The Failure That Birthed the Present, Part 1

After breakfast, Noah had a letter to read. Paisley had given the slime girl a reply from Claire, a contestant from another season Noah had sent mail recently. While she was shocked at how fast a reply had come, she was grateful to get one from her nonetheless. Claire seemed to have it together in the part of her season Noah had seen, having done research for the contestants, and otherwise protecting the group from Harem Hotel's tendency to exploit a lack of knowledge.

"Noah,

Thank you for the letter. I want to respond to it accurately, which means I need to push back on part of it before I accept the rest.

The access to the rules and other seasons was significant. I don't think it's honest to accept credit for adaptability without acknowledging that I had information most contestants don't, and that changes the comparison considerably. What you did without that advantage is arguably the more meaningful data point, not mine.

That said: I will accept the part about the autism. You're right that it helped, specifically in ways I didn't anticipate. The transformation made certain social signals more legible to me at exactly the moment I needed them to be, which is either good design or good luck, and I haven't determined which yet. The fact that it also felt right in ways I don't entirely have language for is a separate matter that I'm still working through.

I'm sorry about Felix. From what I understand of your season, the situation with the leverage his contestants have over him is structurally very difficult, and I don't think it reflects on your capability as much as it reflects on the conditions. That's not meant as consolation. It's just what the evidence suggests.

I would like to know more about the slime girl experience if you're willing to share it. Not out of morbid curiosity — I'm genuinely interested in how different transformation types affect sensory processing and social integration. I have a notebook with relevant observations from my own case if a comparison would be useful to you.

Thank you again for writing.

Claire Freeman"

The letter reassured Noah that she had done the best she could. Until recently, the slime girl didn't have access to other seasons, or even that detailed an understanding of the rules. And Felix's situation was hard, as he lacked the power the term master implied. Upon seeing the bit near the end of the letter, Noah decided to humor Claire by talking about her experience being a slime girl.

"Being a slime girl is a lot to get used, although I've had another transformation that helped me on that front," Noah said while oozing towards the library. "I'm immune to a lot of stuff that would kill most humans, I most of the time ooze on the ground in a way that's... not the fastest, but is less tiring than walking is for me, and I eat food by enveloping it. In fact, my body is a mostly uniform mass, which begs many, many biology questions that I can't answer other than saying I must be a magical being. Beings bound by biology and physics have to care about things like tissue differentiation more than I do."

Once Noah was just outside the door to the library, she chose to finish her monologue that she hoped Claire would one day hear. "I needed to hear about the importance of what I was missing. One of those things was an active master to protect us from the effects of the show. I understand why Felix couldn't do that, but it was frustrating nonetheless. Dealing with someone who ruined your life on top of being stuck in a reality altering game show from hell tends to do that."

Reassured, Noah decided to catch up on TV. The slime girl knew she was the type of contestant Paisley didn't want hanging out with Felix. Their new host was still mad at Felix over him prioritizing parts of his harem over other parts, and Noah was definitely someone he had prioritized. So, she had every excuse to slink off to the library and catch up another season. And given the mood she was in, Noah decided it was time to catch up on Bros to Babes.

Bros to Babes's first scene opened with a woman reclining on a beach whose look screamed blonde beach babe. She wore a bikini, had large breasts, the kind of tan one saw on TV, the works.

"Hi guys, my name is," The host said with a noticeable gap where her name should've been. "Welcome to a brand new season of Harem Hotel, Bros to Babes."

The way the woman over enunciated every word of the title was like nails on chalkboard for Noah. That her voice was exaggerated to sound more like a beach bimbo didn't help. The slime girl could tell this was going to be a long, tedious season to watch, but the demon had told me them in writing that they needed to watch it at some point. Vizrokoth had warned them that it was going to be hard to watch, which only further drew Noah's curiosity. After the host on screen finishing explaining the typical rules of Harem Hotel, she launched into an explanation of the new season.

"We heard how many of you loved Bros to Hoes, so we're here to present with another season where gross guys became hot babes, and a lucky master gets his deepest desires fulfilled," The host continued to emphasize words like babes whenever she could get away with it. "All of this on an island almost as beautiful as the contestants we're about to make. Speaking of the contestants, I think they just arrived..."

Luke woke up on a beach he had never seen before, under an impossibly blue sky, with water so clear and sand so fine that it felt like he was in a dream. An illusion. Not reality. That wasn't helped by that for some reason he woke up next to a bunch of guys from his high school. Why would they be waking up on a beach? For that matter, why were they all wearing their school uniforms? The last thing Luke could remember was walking through a door to leave the private school he attended, which was miles away from any coast, how had he ended up on a beach?

