"Okay but I, I give a shit—"

"No no no please don't have a panic attack we're here to figure this out and we don't need two of us panicking."

"Dudes. Chill."

"Seriously. I know this is a hot take, but being real is a fake concept and doesn't matter in basically any way."

"...what does that mean."

"It... means that we're here and now and whether we're fictional or not doesn't affect anything we should do or, or something? Is my guess of what she means?"

"You're all blowing things up out of proportion, you're getting magic."

"Yeah. The butterfly dreaming that he's whoever that poet was doesn't matter any more than the poet. If the poet's having fun, drinking plum wine and fucking imperial concubines and whatever else they did for fun in ancient China, why should he care that there's some butterfly out there who's 'more real' than him? If we're all a simulation, I hope whoever's monitoring it is having a good time. If we're a book, I hope my character arc is cool. Who was gonna get more than that in the first place?"

"...that's. A very healthy and sensible attitude."

"I didn't catch any of the references but I think that made sense."

"Don't even try, with her. I tried once. It was a mistake."

Gabe's anxiety does seem to be calming down, too, though he still looks kind of troubled.

"Are you gonna show us the powers, then? I'm starting to feel blue balled."

"Um. So we're already getting late for afternoon class but I assume everyone agrees that this is important enough that it's fine to skip, yes?"

Gabriel opens his mouth and then leaves it hanging open, looking very conflicted.

"I'll have to think about it," Vivian says earnestly. She pauses for exactly one-mississippi. "Obviously yes."

Gabe eventually closes his mouth and nods.

"Ladies and gentlemen and, uh, whatever Peter is now, we have found out what it takes to get Gabe to be willing to skip class."

"I'm gonna text Isabella to tell her I'll skip class, this is really important."

"Thought so. So, uh, it's literally a CYOA, like I'm not joking there's a points system and various powers under categories and a list of drawbacks that give you extra points. The genre is, like I said, Mary Sue, there's a power literally called Emerald Orbs and another that's Dragon Fairy Elf Witch which gives you whatever magical ancestry you may want or need, there's a bunch of stuff about making you be the most special or well-liked or beautiful including some really sketch mind-control stuff that I noped the fuck out and had the notebook remove the mind-control aspect from..."

Vivian snrks. "Is there one that makes you secretly a princess? If not I think that's an oversight."

"You know, I think there isn't? There's a power called Disney Princess but it makes animals always friendly to you, and there's The Princess And The Dragon but that one is about the logistics of fucking a dragon always working out."

Marcus sporfles. "Fucking a dragon??"

Felicia is blushing horribly.

"It's a power about fucking anything of any species and it always working out regardless of size differences or temperatures or appendages or whatever."