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Chapter three of The One Who Got Away is now live.
Rated T, 2153 words in chapter, Dawson’s Creek, Joey/Pacey. An epistolary story until it isn’t.
This chapter is a psy-op to make people enjoy reading emails. Thanks to @obishenshenobi for the cheerleading and encouraging and to Sneaky for challenging me on our personal leaderboard.
Excerpt below the cut:
Joey stopped mid-word at the sound of a messenger notification. Confused, she tabbed over to the next window.
Now what have I told you about being online so late? Pacey sent.
Speak of the devil and he shall appear, apparently.
That’s when the trolls come out?
Who are you calling a troll? Don’t answer that, too easy. How are ya? There appears to be no email in my inbox.
She knew she was late in replying to his last email—she’d been feeling a little down and the B&B had actually kept her busy—but she usually had a week or so before he was back in port and could reply. Yet here he was four days after his last email, online and bothering her.
That’s because I’m still writing it, dork, she typed.
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“You’ll never believe who emailed me,” Joey said as she helped Bessie wash the lunch dishes.
“Random House? Did they have an opening after all?”
“I wish. No, Pacey sent me an email.”
Bessie’s eyebrows shot up. “Pacey Witter?”
“You know another Pacey?”
“Point.” Bessie turned her attention back to a plate as Joey hung a coffee mug in its proper place under the cabinet. “What’s he up to? I thought he was out east working on a fishing boat.”
“He’s working on a yacht now. I think.” Joey realized that Pacey never actually confirmed that in the email, and frowned. “Currently he’s in Mauritius, but I have no idea if that’s permanent or whatever. Probably just a temporary port of call.”
“Where?”
“It’s near Madagascar.”
“Oh. Uh-huh.” Bessie nodded, seeming a little distracted. “Did you remember to put the extra towels up in the Lavender bedroom? And what did Pacey have to say?”
“Not much. Sailing, living his life. Eating mangoes.” Joey waved a hand when Bessie gave her a surprised look. “I don’t know either. I guess I’ll email him back but I have even less going on, so I’m not sure what I’m going to even say.”
Bessie laughed. “Like that’s ever stopped the two of you before.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You forget that I remember your high school days. ‘You hang up first.’” She pitched her voice lower in an imitation of Pacey. “‘No, you hang up first.’ For hours. It was nauseating.”
Joey dropped her chin to glare at her sister. “It’s unfair I’m too young to remember your awkward high school days so I can’t throw these things back into your face.”
“Oh, my high school days were nowhere near as eventful as yours. Thank god.” Bessie shoulder-bumped her, still laughing. “But seriously, did you lay out the extra towels or not?”
“Yes, bossy, I did.”
“So does this mean anything?” Bessie asked. “Are you and Pacey friends again?”
“We were never not friends. We just…didn’t talk for a few years, is all. I still consider him to be…” Her extensive vocabulary failed her entirely in that moment. “Let’s stick with ‘a friend’ and leave it at that, please.”
She expected Bessie to launch another onslaught of teasing, but the sympathetic look her sister sent her way was almost worse. “Are you going to write back?”
“Yes,” Joey said, as she’d already decided that. “Not sure I have anything to tell him. ‘Good morning, Pacey, I hope you’re enjoying a beautiful island paradise probably surrounded by scantily clad women. Let me tell you all about my day! Today I woke up and changed all the sheets in the house. And then I sat on the dock and stared at the creek for an hour and tried not to think about how it’s been six months and nothing about Capeside has changed and I’m never going to find a job ever again and that beautiful career I built up in publishing is probably just somewhere in a dumpster by this point, and oh yeah, student loans suck. Then I had a muffin. The end.’”
“You forgot the bit where you helped me with the dishes,” Bessie said dryly.
Joey dried a plate and gazed emptily at the faint reflection she could see on its porcelain surface. “Scintillating.”
“You’re the writer of the family. You’ll make it sound better than that. I have faith in you.” Bessie gave her a half-hug, laughing when Joey grumpily toweled away the wet patch Bessie had left on her sleeve. “Scantily clad women, hm?”
“What?” Joey’s head snapped up. Had she said that bit out loud?
“Maybe leave that part out if you don’t want him to know you’re jealous.”
“I’m not—ugh.” The phone rang, offering an escape. Joey scrambled for it. “Potter B&B.”
Over at the sink, Bessie smirked.
