1O1 | an advanced rp discussion

Ordinarily, Amaris would already be yelling. But for once in his life, Sungmin seemed to be doing something useful. She coughed, then spoke. "Do I have permission to hunt down the contestants that misspelled more than half their introductions, or do I have to go find another one of you incompetent ninnies to agree with me? And when the hell are we going to get a raise, because honestly, we do not get paid nearly enough to deal with the complete imbeciles you choose to compete." That was her, always lacing her sentences with at least one insult. To be fair, she'd been correcting usage of your, you're they're their, there, effect, affect, and almost every other type of grammatical error you could think of since six am, and dealing with the male contestants who still thought that grossly inappropriate jokes were funny was exhausting, particularly when said jokes made up the majority of their introductions.

She could swear that there had been classes in kindergarten about grammar. And that there had been something in the contract about not being complete dickheads. Or maybe she needed to reread it — actually, that might be a good idea anyway. But first, to get the producer's permission to go kick those boys' arses if they didn't damn well learn to spell, think and act maturely. Probably all went to fancy private schools that cared more about getting money than teaching kids how to cope in the real world. In other words, just like the man in front of her.

"Because, you fool, some of us don't want to spend all week answering the phone calls of offended citizens. Besides, who's going to have to deal with the media if it goes wrong? Not you, that's for sure. Also, are the twelve-year-old Youtube-addicts the ones that are paying good money to watch the show? Ah, no. That's their parents, who don't find dick jokes funny." Amaris folded her arms, unimpressed. Typical, more interested in the profit this time than the reputation and views in the future. Because, out of all of them, he had the least to lose if everything went pear-shaped. Those whose job it was to stop that, of course, would probably be fired. Namely, her.

"The ratings will get above two million viewers if you actually listen for once. Nobody wants to watch a T.V. show full of bumbling fools who can't spell and still think it's 2014 — because, honestly, that's the message they're sending. That they're bratty little kids with no talent, no charm, no social skills, who see a few outdated Tumblr posts and think that they're still funny." Bitter? Pessimistic? Well, sorry to disappoint you, Sungmin, but some people didn't have the time nor the money to keep their heads in the clouds all day long. Some people actually had to be practical and realistic, qualities which he evidently assigned little value. "Fine, I'll let one of them read their unedited version, and we'll see how well they do." If she could convince the cameras to make them look stupid, if she could get the costume designers on her side, then the odds were that Amaris would probably be able to prove Sungmin wrong.

"Yes, I have worked in reality T.V. before, how do you think I got hired?" Amaris snorted. "You have far too much faith in people to not judge them based purely on their looks — I've seen some of those girls, and trust me, the hating will come without them saying a word." And as for the guys, well they would be judged by how much they swaggered, how the media decided to paint them — and the media needed no encouragement. "I don't need your permission, it's what I'm paid to do. The only thing I need your permission to do is to go find those kids and give them a valuable lesson in grammar. How are they supposed to make it in the real world if they haven't even learned things that are taught to primary school students?"

God, Sungmin was insufferable. He had no idea how the world worked — you needed to manufacture every word that came out of the contestants' mouths, or the media would find some way to twist it into a failure on the show's part. Of course, she doubted he actually cared, as long as he got money out of it — which he inevitably would. "And charm? Personality? People love to hate perfect people and flawed people alike. They want adorable little dorks that can't speak in proper English, not arrogant morons with the humour of a twelve-year-old boy." Neither of which was desirable, but at least the former were capable of listening and adhering to the rules.

It would have been satisfying to tell him no and go do it anyway, and Amaris wasn't usually the kind to listen to salary-related threats (she wasn't in it for the money, she was in it for the satisfaction), but on occasion you had to be realistic, and she was forced to acknowledge that fighting this wouldn't get her anywhere, and she needed the money. So instead of biting back with yet another acerbic remark, she held her tongue.

But, Sungmin being Sungmin, he couldn't help but shove some completely rubbish evidence in her face. Because God forbid he might ever learn how to let something go. Never mind holding her tongue — she might end up living off two-minute noodles for the next few weeks, but moral satisfaction was far more important than money. "Or the media get the people to side with them — oh, that reminds me, background checks for any easy-to-find dirt might be a good idea? — and then the show is boycotted and we lose viewers. And don't tell me not to think so negatively, because that's basically what you pay me to do." No, he paid her to make sure that the public's view of the show was what they wanted it to be, but close enough. How was she supposed to prepare for worst-case scenarios (which happened more often than not) if she never thought about them?

Great, he was laughing at her. Mockingly. He did realise that if he actually put a little effort into listening to their complaints, then the publicists might whinge less? Of course, he probably didn't care, because since when had Sungmin ever cared about the wellbeing of his staff? As long as the show ran to his standards, as long as he made enough out of it, she doubted he cared whether someone died. He'd probably just say that it'd add more drama, which seemed to be his attitude to everything.

Oh, he had a migraine. She wanted to laugh, doubting that he had ever truly experienced a real migraine in his life, the kind that you got after pulling an all-nighter to finish your uni work because you were working full time the next day. The kind that even a cup of black coffee couldn't fix (and black coffee could fix most problems). No, Sungmin was just a rich jerk who thought it would be fun to start a reality T.V. show. "The pharmacy down the road has Advil for a dollar a bottle, or I'm sure one of the other publicists has something. Shoo, some of us have actual work to do."

It was clear that she wasn't going to win this — not that either of them ever did, since usually one of them had something to go deal with before they could get a last word in — and so she turned on her heel and strode out, back to the eternal hell of making contestants watchable when they possessed no skills of any use whatsoever.