thanks

aaand now feeling time is over and she would like to keep evaluating powers!

Planned Parenthood: A (oh wow yeah she does not want to worry about that!)

Two Become One: B (...seems convenient.)

Bop It: A (...wow, ok, she was vaguely aware that Heretics of Dune had maybe awakened a bit of something in her, but - apparently she can live out her fantasy of literally being a sex wizard (non-magical))

The Princess And The Dragon: 

...does this one come up very often? It seems... real specific.....

I don't really know much about that sort of thing. It doesn't come up much for me personally, because I am a notebook. But I think a lot of people, when they travel the multiverse, end up meeting other people who they would like to get to know romantically, and having trouble because the people they meet are very different from them!

Huh, okay.

The Princess And The Dragon: D (it might come up? But unlike some of her online friends, she's really not much of a monsterfucker (affectionate))

GGG: D (Again, this seems like a power for people with much more specific tastes than her! Also it's 4 points...)

Before Your Eyes: F (yeah no she's not taking the fujoshi power)

Fated Lovers: S (it almost hurts to read. a magical guarantee that if she keeps trying and doesn't give up, she'll find someone who's right for her and things will work out...)

...man, are there people who don't take this? That feels hard to imagine.

...wait, nevermind, some people are aro/ace. I do wonder what the most and least popular options are, though...

I can't remember much about other people's choices while I'm with someone specific, for privacy reasons! So I couldn't tell you.

Ah, okay, that makes sense.

Sorry About That: D (people shouldn't forgive her if she fucks up people shouldn't forgive her too easily, not if she wants to change and grow. And - Fated Lovers means she'll keep getting chances to meet potential soulmates, even if she fucks things up beyond repair with one of them...)

Excuse Me: F (this is more expensive and therefore even less tempting!)

Tragic Backstory: F (wow, for twice the cost of infinite power over whatever economic system she's interacting with, she can have everyone she meets be really niceys to her because she is so so sad... what a steal...)

((...if Magini were being more honest with herself, she'd rank that one higher, though probably not high enough to take it))

Sense of Style: D (The thought of other people dressing up for her specifically feels weird, though she can think of some friends who would really love to have this one.)

Bonus Style Points: C (...Okay, admittedly, having magic that would let other people trans their gender would be really cool? But once she learns shapeshifting magic she can use I Can Teach Better to share it with her friends anyways, and it's 7 points to get both, so. probably not.)

Popular: A (oh no she really really wants that....)

...Can you say more about the differences between Famous and Popular? 

Popular has a narrower scope; it's more about making sure that people who would like you or think you're neat if they heard about you get to hear about the things they would think are neat about you. Famous is more about making sure that lots of people get to hear really cool things about you, even if you're not the kind of person they'd usually pay attention to.

makes sense, thanks!

Famous: D (Popular sounds really nice for finding people she vibes with more easily, but if she wants everyone to know that she's beautiful and special and powerful, she can accomplish that with her other absurd magic powers instead of making it happen by fiat)

Diplomatic Immunity: D (Could be useful in cases where local law is dumb, but - again, this is more expensive than Four Star Daydream, and she would honestly prefer to just be in places where local law isn't dumb!)

Friends in \w+ Places...

do these give benefits and insights that wouldn't plausibly be learnable otherwise, or are they more like - a reliable shortcut to knowledge of etiquette/norms that people embedded in those social groups would have and could teach?

(she probably can't afford them either way, since she's currently at 75/70 for just S+A+B, but the next section is drawbacks, and maybe some of those will be ridiculous in the way Time Enough For Love or Four Star Daydream are...) 

I think people usually find that there's a level of understanding you get from the Friends In Places powers that's hard to get any other way except by growing up in that culture. But yes, it's nearly all just knowledge like that, and only a tiny bit of arranging things so you look favourable to the people you're trying to befriend.

Huh, okay. Good to know...

she'll mark Low and High as C and Strange as B (since she's always fit in best with weirdos).

And now she has... -8 points. Time to check out the drawbacks!

Decorative: D (...mostly this would be fine, but - she likes being weird, and - not being able to ugly cry sounds kind of horrible, actually.)

Beauty is a Curse: F (sounds like it could get obnoxious, and the only thing it does for her pointwise is make free something she wasn't planning on taking, so - pass) 

Plain Jane: F (she's had quite enough of that with her current body, actually!!!)

Style of Sisyphus: C (...potentially tolerable? But... it seems obnoxious for just one point...)

There's Another One:

...are there, like, metanarrative mechanics that tend to make drawbacks bad, even if they don't seem like it? I think it'd be a lot of fun to meet other people with these kinds of powers, but - it'd be scary and upsetting if it were likely to be someone who'd be out to get me, or something like that...

A lot of people want to be the most special person they'll ever meet, or the most powerful, so by default the Spirit makes sure its chosen vessels won't meet each other. There's nothing about drawbacks that makes them bad if you like them!

Huh, okay. I don't need or want to be the most special or important person I ever meet, so this seems fine to me.

There's Another One: A (Meeting powerful friends!!!)

Incomplete: F (She has more than 10 points in Power of Friendship powers that effect other people; cutting their possible utility by 50% is therefore straightforwardly not worth 5 points!)

