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Mike really regrets his life choices at this point.
To be fair, he can’t exactly… complain. He has been told repeatedly that he is going to regret all of his choices - ‘majoring in English/creative-writing and film studies and minoring in photography isn’t going to get you a job,’ ‘moving to New York City is a bad idea when it’s so expensive and you have no money and no job,’ ‘taking multiple jobs is going to burn you out and exhaust you,’ etc, etc - and Mike has had it drilled into him that you cannot complain if you go forth, fuck it up, and then regret it.
However, he has gone forth, fucked up, and is now regretting it, so he has decided that he is going to use the first-amendment rights that he learned about in the gen-eds government class (that he forgot to enroll in until super late so it was at seven in the morning in his last semester) to bitch about it inside of his own head.
And the crazy thing is, what he’s got going is fantastic.
The year is 1993, Mike has an Honors degree from Purdue University that’s all about movies and shows and how to film and write them, he’s moved to the Big City(™) with his sisters and has gotten work in the field he loves (even if he’s underpaid), and his biggest problem-
Okay. This is the most shallow, stupid thing ever, but Mike’s biggest problem right now is fucking nepo babies.
The Wheeler family has money, between inheritances from long-dead relatives and Mike’s dad having a good job that is… also from nepotism.
Okay, fine, the Wheeler family has gotten where it has because of nepotism. But the thing is, Mike and Nancy do not get the benefits that nepotism grants, and this is for several reasons:
One, Mike is too feminine (even though he’s really not) to be liked by his father, and Nancy is too feminist and headstrong to be liked by the same man.
Two, neither of them work in the industries where their families have sway.
Three, can it be considered being a nepo baby if your family’s cut you off completely?
Anyway. Yeah. Even if Mike’s family has money, Mike has neither money nor connections, and so he is not, technically someone who got where he is through nepotism. He earned it, or at the very least lucked into it instead of just cheating.
But the thing is… Mike has decided to work in screenwriting. He has decided to go into what may be one of the most nepotism-infected industries.
And the second that Mike walks through the door of his dream job, he absolutely knows it.
Somehow, a producer read Mike’s portfolio, and they decided that his sci-fi-fantasy focus and his writing style would be perfect for a new show that they’re starting up, a sci-fi show where every season is a new storyline with the same few characters and these same characters are the same people across a multiverse.
It’s basically a bunch of mini-shows with different plots and stuff but with the characters falling in love and having consistent arcs and stuff over and over. It’s actually a really cool idea, and they have a big budget and a three-season contract and they’re already working on casting and the writing for the first season, and Mike has been granted the privilege of being a screenwriter for the show-
-and it is indeed a privilege, because Mike is barely a few months out of college and has this insane opportunity-
-but it is very clear that most of the people in the writers’ room did not get there on merit.
Basically, as soon as Mike walked in and looked around, he realized the division of the writers’ room, and when he first sat down, it was quickly confirmed.
On the side of people who deserve to be there:
Salih Al-Masri, a relatively well-known sci-fi writer who published roughly thirty novels, is known for writing fast, worked on Bladerunner, and has a rumor of ghost-writing for Stephen King.
Zamari Simon, someone that Mike hasn’t heard of before, who is quiet and watchful but that, when Mike looks at the notes that the showrunner Diana gave him, apparently was the showrunner for a space romance show that lasted eleven years and was a writer on the last Star Wars.
Priya Chandrasekaran, who has three produced screenplays, an Oscar nomination, and whom Mike is trying to be totally cool about working with someone that he wrote an essay on in school.
Derek Paulson, who apparently wrote half of the films at last year’s Sundance festival despite being just finished with his masters’ in creative writing and who’s three years older than Mike.
On the side of people who are probably 100% nepotism:
Brendan Ashworth, who can’t produce a sentence about the show outside of ‘it’s gonna be something, for sure’ and who looks like an action hero while his degree is in marketing. (He is also the son of a network executive. Which definitely has nothing to do with him being here.)
Courtney Voss, who has written one screenplay, which Mike recognizes the name of and remembers that they watched it in one of his film classes as a point that good acting cannot make the writing good - note, meanwhile, that her uncle owns a financing company that is helping sponsor this show. (Mike’s main issue is the fact that she speaks in pitches. Tame your vocal fry, woman!)
A guy whose last name Mike didn’t get but whose name is Chad (yes, that’s his real name, fucking Chad), who went to Yale, whose dad is the COO of the parent production company, and whose writing and thoughts sound like a thirteen-year-old trying to describe a movie he only overheard a summary of in the cafeteria while a fire alarm was blaring.
So… the writer’s room has a freakish split between nepotism and legit talent, and given that Mike already hates nepotism because he doesn’t like cheaters, he has the feeling that this is going to be rough.
But he needs this.
On top of the fact that this is a dream job in Mike’s dream industry, it makes nearly 80k, and in combination with Mike’s other job, a part-time photography gig, he’ll be bringing in enough to keep the family together in relative middle-class, even in NYC - between Nancy, himself, and Holly, it’ll be tight, but he can do it and keep everything together.
