"I don't think I've read this kind of novel. But we very much need to eat, sleep, and guide, if not because we want to then at least as equipment maintenance."

"Yeah... Convenient that you can't utilitarian yourself into being a machine."

...He wants to squeeze slightly. So he shall squeeze. And sigh. 

"I think the ones I'm thinking of are sort of like anime, in that it's derived from Chinese media where anime is mostly Japanese. I read a lot of web serials."

"What makes them more appealing than regular books?"

"For web serials generally I think the... Mixture of novelty and familiarity? Like, there's a whole set of tropes that web serials seem to share that bookstore novels don't. They're usually straightforward. Ish. You can pick them up and drop them any time and not necessarily be missing super much. A lot of them are power fantasies. It's not challenging, and sometimes that leads to them being boring and samey, but you can drop those. It's like watching the same cartoon for ages, sometimes you want something brainless and comfy... As for xianxia particularly, the whole genre trope-space was really novel at first because it's drawing on all these foreign myths and legends, I do think it doesn't compel quite so much now? There's this whole thing where the Eastern relationship to divinity is very different than the Western one... Asian gods can be overthrown and it is right and proper to seek to do so. Sort of. Massive oversimplification."

"That happens in Greek mythology, with the gods taking over from the titans."

"Yeah but like- More than that. A spectrum of godhood more than demigods and nymphs imply. I only know pop level greek mythology. If you want a book that's pretty central to that whole genre, you want Journey to the West, I get the impression it occupies the same classics slot as like, the Odyssey."

"I'll try to remember to put it on my list."

"Want me to remind you later?"

"Please. Or send me an email about it right now for me to catch later."

"Nah, guiding now. I'll compose said email later."

"Sounds good." Maybe he should flop his head on Teddy's shoulder.

This is good. He's wearing shorts; Can more of their legs touch too perhaps?

"...I like this line of conversation, what are some of the best bookstore-type novels I should read and why?"

"Hmmmm, I have an emerging sense of your taste but nothing's jumping out at me as concordant with it. ...I'm gonna throw The Count of Monte Cristo out there, it has some power fantasy nature to it."

"Thusly noted. Actually let me - phone -"

He types in an unsent text to Haru: The Count of Monty Cristo  Journey to the West

"There. Isn't that the one where the villain bricks someone up in a cellar wall? Or am I conflating things?"

"That's the Cask of Amontillado. Edgar Allan Poe short story."

"Mm! Okay, so different thing. Yeah, that sounds like Poe if I remember AP English right..."

"...I am definitely much less anxious now, having had time to think and research? And having done a dungeon. It feels more real. Saving people buddies."

"Saving people buddies!"

"My gut reaction when I saw you come in was 'oh yay, guiding time'. I'm going to... I want to wait until my gut reaction to seeing you arrive is 'oh yay I should kiss him'. But the trendline does look like it's going in that direction."

"Seems like a good benchmark to me."

"Positive reinforcement, aye? Oh, I still haven't read your blog... I was doing agent stuff last night."

"It's not a school assignment, you don't have to hurry on that."

"Oh, I'm just trying not to let silence befall us."

"I appreciate that. Incidentally I looked it up and Factorio has multiplayer."

"Yes, I knew that, but Factorio is a game I want to play on - desktop towers, not laptops - I would have a lot of fun designing two high-tier gaming setups with a back-touching-sitting cushion between them, something about that just seems so... Something."

"Well, if we wind up getting a permanent joint silo go for it. The computer performance makes that much of a difference?"