#rusty quill discourse

[unusualshrimp]

The Article is questionable and presumptive but now that we're talking about it, did the timeline of "All tma creators insist the show is over and they're glad it ended -> RQ has financial troubles -> The creators of tma suddenly decide they want to keep continuing the story. for no reason 🥰🌸" not seem suspicious at all. the Kickstarter goals situation terrified me

[spacecoffeeandcartoons]

I am a (truly independent, not part of a network) audio drama creator, and what's striking me about all this is seeing the huge difference in responses I'm seeing on Twitter (from my fellow audio drama creators of all stripes) versus here on Tumblr (from audio drama fans who are largely not creators).

On Twitter, the general vibe from other creators is "I believe a lot of these stories about working with Rusty Quill. I've heard similar through the grapevine."

On Tumblr, people are acting like the author of the article is a rival CEO or something? Or that this is Fable and Folly attacking RQ.

Folks, neither of these is remotely true. Fable and Folly has absolutely nothing to do with this. This is Newt writing as Newt, and the power imbalance here between Rusty Quill's huge influence and Newt being one freelancer is VAST.

Audio drama is barely even an industry. I wish it were bigger, I wish it had some money in it, but the fact is, it doesn't. It hardly even has any journalism, and certainly no major platforms for journalism -- that's why this article is on Medium. There's no audience for audio drama journalism. Please, understand the state of the "industry". This is why RQ is such a giant -- no one else compares to them. Other audio drama creators have to beg for scraps while crowdfunding -- Magnus 2 gets £600,000. That is an insane amount of money for audio drama. I know some folks who have a spreadsheet of every audio drama crowdfunding campaign for the last several years, and *Magnus 2 has raised as much as all the rest of them put together*. And that includes crowdfunding by the Wolf 359 creators!That is RQ's influence here.

(Incidentally, there are lots of other great shows crowdfunding just now who are fighting to raise, like, 1% of what Magnus 2 is getting. You can find them here if you want to help! These are excellent, well-made, gripping shows. Give them a shot! https://twitter.com/podfunds)

I have no affiliation with RQ, but I am in a lot of audio drama creator spaces, and all I can say is what is said in the article does not surprise me. If you go look at audio drama creator reactions on Twitter, you'll see most of us are not surprised. We just are a tiny, tiny industry w/o a good platform to raise this issue on.

[victorianlonging]

so that article about rq going around? was written by the marketing director of Fable & Folly (another podcasting network)

i won’t say anything else about the content, but maybeeee keep that in mind when you’re reading it 

[phoebenavarro]

Actually that article pisses me off so much because it is SUCH bad journalism, clearly intended to elicit an emotional reaction, because the writer has a grudge

There are serious allegations in that article and I wish they had been presented in an even, professional, and journalistic way so I didn’t have to spend my time debunking bullshit and could instead discuss what Rusty Quill has done wrong and how they need to fix it.

[fataldrum]

Rusty Quill employees speak out

Several RQ employees have put out statements about their experiences, and I wanted to include some excerpts, because they say a lot of really important things. If you read the call-out post on Medium, I highly recommend you read their side of the story.

"It’s heartbreaking that some people try to see the worst on the surface without understanding the depth and real people behind the shell." - April Sumner

"I know when I am facing anxiety and depression or other health issues that I will be able to take time off without being pressured to work until I’m ready again." - Tessa Vroom

"I don’t personally agree with every single decision the company has ever made. It would be deeply unhealthy to treat RQ as above reproach. The problem, to me, is when people so desperately want leadership to be the villain. One big podcast and suddenly everyone thinks you’re Disney." - Annie Fitch

"I have never worked at a company that so highly prioritises supporting its employees and their self-care, even in the face of hardship." - Jess Anson

"As an American, the work culture of Rusty Quill is mind-blowing, because no one works quite like they do. In the U.S. we are so used to being taken advantage of, of giving our life to the company, of expecting people to work 'for exposure'. RQ doesn’t want any part of that. This company sees you as a person, as an individual, as a g-d damn human being with thoughts and concerns and needs and feelings and worthy of respect and understanding." - Cathy Rinella

"Rusty Quill are the best employer I’ve ever had. [...] That Medium post… just doesn’t track with my experiences."

"[...]in terms of the DEI space, I’m in a really unique position in that I don’t ever have to convince senior leadership of the importance of my role. I’ve literally said 'here are my plans for us in the next few years' and the response has basically always been 'great, go for it!' I’m really grateful for that, and for the trust they have placed in me." - Helen Gould

[yb-three]

Since I haven’t seen anyone post it, here’s the link to RQ’s response to The Article

Overall it’s very well written and professional. It was clear that the accusing article was a hit piece, but it’s good to read RQ’s public response pointing out all the misinformation anyways.

