Oh my gosh, I love this outcome! Making Kaito do some simple manual labor is a perfect way to knock his narcissism down a few pegs, and hopefully see himself more as Tanner’s equal. It’s also an excellent subversion of Kaito’s expectation that he would be punished violently for failing a mission. The Sunflower Official’s minimal dialogue contributes well to that, too. Such a simple way to say, “you’re fired!”

Hey, are those Animorphs thought speech for the SO’s mental communication? Nice reference!

This line:
“You’re joining us in a job more important than mission work¹ and waaaaaay harder to screw up.”
has an extra superscript with no accompanying footnote.

—doctorlit laughs at Ego’s misery; time for an honest day’s work at last!

I don’t entirely follow the conversation with the [two] {voices}. I think you’re implying they’re a pair of characters who were planned to appear in canon, but got edited out before airing? It explains why they would be free of Naomi’s influence, since they’re intangible, and how they were able to observe the PPC agents. I like that they were able to tug on Naomi’s sense of morality enough to get her to let go of her control, but it seems she only did so on the assumption that she would still get what she wants. Once she realized her demanded romance would have to be worked for, she couldn’t resist taking control again . . . as the {one voice} said, giving up control is hard! I think, in the long run, she’s going to have to accept that leaving Ned, and the Simpsons universe, are the only way to truly give up her bad behavior. But I’m curious to see whether she’ll be able to do so on her own . . .

I like that canon didn't "snap back" upon Naomi turning off the "machinery," since it wasn't actually off/gone for good, which caused Ned to remember everything that had happened. It makes for another consequence for Naomi to confront!

—doctorlit could do with a few more strings in his life . . .

At the outset of chapter 15, I legitimately thought for a moment that Kaito was actually trying to recruit Naomi. I thought his reference to “a rehabilitation program” was the OFUs . . . but it didn’t quite sound right, and he was smiling a bit too much, using his power on lines that shouldn’t have needed it, if he were being honest . . . It’s actually a very tense scene to read, knowing that neither party can fully be trusted. This whole story has shaped up into quite a classical tragedy: Naomi absolutely could have been recruited and reformed, but Kaito’s ignorance of his community, and Tanner’s focus on the assassination, cut the agents off from pursuing that safer, simpler goal. From Naomi’s end, the second Kaito’s betrayal was revealed, she instantly relapsed into abusing her control of the narrative to stop them, instead of trying to communicate with them the way a fully-fledged character would. The whole chapter makes for quite a confrontation! And it’s rare to see a failed mission, so getting to read one is a unique experience! Your humanizing of Naomi throughout makes it all the more interesting, because even though she “won” from the perspective of a PPC mission, it’s still a bad ending for her, and not what she actually wants now.

Tanner has issues! I mostly viewed him as pathetic up until now, but his failure to even consider recruitment over assassination, plus the fact that he was hiding his inexperience within the department from Kaito, actually make him rather troublingly incompetent, rather than just having self esteem issues. I didn’t appreciate him dropping the B-word against a female character, either, though I get the feeling that was him trying to psyche himself up to be able to stab her? Still kind of gross.

The idea to have Naomi write a mini-plotline to get the remote activator from the airplane to the agents was an exceptionally clever one!

I take it the string that connected Kaito’s nose to Naomi is the mission itself?

—doctorlit, hi diddly ho neighborino