"You're so weird, Tarleton," Nate says.

"Right back atcha, Smith. Catch you guys later, AP Calc time."

"Later," they say in unison.

alright I'm back but I was on the verge of an epiphany or something back there and I'm gonna get back to it now

Okay! Good luck with your epiphany!

So: what was the snag his brain hit earlier? It was when the notebook mentioned that he could get shapeshifting right away or only later.

It's... okay at least part of it is that he likes his face. He has expressive eyebrows and a sharp jawline and adorable dimples and nice full lips and even his nose is kind of distinctive. He thinks he's pretty, but he's pretty with personality, he's the kind of pretty that can be not-someone's-type, he could be glossed over as a generic white boy and that wouldn't be false and, and... he's... sort of got an identity. You know? He didn't choose his face and there are probably things he'd change about it if he were to design a face from scratch but it's his face and he likes it. And when he was designing the hung femboy with superpowers persona in his head he realises he'd been thinking of that as... a sort of... character? And it's not like he'd thought that he wasn't going to become that character but...

...he supposes he hadn't been thinking of it in terms of leaving his current self behind.

He doesn't want to leave his current self behind.

okay I think epiphany was the wrong word for it but i'm having some not-totally-fully-formed thoughts about identity and appearance that i might want your help untangling

I'm here to help!

so I guess the central thing here is that i don't look very feminine at all, and there are many ways that I could uh

I was having some pretty detailed mental images in my head of variously feminine aesthetics that would appeal to me and that I would be comfortable with but I am pretty attached to what I look like right now, my face is mine and me and I don't think my face could launch any ships let alone a thousand but I don't really want to leave it behind even if there are many other ship-launching faces that I could have

there's a generalization of that for other aspects of my identity than my face but that's the one that was most salient

does that make sense?

I think so! So you want to be able to return to how you look like now, even if you also want to be able to change? That sounds like the sort of thing a shapeshifter might be able to do. Especially if it was really important to you!

But if you want, I could also try to nudge A Thousand Ships a little, to make it more relaxed on the idealized feminine beauty front, and more malleable to your desires in the moment? That way it wouldn't conflict with changing your form to look like you do now, it would just support you extra in looking feminine and beautiful when you want to!

...he wants to hug this notebook. This is such a good notebook. It's offering him superpowers and it's not even asking him to lose things that are important to him forever and he gets to be a Mary Sue about it. He's not gonna grin like a lunatic because Ms. Martin is a lot less tolerant than Mr. Hilbert but on the inside he's grinning a lot.

you are the best notebook

yes I'd love that second thing

Aww, I try! ♡ Let me see... ⏳

...okay, I needed to adjust the point cost up by one but I think I've got it!

thank you! do you have a more

He stops writing there for a second, tapping the edge of his notebook with the corner of his pen like a nervous tick, trying to figure out how to phrase what he means.

"Mr. Tarleton, since you've been paying so much attention to my class, why don't you take a stab at the answer?" asks the teacher, interrupting his train of thought.

"—sorry?" he says, blinking up at her.

She just gestures at the blackboard.

He blinks again, looks at the blackboard for a few awkward seconds with his jaw slightly slack, then shrugs and says, "Ill-defined. Positive infinity from the right, negative infinity from the left, but you didn't specify which so there's no answer."

...she was not actually expecting him to know the answer. "Correct," she says after a couple of seconds before turning to the rest of the class and trying to hide her annoyance. "As Mr. Tarleton said, for a function with such discontinuities the limit is undefined at the discontinuity and so you need to specify a direction from which to approach it..."

Peter doesn't actually try very hard to hide his smugness before turning back to the notebook. He probably left it hanging for a bit there, whoops, that was impolite.

The notebook is waiting patiently for him to finish that sentence!

Oh cool okay uh what was it right yes he adds

thorough or detailed description of what exactly changed about that power?

to the end of that line.

Let me see about that... ⏳

Name: A Thousand Ships - Cost: 2 ☐
Your face is simply exquisite, an ideal of feminine beauty. There are many possible ideals of feminine beauty, and yours is whichever one speaks most deeply to your soul. Others may match your beauty in their own way, but never exceed it.
It's less important that your face be an ideal of feminine beauty and more important that it be yours. You look how you want to look, based on your in-the-moment preferences and your sense of aesthetics and identity.

best notebook ever

Okay, 45 points spent, time to look at all the rest of everything.

Power of Friendship! Let's read the cute fluffy fun preamble...

These powers affect how others see you and how you interact with them.

In general, effects that describe others' reactions (like their attention being drawn to you by Mysterious Allure, or their sympathy being provoked by Tragic Backstory) operate on a metanarrative rather than a causal level. They are not mind control, and are not blocked by effects that block mind control.

Your "true love" is anyone you're pursuing a serious romantic relationship with. You can have as many of these as you like, but your feelings for all of them must be genuine.

THAT WAS A VERY CONCERNING PREAMBLE. HE IS ONCE AGAIN VERY CONCERNED. HE IS NOT SURE HE WANTS POWERS THAT NEEDED THAT PREAMBLE.