Real World: Real RhyDin (Pre-Poduction)

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JewellRavenlock
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Real World: Real RhyDin (Pre-Poduction)

Post by JewellRavenlock »

Things had changed a lot in the “lightbulb room” (who the hell thought of these names?) of the RhyDin Sports Network (RSN) since the 2015 season of IFL. All the old, familiar suits were gone except for suit #1, who had gone fully gray during the two-year break between seasons. In the place of the rest of his old co-workers sat young women and men in “new business casual” attire, which apparently meant whatever the hell they wanted. One young woman was clearly wearing her pajamas and no bra while one of the young men was wearing flip-flops. In October!

Suit #1 pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just don’t see how that qualifies as entertainment. How will this get us ratings?”

Dude #1, reeking of marijuana, laughed. “Come on, man. How is this not entertaining? We get this big blown out house and throw together total strangers, force them to live there all season, and record it!”

Dudette #4 pushed her square, hipster glasses up on her nose further. “Well, technically, they won’t be total strangers. Most participants in the Iron Fist League know each other unless they’re new.”

“Yeah yeah. Technicalities, man. It’ll be good television whether they know each other or not.”

“Absolutely. People really dig reality shows. It’s fine to show fight recaps and all, but what they really want to see is the behind the scenes: who is sleeping with who; cat fights; drunken hook-ups. That sort of thing.”

Suit #1 sighed. This is what happened when his boss hired a brand new team of Communication majors from RhyDin U. “Need I remind you all that this is a sports network?”

Dudette #2 smirked. “Need we remind you that your ratings are plummeting like never before and you desperately need something to save this sinking ship?”

Touche. “Fine. So we need a house?”

“On it!” Dudette #4 chimed as she swiped through something on her tablet.

“Great.” He couldn’t have sounded less enthusiastic. “What team are we going to use?”

Dude #3 had been checking his Tweeter account, but piped up now. “I was thinking Real RhyDin.”

“It’s pronounced ‘ray-al’.” Dudette #4 corrected him without looking up.

“Whatever. I was thinking Raaaaay-al RhyDin. Not sure if their roster has been finalized yet, but the rumors seem to hint at an odd collection of fan favorites with vastly conflicting personalities. They’d probably be interesting.”

“Fine.” Suit #1 agreed hastily, eager for this meeting to be over. “Contact the manager for Real RhyDin and get this set up. I want it ready to roll by the end of the week.”
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JewellRavenlock
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

“No no, remember! The fact that Tahlia and Jewell have a history of not getting along is a good thing.” Dude #3 shook his head. “We want to encourage them to fight. If they do? We’ll get it on camera. It’ll be great.”

“Fine,” Suite #1 conceded. “Just make sure they don’t destroy the house when and if they do?” He flipped through his papers, “It seems like Hope is definitely on board. Possibly because she’s technically been homeless since losing New Haven a few weeks ago.

One Dudette leaned over to the other, whispering. “I heard she was living with Jewell.”

“No way!”

“Yeah, it’s pretty--”

Suit #1 cleared his throat. “Kheldar has yet to agree to live in the house. I think we’ll be lucky if he even pretends to.” He went down the list. “We also have a strange request from Ms. Ravenlock to deal with.”

“Ohmygosh, The Empress?” Dudette #4, normally so composed, fangirled a little. “Can you get me her autograph next time?”

“Riiiight,” Suit #1 continued, “So Ms. Ravenlock says she will live in the house part-time on the condition that her uh… knight be able to live in the house as well.”

“Is that like a bodyguard?” Dude #1 asked. A puff of smoke went up around him. He claimed he brainstormed better when in the “groove”.

“I’ll look it up on City Dictionary,” Dude #3 offered, immediately tapping away on his phone.

These migraines were becoming more regular for Suit #1. “Yes, it’s like a bodyguard, but more importantly, I don’t see how we can refuse her.”

“Next thing we know, they’ll all want their bodyguards living there!” Dudette #2 complained, ever practical.

“We’re gonna need a bigger house…”

Dude #5, who rarely ever spoke up, looked a bit sheepish. “I guess you probably don’t want to hear about the tree the one guy wants growing in the living room then, huh?”

Suit #1 threw all his papers up into the air.

“I think he also wanted to know if we had a stable for his unicorn companion…”
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

There were men and women in the cutthroat business world of RhyDin who were more than mere movers and shakers -- people who created and shattered global economies with the stroke of a pen, whose net worth dwarfed the budget of most developing countries, and whose vast resources made crossing them a deadly proposition. They were living legends, a class unto themselves, unequaled in wealth, power, and their fearsome presence.

And then there was the being known only as “Olaf.”