Bessie’s guilt-trip, a skill she had honed to a fine point over many, many years and many of Joey’s tantrums, worked. After dinner, she reluctantly collected her laptop and flopped down on her bed. She forced herself to close all of the social media tabs and anything that might be a distraction and, perched on her stomach with her feet kicking in the air, her favorite position to write, she hit Reply and began to type.
Really surprised to hear from you. She paused with her fingers on the keys. Was that too standoffish? Impersonal? It wasn’t like they’d talked much in years. Whatever. She wrote on: But it’s nice. You’ll be pleased to know that I’m not writing this at 3:30 in the morning. It’s—she glanced at the clock—only 9:15 p.m., a respectable hour. I’d have to look up what time it is there for you.
There. A full paragraph. Not bad.
Speaking of where you are, could you please send some of that nice weather my way? It’s stupidly cold already, which is unfair for September. Just a couple days of warm sunshine should do us fine. Go ahead and send that when you can and I’ll pay you back for postage when I get a chance.
And you have to tell me more about this boat and the deckhand life. Yacht? Sailboat? Tugboat? Rowboat? Bessie asked and I couldn’t even tell her. Do you realize how embarrassing that is?
Now, to answer your questions: nothing much is happening so there’s nothing exciting to write about.
Joey tapped her fingers against the keys, considering. He’d asked about New York. So he didn’t know. No way in hell did she want to tell him about being laid off and going from living her dream job one day and being back in her old bedroom as a jobless loser the next. And she definitely didn’t want to think of the months trying to find a job, any job, in a world where jobs no longer seemed to exist for anybody, watching her self-esteem slowly circle the drain the entire time.
But if they were pen pals, he would probably find out sooner than later.
New York’s fine, I think? I wouldn’t know. I moved back to Capeside a few months ago to help Bessie out with the B&B.
Jack’s back in Capeside, too, but his coaching duties keep him pretty busy so I usually only see him when Jen swings through, which isn’t often lately for good reasons. Bessie is good, still as bossy as ever. Things are slow at the restaurant, so Bodie’s home a lot to help out. And yes, Alexander IS driving, but only in Mario Kart. He’s the current reigning champion of the Potter-Wells at the moment, but I intend to steal his crown very soon.
But that’s enough about me. Write back and tell me all about your seafaring life, Deckhand Witter. Let me live a little vicariously.
She stopped, not sure how to sign the email. At work, she’d just ended every email with “Thanks.” But that definitely felt generic. “Sincerely” was too formal. “Love” was right out of the question. Same with “Yours.” She cheated and scrolled down to read how Pacey signed off, and scowled. Just a hyphen. Absolutely no help there.
In the end, she decided to go with a statement.
From the once and future queen of Mario Kart,
Joey
She checked Pacey’s email one more time and reread his postscript message, so she added her own.
PS – Wouldn’t you like to know.
And before she could second-guess herself, she hit Send. It’d probably be weeks before he was back in port. And that was if he even decided to write back at all. Maybe he’d been out in the sun too long and forgot that they didn’t talk anymore.
The thought that he might not write back depressed her a little more than she wanted to examine.
Joey pushed off her bed, grabbed her ever-present blanket, and wandered to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. While the water heated up, she wandered over to the bookshelf. They’d originally planned to fill it with pamphlets and flyers for things to do in the area, but the middle shelf had morphed into something of a library where guests could leave or take a book. Joey poked through until she found a paperback of some sort of historical romance. Not her usual genre, but it wasn’t like she had anything else to do. She grabbed her tea and curled up in the big armchair, opening the book to the first page.
I can finally share these! The hype is real, y'all
Here are my illustrations for the key moments project as part of the larger RQG fan project “Look Out! Lots of Magnificent Gifts! by The Ones Who Got Away” -> @towga
It's been so cool to collaborate with such lovely, talented people! This fandom is truly amazing
[IDs in Alt text]
1. Getting Along Swimmingly (RQG 64)
2. Meeting Apophis (RQG 95)
3. Escaping Hades (RQG 125)
4. Paladin's Sacrifice (Ancient Rome Sidequest - Part 4) CW: death
5. After the Impact (RQG 174) CW: death and blood
(tap on the pics for high quality and please do not repost without credit)
Here's my piece for @towga!! This was so fun to work on!
