A Warm Welcome
Ever since he'd first arrived in Hollywood, Paul Schrader had learned to expect a lot of things from life: greedy executives, stupid executives, ignorant executives, jerk executives, at least one problem with production, shenanigans ala Bruce O'Brian, and etcetrta. Sufficed to say, Paul considered himself to be a man not easily fazed.
"Welcome to the LucasFilms family, Paul! Name's Felix Graves. Come on, I'll show you around the place."
Yet, as Paul's enthusiastic new companion gave him an impromptu tour around his new workplace, he'd found himself surprised by decent human kindness. As much as LucasFilms stood as a bastion of virtue among the Hollywood studios to the people, mostly due to Bruce O'Brian being one of its founding members, Paul hadn't expected to be this warmly welcomed by its employees. You could safely say that his previous encounters within Hollywood had made him a little cynical about people.
"And what goes on in those offices?"
"Oh! That's where the editing is done after we complete our movies. Well, movie, technically, since we've only finished production on you-know-what."
As the two continued to tour the premises, Paul began to grow a little less interested in the building itself and a little more in talking with Felix, whose spastic, genuine enthusiasm began to rub off of him. Soon enough, they were enthusiastically discussing character writing and their favorite villains of cinema history.
They talked and talked for almost an hour until they reached the break room, where a few people were chatting as they ate and drank.
"Ike! Ike, come meet Paul here."
Felix excitedly waved his friend over from the coffee machine, who good-naturedly sighed as he walked over to them, steaming coffee in hand.
"Paul, I want you to meet my good friend Isaac Cullen, though all his friends call him Ike. Ike, this is Paul Schrader, one of LucasFilms' newest screenwriters."
"Pleasure to meet you, Paul." Isaac smiled and shook Paul's hand. "Hope Felix's enthusiasm hasn't scared you off just yet."
"Ike!"
Paul snorted at Felix's indignant yelp and shook his head. "Nah, it's all good. Felix has been a real help getting situated, actually."
After that statement, Felix turned to Isaac with a smug smile, who rolled his eyes good-naturedly, before turning back to Paul.
"Say, Paul, did the Emerald Splash talk about anything special?"
There was something a little... off in Felix's eyes, but Paul shrugged the feeling off and simply replied, "He said that management was planning to create a writer's room."
Paul felt that this was something that wouldn't be a secret for too long, and he was talking to fellow LucasFilms employees, so it wasn't like he was commiting corporate espionage. Besides, Felix was too genuine to be a spy even if he wanted to be one.
Felix's mouth morphed into a full cheshire grin, and his face lit up as if he had struck gold. Paul shrank a little, feeling as if he'd made some kind of mistake.
"Really? Now that's fascinating."
"Felix, you're scaring him."
"Oh, shoot, sorry about that, Paul." Felix gave Paul an apologetic look.
"N-no problem, Felix."
"Great to hear! Now, you see, Ike and I are big idea guys-"
"You're the big idea guy, I'm the one who grounds you." Isaac deadpanned.
"-and we have big plans right now. Big plans for a franchise that'll revolutionize the future of fantasy cinema and elevate it above the eleventh film about Dracula or Frankenstein's monster."
"Now that I agree with."
"And to do that, I'd like to enlist your help in getting those ideas to the writing room. We already have a pitch and script complete."
"...I'm listening." Paul leaned forward, his eyebrow quirked with interest.
"The pitch is called Devil's Hour: Dead Man's Gold. Let me just grab it from my desk, then we can start discussing it and our plans for the future."
Author's Note:
Omake for the Omake Gods!
