t know” you mutter as you walk towards the door, “where are you going?” Lita asks, “I got some digging to do! and some questions that need answers..”

10:18 pm, Raw <Live> w/ Y/n Y/l/n and Mr. Perfect on commentary!

the match you wrestled tonight was a bit upsetting to you, you loved working with Luna! you absolutely did, but you had to squash her on tonight’s Raw per Vince’s request.

he wasn’t budging so you just did what you had to do, it was a quick match and the crowd was puzzled as to why it went by so fast but at least you showed up tonight.

the highlight of the match however, was you and Gorilla Monsoon showing off the new women’s championship design, which the crowd popped massively for.

this morning you showed Vince a sketch of what you thought would look cool on a belt, and he liked it enough to were he said that he knew a guy that knew a guy that get the belt fully designed by the end of the day.

and here it was, propped up in front of you at the commentary desk as you sat next to Jim Ross and Jerry Lawrer. the match you were watching was Marc Mero vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley for intercontinental championship, the match was supposed to be between Hunter and Mr. Perfect, but alas, a match was booked.

“I really feel bad about not being able to perform in front of all of these great fans” Mr. Perfect said, you laugh. “it’s not like you’d be able to win anyways” you snicker, “I see you’re Hunter’s team, Y/n” Jim says, you nod. “have you seen Hunter?” you ask. “I definitely see him and OH! Hunter with a suplex!”

you didn’t know what to expect from being commentary, it was weird watching from outside of the ring, but definitely an experience.

Hunter pushes the referee into the the ropes to stop Marc from hitting “the wild thing”, in Japan it’s called a shooting star press but apparently no one has done it here before which in itself was a wild thing.

“we’ll that wasn’t gentlemanly of him!” Mr. Perfect bellowed, “oh he’s is a gentleman alright!” you defend him. “oh yeah? what do you know about Hunter?” Mr. Perfect asked, “a lot! and none of it is of your business!”

“you listen here, little girl-”

“or what?”

the crowd pops as Marc launches himself at Hunter from the top rope, he gets up after a bit and they begin throwing each other around and Hunter pushes Marc on the referee, Mr. Perfect stands up and Jim warns him to not interfere.

“he won’t interfere” you say getting up, “but I will!”, you rush towards the ring and the audience cheers again, you make sure the referee stays down as Mr. Perfect also rushes to the ring, steel chair in hand.

he hands it to you.

you walk towards Hunter, but hit Marc with the chair making him drop to the mat. Mr. Perfect drags the referee towards Hunter who now covered Marc to count.

1,2,3!

the crowd pops and Hunter’s music plays, he’s the new champion. Mr. Perfect hands him the IC championship and hands you yours. Hunter hugs Mr. Perfect, they he hugs you tightly, then picks you up over his shoulder as you both raise your championships.

this one hundred percent will intensify your dating rumours.

shenanigans, but at least you participated.

you barely made it back to the locker room area before Hunter was spinning you around and about, kissing all over your face.

“i’m so proud of you!” you hold him close, “now we both have gold” he smiles, “thank you, angel”. you giggle, “you already thanked me, Hunter. you’ve done enough” you say.

“by the way, what’s with the flowers?”

#rainchyna #rainchyna’s sour grapes #sour grapes #wwe shawn michaels x reader #shawn michaels x reader #hbk x reader #wwe fics #wwe headcanon #wwe fanfiction #wwf fics #wwf headcanons #wwf fanfic #wwf fanfiction #wwe headcanons

[roo-bastmoon]

Roo is a bit of a party pooper here. (But Roo does not poop at parties.)

A GENTLE WORD OF CAUTION REGARDING STREAMS, ALBUMS, and SYMBOLS

First and foremost, streams are dropping like hell this weekend. So please run playlists on all possible devices (I'll put links at the bottom of this post). PLEASE DO NOT NEGLECT STREAMING as we are in the red.

Of course we need to focus on Angel right now. However, Like Crazy, Face, and Jimin himself are predicted to be nominated for song, best album, and artist of the year for MAMA. Actual trophy awards at a broadcast year-end award show! But the digital points are low for song and album, so we need to work on CONSISTENT global streaming for Jimin in addition to all our boys every single day!

Second, a Naver article stated that Jungkook's album will drop on July 14th. Another Naver article reported on that article, and then a bunch did. We've been here before, where the media ran with a bit of gossip and then got clowned later.

What the company SAID was:

“The schedule is yet to be finalized, and is to be announced subsequently.”

Now, JJK1 could very well drop in five weeks. But I've heard no chatter anywhere about final touches on post-production, album design, distribution plans, or promotional schedules... they don't just put the songs in a can and then press a button and it's out in the world.

Plus, a year ago, there was a strategic plan shared with investors that mentioned Q4 for him (though that was more of a road map than a firm commitment).

JK did say during last year's Festa that he'd go after Yoongi. So maybe it will happen as soon as July? That would be wonderful, because it seems like Jimin still has music to release, so maybe they can be supportive of each other's projects this summer and fall, before enlisting (hopefully at the same time!).

But I hope JJK1 doesn't go up against the Barbie soundtrack on July 21st because that has so many heavy hitters, my lord, we never catch a break!!

I will just say that JJK1 is one of the most anticipated global releases of the year. It will require a lot of logistics and likely heavy in-person promotion. So I just want to caution folks in getting too emotionally invested about a mid-July date.

It could be. It could not be. Best to wait for an official announcement, which will likely come at least 3 weeks before drop. So let's keep our ears perked after Yoongi's last concert on June 25th...

Third, some folks are reading into a lot of symbols these days. Which is fine! But I'd like to ask that we just be careful with it.

Personally, I only subscribe to a number theory if the timestamp or the numbers that the members write/say are in exact order and we can draw a straight line between that and a known special date. I do not use addition, subtraction, division, or re-ordering of numerals to get to a desired outcome. I don't know K-ARMY who do that either. But I'm not out to crap all over people who do!! It's fun to theorize!

For me, it's fun to look at number stuff the same way it's fun to read tarot cards. We tinker, we point out possible coincidences or patterns... Just please, I gently ask you to keep to theory and not fact. The last thing we want is for someone to cherrypick a screenshot and drag things out of context.

Speaking of symbols and theories becoming fanon facts...

Jimin posted old photos of him looking ADORBS with a tangerine today (which Tae helpfully commented to make sure we'd all understand it was a tangerine, lol). So Yoominners rejoice:

While Jimin's social media DOES feature plenty of Yoongi (D-Day, Suchwita, possibly photos where Yoongi's shoes appear in a mirror) and TikTok dances, plus he did come on live (FROM HIS HOME!!) on Yoongi's birthday... Jimin's social media also has Hobi, Jin, Joon, and Tae on it! But predominantly it's Yoongi who shows up on Jimin's Insta. We haven't had any Jungkook on his Insta since White Day of last year--interactions with Jungkook seem reserved for WeVerse lives and posts.

Make of it what you will.

To my mind, it does seem like certain "soft" subunits were paired up since Festa of last year. (Hobi spread love to everyone, then there was Namjin's DeliciouSeoul commercials, Yoonmin's Busan [??] tourism commercial, Taekook as yet to be determined but it feels like it's coming...) So the lines between work posts and relationship posts also begin to blur a bit for fans, especially since the members all adore each other anyway...

Whether there was a strategic plan in place or not for how what I perceive as soft subunits promote, I don't know.

But meanwhile, certain other "promotions" seem to organically play out: JK sings all his members' new feature songs, but hypes Jimin's the most (on random lives he does without permission). JK came on live often, but a pattern is emerging where that typically happens when Jimin is away or busy. JK hangs out with Tae and went to the Harry concert with other members, but calls for Jimin to join him most often.

Again, it's fun to speculate what this might mean.

Meanwhile, today Joon posted a gym whiteboard workout in which the initials JK and JM appear, and so folks assume minimonikook are getting swole together. I like the mental image, not gonna lie.

And hey y'all! Maybe Jimin is summoning Min Yoongi with a tangerine. Maybe Jikook did hit the gym with Joon and draw on his whiteboard. Maybe Tae did grab a bite with JK in the one day before he dyed his hair and allegedly went to Spain to film a music video. It's fun to speculate. It's what fans do.

I just want to caution folks from stating things the members do or feel as if they know for sure.

Those are cult tactics and, for me at least, the lines are starting to blur a little bit these days between Jikookers and Taekookers... in that folks are more than happy to assume that secret private couple getaway trips are pure fact, that words mumbled off screen say exactly what we want to hear, that the company has a clear-cut nefarious plot to hype specific members and bury others... and that there are hints of Signs and Wonders everywhere.

And maybe these things are shaking out and really happening. But we don't know. So I feel more comfy discussing this sort of thing when people include "I think" or "it seems" or "maybe" as we talk about it--I like to have a little wiggle room--because when I see my fellow Jikookers start to "witness truth," it comes off far more like a religion than a supportive fanbase.

I say this gently because at some point we've all done it, especially when we are in a hurry and speaking casually or joking around. I'm not judging, just cautioning.

Words matter. Believe me, I learned my lesson, and words matter.

And when it comes to Jikook, we don't really need to grasp at straws. While our boys are a lot more private these days, they still have exclusive, intimate tones and touches and interactions that we glimpse.

And the circle around them still heavily imply they come as a package deal. For example...

Fourth and finally, we got this awesome interview with Polyc, who had some wonderful things to say about Jimin and the members:

And it was sort of implied that Jimin spoke many times with Polyc about the membership tattoo over the five months that JK was getting his arm retouched--maybe while they were in the shop together? Maybe while his moon tattoos were getting done? Or maybe not.

But Polyc basically said Jimin was the one to usher each member through the process. (Which is a bit of a different impression than I got last Festa when Tae said "I will go with Jungkookie!" because back then it implied it was JK who acted as the conduit between the members and his tattoo artist, but here's some strong evidence that it was Jimin all along who bounced around ideas and made it happen and comforted each member's anxiety. Interesting.)

It's almost as though Jimin and Jungkook are the soft subunit that never gets official promo but keeps bubbling up everywhere.

