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pilesofnonsenseRusty Quill Mini Bang
Welcome to the home of the Rusty Quill Mini Bang - a large-scale event bringing writers and artists together to create an explosion of fan content for Rusty Quill podcasts! Feel free to share this information with whoever and wherever you think might be interested!
Please read the following carefully to understand what will be expected of you as a participant. You can also find further information in our FAQ on Tumblr. All updates will be posted to our Tumblr.
Schedule for 2026Fandoms: Rusty Quill Gaming, The Magnus Archives, The Magnus Protocol, Stellar Firma, Inexplicables, Chapter & Multiverse, Trice Forgotten, Neon Inkwell, Cry Havoc!
Note: this event is for Rusty Quills original podcasts only. Network Shows are not included in this event.
Participation Requirements:
You must choose whether to join the Big Bang as an artist or writer. You may not do both.
Writers will require an AO3 account; if you do not have an AO3 account, please request one via AO3’s login page, or message the mods for an invite.
Artists will need somewhere to host their work, so that it can be embedded on AO3.
If you wish to write or create for M or E rated fics you must be aged over 18.
All participants must read and adhere to the Expected Conduct guidelines (see below).
Minimum Final Word Count: 5,000
Maximum Number of Fics per Writer: 1
Maximum Number of Writers per Fic (collaboration): 2
Fic Draft Requirements: At the draft deadline (August 10th), we will require a complete draft of at least 4,000 words. “Complete” means that the fic is written from start to finish with no indispensable scenes missing or left as outlines—think, “If I posted this right now, would I be happy with the story it tells?”
Ideally, you will refine and polish your draft in the remaining time, but it can also be your final draft if you prefer.
Drafts will be handed in via a form that will be sent out to you before the deadline. Drafts should be available in Google docs, or if need be in PDF format.
Summary Requirements: A form for the summary will be sent out to you before the deadline. Summaries should briefly outline the general premise, and include rating, ships, triggers and other warnings, and any other relevant details.
Fic Requirements: Fics of any rating and with any warnings are permitted, as long as they meet the minimum word count (5,000), are centered around at least one Rusty Quill original podcast (The Magnus Archives, The Magnus Protocol, Rusty Quill Gaming, Stellar Firma, Inexplicables, Chapter & Multiverse, Trice Forgotten, Cry Havoc!, Neon Inkwell), and are tagged appropriately. We encourage authors to take this opportunity to challenge themselves to take on a project that they might not otherwise—though please consider what is realistic in terms of the deadlines as well!
Fics must be stand-alone (requires no knowledge of previous fics to enjoy), complete (resolves all main plotlines within the story, as opposed to being part I of a trilogy, etc.), and previously unposted.
Fics must be posted on the same day as the corresponding art.
Crossovers are allowed, but the focus should be on the RQ podcast involved. For example: a fusion crossover with the Leverage Team replacing the LOLOMG in the RQG!verse would not be permitted, though the RQG characters in the Leverage!verse would be.
Please be aware that fics with obscure crossovers, common squicks, higher ratings, etc., may be more difficult to match, and thus take a little longer to get snapped up. We will do our best to find you a suitable match, though!
If you have any questions about the suitability of your fic, please contact the mods.
Art Requirements: At least one fully finished piece of original artwork (traditional or digital colored/shaded drawing or painting, completed cross-stitch or knitting project, etc.) or full podfic. Compilations or arrangements of existing art, such as playlists or moodboards, should not be your primary piece for this challenge, though you are welcome to include them as a bonus (see below).
We hope that artists, like the writers, will take this opportunity to challenge themselves—whether by attempting an ambitious work in their primary medium, finding new means of creative expression, or sharing an extra tidbit inspired by their work on this project (e.g. sketches, a playlist, a comment about the fic and the process of creating for it, etc.).
Art must be posted on the same day as the corresponding fic.
If you have any questions about the suitability of your art, please contact the mods.
Art Draft Requirements: Your draft should show significant progress on your piece. For a digital drawing, for example, the minimum would be completed lineart, ready for coloring. For handcrafts, your project should be about halfway done.
