Well, she has a new app.

...is that an anime-ification of her or is she reading too much into it.

She doesn't have any texts, anyway. She opens the app. If it's already installed itself because she fatfingered a popup when web browsing then opening it isn't going to make it worse.

✧♡Win their LOVE With ME!♡✧

The splash screen announces, aflutter with sparkles and petals.  It transitions with a heart wipe, the next lines fading in one at a time:

Collect friends and improve their lives!

Level up their harmony and earn hearts!!

Save the world with LOVE!!!

Oh is this like a dating sim but platonic? That's so cute! Modern media and its public reception doesn't really believe in friendship without sex, she doesn't have anything against sex but it's like people can't exchange meaningful looks on TV any more without the entire fandom tag being about them getting naked and not about their emotional connection. She can't write or she would be trying to fill this void with platonic Holmes and Watson fluff or something. This is not implausible as the sort of thing that would advertise on something she'd have visited, anyway, and the production value looks decent for free apps and she can always quit when it wants her to pay real money.

Chapter I: A New Day Dawning

Sarah Chaffee is having a rough day.  Cheer her up!

Objective:  Collect Sarah as your friend by touching her.

And there's a pensive-looking anime girl with her head poking out of the top half of a heart-shaped icon.

Poke.

This does nothing.

In real life, someone sighs and switches from leaning against the side of the bus stop pole to sitting on the bench next to Chelsea.  She flashes one of those quarter-smiles of acknowledgement.

"Afternoon."

"Yeah."

Anyway is this app borked. Poke poke?

Tip:  Touch the real Sarah Chaffee!

"My name's Chelsea," she tells the stranger.

"Okay."

"What's yours?"

"Sarah.  - What are you, a cop?"

"Just making conversation." And scooting her left foot over toward Sarah's right foot. Anklebonk.

A pink circle starts forming, clockwise, around Sarah's icon.  It pulses with a count of three before completing.

Friend acquired!

...is she really or is she still staring into the direction whence the mythical bus may approach.

No yeah, she doesn't seem thrilled.  Or different in any other way.

Another heart wipe.  This page has the same anime picture, though placed up and to the left, and a bit smaller, instead of centered and filling the available space.

You can view your friends here.  Tap Sarah's icon to take actions involving her.

Okay she'll see where it's going with this.

The screen darkens for a moment except for a circle in the upper right corner to highlight that she has 300💕.

There's currently one option.

Mood Boost:  50💕

She does seem like she could use it. Tap.

It's a little startling, how instantaneously her body language changes.

-50💕 appears, and the numbers in Chelsea's total roll down appropriately.  But then it refunds her +25💕.

Can she do it again?

A text box appears in the way, and in the background she can see that the cost has gone up to 100💕.

Congratulations!
Sarah Chaffee is now a true friend.  You can tell her about "Win their LOVE With ME!" without negative consequences.

Objective:  Welcome Sarah as your true friend.

Was she not able to - no, obviously she wasn't able to do that before, she was not able to tell Sarah her name without negative consequences.

"Is your last name 'Chaffee' - am I pronouncing that right -"

"Uh, yeah."

"I ask because this app that installed itself on my phone told me so." Observe.

"Huh..."

The text box gets out of Chelsea's way with an animation of a swirl that ends in a winking sparkle.

(In the upper corner, Sarah's mini icon has shifted to a happier, more excited picture, and its border is gold.)

Chelsea pokes the icon in the hopes that it will be more illustrative somehow.

This does nothing.

"...'Mood Boost'?  Did you do that to me??"

"I did, you looked like you needed it and also it was the only thing it would let me do."

Sarah reaches over to tap the buy button on it again.

This does nothing.

"I was about to do it a second time but it interrupted me! Maybe it only works if it's me doing it?" Poke.

This goes through!  There's -100💕 to her reserve, then +150💕 back.  The new cost of Mood Boost is 200💕.

Earn 💕 according to how much Sarah likes you!

Taking actions which your friends feel positively about will give an instant bonus to your collected hearts.
In addition, each friend will generate hearts passively, proportional to their current harmony.

And the screen darkens again just in time to show off Chelsea's total ticking up one to 326💕.