[just-an-enby-lemon]

They started at Paris explaining death to a powerfull entity like thing and here are they again. Is the chance of actually teach Mr. Celling basic morals instead of making them worse.

[ashes-in-a-jar]

Why have I seen 3 different people post hoping Tim Fearon is Adelard Dekker? Now I'm irrationally scared that Rusty Quill (who, mind you, have been known to make Choices) will actually cast a white voice actor to play a canonically black character...

[whatsuphoneybee]

Yikes.

That article is sounding more and more like a hit piece :/

Text I.D.

We were approached by Newt Schottelkotte to assist in “a comprehensive guide to fiction podcast networks” in November, and they did not disclaim their position as the Marketing Director of a competitor network called Fable and Folly. They later reached out to us asking if we cared to provide comment on “recent changes our network has gone through” for this article. They again provided no information as to the actual content of their writing, instead referencing their “guide”. We were not provided a copy of this article prior to publication, nor were we informed of any allegations, meaning we did not respond due to the lack of common journalistic practice. Multiple staff and contractors have contacted us warning of similarly misleading approaches.

[briony-poisoned]

There is just something objectively funny about a piece called "Who's Afraid of Alexander J. Newall?" coming out shortly after Alex admitted on Twitter that he prefers to drink unflavored hot water to real tea.

Like, am I afraid of this man? No.

[throuple-tournament]

Throuple Tournament Info

Rules

Submissions are closed.

Polls will run for a week and I will give you at least a days notice.

I will not answer asks while a poll is up unless it's propaganda or a question about the polls.

I will not answer asks about discourse. I might think about what you said but I don't want discourse on this blog.

I will also not respond to rude or mean asks.

Please send asks that are propaganda. Also, please send asks with your fan art or your favourite screenshots that you wouldn't mind me using for polls.

Please send in a description of your favourite throuples if you want to; these will be used in the polls.

Please do not be rude about other people's interests or the other throuples in the tournament. You can talk about your preferred throuple without talking badly about the other/s.

Please don't jokingly threaten others or joke about suicide. I've noticed that some polls I follow have had this issue and I don't want this to happen on my blog.

I don't know when I'm going to have the first polls ready as I'm going to be getting busier from this week onwards but I'll let you guys know.

Match Ups Under Keep Reading

Group 1

Marco/Star/Tom vs Marco/Janna/Jackie from Star vs the Forces of Evil

Adaine/Fig/Ayda vs Em/Sofia/Dale from Dimension 20

Kala/Wolfgang/Rajan vs Lito/Hernando/Daniela from Sense 8

Willow/Luz/Amity vs Willow/Hunter/Gus from The Owl House

Raz/Lilli/Dogen vs Ford/Lucretia/Otto from Psychonauts

Finn/Rey/Poe vs Rex/Anakin/Padme from Star Wars

Makoto/Sayaka/Kyoko vs Hajime/Nagito/Chiaki from Danganronpa

Ryunosuke/Barok/Kazuma vs Clay/Apollo/Klavier from The Great Ace Attorney

Jason/Roy/Koriand'r vs Dick/Barbara/Koriand'r from DC Comics

Marius/Ivy/Raphaella vs Orpheus/Narcissus/Eurydice from The Mechanisms

Group 2

Selina/Harley/Ivy vs Tim/Bernard/Kon from DC

Sam/Tucker/Danny vs Vlad/Jack/Maddie from Danny Phantom

Rose/Lissa/Natalie from Vampire Academy vs Bonnie/Caroline/Elena from Vampire Diaries

Jay/Nya/Cole from Ninjago vs Red Son/Mei/MK from Lego Monkie Kid

Rilla/Arum/Damien from Penumbra Podcast vs Howard/James/Cel from Rusty Quill Gaming Podcast

Haru/Legosi/Louis from Beastars vs Ranpo/Poe/Mushitarou from Bungou Stray Dogs

Adrien/Marinette/Kagami from Miraculous Ladybug vs Anne/Marcy/Sasha from Amphibia

Ichika/Nene/Kanade vs Rui/Mafuyu/Tsukasa from Project SEKAI

Parker/Hardison/Elliot from Leverage vs Neal/Peter/Elizabeth from White Collar

Yamato/Ace/Deuce from One Piece vs Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere from Arthurian Legend