As always, if you are unsure what qualifies when it comes to your medium or process, you can contact us!
Maximum Number of Fics per Artist: Initially, each artist will only be able to sign up for 1 fic (they may create as much art for this fic as they like).
Artists who would like to create for more than one fic can indicate this in their sign-up, and will be contacted during matching if this is necessary. You may also sign up as a pinch-hitter to be contacted in the event that another artist drops out.
Matching Process: The artist sign-up will include a list of the anonymised fic summaries. Each artist will select 3 fics which they would be interested in creating for, with additional preferences (favourite show/shows they do not follow, OTPs and NoTPs, Do Not Wants, etc.) indicated in the comment field. Mods will then match writers to artists, taking preferences into account as much as possible.
If fics are oversubscribed or if it is otherwise necessary for matching, they may be removed from the list of eligible fics before the end of artist sign-ups.
If you have an issue with your match, please let the mods know as soon as possible.
Do Not Wants: In this event, you will have an opportunity to Do Not Want (DNW) the types of content that you do not wish to work on. Similarly, if you’ve had conflicts with certain people in the past and do not want to risk matching to them, you can include this in your sign-up or draft submission, and we will avoid matching you with them (details of these will not be shared beyond the mod team).
The mods will always account for DNWs within reason; however, attempts to manipulate matches via DNWs or otherwise acting in bad faith will result in the rejection of your sign-up or draft. We are also not private detectives, and will thus not be fielding any requests such as “do not match me with anyone who has ever drawn/written XYZ.” Please keep that in mind when considering whether this event is right for you.
Beta Readers: We do not require any fics to be beta-read. If you’re seeking a beta reader, unfortunately this year we cannot facilitate beta reader matchups as a part of the event. You’re welcome to use whatever your usual avenues would be for finding a beta reader, and you may ask in our event discord to see if anyone would be able to help out.
Pinch Hitters: In the event that we cannot find an artist match for a fic via the standard matching process, or a previously registered artist needs to drop out, we will contact those who have registered as pinch hitters to help out. Pinch hitters are free to opt out of any requests we send; we just ask that you do reply promptly.
If you wish to only sign-up as a pinch hitter and not participate as a general artist, please send us a mail to pilesofnonsense@gmail.com and we’ll get in contact with you.
Discord: Writers, artists, and anyone else involved in the event are all welcome to join our Discord for RQ Big Bang chatter! Links will be included in participant confirmation emails; please do not share these links, as they are created to meet our participant numbers.
Expected Conduct:
malurette posting in glyficmalurettequeenslayerbeeTitle: round robin.
Fandom: DC comics (Batman / We Are Robin).
Character/Pairing: Duke Thomas, Colin Wilkes.
Rating/Warnings: T, none.
Summary: Day I: Community | Old Friends and New Friends. A tiny look into the Robin movement in the New Earth continuity.
Word count: 100.
Gotham’s gray snow had yet to melt, but a new flock of Robins sang in the streets all the same.
They started small: handing blankets, food, medicine; passing messages. Young and not-so-young children building a network in the aftermath of the Joker’s attack, keeping track of the subsequent disappearances and, not-so-secretly, investigating them.
That’s why Duke followed them into a meeting; hidden in the rafters, a voice startled him: “Hey there, little man.”
Duke fell down. Out of breath, he looked for the voice. Older teen, impressively tall and gangly, ginger hair. Staring with open curiosity.
“Fuck,” he whispered, heartfelt.
schneefinksholio and nayemichelel72javert
profiterole_readsmalurette posting in glyficmalurettequeenslayerbeeTitle: empty spaces.
Fandom: DC comics (Batman).
Character/Pairing: Bruce Wayne & Jason Todd.
Rating/Warnings: M, referenced character death.
Summary: The clock marks the start of April 27th, military time; Bruce enters the new day with the stench of alcohol firmly sunken on his breath.
Word count: 1.7k.
The clock marks the start of April 27th, military time; Bruce enters the new day with the stench of alcohol firmly sunken on his breath.
