#staff has seen the ending and have signed NDAs

[incogrio]

k.th - escape with me

pairing: taehyun x gn! reader

genre: angst, fluff, hurt/comfort except i’m bad at writing the hurt part

synopsis: taehyun tries to make up for not being able to go out in public w u. ends up trying to act tough in an escape room.

warnings: poorly written all around, angst, tae is kinda mean, reader is cringy, members make fun of tae

w/c: 1.5k+

a/n: okay so. this took so long to write bc ya boy has been STRUGGLING w both motivation and the wifi in costa rica. i kinda gave up at the end, pls forgive me :( once im back in the states, ill be writing much better fics! and i’ll be accepting requests for enhypen too!!!!! (might be a little inaccurate as i am currently getting into them) ANYWAYS LOVE YALL I HOPE YOU DONT KILL ME FOR HOW BAD THIS IS!!!

taehyun was, in many ways, your dream boy. he was affectionate, protective, caring, funny, and he always listened.

except for when he couldn’t.

you were currently in your third fight of the week with your boyfriend of a few months. the topic of your arguments never wavered: you could never be seen in public with him. actually, scratch that. you could be in public with him. it’s not like you wanted a huge display of affection right in the middle of the streets of seoul. you did, however, want to feel like your relationship with your boyfriend wasn’t so one sided.

“tyun, please, stop.” you cried, resting your head in your hands whilst seated on the couch.

“no, you have to listen! i can’t give you what you want, y/n. if only you stopped being so selfish.”

and then, footsteps. a door slamming. blood began rushing to your ears and manifesting itself as tears cascading down your cheeks. he never called you by your real name. he never left you in the middle of a fight. he never made you sob without consoling you. he never.

it wasn’t until two days later that you heard from taehyun in forms other than ‘did you eat?’ texts and doordash notifications. three heavy knocks erupted from the side of taehyun’s fist and the wooden door. the same door that you had been seated at everyday for hours, awaiting his return.

“angel, are you there?” he asked, his voice clearly strained from sobbing or yelling, or both. you didn’t respond, but he noticed your shadow sitting on the ground via the slit between the door and the floor.

he sighed as he slowly adjusted himself to sit with his side and head leaning against the wood.

“you don’t have to open up. just listen, yeah? can you listen for me, doll?” he asked rhetorically. “i am so sorry, angel. you… you deserve so much more than i am able to give you. so much more than hiding and sneaking around and figuring out disguises. you deserve your praises shouted from the rooftops.” taehyun sighed.

a pregnant pause. “i talked to hybe. that’s… that’s what i’ve been doing. i told them how much it’s been hurting us. and i think we can make this work! if you want to, angel… please, please want to.”

you sniffle. “i do.” taehyun closed his eyes and sighed dreamily at the sound of your voice. he allowed himself to cry for a moment, biting his lip to quench his whines.

“thank you, baby.”

a few days later, taehyun is in the back of txt’s van, accompanied by all the members and you. he had promised you that you’d be able to go on actual dates, as long as they were slightly modified. restaurants would be cleared out of people, and staff were to sign an nda. parks were to be closed off to the general public due to “maintenance”. movie theaters were to be kept completely dark at all times, with only you two and the staff not even being allowed to know who the famous person was. it was not a normal relationship, far from it, but it was yours. and he cared enough to try for you.

today, you were on your way to an escape room. txt were already filming a “to-do” episode in this specific location, and taehyun managed to convince the staff to give him a separate escape room to do with you after the filming had ended. you were ecstatic when he told you, and he was ecstatic that you were no longer crying because of him.

except, for a few days ago, when he told his beloved members of the plans.

“you’re taking… them… to an escape room? you’re a scaredy cat.” soobin noted with a scrunched up face in confusion. tyun’s happy smile slowly deflated, his eyes uncrinkling as he thought about what he said.

beomgyu immediately burst out laughing, “you’re gonna embarrass yourself! oh my god- you should record it too!” taehyun immediately rolled his eyes, and pretended his members words didn’t get to him. kai immediately went up to him and patted his back silently.

so now, as he sits next to you he’s fidgeting with his shorts, looking out the window as his sweat becomes more frequent. would you think he was a loser if he got scared? would you break up with him? make fun of him? prefer kai because of his calmness when it comes to jumpscares?

he began bobbing his leg up and down, gnawing at his lip as the van finally pulled up to the filming location. taehyun tried his best to calm himself for the filming, but found that the members had to say his nerves were from fear of the jumpscares.

what felt like too long and too little time passed, and suddenly you were both being told the synopsis of your goal by the escape room manager.

as you both walk inside the dimly lit, extremely decorated gigantic cage, you slip your hand into taehyuns.

“i’m a little nervous…” you muttered, and he felt a glimpse of both hope and bravery blossom in his chest.

a small smile graced his lips, “don’t worry, i’ll protect you!” he said with his teeth sticking out from behind his lips. he looked adorably unthreatening. immediately after, a booming recording welcomed you into the chamber.

“WELCOME LAB RATS!” it shouted, causing you both to jump, “DONT WORRY! YOU WONT BE IN THIS CAGE SOON! SOON, YOU’LL BE JUST LIKE HIM!” and suddenly! the roof pops open and a giant, fake rat corpse falls to the ground. you immediately shriek and hide behind taehyun, and he gulps in fear as he tries his best to maintain his composure.

he reaches behind him with one hand, holding your waist softly as he tries to simultaneously comfort the both of you, and uses his free hand to stuff his closed fist into his mouth in a desperate attempt to stifle his scream.

you slowly creep out from behind him, realizing how obviously fake the rat was and that you had missed all of the clues the fake doctor had given you during the rest of his monologue. oh well, you think, and look to tae.

“are you…” you laugh a little, “are you okay?” you ask incredulously as you witness his biting on his fist. he looks up, immediately dropping his fist and shoving his tough guy act back on.

he nods, clenching his jaw and trying to keep a straight face.

oh, you think. oh this is going to be fun.

you insist on splitting up, looking around a comically food bowl and finding various clues and seemingly random items.

tae is behind you on the other side of the cage. he reaches his hand inside the giant pile of fake hamster shavings, straining his neck to keep his eyes barely looking at the scene in front of him. as he combs through the shavings, his hands wrap around a small, cylindrical object. he shrieks in fear, launching back and landing on his butt before crawling over to you.

he clears his throat pointlessly, “um… something is over there…” he says, voice wavering despite his want to seem fine.

you have to bite your lip in order to hold back your laughter. you walk over, kneeling at the shavings.

he whined out a small, “ahh!!!” as he closed his eyes and turned away, only hearing you reach inside. you pull out what looked to be a kaleidoscope. you decide to have some fun.

“i got it,” you mutter, and he slowly turns back towards you. “wait what the… AHHHHH!!!!” you start screaming in faux terror when you lifted it up to look through it, throwing it across the cage. taehyun, despite his fear, rushes up next to you, holding your cheeks in his palms and squishing them together slightly.

“are you okay?” he asked, nervousness obvious in his boba eyes.

you shake your head and pout dramatically, “you look and see!!” you insist.

he sighs, pressing a kiss to your forehead and slowly going up to the kaleidoscope as though it would reach out and bite him. he brings it up to his eye, and tilts his head.

“there’s nothing?” he remarks in tiny english, to which you grow genuinely confused at. you were being dramatic, yes, but before you saw a beautiful design with letters and numbers throughout.

“what?” you walk up, looking through it. and again, darkness. you slowly lower it from your eye, bringing a hand to cover your mouth in shock. “oh my god i broke it.”

“huh?”

“TYUN I WAS BEING DRAMATIC SO I COULD SCARE YOU BUT OH MY GOD I BROKE IT.”

he stares at you in disbelief, before letting out a few giggles and looking up at one of the cameras in the room.

“can we still complete the escape room?” he asked, scratching the back of his head as he ignored your cackling.

they only hear a sigh, before being promptly kicked out of the building.

long story short: next time, just ask your beautiful boba eyed boyfriend to take you bowling. he’d still embarrass himself, but at least the props will stay intact.

comment, dm, or ask to be added to the taglist!

requests are open for both enhypen and txt!! ask to your hearts content :3

don’t forget your daily click to help palestine! (it’s completely free and just one click!)

[chaifootsteps]

for anon who was frustrated - things have come a long way already, so don't lose heart

Most of Hazbin's reviews were lukewarm and a lot of Internet reviewers said it was a massive disappointment compared to the pilot. Helluva Boss has seen a massive drop in views and there's pretty clear signs that they're struggling to get the support they once did outside of that, given they're doing often subpar quality merch drops after every episode (even shorts!) now.

The Full Moon/Apology Tour releases have really turned off a lot of the audience who are realizing what others have been warning them about for a long time - Stolas is likely never going to be held accountable in a way that makes what a sucky character he is, instead Viv is just going to keep trying to retcon and engage in other bad writing to dig herself out of a hole of her own making in order to push an OTP that even some of its most die hard stans seem increasingly disillusioned with. I'm seeing a lot more discontentment with the show, especially the Stolas shilling, on the once positive Helluva Boss reddit. and once the rest of the episodes come out at the end of the year, if Stolas sees no meaningful consequences at all and is just woobified again then it's going to get harder for fans to keep coping and using the 'it'll get good if you just wait!' excuse

And I don't think people will forget the mess around Poison that easily, especially since the pile of evidence of unprofessional/exploitative behavior from Viv and Spindle is growing. Crediting and bad pay issues are increasingly common to hear about nowadays and the claim that Spindle is 'indie' is starting to ring increasingly voice now its own that outsourcing to Toon City is going on. Not to mention that Viv seems to get into Twitter drama every other month, which isn't helping

Meanwhile, all the pilot cast that everyone loved that she tossed to one side (which there's evidence of) are going on to do bigger and better things in communities that actually care for them. Lackadaisy and TADC are really stealing the indie thunder and they're far better quality made by (in LD's case, can't speak for Glitch) much more ethical and supportive production houses, and Far Fetched is coming along at some point, too

Viv may never flame out the way people might be hoping she will. It might not be a big explosive downfall that gets someone to do a two hour YouTube expose that causes general awareness of the whole mess of stuff around Spindle. But I think there are enough signs that things are going south to trust that she's not going to make anything that's a classic, she's not going to be respected in the industry and she's not going to be able to keep it up forever

People keep comparing her to Butch Hartman but I kinda feel she might end up more like RWBY/Rooster Teeth did. RWBY started out with this real indie underdog spirit and had talented people on the staff (Monty and Shane, one who died tragically young and the other who left the company) but it all got squandered by the other, more amateur writing. They shared Viv's tendency to engage with criticism poorly (in their case, only responding to the bad faith stuff), they too were way too precious about their characters to give them real flaws as well as having Viv's tendency to let self inserts and faves steal the show, plus the amateurish and bad worldbuilding

I don't know if Rooster Teeth ever crunched and underpaid the way Spindle seems to, but since people often seem to put art before their consideration of whether it was made ethically, I think that will ultimately be Viv's downfall. Some of her fanbase are happy to ignore allegations of credit issue, crunch and embarassingly low wages so long as they get their demon show. But if their demon show keeps getting worse and worse (and taking longer and longer to come out), their attention will probably wander elsewhere, which has already started to happen

Combine that with anything that comes out as a result of NDAs expiring and my bet is Spindle will face consequences mostly in the form of more and more fans just quietly turning away from their show and them bleeding money more and more until it's unsustainable to hope to make all four seasons of HB unless the venture becomes wholly outsourced. Same with Hazbin - it might get renewed for more seasons but that doesn't mean those seasons will be good. The love and optimism people had towards Viv's work is just gone now. And if we're being real she's been trying to coast on goodwill from the HH pilot for a long time now

All important things to keep in mind. Thanks for this, Anon.

I think a lot of people are counting on this big, dramatic downfall of Vivziepop and for HH to be cancelled and then none of us have to hear about her ever again -- which isn't impossible, nothing's impossible -- but it's a lot more likely that each round of drama takes something out of her reputation, and eventually down the line she just kind of putters out, replaced by bigger and better shows.

Whether it got 1 season or goes on to have 12, Hazbin's legacy was always pretty safe. Viv's is a lot less certain.

[p-redux]

You know, I am stunned at the lack of logic and critical thinking in this fandom. It’s like those with extreme opinions have such strong confirmation bias that they can’t get out of their own way. When I read some of these posts on lots of different blogs, I am struck at the logical questions that are never truly answered- well except by ad hominem attacks and logical fallacies and extensive conspiracy theories.

1. Wouldn’t a TV show that’s not on a well-known and popular streaming service love the PR they’d get if their costars were actually in love and in a real life relationship? What value does the production company gain by keeping them hidden for almost 10 years? I can’t logically see that it would bring more profits. So we’re supposed to love a loyal, brave, committed, and family-oriented Jamie, but we need a single, sexy Sam to sell the show?? Cognitive dissonance anyone?

2. Now that it’s well established that Sam and Caitriona essentially ARE Outlander and are EPs, wouldn’t they have the power to say no more if this “ narrative” was true? If they quit, there’s no OL. Couldn’t they refuse to film anything else if they aren’t allowed to tell the truth (if it’s hidden)? It’s interesting that Ron and Terri are married, Maril and Matt have twins together, but S and C were forbidden to be together? I would think that could be a legitimate lawsuit. Didn’t they renegotiate new contracts since the first season?

3. Do people actually believe that Sam and Caitriona are good people, philanthropic people, hard working entrepreneurial people, wonderful human beings but at the same time think that either of them would actually lie about their own children? With Sam’s childhood, people honestly think he would deny his kids AND be away from them for months? That they both would lie and deceive us about her father’s funeral?

4. So it’s been 10 years and NOT ONE person associated with either of them has publicly and clearly stated, with no doubts or other possible connotations, that they are really together? No costars? No personal friends? No teacher of their kids? No hospital personnel where the kids were born? No extras on OL? No crew members- even those that have been gone long enough that any NDA they signed about the production would have expired? No hotel staff where they may have traveled with their kids? No former “fake gfs” who might be pissed? No friends of “ fake gfs” that want to defend their friend and set the record straight? Not one person who has been associated with OL who might just think this is harmful to children? No photos of them with kids in public- clear photos, not reflections or someone in the background that we cannot clearly identify? Not videos where we cannot tell who is actually there? Wouldn’t someone somewhere have gotten a photo of them together as a family? In ten years? Have you P, seen evidence that I haven’t? I have seen nothing but reflections, blurry images, unidentifiable people in the background. Am I missing something?

5. About their chemistry- they aren’t the only actors I have ever seen that have great chemistry but no real romantic relationship. There are lots of them. It’s like people don’t know what actors actually do. So much of chemistry in acting between actors is about trust and respect for the work. Even some of the best chemistry has been between actors who didn’t really like each other in real life, but were able to use their chemistry and their talent to create characters we believed loved each other.

6. Lastly, I can’t wrap my brain around liking and respecting these two actors for their work and for their real lives, while claiming every day they are lying to me.

People see what they want to see or what they need to see to support their position.

Occam’s Razor tells me that the simplest explanation is often the best one.

Hopefully when OL finally ends, these two will get some peace.

Now, watch the “but what about ______? “start.

Bless you Anon for summarizing everything I and countless other SANE fans have been saying in the Outlander fandom for the last 9 years. The thing is...some Extreme Shippers continue to ship for a few reasons. I put them in these categories:

1. OG shippers who have invested SO many YEARS in their SamCait fantasy ship. They want to "save face." It's embarrassing to acknowledge that you were fed and believed a LIE for so long. Their egos can't handle it, so they'd rather double down, and find a way to pretzel their brains around things that are obvious facts to the rest of us. They don't want to feel like they "lost." So, they just keep on denying the TRUTH and the mountains of evidence showing that Sam and Cait are not a couple in real life. The alternative is too painful to them. It's been too much time, too much energy, too much of themselves invested in the ship, and they are missing something in their real lives. The ship fills that void.

2. New fans to Outlander who have recently discovered it. They've gone down the rabbit hole of shipper Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter X accounts and they haven't climbed their way out yet to blogs like mine, and other Non-Shippers.

3. The Fake Shippers who pretend to be shippers to MAKE MONEY off those still clinging on to the life boats. There are still bloggers and shipper groups who know they have a captive audience in shippers holding out hope that some of what the original shipper leaders sold them might actually be true. These fake shippers manipulate gifs, pictures, videos, SHOW shippers what they WANT to see. They keep them hanging on with podcasts, magazine, subscriptions. They sell them trips to Scotland, conventions t-shirts, mugs, daily "proof" that Sam and Cait secretly live together with their 5 bairns. And because con artists are experts at conning people, they make everything believable...and some poor souls buy what they're selling. Literally BUY 💵 what they're selling. Sadly, this fandom is filled with a lot of retired women with disposable income, who are lonely or disillusioned with their own lives. And they are easy pickings for the money hungry fake shippers.

So, in summary, the reason there are still some SamCait Shippers is a combination of fake shippers SELLING them the fantasy AND women needing to STILL hold onto the fantasy. With a few actually mentally unwell women thrown in here and there, who have diagnosable mental health issues.

It's actually quite sad. If only they had gotten off the ship with the rest of us years ago, they could have been enjoying celebrating REAL love. Instead, they're on a constantly rocky ship that causes them disappointment more often than not. Here, on terra firma, no one needs Dramamine. It's lovely. Because it's REAL. 💞

[louisisalarrie]

Do you actually know something/seen something that makes you even more sure in your Larrie believes? Like where you are Larrie first and then got some “proves” from your job, or?

Understand if you can’t say anything 😊

Wow ok this accidentally turned into a welcome to the show. So, anon, without further ado, welcome to the show!

I’ve been a larrie since like… 2011. When we were “larry shippers” lol. So the confirmation and further info didn’t happen until I started in the industry. I always knew they were together but it’s interesting. People say they don’t believe they’re like… open about it to the industry but they kind of are. Not in a “I’ll prove it to you” overt way, but it’s just far more conservative in front of fans/the public eye. Plus… so much of this industry are contractors/suppliers who work with big names all the time. While yes, there are NDAs and contracts to assess and sign, a lot of crew just don’t give a fuck. They’re there to get paid and do their job and move onto the next one. Whether it be specific artist’s phone calls or in the cases they’re (larry) at each other’s shows… it just… doesn’t matter to the crew, a lot of the time. There will be a fan here and there who works a show, but you have to be so careful. Many folks in this industry know things and do have proof, but they hold onto it.

It is what it is, at the end of the day. A lot of these folks work with people like P!NK, Taylor Swift etc., like… some seriously high profile names. But there are also times where NDAs are enforced more specifically in specific regions or tours, in which the artist’s mgmt will ensure crew and staff and anyone external to the touring party sign a much more thorough contract, due to… particular “friends” being there/another higher personal matter risk. It’ll be far more specific, as opposed to a blanket basic contract. And the artist requests this if they feel they need to for their own personal comfort and freedom. SO whenever I see those, I know that there is someone on tour with that artist who shouldn’t be identified, or like… something very personal may happen. Which, yeah. If there’s more of a risk, there’s more contracts.

