I can see why! It's getting at something pretty important. 

Hmm, checkmark or star...yeah, alright, checkmark for now. And Small Blessings can have a dot.

She...is going to come back to The Great Equalizer and its replacement options later. One thing at a time. What was the other one the notebook mentioned? 

...maybe Down To Earth will make more sense when she's read the prerequisites?

Which...themselves have prerequisites, or at least Approachable does. At a glance, Popular and Approachable don't look like something she especially wants to spend points on. Backchannel looks pretty nice, though, it can get a dot and she might upgrade it later. 

Dramatic Damsel doesn't sound promising from the name, but she'll check it just in case...

So, it's not that she can't see why someone would take Dramatic Damsel, when Names exist and work the way they do, but she's imagining trying to justify it to Black and cringing at the thought. And, actually: 

You said Names don't exist in other worlds, right? Just about the only reason I can see for taking this is that it allows people with Names to grow them. Why would anyone take it in a world where playing into stories doesn't make their fate-granted powers stronger? 

I think some people just want to live an adventurous life. And having the Spirit's power makes it easier to be safe in the ways that are important to you while doing things that would otherwise not be very safe.

I guess It Gets Better would help with that on a personal level. But personally I have goals beyond my own comfort and safety, and my Win Fights powers being unreliable seems like it would interfere with those. 

Then Dramatic Damsel and its descendants probably aren't for you.

They don't really seem worth it, no. 

Alright. Where's her scrap-paper bookmark? There it is, and now she has to come back to Breathe Easy and Warmhearted. 

...no, she doesn't think she wants these right now. What's next? 

My Ears Are Burning is what's next. 

What the Hells? 

Is there a range limit on this? Do I have to be wondering what a particular person is thinking, or do I just get every thought anyone has about me, all the time?

There's no range limit, and you do get every thought. I generally try to warn people that this is one of those powers that has a big effect on how you experience your life and the world around you.

Almost involuntarily, Catherine starts considering all the people who probably have thoughts about her on a daily or weekly basis. 

Her mind goes straight to Heiress. She's not egotistical enough to imagine that Akua Sahelian thinks about her constantly, but given their active rivalry and how many pies Heiress has her fingers in, it's probably a rare day that goes by without her sparing even a single thought for Catherine. This would be incredibly useful for being able to outmanouevre Heiress at her schemes. If she could see each one coming, while it was still in the planning stage...

Heiress isn't the only one who has plans for her, though. To be able to know what Black thinks of her, his true reasons for making her his Squire, his layered machinations regarding her future...and Malicia, too, because she surely has plans of her own. The Dread Empress is a busy woman, but Catherine is one of only eight Named—although Hakram's nascent Name adds another half—allied with Praes. If nothing else, she knows Malicia is watching her rivalry with Heiress with interest. 

Then there are the more personal ones, less strategically vital. Hakram, of course, thinks about her all the time. It's his job, his growing Role, to anticipate her needs and do what she can't. Her other officers probably think about her—how often? Daily, almost certainly. Hourly, maybe. Does she want to know Juniper's opinion of her these days? Or Aisha's? She's certainly not sure she wants the insight into Robber's twisted little mind. 

Does she want to know what Kilian thinks of her? 

Maybe. She can only assume that her lover's thoughts would be flattering—although it might be distracting, if Kilian happens to think about her naked while Catherine is in a strategy meeting with Juniper. That doesn't seem like enough to explain the apprehension she feels around this idea, though. What is she nervous about? 

...oh, for crying out loud. She's the Squire, not a schoolgirl. It's ridiculous to be worried that, what, their relationship means less to Kilian than it does to her? This isn't her first crush, or her first lover. There's mutual attraction, and they've had some fun together in bed a few times, but that's it. It's not like it's anything serious yet. 

(Wait, yet? Does her subconscious know something she doesn't, here?) 

Damn it to all the Hells, she's caught feelings, hasn't she. Well, fuck. 