Okay so that was my long-winded way of pooping on the party just a little, but hopefully not enough to dampen anyone's spirits!! No one is doing fandom "wrong" -- I just want to keep our hearts and intention pure, and our actions honorable, that's all.

In conclusion: speculation is fun! But assuming is not.

And now? Please STREAM!!

AND PRE-ORDER TAKE TWO WHILE YOU'RE AT IT!!

I love you all so very much! Be well, puppykitties!

Love, Roo

#jimin #jungkook #jikook #Spotify

[iamalasagnagirl]

recommend me some good ronance fanfic pleaseee 🙏🏼

Get ready, there are my absolute favorites so far

by annabeeus

Honey

Post-Vecna and Nancy really needs to take a shower. Problem: that requires her being alone for more than ten seconds, which is not something Nancy is sure she can handle. Solution: Robin. Words: 3274 Chapters: 1/1

savior complex Nancy meets Robin's parents, and it goes just about as well as they'd expected it to. Words: 3313 Chapters: 1/1

why can't i be you? Robin Buckley is deeply, depressingly, hopelessly in love with Nancy Wheeler. Luckily for her, the feeling is more mutual than thought.(Little slices of life in a world inhabited by two girls who can't help but orbit each other). Words: 4193. Chapters: 1/1

Bonus: you should also read all the prompts on their tumblr @nancywheelersgirlfriend, I highly recommend them

by red_banner

the stairs creak as you sleep (it's keeping me awake) Nancy is teaching Robin how to shoot a shotgun in case music doesn't protect her from Vecna, as the Party cannot be left without a sharpshooter. They are both in for a couple of discoveries. Words: 18101 Chapters: 3/3

now the halftime air was sweet perfume (while the sergeants played a marching tune) Three years after Vecna, Hawkins welcomes the whole Party for the summer. Nancy and Robin are still uselessly in love. Words: 76,112 Chapters: 7/? WIP

by uselessdisasterlesbian

And I'll Be Okay, Admiring From Afar Robin Buckley knows love stories aren't made for people like her. She's read enough books and seen enough movies to know that in the end, the guy gets the girl. So when her own feelings for a not-so-prissy journalist expand beyond mere friendship, Robin panics and tries to play matchmaker. After all, she's always wished happiness for her friends, and that's all Nancy Wheeler is - a friend. Words: 4318 Chapters: 1/1

It's Not What Good Girls Do In getting to know Robin, Nancy gets to know herself. It gets gay from there. Set vaguely after volume 1 (and prob volume 2) of season 4, as a speculation of what the future post-Vecna could look like for the pair. Words: 4157 Chapters: 1/1

by HooliganStyle

summer of '86 serie:

makes me want to try her on Nancy keeps Robin company at Family Video some warm night in June, and tries not to think about that electric feeling crackling inside her chest. Words: 2413  Chapters: 1/1

there’s nowhere that I wouldn't go It's been three days since Nancy and Robin went from not-so-plutonic buddies to nuts-about-each-other gal pals, and the whole gang's going river tubing! Nancy contemplates what it means to fight for happiness, over and over again. Words: 2866 Chapters: 1/1

i feel it in my body, know it in my mind Nancy wakes Robin up to spirit her away on a long drive to Indiana's weirdest roadside attraction. Robin is forced to face her fears that she's simply a queer anomaly in the story of Nancy's life. Words: 3315 Chapters: 1/1

meet you where the spirit meets the bones Nancy and Robin have to tell Steve what’s been going on between them. Robin and Steve hash it out, while Nancy gets high with Eddie. Words: 4673 Chapters: 1/1

the only heaven that I know Steve has a summer barbecue, and Nancy attempts to move past some trauma. Max and Nancy share a moment of care and understanding. Robin and Nancy finally find themselves alone and uninterrupted in a house with a soft, flat surface; hot, sexy times ensue. Words: 5273 Chapters: 1/1

by stxrdrifter

would i ruin my salvation? Look, but never touch. Admire, but never love. Robin Buckley knew the rules. Don't fall in love. Words: 5242 Chapters: 1/1

to hide from the sky that watches me Nancy Wheeler comes to terms with her sexuality, and her religion. Words: 9136 Chapters: 1/1

by cityseeker

we'll deal with the aftermath In the middle of the night, old rocks turn over to show their ugly bellies. In the middle of the night, people go searching for their real feelings – and unfortunately for Robin, it’s always the middle of the night in the Upsidedown.  Words: 4186 Chapters: 1/1

blue nights, red mornings Robin reaches for her. She slides a tentative hand towards her, palm up, knuckles skimming over Nancy’s thigh, the tips of her fingers twitching ever so slightly. Nancy stares. And stares.  She wants to tell Robin, don’t offer your hand to me. If I hold it now, I might never let go.  or: Robin is Nancy’s safe place. Words: 4516 Chapters: 1/1

i'll keep you safe (in these arms of mine) Eve was evil because she hungered for what she could not have. Eve plucked the apple when she shouldn’t have. You are never compelled to give into your hunger. That’s what her mother had told her. Had specifically warned her. Though she never would have guessed that Nancy would end up here. In a bathtub, next to a temptation in the form of a girl.  Words: 4323 Chapters: 1/1

by moonflowerdamie

lost in admiration (could i need you this much?) “Are you sure?” She manages to croak out, voice wavering a little, and Nancy finally turns around. “Yeah.” She confirms and Robin’s falling all over again. “Go to prom with me, Buckley.” Well. How the fuck is she supposed to say no to that? Words: 6075 Chapters: 1/1

i'm burning up (all i see is red) Nancy proved that Robin is hers to Vickie. Now she wants to prove it to Robin, too. Words: 5998 Chapters: 1/1

as the world caves in (it's you that i lie with) “Holy shit, Wheeler, I thought we lost you.” She breathes into Nancy’s hair, still crying a little. Nancy pulls her face away from Robin’s chest, tugging the headphones off as she glances up at Robin with watery eyes. Between the mind-numbing relief, the lingering panic and the feeling of wild joy, something else sparks in Robin’s gut as Nancy stares at her. It’s familiar, achingly so, from years of wanting and not having, and it flares to life with a previously unknown intensity as Nancy keeps looking at her. Because Nancy Wheeler, even dirty and tear-streaked and shaking, is still the most beautiful creature Robin’s ever seen. Words: 4970 Chapters: 1/1

take my breath away Sometimes, she likes to imagine that she and Nancy are the love interests in one of the dumb rom-coms Nancy makes her watch on rainy days; perfect for each other, compelling, inevitable. That’s how it feels with her sometimes, like they were always going to end up here. Words: 1858 Chapters: 1/1

in the darkest little paradise “You wanna know what it is, you wanna know why I don’t like you?” “Oh, please, enlighten me.” Robin spits back and takes another step closer, eyes ablaze. “It’s because you’re an asshole!” Words: 3959 Chapters: 1/1

all's well that ends well (to end up with you) “Shut up.” And she pulls Robin back down to her lips. Nancy doesn’t know how long they stand there, making out in the kitchen like a couple of horny teenagers. It’s long enough that Nancy’s senses are overwhelmed by Robin enough for them to miss the footsteps coming up the stairs. “Oh my god, my eyes!” Words: 14048 Chapters: 1/1

luck like a button (can't stop pushing it) by diogxnes When they’ve left, Robin says, carefully, “They’re cool.” “Huh? Oh—” Steve is flustered, and if Robin weren’t still feeling so off-balance herself, she’d laugh at him. “Yeah. Nancy seems nice.” “You exhibited some remarkable self-control, not flirting with her with her boyfriend standing right there.” (In which Robin makes some friends, finds a family, and, in spite of herself, falls in love.) Words: 24765 Chapters: 1/1

you know there's not another moment to waste by BluejayBoi Robin and Nancy hang out a lot. They're friends. It's not dating. It's not. Robin's certain. Until she... isn't. Words: 4421 Chapters: 1/1

hearts burn quick by caughtontape She gets like this sometimes-- nervous around Robin in a way she’d never been around Steve or even Jonathan. Nancy thinks maybe she was never really in love with either of them. It was too Blockbuster-film perfect, too dramatic to be real. But at least with them, she knew how she was supposed to act. She doesn't know how to act around Robin. Words: 19330 Chapters: 1/1

I hope you can find something you like 😌

#nancy and robin #ronance #ronance fanfiction #ronance fanfiction rec #ao3 #robin and nancy #robin x nancy #nancy x robin #fanfic recs

[blurredcolour]

一期一会 | ichi-go, ichi-e | Part One

一期一会 | ichi-go, ichi-e Masterlist

Summary: The Tokyo premiere of Elvis brings Austin Butler into your life. He proves difficult to treat as just another client, and the effects of your choices will have lasting consequences.

Pairing: Austin Butler x Female Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Language, Sexual Tension, Longing Glances, Brief Violence, Mentions of Alcohol Consumption, Mature/Explicit Themes [oral and manual stimulation - f receiving, penetration, unprotected intercourse] - 18+ Only

Disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only. This story is in no way based on fact. The rumoured bar fight between Austin Butler and Ezra Miller has been disproven. This is only an exploration of one possible explanation. The thoughts and experiences of life in Japan are based on my own experience of living there for nearly seven years and may not reflect the thoughts and experiences of others.

Inspiration: This fantastic gif set courtesy of @carnevol

Word Count: 10,208

--------✿❀✿------✿❀✿------✿❀✿------✿❀✿--------

“Sources close to Austin tell TMZ the incident never happened, and Austin never even stepped foot in a pub during his time in Japan as the initial claims suggested. Not to mention, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department tells TMZ they have no record of the incident.”

You smile to yourself as you skim through the article on TMZ, body jostling with the movements of the packed rush hour train taking you home to your Asakusa apartment after another long day. It had worked. The best ¥20,000 you’d ever spent. Sliding your phone into your purse you shift your eyes to the scenery flying by the window, letting your mind wander back a few days.

