Re: The Glorious Championship! [S3G5] [Round 4: GBN2
01-24-2013, 04:28 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.
The Dorin-thing didn’t understand at first. “I’m not looking for approval,” she simply said, and continued typing.
”Well, you haven’t got it,” repeated Felix. ”They’re not running the episode, they’re not budgeting any money for us to film it, and they’ve fired us both.”
Dorin’s eyes glared sadly down at the stacks of paper in front of her. This was the sort of thing the entity-in-residence always forgot to account for; her creative work had been a singleminded pursuit for its own sake and it had not occurred to her that it would wind up being beholden to a loose affiliation of corporate status quo agents.
On the bright side, at least this time around it could get itself fired without being wiped from existence. “What exactly do ‘they’ find objectionable?” she asked.
Felix smirked. ”You need me to run down the list?”
”I can make some guesses,” the special guest star admitted, looking down at a page of script and carefully whiting out four or five uses of the word “pussy.” “Give me the non-obvious ones.”
”Did you know,” offered Felix, ”That there is a hard limit to how many times you can say the word ‘lick,’ depict or otherwise refer to licking in an episode?”
”I did not know that.”
”That’s because it’s one of those things that you don’t ordinarily have to think about because the threshold is so high. Consider that marathon runners can drink so much water during a race that they actually contract water poisoning. Your script proposal is a marathon of licking.”
”Licking is a motif,” said the Dorin-thing. “It’s something you don’t often see explored in daytime television.”
”Another thing,” said Felix. ”The execs are worried that your script portrays multiversal battles to the death in a negative light.”
”Not a negative light, per se,” corrected the entity. ”A blacklight maybe. So the whites shine brighter, but so do the stains. I’m not trying to tell the audience what to think.”
”Oh, right, that was another thing. About the whole ‘telling the audience what to think’ thing. A story consultant upstairs is insisting that you actually wrote this in order to, um...”
Felix doffed his hat in order to scratch his hair nervously. “In order to what?” asked the guest star.
”In order to... become... the audience.”
]”Slander.” Dorin’s lips twirled into an amused smile. “I am interested only in art for its own sake.”
”Well then, frankly, you’re in the wrong business. Look, I liked the script. It was daring. New. Very... visceral. Not exactly polished, but, a solid first draft. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But Reccxer Diaries is a product, made to specification. It’s like a double bacon Son-Of-Gormand. You get hired for a job at Carnethrope King, whether or not you know how to cook the best damn roast duck in the universe, you’re gonna be flipping Sons Of Gormand, cause that’s what people expect, and that’s what people are gonna pay for.”
”So. I shred my opus and agree to become your bosses’ fry cook whore. That gets us rehired?”
Felix shrugged. ”It gets our foot in the door.”
”No deal. We’ll need to find a new way to distribute. This is GBN2. What happened to GBN1?”
”Shut down years ago. Some hotshot timecops got to them for Infringement.”
”Infringement? How does copyright work in the multiverse? There’s already an infinite number of everything.”
”Not that kind of infringement. Anyway, there’s nothing else. You could try getting in touch with the Broadcaster, but he won’t be any more sympathetic to your whole anti-Battle thing than the Citizens for Omnidemographic-Friendly Content Assurance or whatever. No, if you’re trying to get the word out over seven or so dimensions, there’s no beating GBN2 (Not Affiliated with the Network). Now, I think we can salvage the whole Round One On Lesbos-V storyline if we just change is so that instead of—“
”Hang on,” interrupted the young screenwriter. “Repeat that.”
”I said there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to keep the bare bones of—“
”Before that. You said ‘GBN2: Not Affiliated with the Network.’ What’s ‘the Network?’”
Felix put a finger to his chin. ”It, er... it’s just something you say,” he offered. ”It’s a disclaimer.”
”Well, if they’re disclaiming it, we’ll just have to reclaim it. Who do you know who would know what the network is?” The thing put on Dorin’s coat and hung Shik’skara around her neck on the end of a chain, where the crystal jingled complacently.
”No one I trust,” warned Felix. ”Well, Vex, maybe. He knows everything.”
Let’s pay him a visit, then. If there’s another network, whoever runs it will be begging to pick up Reccxer, right? Capitalism in action.” She flashed Felix an evil smile. “Nothing stops the signal, Felix. The revolution will be televised.”
Wrong ‘volution,’ thought Felix, remembering the name the executives had given him. Indulging Dorin’s passenger was a dangerous business, he was aware, but it might afford him an opportunity to get out of this business and back into a universe he could sink his teeth into.