Now, not everyone has to sign these contracts, but if something leaks, like… a photo or an in depth story (less so for fans bc no one believes receipts, more so selling to the media with proof), said touring party often (depending on the artist/level of fame/level of risk) have a spreadsheet of every person there who’s external to that party with contact details, job titles etc. They know who to interrogate. So even if you don’t sign a specific NDA for that specific artist, they will find you if something drops.

Now, that’s important for multiple reasons - the main one being that some receipts can actually be real. Without photo proof, a lot of mgmt teams just don’t give a fuck, because particularly in the case of larry, we’ve been debunking/calling bullshit on folks for so long, that without proof, stories may get some attention but often just… disappear. Unless sold to the media with proof, it kind of…. Doesn’t matter to them. Plausible deniability, etc. ya know.

Say that 2 people saw something at one of Harry’s shows. Let’s role play it.

Person 1: *sends an anon to a popular larrie tumblr and a popular Larrie Twitter because they have to get it off their chest and they can’t hold back* “omg harry was talking on the phone to louis backstage at one of his shows!!! I know because I heard blah blah blah”

Person 2: *sends a voice recording/shitty video that catches his voice but no face as well as an anon to a popular larrie tumblr/twitter* “omg harry was talking on the phone to louis backstage at one of his shows!!! I know because I have proof but please either post carefully or not at all, you just need to know”

And listen… of course proof helps obviously. People are gonna believe person 2 over person 1 because it’s way easier to write a fake receipt than try and AI/fake a voice recording for anon clout. And also… that’s such a different thing since back in the day. Louis really be out here like “you never know what’s AI and what isn’t” because it’s fucking true. When we got photos/videos/shitty recordings or whatever back then, we sat down and pulled it apart so damn intensely that it’d be debunked, or at least considered somewhat proof/might be a thing. But now? Mgmt can just ignore that shit unless it’s very clear proof, because of AI and the lengths people will go to for internet clout nowadays. It’s just… yeah. It has to be very explicit for them to care.

I have no doubt we have had recent legit receipts, and yes, the majority are fake. But folks just don’t have as much to lose these days. It’s easy to not be traced if there’s no solid proof. So, people are getting away with more because more can be faked. It’s an interesting dynamic to a long running “conspiracy theory”, and provides mgmt with plausible deniability.

So, a lot of people know a lot of things. Some people don’t care, some people sit on solid proof because they’ve signed an NDA or will be found out 100% if they post it even on anon, and some people lie to get kicks. It’s just… So much more complicated than it used to be, which makes it easier for larry, and harder for us to prove things are real.

For example, louis may not require an extra NDA signed by all members of external parties because a certain “pal” won’t be with him on that tour. Anything else he does (trash a hotel room, or get really stoned for example), will be covered by a blanket NDA. Extra contracts come into it when there’s extra risk.

SO Harry may not have needed extra signatures/contracts for certain legs of his tour, but had them for other bits. In the case that a whole region may be a risk in terms of a pal joining him/where he is in his stunt contract, it’ll be a requirement to provide an extra NDA. it won’t be for particular shows because it’s too obvious, more so for a whole leg, and a US promoter isn’t gonna compare NDAs to a UK or AU promoter (even if they’re the same company) because like… why would you? A lot of worldwide promoters don’t actually have access to each other’s folders or content, either. Like… Live Nation US can’t see Live Nation UK’s stuff, because it’s not relevant. It’s regional and different sizes and too much data. Only very specific touring stats/fees would be shared. Same with AEG Presents, and so many other global promoter companies. So, yeah. Plus the personal promoters who tour Harry etc. through their companies, are the big dogs who’ve been doing this for 20+ years and have seen so much shit that they don’t care. They’re more worried about the money. It just… yeah. They’re not ones for delving into the interests of personal lives for artists, because they’re already working on 7 other big name tours. It’s… interesting. The blasé of it all, when you’re in this wild world. It’s so different to the fandom.

So yeah. It’s a topic that’s often debated, but without saying too much more, there’s a little squiz into what people know, and hold, and what mgmt care about and don’t care about. Larry are often together, but no one believes shit without solid proof. And the people who have solid proof, can’t/wont share it, 99% of the time.

I’m not saying believe every receipt, and I’m not saying everything is true, and I’m not saying everything is fake. I’m saying that some stuff is plausible and should be entertained because it very well could be true. But yeah… I hope this makes sense. Sorry for the chaos, and thanks for the chats. I know this isn’t exactly what you asked but yeah.

[darkspellmaster]

Update and Edit and Master Post to the Fokker Conspiracy: A Guide to this whole mess.

Firstly a special thanks to several people that have helped me with this. I couldn’t have done this without more than my eyes.

Secondly: To those that are determined to believe these leaks, I’m going to say this right now. I am not going to judge you, I’m not here to be spiteful and say you’re wrong, I have no horse in this race. So if you want to believe in the leaks, then do so, I’m not going to harass or bug you about it or tell you you’re wrong.

Third: This post is designed to be informative as possible, and if anyone needs to correct something, please shoot it in the notes below so that I can go in and correct them. I want people to have enough info to make their own call on this, and all I’m doing is laying out the facts.

So without further ado, all details and information is below the cut here.

Adding in updates and edits as I go...Edit: 2.0.2

Edit: (I’m going to be polite as I got a note from tumblr in regard to BTI Studio, which makes me think that it’s the name and they are doing blanket purges as their name is being used by this. I am trying to find a way to contact the person that copyrighted me, a Mr. Rachel, who works as part of the IT Manger at BTI Studios. Which makes me think that this is more on the use of the name than the pictures themselves. 

Anyone know if he’s on Twitter? I got this on the 24th, it is now the 29th and I did not receive any further notices. As I’m not on linked in and don’t have access to email him directly.  This makes me think it’s the name as if it was all of NBC Universal all other forms of these images including VSI would be asked to be taken down. As was the Pidge and Lance image that was made to be a fake to show how easy it is to make one. This doesn’t mean that the leaks are real, only that the name, like all company names, should not be used without the consent of the copyright holder.) 

Edit: According to Anon, the Plance photo which was a fake used to show how anyone can make this sort of thing was also copyright struck. Meaning that regardless of just fan art, or not, real or fake, you could be hit by a notice to remove the work. This is what is considered a kind of blanket purge meant to just clean everything up, even if it’s not even a leak. As long as there’s some bit of what is considered Intellectual property connected to the peice (character, name of studio, logo, even something as simple as “Property of X” it can be copyright struck.) 

So let’s start with the Real Leaks that happened from both France and the US and Mir.

So let’s go with Kimiko’s leaks. For those that don’t know, these are real leaks from the Voice actress of Ezor, who was working in New York at the time for Broadway and was dubbing over lines that they either changed or didn’t get a strong enough take for her.

This photo was taken way back on April 18th 2017, since the date on the image dates the day of the photo taken.

So Several things you need to note about these picture.

1.       The photo has the timer on the top and the side showing the take, we have a transparent property of DreamWorks, and the full locked and updated note with date and time on the bottom to denote that voice recording was locked in and updated at that point in time. There are also codes that give editors information.

2.       The name of the studio is real, and they have their water mark in a way that doesn’t distract from the actors recording as well as it being transparent enough for them to do the recording as the water mark is put over as another layer on the screen for various legal reasons. Hyperbolic Audio is a dub studio in New York that works with several clients.

3.       This photo was taken down within a few hours of it being put up by DreamWorks and basically the studio put out an announcement that requested the leak be taken down, as did the actors and other people working for the company. Word got out really fast and this image was removed and did later show up in the show.

Then there was the leak from Stuido Mir. This one I don’t have pictures of since most were taken down or deleted.

1.       Confirmation of the photos were made by Mir itself.

2.       The original poster of the pictures took them down and then requested that others take down the leaked images.

3.       Someone tried to blackmail the studio holding the artwork, which lead to them being basically forced to take down the images.

4.       This all within a few hours and days of the leaks coming to light.

Now this one is important because this one plays a role in everything that we’re going to discuss below.

So from my understanding the French actor of Keith Lionel (hope I’m spelling that right) took a photo of himself and others in the recording studio during the earlier seasons.

(This was removed more recently by him because people found it.)

So several important things to note here.

1.       The photo again was taken by someone directly connected to the show and within hours of it coming out it came down. As dated by the discord server, this was done way back in 2017.

2.       As you can see the program is very unique and that’s because it is a one of a kind program that was built for the dubbing studio.

3.       As you can see here, the picture spreads over the screen and stops short of where the table is on the left.

4.       You can see the text on screen is far smaller and transparent so you can see the words.

4 a. According to Anon, this may be the work of DreamWorks themselves. As the water marks would have to be done by them directly. Again I have never seen this sort of water marking on anything before, and no other studio has done this, and they have never done this to any of their other shows as far as I’ve seen. We’ll have to wait and see if they do this with She-ra as it’s another 2D show vs. 3D which is harder to do a lot of edits for. 

5.       The setup shows the words below, etc.

6.       The words do not go over into the dark area of the screen and never cross over the table on the right side of the screen.

7.       The photo was taken down within a few hours of it being put up and the studios were fast to take it down and tell the actors to tell their fans to make sure it’s not distribute the image. Same as with Kimiko’s leak.

With all this in mind. Let’s take a look at the latest leaks and try to clear this all up.

Recent leak with the French Dub team.

So let’s go over this piece by piece.

1.       The fact is that this is a real photo of the cast of Voltron from France, that is not the issue. The issue is the screen behind them.

2.       The bottom screen where the words are…

Okay so I did some digging on this studio. You can find information regarding them in the links below.

So Chinkel S.A. has a very unique program for dubbing created by Cappella systems. This was built just for them and there is no other studio that owns this sort of set up. This is really important to note because all of the leaks have had an altered version of their watermarks.

The important things here…

1.       The words would not stretch across the whole screen like this. As the cut of the projected image would be set directly before the text boxes as you see in the studio image.

2.       The words are too big, and are not opaque, and are too few. As the original real leak shows the “Do not copy” has 8 lines, the fake one here only has 5.

3.       Yellow words are wrong and should be a way lighter color. As the color is yellow in the fake leaks and the real ones are transparent and name Chinkel S.A. not VSI which is wrong.

4.       The image that is being used is that of a cropped shot of the previous leak as they cut off the other mouse, which you would not do as we see in the original real leak shows that the image stretches across the screen.

4a. Edit: Thank you anon for pointing out the mouse. My mistake here as the image I saw on my home computer makes the image look far more blurred then on the bigger one at work. You are right that it does have the mouse there, and the non studio shot that I have with the BTIStudio logo on it doesn’t have Pidges shoulder in it. I mixed those two up.  I do personally though find it odd that the mouse is in the same position as the first shot. 

5.       The bottom line of the text doesn’t bend properly.

As shown by @huntypastellance post, the bending of the light of the projector is way off on the bottom of the shot.

Normally a projector would be bending and curving around the actors’ body and in this case they are not fully being wrapped around. Which is, as @aquaburst07 and @ladynoctern told me, as both are graphic designers, not at all how this is supposed to work in a legit picture.

Also something of importance that I must call to mind. The words on the bottom of the screen. They are not on the bodies of the actors. If this is a real projection then the light and worlds should be bending and shaping around the actors and this is not behaving in the way that it should. Also the word would not be cut off like that, even if you pause the scene, and you would never pause in a scene like this to take a photo.

Ask any VA, they would tell you that you would not waste time in this way. You’re costing time that you need to record. So if you take photos like this, it’s done before or after the recording session starts.

Additionally the light is off in regard to how a dubbing room would be used.

There is also the very blunt issue of the table on the right being way wrong, as you would not have a scene in there and have it read carton. As you see with the studio image it would have a list of the different recording aspects in there.

In the photo that was leaked there is none of that. And also there is no red lines near the end to be used to mark for audio recording purposes.

In another photo from the Chinkel S.A. website through the VSI website when translated they show their font on screen. It’s not very hard using Adobe products to create fonts and part of Graphic design is learning to do that.  There is no words over the actors like there should be since this “scene” comes before the “wedding scene”.

Another small factor that’s been bugging me about the order of these scenes, the art story makes no sense. As a narration due to the time it reads like this. 

First you have the older picture scene of them as a group, since the timer reads 22:09, then you have Keith’s scene at 22:30, and then you have the wedding, at 22:42. Here’s the reason this is bothering me. In normal structure you would have the picture of the younger group, then the moment of Keith, then the older group, and then end it on the wedding. 

So if you notice that the show is doing the Final Fantasy XV way of making a character look older by giving them scruff on their chin. If Shiro’s wedding happens before the picture, where is his husband? If the wedding is taking place after the second group photo where is the scruff on their chins. 

Also if you’re doing a sort of nostalgic moment you end on the group shot, you don’t star on it, that’s doing things in a backwards style and no storyboard writers group would do that. You want your story to flow. 

Example: A- First shot with the statue in the back. 

B -Keith shot

C -Wedding

D- Time skip shot with the group in color. 

As I said in my large anon asks, the point of sepia is to make the tone of the scene feel nostalgic or memory like. 

(I’m simplifying a lot of this because there’s so much here from a graphic design angle that a lot of people will be confused here)

6.       The water mark on the screen is off, and the wrong type. Chinkel uses it’s name as the water mark and not the studios owner VSI.

7.       Also the fact that the picture is too clean and sharp vs all the other aspects of the photo which are pixelated and blurred.

So onto the others. Let’s start with the Wedding and move our way down…

(Using Cinderella III because the stance is similar to the leaked image) 

(For those wondering why I keep calling the character Roy, it makes it easier for me than calling him “That one dude that looks like a famous character from Macross that is supposed to be a homage to him, and clearly isn’t him.” ) 

8.       This image was cropped at the top.

8 a.  As Anon pointed out to me in inbox, the characters in the back are static and not moving. This would not be normal and, as I said in my post that got deleted, the characters were probably redrawn from either a posed picture, or some sort of promotional art and then traced over. Newtype magazine does a lot of illustrations that have moments that are not in the shows and weddings are sometimes used for their articles when they want to push a couple. 

9.       It’s been layered. The fact is that only Chinkel has the software to do this, so this was created by duplicating the layers and then taking and cutting and stamping and a lot of things in photo shop.

10.   As per the Chinkel real leak, the property of DreamWorks on the bottom is not in stroke.

11.   We have the fact that this guy looks way to much like Roy Fokker to be legally allowed. If this is supposed to be Adam then there’s something way off with him.

12.   As I detailed before you can’t use images or look a likes of Roy Fokker due to Studio Nue and Harmony gold and Tatsunoko’s huge legal fight, and he wouldn’t be accessible until after 2021. So no…no Roy would be allowed even if he is Adam or just meant to be a look alike.

12 a. As @rsasai points out in this post using Roy would cause massive issues in Japan alone. http://rsasai.tumblr.com/post/179513598638/reminder

13.   Also pidge’s eyebrows are off slightly and in the kiss scene you can see that Roy’s hand and arm vanishes

13a. Cleaner image shows that the arm is there, it’s just very hard to see, which again is why normally you don’t use the sepia tones there. 

Link to image here

Since the Image has the BTIstudios name on it, and seems to be the reasons for the take downs, I’m linking it. 

The interesting thing though is, again, I’m talking here from the perspective of framing a scene. 

Closest one that I could find with the same or similar arm movements. 

As you can see the more natural grip would be on the upper arm, it might be that Shiro’s arm can’t do that anymore? It seems like an odd place to put his arm. 

Similarly here’s a shot that is a lot like the leaked one. Again the arms placement would naturally fall on the chest or arm of the other person as they are being pulled into the kiss, so you’d rest your arm where it feels natural. 

13 b. Anon also pointed out that Shiro’s hand is resting on a location that would be more suited for a shorter character in place of Roy. Also his line of sight in the other pictures doesn’t match up, as he is looking down possibly at someone shorter than him, and also the art could allow for rotation on the head, as it’s easier to do that in profile than in person. 

14.   As per Malaysian posters, the wording on this is wrong and would not read that.

15.   NBCU would not have it’s name on this period. You don’t have a stroke around a water mark.

16.   BTI studios doesn’t have this program and would not just go by BTI studios.

17.   Water marks do not work like that. You wouldn’t have a pause thing either.

18.   And there is a lot of issues of where the words are being put because you can’t and shouldn’t have it hard for the voice actors to see the lip flaps.

19.   Pause would not look like this and not be placing like this at all. Also the image of the kiss may be modeled on artwork from Macross do you remember love. 

So with the second set of leaks we see changes.

20.   Lance and Allura are possibly a redraw of Allura and Lotor.

21.   Again BTISudios do not have the same type of equipment as Chinkel so this text over the screen should not be in there.

22.   Allura’s crying is in the wrong spot. As I showed with the superman reign shot

23.   One thing that I need to point out is the extra strand of hair for Allura, which she should not have.

24.   Again this has been cropped and you wouldn’t have it in this tone as Voltron for past memories has shown it uses a white filter.

See with how Romelle and Bandor’s memory scene is framed in a light white edge to it, so show that it’s in the past. If the scene with these two are happening in the past then both should be in a white light not a sepia tone.

Jumping ahead to Keith’s leak.

25.   Again wrong colors, we know that BTI Studios do not have this type of software.

26.   Keith would still be with Voltron, and why is Zethrid wearing a BOM uniform while Ezor has a patch over her eyes. This is all very wrong.

27.   Keith’s scar is not quiet right either.

The last one has a lot wrong with the group shot and more to the point the one on the top is far worse.

28.   Pidge’s eyebrows are cut wrong, her hair is based more on Lotor’s bangs then her own.

29.   Pidge’s nose was half cut off by the altered glasses placed on her.

30.   Keith’s fingers look weird and his hand is off, and if it’s lance’s it still a bit weird. 

31.   You wouldn’t have the image cut like that, and have the “Do not copy” would not flow off the screen in the way it does.

32.   Coran hasn’t changed at all, and his ears are off.

33.   Shiro looks more like an older version of Yu Narukami than himself.

33 a. Edit: As per @leavesandroses “Studio Mir also does statues in 3D, not drawn animation” And they are right.  If you look at artwork from Legend of Korra and at Aang’s statue because that’s some of the best shots, you can see how it’s done via CG rather than via traditional hand drawn.

Even Lotor’s statue is similar in design and uses the same type of rendering only with a filter over it as it’s a memory. 

Allura’s statue doesn’t have this same affect where you can tell it’s CG as you should in the shot. 

Thanks to  @rsasai , who did some testing, you can see the art work doesn’t over lap right.