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

The morning of June 28, 2022 promised to be hot and clear in Tokyo. The rainy season was not living up to its name this year, with temperatures much hotter much sooner than expected. The weather, however, was the furthest thing from your mind at 5 AM that morning.

After years of studying, of working your way up the rigid corporate ladder, you were finally being deployed on a translation assignment. Sadly, not as one of the primary translators assigned to the celebrities in Tokyo to promote Elvis over the next few days, but even being an alternate was an achievement.

It was not common for people born outside of Japan to be hired by translation companies, but since arriving in Japan five years ago, you had immersed yourself in the culture and the language. It had not been difficult to do so; your teaching assignment from the government had you living in a fishing village on the northern island of Hokkaido. It had been in your best interest to learn to communicate with the locals. Long, dark winter nights had been perfect for studying, and you had measured your progress by taking the Japan Language Proficiency Exams twice annually.

As your teaching contract came to an end, two years ago now, you had just achieved the level of N1, native speaker, and thought you may as well shoot for the stars when you applied to work for a translation company in Tokyo that often provided services to the entertainment industry.

By some miracle, they had actually taken a chance on you. The first year, you had not stepped out of the building on assignment once; in charge of arrangements by phone, making tea for the office, observing your superiors.

When that didn’t make you up and leave, you were slowly used as a supplementary translator at conferences, inching your way closer to TV shows and red carpet events. When you’d received the assignment in early June, your colleague Sachiko had pulled you into the bathroom to squeal with you excitedly. She was nearly fifty and had taken it upon herself to look after you as her own daughter.

You’d run everything by her, what to wear, how to do your hair and makeup, wanting everything to be just right for this opportunity.

You looked yourself over in the mirror, hair pulled back off your face, makeup just enough to make you look fresh-faced, but not too bold. Your black skirt suit was perfectly tailored, and you wore a black blouse with black lace accents on the collar and cap sleeves beneath it. Despite the heat, you were wearing black nylons, a must in Japanese society, and modest black heels. Not too tall as to stand out.  Your job today was to disappear into the background, a shadow placed behind the talent to ensure the list of interviews, and later the premiere, were perfectly executed to the studio’s standards.

Despite the low chance of rain in the forecast, you still took your umbrella as you headed out to the train station in the weak light of dawn. Rather than just a probability, you’d found the percentage of precipitation in the forecast was more of an indication of how much of the day it would rain or snow. The day’s schedule began with morning shows and that meant the group needed to be on camera in Fuji television studios by 9:30.

The team for the day – Sachiko, Yuka, Mr. Kimura, and yourself, met at the office before heading to the hotel to join Mr. Luhrmann and Mr. Butler. That was how you were instructed to address them, even if they requested otherwise.

Protocol and hierarchy were deeply entrenched into Japanese society. Everything one did orbited around where one fit into the current social situation. Thus, you entered the suite last, carrying a bag of clipboards, pens, water…anything the primary translators might need in the execution of their duties. Mr. Kimura was in the lead, the supervisor for the day. As he’d introduced himself to them and their people, you had set your items down in the corner and lined up with Sachiko and Yuka. Mr. Kimura introduced Sachiko as Mr. Luhrmann’s translator, Yuka as Mr. Butler’s, and you as a back up. The three of you bowed deeply at the waist, hands pressed to the outside of your thighs, giving the highest level of courtesy to your clients for the day.

As you straightened, you swallowed thickly as your eyes were caught by the startling blue of Mr. Butler’s gaze. You’d never encountered a gaze with such a physical impact in and of itself. You could fairly feel his eyes taking in your face…trailing down your body. You felt several things …confusion – you were not entirely certain what you had done to draw his attention……panic – you were supposed to be invisible, and he was most definitely looking at you…attraction – he was handsome. Why hadn’t you prepared yourself for that?! Everything about him was lanky grace. Long limbs, long fingers, long lingering looks. And then he opened his mouth to speak.

“It’s very nice to meet you all” He murmured in agreement with whatever Mr. Luhrmann had said. Well shit, you job was also to listen even through a cacophony of chatter…this was not a good start. But you did hear the sleepy rasp in his voice…his voice dripping with a southern accent that tasted like an old fashioned – bourbon forward with a sweet cherry finish. You were fucked.

You managed to murmur platitudes about looking forward to working with them, prompted by Sachiko and Yuka as they cheerfully replied first. You turned to gather the bags and stood against the wall as the primary translators stepped forward to work on building rapport with their clients. You fished a clipboard with the schedule on it from the supply bag and busied your eyes with tracing the numbers and letters on the paper. You knew it by heart, but the exercise was grounding, and you were able to slow your racing heart.

The scent of citrus mixed with something utterly masculine seeped into your thoughts and you lifted your head, startled to find him standing right in front of you. The plush of the hotel carpet had muffled his approach. You cleared your throat to try and regain your senses.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there. Is there anything I can help with you, Mr. Butler.”

That mouth, with those luscious pink lips, formed your name. You watched his tongue move with the vowel sounds as though he was tasting it and you shifted a little on your heels.

“Th..that’s right.” It was a herculean task to tear your eyes from his lips, to speak coherent words. Meeting his eyes had been an equally bad idea, though. There were flecks of colour in the rich blue of his irises, and you had just wanted to spend hours cataloguing each of them devotedly.

“I just wanted to say hi, even though we might not work that closely together.” He had outstretched his hand, and you had reached yours out in kind, watching as his warm skin and long fingers engulfed yours completely.

“Please let me know if you need anything. Anything at all. I’m happy to help.” You had felt the blush on your cheeks; you were helpless to stop it. You settled your eyes on his left cheekbone, the beauty marks trailing along his skin there.

You’d spent so long in Japanese society, where eye contact was considered too forward, that looking most people in the eye was rather difficult. Mr. Butler’s eyes were like staring into a welder’s arc…certain to blind you.

“There may be times when Yuka needs a break or has to step away. I will take over then, but hopefully I’ll be able to let you know so you’re not startled.” Focusing on the task at hand had helped you find the ability to articulate yourself again.

“I look forward to it…” He murmured and squeezed your hand again before releasing it gently. His personal assistant appeared then, from somewhere to the right of your eye line, and pulled him into a discussion about the schedule. You had seized the opportunity to escape, sliding along the wall to check in with your team. They had sent you down to ensure the van was ready to depart and you took a deep breath of the scentless air outside the hotel room to refocus.

You found the van waiting out front of the hotel and called Mr. Kimura to confirm it was ready. You waited patiently, making polite conversation with the driver, before you had heard some squealing from a group of girls waiting to the side of the hotel entrance. You looked over to see those long legs carrying him down the stairs with nothing short of a cocky swagger. The distance allowed you the opportunity to take in his outfit: black pants, black boots polished to a shine, a white t-shirt and open pinstripe button-up.

It was not fair how handsome he looked in that assortment of clothes, with his tanned skin and sun-kissed hair. You had tensed as you felt it again…that gaze…you stifled a gasp as he had caught you in the process of drinking him in. You turned to confirm one last thing with the driver, hoping the blush would disappear from your cheeks. They were still warm when the scent of citrus came close again…mixed now with a hint of cedar. His cologne had been evolving as his body heat warmed it. You swallowed tightly and slid on your KN95 mask. It was perfectly matched to your skin tone to encourage eyes to overlook you.

There was only half a seat left on the forward bench when you went to climb in last. Beside Mr. Butler. He’d settled with his legs slightly spread but upon seeing your conundrum, he’d shifted to make room for you. You gritted your teeth and perched on as little of the seat as possible. The driver pulled the rolling door shut and you had jumped a little at the sound.

“So, may I ask how you found yourself in this profession?” He spoke in a low voice, just for you, and you could feel it slide along your skin. The question made your lips slide into a thin line beneath your mask, reminding you of the constant micro-aggressions: ‘Where are you from?’ ‘Why can you speak Japanese so well?’ ‘When are you going home?’ Japan was not an easy place to make a home when you had been born somewhere else.

The driver had pulled out into traffic, swerving suddenly as a cyclist darted into traffic, and your perch on the seat did nothing to prevent you from being thrown into his side. He may be slim but under those clothes he was solid. His hands had gripped your elbows to steady you as you began apologizing profusely, pulling back to return his personal space to him.

“Really, I am so sorry” You looked up into his eyes as you apologized one last time, sitting your butt fully into the seat. Your thigh had pressed against his and he made no move to shift away. You could see his face was earnest, question genuine, so you took a deep breath and launch into the simplified version. Once you were fully seated, his hands had settled back into his lap.

He leaned in, listening intently as you spoke, focusing your gaze on the city passing by the window. It was, again, just shy of making eye contact, but you could see those damn blue eyes out in the periphery of your vision. You got the impression the mask bothered him, but it was still required for staff and crew to wear masks when in close proximity with talent. He had asked the occasional question as you explained all the forces that had brought you here, mostly your own efforts, but mostly he just listened with such an intensity your heart fluttered irregularly.

As you neared the end of your answer, you had noticed you were only five minutes from the first television station and could hear Sachiko talking to Mr. Luhrmann about what to expect.

“Did you have any questions about your first interview, Mr. Butler?”

He had started a little and shook his head. “Austin, please.”

“I apologize but I am not able to do that, Mr. Butler.”

He sighed and rubbed his fingers along his chin thoughtfully. “What is ‘good morning’ again?”

“Ohayou gozaimasu. You can slow it down and remember it using English words though…Ohio goes-I-muss.”

He grinned and practiced it a few times. “So arigatou goes-I-muss is thank you then?”

You nodded encouragingly. “Exactly. But Yuka will be right there with you.”

“You’ll be there too, right?” He asked quickly and something in his voice had made you glance at his eyes quickly. He somehow seemed a little…nervous?

“Absolutely, I’ll be behind the camera” You nodded and turned as the driver had parked and was now opening the door. You slid out quickly and stood off to the side to bring up the rear again. The glass building was huge and imposing as the group headed in, Mr. Butler chatting with his assistant and Mr. Luhrmann alternatingly.