"Well it stands to reason that anybody'd want to be cheered up, I suppose," she observes after reading this. "What had you in such a mood, anyhow?"

"It literally doesn't even matter.  Hi, what's your name - what was your name, I mean, you told it to me already but I didn't care.  - I left my phone at home and so I couldn't listen to anything all day even when I was just sorting things in the back, and I - it was rough!  I was annoyed!  I'm sorry I was brusque with you."

"That's okay! I'm Chelsea."

"Chelsea, wow.  ...Can I - where are you going?  On the bus."

"Home. Do you wanna come along and figure out this thing?"

"Obviously.  I mean, how could I possibly want anything that, that isn't that."

"If you had something really important you were on your way to! I wouldn't want to interrupt your court date or your weekend with the kids or your mom's birthday party or anything."

"This is still so worth it over any of those.  - I don't have kids; I dunno, maybe I'd feel differently.  ...Do you want to try a third one?  Just to see?"

The hearts are ticking back up at a decent clip. "Sure." Poke.

Sarah goes limp!  Conveniently she does this in the direction of Chelsea.

-200💕; +300💕.

Mood boost grays out, but a new purchase option appears beneath it.  Wireheading:  300💕.

Sarah's mini icon pulses, indicating Chelsea should tap on it.

She puts an arm around Sarah so she doesn't fall off the bench and taps the icon.

There's a dropdown with 'Status' and 'History'; the app points her to History.

Here you can see a record of the actions you take with your friends.

You can revert changes by paying an additional heart cost.  Choose whether to have your friend remember the change or forget the intervening time after buying the reversion!

And the app wants her to select Mood Boost, which expands its box to show her three uses.  She can revert the most recent one for 50💕, the middle for 300💕, and the first for 500💕.  Or she can back out of the menu; it lets her here.

hug hug hug snuggle snuggle nuzzle

Maybe she'll wait a little while before putting her back one step. The bus isn't due for a few minutes yet.

Okay, undo the most recent one for fifty hearts but she wants her to remember it, she looks like she's having such a nice time, she's just not going to be able to get on the bus.

Sarah sits up.  "Holy shiiiit.  Woww.  Wowwww."

A pair of titles slide onto Chelsea's screen around her existing purchase options.  'Bumps' above and 'Sliders' below.

Under Sliders there's now:

Articulateness:  50💕

"Maybe a little much?" she ventures. She will buy the tutorial slider presented to her, sure.

Sliders can have their values adjusted repeatedly until you lock them in!  Once you do, you'll have to buy the slider again in order to use it.

(High Articulateness values may cause lag.)

Sarah's position on the slider is currently pretty low, though creeping upward in very small units.

She's not sure what locking it in would mean. Does it not take effect till she does that? She pushes it up to about the midpoint.

"Uh, I feel like 'a little much' implies a bad thing?  It was a lot much but I don't want to imply that it was bad."

"You looked like you were having a nice time but wouldn't have been able to get on the bus."

"That does seem true."

"It unlocked something called 'wireheading' but I don't actually know that word, do you?" She could look it up but there is a whole live person to ask here.

"I mean, I think it's what happened to me.  Like, when you feel too good to be able to do other things.  Is that what this is?  Am I half wireheaded right now?"

"I don't know how to be sure. There's an articulateness slider but not a wireheadedness slider."

"Oh, it says that right there, doesn't it.  ...Oh, weeeeird.  I think - assuming you nudged that up for me - it improved my ability to talk, but not actually the rest of my awareness.  Like, I'm still kind of out of it such that I didn't notice that."

"Huh. It was going up a bit on its own, so probably whatever else needs to recover will do so, just a bit more slowly?"

"Good to know.

"What happens if you put it all the way up?"

"Seems safe to check!" Tuuuuug tug tug.

"I don't suppose I feel an especial change.  Except that -"

- oh, now this is very strange."  She's grinning.

"Ooh, what?"

"I wonder, can I fail to rhyme if - effort I put - ...in?
Or must each syllable of mine have poesy and a foot in."

"It's making you rhyme? Can't you even do a haiku that doesn't rhyme?"

"Let us discover
Whether this may be the case.
It seems it must be."

