'I have a very uneasy feeling in my heart today.'
Gordon Lee, the critic and reporter who had been humiliated by Aiden thought as he sipped on his coffee.
It was early morning and it seemed like a good day but Gordon had a bad feeling since the time he had woken up. Trying to ignore it, he just went on to his usual routine which was to look at the collections of movies running at the box office and check up on other things related to Hollywood.
But when he opened his laptop and logged into Sparrow, he was surprised.
There were a lot of people tagging him on a post and it was almost like one of his tweets had gone viral. He checked his phone and found out that there were a lot of messages on it. Both from his family and colleagues.
Wondering what was going on, he opened up one of the messages.
[Dude, you are fucked. People are trolling you hard.]
When he read that, Gordon made a confused expression. What was going on? Why was he fucked? Who was trolling him? Thinking of all these questions, he focused on his laptop screen and found out that one of his tweets had really gone viral with over 1000 comments on it.
Clicking on it, he saw that it was his review of [30 days of Happiness].
'This doesn't look good.'
Gordon thought, gulping his saliva.
Since the Toronto film festival, he hasn't been in a good mood. Because of Aaron Hart's agent giving him money, he had decided to write a bad review for the movie even if he knew that the movie was actually good.
His decision was also due to the fact that Aiden had humiliated him in front of other reporters and critics.
But after the movie had won the People's choice award, Gordon was scared. In his heart, he had started regretting his decision to post such a review and take money. He was even guilty for the type of question he had asked Katie.
Time was pretty powerful to make people realise their mistakes and the same had happened with Gordon.
Sadly, it was too late.
Not only did the movie win a big award at a major film festival, it even became a box office hit. In just a week, it had recovered all the budget and was just starting to grow strong.
At this rate, the movie might even go on to earn over 100 million dollars at the box office which was a huge deal for independent movies like this.
In a way, it was the dream of every independent movie to achieve something like this.
'I'm really fucked.'
Gordon thought, looking up at the comments. Like he had thought, the tweet had gone viral, possibly due to the great box office numbers of [30 days of Happiness].
The fans of the movie had found his review very odd and a lot of them were even posting the clip of Aiden defending Katie. In the comment section of the review, people were cursing him and calling him a paid critic who doesn't have a sense of reviewing movies.
When Gordon read out a few comments, he felt suffocated.
[Knock knock man: These types of critics should be banned. They review movies not on the deserving criterias but on emotions and whether the actor behaves nicely with him. Fucking critic!]
[The man from North Korea: These types of critics would be burned in my country. Sadly, there's no movies.]
[Moaning Frodo: Vanity Magazine should fire him. I'm pretty sure he got paid to do the review. He gave 4.5 stars to [Leap in the Sky]. That's impossible until he's like a huge simp for Harold Wood and had his face on his pillow covers. Sounds very creepy.]
[Bieber buns: Dude, shouldn't this guy publish an apology or something. There's clearly something very fishy here and it stinks. He got roasted and thought to take revenge by a review.]
[ZhangYe69: Professionalism is really dying in this industry. If only these people get punished for letting ego speak more than what is right, then the world would be a better place.]
[Gossip Aunty from next door: I would lose all respect from Vanity Magazine if they actually didn't fire him out after this. They should at least launch an investigation into it.]
[Playboy Spidey: Damn, Aiden really roasted him out and from the looks of it, he and Katie were already dating back then. He really protected her from a rude reporter.]
[Aiden's wife: I have said this before and I would say it again. These critic's forte isn't reviewing movies. And for fuck sake, Aiden is not dating anyone. At least not so early. Stop the Katie rumours already when it's not confirmed.]
[Chad Putin: I think it's time to contact the KGB.]
Going through each of the comments, Gordon kept sighing. Holding his head, he wondered what to do now. So many people were bashing him online and he had lost all credibility.
He was literally being cancelled over the internet.
All this was hurting his head a lot as he struggled to think of a solution to this mess.
"Should I just delete the review? No people would have already taken screenshots. These Sparrow users are too good at trolling. My internet life would be hell because of them."
As he muttered that, his phone suddenly rang. He thought that it would be from a colleague who would be calling to ask about his situation due to the drama online but instead, it was from the Editor in chief of Vanity Magazine.
With trembling hands, he picked up the call and an angry voice came out.
"What the hell were you thinking posting such a review? Did you really get paid to do that and that viral clip?! What will we do with that? You are ruining the magazine image."
His heart sank hearing that but he quickly replied.
"They passed the review, so I thought it was fine."
"It must be an intern. Even if it's not, I would deal with that later. Tell me clearly, did you get paid for writing a negative review?"
Gordon wasn't able to reply to that. What could he even say? If he really said he took money, then he was surely going to get fired from the company.
He can't afford unemployment.
"Tell me quickly! Just know that we could always check your bank statements!"
"Ah, yeah, I took money." He finally said, having left no option. "It was the first time I did it and it—"
"Don't give excuses. People are already accusing you of being a paid critic and trolling the magazine. We are going to take out your review from the issue and come to the office. I will deal with you myself."
After that, the call ended and Gordon's shoulders dropped down.
'What have I done to myself and my career?'
He thought as he felt like punching himself a few months ago when he was writing that paid review.
Now, nothing could be done.
His career was almost over.
***
Vikings publishing office, California.
In a meeting room, a lot of people were gathered to go through the manuscripts that have reached the final round. Over 500 manuscripts have been submitted to them over the course of a month by established and budding authors.
Only 250 of them had been left after the first round and only 100 after the second. After the third round, the number dropped down to just 10.
Today, the number was going to drop even further down as only 3 novels would be left with some bonus prizes for those who missed out on the main prizes but were good novels nonetheless.
"These years too many good novels were submitted. The quantity was a lot too." A guy with a black moustache said.
"It's mainly because the winner of last year got adapted into a movie. Authors always dream of getting their work adapted into movies, so many were submitted just for that."
Another guy who was a senior editor replied.
"Yeah, I got a lot of rom coms during the first round because of that. I got exhausted after a while."
"Yeah, but only 10 novels are left. We need to select a winner from all this. Let's start the meeting I guess."
The senior editor said and like that, the meeting started. They began by talking about the novels one by one. What they liked about a particular novel and what they didn't like.
If they were worth publishing and how good the story and writing was. All this was discussed one by one as they went through each novel.
In the end, a voting process was going to decide the winner.
"This novel is pretty good. The writing style is something I have seen before. Pretty sure it's from an established author who's entering the competition through a pen name."
"You get a lot of those in the last rounds. Somehow, it's pretty unfair to the true rookies."
"Yeah but this year, we have monster rookies. Check this novel out. It's called <Behind the scenes>. The writing style is very fresh and I really liked it. I'm pretty sure it's from a new writer."
A guy with blonde hair said, picking up the manuscript of <Behind the scenes>. Other people nodded hearing his words.
They have all read it and have liked it a lot.
"I think that's one of the top three."
"Yeah, the story was flawless, especially the scenes of the shooting. It's almost like the writer is a director himself."
"The main plot is very noble too. The last chance of a struggling actor living in LA. A lot of people would like it due to the themes of the novel. It was pretty realistic."
"What is the writer's name? I forgot it."
A guy asked and the senior editor replied without blinking.
"Aiden Silver."
...
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