The second anniversary, despite all the begging and pleading he was subjected to after his behavior on the first one, Bruce had decided to go out into the night. The result had been so disastrous, Bruce walking the line between dangerous to others and dangerous to himself and tilting swiftly into the worst direction of the two, that on the third year, he timed it perfectly to grant himself one night off. He’s already determined this is an indulgence he’ll only allow himself once.
Bruce thought he’d be itching to leave the house. Yet he sits on the stairs, bottle abandoned, and thinks of Dick, who’d come along to take Tim away –he pictures the two of them jumping from rooftop to rooftop, Tim in a Robin uniform, and his stomach twists; a phenomenon somehow unrelated to the toxic liquid he’s filled himself up with.
Maybe Tim will timidly ask Dick to tell him some nostalgic anecdote of times past; maybe, though unlikely, Dick will be the one to openly share it. Bruce wouldn’t know; this is not a topic he and Dick ever touch. Not since that first time.
Alfred is lost in the house, and Bruce won’t bother chasing after him. They each find the other’s presence unbearable, in this day. Instead, his legs move on their own, and they lead him to an empty room.
‘Empty’, as a term, comes short. Emptied strikes as far more accurate, because that’s exactly what Bruce ordered Alfred to do, come that first month of May: to empty out Jason’s room.
The furniture remains, each piece covered in white sheets buried in dust. Bruce removes the one over the bed with a violent yank, and lies his body upon it, looking straight up; like a corpse.
The time after his parents’ death is starkly vivid in Bruce’s memories. He had longed to return to Wayne Manor as soon as possible; there, every inch was wrapped in their presence. To this day, not a single room was devoid from at least one object that was cause for remembrance. Maybe Thomas’s old check book, which he’d been in the habit of using to write himself little notes when he didn’t want to forget a task; or Martha’s baseball card collection, shared with Bruce with the enthusiasm of a true fanatic. Bruce still found, still sought comfort in the echoes of their presence like a kid did on an old, soft, ratty blanket.
There wasn’t –couldn’t possibly be, not then and not years away– any comfort to be brought from Jason’s mementos, and thus Bruce had done away with them. He hadn’t been able to stomach the signs of his passage through Bruce’s life. The souvenirs from their cases were removed from the cave, and Jason’s own room had been emptied out.
All that remains is the old uniform, erected while a reluctant Bruce trained yet another child. A brutal reminder for both Tim and Bruce himself of the stakes. But that’s a monument to Robin; the only piece of Jason is encased in Bruce’s ribcage, sprouting –rebellious, accusing– whenever Bruce lowers his guard.
Abruptly, as if disconnected from his own body, Bruce realizes he’s now choking on drunken sobs. He bites them down, swallows them deep. He curls in on himself, arms in a protective loop over his knees, forcing open the eyelids he hadn’t noticed close.
Bruce remembers how, at first, Jason didn’t let him enter his room. He hadn’t let Alfred either, insisting on cleaning after himself –and all in all doing, if not a good job, a better one than any kid his age should’ve ever been expected to do. It took time to build trust, but by the end of things, Jason had no qualms about Bruce’s presence in his room, and Bruce would’ve been able to describe every corner of it to the minute details.
It's as if the image of that last time he walked in, the smell of fuel and charred skin still glued to his nostrils, remains engraved to his retinas. The built-in closet is in front of the bed, by the door; Jason never kicked the bad habit of not closing the doors properly, much to Alfred’s chagrin. The wall adjacent to it and the one perpendicular to the closet held various posters, mainly of whichever band Jason had most recently incorporated into his personality. The last one to go up was from Siouxie and the Banshees, and the very first Jason plastered against the ocher walls, now faded by neglect, was from Sisters of Mercy. He’d wanted Bruce to listen to those bands with him, and gently, playfully ribbed him for not getting it; asking “what would Bruce know”, when the only music he listened to were those recorded nature noises for meditation, surely.
Jason hadn’t been completely wrong. Bruce didn’t exactly keep up with the trendy bands of his favorite music genres; he has no idea of what poster Jason might’ve put up next.
