Chapter 1 – The Undeniable Facts

Case 2:13-cv-45524-PAD Document 4 Filed 04/05/15 Page 26 of 285

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT – EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Annotation for Exhibit A: These documents provide details of the known actions of the key witnesses and suspects in the trial in the time leading up to the murder.

Note that the trial referenced in the documents is Case 17:23-cv-34556-PAD, a matter of public record.

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An Unauthorised Fan Treatise on the nature of the relationship between actors Rob Hennings and Nathan O’Donnell on TV show Loch & Ness

Chapter 1 – The Undeniable Facts

@gottiewrites 13/08/14

Background

Even if you just clicked on a link to this essay randomly from Tumblr, you’re probably aware of the TV show Loch & Ness, starring Rob Hennings, Nathan O’Donnell and Anya Saffitz. It has won three Emmys and been nominated for six more. The network recently commissioned another two seasons. It is hugely popular and has spawned a huge online fandom (read: very lucrative and important to the network!) That’s basically all you need to know to understand the context of this essay.

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My hypothesis

I must preface this by stating that I am not a shipper of Rob and Nathan. I am personally not a fan of Real Person Fic (RPF), though I do write and read Jayden/Fang.¹ (Note: Hover over footnotes to read them, or see the end of the post.)

However, I truly believe that Rob and Nathan are together, and I am certain that this has been intentionally concealed by their management and The Powers That Be at Loch & Ness headquarters. I believe that Nathan and Rob have been purposefully kept in the closet against their will, and they have been trying to tell fans the truth for a very long time. If you don’t agree, then you should examine your prejudices, as that isn’t just homophobic but aggressively heteronormative.

I am utterly convinced of the truth of my argument, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I have no vested interest in influencing your opinion either way. I’m just presenting the evidence here, because I think it’s wrong that anyone should have to hide who they are.

My credentials

I’ve been a fan of Loch & Ness since the beginning. I read the books and watched every episode as it aired, and I’ve been following the actors’ social media accounts and the official Show Twitter ever since.

The Facts

I’ve cared about Rob and Nathan for a long time, and I’ve been pretty convinced that they were a couple for a while now. I decided to write this essay after a very normal afternoon spent procrastinating my way through a school assignment in my local café in LA. I was about to pack up and head home when guess who walked in? ROB HENNINGS HIMSELF. The man, the legend. In person, in front of my actual face.

He was in his hoody/sunglasses/baseball cap get-up, but I obviously recognised him straight away. He bought a drink (turmeric latte and a biscotti) and sat down at a centre table.

I scuttled over and grabbed the table behind his, pretending to read my textbook while obviously memorising every single move he made and basking in the presence of The Man Himself.

Rob was messing around on his tablet – deleting pictures, moving apps around his home screen, typical ‘I’ve got time to waste behaviour’ – when he started clearing out his email inbox, deleting all the newsletters and spam. I’d managed to shuffle around to get a good view of his screen by this point, so I saw that one of the emails was reminder from LiveJournal, the blogging website that used to be really popular a few years ago.

He only skimmed the email before deleting it, but I managed to read most of it. It said that his account was running out of storage space, and he needed to delete some files or upgrade to a plan with more memory. The account had the username ‘silentwakes’.

If you are a casual fan of Loch & Ness, this probably doesn’t mean anything at all to you. But if – like me – you have any kind of in-depth knowledge of the fandom? This reveal just blew your mind, as it did mine.

@silentwakes is the username for a fanfic creator who was writing about Loch & Ness (the book series) on LiveJournal back in 2010. And if Rob Hennings is @silentwakes, then it means one, huge, earth-shattering thing: I can confidently, empirically prove, step-by-step, why Rob Hennings and Nathan O’Donnell must be in a committed, romantic, monogamous relationship. Because the ring that Nathan O’Donnell has been wearing since a few months after he met Rob? That handmade, one-of-a-kind ring that the whole fandom is obsessed with? It was made by @silentwakes. There are pictures of the ring on his blog from 2010. Four years ago. Now, Nathan is wearing Rob’s ring. Why? Because they’re engaged.