The two men were run through make-up and mic’d up backstage while you helped Yuka and Sachiko prepare for the live, simultaneous translation. It was possibly the most difficult task that could be requested of a translator. The hosts would speak to the guests in Japanese with the translators immediately translating into the ear of the guest from behind. The guests would then answer in English and the translator would translate it into Japanese for the host and the camera. To an outsider it looked like utter chaos. To a translator it was a very careful juggling act, and the clipboards for notetaking were essential tools to ensure it all went smoothly.

Once everyone was in place, you had stood behind camera to watch the live segment. You could not help but feel a growing affection for Mr. Butler. He kept his arms crossed, obviously feeling out of his element, but was still so warm and friendly in his responses. He would have been a dream to translate for, you thought. He modulated his answers to make them easier to relay, and always turned toward Yuka as she provided English translation to him. A gentleman who refused to ignore what everyone was begging him to not see.

He had found you pretty early on in the segment and glanced when he delivered his adorably accented ‘good morning.’ You had grinned brightly, eyes crinkling with your encouragement, and he had found them again as the clips of Elvis had played. You had to admit you were quite excited that you would get a chance to watch the film that evening. There was something in the way that man moved that made it difficult to breathe…

After the segment came to an end your group had moved off the set to allow the rest of the morning show to play out. You stepped away to the windows overlooking Tokyo Bay to slide your mask off one ear, taking a deep sip of water from your bottle. You slid the mask back on and turned to see if they had been freed from backstage. He was looking at you again with that gaze, pretending to listen to something his assistant was saying. Your breath hitched in your throat, and you were grateful as Mr. Kimura came over to give you more marching orders and keep you on task.

The rest of the morning show segments were taped to be aired a later date. They were at most five minutes long, but with driving time, it was nearing noon by the time you returned to the hotel. Mr. Butler had saved you the seat beside him every time, asking questions about your favourite restaurant in Tokyo, or how to say good afternoon. He also asked if any temples or shrines would be open after the premiere was finished and after he humored Baz with some karaoke.

“Kaminari-mon and Sensoji temple stay lit and accessible all night long, so you could definitely go see those no matter what time you’re finished for the day.” You had replied.  Stepping out back at the hotel, you confirmed on your schedule that lunch was next, then Mr. Luhrmann and Mr. Butler had a break before a special segment would be recorded at the hotel.

They would be meeting Yukawa Reiko, a Japanese music journalist who had met Elvis three times before his untimely death. She was also known for her close relationship with Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Your group headed up to the suite where a set of high-end bento lunch boxes were waiting along with a variety of bottled drinks. You hung back against the wall as Mr. Kimura gave them another run down of the schedule and invited them to eat.

The whole team had then waited in silence for the clients to decide if they would take the food back to their rooms or if they would invite you dine with them. Assumptions were never made, interaction was never forced, but Japanese hospitality dictated that you all wait until the clients’ wishes were made clear.

“Please, eat with us” Baz had smiled brightly, and you couldn’t help the thrill in your stomach. More time to stare at him. Maybe he would ask you more questions, you had thought. You grabbed a bento and a bottle of sanpin-cha – a blend of jasmine and oolong teas from Okinawa. Mr. Butler was right beside you, looking over the selections. You could empathize; the stylized labels provided little insight to a non-native speaker. You had walked him through the choices, describing the tastes of each, before he settled on a barley tea. He pulled out a chair for you at the long table and gestured with a graceful motion of his hand, inviting you to sit.

“Thank you very much” You sat with him warmly, pulling a pair of reusable chopsticks out of your bag and had removed your mask to start eating carefully. You looked to him and decided you should at least ask him one question in return…but nothing cliché…not about his last twenty-four hours in Japan…not about making the movie…

“So how did you end up in your profession?” You turned his own question back onto him. You flushed with a hint of pride at his soft laugh before he launched into the simplified version of his career for you.

People had begun to excuse themselves from the table, Mr. Luhrmann back to his room, your team to rest for a while in the bedrooms of the suite, but the two of you had stayed there just talking. Somehow, you’d landed on the topic of travel, and you had regaled him with your current project of visiting each of Japan’s forty-seven prefectures.

“The country is only the size of California, but each region is so remarkably distinct, it’s just so fascinating to explore them all.” You were chancing more frequent glances at his eyes the longer you talked. They were somehow irresistible, drawing you in like refreshing pools of water on this very hot day.

“I really wish I was here longer; my first time and its all of forty-eight hours…” He had sighed wistfully, but a polite cough from his assistant, recently returned from her room, brought you both back to reality.

“I’m sorry Austin but we need to get you ready for the meeting with Ms. Yukawa.”

He had apologized to her and then again to you before excusing himself. Finding yourself alone in the suite, you had slid out of your suit jacket, slipped out of your heels, and stood in front of the air conditioner to try and cool down. You knew that the heat in your cheeks had little to do with the temperature outside and much, much more to do with the intensity of Mr. Butler; it was almost entirely due to your growing desire for the man. You exhaled slowly, trying to ignore the lingering scent of sandalwood he had left behind, the low note in the cologne he was wearing.

It had flooded your senses and spoken to the ancient part of your brain that was quite insistent he would make an excellent mate; the sooner you swapped gametes, the better. You slammed the heel of your palm into your forehead with a groan, trying to reset your brain like a faulty hard drive. You were not successful.

You had managed to get some rest and recollect yourself, heading down to one of the meeting rooms where three chairs had been set up with a plexiglass barrier between them for Mr. Luhrmann, Mr. Butler, and Ms. Yukawa to engage in a filmed conversation. It would be easier translation this time as the footage would be edited to allow for smooth playback for the Japanese audience. Ms. Yukawa had not been provided a translator and asked if someone might be able to assist her as her hearing wasn’t what it used to be. It was hard for her to hear Sachiko and Yuka with masks on and plexiglass between them.

Mr. Kimura had nodded at you then and your veins flooded with a thrill of adrenaline. You stepped forward and bowed deeply to her, introducing yourself to her warmly. You had felt those eyes on you again, watching intently, and surely listening, as you spoke Japanese. You took your place behind her, off camera, clipboard in had to note important words to hit in your translation. You narrowed your focus to just the words, trying to push out that accent that felt like it was licking at the shell of your ear every time Mr. Butler spoke. You could see the joy on his face, as well as Mr. Luhrmann’s, as you translated Ms. Yukawa’s statement that she was grateful to tears for such a beautiful film about Elvis’s life.

There was passion in him, you realized. Passion for the film, passion for the man he had been chosen to portray…and unless you were mistaken, a desire to like every part of his life with that same passion. The allotted time for recording the meeting flew by rapidly and as it ended, it took you a moment to re-engage the rest of your brain, to flesh out into a full human and not the pared down translation machine. You thanked Ms. Yukawa profusely for her time and returned to your place at the back of the room as Mr. Kimura instructed your team to go rest for the next two hours while the clients changed for the premiere.

You did not miss the slide of Mr. Butlers eyes along your cheek as he was ushered up to his room to get ready. Your eyes had flicked to his, and he’d nodded to you before following his assistant out the door. You had followed your colleagues back up to the working suite, hanging up your suit jacket before laying on one of the futon on the floor to try and sleep. You’d been up since five and the main event of the day was still yet to come. You were restless at first, mind filled with his voice, his glances, his cologne…but fatigue, thankfully, won out and you managed an hour of sleep before forcing yourself up to brush your teeth and fix your hair and makeup.

You could only imagine how tired the two men must be, all of this heaped onto the jetlag…

It was a fleet of sleek black cars waiting in front of the hotel entrance for your group this time, and you waited at the door of the last car in the line. Lowest in the hierarchy meant you needed to be there first, waiting. The combination of squealing and the familiar caress of his gaze turned your head to look up at the steps. Your fingers nearly dropped the supply bag as he stepped out of the hotel doors in all white, shirt unbuttoned down to his sternum, a gold chain and pendant on the tanned, exposed skin of his chest.

You had briefly wished your heart would arrest at that point…the rhythm was so chaotic it would not have been too much to ask. You swallowed quickly as there was a lot of saliva in your mouth all of a sudden. You had turned away and snapped your mask onto your face like armour, holding the car door open for Mr. Kimura to slide in. Mr. Butler’s eyes met yours and he had offered you a nod with just the hint of a smirk before sliding into the front car with Mr. Luhrmann.

You quickly jumped into your vehicle and the trio of automobiles headed out through traffic to the event. It was quite frankly unlike anything you’d ever experienced; a glittering pink carpet packed with media and fans. Somehow through it all Mr. Butler seemed utterly calm and cool, while Mr. Luhrmann stole the show with over-the-top excitement. You were all watching the Jailhouse Rock dance performance by a popular Japanese dance group when Yuka tugged at your sleeve sharply.

“I have a headache and sore throat; protocol says I have to leave. Good luck.” She had bowed deeply to you before slipping off through the crowd. You looked after her in concern before Mr. Kimura shifted to stand beside you.

“Are you ready?” He asked and you nodded quickly, grateful you’d had a bit of a warmup earlier in the day with Ms. Yukawa. You stepped over behind Mr. Butler and took a breath to interrupt his focus on the dance troupe. Your senses were flooded with that cologne again, eyes inadvertently fluttering shut. The whisper of your name, in that voice, against your ear made then snap open again. He was so very close to you…your heart rabbited in your chest, but you clenched your fists, digging your nails into your palms to ground your focus.

“Yuka has had to leave, I will be assisting you through the Q&A, Mr. Butler.” You had leaned up to murmur in his ear.

His smile was small, just visible to you, as he nodded once before looking back to the performance. Every concession and consideration he had provided Yuka was offered to you two-fold. His eyes sought yours as you translated questions, he broke his answers into neat chunks or simply kept them brief to allow you to accurately convey his words to the audience. By the time you were ushered into the theatre to watch the film, you wondered if he might not just sleep through it. It was dark enough and surely he had been tired enough.