The one nearest to him was Reese, the quiet guy who always seemed to be trying to fade into the background, and was currently scrunched up, looking over his knees at the rest of the beach. On the other side of Luke was Todd, a loud mouthed bully who constantly spewed misogynistic shit he had picked up from alpha male influencer podcasts, and who was currently trying to look like a tough guy. Near him was Brett, a real meathead of a jock, and who like Todd, was trying to put on a brave front by flexing his muscles. Further up the beach was Adam, the nerdy brother of Todd who was far less of an asshole, and was currently trying to hide behind the final guy on the beach, Roy. Roy was an athlete, while being less of an asshole about it than Brett, and was enough of a wall of muscle that Adam could hide behind him.

Even further off in the distance on the beach Luke saw someone he became fearful for: Kyle. Kyle wasn't a bad kid, but he was the kid everyone picked on. Most of the people here either bullied him, or at best ignored him. Luke was the closest thing Kyle had to a friend, and even that was more of a one sided relationship than Luke wanted to admit. Kyle was someone Luke tolerated, because the kid had no other friends, not because he felt any more affection than one does for a puppy that has been kicked too many times. For some reason Kyle was sitting on a throne in a gazebo next to a blonde woman wearing a bikini. Curious, Luke approached the gazebo, and saw his peers do the same.

"Now my dearest audience, we have our newest master, Kyle," The woman screamed excited. "And, making their way up the beach one by one, we have our contestants: His classmates!"

As Luke and the others approached the gazebo, the woman continued to babble excitedly about each of them in turn. As Luke had been the first to try to approach, he was the first one she talked about. "We begin with the master's closest friend, although unbeknownst to our dear master Kyle here, the feeling isn't very mutual. Luke tolerates our master talking tohim, and doesn't bully him, but friendship? Friendship implies a two-way street, and Luke never opened his heart that way to Kyle. But fear not, maybe he will later."

Luke was mortified hearing this. He wanted to say something to Kyle, but when he got near this woman, Luke instead felt a force overpower his body, and make him seat in one of the six chairs in the gazebo. As he did so, another one of his peers came up to the gazebo.

"Ah Todd," The woman with the exasperated sigh of a disappointed teacher. "You're quite the bully you know? You beat on Kyle and terrorized him because you wanted to show off what an alpha male you are. All it really did was reveal the fragile boy pretending to be a man.”

Similar to him, Luke could tell Todd wanted to say something but could not. The force controlling him wouldn't allow it, and he too was forced to find a seat. For someone like Todd, this was humiliating, as a woman had forced him to sit down and submit to her.

"Next up is Brett the meathead," The woman said in a mocking tone as Brett approached the gazebo next. "All of his grades should go to poor Kyle here, given it was Kyle that did all his homework. Not that it should be a surprise, it often seems like his parents dropped him on his head as a child and then fed him steroids to make up for it. He's probably got no balls left at this point!"

In any other circumstance, Brett would've run up and attacked the host, consequences be damned. No one got to taunt him like that. Instead, despite rage clear on his face, he was forced to walk into the gazebo and take a seat, unable to respond to the insults he had just endured.

"Now we've got Adam," The woman went back to a more neutral tone. "Adam is a nerd, but not one with any space in his heart for poor Kyle here. I promise you that will be changing quite a bit."

Adam's face showed a mixture of horror and guilt, as every decision he had made in regards to Kyle blew up in his face.

"Ah Roy," The woman put on a friendlier tone. "He's an athlete, but less of an asshole about it than Brett. After all, he doesn't rely on others doing his work for him, or cheating in class. Over all, a nice boy, but alas, not one willing to protect poor Kyle here from abuse."

Roy looked scared, perhaps of the same compelling him to sit down against his will that had happened to everyone else. Not as scared though as the last person to approach the gazebo, who had stayed on the beached until some forced animated him to come join the others.

The last person to approach the gazebo was Reese, who had evidently been forced to through magic. "And finally, we've got Reese. He isn't close our dear master at all, but once, that was different. One he was a friend of Kyle, but now... well, he just drifted away, into the background. I think you'll find such tactics don't suit you as well here Reese..."

