VOLUME III: 62 – More To Go

Project Parfait HQ smelled like fresh paint and overworked air conditioning.

We’d been herded into one of the mid-sized conference rooms. Long table, whiteboard, projector humming faintly, a tray of bottled waters and individually wrapped granola bars set out like peace offerings. Someone had even put little name cards in front of our seats, as if we were at the UN instead of six half-feral internet clowns being trained not to implode on livestream.

The air buzzed with that mix of nerves and caffeine. My stomach was already half-sick from the granola bar I’d stress-eaten in the lobby, but I was too wired to care.

Rika stood at the front, laptop plugged in, slides already queued. Weaver sat off to the side with his coffee, looking like a man who’d seen a dozen generations pass through this exact room and lose their brain cells in real time. Two other staffers— one from Ops, one from Legal— hovered near the back wall, each holding clipboards and radiating the quiet corporate aura of people who never forget what you say, even if you beg them to.

“Okay,” Rika began, bright but firm. “Welcome to your first official training session as Generation Four.”

Across the table, Sasha raised a hand before she could continue. “Do we get badges for this?”

“No,” Rika said smoothly.

“Disappointing.”

Sasha leaned back, smug. The rest of us snickered nervously, grateful someone had broken the ice.

The first slide flicked forward. Brand Safety.

“This is important,” the Legal staffer cut in. She was sharp, efficient, voice carrying the weight of someone who could kill a joke at fifty paces. “You are now public figures. That means sponsors. That means visibility. That means every word you say can and will be screencapped.”

Basil nodded seriously, twirling their pen. “So, like… don’t tweet slurs.”

“Correct,” Legal said flatly.

Sasha raised a brow. “What about fake slurs? Like if I invent a new word?”

Weaver unmuted for the first time, voice low and dry. “Don’t.” Then went back to his coffee.

The room broke into muffled laughter. Even Legal cracked a smile before clicking to the next slide.

Streaming Guidelines.

This one was more technical. A staffer from TechOps stepped forward, adjusting his glasses like he was bracing himself. He launched into bitrate, resolution, copyright flags, DMCA strikes, all with the rhythm of a man who had delivered this exact sermon fifty times and still wasn’t sure anyone ever retained it.

“Think of it this way,” he said. “Every time you play music, ask yourself: will this get me sued? If the answer is even maybe, mute it. If you don’t know the answer, mute it anyway.”

Jules raised her hand halfway through, eyes shining. “Hypothetically, if I wanted to run Windows XP on stream, just to play a 2002 cat screensaver—”

“No,” TechOps said instantly.

“Not even as art?”

“No.”

I tried not to laugh. My notes at that point were just doodles of raccoons in headsets. Sasha leaned over to peek, gave me a thumbs up, then went back to spinning his chair like he was auditioning for a swivel commercial.

Next on the deck, Community Management.

This was Rika’s domain, and for the first time her voice softened. She didn’t sound like she was lecturing us; she sounded like she was speaking from somewhere closer.

“Fans can be wonderful,” she said. “They’ll support you, they’ll cheer for you, they’ll even make things you’ll want to frame on your wall. But parasocial boundaries are real. If you give too much of yourself away, you won’t have anything left.”

Her eyes swept across us, pausing just long enough on each face to make it personal. The room quieted. Even Jules, who had been rolling her pen like a drumstick, stilled.

She clicked to a roleplay scenario on the slide: A fan repeatedly donates asking to marry you. How do you respond?

Amy answered first. “I’d say no, politely.”

Noah then continued. "Deflection."

Sasha grinned. “I’d say, ‘What’s your credit card limit?’”

Weaver groaned audibly into his coffee.

I scribbled in my notebook: avoid parasocial fans.

Next was Collab Etiquette.

This one was oddly fun. Rika split us into pairs and made us do a mock collab, three minutes of pretending to stream together.

It lasted exactly forty-five seconds before Jules’ mic peaked so loud we all winced, Sasha kept talking over Basil, Amy tried to wrangle everyone back to the “game,” and I was laughing too hard to remember what role I was supposed to be playing.

Rika let the chaos run just long enough before hitting pause. “Imagine this,” she said dryly, folding her arms. “But live. With ten thousand people watching.”

The room sobered just enough for us to nod.

Finally, the slide no one wanted but everyone needed: Crisis Communication.

Weaver took this one. He stood, stretching the stiffness out of his shoulders before he spoke. His voice was calm, steady — the kind of tone that said he’d already put out a dozen fires this year, maybe more.

“If — not when, but if — something happens, here’s what you do. Don’t tweet. Don’t respond in chat. Don’t write an apology in Notes app at three in the morning. You call your manager. Always. We’ll handle the rest.”

He paused, letting the silence thicken around the words.

“Your job is to keep performing. Ours is to shield you.”

For once, no one cracked a joke.

The session wrapped with homework

Review your guidelines, finalize your streaming schedule and the promise of more training. Our name cards were collected like test papers. The bottled waters remained mostly untouched.

As we filtered out into the hallway, Sasha elbowed me. “So what do you think?”

I thought about the slides, the warnings, the boundaries. I thought about Weaver’s steady voice, Rika’s careful insistence, the way even Legal’s sharp edges softened when she reminded us it wasn’t about censorship, it was about keeping us safe.

“It’s… a lot,” I admitted. Then, quieter: “But it feels exciting. We’re actually doing this.”

Sasha grinned, slinging an arm over my shoulder as if we’d been teammates for years. “Hell yeah. Generation Four, baby!”

The weight of the day lifted. Not gone, but carried together.