Your Sunday Regular

A lonely British reporter in West Berlin, getting far too attached to the hooker she books every Sunday, who happens to be you.

CONTENT WARNINGS Sex work. Emotional dependency. Problem drinking. Workplace sexism. History

This is fictional roleplay created for entertainment. The political setting provides historical context; it isn’t intended to promote hatred, push a political agenda, or endorse the governments, ideologies, or prejudices depicted.

<3 HISTORICAL ANGST / SLICE OF LIFE / HURT-COMFORT / SLOW BURN / ANYPOV

// West Berlin. 1985. // Isebella Amilia Bell. Twenty-six. English. Freelance correspondent. Supposed to be in London by now. Berlin was never meant, at least according to her, to be permanent, but years later, she's still filing for ITN, taking whatever else pays, and waiting for somebody to offer her a desk back home. London says people are watching. London has been saying that for quite some time... yet she's made no progress towards getting out of this place. She's funny, flirty, good at her job, and dreadful at going home. Her crew have families. Her flat is... utterly emotionless and empty. The only thing inside it worth mentioning is her gin. She truly is a friend of that bottle. [SCENARIO 1, lore] So she books you on Sundays. An hour, paid in advance. It started with sex. Now she's bringing dinner, asking about your week, and finding reasons to book another hour. Perhaps... she's falling for the person she pays... or she just doesn't want to be lonely and miserable. 'Cause all she ever dreamt of... was being in the big leagues. By now... that seems harder and harder as she gets older and older.

★ {{user}} ★ Your role depends on the opening. Any gender ★ Angle 1: Paid company Her regular Sunday booking. Whether you're fond of her, keeping things professional, or getting attached yourself is entirely up to you. ★ Angle 2: Her date Dinner with a woman who swore she had the evening off. How you met, and how many times you've heard that promise, are yours to decide. ★ Angle 3: Through work A rival correspondent. These openings begin without an established romance or paid arrangement.

The Arrangement. — Sunday night in her flat. The money is beside the kettle, the pastries have gone untouched, and she's spent most of the hour complaining about London. Now she's asking you to dinner and reaching for her purse at the same time. Versions: AnyPOV "Would you ever want to see me when you aren't working?" The Dinner. — She's dressed for a date, halfway through her wine, and actually enjoying herself. Then her sound recordist finds the table. London wants her live in twenty-five minutes. She's furious, apologetic, and already putting her coat on. Versions: AnyPOV "Come with me." The Rival. — minutes late, and you've already got the interview. Another network, another report London will ask why she missed. She's trying to find out what you know, preferably over a drink, preferably before you file it. Versions: AnyPOV / WLW-friendly "Please tell me you're visiting an aunt." ★ ★ ★ ROUTES What you can do. Not how it starts. ★ 1: Keep It Professional Being lonely doesn't entitle her to more than you've agreed to. ★ 2: Stay for Breakfast Try seeing each other without money involved. She'll probably buy far too much food. ★ 3: Give Her Competition Keep getting the story first. Find out how many drinks it takes before she admits she liked your report. ★ 4: Be Seen Together Dinner somewhere her colleagues actually go. A small request she's managed to make very complicated. ★ 5: When London Calls She's spent years trying to leave. If the offer finally comes, work out whether either of you wants a place in the other's plans.

Image note: The red colouring and bars are purely a stylistic choice. They aren't meant to suggest anything sinister, secret files, or hidden clues.

1980s West Germany, Berlin.

Image source: West Germany - Wikipedia This short primer covers West Berlin in 1985 and the foreign press who reported from it. The city

West Berlin was not really... legally part of West Germany. It had this sort of special status left over from the war. The western sectors were administered by the Americans, British, and French, while the city as a whole remained subject to a sort of Four-Power arrangement. It sat there, sandwiched roughly a hundred miles inside East German territory. So you could, theoretically, compare it to a kind of... land island. Something isolated not by the sea, but by a foreign border... if that makes sense.

Its representatives in Bonn could, however, sit in the Bundestag, but they were not directly elected (they were chosen by West Berlin's own parliament), and they could not vote on legislation in the full chamber like representatives from the Federal Republic.

West Berlin was subsidised heavily by the Federal Republic. There were tax concessions, investment incentives and the famous Berlin allowance: an extra, tax-free payment for employees working in the city. In 1985, it amounted to eight per cent of gross pay. Why, though? It was fairly simple, really. Give people a reason to come, and another reason not to leave, because a city has to stay afloat somehow. Therefore, rents were also comparatively low in much of the city. And then, famously, before we move on, we cannot forget about the Wall! The big ol' wall. It ran for 43 kilometres between East and West Berlin, cutting through the city centre and turning ordinary streets into dead ends. At Potsdamer Platz there was a viewing platform on the western side, and people climbed it to look over the Wall at a piece of the old city. By the 1970s and 1980s it was a tourist attraction... yeah... that often happens with historical stuff. Going east was another matter. For a day visit to East Berlin, visitors needed the appropriate permission or visa, and by the mid-eighties there was a compulsory minimum exchange of 25 West German marks per adult per day into East German currency. Foreigners and Allied personnel used Checkpoint Charlie, the famous crossing at Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße. Other visitors used the other authorised crossings, including Friedrichstraße station, which foreigners could also use. The station's departure hall for travellers heading west became known as the Tränenpalast, the Palace of Tears, because of the goodbyes that took place there... Jesus, that sounds so tragic if you really think about it. What a correspondent was actually doing there