On the door itself there had been a map of the night sky, each constellation identified by name emitting a soft glow in its stars. Bruce wonders if Jason would’ve ever tired of it, found it childish after a few more years on the house, when he’d once used to enjoy tracing the constellation patterns with his finger.
The one window in the room, looming large, was to Bruce’s right. Under it, pressed to the wardrobe’s wall, there had been a truck, now removed, that Bruce had never betrayed Jason’s trust by opening. On the other side of the window, beside the bed, Jason had requested they’d move a large music equipment in from one of the studios. It allowed tapes and CDs, and connected to the radio, but Jason only ever used it for the eclectic vinyl collection. One once shared by Thomas and Martha, the solace of their ghosts dripping into this room, too. Just like once the joy of meeting Jason, that daring boy he was, had soothed the ache of the anniversary of their loss.
On top of the bed there was a framed painting. It was one of the first things Jason had ever asked him to buy, and certainly the first one that wasn’t a necessity. Jason had stopped in his tracks during a walk with Bruce, and the two of them had taken a moment to watch it being made –a vivid picture of nocturnal wilderness, spray on canvas by a talented street artist. Instead of simply plastering it to the wall as he later did with his posters, Jason had insisted it needed a fancy frame, aged grey wood in strange harmony with the vibrant colors.
On Bruce left there once was a nightstand whose sole purpose seemed to have been serving as the resting place for whatever book Jason was devouring at any given time. Bruce only knew that Jason’s clothes all went to the closet, and that it was never quite full, for that’s not where Jason’s expensive tastes had gone.
Those were reserved, of course, for the bookshelves that stood past the bedside table. They were mounted on a writing desk that occupied the entire wall and part of another, and they were filled to the brim. If pressed, Bruce thinks he could’ve recited every copy, from a handful tattered books Jason brought with him on his arrival to the Manor, to the gold-leaf, leather-bound editions he had fallen head over hills for.
There had been an assortment of knickknacks amidst the bookshelves, a form of sui generis decoration of every useless thingamajig Jason had thought worth keeping. A small, customized music box that played a song from Prokofiev’s Cinderella, the first ballet he’d taken Jason to see. Clark’s autograph, proudly displayed in front of the non-fiction books. A seashell, from the first time Jason ever visited what he called “a real beach”, to Bruce’s utter confusion. A picture of Catherine that he’d later accompanied with a cut-off of Willis’s printed mugshot, trapping it on a corner of the frame.
A small board with the meaning of his name Alfred said he’d bought on a whim, at a flea market he liked to visit to get artisanal products. It’d said “healer”, and Bruce suddenly remembers how Jason had returned from an unauthorized mission with the Titans half-joking about wanting to be a doctor. Bruce had felt Thomas’s presence in his son’s room then, too.
Jason’s computer had sat at the corner of the table, and when he left, some of his class books had still been neatly piled up right next to the lamp at the end of it.
And on the nightstand… Bruce can’t remember, if Jason had left any half-read books on the nightstand.
He holds his head in his hands, fingertips pressing into his skull with a strength bordering on violence. Jason’s room had been a reflection of its dweller, filled to the brim with color and individuality, and Bruce thinks of how he’d wanted nothing more than to excise all of it from his life, to then reflect his own inner state. In at least a small part he succeeded, because he can’t remember if Jason left yet one more thing unfinished. Bruce feels the press of shame atop his lungs for it.
Alfred, nostalgic by nature, wouldn’t have thrown it out. He could put it all back, all of it; Bruce thoughts swirl with a tinge of desperation, imagining the posters and the painting and the books, all placed in perfect order to match. He could put it all back; all, except his boy.
There’s a violent ache in this pain, devoid of the hope of ever reaching a place where Bruce could look back on Jason’s unfairly short life, and on the even shorter –all the more unfair for it– amount of time he got to spend with him, with the tender nostalgia that sometimes visits loss. Would it have been better, to never meet Jason at all? To never feel this?
“I don’t know,” Bruce mutters, as if anyone could hear and judge his plea but himself. “I don’t know.”
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