You just gained a level in real life! What class would you take?

[Troacctid]

I'm assume alignment requirements and possibly racial/background requirements can be bent but not broken? At least so far as qualifying for things without a long debate to justify them?

Correct. We talked about the Otherworldly feat earlier, and I said that you could replace the prerequisite with something like a Heritage feat, for example. Or for Mercantile Background, you could qualify by actually owning your own shop, by having a degree in business, etc. But you couldn't ignore the prerequisite entirely.