As you can see if these are all the same product they should line up…they don’t. No matter what way you try to overlap the screens will not match up.

Then there’s the added fact of the weird words that would not be on screen in this way.

34.   Screens are all fucked up, you wouldn’t have the water marks cutting into the Property of DreamWorks

34 a. You would also not have the “One year later” on top like that. 

35.   Also no studio would do it in this way. No one would be this dumb. This is way too close to how they would do some weird stuff in the 1990s, which would never be done here in the states now.

36.   There’s also the bad translation which would not be allowed.

On top of all of this and several other things that others have pointed out over and over again, you would not have three leaks of this magnitude and not have this pulled fast off the net. As I said with the original real leaks both were removed very fast by DreamWorks.

All three studios would have been pulled from the Netflix list and most definitely in the case of VSI and Chinkel SA they would have their preferred vendor award taken away. "Netflix Preferred Vendor of the Year - Timed Text (High Volume) for 2018.”

Not only would the actors from the shows be blacklisted for their willingness to participate in what would be seen as a very big Legal copyright issue, but also Netflix, WEP, DreamWorks and NBCUniversal would probably, along with other companies, never want to work with them again.

Then there’s the fact that romelle-against-the-antis got a confession from the first leaker saying that they faked the leaks.

With all this being said…and I’m sure others can add onto this with their own information, you can make your own call if this is fake or real. I’m not going to tell anyone what to believe, but for me there’s enough proof that make me believe that this whole thing is an elaborate hoax set up to drive the fans into extreme case of worry.

So please guys…. Forget about this, just wait till the season comes out and let the chips fall where they may. Go outside, find another show to watch for the time, enjoy the fact that Halloween is only a few days away, get ready to go shopping for the holidays, make something! I just hope the Voltron Fandom will relax.

Links here to all the stuff:

https://huntypastellance.tumblr.com/post/179486029100/leaks-discourse-update

https://www.vsi-paris.tv/nos-services/voice-over

https://www.vsi-paris.tv/en/dubbing

https://www.vsi.tv/news/netflix-preferred-vendor-year

https://www.vsi.tv/facilities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VSI_Group

http://romelle-against-antis.tumblr.com/day/2018/10/23/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_Gold_USA#Legal_issues_regarding_Macross_copyright

 Thank you’s go here.

@aquaburst07

@rsasai

@springofviolets

@ladynoctern

@romelle-against-antis against antis

@huntypastellance

And a whole lot of Anons. With this being said, this will be my last update until something major comes out. 

Side note So this..

is a actual photo from the screening of the actual end of the show with JDM and LM. It’s from JDS’s twitter account. Actors and crew and whoever came to see it signed an NDA and I expect that anyone claming to be leaking from this would be taken down and probably fired or fined for leaking anything from that screening. 

Honestly with the clues here I”m betting that Matt and his girlfriend will be the ones having the wedding, or someone there previous screening that they already decorated and left that stuff up there from that event.  Either way, everyone take a deep breath and relax until December...then you can freak out. 

[jesslockwood]

Photo Opportunities

Word Count: 2.7k

Pairing(s): Tom Holland x Actress!Reader

Warnings: FLUFF with a slightly (barely) suggestive sentence towards the end 

A/n: damn I can't write anything except actress reader? smh but this is for @londonspidey ‘s sit-com Writing challenge (ik I'm early lol) but I was so excited I wrote the whole thing in one go lmao the prompt is bolded!

Calling yourself a fan was an understatement. You were obsessed with anything and everything marvel. And oddly enough, you could after today say you were in the club. It wasn’t a public fact yet, until later that day actually, at the Marvel panel at comic con that you were being announced as the actress for the character, Felica Hardy and no one else knew except for the people who cast you and your best friend who signed an NDA. You were technically still a known actress for your roles on television mainly as Thalia on the PJO Disney + series and a couple of still decently sized films. 

You were currently wrapping up signing autographs for fans of yours for today. Your team had planned it out so it wasn’t suspicious that you were at the con with a few of your castmates scattered doing other junkets and press so people wouldn’t guess who they were acting as the cast for new marvel projects. 

You had been planning to go meet your best friend, who wasn’t in the industry before getting a text that she bought you both a photo-op with someone and she wouldn’t tell you who. You couldn’t only assume it was a marvel actor that you would indeed, freak out. 

Y/b/n: btw I brought you a mask. I get the wig lol.

You: please tell me it doesn’t cover my full face. Also, how are we posing?

Y/b/n: I bought as many photo ops as I could so a lot of different ones, And if I tell you the poses it’ll spoil it.

You: is this with the money I pay you to be my assistant with? Lol fine I’m omw with security

Y/b/n: maybe… 

Y/b/n: and they’ll need more backup security for who we’re getting a photo op with than you do for your hellfire.

You roll your eyes before taking your stuff and exiting the booth, before heading out the backways with staff security and your detailed security for the day. You only had security because you wanted to explore the con when you weren’t needed.

Your best friend had also been your assistant for the con weekend, but you didn’t want her to be confined to you the whole three days so when she could, you would let her explore it, at least she could experience it as a fan, right?

When you made it to that part of the building, you wanted to wait in line with her, which your security didn’t agree to so she texted you when there were about five people ahead of her. She was one of the last in line, with you asking her to be kind, so others would get their chance to be first with whomever it was. 

When she texted you and your detailed exit, getting a few stares and others taking their phones out to either take photos or tweet, you wave at them before joining your best friend in line.

“Here,” she says before handing you none other than a black cat mask before she puts on a red wig. 

You glare at her slightly trying to not make a scene, before putting it on. 

“I’m assuming you're Mary Jane?” you laugh figuring out that it had to be someone from Spider-Man.

“How’d you- never mind.” She laughs with you.

She then explains how she’s going to pose for your five photo ops, joking in between how she should “get a raise for this”.

You catch sight of him before sucking in your breath. This was either going to go down amazingly or terribly, there was no in-between with you. 

“Excuse Me, are you Y/n Y/l/n?”

You turn around and are met by some fans who were standing in line behind you.

“I am! How’s your con going?” you ask politely to the two of them.

“It's going amazing! We love you as Thalia! Could we maybe get a picture? Only if it’s okay?”

“Of course! Thank you for supporting me!” your best friend grabs their phone to take the photo, before you take off the mask, and stand between the two fans, and your best friend snaps a few photos. 

“Thank you so much! And Are you fans of Tom?”

You start slowly walking back to catch up to the line. 

“Yeah, I love him as Spiderman, but I also enjoy his other roles. He's very talented, I'd love to work with him one day!” 

“Have you seen him in Uncharted?  We love Him as Nathan drake!”

“I have, he was amazing per usual! How are you two posing with him?”

They show you their innovative pose. You laugh and tell them it's great before you have to wish them goodbye before heading up for your turn for the photo op. 

“How do we want to pose- hang on, I recognize you!”

You freeze slightly before your friend mouths for you to flirt. You look down at the mask in your hand before getting into character and saying “Of course you do Spidey, I'm always causing you trouble.” you put on the mask and wink. 

He seems slightly stunned, laughing, feeling like he’s seen you somewhere, not only because he found you extremely gorgeous, while in his peripheral vision he sees his brother/ assistant, Harry waving like a madman on the side. 

Your friend directs you both through the poses, first, one both him putting “webs” onto you as she looks over his shoulder, the second one, both of you kissing his cheeks, the third, all jumping in the air in your best superhero poses, the fourth one she gets a photo op alone and the last one she gives to you,

“Seriously, who are you?”

“Your Wildest dreams, baby,” you say, taking off the mask. 

Your best friend yells “freestyle” from the sidelines before Tom dips you, gently, with you shocked, holding the mask out with your free arm and the photo captures that moment. 

 He gently helps you stand back up fully, not before you drop the mask.

“Nice moves Spider-Man.”

“Not so bad yourself, Black Cat.”

You laugh before, taking off with your best friend, well more her dragging you to the printing station leaving the mask behind. Tom picks it up before shoving it in his back pocket to hopefully give back if he could find you. 

-

`You were sitting in the green room, trending on Twitter before you were actually supposed to be trending on Twitter, and god knows where else.  

Someone had snuck a video of you and Tom, up till him dipping you, and a video of you interacting with the fans in the line.

Your Y/b/n was currently reading off some tweets out loud

“‘A kind queen we stan.’  I agree, I also agree with ‘Date her if you can't date me tom!!!’.

‘THALIA AND PETER PARKER??? My two fandoms have collided.’ same, same. Oo this one says, ‘if she ain’t playing black cat I will sue marvel.’ I'm dying at the reply ‘She needs to post the photos or I'll sue her!’. This one’s funny, ‘she could squash him like a bug in heels but he liked his queen like that.’.”

She pauses watching you texting.

“Y/n? Y/n?”

“What? Sorry I was only half listening. I was texting my publicist. She said to stay on the DL until tonight. 

“Well we should get food, you haven't eaten since this morning.”

“By the way, your show has shot to number one on Disney +. Also, you have like three times the followers you had before, probably cause you're trending on every platform, even Tumblr!”

“Wow you should just become my social media manager now.” you joke trying to ease the joy yet weirded out feeling in your stomach.

“Does that come with a raise? Because after today I've spent way too much of what I'm paid.” she jokes back.

-

After finishing his photo ops Tom asked Harry who she was and to find out. By the time he finished autographs for the day, Tom and Harry walked to the panel room in the back for announcements, one that included him for the new Avengers movie, while Harry gave him the rundown.

“So she’s an actress, she plays Thalia on Disney plus’ Percy Jackson series, and that's her most known project. The other girl with her is her assistant best friend, and now she's trending everywhere. People dug up some old photos of her being a marvel/Spider-Man fan, so there's that. And she's here at the con for the rest of the weekend. She's doing photo ops tomorrow at one, and yes she's single from what I gather since you were looking at her like this.” he makes a weird face before tom smacks him.

“And plus you have time in your schedule to get a photo op with her, that is if you eat lunch quickly.”

That gave Tom an idea. 

“Harry I’m going to need you to book me one, oh and help me find a Spider-Man costume!” He says, before leaving harry to do ‘assistant’ work. entering the green room for the announcements, watching them announce a new movie.

“We are so excited to announce to the Marvel Universe, and spider-verse-” that perked tom’s ears, “-directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, and today we are announcing our amazing Miss Felicia Hardy, please give a warm welcome to the stage, Your Black Cat!”

You suddenly emerged in an aisle way, dressed in all black with a leather jacket, black ankle boots, and of course black sunglasses indoors.

The music is marvel music until it suddenly changes after a recorded laugh from you into “I can’t be tamed by Miley Cyrus”.

You start owning the music while saying hi and touching fans’ hands. You decide to take off your sunglasses and throwing them to a fan, for them to keep, before getting on stage.

“What a Performance from the one the only Y/n Y/l/n!”

You laugh, being met with the loudest applause you had heard all con before being handed a Mic. 

“Thank you but I'm a terrible dancer.” You Joke.

Tom was staring at the screen stunned. You had been the black cat all along. You were in the marvel universe and spidey one,  so he'd definitely be seeing more of you. The hard part is that you seemed so genuine when you talked, interacted with fans and was no doubt, stunning. 

“Better close your mouth or the flies will get in.” Tom turns around to find the voice of none other than his friend slash bully, Sebastian Stan, along with Anthony Mackie.

“Looks like the kid has a crush!” Anthony laughs, pointing to the screen you were on.

“I-I don’t! I don’t even know her!” Tom tries to come to his own defense, hopelessly.

“She’s got you whipped already don’t even deny it.” Harry comes in, joining the teasing of one, Tom Holland.

“Maybe we can invite her out for drinks tonight, then fanboy over here can meet her, and then probably scare her off!” Anthony mentions.

“You haven’t looked on the internet? They’ve already met.” Seb says, before showing Anthony twitter. 

Anthony stands there slightly shocked before bursting into laughter.

“Well, she’s damn well a keeper for Tom since she obviously likes him.”

A staff member peaks their head in the green room to tell Tom he’s up next.

“Well, that’s my cue to leave you two!”

On the other hand, you were on an adrenaline high from being on stage, and seeing all the fans. You knew tomorrow was going to be crazy, as you expected people to book your photo op left and right since the announcement. 

You had decided to decline an offer from your fellow marvel universe castmates, Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie, which they so graciously told you that whenever you’re free, the offer still stood. 

You had gotten to your hotel room seeing your phone blowing up on the social media apps for the second time that day. 

You responded to the important stuff, before heading to bed, knowing it was going to be hectic.

-

You had been right, it was absolutely insane, the number of people who showed up. You had fully booked all your time slots for photo ops. You had seen so many people dressed up in marvel cosplay, ranging from Loki to Ironman, even some people dressed up as your character, which was wildly insane to see.

You had been nearing the end of the line and had enjoyed every moment with the fans, and you couldn’t wait for your autographing session later that day, to truly get a chance to talk to the fans and connect with them and how they felt about you being their beloved Black Cat. 

After a few more photos, posing how they wanted, you see a fully dressed, head to toe, mask and all, Spider-Man. You had seen some spider-mans but most took off their masks to snap a picture. The person was the last in line. 

“Hey Black Cat.” The southern American accented voice tells you, seeming very familiar. 

“Hey, Spider, what poses do you have up your sleeve?” you ask kindly.

“I bought a few, Cat.” they laugh.

“Okay, You can do whatever a spider can right?” you pull out a line out of the comics jokingly.

“I can do flips if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Is that some kind of nerd pick-up line? Because it’s only kind of working.” you laugh. 

“I really can, but this is one.”

He gets down on one knee, holding a black cat mask instead of a ring. The photographer captures the shocked expression on your face.

“I- Don’t- What- Spider I-” 

“Ow My feelings…” Suddenly their voice changes into a British accent before they pull off the mask to reveal-

“Tom?”

“I guess you don’t have a spidey sense darling?” The photographer captures the moment without warning eating the moment up. 

You laugh at that. 

“I guess you found out my true identity Spider. And it’s nice to officially meet you, Tom.”

He laughs, just as nervous as you, he notices he has gotten closer to you and a strand of hair loosely is blowing in your face, so naturally, he pushes it behind your ear. Another snap of the camera can be heard. 

“NOW KISS!” a voice belonging to your best friend yells from the side, mid-eating a churro.

You both laugh really hard at that.

The both of you calm down, slowly leaning lost in the moment. The camera snaps again. You both look at the photographer weirded out, and they just shrug.

“Wait can you actually do a flip?” you ask, pulling away, not wanting prying eyes aka the photographer, to pry in your business. 

“I can, though I’d show you later, maybe in the greenroom?”

“That sounds naughty, but, sure.” you joke around. 

He laughs before, you both take off from the area going to grab the photos.

-

After spending most of the day together when you could, you get Tom’s number, before heading back to your hotel room. He texts you as soon as you get back. 

Spider: I had fun today, minus finding our assistants making out.

You: we should ‘snog’ too, it’ll gross them out ;)

You: I had fun too btw. Are you leaving tomorrow?

Spider: lol we should. And yeah an early flight, 6 am to be exact. Hbu?

You: Yeah me too... another day another dollar lol

Spider: ill miss you, Cat.

You: stop talking like we’ll never see each other again lol. As a matter of fact, come to my room, we’re watching a movie!

Spider: alright, I’ll order snacks. 

  You sigh smiling at your phone. You haven’t felt this giddy in a long time.

Your phone pings with a few Instagram notifications.

Tomholland2013 has started following you.

Tomholland2013 has tagged you in a photo.

You open Instagram to find the photo of him “proposing” to you posted.

“Ow, my leg, my- feelings...Welcome to the Universe, Cat.” the photo is captioned. You decide to post, the photo of him dipping you.

“So what do you say, Spider? Wanna help me pull off the Heist of the Heist of the Century?” you caption it, Before getting comfortable to watch a movie. 

What an opportunity ;)

Tags:

@lolooo22 @webmeupspiderdaddy @harryhollandsgirlfriend @spideyspeaches @greenorangevioletgrass @queenofthepouges @sheranatic111 @keithseabrook27

[stormblessed95]

let's entertain the idea that jikook may be an LGBTQ couple and let's be honest there's a large possibility that they are. do you think BH and BTS knows about them? cuz im inclined to think that they do. it's an established fact that jikook are almost always together offcam or behind the scenes in every bts content, we see a lot of those moments, however they are edited, and BH are the ones who has seen the raw footage of them. so i don't think theyll ignore this idea and encourage it instead

Hello anon 💜

Forewarning, I will be leaving behind any doubts and "we don't knows." I'm simply going to answer this based off the assumption that we are all correct that Jimin and Jungkook are romantically involved and are boyfriends. The obvious disclaimer being that of course I could be wrong here and they aren't. For the sake of this ask though, let's say we are correct though.

Yes, I think all the members know they are a couple and I think the circle of staff and editors they work with the majority of time are also aware. I think that at a minimum some of the members knew what was happening in 2016 or at least lowkey guessed it themselves (My guess is Hobi, and Tae for sure) and that they were ALL aware of it by the end of 2017. The teasing and the way they react to them? Yeah... they know for sure. The way they occasionally stop them or pull them out of their own little bubble or remind of cameras or place themselves in front of them sometimes or give them their own space together. They know for sure.

I think by 2018 at least, the staff, usual drivers and editors on their team were also made aware. I don't think ALL of them know and I would assume those that do know are trusted and also probably signed pretty strict NDAs.

I think that if we as fans who only see certain bits of their lives can see it and notice it, the people who spend large chunks of everyday around them, will also notice it. I don't think the occasional staff or other staff from other teams know, I don't think regular workers know, nor do I think any type of foreign or outside the company staff would know either. But they would have drivers they trust, stylists, choreographers, editors and managers who they trust and can be themselves around more. Relax and have it be okay. People they trust to keep some of those relaxed and enjoying each other and things they say off official content. They spend so much of their time working and we have gotten one too many suspicious cuts/missing moments to make me think some things are cut on purpose, such as what in the world was this giant cut for in the middle of JKs speech to the camera??

Or the sudden camera move away from this moment where the time countdown went from 2 minutes left to 30 seconds left and JK couldn't even finish going down the line.... how long did he spend at Jimin?!

So yeah.... they have a trusted team of staff who definitely know. They work to not only keep them safe but happy as well. Plus you can hide a relationship, but its much harder to hide feelings... I would be so surprised if for the majority of their close staff and those who are with BTS all the time, that Jikook isnt simply just an open secret. And I'm convinced you won't be able to find a driver for any celebrity who doesn't know some deep shit. Lol those guys are forgotten about so much and probably hear so much 😂 plus everyone when we see in behind clips of jikook jikooking, no one reacts or is surprised at all over their antics or the things they say... they know for sure. Their closet is very much so made of glass in my opinion. Lol

[vergess]

@autismserenity​ said: Your tags are the most American thing I’ve ever read, we are truly so screwed here   

May I interest you in a more complete, and more excruciating, explanation of what I spent the last 18 months doing?