You, however, were on the edge of your seat from the first. The haunting line from Suspicious Minds took a hold of you and the film did not let you go for all two hours and thirty-nine minutes of it. It was not so absorbing, however, that you didn’t feel his presence in the seat to your left like the glow of superheated embers. Every nerve in your body was happily announcing to you that he was right there, that man on the screen who was moving his hips like that, making you cross and re-cross your legs in an attempt to keep your arousal to yourself.

His gaze had found your thighs as your skirt inched higher along your nylons with all your fidgeting. You had sunk your teeth into your bottom lip, taking slow breaths through your nose. Do not look at him, you had thought. Do not acknowledge or encourage…your fingers gripped the hem of your skirt, not so subtly, and tried to pull it down a little.

Lust was not the only feeling the film had aroused in you, however. By the time he was delivering the speech about the bird without legs, you were dabbing at your eyes with the cuff of your suit jacket, trying to wick away tears before they could fall down your cheeks.

As the credits began to roll, the theatre erupted into applause, cheers, and a standing ovation. You were quick to join in, risking a glance at him. He was blushing now, and you felt somewhat vindicated to see him embarrassed for once today. But how humble it was of him, to be able to embody such an ego on film so very well and yet remain so down-to-earth. You had all piled into the cars then, heading back to the hotel suite. You had been weighed down by the sudden realization that this magical day really was at an end. You and Sachiko were in the middle of a sweep of the suite when you heard Mr. Butler calling your name. You looked at Sachiko and she dropped all her professionalism with a broad grin.

“Ichi-go, ichi-e” She stated simply, and you had flushed scarlet. She’d proceeded to shoo you out into the main room, and you smoothed your suit jacket in a self-soothing motion.

“Mr. Butler?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Look, Baz is determined about the whole karaoke thing, and we have no idea where to go or how to do it…Please?”

You swallowed roughly, Sachiko’s words ringing in your ears. Live life now. Live it to the fullest as though this moment would never come again.

“Of course, I can help you two find a place.” You grabbed your purse and nodded.

“On one condition…” He had grinned slyly.

You had looked to him startled; not certain he was in any position to put stipulations on a favour he’d ask of you.

“You have got to stop calling me Mr. Butler.” He laughed cheekily and you couldn’t help your bark of relieved laughter.

“Fine…Austin. Are you two ready to go now?”

He had nodded enthusiastically, and you had bowed deeply to Sachiko, thanking her for all her hard work that day, before following him out. Honestly, karaoke bars were not that hard to find once one knew what they were looking for, but you reminded yourself you too had once been a lost foreigner. You found a reputable chain location close to the hotel, one you even had a points card for, and booked them a room for an hour. Their assistants were there, along with a few other people you didn’t recognize. You weren’t certain if you were meant to join them until long, warm fingers wrapped around your wrist and pulled you into the room.

Even with the air conditioning it was warm, so you slid out of your suit jacket…The skin of your arms was not given the opportunity to cool down, however, as the fabric of your jacket was quickly replaced with the heat of his gaze taking in the new territory. You made sure everything was set up in English for them, passing the mic to Baz who was bouncing with excitement. You tried to find the back corner of the room, but your wrist was in his grasp again and you were pulled into the space beside him, pressed quite close.

It behooved any resident of Japan to learn a karaoke specialty song, inevitably you would be called upon to perform for karaoke with friends or colleagues and it was better to be prepared. You had been sly in your choice, learning a song that usually came with guide vocals at most establishments. Many people usually knew it from graduation ceremonies, but that would not be the case with this group. So, when the tablet was thrust into your hands by an enthusiastic Austin to input your song, you had easily found Angela Aki’s 手紙 ～拝啓 十五の君へ～, (Letter: Greetings to My 15-Year-Old Self). That was not to say you had not been petrified; a fear which only deepened when he performed Polk Salad Annie for you all.

To hear his voice in the movie theatre had been one thing. To hear it coming from the man next to you, to feel the vibrations of his voice where his side pressed against yours, was entirely another. He had handed you the microphone, still warm from his grasp, as the opening strains of the song came up and you tried to push out all the distractions. You knew this song; you would be fine…and you sang. It was not going to win you a Grammy, but you made it through without missing notes or words, the hallmark of a successful karaoke performance. You even had the room clapping along to the beat during the bridge.

You were still grateful when the song ended, passing the microphone to his assistant as though it was scalding your hand. As she took over singing a Britney Spears song, you felt him lean in close.

“Will you tell me what it means after this?” He had intoned into your ear.

You swallowed visibly, had seen his eyes flick to your throat to watch the motion closely, and nodded firmly. More songs were sung, and suddenly the five-minute warning flashed across the screen. You double-checked if they wanted to extend the time, but everyone was suddenly looking quite tired…even Austin. You had settled the bill for the drinks, snacks, and booth rental with Baz; you did the talking, he did the paying. The group meandered back to the hotel, and you stopped in the lobby as people began filtering up to the elevators, wishing each other good night. Austin leaned in close to your ear, looking as though he was saying farewell.

“Give me five minutes? I want to take you somewhere.” Were the words that actually came out of his mouth.

You had nodded, rendered mute, and sat in one of the lobby chairs, checking your texts idly. True to form, he was back within the promised time frame, wearing the black short-sleeved button up and black pants from that afternoon’s meeting with Ms. Yukawa. He had a mask over his face, but truly it did little to hide how overwhelmingly attractive he was. You had moved to your feet as you saw him step out of the elevator and he took your hand, leading you to the line of cabs.

He helped you in and looked to the driver. “Kaminari-mon onegai.”

You had been running through an endless list of guesses as to where he wanted to take you, but this was the best of all. You squeezed his hand gently and added your more formal ‘onegaishimasu’ to the driver who bowed and pulled out onto the much quieter streets.

“So…the song…It obviously meant something to you…”

Your cheeks reddened but you nodded.

“It is a letter to the performer’s 15 year old self, talking to them about all they have been through…saying things like believe in your own voice, don’t give up…even as an adult there are nights when my heart is broken and I can’t sleep, but I am still alive…I was a pretty awkward kid, I would have loved to get a letter like that from myself at that age. Because things are better now. I can pull up the lyrics if you’d like?” You looked to him in the intermittent glow of streetlights and signs, but he shook his head.

“I’ll look it up another time, I’d rather look at you right now.”

Your heart gave one terrific thud, and you were certain that might have been the last blow it could take, but somehow the rhythm kickstarted again and you exhaled shakily. The driver pulled up to the massive lantern hanging beneath a bright red gate and turned to ask you for fare. You pulled out your wallet, filled with cash as Japan was still very much a cash-based society and paid, despite Austin’s protests, before sliding out.

The temple complex was much quieter now than it was during the daytime, but it was well-lit and striking. His hand took yours again as his other busied itself snapping photos on his phone. You walked slowly, letting him set the pace, telling him a little about the history of the place. The normally bustling Nakamise shopping street was shuttered for the evening, but you were thrilled as Austin gravitated to the intricate street art painted onto the metal shutters. Your path up to the temple was winding and inefficient, but he was so clearly enjoying himself and you were feeling very privileged to see it.

You had showed him how to cleanse himself with incense before stepping onto the sacred grounds and led him over to say a prayer on the steps of the temple. You had fished a few five yen coins out of your wallet, holding one out to him.

“Go-en, it’s a homonym for destiny. The best coin to pray with. This temple is dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. She embodies compassion.” You dropped your coin in the wooden coin box before bowing deeply and pressing your hands together. You waited quietly as you heard the noise of his coin ricocheting against the sides of wooden box after he tossed it in, finishing your prayer with a bow. As soon as you had looked up, his hand had seized yours again.

“What else can we do at this time of night?” He was so intently focused on making the most of every moment in this country, your heart ached a little.

“I’ll take you to my favourite izakaya…it’s like a pub. I actually live quite close to here.”

He had nodded eagerly and, unfortunately, neither of you had been blessed with the slightest inkling of what would happen there.

It was busier than you had anticipated, with a large number of ex-pats seated at tables. The owner had heard the bell above the door jingle as you entered, calling out his blanket welcome of ‘Irasshaimase!’ before looking up. He grinned broadly and called out your name in a more personal greeting.

“Konbanwa Nakamura-san! Futari, onegaishimasu.” You held up two fingers, asking for two seats.

“Kauntaa de ii no kai?” He gestured to the only two open seats at the counter, next to the yakitori grill. You looked up to Austin.

“Are you ok with the counter?” He had nodded enthusiastically and the two of you had wound your way over to take the seats. You hung your suit jacket and purse on the hook under the counter, asking the owner for one English menu along with a Japanese one for you.

You worked through the options with him, choosing a few snacks and drinks. You placed the order with the owner, feeling Austin’s gaze on your mouth and throat as you spoke. The blush had crept up from below your blouse, but you remained focused on what you were trying to communicate. You looked to him slowly as you finished, and he shook his head in awe.

“I don’t think I will ever get tired of hearing you speak Japanese…You really love it, don’t you.”

You laughed shyly but nodded with a shrug.

“I do…it’s a language with a lot of meaning and history and levels of formality and…” You nodded again and watched the fingers of his left hand trace along the characters of the Japanese menu in front of you.

“It looks impossible to read…There’s no reference to anything I know here.”

“You start with the basics, each segment of the more complicated kanji has a meaning, so it’s all about how they are combined and where certain characters are placed.”

He raised an eyebrow dubiously and you laughed, pulling out a notebook and pen from your purse.

“Let me show you. So, for example,  there are two words for love: ai and koi. But the difference between them is illustrated by where the character for heart is positioned. This is kokoro – heart.”

You carefully drew the kanji 心.

“It’s pretty straight forward, four chambers just like a real heart. A much more accurate representation than a Western heart symbol. Now this, is ai, a deep abiding love. Long lasting, and can describe either romantic or platonic love.”

You drew the kanji 愛.

“The heart is here, in the middle…in your chest…” You were so wrapped up in your explanation that you didn’t even process that you were pressing your hand against the centre of his chest. He was watching raptly, licking his lips.

“Whereas koi is a shallow love, based on attraction, usually describing flings or the early stages of a relationship. It’s also part of the word for lover, only used for romantic situations.”

You drew the kanji 恋.