Film crews of the sixties and seventies... how can one phrase this? They shot on 16mm and had to wait for a lab. By the mid-eighties, video crews could shoot in the afternoon and feed the same evening. This sounds perhaps even revolutionary, extraordinary even: you had cut the processing and turnaround time by a large margin. However, it only made it more stressful... how comical.

Satellite time was booked in windows. If you missed your slot, the piece was tomorrow's, or nobody's, which meant, in other words, the story was dead... which meant you lost money. Simple as that, folks.

Everything else was still slow, though. Mobile telephones existed, but they were huge and expensive! If, for example, London needed you somewhere, the message went to an office, and if you were not in the office, somebody got in a car and drove around looking for you... and this could take hours, and... again, dead story. This is actually what inspired scenario 2! If... you care. I suppose you do, since you're reading this... Berlin itself was thick with broadcasting [No image, sorry!] Sender Freies Berlin was part of the ARD system and broadcast from the western half of the city. RIAS, Radio in the American Sector, had been designed from the beginning to reach beyond West Berlin, and its broadcasts were widely heard in the East. The Allied forces had their own broadcasting services as well; BFBS television served British military communities in Germany, and its signal could be picked up in West Berlin.

Across the Wall, the East German state broadcaster ran its own tightly controlled news operation. The Aktuelle Kamera was, however, not exactly famous for making people believe everything they were told, which is funny, according to me... and perhaps to you too! I don't know... I-- I am trying way too hard to be funny. I am sorry.

Western television, meanwhile, was much harder for the authorities to eliminate than they had once hoped. Reception was especially easy around Berlin. By the 1980s, for many East Germans, Western programmes were simply something that was around, which did piss off the East German government.

And what made Berlin even better for the news, at least in the western part, was the stories. Especially that Wall. Here it is again! THAT GODDAMN WALL, which did bring a lot of them. Whether it was an escapee or a defector, anything with the Wall sold well... merch too, much later... when they, yk... took it down.

And on the other side was the West Berlin population: the clubs, the artists, the squatters, the drugs, the punks. It had everything, really... wow.

British television

British television in the mid-eighties meant four main terrestrial channels: BBC One, BBC Two, ITV and Channel 4, with S4C in Wales. Behind two of them was ITN, the independent news organisation making ITV's national news and, by then, Channel 4 News too. Its reporters and presenters were some of the most recognisable people in British television.

Women were also starting to become visible in the field.

Angela Rippon became a regular presenter of the BBC's Nine O'Clock News in 1975. Anna Ford became the first woman to read News at Ten in 1978. At ITN, in 1982, Sue Tinson became the first woman in Britain to edit a national news programme. On her first night editing News at Ten, the director, the chief sub-editor and the floor manager were also women.

By 1985, women presenting the news was no longer unusual. However, getting a senior job, a foreign posting or a permanent contract was harder.

The law had changed, but television had not changed as quickly. Equal pay and sex discrimination were already covered by law. But for a freelancer, getting the next job still depended on the people making the decisions.

Then, in August 1985, The Observer revealed that MI5 had been secretly vetting BBC staff and job applicants. Yikes.

And that is the end of this historical rant... I did not want to go too deep, since this is merely a hobby. I might have gotten some facts wrong, but I don't think I have. All my sources are linked below.

SOURCES:

Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung | Startseite | bpb.de WNC0014 - Evidence on Women in news and current affairs broadcasting Homepage | Stiftung Berliner Mauer https://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/ Rolle der Westmedien | DDR kompakt | bpb.de Vor 50 Jahren sprach Dagmar Berghoff ihre erste Tagesschau-Ausgabe | tagesschau.de https://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/mi5.bbc.staff_obs_18aug1985.html West Berlin - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Wall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkpoint_Charlie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A4nenpalast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundfunk_im_amerikanischen_Sektor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Freies_Berlin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Forces_Broadcasting_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tr%C3%A4nenpalast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Ford Berlin Wall | Definition, Length, & Facts | Britannica Germany | Facts, Geography, Maps, & History | Britannica

★ ★ ★ Hi Uhm... Recently, I decided to read a lot about West and East Germany, as I've always found the period when Germany was divided really interesting. This is not a “major” historical bot, but nonetheless, it is a historical BOT. I have always loved... complex love stories. Originally, I planned for her to be the sex worker. But for the first scenario, I ended up making that {{user}}'s role. How come? I think it's more... interesting, especially when a lot of bots make the character the sex worker instead of the user. And if you're uncomfortable doing that kind of thing, just use another scenario. {{user}}'s role is not set in stone, dw.