Image ID: A poster style digital drawing for Erasing the Line, consisting of layered silhouettes, mostly in shades of blue. The top half of the drawing shows Elizabeth Tower and the buildings of Parliament silhouetted in a greyish blue against a pale blue sky, above it flies Guivres, silhouetted in yellow with blue veins covering her body. In the centre of the drawing is a giant blue flower bulb with tendrils extending up from it. Beneath that are the main characters. From left to right they are the ghostly silhouettes of Bertie, Sasha with a dagger out, and Grizzop half crouching and holding a bow, and the solid silhouettes of Hamid with his wings out, Wilde wearing a cape, Cel with their bat wings, Zolf wearing the Babbage backpack, Azu with her axe over her shoulder and Skraak in a half crouch. Beneath them is the text "Erasing The Line" and smaller "Rusty Quill Gaming". The text, as well as the horizontal line between them, fades out near the right of the drawing. In the bottom right corner is the artist's signature. End ID
Here is my piece for The Ones Who Got Away fan project! To nobody’s surprise, I did a portrait of my boy.
[ID: A digital bust portrait of Oscar Wilde as he appears in episode 25 of Rusty Quill Gaming. The portrait is in a gold decorative frame topped with a golden dragon on a dark blue marbled background. Green carnations wrap around the frame on the top right side of the image, and a sparkling quill in a gradient of green, blue, and purple sits beneath the frame on the bottom left. Wilde himself is depicted inside the frame from the chest up. He is a white man with shoulder-length dark brown hair, gray eyes, and a prominent nose. He wears a red suit over a peacock-patterned waistcoat and white collared shirt. The shirt is tied at the neck with a purple cravat and a gold pin with an inset multicolored jewel. Wilde looks to his right, smirking slightly.]
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[Image ID: Four photos of an RQG inspired outfit, the first three taken outside in the snow, the last taken against a black background.
Image 1: A person is standing out in a snowy backyard that has many tall pine trees, with bits of green grass peeking out in some places. There is a red and white shed a little ways behind them. She has short brown hair that has blond highlights in it, and is wearing black and gold semi-rimless glasses and a dark red matte lipstick. They are wearing a white shirtwaist, a patterned waistcoat, and a long skirt with the same pattern as the waistcoat. The pattern of
the waistcoat and skirt is thin black and white houndstooth stripes forming a large checked pattern. Within those checks are two intersecting single red lines that form their own checked pattern atop it. The shirtwaist has a high collar and buttons up the front, with billowy sleeves that are fitted on the forearms. The waistcoat is closely fitted to the wearer, the bottom ending slightly below the waist and narrowing down into a point in the front. It has two pockets on the front of it, each with a small button in the middle. There is a watch chain draping from the right pocket to the middle button in the center front. The skirt is long and ends at the wearer’s ankles. It is fitted in the waist but flares out slightly at the bottom, which is lined with a black bias tape. There are two rows of buttons along each seam line in the front of the skirt that end about 10 inches below the waistband, with five buttons on each side. Each button on both the waistcoat and the skirt is different, but each is shiny or metallic in some way.
Image 2: A view of the outfit from the back. The waistcoat is in two points, with a seam along the back, and the back of the skirt is knife pleated from both sides to come together in the middle. One of the wearer’s arms is out to the side, with the other one leaning up.
Image 3: Another front view of the outfit, this time the wearer has her hands clasped in front of them and leaning more on one foot than the other. Her boots are more visible, which are dark brown and wet from the snow.
Image 4: A close-up photo of the waistcoat. It has two darts on either side, one ending under the bust and the other, closer to the center, ending over the bust. The small pockets each have their own buttons in the center of them, the left bronze with a flower design on it, the right black with a small rounded white stone in the middle. The buttonholes are black and handsewn. Each of the seven main buttons are different, and top to bottom they are:
A gold button in the shape of a clam
A black button with a rim of shiny silver
A pale gold button with thin, slightly uneven, vertical lines on it
A black button with a gold rim and a design in the middle with laurels around three small crowns, and a crown atop the laurels
A white button with a matte silver center rimmed with shiny silver
A black button with a circling bronze pattern around the edges reminiscent of vines or tentacles
A black button with a pattern in the middle that’s brass and looks woven like a basket or something similar
End ID]
MAN am i so excited to show this to y’all!! I don’t do much cosplay, but I am a sewist, and I love making historical garments, so when I was given the option to make clothes for LOLOMG, I knew imdiately what I was going to do. This outfit is based off of 1890’s women’s clothes, with a shirt with many pin tucks, a tailored waistcoat, and a full-length walking skirt. However, I took some minor creative liberties when constructing it. Mainly, the 22 different metallic across the whole thing. I want to specifically draw attention to the buttons on the waistcoat, as each of them represent a PC from RQG. From top to bottom:
A clam shell for Azu, for the Heart of Aphrodite replica she wears
The simple black for Sasha, with a glint like that of a dagger flying out of the shadows
The bright metal for Cel and their unique technical know-how, with lines reminiscent to the many wires they’re known to work with
The crowns for Bertie and his noble status and his affinity for gold
The silver for Grizzop, with the white of the celestial plane where he hunts
The rope-like bronze for Zolf, with patterns that almost resemble the tentacles of a kraken
And brass for Hamid, with a woven pattern like that of his born connection to the Weave
I was able to participate in towga, and this was my contribution: A Short Laugh Compilation that includes all of the main crew past and present, and at least a little laughter from every guest that has appeared in the RQG feed. Both a list of guests and transcript can be found under the cut.