His rectangular body sat behind a ten-foot desk that was built for the sole purpose of being imposingly large. His wing-backed leather chair creaked as he leaned forward, snagging a glass of scotch on the rocks with an unseen appendage, rattling it and sniffing at it with his slightly parted lid. His eleven hundred and one travel stamps had been polished to immaculate perfection, catching the orange sunlight that filtered through the windows of his twentieth-story office overlooking New Haven.

After a very long, silent moment, long past the point that it had become uncomfortable, the Seward trunk seated before them finally deigned to turn his wooden body toward the RSN representatives. The glass set down on the edge of the desk with a pointed click. He had no eyes, but managed to give the distinct impression that he was narrowing something at the people in front of him.

Dudette #4, flanked by two company lawyers, cleared her throat nervously. When out of the Lightbulb Room, her voice was mousy and timid. “Thank you for meeting with us today, Mr. Olaf.”

Left Lawyer swallowed, hard. Right Lawyer leaned over and whispered something in Dudette #4’s ear, while Olaf looked on impassively, lid creaking open a few millimeters more. Several beetle-black spiders skittered out.

“Oh! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” she blubbered. “Olaf! Thank you for meeting with us today, Olaf. And may I just say that it’s such an honor to meet you in person.”

Olaf narrowed his gaze again, his lid bending and bowing with an awful creaking, splintering sound as he considered methods of torture and death better left to the imagination than whatever his sadistic mind was silently contemplating. Then he tipped back in his chair, making a deep, awful sucking sound…

…and spewed out an empty Pocky wrapper; several post-it notes with hastily drawn dirty pictures; a manila envelope bursting with photographs of a furnished four-bedroom house with picture-perfect light, comically massive couches, three distinct hot tubs of varying size, and a conveniently placed hedge for the desperate; and a ream of paper that rolled open across his desk, unfurling until the novel-length contract stopped at their feet.

Right Lawyer swiped several saliva-coated photographs off of his face. Left Lawyer picked a live spider out of Dudette #4’s hair.

“Oh my,” she said in awe. “I hope you won’t be offended sir--” her eyes widened in horror, “I uh mean Olaf, if we read through this first?”

Olaf creaked his lid open a little wider… then flapped it, in a complex series of squeaks, creaks, and groans, expounding on the nature of the contract at length, with specific attention to the price. Then he lowered his lid, let out a groaning, wheezy laugh (and quite a lot of orange smoke with it), and reclined in his comfortable leather chair, letting them read while they attempted to formulate a counteroffer. He didn’t need to say anything further, because he felt the special kind of confidence only luggage could feel:

They had to eat. They had to sleep, sooner or later.

But Olaf, as a Seward trunk, could play this game allllll day…

((Co-written with the amazing Olaf. Thank you!))
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JewellRavenlock
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

Hugo Ferdinand Durant had been in worse places than the Blackcap Brewhouse, nursing a clay cup of mushroom ale that tasted like dirt and water, but he’d been too drunk at the time to remember most of them… and he wasn’t sure that his tenth pint was enough to erase all memory of the taste of this foul beer.

Or the rich smell of fermenting fungus commingling with the trash-choked swamp right outside the open windows.

Or the way the jaundiced cyclops down the bar from him kept winking at him.

Still, it was cheap, it was out-of-the-way, and it was stumbling distance to at least six good hiding places if Prince Boris sent his bounty hunters looking for him here. Who knew that bratty Metzengerstein princeling could be so vengeful over a little harmless facial scarring? Scars built character.

Hugo spent the next minute or so attempting to check on the state of his abundant character in the reflection of his suspiciously lumpy mushroom ale, tipping it precipitously forward until it slopped onto the bar, running down its length towards the cyclops, now “winking” very rapidly in clear distress. “Sir…?” the massive humanoid rumbled at the drunken duelist.

“No thank you, Maurice, but ask me again when I’m deeper in my cups!” Hugo replied, and hiccuped as he stumbled unsteadily from his seat. The bartender was shouting something at him, but Hugo couldn’t really parse it right now, not with the alcohol settling into his system with a sudden jolt now that he was attempting that whole standing upright thing. He waved over his shoulder, stepped out front, and proceeded to relieve himself on what he was 75% certain was an azalea bush. “Something something… something… old Stros M’kai,” he sang to himself as he concluded his business.

RhyDin Sports Network Girl Intern (her name was Debbie, but no one ever remembered to call her that), hovered behind Hugo, trying to control her gag reflex. “He’s disgusting!”

“I think that’s the point,” Boy Intern countered.

“But he’s peeing on a leprechaun!” The leprechaun in question just stared at them. “I… I urrr--” Girl Intern dry heaved a little. It took her a moment to recover. She wondered if she’d get more credit from her mentor at RhyDin U for dealing with stuff like this. Maybe extra credit. This is what happened when your boss told you to go out and find “the most debaucherous idiot in this town who isn't Dris, because we can't afford him.”