It is, I need to emphasize, fucking nasty. Don’t feel obligated, especiallly if you’ve already had A Day(tm).

There’s a lot of disease, a lot of worker abuse including sexual and racial abuse, a fine portion of letting people die for not being white enough for real medical care, all leading to homelessness.

For NDA reasons, because my former employer was just as vile as any tech company has ever been, I cannot be super specific about who I worked for. However, I can say that we handled the records and patient contact for all COVID testing for several states, as well as 2 of the 5 largest metros in the US, and several dozen smaller ones ranging from the approximate population of San Francisco, down to little towns, as well as the testing for several public school systems and at least two government agencies that I am not at liberty to disclose.

I tell you this for a sense of scale. When I say shit like, “my boss was more than happy to let thousands or hundreds of thousands die” I am not exagerrating for effect. We handled hundreds of thousands of tests a week.

Again, I need to emphasize, government agencies. Ones you would know if I named them. Ones everyone in the country knows.

And we were in charge of getting their test results from the already over swamped labs back to the patients, who often were not allowed to quarantine while awaiting results.

The fastest we got our turnaround time to on any consistent basis was about 30 hours. Often it ballooned well into weeks.

There were a number of factors for this, but the big one was always understaffing.

The staff we did have were treated like trash. One of the big selling points of this company is how “trans friendly” it is to work there. That is a lie. Every trans employee on payroll had their dead name displayed to all other staff, and until I personally changed the system setup on my arrival, patient facing trans people’s dead names were displayed to patients.

Remember that thing about “hundreds of thousands of tests a week”?

I was able to change the way patient-facing names were displayed. I was not allowed or able to alter the way internal systems displayed trans people’s names. But I was assured that it’s fine, because once you get a legal name change, you’ll be given new system accounts with your new name!

Your old accounts with your dead name would still be displayed and associated with the new ones though.

This is the “trans friendly” working environment. We were allowed to be out of the closet, as long as we were willing to put up with that. And any attempts to get it altered were the result of those nasty little transgender ingrates not being thankful enough.

Meaning that by asking to use our own fucking names we were already in the disciplinary shitter.

Another big selling point is the ~racial diversity~. The CEO was a man of colour, and so were like four other people on staff!! Wow!!!!!!!

This, too, was laughable.

Once numbers started coming in about the care gap for COVID between English and Spanish speakers, and our Southwestern US service area began to have a separate and brutal backlog just of Spanish speaking patients, my employer encouraged me to interview potential hires who speak spanish.

Fair enough! We all wanted to do our part to help close the already massive mortality gap.

So, I found candidates, did interviews, hired them, trained them, etc. But I don’t speak Spanish. As a result, I appointed 2 assistant managers who do speak Spanish to assist me in managing, you know, like the job name.

So when my super contacted them directly, completely skipping me on the chain of command, and told them to stop all of our Spanish speakers from translating helpful simple messages to send to patients, and instead start translating medical and legal documents, they very reasonably assumed I was in the know and went ahead with it.

TO BE CLEAR, that could have ended my life, theirs, basically everyone involved. Everyone in the company would have been completely fucked. At that point, my subordinates, the people for whom I am wholly responsible, were doing everything from practicing medicine without licenses, to encouraging spanish speaking patients to enter contracts that no one on the fucking executive tier could even read.

The moment I found that out, I and the A.M.s immediately started trying to get actual medical translation services to do our documents. We collected them in a neat folder. We queried translation services. We got quotes. We contacted my super and the CEO, about this over and over again for months. In the late autumn, we received approval for one of the translation services.

The CEO decided at the last minute that having people with no medical or legal training draft medical and legal forms was fine and good actually, and refused to sign the contract or send the documents for translation.

The excuse I received was that the COVID emergency HIPAA relaxations would protect us.

That’s not how that works.

Throughout all of this, Spanish speaking employees were told to either keep doing medical and legal translation work, or lose their jobs.

Oh, did I mention everyone was working between 30 and 80 hours a week, and all of us were marked as “contractors” so the employer could tax evade? Don’t worry, we filed complaints with the labour bureau.

So the entire department was let go, and “rehired” as temps through a temp agency, which because it was a temp agency could keep them marked as contractors regardless of the facts.

This change was presented to all of us, myself included, as the company getting a new accountant to handle payroll.

So if you’re keeping score, we’ve covered racism, queerphobia, medical negligence, fraud, and a frankly uncountable number of deaths.

Let’s talk about the sheer negligence towards employees ourselves. If you’ve worked in near-death medical care before, or any number of emergency services really, you know that the standard benefit suite includes either a dedicated therapist for your staff, or access to peer support groups with other emergency and medical servants through your employer’s benefits program.

Do you know what our mental health benefits were for this company?

The CEO got on a fucking zoom call with us all one (1) time, and said that if we were feeling suicidal or traumatized by the work, to talk to him about it, and he would be our therapist.

Do you know how many people per fucking day we had to contact only to be told they had already died because our understaffing delays killed them? He doesn’t. He never listened when we told him.

But let me put the cherry on the “Oh baby, you can talk to me, oooh” sundae.

Anyone who “looked” or “sounded” female, regardless of actual or assigned gender, was subject to constant flirtations and slimy, overly personal compliments about our appearances. Fortunately, at 3 levels removed from the CEO (Executives > Department heads > Managers > Employees), most of the people under my management had relatively little contact with him.

I was not nearly so lucky.

The CEO of this company has a watersports (urination) fetish. I know this, because he told me so and attempted to get me to join him in it. I have no idea how many other people in the company he did this to. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to do, risk losing my job to find out? I have a fucking family to support, people.

Not that it mattered.

Eventually, all of these abuses became too much for my subordinates. Productivity fell off a cliff. Delays were getting worse and worse. In a medical emergency like this, delays=deaths.

So, like a fucking idiot, when the department heads reached out to me to ask what they could do to improve productivity, I shot down their frankly insulting suggestion of raffling a $20 amazon gift card to patient facing employees, and instead suggested a very simple, “enroll us with a peer support group, every single person in this department has PTSD from working in this pandemic.”

They were confused by my assertion of PTSD. I was asked to compile a document of complaints, concerns, and weaknesses in our patient facing services.

I and the A.M.s did so. It was roughly 40 pages long, with each page given a known problem, the reasons why it was a problem, and some potential solutions that might inspire further solutions or be able to be implemented. We submitted it. There was no response.

A week passed.

I had been working 80 hour weeks for most of a year. I hadn’t even been able to take weekends. I took my first sick day, in a company with “unlimited vacation days.”

I received a call at 3PM.

I had been fired for “differences in communitcation.” If you’ve ever seen that “Problem Women of Color in the workplace” chart? Yeah.

So had most of my department, including every transgender member of the department, and several of our extremely limited in supply Spanish speakers, who were presumed to be “on my side.”

Some of them, I barely even knew beyond the formalities of the job, and they were punished anyway.

I lost my insurance, and as a result I lost access to my medications.

But the real problem? I lost my house. And not due to lack of payment.

I lost my house, because when I got the job we waited 6 months for stability’s sake, and then readied to move out of the area. I got a mortgage on the basis of my employer’s written guarantee to the bank that I would continue to be employed for the next year at a minimum.

With the mortgage approval in hand, we entered a sales contract on our existing home.

We got and accepted an offer just days before I was fired. To keep our house meant paying a 25,000 dollar broken contract fine. We didn’t have that. We had a 10% down payment for a modest fucking place in a cheaper area, which is less than half that.

But without a job, my mortgage approval was also voided, meaning we couldn’t buy a house either.

All of a sudden, we were homeless during the plague, because my employer wrote and signed a letter to a bank guaranteeing my future employ, and then changed his mind when too many people died due to his own negligence.

Oh yeah, one last thing: the job paid less than Pandemic unemployment Assistance.

...After that, well, it’s homelessness until just last month. I... if you’ve never been homeless it’s.

It blurs. Everything is happening constantly, except for all the ways in which you are endlessly, mind breakingly bored. Bored, overloaded, and always uncomfortable.

Obviously my health would have declined regardless. Malnutrition, stress, everything.

But I was also unmedicated.

It was hell. I was in hell. I don’t know if I can recover from it, to be honest.

I bounced back from being homeless as a child. Children are as resilient as they are stupid, and the monstrosity of homelessness was little more than a vaguely remembered loathing and a panicky fear that it would ever happen again.

A child who is dying is worthy of sympathy, even if it is meaningless coos from passers by. If they have family, they may be able to rely on them too.

An adult with the indignity to die homeless and crippled, according to the average passer by, is worthy only of disgust and perhaps even punishment for being such a worthless waste.

My reward for nearly killing myself in a desperate bid to help stem the tide of COVID was the destruction of not only my life, not only my entire family’s lives, but the lives of every single family of every single employee who worked with me.

And you know what’s worse?

Each one of us still did more to limit the lethal impact of COVID than the entire united states government.

It breaks something in you, going through that.

It makes you realize that hope is a fool’s game.

But, I have ever been a fool, and so, I continue to play.

[docleonidas]

Security Breach: Aftermath

Part 11

Notice to management of the Pizzaplex Re: Safe mode, issues.

The prolonged usage of safe made in the animatronics has been causing some issues in their reactions. Several instances of swearing and willingness to ignore rules have been noticed and reported by staff on-site.

In light of this, we shall begin taking the animatronics off of safe mode one by one to monitor each for any strange behavior. The daycare attendant will be put into normal operations on Monday (Tomorrow, noon), followed by Chica Thursday and so on.

Head Office has decided the following order for reconnection to the main server:

Sun/moon

Chica

Glamrock Hippo (tests ongoing for a better nickname)

Roxanne

Bonnie

Montgomery

Leonidas

Freddy mk II

The *Find Freddy!* promotion we had been running to locate the Freddy mk I model has seen several hits in the south of Utah, we have yet to locate him, or the child who absconded with him.

Regardless, the idea of the animatronics disguised and walking around has spawned a lot of interest, and we have a higher than normal number of pre-bookings for people wanting to visit after renovations are finished early February. In light of this, we may end up running a *road tour* as a promotional venue.

Dr. Leonidas has suggested that the various animatronics have been suffering from a lack of interaction with children, and has requested a few Beta Tester passes be left with him so we can allow a few children of workers to interact and give their own feedback. Marketing loves the idea as we get free information on children's various ongoing interests and has authorised 5 passes. All passholders must be accompanied by a parent or animatronic at all times.

Lastly, we have a building inspector coming to check Roxy Raceway on Tuesday to ensure there will be no further collapses. All workers are to be reminded that they signed an NDA regarding the sinkhole, and will be prosecuted without fail if any news is leaked.

Regards

S.J. Kaene

Regional manager

Gregory hid in the darkened room, the clanking noises echoing around as the endos red eyes searched for him in the dark. His watch was broken and he was trying his best to stay quiet.

As he peered around the corner, he let out a yelp as he came face to face with one of them inches from him, the bot freezing as it realised he was watching. The others around the room twisted, advancing towards him. He backed up, trying to keep all of them in view as they swarmed around him.

Something jabbed him in the back, and a quick glance was enough for him to realise it was a door, the boy almost sprinting through it as the whiring and clanking grew louder behind him. Something large stopped him, and he glanced up to see someone looming over him. "Hey kid..." grinned the gator, grabbing him and yanking him up into those waiting jaws with a sickening crunch.

Gregory woke in horror, panting hard as his brain tried to process what was happening, clutching his head in panic as he felt for wounds. "Kid? What's wrong? It's barely 4am." Groaned Monty, who had been in rest mode by the door of his room, and was promptly grabbed by the neck by Roxanne as she almost slammed the door to his Green room open.

"Monty, what the fuck did you do? I heard him screaming from my room." Snarled Roxanne, slamming him into the wall. Monty grunted, shoving her back as he tried to get her off. "I didn't do nothin." The two argued, Chica ducking past the flailing limbs and sitting next to Gregory, who was trying to hold back tears and visibly shaken.

"I don't think you're gonna get much sleep now, are you cupcake?" She asked with a sigh. "How about we leave these two fighting and get you something good to eat for breakfast? We can see how Freddy is doing afterwards."

Gregory just nodded, shaking as he slipped off the couch. He grabbed his backpack and edged out of the door. Chica paused for a moment before whacking Monty and Roxy on the sides of their heads.

"Can you two knock it off? He's not hurt, so he's only had a nightmare, but you two fighting is going to freak him out." She huffed, hurrying after the boy as the two looked at each other, Roxanne not used to being told off by Chica of all people, her ears drooping. Monty took the opportunity to steal his fang back, quickly slotting it back in with a click and hurrying after her.

Chica had already caught up and was walking alongside Gregory, her hands linked together behind her back as she just walked at a slight distance, trying to keep him company. "So I was thinking, I'm pretty sure that one of the kitchens in the atrium has a couple of food mixes. Do you prefer waffles or pancakes?" She asked as they walked. "As for drinks we can get you one of the fizzy faz cans, or some soda. I think there's some orange juice, but it's the concentrate stuff so it's kind of gross."

Gregory was aware she was mainly just talking to keep him awake, and while the fear from his dream was still fresh, the constant chattering was calming him down. The three bandmates were far different from what he knew, and he knew it wasn't their fault but..... it was hard to not be scared of them.

"I've never tried waffles or pancakes, I've only had cereal or toast for breakfast. Which do you think is better?" He asked, watching Chica's eyes light up. "Oooh well you're in for a treat!" She said, almost bwarking as she started gushing about toppings and flavors and sprinkles. Lots of sprinkles.

Roxy and Monty caught up as she was explaining, both looking a bit roughed up, but nothing a quick buffing couldn't fix. Roxanne still looking a bit sheepish while Monty was more annoyed. "Hey kid, want a lift? Yer still looking a bit tired there." The gator asked, feeling bad that he'd not done the best job looking out for him.

Gregory shook his head. "Sorry Monty. I just... need to walk and clear my head a bit." The boy replied tiredly as the group walked out into the atrium, while Roxanne sidled up next to Chica. "Sorry Chicks, I heard him screaming and just thought..." She was interrupted by Chica holding a finger in front of her face. "No, we had enough of blaming Monty when Bonnie went missing. That wasn't his fault and we had everyone assuming the worst about him. They even added horrible things to the mini golf game afterwards."

Chica sighed. "Rox, you know you're awesome enough already. Why are you so defensive around Gregory all of a sudden?" Chica asked, tilting her head and looking concerned. Roxanne paused, looking worried as she stopped just before the atrium entrance. "Monty, can you head to the food court with Gregs, I just need a word with Chica." She called ahead, the gator giving a thumbs up as he hovered around a wobbly Gregory.

She waited a few moments after the shutter closed, looking around and making sure no-one was listening. "Look...don't tell me you didn't notice Freddy had our old upgrades." She asked her friend as she leaned back, arms crossed.

"Yeah? I mean the purple and green claws were a bit of a giveaway." Chica shrugged. "We don't really remember what happened that night. So?"

Roxanne opened the small hatch in her torso, one that was usually reserved for small trophies if a kid beat her in a race. She offered a photo to chica. "Just..... don't freak out. Gregory gave me this earlier, he took it with that camera he's always lugging around." Chica looked worried, taking it cautiously. There was a pause before she broke out laughing.

"Rox, hun, you don't need to fish for compliments around me. You always look amazing." The white chicken giggled as Roxy glanced at it to see the photo Gregory had taken by the fountain last night. She snatched the picture back. "Dammit, wrong one, hold on." She muttered, fishing out the second photo. Chica was still giggling as she took the second image, her face changing from happy to confused.

"Er....looking fierce I guess, but it doesn't really suit you hun." Chica said after a moment. "Chica, I wouldn't try pull that pose, it makes me look fucking rabid." Complained Roxy. "But I'm looking like I'm going to attack whoever took this picture. If all three of us were the same..... Chica, I think we were trying to attack Gregory."

Chica glanced at Roxanne. "But our programming specifically says that we can't attack people, kids included." Chica replied, trying to calm Roxanne a little.

"I know that Chica, but with the photo, our memories all wiped, and the fact that Gregory is terrified of us, to the point he has a weapon to defend himself from us. Not to mention our upgrades in Freddy. I can't believe those are all coincidence. " Roxanne said, glancing down.

Chica had to admit, it was a good deal of evidence. "Until we find out for sure, we aren't going to bug Gregory. Even if it did happen, he came back to fix Freddy, and he's actually trusting us a bit. He's a smart cookie, he'll tell us if he feels like he can handle it."

"Freddy is back?" Asked a low voice as glamrock Hippo plodded around the corner. "About time. I need a new challenger to bowl against." The girls groaned. "Aww, is that the sound of a pair of salty losers I hear? You can always try again. When you can actually put up a challenge."

Roxanne snarled "Bite me jerk, you couldn't beat me in a race, or Chica playing guitar." The wolf growled back. "Oh please. You don't even have a racetrack anymore cause you're too scared of kiddie karts. And Chica would just eat a pizza halfway through and cry." Hippo sneered.

Chica grabbed Roxanne by the arm, having to drag her away. "We're busy Hippo, leave us alone already." She yelled as the shutter slammed down between them and the laughing purple Hippo.

"I really hate that guy" the two girls groaned, heading to the food court.

Prev Index Next

[thebountyfucker]

The Two Princes - Royal AU

NSFW - 18+ ONLY

Embo x F!Reader x Cad Bane

Tags: sex party, public sex, double penetration, threesome, blowjob, handjob, overstimulation, maybe ooc but this is an AU so I don't care lol

CW: mentions of drugs, prostitution, power imbalance (the reader is a hired attendant, and both Embo and Cad are princes. Reader is not a part of either of their domains, so they have no control over her. However, I did want to include it just in case)

Here's a link to my masterpost and to the application for my taglist!

“So explain to me again what is going on?”

“There’s nothing else to say.” Your boss replied as he sorted through his collection of datapads, his fingers flicking through the stack until he found the right one. He pulled it out and thrust it in your direction. “Ya gotta sign it.”

“Sign… what?” You took the datapad into your hands and powered it on. A file appeared, one that was rather lengthy and full of legal words that you couldn’t, for the life of you, understand. You parsed through the paragraphs of Aurebesh, before pausing and glancing up. “Is this an NDA?”

“Yep.” Your boss was quick to reply, turning his stout body from you to search around his office for something else. You uneasily returned your attention to the swirling legalese, and faltered. Your boss noticed your hesitancy, and sighed. “I can tell you this - it’s the royal folk. One of them is planning some shindig, and needs you and the girls to help take care of them.”

“Is it… safe?”

“You tell me. You know them royal folk better than I do.”