(It also means that, over the course of this blog, I’m going to tell you things that might alter your opinion of Rob Hennings. Heed this warning, and proceed with caution if you’d prefer your rose-tinted glasses remain intact. @silentwakes was a problematic individual.)

Now, before I get into everything, let’s back up. For the newbies, here’s what we know about Rob and Nathan so far. The proliferation of false and inaccurate information online has made the timeline of events incredibly muddled, so I want to establish the truth.

Based on the facts that we have, this is my best, most informed approximation of the series of events that formed their relationship, from when they first met to the current date.

1980 – Nathan O’Donnell is born in Brighton, England.

1982 – Rob Hennings is born in LA, California, USA.

1999 – Nathan is cast in his first role in UK Channel 5 TV movie Christmas at Shell Cottage

2000 – Rob starts an undergraduate degree in Graphic Design at UCLA

2000 – Nathan marries a make-up artist who he met on a film set²

2003 – Nathan gets divorced

2004 – Rob graduates with a Graphic Design degree

2009 – Nathan wins an Emmy for his supporting actor role in Silent Watcher. A week later, he (or more likely his publicist) creates the Twitter account @Nathan_Odonnell

2012 – Initial casting for a Loch & Ness TV series based on the books. Anya Saffitz is cast first, and Nathan O’Donnell signs on a week later. It takes another two months before newcomer Rob Hennings is chosen to play Jayden, after Anya suggested him for the role.³

February 2013 – Nathan moves to LA from the UK and pre-production begins. Rob and Nathan meet for the first time during screen tests⁴

A Twitter account is made for Rob as @Rob_Hennings; Rob and Nathan’s accounts follow each other that same day. The first post is a selfie of them with Anya.

Rob is new to professional acting, so Nathan, older and more well-established actor, takes Rob under his wing and shows him the ropes. Nathan lives in an apartment he’s renting in LA with a communal pool in the basement.⁵ 

March 2013 – Filming begins. Rob and Nathan go to dinner with the cast and crew at least three times over the course of March, based on social media posts by Anya. As Rob gets used to the new industry, he relaxes. He becomes more chatty and flirty, teasing Nathan like we see him do in interviews.⁶ 

Rob has been out since he was a teenager, so I imagine he’s open with everyone on set about being gay, even if he isn’t allowed to come out publicly to the press. When chatting to Nathan, he mentions his old ex-boyfriend from UCLA, who he broke up with just before he graduated⁷

I imagine that Nathan thought he was straight himself at this point. He’d only dated women until then, and he was in his thirties.⁸

April 2013 – Rob holds a housewarming party for his new house in mid-April, and Nathan brings a six-pack of beer and Krispy Kremes.⁹

May 2013 – We can assume that at some point around here, Rob and Nathan’s romantic relationship began.

September 2013 – The first season of Loch & Ness airs on RBC.¹⁰

November 2013 – Nathan and Rob both start wearing silver rings on their right ring fingers. Nathan’s ring has a distinctive, handmade look to it, and writing on the band.

December 2013 – Rob got a tattoo of a constellation of stars on his left forearm and posted it to his Instagram, tagging the tattoo artist. Three weeks later, Nathan wasseen at the gym with a tattoo of a moon in the same place.

January 2014 – Filming on Season 2 began. Nathan accidentally posted a screenshot taken from his phone on Twitter, showing off a new Loch & Ness poster. There was an unread text message from Rob at the top of his phone screen which begins ‘Hi babe’.¹¹

This immediately went viral, triggering #RobanisReal to trend on multiple sites. Following that unfortunate tweet, RBC clearly felt they needed to ‘straighten’ a few things out.

February 2014 – Rob went on three dates in NYC with Disney Channel star Nikki Shelley. They were papped on all three dates, including a clearly posed kiss.They were never seen together again.

