"Break all the way down all at once," he mutters.

"That's kind of cold even for you."

Felicia is holding onto Vivian and not saying anything, just trying to control her breathing and not cry.

"...shit, I'm sorry Fel, I didn't mean to..."

She shakes her head and shuts her eyes.

Pet pet.

Argh. He scoots over to the nearest tree so he can lean this head back against it and beat himself up inside his own skull. For a mercy, his author is deciding against detailing how that's going, but the reader can feel free to imagine whatever they want here.

Gabriel and Marcus look at each other and decide in unspoken agreement that Gabe is gonna hover around Peter and Marcus is gonna hover around Fel and Viv.

Yeah Felicia is not gonna be okay very quickly it looks like.

You know, this should be evidence that he's not in a story. In a story they could just be done with all these damn little details and get to the part where he gets superpowers. Maybe this whole scene gets elided over with a paragraph talking about how he had his friends help him and accidentally triggered his sister.

Hey can he get a superpower for eliding over uncomfortable parts of his life he should Not.

"MK, hand me the notebook please," he says after a bit.

"—sure, here you go."

In the grand tradition of avoidant personalities everywhere he's gonna hope the notebook has said what she was going to say so he can distract himself for a bit.

When I appear in someone's life, it can be a scary and difficult time for them. They haven't heard about the Spirit before, and a lot of the time their world doesn't have any magic before me. I want to make sure they can feel safe, and it seems to me that a good way to do that is to be completely unable to perceive or affect the world outside my covers. I can't move except to shuffle my pages; I can't speak except by writing. So if someone needs to put me in a drawer for a year before they're ready to talk to me, they can just do that. Of course even if I could move I wouldn't want to chase after someone who wasn't ready to speak to me! But being a notebook means I couldn't even if I wanted to, and I think that's important. If someone puts me down, they can be sure I will stay right where they left me. If someone locks me in a drawer, they can be sure I can't get out.

So even though I often wish I had arms to hug with, or a way to soften my corners, I'm glad I don't. Being a notebook can be inconvenient in a lot of ways, and even pretty scary sometimes, but that's the point, you see? The point is that all I can do is talk to people, and only if they open me up and look at my pages. The point is that I am just a notebook.

Does that make sense?

...this notebook is the kind of adorable that only exists in stories, as a piece of evidence in favor of them being in one.

yeah that makes a lot of sense and it's kind of

How does he phrase this.

it's a really interesting way to engage with the kind of person and being you are that i'm finding very shiny for some reason in some dimension i hadn't considered things before

like, the whole thing about picking a specific point in the tradeoff curve and going "that's where i go, that's me"

also you're very cute

Mission: Distract Peter is a success, apparently.

Aww, thank you! ♡

I'm not sure what you mean about the tradeoff curve. It's it just the part where I decided what I wanted to be able to do even though it's not convenient because it's important when it counts?

sort of? it's

Tap tap tap tap.

do you know about how kidnapping and ransoms work? sorry, it's a grim topic, but it's the first that came to mind

or like blackmail and extortion, things like that

Blackmail is when someone knows something secret or embarrassing about you and they threaten to tell other people if you don't do what they say, right?

right! and some people are like, publicly declare that they'll never give in to blackmail no matter what, completely close it off as an avenue of attack. they "shape themselves" into a sort of person who will never give in.

then, someone may try to blackmail them anyway, and if they do, that person might wish they weren't the sort of person who didn't give in to blackmail because now that means that they'll suffer the bad thing the blackmailer is going to visit on them. but because they are known to not give in to blackmail, people don't even try blackmailing them in the first place, at least after the first failed attempt, and so in the long run they lose less to blackmail even if they may get into situations that are locally bad and which make them wish they'd give in

your thing is kind of like that but more, it's not just about a single specific thing like giving in to blackmail, your whole shape as a person is one that may cause some problems and may make you wish it weren't so, wistfully, sometimes, but the overall trajectory of your existence is better by your own values than if you were different so you prefer being what you are

Oh, I see what you mean! Yes, I think that's right. Even though sometimes it would be nice to be able to hug someone, or to check on someone I'm worried about, it's still better that I can't bother someone who isn't ready to talk to me, or do things that might scare someone who's nervous about me.

i had read the arguments about the blackmail thing and basically agree with them, they seem reasonable, but it had never really occurred to me to generalize them to other things, or that you could just in general choose to be a certain shape (in personality even if not in the physicalities of it, at least) because that shape is the shape that works best for you, rather than trying to decide on what works best at any given specific moment

and that is very ☆☆☆

"What are you writing so much about?"

"Jesus fucking Christ I'm going to install a bell on you," Peter shrieks, jumping away from his suddenly-appearing sister.

Marcus and Felicia start cackling. "Got distracted there, huh?"

Vivian flicks the back of his head. "We rebooted your sister. Be more careful next time."

I had never heard of blackmail when I decided what shape I was going to be, but it just seemed important to make sure it was the right shape!