"That's so funny, how long do you want to keep it like that?"

"I desperately long to have knowledge of that which you hold,
And keeping restrictions may hinder me there.
It may be that under-influenced I'd find this grows old,
But given the head crowned in wire I can't care.
I labor in speech, though my mind's in a mist;
Each word is a breach, but the key isn't missed -
So I must beseech, though it breaks through my ease:
Do with me, my lady, precise as you please."

Pat pat. She turns it down to like, 80%. The poems are slightly hard to understand.

"Peachy keen.  - I suspect I see our ride."

"Looks like it." Hup.

Hup indeed.  Sarah leans a little on Chelsea but then rights herself.

She's welcome to lean as much as she might like! And of course if there's two seats together they will take those.

There are.  Sarah resumes approximately post-reversion levels of contact.

"I suppose I should say more so that you can calibrate.  ...How was your day?  I don't think I'd asked."

"Oh, it was extremely ordinary up until the app appeared. I'm a receptionist, I make lots of phone calls and tell people at one-fifty-three that they will have to wait twenty minutes for their two o'clock."

"I hope no one verbally attacks you for that sort of thing."

"Sometimes they do. It's one thing when I know their teeth must be killing them but when they're just there for a cleaning it's hurtful."

"I can see how it would be, yes."

"Mostly people are lovely though."

"I'm glad to hear it.

"Did the contents of my most recent poem bother you in any way?"

"I didn't really get the part about the key but otherwise no."

"The key is that... you have the most important thing in the world, and I don't know how disposable I am to it.  Resultantly, in case the answer there is 'very', it seems to me that I should fit myself into the most enjoyable-to-you form that I can.  And yet, I can see how someone might find that offputting, or... creepsome.  - Can I not say creepy?  - I can say creepy...  Strange.  Weird."

"- you're not disposable! I guess I don't know if the app is going to put a tasteless little trash can icon somewhere but you're a person!"

"...Yes, but one can imagine I might be disposable relevant to this, such that you may want to gently put me back in a normal life, with or without intervening memories, and I want to strongly emphasize that such a thing would be the worst to ever happen to me.  .....Or, I don't want to emphasize it, if doing so would make you want less to keep me forever.  - I think this slider helps me to say what I mean even when I don't, mm, mean to."

"Do you want me to turn it down to the middle position?"

"It doesn't matter what I want.  If you want me to appear more restrained, then perhaps you should."

"I want you for us to get along really well, but I haven't known you very well yet so I'm not sure how to do that best!"

"I see.  So perhaps it doesn't matter."

"I'm not sure." She opens the app again to see if it has unlocked anything else recently.

It's still on the slider.  The button that based on context is clearly for closing the popup has a little lock icon instead of an X.

Ohhhh that's what it means, she can't do anything else in the app till she locks this down. Hm.

She slides it down to 65% and then locks out.

+25💕.

There aren't any other purchase options, but the app guides her to back out of Sarah's profile and into a Gifts page where she can collect various rewards.

  10💕  Today's Bonus
100💕  Completed Objective:  Collect Sarah as your friend by touching her
500💕  Collected a new friend
  50💕  Affected a friend for the first time
100💕  Gave Sarah her first Daily Gift
500💕  Developed a true friendship
750💕  Completed Objective:  Welcome Sarah as your true friend
100💕  Earned enough harmony for a friend to generate more than one heart per minute
  75💕  Unlocked your first secret action
100💕  Reverted your first action
100💕  Unlocked your first slider
    1💗  Caused Sarah to admit more about her feelings for you than she intended
  25💕  Used your first slider

When she taps the one with the different heart symbol, it gives her an additional popup:

New slider!  Affection

Oh that sounds like a good slider. Do any of these things have little info-popups if she pokes them such as "true friend" "Daily Gift" or "secret action"?

A true friend is one you can tell about "Win their LOVE With ME!" without negative consequences.

In addition to other means, you can level up your harmony with a friend each day by giving them their Daily Gift.  These are unique to each friend.

A secret action is one you unlock by completing hidden prerequisites.

Does it say in Sarah's profile what thing counted as her Daily Gift?