Ed Croft - Story Jam
Martyn Pratt - Meet the Crew
Jonny Sims - Deadlands
Alice Bell - New Year Special 2517!
Sean Smith - Trail of Cthulhu
Anil Godigamuwe - Fiasco Holiday Special
Helen Gould - Thanes of Beowulf
Mike LeBeau - Jason Statham’s Big Vacation
Grant Howitt - Spire
Sasha Sienna - Monster of the Week
Lowri Ann - Not Far to Bermuda
Tim Meredith - Space Pals
Frank Voss - Apocalypse World
James Ross - Roman Rogues
Imogen Harris - RQG/STL Halloween Crossover
Becky Annison - Bite Marks
Maddy Searle - The Quiet Year
Finish with Benquest with Ending Cast.
ALEX NEWALL: I bring you an alpha male and this is how you greet him?
[Laughter]
JONNY SIMS: High school marching band
[Laughter]
ALL: Woaaaah!
[Laughter]
BEN MEREDITH: Bryn gets it!
JONNY: Oh, Jesus
BEN: Yes!
JONNY: Oh, Jesus no.
BEN: Ordinance
[Extended Brynterval]
ALEX: No
JAMES: Yes, of course
BRYN MONROE: I was trying so hard… not to crack up
BEN: I forgot my audience
ALEX: I’m really sorry Jonny,
[Brynterval continues]
ALEX: (con’t) I forget what it’s like for normals, trying to corral this
JONNY: It’s fine… it’s fine, it’s fine.
[Laughter]
JAMES ROSS: it’s quite a good plan
JONNY: That would’ve been lovely
[Laughter]
LYDIA NICHOLAS: Really if you gave her a form that said ‘cult’ at the top of it
[Laughter]
SEAN SMITH: Funny you should say that
BEN: Where do you see yourself in five years? Leading a sacrifice
[Laughter]
ALEX: so you might even get advantage then on that
HELEN GOULD: (simult.) sink faster
[Laughter]
ALEX: yeah, but it’s what she wants so its okay
ALEX: Beowulf
[Laughter]
ALEX: Okay!
HELEN: Wow
[Laughter]
GRANT HOWITT: Done with the Microsoft Office jokes now?
BEN: I’m totally done
GRANT: Okay cool. One more?
ALEX: Just don’t go too loud or it’ll get Clippy
LYDIA: Yeah
[Laughter]
GRANT: Well done! Well done.
LYDIA: I’m worried after this none of them are going to Excel
[Laughter]
GRANT: Nice
HELEN: Grant Good Heavens Howitt
[Laughter]
GRANT: we’ll go to the barracks ... yeah
[Laughter]
BEN: Did a hair piece wrong you or something?
[Laughter]
SASHA SIENNA: Oh no everyone’s gonna hear my laugh now
HELEN: No! It’s fine!
SASHA: I’m really, uhh
HELEN: C’mon no one’s gonna mind your laugh
SASHA: No, I know
HELEN: Talk to Bryn, or me
SASHA: Oh god, after Bryn
ALEX: It’s fine, I can put, I can use my bad laugh today if you want.
SASHA: Could you?
HELEN: What’s your bad laugh?
[Laughter]
LYDIA: This is what happens when you allow too many women in the room. Alex is in the corner like (unintelligible) in hysterics but also pain. Like, I think possibly this kind of laughter doesn’t happen to him very much, they’re new muscles.
[Laughter]
BEN: Wait, so you mean our ship is…. real thirsty
[Laughter]
BEN: Hot
ALEX: Hot
[Laughter]
LYDIA: I just wish that we could’ve gotten the cameras working cause like Helen’s parade of expressions
[Laughter]
LYDIA: And a special guest
JAMES: James Ross!
ALL: Yaaaay!
ALEX: Who let him back in?