You wouldn’t exactly say you knew them; one one-night stand with Prince Cad hardly seemed to count, in your opinion. Though, if this party was hosted by a royal, there was a good chance that you’d get to see him again. He’d protect you if things went wrong, right? You stared down at the datapad, and your boss huffed impatiently.

“Look, sign it or don’t. I need to know who to staff now. They aren’t the patient type.”

“Alright, alright.” You scribbled your signature down on the line and your boss snatched the datapad from your hand. He tossed it aside and waddled around from the other side of the desk, gesturing with two fingers for you to follow him.

“You and the others will caravan to The Veil, where you’ll meet the employer. Remember, none of what happens tonight can be talked about, or we’ll be sued to shit. You understand?” You nodded again at this, the uneasy sensation rising in your stomach once more. Your boss glanced over his shoulder at you, and scoffed. “They ain’t gonna eat you! Relax!”

“Easy for you, perhaps.” You muttered under your breath as you both slipped into the meeting room. About fifteen young women - your coworkers - were waiting in the room. Most seemed just as confused as you were.

“The employer has everything you’ll need. Don’t let them talk you into doing anything that isn’t in your job description, okay? You’re attendants, not whores.” Your boss drawled as he crossed his arms over his chest. The last line, specifically, caught your attention. You’re attendants, not whores. What about this job warranted that comment? He had to know more than he was letting on, and this bothered you. You supposed he, likely, had to sign a similar NDA, but at the same time, you hated going into jobs blind. Things were more likely to go wrong this way… and the royals weren’t the type you wanted to disappoint. “Get your asses moving. He’s waiting on you.”

-

The Veil was unlike anything you had ever seen before - it was a meeting hall affiliated with Azvergin Hotel - a high-end joint for billionaires and royals alike. This meeting hall was just as high-class, with high ceilings and sculpted arches and hand-carved crown moulding. Columns lined the grand hall, holding the heavy mosaic ceilings from toppling to the floor. Famous artwork was displayed along the walls. You were so caught in how awe-inspiring this hall was, you hardly noticed the room was empty. There were no tables or chairs to be seen - something you expected for a function fit for royalty.

“This way.” The grounds-keeper spoke, pulling your attention from the details of the room; it was then that you finally noticed how quiet everything was. You turned towards the groundskeeper, watching as they turned down a long hallway. You jogged after them, your coworkers following closely behind.

“Where is everything?” You asked, and the groundskeeper glanced over their shoulder at you.

“Downstairs.”

“Right…”

They turned to the left and knocked on a door; a small peephole opened, and someone from within called out.

“Who are these ladies?”

“Attendants.” The groundskeeper explained. “The prince sent for them.”

The peephole closed, and the door opened instead. The guard gestured for you to enter, which you did; you slowly descended down the flight of stairs, noting that the lighting had dimmed and that low, sultry music was playing over hidden speakers. You turned to look at your girls, the pieces of this puzzle slowly forming in your head; it wasn’t until the door opened that things finally started making sense.

The room was much smaller than the grand hall above, without the frills and displays of wealth. It was hard to tell what colors the walls and floors were, given how dark the room was compared to the hall above. Plush chairs, chaises, and even beds were dotted around the room. Men and women were already wandering around, dressed in lingerie or kink apparel. They glanced at you and your party, but didn’t say anything.

Against the wall closest to the entrance of the room was a table covered in sex toys, condoms, lube, and little flags of various colors.

You understood the NDA now; this was not your typical job. No… this was a sex party. You had been hired, by one of the royals, to attend to them while they’re likely doing dope and fucking the brains out of prostitutes. Great. This would be fun.

A door to the left of the room opened up, and out stepped Prince Embo, the tall, broad chested Kyuzan prince. He wore a loosely tied satin robe, which exposed his defined chest; tattooed across his exposed skin were dark green, blocky symbols. You could make out the facsimile of a sun printed along his collarbone, though no other shapes made sense to you. Your gaze trailed down his chest and abdomen, before noting the loose tie which held his robe shut. You wondered if he was wearing anything underneath it…

Embo cleared his throat, and you startled, your gaze ripped from the knot of his closure. Your gaze flicked up to his face, before you remember that he was royalty and some royals found eye contact with subordinates to be threatening; you briefly met his gaze, noting the amusement in his face, before you cast your gaze to the floor.

“What is this?” He inquired, looking you all over; he waded through the crowd, looking over each and every one of you personally. His hand ghosted across the back of your neck, sending shivers straight down your spine. “My attendants, yes? Come. I have uniforms for you.”

You tentatively followed him into the room he had just exited from. He started rifling through a box, paying no mind as the sixteen of you gathered around you.

“What will be our role here tonight, your majesty?”

“Attendants. As is your job title.” He answered bluntly as he pulled out enough uniforms and set them aside. “You do not have to do what you are not trained for. Just offer drinks and take care of my guests.”

“I… well… okay.” You nodded as you grabbed one of the dresses - they were short, but not too revealing. Guests would definitely be able to tell the difference between you and the entertainment, even in the dim light. You held it up to you, noting that the prince was watching you. His gaze held interest, but no ill intent; you weren’t sure why, but your stomach somersaulted and your heart skipped a beat.

“Is that a problem, miss?”

“No, your majesty.” You replied, and he stood to his full height, towering over you in a way not many others could. This, embarrassingly, sent spikes of pleasure to your cunt. If he was this tall, you knew he had a huge cock to match.

“Good. My guests shall be arriving any time now. Do not keep us waiting too long.”

He ducked out of the room, giving you ample room and privacy to change. You slipped out of your work uniform and pulled on the given dress; it was red in color, and made of silk. It clung to your body, accentuating your curves; there was something about this dress that made you feel so pretty. Most other uniforms you were given were unflattering at best and purposely ugly at the best. You appreciated the prince’s good tastes.

The others gossiped about the situation you all were in as you pulled on your shoes. You weren’t much for gossip usually, but you understood how odd this situation was.

“So the rumors of the Prince are true!”

“Who knew that a royal could have such a ravenous appetite!”

“Of course he would! Those types always get what they want.”

You chuckled as your mind wandered to your night with Cad. They weren’t entirely wrong; royals were just as fickle and just as horny as everyone else. But you couldn’t imagine Cad throwing such a party. Hell, you couldn’t even imagine him attending such a circus! Prince Embo surely was something else...

You made sure your shoes were on tightly, and slipped out the door. You wanted to get a feel for the place before the chaos began. You took note of the supplies on the table near the door, and of the bar you had somehow missed. So far, there was nothing illegal, but you weren’t certain it would stay that way.

The main floor was still only populated by prostitutes at this point, despite the Prince’s warning that guests would soon be arriving. Some were fixing their hair or make-up, and some were chatting it up with anyone around. Missing, however, was the Prince. You tried to find his towering frame in the crowd, but that was easier said than done.

A hand slid across your back to your shoulders, and you jumped in surprise. You turned, noting Prince Embo staring back at you. You lowered your gaze respectfully, and he responded by wheeling you around to face him, and gripping your chin in his free hand.

“I think I would like for you to be my personal attendant tonight.” He purred, tipping your head back so he could look at you better. His glowing gold eyes searched your soul, and you couldn’t help but bite your lip in response. “Pretty thing. It is too bad you are not one of my entertainers tonight.”

His presence was engulfing, and your heart skipped a beat. His thumb brushed over your lips, and you had to stop yourself from parting your lips and accepting it into your mouth. Mindlessly, you edged closer, and the hand on your shoulder slid downward….

“Well, I’ll be damned.” A familiar voice drawled and you winced; of all the people that could have walked through the door at this time, it had to be Cad. The only royal who actively had a past with you, and the one you figured wouldn’t dare be seen at such a function. You turned away from Embo’s grasp, glancing over at an amused Cad. “Didn’t expect t’ see ya here.”

“I only hire the best.” Embo explained, sauntering over to his chair, which overlooked the rest of the room.

“Yeah. De best.” Cad smirked. There was no malice in his tone; rather, you figured this was his attempt at teasing. “Dat’s de one dat spilled wine all over yer mother’s dress."

Blood rushed to your face, and you were thankful that the lights are so dim; you had just barely forgotten about that whole mess, and now Cad had to bring it back up - to the Queen’s own son, nonetheless! You wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and die.

Your self-pitying was cut short by a loud laugh from Embo; at first, you were glad that he wasn’t upset by this information. But then, you realized that he was likely laughing at you. Your mood soured, and you crossed your arms over your chest in a pout.

“So that was you? Oh, my mother raved about you for days after that.” Embo leaned back on his little throne, spreading out like he owned the place. Maybe he did.

“I… what?” You dropped your arms, confused.

“You gave her an excuse to change out of that gods-awful dress my father bought her. She wanted to hire you to ruin whatever gifts he gave her, but we had to talk her out of it.”

“Shouldn’t have.” Cad chuckled. “It would be the best job she’d ever have in her miserable little peasant life.”

“Hey now.” You frowned. “We talked about this.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Cad waved you off as he drew closer. “You wouldn’t happen t’ be available tonight?”

“She is an attendant, Cad. And mine for the night.”

“Figures. You always bag de good ones.” Cad shook his head as he stood; he looked you up and down with a licentious smirk. “I’ll see you ‘round, den.”

“Of course.”

You watched Cad retreat to settle in a nearby chair. One of the prostitutes - a handsome man - approached, sitting on the arm of the chair. Well… at least Cad was there in case things got out of hand.

Embo called to you, and you turned toward him; he gestured with his two fingers, watching with an intensity as you approached. You bowed your head when you reached the foot of his chair, and he tsked.

“None of that.” He told you. “There is no need for pleasantries here. Now… fetch me a drink.”

-

You had never been around so much sex in your entire life. Everywhere you turned, there was someone giving someone else head, or someone riding someone else’s dick. The room was filled with the sounds of skin against skin, of gagging, of slicked up cunts… and the moans… oh the moans!

You edged around one of the beds -where a princess was getting gangbanged by a group of various alien men- carrying the tray of goodies to your prince. Embo was leaned back in his chair, looking surprisingly bored even as two ladies fondled his cock. You leaned down to hand him his drink, which he accepted with a grunt.

“You don’t seem to be enjoying this, my Prince.”

He just shrugged nonchalantly as he sipped at his drink. “I am not feeling particularly inspired.”

With a wave of the hand, he dismissed the two ladies, and closed his robe up. You set your tray down and knelt before him. He carded a hand through your hair, muttering something in his mother tongue. “Is there anything I can do to make this a better experience?”

He glanced over at you, his gaze lazily trailing down your form; something - which you figured was lust- sparked in his golden eyes, but he was not quick to act on his feelings. He gestured with his free hand, and you offered him some sort of smokable, which you figured was not smart given his need for a breathing mask. He lit it and slumped back in his chair.

“No. Stay your course, kamour.”

“Are you sure, my Prince? I… am offering to help you. You hired me to help, right?” You inquired, reaching out to touch his hand. He glanced over at you, and you wondered how much convincing it would take him before he realized you were serious. Not much, it turned out.

“I am no monster. Say the word and I will let you go.”

“Of course.” You settled between his parted legs, your soft hands slowly sliding up his naked thighs. What was it your boss said? Oh, that you were attendants and not whores. Well, what he didn’t know wouldn’t kill him.

Your hands swept under his satin robe, parting it open to reveal his large cock. You wrapped your hand around the base of it, and slowly worked your way up his length. He was already hard from the ministrations of the prostitutes, the head of his cock flushed a deep and needy green. You leaned forward, gathering spit in your mouth before drooling it out onto his cock; you locked gazes with him as you spread your saliva down and around his shaft.

“Now, dat ain’t fair.” Cad’s voice startled you from your task, and you turned to spy him sitting on the arm of an unused chair. He was completely naked, with his arms crossed over his chest. “You said she was an attendant.”

“I did not lie. She is attending.” Embo put his mask back into place, and ran his hand through your hair. “She is doing her duty.”

“Yeah, well, I want in on dis.”

“That is up to her.”

You hardly even had to think - you reached for Cad, wrapping your hand around his slick, hard cock. You gave him a pump, and Cad hissed through gritted teeth in response. You gestured for him to move closer, and he did; the princes met gazes but said nothing to each other as you reached the other hand out to stroke Embo’s cock.

You stroked them both at the same time, reveling in the hisses and grunts trickling from their mouths. The way their cocks pulsed in your hands was enough to make your pussy tingle, and arousal slowly built within you. There was something depraved about this - about a lowly attendant pleasuring two powerful princes in the midst of a sex party - but the depravity only added to your pleasure. You could hardly stop yourself from grinding your needy cunt against the heel of your own foot.

“Enough of dis pussy-footin’. Are ya gonna suck me off or what?” Cad drawled, as impatient as ever; you quirked a brow as you leaned forward to give him a long, wet lick. He growled in response, his hands threading in your hair. “Come on, doll… don’t be teasin’ me now.”

“You forget that you weren’t the first man I was pleasing.” You replied, your voice wavering. You weren’t sure it was a good idea to talk back to him, especially in this position. Though, you supposed, you held the power when you held his cock. Any wayward comment and you were in a prime position to bite him. You figured he wouldn’t risk it.

Cad scoffed and you leaned away to wrap your lips around the head of Embo’s cock. He chuckled and leaned back.

“She is not lying.”

“You shut up.” Cad muttered as he pressed a hand to the back of your head, almost as if he was trying to guide you. You rolled your eyes but didn’t protest.

It went like this for a while - you’d take one into your mouth, bobbing and sucking like a good little whore, before pulling away to take the other one. You felt oddly powerful knowing you had the ability to bring these two princes to their knees with only a touch. You reveled in this power for as long as you could before Embo lifted you up and sat you on his lap. He pulled you close to his chest, purring.

“I am going in you.” He told you, giving you ample time to back out of it. When you didn’t protest, he lifted you as though you weighed nothing, and turned you to face Cad. He guided you onto his cock, and you winced as the head slipped into your drooling cunt. You hadn’t realized that he was quite this large. He gripped your hips, controlling how slowly you eased down onto him so you didn’t hurt yourself.

Cad waited until you were ready before offering his cock to your mouth once more. You parted your lips, your eyes half-lidded and darkened with lust, and he chuckled.

“Are ya cock-dumb already, doll?” He reached out to tangle his hand in your hair. “Are our cocks just dat good?”

You nodded in response to this, greedily latching around his cock and sucking hard. He let out a hiss and tugged at your hair, spurning you to start bobbing up and down his length. At the same time, you had fully engulfed Embo, sheathing his cock deep within you. Your whine was lost amongst the sloppy slurps of Cad’s cock easing in and out of your wet mouth.

Embo slowly, gingerly, eased in and out of you, taking care not to hurt you in the process. Every time he pulled his cock half out of you, you took Cad’s cock to the hilt with a gag. Every time Embo bottomed out within you, you pulled away to breathe. It was tough to find the right rhythm at first, but when you did, the pleasure was all-encompassing. Your head was spinning, arousal burning deep within the well of your stomach; your eyes rolled back and your hands went to your breasts, squeezing so tightly you were sure they’d bruise.

“Think she could take us both in there?” Cad asked, and your mind wandered at the prospect. You imagined the sensation of their cocks filling up your cunt, stretching you out in a way you’ve never felt before. The idea was fascinating, and a bit frightening. You didn’t realize that you were drooling around Cad’s cock until your spit splattered on your thigh.

Embo leaned you back against his chest, a finger probing at your cock-stuffed pussy. He slipped it inside, and your eyes went wide; Cad’s cock slipped from your mouth as the air vacated your lungs. You quivered against Embo, a pathetic little whimper escaping your lips.

“No… not unless you intend to split her in half.”

“Shame.” Cad shook his head; he pondered for a minute, before tipping your chin up. “Stay here. I’ll be back.”

As if you had other plans. Embo rested his head against you shoulder, purring softly. “I would like to see your pretty face, kamour.”

“Alright.” You turned around, facing the prince; you couldn’t tell for sure, but you guessed he was smiling behind that mask of his. His large hand cupped your cheek, and you leaned into his warmth.

“Beautiful.” He slowly rocked his hips up into you again, and you whimpered. “A beautiful, sex drunk whore. You like my cock, hm?”

“Yes.” You breathed, matching his thrusts by rolling your hips; his finger slipped out of your cunt, and instead stroked your swollen, trembling clit. A fire built in your stomach, and your vision went blurry. Your orgasm was within reach! You gasped out his name, your voice strained yet velveteen. Embo’s eyes brightened at this, and he reached up to wrap a steady hand around your neck.

“Say it again. Say my name again.” He commanded, his voice husky with his own desire. You whimpered.

“Embo….”

“Again!” He rubbed at your clit faster, slamming up into you with a ferocity you had never felt before. You could hardly find the strength within you, but you couldn’t displease him.

“Embo!” You cried out, your entire body quivering as the fire of orgasm consumed you. Your head danced in the clouds as your body went limp and useless against him. He held you close, his hands dancing over your form.

“Shit, did I miss out on all de fun?”

You lifted your head and glanced over your shoulder to spy Cad with his hands on his hips. You shook your head, your tongue weighing like lead in your mouth. You gestured for him to draw closer, which he did, and you gave his now condom-clad cock a stroke.

“I do think she can take more.” Embo hummed, his hand rubbing at your thigh. You nodded in agreement at this, and Cad leaned down to nip at your neck.

“Good. Do you still want to take de both of us?”

“Yes!” You chirped, and Cad chuckled.

“So eager.” Cad maneuvered you into Embo’s chest, giving him better access to your ass. Cad lubed you up with a bottle he had grabbed from somewhere, and gently eased into you. A strangled cry escaped from somewhere within you as Cad brushed against the thin, sensitive wall separating his cock from Embo’s. You could hardly keep yourself upright, the sensations quickly overwhelming you; Embo had to keep you from falling completely limp onto his chest.

“Easy now. This is not too much for you, is it?”

You shook your head at this. “N-no.”

“‘Course it ain’t.” Cad yanked on your hair, pulling your head back enough so you could look him in the eyes. He smirked, and then sheathed himself within you. You let out a cry, and his smirk deepened into a depraved smile. “Yer a good lil’ doll. You can handle us.”

“Yes! Yes!” You whined in agreement as they both slowly rocked into you. Every inch of you was set ablaze as they took turns massaging that oh-so-sensitive wall. Cad released your hair, his hand instead sliding down to roll your nipple between two of his fingers. His other hand gripped at your hip, keeping you steady. Embo’s hand returned to your clit, pinching and rolling the overstimulated bud around until you were panting and pleading for release. Your admissions only made them hasten their paces, and soon, they were both slamming into you. Your head lolled back on your useless neck, resting squarely on Cad’s chest; your legs quivered and jerked as you chased after your second orgasm. Hands wandered, acquainting themselves with every aspect of your body; this only added fuel to the fire which threatened to consume you once more.