So it turns out that one of the downsides of being catapulted to the highest ranks of the imperial military is that probably quite a lot of people are thinking about me at any given moment. And yet, somehow, the one I'm most worried about is my girlfriend. Well, sort of girlfriend. We haven't really discussed what we are to each other yet. Is "romantic drama" one of the types of narrative the Spirit likes to enable? 

The Spirit's favourite kind of romantic drama is where all the misunderstandings end up getting sorted out and everyone is okay in the end, but I think that's not the same thing as not being interested in romantic drama. Your narrative preferences matter a lot, too, though, and for something like My Ears Are Burning where there aren't many options for the power to work differently in order to steer the situation, it also matters a lot who you know right now and what they actually think of you.

So, you're saying that—correct me if I'm wrong—the power works how it works, and whether it causes romantic drama or not is down to whether there's drama there to be uncovered, and the Spirit doesn't have much say in it? 

Yes, especially right now when the people you've met and the relationships you've formed haven't been steered by a Spirit-influenced narrative at all. Later on, you might be likelier to meet people who would form the kinds of stories with you that you and the Spirit would both like to see, but that won't change the people you've already met and the things they already think. There are also some powers you can take that change how your friends and loved ones relate to you, but I'm not sure if that's something you want.

That sounds an awful lot like there are powers to make someone fall in love with me. 

Well isn't that a hideously seductive thought. It's everything that was tempting about A Thousand Ships, but moreso. 

There are powers that do things like that, yes. I think they can be right for some people, but they're not right for everyone. It depends, again, what you want out of them. When you make someone fall in love with you, or otherwise relate to you in a way they might not have otherwise, you're changing a lot of things about the situation that might not be obvious when you first think about it. Like, if they would have fallen in love with you anyway, you've taken away your chance to find that out; if they don't like being made to fall in love with people, you've put yourself in a situation where you can't tell them the whole truth about your relationship without upsetting them. That's not to say that those things are never worth it, but I think it's important to understand what choice you're making when you take a power.

Great. Now she kinda feels like shit for even being tempted. 

The notebook clearly isn't trying to make her feel like shit, though. It's not even being judgemental, not like the goody-goody priests from the House of Light. Oh no, you can't mind control someone into loving you, that's eeeevil! It would clearly be okay with her taking one of those powers, or else it could just not offer them in the first place. 

But when she actually thinks about what it would be like, to magic Kilian into loving her...

Yeah. You're right, I don't think that would get me anything I want. Because I don't want to know that she's in love with me, I want to know whether she's in love with me. And if I overwrite that answer with the one I want it to be, I never get to find out. 

Yes, you see what I mean! It's important to be aware of these things.

And to be aware that if I take the "know what everyone is thinking about you all the time" power, then it'll do exactly what it says it does, and on my head be the consequences? As useful as it sounds, I think the number of people whose opinions I don't want to know about might drown out the useful few. 

It's not just Kilian, either. Now that she's had a moment to think beyond her love life, there are plenty of other opinions she doesn't want in her head. She'll stick to imagining what the Callowan conscripts in her ranks think of a fellow Callowan working freely for their ancient enemy. 

Yes. Your powers are generally trying to operate in the ways you'd prefer and not the ways you wouldn't, but every power is built to do something and it will do what it's made to do even if that turns out not to be something you want.

Fair enough. So far they seem pretty clear about where there is and isn't wiggle room, but I'll ask you if it's not obvious. 

What's next on the list...Soundtrack, apparently?

See, this right here is another great example of one that I should just avoid if I don't want music playing in my head at all hours of the day. It can avoid pan-flutes if I happen to have a deep-seated aversion to them, but it can't not play music. Is this one of the seemingly frivolous ones that feeds into something surprisingly useful? 

Soundboard: exists.

Yep. I think I'm starting to get a sense of how this works. 

Dots for both, why not. 

Soundtrack can also be pretty useful by itself, but yes, Soundboard is a big improvement.