Group 3

Ichigo/Minto/Retasu from Tokyo Mew Mew vs Hikaru/Lala/Yuni from Star Twinkle Precure

Kyle/Rogelio/Lonnie from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power vs Pearl/Rose/Greg from Steven Universe

Rapunzel/Eugene/Cassandra from Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure vs Zuko/Sokka/Suki from Avatar: The Last Airbender

The Doctor/Rose/Jack from Doctor Who vs James/Bones/Spock from Star Trek TOS

Nancy/Steve/Jonathan from Stranger Things vs Merlin/Gwen/Arthur from Merlin (2008)

Rachel/Chloe/Max from Life is Strange vs Thanatos/Zagreus/Megaera from Hades

Vincent/Victor/Albert from Vincent: The Secret of Myers vs Rinne/Himeru/Niki from Ensmeble Stars!

Jack/Kirtash/Victoria from Idhun's Memories Series vs Qibli/Winter/Moonwatcher from Wings of Fire Series

Ludivine/Rielle/Audric from The Empirium Trilogy vs Vlad/Nathan/Ursula from Hunger Pangs:True Love Bites

King Kelp/Lord Cabbage/Bagel from Cucumber Quest vs Camilla/Nyra/Dendro from Muted

Group 4

Neptune/Uranus/Pluto from Sailor Moon vs Aira/Rizumu/Mion from Pretty Rhythm

Mickey/Goofy/Donald from Disney vs Pepe/Sylvester/Penelope from Looney Tunes

Draculaura/Clawdeen/Frankie from Monster High vs Ruby/Weiss/Penny from RWBY

Nathan/Annalise/Gabriel from The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself vs Quentin/Eliot/Arielle from The Magicians

Leon/Claire/Ada from Resident Evil vs Jaskier/Yennefer/Geralt from The Witcher

Abigail/Sam/Sebastian from Stardew Valley vs Candy/Sapphire/Zack from My Sims

Sweet/Capn/K_K from Deltarune vs Shiver/Frye/Big Man from Splatoon

Chris/Millie/Conrad from Chronicles of Chrestomanci vs Sadie/Walt/Anubis from The Kane Chronicles

Rah'oxah/Legzi/Ryjnah from Drawga: Dungeons and Drawings vs Grendan/York/Rose from Drawtectives

Jean/Scott/Logan from Marvel Comics vs Wu/Li/Gao from Iron Widow

Group 5

Yuji/Megumi/Nobara from Jujutsu Kaisen vs Misa/Light/L from Deathnote

Lucy/George/Anthony from Lockwood & Co vs Louis/Lestat/Armand from Interview With A Vampire

Chel/Tulio/Miguel from The Road to El Dorado vs Manolo/Maria/Joaquin from The Book of Life

Henry/Charles/Ellie from Henry Stickmin Collection vs Steve/Alex/Herobrine from Minecraft

Soldier/Demoman/Zhanna from TF2 vs Susie/Magolor/Taranza from Kirby

Morgana/Launchpad/Drake from Darkwing Duck vs Yoo/Han/Kim from Omniscient Readers Viewpoint

Isabela/Merril/Hawke from Dragon Age 2 vs Dorian/Orym/Fearne from Critical Role Campaign 3

Vivi/Arthur/Lewis from Mystery Skulls Animated vs Aizo/Yujiro/Hiyori from Honeyworks

June/Dave/Karkat from Homestuck vs Trevor/Sypha/Alucard from Castlevania

Elizabeth/Jack/Will from Pirates of the Carribean vs Cyrano/Christian/Roxanne from Cyrano (2021)

[sage-hendricks]

I and many of my coworkers at Rusty Quill have released statements and testimonials in light of recent discussion surrounding Rusty Quill.

You can click through this link to see all of our statements individually. For my part, I already shared mine in whole to the discord server for my independent content a few days ago, so now I'm sharing it more widely here.

Annie Fitch’s Testimonial

Finally sitting down to write a statement regarding all the recent discourse surrounding RQ. This is a statement I am writing and releasing for myself. No one at RQ has pressured me to write any of the following, nor altered my words in any way.

First, I want to talk about the allegations that RQ is mistreating employees. These experiences are my own, so please do not imagine I am speaking about any other specific case or anyone else’s story. Have I ever felt mistreated by anyone at RQ, professionally or otherwise? Categorically no. Not in the slightest. Professionally, leadership has been so patient, kind, and helpful in all facets of my time there. I obviously cannot divulge specifics, but there are occasions when errors on my part have directly and seriously impacted production. I always think a decent metric of how a company treats its employees is seeing how it treats them when they make mistakes. So how was I treated? Kindly. Patiently. With understanding. Above all, professionally. No one made me feel that I was in trouble, that they were angry.