“This time the heart is at the bottom of the kanji, between the…” Your words stumbled a little, and you gestured vaguely towards his lap. “…legs.” It was your turn to watch the way his Adam’s apple bobbed in a visible swallow.

The clunk of your drinks being set on the bar pulled your attention away from his throat. You moved to put away the notebook, but he plucked it from your fingers, carefully extracting the page you’d given him the kanji lesson on. You watched as he folded it with care into four before sliding it into his breast pocket. You took a deep, bracing sip of your drink as the snacks began to arrive and you two set about sampling the various items.

He had asked more questions about the different kanji on the menu, and you had happily explained them, using the same technique your first Japanese teacher had used. You had used the stroke count to differentiate the kanji for one, two, and three; gotten him to see the shape of a cow’s horns in the kanji for gyu 牛 (beef). Neither of you had noticed the couple beside you leave, nor the increase of volume as a new boisterous group arrived. You did, however, notice him tense as someone hollered his name through the crowd.

You turned your head to follow his gaze, eyes widening a little as Ezra Miller had crowded into your local izakaiya with a pack of friends. The conversation had seemed friendly at first, if a little tense. The two celebrities had exchanged pleasantries and explanations of what had brought each of them to Tokyo.

“I saw the film when I was in Hawaii…Decent job, Butler.” Ezra had said in a tone that set your teeth on edge. It was very clearly a back-handed compliment. You saw the muscles of Austin’s jaw bunch as they clenched in an effort to stay civil. “Well, if you’re done with your Japanese tutor here, why don’t you two get out of our way so we can sit down” They had said, snide tone no longer gilded with a sheen of feigned civility.

“Don’t talk about her that way.” Austin had said tersely, sitting taller on the bar stool. “We were here first and have no intention of leaving until we’re good and ready.”

“Defending a nobody in a department store suit, Butler? What happened to the revolving door of actresses and models? Why are you wasting your time on a dowdy thing like…” You never did get a chance to hear the rest of Ezra Miller’s insults.

Austin had slid to his feet, drawn himself to his full intimidating height, and employed the toned muscles of his right arm to slam his right fist into Ezra’s jaw. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as their face had snapped to the side under the force, spit flying from their venomous lips as they stumbled back into their group of friends. As they tried to scramble back to their feet, to lunge at Austin, things were suddenly sped up to twice the normal speed. Ezra’s friends were holding them back, Austin standing still and intimidating, shielding you from the problematic star. You had moved quickly then, spurred on by the reactions of the staff and patrons of the izakaiya. You pulled all the bills out of your wallet, totalling around ¥20,000, and put them on the bar. It was roughly the equivalent of $200 USD, much more than your bill.

You called out to the owner, who was taking in the scene in stunned silence. You assured him you would be leaving promptly, asked him not to call the police. He had eyed you and the stack of bills for a brief moment before nodding sharply. He collected the bills as you grabbed your suit jacket and purse. He sent one of the yakitori cooks to drag the Miller group out the front door before motioning you to follow him out the back. You had slid your arm through Austin’s, dragging him after you through the kitchen and out into the alley.

“Come on, please…” Your heart was racing, terrified a career ending scandal might taint all his hard work promoting the film that day. The Japanese were not as forgiving as the rest of the world when it came to scandal. You needed to get him out of public and the fastest way to do that would be to take him into your one room apartment. It was a short walk to the next block where you lived, walking as fast as your heels would allow. Austin had stridden alongside you smoothly with those ridiculously long legs, hand clasping yours. You unlocked the gate before leading him up the stairs in your building, hands a bit shaky from the adrenaline, but you’d managed to unlock your front door and pull him into the entryway.

You had spun and slid your heels off as you stepped up onto the hardwood floor, a very practiced movement. He unzipped the sides of his boots and kicked them off to sit beside yours, following you into the hallway of an apartment you called home. It took precisely ten seconds to run from one end to the other. You had timed it once, out of curiosity. You reached into the fridge and pulled out a pack of frozen peas, reaching for his right hand as he got close enough, looking his knuckles over.

You gently pressed the improvised cold pack to his skin, making him hiss a little. Your heart rate had yet to recover from the rush out of the restaurant and down the darkened streets, the sprint up the stairs, the fact that he had defended you…You gasped a little as you felt the skin between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand slot itself below your chin. His thumb and fingers had gently pressed into skin on either side of your jaw as he guided your head up.

“Why won’t you ever look me in the eye?” He whispered softly, eyes searching your face.

Aside from your cultural adaption to Japanese ways, you had also been so afraid of what he might see there – the naked, unabashed desire you had felt for him since first laying eyes on him that morning. You took a fortifying breath and snapped your eyes to his now, no longer interested in trying to hide it. The flames of the fire blazing in your lower abdomen flickered in your eyes as you let yourself fall into his rapidly shrinking blue irises. His pupils had been rapidly expanding as he was finally able to see you. You heard the sharp intake of breath through his nose before his lips crashed into yours, body surging forward to push you back into the refrigerator as he pressed into you greedily.

You shuddered as you felt the outline of his hard cock pressing against your stomach, free hand reaching up to twist your fingers into those cursed curls that had been teasing you all day. The sound of the bag of frozen peas hitting the floor hardly registered in your brain as he pushed them out of your other hand to employ both his hands in pulling your blouse of out of your skirt. His fingers quickly snuck up and underneath the silk to stroke along the skin of your sides. Your breath shuddered into his mouth at the feel of his touch, the callouses on his fingers, the warmth of his palms.

His tongue took advantage of your open mouth to finally get a chance to taste you. The feel of the slick muscle of his tongue sliding along your own made your toes curl into the hardwood floor. Eventually oxygen became an unavoidable necessity, and you pulled back from his lips to gasp for air, breath thick with desire. You could feel him panting against the skin of your throat as took deep inhales of your scent.

“Fuck you smell so good; it’s been all I could think about all day.” His generous lips brushed against your skin as he spoke, making you shudder. He took the hint, showering your sensitive skin with kisses as his clever fingers found the zipper on your skirt. You chuckled wryly, breathlessly.

“You have no fucking idea what your cologne has been doing to me, do you?” You carefully stepped out of the fabric as it fell to the floor, hands hooking into the belt loops of his pants, pulling him after you as you moved deeper into the apartment to where your bed was.

“Oh, I think I do. When I caught you with your eyes closed on that pink carpet…I just about ripped that mask off to kiss you senseless…” He replied, standing still as you worked his pants and shirt off. Once they lay on a pile on the floor, he pulled you tightly against him, seizing your lips with his, kissing you until you felt unsteady on your feet, as promised. His fingers hooked into the waistband of your nylons and slid them down to your knees before he gripped your hips, lifting you onto the bed. He knelt at your feet, looking down at you in your bra and panties hungrily. His lips fell victim to the ravages of his teeth as he pulled the nylons up and off each leg in turn.

You watched, chest tight with anticipation as he tossed them aside, lips working their way down from your right ankle, along the inside of your calf, to your knee and up your inner thigh. You trembled as he got closer to the centre of your need, licking your lips eagerly.

“Did they survive?” His eyes looked up to yours as he came face to face with your panties. “The way you kept crossing your legs…I was rather hoping for them to be utterly ruined.”

You flushed and threw your head back with a sudden laugh. He grinned as he pressed his forearm into the mattress beside your head, stretching his body over yours as the fingers of his other hand slid past the waistband of your panties, seeking your folds. He hummed, pleased as he found your slick.

“So not entirely unscathed then…” He drank in your face as your eyelids fluttered, threatening to close at the sensation of his languid, exploratory strokes. Your thighs pressed together around his wrist needily, having fought to be well-behaved for so long.

“Please…” You breathed in desperation and his lips found yours, kissing you soothingly as fingers traced around your bundle of nerves before applying gentle but fleeting pressure. You squirmed beneath him, gripping his shoulders tightly, hips pressing up to his hand eagerly.

His lips pulled back from yours with a parting nip to the flesh of the lower one. He sat back onto his heels and tugged at the waistband of your underwear, getting you to lift your hips so he could divest you of them. He then gripped your elbows, pulling you up to a sitting position before reaching behind you to unclasp your bra. His fingers teasingly dragged the straps down your arms, raising goosebumps in their wake before that too was removed and tossed aside. Latching onto your right nipple, he had settled his hips against yours, leaning you back onto the mattress. His skin was frustratingly still clad in the fabric of his boxer-briefs but, as he ground against your core, you stopped your internal complaining and moaned eagerly.

The fingers of his free hand cupped the mound of your left breast as he settled back over you on his right forearm. He continued to pleasure your breasts as his hips rocked against yours insistently, the once hint of a shape now a very definitely hard, generously sized cock pressed tightly against you. As you grew wet enough to soak into the fabric of his underwear, he pulled back out of your reach, sliding down between your thighs to taste you eagerly.

Your hips had a bad habit of bucking towards his mouth needily, and he held them down with a firm grip as his tongue parted your folds to lap at your clit hungrily. He watched your face hungrily as your fingers sank into his curls again, crying out his name reverently. Throwing his left arm across your hips, pinning you under his elbow and hand, he freed his right hand to seek out your entrance. The pad of his index finger slowly dipped in and out of you before pressing deeper into you, making you throw your head back with a whimper.

Thrusting the digit in and out of you, working you open, he gradually added a second and third finger, curling them up to press against the area that made you toss your head to the side and swear like a sailor.

“Ohhh Jesus fucking Christ, Austin!” You wailed and he was relentless; manipulating the sensitive spot inside you with those delicious, dextrous fingers until his arm could no longer hold your hips down. You bucked hard, thighs clamping tightly around his head as his tongue had not once let up on your clit. Your orgasm had rocked through you, leaving you a trembling, gasping mess.

You watched through hooded eyes as he cleaned you up with his tongue before licking his fingers clean, savouring every last drop of your nectar. He had raised up on his knees again, sliding his boxer-briefs down to allow his insistent cock to spring free, slapping against the taught skin of his abdomen. The man was blessed, and you were about to be as well.