August 2014 – I start writing this essay, and my studying slows down significantly.

October 2014 – Season 2 due to start airing

Congratulations if you made it this far, and thanks for reading. I’ve written the next five chapters of this essay already, and I’m going to post one a week. There’s probably going to be 22 chapters in total. If you fancy, please buy me a coffee. See above not-so-subtle reference to employment status.

–  gottie

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Footnotes

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Comments (156)

Anonymous not to be That Person TM but I’m going to need to see some sources

Anonymous where is the evidence for a relationship?? You’re making this whole thing up. you’re going to get sued.

FantasticBooksAWTFT i would like to thank not only god but also jesus for this gift. I’m sobbing rn.

Anonymous Yikes. I only heard about this whole thing today, but it’s nice to see that fandom is once again shipping the two straight white guys and completely erasing the female lead from her own show, not to mention the actually queer and out actors on the show. Great progressive work, gang. Give yourselves a pat on the back.    

safalopez They’re shipping RPF, and you wanna talk about morals? mmmmm okay sure jan. Anya is probably glad they don’t care about her, this is a massive invasion of privacy. they only care about Nathan and Rob because they think they’re hot. They’re not allies, so of course they’re not going to be diverse.

jackarino Why are you lot even here? Get out of the sandpit if you’re just going to throw sand in people’s eyes. Some of us actually love and support Roban and just want to make sure that they’re happy. We’re not doing anything wrong, we don’t need this kind of sanctimonious crusade from some random lurker.

      

anxiousalien okay. great. why should we care about whether two random white dudes are engaged?

gottiewrites because it’s important to document what Hollywood does to oppress the queer community and stop us from living our lives. Rock Hudson, Cary Grant and even Elton John all had fake lavender marriages with women. the movie studios demanded it. and stuff like that is still happening today!

even if you don’t care about rob and nathan as human beings who deserve to be open about their love lives, you should care about a whole industry that – EVEN IN 2014 – forces adults to stay in the closet for the sake of their careers

hoziergender dude i remember the @silentwakes stuff. No way was that rob freaking Hennings?? This is huge if true. I’m on tenterhooks for the next instalment.

StarryEyedGrrl reveals about ROB?! gottie, you bring So Much to this fandom. though you missed the flowers! And the cuddling in Vegas! You need to mention those! And that Nathan’s mom likes a lot of tweets from the Loch & Ness fandom about Nathan and Rob.

Guest001 weren’t you that girl who got caught out plagiarising fic a few years ago?

gottiewrites that was fake. some bitter fan was trying to drive me out of fandom.

Guest001 yeah right. i wouldn’t trust a word this girl says, guys, she’s a liar. She’s infamous for making drama. she just changes her username and starts again when she gets called out for it

stanjackmaddox Guys, I think Nathan and Rob are having a baby. They were seen holding the door of Starbucks open for a pregnant lady at the start of August. I think the woman is their surrogate? I managed to track down her insta from the name tag on her shirt (she works at Costco) and she’s not posted about her pregnancy yet. Surely she would have posted if she was keeping the baby?? I DMed her, but she didn’t reply.

Anonymous I actually think they’ve already got a secret baby. Their daughter is at least ten months old by now. Nathan’s sister was the surrogate. I feel sorry for the little girl. Her parents shouldn’t have to hide her from the world.

gottiewrites I love you guys, but this one’s a bit much, even for me.

Anonymous Gottie, your bias is showing. Rob’s publicist follows you on Twitter? Can someone say ‘paid promotion’?

cascodeddeangirl jesus, give her peace. Ffs.

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< Prologue | Goodreads | Chapter 2 >

Gottie is a fangirl for Loch & Ness, a TV show about paranormal detectives. She’s convinced that two of the male actors are secretly dating, and she’ll stop at nothing to prove it. When her online investigations accidentally uncover far more than she expects, she becomes complicit in secrets beyond just a romantic conspiracy theory.