TLDR: it was never serious and it's fine now. that's the quick summary for those who aren't that invested.
for the rest of you, i have screenshots.
ignore my awkward texting. i spent maybe 10 full minutes debating how to respond to just the first message.
obviously i did some digging into "Patton Hart." i mean, this could have been anyone, it was justified cyber stalking. all i could find was a LinkedIn, but everything there checked out. employed with Hero Headquarters, legal dept, whatever, whatever. otherwise his online presence was basically... none. at all. though that's not too unusual for people working closely with heroes.
i showed up (even though this was a very sketchy way to schedule a professional meeting) and there he was. Mr. Hart was, in fact, real. he was also doing the thing people do sometimes when they know i can read minds. repeating a word over and over, or thinking about a song really loudly in an effort to drown out their other thoughts. this continued throughout the meeting, and was mildly annoying.
i prepared some questions before i got there, but it was immediately clear that no structured conversation was going to be happening. i barely sat down before Patton was telling me all about how his husband left his lunch this morning and so he had to run after him and leave it with the lady at the front desk but then he saw the cutest cat in one of those backpack carriers and had to stop to say hi and on and on and ...
anyway, it was a while before we got to the point.
i already decided i wanted to at least get an audio recording in case he pulled some weird legal shit on me. i almost forgot, but i managed to bring it up before we got too far into talking.
below is the entire unedited audio recording i got before my phone died. because of course my phone died.
we talked for a while longer, but i didn't take notes. so that's great. lesson learned, i guess. all the most important parts are in the recording, thankfully.
i'll supposedly be getting a follow up from Roman King himself, so we'll see how that goes. not excited about that. dreading that, actually.