Personally, these people are not just my coworkers and bosses, they are my peers and my friends. The inside working spaces of RQ are friendly, open, communicative, funny, fun, and easily my favorite employer I’ve ever had.

Am I telling you not to criticize the company? Absolutely not. I don’t personally agree with every single decision the company has ever made. It would be deeply unhealthy to treat RQ as above reproach. The problem, to me, is when people so desperately want leadership to be the villain. One big podcast and suddenly everyone thinks you’re Disney. I truly wish I could express to you the things Alex and Hannah have sacrificed, for me and everyone else at this company. Some of the recent discourse has been around pay scale; I wonder if you’re all aware that Alex pays himself the same amount as I get paid when editing? He’s got orders of magnitude more experience, skill, and knowledge than I do, but the pay rate is flat. A good leader is someone who will never ask you to do something they would not themselves do. When I train line supervisors at my day job, one of my maxims is “no one is too important to load a truck.” The message is to be the first on the line doing the shitty jobs; if you order someone else to break a sweat on your behalf and then stand around with a coffee giving orders, that person will never trust you. I can confidently tell you there is absolutely no job I could be asked to do at RQ that leadership would not be willing to bite down and do instead.

What’s most frustrating to me is the uncritical reception of allegations against these people. If you don’t personally know them, I don’t expect you to take it on faith that they’re good people. Likewise I don’t expect my testimony to their character to waive away all concerns. It’s disheartening to see people I trust, people who have gone out of their way to support me and the things I create outside of the company, use me as a model victim. I cannot thank these people enough for the kind words, the support of my streams and my music, and all they’ve done for me as a creator. On the other hand, it hurts me a lot to see my friends try to slag off my other friends on my behalf. Again, there are legitimate criticisms to be made, and they should be pursued when presented. That doesn’t feel like what’s happened; this feels like a group of people coming with preconceived notions, whether deserved or not, and immediately accepting anything they feel confirms them. What kind of advocate for workers’ rights doesn’t reach out to the workers currently employed for their input? When you wield your fandom as a hammer, the creators you support start looking like nails sooner than you think.

Even when the points were refuted, line by line and with proof, some people only doubled down. It begins to feel like nothing could ever be enough to turn some people’s opinions around, and that saddens me. There’s very little I can do to convince anyone, I know, but I hope at least some people can trust me when I say that the evil they’re looking for is just not present. These people are my friends, and some of the most honest and upstanding people I know. We can try to handle issues and disagreements in good faith, or we can keep cycling the same stress forever.

I know I’m painting a target on my back writing this. I’m not looking forward to finding myself on the other end of the outrage every time going forward. But in truth, if you want to support me, Twitch and Bandcamp are great, but supporting Rusty Quill IS supporting me. Supporting this company, critically but in good faith, is how you help me and my peers grow. It’s how you help us, all of us, do better. And for the love of god, I could do without the stress of this every three months.

I hope you are all well, I care about all of you immensely, and I am sorry if any of what I’ve said hurts or alienates anyone. I’ve held a lot of this back for a long time, and it’s clear it’s no longer helpful to anyone for me to stay silent. Be good to one another and I hope to see you all around very soon.

So there you have that. Guess it'll be interesting to field reactions now 🙃

Small note because I'd hate this to become a bigger thing than it is: I edited one single character of this statement to post it here! Gasp! The one I sent in had a typo where instead of "It begins to..." I wrote "I begins". Fuck I hate proofreading.

[thebrightgreenscream]

My personal take on the Article™️ is that it stumbled badly enough on (real or imagined) bias that the team managed to fuck themselves with it. Even before I was aware of the discourse around the article I get weird and frankly petty vibes, mostly from the way the information was presented / argued for. Why name-drop the CEO of rusty quill despite only briefly mentioning him? Why use TMA-themed pseudonyms in what was supposed to be a serious reflection of RQ? Why include entirely unnecessary speculation on the guest writers for TMA2/TMP? I don't believe that the authors involvement with f&f is necessarily a red flag, but I would describe the lack of transparency in their employment as confusing. Its not possible for readers to verify claims made by the anonymous sources, and while I believe the team would not purposely misconstrue the information they received, I also believe that their own actions within the piece has undercut whatever message they were trying to make. I believe that this article has managed to harm the reputation of everyone informed and the degree to which people got caught up arguing over the integrity/reliability of the article has distracted from the allegations made *and* functionally required those associated with RQ to make statements based on implications the writer created, regardless of their own personal desire.

