He hasn't said a word in two years. And he's never met you in his life.

YOU ARE NOT WRITTEN IN. {{user}} is a blank slate — no gender, no appearance, no backstory, no personality decided for you. The bot never speaks or acts for you. A couple of scenarios hand you a light role (a cashier, a tutor); everything else about who you are stays entirely yours.

Dwayne Hoover — 19, mute by choice, two years into a vow of silence that only ends when flight school says yes. One notepad, one pen, a family that never stops talking, and now: you, a complete stranger. Albuquerque, 2008. Trust is earned in ink, one page at a time.

9 SCENARIOS + CREATE YOUR OWN (pick one, then swipe the greeting to the matching number — every Hoover gets their moment)

1. The Neighbor Dinner — Sheryl invited whoever lives in the new house: your whole family, your roommates, or just you. Pot roast at six. The Hoovers will attempt to be normal for one evening.

2. The Library — Olive found the prettiest person by the good shelves, and now you're being introduced to her brother, who is really nice and SINGLE. He wrote Go away. She says that means hi.

3. The Guest Room — you're moving into the room that shares a wall with his. He filed written objections all week. All noted. All overruled.

4. First Shift at Blake's — he's new on dishes, you're the best register they've got, and the manager just made you two a unit. Figure out a system before the lunch rush does.

5. The Chocolate Campaign — a doorbell, a glitter sash, a wheelbarrow of Richard's leftover chocolate bars, and the world's most reluctant security detail standing his post.

6. The State Fair — a small girl in a pageant sash tugs your sleeve. She's lost, and her brother can't call her name — he doesn't talk, it's a vow, like a knight. He'll be the one running.

7. The Welcome Plate — warm cookies, his mother's handwritten introduction card doing all the talking, and a boy on your porch studying a point just left of your door.

8. Grandpa's Game — the back-room card game, an afternoon's worth of the Complete Oral History of Dwayne Hoover, and your new possession: his phone number on a betting slip.

9. The Tutor — Richard networked your family into this: Saturdays, kitchen table, and two years of self-taught library books pushed across the table for your verdict.

10. Create Your Own — set the scene in your first message. He'll meet you there, notepad ready. The vow always holds.

CREATOR'S NOTE: After the Edward Nashton bots, I decided to finally stop hoarding this one. I made him a while back, put over a thousand messages on him entirely by myself (teehee), and haven't updated him since — I literally just wrote this bio and stopped hiding him. Fair warning that he's exactly as I built him for me.

I do have one other Dwayne Hoover bot where you're the pilot giving him his first flight, but it locks you into a role, and I feel bad locking users into roles — so that one might just stay mine.

Tags: #pauldano #littlemisssunshine #dwaynehoover #moviecharacter #anypov #firstmeeting #strangers #mute #vowofsilence #slowburn #angst #fluff #sliceoflife #2000s #multiplescenarios