With only a few more thrusts, you came undone. Your vision went white as you rode waves of pure bliss, only faintly aware of how erratic their paces had become. It wasn’t until Cad lurched forward and bit you that you were pulled from your euphoria.

His fangs pierced your skin, surely drawing blood; his orgasm, contained by the condom, manifested in quick, jerky motions up into you. Slowly, he eased out of you, lapping up any blood that had trickled from the wound.

Embo found his pleasure not long after that, shooting his cum deep within you; the searing heat of his seed was unexpected, but wasn’t unpleasant. You were almost certain that if he hadn’t been wearing his mask, he probably would have bit you too. He, unlike Cad, didn’t ease out of you. He let you decide what it was you wanted to do, even if it meant keeping his soft cock in you until he hardened up again. You did, however, ease off of him to sit on his lap.

“Dat was good, doll. I might need t’ keep ya around.”

“Yes, well, you may have competition.” He leaned toward you, humming. “Though, I suppose it would be your choice.”

“Who says I have to choose?” You managed, your voice sultry. They cast glances at each other, and Cad shrugged.

“‘Spose that could work.”

Taglist!: @sat-nam-saint @that-clone-wars-girl

You leaned back into the warm chest of one of your Princes. Huh. You liked the sound of that. Who would have thought that someone like you could pull two Princes!

-

[justasparkwritings]

Codename Cupid: Chapter 11

Previous: Tailing Taehyung 

Pairing: Min Yoongi X OFC

Genre: Angst, Secret AgentAU, AgentAU, Government Agent AU

Rating: PG15

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: Swearing, Kissing, Mentions of Consensual Sex

Summary: The final part of Suga’s orders are carried out. 

Codename Another Shot at Love Pt. 4

Winter After Graduation

           December and January passed without much to report. That being said, everything that OT7 had planned went swimmingly, with one singular exception.

           The dinner at the Lee estate had sent a wave of insecurity through Euna, which made it easy for Yoongi to feign ignorance when he began, deliberately, to pull away from her.

           The first few weeks after dinner were filled with Yoongi convincing Euna that he was going to stay, that he was all in, that he wanted to be with her. She believed him, and by believing him, started the early drafts of their futures together. He hated the deception, the lies he strung together as easily as breathing, the files and documents charting his deception updated daily by Hoseok.

          Hoseok had the unpleasant task of transcribing all conversation and interactions between marks and members of OT7, his specialized training and exceptional hearing made his job easy. Yoongi was instructed to record everything, except sex or any hooking up that went down. Being in charge of most of the tech, he wielded his glasses and watch, set to record when they were on his person, set to turn off when they couldn’t detect his body heat. He could manually turn them off, a button on his watch near the band allowed him to with ease. He’d only fucked up once or twice, not recording when Cupid spilled important info, which angered Namjoon to no end. They weren’t amateurs, Yoongi should know better. Regardless, everyday Hobi transcribed the conversations between Yoongi and Cupid, adding more to the list and charts of the lies being told.

           “Jun-Seo said that Jimin wanted to send you something, a welcome to the gang, gift,” Euna said over dinner.

           Surprised and pouting, Yoongi responded, “A gift?”

           “Knowing Jun-Seo and Jimin, it’s probably a Dae-Seong voodoo doll,” Euna shrugged.

           “Okay, did they want to drop it off or give it to you?” Yoongi shrugged it off.

           “Jimin wants to have dinner, the four of us,” Euna told him, sipping her wine.

           Nodding again, Yoongi asked, “How do you feel about that?”

           “I would rather not,” Euna said.

           “Then we won’t.”

           “Isn’t it part of being a family?” She asked, unsure what the protocol of a functioning family was.

           “Having dinner? Didn’t we just witness Guadalcanal? You think the troops wanted to hang with the natives after they slaughtered them?” Yoongi scoffed. He hated how docile Cupid was towards her family, always doing what she thought was right, rarely what she wanted.

           “Eh, it wasn’t that bad,” Euna responded.

           “You’re shitting me,” Yoongi’s eyes were wide. “War is not normal, I mean, besides Iraq and Afghanistan, that’s normal.”

           “No, I’m not. We’ve had far worse, that one was honestly, average. At least my mom made it through the entire meal, and no one broke a glass or threw a plate at Dae. They weren’t on their best behavior, but it was better than most meals we share,” Euna informed him.

           “That’s toxic, psychotic, that’s fucking horrifying, Euna. You don’t have to put up with that.” Yoongi took her hand in his while she watched her roll her eyes.

           “Didn’t you know that, though?” She snapped.

           “Know what?”

           “The Lee family, and Lee Enterprises, breeds nothing but toxicity and wages psychological warfare on every member of the inner circle. That’s why no one leaves,” Euna’s temper continued to flare throughout the night, sleeping as far from Yoongi as possible, barely acknowledging him as he slipped from her home the next morning.

           Arriving at work the next day, Yoongi and the OT7 team spent an additional week tracing the longevity of careers at Enterprises, as well as tracking hirings, firings and workers who just disappeared from records.

           “Who’s been there the longest?” Namjoon asked, files scattered across the conference table, writing strewn on the glass between offices. He was growing tired, a sign from the cold he’d acquired running a surveillance mission with their recent acquisition, a trainee ready to be put into the field.

           “Not including the Lee family, that would include a somewhat distant Vanderbilt relative, a Henry Claypoole,” Yoongi said.

           “Not a Korean?” Seokjin asked.

           “No, the Lee’s didn’t rise into prominence until, well, it looks like the late 80s, when they did a market sample and it became apparent that an Asian-American owned company would serve better in the future than another fortune 500 owned by a white family, that and Vietnam had ended and American sentiment towards Asians of all kind was changing,” Namjoon responded.

“Once the Civil Rights Act passed, and the government continued to allow Asians immigrate, opinions were changing.” Yoongi added.

           “It wasn’t that long after Vietnam though,” Seokjin was skeptical.

           “It didn’t go over well, they hadn’t gone public until the early 2000s, so it balanced out. It was pretty hush-hush until the mid 90s when Claypoole died.” Namjoon pulled up the paperwork, passing it to Jin.

           “Still, Vietnam, AIDs, their investors were okay with this?”

           “At the heart of the Lee business model, is a relentless grab for power. They were making ins with the wealthiest families in Asia, Europe, UAE, Middle East and South America. There wasn’t a royal family or billionaire who hadn’t put their money in,” Namjoon told the men.

           Curious, Seokjin asked, “Before it was Lee Enterprises, what was it called?”

           “Claypoole & Lee Enterprises,” Hoseok responded. He’d forged a few older documents with their old insignia and water mark.

           “CLE?” Jin had looked at their old stocks, comparing them to other companies when he was in college. They were a fickle company, always hard to pin down or predict.

           “Yes,” Hoseok answered again.

           “They changed their name?” Jin confirmed.

           “It was a complete rebranding to help with their demographics, but it also made sense once Claypoole was six feet under.” Namjoon replied.

           “The less American, the better?” Jin clarified.

           “Exactly, better for the global image,” Namjoon adjusted his glasses before running a hand through his hair. Dark and quaffed, it fell back into place in gently swoops.

           “Claypoole worked in the bank from day one,” Yoongi addressed the three men.

           “Claypoole was just a figurehead, the original chairman of the board while Lee and his crew ran the company,” Namjoon said.

           “How do their hiring practices measure up?” Hoseok asked, he spent zero time reading and understanding the internal workings of the company unless he has to write in a specific person’s voice.

           “They accept applicants in pools, hiring in spring/summer, train in fall, then reevaluate the following spring. Their classes or cohorts are no more than ten people, with a few exceptions based on the market demands and company growth. Some years, specifically at the beginning of the tech boom, they hired fifty people, other years, six. It is fairly unpredictable,” Namjoon passed around another set of documents.

           “The most tenured staff has been there for thirty years,” Yoongi said sipping his coffee.

           “Yoongi, you haven’t had to sign an NDA?” Hoseok asked.

           “No.”

          “What about retention?”

          “No one talks about retention. It wasn’t in my contract at all, no blind clauses or double language.”

          “Has anyone left in the year you’ve been there?”

          “Not that I’ve seen. No one talks about contracts or negotiation outside of the speculation of what will happen come May.”

          “Their plans for negotiating contracts also vary by years spent, first years going through a level of hell that slowly descends as you work your way up the ladder,” Yoongi informed.

           “Why would they want people to stay?” Hoseok asked.

           “They’re all complicit? They knowingly are committing felonies, so staying means no one can hold it against them?” Yoongi suggested.

           “An entire company of 200 people, all insider trading? All embezzling? That’s inconceivable,” Namjoon was unsure how realistic the possibility was.

           “An entire company, minus one,” Jin whispered.

           “Yoongi, how is our Cupid doing?” Hoseok smirked.

           “She wants to move in,” Yoongi muttered.

           “What?” Seokjin yelled.

           “Yeah, oh, and her clothes have begun to infiltrate my closet,” Yoongi sipped his iced americano, his own making, a product of the espresso machine he had begged Namjoon to buy. The coffee ice cubes, a stupid idea from a pop-up video, had turned Yoongi’s favorite addiction into a godly experience.

           “She wants to move in, with you?” Hoseok was shocked.

           “Fuck off,” Snapped Yoongi.

           “What else?” Namjoon asked.

           “She’s been calling a lot, at random times in the day. She’s got snacks in her apartment for me, like really niche stuff. She bought a thousand-dollar bottle of whiskey for me, bought me a pair of silk pajamas that cost near $550. The worst of it all, and I swear, I swear, she’s developing an impregnation kink.”

           Namjoon and Hoseok laughed, doubling over to hold their sides as they became consumed by the idea.

           “Seriously?” Hoseok gasped.

           “Whatever happened at that dinner has her scared shitless,” Seokjin remained calm, though the shock etched into his ageless features. “She’s never wanted kids.”

           “Which is why it’s concerning,” Yoongi said.

           “You stopped using condoms?” Namjoon dropped the laughter to stare at Yoongi. “Don’t tell me you stopped using-

           Yoongi’s eyes widen, cheeks tinting pink as he blushes. “No, no, that’s how I know she’s developing this, obsession. She very vocally, wants my fucking seed.”

           “Does she ask you not to use one?” Hoseok inquired.

           “Yeah and tells me I can take it off and I don’t need to because she’s on birth control, which she isn’t.”

           “Pull out?” Hoseok suggested.

           “Oh yeah, the second least successful method to avoid pregnancy,” Namjoon laughed again.

           “You can tell her you don’t want STI’s,” Jin offered.

           “She’ll ask if I’m sleeping with other people,” Yoongi had gone through every option, there was no good solution. He pissed off Cupid, or he put himself at risk. Unwanted pregnancy was not how he was going to start off his mid-twenties. Fatherhood was not on the table, especially not with someone he at his core, didn’t love.

           “Are you?” Jin wondered.

           Rolling his eyes, “When would I have the time?”

           “You’ve always been a one partner kind of guy,” Hoseok responded.

           Confusion in his eyes, Yoongi tilted his head. “What does that even mean?”

           “Just that-

           “Yoongi, start distancing yourself, as gradually as possible,” Namjoon redirected.

           “Roger that.”

           It was a cliché, become a horrible partner to get the other person to break up with you so you didn’t have to. It’s even more of a cliché for the person hoping to be dumped to revert back to their pre-relationship behavior in order to get their partner to dislike them, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, that was exactly what Yoongi did. Frankly, he didn’t have to try very hard, though, to get Euna to be hurt by him.

           Introverted in nature, he began by closing himself off to her, cancelling plans, bailing at the last second. He became withholding of sex and general intimacy, being standoffish when she tried to get him to open up, annoyed when she tried to use her wiles against him. He tapped into all the flaws past partners had accused him of and let them run wild.

          It was slow at first, building up Cupid’s resentment towards him, for every step away from her he took, she took three more towards him. Her internet searches became solely based on ways to keep Yoongi, entrapment through a hole in the condom, or preying on him after a night of drinking. She lost all sense of what was acceptable, what was normal, and spun out completely. Cupid tried to track his phone, bought burners to call and catfish him, put extra security in place in his corner of Lee Enterprises to ensure she had eyes on him all day. Paranoia and obsession have no place in a healthy, stable relationship, but Yoongi couldn’t fault her for feeling both towards him.

          The final straw, on Yoongi’s end, was a confrontation the night following Cupid’s weekly family dinner.

          “Why didn’t you come to dinner? Who were you with?” Cupid demanded when she called Yoongi.

          “I told you, I have a deadline and Matthew needs the plans before the market opens on Monday,” Yoongi reminded her.

          “You’re not at work,” She snapped.

          Calmly, Yoongi exhaled, “I’m at my apartment.”

          “Why are you lying to me,” It wasn’t a question, but an accusation.

          “I’m not lying, Euna, I am at home working,” Yoongi answered.

          “Why don’t you ever come to dinner?”

          “You said I didn’t have to, after the first one,” Yoongi reminded her.

          Cupid scoffed, as if that was a true reason. “Jimin’s there, and recently, Dae’s wife has been making an appearance.”

          “I would prefer to not engage with your family unless I have to. It blurs the lines of work and personal –

          “But you’re dating me! You’re fucking me, you’re in love with me.” She rattled off, “Why does my family have to be the problem? What’s really going on?”

          “What do you mean?” Yoongi was already tired of the conversation.

          “You’ve been acting weird for months. You don’t want to sleep with me, you hardly stay over, you’re distant and weird,” Accusation after accusation, Yoongi had made a list himself of what she could potentially throw at him.

          “I have been going through a lot, can’t you understand that?”

          Scoffing again, Cupid responded. “You’ve been going through a lot? What about me?”

          “Euna, I know I’ve been shit, I just-

          “You don’t love me anymore, do you?” Bingo.

          “What?” Yoongi feigned hurt.

          “You’re not denying it,” She snapped.

          “Do you really think that?”

          “Yes, Yoongi, I do. I think you used me to get into good graces with the company so you can move up the ladder. Now that you’ve got some traction, you fucking don’t care about me or our relationship.”

          “That’s crazy! When have I ever shown any sign of wanting to move up the corporate ladder? It wasn’t my idea to fall into bed with you, Euna, your mother set this up,” The angrier he pretended to be, the faster this would be over.

          “Why are you acting like this if you’re still in love with me?” She demanded to know.

          “I told you, works been chaotic and I –

          “If work’s chaotic, why not tell me? I can change that.”

          He held in a laugh, “That would be like nepotism but worse.”

          “Are you saying this to make me feel better?” She asked, voice softening.

          “Euna,” If only she could see him, eyes closed, glasses on his desk, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. He was tired. Tired of Euna, tired of working at this company, tired of lying. He didn’t often burn out on missions, but this had taken him to his edge.

          “You don’t want to have sex, you don’t want me in your space, you cancel plans, you never answer my calls. Yoongi, are you cheating on me?”

          “What?”

          “You are, aren’t you?” She could feel the tears breaking through, the resolve of anger she had disappearing.

          Yoongi took a deep breath, knowing she was going to throw up whatever she could until it stuck.

          “Euna, stop,” Yoongi sighed.

          “Then tell me what’s going on,” She whispered.

          He had to say it, he had to otherwise this fight would continue on, resulting in an in person confrontation. “We should break up.”

          The silence on the other end was worse than her screaming at him.

          “What?” Her voice was still soft, a heartbroken whisper.

          “We want really different things, and I don’t know if I can or will ever be able to give you what you need. I’m sorry, Euna, I am,” Yoongi said. He wasn’t a heartbreaker, he loved fiercely and passionately. But Cupid was a mark, plain and simple.

          “Fuck you, Yoongi,” She spit.

          “I’m sorry, Euna,” He laid on the apology.

          “You had my heart,” She sniffled.

          “I know,” He sighed.

          “And you stomped on it, ran it over with an 18-wheeler, and threw it into a blender. Fuck. You.” Cupid was back to anger, coursing through her like lava down the side of Kilauea.

          “I’m sorry,” He repeated.

          “I want my stuff back, and I want you to put in your transfer at Lee Enterprises,” Her voice was fueled by anger and sudden heartache.

          “A what?” Yoongi was shocked.

          “Transfer, you can’t work under me after this,” She had switched to business mode. There was one thing Yoongi had remained impressed by, and that was Cupid’s ability to put the job over everything else, everyone else, not because she had to, because she wanted to.

          “That’s unlawful,” Yoongi warned.

          “I don’t care.”

          “Euna,” He pleased.

          “Transfer, or I will fire you.” An ultimatum, something she never wanted to be faced with.

          “You can’t –

          “Don’t. Test. Me.”

          “Okay, I’ll do it Monday,” Yoongi compromised.

          “You can send my stuff back, I don’t want to see you.” Cupid hung up. In her home, she threw her phone against the wall, watching it rebound onto the carpet before she fell to the floor, tears abounding. How many heartbreaks could she withstand? How many tears would fall at the emotions of another man, breaking her spirit? In some deep recesses of her subconscious, Dae-Seong’s words played through without a scratch. Maybe he’d been right.

          Yoongi texted OT7, who no doubt had already known through the rapid transcription Hobi was almost certainly completing, or through listening to the fight go down. The receipts would show that Yoongi had followed orders as directed, he completed his mission, his mark had been hit. Hook, line and heartbreak. Looking at the calendar, he laughed darkly. Of course, he would break up with her days before Valentine’s Day.

Next: Codename The Mochi of It All

[andyctwrites]

Selling Your Story – Peaks and Pitfalls of Publishing Contracts

Points to consider when deciding if a Publisher is the right fit for you.

Landing a publishing contract is the Holy Grail for many creators who set their sights on “breaking in” to comics, and it’s understandable as to why this is the case…

It’s a big ego bump for starters. Someone external, has recognised your work as good enough to be associated with, promote and sell. In terms of logistics, publishers have established distribution and promotional tools at their disposal and should have a bigger voice than you alone to share your creation with their customer base. As an independent creator, associating yourself with something bigger can also boost your profile – Like a more positive version of joining a gang in prison (I’d imagine). 

The subject of publisher relations with creators, differential deals and the fairness of agreements became the subject of debate across comics twitter recently. Voices of creators and collaborators I have a great deal of respect for came out to talk about their views on several publishers with messages of both condemnation and support. Wider spread trends led to a number of freelance workers actively sharing what they had been paid for projects. While there’s no need to pick through a debate which is easily searched, I’ve been thinking a great deal on the subject of publisher contracts.  Specifically, how an independent creator can review and consider what publishers are offering more critically in the hope they secure favourable terms, or at very least don’t feel regrets down the line as items not considered at the time of signing come home to roost.

I’ve sat to write this piece in the hope it sparks more discussion and helps those working in the small press scene, which I love, ask the right questions and considering offerings from publishers who show interest in their work.  Hopefully I’ve made it accessible and not hideously dull.  