Tossing the fabric aside, he had slid up against you, cock pressing against your still-fluttering core as he settled his hips between your legs again. You arched your back up to kiss him appreciatively, not caring that his mouth tasted of your climax. His tongue twined with yours, moans sliding from his throat and down yours are he slid his cock between your folds, the crown snagging on your clit, making you whimper in reply. Before you could pull your lips back from his to beg, his cock began to sink into you, stretching you, filling you.

“Aus..Aus…tin…” You had stuttered between your whimpers, chest heaving.

“I know, you’re so fucking tight, holy fuck…” His head dropped to press against your collarbone, and you felt him shudder as he attempted to maintain control over his body’s urgent wish to slam into you. At last, he had settled into you fully, pelvis slotted snugly against yours. You shuddered and flexed your walls unintentionally, making him moan raggedly against your skin.

Unable to resist any longer, he pulled his hips back before pushing into your heat again, making you both moan. He set an easy pace to start, your exhales of pleasure meeting in the air between your mouths, curling around each other in the low light of your apartment. The pendant on the end of the gold chain knocked against your chin teasingly and you gripped it in your teeth teasingly.

The delicious feel of his cock sliding against your walls, nudging your cervix with each thrust, made your eyes roll back in your head. His pace increased as his left hand slid to cradle your jaw again.

“Lemme see your eyes” He ground out huskily and you fought to open them, to lock them onto his. Your walls clenched around him at the vision he presented above you, pink lips parted, eyebrows crinkled in pleasure, jaw working in concentration.

“I’m gonna…”

“Oh fuck, please…” His hips slapped into yours faster, your thighs spreading wider, heels digging into the bed as you just…needed…

“AHN!” you arched hard against him as his fingers found your clit again. You forced your eyes wider rather than clenching them shut as your release ripped through your body. Your walls clamped down around him tightly, pulling him under with you as he swore a litany of curses into your neck, flooding you with his hot cum. Shuddering breaths echoed in the quiet room as you both fought to calm racing hearts, to satiate the burning in your lungs. He slid from you carefully, making you whimper at the loss, before rolling to lay at your side. He gripped your right hip with his left hand and rolled you into his chest, pressing his plush lips to your forehead.

You lay your cheek on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slowing to a normal rhythm beneath your ear pressed to his skin.

“Thank you…for defending me…” You broke the silence and he scoffed sleepily.

“Thank you for saving my ass after I hit him…” He replied. You could tell sleep was working against him, the marathon of a day catching up with him.

“What time do you need to be at the airport?” You left off the word tomorrow as it was definitely today now. He was leaving today.

“Leaving the hotel at 9…” He murmured softly and you kissed his chest, just above where the pendant lay. You waited patiently, fighting off your own sleep, letting him drift off before you slid from his embrace to set an alarm and assemble his clothes on the chair beside the bed, hoping to make the wake up a little easier on him. You cleaned up in the washroom, coming back to stand on the threshold of the bedroom, watching him sleep soundly, bathed in the light from the street. God he was perfection. Your heart panged a little with the knowledge that this was surely the end of…whatever the last twenty hours had been.

“Ichi-go, ichi-e” You had whispered to yourself and blinked as the idea came to you. You fished out your wallet and found a clean, shiny five yen coin. You found some origami paper on your coffee table and carefully folded a pouch to slide the coin into. You added a slip of paper, writing out the expression on one side – he would be able to use his phone to translate it if he wanted. You added your email on the reverse. You slipped it into the breast pocket of his shirt, along with the folded note paper from the restaurant, before sliding into bed with him to enjoy a few hours of sleep.

══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══

You slide your shoes off in the entryway and step into your apartment proper, sighing a little as the scent of his cologne is almost gone. You flick on the lights and set down your things, changing into comfy clothes before pulling out your phone again. You mindlessly scroll through Twitter as you lay on the bed, his name catching your eye. You click on the post, not your usual habit, but curious after your experience with him. The photo of him posing with some fans on the streets of Los Angeles makes you smile…such a sweetheart.

The chain around his neck, or rather the pendant, catches your eye and you zoom in, gasping to see he’s slid the chain through the centre of the five yen coin, wearing it proudly. You swallow back something akin to a squeal. So, it had meant more to him than just a chance meeting…

Your phone buzzes with an email notification and you roll onto your stomach on the bed, cheeks aching from your grin as he’s sent you a screenshot of the translation of the phrase you had written for him. What had previously felt like an ending, in the early dawn of June 29, is transforming into a beginning right before your eyes.

--------✿❀✿------✿❀✿------✿❀✿------✿❀✿--------

Read Part Two

一期一会 | ichi-go, ichi-e Masterlist

#austin butler x reader #austin butler x fem!reader #austin butler imagine #austin butler fic #austin butler x you #elvis2022 #austin butler elvis #elvis movie #elvis 2022 #austin butler smut #ichigo ichie fic #blurredcolour

[consistentsquash]

HP Femslash Recs from 2023 (January to June)

Recs for new femslash fics posted in first half of 2023. January to June! One fic for each month. Rec lists are based on my reading and what I like. YMMV.

Theme - HP ladies rocking their queer side during different stages of their lives. Some of them are also rocking their dirtybadhotwrong side <3

AO3 collection

  Petunia Comes First by DepravedDesires (January)

Themes - dirtybadhotwrong

Pairing - Petunia/Lily

Rec because - dirtybadhotwrong femslash is the best starting fic for this list. We stan! Petunia definitely deserves to come first.

How dare Lily ignore her until there was something she needed from her sister? Typical Lily, making a mess of things and then getting someone else to clean it up for her.

  Candles Lit Against the Dark by @perverse-idyll (February)

Themes - Retirement + Healing

Pairing - Minerva McGonagall/Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank

Rec because - This is so totally the retirement life I want. It's packed with beautiful friendships, people focusing on the sweet instead of the bitter, people moving on together, people forgiving each other. It's an incredible fic with perfect execution on some classic tropes like matchmaking and friends who are going to help you whether or not you asked for it. Also some not so classic tropes like celebrating a female character's life/happiness/love being the center of a rich fic. Ultimately this is Minerva McGonagall's fic and I am so here for it. Her life is full! She's done a lot, she's got the perfect retirement and her friends are her best fans. It's got a big cast and everybody is characterized really vividly. This fic is like fruitcake. But really, really rich homemade fruitcake. It's just juicy and bursting with flavor. ~~Sorry, Claxton Fruitcake Company~~. Also this fic has the Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank for me. Of course PI's Snape has been the Snape for me from the first time I read When the Rose and the Fire Are One. Speaking of Snape. Oh yeah!!! We get Snape. Lots and lots of Snape. Also some lowkey/not so lowkey Snarry flirting. But definitely don't pass on the fic if you are squicked by Snarry. This fic is so much more than that and you definitely won't be squicked by anything. I am normally a YMMV person when it's about squicks because those can be pretty subjective but I am giving a no squick guarantee on this fic. READ IT <3

At around four in the afternoon, with three chapters to go in the espionage novel she was reading – since popular thrillers provided not only diversion but an eye-opening refresher course on Muggle slang and cultural attitudes – Minerva glanced up from the page to find Wil leaning in the doorway, watching her.

Reccer note - If you don't normally go for PI's works because of the bittersweetness/ambiguity/intensity, this is a perfect intro fic you can read in any headspace. You get the Trademark PI Snape with lots and lots and lots of nonstop healing/good times and a 100% extra virgin pure legit happy ending. ~~No rimming though~~ We got gloves! But seriously. We get some of the classic PI themes like Ego Death, Real Death, Forgiveness, Atonement but these heavy themes are present without feeling heavy. My theory is PI drank a lot of champagne to get this nonstop bubbly effect in the fic.

  Once of Eden by eldritcher (March)

Themes - Crossgen + Coming of Age

Pairing - Lily/Eileen

Rec because - Poignant and super sharp character study of Lily. Lots of storms inside her head about her family/war/Petunia/Snape. This is right before her marriage but she has this feeling she doesn't fit into that life and she doesn't want to let go of her past. Like a lot of us, she's also seeing her past/childhood through these nostalgic glasses but at the same time she's also noticing adults in her life and has this bittersweet feeling that she's an adult now/making adult choices now. Serious Catcher in the Rye vibes. This fic has the Lily for me. Really like Harry, really Gryffindor. Don't let the pairing put you off. It's a really beautiful, sensitive, unique, powerfully human fic.

She knew there were girls who did this. Petunia and she had giggled about it once or twice. Sirius talked a great deal about how he liked watching girls kiss each other. It got him going like nothing else, he said. This would not get him going. Eileen was Severus's mother. Eileen was not a girl. She was sullen and cross, but not right then.

Reccer note - A great eldritcher intro fic for Marauders era readers. It doesn't have the rollercoaster intensity of their other fics. Definitely more approachable. But you can also see some of the classic Eldritcher themes about Nostalgia + Returning Home to find out nothing's going to be the same again + Permanent loss when one door closes in your life + all the characters being flesh and blood people you can empathize with without self-insertion. This fic made me cry but it was a healing cry. I don't normally see femslash fics hitting these themes so it's unique in my reading experience.

  Nymphadora, Nymphet by @thistlecatfics (April)

Themes - House of Black ladies being House of Black ladies

Pairing - Bellatrix/Andromeda, Bellatrix/Tonks

Rec because - Thistlecat has my whole heart for how she characterizes Bellatrix in this fic <3 Love, love, love. Also Tonks! This fic is layers and layers of delicious dirtybadhotwrong and at the same time a brilliant character study. Also the first time I have actually seen Lolita in a femslash fic. Whoa, love. AU premise but definitely don't let that make you skip this. Totally, totally pays off.

She had changed her hair for them. They asked about size, and she grew tall and then short. They asked about shape, and she gave herself broad shoulders, pulling at the seams of her shirt, even with the charms her mother had added to give her freedom of movement after the sheer number of clothes she had torn apart as a child in playing with her physical form. They named body parts, and she adjusted them as they asked, all four of them laughing. She was having fun. It was a challenge! They were going so quickly. When they said to make her breasts larger, she obeyed. She had played so little with her breasts, which had just started to grow, and flesh was so easy and fun to work with. They asked for bigger, and she threw her shoulders back and let them grow.