LYDIA: Yeah
[Laughter]
LYDIA: I’m gonna give James a little while to think about what he said
[Laughter]
IMOGEN HARRIS: Also actually Spacestation, no Starcluster. Go with your first instinct
HELEN: You-You’re going to be fine at this you’re gonna get right in there.
HELEN: I barely understand it myself because - I just - I see a rule and my eyes glaze over.
[Laughter]
ALEX: I’d like to congratulate you on a mechanic that will actually physically force me to behave if I get out of hand... well, well played.
[Laughter]
BRYN: We will definitely create enough chaos for you to need to do very little in my experience.
BECKY ANNISON: Yessss!
[Laughter]
BEN: A group of people who were just like: I just want to eat the paste. I wanna. I just… I just need to know?
[Laughter]
HELEN: Now, an important thing to note about discussions in this game is that they never result in a decision.
LYDIA: They’re familiar with improvised podcasts then.
[Laughter]
HELEN: Zolf the badger begins to walk away from his -
BEN: Oh!.... what a good thing that I should’ve asked you to do…. Could you please describe your characters
[Laughter]
ALEX AS GRIZZOP: But I want you to know that you’re lucky I didn’t murder you for not trusting me
After over six months it is finally done, my Rusty Quill Gaming quotes crochet blanket! >:D
This blanket is part of the book Look Out! Lots of Magnificent Gifts! by The Ones Who Got Away. A fan project as a love letter and thank you to the actual play podcast Rusty Quill Gaming and the people who made it possible. Link in the reblog! (As y’know, tumblr tends to eat posts with links)
ID: A solid granny square crochet blanket representing the entire main campaign of Rusty Quill Gaming, including Ancient Rome. The blanket consists of 20 x 23 squares in various colours. Each episode is represented by a coloured square with, for about half of the episodes, a quote from that episode embroidered on it. There are more quotes near the top than near the bottom. The RQG logo is in the center, and there are blue veins starting lightly at the top middle, branching across the blanket, and spreading out and crossing over one another towards the bottom, getting densest at the bottom right. End ID
Detailed description below the cut!
ID: A solid granny square crochet blanket representing the entire main campaign of Rusty Quill Gaming, including Ancient Rome. The blanket consists of 20 x 23 squares in various colours, forming a rectangle of roughly 160cm wide and 180cm tall, or approximately 5ft by 6ft. Each episode is represented, from left to right, top to bottom, by a square coloured after events from that episode and, for about half of the episodes, with a quote from that episode embroidered on it. There are more quotes near the top than near the bottom. Next to each episode, both horizontally and vertically, is a filler square. Filler squares are either white, light grey, or black, and form diagonals from top left to bottom right of that filler colour. In the center of the blanket is the RQG logo embroidered on a larger square consisting of 4 x 4 black squares. The logo consists of a gear, banner, microphone, quill, and twenty sided die with the text Rusty Quill Gaming over various parts of it. Between each of the squares is a small white border. The exceptions are the squares forming the logo, which are attached with black, and episode 50 (the Mr. Ceiling simulation) which has an aqua border. Deep blue veins run across the blanket through plot significant episodes. They start on episode 7, when the party retrieves the simulacrum from the sewer, moves on to episode 40, when they first hear about the riots. From there it splits into two strands running down towards episode 120 but stopping at it’s border, this is where Grizzop starts getting the Hephaestus lot to build the killswitch, and running towards 108, when they get news the riots have spread. From 108 one branch spreads to 126, the other two spread into season four. From episode 126, when the 18 months have past and the veins are everywhere, it spreads to the rest of season four, passing through every episode square aside from the Ancient Rome episodes, and the first of two brainy pink Shoin episodes. The second brainy pink Shoin episode however, is covered in copious amounts of blue veins. One strand of blue veins enters the square, therein multiplying to fill it almost entirely, none of the strands leave the square. Episode 181, when the party reaches the Garden of Yerlik, is also a super spreader, with veins spreading from it in every direction. Towards the finale episodes, the bottom right of the blanket, the veins increase in number and start crossing one another, filling up more of the available space until finally they form an almost solid blue edge around episode 218 and the bottom right filler square, which they can’t seem to enter. Most episodes are a solid colour, and most quotes are either black or white, but there are a few exceptions. There are three multi coloured squares in the second airship arc, representing the Aurora Borealis, Azu!Hamid’s purple and pink suit dress, and the colour changes to all mundane items as a result of passing through the Aurora Borealis a second time. The quote for episode 174, the airship crash, is red on white, representing blood in snow. The quote for 178 contains a colour switch in the quote to indicate a different speaker, and 179 contains three overlapping quotes in different colours. End ID