nagi respects hbs' ethos. understands the importance of having an alternative voice competing with the mainstream news media. but it's not his fault that they keep publishing some truly horrendous reviews about the films they cover — and if he had something to say about it (multiple somethings, on fourteen separate occasions), well, the comments section is easy enough to scroll past.

after all, what is a nerd if not a collection of obnoxious opinions blasted over the internet?

(or maybe that's just nagi. it's probably just nagi.)

he just never expected his opinions to catch up with him — and certainly not in the form of a fiery-haired woman in business casual attire, cornering him at his booth in a cafe he’d only just begun to frequent.

nagi blinks down at the papers scattered over the table, his eyes drawn to the topmost sheet. the words, printed in clear black ink on white paper, glare up him. he remembers them like it was yesterday. because it was yesterday, when he’d taken a break from outlining the upcoming chapter of tales, and warmed up his writing with a strongly-worded comment to the latest hbs entertainment column.

pen still pressed to his notebook, ink slowly pooling into a blotch where he had been dotting an i, nagi’s gaze flicks between the papers and penelope. he weighs his options. and, slowly, looking halfway between penelope and the water stains dotting the wooden table, he opens his mouth in reply.

“... i have no idea what you’re talking about.”

PENELOPE LIVY

☉

at penelope’s pronouncement, nagi's face goes on a thousand-mile journey in a single blink, flickering from befuddlement, to recognition, to disgust, settling finally into a grim rictus of horror.

"are you insane? ah, shit—"

face-first into the pitfall laid for him, falling hook, line and sinker.

he slaps a hand over his mouth, and scrambles for recovery. it's not too late to recant his exclamation; it's simple enough to say meh, throw in a noncommittal shrug, pack up his stationery and flee for the anonymity of the hills.

and then, what, be remembered as the man who likes shit movies?

it's a stain on his conscience, and an insult to his taste that he just. cannot. abide.

“i think,” he says, mouthing each word slowly and deliberately, a burglar dismantling a bear trap. “that it is a movie without merits. you are, of course, entitled to your own opinion.”

your shitty, terrible, incorrect opinion, is what he might say, if he were an ornery nerd behind a keyboard. which he isn't.

PENELOPE LIVY

☉

the logical, detached part of nagi's brain recognises that he's being toyed with; that there's a ploy at work here too obvious to be ignored. his monkey brain, on the other hand, is screaming. [break][break]

"what?" he gapes. mouth opening and closing like a beached goldeen. "no."[break][break]

no. nononono. what kind of self-respecting reporter could even begin to write that? it's drivel. it's an outright pack of lies. it's a crime against good sense, good taste, and humanity.[break][break]

his hand tightens convulsively around his pen.[break][break]

"why? — for clicks?" he sputters. incredulous. irate. monkey brain yelling bloody murder and colorful invectives against hbs’ journalistic integrity. ”that’s cheap. clickbait? that’s a new low, even for hbs.”[break][break]

ah. hold on— [break][break]

fuck. [break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

Checkmate, film nerd.
[break][break]
A devilish smile curled further up her cheeks as her eyes brightened at the taste of victory.
[break][break]
"Even for HBS," she innocently echoed back, head tilting ever-so-slightly to her right. "My, what an interesting choice of words. It actually reminds me of something. Ah, what was it again?"
[break][break]
She allowed the obvious question to linger between them for a few seconds too long before slowly lifting her head off her fist. Pushing the screenshot papers forward once more, she reached across the table and pointed out one of the particularly longer paragraphs from the rest.
[break][break]
'that’s a new low, even for hbs.”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

the screenshots are a dramatic, but ultimately unnecessary flourish. nagi remembers. [break][break]

the realisation had sunk along with his stomach, the moment the sound of his words had filtered back in through his thick skull. their nostalgic, familiar cadence bringing him back to that night, weeks ago, when he had hunched over on the rickety chair in his motel room and said the exact same words to himself — and decided to immortalise them in the comment section of hbs’ entertainment page. [break][break]

“fuck,” nagi says, with a writer's consummate grace and eloquence.[break][break]

but he stood by his judgement then, and stands by it now. this is a whole new low — like a wellspring of bad taste, hbs hits rock bottom and keeps digging. [break][break]

if he’s going down, he’s going down as a man of reasonable standards. stalwart. stupid.[break][break]

“fine,” he says, setting his pen down on the table. his eyes stay locked on the smudge of black where the ink had bled through the thin paper. “i’ll bite. so what if it's me? — are you suing for libel?”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

A confession.
[break][break]
That was all she needed from this internet-dwelling man, or at least, it was the key she needed to unlock her true objective. Leaning back into the booth's cushion, Penelope smiled down at him, her eyes lit with a newfound zeal for success.
[break][break]
"No, nothing like that." She chuckled. Libel. As if. "What I want is you, actually."
[break][break]
Someone with a knack for writing compelling movie reviews, and possibly more.
[break][break]
"You hate our review, right? Then change them. Come work for HBS-- we offer competitive pay, flexible hours, the whole nine yards. And, best of all, you'll actually be writing out to an audience. Instead of, like, 10 people."