Sarah Chaffee (here there's a tiny pencil icon) has a Mood Boost of 1.87 and an Articulateness of 65%.

Daily Gift:  Change her in some way.

Huh, that seems pretty easy. "Are you... bored with yourself, somehow, or..."

"...That's not what I'd call it but I don't know that it's wrong per se?  It might be wrong per se; I don't know."

"What would you call it?" She is going to go find that affection slider now.

".....Hunger for experience?"

Here it is.  50💕.

Cheap at twice the price. Tap to unlock. "Just - any old experience."

Affection is a shallow facsimile of harmony and will not directly affect your rate of passive heart generation.

"I mean, I don't really want to be tortured."  She checks the screen.  "- Right here on the bus??  ...You can do whatever you want with me, obviously -"

"Do you think it'll make it hard to get off the bus?" asks Chelsea dubiously, pausing at the last possible instant before yanking on the slider.

"...I don't know.  It might - affect the way I behave on the bus.  Although the idea of it might already be most of that; I don't know."

This gives her about .75 seconds of pause and then YANK.

"Oh fuck."

Giggle.

Sarah bonks her head onto Chelsea's shoulder.  "The idea was not already most of it.  Hhhhhhn.  You did it right here on the bus, which is kind of hot on top of everything else, in an 'I'm not sure you should have done that' way...  I love you."

Chelsea smooches the top of Sarah's head.

"Yeep!"

Squeeze. "Next stop, we're almost there."

Sarah hugs back with her hands balled into fists.  "Okay.  I love you."  She's kind of squirmy.

"I love you too."

"I'm just going to try and hold still until it's time to get off the bus."

"Okay."

She is not realistically going to want to undo this but she resists the temptation to lock it in till they have successfully disembarked.

Chelsea lives in half a duplex. It's got a big lawn like most of the homes in the area, and her half hasn't been mowed in a while. In they go.

Kissing time?????

Oh! Okay! Though it's really not essential to the - mmmmmm.

Also clothes off time immediately???

Okay!!! The place is kind of shabby but she does have a queen size bed, it's over here.

Then Sarah can position herself on Chelsea's thigh and kiss her a lot all over among a patter of, "You made me like you - and I love you - and you're sooo pretty even though you didn't have to be - mmph - and I love you - and you did it on the bus where anyone can see - even though I said - because you can do anything you want to me - and you have wireheading - hh - ah, fuck - nn..."  She takes a break for a few seconds to breathe heavily.  ...Kiiiiiiisses.  "- And I'm going to help you so much, I'm going to have so many ideas and be so creative and you'll want to keep me forever..."

"I cannot imagine ever wanting to give you up," Chelsea assures her, running her fingers through Sarah's hair.

"Yayyyy.  I love you.  ...You should tell me more about yourself, although, not necessarily right now..."

"Oh? What do you think I should do right now?"

"Whateeeever you want.  - Or tell me to do whatever you want."

"Are you always this subby or just when you're high?" Scritch scritch.

"I don't think I'm that subby!  It's mostly just that a lot of my kinks and hopes and dreams came true at once, and they're manifesting through another person instead of me directly, so - I admire the person too.  ...Even if you didn't maaake me which you diiiid.  But I hope that if you collect more people I will be able to dom some of them, or that you change my preferences about this so I'm not feeling like I'm missing out all the time."

"Oh, I'm pretty switchy myself, but I'm also definitely going to collect more people and I hope you will all get along really well, albeit not necessarily always in a sexy way." Pet pet pet.

"Okay.  I love you.  That's good to know in advance...  I guess your phone is going around calling people 'friends' instead of anything more charged, isn't it."

"I like sex! I just think it eclipses other forms of closeness to a degree that everyone would understand was silly if it were board games."

"Iiiiii do not share this opinion but perhaps someday you will make me."  And with that, she gets back to work.

Chelsea appreciates this very much and will make sure Sarah knows she is a very good girl.

Sarah has really kind of a lot of stamina at the moment - "But if you have a vibrator maybe we could cuddle and look at the app?"

"I do, yeah." It's not especially high end but it has batteries in it and will buzz. She will lock out of the affection slider. What's up, app?