So far, Noah hadn't seen anything that showed why this show was one that Vizrokoth felt she had to warn them about. The show was Bros to Hoes if the master was a wimp, and most of the contestants treated him, at best, with concealed contempt. In that respect it was a bad ripoff, but not to a traumatizing extent. Of course, she had only seen the opening, the initial transformations, and the first few days, but none of that suggested a season so dark the demon needed to warn them about it. She had watched some of Harem Hotel Sapphic Seaside Edition, and she had seen glimpses of far, far worse seasons all over the Harem Hotel streaming service.

The initial transformations, after all the contestants got transformed into women anyway, were pretty basic by Harem Hotel standards. Everyone became bisexual, got a round of breast expansion, and otherwise had what were pretty standard Harem Hotel bodies. The contestant specific transformations did nothing to break out of this lack of unique transformations, instead being designed to be easy for the audience to get into. Adam, for instance, became a catgirl named Alesha with a tail, cat ears, and would occasionally go into heat with an overpowering sex drive. Reese became a gaming focused cosplayer named Rebecca, Brett became a sexy cheerleader named Beth, Roy became a sexy swimmer named Rosaline, and Todd got a fetishy maid themed transformation, along with getting a new name in Theresa. Judging by Noah's time briefly spent browsing a Harem Hotel forum while watching the season, these were extremely common, and basic, transformations, nor were they particularly well executed by the standards of the show.

Only one contestant got a particularly unique transformation, from what Noah had seen of other seasons, or their brief time exploring Harem Hotel's forums. That contestant was Luke, who became Lux. Lux had a transformation that required her to stay near Kyle at all times, and gave her awareness of Kyle's emotional state. Beyond that, the contestant got the Harem Hotel equivalent of a girl next door look, although it seemed more fake than Cammy's set of transformations. And unlike Cammy, Lux's transformation did nothing to help them adjust to having their fundamental sexual and gender identity altered against their will.

That was the dominant problem Noah had seen in Bros to Babes. While she had only seen a couple of days worth of the show after the contest, it was enough to showcase the central issue: The contestants all hated their own bodies. Anyone watching could see it, whether it be the almost explosive reaction contestants would have to being touched, contestants hurting themselves when they thought they weren't on camera, and so on. Another sign included how every argument between contestants escalated into fights the host had to break up, no matter how small or low stakes the origin of the argument was. It kept happening because everyone was on a hair trigger from how uncomfortable they were in their own bodies, much less by the additional stress Harem Hotel always brought, especially in the first round.

Said problem spiraled in ways Noah could tell damaged the show. The best example of this was in Kyle, who lost any authority he might have theoretically had as the master from how much the contestants hated him. Most of them reacted with barely concealed rage, if they bothered trying to hide it at all, whenever he tried to talk to them, much less do anything with them. Noah suspected the only reason he hadn't been attacked yet was because the host was constantly around, reminding them of her authority by her presence. It meant though that for a season at least partially meant to be light and fun, at least by Harem Hotel standards, that the host was having to constantly punish contestants, and had to hover around the master to get the contestants to behave.

It all reminded Noah of issues Felix had, except Felix had more support from his harem, and even the people who hated him didn't treat him with barely concealed rage the way so many of the contestants on Bros to Babes treated Kyle. He was stressed, and angry from having to deal with Austin, along with Smith for that matter, however, most of his harem didn't actively hate him to the extent Kyle was. There were only two people who were willing to even tolerate Kyle, and one of them, Lux, was only willing to do so out of a kind of grudging obligation. There was no genuine affection, or even attempt to do well at the game from Lux, just the bare minimum to get the host to ignore her, and avoid elimination. Nobody ever helped the master in Bros to Babes the way many contestants, including even those who had malicious intentions like Kei Winters, were willing to help Felix.

The only exception among the contestants to the patterns of hating the master and hating their new bodies, was Rebecca. While she didn't love her new body, unlike Madison from Bros to Hoes, she adapted to it faster than anyone else, and was never the instigator of any incident. In a different season, the reason for that may have been explored, but it never came up. Contrary to the host's initial prediction, Rebecca once again faded into the background, and thrived there because she never received any punishments or otherwise drew attention to herself in a way that drew the host's ire. It was, in practice, evidence of how much the host had failed in her vision, because doing the bare minimum looked downright heroic.

Still, there was more to this story. It felt like something was going to come to a head soon. This host wasn't going to endlessly tolerate the contestants refusing to participate, and the rage at Kyle was going to get released somehow. They hadn't even gotten to the first contest after all, and already, Beth looked like she wanted to kill Kyle whenever the freshly minted cheerleader saw him. Noah couldn't finish the season, as lunch time was approaching, and even with her status, the slime girl doubted Paisley wanted her to watch TV all day...