  Knotweed by @turanga4 (May)

Themes - Relationship resolution, war era

Pairing - Poppy/Pomona

Rec because - because I love fics which show us why it's important to focus on the good things/the important things during bad times. Pomona said it best! <3

“I need things to live,” Pomona continued. “I need things to grow. If I’m going to fight, I need a bit of why we’re fighting. I want this—want us, want you— for as long as I can have it.”

Leather by @saintsenara (June)

Themes - self-discovery, war era

Pairing - Tonks/Fleur, Tonks/Charlie, Tonks/Remus, Tonks/OFC

Rec because - I love this fic. It's got so much self-discovery with lots of good emotions but with a huge contrast against the war tension. Love how Tonks makes the best of each day because she doesn''t know what's going to happen tomorrow. Also love the confusion/acceptance/exploration cycles in the fic.

She’d learned the term for it eventually, and knowing the word had given her the power to understand herself - it was like magic, in that sense. The first person she’d told had been Charlie, as they relaxed - eighteen years old and feeling very grown up - after their first fuck. It had been nice - tentative and halting and all very un-British and sincere - and she’d confessed and he’d looked at her with his lovely round face and confessed the same. And they’d laughed and laughed at how they would be able to compare notes in future on what they sampled from the buffet of human genitalia.

Reccer note - Legit character studies of bi characters are super rare in our fandom. I don't really go for self-discovery type fics but this one is whoa! Love, love, love and highly recommend this one. It's out and proud and amazing. <3

#hp femslash recs #hp #femslash #femslash recs #hp femslash 2023 #fic recs #hp fic recs #short fic recs #recs

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Have you seen the latest shitshow of the CBX SM drama bpp? When you said you expect the drama to drag on till May/June I was surprised, but it seems you were right --- again. Baekhyun just revealed SM hurried him to renew his contract despite some time left, because of the Kakao deal. He also said SM kept all the artists in the dark and they had to find out about HYBE's offers from the news. Bang PD was apologizing to the SM idols, while Chris Lee treated them like they were invisible, but Exols, Mys, Shawols, NCTzens, Reveluvs, and the whole kpop, claimed no company was more evil than HYBE. Armys were called every name under the sun for pointing out how many things from SM didn't make sense and now less than 1 month later, CBX are exposing their slave contracts and fighting for transparency. I feel so bad for the idols but SM stans don't even care? I was in a space yesterday and all they were saying is HYBE is worse, HYBE is a slave company, HYBE is this and that. And I'm just like ---- when do they fandom feuds end? IF THE WELLBEING OF THEIR IDOLS ISN'T ENOUGH TO MAKE THEM STOP HATING BTS ARMY AND HYBE, WHEN DOES IT END?

***

Hi Anon,

Before getting into it, I want to be clear about one thing: HYBE has its own problems.

BigHit was an efficiently run company that balanced artist wellfare and development alongside commercial targets, very well, and Bang PD has managed to bring over many of those best practices to HYBE. Also, HYBE’s acquisition of American music labels early on the company’s lifetime, necessitated it being in-line with international corporate governance best practices under SEC guidelines - something no other k-pop agency has had to do. So at the most basic level, HYBE is easily the best run k-pop agency in Korea and this has been true for a long time.

But even then, the expansion of BigHit to HYBE meant pulling manpower and staff from other k-pop agencies especially Big 3, and there was a huge hiring of ex-SM staff that happened in 2020 - staff who brought over their own bias, work practices and culture. They’d have to adjust to how things were done at HYBE, but culture flows both ways so I suspect it also affected many things in HYBE, and it’s no secret there’s been an uptick in issues for BTS since HYBE’s creation that weren’t there under BigHit. But again, overall, HYBE is still one of the best run companies in Korea.

Here’s an excerpt from a proprietary research done on idol contracts in Korea basically showing as much (though HYBE isn’t explicitly named, also note the share of revenue SM takes from their artists relative to other companies):

*

A lot of this information is old news, but as I keep saying, nothing in k-pop can be understood outside of the context of this being an ultra-, hyper-competitive space. That alone should explain the crux of k-pop stans’ behaviours to any issues that arise if something connected to BTS is involved. For as long as I can remember, BTS / BigHit and ARMYs have run counter-cultural to the norms here (until recently), and that has earned them being enemy numero uno. Nothing is more important in this space to k-pop stans, than hating the scapegoat - BTS and anything related to them by proxy and no that’s not an exaggeration.

ARMYs don’t make it any easier for them though (lol) when too many people are using this situation as a gotcha, but it’s also true there wouldn’t be a gotcha to be had now if k-pop stans had put aside their fear-mongering over ‘monopoly’ and whatnot in HYBE in the first place, to just think for a bit when Chris Lee was peddling tales of Pink Bloods in alliance, while Bang PD was drawing attention to the abysmal corporate governance in SM.

Everything SM is doing now, they’ve done before, many times, successfully, because the stans would rather excuse it and redirect blame on every other company, than on SM. The only exception to this pattern was in 1st and 2nd gen where fans supported the idols without compromise so SM had to change a bit. But lol, that was also before BTS - once BTS was introduced into the mix and it was clear they were an anomaly, the priorities of many stan communities in k-pop changed, and this has only gotten worse over the years. Everybody who has been here long enough knows it, including SM, and these behaviours have only been reinforced by most companies in this space because they know it takes the heat off them.

I mean, you all witnessed that this is exactly what SM did during the takeover drama.

If you go on YouTube right now, you’d see 10s of videos made about...

how HYBE is a monopolistic hydra of an evil company intent on ruining k-pop;

about HYBE having a girl group curse (not the companies that blacklisted female idols who have written books about abuse under SM, not the companies that female idols took to court over pimping, drug use and coercion, not the K-pop companies working with R Kelly to groom female minors, later having agency executives marry former female trainees, and so on that happens in Big3);

production and audio mixing problems (that none of these critics can actually explain);

about rumours of enslavement in BigHit for BTS;

...from 10s of accounts by k-pop stans, not just one source, based on barely cohesive fan theories, common vanilla business practices, and vibes. You won’t find anything nearly as close to this on SM, JYPE, or YG - even at the height of the Burning Sun scandal.

Selective amnesia is a coping mechanism for many k-pop stans, and a part of me is sympathetic towards some fans since many of them just want to support their fave idols and may feel like they have no choice when SM is involved. And like I've said before, all corporations have their own issues, but again, there's levels to this madness, and it has been clear to anyone with half a brain that SM is the worst of the bunch. And so it's also true SM stans have enabled a lot of this insanity.

CBX seem to be in good hands, so I hope it really works out for them. Their stans will find ways to cope by latching onto any mildly negative news out of HYBE for the next 12-ish months (again, we saw SM encourage this sort of thinking during the takeover drama), and things will chug on as they do here.

#sm entertainment #sme #hybe #bighit #bangtan #fandom discourse #fandom behavior #fandom behaviour #kpop #kpop fandom #kpop music #kpop industry

[blueiskewl]

New Video Shows Gold Coins and Treasure from The San Jose Shipwreck

New video shows gold coins and other treasure scattered around a long-lost shipwreck off the coast of Colombia — as well as two other historical shipwrecks nearby, officials said Monday. Maritime experts consider the wreck of the San Jose to be the "holy grail" of Spanish colonial shipwrecks.

President Ivan Duque and naval officials said on Monday that a remotely operated vehicle reached 900 meters below the surface of the ocean, showing new images of the wreckage.

The video shows the best-yet view of the treasure that was aboard the San Jose — including gold ingots and coins, cannons made in Seville in 1655 and an intact Chinese dinner service.

The news agency reported the remotely operated vehicle also discovered two other shipwrecks in the area, including a schooner thought to be from about two centuries ago.

"We now have two other discoveries in the same area, that show other options for archaeological exploration," navy commander Admiral Gabriel Perez said, according to Reuters.

Colombia was a colony of Spain when the San Jose was sunk in 1708, and gold from across South America, especially modern-day Peru and Bolivia, was stored in the fort of its coastal city, Cartagena, before being shipped back to Europe.

The Colombian government considers it a "national treasure" and wants it to be displayed in a future museum to be built in Cartagena.

According to a presidential decree released earlier this year, companies or individuals interested in excavating the ship will have to sign a "contract" with the state and submit a detailed inventory of their finds to the government as well as plans for handling the goods.

The uber-loot, which experts estimate to include at least 200 tons of gold, silver and emeralds, will be a point of pride for Colombia, Vice President and top diplomat Marta Lucia Ramirez said in a statement. The treasure could be worth billions of dollars if ever recovered.

"The sums of wealth are invaluable, and the responsibility of the protégés has already been extracted, contributing to the history of Colombia, the Caribbean and the world," she said.

Long the daydream of treasure hunters worldwide, the San Jose galleon was sunk by the British Navy on the night of June 7, 1708, off Cartagena de Indias.

The San Jose was at the time carrying gold, silver and precious stones which were to be delivered from the Spanish colonies in Latin America to the court of King Philip V.

Only a few of the San Jose's 600-member crew survived the wreck.

"It makes it very touchy because one is not supposed to intervene in war graves," Justin Leidwanger, an archaeologist at Stanford University who studies ancient shipwrecks, told Live Science in 2015. "Can you pluck treasure off the seabed without disturbing a war grave? I doubt you can. But these are the sort of discussions that will be had."

At the end of 2015, then-Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced the discovery of the exact location of the wreck, which was confirmed by the ship's unique bronze cannons with dolphin engravings.

Colombia has said it will cost about $70 million to carry out a full salvage operation on the wreckage, which is at a depth of between 2,000 and 3,200 feet.

Spain says the wreck is its own, as a ship of state; and an indigenous group in Bolivia, the Qhara Qhara, says the treasure belongs to them, since their ancestors were forced to mine it from what was in the 1500s the world's largest silver mine.

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