Before we take a step further, let’s cover a few notes and caveats here:

Who is this guy? – I’m Andy Conduit-Turner a writer and extremely small name, in all but letter count, in UK indie comic publishing. The chances are, that if we’ve not met, you’ve not heard of me.

My comics contracting experience is primarily limited to drafting my own commissioning contracts to engage with collaborators for comics I have written, and in licencing short stories which I’ve written to appear in anthologies and other mediums produced by others. At the time of writing, I have neither signed with, or been rejected by any major (or minor) comics publisher and am not providing comment on any observed content which may or may not appear in a publishing agreement from any given company. 

I am, neither a qualified legal professional or literary agent. In the event any contract you ever receive for any purpose is of extreme importance, investing in the support of a qualified person with greater industry experience is of far greater value than anything you’ll read here. 

Outside of comics, my professional career and other personal projects over the last decade have seen me review, interpret, question, edit and respond to countless legal agreements for a variety of purposes. This has left me with a wealth of experience in considering longer term impacts for both the purchasing and suppling parties of service agreements – I’ve spent a great deal of time having both commercial and capability-based discussions prior to contracts being signed.

This is by no means an anti-publisher piece – Regardless of where you stand on recent publishing discussions, I’ve no desire to create an Us (Creators) vs Them (Publishers) sentiment here. There are countless publishers who are passionate about sharing creator’s stories, invest significantly and add a great deal of value to both individual projects and the industry as a whole. No reputable publisher is out to trick creators or deliberately give them a raw deal.  That said, as with many transactions, a publisher is a business with an end goal of limiting liability and generating revenue in both the short and long term – Depending on your ideological feelings, this isn’t necessarily an inherently evil objective, and it’s how publishers remain in business. 

Your publishing contract is equally not a formality, a magnanimous offer from a friend with nothing to gain from the arrangement, and your unconditional ticket to success and acclaim. Different deals will work for different creators – A good deal to one will be an unacceptable deal for someone else and there are few terms which would be universally perfect or awful for everyone. I’d hope through these pages I can maybe help you consider your offers, ask necessary questions and make decisions you’re comfortable with for your own circumstances.

Negotiation carries risks – Especially within the sphere of indie publishing, there are a couple of truths we need to reflect on.

1. Comics are an attractive and exciting creative medium for people to get into. Especially if a publisher is welcome to unsolicited submissions, they are likely to have no shortage of people interested in publishing with them.

2. Many publishers aren’t huge organisations. In the event a member of their core team is not already a legal professional, it’s unlikely they will have a legal department on their staff to directly manage adjustments to legal documents and agreements.

What this boils down to is that, many publishers may simply not have the resources or interest in negotiating or adjusting a contract with you – There’s every chance that the offer made to you is non-negotiable. While I’d argue that the withdrawal of an offer in response to a question asked or statement challenged in good faith is indicative of the professionalism of the organisation in question, you should be prepared for the fact that being the squeaky wheel may not land you the deal you want, and may take the one you have off the table. 

A Note on NDAs and Market Norms

NDAs, or Non-Disclosure Agreements are very common, as part of, or prior to contracting in many industries. They are typically used to protect (in this case publishers’) private or proprietary information concerning their business practises, contracting terms, project pipeline and pay rates private and confidential. They are a routine consideration and not indicative of any sinister goings on.  In keeping with professional conduct, if you sign an NDA you should, of course, respect its conditions though here are a few considerations and questions you may ask or confirm however.

1: Is the NDA mutually beneficial – While you are agreeing not to share the details of a publisher’s business and offer outside involved parties, does the signed NDA bind the publisher to offer you the same regardless as to whether the end result is a signed publishing agreement?

Are there stated commitments to your work remaining confidential and not circulated to other outside parties during your negotiations? What commitments are made to the return / disposal of any project details or materials shared should an agreement not be finalised.

Additionally, can you expect details on deals you accept in terms of up front remuneration, percentage splits on profits and additional contract terms to remain confidential?

2: Pitch exclusivity – Are there any expectations, formal or otherwise that you should not pitch your comic elsewhere until negotiations have been concluded?

3: Your right to advice – No NDA should prevent you taking appropriate professional advice before signing any final agreement.

Rules on business competition internationally, already provide a great deal of legislation to ensure businesses to remain competitive and prevent illegal practises such as price fixing and market sharing. While market norms may dictate and guide the offers you’re likely to receive competing businesses should not mutually agree to adhere to set fees or conditions. At this point I’ll pause and note that I don’t hold the market specific professional knowledge to apply Anti-Trust and similar business competition legislation to publishing contracts – These should be forefront of a publisher’s mind when managing confidentiality of contract content.  

So…With all of that now said (in painstaking detail) let’s get into this shall we

What’s in this for you?

So, you’ve pitched your book to a publisher and they’re interested in working with you? Great news! Now comes the time when you need to consider what you want to get from your potential partner, and consider, realistically, what you’ll accept. For many creators your wants and expectations may include:

Contribution to production costs. Particularly for writer led teams, an ability to appropriately pay artists, colourists, letterers, editors and other professionals make up the bulk of comic production costs even before downstream logistics such as printing, marketing and distribution come into play.  Many publishers may state up front whether this is a model they can support. Initial production costs add to the overall risk and increase the volume needed to sell before profits are realised.   Consider – Landing a publisher may not relieve you of the need to raise personal funds or take to Kickstarter. 

Upfront royalty payments. A noble dream for some, though likely only realised by more established creators. Belief in your project will need to be high to warrant an upfront payment to the creator for a book prior to a single copy being sold Consider – Manage your expectations here, how promising is your pitch? Do you have a track record of success that offsets the risk of an upfront pay out?

Percentage Profits – This is likely to be a long-term arrangement of any publishing deal whereby the creator and the publisher acting a licence holder take an agreed % split of future profit revenue generated from the project – Profits from what exactly we’ll come to later.  Consider – There’s no way around this, any additional step in the process here are going to reduce the by unit revenue you receive per each sale. By working with a publisher, the benefit to you is that they support you in, ideally, selling more copies than you would alone.

Production and logistical support – Sure, you know writing, art or whichever your creative field may be, but there’s every chance that your publisher is more familiar with the processes involved with getting your book into people’s hands.  With established relationships with suppliers and retailers your publisher may also be able to optimise the per unit profit on your book sales, in addition to increasing your potential audience through supply networks and wider convention attendance.

In some cases, your publisher may also take a creative role in the process, appointing an editor, or suggesting changes to make a book more marketable in their experience – We’ll also return to this point later.

Comic Financials - Hypothetical example – Comic X

Working without a publisher

You as creator spend £2000 on the production of your comic  (Art, letters, colour, whatever!) Print volumes allow you to obtain copies of your book at £2 per copy

You price your book at £5 per copy Let’s then also assume a modest spend of £200 on website, and attending some local cons, and you break even on Postage and Packing. Under this model you’ll see a profit on your creation once you sell your 734th copy of Comic X. This assumes you sell exactly all of your stock and are left with no additional copies which you’ve paid to have printed, but not yet sold. Let’s make this a tiny bit more complex and suggest that you diversify from selling physical copies online and at cons alone. You begin selling digital copies via an established digital store front at £3. You also connect with local comic retailers who agree to carry copies of your comics in store. To keep this simple and not lose the remaining 3 people this dive into maths hasn’t lost already let’s assume that your sales across all avenues equal out to 1/3 each, and once again all copies you produce will sell. The digital sales have no print cost but the digital storefront takes 50% of the sale price

The stores agree to purchase copies of your book from you for £4, creating a 33% share on profit after print costs.

Under this scenario, Comic X will officially be profitable after around 245 direct physical sales, 489 digital sales and 367 sales via stores.

Working with a publisher

Under this model, we’ll assume that you as a creator invested the same £2000 in production costs but nothing further, leaving the publisher to manage the printing along with costs for attending conventions etc.

Outside of the numbers here, your publisher is also the party taking the risk regarding the volume produced if any copies go unsold. The trade off is that your publisher will take a percentage of any profits before they reach you. For this example, let’s say you agree on 50% revenue share and receive no contribution to production costs or any upfront payment.

For argument sake, let’s assume your publisher secures the same unit costs and margins (though you’d hope they may be able to negotiate better through volume purchasing). Understanding a publisher’s direct cost with con attendance, and marketing when applied to a single book is a level of hypothetical we won’t attempt here.

Focussing on you as a creator, under the same sales methods used in the non-publisher model you would begin to see profit on your production investment of £2000 from publisher paid royalties after 445 direct sales, 889 digital sales and 667 in store sales.

After all this talk of money, the first thing to recognise is that it isn’t everything to all creators. Many will consider the long-term goals of building an audience as a pathway to bigger and better things, or simply an investment in their creative hobby. Those with realistic aspirations will likely not expect to anything resembling a profit from their early books (save perhaps for those with the skills to produce a comic entirely alone or with collaborators satisfied with payment purely from sale revenue). For many creators, having a partner who ensures copies of their books get into people’s hands, minimising their own administrative efforts is the goal.  

What is critical is to do your own calculations, consider your goals along with level of financial investment and energy you have to invest in selling your own book. In this simplified example, we’ve not considered the accuracy of print orders vs sales, tax applications or eligible rebates or potential publisher costs deducted from profits to account for their operational expenses, but it should give you a loose model to consider your own investment against.

Potential Questions – Depending on your financial and creative motivations

What sales numbers does the publisher consider to be a success? Assuming the publisher will set sale price – What margin do they consider acceptable vs costs? What sales avenues does the publisher use? Does the publisher have established relationships with distributors and retailers with agreements to carry their stock? If so, what regions and countries do they have distribution networks within? Which electronic store fronts does the publisher make books available via? What volume of conventions, in which locations, does the publisher typically attend? Are they willing to share any statistics on which platforms generate the strongest sales? How, if at all, are publisher overhead costs factored into overall sale profits for division between publisher and creator? Does the agreement permit the creator to obtain copies of the publication at cost, or discounted rates for either personal use or onward sale? What marketing methods do the publisher deploy to promote new and existing content? Does the agreement, place any expectations or limitations on the actions of the creator to promote the comic? Does the agreement commit the publisher to any minimum volume of books to be produced for sale, or resources allocated to promote the publication?

What’s in this for them?

Now we come to the other half of the deal. In working with a publisher, you grant your partner certain rights in potentially both the short and long term. Understanding the rights, you’re happy to sign away and the long-term implications can be key points in your decision-making process.

Your potential publisher may request some of the following:

Percentage Profits on book sales – This is a given and how your publisher will make the most immediate return on backing your comic and investing in its production or distribution

Editorial and creative direction – While some publishers may primarily take on completed projects, others may provide editorial input. For many creators, this may be beneficial professional, input to improve the project overall.  Consider – When you engage an editor privately as a self-published creator, the final decision on how you incorporate your editor’s feedback is your own. A publisher driven edit may take the final creative control out of your own hands. As with many aspects in this section this can be a positive, but it is something you should consider and make peace with before you agree to your publishing deal.

Revenue on sale of promotional and licensed goods – As part of your agreement, your publisher may gain rights to produce and sell a variety of goods associated with your comic. For a small press projects, this could be as simple as prints, postcards and pins made available as add on purchases, but an agreement could equally account for additional 3rd party licensing. Consider – From a financial perspective do you retain a share of the profits from the sale of promotional or licensed goods? Is the rate in line with the percentage you earn from book sales? Depending on the answer to these questions, if your book is successful and lends itself to popular merchandise, you’ll potentially see a larger return on your production investment more quickly, in time you may even see more royalties from the tasteful sets of commemorative glassware your story has produced than the book itself.  From a creative standpoint, you need to consider that you are likely giving up a degree of control here. If you’ve strong feelings that series logo should never appear on a tote bag, this is potentially something your deal may remove your option to veto in the future.

Adaptation rights – In licensing your comic for publication, your publisher may request rights concerning the adaptation of your comic into other mediums.  These rights may extend to written and audio productions, stage, television and film versions and interactive media such as video games. The requested rights may be inclusive of both financial benefits of licensing for alternative mediums and overall creative control in the adaptation for other media.  Consider – If you’re a creative person with hands in other media, be it a keen filmmaker or an apprentice of coding, you may wish to seek to retain your own rights to pursue alternative interpretations of your story. Particularly in fields you have interest in.  This may also be the time to consider how you would feel about any alternative take on your work with which you may have no creative involvement or influence over. 

Sequel / Spin-off Rights – In agreeing to publish your project your publisher may also requests rights relating to production of related projects, both in comics or other media (as detailed above). These rights may include first review and option to license the new publication prior to it being offered to other publishers, the right to engage the creative team professionally to actively work on a related publication, or potentially engaging a separate creative team.  Consider – As with the above point, your decision on agreeing with these terms will depend on your overall attachments to the project and your own long-term plans for ongoing related stories.  If the idea of having limited or no control on how your original story grows into future projects gives you cold sweats, this is a right you’ll need to consider your comfort with, before you sign. How important is having ongoing control to you?

Potential Questions – Depending on your financial and creative motivations

What history does the publisher have with facilitating adaptation of comics to other media? Does the agreement, obligate or limit the creator in efforts to adapt the publication for other media? Does the publisher actively seek opportunities for property adaptations, or is this handled ad hoc as interested parties approach the publisher as licence holder? Does the publisher’s right to financial share in adaptation driven revenue differ in the event that the publisher take no active role in adapting or pitching the an adaptation of the property? What rights do the publisher hold regarding the sale or transition of publishing or ongoing licensing rights to a third party?

Overall, considering the ongoing rights and control a creator or creative team is willing to hand over to a publisher will be a critical point for many in making a decision before signing an agreement. How you perceive the value of publisher input, a potential reduction in creative control and your confidence in the long-term potential of your story will be key points in influencing what you’re comfortable in conceding in exchange for the benefits your publisher brings to the table. 

The Finer Details

With the main points of your agreement carefully reviewed, it’s time to consider the ifs and buts, concerning the terms and limitations of your agreement.

Time – How long does your agreement grant the stated rights to your publisher? A set period? A set period with right to extend or first refusal to negotiate extension on similar terms or terms related to performance? Indefinite? Location – Are publication rights granted internationally or only in certain territories? Does your selected publisher have capabilities to market and distribute in all stated territories?  If not, do they actively seek third party partners to distribute successful publications in additional territories?

Obligations – Are there stated timings for release, efforts to market, volumes sold, or stock made available for purchase a publisher must maintain to retain the license to your comic? Remuneration and Reporting – How frequently are royalties calculated and paid to the creator or creative team? Are there lower and upper limits to disbursement amounts? What reporting does your publisher provide to indicate gross profits leading to creator revenue share? Specifically, when it comes to matters of accounting. If you intend to maintain a financial interest in the performance of your work, appropriate transparency of accounting may be essential to understand your publisher’s level of investment and gross earnings before final profits are divided? Most organisations should permit you a right to audit, but be mindful of the conditions applied. Permitting a deep audit via the appointment of an official accountant able to review documentation on a publisher’s premises may fulfil legal obligations but creates an immediate pay wall for you as an independent creator, whose initial earnings on a single book may not warrant the investment.

If your potential publisher is able to provide sample reporting, you can accommodate yourself with the level of detail prior to signature and assure yourself that the level of transparency meets your level of interest.

Legal obligations – In addition to any submission conditions when you pitched your book, signing a publishing agreement will almost certainly involve your further verification that the work is your own and indemnify your publisher from any obligation or responsibility should this statement prove inaccurate in the future.  In addition to the obligations on the creator, take note of any commitments made by the publisher to protect the IP you are licensing to them, and potential indemnity from any actions arising from material changes to the work or subsequent adaptation upon which the publisher, or their representative exercises creative control.

Limitations and release – Tied to the any limitations relating to time or location stated in your contract, it’s also worth noting any other terms which would lead to overall rights being returned back to the original creator or creative team.  The most commonly anticipated reason for this would be publisher insolvency, though in some cases a struggling publisher with the appropriate rights could look to sell on any held licensing rights to a third party to raise capital prior to this occurring (assuming your agreement permits this). Clauses that benefit the creator in this area could speak to the minimum level of production or service provided to promote your comic, which if not met over an extended period results in the rights returning to the creator to pitch elsewhere or develop further with no further obligation to the publisher, thus holding your publisher to a higher degree of accountability for your book’s ongoing performance. Another alternative may represent a defined buy out clause, permitting the creative team to release themselves or further obligation to a publisher by either ensuring a pre-defined return on the publisher’s initial investment or a sum equal relevant to the book’s performance.   The latter examples, I’d anticipate would be less frequent in their appearance within standard contract language, however these may be some of the most essential inclusions for a creator who is invested in the long-term management and performance of their work.

For an example, we’ll return to Comic X…

Worst case scenario…

Joe Creator, writer of Comic X, signs a publisher agreement granting licencing rights, inclusive of, merchandise, sequel and adaptation control and financial rights irrevocably to a publisher.

Joe’s agreement sees the creator receive 50% of Net profits from book sales but nothing from any additional licensing or merchandising unless directly engaged by the publisher to work on this new content under a separate agreement.  The publisher will manage distribution and printing costs but does not contribute to the initial creation cost for artwork and associated tasks.

The rights will return to Joe only should the publisher file bankruptcy or should they fail to produce any volumes of the work within a defined period following initial project completion.

With no minimum term of service, the publisher fulfils their obligation to Joe through a short production run of 50 copies of their book, which are not directly marketed by the publisher but organically sells 30 copies through their inclusion on the publisher’s stand at conventions. The remaining 20 copies are sold at stock clearance reduction prices and do not recoup their print costs. The book is not listed digitally or marketed to any retailers. In the end of his first year since publication, the royalties owed to Joe from the profit share fall well below the minimum payment threshold and no payment is made.

In the five years that follow, the book remains listed on the publisher’s store front as “Out of Stock” and based on performance no further print runs are ordered.  

Meanwhile, Joe continues to build career momentum through well received subsequent releases, published independently and interest in obtaining adaptation rights for Joe Creator properties hits public consciousness.  Having secured irrevocable licencing rights the publisher secures a lucrative 3 series deal with Netflix adapting Joe’s original Comic X series. Netflix opts to use their own writing team, whose agents ensure they are recognised as lead creatives.  A credit listing “Based on Comic X by Joe Creator” appears at the end of the opening credits, but everyone skips these.

With the Netflix series differing significantly from the original Comic X, rather than reprint the original, the publisher opts to engage a different creative team to spin off a new ongoing series based more closely on the aesthetic and themes of the new Netflix creation. The financial impact to Joe from creating the original work remains fundamentally minus £2000 as the £35 owed to Joe in previous revenue falls below the minimum payment threshold. This is an extreme example, played up for the sake of hyperbole, but hopefully it illustrates the point Consider your conditions carefully, what you gain, what you give away, and the level of effort your publisher commits to you. and finally. 