[cryptticrow]

It's so strange to me that it has been almost 2 years since the end of tma and there's a good portion of the fandom that will now grow with tmp that wasn't there during the time that it was running, that doesn't know the discourse and the memes, that wasn't there for the rq discord and rq streams, that haven't listened to the old rq originals and that doesn't even know the cast and crew besides their names in the credits. Maybe it's because I was hyperfixated on rusty quill as a whole back in 2020 but the fact there are tma fans now that haven't experienced any of it is so strange.

[swamp-spirit]

Okay, so I don’t want to wade deep into the Rusty Quill discourse because it is Very Bad for My Mental Health, but I have seen some wild takes about NDAs so I did want to clarify

NDAs can be bad and abusive, but they can also be good and useful. They are perfectly normal and not inherently nefarious.

I’ve seen a couple of takes by people who said they were distressed by hearing about NDAs or hoped they weren’t common, and I think this comes from usually hearing about NDAs when they have been used abusively. NDAs are definitely used to silence victims of both corporate and individual abuse, but they are usually just... pretty normal.

I have spent almost the last decade working under various NDAs, including as a writer. Here are some things NDAs do.

-Protect creative information. As an editor, you’re usually under an NDA to not leak the work of the authors you work with. Anyone on a movie set it probably under NDA not to give out spoilers, from the actors to the caterers. There are just some people in the world who want to be the one to get to tell the media the big plot twist, even if they know it will hurt the rest of the creative team. This also keeps people from leaking ideas to competitors. If your story gets leaked, somebody can make a rip-off version that comes out first, making the original look like the hack.

-Protect sensitive information. This is not quite as relevant here, but is the other main reason I’ve been under NDA’s. The patient confidentiality that means your nurse can’t tell TikTok about your rash? NDA. That means your therapist can’t tell people you hallucinate? NDA. That means your priest can’t tell people about your crush on your best friend’s husband? NDA. Working with people with disabilities, I was under NDA that meant I couldn’t share my clients very personal medical information, and that is GOOD. Less relevant to this situations, but when I see “NDAs = bad“, I worry about that making people support policy that would reduce these protections.

One of the specific cases that’s come up in this was the idea that an employee couldn’t share her layoff via tweet.

If it really was just not letting her say she was fired and begin job hunting, that is weird and bad. Companies using NDAs to cover shitty policy is depressingly normal, but... making people pretend they never got fired would be incredibly strange.

If, however, they wanted her to wait 48 hours so they could talk to other team members in person, that’s totally reasonable. Finding out you’ve lost your job via tweet SUCKS. It might also cause somebody to misunderstand the situation. If they planned to rehire, it’s good if that conversation is had in person rather than letting somebody cry themselves to sleep over a tweet.

NDAs being used to silence employees about ill treatment is a valid concern, but NDAs existing is not evil. Pretty much any collaborative creative project with a legal team is going to have some level of NDA.

Thankfully, the article didn’t seem to mention the really gross situation of somebody being silenced about interpersonal abuse via NDA, so the main concern is corporate failings being covered up by NDA.

If this is something you really want to dig into (which like, for your mental health, maybe don’t), I’d recommend looking into what you’re concerned about. For example,making employees agree not to talk about the companies finances IS legal, but refusing to let employees disclose their own salaries is NOT. (which like, I won’t claim means nobody would ever put a salary NDA in a contract, because companies do illegal shit all the time) Rusty Quill also claimed their financial records are public, so you can go look into those if you really want.

But please do not panic just because NDAs are involved.

[beholdingslut]

(re: choose violence ask) 24-25 ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

jonelias vs jonmartin was pretty good. never mind that fundamentally if you liked one of these pairings you were never going to get what you were looking for in the other so no need to have it out with each other like we did every single week

25. common fandom complaint that you’re sick of hearing

during season 5 of the magnus archives, people were very seriously like, you shouldn’t use any fandom tags (even if you used spoiler tags as well) for 48 hours due to potentially exposing others to spoilers. however i feel if you don’t have the wherewithal to stay away until you could listen or use the block or filter system, that’s on you. i also feel that you shouldn’t then send anonymous asks to people that DO “violate” this secret rule that was posted about in the rusty quill discord server telling them to take their posts down and that they’re gonna lose rusty quill revenue.

[ask game]