She covered her nose with the front of her shirt, speaking through the thin fabric. “Can you just bring him over to that table? We can get him to sign the contract.”

“Fine.” Boy Intern grumbled. “Uh hello sir-- whoah!” he ducked a swinging fist, poorly aimed. Good thing they weren’t trying to get him added to the Real RhyDin roster. The guy clearly didn’t know how to throw a punch. “Sir, I was wondering if I could buy you a drink and talk to you about a fantastic opportunity with RhyDin Sports Network?”

“Ha!” Hugo let out what he thought was a very bold and dashing sort of laugh, though the accompanying pose would have been more impressive had he finished lacing his breeches back up. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is to sneak up on a master swordsman! You could have tasted my steel,” he said, and rapped his knuckles on his empty hip, which made him whirl about in a panic. “My… my steel!” he said, the sword in question rattling at his other hip as he turned in a circle.

He heaved a world-weary sigh and waved them on as he pushed in through the front door, as if welcoming them into his own home. “Come in, come in, I probably just -- ” Hiccup. “ -- left it inside. Help me look for it, would you? Maurice! Maurice, where did you put my sword, you silver-tongued Jezebel?!”

The cyclops in question, whose name was almost certainly not Maurice, slipped right past Hugo’s bleary gaze, and past the unlucky interns with nothing more than an apologetic shrug as he snuck out through the front door.

The interns exchanged weary looks, and Boy Intern put his hand tentatively, carefully, slowly on Hugo’s shoulder to guide him to a chair while Girl Intern ordered a round of ale. “Actually, can you make coffee for this guy? We kind of need him to be a little sober.”

The gnomish bartender cracked a tooth-grinding grin at Girl Intern as he filled up a coffee mug with an unsteady pour, hands shaking with barely contained rage. “On the house, if you take him with you when you leave…!”

Mr. Durant grumbled in protest as he was forced to sit down. “We’ll only take a minute of your time,” Boy Intern assured him as Girl Intern pressed the warm mug into his hands.

Only one sip later, and something seemed to clarify in Hugo’s dark, devilishly narrowed eyes. “Only a minute? You two really ought to give yourselves more credit than that,” he laughed, saluting Boy Intern with his coffee. Hiccup. “You can’t tell me you don’t know how to draw it out,” stretching out the words, grinning over the rim as his gaze danced between the two of them. The sudden shift in demeanor with a little bit of prodding and a piping hot drink was almost impressive, considering he’d been peeing on a leprechaun just a minute ago.

“So, what do you need with the great -- ” Hiccup. “ -- Hugo Ferdinand Durant, eh? You need me to cut up some brat, teach him a lesson? Or take a fall to trick some witless lordling into believing in himself?” Hiccup. “Starting rate is eight hundred silver, higher based on their social rank, all requests extra.” He took another sip, widened his eyes at the hot, bitter sting, and beat on his breast several times in an effort to clear something until he let out a long, low belch.

“Not my finest work,” he confided in Girl Intern, a stage whisper aside, apparently meaning the belch.

“Riiiiiight,” she let slip before taking a deep breath, straightening her posture, and launching into the spiel she had stayed up all night rehearsing. “Mr. Durant, is it? As representatives of RhyDin Sports Network, we would like to offer you a position on an upcoming show, the name to be revealed in the next two weeks.” She gestured to Boy Intern, who produced the contract document. “We are asking that you live in a designated house with six currently unidentified local celebrities. Your official title will be House Monitor, but what we actually need you to do is cause trouble. A lot of trouble. Get the celebrities to misbehave, act out, fight, drink, consort. Whatever you can do, and we’ll catch it all on tape. If you look to the contract, we have your salary listed. In addition, we will cover your living expenses for the duration of the recording.”

Hugo blinked several times as he struggled to make out Boy Intern’s contract at the same time as he made out Girl Intern’s words. “So you want me… to go live with some high society,” he waved a hand around in the air, “high-and-mighty… whatevers… and cause as much chaos as possible to drive up business for the gossip rags, or whatever it is you people do with your networks and your tape. If this is what you expect of the great Hugo Ferdinand Durant, then I have news for you…”

He stretched out his arms, snagging the two poor interns into an uncomfortable squeeze, drawing their heads in close over the open contract.

“You couldn’t have found a better man for the job.” He took another look at the contract, read the numbers at the bottom, and hiccuped. “Not without dental, anyway.”



((Adapted from play with the delightful Hugo with many thanks!))
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JewellRavenlock
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

Posters went up all over the city for the latest and greatest reality show, coming to a television, holopad, mana-projector near you

COMING SOON: Real World | Real RhyDin

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