That’s the important thing: keeping everything together. And if Mike has learned anything from D&D (other than how to write stories and fantasy and everything), it’s that he’s Mike the Brave - he can save his Party and keep them afloat, even if it sucks-slash-is-complicated and that Party is just him and his sisters.
“Alright, let’s get started,” Al-Masri starts, straightening her papers. “For the first season, I believe we agreed on the coding plot? That we were planning to have humanity as a simulation, the characters as coders who figure it out, and a massive disease that strikes be a glitch in the code that requires them to fix the code before humanity is wiped out?”
God, that sounds awesome.
Simon and Chandrasekaran are both nodding, as does Mike, and even Ashworth and Fucking-Chad are both agreeing too, but Courtney raises her hand.
Al-Masri looks exhausted despite the fact that she can’t be older than thirty-five. “Question, Miss Voss.”
“Yeah, hi?” she starts, and Mike grinds his teeth. “Does it have a metaphor or anything? Like, doesn’t it need a message?”
“I-” Mike starts, hesitating, but upon Al-Masri looking at him and nobody interrupting, he continues, trying not to sound too big for his britches since it’s his first day. “I think that, uh, on top of the theme that’ll happen over the entire show regardless of individual plots, of every universe having hope and connection and a way forward, this plot could… be reflective of real-world diseases. If we show the toll it takes on the coders to do this, we can use it as a way to show that humans will sacrifice for each other, and as for the disease aspect…”
“Actually,” Simon interjects smoothly, his hands flat on the table as he looks up from his notes. “I believe that we’ve planned for the main character to be coded as gay, even if it’s not canon. We could turn that into a metaphor for the AIDS crisis. Have a subplot of the government refusing to help.”
Mike immediately decides that he likes Simon even more, and he decides that he understands the whole Sundance thing.
“Love that.” Chandrasekaran says, starting to write. “Mike, you have anything to expand on with that?”
“Maybe… the characters are part of the demographic that the disease is most affecting, no matter what demographic that is. They’ve been told they don’t belong, when this disease started people told them it was what they deserved and only wanted the disease to stop spreading after people outside that demographic started getting sick. Throughout the season, the characters can still be having a moral conflict over whether or not they should even try this hard. Or- no, not that.”
Mike pauses, and then he has to actively remember to breathe because Chandrasekaran is nodding like he’s saying something interesting and scribbling notes, and holy shit, Priya Chandrasekaran is writing down what he said.
“The whole season, the characters are asking themselves ‘is it worth it?’, because- maybe the disease, they thought it could have been fixed, but the government wouldn’t do anything to help. And then everyone is ostracizing them and treating them poorly, and internally, they’re sitting there thinking, ‘why am I trying so hard to help when they wouldn’t help me?’ And meanwhile, they question if they’re even good people if they’re thinking that way, if even they deserve to be saved, and that can lead to both a mental health and survivor guilt subplot and the message that you’re more than your worst thoughts and moments.”
“That is good.” Chandrasekaran points her pen at him and smiles, and Mike could faint. “Keep talking.”
“Actually,” Courtney interrupts. “I think that while we’re talking about subplots, we should talk about romance? Romance boosts viewers, right?”
“It does,” Chandrasekaran says, smiling in Courtney’s direction. Mike comes to the somewhat uncomfortable realization that one of his idols is, apparently, just a cheerful, friendly person. “In fact, we were planning to include a romance arc in every season! Part of the appeal is that the characters fall in love in every universe, in every timeline, because soulmates connect in any world.”
“Yeah, so, like, what are the pairs? What are the main characters again?”
“The summaries are on the pages- never mind. Nathan, Kayaa, Ibrahim, and Sabrina are the four mains, with eight recurring background characters.”
“Okay. So Nathan and Sabrina get together, and Abraham and Kaia?”
Right. Definitely. Pair up the characters in straight couples in the metaphor for the AIDS epidemic.
“No,” Fucking-Chad interjects. “To get the most viewers, we need to capitalize on interaction. Love triangle - both Nathan and Ibrahim are in love with Kayaa and she has to choose, so fans pick sides and get invested, and we make Sabrina have appeal to the audience so that we get men who aren’t really interested in romances.”
“Yeah, sure, but if we do a love triangle, then we lose fans when one half gets together? Oh! That’s how we use the multiverse thing!”
When Mike looks around at the people who earned their place, see if anyone else is seeing this shit, he’s glad to note that they are looking around with similar expressions of horror.
“Um… no…?” Al-Masri says, looking completely befuddled before she shakes it off. “Anyway. Let’s move on.”
Okay, Mike’s assumption is indeed correct - it seems that the good writers are going to make Mike love it, and the nepo babies are going to make him want to smash his head into the wall.
…let’s see how growing up with his dad has prepared Mike for tuning things out?