Green With Envy: D (...this would maybe be manageable with judicious use of Time Enough For Love, but it'd require a lot of effort to not be horribly wronging people just by existing near them.)

You Ruin Them: F (horrifying!)

Jilted Lovers: F (aaaa??)

The Crazy Train: F (no, she would really like to be in control of her magic powers, thanks!)

They'll Know: F (...yeah, no, that sounds like it could get really spooky. If it's important for someone to know, she can just tell them, but if it's easy for them to notice, that could lead to a lot of problems!)

Realism: F (even if it didn't make some of her powers less effective, metanarrative protection is worth way more than 20 points)

That leaves her... 5 points over for things she's marked S+A+B.

Okay. I think next I want to go over things I ranked B and look for things to drop, and maybe look at rank Cs, but first - do you have any thoughts / comments / advice, based on things I've picked so far? 

It seems to me that you're doing pretty well at picking the things you want and not the things you don't! This ranking system of yours is really clever. I think my only suggestion is that, if you want to gain more points and don't want to give up any of the powers you chose, we could try coming up with custom drawbacks together? They can be a bit tricky because it's not always straightforward to find something that works as a drawback while still being something you want to have, but sometimes it works!

(she draws a smiley face and a heart near the comment about the ranking system)

!! Oh that sounds like a great idea - do you have any general guidelines? I can try and brainstorm some things based off of the existing ones...

(tap-tap-tap-tap)

What about something like... "People you're friendly with will expect your help when they have problems they think you could solve. They'll feel let down in some way (angry, sad, disappointed, etc) if you refuse."?

Interesting... I'll think about that one. I might be able to do something with it.

Some of the existing drawbacks work the way they do because they unleash amounts of specialness that get really inconvenient, which most people would rather not have to deal with but some people don't mind as much. Are there any ways you think that having way too much specialness could be less inconvenient for you than most people?

Hmmm, let me think about that...

taptaptaptap, up and down the side of the pages (she's rereading her choices)

Maybe something that - penalizes being subtle or trying to go incognito because of looking or acting too distinctively? 

Something like that could work! I'll need to think about it for a bit. Do you have any other ideas, or anything else you want to talk about while I think about it?

I think those are the only two ideas I have, but I'm also not that far over on points! I think I'm going to keep thinking about a name for you while you think about that?

She starts drawing more sand in the bottom of her hourglass from before.

Okay!

she absentmindedly fills up bottom of her hourglass with sand for a while, and then shades it in all the way quickly and then writes  

What about "Hydrangea"? It's a kind of flower that comes in purple and also in my favorite color (blue!), and they're really really pretty, we have a bush of them at home. And you could shorten it to "Hydra" or "Angea" or something like that, if you wanted.

Oh, that's lovely! I like that.

Okay, I think I have ideas for those drawbacks we were thinking of! The second one got away from me a little... I think you probably won't end up wanting to take Flashy because of the prerequisites, but if you were on the fence about taking more appearance powers, it'll make them cheaper.

Name: Great Responsibility - Grants: +4 ☐
When someone calls out to you for help, you can hear it no matter how far away you are, and you know exactly how they feel.

Name: Very Distinctive - Grants: +3 ☐
(Requires at least three of: A Thousand Hundred Ships, Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Size Difference, Dressing Room, Like Roses, Well Endowed)
You cannot successfully disguise yourself to anyone who has met you in your normal identity. Even someone who has only seen you at a distance or heard about your style might notice similarities.

Name: Flashy - Grants: +2 ☐
(Requires Very Distinctive and at least five of: A Thousand Hundred Ships, Angelic Tones, Emerald Orbs, Perfect Hair, Size Difference, Dressing Room, Like Roses, Well Endowed, Mysterious Allure)
Stealth just doesn't work for you. If someone has any opportunity to notice your presence, they will.

Oh!! I love these!!! Great Responsibility is perfect,

   she underlines "perfect" several times, and then next to the "on the fence about" comment, she draws an arrow and adds

there are a few things on this list I was thinking would be neat but couldn't otherwise justify taking! Let me tweak some stuff around...

Great Responsibility: S (In addition to the very obvious cool thing it does (tell her when people want her help), if she explains it to people, it functions as one-way telepathy!) 

Very Distinctive: S (This just does not seem like a downside at all to her - trying to disguise herself from people who know her just seems rude, and being recognizably the same person through dramatic hair and wardrobe changes actually seems neat.)

She looks back over the appearance powers. She's got 3 out of the requisite 5...)

One Hundred Ships: C ➡ A (Yeah, yeah, she does in fact want to be very pretty. And it's a prereq!)

Angelic Tones: C ➡ A (If she's honest with herself, she really badly wants to have a beautiful voice, and she's never liked hers)

Flashy: A (The 'optimizer' part of her is a bit uncertain about this one, but she tells herself operating under constraints is good for creativity - especially when the constraint stops you from taking the effective-but-boring option, which stealth too-often is!)

That leaves her at 81/82 points...

Okay! Going to do that second pass on my B and C ranks now <3

I'm really glad you like them! ♡