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

work for —[break][break]

“ — what?”[break][break]

nagi’s mouth gapes wide enough to fit a healthy spoonful of flies. [break][break]

“you’re actually insane.” [break][break]

he draws back from the table. his narrowed eyes meet penelope’s at last, looking properly at her for the first time in their conversation. he studies her silently, for a quiet, still moment, before he sweeps his gaze over the rest of the cafe.[break][break]

he’s not sure what he’s expecting to find. a camera crew hidden in the next booth over; a jack-in-the-box with a spring-loaded punching glove. but there’s nothing there, besides the barista behind the counter, the thin mid-afternoon coffee crowd — and penelope, leaning back in her seat, eyes alight, smile triumphant, a novella’s worth of nagi’s late-night mistakes scattered out on the table between them both. [break][break]

“... this is a lot of effort to go through for a joke,” he says at last.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

Shock was a natural response. Not many people are quite used to her forward way of dealing business. Offer letters, proper emails -- they worked, of course, but she always held a preference for impromptu meetings like this. Meetings where she specifically seeked one our, already aware of the talents they possesses.
[Break][break]
It never failed to remind her how she first got an internship with HBS and how similar the situation was.
[Break][break]
"What do you do now? Freelance work?" Her eyebrow quirked upward, curious. There was nothing wrong with freelance work, but she was also well aware of it's disadvantagous.
[Break][break]
Instability. Pay rate. Stress. It was enough to burn any passion out to a crisp.
[Break][break]
"At HBS, you'll be paid fairly for your work." She paused. Then, with a second spent reconfiguring her approach, she continued,"We like you, Nagi, and we can see how much we'd mutually benefit from one another."


[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

"i — " word-vomit my overactive imagination onto the internet and somehow get paid for it " — freelance, yes." [break][break]

the unerring arc penelope’s nail hits home. tales earns nagi enough to get by — more money than he could have dreamt of when he typed that very first “the” in his word document. but it’s not much. and not always. [break][break]

he has clenched his teeth through the roller-coaster of his web traffic analytics long enough to know how easily fortunes change. wondering if this chapter will be the day the tide turns: the vagaries of search ranking algorithms turning against him; a last-straw change in story direction that drives away the rest of his readers; his haphazard grasp of literary techniques catching up with him at last. [break][break]

nagi wavers. [break][break]

“do you regularly offer job opportunities to people who lambast your journalistic ethics?” he asks. it’s a last-ditch protest, clinging to the faltering remains of his natural scepticism. why me?

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

She laughed. A short, genuine laugh.
[break][break]
"Only when they're good at it," She shrugged. "You don't have to answer me now. Think on it, then come back to me when you're ready."
[break][break]
Fishing out a white card from her breast pocket, the woman slid it across the table, making the pile of paper fumble around in the process.
[break][break]
The card read:
[break][break]
Penelope Livy[break]
HBS Lead Reporter[break]
Lilycove City, Hoenn.[break]
xxx - xxx - xxxx[break]
[break][break]
"Call me whenever."
[break][break]
She paused, her eyebrows quirking upward. She was all-too-familiar with this look o skepticism he gave. It honestly reminded her of herself when she was younger and brimming with dreams.
[break][break]
"You're writing... It's good. Great, even. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be here talking to you."

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] nagi miwa[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

nagi reads the name and title on the card. lets out a small, quiet "ah?". reads it again. blinks through the slowly-sinking realisation that he has been calling the lead reporter of an up-and-coming broadcasting station insane. [break][break]

but it’s a judgement further reinforced by her unexpected praise. nagi experiences a reflexive surge of warmth — and an accompanying wave of confused disbelief. his eyes fall to the papers before him, where, in one comment, he calls the hbs review in question “disconsolate drivel” and “written with a taste so contrarian the writer must sustain themselves on a diet of fresh dirt.”[break][break]

… this writing? [break][break]

but.[break][break]

penelope’s unorthodox approach has piqued his interest. it is an odd gut feeling, one he knows to be baseless, ungrounded in any fact or any knowledge of her or hbs: but he has a feeling that he wouldn’t mind working for her. [break][break]

he sets the name card down in his notebook, clipping it securely between its pages. [break][break]

“... we’ll see,” he answers, holding penelope’s gaze. a faint trace of bewilderment still colours his tone. “and. uh. thanks?” [break][break]

his gaze flicks down again at the teetering pile of papers. and because he is a fault-finding, petty contrarian, he says —[break][break]

“are you going to recycle these, or…” [break][break]

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]