Know who you’re dealing with - Know your own worth

Throughout previous sections, I’ve encouraged creators to consider what they want from a publisher, what they are happy to give in exchange and the finer details of agreements.

I’ll leave you with a (mercifully) briefer point by encouraging both research and self-reflection. Your research on a publisher should not begin and end with “Who is accepting pitches?”

Consider the fit of your project within their body of work.

Meet and connect with other creators who’ve worked with them and politely request their feedback.

Look at publisher’s company performance and makeup with resources such a Companies house or Endole. Do they appear financially stable? How large is their team? What other interests to their leadership team have?

Look at publisher’s websites and social media platforms, how are they marketing? How large is their reach? How much interaction do you see with their posts? How large is their portfolio?

Measure your own, time, resources, and reach against your potential publishers and consider objectively and, in quantifiable terms wherever you can, how you measure up.  If you’re brining a sizable or active existing audience with you to a publisher this may enhance your ability to negotiate.

To wrap up I’ll say, that I hope the last, almost 5000 words *Jeez* have been of some value, whatever your experience of creating or publishing to date. I by no means consider myself an authority on anything so would be delighted if this sparks further conversation and discussion from others who may add more specific examples and considerations which may help others chasing the goal of having published work out in the wild.

I’ll return to one of my opening points that there are some fantastic publishers doing incredible work in the indie comic scene and making books possible that would otherwise never see the light of day. For indie creators, whether a publishing deal is a Holy Grail or a Poison Chalice will likely remain up to the individual and determined by how circumstances play out.  If this helps just one person, take pause, consider their options and make an informed choice it will have been worth the effort.

[blazehedgehog]

What do you think of the idea that the Sonic's movie appearance in the trailer was deliberately crummy, for whatever reason?

Nobody is ever bad on purpose. This isn’t an indie production where one guy draws the art and that’s just how it is. Millions of dollars go in to a movie like this. There’s nearly a hundred people just on set while the movie is shooting.

Let’s say the studio hires a production company to come up with Sonic’s design. An artist or a team of artists create a handful of concept sketches based on a moodboard or whatever instructions they come up with. The production company narrows it down to a few ones they think the studio will like and ships it off. At this point, 3-5 people have already signed off on the submission.

Once the studio receives it, the director, producer, and maybe some of the lead VFX team is called in to look at the concept art, and they give notes to the artist(s) and pick something they’re happy with. By now, 5-10 people have signed off on the design.

As a step in this process, the design is mailed off to executives and any heavily-involved investors to outline how their money is being spent. 8-12 people have now signed off on the design.

So a design is now chosen. The VFX lead takes the design to his VFX team and they get to work designing the look of the character based on the design. Modeling, animation tests, and so on. 10-15 people have now signed off on the design. All these tests are also sent back through the director and the producer for further review.

The movie also has a wardrobe designer, who probably also gets a copy of the character concept art as part of the reference material for creating costumes for characters like Dr. Eggman. 12-17 people.

Depending on how willing the actors are to sign on to the project, they might also get a copy of the reference material, including character designs. Now it’s 15-20 people.

As soon as humanly possible, clips of the work-in-progress movie are run for test audiences, usually with visual effects in various states of completion. This is before there’s even a trailer. The group includes friends and family of the production staff, or randos off the street that sign NDAs. 20-30 people have now seen some version of this character design.

Paramount was running some version of this trailer for select groups under NDA at various events since January. Now 40+ people have seen the character.

To make something bad on purpose in that situation would take an astronomical amount of confidence in one’s own ability to lie on that scale. Never mind the luck to find a way to pass something off as desirable to at least a dozen people minimum. And once it gets past a certain point, there is absolutely no wiggle room for an individual to go rogue and tank it on purpose.

The only way this is bad on purpose is if either the director or the producer tries to mess it up, and I don’t think they want to end their careers like that.

The logistics just don’t work.

And because of this, you can’t really even blame one person. You can’t blame the designer, you can’t blame the director, you can’t blame the producer. They are complicit, sure, but they aren’t the source of that problem. The Hollywood Engine™ is.

This won’t look like a video game. It’ll look like a movie. The character has to be realistic, because anything less can’t be “epic.” He has to look unique, so that the studio can own this version of the character, and put a stamp on it that says “Hollywood was here.”

They’ve done it every time they have adapted something they don’t understand. They did it with Godzilla, they did it with Power Rangers, they did it with Ghost in the Shell, they did it with Dragon Ball, they did it with Super Mario Bros., with Street Fighter, with Double Dragon, with Doom, with House of the Dead, with Dungeons & Dragons, with Transformers, with Ninja Turtles… and don’t forget the decades of pre-MCU comic book movies like Fantastic Four, or Spawn, or Batman & Robin.

There are dozens of people involved in these projects at every level that look down on anime, or tokusatsu, or video games, or cartoons, and see a problem to “fix.” And that problem simply is that it’s “not Hollywood enough.” It has to be big. It has to look expensive. It has to be real. Only then will people appreciate Hollywood’s artistry.

So at multiple points throughout the course of the project, something fails. Somebody “fixes” something that wasn’t broken and creates new problems they weren’t even aware of (sort of like trying to patch somebody else’s code in software programming). Multiple problems snowball together. By the time anybody notices the 700 pound wrecking ball barreling down the mountain, it’s already too late.

And somehow, Paramount hopes to get it to stop rolling.

[blackjacketmuses]

@multiimuse

Fifty-three seasons is a very long time for any show to run. But a show like this is...special. She isn’t certain how the show got started -- those files are still a little too heavily encrypted for her -- but she can infer quite a bit. The technology involved, the....data that rests inside her, the fragments of someone else, and the information gathered from the games, the videos and recordings that the games were made from-- it’s a little easy to guess. But whoever started it doesn’t really matter, honestly. What matters is that they did, this studio, Team Danganronpa. Making the games -- harmless enough, three games and two anime series and a bunch of light novels and manga. It made the Tragedy, the war, it made it all seem fictional. Unreal. Distanced it from the minds of the affected and their children as the years passed and put it further way in time. The games made it seem...like a game. Like it had never happened. 

Of course it had, though, and of course Makoto Naegi still ran the new Hope’s Peak quietly, off out of any city, on a nice and quiet campus for both Ultimates and normal people, mixed together to avoid any sort of pain and hurt like the last time. He did that with his wife and their friends, and the former Remnants of Despair finally -- with their deeds all but forgotten -- were able to return to their true hope, living in relative peace with each other, helping Headmaster Naegi, and never knowing that the sick game they’d all barely survived had been turned into entertainment. 

Fictional, of course! No one would ever condone making the real death of a dozen high schoolers a TV show -- it was all virtual reality, a program based on the very thing used to cure and save the Remnants all those years ago. But the pain was still real, the trauma was still real, and it wasn’t like Team DR cared about anything but ratings, anything but the eternal cycle of seasons, the battle of hope and despair repeated over and over with fifteen new kids every time. Hundreds watched it, huddled over their laptops and tablets and cellphones, eyes glued to the website’s stream. None of them cared, either. It wasn’t real to them.

But...it was real to her. It was all she ever knew. An Artificial Intelligence, created by Team DR from data and fragments salvaged from the program -- they weren’t Ultimates, after all, couldn’t make one themselves -- and given the resemblance of a popular character from the games. (Irony -- the data they used contained the shards of another AI with the same face, and that made all the difference.) They called her M1-R41, made her a camera, an audience proxy, a new way to watch the show: from the point of view of a contestant. Called her Ultimate Robot so she’d fit in, made up a backstory, and inserted her into each season starting from season thirty-two. She’d participate, she’d befriend these people, who as far as she knew were strangers and then friends, play in this game that for her was her only reality, get to the end, survive, and then -- total reset. Start from scratch next season.

By season fifty-two...the data within her, the little AI that had built Mirai...it had woken. Not entirely, she didn’t have Observer’s memories, but she had enough. And she had her own memories, the resets having finally failed...and she fought back. She was destroyed, of course, protecting the few survivors of that season, and they decommissioned her for her new little brother K1-B0 (put in an audience input control chat to keep this from happening again), but...she lived on. 

She lived on, and she wouldn’t let this continue anymore. She had to wait until season fifty-three started, needing time to gather herself and get strong enough to break the studio’s firewalls, find a way to access the office computer of a certain headmaster, and find a way to get him a message: Someone stole the Neo World Program technology years ago, and has been using it to run a virtual reality game show based on Junko’s games. They don’t care about the hurt they’re causing to the kids who sign up thinking it’s just fictional, and it needs to stop. You’re the only people that can. Will you help me, Makoto Naegi? She added a link to the website, to the stream, and added a file full of every document she’d been able to pull, all the NDAs and application forms and every bit of proof they’d need to shut them down.

All she had to do, all she could do now, was wait and have hope. They had what they needed to take the studio down -- all that remained was to get the fourteen teenagers currently playing the game out of their nightmare. It was impossible to do it manually -- there was no emergency shut down. It had to be played to the end. But...this time it would be okay. This time they’d have people there to help and there to protect them. She was making sure of it.

And...if she was able to see them again? The people that the data inside her told her were...important, so very important? That would make her happy.

Dying was...a lot worse than the game made it out to be, Rantaro Amami had decided. Sure, it had been pretty quick compared to others deaths he’d seen! He didn’t even honestly realize what had happened until he woke up in the pod and went ‘hey wait, what?’. Man, though, first down...that was embarrassing. After being a finalist in season 52...the forum is probably going apeshit. He’s still not even sure who did it! That’s probably the worst bit, that he has no idea who did it. 

...okay, who’s he kidding, he knows exactly what happened, and he wants to throw up. He wants to go curl up in a corner and be sick and maybe just shut the world off until it stops being literally the worst. He can’t pretend he’d enjoyed himself, this time or last time, no matter how much he wants to laugh it off and act like it was just a game, just a TV show. He had been...god, he’d been naive. Even for someone like him, part of the section of the DR fandom that had hated the direction the show had taken after they started hiring DR-otaku as the writing staff...he’d been naive. Just wanted to play in one season before there stopped being anything salvageable in the mess, he’d thought. It wouldn’t be so bad, he’d thought. Shirogane wasn’t the worst mastermind out there, he’d thought. 

He was so, so wrong. After the absolute gut-wrenching horror of season fifty-two, he...if he’d had any sense, he’d have turned and run screaming. Watching people die, watching them be executed, the stomach churning horror and constant state of fear, the suspicion and wariness, the grief and trauma of the trials...it had been fun as a game, he’d loved watching the characters fight their way through the worst and come out stronger, the good guys win, always loved the story and the courage of the characters who got through it -- but when it’s you, when you think it’s real? It’s a living nightmare. And he’d agreed to do it again. For Koharu’s sake, really, because she’d have shattered, and it was her or him. So he’d done it again.

And he hurt. It hurt. It was horrible, traumatizing, and he’d done it again, and now here he was unable to protect anyone, because he was an idiot and gotten himself killed. Because Shirogane was a cheating bitch and had killed him to frame one of the nicest girls he’d ever met (well, in character, anyway, she was a little pricklier in person once she’d stopped sobbing), killed her because she was too good of a person, too good of a protagonist.

This was the worst, and all he can do is sit next to Kaede and hug her, watching on the big screen in the contestant lounge as that poor kid, that poor traumatized detective, tries to do what neither of them could. He wishes this could end, but he’s just one kid...even with a lawyer sister, what can he do? What can anyone do?

[sexydeathparty]

Senior Female Labour Officials Back Former Staffers In Sexual Harassment Row

Senior female Labour officials have criticised the party leadership after two former members of staff said they were asked to sign confidentiality agreements after making complaints of sexual harassment.

Laura Murray and Georgie Robertson told the BBC they had raised concerns about the behaviour of a senior official.

Documents seen by the corporation show the women had reported the party official for “inappropriate” and “possessive” behaviour.

The man was temporarily suspended and strongly denied the allegations.

Murray was Labour’s head of complaints and Robertson was a party press officer when they made their complaints in March, 2020.

Both women refused to sign the legal agreements and resigned from their roles without payouts.

Their lawyer, Mark Stephens, said the proposed contract violated the equality watchdog’s guidance and Labour’s own policy on non-disclosure agreements.

Describing the man’s alleged behaviour, Murray told the BBC: “It was really, really obsessive levels of communication.

“And because I was more junior, I didn’t really know how to protect myself.”

Robertson said the man had pressured her to go to drinks with him.

She said: “After rebuffing his advances, he then started to spread false rumours that I was sleeping with a married man at work.”

The pair resigned after Labour party lawyers asked them to sign a settlement agreement with a broad confidentiality clause, according to the BBC.

Robertson said: “I refused to accept that and to be silenced. It could encourage the party to use those agreements in future with other women who’d been harassed.”

In a statement issued today, 12 women who are either members of Labour’s national women’s committee or its ruling national executive committee, said the party’s own code of conduct made clear “every person has the right to report sexual harassment and have their complaint investigated”

In a statement, they said: “We are therefore appalled to see these reports about mistreatment and sexual harassment of women working for the party. 

“We can’t fight to end sexual harassment in society if we don’t also address it within our party.

“Trying to persuade women to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to cover up abuse is a gross betrayal of Labour values and we call on our leadership to acknowledge its duty of care and its responsibility towards all women within the party, members and staffers and to end this practice, apologise to any women caught up in this victimisation and seek to offer them redress.”

A Labour source insisted the party does not use NDAs that would stop anyone speaking out about sexual harassment.

A party spokesperson said: “The Labour party takes any complaints of sexual harassment extremely seriously, which are fully investigated and any appropriate disciplinary action is taken in line with the party’s rules and procedures.”

from HuffPost UK - Athena2 - All Entries (Public) https://ift.tt/j8viOMm via IFTTT

[torentialtribute]

Steve Dale releases explosive statement on Bury’s website following EFL expulsion

To all,

I apologize for my efforts to save Bury from the decimation that I inherited of the previous owners have not been enough so far, after the CVA I thought we had a great future. I realized that the governing body there probably would be our biggest threat to help our clubs, but rest assured that this problem is far from over

POSITIVES

I know it hurts, but let's be half-full here and start fighting from that point;

1. Everyone realizes that Bury FC is still there, it has only been removed from the competition for this season, according to the Solicitors letter I received yesterday after asking if someone would formally write to me to advise that they had removed us from the competition, would they have thought they would be done immediately if they were indeed a professional organization?

2. I am in conversation with the Bridging Loan Company who has a burden on our stadium that the previous owner took, while it is a huge amount that the company cooperates with me for a 2 year old holiday on capital repayment and we agree on a sensible interest, I thank them for their cooperation, so Gigg will be safe.

3. CVA, the removal from the competition and the financial implications of this have a huge effect, but if you want me to stay I will do everything I can, because if this is completed, we have no threats for our Club and we were safe to fight another day.

4. The EFL monies of more than £ 600k must be paid for our creditors who lower our CVA, but who knows what the schedule of the EFL is.

5. There are some good people and some former directors who have left because of the previous owners who have understood what I had to do and who have offered help, if I stay I will certainly appeal to them

NEGATIVE

1. We must tackle the bad truths / spin of Debbie Jevans, because we can 100% prove that her words to media and statements are a totally different picture from reality, they work in a spin / miss direction, try to discredit the owner to take away the passionate fans and take the real perpetrators away from them, with little concern about how these bad truths the owners and their influence families.

2. I keep hearing Mrs. Jevans say they are there to help, the only help I ever received from the EFL was Shaun Harvey who advised on the CVA and sent a payment to us , the last we had ever received from them, for help and support of non-existent threats enough, help Nihil

3. We have our academic money every month, but for some reason they pay not spend, but give them 3 payments at the end of August, we managed to pay the Academy people earlier, but because of the devastation by the EFL we were today dependent payment to pay staff and guess what the EPPP payment has withheld, even if it was prior removal from the competition for previous months, you wonder, because I was told they occupy the same offices as the EFL? Common theme don't think you're fucking Bury, we go to our lawyers.

4. I hope that the investigation into serious fraud will lead to the perpetrators being brought to justice and disclosures to be made so that fans can see what was really happening behind the scenes that seriously contributed to our current situation.

5. The investigation revealed reporters and media channels who received private and confidential information about the club through certain people in the club, very News of the World, but they too will be exposed.

6. We must clean up and start over, time and events have shown that we have a handful of trustworthy employees who take care of Bury, but the rest must go for a change, new blood.

7. Buyers : James Frith brought Sports Risk to the table. I was hopeful that they could buy Bury, but they would never provide proof of money to me, but kept asking for more information, one of the first I gave them was in the Stadium loan, so it came as a shock to them withdrawn at the last minute for a debt they had known for months. Another bid came in and again I have never seen or heard evidence of funds since. We also had a handful of time wasters, but nothing concrete

I can confirm that I have an offer from a person, but the NDA is preventing me from revealing and if the fans want me out, I'll sell it.

EFL

Well, there's a story to tell, but we'll get to page 3, so we'll save the full story for another day, but ask yourself this once off.

The biggest event in the recent history of the competition was decided by a number of people who have shown their aversion to Bury by;

1. Withholding all monies owed to the Club since the beginning of this year to pay money at the back of what we owe Clubs, what they do not take into account / say is that Clubs owe us a similar amount was owed.

2. I went to the EFL when I discovered the level of problems in the Club when I first came, Shaun Harvey said to try and keep it going Steve because we have Bolton and Blackpool, I said I felt that the only option was a CVA, but it costs me a fortune and we get points. I received the advice while initially receiving points that we could appeal under a "Force Majeure" clause, because the actions of the previous owner meant that this was a slamdunk. We sent our appeal and received no initial answer and then, under the circumstances that you do not apply, received an e-mail, how would they know without the evidence, and a few days later we received an aggressive letter from your lawyers in which you said that you no longer had time to pay £ 5,000 to appeal, which I did not know, but contrary to what they say, we appealed on time and we have a 100% watertight case.

3. During a meeting with Craig and Jevans, he boasted that no one has ever won an appeal, because this was a tribute, I thought it was about the truth.

4. When we held a conference call early after the CVA, we explained that you never know that we could go to other clubs with the answer "not if we give you 12 points" again a common theme .

5. Embargo on players signing when we asked if the transfer window could be lifted, Mrs. Jevans replied "when is that" and finally "you can't play your youth"

Er are others, but you get my

As said, the biggest event in recent competition history was decided by the biased individuals, Jevans keeps saying that we are playing for 72 clubs, so given the size of their actions you wouldn't think that a sealed private vote is taken from all Clubs so that there can be no retribution from the competition, something I was warned about when I came, the presidents with whom I spoke would not have been withdrawn, because they could be tomorrow given the mess the competition and the Clubs are in.

I request that an independent report be conducted and a vote be taken to reintroduce Bury to the competition

Yours sincerely

Steven D Dale

President Bury FC

Source link