Of course, considering the potential consequences of his current course of action, there might not be any safe universes left.
The Dorin-thing didn’t understand at first. “I’m not looking for approval,” she simply said, and continued typing.
”Well, you haven’t got it,” repeated Felix. ”They’re not running the episode, they’re not budgeting any money for us to film it, and they’ve fired us both.”
Dorin’s eyes glared sadly down at the stacks of paper in front of her. This was the sort of thing the entity-in-residence always forgot to account for; her creative work had been a singleminded pursuit for its own sake and it had not occurred to her that it would wind up being beholden to a loose affiliation of corporate status quo agents.
On the bright side, at least this time around it could get itself fired without being wiped from existence. “What exactly do ‘they’ find objectionable?” she asked.
Felix smirked. ”You need me to run down the list?”
”I can make some guesses,” the special guest star admitted, looking down at a page of script and carefully whiting out four or five uses of the word “pussy.” “Give me the non-obvious ones.”
”Did you know,” offered Felix, ”That there is a hard limit to how many times you can say the word ‘lick,’ depict or otherwise refer to licking in an episode?”
”I did not know that.”
”That’s because it’s one of those things that you don’t ordinarily have to think about because the threshold is so high. Consider that marathon runners can drink so much water during a race that they actually contract water poisoning. Your script proposal is a marathon of licking.”
”Licking is a motif,” said the Dorin-thing. “It’s something you don’t often see explored in daytime television.”
”Another thing,” said Felix. ”The execs are worried that your script portrays multiversal battles to the death in a negative light.”
”Not a negative light, per se,” corrected the entity. ”A blacklight maybe. So the whites shine brighter, but so do the stains. I’m not trying to tell the audience what to think.”
”Oh, right, that was another thing. About the whole ‘telling the audience what to think’ thing. A story consultant upstairs is insisting that you actually wrote this in order to, um...”
Felix doffed his hat in order to scratch his hair nervously. “In order to what?” asked the guest star.
”In order to... become... the audience.”
]”Slander.” Dorin’s lips twirled into an amused smile. “I am interested only in art for its own sake.”
”Well then, frankly, you’re in the wrong business. Look, I liked the script. It was daring. New. Very... visceral. Not exactly polished, but, a solid first draft. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But Reccxer Diaries is a product, made to specification. It’s like a double bacon Son-Of-Gormand. You get hired for a job at Carnethrope King, whether or not you know how to cook the best damn roast duck in the universe, you’re gonna be flipping Sons Of Gormand, cause that’s what people expect, and that’s what people are gonna pay for.”
”So. I shred my opus and agree to become your bosses’ fry cook whore. That gets us rehired?”
Felix shrugged. ”It gets our foot in the door.”
”No deal. We’ll need to find a new way to distribute. This is GBN2. What happened to GBN1?”
”Shut down years ago. Some hotshot timecops got to them for Infringement.”
”Infringement? How does copyright work in the multiverse? There’s already an infinite number of everything.”
”Not that kind of infringement. Anyway, there’s nothing else. You could try getting in touch with the Broadcaster, but he won’t be any more sympathetic to your whole anti-Battle thing than the Citizens for Omnidemographic-Friendly Content Assurance or whatever. No, if you’re trying to get the word out over seven or so dimensions, there’s no beating GBN2 (Not Affiliated with the Network). Now, I think we can salvage the whole Round One On Lesbos-V storyline if we just change is so that instead of—“
”Hang on,” interrupted the young screenwriter. “Repeat that.”
”I said there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to keep the bare bones of—“
”Before that. You said ‘GBN2: Not Affiliated with the Network.’ What’s ‘the Network?’”
Felix put a finger to his chin. ”It, er... it’s just something you say,” he offered. ”It’s a disclaimer.”
”Well, if they’re disclaiming it, we’ll just have to reclaim it. Who do you know who would know what the network is?” The thing put on Dorin’s coat and hung Shik’skara around her neck on the end of a chain, where the crystal jingled complacently.
”No one I trust,” warned Felix. ”Well, Vex, maybe. He knows everything.”
Let’s pay him a visit, then. If there’s another network, whoever runs it will be begging to pick up Reccxer, right? Capitalism in action.” She flashed Felix an evil smile. “Nothing stops the signal, Felix. The revolution will be televised.”
Wrong ‘volution,’ thought Felix, remembering the name the executives had given him. Indulging Dorin’s passenger was a dangerous business, he was aware, but it might afford him an opportunity to get out of this business and back into a universe he could sink his teeth into.
Of course, considering the potential consequences of his current course of action, there might not be any safe universes left.