A cacophony of voices greeted me as I entered the office.

“The printer isn’t working boss,” complained generic office worker A.

“Get GenRincewind to fix it, he’s the tech guy, isn’t he?” I said. Genie glared at me from afar.

“Mr. Dragon is on the phone, sir. Something about jelly?” said the generic secretary.

“Tell him that’s sensitive info. I’ll send him the details through securer means.” The generic secretary nodded.

“Sir, which photos do you want for this week’s edition?” asked Kanundra, our photographer.

“That one,” I said, pointing to a picture of the busy roads outside.

“Here you go,” said a tall, long haired person.

“Thanks, Senizal,” I said, accepting the coffee from the effeminate man. I took a sip and nodded in satisfaction.

Someone knocked into me, making me spill the coffee.

“Jacky! You know I’d complain, but you’re the one who has to clean it,” I said, wiping myself off with a hanky.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Right, sowwy,” said HauntedJack as he mopped the floor with a dry mop, spreading the coffee.

“We need more jokes!” roared Exterminatus from the comedy department.

“Make a thinly veiled dick joke!” I replied loudly.

“Then can I use the stupid horse puns I stayed up all night to come up with?” he asked. “Or was it all for neight?”

I hit him with a brick and moved on.

“The cake will be ready by lunchtime sir,” said Lygast, our pastry chef.

“Good, it’s a historic achievement. Worthy of celebration,” I said. “I’ll bake some cookies too.”

Everyone stopped.

“What?” I asked, furrowing my brows.

“Nothing!” said everyone as they resumed their work.

Hours passed. The phone rang countless times. I signed papers, sometimes with both hands but never with both feet. Frantically, our team did its best to gather the latest news from the interwebs, scouring reddit, royalroadl, topwebfiction, and even (reluctantly, mind you) Wattpad. Through our cumulative efforts we amassed a treasure-trove of insight about the best indie serials the english speaking internet has to offer, insights that we would immediately discard in favor of amateurish opinions about whatever afflictions had befallen the community at the moment.

Our articles were simple but poignant. An artistic response to the artistic expression of others, one that was cognizant of its readers’ expectations and the community’s potential. It wasn’t a space for self-promotion or spiteful admonitions of rivals, but a garden in which we grew and nurtured the unspoken sentiments of the artform itself.

Our topics can be banal; the shortcomings of harems and the difference between Wuxia and Xianxia, or avant-garde - the effects of post-modernism and the rejection of sophisticated writing techniques and sentence structures, like in this sentence.

Our doors are open, our printing presses hot, and with this final sentence, our magazine is ready for your perusement.